#which leads to him being unreasonably pissed at them with them having no idea why

[cod-dump]

Random Beach Episode

Gaz: Oh hey GhO-OH my god???

Ghost, shirtless: Oi, Garrick. Help me rub oil on my back.

Gaz: Why??

Ghost: Soap likes shiny things, and I'm tired of him looking at other people.

Gaz: O-okay...

[0ctoberust]

striker (helluva boss) headcanons because i am bored early in the morning at work. woohoo~ enjoy some random stuff.

striker is sort of antisocial. he enjoys going out to bars and to gatherings like the harvest moon festival sometimes, but this usually involves him going by himself. he likes to meet new people, but doesn’t enjoy the idea of them staying in his life for more than a day or two. he doesn’t see much of a point in creating valuable relationships, since his line of work is so hectic and he expects that it’ll one day result in his death.

when he goes out, he slams drinks like it’s his job. throughout his work day, he is constantly dealing with stupid shit, whether it’s a target escaping or a client requesting some unreasonable stuff. striker’s good at his job, but it does piss him off from time to time, so he needs something to numb the monotony and stress of it all.

he really hates being emotionally vulnerable. he sees no point in it and just views it as being whiny/incapable. this leads him to bottle his own emotions, which makes his anger much worse when it finally does surface. good thing his job is a nice way to manage this.

if he gets into a committed relationship, expect him to be extremely protective, but also nervous. i don’t foresee him as someone who particularly wants a relationship, but if he ends up in one, he’s going to do what he can to protect that person from all the dangers of hell. he’s also not going to know what the heck to do. he just wants to make them feel happy and safe, but he doesn’t know how to really be there for someone emotionally, so it’s difficult for him and he requires a lot of patience.

he’s very passionate if he likes someone romantically. lots of gentlemanly stuff because he thinks that’s really important. flowers, holding doors, etc. he’s sort of cliche but only in private with that one person. no one else can know, because he hates the idea of his reputation being ruined.

he will not make his relationship known to anyone else. it’ll have to be very private. not just because he’s terrified of being seen as an emotional lil baby, but also because he doesn’t want his s/o to die. he’s got a lot of enemies, and if anyone ever decided to mess his life up, that would be the best way to do it.

he has some snake-like habits because he’s a hybrid. he really likes to sit/lay in the sun for long periods of time, thus why wrath is a really good area for him.

[callonpeevesie]

Things that bother me about Percabeth

Warning: this is going to be long and I'm not even sure if this will make sense. Also don't read this if you aren't open to criticizms of Percabeth.

Percabeth is a good ship, or at least has potential as one, but it has many legit flaws (this and this go into the flaws. By the way, go check out @takaraphoenix's Riordan crit) and I have some personal grievances. I'll write this out to understand my stance better because I need to get this off my chest.

I believe most people wouldn't agree with me on all this, but this post is entirely self-indulgent and I'm doing this for catharsis, so don't come at me. This isn't an objective analysis, just me trying to clear my thoughts. But feel free to share your opinions if you want.

Evolution in PJO

This is a pretty general point. I love the evolution of their dynamic in pjo. Their bickering, them opening up to each other and becoming so important to each other, the slow and steady buildup, it's great. Heck, I love slow burn. They have some good moments in pjo: Annabeth opening up to Percy on the zoo express, the scene with the sirens, Percy doing everything he did to save Annabeth in ttc, their conversation after Annabeth took the knife for Percy in tlo. (The underwater kiss is not one of my favourite moments, I'll come to that later.)

The romantic evolution, though, I'm not sure. I enjoyed it in ttc, there were small subtle hints like Aphrodite's scarf, or Aphrodite looking like Annabeth to Percy. But it became kind of tiring in botl onwards. Annabeth was extremely possessive and awful to Rachel. And in tlo things became a bit over-the-top.

I think Rick tried to establish them as the Most Important Person to each other. I don't like that. This is more apparent in HoO. I'll come to hoo later, but there is one instance of this in tlo: Percy seeing Annabeth in the Styx. Like one of the posts I've linked above says, it's shippy nonsense. It comes from the idea that one's romantic partner must be the most important. It doesn't make sense. I think Percy should have seen his mother in the Styx. It would make sense for Sally to be Percy's anchor, considering how much she means to him.

In short, their enemies-to-friends evolution was great, their friends-to-lovers evolution started out fine but became too much for me, and their friends-to-Most-Important-Person-to-each-other evolution was unnecessary and forced.

Luke

Luke and Annabeth's romantic subplot didn't need to exist. This isn't exactly Percabeth, but I'll say it here anyway. First of all, there's a seven year age gap, so Luke returning Annabeth's feelings is creepy. And it seems pretty unnecessary to me. It's also a bit of a mess. In tlt Annabeth blushes when Luke is around, and Luke says 'She's like my little sister.' In tlo Luke asks Annabeth if she loved him, and she says 'You were like a brother to me.' This part feels like Rick trying to add last-moment tension to Percabeth by making Luke a potential 'rival' to Percy. In the Staff of Hermes Percy says Annabeth had a crush on Luke, and as she got older, Luke had a crush on her too. Just ... Why?

They and Thalia were each other's first friends. Annabeth looked up to Luke and Luke was fond of Annabeth. That is enough reason for Annabeth to be hurt and for Luke to care about Annabeth. That is enough to set up their post-betrayal dynamic. The romance thing was completely unnecessary.

Rachel

I absolutely hate the way Annabeth treated Rachel. If there is one thing I despise about romantic subplots, it's justifying bitchiness with romantic jealousy. I guess it's okay to feel a little jealous or even possessive, and I can kind of see where Annabeth was coming from, but treating someone like shit because of that, especially in the middle of dangerous quests, is not okay. It's petty and immature. (It could be argued that Annabeth was mad because Rachel got to lead her quest, but let's be honest, she wouldn't have been that mad if it were anyone else. She specifically treated Rachel like that out of jealousy.) It was never called out and Annabeth never seemed to regret it. This bothers me so much. Fanfiction is a good coping mechanism, I suppose, but I'm here to complain about canon, not cope with it.

Speaking of Rachel, Perachel could have been a good ship. A demigod looking for a normal life and a mortal with clear sight. This elaborates on that pretty well. At the end of tlo it really felt like Rick had to get Rachel out of the way to make way for Percabeth.

Annabeth seems to be too demanding

Annabeth's attitude towards Percy bothers me sometimes. She's a good character and has a strong dynamic with Percy, but she's a bit tiring with regards to Percy (in a romantic sense; she's fine as his friend). I mean look at this quote from tlo:

I can't pretend I hadn't thought about Rachel. She was so much easier to be around than ... Well, than some other girls I knew. I didn't have to work hard, or watch what I said, or wrack my brain trying to figure out what she was thinking.

Percy feeling that way about Annabeth - his best friend of four years - just doesn't sit well with me. Percy straight up admits he's more comfortable with Rachel than with Annabeth.

There's more: Annabeth punching Percy when he asked who he should dance with in ttc, the way she treated Rachel, the way she behaved towards Percy regarding Rachel in botl, judo flipping him in moa. It's pretty tiring in general. Now that I think of it, this wasn't a thing before the romance showed up. Their dynamic was better in the earlier books in general.

Also personally I'm not a fan of Annabeth constantly calling Percy Seaweed Brain. This and this nicely sum up how I feel about that. Annabeth making fun of Percy's intelligence even after getting to know him makes no sense, especially as he was insecure about his intelligence. (And yes, I know she thought he was intelligent, as she said in the Demigod Files, but that doesn't cancel out the million times she called him stupid to his face.)

They became too couple coded

I've seen people say that Percabeth is better as friends than as lovers, and honestly I agree, and I've done some thinking to figure out why. I think it's because of the way they were written after they became a couple. They could have been fine as a couple, if they were written differently.

They started out not being able to stand each other, then gradually, they went through a lot together, got to know each other, learned to work together, and became a team. That was a great evolution, like I said before.

And like I also said before, everything I dislike about Percabeth showed up with the romance. Annabeth became catty and possessive. They became a couple. And it was as if the friendship wasn't there anymore, just the romance. They became like a cliche unreasonable girlfriend and clueless boyfriend. This is especially obvious in the beginning of Percy Jackson and the Staff of Hermes. Where's the friendship? Where's the comfortable bantering? Where's the known-each-other-for-years soundness? Hoo Percabeth just doesn't live up to pjo Percabeth at all.

(Also this is a personal bias of mine, but I'm partially romance repulsed. I can't stand cheesy romantic coded stuff. I only like lovers if they're also friends. So I guess I'm kind of pissed about Percabeth becoming so couple coded after becoming a couple.)

Their HoO dynamic

This is a related point. Like I said, hoo Percabeth doesn't live up to pjo Percabeth. All they care about is each other. They literally don't think about anyone else at all. Percy loses his memory and he remembers Annabeth. Why? Does Hera ship Percabeth? If he remembered anyone, it should have been his mom, like in the Styx. The only reason Percy remembered Annabeth, i.e Annabeth was made out to be more important to Percy than everyone else (including Grover and Tyson and Sally 'best person in the world' Jackson) is that she was his romantic partner. Again, it's shippy nonsense.

And there's this reveal that Annabeth had a crush on Percy all along. Are you kidding me? It completely retcons the enemies-to-friends development. Are you telling me that the Percabeth evolution in pjo where they learned not to hate each other was a lie? That Annabeth gradually opening up to Percy and coming to appreciate him was her acting out of a crush? I'm not believing that, no way.

I'm probably not making any sense, but my point is that Percabeth in hoo in cheesy and can't go one day without each other and people love it but I don't. It kind of messes up their previous dynamic, which is a shame because I liked pre-hoo Percabeth.

Rick seems to go overboard sometimes

I'm about to get a little controversial here. Many of the Percabeth posts in those tumblr screenshots going around social media are about the campers shipping Percabeth, or Arachne making Percabeth fanart, things like that. My theory is that part of the reason Percabeth is so popular is that the characters ship it. And Rick kind of goes overboard with that - not just with the in-universe shipping, with the ship itself.

Prime examples of going overboard are Percy seeing Annabeth in the Styx and remembering Annabeth when Hera took his memory, which imply that Annabeth was objectively the Most Important Person to Percy. I've already ranted about these above so moving on to the part about the in-universe shipping. Like I said, I'm not a fan of the underwater kiss. It's because of the situation involved. The campers just won a war and lost their friends and siblings, Clarisse just lost Silena, you'd think they'd have other things to care about than Percy and Annabeth kissing, at least for one day. And why did Arachne make fanart of that? How did she even know? There was also the matter of moving to New Rome - them wanting to move halfway across country to live together, away from New York, doesn't really make sense to me. This post elaborates on that and suggests better alternatives.

Of course, the author has complete control over the narrative, and the author wants you to believe they are making sense. And when the characters believe that too, it becomes harder for readers not to. When all the campers ship Percabeth, it's enough to convince half the readers to ship it too. (And of course, the pjo fandom has an unhealthy thing with canon ships.)

It's pretty much kept up by the fans

While we're at it, let's talk about the out-of-universe shipping. The fandom has always shipped Percabeth, partly just because they are the male lead and female lead of a series. Percabeth was set up to happen, so when Rick introduced Rachel, who actually made Percy feel good about himself and let him be himself around her, and whom Percy was interested in, he had to get her out of the way. I'm not sure I can explain it, but the Percabeth ending in the first series feels very fan service-y to me.

Platonic Percabeth vs romantic Percabeth

I think everything I've said above just explains why Percabeth worked better as friends. The had a great friendship arc and became two friends who know each other inside out, butt heads a lot but love and respect each other deeply. And then when the romance happened, Annabeth began to show these romanticized but actually toxic girlfriend stereotypes - being jealous and possessive, expecting Percy to read her mind and getting pissed when he can't, etc.

The fandom thinks those traits are okay, because they are normalised in society. People think that's how couples should work (it's not). And so the reasons I don't like Percabeth are the same reasons many people do. The date in the beginning of Staff of Hermes makes me cringe, because they were friends first and friends don't work like that. But no doubt there are many people who find it cute because society loves to romanticise the unreasonable girlfriend and clueless boyfriend trope. There are plenty of people who romanticise Annabeth judo flipping Percy or treating Rachel like shit, because things like that are normalised but I personally can't stomach them at all.

Anyway, those toxic traits come with the Percabeth romance as a package deal and there's no getting rid of them. That's why Percy and Annabeth worked better as friends, and why I feel things would be better if they just stayed friends. There was none of that tiring crap pre-romance. I can't stress this enough, I really loved their friendship in tlt or som. But when their dynamic evolved to romance, it messed up their friendship. There was a specific moment in botl when Percabeth began to feel off for me.

'She will calm down,' Chiron promised. 'She's jealous, my boy.'

'That's stupid. She's not... it's not like...'

Chiron chuckled. 'It hardly matters. Annabeth is very territorial about her friends, in case you haven't noticed. ...'

I don't know why this moment specifically, but this kind of marked a change for me. This is where Percabeth became seriously romantic, and I didn't like the related developments. This was the beginning of Annabeth's jealousy.

So what would I prefer?

I'll be honest, I shipped Percabeth for a while, probably because I love some friends-to-lovers. So I was going to make a list of things I'd change about Percabeth. I wanted to make some self-indulgent UAs (universe alterations) to fix the things I don't like. But then I started writing this thing and read up on other posts and stuff and I realised the list of things that bother me is huge and I could never make Percabeth work for me without messing everything up. So I just gave up shipping it entirely.

What I would prefer is an AU where Percabeth stays platonic forever (@elf-loving-dragon has been encouraging that idea as well). They were great as friends and I want that back. It would be so refreshing to have the male lead and female lead not end up together. Annabeth could end up alone, and still get her something permanent with her friends and camp. It would be so beautiful if something completely romance-free was specifically stated as permanent, because friendships in media deserve as much love as romance.

As for Percy, he could end up either alone or with Rachel. I don't ship him with anyone else rn. While I have made it obvious that I like Perachel, I still don't know if I actually ship it, and the idea of Percy ending up alone is not too bad either. (Update: I stan platonic Percabeth and qpp Perachel now.)

I promise I'm done now. Whew. If you've made it to the end of this long repetitive introspection, congratulations. If you agree, feel free to tell me, and if you want to argue, go ahead, I wouldn't mind listening to others' opinions. If you read this and hate me because of this just keep that to yourself. I have no patience for people who attack those who don't agree with their ship. K thanks, bye.

[artificialqueens]

Stupid For You, Chapter 5 (Crygi, Jankie, Jaida x Nicky) - Metaluna

Summary: In which everyone makes mistakes, and have to face consequences. 

A/N: Hey everyone! This does have a tw of domestic abuse.

The rest of the month went by smoothly for Jaida. She got to be team lead for most of her shifts, much to the jealousy of her coworkers. She didn’t care. She knew she was damn good at her job, and paid her dues for the past few years. It was what she deserved. Part of her was sad knowing it was her last summer at the park, but the idea of law school was much more exciting than telling guests that they had to put shoes on all summer.

She and Nicky continued their fling. It was some of the best sex Jaida had ever had. Jaida could feel herself developing feelings for Nicky, but rather than address them, she just ignored them. They’d go away on their own right?

She woke up at noon. Because there weren’t many leads in Sales, she worked six days a week, and it was her first day off in twelve days. She deserved to sleep in. Her phone buzzed. It was Nicky texting the groupchat.

Heyy ladies, I’m off today. Does anyone want to play in the park today?

This was her shot. Even though she and Nicky spent a lot of time together, they didn’t ever get the chance to just talk. Even after they hooked up, Nicky usually left pretty soon after, always having a reason to not hang out after.

First day off in 12. I’m down.

Nicky texted back quickly. See you at 2.

Jaida peered into her closet, and suddenly, she hated every single article of clothing that she owned. After rifling through shirts, and trying on different outfit combinations, she eventually settled on a cropped black tank top and army green shorts. 

Out of all of her coworkers, Jaida lived the furthest away. The half hour drive gave Jaida time to think. She knew that she felt differently about Nicky than she did with any of the previous flings. Even though she had her flings, none of them ended in a relationship. When she thought about Nicky, images flashed in her head of dinner dates, picking pumpkins, and curling up on the couch watching a movie. She had to do it. She had to bring Nicky to the Ferris wheel. If they went up together, they could talk it out. 

When Jaida arrived, it was only 1:40. The Landing, where the stores were, was in the front of the park, just off the entrance. She decided that she could harass her coworkers. Before entering Isle Mercantile, she saw Gigi walking with a cart full of beach towels.

“Gigi!” she called.

“Jaida! Hi! I saw you’re hanging with Nicky.” Gigi raised an eyebrow. “What exactly is going on with you?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I really don’t.”

Gigi pushed her cart into a shady corner under the roof. “Here. Come over here. Step into my office.”

Jaida rolled her eyes and sighed. “It’s just so hard. I like her, and obviously she likes me enough to fuck me, but I don’t know that she likes me enough to date me.”

Her phone buzzed. Jackie.

Girl. I saw you were coming into the park with Nicky. Are you going to talk it out?

She decided she could reply later and continued. “It’s so embarrassing but I’ve never had a girlfriend. I don’t know how to have this conversation. I doubt she likes me.”

“If you guys have manage to hook up as many times as you have, I feel like you’ve got something there.”

“Thanks, Gigi. Hey, what’s been up with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You just seem a lot less happy. Are you okay?”

Gigi nodded a little too quickly. “I’m fine! Anyway, Jaida if I don’t stock these towels, Brita’s gonna be pissed!”

Her phone buzzed again. It was Nicky.

I’m here. Meet at the food trucks!

After walking to the trucks, Jaida spotted Nicky at a table. The sunlight was hitting the blonde in just the right spots, making the her look even more beautiful than normal.

Jaida decided to sneak up behind Nicky. “Boo, bitch.”

She jumped, nearly falling out of her chair. “You bitch!”

“Let’s go ride the Jinn. I haven’t done it yet this year.”

While in line, she decided to text Jackie back.

I really want to, but I don’t know what to say, or how to bring it up. All I know that this feels different. This isn’t the same as all the others for the past three years. I can’t describe it. I really, really like Nicky. I want to take the next step, but I don’t know if she does.

As she hit “send” she returned her phone to her pocket, right as Nicky picked hers up.

Jaida knew what she did. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. How could she be so stupid?

“So, that didn’t go to Jackie. Jaida…” Nicky began. “Is this true?”

Jaida was hoping to bring Nicky up in the Ferris wheel. Even though things never fell in her favor, it was a comforting place. The line they were in was a 30 minute wait. They had nothing but time to talk it out. Even though it wasn’t ideal, Jaida nodded. “It is.”

Nicky sighed. “Jaida, I like you, I really do.”

This is exactly how every other girl began when they wanted to cut things off.

“And it’s not you it’s me?” Jaida predicted.

“It’s a cliché, I know. But I have so much going on right now, that I really can’t date anyone, not just you. Jaida, I really do like you. A lot. In other circumstances, we would already be dating, but right now I can’t give you what you want. I understand if you don’t want to keep doing… what we’re doing. I will respect your decision either way.”

“No worries!” Jaida said happily, even though she felt like she was going to cry. “I’m totally fine with what we have.”

“Are you sure?”

“I promise.”

For the fourth year in a row, Jaida felt her heart break. She was left wondering if things were better had she taken Nicky for a ride in the Ferris wheel.

��–

After her shift, Gigi sat at her desk sketching a dress. She felt her phone buzz. 

can you come over

Yea. Everything all good?

no

I’ll be there in ten

Gigi made the ten minute drive in five. Crystal answered the door. Her eyes were red, it was easy to tell that she’d been crying the past few hours. Her hair was disheveled, and she was wearing an oversized sweat shirt. “Come in.”

Wordlessly, Crystal led Gigi into her bedroom. All of her walls were hand painted beautifully, each wall with a different color scheme. Her room was slightly messy, but still somehow organized. A picture of Harry Styles hung above the bed. An easel was in the corner with an abstract painting. The closet door was propped open, exposing Crystal’s brightly colored clothing.

 “Talk to me,” Gigi said said as she and Crystal sat on her bed. 

Crystal started crying as she sat down. “It’s Ryan.”

“What happened?“

“We started talking about me going off to college in a couple months. Usually when we talk about it, he won’t talk about it. Well, I needed answers… and I got them. He told me that if I didn’t stay home, he would break up with me.”

“Oh, Crystal.”

Gigi was pissed. She knew how hard Crystal worked to get into the graphic design program. The school they were to attend in the fall wasn’t easy to get into. It had a 50 percent acceptance rate. Crystal was too talented to let that go to waste. The audacity of that boy to ask her to throw that all away. She wanted to tell Crystal everything she was thinking, but instead, she held Crystal and stroked her hair.

“We’ve been together since we were fifteen. I don’t know how to live without him, you know?”

“Mmm.”

“I just love him so much, I don’t think I can leave him. I think I’m going to withdraw my application from Ferris.”

“Crystal, no. You can’t. You worked your ass off to get into that school. You know you did.”

“I know. But I love him.” Crystal rubbed her eyes, causing her sleeve to roll down, revealing a deep bruise.

Gigi gasped. “Did he do that to you?”

“He didn’t do it on purpose! He said I was being unreasonable, and he was right. He just needs to calm me down sometimes, you know?”

“No, Crystal. I don’t know. That’s not okay, under any circumstance. I don’t care if you cheated on him. That does not give him the right to ever put his hands on you.”

“I’m so stupid. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have even applied to that school in the first place.”

“Absolutely none of this is your fault. Please don’t ever say that it is.”

Crystal sighed. “I think I need to stay here.”

“I think you’re wrong. But, what I do think is that Ryan’s bad for you.”

“How fucking dare you.” Crystal’s voice was harsher than Gigi had ever heard it. “You don’t know him like I do. He’s known me a hell of a lot longer than you have.”

“Crystal…” Gigi felt tears forming.

“No. Don’t start. You don’t understand what all we’ve been through. How could you? You could never understand because you’ve been alone your entire life. You can’t let people in. Even me. You’ve been weird as shit every single day since the party, and won’t tell me why. All you do is shut people out when they’re trying to help you. Me, Jan, Jaida, Jackie… We’ve all tried to ask you what was wrong, because clearly something’s wrong. You don’t let people in, or you get fucking pissy. Why? It’s not our faults that your dad fucking left. Stop taking it out on us.”

Gigi sat completely stunned.

Crystal realized what she had said. “Gigi… I didn’t mean… I’m so sorry. I–”

“I think it’s time for me to go. Find your own ride to work, or walk your ass there. I don’t care. Don’t text me. Don’t fucking talk to me.”

“Gigi, wait!” Crystal called. But it was too late.

–

On the drive home, Gigi felt her chest tighten and knew a panic attack was starting. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to drive, she pulled into a parking lot. All she could think of were Crystal’s words which cut her like a knife. Gigi knew that Crystal wasn’t a cruel person, and that it was all in the heat of the moment, but it didn’t matter. Gigi didn’t even know where the words came from, why out of nowhere Crystal would bring up Gigi’s behavior in that conversation, and she really didn’t know why she brought her dad into it. 

Her phone lit up.

gigi, i am so fucking sorry. idk where that came from. i don’t mean it. i hope you know that. that was fucked for me to say. so fucked. i understand if you don’t want to reply and need your space, but know that I am so fucking sorry, and ill never forgive myself for what i said. i can tell what i said really hurt you, and i understand if you dont want to talk, but just know if you ever do, i’m always here to listen

Gigi started typing.

Yeah, that WAS fucked. That fucking hurt me more than I could say. When I said my dad wasn’t a good person, I meant it. When I had my first girlfriend, I came out to my parents. My dad wanted to throw my ass out, and my mom wouldn’t let him, and said that it if I wasn’t out of the house, he was going to leave. My mom would never throw me out, so now he’s gone. It fucked with me. You wonder why I can’t people let me in? That’s why. I’m fucked up, and you’re right. I do need my space. Leave me alone.

She reread her response, and decided she didn’t owe Crystal an explanation, and deleted every word of the text.

—

Crystal was laying on her bed looking up at the ceiling, which was painted like a galaxy. How could she be that cruel? Her words were volatile. Crystal didn’t know the whole story. Even if she did, it wasn’t right to bring it up, especially not like that.

She had to make it right. She sat on her phone, trying to formulate the perfect apology text. A text felt so impersonal, but Gigi hated talking on the phone, and hated Facetiming. Crystal knew that a text would be the best thing she could do. After rereading her text a few times, she hit Send.

Gigi was typing something. Something long. Crystal anxiously waited for her reply, but the three dots disappeared. Instead, she was left with Read.

The pain Crystal felt was stronger than anything before. It was worse than anytime Ryan laid his hands on her. It was worse than the time he cheated on her. It was worse than anything, and she had no idea how she was going to make it right.

[elsb-hrngtons]

We can help each other, You and me- Chapter 4

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Links to Ao3 in notes

Well isn't this a pleasant surprise, Steve fucking Harrington caught literally with his hand down his pants. Billy is delighted if not a little awkward, the situation isn’t exactly ideal, but it's a vast improvement from the last time he and Tommy ran into Steve.

How he managed to sneak in without either of them hearing him he’s not sure, he guesses he was too caught up with Tommy’s dick in his ass to really pay attention to his surroundings, which is very bad form especially if you’re fucking at your work place. Billy would be pissed, and very worried about being caught in an incredibly compromising position, with another guy no less, if it were not glaringly obvious that Steve the dirty little pervert, had just got himself off to the very same compromising position.

In fact this whole thing actually presents them with a pretty sweet opportunity, and if handled well all three boys could be a winner in this. Or it could all go wrong again and Billy and Tommy will be left licking their wounds.

Harrington looks like he’s ten seconds from throwing up, and honestly Billy can sympathise, getting caught jerking off has to be embarrassing, and well he and Tommy are no better, he did just have Tommy’s railing him not 5 minutes ago. If he didn’t know any better he’d say Steve has a really severe case of sunburn with how hard he’s blushing, avoiding their gaze sat uncomfortable with cum drying on his hand and no doubt in his shorts, but when Billy chances a look at Tommy, the poor boy’s not faring much better, freckled splattered skin, complemented by a rather deep shade of pink, he’s staring down at Harrington, mouth agape as if he can’t quite believe what he’s witnessed, and to be fair Billy can’t either, but Billy is the only one in the scenario who appears to be functioning like a human being, so to break the tension he decides to open his big mouth.

“Ya know Harrington I’m glad you showed up” he smirks trying for cool, collected, aloof. Steve still closely resembles a tomato and had been avoiding making eye contact up until now looks shocked, visibly flinching, probably preparing himself for an onslaught of insults, maybe even a beating, he’s biting his lip with an adorable little crease between his brows and then shifts his gaze back onto his lap, incapable of holding their stares for very long. “Freckles here was just talking about a little get together he’s having at his place tonight” Billy slaps Tommy on the back as he moves closer to Steve, taking up the seat next to him and nudging Steve in his side with his elbow. “Weren’t you Tommy?”

Tommy looks as if his brain is still malfunctioning, on a 10 second delay or some shit, Billy swears he can actually see the cogs turning in his mind as he clues into what Billy is doing and his trademark boyish grin splits his face.

“Oh yeah. You know nothing major, just a few beers, maybe some weed. You should come!” Tommy slides in on the other side of Steve, who once again looks around at the two, complete surprise etching his pretty features, he still hasn’t said two words and Billy’s not convinced he’s not lost all ability to talk at this point, that the shame hasn’t rendered his vocal cords permanently useless.

“Tell ya what.” Billy states leaning in closer, not missing how Steve tenses ever so slightly at this intrusion. “I’ve invited Heather, how about you invite your lady friend, the one who’s always hanging around you, and we make a night of it” Billy’s all charm now, laying it on as thick as he possibly can, maybe it's for Steve’s benefit, maybe it's for his own to save face or something, he doesn’t care, all he cares about is Steve’s response, if Steve ever does respond.

Steve swallows hard, throat bobbing jaggedly as he tries to regain composure and the ability to speak.

“Err yeah.. Sounds… sounds good.” Steve’s voice is harsh, but at least his blush is receding slightly, he appears to be choking down on his embarrassment.

“Great!” Billy claps his hands together as he jumps up. “We’ll see you at nine Pretty Boy” and with that Billy is dragging Tommy back out of the locker room, and back out into the heat of the Indianna summer.

###

Fucking great. Not only was Steve a monumental pervert, he was caught being a monumental pervert. It's like life's one big joke and he’s the punchline.

He’s mortified and all he wants to do is drown himself in the pool. But if he did that there would be no ‘party’ at Tommy’s, no chance to right his wrongs of the last time he attempted to test the waters with Billy and Tommy, and sure he feels right at this moment like he could die of embarrassment, the other boys appeared to take it in their stride and brush off Steve’s indiscretions like they were nothing. He’s not sure if that's a good thing or not.

Steve’s in a daze, in shock as he attempts to clean himself up best he can, but even standing under the spray of the shower for 15 minutes won’t wash away the dried spunk in his trunks, the very tangible evidence of his shame and apparently newly discovered hobby of voyeurism. He loosely wraps a towel around his waist to hide the obvious cum stains and steels himself in the mirror before making his way out into the pool area.

The brightness of the day is almost blinding and Steve has to give himself a moment for his vision to adjust from the darkness of the locker room before he can focus on where he and Robin had set up base. No surprises, she isn’t where he left her, he scans the general area, quickly averting his gaze from where Billy sits atop his makeshift throne and Tommy just beside him, he’s still recovering from the severe dent in his pride, he glances over the pool and still can’t see her. Then as he’s about to give up his search to go sit back on the lounger and wait for Robin to appear from wherever she disappeared to, he spots her a few feet away, blue slushie in hand talking animatedly to Heather Holloway of all people.

He knows he should probably hang back, give Robin at least a fighting chance at talking to the literal girl of her dreams, but Steve’s two seconds away from an emotional breakdown of his own making and while he’s come on in leaps and bounds in the last couple of years, he isn’t entirely selfish and right now he really needs to get out of here, he needs Robin to talk him through his impending anxiety attack, and maybe to stick his head between his knees and to breath in and out of a brown paper bag.

He strides over as smoothly as he can holding on tightly to the towel around his waist as if it's some kind of life line, and in a sense it is, if anyone were to see the state of his shorts he’ll probably die. Robin spots him and she ushers him over.

“Oh there you are! Where the hell have you been!?” she both asks and exclaims as if she’s accusing him of something, chastising him like a mother.

“I’ll tell you later,” he mutters.

“Oh this is Heather by the way!” she says excitedly gesturing towards the female lifeguard, who’s smiling something genuine, even though he can’t see her eyes through her sunglasses, he knows Heather well enough to know she’s a nice girl who’s entirely incapable of being a dick.

“Oh actually, me and Steve already know each other” she says sweetly.

“Hey.” Steve turns to Heather before entirely dismissing her, he knows he’s being rude, being a bad friend, but he’s also desperate and he’s hoping he can convey the urgency enough in his voice without coming across as too much like an asshole. “Robin. We have to go.”

“What!? Why? We just got here Steve” Robin sputters, she sounds exasperated and to be fair she’s justified, he realises, Steve’s being completely unreasonable out of context.

“I’ll explain later. We have to go.” he states, grabbing Robin by the elbow, jerking her away from Heather and dragging her towards the sun loungers where their things have been left.

“Okay, okay” Robin snatches her arm back, looking over her shoulder “See you around Heather” she calls out.

“Sure! Look forward to it” Heather calls back, giving a little wave.

Robin looks disappointed yet hopeful as they reach the loungers, Steve gathers up his stuff and awkwardly waits while Robin shoves her towel in her bag, he decides to throw her a bone.

“Don’t worry, you’ll see her tonight.” she shoots up to stare at him, one eyebrow raised a picture of scepticism.

“Wait. What?” she asks.

“You’ll see her tonight, we’re going to a party” he explains shuffling from foot to foot, getting increasingly antsy.

“A party?” she asks, they’ve finally started moving towards the entrance, Steve takes one quick look around the pool as they go through the turn-style in single file.

“That's what i said.”  he deadpans.

“Who’s party?”

“Tommy’s”

Realisation dawns on Robin’s face as she rounds towards the passenger side of Steve’s car.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.” Steve agrees, unlocking the car and shoving their things in the back seat. “Now c’mon we’ve got a party to get ready for”

###

Steve’s pretty sure he’s gonna throw up, why he originally thought that going to Tommy’s was a good idea was beyond him, especially considering the events that lead to the invitation. He was excited, sure, but his gut is trying its best to qualify for the Olympics with all the gymnastics it's currently doing. It is far worse than the gentle and oddly pleasant sensation of butterflies, resembling closer to angry wasps just buzzing away down in his gut.

He and Robin are walking to Tommy’s from his, because honestly it's not that far, and he fully intends to take advantage of the alcohol that will most likely be on offer, although he swears to himself he won’t let himself get into a state like last time, much to Robin’s scepticism and to be fair even he was pretty sceptical himself.

He thinks the best thing to do right now though is to distract himself from his own existential crisis, and perhaps for the first time today be the good friend he knows he is and discuss Robin’s own crush on Heather.

“So i’m pretty sure i never apologised” he leads with, because honestly he does feel kinda shitty about interrupting the two girls.

“For what?” she asks.

“For interrupting your little flirt fest with Heather” he says wagging his eyebrows suggestively and softly nudging Robin in the side.

“Flirt Fest!? When?” she’s practically choking out eyes wide like a bug

“Earlier at the pool.” Steve explains “don’t act all coy with me, i saw what was going on”

“There was no flirting, we were just.. I don’t know.. Talking” Robin shrugs, she looks bashful, it's cute.

“Looked a helluva lot more friendly than ‘just talking’” he emphasises his point by making air quotations with his hands, it's lame but it does the trick.

“ and what would you know? Huh?” She stops walking mid sentence to stare up at him “ you” she pokes him in the chest to emphasise her point “were there all of 1 minute, before you dragged me away, because you jizzed your pants!” she’s smirking clearly amused at Steve’s anguish.

“ROBIN!” he squeaks, eyes bugging out of his head in a poor reflection of Robin’s earlier reaction.

“Steeve” she sing-songs all high pitched and nasally, mocking him. She turns back towards the direction they were walking in and leaves Steve behind to catch up.

Steve finally with the program strides back up alongside Robin  in less than 3 steps, he’s pouting but not willing to drop the Heather thing, especially not now Robin’s been acting all defensive about it.

“Whatever. I still think she likes you.” he says

“Duh. I’m delightful” Robin says obviously sarcastic and flourished with an exaggerated eye roll.

“I’m being serious”

“Oh I know, you’re just wrong”

“I know i’m right” he teases

“you don’t know shit Harrington. And anyway i’d prefer not to take dating advice from a guy who literally got caught jacking off, by the guys he likes.” she snaps at him, but smiles triumphantly when Steve gapes back a little dumbfounded.

“Okay…” Steve huffs “now you’re just being rude.”

###

Tommy’s buzzing with so much pent up excitement he’s practically vibrating  as he whips around his basement trying to make it as presentable as possible for their impending guests, he doesn’t want to make it look like he’s making too much of an effort, still wants to keep an air of cool collectedness about him, wants to remain nonchalant, but he can’t help the excited little squeele he lets out when the doorbell rings.

“Christ will you calm down” Billy chastises him from where he’s sat, legs spread wide across the couch, nursing a beer and giving of his usual ‘ i don’t give a fuck vibe’

“Sorry” Tommy says over his shoulder sheepishly as he makes his way up the stairs, out of the basement and towards the front door. Thank god his parents aren’t home, away with his little brother visiting some family in Chicago, or this little get-together might not have been possible. Not that they would care if he had friends round, or that they were drinking , it's just easier when you have free rein and don’t have to be mindful of the other people living in your house.

He gets to the front door and all that excited energy turns slightly nervous as he tries to tamp down the butterflies in his stomach and not make a fool of himself when he answers the door. He can’t help but be a little disappointed when it’s Heather and not Steve, but he guesses with her already here it might make things a little less awkward and a little more easy when Steve and Robin do eventually turn up, if he turns up.

“Hey” Heather smiles warmly, all sugary sweetness and girl next door, she’s holding out a bottle of something , and Tommy’s instantly reminded of Steve and his past insistence that ‘it’s rude to turn up somewhere, without something for the host’, he figures it must be some rich people bullshit, considering Heather and Steve were both practically raised in a country club.

“Hey Heather! Thanks for coming” He accepts the bottle and holy shit on closer inspection it's the good stuff, some expensive brand of whisky that Tommy would only bother giving the time of day if it was either gifted or stolen, because there ain't no point in spending stupid amounts on money on booze when the cheap stuff gets you just as drunk, for a fraction of the price.

He leads Heather down to the basement, where Billy has shifted slightly on the couch to make room for other guests, Billy’s also taken the honours of selecting a tape from Tommy’s collection and playing it full volume, no doubt grumbling to himself about the poor taste in music. He smirks up at Heather and gives a little salute before knocking back the rest of his beer.

There’s a slightly awkward atmosphere at first, heather just standing there probably waiting to be asked to sit, like the good polite girl she is, Billy’s not saying anything, which is a little unusually, but he is distracted by rolling a joint and well Tommy doesn’t often play host, and when he does he’s at least already half cut, and has been chatting shit all night anyway, so the awkwardness never happens. Now though, they’re all relatively sober and Tommy doesn't know Heather that well to just start shooting the shit at her, he’s kinda relying on Billy to be a little more social here.

Eventually Heather sits next To Billy who’s finished rolling the joint and is sparking it as he scoots further up the couch to make room, Heather offers him a small smile.

“I thought you said Steve and Robin were coming?” She asks

“They are.” Billy replies around a mouthful of smoke, passing the joint onto Heather.

“Oh cool, coz otherwise this is a little bit of a sausage fest” she quips, inhaling and relaxing back into the couch.

“Nothing wrong with a bit of sausage Heather” Billy laughs and she laughs too

“No I know, just would be nice to have some female company” she leans across the coffee table and passes the joint to Tommy who’s still stood up like an idiot shifting from foot to foot, still a ball of pent up energy.

Tommy chills out a little as the evening goes on a bit, still anxious that Steve might not turn up, but he’s well distracted by Billy and Heather bitching about work and telling stories of snot nose little kids who quite frankly  deserve to drown alongside their entitled mothers. All three of them are giggling away, comfortable in each other's company when the doorbell rings.

Each one of them looks wide eyed up at the basement door, frozen to the spot. Tommy soon comes to his senses and bolts up, jogging up the stairs and towards the front door, he straightens out his t-shirt and unnecessarily fluffs up his hair a bit and then opens the door, signature cheeky grin firmly in place as he greets Steve and Robin.

“So glad you could join us”

Steve’s got that deer caught in headlights look about him, as if he didn’t expect the door to actually open, his mouth is slightly agape and he swallows thickly, Robin elbows him in the ribs and he extends his hand out, in it another bottle of expensive booze.

“Uh hey.” He says and Tommy accepts the bottle.

“Damn Harrington” he whistles, “knew i could count on you for the good stuff” he holds the bottle close to his chest with one arm, gesturing for them to come in with the other. Steve smiles weekly hands in pockets as he and Robin follow Tommy inside.

“Heh well you know, it's rude to turn up to someone's house without something to offer the host”

“I thought this was meant to be a party Hagan, where is everybody?” Robin cuts in as the make it to the basement door, music heard faintly behind the door and the distinct smell of weed wafting in the air.

“Right this way Buckley” he opens the door and holds it open for the two new guests before following them down the stairs.

###

The evening’s going by quite nicely in Tommy’s opinion, Steve and Robin have settled into the group rather well and the atmosphere in the room is rather pleasant, Robin’s settled herself next to Heather on the couch, while Steve is sat on the arm of the couch next to Robin. Tommy’s on the other side of the room in an armchair that’s seen better days and is in a more sorry state than the couch if that could even be possible. Billy’s next to Heather and they’re all grossly involved in a game of ‘Never Have I Ever’.

Tommy thinks maybe it's a little middle school to be playing it, like days gone by where the height of entertainment was playing spin the bottle or seven minutes in heaven, but he’s enjoying himself so he can’t complain.

“Okay okay I’ve got one” Robin pipes up giggling behind a solo cup. “Never have i ever been punched in the face” all three boys take a drink, indicating that they have in fact all been punched in the face, nervous glances are shared between Billy and Steve atmosphere going just a little tense at the memory of their fight the previous year, but then Steve giggles and the tension is broken.

“Pft that was blatantly a set up Robs.” he grins at her and she rolls her eyes.

“Don’t see you coming up with anything better” she quips back.

“Sure i can!” he argues between laughs “ ohh i got a good one! Never have i ever played a musical instrument” at that Robin and Billy both drink, which triggers a few questioning looks towards Billy.

“You play an instrument?” Robin asks excited

“Used to” Billy shrugs

“What instrument?” Heather pipes in

“Guitar wasn't very good at it though so gave up” he shrugs again , downing the rest of his drink and throwing the cup onto the table. Robin looks as if she’s about to say something when the doorbell rang, they all glance around the room at each other doing a mental headcount, wondering if they were expecting anyone else.

It takes monumental effort but Tommy gets up and jogs up the stair for what feels like the hundredth time this evening, he’s ready to tell whoever is at the door to fuck off when he opens it. He’s struck speechless however when it's Carol who greets him with a nervous smile and glassy eyes.

“Hey Baby, can we talk?” she can obviously hear the voices from the basement “You having a party?” she asks one eyebrow raised and arms crossed, Tommy’s in shock, he wasn’t expecting this, and he’s a little too high for this.

“What do you want Carol?” it comes out a little harsher then he intended, but if it gets him the desired effect of Carol to fuck off so he can return to the basement then so be it. Her expression softens and she uncrosses her arms.

“Please, I just wanna talk Tommy” she pouts a little “I feel real bad about the way we ended things and i just wanna make sure you’re okay” Tommy’s thoughts are still a little sluggish, and if he’s being honest he’s still a little hurt by Carol just dropping him at the beginning of summer, but Tommy still has a soft spot for Carol and she does look pretty miserable, so against his better judgement he decides to humour her and invite her inside.

He takes her to his kitchen and offers her a seat at the breakfast bar. Thye sit there like that in awkward silence for a moment, avoiding eye contact neither one of them daring to speak, it remains like that until ultimately they both work up the courage to speak at the same time

“Would you lik-” Tommy says as carol blurts out

“I’m so sorry”

They both giggle nervously at that

“Sorry you go ahead” Carol speaks first giving room for Tommy to finish his sentence

“Would you like a drink?” he offers, already jumping from the stool and walking towards the fridge “We’ve got beer, wine, some pretty fancy whisky that Heather brought round” He lists off grabbing a beer for himself in the process.

“Heather’s here?” Carol asks “and i’ll just have a beer please” she’s picking at her nails nervously as she tracks Tommy’s movements.

“Uh yeah actually, and some others” he grabs another beer out of the fridge and hands it to Carol, taking a swig of his own.

“So.. you are having a party then?” she asks, acquisition clear in her tone .

“Uh yeah kinda, what did you expect Carol? For me to just be moping around here by myself? Just waiting for you to turn up?” Tommy’s trying really hard not get pissed off, not to get angry, he was having a good time up until now and he really doesn’t want to have his night ruined because of Carol.

“No.” She says rather petulantly.

“Then what?” despite his best effort he’s getting a little heated

“I don’t know Tommy” She throws her arms in the air clearly just as frustrated as he is “ look i’m sorry i shouldn’t have come here” she’s getting off the stool now, making her way to leave “I just wanted to smooth things out with you, apologise for hurting you, maybe see if we could still be friends.”

Tommy grabs her by the elbow and spins her to face him.

“Don’t go” he pleads, for a second she stares him down, narrows her eyes as if she’s trying to figure him out, but then she relaxes and rests her forehead on his chest, a little stuck for what to do, Tommy hugs her closer and pets her back, strokes her hair.

“I just miss you so much Tommy, i miss hanging out with you” she cries into his chest, Tommy’s a little at a loss, emotionally he’s all over the place all he wants to do is comfort Carol, he knows he’ll always love her in some kind of way, but gone are the days where he could ever think about taking her back, even if Billy wasn’t in the equation.

“I know, i miss hanging out with you too” he speaks softly into her hair, rubbing comforting circles on her back trying to calm her down.

“I just don’t wanna lose you, y’know? Like we’ve known each other since we were 4, that doesn’t just go away” she continues her muffled sobs nuzzling into his t-shirt, he inwardly cringes imagining all manor of snot and tears ruining it. He grabs her by the shoulders and holds her at arm distance, bends his knees slightly so he can be at eye level.

“Hey, hey” he says gently “you’re not gonna lose me alright?” he sighs guiding her back to a stool giving him a  moment to figure out what he’s gonna say next. “ look i’d love for us still to be friends” with that she looks up swiping her tears away.

“Really?” she squeaks

“Of course I do, like you said that kinda thing doesn’t just go away, but…” he trails off look nervously down at his hands, wishing he had something, anything at all that he could keep his hand busy with to try and channel the nervous energy building.

“But what Tommy?” she asks, he lets out a long exaggerated sigh, preparing himself for the next part.

“But, me and you, we can’t ever get back together” there he said it,  it's out in the open now and he can’t possibly make his intentions any more clear. “You really hurt me babe, and don’t get me wrong, I understand why you needed to do it, really I do! But i can’t go through that again, and anyway i’m kinda seeing someone” he explains, there's no point sugar coating it, he needs to make it clear he’s no longer available for Carol to pick back up and then drop again on a whim.

“You are? Who?” She sounds kinda like she’s accusing him, which is rich coming from her, he can feel anger begin to bubble to the surface and if he’s not careful he might snap again, he needs to keep a level head, at least try to remain as calm as possible.

“It doesn’t matter who, the point is, me and you, it can’t ever happen again” he gestures between the two of them. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t try just being friends” he offers a weak attempt at a smile.

“God, it sounds like you’re the one doing the breaking up” she cries out before letting out a quiet giggle. “Okay then, friends” she extends her hand for Tommy to shake, he looks down at it and back up at her quizzically.

“Get away with that, come here”  he steps closer and drags her into a tight hug “I’ll always care about you Carol, you know that right?”

“I know” she says

“Right c’mon, since you’re here, you might as well join the party” He says, releasing her from the hug and guiding her down to the basement with his arm slung around her shoulder.

###

Tommy’s been gone for some time now and Billy’s not worried per say but he is curious. He makes his excuses about going to find Tommy and maybe some more beer, leaving Heather, Steve and Robin to their conversation. As he gets closer to the basement door he hears voices, one is obviously Tommy’s  and the other is distinctly female, he can’t quite make out who’s exactly with the door closed so he gently opens the door so he doesn’t bring too much attention to himself. The conversation he hears is getting a little heated and he wonders if he’s gonna have to step in at any point, make sure something doesn’t get broken, at least that's what he tells himself as he creeps round the corner and listens in on Tommy and what he can now clearly hear is Carol.

He’s not spying, he assures himself as he continues to listen in out of sight, he’s just curious as to why Tommy’s ex-girlfriend of all people might have turned up at his house at 11pm on a friday night, nothing good he concludes. A pang of jealousy blooms in his chest as he hears snippets of their conversation, watches as Tommy consoles Carol with a hug, petting her hair and everything.

He’s about to lose his shit when he’s brought out of his thoughts by a hand suddenly appearing on his shoulder from behind, he jumps having not heard Steve leave the basement also and swings around ready to attack.

“Woah woah, hey man take it easy” Steve jumps back hands out in a ‘i surrender motion’. Billy huffs, heart rate slowly returning to normal.

“Jesus Harrington, you can’t just sneak up on people like that” he whispers

“Sorry, i was just wondering what you were doing” He whispers back “hey why are we whispering?” he asks and Billy has to try really hard to suppress an eye roll, he learns further out of the corner to try and get a better look at Tommy and Carol, Steve catching on leans in too.

“Carol’s here” Billy grunts, he doesn’t want to have to explain himself, and he knows Harrington isn’t that stupid, so he hopes quietly that maybe he might clue on without needing much of a push.

“Oh” is all Steve says. They share a look before Steve is walking away towards Tommy’s back door.

“Where are you going?”

“To get some fresh air, you coming?” Billy stays put for a second weighing up his option, follow Steve or stay and listen to Tommy making nice with his ex, if Billy were a stronger man he'd just return to the basement and forget all this happened, but he’s not and he does have a petty streak. So he follows Steve out into the yard and into the night air.

###

It’s a warmish night but with the slightest of breezes which causes goosebumps to rise on Steve’s skin, he’s secretly glad he has the benefit of a belly full of alcohol to keep him from shivering. He’s not sure exactly what he’s supposed to do now, but he’s glad Billy followed him.

Tommy’s parents aren’t exactly rich but they’re not poor either, they’re well off enough to have a nice back yard, complete with a  smallish patio, with a stone wall about a foot wide around its perimeter, overlooking a spacious grassy area lined with flower beds right up to the very end. There's an old swing set under a large oak tree that’s home to the tree house Tommy’s dad built one summer back when they were kids.

Steve perches himself atop the patio wall, crosses his legs and the ankles and inhales deeply. Billy joins him eventually, sitting beside him, legs spread wide taking up as much space as humanly possible. Steve thinks maybe it's a dominance thing, demanding more space and forcing others to make do with the little he’s been gracious enough to gift them, or maybe it's just more comfortable for him considering he has thighs the size of tree trunks. Steve lulls his head to the side so he can look at Billy, he looks lost in thought, staring at the ground, little crease in between his eyebrows, lips set in a hard line.

“Any chance I can bum a smoke?” Steve asks, hoping it might break the ice a little, relieve some of this awkward tension. Billy says nothing just reaches in his jean pocket for his packet of Malbros and hands it to Steve. Steve takes one, handing the packet back and watches intently as Billy takes his own out and lights it, Billy holds the flame closer to Steve and he leans in to light his own, making eye contact with Billy and holding it the entire time.

“What?” Billy asks when Steve still hasn’t broken eye contact. Steve’s heart rate picks up, he’s consumed with a sudden burst of confidence, bravery to finally address the elephant in the room, to stop dancing this tentative dance around Billy and Tommy, to finally make his feelings clear and to hopefully confirm theirs in return, worst case scenario he gets a fist to the face, but if he plays his cards right, he might just stand a chance here. Sure he would have preferred Tommy to be here too, but he has to work with what he’s got and well for the first time he’s actually got one of them alone, and he’s not a complete mess, he hopes the stars might have aligned tonight and luck is on his side, so maybe he might just get a win out of this.

“Why’d you invite me here tonight?” he asks on an exhale of the cigarette Billy had gifted him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about” Billy says voice gruff, there’s not much light outside, only the gentle glow of the moonlight and the light seeping out from Tommy’s back door, but even in the dim lighting Steve can see a faintest blush creep across Billy's cheeks.

“Oh i think you do” Steve’s feeling bold, brash so he leans in a little closer, this close he spots the light dusting of freckles across Billy’s adorable sun-kissed nose, his gaze darts down briefly down to his lips and back up again to hold eye contact with Billy, he swallows thickly and Billy mirrors his actions. “I think you invited me here because of an ulterior motive” he smirks.

“Oh yeah? And what's that?” Billy asks, quiet, he looks bewitched by Steve.

“Why don’t you tell me” Steve’s inching closer and closer, they’re barely a breath apart

“Seems like you already know” Billy’s eyelashes flutter as he breaks his stare and instead focuses on Steve’s lips.

“I do. But i want to hear you say it” the atmosphere is thick around them, anticipation building, they’re so close yet so far, all it will take for them to close the gap is from one of them to lean in further ever so slightly, but they both seem to be playing chicken with one another. Just as Steve is about to give in himself, lean closer, brush his lips against Billy’s, admit defeat yet claim the victory, the back door swings open.

Just like that the spells broke, they both separate and look in the direction of the house. Tommy’s stood there and he’s absolutely seething, breathing hard. Steve breathes a sigh of relief, happy in the fact that they hadn’t just been caught in an incriminating position by Heather or Carol. The relief is short lived however because Tommy’s storming towards them, fists clenched, jaw tight, anger rolling off him in waves.

“What the fuck.” is all he bites out. He swings for Billy and catches him square in the jaw, giving him no time to recover as he grabs Billy by the shift and hoists him close, getting in his face.

“What the hell Tommy!” Steve shouts, trying to get in between, trying to break them up. Billy’s not reacting, he’s not swinging back or trying to defend himself and Steve thinks that's odd, from personal experience he knows that's not Billy’s style. “Tommy, get off him”

Tommy snarls, letting Billy go and stalking to the wall, throwing himself down in a huff

“You two looked cosy out here” he spits, arms crossed against his chest as he kicks at the dirt, picture perfect tantrum in the works. “Sorry to interrupt”

“Oh yeah like you weren’t getting reacquainted with Carol in there!” Billy argues back.

“It’s not like that and you know it Billy”

“No, i don’t think i do”

“Yes you fucking do, stop being such an asshole Billy!”

“Oh I'm the asshole, you punched me in the face!”

“You were kissing Steve!” Tommy’s got in Billy’s face again, looks like he could throw another punch, Steve decides to step in.

“Guys will you shut the fuck up!” he shouts over them. “No one was kissing anyone!” Both Tommy and Billy look over at him both with one eyebrow raised, their disbelief written all over their faces. “okay well maybe i was about to kiss Billy” Tommy looks hurt, Billy looks a little smug.

Tommy shoves a bit at Billy still angry.

“See!”

“Tommy!” Steve whines “Stop!” Steve drags a hand down his face, trying to wrack his brain of how he’s gonna explain himself with words, he had kinda hoped actions would speak louder than words tonight, but so far everything just been one horrendous misunderstanding after one horrendous misunderstanding. “Look I like you. Both of you.” he bites his lip, preparing himself for a rejection. “And i think maybe you both like me too?” his voice is 4 octaves higher than it should be and Steve cringes at that. Smooth real smooth.

They both stare at him, dumbfounded, mouths agape, comically blinking as if they can’t quite believe what they’ve heard.

“Wha?” Tommy whispers

“You do?” Billy asks.

It's adorable how they’ve been essentially struck speechless, when usually neither one of them has the ability to shut up, Steve just rolls his eyes shuffles closer, grabs Tommy by the face with both hands and kisses him chastely on the lips, and then does then repeats the action with Billy.

“Yes you fucking idiots.”

Both boys break their own unique signature grins.

“Well thank god” Tommy says, turns to Billy and kisses him, before laughing like an idiot, a contagious laugh that had Steve and Billy join in too.

“C’mon you two, I think we’ve left the girls alone, long enough” Billy says, dragging both boys by the hand back into the house.

[copias-thrall]

Why Not?

Mary and Suey need to use their words

(Start at the beginning)

*angst; face fucking*

Sometimes you wonder if Mary’s attraction to you stems from the fact that you had no idea who he was when the two of you met at Mickey’s. Sure, there’s some Venn Diagram-like overlap between your crowd and his—but your exploits and his had never touched. You have a few mutual friends-of-friends that everyone always seems to know—but no substantial connections.

Mary’s never made his past sexploits a secret—even if he’s demurred on the gritty details—so you know his other forays into relationships have mostly been from people already in his orbit from the neighborhood or from his “fan” pool.

Basically: all people who already knew his music.

It doesn’t keep you up at night, but occasionally—when there’s a prolonged, awkward silence, or the two of you get into a heated debate that proceeds slammed doors—you can’t help but wonder. It doesn’t help that Mary seems reticent to bring you to shows—big or small. 

And, ok—maybe at first you didn’t really care: everyone and their sister knows a guy who’s “in a band” that never actualizes, and you two are oil and water on your best days, so why invest energy into a band you’re going to be compelled to dislike after the breakup? Once you guys had passed the 3mo mark, however, you knew you had to get serious about it if you wanted to be serious about Mary.

You would have thought it would’ve made Mary happy—you taking a marked interest in his first love—but he’d honestly seemed ambivalent about it. You talking about his songs and asking him questions only seemed to irritate him to no end … so you’d dropped it.

When he’d told you about another Saturday gig—that wasn’t closing Mickey’s—you’d once again offered to come … and he’d been a dick about it, prompting one of your worst fights to date.

“Why do you even wanna be there?” he’d huffed.

“I’m your fucking girlfriend,” you’d retorted.

“So you just want to piss on me and mark your territory, is that it?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, I thought I’d support your fucking passion is all.”

“You never cared before.”

“Oh—I’m sorry! Was I supposed to know everything that mattered to you two fucking seconds in?”

“I just think it’s fucking suspect that all of sudden you wanna be around.”

“So the other girlfriends are fine. It’s just me who’s a fame whore?”

“They’re all into the scene.”

“And what the fuck does that mean? I’m not a bandophile so I couldn’t possibly be interested?”

“It means I’m fucking done with that shit. The switching? The bed hopping? If that’s what you want, fucking tell me right now.”

“Where are you even getting this shit from?”

He’d looked you dead in the eyes.

“You have a reputation, Suey.

At first, you hadn’t even understood enough to be insulted.

“For fucking what? I barely follow the local music scene.”

“You think I didn’t ask around about you? The ‘Ice Queen’? Likes to fuck, but will eat you up and spit you out?”

You’d felt hot and cold all at once—your face flushing then draining of color.

“Are you fucking … are you fucking slut shaming me?!” you’d hissed as you’d jabbed a finger at him.

He hadn’t backed down. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable to wonder if a girl who’ll fuck anything that moves wouldn’t be looking to take her act elsewhere. The guys might dislike you, but you know they’d never pass up free pussy.”

You’d been trembling with anger at that point and scrubbing tears from your eyes.

“I’ve never … I’ve never hidden the fact that I like to fuck. I can’t believe you with your … your orgies and partner swapping have any fucking thing to say to me about my one-night stands.”

“How do I know you’re not using me for easy access, huh? I can barely even tell if you like me instead of my dick sometimes, and now all of sudden you’re interested in my band?”

You’d screamed and knocked a bowl off your counter, not even caring when the ceramic had shattered into shards.

“I’M SHOWING YOU I LIKE YOU BY BEING INTERESTED IN YOUR FUCKING BAND, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE.”

Then you’d grabbed a mug and thrown it in the ground for good measure. It hadn’t shattered, but the handle had broken off. Dissatisfied, you’d turned to your dish rack, but before you could start breaking dishes, Mary had had his arms wound around you.

“Hey, hey … it’s ok. Shh, c’mere.”

You’d screamed again and struggled against him.

“Fuck you!”

“Fuck, I’m sorry. Suey, calm down.”

Mary had managed to pick you up slightly, transferring you from the mess in the kitchen area to the living space, where he’d pulled you both down to the floor against the couch. You’d struggled some more, but only in an obligatory sense.

“Fuck. I’m sorry. Fuck,” Mary had breathed.

You’d only wailed in response, tears now flowing freely.

“I didn’t mean … fuck. I don’t think …” he’d babbled.

“You didn’t think,” you’d blubbered. “All those dudes, and you’re the one with a fucking drawer. How fucking dare you.”

Mary’s hold had tightened, but it wasn't to restrain you.

“Fuck, I know. I’m sorry. I just … it wouldn’t be the first time I thought some girl liked me, when all they wanted was to fuck the band. It’s a fucking sore spot, ok?”

“I’m supposed to be ok with you thinking I’ve been playing you?”

“I just fucking panicked, ok? I—I really fucking like you.”

“Don’t be gross.”

“Fuck off.”

You’d both chuckled.

“I just really fucking like you, and sometimes I just get too far into my own fucking head.”

You’d leaned back into his chest.

“You’re a fucking asshole and what you said was trashy. You said it to hurt me, and that’s not ok, Mary.”

He’d sighed and rested his forehead onto your shoulder.

“I just needed to hear you say it wasn’t true.”

“That’s still fucking insulting, but—” you’d tilted your head toward his, “Mary, I’m not dating you to fuck your bandmates. Now, fucking apologize.”

“I’m sorry I … that I was … my—”

“—that you were fucking cruel.”

“I’m sorry I was fucking cruel.”

“Thank you.”

The two of you had sat like that for a while until Mary had broken the silence.

“You scare me when you react like that.”

“I know,” you’d sighed. “I just … got overwhelmed. I’m … I am working on it, you know?”

“How?”

You’d curled a little into yourself.

“I do go to therapy, you know. It’s been—it is—a process.”

“K.”

“K?”

“Um, ‘ok, I acknowledge your effort and support it and won’t push as long as you’re getting help’?”

“Thanks.” You’d waited for a beat then had said, “Now you have to give me one. One personal thing.”

You’d waited patiently as Mary had considered.

“I was on my own at 19, so the guys are like my brothers—I love them, but they’re fucking annoying, and I hate them sometimes too. I’d give any one of them a kidney, but not my girl.”

You’d sighed. “I’m not going to fuck your brothers, Mare.”

“Yeah, I know. But thanks for saying.”

After that he’d helped you clean up the broken bowl. A week later you’d found your mug back in the cabinet—the handle was out of line with the break, but somehow still firmly secured back into place. You’d also stopped asking about attending his shows.

Thanksgiving came—he’d spent the day with his extended band family; you’d traveled out of state to spend it with your best friend—as you’d been doing since college. She knows a little about you and Mary, and you were happy to stay up drinking contraband wine with her on the trundle bed in her room as you’d scrolled through the handful of personal g-rated pictures you had.

It’s Saturday (your bus back home is at 6am the next day), and your bff and you are downtown just hanging out. You fucking love the energy of South Street, especially Crash Bang Boom, formally Zipperhead. One of the stops on your itinerary is a record store, and on a lark you go to see if Mary’s record is here. You know from one of Mary’s rants that they’ve been struggling to get wider distribution without a formal label, but that there’s a pretty good trade network amongst some of the indie places, and Philly isn’t so far away. You have to do more than a cursory search but!

It’s here!

You pull it out, intent on calling your friend over, when two guys who’d been browsing near you accost you.

“I hear they’re hot right now!” Boy 1 says.

“They used to be so hard to find,” says Boy 2.

You beam. “I know, right? They’re great.”

“You a big fan?” asks Boy 2.

What you mean to say is, I think their sound is very unique, but what you say when you open your mouth is, “I’m dating the lead guitarist.”

The two guys look at each other and snigger slightly.

“Yeah, ok,” says Boy 2.

You scrunch your face at them.

“I am.”

“Ok, maybe online you can peddle that crap, but c’mon,” says Boy 1.

You know not to feed the trolls … but these guys are kind of pissing you off. You tuck the DIY CD under your arm as you fish out your phone; it takes you a few seconds of poking, but you bring up the g-rated pics of you and Mary—most of which are slightly-blurry selfies. You think they’re endearing. Boy 1 and Boy 2 aren’t impressed.

“Are you serious?” sneers Boy 1. “These are clearly post-show selfies.”

“Fucking sad,” says Boy 2, shaking his head.

You’re at a loss because the majority of these are from your couch, so you toss your hair at them.

“Whatever. I don’t need a bunch of fake music boys to validate me. Krissy! Let’s bounce.”

You do end up buying the CD for her—which she promises to listen to in full and then report back.

When you get back to your place Sunday night—cranky and bleary-eyed—you’re surprised to find Mary asleep on your couch, cocooned in your afghan, even though it’s barely early evening. You divest yourself of your outside clothes and backpack before crawling over him.

“Mmph,” he grumbles.

“Hey,” you say, draped over him. “Why’re you on the couch?”

He manages to turn his head toward you slightly.

“You weren’t here.”

“Mare. You can sleep in my bed.”

He wiggles around so you’re both face to face.

“Yeah, I know. Wanted to know when you got back.”

“I still don’t see—”

He kisses you and manages to get his arms free to wrap around you.

“You’d’ve let me sleep if I was in your bed,” he says as he breaks the kiss.

“Yeah, maybe. Only because you’d need it.”

There’s some making out that begins to border on foreplay before your stomach rumbles unhappily. Mary laughs.

“You’re fucking great.”

“Shut the fuck up,” you grumble. “I think I last ate over 12hrs ago.”

Mary shifts to a sitting position. “I’m about to become your best friend.” He wiggles free and makes his way into your kitchen. You wrap the afghan around you as you shuffle after him. He beams at you before opening your fridge and doing his best impression of Vanna White. You peer in to see that there are multiple Tupperware containers jigsawed into your fridge.

“Oh!” you exclaim. “Is this …?”

Mary’s grin is almost a rictus.

“You don’t think I look out for my baby doll? Friendsgiving leftovers, just for you!”

You crowd into his space.

“I don’t know what I should eat first: this bounty or your dick!”

Mary wraps his arms around you, but says, “Lady’s choice.”

Despite how hungry you are, you drop to your knees—afghan pooling around you—and mouth at his zipper. He caresses your head and shoulders, but when he doesn’t insist, you take matters into your own hands; you pet at his semi before unzipping his jeans and taking out his cock and balls.

“You don’t—” he gasps even as his hands are cupped around the back of your head.

“Shut the fuck up,” you say right before you take the tip of him into your mouth to suckle.

Mary likes it fast and sloppy, but tonight you suck him at your own pace—one hand rolling his balls and giving sporadic presses to his perineum. He’s trembling and whimpering, his hands clenching and unclenching in your hair. After one particularly hard suck he cries out, “Oh fuck, please.”

You shuffle around so that your back is against a bottom cabinet, and you make a soft grunt so that he looks down at you. His lips are wet and his eyes are glazed as you widen your mouth and moan encouragingly at him. His hands grip into your hair as he begins to fuck your face.

“Oh shit, oh fuck,” he breathes. “So sweet. Your fucking mouth.”

Usually you do your best to deep throat Mary, but today he seems to sense not to choke you. He’s still fucking your mouth, though—thrusting as deep as he dares, undeterred by the saliva dripping down your chin.

“I fucking missed you—missed this.”

You make sure to lock your gaze with his.

“Fuck.”

You bring your hand back up to his balls.

“OhpleaseOhshitOhfuckOhplease,” he chants, eyes now closed.

You slap your cunt a few times before you slip a hand into your tights to work at your clit in time to Mary fucking your mouth.

“Oh fuck, yeah—that’s right. My cock makes you so hot.”

You let the hand fondling him fall away so you can brace yourself against the counter, and Mary starts fucking your mouth faster. He’s still staring down at you, but now he’s only chanting Fuck over and over again as he pummels your mouth. You think he’ll probably cum first, but it’s actually you—your own adept fingers pushing you over the edge—and it’s only after you moan in time that he shoves you down on his cock as it kicks and shoots its load down your throat.

He lets go of your hair well before you’d even consider tapping out, so you make sure you suck up and down the length of him before he grunts and pulls away from oversensitivity. He looks down at you with hooded eyes as you continue to gently massage your own climax out.

“You’re too fucking good to me,” he says as he recombobulates himself.

You’re just easing the waves of your orgasm at this point.

“So fucking make me a plate,” you purr, knees splayed as you continue to finger yourself.

Mary grunts at you as if he’d like nothing better than to squash you into the floor and fuck the shit out of you—but by the time you’re done massaging the throbs out of your clit and and standing up, he’s got the food containers out and is constructing your plate.

Mary feeds you from the full plate in his lap—quite a departure from the norm (you love feeding him at your feet)—and the two of your talk about your holiday. He tells you about their mashed potato food fight. You tell him all about Krissy’s drama—which mostly entails her parents thinking that her living at home means she’ll be a nun—but you offhandedly mention Boy 1 & Boy 2 in context of your day out. 

Mary tenses.

“What?” you ask as you catch his eye. You’re not going to bring up seeing his band if you can help it.

“Nothing.”

“No, what?”

Mary sighs.

“You just. I hate that they didn’t believe you. You are my girl.”

You wriggle up and shrug.

“They’re not wrong. A few close up selfies don’t prove anything.”

“It still fucking sucks, and I hate it. Can we go to bed when you’re done?”

You snort. “You just want to snuggle.”

“So what if I fucking do? I brought you candied sweet potatoes at great cost to my life and limb. You owe me.”

You huff in laughter. “All right, dude. Fine. Let me brush my teeth and then we can … snuggle.”

“Damn straight.”

It’s maybe two weeks later when Mary’s on your couch watching the WWE, your feet in his lap as you play a game on your phone (no way was him being here is going to make you miss your chance at getting a high placing on this week’s special challenge). During the commercial break he plucks at your alumni sleep pants.

“Hey. Have you noticed you haven't worn anything nice in a while?” he says to your leg.

You look up at him over your phone, incredulous.

“Um, ok. First of all: rude. Second: Dude. Half your shirts are from high school and half of those are covered in blood. What the fuck.”

His hand sneaks under your pant leg to stroke at your calf. When you shy away—shaving a long-forgotten routine now that the weather has chilled—he firmly pulls you back to continue his exploration.

“Yeah. I don’t own anything nice—you have all these cute as fuck clothes just chilling on your curtain rod collecting dust.” 

You heave a sigh.

“Well. You work most nights, Mary. You know I try to be here if you’re going to be around, and what?—I’m gonna dress up in my own home?”

He squeezes your calf muscle.

“Christ, you’re defensive. Let me fucking finish my lead in, woman. I just mean we should get out.”

You creep the foot of your free leg under his t-shirt to press into his boney ribs.

“Ok, but when? Your schedule’s not very conducive to that, you know.”

He looks at you, searching your face, before insinuating himself between your legs and rubbing his hands up your thighs. 

“We’re playing at Regency in a few weeks,” he says as he leans down to kiss your belly. He looks up at you. “You could put on one those ‘fuck me’ numbers you got.” 

Kiss. 

“Come see me play.” 

Kiss. 

“I could fuck you in the bathroom.” 

Kiss.

He takes the hem of your pants between his teeth and begins to tug it down.

“Mary! My ranking!”

“Fuck your ranking,” he says as he yoinks your phone out of your hand and shoves it down the front of his pants. You gasp as he yanks your bottoms the rest of the way free, and then proceeds to run his tongue through your folds. Your hands grip his hair tight as he worms his tongue around and over your clit, sparking your arousal. You let your head fall back, moaning, as he tongues you.

He breaks away suddenly. “So will you think about it?”

You look down at him through hazy vision. “Wha—what?”

“The show. Will you think about coming to it?”

The only thing you’re thinking about right now is his tongue back on you.

“Fuck. C’mon, Mary.”

“The. Gig,” he continues, before giving you one, long lap. “Wanna show you off,” he says, growling into your labia.

Christ he should make up his mind. As if it was your reticence from attending. 

“Yeah!” you gasp, encouraging him, as you grind yourself into his waiting mouth. “Wanna be shown off!”

He yanks you down prone, hoisting your legs over his shoulders so he has better access to suck your clit between his plump lips. The sensation is heavenly, and you make pleased noises.

“Gonna show off my hot girlfriend,” he pants as he comes up for air. “Make everyone know you’re mine, rub it in their faces.”

You grab the back of his head and rub his face into your pussy.

“Shut the fuck up and get on with it for chrissake’s!”

He eats you out in earnest then—his tongue and lips adeptly coaxing you toward climax—the sound of the snarling wrestlers and cheering crowd the soundtrack to your orgasm; he licks you steadily as you squirm and thrash through it. Once you're thoroughly spent, he divests you of your top and crawls up your torso while unbuckling his jeans—your phone plopping onto your stomach and sliding down into the cushions. 

“Hold your tits together,” he rumbles before thrusting between them a handful of times, head thrown back. Then he leans over you—guiding his cock to your mouth with his hips, before he’s fucking your face into the couch—unashamedly moaning when he hears you gag. He pulls out in time to cum all over your face and neck, hand flying between his legs—too intent with his art to even grunt out his pleasure.

Looking down at you, he bites his lip and says, “Fuck you’re beautiful. Can I take a picture?”

(This was something you’d gotten used to—Mary always wanting to take pictures of the oddest things with his ancient, digital HP camera.)

When you hesitate, he says, “No, you’re right. It’s …” He begins to climb off you, but you put a hand on his thigh.

“You … you can,” you stutter “but … I’ll keep it for you. Just … transfer it to me and delete it immediately.”

He rolls his eyes. “Big help you having it when I’m lonely and want to jerk off,” he says—but he's already off the couch, tucking himself back in, and rummaging through his worn backpack.

The two of you had done a little photoshoot then, trying to get the best angles, the best shine, your sexiest pout—and a few with his fingers in your mouth. When he’s satisfied, he hands you your shirt so you can wipe off—which you promptly rejected in favor of cleaning off in the bathroom sink (“Gross.” “What? I don’t understand.” “I wear this shirt!” “My jizz is literally on you right now!”).

When you come back out, Mary already has his memory card in the USB convertor and is attached to your laptop.

“Don’t I get to help choose?” you ask as you sit down next to him.

“My pictures.”

“My face!” you retort.

“My pictures for my use.”

You lean in to see which he’s chosen.

“Oh, not that one! I look like Jaba the Hutt with that chin!”

Mary squints at it, shrugs, then turns to grin at you.

“I won’t be looking at your chin.”

“Fine,” you grumble flopping back. “But I want my complaint filed on the record.”

“Ok,” he says and kisses the tip of your nose.

You push him away and wipe at your face. “Gross, Mary. Don’t be all mushy and shit.”

“I’ll do whatever the fuck I want, Suey,” he says into the computer.

When he finishes—4 photos now living in a folder on your desktop entitled “MarysSecretJackoffMaterial”—he lets you drive. You promptly drag all the smutty images of you into your trash and delete them immediately.

He has to leave for work not long after that, and you’ve gotten sucked into the WWE storyline. It isn’t until you’re ready to go to bed that you realize your phone is still in the depths of the couch. Once retrieved, you text him.

Me [12:37am]: Goddamnit, Mary! My RANKING.

Mary [2:28am]: XD

⬅️Previous | Next ➡️

[holidayblindspot]

Christmas and the Gang

Written by rAnsomedr0gue, who doesn’t have a Tumblr but has asked me to post for her. She is lurking without an account, though, so if you enjoyed this fic, please say something nice! :D

***

Christmas and the Gang

A/N: This is set during the two-week time jump between 2.10 and 2.11. I’m sure it makes no sense that Christmas would fall during that time but the show’s own internal timeline is so messy I feel like I can take liberties too…

***

Nothing like spending Christmas with your family, Jane thought as she sat on the cold concrete floor outside of Roman’s Zero Division cell. Especially when neither of you remember anything about the holidays, what it’s all meant to be about.

Jane suspected that holiday celebrations hadn’t been a big part of life with Shepherd, she certainly hadn’t had any Christmas-related memories pop through. And Roman seemed to be just as much at a loss, though he appreciated the gifts and the take out roast turkey dinner she’d brought him.

But now that the gift-opening was over they had run out of things to talk about and the terribleness of spending the holiday in a stark concrete bunker was settling in all around them. Roman seemed a bit fidgety too, nervous about her presence.

“Don’t you have something better to be doing on Christmas Day?” he asked, giving her a skeptical look.

Jane shook her head, genuinely had nothing else planned that day. The rest of the team was spending the holidays with family; everyone seemed to have relatives in town that year. She was happy that they were all getting a chance to spend time with their loved ones. They deserved it after how hard it’s been, especially since the ambush that left so many agents dead.

Terrible waves of guilt still crashed within her whenever she thought about what had happened. How it had all been her fault, caught out by Sandstorm’s mole. She felt so horrible for Patterson, tortured by someone she loved. And for Reade, who was still recovering from his leg surgery. Weller too, even though he hadn’t been there for the raid. The guilt he had felt about not being there, being played by Sandstorm. Jane knew it was all on her, that none of this would have happened had she never come up with this plan, erased her own memory.

So of course she didn’t have any plans for Christmas Day, the only family she’s ever known probably lost to her forever. At least she had Roman to spend time with, even if the environment sucked. Although she was just drawing while he read a book, she liked being there, trying to connect with him. He was her only family now, all that she had.

Just then her phone chimed an alert and Jane pulled it out to see that it was her FBI locator app going off, indicating a target on the move, just outside the NYO office. There was no information from Patterson attached to the search though and they weren’t actively trying to locate anyone.

“What’s that?” Roman asked curiously.

“I don’t know,” Jane replied. “I’m being given a target to catch but we aren’t working on anything right now.”

“Are you going to go?” he questioned. “Shouldn’t you ask Weller about it before you follow a random signal?”

He had a point, Jane thought. But it was Christmas day and Kurt was busy with family along with everyone else. And the target was still near by, she was the only one at the NYO. It was up to her to find out what it was about.

“I don’t want to bother him if it turns out to be nothing,” Jane said. “I’ll go investigate first and if I need back up I’ll call it in then.”

“You just want something to do that isn’t sitting in an underground bunker. I don’t blame you, you should be out with your friends,” he commented. “So go, if it turns out to be something then at least you’ll see them on Christmas.”

That was sad, she thought. But true. That the only chance she had of seeing the team on Christmas was if they were called in on an emergency.

“Okay, I’m going,” she declared, ready to do anything other than sit around and mope. “I’ll see you later Roman. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas Jane,” her brother replied sincerely.

Jane left the NYO building and started following the tracker uptown. Her quarry looked to be on foot so she walked as well, far enough behind that she wouldn’t get made.

It was strange following a signal that she knew nothing about. Jane tracked it for miles and miles until she was in Central Park, amidst families all celebrating Christmas.

Finally, her target had stopped moving, seemed to be staying among the many people ice skating on a large rink in front of her. Jane stared at the crowd of skaters and realized that she had no hope of finding an unknown subject out on the ice. Especially since she wasn’t sure if she knew how to skate, and had no reason for even chasing this person.

She was about to give up the search, glad to have at least gotten some outdoor exercise and entertainment, when a familiar figure caught her eye. Jane turned her attention back to the ice rink, stared at the object of her interest.

It was definitely Assistant Director Kurt Weller, skating with his nephew and his sister. Even from this distance she could tell that he was laughing at Sarah, who was rather wobbly on her skates.

Jane stood there staring, thinking that it couldn’t be a coincidence. The city was huge and the tracker had led her to exactly where Weller was. But it didn’t make any sense. She was sure that Kurt had not set it up, would not want her at this family outing.

She felt like a creep even watching them from the edge of the rink and had just turned to leave when a familiar voice, the one she dreams about, called out her name.

Jane turned back, felt like she had been caught spying. But then again, it was Christmas. And now at least she would get to see Kurt for a minute, although the circumstances were odd.

Weller was just skidding to a stop in front of her, wearing a slightly confused smile

“Jane,” he repeated, a bit out of breath from hurrying over. “Hey.”

***

Kurt Weller chased his nephew around the crowded ice of the Wollman rink, thinking how he hadn’t done something like this in years. Though he still thought it was very strange that Sarah won free tickets specifically for Christmas Day, especially since she couldn’t remember having entered any contests. And didn’t live in New York anymore.

But something something about looking a gift horse in the mouth, and what could be sinister about a family ice skating excursion on Christmas?

He hadn’t been on skates since he was a kid but he hadn’t forgotten how, though it took him a few times around to get his balance again. Sawyer wasn’t bad either, considering he was only ten and hadn’t been ice skating very many times. But Weller had to really keep an eye out for his sister who had already almost crashed into other skaters a few times that day.

He was scanning the crowd for Sarah when he spied a familiar movement at the edge of a group of people watching the skaters. He couldn’t consciously determine what it was that he saw but Kurt knew he had to investigate, went over to check.

Weller tried to keep his eye on his target as he skated to the edge of the rink but it was difficult amongst the holiday crowds. Still, he was able to spot her just as she was turning to leave, could easily identify the way her body moved.

“Jane!” he hollered, unsure what to make of her appearance here. It could just be a coincidence, maybe she was just out for a walk and happened to stop and watch.

Or maybe it was the universe trying to do him a favour.

Thankfully Jane must have heard him, because she turned back towards the rink and watched as he thankfully managed to skid to a stop without falling.

“Jane,” he called, slightly out of breath. “Hey.”

Jane smiled, came down to meet him at the edge of the ice.

“Hey Kurt,” she said, a bit shyly. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” he replied. “What are you doing here?”

Jane looked at him nervously and Weller wondered what she could possibly be worried about, then thought about how adorable she was with that little furrow in her brow.

Stop it, he thought to himself. It was a constant battle to keep inappropriate Jane-related thoughts out of his head. Even after everything that had happened between them. Maybe because of everything that had happened between them.

“This is going to sound weird,” she started, pulling out her phone and showing him the indicator on her locator app. “But this started going off when I was with Roman and it was right outside the NYO so I followed it. And it led me here.”

“You followed a lead on your own without knowing anything about it?” he exclaimed, already looking around the rink in alarm, searching for possible danger. “Why didn’t you call me?”

Jane sighed, pulled into a defensive posture.

“It’s Christmas and I didn’t want to disturb you if it turned out to be nothing. Which it did,” she grumbled.

Dammit, he thought. He always did this, made her pissed off by being unreasonably worried about her.

Weller took a few deep breaths, told himself to calm down. It was Christmas, and nothing nefarious seemed to be happening at the ice rink. Plus, Jane was right there, what else could he want from life?

“Sorry,” he apologized. “I just don’t like the idea of you out there on your own.”

Jane’s expression softened and she gave him a small shrug.

“Good thing it led me to you then,” she said, her green eyes flickering playfully.

Every day he loved her more. He could admit that to himself now.

“We should find out if you know how to skate,” he said, the line coming to him out of nowhere. “Someday it might be required for tactical purposes.”

Jane flashed a sly grin and he knew he’d already won.

“Well, when you put it that way, it does seem pretty important to find out,” she replied mock seriously.

Weller grinned, unsure what to make of of his good luck. But for once he wasn’t going to let his worries get in the way.

“Let’s get you some skates,” he said.

They rented some skates for Jane and immediately Kurt knew he was in trouble. She laced them up like a pro and walked over to the ice confidently, then stepped onto the rink and started skating away from him faster than he could manage.

Goddamn it, he thought. She was good at everything.

It was nice to have a goal though, someone to chase. Kurt dodged other skaters, keeping his eyes on Jane whipping about, but try as he might, he couldn’t catch up to her until she mercifully stopped.

“That was fun!” she gasped, her cheeks ridiculously pink.

“I guess ice skating is part of Navy SEAL training now,” he commented, impressed by her as always.

Jane grinned and shrugged.

“Maybe I had to go undercover as a Canadian,” she conjectured. “Part of the essential skill set.”

Weller laughed at the impish look on her face, more relaxed than he’d seen her in awhile. Things had been so dire for Jane ever since she escaped from the black site, her life always in danger. At least now she was done with the Sandstorm missions, being a double agent. He slept so much better knowing she wasn’t out there alone with a bunch of terrorists.

He would sleep even better if she were close enough to personally observe.

Kurt shook the thought out of his head but couldn’t stop himself from offering her his hand, feeling as nervous as a schoolboy. And his heart thumped in his chest when she snaked her fingers between his, grasped his hand tightly.

“So, you think you’re qualified to catch a perp on skates?” Jane asked with a twinkle in her eye

Not if that perp is you, for the crime of stealing my heart.

“I think I’ll leave that one up to the undercover Canadians,” he admitted with a shrug.

They made their way around the rink a few more times, Jane tugging him along. Kurt was just looking around for his sister and his nephew when a teenage girl started skating right beside them.

“Kurt Weller?” the girl said. “This is for you.”

She produced a plain white envelope and he took it without thinking, so bewildered by the situation that he didn’t even notice the delivery girl skate away.

They slid to a stop and Weller looked at Jane in surprise. He could see that she was also confused, looking at the envelope with suspicion.

Unless it was some sort of chemical or biological agent, there wasn’t much that could fit in the envelope in his hand. Really, it did not appear dangerous so Weller threw all caution to the wind and just opened it.

Inside was a pair of tickets to the rare Christmas Day NFL game that afternoon, the seats were even quite good. Kurt glanced around again, baffled, but the courier was long gone by then. All he saw was Jane, standing in front of him, a frosty rosy delight, biting her lower lip in anticipation.

He should be suspicious, ready for some elaborate set up. But it was Christmas, and he had Jane right there, two tickets to the game in his hand.

It was a good thing his nephew and sister had other plans for the afternoon, wouldn’t be into a football game anyhow.

“Bet you’ve never been to a football game,” Weller said with a grin. “Beer and hot dogs are on me. But we can’t tell Zapata and Reade about these tickets, they would give us so much crap about not being real football fans.”

***

Tasha Zapata was not a holiday person, couldn’t be bothered with all the lights and tinsel that just had to come back down afterwards. And family gatherings generally led to too many insinuations about boyfriends and babies and the life she’d chosen.

Though she could get down with the whole drinking aspect of the season; in fact, saw alcohol as her only chance at surviving the ordeal.

Case in point she was already a few drinks in and it was only early afternoon. She had started with a bloody Mary at breakfast, a little hair of the dog to chase away the remnants of the previous night. And then of course she had to have a celebratory mimosa as well, followed by another glass of champagne.

Tasha sighed, felt the need to both slow things down and speed it up all at once. She was not usually that hard a drinker, not anymore. It had been bad at one point, after her partner had died on the job while she was with the NYPD. But then alcohol had started to take a toll on her job performance and she managed to shut it down before it got in the way of her future. But really she’d just replaced one bad habit with another, more expensive one.

Since then she drank socially and not usually to excess anymore. But things had been stressful as fuck at work pretty much ever since Jane showed up just over six months ago. First with Carter blackmailing her then with Weitz doing the same shit. She was done with shady powerful men screwing with her life. She wanted the authority to take them all down.

The tattoos were such a mind fuck because of that. They pointed at corruption, created action, which Zapata loved. But Jane had been planted by terrorists, hell Jane was a terrorist before she wiped her own memory. It was still hard for Tasha not to think of Jane as anything but the Trojan horse she was meant to be. Especially with Weller being so insanely sure that Jane was on their side, unwilling to even consider the idea that she could be stringing them along.

But then again, when had Weller ever been objective about Jane? Even when she had just escaped the CIA and come back, he hadn’t been able to shoot her, despite Jane trying to goad him into doing it. Tasha had stepped up with no qualms at all, had been more worried that she wouldn’t stop at one shot than she had been about shooting their former teammate.

And then ever since, Weller had trusted Jane, had consistently been worried for her, not about her. Even when he’d been angry as hell, didn’t want Jane around. He had been disproportionately concerned about her, never wavered in his support for her.

It was hard for Tasha to wrap her head around, especially since what happened at the Sandstorm compound, the explosion that had caused so many deaths. She wanted to blame Jane, because she had led them there, because she had started this all by lying to them in the first place. But Zapata knew deep down that Jane was with them, that she had been from the start. Sure, she had made mistakes but Tasha had fucked up too, sold her teammate out to the CIA. She still felt guilty about that and about sleazy fucking Matthew Weitz.

The truth was, Zapata just wanted to have someone to pin the blame on, someone that wasn’t herself. Jane had gotten played, outed by her own plan, her own recruit. But she had almost died too and was doing her best to fix the mistakes of her past. So it was hard to be too mad at her.

After all, none of them had suspected Borden of being a mole, so that was on all of them. Tasha shuddered, thought about how she had encouraged Patterson to go out with him. And now Patterson had been horribly hurt both physically and mentally, was still trying to repress all the trauma she had gone through. Zapata had even tried to convince her to spend Christmas together, because she knew her friend would spend the day working from home, hiding from the world. But of course Patterson had declined the invite, mumbled some excuse about having to skype with her parents.

Zapata sighed, hated being half cut and maudlin, wanted to just call Reade up and bitch to him about the holiday season, all the crap in their lives. But of course even that relationship had gone to shit since he had unexpectedly come on to her.

Now that was a topic she wasn’t meant to think about. She had been so shocked in the moment, unsure how to respond. Her first thought had been ‘this is a terrible idea’. Her second thought, ‘but possibly terrible in a very good way’.

Of course she had run away instead of confronting it, cut it off quickly and hopefully permanently so she doesn’t ever have to make that choice again. Because the thought of having a relationship with Reade made her extremely nervous in a way she didn’t want to explore.  

Tasha shook her head, annoyed with herself. She was moping by herself on the couch while the rest of the family was in the kitchen helping prepare dinner. But the thought of joining in with them wasn’t appealing either, would just lead to more drinking and behaviour that she’d end up regretting.

Thankfully there was a knock on the door just at that moment and no one else could hear it due to the din in the kitchen. Zapata figured that any distraction was better than nothing, wondered who could be at the door on Christmas Day when everyone invited was already there.

She answered the door and it was a courier, with an envelope generically addressed to Female FBI Agent. Which made no sense at all, to receive mail not in her name; especially since she was at her grandma’s house and not her own. But the courier didn’t know anything about the package, just said it was for a female FBI agent at that address, handed it to her and left.

Tasha did a visual inspection of the envelope, then probed it with her fingers. It seemed like nothing except paper was inside. Which didn’t mean there wasn’t any risk but Zapata was drunk and curious so she slit it open anyways.

Inside were two lower tier tickets to the NY Giants game that afternoon, great seats that she could never afford for herself. Zapata ran into the kitchen and interrogated her family until she was satisfied that none of them had any idea about where the envelope had come from. When it was clear that the tickets were a gift from an unknown deity, Tasha shrugged and decided it did not matter who had sent them, even if it was some sort of trap.

She was going to the football game! And of course she knew what she needed to do next. No matter how awkward things would be. If she went to this game without taking Reade, he would hold it against her for life. And really there was no one else she wanted to go with, even with weirdness between them.

Zapata pulled out her phone, dialed his number.  

***

It had been a pretty shit year, Edgar Reade concluded as he watched his relatives argue about politics, the government. Sometimes they seemed to forget he worked for the FBI, that the whole distrust of authority thing pissed him off.

Though he had to admit he was seeing things in a different light since they had started investigating the tattoo cases. As screwed up as it was to be lead by terrorists into an ant-corruption effort, it had highlighted a lot of the problems in the system.

Then again the same terrorists had just tried to kill him, his leg still not quite a hundred percent after nearly two weeks of recovery. Though he was determined to go back to work after Christmas, had enough of sitting around, thinking about all the things that had gone wrong in his life recently.

The whole Coach Jones situation. Freddy. That tape he hadn’t watched yet. All this was hanging over his head, tinted every thought.

That and the other thing.

Zapata.

Damn. In some ways that was worse to think about than the possible childhood abuse he’d suffered. He hadn’t talked to her since he’d made a move on her, mistaken her sympathy for something else.

Reade told himself it was the drugs, emotional residue from almost dying in that explosion. That he didn’t want to make out with his best friend, that he hadn’t always wondered what it would be like if they fucked.

It was Tasha. His partner, his wingman. She was off limits and he’d screwed it up.

She would forgive him of course. But it was going to be awkward between them for awhile. Zapata was not going to want to talk about it, her disdain of any discussions involving feelings well documented. And she was going to hold it over him forever.

Reade sighed to himself, wished he was anywhere else so that he could at least stop lying about how he injured his leg, stop feeling so disconnected from his family.

Of course he really just wanted to be with Tasha, despite all the ribbing he would take from her. He couldn’t stop thinking about waking up to her holding his hand, that worried expression on her face. It still made him feel less sorry for himself, even if he had messed it up afterwards.

Reade had just decided to have another drink, try to knock all thoughts of Tasha Zapata of his head when his phone rang, and of course, it was Zapata.

“You have an hour to get to Metlife stadium, I have tickets to the game. Don’t ask questions, don’t tell me you can’t ditch your cousins,” she stated firmly. “I’ll see you there.”

Well, that was unexpected and slightly bewildering, he thought to himself. And yet, Zapata had said she had tickets to the game so it was a pretty big risk to ask questions, challenge her conditions.

Reade pushed himself to his feet, made the rounds and effectively ditched his relatives with excuses of an urgent work matter. It was only half a lie, he figured. Tasha was from work and free tickets to an NFL game could certainly be construed as an urgent situation.

With that settled, he got an uber, wondering what the hell was going on. Zapata had sounded serious but possibly drunk. Which could go all kinds of sideways considering their recent history.

Damn, he hated overthinking things with Tasha. They had always been such good friends. He would just play it cool, act like nothing had happened unless she brought it up.

Reade got out of the car at the stadium, looked around and spotted Zapata right away. She saw him too and came walking over, waving the two tickets in her hand.

“Look at these seats!” she crowed as she held the tickets right up to his face. “I’ve never sat this close before.”

“Where did these tickets come from?” Reade asked, suspicions aroused. There’s no way Zapata got them from family, not at the price of NFL games those days. And she was clearly half cut, had that looseness to her body language.

“Courier showed up at my grandma’s place, had an envelope for me,” Tasha admitted. “All that was in it was the tickets.”

“What?” Reade asked. “That’s nuts, Tasha. Wait. This envelope just says Female FBI Agent, it’s not even addressed to your name. And how did a courier know to go to your grandma’s house with something for you? I can’t believe you opened it, there could have been anthrax in there or something.”

“You think I didn’t think of that?” Zapata replied hotly. “But it felt like just paper, no powder or anything. And I was pretty drunk so I just went for it.”

“Oh you’re pretty drunk are you?” he teased. “I couldn’t tell.”

“Screw you, Reade,” she replied easily. “So we going to this game or not?”

Damn, well obviously they were going to end up in that game, he realized. No matter how strange the circumstances of the tickets were. They were there and they had amazing seats.

“Well, it’s really weird,” he declared. “I think we should do our due diligence and check it out, make sure it’s nothing.”

Tasha grinned at him winningly and they headed into the stadium, searched for their seats. It was almost game time so they hurried, as fast as his healing leg could manage. Of course Zapata still managed to stop for drinks too, was clearly getting ready for a rowdy time.

When they got nearer to their seats Reade started to feel a sense of something odd. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it until he looked down the row at the only empty seats left and saw a strip of tattooed skin.

As he and Zapata made their way down to their seats, Weller and Jane stood up too, looking as confused as he was.

“What the hell are you guys doing here?” Tasha exclaimed loudly.

Weller shrugged, looked suspicious but not overly worried. Which was unusual in itself.

“We were skating in Central Park when a teenager approached me with an envelope and then took off,” he explained. “These tickets were in the envelope. What about you?”

“So weird, basically the same shit. Courier came to my grandma’s place with an envelope for me,” Tasha replied. “No way to trace it so I thought I better go to the game and rescue Reade from being a sad sack on Christmas.”

Damn, she was pretty drunk already, he thought yet again.

“Wait, you guys were skating?” Zapata asked, switching tracks.

Both Weller and Jane started blushing, looking away shyly though it wasn’t exactly a surprise to anyone. Even after she had been exposed as a liar, Weller still looked at her the same desperate way. The way that said I think about you all the time even though I know I shouldn’t.

“Yeah well the locator tracker on my phone just started going off, and I followed it to the rink,” Jane explained hastily. “And Kurt was there with his sister and nephew but he made me go skating. For tactical purposes.”

It was clearly an inside joke of some kind because Weller grinned idiotically at her, the way he does when he thinks no one is looking.

“There’s been a lot of strange things going on today,” Reade concluded, looking at his teammates. “All of which to set us up to be here. Should we not be worried?”

He didn’t want to be the guy who put a damper on things but they were fighting a terrorist organization with a huge reach. What if they were targeting the game and trying to take the team down with the rest of the stadium?

“Oh lighten up Eddie,” Zapata said, stressing the nickname she liked to bug him with. “It’s Christmas and it’s football. Look at these seats! And even Weller is drinking beer. So relax and take this.”

She passed him a beer and he didn’t have much choice but to let go of his misgivings, sit back and drink his beverage, enjoy the game and the fact that Tasha was too drunk to care about the current state of their relationship. After all, she was right. Even Weller seemed loose, was explaining the rules of football to Jane, leaning in closer than necessary even with the loudness of the crowd.

The game was a close one, with the Giants scoring first but the visiting Steelers coming right back to tie it. It went back and forth all game right up to the start of the fourth quarter, which started with the Giants up by three.

Tasha was trying to get a rise out of Weller by dissing the Pennsylvania based football teams with Jane looking on in amusement when the game went to commercial break on television and the in-arena entertainment started flashing on the jumbotron.

Reade looked up and saw that it was the Kiss Cam, groaned inwardly feeling like the universe was poking fun at his mistake. The camera flashed to a few different couples who all seemed happy to satisfy the crowd’s desire to see smooching.

And then he saw a familiar hair flip on the screen, a toss of long brown hair strands that he would recognize anywhere.

“You’re on the screen, Tasha!” he shouted, even though she was sitting right next to him.

Now he could see Weller too, and the cameraman was flashing between showing just Weller and Zapata on the screen to just Weller and Jane. It was clear what the question was, the only thing Reade was unsure about was whether Kurt had drunk enough beer to answer it.

What he had never anticipated was that Jane had drunk enough beer and had such epically low alcohol tolerance that she was the one to step up and answer the question for the cameraman. She leaned over and kissed Weller, tentatively for about a nanosecond before they were both all in, unstoppable.

Zapata grinned like a maniac watching, turned to Reade and winked.

“You think I should have gone for it before Jane jumped him?” she asked.

Reade laughed and looked back at the jumbotron just then, saw, to his dismay, that the kiss cam had only just moved over two seats and was firmly focused on Tasha and him.

Shit, he thought. Like a fucking nightmare come to life.

Or like a dream.

Because Zapata was now wasted, like probably not going to remember the second half of the game wasted. And so she reached up to pull him towards her, was kissing him before he even realized what the hell was going on.

It took him half a moment to decide that he had better just go with it. To try and control Tasha at that point would have been pointless. And even if she did remember, there was no doubt who made the move this time.

Reade pulled her to him, the kiss lasting longer than he expected. It felt so good to be connected with Tasha at that level, so illicit too. He didn’t want it to end, kept reaching for her lips even as she drunkenly pulled away, flashed him a self satisfied look.

“I didn’t do that,” she slurred at him seriously.

Reade was still stunned, Weller and Jane too by all appearances. They all stared at Tasha in amazement, barely noticed as the jumbotron announced that they were all winners in the contest, that a team representative would be by shortly to give them their prizes.

When the prize arrived it was again just a plain envelope, with what appeared to be cardboard inside. No one even questioned the safety of the situation this time around and Reade opened the envelope to reveal five tickets to the Rockettes show at Radio City Music Hall that night.

Jane voiced what they must all have been thinking.

“That doesn’t make any sense. There are four of us why would they give us five tickets?”

But of course none of it made any sense at all. From the tracker that had sent Jane to the ice rink, to the envelopes with the football tickets in them. The Broadway tickets were just another oddity along the way. And it was obvious to all of them who the fifth ticket was meant for.

So they all hopped into a cab, ready to spread their weird Christmas luck.

***

Patterson had reverted to an old coping mechanism. Whenever her feelings had overwhelmed her as a child, she had hidden away in her closet by herself. For whatever reason it had helped her feel like her emotions were contained within that space, that they couldn’t follow her out into the world and upset her there.

Not that she was hiding in a closet. But her apartment was her closet now, or her lab at work. A place where she could hide away from the world and pretend it didn’t exist. Trick herself into believing that none of the horrible things that had happened to her that year could hurt her.

She had lied to her family, told them she had to work on Christmas so she couldn’t make her usual visit home. There was no way she could have dealt with that, seeing her parents. She would have fallen apart with them, and they would have gotten it out of her somehow. The whole terrible ordeal, at least everything that wasn’t classified. And there’s no way Patterson could have dealt with that. She wasn’t ready to tell her story, wasn’t sure she ever would be.

So she had hidden away with junk food and her pain. Tasha had asked her if she wanted to spend Christmas with her but Patterson had declined her friend’s well-intentioned invite. Like everyone else, Zapata just wanted to help. But Patterson wasn’t the kind of person that accepted help easily, or at all.

She was already far into the second Lord of the Rings movie, the extended cut of course, when there was a knock at her door. Patterson considered who it could be at dinner time on Christmas Day, then stopped to grab her service weapon on her way to the door.

Patterson opened it a crack and was not particularly surprised to find Tasha Zapata there, smelling of alcohol and hollering somewhat incoherently. She was, however, quite shocked to find Reade, Weller, and Jane on her doorstep as well, all of them also exhibiting various levels of inebriation.

They all yelled Merry Christmas at her together, a bit out of sync but overall it was still pretty adorable. Even when she was at her worst, at least her friends could make her smile. Especially when Zapata was rambling about the Giants game, the kiss cam, tickets to the Rockettes show and everyone else looked somewhere between self-satisfied and embarrassed.

“Wait, did you just say Jane and Weller won the kiss cam contest?” Patterson exclaimed, all her troubles put aside for the moment.

Jane blushed like crazy, then shook her head in desperate denial.

“No,” she stated. “There’s no way we would have won without Tasha and Reade jumping in on the action.”

“What!” Patterson yelped. “I would have sat through football to see this.”

“I was drunk!” Tasha shouted, as if it wasn’t obvious. “And Jane’s right, I totally won us these Rockettes tickets. So let’s go. Our cab is waiting for you, Patterson.”

Leaving her apartment and going tot a cheesy Christmas Broadway show was the last thing that Patterson wanted to do. But she didn’t want to argue with her team, especially with a wasted Zapata. And she had to admit it was kind of nice to see them all together on the holiday.

So Patterson quickly got ready to go out and they pulled up to the show just in time to get to their seats before it started. Just like the football tickets, their seats for the show were great, the dancers right there in front of them.

The show was better than Patterson expected and she found herself getting into the magical dance scenes, especially because Jane was sitting beside her, as wide-eyed as a child watching the spectacle. Patterson thought about how nice it was to see everyone so comfortable with Jane again, that they were together for Christmas after such a brutal year for all of them.

Maybe it wasn’t so bad that she wasn’t able to complete the Lord of the Rings trilogy by herself, that these mysterious things had been happening to the team all day. Even though she felt like she should be more suspicious of everything, the oddness of it all. The rest of them seemed to have thrown all logic out the door, probably due to the holiday drinking. But Patterson was still on the lookout for some sort of trap, anything strange.

It finally happened near the end of the show, during the big finale. Patterson saw a man sneak onto the stage, pull out a gun. Then another man stood up in the middle of the crowd and fired a shot into the air.

Both men started running after that and the team mobilized quickly despite the amount of alcohol still affecting them. They all pulled out their weapons and split up to chase the two different gunmen. Jane and Weller followed the guy from the stage while Patterson, Zapata and Reade chased the man in the crowd.

Patterson ran ahead, glad that at least someone was sober amongst the five of them. The man they were chasing made for the emergency stairs, then started heading up towards the roof. Patterson followed close behind, her gun drawn and ready for action.

When they finally got up to the roof, the man they were after was nowhere to be seen. Patterson, Zapata and Reade looked at each other, befuddled. There was no way he could have escaped them.

Just then, another door to the roof opened and Jane and Weller appeared out of it, looking just as confused as Patterson felt. “What the hell?” Weller yelled. “I saw our target come up here, he would have run right into you guys. Where is he?”

“Same thing happened to us,” Patterson explained. “We got on the roof and our guy had just disappeared.”

She tried to say something more but found herself being drowned out by the sound of an incoming helicopter. Patterson looked up to see what looked like an FBI helicopter about to land on the same roof they were on. The team all pulled back to a safe distance and stared at each other, clearly all baffled by the situation.

When the helicopter finally landed, an FBI agent jumped out and called out their names, said there was an urgent situation that their presence was needed for. Weller questioned the agent and seemed to be satisfied with the answers he got because he waved them into the helicopter, told them all it seemed legit.

Except for the part where no one at the FBI could have known that they would be at the Rockettes show, much less on the roof at that exact moment. Unless Weller had called it in, but even so, that seemed like a huge stretch.

Patterson exhaled worriedly, wondered what they were getting themselves into. Her teammates were still somewhat drunk and they weren’t properly armed or dressed for a mission. Yet she wouldn’t want to be anywhere else at the moment, certainly not at home alone while her friends were together on a sketchy Christmas field op. Despite the large possibility that they were walking straight into an elaborate trap.

***

As her beer buzz started to fade and the situation became less shrouded with alcohol, worry began to creep up Jane’s neck. Even though Weller had checked the agent’s ID and authorization, none of it made any sense at all. How could a helicopter have known that they would be chasing disappearing suspects on the roof of Radio City Music Hall?

But at least she was the team. Christmas had already been better than expected, even if it did end up with them abducted. Jane flushed at the memory of skating with Weller, his hand warm in hers. Then reaching up to kiss him in front of an entire stadium full of people. She still couldn’t believe she had done that. Well, yes she could. She had been quite drunk and it’s not like she didn’t still think about how perfect it had felt, the first time she found a moment just for them. Right before her life got exponentially complicated.

The helicopter began to descend in a densely wooded area, presumably in upstate New York based on the direction and time traveled. When it landed, there was nothing nearby except a cabin, all lit up with Christmas lights on the outside.

They all got out of the helicopter and it flew away without giving them any more information on why they were there. The pilot had claimed to know nothing except that where he was meant to drop them off, that further instructions would be given once they arrived.

Everyone drew their weapons and they split up into groups to do a perimeter check of the building before entering. Jane and Weller went around back, saw that the cabin had a nice deck and a fire pit, with a bonfire already going, more wood piled nearby. They approached the back door and the windows that looked out onto the deck. It didn’t appear that anyone was inside, but it was lit and prepped for festivities.

Jane reached for the doorknob, wasn’t all that surprised to find it unlocked. The day had been extremely strange already, she was no longer shocked by anything.

When she opened the door and walked into the cabin Jane was assaulted by multiple aromas all at once. The scents of roasted turkey and pine trees and spiced cider tickled her nose as she looked around to see a full Christmas dinner laid out on the table, along with copious amounts of alcohol, and mistletoe. A lot of mistletoe.

Jane looked at Weller, saw that he appeared to be as confused as she was. Just then the rest of the team entered the cabin through the front door and they all stood around staring at the table full of food, the absurd amount of decorations.

“What’s that?” Patterson asked, pointing at a package in the middle of the table.

It was a slim gift-wrapped item, arranged as the centrepiece with a placard that said “The Gang”. Weller grabbed it and tore off the paper.

“It’s a tablet,” he stated, handing it to Patterson.

Patterson took the device and looked it over, powered it up.

“It’s only got one video on it,” she reported.

“Well play it,” Zapata urged. “So we can start drinking again.”

Patterson pressed play on the video and a familiar face appeared on the screen, followed by his equally familiar, grating voice. Weller groaned as soon as he heard who it was and Jane sighed as well, shook her head in exasperation.

“Merry Christmas my good friends! Or Happy Hannukah, if you prefer, though I think that was done days ago and none of you present as Jewish. Anyways, happy holidays from your friendly neighbourhood felon, I hope you’ve all had a better day than I’ve had. Which isn’t exactly hard considering I’m enjoying the fine amenities of the federal penitentiary system. Not that I’m complaining, but there isn’t a lot of opportunity to go ice skating or to a football game or to a Broadway musical. Or even just to have Christmas dinner with your family.”

Patterson pressed pause and they all looked at each other, stunned.

“Rich did this? How?” Weller grunted irritably. “He’s in prison. And why would he do this?”

“I bet he tells us,” Reade commented dryly. “Let’s hear what else he’s got to say.”

Patterson pressed play again and the video of Rich continued.

“So I bet you guys are wondering how I did this all from my cold lonely prison cell. But what you should be asking is why I did this all from my cold lonely prison cell. Because the thing is, criminals, they really can be such gossips. And word on the street was my favourite FBI team just took some hits so I thought to myself, Rich, it is your duty to give your good friends at the bureau a Christmas together. So I did this for you. Well, really, I did it for Stubbles and Jane but they’re such suckers for the rest of you that I couldn’t leave anyone out. Well, except for that scary NSA lady, I definitely left her out. That was for you, Jane.”

Rich paused and winked at that point, leaving time for everyone to stare at Jane and Weller who were both blushing, trying not to look at each other. Jane shook her head and bit down hard on her lower lip trying to tame the pitter patter that her heart made at Rich’s words.

“So that’s it. I did this all so you guys would spend Christmas together, like a family should. Well, that and you know, there’s the whole I scratch your ass, you scratch mine kind of thing. I figure a favour owed by my FBI compadres is always a plus. Also, on an unrelated note, did you know I get conjugal visits? Jane, Weller, that’s for your info. Although I think it’s a one at a time thing in here, the federal prison system isn’t in on threesome cultures yet, they’re not very progressive that way.”

Jane looked at Kurt, could see his jaw grinding as he glared at the image of Rich. She had to grin though, as much as Rich annoyed the crap out of her too, at least he was consistent. And he had done a very thoughtful expensive thing for them, had given them all a great day at a difficult time.

“Anyways, that’s all I wanted to say from my sad cold corner of the inmate world. Please think of me while you enjoy the luxuries of the outside. And the next time we meet, remember I could have had you all killed instead of sending you on a romantic adventure.”

With that the screen went dark and Christmas music came on to replace Rich’s voice. For a moment they all just looked at each other trying to process what had happened. But then Tasha grabbed a bottle of wine off the table and started pouring herself a glass, so Weller shrugged and popped open beer for himself too. After that they took down the dinner in record time, Jane eating more than she ever had in a single sitting and then getting laughed at by the rest of the group by moaning about how much she regretted her second plateful.

“Oh my god, she doesn’t know about wearing pants with elastic waistbands for holidays,” Zapata exclaimed. “Or about saving room for dessert.”

Jane joined in the laughing because she genuinely didn’t know about either of those things, had never considered eating so much that her pants would feel uncomfortable. Or that there could be another whole course after the huge amount of food they’d already eaten. Usually when she was reminded of her lifetime of missing memories Jane would feel empty, disconnected. But this time she suspected she had never had a Christmas as full of happiness before, that the previous holidays of her life had not been full of turkey and pumpkin pie.

After dinner, Jane felt the need to move around a bit so she walked out back for some fresh air and added some wood to the fire that had died down while they ate. Once the bonfire was going again she stood by it absorbing the warmth, watching the flickering flames.

She heard the patio door open and looked up to see Weller walking towards her. Rich’s innuendo came back to her in the moment and she almost blushed again. Despite the fairy tale day, the ridiculous kiss cam situation, Jane knew that Kurt wasn’t hers, would likely never be. His trust in her was still fragile, he had barely just started treating her as a friend again. And he was sleeping with Nas, obviously was not looking to start a relationship with a former terrorist.

Weller came to stand next to her at the fire, huddling up close to her and looking up at the sky.

“It’s starting to snow,” he commented, a lazy smile on his face.

She loved seeing him like that, so at ease with everything. She knew things had been hard for him lately, that he was troubled by Shepherd’s role in his life. It had to have been terrible to find out you’d been watched from afar, every since you were a kid. And despite the merry atmosphere and alcohol, she felt bad about having planned this all with Shepherd, no matter what she was doing to counter it now.

“Yeah, it’s so pretty,” she replied.

Jane looked up at Weller, wondered if he had come out to talk to her for a reason. She wished things could be easy between them again, that she could heal all the hurt wrought by her lies. But she had broken a fundamental trust between them and she didn’t know if Kurt could ever truly forgive her for everything she had done, everything she kept from him.

She was still searching for something to say when Weller turned to look at her, wearing a slightly anxious expression. Jane braced herself for some sort of disappointment, though she couldn’t imagine what she was so afraid of. Kurt had been so kind to her all day, she supposed she was just worried because the fairy tale had to end some time.

“So, um, Jane,” Weller started, glancing at her nervously. “I know we didn’t talk about this, and I don’t want to put you on the spot.”

Now she was really confused, her shoulders starting to tense up with fear about whatever bomb he’s about to drop on Christmas, of all days.

“What are you talking about Kurt?” she managed to squeak out, her heart rate ramping up with anticipation.

Weller sighed, pulled something out of his pocket.

“I got you something for Christmas. I know, I shouldn’t have, so there’s no reason to feel bad that you didn’t get me anything. But I saw it and it made me think of you. It was an impulse thing and it was probably a mistake. And then I brought it skating because I wanted to figure how to give it to you without it being weird and so I had it here with me...”

“Kurt, you’re rambling,” Jane interrupted, taking the small box from his hand, feeling her heart flutter.

Weller had given her something in a similar box before and the moment caught in her chest, stopped her in her tracks. But she could tell that this was something different, that it was something for her, not Taylor.

Jane opened the box to reveal a vibrant green gemstone, cut sharp and shaped like a miniature dagger. She pulled the pendent out to admire it closely, run her fingers admiringly over the sharp edges.

“Kurt, it’s gorgeous,” she said. “But I can’t accept this.”

Kurt silently reached out to take the necklace from her and put it around her neck.

“Yes it is,” he agreed. “And yes you can.”

“It’s the colour of your eyes,” he murmured in her ear. “And its beautiful, but deadly. Just like you.”

Maybe Christmas really was a magical season. Or maybe she was just delusional.

But either way, Weller was saying absurd things to her and Jane was going to run with it.

“I love it,” she replied, unable to form any more coherent words. “Thank you, Kurt. I’m sorry I didn’t get you anything.”

Weller shook his head, smiled at her winningly.

“This day together, being here right now to give it to you. That’s everything I could have wanted,” he replied.

Honestly it’s everything she could have wanted too. This day with her team, the people she considered to be her family. And time with Kurt, without the endless stress of their regular lives.

Still Jane wished she had gotten something for him, just had never thought that he would buy her a Christmas present. Especially something that was so thoughtful, and, by all appearances, expensive too. She had thought about whether she was meant to buy something for Kurt but wouldn’t have been able to get him anything much, considering her meagre asset stipend. Still, she could have drawn him something, or tried her hand at baking something chocolatey. Now though, it was obviously too late to remedy the situation.

Or was it?

For an instant Jane’s mind turned to the gaudy Christmas decorations in the cabin, then to her own favourite memory of the day.

She looked at Weller wistfully, glad he couldn’t read what was going on in her mind. They were friends again and that was already more than she expected. And he wasn’t hers, no matter how much she wanted him.

But that moment of letting it all go, reaching up for his lips in front of a roaring stadium. It kept coming back to her, taunting her.

‘What would Rich do?’

The question flashed through her mind, seemingly out of nowhere. And there was clearly only one answer.

“This is everything that I want,” she replied as she reached her arms up around Kurt’s neck, pulled him towards her until their lips met.

Again, the kiss was soft and shy to start and Weller’s initial surprised hesitation only lasted a split second before his hands came up to her face, and his mouth started exploring hers hungrily.

Jane had never felt more connected, passionate, content. Being wrapped up in Kurt, the heat of his body warming her in intense unfamiliar ways. She pulled him to her fiercely and ran her fingers down the back of his neck, trying to permanently record the moment in her memory.

She was just thinking she could just stand there and make out with Kurt forever when the patio door opened again and she heard Zapata’s voice hollering a half-joking warning about no more kissing.

Weller pulled away at the interruption, then looked at her with dazed eyes.

Jane grinned, her tongue poking out the corner of her mouth playfully at him.

“Merry Christmas, Kurt,” she whispered.

Kurt broke into a huge smile, slung his arm around her shoulders.

“This day was a dream right?” he replied. “I’m pretending none of this ever happened.”

Jane knew what he meant, felt the same way herself as the rest of the team came up to join them around the fire. It was Christmas and she was with her family, wrapped up in Kurt Weller’s arms, with him insisting that she’s too thin, needs to be kept warm.

So, of course, Jane chose to not tell him that it was already the warmest she had felt in ages, that she couldn’t possibly dream up a better Christmas. Instead she just snuggled into Kurt, mentally thanking their felonious frenemy for the most absurdly wonderful day of her life.

[dreamerinsilico]

the obligatory “I just saw Rise of Skywalker” post

TLDR: My very low expectations were met.  I didn’t consider it a waste of two hours.

Spoiler-free overview: It had some genuinely good, often funny banter, and a few character moments and narrative beats I thought were good at least in theory, if not necessary in implementation.  

A lot of good actors did their best with a lot of bad writing.  Structurally, I thought the way the ending resolved worked, if you accept the premise of the conflict.  Unfortunately, the premise of the conflict was ridiculous from so many different angles I was rolling my eyes every few minutes.  

JJ Abrams really needs to learn that not every fucking scene needs to be some flavor of highlights reel-worthy bombastic - it cheapens every actual Big Moment when the music and the cinematography and the delivery of the dialogue is trying to communicate “big moment” in every scene.

Spoiler-ridden rambling below the cut:

It speaks to the overall ridiculousness of the film that both my absolute favorite and least favorite things about it are minor details.  :P

My favorite: When Our Heroes asked Hux why he turned on the First Order, I stage-whispered to my brother, “Because Kylo Ren is a dick!” right before Hux said almost exactly that.  It was just such a perfect “...and we all know I’m that petty” detail, but it also really.... it stood out hardcore to me as an anomaly in the Star Wars saga, being basically the one and only case of one character’s shitty treatment of another having direct, major consequences!  There’s plenty of friendship-based loyalty in Star Wars, and obviously a few big turncloak cases (Anakin, Anakin/Vader again, Kylo/Ben) where it was about the person’s loyalty to someone(s) on the other side, but Hux betrays the First Order strictly because Kylo Ren is an asshole and he’s fed up.  (Contrary to every other Empire/First Order character who gets abused by a Sith on the regular.)  A+, most believable thing in all of Star Wars.

My least favorite: FORCEGHOST!LUKE GAVE REY LEIA’S LIGHTSABER, WHICH WAS GREEN, AND WAS LIKE ‘YOU’LL TAKE BOTH OF THESE TO SITH PLANET’ (yes, good, setting up the eleventh-hour Rey-Ben alliance, symbolically appropriate, I like it) AND THEN WHEN SHE WAS FACING PALPATINE AND BEN WAS COMING TO HELP BOTH THE FUCKING LIGHTSABERS WERE BLUE!  IS THIS FINAL-SEASON-OF-GOT-THERE’S-APPARENTLY-STARBUCKS-IN-WESTEROS LEVEL CARELESSNESS, OR DID SOMEONE ACTUALLY THINK THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA FOR SOME UN-FUCKING-FATHOMABLE REASON?!?!?!

*clears throat*  Anyway.  I may have walked out of the theater ranting about that one.

Okay, next on the docket, the Reylo in the room:

It is not and has never been my ship, but in a big-picture sense I don’t actually hate it, and I definitely don’t hate the way their final scene went down.  However, any actual satisfaction I might have taken in their arc is inevitably hamstrung by the fact that Kylo Ren does not, in my opinion, have one good line of dialogue in any movie he’s in, and his characterization has been actively cruel and unsympathetic the whole series, except for a very few moments with Rey, and most of the time with her he’s still being a condescending prick.  “I’m going to find you, and I’m going to turn you to the dark side.”  My dude.  Maybe say literally anything other than that, if your goal is to actually change her mind.  

I actually like (*coughs*  love, more and more obsessively), on a big-picture level, the whole “bonding with your nemesis” thing, as a trope.  But the nemesis needs to have some redeeming qualities other than the ability to look sad and tortured.  With better writing in general, and an antagonist with any actual depth/substance, it could have worked, and worked well.  As it is, I find I’m not mad at it as a thing, but like... what a damn shame.  It could have been great; instead it’s hollow and incredibly under-realized.  Incredibly.  Even setting aside the fact that the set-up was hamfistedly awful (I’m talking about their interactions in the previous movies and this one, where he spends all his time telling her what she Has To Do, Inevitably, and she spends all her time telling him to fuck off), shouldn’t she... have some kind of reaction to his death?  Like, any reaction?  Contemplation after the fact?  Acknowledgement that someone she had a Force connection to so strong they could communicate telepathically wherever they were is now dead?  But no, we’re cutting to triumphant music and the Resistance winning and Rey’s back in the X-wing and Ben Solo will not be mentioned again.

All of it is so damn hollow I’m peripherally kind of amazed at how riled up people seem to have gotten about it.  I just can’t summon an emotion stronger than exasperation.

I can summon an emotion stronger than exasperation for the way the script played Finn’s implied romantic love for Rey for laughs.  Finn Deserved Better; Disney is Terrible.  I’m so glad John Boyega is apparently telling them to piss off regarding future opportunities for him to be disrespected.  

<333 Poe and Finn’s “bickering married couple” dynamic, which apparently both actors have been intentionally playing up to the extent that they were able.  

Rey’s internal conflict, while beautifully acted by Daisy Ridley, did not make any damn sense, just like it didn’t make sense in TLJ.  Of course I get that one of the central themes is birth versus who you choose to be, but like.... she’s never once done anything that should make her or anyone else worry that she’s going to suddenly become a megalomaniacal Sith Lord.  As my brother pointed out, if they’d actually had her accidentally kill Chewie, as we were very briefly lead to believe, that might have lent it some credence.  But as it stands, her fear of herself just feels... completely inappropriate and unreasonable, given that aside from a few short outbursts that had no lasting consequences, she’s never deviated from the compassionate, generous person everyone except Kylo Ren (and Luke, I guess, in parts of TLJ) knows her to be.

I could spend another few thousand words talking about how nothing about Palpatine being Back or the Final Order existing and having planet-cracking weapons on every one of their enormous fleet out in a hidden system no one knows how to get to makes no fucking sense, but let’s just... leave it at that.  I’d rather not.  

It was a typical Disney conglomerate soulless cash-grab that had some entertaining bits, and some bits that could have been fantastic had anyone with power actually cared about telling a cohesive story rather than relying almost entirely on dramatic music and the actors’ facial expressions to make people feel things.

(PS: Where the heck did that yellow lightsaber come from?)

[dgcatanisiri]

So. Did see Rise of Skywalker today.

“Flawed, but probably as good as we were going to get” is my two cent summary, especially given some of the whispers I’m hearing about what went on behind the scenes that, in effect, this was “the Disney shareholder’s” trilogy more than any individual, and I think you all can guess my opinion of the Disney shareholders in general... (plus the inevitable difficulty of trying to unify two movies that honestly had a lot of tonal and thematic clash to begin with).

You want more details, they’re behind the cut, because I’m going to respect the spoiler tags.

First things first, let me get this out of the way first, Kelly Marie Tran and Rose Tico DESERVED. BETTER. Like, bare minimum, I think there should have been a scene between her and Rey at the start while Rey is reading the Jedi tomes. Just a little something that connects the two. Better still, use her as a touchstone character for what’s happening at the Resistance base in the first half - yeah, sure, you can only do so much with the jiggered footage of Carrie Fisher, but SO. WHAT. Leia doesn’t have to be in those scenes. 

Hell, have her and Connix talk, considering that Connix was significant enough to both be in charge of the D’Qar evacuation AND Poe’s right hand during the mutiny. Since Connix is played by Billie Lourd, Carrie Fisher’s daughter, it’d have been a fine connection there, especially if you want to include some foreshadowing of Leia’s eventual death, talk about them being concerned about the way that the General is handling everything happening, losing everyone so close to her.

Like, that’s the off the top of my head ways to enhance Rose’s part in this movie without significantly altering any of the plot. Truthfully, I think she should have been part of the group the whole time anyway. 

I still don’t particularly like the return of Palpatine as the big bad, meaning that we’re pretty much completely undermining the end of the original trilogy. I mean, wasn’t that what Anakin Skywalker’s death in Return of the Jedi meant? At least when the Legends line brought him back, it was a) still during the post-RotJ war clean up, where the Empire was still fighting after Endor, still part of the same war, and b) left ambiguous enough if that was genuinely Palpatine or just a clone that claimed to be the original Palpatine.

But I can also appreciate the thematic relevance of Palpatine, the Emperor, Darth Sidious, whatever name he uses, being the overarching villain of the Skywalker Saga. So... We’ll call it even? Meh.

I will RELUCTANTLY allow the idea of Leia sacrificing herself to pull back her son from the dark side, mostly on the basis of being limited by the footage of Carrie Fisher, so using her death to have story meaning can be tolerated. Still don’t like it - I have firmly been of the believe that, given all the times he made the active choice to be evil, he could not simply return to the light, be redeemed or forgiven. But since he did, ultimately, die, I will allow it - I’m only going to be able to view his death as, effectively, him making the only effort at atonement that could be done, stopping Palpatine, before his true penance came in not being able to be a part of the galaxy he helped to save.

That said, I do NOT accept the kiss. I will only even possibly pretend it happened under the pretense of being a heat of the moment victory thing that meant nothing. Because FUCK REYLOW.

First half of the movie is HORRENDOUSLY compacted. Like, I legit feel like there was a good fifteen minutes or more hacked out of it. Too much is happening right off the bat and just doesn’t stop. It settles down eventually, but MAN could that have done with less compression.

Honestly, overall, it feels like at least two movies crammed into one, like Disney refused to split it up because “but it’s a TRILOGY!” Which, uh... Not to open the “TLJ discourse” can of worms, but... That was always going to happen, considering the massive tonal clash between Abrams and Johnson as writers and directors. Especially with Johnson having basically done nothing that would advance a core arc, by way of having the main characters of the trilogy interact - TLJ had Rey, Finn, and Poe all in different plots in separate areas, which made no sense to begin with, considering these were supposed to be the core characters, shouldn’t they have actually gotten to interact sooner? 

Like I said in the summary, TFA and TLJ have little that actually connects them. In the sense of creating a coherent narrative, it’s not unreasonable that Abrams downplayed a lot of Johnson’s elements, considering that Johnson did the same with elements Abrams included in TFA - Finn’s potential Force affinity (I’ll get to that), the Knights of Ren (suddenly back with no explanation), the conscription of child soldiers as stormtroopers (which really SHOULD have been a core part of TLJ, instead of the child slavery on Canto Bight, considering it mattered to Finn’s character as already established), the idea that Luke had been searching for something (because why would he have left a map to where he was going in TFA if, as TLJ said, he went to Ach-to to wait for death?)... TRoS was always going to be in a bind on these things, and, really, considering that neither film prior was written with an ending in mind, there was no real solution but to just dance around the subject.

Let’s talk briefly about the Poe background stuff, which... *sigh* It was so POINTLESS to introduce the idea that he was a drug dealer. Like, first of all, RACIST AS FUCK to make the Latino man a drug dealer. Secondly, when and how, considering his canon back story is that he is the son of minor Rebel heroes, how did he have the time for this to happen? Third and not least, the guy’s an ace pilot, why WOULDN’T he know about hotwiring vehicles? He should know them inside and out!

Zorii is... There. That’s about all I really can say about her. Same with Jannah. Both of these felt like characters who SHOULD have had more relevance, had they been introduced sooner (and in which case, I’d toss Zorii and swap in Rose anyway). Considering they’re dropped in at the last second as they are, they honestly end up just feeling like props meant to portray Poe and Finn as straight, which... 

Okay, Disney overlords are homophobic cowards. Let’s just acknowledge that right off. Finn/Poe was a ship that was never going to be allowed off the ground. We all knew it going in. So make Finn/Rey a thing and let Poe be read as gay, even if it’s not said. It would have been that simple. TFA laid the foundation, and that hug in TLJ was a good building block as well. But no. You have to be cowards and not “rock the boat” by both not having an interracial relationship AND trying to appease the Reylows. Ugh.

Anyway, any and all flirtation between Poe and Zorii is PURE mlm/wlw joking with one another. Stormpilot is endgame. Rey/Rose is real. Fuck Disney and fuck canon. MOVING ON.

Also on that note, FINN IS FORCE SENSITIVE, GODDAMMIT. The adamant refusal to acknowledge this REALLY pisses me off, because Finn is a PERFECT mirror to Kylo Ren and should have been his counterpart throughout this trilogy - Finn was a nameless stormtrooper with no past, Kylo was the heir to legacies, Finn refused to slaughter innocents, Kylo gave that order. Finn embraced the Resistance, Kylo led the First Order. THIS is the duality of characters that should have driven this trilogy. I’m not trying to take away Rey’s significance, but...

When people complain about Rey’s lineage, I’m just not all that big on this matter. First of all, I was neutral on the subject from day one. As time has gone on, however, I have reached a point where I’m just ‘...well, yeah, of course she’s got an important lineage.’ Because TFA made a big deal of this fact. This was her driving motivation. On top of that, TLJ trying the “they were nobodies” thing actually legit pisses me off, because what abandoned child just casually accepts “they were nobodies”? Even if they weren’t significant (which, again, by way of Maz and the lightsaber calling to her in TFA, there was a strong implication of them being significant, particularly with the stage directions in the script for Luke and Leia when interacting with Rey), they weren’t nobodies FOR HER. But TLJ basically has her discard the search casually.

So you want a hero who comes from nothing? Again, may I present FINN, the stormtrooper who came from nothing, who should have been leading a stormtrooper uprising, who should have gotten to be a Jedi, who DESERVED BETTER THAN THIS TRILOGY GAVE HIM...

Gah. Okay. I’m tired of ranting about the things that I didn’t like. There ARE positives, I swear!

Chewie’s breakdown over Leia’s death about broke me. Like, the moment he collapses... God, that was choking me up an hour later, too. How much it must hurt Chewie and Lando to be the only ones left... Honestly, I was half afraid that the Falcon would be destroyed during that final conflict. 

Honestly, I know the idea was that Han’s appearance was just a figment, a manifestation of the inner thoughts, but I’m going to call it confirmation of Han being Force sensitive. Mostly because I picture Han losing his shit at the idea. And, honestly, I can’t help but wish that, at the least, we could have had Leia appear there, but we weren’t going to get that either way.

Speaking of Leia, honestly, I think they did the best they could with what they had of her, and, truthfully, I think it was a fine tribute to Carrie, to have Leia there, die within the context of this movie, and not just die off between films. Yes, it bound their hands some, but... It wouldn’t have been right without her, either. 

Though I do reiterate that the binding with the footage is no excuse for hacking Rose practically out of the film entirely.

I focused on the issues I had against the movie, mostly because I feel like they stood out more than the things that I liked. The problem this trilogy has had since day one is that they went into this without a plan. This trilogy never knew where it was going until this movie came along. So two movies of basically throwing everything at the wall, leading to one movie having to tie it all up. This movie was always going to struggle, but in the end, I think it probably came out as best as it could.

If you want to call that damning with faint praise... I suppose it sort of is, but, more truthfully, it’s seeing it for what it is and judging it as such. This movie was hobbled before it could walk, that it managed what it did as well as it did is really a tribute to those who tried to make it work.

I feel like that’s all the major things I have to bring up right now. Though I will add... Yeah, let’s be real. They call this the end of the Skywalker Saga, but in twenty years or so, we’re going to get a fourth trilogy. Because we’re basically at the point of “every generation’s going to have their own Star Wars trilogy.”

[kinetic-elaboration]

September 10: The 100 1x06 Fog of War

Mmmm watching another ep and it’s been less than six months since the last one?! * jinxes self *

Bellarke date at the outside cafe. (WHY IS THIS OUTSIDE CAFE NOT IN MORE FICS? WHY IS IT NOT IN MY FICS?)

I don’t always love Clarke’s art tbh but I do love her Mount Weather sketch.

“You won’t be by yourself.” They are canonically Soft with each other.

I have a hard time believing they would wait two days just sitting on their hands, Abby or no Abby. YOU GUYS WERE THE LEADERS. JUST LEAD STUFF.

“We’re at war. We’ve all done things,” is, like, first, beyond the point, because even in war, one doesn’t usually attack civilian villages. (Unless one is a terrorist.) And second, it’s weird that Bellamy would be defending Finn? Not really sure how to read that. Unless his hatred of Grounders is truly that intense, which is possible. And third, are they really still at war? Because after attacking the dropship, the Grounders have done... literally nothing? Like it’s a semi-war scenario.

“Next round’s on me.” Do they have to.... pay for things...? With what lol?

“Salvaged Monty’s still. Now if we could only salvage Monty.” Someone here has a sense of humor. Also lol @ everyone at Camp Jaha using a teenager’s illegal still.

Really, the “pardon for surviving” should not include time on the ground, because pardons aren’t forward looking. Also they bring back the idea of trying Finn later. They just don’t want to deal with Murphy and Finn, and don’t really see the massacre of Grounders as a big deal, which, I am a Sky Person partisan to the last, does not reflect well on them. I think also they still haven’t figured out what tf their judicial system on the ground is, and just don’t want to deal with that yet either. Which isn’t a great excuse but it’s of a piece with how this show deals with society-building questions in general. (By... not.)

And Finn still doesn’t even feel bad.

And Murphy thinks Clarke and Finn are still together...? I guess that makes sense given how long he was away. He’s ALWAYS behind on delinquent gossip.

Clarke to Murphy: “Just because they pardoned you doesn’t mean I have.” Another line that should be iconic.

If Mount Weather is the reason they never heard from any other Ark Stations then they should have heard from more of them after S2 just putting that out there.

Raven is so beautiful.

And I’m sorry but she’s completely in love with Clarke here.

“You and your friends are not soldiers...” Hmmmm except in a certain sense they kind of are. Love this s2 adults versus delinquents conflict though.

Anyway I realize this is just to get them going back to Mount Weather but they were apparently doing this radio mission to get more Guards from other stations, which never happened, which sort of reminds me of Day Trip and the ‘winter supplies’ excursion when apparently winter doesn’t exist in the future anyway.

Literally only now at the credits.... Why am I like this?

So Maya couldn’t survive on the ground, obviously, because blood isn’t good enough, it has to be bone marrow, which, fine, for plot purposes--but what if she could???

“I know the plan was to assimilate them into the gene pool.” COMPLETELY forgot about that. So they did have a reason for being so nice to them. That is a rather long term plan though...

With the delinquent blood, they’ll “live longer and feel better.” I wonder what the sickness rate is, then. What the quality of life is, low vitamin d aside.

“If I agree to harvest those kids, then I won’t deserve to see [the outside] again.”

That Finn is a good tracker is, like, not a retcon in the sense that this was true in season 1, but still a semi retcon in the sense that nothing in the very early episodes implies he’s Mr. Earth Skills. (Unlike, say... Wells.)

Privileged Ark people really do just throw rules around and up and down however they like. Like, Abby clearing her daughter’s friend because “he was trying to save his friends” even though what he did was objectively much worse than pretty much anything the 100 were imprisoned for? Or other people killed for? Hmmm,, yeah, okay.

Jaha’s death wish transformed into a lazy acceptance that he is invincible is truly one of the best character arcs on this show imo. Infuriating but amazing.

“How many times on the Ark did we go two days without water?”

He recognizes the prison as a train station, which is not objectively surprising but I bet the Grounders don’t know what it is. Somehow. Since memory isn’t a thing in the future either.

On the one hand, it’s reasonable to think that Finn’s attack was coordinated from above but on the other hand, these two prisoners literally could not have ordered it, because they have been... imprisoned... the entire time. And I mean truly putting two Sky People who could not themselves have been involved in another Sky Person’s murder spree into some sort of Saw scenario in response to that murder spree really isn’t “justice” in any sense of the word. Like truly the JD in me is just SCREAMING. There is no nexus between the people you have and the person you’re angry at, other than “Sky Person” but the thread is so tangled you’re just.... throwing around bloodshed for lolz. (I know it’s a test and that part isn’t dumb but the scaffolding of the test is DUMB.)

I am still not over that someone gave Jasper a stuffed toy bear as a thank you for giving Maya blood. Also, it looks like... an alarm clock?

I like Dante but every time he says “Jasper” it just creeps me out. Maybe it’s the way he’s, uh, playing him.

It is 100% true that Mount Weather was not meant to last that long. At least not in the sense of ‘as a closed facility.’

Ridiculous as it is to pardon Finn AND take him adventuring AND give him a gun, I like the tension between him and the others, that they have officially forgiven him, and want to still love him, but are wary of him, scared of him, for good reason. For all that people are constantly ‘doing bad things’ and yelling at each other about it, this scenario doesn’t really have a parallel anywhere else in the canon.

“According to Clarke, before the bombs, there were buildings everywhere here. I’m guessing some of the had access to the bunker. So we’re looking for ruins. Anything man-made.”

Bellamy says he and O aren’t under the Guard command. But in a way, aren’t they? Like aren’t the Guard basically in authority over all Arkers? I know I’m overthinking but does he see himself as more delinquent than Arker? Especially with the “our people” are in Mount Weather.

All those mice.... Or rodents....

What a scenario: Clarke and Finn hiding from the acid fog in a weird little personal bunker where they once fucked, and now there’s a dead body in it, and Finn put it there. Not even Olav can top this.

Raven playing with the radio is my kink.

Parking garage as tomb. Who would protect a parking garage with a big-ass steal door that protects cars from radiation? If it does lead to Mount Weather (no recollection if it does) I guess it could be... part of it? Idk. Nice aesthetic though.

Bellamy is very comfortable calling people Sir. Polite young man.

So Clarke’s Dad’s watch returns to Clarke. I can’t remember what ultimately happened to it. Is it basically tainted now?

Monty’s obscene jealousy of Maya just gets me every single time. Makes up for the horrendous second hand embarrassment I’m getting from the rest of this scene.

“Hey, it’s pizza day! Who’s hungry?” uhhhhhhhhhhmmmmm So natural. Cute dress though.

How did she figure out the breach wasn’t an accident? Or that there is surveillance? Anyway now that she knows she was experimented on, and that Jasper was experimented on, one would assume she is pissed. One would assume that’s part of why she shows them the Grounders. Also to stop Jasper perhaps from embroiling his people even more with (her own) untrustworthy people. Because truly it is in part to save them, but it’s also a real risk to herself, admitting this terrible thing she’s been a part of.

“To get you to agree to be her blood brother.” He’s not wrong but that language is sooooo jealous--both revealing the threat he feels (because Jasper is his ‘brother’) and diminishing the JasperMaya relationship (which he knows to be romantic, and is turning familiar.)

Why did the show ever try to top the pure horror of the Grounder Torture Prison?

“What are we supposed to do?” / “Die.” Another Iconic Exchange. This is Monty’s morality: uncompromising. Are the standards he sets for himself hypocritical or consistent? Also, some foreshadowing lol.

I wonder what Monty’s allegiance is to the other kids... Would he have irradiated the Mountain for them if Jasper were safe? Legit question because he defects to his mom’s side pretty fast in S3, and he would 100% leave Mount Weather through the side door just like Clarke, at this point, which Jasper refuses to do even if it were possible. I am intrigued by this scene and the switching of plans/different points of view.

So this is the revelation that the acid fog is a Mount Weather weapon. I always really liked that twist.

Okay so this explains why they didn’t get to the other stations, because they choose to keep the tower up to listen to Mount Weather, but it’s actually not a tough call bc if you defeat Mount Weather and take your people back, then you can get rid of the blocking signal, and then find your other people, so win-win, you just have to go in order and on that note, why did it take 3 months to find only one station??

Is that a....hand crank mp3?? Got a lot of juice from just a little bit of cranking.

There are a hella lot of storylines in this episode. I completely forgot about Jaha and Kane and Lexa.

Kane’s continuing death wish makes him utterly unreasonable. What in a million years makes you think that the Grounders value sacrifice as opposed to just being sadists? I mean, you don’t know. You’re imposing your value system and also your thought processes on them. You’re also assuming that if one of you killed the other, the survivor would actually get something, like a chance to negotiate, which is probably not true--in fact, Gustus basically told you as much with “We’ll hear the terms of your surrender form the survivor.” Winning means nothing except you get to surrender!! And probably die!! They are not coming to you in good faith is what I’m trying to say and having watched the whole season I know I am Right.

“You didn’t order the massacre.” / “Not that one.” Honestly dude get over it lol. Interesting that Jaha, although he has transformed in some ways, keeps to the old lines, about survival, the human race--and our people, if the human race is broader than just the Ark, which it is, and no big deal. So in some ways his morality has not changed at all, at its core.

Look, I’m sorry, not to be that person, but he probably would have been better off killing Lexa there. I mean, I know he’s choosing ‘an innocent’ in his mind but... what a power move to behead the Commander WHILE you’re her prisoner. Good old Jaha, smart and quick and sure of himself.

Just uh not quick enough at murdering I guess.

I’m no Lexa fan but that was an excellent entrance and it remains an excellent entrance. Also while I never thought she was as smart as people said, because name me another tactical decision she made that was actually good, this was a smart ploy. And probably the most subtle thing any Grounder character ever did, even if it does end with her basically beating Jaha up ‘as a message’ as if she were a gangster.

Is this the episode that introduces Blood Must Have Blood? Already Tired of it tbh.

This Clarke and Finn scene is so sad. I realize that they  purposefully made him unredeemable at this point, that this story line was always intended to be the method by which he was written off, and that there’s only so much awkwardness you can write around this scenario, but nevertheless it would have been interesting to see Finn in the long term, in a way. Not redeemed.. I don’t know. Whatever I’m thinking it’s not in the range of this show, though, for sure.

Did Jasper and Monty tell all of the 47 everything? To get them to volunteer? (Answer: No, but they told at least Harper and Miller, maybe a few more.)

“How high are you right now?” We were SO robbed of more intoxicated!Monty scenes.

Jasper and Dante: creepy creepy creepy.

“There’s been a Wallace in this office since the bombs.” So glad to know we immediately reverted to some sort of pseud-monarchy post-nuclear war. That said it’s only been 97 years so that’s like 3 Wallaces tops.

Prioritizing the radio also means of course admitting that getting the 47 out of MW is a priority for Abby/Ark PTB, which wasn’t exactly clear before.

I’ve never been a fan of the “Build a brace for yours” line and I’m still not, because I think conflating physical and mental injuries is not exactly helpful, but I guess I appreciate it as a look into Raven’s mind--Raven, who has never really understood mental scars and never really does--and the soft way she says it is a sort of forgiveness. Not really forgiveness she has the right to offer, and in a way a very brash thing to do, because this was literally a war crime that her best friend committed, but nevertheless.

Jaha: appears. Everyone else: what the absolute fuck.

So on that mission they accomplished... literally nothing they set out to do lol.

What is that random shot of Camp Jaha doing there? They’re not within sight of it. They’re still where they set up tents.

I want to point out that this is the FIRST time the Grounders have demanded that the Sky People “leave” or implied in any way that they consider the Sky People to be on “their” land, and that this was never an issue in Season 1, when their beef seemed to be for things like crossing the river at Mount Weather, accidentally dropping their flares on a Grounder village, and torturing a Grounder spy. But I guess at this point the narrative needed to focus on something because the actual reason for the feud, which is roughly, we accidentally pissed each other off and then kept on retaliating, doesn’t play very well or make the Grounders, who were rehabilitated this season, very sympathetic. (Guess who still has zero sympathy lololol?)

[robininthelabyrinth]

Fic: An Internal Affair - Chapter 8 (Ao3 link)

Fandom: The Flash Pairing: Leonard Snart/Barry Allen

Summary: Leonard Snart, the CCPD Captain of Internal Affairs, is known as Captain Cold for a very good reason: He hates corrupt cops with a merciless vengeance, and once you’re on his list, you’re in serious trouble.

His next target?

A CCPD lab tech named Barry Allen who’s developed a suspicious habit of disappearing at random intervals.

—————————————————————————————————

Barry's got hearts in his eyes, a song on his lips, and he feels like he could fly.

Not literally, which is a good thing - he can run up sheer building faces if he builds up enough speed, apparently, but flying is still out of the question at the moment, though Cisco, while musing, said something mildly terrifying about the possibility of creating lift using Barry's legs to make a cyclone - but just, you know, metaphorically.

Okay, yes, his life still sucks in basically every way: Captain Cold is still at large and gunning for both of Barry's personas, Iris is still on the new task force (officially, it's supposed to be an investigative and analytical unit dealing in unusual phenomena in Central, but given its new precinct nickname as the Anti-Flash Task Force, Barry's got his doubts), the Man in Yellow is still out there and Barry's no closer to either catching him or proving his dad's innocence, Barry's still having a crisis of conscience over whether what he's doing as the Flash is the right thing to do or not...

But!

His date with Len was - amazing.

Barry's never connected so easily with someone. They talked about - everything. His dad, Iris - Len was so understanding about what Barry was going through, and he opened up, too, about his best friend and his complicated relationship with his sister...

They even root for the same sports teams!

(Okay, Central City only has the ones, but whatever, it's nice to commiserate with someone who understands the sheer euphoric misery of rooting for the worst team in the league...)

Seriously, that might have been the best date of Barry's life, and he's still not sure if Len wants to be more-than-friends or just keep it platonic.

Barry knows which one he'd prefer.

God, he's still not over how absolutely it was. Barry actually had the chance to talk about Iris, really talked about her instead of lying about the depth of his feelings about her, and instead of being repelled, Len understood.

"She's your anchor," Len told him, a small, fond smirk curling his lips. "Someone fundamental. Someone necessary for you to be you. I get that."

For Len, his first anchor had been his sister. He'd practically raised her; she'd been the center of his world for a long time. Only after she grew up did he make a conscious effort to distance himself - for her own benefit, he said wistfully, to make sure she had the room to spread her wings and fly - but Barry can tell that Len still cares for her deeply.

Just like he cares for his best friend, Mick. That's the one in the hospital, following the incident that Len didn't want to talk about – if Barry's theories about Len's history were right, probably the criminal job gone wrong that ultimately inspired Len to get out of the business and go straight, though of course it could be anything. Len made it very clear that while they were purely platonic, he considered his relationship with Mick to be as important as any other relationship in his life, and that he wouldn't sacrifice it for anything, not even while Mick stayed in the coma.

Barry gets that. He totally gets it, really - it's the same way with him and Iris. Sure, he's also in love with her, but he knows by now that barring something horrific happening that he would never wish on anyone, much less his best friend, he's probably not going to be with her, and, well, he's learning to be okay with that. But even accepting that, in no universe can he imagine a life without Iris, a world where she isn't his best friend and a part of his life.

Maybe that's why Barry empathizes with Len so strongly over his situation.

God, it's just occurring to him that Iris was in Len's exact situation - Barry in a coma for nine months, with no idea if he'd ever wake up...

No wonder her bond with Eddie is so strong. He was there for her when she really needed someone.

Yeah, Barry's - no, saying he's okay with it is a lie, but he thinks he's starting to really see a path forward.

That path doesn't lead to the house he'd always dreamed he'd live in, with Iris and their kids calling him Dad and complaining about their day as they settle down to dinner, no, but maybe to something near that: an apartment down the street from Iris' house, swinging by in the afternoon to cries of "Uncle Barry!", Eddie and Iris beckoning him into the living room for homemade smoothies and neighborhood gossip, Eddie looking at Iris with pride and love in his eyes when he thinks she's not looking and Barry watching them both, his heart full, not of jealousy, but of pride and joy that they're letting him be involved...

A pair of hands falling onto his shoulders from behind, a charming smile and a habitually insincere apology about running late after getting caught up at work as Len leans down and presses his lips to Barry's cheek -

Whoa, there, Barry tells himself firmly. Definitely getting ahead of myself there.

Pretty nice to daydream about, though...

"I bet we get another postponement," Detective Lloyd groans in Barry's ear. "What a waste!"

Barry twitches, knocked out of his cheerful musings.

Right.

He's technically at work.

Only technically, though - he's at court to testify about one of the crime scenes he examined and the results of the tests he conducted, including the one that led to the defendant's arrest on numerous charges. It isn't Barry's favorite part of his job - far from it - but it's necessary, and he doesn't mind it.

Besides, if he's finished all of his currently ongoing projects by the time court starts, he gets whatever remains of the day after the court hearing off of work without using up any of his (rapidly dwindling) vacation time.

"I think there's a chance we'll be heard today," Barry says encouragingly to the man. He’s not exactly thrilled to be stuck here with Detective Walter Lloyd, the investigating detective assigned to the same case, but it could be worse. They've been on the same case team a few times, Barry and Detective Lloyd - he'd made it clear that they weren't close enough for Barry to get to use 'Walter', but other than that, Barry thought they worked pretty decently together. Lloyd never questioned Barry's results and even sometimes took Barry's suggestions.

Of course, he has a bad habit of always asking Barry to get him his coffee...

"Yeah, maybe," Detective Lloyd says skeptically. "I bet the perp's lawyers are doing this on purpose, getting us called in and then making a whole bunch of motions so we're just stuck out here, waiting..."

"I'm sure that's not it."

"Shows what you know. Hey, were you planning on getting something from the canteen?"

"I wasn't, actually," Barry says, but he's already resigned.

"Great! Could you get me a coffee? Two sugars, no milk. You're a real pal; I'm dying here."

Barry really wants to tell him to go to hell, but he is getting a bit restless. Might as well go to the canteen.

Maybe Iris' occasional accusation that Barry's a bit of a pushover has a tiny little bit of merit...

Barry's already gone down the stairs and is halfway down the hall when he hears it.

Someone's talking about the Streak in one of the courtrooms!

It must be a hearing related to one of the people Barry caught during one of his earlier exploits, he guesses. He can't resist slipping in through the door to listen, wondering what they're saying about him.

Maybe this will help Barry with his moral crisis regarding what to do about the Anti-Flash Task Force, which has only gotten worse.

Once Joe stopped being ridiculous and trying to forbid Iris from getting involved with the task force at all without explaining why (a futile attempt that only served to piss her off more), he announced that they needed to get Eddie to start feeding Team Flash information from the Force so they could start throwing them off the scent at once. Wells agreed, pointing out that this Force could represent a real threat to Barry's ability to protect the city as the Flash.

Barry expressed his concern - that this was the good intentioned path to corruption - but both Joe and Wells thought he was being unreasonable.

Barry doesn't trust Joe's opinion when he's on a West family warpath, though, and he's still conflicted. Some solid evidence of the good that he's doing would be a great way to reaffirm that he's doing the right thing...

"- in fact, your Honor, not a single policeman can testify to having seen my client committing any crime whatsoever," the lawyer standing before the bar is saying.

The judge is frowning at him. "Are you actually saying that the case against the defendant should be dismissed for lack of, what, eyewitness evidence?"

Yeah, that's totally not going to work - Barry doesn't need to be a lawyer to know that. Most cases these days get proven by circumstantial evidence, not direct eyewitness testimony.

"No, your Honor, not at all," the lawyer says politely. "This is a question of evidence, and whether the State has sufficient grounds to even bring these charges. This case isn't just circumstantial - it's a fabrication! My client and his associates were not arrested in the midst of committing a crime, as the prosecution suggests; on the contrary, every policeman here will testify that the first time they saw my client and his associates was when they appeared, sitting on the ground, in the front hall of the police station."

Oh, Barry remembers this one: they'd been trying to rob a jewelry store when he'd nabbed them.

"And what of the suggestion by the prosecution that your client was brought to the police station specifically to prevent him from committing the crime in question?" the judge asks.

"As I stated earlier, your Honor, the only facts that are accepted are that my client appeared in the police station as the victim of an assault by this so-called Streak," the lawyer says.

What?!

"It was only because he appeared at the station that the police even began investigating my client's activity. There is more than mere reasonable doubt as to what they supposedly 'found' here," the lawyer continues. "This is nothing more than the police sweeping their own incompetence under the rug -"

What?!

"I don't think we need to go that far," the judge says. "On what grounds are you making your motion to dismiss?"

"An illicit search and a violation of the chain of custody for any relevant evidence," the lawyer replies promptly. "Any evidence obtained against my client was unlawfully obtained - the police only began their investigations once my client was in custody. It's all fruit of the poisoned tree."

No, seriously, what the fuck?! Is this lawyer actually trying to get those robbers off the hook by saying that Barry's involvement, what, separated the criminals from the evidence of their crimes so that no one could be sure they were actually committing the crime?!

"I see," the judge says. "An interesting point. What's the prosecution's response?"

Holy crap, is it working?

The prosecutor gets up. "Your Honor, my esteemed colleague has gotten the law of this state exactly backwards," she says. "While it is true that the investigation began after Mr. Daughtry appeared at the police station, that does not render the later-discovered evidence, including the videotapes from the jewelry store showing Mr. Daughtry breaking the lock on the door, videotapes that were obtained pursuant to a lawful warrant, into fruit of the poisoned tree. In fact, as this Court held in Martinez v. State ex rel Gonzalez -"

Barry ducks back out of the courtroom, his good mood well and truly ruined.

He literally caught those guys mid-heist, and they're blaming him for stopping them? Would they have preferred that he wait for them to finish robbing the place first? What a stupid argument!

Ugh.

Lawyers.

Maybe he should look into getting a lawyer's advice as to what would be the best way to keep the chain of custody intact so as not to ruin the evidence for the prosecution of the people he stops...without revealing himself as the Flash. Somehow.

Being a superhero is a lot trickier than Barry originally thought. Justice doesn't end when you've defeated the bad guy, after all.

Ugh, this doesn't help Barry's crisis at all. He'll have to be more careful going forward, obviously, and think more about what he's doing, but that doesn't necessarily mean he should stop or anything. After all, those guys were robbing that store, and the prosecution has video evidence to prove it. Barry's pretty confident the lawyer's argument, however clever, isn't going to fly.

But interfering with an active investigation the way Joe and Professor Wells are suggesting...?

If anyone found out they were doing that, wouldn't that just undermine any future arrests Barry contributes to as the Flash? But, on the other hand, if he gets caught, there won't be anyone to stop the metas, so surely keeping himself free should be the top priority – between saving people from real imminent danger vs. getting the bad guys put away for good, the former is vastly more important.

Clearly Barry needs to keep going.

And yet - where does he draw the line between doing good as the Flash and doing bad things in support of that? Where does it stop being the right thing to do?

What if this is where it starts? A justified, justifiable little thing. And where it ends is - well.

Ralph Dibny.

Barry needs to figure this out. And fast.

And for that, unfortunately, he's going to need help – help straight from the source.

"Where'd you go to get the coffee?" Lloyd complains when he sees Barry coming back. "South America?"

"Uh," Barry says. He'd totally forgotten to get the coffee. "They were - out."

"Typical," Lloyd sighs. "Anyway, one of the jurors got sick, and we got postponed. I told you it'd happen."

"You said it'd be the defense -"

"Whatever. I'm going back to the office; you want a lift?"

"Uh, no, I'm taking the rest of the day off -"

"Right, testifying perk for staff. Doing anything fun?"

"No," Barry says grimly. "Not really."

Barry hasn't exactly kept track of Dibny's whereabouts or anything, but a simple Google search is enough to find a - well, pretty awful and horrifically tacky website advertising the services of Ralph Dibny, Private Investigator, and on the website there's the address of a sketchy downtown office building.

Barry can't believe he's doing this.

Before he can talk himself out of it, though, he zips over to the right address, goes upstairs and knocks at the door with Dibny’s name on it.

"Come in!"

Barry goes in.

It's a ratty little office with Dibny sitting in a chair turned away from the entranceway, facing the window instead of the door.

Weird.

"Welcome to my humble office," Dibny announces in a grandiose manner. "Don't let its appearance mislead you, for I - I am the solution to all of your hopes and dreams and -"

He starts to spin his chair around slowly.

"...oh. It's you." Dibny scowls, dropping the act and spinning the rest of the way around at normal speed. "Barry Allen. What the hell are you of all people doing here?"

Barry's shoulders go straight up to his ears. God, he hates Dibny so much. "What was with that - spin thing, anyway?" he asks instead, because that was weird.

"It's impressive! For the ladies." Dibny's scowl deepens. "I was hoping you were a hot chick."

"Get a lot of those here?" Barry snipes, unable to help himself.

"Don't get a lot of backstabbing cop wannabes, either," Dibny sneers.

"Backstabbing?!"

"Oh, please tell me you've come crawling for my help," Dibny continues. "Because man, turning you down would make my month -"

"What the hell are you on, backstabbing?" Barry demands. He doesn't even care about the 'wannabe' part of it, cops always imagine that everyone not on the beat longs to be, but backstabbing? "What are you talking about? You broke the law! You! That's all on you!"

"You were the one who turned me in!"

"Yeah, I did, because you broke the law. You tried to frame someone!"

"Oh, so what?" Dibny snaps. "We all knew he was guilty -"

"That doesn't give you the right to fake evidence -"

"I was pursuing justice for that poor murdered woman -"

"Oh, bullshit! You didn't care about her. You don’t even remember her name! You just wanted everyone fawning over you for getting the collar -"

"So? That's a reasonable thing to want. There's nothing to say that I can't have them both, is there?"

"Ugh, I can't believe I ever came here," Barry says, scowling. "I must have lost my mind."

He turns to go.

"No, wait!"

Barry pauses and glances back at Dibny, who eels out of his chair and around to the front his desk.

"You came all this way," Dibny says. "You might as well sit down and talk a bit."

He gestures at the empty chair near Barry.

Barry's pretty sure Dibny just wants an excuse to rub this whole thing in Barry's face.

But he does want those answers...

Reluctantly, he steps back away from the door and towards the chair.

"Great!" Dibny says, popping himself onto the desk. He uses the opportunity to shove a folder on his desk underneath his computer, like Barry would even care what sort of stupid cases he’s working on. "No harm in a bit of talking, am I right?"

"I can think of plenty of harm," Barry shoots back. "Mostly to my ears."

"Hey, remember, you're the one who came to me," Dibny points out.

Sadly, he's got a point.

"And speaking of which, what does bring an upstanding member of the CCPD down to my oh-so-humble abode? Got a job you need little old me for?"

"As if," Barry scoffs. Literally never going to happen.

Dibny grits his teeth. “Okay, fine, not a job – you here about the mayor or something?”

“What? No. What does the mayor have to do with anything?”

“He doesn’t,” Dibny says, like that makes any sense. “So it’s information you want, then. You want me to mine my contacts for information -"

"You have contacts? You?" Barry asks. He knows he should stop being a dick, but Dibny makes it so very difficult. "What do you pay them with, birdseed?"

"Hey, I have plenty of contacts," Dibny protests. "And I'll have you know, some of them pay me. A lot, too! I've got all sorts of valuable intel from my time on the force, all the old office gossip, the secret stuff most people don't know - not that you'd know anything about that, you being an antisocial weirdo and all."

"I am not an antisocial weirdo!"

"Are too!"

"Are not!"

"Are too!"

"Are not - you know what, this is stupid."

Dibny coughs. "Maybe a bit, yeah. Seriously, though, what do you want? You didn't exactly leave me in a position where I can turn down work." He sounds bitter. "But it damn well better be paying work, Allen, or are you wasting my time?"

"I just want to ask you a few questions," Barry protests.

"I charge by the hour."

"Ugh, fine, whatever. Answer my questions and I'll pay for, like, the fifteen minutes of your time it's going to take."

"For you, Allen? You pay two hours, whether or not we use them."

"No way. Half-hour, max."

"Hour and a half."

"One hour."

"Fine."

"Deal. And you'd better not try to inflate your prices," Barry warns. "I know what you charge; it's on your website."

"Fine, whatever. Cash first."

Barry pulls out some money and tosses it on the desk.

It disappears.

"Okay, fine," Dibny says. "What do you want to know?"

Barry hesitates.

"Listen, ask or don't ask," Dibny says. "I don't care, I've gotten paid either way."

He's such a jackass.

"Why'd you do it?" Barry asks. Then, as Dibny frowns in confuses, adds, "The thing with the knife. Planting evidence."

Dibny looks surprised. "What, that? You already know, don't you? You said it yourself earlier on - I was trying to solve the case."

"I know that much," Barry says impatiently. "But - you couldn't have just woken up one day and decided that was the way to do it, right? You know the rules as well as I do -"

"Maybe not quite as well as you do," Dibny mutters. "Brownnoser."

"- and you knew what you were doing was wrong. So why'd you do it?"

"Because there was no other way to get the guy," Dibny says, like it's obvious. "We exhausted everything else."

"It was still wrong," Barry says. "You broke the law."

"It was getting a criminal off the streets -" Dibny says.

"By becoming one yourself!"

"Oh, grow up, Allen. It's not like fudging a bit of evidence is the same as murdering someone. Besides, I'm a cop - I was a cop. Are you really saying that a cop and an asshole that probably murdered his wife are the same?"

"I'm saying that it's a small step down the same road," Barry says. "If you're cutting corners to get someone off the streets, who's to say you might not decide to shoot someone instead of going to the trouble of arresting them?"

Dibny shrugs, callous as ever. "Maybe for some people that’s how it goes, but not me. I was a cop! A good cop! And I knew this guy was guilty!"

"Just because you believe something doesn't make you right! What if you were wrong, huh? What if he was innocent, and you planting the evidence sent him to prison for a crime he didn't commit? You're not infallible, and you don't get to ignore the laws just because you're a cop. If anything, you're supposed to hold yourself to a higher standard - and you didn't."

"Damnit, Allen, you make it sound like I was actively committing felonies while on the payroll or something. It's not like I was a cop on the Family payroll or anything; we all know who those assholes are and they're freaking untouchable."

Ugh, Dibny sounds almost wistful.

"The department likes to know who the Family leaks are," Barry says, rolling his eyes. He doesn't like it, no one does, but there's no real way to avoid it. "It's not the same thing; no one ever lets them onto anything actually secretive. Besides, it's not like you weren't friends with some of those guys!"

"They were coworkers! It made sense to be friendly with everyone in the department - still does, since it’s the cops I was friendly with who are the only ones with enough compassion to toss me cases when they're available. They know what it's like to need help when money runs tight."

Of course. Barry should've known; it all comes down to money for Dibny.

Or at least, it does now. It hadn't back then.

"It wasn't about money, though, the knife," Barry says, getting back to his point. "You made a decision."

"I made a mistake," Dibny says. "And you took every inch of it out of my ass. Why are you so obsessed about this, anyway?" He grins, wide and malicious. "Thinking about doing some planting yourself?"

"No!" Barry exclaims.

"Oooh, that was quick on the draw - is that guilt I hear? Is pure, perfect Barry Allen - no, you wouldn't. Not you. But maybe someone else - someone you're thinking of covering for...?"

Dibny's eyes glitter like beetles.

"You're disgusting," Barry tells him, scowling. "I have no idea why I thought you might have ever had a sense of morality or that you struggled with the decision or anything -"

"Hey, that's not fair," Dibny protests. "I struggled. I thought about it. But there wasn't any other way, that's all."

"But planting evidence isn't an acceptable way," Barry says, frustrated. "It was better to let him go than to get him the wrong way – they did an informal double check of all your cases, you know, because of that, and the only reason they didn’t officially reopen the whole lot of them was because you quit."

"Because of you."

"Because of you - what you did..." Barry trails off, realizing. "You really just don't get it, do you? You got so good at convincing yourself that it was the right thing to do that you can't bring yourself to admit that you were wrong."

Dibny crosses his arms, glaring. "Oh, whatever, Allen. No one asked for your little pop psychology. Anyway, you haven't told why you want to know."

"Trying to get insight into a case," Barry lies. "That's all."

"A corruption case?" Dibny asks, suddenly looking somewhat concerned. His fingers start playing with the edge of the file he shoved under his desk. "What type? Like - another cop, like me? Or we talking more like blackmailing, bribery, that sort of thing? With whom? Some public official in particular?"

Barry rolls his eyes. Dibny’s probably worried that one of his private investigator cases might get preempted by a real investigation. "You know I can't discuss active cases -"

"With anyone outside the precinct, I know, I know. I used to be a cop, I know the deal. But that's why you can trust me - I'm not about to squeal!"

"Yeah, right," Barry says. "You literally just told me that you exchange information as a business."

"Not about active cases," Dibny says. "Only old stuff, you know, old cases that never got solved or cops that used to be on payroll or stupid shit like that."

"Dibny, even if I was the sort of person who’d tell you stuff about an active case, you also hate me personally and would take any opportunity to throw me under the bus," Barry points out.

"...yeah, fair point." Dibny shrugs. “Is that it, then?”

Barry snorts. "Yeah, that’s it," he says. "Anyway, thanks."

Dibny shrugs a second time, looking somewhat bemused. "Any time, I guess."

Barry goes to the door and opens it.

Then he immediately closes it again.

"What?" Dibny asks.

"Shhhh!" Barry hisses. "There are two Family thugs in your corridor!"

They're immediately recognizable - the dark suits, the swagger, the prison tattoos on their wrists and the Family mark on their necks.

God, Barry hates the Families.

"This isn't exactly a great part of town," Dibny sniffs. "I'm not exactly able to be picky about my neighbors." Still, he hesitates. "Uh, what Family?"

"What? Isn’t there a set territory –”

“I don’t know whose territory this is, Allen! What do they look like?”

“Santinis, I think. Blood sworn."

"Shit," Dibny says. "Probably here for protection stuff, then - oh, not me, Allen, don't look so horrified; I'm much too small fry for them to bother with me."

"Then who? We should -"

"Do nothing," Dibny says firmly. "No one will thank you for it and you know it."

Damnit, but Barry does know it.

As the Flash, sure, he could do something, but - what? It might technically be a crime to belong to a racketeering organization like the Families, but only if you can prove that they've done something. There's no point in dropping these thugs off in the CCPD HQ; they'd be back on the street within the hour, and the Flash would have to tackle mob problems for the rest of his life.

Not ideal.

Barry's definitely not prepared to fight the Families.

"I'll report it to Organized Crime," he decides.

"Like that'll do anything," Dibny snorts. "Oh, hey, say hi to Garry and Willy for me if you do, though."

Barry rolls his eyes. "Sightings are still important to report," he says. "You never know when it might be helpful. And you say hi to them yourself if you want; I'm not going to."

"You're no use to anyone at all, are you, Allen?" Dibny says, rolling his eyes back in an exaggerated fashion. "All high and mighty and self-righteous, and not a shred of sympathy for those you leave in the dust."

"Oh, I've got plenty of sympathy," Barry says, glancing around the dirty little office. Dibny had been a pretty good cop; he deserves better than this. But his own choices have brought him here. Besides, it isn't as though he was convicted or anything, merely fired and informally blackballed; there's nothing stopping him from getting a security job or even switching to another career entirely instead of spending over two years building up a stupid private investigator practice. "But not enough for you to manipulate me with, which I think is your real complaint."

He glances out the door. The Family guys are gone.

"Right," Barry says. "That's all I have. Thanks for the answers."

"Thanks for the easy cash," Dibny replies. "I'd say it was nice to see you again, but, well, it really wasn't."

"Ditto," Barry says, and leaves.

He manages to wait until he's in a secluded alleyway outside before he puts on his speed, even though he's itching to get out of this place.

Still, even at high speed, Barry has a moment or two to reflect.

Talking with Dibny felt utterly pointless, but maybe it wasn't, not really. He'd gone there to find out how Dibny ended up doing what he did, and, well, he's gotten his answer: Dibny convinced himself it was the right and only thing to do, that there was no other way, that it had to be done.

He just couldn't conceive of allowing what he considered to be a miscarriage of justice, and that had been enough to cause him to commit one himself.

He saw himself as above the law.

He wasn't.

And neither is Barry.

Oh, he isn't going to stop being the Flash - the city needs him. Unlike Dibny, he’s actually in a unique situation, with unique powers that make his illicit actions necessary to save people’s lives. He's going to keeping doing what he can to help people and, in the meantime, do what he can to make sure he doesn't get stopped.

But he's not going to let Joe or Eddie compromise their integrity, and the integrity of their work, in the process.

"Hey, Barry!" Cisco exclaims happily when Barry arrives. "Good to see you, man; we missed you yesterday."

"How did court go?" Caitlin asks.

"It didn't," Barry tells her with a shrug. "We got a postponement. But I still get the second half of the day off!"

"I'm glad to hear that, Mr. Allen," Wells says from behind Barry, causing him to jump a little. "Does that mean you'll be working with us on your speed for the rest of the afternoon?"

"That's right," Barry says, already mentally girding himself. "I need to get faster. A lot faster. There's no other way to defeat the Man in Yellow. That's the top priority right now."

"That's right," Wells says. "After all, we must make sure to prioritize what's really important. Isn't that right, Mr. Allen?"

"Absolutely," Barry says, thinking of his decision to stay on the right side of the law as much as possible and feeling good about it. He made the right choice; he's sure of it. "That's totally right."

"I'm glad we agree," Wells says, and smiles.

[hartsmonster]

MIA SPENDS THE NIGHT AT AXEL’S AKA WHAT WE WERE ROBBED OF AKA WHAT KIKI WANTS, MIA GETS

What Kiki wants, Kiki gets.

And this time, she wanted alcohol. Lots of it.

Once we left the party early, she decided that it wasn’t crazy enough for her, and tried dragging all of us to Hanna’s, even though she didn’t ask her if we could even come over.

But all of us knew that she was still heartbroken about Alex, and even though drinking her sadness in alcohol wasn’t the best idea, we obliged.

Amira couldn’t come, so it was just us four.

After an hour or so, just three and a half.

Kiki was getting drunk really fast, and when she started crying, screaming that she wanted to talk to him, we tried everything in our power to talk her out of it.

All it took was to turn our back for one second, and she was gone. Along with all of her stuff.

Well, apart from one shoe, that she left basically as a lead for us.

Hanna rolled her eyes, and I immediately went after her. Sam had to go back home, so we were left alone to look for Kiki.

We found her nearby, walking, crying, screaming. People were looking at her like she was a crazy person. And she was kind of acting like it.

I tried to drag her back to the house, but she wouldn’t budge. She was very adamant on what she wanted. I just want to talk to him.

So we went to his house. Because what Kiki wants, Kiki gets.

When we got there, it took me all the strength I had in me just to walk through that door.

The music was blasting out of every speaker, sending small vibrations. Thankfully Kiki sobered up a little, but was still wobbling whilst walking.

I was walking her by her arm, Hanna trailing right behind us. When we walked in, there were so many people, and most of them looked at us weirdly.

They probably glanced at half-awake Kiki, and thought that we should be leaving the party, not just crashing it.

Someone bumped into me, and I was separated from my friends. They got lost in the crowd, and I was left alone.

I knew almost none of these people. Some of the faces around me were familiar from school, but other than that, everybody was a stranger.

Well, almost everybody. As soon as I heard a voice call my name, I quickly turned around to be faced with none other than Alexander Hardenberg himself.

He was wearing a white fitted top, with dark washed jeans.

“Mia?”

I looked into his eyes, that were showing astonishment. He definitely did not expect me there. Plus, I didn’t get an invite.

“What were you thinking breaking up with Kiki like that? Exactly at midnight?” I immediately babbled out all my accusations towards him. That was probably another thing he wasn’t expecting.

Or not?

“And you’re angry again.”

I rolled my eyes at his remark. God, he was driving me crazy, acting like he didn’t have a care in the world. He didn’t care that he hurt Kiki, that he hurt my friend.

I really, really wanted to wipe that smug of off his face.

Taking a deep breath, I mumbled out, “It’s hard not to be angry, when you’re acting like a total dick.”

His brows furrowed, “I just did what you wanted me to do, Mia. I fulfilled my part of the deal. Now we are even, aren’t we?”

Honestly, I had million things to say to his every word.

“I told you to break up with her, not to break her heart like that.”

Again, his face was almost unreadable, but then he raised his hand and massaged his temple, in a thinking manner.

“And how do you think it’s possible to break up with her without breaking her heart? Sorry, Mia, but you’re being unreasonable. You rushed me to do it, what was I supposed to do? Drown in your messages? I did it, when or how was not discussed.”

He was right, I knew he was. But it still pissed me off so much. His whole persona was so irritating.

And just as I always had a lot to say, I just threw a quick, “Whatever.” And turned away from him, going through the crowd to find my friends.

Alex’s apartment was huge, and it was even harder to move around it, when there wasn’t even air to breathe.

I tried to navigate through groups of dancing people, but it was useless. Finally, I caught sight of Hanna’s red hair, making my way towards her. She was texting somebody, and when I touched her arm, she looked up at me.

“Where’s Kiki?” I said loudly, but she obviously couldn’t hear me.

But I still heard her, “Kiki’s outside vomiting, I’m getting her home.”

I wasn’t even able to respond, because she already turned on her heel and rushed to the front door.

And I went after her. As I was about to leave, opening the front door, I was almost floored by crashing into somebody on the other side of it.

Glancing at the person opposite of me, my eyes widened as I realized I was standing face to face with two police officers.

Both were eyeing me carefully, probably checking whether I was drunk out of my mind. Thank god I haven’t drank that night.

“Guten abend. We would like to speak to the owner of this place.” The shorter man said in a monotone voice. I immediately nodded and turned back around to go deeper into the apartment.

My mission right now was to find Axel, not deal with Kiki, thankfully Hanna was taking care of that, so my point was to not get arrested.

I finally saw him standing by the window, holding a cigarette to his mouth.

When he saw me walking in his direction, he quickly put out the cigarette, and threw it out.

I told him everything, but he was standing there, eyes squinting as if he was trying to read my mouth. Shit, of course he didn’t hear me, obviously he didn’t through this ridiculously loud music.

I had to get on my tip toes to reach his ear, and it also involved me getting dangerously close to him in general. “The police are here, they want to speak with you.”

Finally relaying my message, I instinctively turned my head around to face him, and at this moment he did the same.

It was the first, and hopefully the last, time I was this close to him.

Our noses were almost touching.

Was I supposed to feel uncomfortable? Because I actually began watching his face closely. He had surprisingly long eyelashes, and across his face you could see some freckles showing, but you had to get really close to notice them.

Like, really close. And that’s when I quickly stepped away.

I stared down at the floor, not able to hide my own embarrassment. But even out of the corner of my eye, I could see that faint smile appeared on his face.

And then he left me by the window, probably to talk to the men waiting at the door.

It wasn’t even three minutes later that the music was finally turned off, and somebody told the partyers to leave.

Some people groaned loudly in disapproval, and some dashed for the door even quicker when they saw that the police were there.

Almost everybody was gone, and I began heading to the exit as well, when I realized that I didn’t have anything on me.

Scheiße, I thought to myself as I realized that all of my stuff were still at Hanna’s. My phone, backpack with my wallet. I didn’t even have cash to catch a cab home.

I was basically stranded here.

All my worst nightmares were happening at once.

During the time I was panicking, trying to think of a way to get home, Alex’s apartment finally cleared out. And I was actually the last one left.

The policeman who I bumped into earlier walked into the salon, probably to see if everybody was gone, and then he saw me.

“And you? Why aren’t you leaving?” He eyed me suspiciously.

Yeah, I saw that few times in the movies, where some kids were too high on drugs to even realize where they were, and god, I hoped he wouldn’t think I was like that.

Even spending a night here at his place sounded better than in jail.

So when Alex appeared behind him, saying, “That’s my girlfriend.” I stayed quiet.

I didn’t like the term, it was actually disgusting to be called his girlfriend, but he probably was more experienced in getting the police off his back, so I guess I was at his mercy.

And then the second policeman came into the room, “Right, she’s the girlfriend. She opened the door for us.”

The shorter one who was interrogating me earlier, nodded at his partner, and they began heading for the door, “You’re short on warnings, Hardenberg. We’re not locking you up for disorderly conduct because of your father, but if you keep at it, not even he will be able to help you.”

Alex just nodded at the men, and saw them out. Meanwhile, I was still thinking of a way out of this situation.

I could always call Hans, if I knew his new number.

I could always go back to Hanna’s, but I will not step a foot outside alone in the middle of the night.

“You can stay if you want.” I heard his voice in front of me, as he probably saw the consternation on my face.

“I’m good, thanks.”

“Are you sure? Because you certainly look not sure.” He answered my quick remark, pouring himself a drink.

Alex extended one of them to me, but I politely declined. There was no way I would be here under the influence of alcohol.

I would probably do something I’d regret later, like, murder someone. Specific someone.

There was a moment of awkward silence, as I watched him put the drink to his lips, taking a quick sip.

“So, you’re pretty acquainted with those officers.” I said, hoping to break some ice, but because I was actually curious as well.

“You’d be surprise how much they like to crash my parties. They look quite good on the dancefloor.” Surprisingly, I found myself laughing at his joke.

Probably because it’s the first genuinely funny thing I have ever heard him say. But in a moment, I scolded myself for that,  “I’ve never seen you laugh.”

He said, but not to me directly, it was more of a note to himself.

“Well, maybe because you usually are doing something that makes me upset, not laugh.”

When he saw that I entered that territory, he took another sip of his scotch.

“Let’s face it, you’re even upset that I breathe.” She didn’t protest, nor did she say anything, so he asked a question, “Why do you dislike me so much?”

A question to which he already knew the answer. And I felt like he pushed me more and more, to get me to say something that he wanted to hear.

“Do I have to repeat myself? Well, then, because you are narcissist—”I wasn’t even able to finish, because he immediately interrupted me, doing it for me.

“Narcissistic, I play with people’s feelings and I manipulate them in order to get what I want.” He recited the words I told him few days ago on the rooftop, with utmost precision.

I nodded, as if to confirm,“Exactly, that’s why I don’t like you.”

“Sounds like excuses to me. You don’t know me, Mia. Those things you think you know, based on some things I have done, do not define me.” He moved over to the window, to light another cigarette.

But then as soon as I saw it in his hand, I frowned.

To my own surprise, he held back and put the cigarette down.

I took a deep breath, ready to explain once again, “And I don’t want to know you. These things I think I now, they are enough for me.”

“Then why are you here?” The amount of times he asked me this question in a matter of few days worried me.

Somehow, lately I ended up around him. But it all had a goal.

“For Kiki.” I said, confidently.

I saw him rolling his eyes, “Do you suffer from saviors complex? She’s old enough to make her own decisions. Kiki, Kiki, Kiki. Does everything you do revolve around her?”

My mouth were tight, forming a thin line. It usually meant that I was getting angry. Wrong, I was boiling hot. There he was again, acting like he knew everything.

“It’s not like that, she’s my friend, and contrary to you, I care about her. So if there’s anything I can do to make sure she doesn’t get hurt, I will do it.”

I don’t know how many times did I have to stress that?

“Well, did it work? Did you save her from a heartbreak? Because to me it looks like you just feel guilty that I like you, not her. That’s why you want to keep her away.”

He said a lot, even the part about the heartbreak, which had the obvious answer of no. But what stuck in my head the most was the part where he said he liked me.

And before I even answered, I was already shaking my head.  

“You can’t like me, Axel. You don’t even know me.”

My tone became surprisingly calmer, and maybe he noticed that as well, because he immediately retaliated.

“And you can’t dislike me. You don’t know me either.”

I didn’t respond. Was there even a point in this conversation? Besides, I should be getting home, not talking with Axel, as the time was passing by.

Maybe I took a step back, because I knew that he was right in some way. But at the same time, I had my own reasons and feelings, and they wouldn’t change, just because he was trying to talk to me about it.

I looked up at him. I didn’t even notice when he light up the cigarette from earlier.

As he was exhaling the smoke, his eyes were still at me.

This time it was me who rolled eyes. “Can I use your phone?”

Without a word, he just pulled it from his back pocket and extended his hand for me to get it.

I turned away from him, so he couldn’t see what I was doing.

As I was holding the phone in my hand, I stared at it blank. Of course, I didn’t know any numbers. Well, any apart from my friend in Madrid, but I bet they couldn’t help me.

Then I thought of a way to contact Hans.

I turned back around to face Alexander, “Can I send a DM to my roommate? I don’t remember his phone number.”

Once again, Axel just nodded, and I immediately began invading his Instagram.

To my own surprise, there were tons messages from girls, but the thing is that they weren’t even open, nor he didn’t respond to any of them.

I quickly searched Hans handle, and sent him a quick message to contact me through Alex as soon as it was possible.

Then I gave him back his phone.

Now, there was a long pause, followed by silence again.

He finally finished his cigarette, as he grabbed the trash cans to clean some of the trash out. It was safe to say, he would be doing it till the very morning.

And as I didn’t have anything better to do whilst waiting for Hans to respond, I grabbed an empty trash bag, and did the same thing.

I didn’t even notice when we cleaned out the whole salon, and moved to the other rooms.

Alex was doing the kitchen, so I opened the closest door to me, and soon realized that I was most probably in his bedroom.

It was actually untouched, as people probably knew it was out of limits. But what immediately caught my attention was one of the most beautiful pianos I have ever seen.

The black wood was hugging the left side of the room, perfectly filling the space from the window to the door.

I felt a familiar tugging in my hands, and a voice in my head telling me to go even touch it.

Soon, my feet followed, and I was already sitting down by the piano, my fingers tracing the outline of it.

I raised the closing, that revealed perfectly white keyboard. I pressed one, then another, and before I knew, I was playing my favorite song.

I used to have a piano on my own, back in Madrid, but I had to sell it when I was moving to Germany.

The music filled the whole room. It made me feel so peaceful. I closed my eyes, and let my feeling hit the keys.

And when I opened them back again, I was faced with a guest.

Alex was standing in the doorway, leaning against the wall, watching me intently. My eyes found his, and never once left them, for the remaining of the song.

When I finally finished, I was ready for him to tell me off for marching into his private space and using his stuff, but he didn’t say anything.

I would give anything to know his thought at that moment, as his face was basically unreadable.

“I’m sorry, I just, I couldn’t help myself.” I whispered, breaking the intense eye contact, just to stare at the piano.

“You can play whenever you want, you’re really good.” I heard him say. I was just about to ask why it sounded like he expected me to be here again, but I didn’t.

Instead, I quickly got up from my seat, grabbing the trash bag, laying beside the piano.

“Let’s get back to work, I’ll help you finish cleaning, and I guess I’ll be leaving.”

So we did exactly that.

Axel went back to the kitchen, and I was organizing the trash bags, when his phone that was laying on the table nearby, vibrated.

I took a step towards it, just to make sure it wasn’t Hans, and lo and behold, it was.

I couldn’t unlock his phone as it needed his fingerprint. I read the message Hans sent.

“Just call a taxi, we’ll pay once you get home”

So, there it was. Finally, an ending to this long night.

I was about to walk to the kitchen with the phone so that he could call me a taxi, but something in my head told me to wait.

And then I thought about it again, and again. There was something wrong with me.

I, I wanted to stay.

I wanted to play that piano again.

I looked at the clock, which showed that it was already half past one in the morning.

If I stayed, maybe I could play again?

No, that’s such a stupid idea. How did I go from trying to get out of there as soon as possible to me actually considering staying?

Suddenly, Alex appeared out of nowhere in the corridor, carrying two more bags of trash. As I looked at him, I had a flash of when our faces were so close, and then the intensity of that moment by the piano.

I didn’t understand myself, and some part of me was screaming at myself inside, but I quickly swiped left at that message on the screen so that it’d be empty again.

Then his eyes wandered to my hands holding the phone, “I was checking the time. Hans still hadn’t replied.” I said as I handed him his property.

He did the same thing, and then put the phone in his back pocket. He ran his hand through his dark hair, “Do you want me to give you a ride?”

I immediately shook my head, “You’ve been drinking. No way.”

“Then I guess you’re sleeping here.”

As he was saying that I wasn’t ready to face him, so I just pretended like I didn’t hear him say it. I just went back to organizing the trash, but a small smile that appeared on his face did not go unnoticed by me.

When we were finished it was almost two, and it was time for bed.

It sounded and felt as weird as I thought it would. The moment I stepped into his room again, my eyes wandered from bed to the piano.

Alex insisted he would sleep on the couch, but when I saw the state it was in, I felt really bad. Someone poured beer all over it, and it was really sticky.

We were both too tired to clean it now, so I just proposed that we’d build a wall of pillows between us, to which he surprisingly agreed.

I quickly jumped into bed, not bothering to remove any clothes.

He furrowed his brows, and I heard him doing the very opposite.

I didn’t look, well, maybe I did steal a glance or two, but nothing more than that. Alex wasn’t attractive in my book. No.  

We didn’t talk, I was just ready to fall asleep and end this day.

I was about to close my eyes, when I heard him laughing under his nose. I immediately know what it was about to know.

“Hans wanted to let you know, about an hour ago, that you can come home.”

I buried myself in embarrassment in my pillow, “Sorry, that’s weird, I usually get the notifications.”

He said it in a way that I knew he was being sarcastic and was playing with me. He knew exactly what I did.

“Maybe you don’t dislike me as much as I thought.” He just said, before rolling to the side. Involuntarily, a smile formed on my face.

[porkchop-ao3]

Can I request something angsty for rick j19z7? Something where he gets upset with you and idk makes you sleep on the couch? Anything really? Just something angsty that maybe leads to fluff? 🧡

Well, at first this request really scared me because I couldn’t possibly imagine how pure, lovely J19Z7 and angst could mix… But then I started writing and got really carried away and had so much fun with this. I liked to explore the idea that Doofus Rick still has regular-Rick traits deep down inside, only he’s less inclined to let them out and well… In this fic he does. I know you didn’t ask for smut but… Yeah. It led to smut. It’s pretty long, over 3K, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

The world seemed to slow down for a moment as I watched the heavy, high-tech object slip out of my hands, and make its descent to the concrete floor of the garage. When it hit, bits and pieces flew out in every direction, a horrible, clunking, cracking sound filling the room. My mouth went dry and my eyes widened, and I immediately looked up at Rick sitting at his desk on the other side of the room. His shoulders hunched and he flinched at the sound. He slowly swivelled in his chair, an unreadable expression crossing over his features as his eyes met the broken gadget on the ground.

“Shit. I’m sorry, Rick! I just picked it up to look at it and it… it just slipped out of my hands.” I rushed to amend my actions, dropping to my knees and gathering up the broken parts, futilely trying to guess where they went, somehow hoping to fix it.

“That’s my Hadroneutronic Fleurific Converter.” He said in a small voice, rising to his feet and striding over. He didn’t even look at me as he took it from my hands, carrying it back over to the desk to inspect the damage.

“What does it do?” I asked meekly, not moving from my spot on the floor.

“M-more like what did it do. It’s completely dead. The neutronic regulator is shattered.” He told me, and it was one of the rare occasions that he actually sounded irritated.

“I’m so sorry, Rick. I didn’t mean to.” I said, rising to my feet, feeling guilty and sick.

“Of course you didn’t mean to, but you still-” he started in a snappy tone before halting himself, taking a deep breath. “It’s okay. Accidents happen.” He amended, but it sounded forced.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“No. Just… just sit down somewhere and d-don’t touch anything else. Please.” He sighed, turning and looking around on the floor. “I might be able to fix it if the Blurthro clip is still intact, that’s what makes it-”

Crunch.

I wanted to die right then and there. I wanted god to smite me down at that precise moment in time, because of course, that electronic component under my foot couldn’t have been anything other than the Blurthro clip, could it? I winced and paused mid-step towards the garage door, turning my head slowly to look at Rick. He twitched a little, his eyes fixated on the object under my big fucking stupid baby elephant foot.

“GOD. FUCKING. DAMN IT.” He exploded, slamming his hands on the desk as he stood up with a force that sent his chair tipping back and clattering to the ground. He stepped over it with long slender legs, marching over to me and grabbing my wrist. He manhandled me out of the way before snatching the component off of the ground and groaning in annoyance. “Can you- why can’t you just use your eyes? Or even better, your brain!” He shouted, and I could see in his eyes that something had snapped.

I stared slack jawed at the man in front of me, suddenly unable to see J19Z7, instead all I saw was every other Rick. Angry. Nasty.

“Do you know how hard it was to get hold of this? It cost me forty thousand flurbos!” He exclaimed, holding the thing right in front of my face. “Which, in case you’re too dumb to realise, is a lot.”

I gasped, recoiling at his words.

“God. Why is everyone so- and they call me the Doofus! They think I’m so stupid! But they all just love you, don’t they? Every time we go to the Citadel they’re all kissing your ass, aren’t they? Jus- just cause you’ve got a nice body and a pretty face, but they don’t see just how… how inept you can be. Unable to follow simple instructions.” He seethed, letting it all pour out. I stood there and took it, crossing my arms over my chest, refusing to let my tears become any more than just a little moisture in my eyes.  “You-you’re always in here, touching my things, asking me questions that you’re never gonna be able to comprehend the answer to. You’re pretty and you’re nice but there’s no point in trying to explain anything to you.”

“I never claimed to be as smart as you, I’m just interested in what you do.” I said monotonously. “And I can comprehend the answers to my questions, I at least get the gist of most of the things you say. I’m not completely brain dead.” Rick’s expression seemed to soften, and I caught a glimpse of the Rick I fell in love with, rather than the monster that had just reared its ugly head. The parts of him that were intrinsically there simply because he was a Rick, the parts of him that he kept under control, that he didn’t usually let get the better of him.

I turned away from him and left the garage, making my way through the house towards our bedroom. I threw myself face down onto the bed, and let it all go. I cried and shook and sobbed. This is not what I signed up for. J19Z7 was not like that. He was kind, sweet, understanding, forgiving. He wasn’t angry or mean, and he didn’t have the superiority complex that most other Rick’s had. He never spoke down to me or insinuated that I was stupid. He was better than that. I hated that I’d caught a glimpse of what he kept buried, something had obviously snapped in him, he had reached the end of his tether with me and had obviously needed to vent for quite some time. I wanted the memory of him yelling gone from my head, it was the only time I’d ever seen him get genuinely angry. It just wasn’t an emotion he usually shared. Maybe that was the problem; maybe I pissed him off on a regular basis and he’d been bottling it up. Maybe I’d just witnessed that bottle over flowing, unable to hold any more of my ineptitudes.

Hours passed and I just laid there. Replaying the situation over and over in my head, analysing every word and every expression, trying to figure out whether he actually meant it or not. But Rick wasn’t the type to say nasty things out of spite, if he said something unpleasant then it was a big deal, and likely that he really meant it. That’s what made my stomach churn. Rick really did think I was dumb. He really did get annoyed with me asking so many questions and picking up his inventions out of curiosity. And it was sad, because those were some of my favorite memories with him. Just him talking to me, explaining things to me in a way that I could get, having an answer to every question. I’d learnt so much being with Rick, and it hurt a lot to know that he didn’t particularly like being my teacher.

I heard the bedroom door open. I tensed up, not quite ready to see his face or hear his voice again. Scared that he was about to call it quits, tell me to pack my shit and move back in with my parents because he was sick of putting up with me. Another sob rocked me at the thought. Rather than speak, however, Rick put his hands on my shoulders, pulling me up and turning me around. I didn’t get a good look at him before I was buried in his chest, and his hands were rubbing big circles in my back. I just lay there limply, slightly stunned, and I heard him sniffle. My heart gave a chilling throb at the sound.

“I’m s-s-so so sorry, (y/n).” He said. His voice was small, fragile and thick with emotion. He was quite clearly crying, and by the sounds of it, had been for a while. “I-I-I’m no better than the rest of them. I’m just as nasty and awful. I will understand if you don’t want anything to do with me after this, but I had to come and apologise you.”

“Rick, you’re not nasty and awful.” I murmured into his chest, wrapping my arms around his waist and squeezing him tight.

“I’m not looking for comfort or reassurance, I’m being honest. I-I let my anger get the better of me and I was unforgivably horrible to you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” he told me, taking in stuttered, jerky breaths between words. “I try so hard to keep that side of me locked away, b-but sometimes it just comes out around the people I love, who deserve it the least.

“You aren’t dumb, and you aren’t inept. You’re smart and beautiful and I love having you around, I love telling you things about my inventions, I love that you’re curious and you want to learn. But sometimes… despite myself, I get annoyed when you don’t understand something, or you do the wrong thing or- or make a mistake. I try to be understanding, because I hate that I feel so unreasonably irritated, because you don’t deserve it. It’s okay to not understand something, it’s okay to make mistakes. You’re human just like me, and sometimes I come across things that baffle me and I just can’t wrap my head around them. You don’t get angry with me, even when I come to bed at four in the morning after trying to figure something out, and wake you up. You don’t get mad when I go days in a row without devoting time to you, without kissing you and holding you like I should do everyday. You’re so lovely and understanding and I hate that I’m not like that all the time. I have these horrible thoughts that I just can’t stop, and they all came out today, and I can’t say sorry enough.”

His admission warmed me, and I understood every word. Things were clear to me, and I couldn’t find it in me to hold a grudge. I’d forgiven him, just like that. I loosened my grip on him and looked up at his face, reaching my hands out to wipe away the tears on his cheeks.

“It’s okay, Rick. I understand where you’re coming from. It’s not intrinsically bad that you feel annoyance, it’s natural. It’s the fact that you don’t always take those emotions out on the people around you, that sets you apart from the other Rick’s.”

“I don’t want to ever take my emotions out on you though, an-and I failed.”

“That wasn’t a failure, that was human. I forgive you, no harm done.” I reassured him, cupping his face and offering a little smile.

“It did do harm. You’ve been crying, I made you cry, (y/n). I don’t ever want to do that.” He whispered, his eyes filling again. I pushed forward and kissed him, and he sobbed behind my lips. I pushed him back onto the bed, laying down on top of him. Rick soon calmed down, returning the kiss with as much passion as he could muster. I parted my legs and straddled him, lining our hips up and pushing my groin into his. He let loose a strangled sound, and broke the kiss. “W-wait, this is- you’re making me-” he cut himself off, turning red.

“Making you hard?” I asked, feeling him grow between my legs. He nodded and gulped. “That’s the idea.” I leaned down to whisper in his ear, nibbling on an earlobe quickly after.

“Wh- you want to do this right now? After I said those things?” He asked, looking stunned. I rocked against him, and despite himself, he moved with me.

“Yes. This could be a good way to make up.” I told him between kisses to his neck.

“Ah, ahh- But I don’t d-deserve it.” He mewled, but his hips betrayed him, grinding faster against me. I sighed softly closing my eyes and getting lost in the sensation.

“You don’t have to deserve it. I want it. Are you going to deny me because you feel guilty?” I asked, looking down at him. He paused for a while, before finally shaking his head. “Good boy.” I smiled, shocking myself. Where the hell did that come from? Rick’s lips parted slightly, and he flushed deeper.

Rick seemed to gain a rush of confidence, sliding his hands down my body to my pants, unbuttoning them quickly and slipping his hand inside. He rubbed me quickly, trapping my clit between his index and middle finger as he stroked them in circles. My reaction was immediate, I rolled my head back and gasped shakily, tilting my hips so I ground my ass against his hard on, while giving him better access.

“Is… is that nice, beautiful?” He asked, his voice lowering with arousal. I nodded eagerly. I could feel my underwear dampening at an almost alarming rate, and got to work undressing, needing more. I pulled my top off and tossed it to the floor, my bra joining it immediately after. Rick moaned softly at the sight of my bare breasts, bringing his free hand up to play with them. He squeezed them gently one by one, rolling each nipple between his fingers.

“So good… so good.” I breathed, whining under the unrelenting stimulation. I involuntarily picked up the pace of my hips, Rick’s cock rubbing between the cleft of my ass, I looked down and noticed a dark patch forming on his pants. I licked my lips and gorged on the sight, revelling in how worked up I was getting him. Rick’s noises got louder, more frantic, and suddenly he grabbed my hip to halt me.

“St-stop, I’m gonna-” he gasped, his body shuddering beneath me as he struggled to gain back his control. “That was close.” He said sheepishly, out of breath.

“I need you inside me. Now.” I told him, and he nodded in eager agreement. I pushed his lab coat off of his shoulders and removed his shirt, taking a moment to stroke my hands over his chest, and press a few kisses into his collarbone. He took control, a somewhat rare occurrence, and rolled me off of him to lay on the bed beside him. He hooked his fingers in my pants and finished undressing me, letting his eyes roll over my naked form in appreciation. I couldn’t take my eyes off the tent in his pants. Rick was big, a lot bigger than one would imagine given his build, and I was embarrassingly needy for him. I reached for him, cupping his arousal and having a self indulgent grope. We groaned in unison, and I unbuttoned his pants and tugged them down, freeing his erection and watching it bob in the air, flushed and glistening with precum.

“Are you ready?” He asked me, coming up to kneel between my legs, placing his hands under my knees and pushing them upwards. I loved it when he moved me, positioned me, handled me. It was something I wish he did more often.

“Yes… please. I need you.” I said, trying not to sound as desperate as I felt and failing miserably. He was merciful, and lined up at my entrance without hesitation, pushing forwards slowly. There was always that initial sting, being stretched open by his generous girth, but once he was settled, that sweet sweet pleasure emerged.

“Oh my g- ahh. I’m worried I'm… I think I’m gonna cum too soon. You’re so tight.” He admitted, his head hanging low as he stared at where we were joined. “I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“You won’t.” I assured him, his admission doing nothing but arouse me further. He took a few deep breaths, his face scrunching in concentration, before he started to move. His thrusts were cautious at first, slow and gentle, and they created tingly little bursts of pleasure that built and built, every one rubbing against my g-spot.

“Uhnn, uhh, oh God. So good, you’re so perfect.” He told me breathlessly, his pace increasing.

He would fuck me in waves, thrusting fast and hard for a while, bringing me right up the the brink, before slowing, grinding against my clit and giving me a moment to catch my breath. He did this over and over, edging us both until I was a shaky, sweaty mess with a pounding heart, on the brink of orgasm. Rick never rushed sex. It was always drawn out, built up slowly, every moment was savoured and prolonged. At times it was torturous, but it was worth it when it reached a certain point, and it all felt so good, so intense, it was almost like every thrust was a mini orgasm itself. I felt like I was constantly coming yet teetering on the edge at the same time, I was practically incoherent, able to do nothing but pant and groan, whining every time my climax built only to be washed away by the stalling of Rick’s hips. I nearly came when his cock twitched inside me, it throbbed against my g-spot as it filled me with another load of precum. Things were so slick down there and at this point I didn’t know who was the most responsible.

I stared up at Rick, who’s eyes were lidded, almost closed, yet he was still watching me. Hair clung to his forehead with sweat, and I knew I was in the same state. He leaned down and kissed me, squeezing my breast with the hand that wasn’t holding him up beside my head. Another wave came, and he thrust hard and fast, grunting and groaning against my mouth, building me up and up to my climax for the umpteenth time that day. I was waiting for him to slow, expecting that pleasurable drop in the pit of my stomach when my orgasm was robbed, the low spread of tingles as the friction suddenly stopped. But it didn’t come. He kept going, faster, sloppier and more frantic. He broke the kiss and pressed his forehead into mine, wailing loudly, his grip on my breast tightening.

We came together. A beautiful moment that Rick always seemed to manage to set up perfectly. He throbbed deep inside me, filling me with his seed and I pulsed around him, milking him of every drop. My eyes rolled back, and I swear I was close to blacking out with how intense it was, it was almost too much. Almost, but not quite. It seemed to go on forever, the ebb and flow of incredible pleasure, subsiding slowly, leaving in it’s wake absolute exhaustion. The room was filled with panting when he finally pulled out of me. I felt his cum leave my body, and I could tell that there was a lot of it. I didn’t give a shit about cleaning up, I was too spent. Rick laid down beside me, draping an arm over my tummy.

“I love you so much.” He told me, still breathless. “I promise I’ll never shout at you again. And if I break that promise you- you’re free to do whatever you want to me.”

“Let’s be rational Rick.” I chuckled, interlacing our fingers together. “Whatever I want? I’d probably just do this again.”

[moonheart1313]

“Put It Down” Review (Spoilers and this is a little long!)

So, I saw S21 E02.

For the past week, my stomach has been churning over what the outcome of this episode would be.

…and I was NOT disappointed.

Holy fucking shit. Let’s just…break this down.

-The introduction

Tweek going up and just BANGING his hands on the piano and screeching may be the biggest laugh I’ve gotten since Wendy described what Yaoi was back in season 19. Not only is it incredibly relatable to anyone suffering from major anxiety problems or stress, but it’s so Tweek.

Stan got a couple lines. I don’t know about y’all, but I am proud of him. In all seriousness, have we just…forgotten about Stan while making room for Randy. He’s one of those jokes that…I don’t know, he’s kinda depressing anymore. In “White People Renovating Houses”, Sharon’s blank expressions and his attitude towards Daryl…I didn’t really get why the joke was funny. I mean, I got the melodrama, but it didn’t get much of a laugh out of me. Why wasn’t Stan or Shelly included? It would have been way funnier to see their reactions to their father. We need to focus on the kids reacting to the madness around them. Not focusing on just the adults doing the madness.

In short—bring back Stan’s reactions and opinions! Oh, and Kyle and Kenny. Especially Kenny. I can’t remember the last time he got attention, either.

Craig calling Tweek “honey” and “babe” while no one was around. This is no longer fake dating. We don’t know if it started off as such, but this relationship has gone way past “for the town” shit. In fact, the only person who really talks about homosexuality is Tweek’s father, which is pretty much just a running joke (because Mr. Tweak is a terrible dad).

-Cartman’s suicide campaign.

Okay, so this is basically the B plot of the episode and…it shows. Normally, the Cartman’s storylines are the ones I prefer in South Park episodes, but not only did it feel kind of forced, but it wasn’t very funny. Honestly, watching a smart girl like Heidi being manipulated by this psycho is hard to sit through. As someone who has known people in these relationships and had a friend who threatened suicide if I was going to abandon them, this hits hard.

I’m not saying it is a bad idea to delve into this issue as it is becoming more public, especially online, but Matt and Trey could really piss off a lot of the fans if they take this too far. South Park has always been about pushing the limit, but they also know how much their show has helped countless individuals who struggle with depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. The honesty of the show gives many people hope that the world isn’t just filled with passive morons or people who believe you need to be a certain type of person. If they attempt to harshly mock this spectrum, the show’s rating could potentially plummet to the point of them only being able to make the next two seasons that they signed on for after this one.

I do think if they show both sides, the people that are seriously suicidal and people like Cartman who desire attention as well as manipulating people, it could be successful. If they can phrase the moral correctly, I think this season could come out as one of the absolute best. If they only wanted it for this episode, I can see why they would choose to go onto a different storyline for the season since there is plenty of other issues to delve into. Still, if it’s a storyline they are going to tackle, I hope they know what they are getting into.

-Tweek’s cupcakes.

I finally lived to see Tweek covered in frosting and baking ingredients. Life—is good.

-Trump.

Now, as Matt and Trey explained, while they are still going to joke about Trump, they didn’t want it to be the focus of the season of even every episode. Here, the joke worked perfectly. It was less about Trump and more about Tweek being in a situation that he has no control over, no matter how hard he tries to fix it. (The joke about no one caring about Hillary made me snort so loud my nose hurt. Equal playing field. Thank God.)

-Fidget spinners.

Considering all the previews and screenshots were showing fidget spinners, most fans thought the small devices would be the focus of the episode. And, call me crazy, I’m kinda glad it was just a funny joke about how they don’t necessarily help people.

The devices are used for kids with ADHD (or if they have some sort of issues paying attention), who need to keep their hands moving if they’re in class or trying to focus on something. Using it as a calming device is a myth and the show accurately showed just how people rely on them a little too much.

-Children getting hit by cars.

I have to admit, the shot of that first kid getting hit was oddly chilling. Mostly because of how accurate it parodies commercials. What’s even better is that his death wasn’t a joke. It was something the whole school (not counting Cartman) banded together to pay their respects too. Later, the other deaths became more of a joke, but what’s incredible is how they manage to tie this B plot with the A plot. But more on that later.

(GODDAMN THEY KILLED A LOT OF KIDS THIS EPISODE WTF)

-Tweek in Craig’s room.

OKAY. This was FUCKING hilarious. Watching Tweek without any problem or pretense heading into Craig’s room only to scream out his fear was another huge laugh I got from this episode. The fact that besides being a little disgruntled (the poor kid just woke up), Craig is hardly surprised by the appearance and action, meaning this happens A LOT.

And Craig’s space stuff EVERYWHERE. Matt and Trey knew EXACTLY what they were doing.

-The creek date

The argument between Craig and Tweek was some of the best writing I’ve ever scene. Not only are they fighting like an actual couple would in this situation, but while watching it the first time, I understood Craig’s frustration and couldn’t see what Tweek wanted. However, once the true solution of what Tweek’s needs is explained, I finally understood.

When it comes to emotion vs. logic, the friction is unstoppable. Personally, I am usually a logical person. I take into account as many options and facts as I can find and then make my conclusions. However, when I have no information or things are out of my control, my emotional side takes over and I begin to panic. Once I understood this opposition was the problem, I realized what the episode was saying.

Tweek’s not being unreasonable and Craig isn’t being uncaring. They are both frustrated because Tweek doesn’t know how to make himself feel better and Craig doesn’t know how to help him. Which leads to my next point.

-The message.

When Heidi makes her statement about emotions, the writing is very good and allowing her to speak about the issue, but also having it relate to creek’s storyline without even addressing said storyline before the following scene. It works on both accounts. It’s once again sad to see Heidi following after Eric because, as most of us would agree, she deserves better (or at least revenge).

Moving on, Craig’s understanding of the situation doesn’t paint him as the bad guy who needs to apologize. Instead, he realizes what the best course of action is to take to help his boyfriend. And without hesitation, he does. It shows that Craig learned a lesson about compromise. That sometimes other people need to work through things in a different way than Craig might be used to working through them. That can be a hard concept for even some adults.

And may I just say, the fact that Tweek was using the (FOUR?!) fidget spinner idea to attempt to calm himself was so very sweet. Even though he probably knew it wouldn’t work, he still tried for Craig. Even after that huge fight. It expresses the stability of their relationship, even when things are painfully tense.

Craig helping to guide Tweek to his own epiphany was brilliant. He wasn’t treating Tweek like an idiot. That’s what Tweek needed. Someone can go up and tell you what you need. But that’s not the same as figuring it out for yourself. Once Tweek had a moment to let out his fear and talk it out (rather than people distracting him or just telling him to be quiet), his mind cleared up and the solution for what would make him feel better was his own idea. Craig didn’t need to be a fixer, he needed to be a supporter. And although he didn’t realize it before then, his heart was still in the right place.

Many people have said that Tweek and Craig may be the most accurate, stable homosexual couple ever (or at least for 2017) and I highly agree. Since they’re kids, it takes the physical aspect out. I never felt the need to see them kiss (maybe a hug would’ve been nice) because it was about their feelings, not their attraction to one another. They have a mutual respect of love for each other that was tested in this episode. Their fight wasn’t “petty” or “forced”. It was natural, like a disagreement any couple could face.

If this is the kind of amazing messages, character moments, and wonderful humor we are really in for, I am definitely looking forward to going down to South Park this season. Well done, Matt and Trey.

[maximuswolf]

Ex manipulated me heavily at the end. I feel triggered, anxious, and exhausted. via /r/BPD

Ex manipulated me heavily at the end. I feel triggered, anxious, and exhausted.

This post is likely going to be very, very long. I may add a TLDR later but right now my brain is too zapped too figure out a shortened way to say all of this. I’m also using a throwaway account.

My ex and I (both female) were together for almost two years when I ultimately ended things just under a week ago. In the beginning she seemed wonderful and great, and like she was motivated and driven and only wanted the best for me. But slowly some red flags started popping up that I should have paid more attention to. And some things I am - just recently - discovering were lies and/or manipulation tactics she used that didn’t even come across as red flags to begin with.

Let me say this - she picked the wrong girl. I do not bend for people easily. I have worked intensely on my BPD and my mental state and becoming a better person/version of myself in spite of it, but I am not weak and controllable.

The days leading up to the breakup, the red flags became far more apparent than they ever had. She said that she has no one else aside from me, and if we ever broke up, she would end her life. She isolated herself by becoming angry and hostile with everyone. I’d try to help her make friends but it was fruitless so the only friends she ever saw were my friends, which drove me crazy because it - at times - impeded on my ability to hang out with people I may not get to see often.

This aspect is a longer instance so bare with me. We had an unfortunate issue happen when isolation occurred and had to move from our apartment quickly. She knew I was in a bad mental state and agreed that it would be better if I left for my uncles house to be safe and avoid inpatient. My best friend H was more than happy to take my place in the packing situation so that my ex wouldn’t be alone and it would move at the same pace. I asked my ex repeatedly if she was okay with my going and my friend staying and she kept saying it was fine, she promised it was fine, not to worry. Well all of that was a lie and she used it against me in a fight saying that I was selfish and left her. When I said she could have told me no she tried to make it my fault that she cannot say no, despite me not having a track record of getting upset when someone says no to something (I’m actually almost comically chill about crap). She also insinuated that H did not pack enough to her standards and she couldn’t figure out why H even showed up if she wasn’t going to help. A different friend - A - told me he felt my ex was being insanely ungrateful. Then H, a person I trust and has no reason to lie to me for any reason, told me (unprompted) that she felt really annoyed packing with my ex because she wouldn’t do anything and was on her phone almost the whole time or just handed her things to pack. She was angry that my ex accused her of being like that, especially since my ex started trying to put stipulations on my friendship with H that were already pissing us both off (for a very petty reason, she did not want H in the house or in the car, and didn’t want to be at my birthday party coming up if H was invited - H has taken me to inpatient more than anyone, visited and called me in inpatient every time, and has always been a shoulder I could count on, so not inviting her was out of the question). There are tons of examples I can give of just how unreasonable she could truly be.

Anyway, aside from just that, ex and I had loads of problems. I know her “biggest” problem with me was that I’m not affectionate enough. I told her we should write a list of relationship expectations down and put a month timeframe on it, so we did. At the end of that month, if it still didn’t feel right, we’d break up.

The next two days I just didn’t feel right about the whole situation. I knew I cared for her but I wasn’t in love with her and I just felt trapped and suffocated. I just wanted out. She knew I was acting off so I finally told her that I just couldn’t see us being happy going forward and that I needed to be done. She became immediately hostile and accused me of leading her on - the exact thing I was trying not to do - and said I lied about so many things. Like “how could you pretend to care about me and even say we are going to be friends?!” stuff. I tried to stay calm and composed and only say what I felt was needed so as not to push her any further. She decided to go for a drive which I didn’t think much of because she does like to drive when upset.

I called my friend A to let him know what happened and amidst the call my ex texts me a picture of a knife that she has in her car. She won’t tell me where she is and won’t promise me she won’t hurt herself so I had no choice but to call the cops which I knew would make her mad but that’s all I could do. A gets off the phone with me and calls her and is actually able to keep her talking and calm her down enough to convince her to come home. She sends me some heated texts and then comes back into the house. She stays up until about 3-4 am watching tv so I finally feel calm and okay enough to go to bed.

The next day, things are calm but I realize she didn’t put the knife back and it isn’t in her car. I go ask her to give it to me. She yells a bit but finally relents and gives it to me and indicates that “something else is in progress” but won’t tell me what. Again, I have no choice but to call the cops. I do feel manipulated but I don’t take those threats with a grain of salt - ever. The cops and medics show up but they can’t do much so they just say to call if anything else happens. I’m too scared to leave the house at this point so a family friend brings me cat food and pizza so I don’t have to run any errands. For most of the day, she spends that day isolated in her room. Later that night, though, she sends me TikToks on how people with my mental illnesses are able to work with people with her mental illnesses. It annoys me but I mostly ignore it because telling her “we are never ever ever getting back together” isn’t a good idea at the time. I also reach out to her mom and sister (who she has cut off) because I cannot handle the situation alone anymore and they are rightfully worried as crap.

The next day I’m in my room watching a show and I keep hearing a banging noise. The washing machine is backed up against the room she is in so I think maybe it’s loud and she doesn’t realize what it is and is trying to sleep. I ask her about it and her fist is clenched against the wall and she won’t tell me why she is doing it. Fun fact: I get triggered when people are angry and slamming things and taking their hostility out physically. She knows this, but decides to spend most of the day punching the walls. I end up listening to a podcast with headphones on and playing animal crossing to drown it out for a bit. A short while after taking them off, I head her sharpening a knife in the kitchen and go down and take it from her as she’s about to go back into the room. I ask her what her plan was, no answer.. so I have to call the cops again.

I spend a long time talking to her mom and sister that night. They advise me that she tends to try to make people hurt when she is hurting and inform me of some of the lies she may have told. They also apologize to me for her manipulating me. I tell them I’m considering spending the night elsewhere because I can’t keep going and they actually back me on it, saying I need time for myself too.

H comes to get me. The very second I get to her house, ex texts me the pills she is going to take and a will. I hardly respond before her sister tries to call me, I tell them I have to go and call the cops, and they get a call from ex. I told them not to let ex know I am talking to the cops and just try to convince her to open the door for them when they get there so they don’t have to go through the garage.

They end up getting her to the hospital, and I believe she is in inpatient now. She keeps telling her mom and sister I don’t care about her, and her sister even told her I’m just trying to give her space and won’t be calling her but she can call me. Hell, I even dropped clothes off at the ER for her last night because I know how much inpatient donated clothes can suck.

I should be able to finally breathe today but I just feel so exhausted and drained and triggered. My anxiety has peaked, causing issues with my OCD as well. I am lucky I have tremendous friends.. I don’t want my ex to suffer but she needs to realize that she needs helps and needs to accept it because I’m not the first relationship she has tried too hard to gain a semblance of control over, leading to a demise. I’m not sure what I want by posting this, but maybe encouragement? I luckily do not feel suicidal, just lost.

We will not be getting back together - so no worries there. Honestly idk if I can ever be her friend again after this

Submitted September 18, 2020 at 09:03AM by highprincess_diehigh via reddit https://ift.tt/3c8WHBp

[icyhobi]

Angel in the Darkness (M) pt.2

Summary: After a patient urgently pleads you to go and help a friend of his, you naively agree to it. Little did you know, that you would get more than what you agreed to, when he leads you to a brothel, to help a dangerous prostitute named Jeon Jungkook.

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader (ft. Jin, but not romantically)

Genre: Smut (M), angst, mafia!au, prostitution!au 

A/N: Plz read the first part, if you haven't already. This is a dark and filthy story! Graphic descriptions of sex (masturbating, etc), heavy dom/sub undertones, drug use, vulgar language use……(alot of smut comes in later) This is a mature read! You have been warned!

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8 | part 9 | part 10 | part 11 (final chapter)

 ~~~~~

“Do you wanna see what happens when you try to trick a demon?”

His dark intimidating eyes are staring directly into yours, making you feel like you’re his prey. His grip on your chin is stern, and you feel as if there is no escape from him. You’re drowning in his musky cologne, which makes you close your eyes in a haze. How were you supposed to get out of this? He literally caught you in a lie, and you could tell by his voice that he wasn’t too happy about it.

His grip on your chin slowly increases in pressure, causing you to panic.

“Y/n……….” he purrs. “I asked you a question, and I’m feeling extremely inpatient.”

Omg, what do I do? Why wasn’t I more careful when going through my purse?!?! UGHH! You were completely rooted to the spot, with your fists clenched to your sides and eyes still closed shut. What were you suppose to say to him? Tell him that a man named Jin sent you here to lie about your age, and to try and ‘help’ him?!? No, you couldn’t do that. Jin made it very clear to you that he didn’t want this ‘Kookie’ to know who sent you here.

UGHHH! C’mon! Think Y/n, think! There’s no way I can tell him the truth………. you regretfully think to yourself. Furrowing your eyebrows, you come to a realization that you’re gonna have to lie your way out of the situation.

You open your eyes, and try to glare back at him, but as soon as you met his piercing stare again, you look away immediately. “I…. I’m s-sorry..” you say quite pathetically. You wanted to sound more assertive, but there was just something about this man that made your nerves go all over the place.

His lips curl into a menacing smile and he mocks you with his sultry voice, “Sorry? Sorry for what…. little girl?”

Your words instantly die down in your throat. Who was he calling little girl?!?! Granted, you are a year younger than him, but you were still a 20yr old women who has helped so many people see brighter paths. Your clench fists squeeze down even more tighter, and your pretty sure you’ve broken the soft skin of your palm, but you could care less as the position you were in, was the most uncomfortable feeling ever.

“I-I’m not a little girl. Y-you’re only a year older…” you start to stutter. My lord, why can’t I stop stuttering?!!?

He just narrows his eyes at you, and tightens hold, causing you to squeak in discomfort. It had been so long since one of his clients were around his age, and the fact that you tried to lie pissed him off severely. He hated liars, absolutely despised them. So how could a sweet looking angel like you try to trick him?

“Look into my eyes,” he growls.

It wasn’t a request; it was a command, so you slowly lifted your gaze until you met his dark eyes again.

“I was taught to listen and respect elders…” he says with a pause, but then increases the pressure on your chin till it’s borderline painful. “But you tried lying to me, which was a big mistake……you’re suppose to listen to me…” he manages to say calmly, but you can still hear the venom laced to it.

You close your eyes in pain, as his grip was hurting you. You then quickly exclaim, “Y-you’re hurting me……. You can’t force me to do anything!”

Jungkook freezes. He remembers saying those exact same words all those years ago, no matter how much he wished to forget about it.

“You’re hurting me!!”

“THEN DO WHAT I SAY BOY!”

“You can’t force me to do anything!!!!”

“WHERE’S YOUR RESPECT HUH?!?!? I’M YOUR ELDER, SO YOU WILL DO WHAT I TELL YOU!!”

“No, I can’t! Please! Please don’t do this! PLEASE!”

“I’ve had enough of you and your bloody mistakes! This will teach you who’s fucking in charge!”

“Wait! Please! Please no! NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!”

His grip on your chin, instantly diminishes as the memory ends. You sigh in relief as he lets you go, while he slowly backs away, creating some distance between yourselves.

You start to rub your sore jaw, but in the corner of your eyes you notice something was wrong with the man; he was staggering.

Jungkook’s breathing becomes uneven as he holds his head while wobbling backwards away from you. The memories… the pain… all were starting to flood back into his mind, when you unknowingly said those same words he said. No, w-why now? I don’t wanna remember…

“I……” he starts to mumble.

What’s wrong with him? “Hey…. are you alright?” you ask him worryingly.

Jungkook can feel his head spinning, and the air starts to feel as if he was breathing in toxic. “Why……. now...” he mumbles softly.

You start to panic, as he looks like he’s about to fall over. What’s happening to him? “Kookie?” you say unsurely while you walk forward.

“Urghhh…” he slurs.

He’s slurring his words, oh shit. You realize that he’s going to pass out, so you try to dash to him in time, but he drops down instantly, completely knocked out.

~~~~~

“What do you mean he fainted?” Jin asks you with a bewildered look on his face. Yesterday was the day that you were supposed to meet Jungkook, but the last thing on Jin’s mind was that he would pass out randomly. He still couldn’t believe what he was hearing; you had told him that you met ‘Kookie’ and got caught lying about your age, which angered him so he cornered you, but suddenly backed off and fainted. What the actual hell?

“I don’t even know myself!” you exclaim. As soon as he fell to the ground, you shrieked and went to check his pulse. His breathing was unsteady, but you knew he would be fine. You then quickly went out of his room, and told some of the staff members about ‘Kookie’ fainting, to which two men instantly went to check in on him. You tried to stay as long as you could, and wait for him to wake up, but they told you to just come back in another day, until your prostitute was okay again.

“Did he…. accidently hit his head or something?” Jin still asks you completely lost.

“No, I just told him that his grip was hurting me, and he couldn’t force me to do what he wanted. After that, he just completely backed off….” you trail off. It was like something completely came over him, and it worried you to no end. But he also did look as if he was mumbling about something…. he didn’t want to say or remember. What did happen to him? And even till now, you couldn’t get this mysterious ‘Kookie’ off of your mind.

You were still replaying the scene when he dropped to the floor in your head, so you didn’t notice when Jin physically stiffened when you told him what you said to him before he fainted. He closes his eyes in pain, and goes to pinch the bridge of his nose in irritation. Now it makes sense….

Obliviously to you, Jin still remembers Jungkook screaming in agony, saying those exact words you had said to him. It still haunts him, but what didn’t anymore? Every memory of his past still has traumatized him to this day, and he knew it still affected Jungkook very deeply. But he also knew, it affected Jungkook even more gravely, than it ever did to him. He was so young…. just a kid.... I wish things could’ve been different. I-it, shouldn’t…. STOP! If I keep thinking about it, I wont be able to mask my feelings.

He clears his throat, while trying to look unfazed, “Well, maybe he didn’t eat all day…”

You’re jolted out of your trance by Jin’s voice, and you look up at him to see that he still looks tense. His fists are clenched, and he’s sitting up straight, and even though his expression looks normal, you can still see his eyebrows raised slightly, looking like he was uncomfortable. What isn’t he telling me…

“Y/n you have to go back,” he states calmly.

Your heart drops. Go back? But why? You didn’t even know how you were supposed to talk to him the first time! Even though you admit, you secretly wanted to see him again, and make sure he was alright, you had no idea who ‘Kookie’ actually was, or what he was capable of. “I…. I don’t think I can Jin…”

He knows it will be hard for you to deal with Jungkook, he knows that Jungkook is unpredictable, and he also knew that he was being unreasonable to you…. but he needed you to get Jungkook to trust you. Or else….

“Y/n please, you have too!” Jin says quite loudly, as he was starting to get desperate.

You’re surprised by his little outburst, and can hear the urgency in his tone. “Jin I’m sorry! I can’t do it again! I don’t even know how to approach or talk to him! You’d be better at it! You actually know him personally, don’t you?” This isn’t making any sense! Why would Jin send me to him, a complete stranger, if he actually knew the man himself?

No! Only she can do this! “Y/n please! You’re the only one who can help him!” he starts to raise his voice even louder.

Why is he so worried for this man? Why is he so scared? “Why do you even need me to help him? I don’t even know what’s wrong with him!??!” you retort, starting to get irritated.

“Y/n you don’t understand! There isn’t much time left!”

Huh?

“Time left for what?” you asked, now completely confused.

Jin grits his teeth, why were you being so difficult? He almost gave himself away!

“I’ll explain when the time comes, just fucking do it!! Please! Only you can!” he begs you while yelling.

Why…. why is this so important to him? I’ve never seen him so shaken up before…. “Why am I the only one who can do it?”

“Because he won’t listen to me!!” Jin screeches at you.

You were extremely frustrated at this point; why was he hiding so many secrets? Why couldn’t he just tell you the truth of what was really going on? “Well he didn’t really listen to me either! If anything, he’ll listen more to you than me,” you exclaim.

Jin lets out a deep sigh while regretfully saying, “No, he won’t…”

“Why?”

“Because… he hates me.”