#why did reggie suck so badly

[invisibleraven]

I don't know what that means!

Peterpatterlina

Since Julie refused to skip school for band practice (lame) the boys had to find a way to amuse themselves. As such, they decided to catch up on all they had missed in the past twenty five years. Alex had Willie for that, making sure he understood all the new slang as well as the joys of be gay, do crime.

Luke and Reggie stuck to watching things. They started with Star Wars, the series that brought them together as kids, sneaking in to see the original trilogy when they were probably too young to do so. They were less enthused about the rest of the films, but did enjoy the live action shows that Carlos insisted they watch.

From there, they started watching movies and shows old and new alike, though sometimes they had to pause and get context for historical events and memes.

Eventually they figured they should watch Friends-Flynn told them that it had aged badly, and though they might have fond memories of the first season, the rest was not as good.

But hey, it killed time right?

(Even though Flynn was right and they both agreed that Ross sucked and Chandler was not nearly as appreciated as he should be)

"Do you think lobsters actually mate for life?" Luke asked as they sat through a clip show.

"I think wolves do?" Reggie offered. "Why the sudden interest in the mating habits of crustaceans?"

"It was the thing Phoebe said, about Rachel being Ross' lobster. I think I want that-someone for the rest of my life. Afterlife. Whatever."

Reggie gave a sly grin. "You mean Julie?"

Luke bit his lip, a faint blush tinting his cheeks. "Maybe. But... not just her."

Reggie looked at Luke then, not daring to get his hopes up. He knew how he felt about Luke, and how it had changed since their little chemistry experiment. How he also felt about Julie, a deep well of love that he could never speak of. He had buried his feelings deep, figuring he had no hopes in either harbour and had resigned himself with an afterlife of loneliness and pining from the sidelines.

"R-really?" he finally choked out. "Who else?"

"I think you know man."

"I want to hear you say it."

"It's you Reg," Luke said, cupping his cheek. "It's always been you I think. But it's her too."

"Me too," Reggie rasped out, whatever else he was going to say being swallowed in a kiss that was blistering, messy, and perfect, just like the person giving it to him.

"Oh."

They broke apart, turning to see a devastated looking Julie in the doorway to the studio.

"I'll just... let you two get back to it."

"No Julie wait!" Luke yelled, rushing to catch her. "It's...complicated."

"Looked pretty simple to me."

Luke looked at Reggie frantic who gave him a despairing, look and a shrug, not know what they could say or do to make this better. Then he burst out, "You're our lobster!"

"I don't know what that means!" Julie retorted, her face screwing up in anger.

"Can we explain it?" Reggie asked quietly.

Julie softened then, nodding, letting herself be guided to the chair, hands folded awaiting their explanation.

"Have you ever watched Friends?" Luke asked.

"No," Julie shook her head. "Flynn has and told me it's not worth my time, so I never bothered with that particular cultural touchstone."

Reggie took it upon himself to explain the reference they were making, and then looked at her. "So... we want you to be our lobster."

Julie looked at them both then. "Lobsters don't mate for life, sorry."

The boys faces fell then, until Julie took their hands in hers. "But wolves do. As well as a bunch of other animals. Even more have poly relationships. So maybe we can find the species to suit us?"

Reggie and Luke nodded vigorously, pulling her into an embrace, and though research was tempting they asked Julie for a suggestion for a show she loved they could watch together.

Even if they spent more time making out than actually watching Buffy.

[in-tua-deep]

TUA Headcanons

Some random headcanons i have for after they fix everything and are just living together after the apocalypse and recovering and being their best selves because I love them and okay they’re mainly five centric but you don’t have all the facts,,,, i love him,,

Five ends up being like,, professional penpals with a bunch of physicists/mathematicians online because honestly Five basically had to make his own branch of time travel maths during his time in the apocalypse he was working blind for most of it, so he’s SMART and he gets to channel his passion for numbers into running circles around professionals

He’s probably actually offered a job at some point but ends up being like,,, i cannot reveal my identify,,,, i can do consults only because honestly how is he supposed to explain that he is a) probably legally a minor if he bothered to actually legalize his existence because people are going to look at ‘time traveled at 13′ and ‘here now and looks 13′ and make an assumption and b) also,, doesn’t have a formal education. He was 13 he doesn’t have a highschool diploma, never went to college like damn

Five doesn’t know how to Person very well so he’s trying to learn by observation and looking at the only people-people who are around him, which are his siblings, so he picks up some of their habits

Klaus is the first one to pick up on this when Five gives him what is absolutely a Diego Scowl when Klaus says something dumb. Klaus had a mini panic with Ben about the fact that Five was alone for a really fucking long time and then when Five is safely tucked away elsewhere he calls a family meeting

The family meeting is literally just telling the others that Five is looking to them for examples of socially acceptable behavior and they need to keep that the fuck in mind damn, and if Five is mirroring then they’re going to use this to help him the fuck out

This is a long winded way to say that Klaus heads the cuddle brigade and basically says that if Five is looking to them for social modelling then they need to demonstrate platonic and safe touches with each other to normalize it and encourage Five to be more okay receiving/accepting touch bc i yelled about his touch starvation/aversion combo before in another post

okay though but actually modelling emotions by getting in the habit of saying “i feel ____ because ____ so i’m going to _____” is super helpful to kids because you’re giving them ways to describe their own emotions and deal with them, and i’m 100% sure that no one gave these kids healthy coping mechanism or modeled healthy social behaviors in their LIVES (example: i’m kind of irritable because I’m frustrated that I can’t seem to write this scene that I’m working on in a way that accurately reflects the way it’s going in my brain, so i’m going to take a step back and take a break - maybe grab myself some food and water or take a nap or a relaxing bath, etc.)

Diego spearheads a lot of park visits because he’s on a one man mission to take Grace out and about as often as possible since Reginald is dead and it combines his two favorite things: spending time with his mother and spitting on Reginald’s memory, so they have more picnics than they’ve ever had in their lives but everyone ends up enjoying it

Luther learns ways to make him feel a little better about his body. Maybe he shaves or waxes - it’s not like the hair grows back instantly and he can roll up his sleeves if he wants. Or he gets a tattoo or something, claiming the body at least somewhat as his own. He tries

Luther still has all his old shirts and clothes around from before The Incident even though he can’t wear them anymore. However, this supply is quickly dwindling because literally every other person in the house steals them. They’re too big on everyone because Luther wasn’t exactly a small dude even before Reginald’s weird serum, and the squad tend to use them as pajamas. Like they have literally had a movie night in pjs where everyone was wearing Luther’s old shirts with varying degrees of bigness (Five likes to tuck up his legs inside the shirt and sit like it’s a blanket or tent)

Allison bought a whole load of parenting books and child psychology books and is frequently seen reading them and making notes around the house when she has some free time. Ostentatiously this is only about getting Claire back and to supplement her therapy alongside the parenting classes she’s taking to show good faith to the courts. On the down low though, there are also books about child abuse and isolation in there because Allison also wants to help her entire family

Vanya is still teaching and in the orchestra and having more of a good time now that she can actually, you know, feel strong emotions again. She has a student one day who she didn’t get a name for except when she opens the door it’s Five looking nervous because he wants to spend time and actually show an interest in her passions and figures it can eventually be something they can do together,,, or something

he’s so bad at first guys. like he’s So Bad. But not the worst Vanya has ever taught, and Five is smart and pretty good at picking things up quickly but he’s still at a very very beginner level for a long time (Vanya gets him his own violin so that they can eventually do duets together it’s cute I promise)

I don’t know i just like thinking about these guys after everything has happened when they need to find purpose for themselves and figure out how to live again, because let’s be real none of them were really living tbh

[11queensupreme11]

you hate the way they wrote allison too huh 😭 same, cuz wtf did they do to my girl

Allison was terrible in this season, but I don’t hate the way the creators handled her??? Like, I can see where they were trying to go. To me, it seemed like they were making her regress. 

Allison’s definitely used to getting what she wants thanks to her powers. We don’t know much of how Reginald handled her throughout her childhood, but I highly doubt he gave her a lesson on ethics and the importance of ‘not using your powers for selfish reasons’. So yeah, mind control powers + lack of ethics = bad. 

Allison always used her powers to get what she wanted. It’s canon: she rumored her way into a career as a popular actress, she used her power on her daughter (which led to Patrick divorcing her and her losing custody of Claire, and it’s implied that she used her powers to initiate a relationship with Patrick ("I heard a rumor that you love me”). She only started becoming a better person in season 1 because she got a wake-up call after losing custody of Claire. She gets better in season 2, and then season 3 is where she goes downhill. 

She regresses. She goes back to her old self. 

I think the reason why she’s taking the loss of Claire so badly even though all her other sibs were traumatized by their own losses is because Allison is used to getting what she wants. She’s been that way her whole life and even though she tried to be better (season 1 & 2), the loss of Claire is too much for her to handle so she regresses back. She can’t have Claire so she lashes out at everyone, she can’t have Luther so she forces him to bend to her will (it’s no different than what she did to Patrick except what she did with Patrick was way worse since it lasted longer and she even got a whole KID out of it), she can’t have what she wants so she hurts Viktor and kills Harlan. 

I’ve seen a lot of ppl be like “you only hate her because she’s black and/or a woman” and “you guys didn’t hate Luther this much for what he did” and “Viktor killed billions of people but everyone’s so quick to defend him and hate on Allison” and I’m just like... no 💀

I’m pretty sure people would hate Allison even more if she were a white dude (ESPECIALLY because of the S/A scene). 

Luther was very hated by the fandom for locking Viktor up and Viktor def did a bad thing by causing the apocalypse, but the reason people are no longer hating on them was because they at least showed remorse for what they did and changed. Allison (for now) did not. 

The best thing she did was kill Reggie to save her sibs at the very end but she still pressed the button to reset the world so she could get what she wanted (which was a life with Claire & Raymond). She constantly manipulated Viktor with her whole “trust me, I’m doing this for all of us” spiel yet she’s the only one who gets her loved ones back and keep her powers (because her’s weren’t sucked up by the machine thingy). 

She reset the world to a reality where only she would benefit from it while the rest of her siblings remain lost, miserable, traumatized, and now, powerless. Kinda sucky of her ngl 🙁

However! She’ll most likely get her redemption arc in season 4 though so I can’t wait to see how it’s handled! 😃

(Also, I can’t wait to see how the creators make Klaus even crazier than he already is! They had their fun with Luther (season 1 with his moon trauma), Diego (season 2 with his JFK obsession), and now with Allison in this season with her desperation to get Claire and Ray back. This means... it’s Klaus’ turn next 😈)

[dumb-gryffindor]

Happy Birthday

Based on the headcannon that Sirius ran away on Reggie's birthday

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

Sirius stared at the open trunk in front of him. He had already packed everything he needed, arranged everything with James and was ready to leave this shitty excuse of a family. He didn’t care about getting disowned or burned from the stupid family tree, he only cared about being finally free, about finally finding a loving and happy family. 

But yet, there was something stopping him. Something that had had him hesitating about his decision for the past 20 minutes. Why couldn't he leave? It was as easy as going through the door, and if he was lucky, he would do that unnoticed. This wasn't just a silly prank like the ones he always did at Hogwarts, this was going to define his future, so he took the time to make a Plan B, and a Plan C and a Plan D, although he hoped that he wouldn't have to recur to those.

"Come on, Sirius. It has been your dream to leave since you were 11, so just fucking do it" He told himself. With a slightly shaky breath, he closed the trunk and was ready to grab his wand, which was lying on the ground, but then he heard a knock on the door.

"Sirius," A voice said on the other side of the door. Sirius' heart suddenly dropped to the ground, "Mother says you should come down. We are about to eat the cake" Regulus said, and Sirius noted sadness in his voice.

Silence. Suddenly he didn't know what to say, so he just stood there, in the middle of his now empty room (except for the wall decorations, purposely left there). He knew Regulus was still there, and Sirius had the urge to at least do something, to let his brother know that he was there, like he always did. He rushed towards the door, but stopped himself before grabbing the doorknob. After a second or two of hesitating, he finally opened it.

Regulus' eyes lit up when he saw his brother, although his expression stayed the same. He had barely come out of his room for the entire day, only early in the morning before everyone else was awake to wish Regulus a happy birthday. He had missed his birthday lunch and dinner—neither brother ever got to have a birthday party, so a family dinner was as far as they got—and had spent the entire day packing his stuff.

So, that was what was keeping Sirius from leaving. His brother. His little brother (Not so little anymore, though. He was already fourteen). He couldn't just leave him. Not when he had spent his entire life protecting him, trying to guide him into the right path instead of the one that his parents wanted him to go through. Yes, things had gotten quite difficult now that Voldemort was becoming more powerful everyday, but Sirius had never stopped loving or caring for his little brother, and was sure Regulus felt the same. 

"Reggie" Sirius said, trying to smile, although he found it quite hard. He wanted to say a million more things to him, but he didn't have the courage to say them. "Come with me, let's leave this house together" "Don't stay" "I'm sorry. For everything"  "Happy Birthday" "I love you".

"So… are you coming or not?" Regulus asked, and Sirius snapped back to reality, and looked at his brother in the eyes. He couldn't leave him behind, but how was he going to tell him? He was aware of the fact that Regulus had been manipulated by his parents to always be against his brother, so it was expected for him to react badly to the proposal. But instead, Sirius did what he best knew what to do: Fuck things up.

"I’m leaving" Sirius said, and Regulus looked at him in confusion.

"What?" He asked

"I'm leaving," Sirius repeated.

"What?" Regulus asked now in disbelief. Sirius felt a pang of pain in his heart as he watched his brother realize that it was not a joke, and that he was actually leaving, “W...Where? Why?”

“Well, it was obvious that at one point I would finally get fed up with our parents' bullshit, and that moment is now.” Sirius said, “I’m going to...to James’ ”

“Of course you are” Regulus muttered, his eyes flashing with anger, but his voice flooded by disappointment.

“Co...Come with me, Reg. We can live together and have a life of our own,” The oldest brother suggested, grabbing his little brother by the shoulders, but Regulus quickly shook him off.

“Are you… are you out of your mind?” Regulus said, angrily, “We wouldn't last two seconds outside before having hundreds of aurors looking for us… and...and you can't just leave like that!”

“Yes I can.” Sirius replied dryly, “And I swear we will be safe at James’ house with his family. We can have the life we always wanted, Reggie…”

“The life you always wanted, just because you were too blinded by your ego to realize that our parents only wanted us to be safe and successful!” Regulus interrupted him, and Sirius noted his eyes glimmering with tears. One part of Sirius wanted to scream to his little brother, to make him finally realize the truth, to wake him up from whatever their parents had poisoned Regulus mind with, but the other half wanted to stay just for him, wanted to go downstairs and finally act like the rightful heir of the Black family, just for Regulus.

“Reggie, please…”

“Don't call me that.”

“...Just, think about it. A life away from mother and father. You wouldn't have to be stressed all the time, you wouldn't have to carry such pressure over your shoulders. You wouldn't have to become them, you wouldn't have to join the Dark Lord! Think about it!” Regulus stayed quiet for a few seconds, seeming to have an internal war with himself. Sirius suddenly felt a flash of hope that maybe he had managed to convince his brother with that last idea, but then Regulus stood up straighter and his jaw clenched.

“You don't know anything about what I want” He answered.

“For fuck sake, Regulus!” Sirius snapped, starting to lose patience, “Wake up! Cant you realize you are being fucking manipulated by them?!”

“I'm perfectly capable of realizing when someone is using me, and that would not be the case in here!” His brother answered back, “You always talk about mother and father like they are the fucking devil himself, when everything they always wanted was just for us to be safe and to know what is best for us!”

“That's what they want you to think! They just want you to become like them, they just want you to lead you to a path that will make you unhappy. It's not too late to change everything. Just come with me! We can be happy with James and his family, we can form a new family!”

“Oh, its always about fucking James!” Regulus snapped, “James this, James that, James told me this…You seem to prefer him as your brother better than me!” Regulus shouted, pronouncing James’ name like it was poison, and Sirius said nothing for the next few seconds. Regulus was panting with anger, his fist clenched and a storm being unleashed in his grey eyes. Sirius’ blood was boiling by this point, and he didn’t see the point on continuing arguing, not when Regulus was this reluctant to open his fucking eyes for just one time.

“Fine,” Sirius managed to say, “Then stay the fuck alone in this house” He stormed back into his room, grabbed his wand and quickly casted a levitation charm on his trunk, not caring about the fact that he would most likely get a warning from the ministry. The ministry could suck his dick. He went out of his room again, his trunk following him floating a few inches from the ground, Regulus just standing there. He snapped back to reality once his older brother was already a few steps down the stairs.

“Sirius, please!” He said, grabbing his brother's wrist, but Sirius quickly let go, not bothering to look back, “Please, think about it!” His voice was now almost like a whisper, pain managing to creep through it.

“I’ve already thought plenty about this, Regulus, '' Sirius simply replied. His brother followed him down the other three flights of stairs, saying things that Sirius chose to ignore, as much as it hurted his heart deep down. He could hear the voices of his family members—ex family members— in the dining room, and that somehow encouraged him to leave faster. He reached the entrance hall and opened the front door. Rain was pouring outside, but that didn't stop him.

Sirius started walking quickly towards the sidewalk, his hair getting wet and falling over his shoulders due to the rain, his clothes getting soaked wet. “Wait!” Regulus called for him. Sirius stopped on his track and turned around to face him, surprised to see that he was running after him. He stopped, and both brothers looked in the eye. 

“Please. You can't leave… You can't leave me” Regulus pleaded, his voice low and looking down to his feet. Sirius' expression softened a little, realizing this was his last chance to save his little brother.

“Then come with me, Reg” Sirius answered, this time in a softer tone, “I promise, everything we’ll do, we will do it together. I’ll never leave you alone, Reg. I swear”

“Then don’t leave!” Regulus shouted back. They were both now soaking wet, and Regulus had started to shiver a little, so he hugged himself in an attempt to cover his arms from the cold. Sirius felt the impulse to hug him and protect him from the cold, to protect him from the world, but he remained on his spot, looking at his brother.

“I have to, Regulus! I don't want to keep living on like this. I want to be free and to be whoever the fuck I want and to be surrounded by the people i love!” Sirius answered, and Regulus stared back, his eyes reflecting the moment his heart shattered, begging him to stay.

“Stay for me. I need you” He whispered, the sound of his voice slowly fading away with the pouring rain. Those words hit Sirius like a trainwreck.

“I won't stay, I’ve already told you that!” Sirius managed to say, although he hated himself. Of course the last thing he wanted was to leave his little brother behind, but he was just so tired and the only thing that he wanted to do was arrive to the Potter’s, where he knew he would always be welcomed, “If you so desperately want to be with me, then just fucking come with me!”

“I can't, Sirius. I can't!” Regulus shouted, “I cant.” He repeated himself, this time in a lower voice. Maybe he was waiting for Sirius to keep insisting, but he didn't. He made a decision, one that he would later come to regret the prior years. One that the cold and lonely cell in Azkaban would make him hate himself for. But the past can’t be undone, and with just three simple words, Regulus life was ruined forever.

“Then I'm sorry” Sirius said, “I really am, Reggie”

A sob escaped from Regulus lips, and a tear fell from his eyes, although it mixed with the raindrops that were falling down his cheeks. The brothers locked eyes for one last time. One last time, and they both understood that this was the end of it. Of everything.

“Happy birthday” Sirius said, and started walking away from the house, from his childhood, from his suffering, from his brother.

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

Soo, this is my first time writing a one shot (can you call it like that?) and i'm quite happy w it :) English isnt my first language so there may be some mistakes.

Hope you liked it :)

[supergraphicultramoderngirl]

i ain’t gonna face no defeat

in which alex was a figure skater.

word count: 2,916

some willex, juke if you squint

tw: occasional swearing, period-typical homophobic parents (q word is used as a slur exactly once)

———

“Cut off my circulation even more, why don’t you?” Alex grumbles, grabbing his arm away from his sister.

She rolls her eyes and nudges him as he adjusts the arm band. “Hey, feel lucky you’re even doing this. I don’t think Mom and Dad actually realize what you’re skating to.”

Alex hesitates and sucks on his teeth. “You think they’ll be mad?”

“Oh, they’ll be livid,” she deadpans, then smiles softly. “But they can’t stop you.” She gives him a pat on the shoulder as he leans over to pull on his boot covers. “I’m gonna head to the bleachers. Break a leg!”

Alex calls after her, not looking up, “That’s only for theater and you know it, Mel!”

A few minutes later, he’s called to the boards, and he can’t shake off his damn jitters. He knows he’ll be fine once the music starts, but right now his skate guard won’t come off and he really has to pee all of a sudden and oh my god why is he wearing a tank top when it’s so fucking cold—

Alex steps onto the ice, and the announcer calls his name while he glides into a stretch before taking his beginning pose. He ignores the way his arm, raised in a fist, is shaking while the beginning harmonies start to play, and he skates.

•••

Alex began figure skating when he was six. It was an odd situation, really; he didn’t care about doing it one way or another, and he would’ve been fine with not doing it since his parents would always say it was a girl’s sport. His little sister, Melanie, however, wanted to skate so badly, but with her being the four-year-old she was, she was terrified of doing it alone. Begrudgingly, his parents signed him up for lessons alongside her.

Much to their dismay, he was good. Like, really fucking good. He landed his first single jump after only two years, and his first axel after six. He managed to get height in a way that his coach’s other skaters didn’t; maybe it was the inner pent up anxiety making him bounce like a jumping bean, who knows.

Alex wasn’t just good at jumps, either; he got his Y-spin after four years. He was that kid on the ice who accidentally cut people off with an impeccable spiral. When he practiced his programs, the other kids would move towards the boards to give him room and sneak a glance.

As much as Alex liked the attention from his peers (god, that support system was something else), he couldn’t help but feel disappointed that his parents never sat in on his sessions. They would only ever come to the shows and competitions his sister was a part of; he had to find his own ride to the others (thank god for Bobby's parents, honestly). It had made him angry at first that they didn’t want to be involved, but as he grew older, and learned more about himself, he realized he could use it to his advantage. He could skate to anything he wanted.

Alex was 13 when he chose to skate to Somebody to Love. To anyone else, it was very unassuming, just another kid skating to a popular song at the time, maybe even a tribute, since Freddie himself had passed two months before. It was everything to Alex, though. He pulled out all of the stops; his costume was the whole armband and wifebeater getup, and his coach let him assist in choreographing it.

He didn't know it was his last program.

•••

"Hey, Alex?"

He looks up from his math homework and hums in recognition.

Mel bites her lip and leans against the doorframe before mumbling, "I wanna quit."

Quit? Shit, nonononono— "—nonononono, Mel, you can't quit! If you quit, they're gonna make me quit!"

She closes the door softly behind her and walks slowly up to him. "Alex, the only reason I've been skating for the past year was so you could keep doing it. I'm really sick of skating at this point, and I wanna switch to something else. I'll keep going if you really, really want me to, but—" She sits next to him on his bed, lowering her voice to a whisper, "You saw how they reacted to the recital, 'Lex. You think they might make you quit anyway?"

Alex sighs and squeezes his eyes shut. She's right, he knows she's right. It just fucking sucks.

He tilts his head back. "You can quit," he whispers.

Mel places her hand on his and squeezes, whispering back, "I'm sorry." Alex looks back down at her. "I really with there was something we could do, but there isn't," she continues, recollecting her hand. "At least your last program was a good one."

He gives her a sad chuckle. "Yeah, I guess so. And, I'll have more time to focus on the band. Luke'll be happy about that."

Mel rolls her eyes, takes a breath, and leaves Alex to his own devices with a pitying look.

If she hears him practicing the beat to Somebody to Love in the basement the night she officially quits, she doesn't say anything.

•••

"Julie, what are you doing up there?"

Julie throws a shoe over the wall of the loft and into the evergrowing pile on the floor. "Cleaning out all of your old junk. Which one of you had a magician phase?" she asks, holding up a cheap, ratty top hat and matching plastic wand. "It was Reggie, wasn't it?"

Alex chuckles to himself, poofing up next to Julie. "Why do you think he knew who Caleb was when we met him?"

Julie lets out a loud laugh, continuing her digging. "Are the other guys here?"

"Nah, they're looking for a gig. I just got back from the park," Alex answers.

“Just the park?” Julie asks sarcastically, and before Alex can retort, she adds on, standing up straight, “Hey, whose skates are these?”

She’s holding his old figure skates in her right hand.

The black fabric is a little faded, with the familiar scuffs still on the toe. His dark blue skate guards are all dusty, but the blades still somehow look intact, given there wasn’t much opportunity for water damage in a loft.

Alex scratches the back of his neck, ignoring the rising blush in his cheeks and bracing himself for the inevitable teasing. “Those, uh, those are mine, actually.”

Julie looks up from the boots at him in awe. “Whoa, you skated? That’s so cool!”

Alex drops his hand, mouth open in hesitation. “Really? It’s not... weird to you?”

He can recall a tight grip on his arm, firmer than the band that had been ripped off. "Alex, what made you think it was okay to pull off this kind of stunt? You don't want people thinking you're some kind of queer, do you? Why we've let you continue this is beyond me, it isn’t any good for you.”

“Why would it be weird?” Julie asks, quirking her head to the side in such a Julie way that Alex would’ve laughed if he wasn’t so worried.

He shrugs, shuffling his feet from side to side, and mumbles with a wince, “I don’t know, because I’m a guy and figure skating is like, a girly sport, I guess?”

Julie shakes her head, eyebrows furrowed with a soft smile on her face. “First off, it’s not inherently girly, and second, if it’s something that you enjoyed, then that’s what matters, right?”

“I guess so,” Alex replies, looking down at his sneakers. Is that all that matters, though? He pauses for a moment in debate, then adds on at Julie’s encouraging expression, “My parents made me quit when I was fourteen.” He takes a breath. “They were never that involved in it, though, they actually only let me because my sister did it. I, uh, after I skated to a Queen song in a full Freddie Mercury getup, they weren’t too happy, and made me quit.”

At some point in his spiel, Julie had put her hand on his shoulder, and now she was squeezing it before pulling him into a hug. “Your parents are stupid,” she mumbled into his chest.

Alex chuckles, something emotionless, a bitter taste on the tip of his tongue. “Yeah. They were.”

Julie pulls away with a gasp, a bright smile on her face. “We should all go skating this weekend! The public rink just opened up a couple weeks ago, and I can bring Flynn so it doesn’t look like I’m talking to myself—” she falters, cutting herself off, “I mean, if you’re cool with it. I don’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

Alex thinks back to his many (many) practice sessions, and remembers the feeling of finally getting that move right, of flying in the air for that one glorious millisecond, of seeing some of his closest friends every other day. He misses it, of course he misses it. It was his biggest outlet before he focused all of his attention on drumming. But, he can’t help but feel that stupid fucking guilt clawing at his throat, can’t help but imagine oh, so clearly the look of betrayal on his mother’s face the night he came out.

Then again, he had lived the rest of his life out of spite of his parents. Why not keep it going?

“That sounds really fun,” he replies, pulling her back in. “Thank you.”

•••

A world sans Caleb was a new one to Willie. However, it was also a very welcome one, because it was in this world that he was able to just relax with Alex in the studio, enjoying every second they spend together without worrying about the time running out.

Which is why he was (reasonably) surprised when the time ran out.

They throw Alex an impressively offended look as he removed his arm from behind their shoulder. “What?”

“Where do you think you’re going?” Willie scoffed.

Alex chuckles to himself, pressing his lips into a line. "As much as I would love to stay here and cuddle with you—" At that, Willie's face goes bright red, and Alex counts it as a win in his head, "—the band and I are going ice skating when Flynn gets here, which should be in about five minutes."

"Oh," Willie's face brightens as they reply, "sounds fun!"

Alex winces. "Yeah, making sure Luke doesn't accidentally become tangible and run over a seven-year-old while playing human bowling on the ice with Reggie is super fun." Willie laughs something golden in response, and Alex only hesitates for a moment before adding on, "Uh- actually, would you want to come with us?"

Willie grows soft, still getting used to finally being included, but quickly schools his expression before replying, "Yeah, I'd love to! Though, fair warning, I'm kind of only good at the one kind of skating?"

Alex quickly scrunches his nose. "That's fine, I'll help you," he offers, slowly untangling himself from Willie.

Willie isn't sure how much help he's really gonna be, but they figure even an amateur would be better than whatever the fuck kind of Bambi creature he is on the ice, so they nod and pull Alex up by his hand off the couch.

•••

They arrived to the rink a few minutes ago, and while Julie and Flynn are buying their rental skates and Luke, Reggie, and Willie attempt to steal some without being noticed, Alex laces up his own skates by himself on an open bench.

It isn't until after he yanks the last bow that he realizes— putting on those skates should not have been that easy.

Yeah, their clothes are usually easy to put on, and they can summon their instruments any time they want, but touching anything else usually takes an immense amount of focus. Hell, the dahlia pin Julie had bought Luke for his guitar strap took five tries to actually hook on rather than just drop to the ground.

And yet, his skates just— went on? Laced up with no problem? His foot didn't go through the sole even once? He wiggles his toes around inside the boot, and only feels the familiar push of fabric against them.

He decides not to question it, to not think about the implications of his skates possibly being attached to his soul, and tries to avoid yet another afterlife crisis as they walk toward the boards. Or, at least, he walks, while Luke just bolts onto the ice with no hesitation, and Reggie quickly follows. Alex falls back behind Julie and Flynn, who step onto the ice and begin gliding around, and Willie somehow finds their way next to him, grabbing onto his hand. They make it to the door, and Willie lets go with a small nudge to the shoulder. "Alright, hotdog, show me what you've got," he jokes.

Alex lets out a small laugh and steps out onto the ice, a weird feeling of deja-vu settling into his nonexistent bones. Once he gathers his bearings, he glides along before maneuvering closer to the middle of the ice and pulling himself into a scratch spin. It takes him a minute to really center the spin, but with the phantom tingling of blood rushing to the tips of his fingers before he pulls in completely, suddenly it's 1990 and he's doing his Lacrimosa program and he wants to try to land every jump he's ever learned, even though he knows that trying his axel right now is a horrible idea, and—

He's exited the spin now, looking back at the door to see Willie about a foot away from it, gripping the wall with a concerning amount of intensity, an odd combination of fear, shock, and something else (awe, maybe?) coming to rest on their face. He skates back over, and Willie's expression doesn't seem to change. "You—" they swallow, "—you can skate."

Alex slides his feet back and forth, his arms behind his back. "Yeah, I figure skated for eight years, actually. Did, did I not mention that?" he asks, smirking a little, knowing damn well he very much never mentioned that.

Willie closes his eyes, sucks on his teeth, and takes a breath, getting over their minor bluescreen moment. "Help me?"

"In order for me to help you, you need to let go of the boards," Alex responds. Willie looks at the boards, then back at him, eyebrows furrowed. "It'll hurt a lot more falling into two flat surfaces rather than one," Alex reasons, and Willie hesitates before finally letting go.

"There we go," Alex says softly, taking both of Willie's hands in his. He begins to slowly pull them along, not caring about passing through lifers, while Willie's feet slip and slide beneath him. Alex tries his hardest not to laugh, and Willie quips, "I thought I was supposed to be the athletic one."

Alex scoffs, "Who told you that? Are you the one lugging around an entire drumset every weekend?" At Willie's laugh, Alex tacks on, "I didn't think so."

They make a full lap around the rink before Alex lets go, having to prevent Luke and Reggie from pulling on some little girl’s milk boxes to make her go faster, because no, that’s not how physics works, and yes, people will notice, Luke.

After, Willie moves to get off at the boards, and Alex pulls a disappointed pout. Willie just motions toward the ice, saying, "I know you didn't just come here to pull me around the whole time, I wanna see your turns and stuff."

Alex hesitates, "But I don't want to leave you here by yourself—"

He’s cut off by a familiar harmony playing in the background, and Luke and Reggie poof by his side in an instant. Alex barely has any time to register it before Reggie is putting a hand on his shoulder and Luke is asking if he’s okay.

And Alex doesn’t know how to answer that right away, if he’s being honest. At first, he thinks he might not be, because all he remembers is scolding, leaving, hiding, but he reminds himself it’s 2020 and he’s a ghost; that his parents are as involved in what was left of his life now as they were when he came out— not at all. The feeling of freedom starts to envelope him; the same freedom as when he danced with Dirty Candy at Eat ‘n’ Beats, the same freedom as when he played the drums at the Orpheum, and the same freedom he had before his last recital. He takes a deep breath.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay,” Alex replies, trying to hide his newfound itching to just get back out there.

Reggie drops his hand from his shoulder with a smile; meanwhile, Luke catches notice of Julie and Flynn starting a mini snow fight, to which he immediately races over and shouts, “I want in!” Reggie just shrugs and poofs over. Whether to stop him or join, the world may never know.

Alex rolls his eyes at his friends’ antics and looks back over at Willie, anxious energy seemingly radiating off of him— except, not as it usually does; now it was more excitement than anything else.

“Go show off, Alex,” Willie says, shooting him away with a smile.

Alex unsuccessfully tries to suppress the overwhelming giddy feeling that rises in his chest, and he skates. Again.

Finally.

[amazingphanisnotonfire-imagines]

Reggie//i can't let you go now that i got it

Request: your last reggie mantle imagine was soooooo cute it was.... BIG FAV i'm still grinning! could you please do one where reader and reggie have been best friends their whole lives? she's super protective and sweet to him and like? she's been in love for years but has been hiding it well?? she gets him to come away with her to college because 'screw this town' and they live together? but eventually she starts going on dates and it makes him realize he's in love with her too?? mutual love confession

hey! so before you go any further trigger warning mentions of abuse, specifically around reggie and his dad. it’s not in detail but it is mentioned a few times so don’t read if that upsets you. the last thing i want you to be is sad. i hope you all have a good day anyway, whether you’re reading this or not! (title is from Børns ‘electric love’)

- For 18 years 

- Reggie Mantle has been the only constant in your life 

- Even when you were babies he was there 

- Your mom’s sat beside each other in baby class, cooing and awing over each other’s kids

- All while 6 month old you stole 6 month old Reggie’s toy

- And then he cried so hard he vomited on not only himself but you as well 

- Which then made you cry even louder 

- And then your mom’s were asked to leave 

- So instead

- It became a weekly thing for your mom to take you to The Mantle’s 

- While her and Mrs Mantle gossiped and drank tea 

- You and Reggie would hit each other with various stuffed toys. 

- As you got older 

- The weekly visits turned into daily ones 

- Especially when you moved three houses away from him

- You and Reggie started to see each other more than your own parents did

- Your mom still went over once a week

- But when she arrived you were always usually there

- Either stood in the kitchen getting a snack 

- Or lying on Reggie’s bed watching an awful movie he just ‘had to show you’ 

- They usually involved a hybrid of two animals

- Sometimes mythical, sometimes not 

- But in all of them they were usually taking over the world

- They also always had the same four actors in

- But despite how much you protested 

- ‘reggie? are you being serious? we watched this one last time.’ 

- ‘no, we watched molemaid last time. this is medusamaid. they’re completely different’ 

- ‘oh, sorry. my mistake’

- You actually secretly loved them 

- Because they made him happy

- You would watch in awe as he laughed at stupid jokes 

- And how his eyes would always light up at a particularly gruesome part, no matter how badly CGI’d it was

- You also listened to the countless of theories as to how ‘hurrik9’ is clearly the prequel to ‘hellhounds’ because ‘they’ve got the same main character! it doesn’t matter if they’re not played by the same person. y/n, they’ve got the same name.’ 

- You also listened to him complain about the inconsistencies between ‘werewombats 1’ and ‘werewombats 2’

- ‘no matter how much the director stands by the decision to make them turn on each other, despite the first film clearly stating that that’s the last thing they’d do.’ 

- But the thing you loved the most about it 

- Was that he was only ever this way with you

- You’d been sworn to secrecy when you walked in on him watching ‘dinocano vs uniquake’ 

- And you promised never to tell anyone about his secret passion

- Or the fact that he had a stack of notebooks filled with plots and mini scripts for his own films. 

- Reggie may have gotten popular

- But to you, he’s still the same Reggie you’ve always known.

- Whose scared of clowns but won’t admit it

- And cried when watching Edward Scissorhands but if anybody asks it was you

- And who hates hot chocolate, but its the only thing he’ll drink when he’s sick 

- He also only eats pink marshmallows in months ending in R

- And white ones every other month 

- But in December he has both...because its Christmas.

- Yeah, you and Reggie are best friends 

- Always have been, always will

- But it doesn’t stop you from wanting more.

- It doesn’t stop the longing looks when you think no one is watching 

- Or the lingering touches whenever he hugs you

- It doesn’t stop your heartbeat picking up whenever he walks into a room

- Or how you forget how to breathe whenever he looks at you

- You look forward to everyday, even if you have a pop quiz or homework you only remembered the night before

- Because he’s going to be there to make you smile

- Even if he isn’t doing it on purpose 

- You look forward to the countless of texts he sends

- No matter how weird or ridiculous 

- Like when he text you at half three in the morning to ask if birds were real because somebody told him they weren’t.

- You then got a text straight afterwards telling you that it would be great idea for a plot

- And you still answer every single one

- No matter how stupid they are 

- It’s really a wonder how you get any sleep with your phone being on loud all the time

- But it’s worth it

- Especially when you get texts like 

- ‘he’s done it again’ 

- Reggie’s relationship with his father complicated to say the least

- You remember when you were younger they used to be best friends 

- Reggie idolized him 

- And you’d have conversations in Reggie’s tree house, about how much he wanted to be just like his dad when he grew up

- But when he did grow up

- And started to develop a personality that didn’t just revolve around football 

- Reggie no longer wanted to be just like his dad 

- He wanted to be the furthest thing from him

- The first time it happened 

- Reggie tried his hardest to hide it from you 

- And for the first time in 8 years 

- You went two days without seeing each other 

- On the third day though 

- You’d had enough 

- So you went round to see him 

- But when you asked his mom if he was in 

- She lied and told you he had just gone out 

- Even though you could clearly see him trying and failing to hide on the stairs

- So you did what any normal friend would do 

- You climbed through his bedroom window 

- With about as much grace and steal as you could muster 

- Which surprisingly, wasn’t a lot

- And you gave him the fright of his life 

- ‘what the hell are you doing here?’ 

- ‘you’re avoiding me’ 

- ‘i’m not. i’ve just been...busy’ 

- ‘doing what? fighting?’ 

- ‘what?’

- ‘your eye’ 

- ‘oh yeah...that’ 

- That was when you knew something was wrong 

- You’ve known Reggie your entire laugh 

- And you know the three things he’ll always boast about 

- Girls, football and fighting 

- ‘what happened?’ 

- When he told you 

- You couldn’t believe what he was saying 

- You wanted to find Marty Mantle and give him a black eye...see how he likes it 

- But Reggie begged you not to do or say anything 

- ‘it’ll only make it worse’ 

- ‘but its wrong. he should be locked up’

- ‘who’s going to believe me?’ 

- ‘me’ 

- ‘see...it was only one time anyway’ 

- So you agreed, reluctantly 

- And you so wanted to believe it

- But then a few weeks later he turned up to school with a bust lip

- A month after that another bruise around his eye that he tried to hide behind sunglasses 

- And by the time graduation rolled around 

- Both of you had lost count of the sunglasses and excuses 

- For three years he’d been trapped in a house with a father who thought hitting was the same as love 

- And a mother who pretended it didn’t happen 

- But now college was round the corner and that meant a chance for both of you

- Or at least thats what you thought

- ‘you didn’t get in?’ 

- ‘i didn’t get in.’ 

- ‘to any of them?’ 

- ‘nope’

- ‘reggi-’

- ‘it’s fine. my dad has always wanted me to work for him. i guess this will make him happy. even if i am the cleaner’ 

- ‘reg-’ 

- ‘please go’

- That summer was the longest one of your life 

- It was even longer that the time Reggie had to get his appendix out and so you couldn’t hang out for a 3 weeks.

- For two and a half months 

- You heard nothing from Reggie 

- You text, called, DM’d and even E-mailed

- But you got nothing 

- You went round at all times of the day to try and talk to him

- And every time Mrs Mantle answered and told you he was either out or busy

- Doing homework was her favourite excuse

- And Reggie has only ever done homework when you were doing the majority of it 

- You even tried climbing in through his window again 

- But he locked it 

- So you watched every morning as he dragged himself into his dad’s car

- Wearing a stiff suit and a miserable expression 

- No matter how hard you tried to get to him before the left 

- How fast you ran or how early you got to his house

- They were always long gone before you managed to get anywhere close to him

- You missed the midnight texts about nothing 

- You missed his stupid jokes 

- You missed watching an entire room light up whenever he walked in

- You missed the way he made you feel, even if he was unaware of it 

- You even missed watching his god-awful movies 

- You just missed him 

- And when he missed your leaving party 

- That was the final straw

- At 7am the next morning 

- You shoved the last of your boxes in the back of your car 

- Said goodbye to your parents 

- And drove away

- Three houses down the street 

- Making sure your parents had gone back inside before stopping 

- You sat outside for a few minutes 

- Trying to think of what to do or say 

- You knew his mom would answer the door

- And that you’d get the same excuses 

- You also knew from the past few experiences that his window would still be locked 

- So you threw rocks at his bedroom window in the hopes that when he’d check to see what it was, he’d leave it unlocked 

- And he did! 

- You watched from behind a bush as he hung his head out the window to look around

- His brow furrowed and hair messy

- Clearly he’d just woke up

- You couldn’t help the smile twitching at your lips 

- You’d missed that face 

- Climbing the window was a lot harder than it used to be 

- Mr Mantle had taken the ladders away 

- Another reason as to why he sucked

- But you managed eventually 

- And you almost died only twice 

- Which is good 

- It’s better than three 

- You landed on the carpet with a loud thud that made him jump half way across the room

- ‘y/n. what the hell are you doing here?’

- ‘it’s moving day. and i must say i’m very disappointed at the lack of preparation on your part. have you even started packing yet?’

- ‘it’s not funny y/n’

- ‘i know. do you see me laughing?’

- ‘i’m being serious y/n. just leave’ 

- ‘no’ 

- ‘what?’

- ‘the last time you told me to leave, i listened and i didn’t see you for two months, so no’ 

- ‘what about college’ 

- ‘what about it?’ 

- ‘it starts in three days’ 

- ‘i know. and if we stand here any longer we’re going to miss it. so get packed and lets go. it’s a nine hour drive and i’m not doing all of that alone’ 

- ‘you know i can’t go’ 

- ‘says who?’ 

- ‘my dad, every single college i applied for and me’ 

- ‘listen to me reggie. you are my best friend, you have been since we were babies. there’s not a part of my life you haven’t been in. do you really think that would stop at college?’ 

- ‘we didn’t spend the summer together’ 

- ‘and it was the worst summer of my life’ 

- ‘same...but that might have been because i was spending 12 hours a day in an office’ 

- ‘rude. but i’ll take it!’ 

- ‘i did miss you though. it was weird not seeing your face everyday’ 

- That makes your cheeks heat up and you have to force the flutter in your chest to go away

- ‘it always cheers me up’ 

- There it goes again and you want to claw at your chest until it’s no longer there 

- Hope is a terrible thing to have when you’ve been in love with your best friend for your entire life

- ‘you always cheer me up’ 

- Oh dear...

- ‘i love you...a-as a friend. this summer has been the longest and most depressing for both of us. i don’t want to live the rest of my life like that. i need you reggie. so please pack your bags, say screw you to your dad and to this town and lets go’ 

- ‘what about money? where am i going to live?’ 

- ‘we’ll figure that out on the way there. just hurry up’ 

- And he did 

- You and Reggie threw the majority of his belongings into any bag you could find

- He took all the money he’d been saving out of the poorly disguised fake plant

- And wrote a nice little note for his parents 

- You also may have added a few choice words to it 

- But what Reggie doesn’t know won’t hurt him 

- And the two of you climbed into your car and never looked back

- The 9 hour car ride was the most fun you’ve ever had 

- It was like you were trying to fit the entire summer you’d lost into those few hours 

- It was filled with off key singing 

- And stories of your summer 

- His favourite being about Archie being tricked into going skinny dipping by himself

- You laughed loudly like nothing had happened 

- And cried silently because everything had 

- Thankfully when you arrived on campus, it was already night 

- So you managed to sneak Reggie into your room

- And when you nervously told your roommate 

- She just grinned at you

- ‘it’s fine, my boyfriend will probably be staying over a lot too’ 

- ‘oh, he’s not my boyfriend’ 

- ‘we’re not together’ 

- ‘...okay’ 

- She said with a knowing smile and you and Reggie shared a look

- And a year filled with adventures started

- Reggie got a job as a bartender with a little help from Veronica 

- And you started your classes 

- But nothing is ever easy 

- At least not when it involves you or Reggie 

- It turns out hiding a whole human is a lot more difficult that you anticipated. 

- It involves Reggie squeezing into your closet 

- And a whole team of people to get him to and from the showers 

- But it was also difficult for another reason

- Because it was easy to hide your feelings from him when you lived in separate house 

- But now you’re sharing a room

- And a bed 

- And every time he would wrap his arms around you 

- And pull in for a half asleep cuddle 

- You’d forget how to breathe 

- You’ve never been more excited to wake up

- Because he’d be all messy hair and parted lips with just a little bit of drool coming out of them that it would be cute instead of gross 

- And when he said good morning in the same deep, tired voice 

- You wanted to live in that feeling forever 

- But then 2nd year rolled around and everything changed 

- It all started when you moved into your own apartment 

- You knew you had to but there was a part of you that hoped you could keep everything the same 

- You found a tiny, two bedroom flat that you could both just about afford 

- Reggie was so happy to have his own room

- ‘i won’t have to sleep next to you and your freezing cold feet anymore’ 

- ‘i’ll just sneak into your bed when your fast asleep and put them on you then instead’ 

- ‘i thought we were supposed to be friends’ 

- It took a few weeks to get used to an empty bed 

- But eventually you started to sleep properly 

- And it was quite nice to have your own space again

- It meant you could study without having to listen to ‘nighthawk nightmare’ 

- Honestly, you don’t really know what the plot of that one is 

- But you’ve still seen it 7 times 

- You may be in love with him but it doesn’t mean he can’t be annoying sometimes 

- And you were happy with going back to admiring from afar

- Your heart can’t get broken that way

- In fact a small part of you thought he felt the same way 

- That one glimmer of hope you felt a year ago

- Came back all of sudden 

- And soon 

- You became aware of the lingering touches 

- And the gifts he’d buy you just because 

- He also asked what you wanted to watch for your movie night 

- And he’s never, ever done that unless you were sad or sick

- And even then, when you broke your arm a few years ago, he chose the film

- The way he looked at you suddenly felt different 

- You would feel him staring, but when you would check he would always be scrolling through his phone 

- And you’re sure the was a little bit of flirtiness in his tone whenever he spoke to you 

- But just because you think you can’t be burnt if you stand far enough away from the fire 

- Doesn’t mean that the sparks can’t jump out and get you anyway 

- Because all of sudden Reggie started bringing girls home 

- And every time you saw a t-shirt that wasn’t yours on the sofa 

- Or a pair of shoes discarded by the door

- You felt yourself die a little

- After a few weeks of this 

- Something in you snapped

- You’d spent the majority of your life pining after some boy who saw you as nothing more than a friend 

- And sometimes a small part of you thought as just an escape route

- So you moped for a few weeks before deciding it was finally time to move on

- Reggie would only ever see you as a friend 

- And that’s fine 

- The only way to move on, is to move on. 

- So you waited for the right guy to move on with 

- And there were a few 

- But none of them were right 

- Until you met Daniel 

- Sweet Daniel with curly brown hair and dimples

- Who studied history 

- And spent his days sitting in the coffee shop on campus

- For a few weeks the two of you spent your short interactions stealing glances and exchanging shy smiles 

- That evolved to small talk with flirty undertones

- Until finally he asked you out 

- And you said yes 

- And you kept saying yes to each date afterwards 

- They were fun too

- He’d take you to museum's and on picnics and at night he’d pick you up and you’d go star gazing 

- He would make you laugh when he’d tell you a joke 

- And make you blush when he’s whisper in your ear while staring up at the sky 

- But he wasn’t him

- And that killed you

- It doesn’t matter how many time he takes you to watch some unknown indie film thats supposed to be the greatest thing ever made

- It has nothing on standing outside the only cinema in town that’s showing ‘sharkcano vs tigerana’ in the freezing cold with Reggie wearing an absolutely ridiculous costumes that Reggie threw together last minute and somehow roped you into wearing too.

- But what hurt even more was watching how Reggie acted around you when you and Daniel started dating 

- He looked hurt whenever he saw the two of you together 

- And you would watch him roll his eyes whenever you mentioned him 

- Until eventually he would just avoid you all together 

- Do you know how hard it is to avoid someone when you’re living in the same 2 bedroom flat that barely gives two foot to yourself? 

- It’s hard 

- But Reggie finds a way 

- Eventually you’re more roommates than friends 

- And you really don’t know how much more you can take 

- You feel like you’re about to break 

- And Daniel can see that too

- So on Friday night he invites you to go drinking with him and his friends instead of staying in and moping 

- ‘bye, i’m going out’ 

- ‘wait’ 

- The speed of which he runs from his room and into the living room where your stood, startles you to say the least 

- ‘what?’

- ‘don’t go out with him.’ 

- ‘why not? what ever george has told you about is a lie. george does that. he once told a bunch of people that you streaked in an old people’s home and almost killed his grandmother’ 

- ‘because he isn’t me’ 

- You’ve dreamt of those words 

- Built them up in your head for years 

- But in all of your daydreams, there’s never been a scenario like this one 

- Not one where you’re about to leave to go on a date with another guy 

- ‘reggie? what are you talking about?’ 

- You need to make sure he’s saying what you think he’s saying 

- Because you can feel yourself hoping again

- And you know if he doesn’t mean what you want him to

- You don’t think you’ll be able to recover

- ‘i love you y/n. you’re my best friend, you always have been, you always will be and i love you.’ 

- ‘reg-’ 

- ‘please tell me you feel the same way’ 

- ‘i-’ 

- In your head you had a full oscar worthy speech planned out just in case this ever happened 

- But now you’re here in the moment. 

- You have no idea what to say

- ‘it doesn’t matter. just leave’ 

- ‘no’ 

- ‘what?’ 

- ‘do you really think i’m going to walk away from you after that? when have i ever walked away from you?’ 

- ‘i-no’

- ‘i love you too by the way. if you care’ 

- ‘shut up...wait really?’ 

- ‘yes i do. i’ve loved you for as long as i can remember so are you going to just stand there or are you going to kiss me?’ 

- ‘i’m definitely going to kiss you’ 

- ‘good’ 

- And he does 

- He’s standing in front of you before you can catch your breath

- His hands reach up to cup your cheeks 

- His lips part as he stares down at you 

- And you’ve never seen him look at anyone the way he’s looking at you

- Like you’re everything good and light in the universe 

- And like he’s also been waiting just as long for this moment 

- Maybe he has 

- Maybe he’s been waiting all his life for this 

- He just didn’t know 

- You feel whatever breath you had left leave your lungs

- His lips are soft against yours, but he gets his point across 

- And you’ve never been happier 

- All the heartache and tears 

- The laughter and stupid jokes 

- The 3am texts 

- The constant worrying 

- The early mornings and late nights 

- The damage to limbs from trying to fit in tiny closets

- And the scrapes on your ankles and bruising on your legs from crawling through his bedroom window 

- They’re all worth it

- ‘are you still going on your date?’ 

- ‘what do you think?’ 

- ‘good. because they’ve just released werewombats 3’

[oldsmobile-hotdogs]

Stuff I’d Like to See When (manifesting) Seasons 2/3/4 Happen

These are just some things that would bring colour back into my life if they were included in future seasons of JATP. No big.

JULIE’S A WITCH. She has super crazy powers and so did her mom and that’s why the Molina women’s music is so fucking electric it’s because every performance is fucking imbued with force magic. She doesn’t have to like, learn the books or whatever, it’s more sorcerer-y than that, but like her spell focus is performance and I love that for her. Remember how she made the sun rise by performing Wake Up? Yeah <3.

Willex duet. Not a ballad, but like something giddy. They’re in love and they dance and hold hand and kiss idk.

Rose and the Petal Pushers songs. I will not rest until I know what Rose’s compositional output was like pre-Julie.

Carrie redemption arc. She obviously has lots of feelings that deserve to be heard before being gently told that no one's trying to steal her spotlight.

Expansion of the found family. They have room for, like, 4 more in that garage, no problem.

More flashback footage to 1995-ish. Maybe we open on them again before cutting to just after the end of Stand Tall. Maybe they’re playing another Sunset Curve song. Maybe.

Booboo Stewart on the soundtrack.

More Jadah Marie on the soundtrack.

Official last names for Willie, Flynn, Nick and Bobby.

Names for Dirty Candy 3, 4 and 5.

Madison mentioned wanting episodes that are just denser in their song count and I could not agree more. A soundtrack thats like musical-length would be grand.

‘This Band is Back’s for Luke, Alex, Julie and Bobby/Trevor (post his redemption, which he deserves), and ‘Wake Up’/’Unsaid Emily’s for Alex and Reggie.

The boys run into more young people ghosts. They don’t have huge roles - they’re like tertiary - but they have like a hangout spot that isn’t evil af? And the boys + Willie can all go hang out there if they want and get some nice exposition from some quirky ghost kids. Some of them should be old as shit too.

Caleb has a boss. The boss is played by a theatre legend. Pick your fave. (I want Patrick Page. No I will not elaborate.)

Dirty Candy break up for like 3 episodes. All the girls, rightfully, want to front for a song and Carrie takes it as a personal attack because of course she does. Potentially this acts as a catalyst for the redemption arc bc honestly? Julie just thinks Carrie looks lost when she’s alone. They reunite before the season’s up and we get a song where they all have lines.

Reggie has a moment where he’s piecing together all the lore they’ve been taught about ghosthood so far and suddenly just this truckload of myth knowledge spills out of him, like, ‘If we were meant to be following the book of the dead we would have been finished ages ago because we haven’t been returning to our graves each night. But the dark room certainly wasn’t Elysium because it fucking sucked and I don’t remember willingly coming back for a chance at ultra-ultra paradise.’ and everyone’s just like, ‘...Where were you storing that?’ and potentially that’s when Reggie says he’s bi.

Possessed!Nick just slowly starts developing a better sense of style. More artsy hoodies, better-placed rips in the jeans, fewer badly-shaped hats (he can keep wearing hats, they've just gotta frame his head better), until someone (Flynn, probably) up and says like "something is seriously wrong with Nick. He looks like he's about to be interviewed for GQ." and thats when they realise.

We see Carlos do like a full Bella-googling-vampires thing except it's just "can sisters fall in love with ghosts?" and the info is just very poorly sourced Quora and Yahoo Answers posts.

They actually perform Home is Where my Horse is. The absolute madlads.

Flynn gets put in the band for a couple shows to just play the instruments that fill in the gaps. Like that guy in Yello who was in charge of tapes. Like, trumpet in the Middle 8, temple block drumfill into Chorus 2. She’s running across the stage but it’s fine. At some point she learns the harmonica. She’s vibing.

Add your own if you want ! I might add to this if inspiration punches me in the face

[tangledstarlight]

good, bad or the space between (maybe i’m all three)

i just got a lot of thoughts and feelings about luke implying (twice) that he’s possibly going to hell??? and like i’m not sure what this is, i started it at 3am once and it got out of hand and also doesn’t really have a conclusion?? but okay.

luke thinks he’s a bad person, then he starts thinking about fate and destiny and soulmates and his thoughts spiral from there. but alex and reggie are there to try and help slow them down.

trigger warnings!! swearing, mentions of death (cos they’re ghosts) 

also on ao3

The thing is, Luke didn’t think he was a bad person. Not really.

He’s never killed someone, never gone out of his way to hurt someone, never purposely broken the law. But he’s also never gone out of his way to be a good person either. His homework was always handed in late, he never hesitated to jump into a fight if someone else started it, he definitely stole a candy bar from the corner shop when he was ten and never told anyone.

He’d always sort of considered himself neutral. That he’d have time to work on being a better person (because he was seventeen and dying really wasn’t high on his list of worries) after the band got signed and they were touring the world.

And then they’d died and became ghosts.

And suddenly everything that he’d been putting off – thanking bars who gave them a chance, dropping a few dollars into donation buckets, going home, talking to his mom, his dad, making things right – was off the table. He’d missed his chance.

There’s a moment, a brief few seconds after they first land back in the studio and Julie is running, screaming, from them, where he thinks maybe being not a good person but not a bad person in life means you end up as a ghost forever.

But then he looks over at Alex and at Reggie and they’re the best people he knows. They don’t have a bad bone between them, they’re always kind and polite and caring and just good people. If anyone deserves to go to a happy peaceful afterlife it would be Alex and Reggie.

That starts a second brief moment of panic in Luke’s brain. Because did he rob them of a peaceful afterlife as well as being responsible for robbing them of life? The street dogs had been his idea after all, he’d said they were probably fine, he’d lead them right into death.

The thought haunts him, pokes at him, follows him around until someone mentions the idea of unfinished business and he lets out a breath.

He might have been indirectly responsible for their deaths but at least he wasn’t the reason they were ghosts. It was a small comfort.

Small, because while Luke is pretty sure he deserves this limbo, in between, half-life that they’ve been dumped in, he doesn’t think Alex and Reggie do. They suffered and survived so much in life, they shouldn’t have to deal with more pain in the after. And he’d give anything to change it.

But they were still dead and it was still partly his fault and they still don’t know what their unfinished business is and now there was Julie.

Julie with her voice of an angle and warm smile and afterlife saving hugs and understanding eyes when he tells her that he misses his mom. Julie, who makes him want to live and to be a good person. But he’s already dead and honestly, does being a good person in your afterlife even make a difference?

She makes him feel more alive now that he’s dead then he did when he was alive which is just. It’s not something he really wants to get into because this was all just going to end badly anyway. Right?

Because he’s dead. He can’t change that. And being here, with Julie, being with her every chance he gets, Luke is pretty sure that’s selfish of him. They’re going to – hopefully – move on one day and the boys will go somewhere better and he’ll go – wherever it is people like him go and Julie will be left alone.

A good person wouldn’t fall in love with someone they knew was going to be hurt in the end, would they? Surely a good person would stop it now, when it was new and undefined and still unspoken. They’d stop it before it just ended in heartbreak and pain. Luke didn’t mind taking on all that pain but Julie didn’t deserve any of it.

They were the ones who fell into her life, he was the one who’d gotten them killed, so Luke should be the one to take on all the fallout.

But he was selfish. He wasn’t a good person, and maybe it made him a bad person. But all he wanted to do was spend every second he could get with her. Even though he knew it was just going to end badly. He couldn’t stop himself.

A part of him, a small, selfish, clinging to any little bit of hope, part him wondered if soulmates were real. If maybe, just maybe this wasn’t destined to be a tragedy like so much else in his life.

“Do you believe in soulmates?” The question falls from his mouth before he can stop it. They’re at the beach, outside what used to be Reggie’s house and Alex has just finished rambling about Willie with this hopeless little smile on his face and he can hear the waves crashing and, if he closes his eyes he can almost pretend this is twenty-five years ago.

“What, like ‘there’s only one person in the world for you’ kind of soulmates?” Alex asks, head tilting to look at him and Luke shrugs, Reggie propping his head up on his hands as he rolls over in the sand.

“Yeah. And like, fate and destiny and all that shit,” because he’s been thinking about it a lot lately.

Luke had never really given fate or destiny much thought before. When they were alive that is (just another one of the things he’d put off because there was supposed to be more time). But now he was dead and a ghost and well, it gave him a lot of time to think about things he hadn’t before.

They were kind of cool concepts, fate and destiny and soulmates, something he could make a song out of one day maybe, but he’d never really considered them real. Because if he did, then he had to think about how it was his fate to die at seventeen, and how he was never destined to make it big with his band, and how maybe he needed to die to find his soulmate twenty-five years later and how there might be some big powerful entity out in the world just waiting for him to slip up and ruin everything.

He was pretty good at ruining things and peoples lives. If he was to have a superpower, Luke thinks that would be it.

“I don’t know, never really thought about it.” Alex frowns like this has opened a door to thoughts he’d never considered before and Luke bites his lip, because the last thing he wanted was to send Alex on a thought spiral. Because of course he has, because Luke is good at doing the wrong thing.

“I hope it’s real,” Reggie buts in before Luke can come up with something to say to Alex, and both of them turn to look at him with surprise.” I just think it’s nice, y’know? That there’s someone out there for everyone, that there’s someone out there who will get you, even if you don’t get yourself. And it sucks that maybe we’ve missed that, being, y’know, dead,” now Reggie is frowning, fingers of one hand digging into the sand and from the corner of his eye Luke can see Alex open his mouth about to say something when Reggie looks up at them, a smile on his face.

“But maybe we didn’t miss it. Maybe we had to die, y’know? Like it was part of some bigger plan. We had to die because someone knew that Julie would need us and that Alex had to meet Willie and that the 90’s just weren’t the right time for us. And that all this is fucking fate and it’ll make sense one day. Better than thinking we died eating street dogs for no reason, anyway.”

Alex seems to be caught on the way Reggie has pointed out Willie specifically for him, and if it was any of time Luke would probably tease him for the way his cheeks had gone pink. Seeming to notice it too, Reggie directs his attention to Luke, giving their drummer a chance to wrangle his thoughts.

“Do you? Believe in it all, I mean.”

“I don’t know,” Luke shrugs, brows furrowing as he looks out at the sea and the horizon and the sky that’s slowly turning purple as the sun sets. “I think if soulmates are real then Julie’s probably mine.”

When he doesn’t get any response to his declaration he pulls his eyes away from the horizon to find Reggie nodding at him and Alex raising an eyebrow like what he hasn’t just said is absurd or wrong. Don’t they get it? Frowning, Luke tries again.

“Which is bad, y’know? Because she’s– well she’s Julie. And she deserves like, the fucking best and I just ruin everything. All I’ve got is my music, the stuff I can write and even Bobby took that from me so, I mean, I’ve not even really got that. Plus I’m like, the whole reason we died and probably part of why we’re stuck here as ghosts and honestly if soulmates are real then someone is being really shitty to Julie by making me hers. I know I’d be the luckiest guy in the world but – being stuck with me? Pretty fucked up. It’s not like I’m a good person or anything, y’know?”

Alex is gaping at him now, head shaking slowly and Reggie has gone unnaturally still, hands full of sand curling into fists. Luke just frowns, not sure what’s wrong with them.

“That’s – okay, yeah no,” Alex starts, mouth opening and closing a few times as he tries to come up with something. “So much of what you just said is so wrong I don’t– I don’t even know where to start.”

“Luke. You’re not the reason we died. You know that, right?” Reggie asks and oh.

Luke had thought they’d known. The street dogs were his idea, he’d not stopped them when Alex had pointed out they tasted funny, he’d not gotten them help quick enough after the first time Reggie threw up.

“It was my idea to get street dogs that night. I basically walked us right into it.”

“No.”

And Luke has never heard Reggie sounds so sure of something then that single little word.

“You didn’t kill us man, the battery acid soaked hotdogs and pickles killed us. The food that we all ate willingly. You didn’t force it down our throats.” Reggie looks pained as he says it, like he’s reliving the moment all over again, but his eyes are focused solely on Luke’s and it takes him a moment to realise that he’s in pain because of what Luke’s been thinking, not because of their painful deaths.

“None of this is your fault. If any of us are to blame for dying and being ghosts and all the other shit then it’s like, it’s equal blame on all three of us. Though the guy who sold us the food is probably the one really at fault here,” Alex muttered the last part, lips pulling into a small grimace.

“But–” Luke starts, only to be cut off by Alex smacking a hand over his mouth and okay. Kinda rude.

“Nuh uh, no more talking from you until it’s positive things.”

“Dude, it’s shit. We died, it was shit. We almost died again, even more shit. But we didn’t,” Reggie snaps his fingers in Luke’s face, as if to punctuate his point, “And yeah, we don’t really get this whole ghost existence thing, and apparently no one else does either, we’re clearly special like that. But that doesn't mean it’s a bad thing. It’s our second chance.”

“You deserve a second chance at life just as much as we do,” Alex says, hand still covering Luke’s mouth even as he looks him right in the eyes and he really hates how they both seem to know exactly what he’s been thinking.

Even if he still thinks they’re wrong. Because Luke, what did he ever do in life that made him worthy of a second chance? Of getting to still be with his best friends, his family? Or getting to meet Julie? Of getting a chance to finally touch his dream?

“Do you think we don’t deserve a second chance?” Reggie asks and Luke can feel his eyes widen even as he shakes his head quickly, a muffled ‘no’ making it past Alex’s hand and he’s seconds away from turning into a five year old and licking it when Alex finally takes it away.

“What!? No! Of course you guys deserve this! After all the crap that you put up with when you were alive the universe owed you a second chance. You two deserve like, the gold standard of an afterlife.” Why don’t they understand that?

“Then why is it so hard for you to understand that we think the same about you? That you deserve a gold standard afterlife too. With us. With Julie.” Reggie has grabbed his hands, Luke’s not sure when he did that. Or when Alex moved so he was sitting so close their legs were pressed together, no space between them.

“I– I don’t–” Luke tries to to say something, anything. But he doesn’t have an answer, he doesn’t know why.

Because he’s always thought of himself as not being a bad person, but not being a good person, of being neutral and thinking he’d have time to figure it all out later. And now he’s head and his best friends are holding him and telling him he’s not guilty of second hand murder and–

He lets out a shuddering breath, shoulder shrugging helplessly as he looks between them both.

“I’m not to blame?” Idly, from a far away point in his mind, he noticed how small his voice sounds. How it could almost get lost in the crashing of waves.

“No. Not for anything that happened to us.” Reggie squeezes his hands.

“But I’m not– I– I didn’t do anything in life that made me a good person. I fucked up so much stuff, my parents I–” he trailed off, eyes going a little unfocused.

“We were seventeen Luke. We were kids, and we were meant to have like, a whole lifetime to fix the stuff we broke. You didn’t do anything worse than me and Reg, which means you deserve to be happy just as much as we do.”

Luke nods at the words, lets them settle in his mind. Tries to absorb what they’re saying. Tries to believe it the same way they seem to. He’s not sure he’ll ever be able to, but he can at least try.

[amandajoyce118]

Julie And The Phantoms - “Stand Tall” rewatch

Okay, so, since the Fantoms around the world are doing a rewatch of the series today, I’ve got the episodes playing while I’m doing some of my freelance work, so I thought I’d jot down random thoughts while watching the episodes and contribute, even if I’m not liveblogging the whole thing. (Episode 1 is here. And Episode 2. And Episode 3. Episode 4. And Episode 5. Episode 6. And Episode 7. Episode 8.)

Oh, no. I’ve reached the end. Am I prepared? Never.

Willie is great for stealing the bus and driving it to Vegas, but... what did those people think was happening on that bus? And if he can just drive to Vegas, could the guys go anywhere they wanted to in the world?

Willie and Alex saying goodbye is just. Ugh. So devastating. It’s the first time we see them hug, and even though the frame cuts it off, you can tell that Willie holds onto Alex’s hands after as their arms move at the same time. Alex saying he’s okay? He’s a lying liar who lies. But the audience is right there with him.

Tasha just taking the signs from the universe to get the Phantoms to play? She has regular tarot readings and guesses people’s zodiac signs when she meets them. We would be friends.

The boys looking so proud of themselves and Julie’s phone not ringing right away will never not be funny. And then the lift while Julie is jumping on the table? Such a great way to capture their excitement.

I like that Carlos figures out the boys are ghosts, but I wish the show had time to do more with the idea of him knowing who they were. Carlos immediately stopping his recording when he realizes Julie wants Luke to talk to her mom gets me every time.

The band had a whole set list going to the Orpheum. Did Julie keep playing on her own after Stand Tall? How many songs did she end up doing?

I love that Flynn always looks up when she asks if the guys are there. Does she think they float on the ceiling when they aren’t playing with Julie?

Caleb does have good taste in clothes. The boys do look good.

It’s interesting that Caleb never tries to sell Reggie on the Orpheum. It’s like he knows that if he gets Alex and Luke on board, there would be no fight in Reggie.

Also, what happened to Caleb’s other drummer? Did she permanently lose her spot in the band? Is she just getting a surprise night off?

Julie in the alley is so hard for me to watch. She’s finally started processing her grief for her mom, and now, she thinks she’s lost the boys too, and she feels like she didn’t do enough to help them. It’s just as heartbreaking, though in a shorter amount of time, as “Unsaid Emily.”

Trevor being surprised by Carrie’s caustic little, “been here before,” has to make you wonder just how disconnected he is from his daughter’s life.

How can you not feel the energy of “Stand Tall?” They’re having so much fun on that stage with that crowd. Even Carrie gives them a standing ovation. Also, more solos for Reggie and Alex would have been nice as everyone going crazy over their lines here show.

Everyone give Reggie a round of applause for responding to Julie when she thinks they’ve already crossed over. If he hadn’t, they would have been jolted right out of existence.

And Julie gets to break all of hearts all over again when she begs them to go to Caleb.

I love that Julie wants to hug Luke so badly and just goes for it, and yet, no one ever realizes she’s touching him until he starts to glow. The audience is just as caught up in the scene as the boys are, so it’s always a surprise even if you’ve seen it a hundred times.

And the power of love prevails. But what does it mean, Julie? The audience would like to know too. Are you magic? Are the boys magic? Are they still ghosts? Just corporeal ghosts? Can other people touch them? See them? We may never know. And that sucks.

And then that cliffhanger of an ending. First of all, I still don’t understand why, after being rejected and told she’s busy, Nick stops by her house to bring Julie flowers. He could have congratulated her at school or texted her. And now, he’s possessed by Caleb. It’s weird too that Caleb would even want to possess Nick. Why not Ray? Or Julie herself? Why Nick specifically? It’s a strange choice. It gets him into Julie’s classes, but not closer to the boys. So, his aim has to be going after Julie, of course. Does he suspect that she’s the key to the boys’ power instead of the ghosts themselves? Because that’s what I think.

And that is it. My rewatch is complete. The commentary on this last one got a little long, but that’s okay. It just makes me want a season two all over again.

[invisibleraven]

A firm hand grabbing the other’s elbow to guide them for Sweet Tarts

"Carrie! Carrie!"

The starlet waved at the crowd of screaming fans, smiling brightly at them as she passed. Ignoring those who pleaded for a selfie or an autograph-one too many bad experiences where fans tried to grab her too close, yank at her hair, scratch at her skin. One overzealous fellow even tried to steal a kiss!

So it sucked, and maybe it gave her the reputation of a snob, but it kept her safe, and able to continue making music and movies for them, so the true fans never faltered.

She stopped for the press though-they were the lifeblood of her career as much as her talent, keeping her fresh and relevant even when she felt stalled or less than. Sure they were also her harshest critics, but the supporters always outweighed the dissenters.

But today, maybe it was the questions regarding her latest flop, or low blood sugar, or the pounding in her temples as the hundred flashbulbs popped. Either way her smile faltered, and she went off to the side, out of view just to take a moment.

Carrie loved her life, she really did, but there were times she longed to just be a regular girl with a regular life. A good guy on her arm, dates without the paps scoping it out, a dull job that no one cared about.

Suddenly there was a firm hand on her elbow, and Carrie tried to yank it back only to be met with the stern look of her personal security, Reggie. "We have to keep moving Miss Wilson, it's not secure here."

Carrie nodded, letting him usher inside the venue, and into a private atrium. "You okay?" he asked.

"Got to be a bit too much," Carrie said, sipping from the flute of champagne she had grabbed on the way in. "Needed a sec."

"I get that," Reggie offered her an understanding smile. He had been in the life before, a fairly successful musician who had a bad encounter with a fan and gave it up. Now he strove to keep people safe from similar situations. Sure he didn't look imposing, but Reggie had a surprising amount of muscles under his suit, and knew how to use an impressive array of weaponry.

He even offered to teach Carrie how to use the sai swords-something he picked up due to a love of Ninja Turtles-and she proved to be pretty good with them as well.

However, he cared about her, and she knew he only wanted to keep her safe. Even if she didn't pay him an insane amount of money to do so, Carrie got the feeling he'd do it anyways. Reggie was a good egg.

So much so that she often brought him to events as arm candy, so people wouldn't pick up on her need for a bodyguard, and Reggie played the role happily. To the point where sometimes she questioned how fake it was.

But she couldn't think like that-Reggie was her friend, yes. But he was also her employee, and responsible for keeping her safe. No matter how well he filled out a suit or made her laugh, or understood why she still hadn't made a move to go find her seat.

Oh

Crap.

Carrie looked at Reggie, that same smile still on his face, the warm look in his eyes, and she knew-she was gonna have to hire a different bodyguard.

But maybe Reggie wouldn't mind an upgrade to being her for real boyfriend all that badly.

Turns out? He didn't mind at all.

[riverdale-retread]

Riverdale S2 E17

- My favorite person on this show right now is Sweet Pea.  I want a Sweet Pea spin-off so bad.  He’s the best looking boy on the show, bar none (though Reggie comes close second), and also did I mention, tall?  On my to-do list is to find Sweet Pea fanfic that goes into Serpent politics, and his seething about Jughead while falling for Josie.  This exists, right?  Anyway, he does all the great things: Speaking up at the debate session, and pointing out that Betty  has no right to be claiming Serpent Queen identity for herself.  Tells Jughead he’s looking like Buddy Holly, Sucking Up to the Northside.  Calling Alice Cooper turncoat, and Betty, turncoat’s daughter, and Bughead, running with the turncoat’s daughter.  And he speaks for all the Serpents, to deny Jughead the vote.

- Protagonist Privilege Betty is getting on my nerves.  Why do people keep insisting that Bughead are supportive of each other when scenes like this exist? 

Exh 1. The car that Bughead shoved into the swamp has been found, everyone is panicking, and Jughead says: “We should have known better” which is true, but Betty gives him a look, and he amends it to “I should have known better.”  Uh. Betty you need to say or do something!  But nothing! She only touches him when she says something about herself -  “We 100% were wearing the gloves” i.e. precious Betty’s fingerprints are not in the car.

The Cooper women going at it and the Jones men looking at each other like OMFG was pretty funny, though.

Exh 2: “Living in sin in the trailer” v FP “sleeping on the pull out sofa with his son” so Betty can be in the bedroom. So did Jughead always sleep on the pull out sofa throughout his childhood?  Is that why he has such horrendous posture? 

Exh 3:  Betty claiming to have “helped the Serpents on numerous occasions.” Well maybe. Except you didn’t really give a shit about Jughead trying to save Southside High or whatever. 

Exh 4:  Betty calls in the Serpents and ... they come when summoned and I find this very, very annoying.  And this is, after the uncomfortable breakfast that Jughead had at the Cooper’s back in S1, the first time that Alice says anything to Jughead in absolutely ages (which is to say Thank You and it comes ONLY AFTER Jughead apologizes for breaking down her door, for effect, to save her life after the strange Darla & man that Chic bring to her life)

- You know how I said Jughead was the spiritual son of Fred and replacing Archie, because Archie defected to Camp Hiram?  I’d forgotten this bit, that Jughead has a breakfast conversation with Fred, working on his speech, and neither of them told Archie.  And Archie flakes on attending Fred’s speech to announce his candidacy for mayor. 

- Nana Rose is not always in a wheelchair. Sometimes she’s just seated on a chair. Does this mean Penelope has the upper body strength to bodily haul Nana Rose around?  Nana Rose making the call was terrific, and I enjoyed the fact that Nana Rose had obviously forgotten that Claudius Blossom existed at all.

- The Gay Conversion Therapy plot, it hurts me how badly done this was, because I love my Cheryl.  Kevin says that boys used to sneak out to meet him at the forest to hook up, but for some reason Cheryl has an all -points alert and nuns hunting her down. They establish the tunnel of escape from the Sisters of Quiet Mercy building, which they reuse (or attempt to) during the Farm storylines. Josie dropping out of the search for Cheryl was perfunctory, designed to wrap up the underdeveloped and badly done strange crush that Cheryl used to have on Josie.  Veronica wearing a very strange look-at-the-skin-on-my-sternum catsuit and heels for the rescue was one of the rare costume fails at Riverdale. 

- We’re supposed to find it terrible and embarrassing whenever Alice Cooper breaks out snakeprints and dark eyeliner for those times when she dips into her Serpent past, right? It’s supposed to be mawkish, yes?  Also the compulsion she has - if she’s a Serpent then she must fuck FP, and FP agreeing to this rule, is really, really weird. 

- Similarly, the whole bit with coded Italian gangsters visiting the Spanish speaking Hiram Lodge to do something about the prison whatever was so very dull, and I am going to keep an eye out for when they dispense with the Hiram Is a Gangster storyline altogether and just make him a real estate developer.

[jaskiers-sweetkiss]

Sunset Swerve - Part 7

Pairing: Luke x OC

Word Count: 1.7k

Warnings: none?

A/N: This one’s a little shorter but I’ve been waiting to get to this part for a while now. It’s got some good Jordan and Luke backstory. Fair warning, I totally cried writing this so like, I’m sorry. As always, let me know what you think!

Part 6  Masterlist

___

When Jordan finally returned to the garage it was empty. She’d gone with the intention of explaining her side and apologize. She’d never meant to break up the band, truthfully it was one of the best things that had happened to her since she died. She’d thought they’d ditched Julie and herself to get revenge on Bobby, she would’ve gone back to get them if she’d thought there was even a chance that they were still at the creepy Hollywood Ghost Club. To make matters worse, Purple Suit, Mr. Covington or whatever, made it sound like they didn’t even get answers about Bobby.

She popped back into Julie’s room to grab her book, fully intending on waiting in the garage until they got back. She made it a couple of pages before she felt another jolt like she had last night. She groaned again, setting down her book in favor of clutching her chest.

By the time the guys came back, Jordan was still clutching her chest, though the pain had faded. Her face was scrunched in concentration as she tried to figure out what could possibly be causing them- she had no physical body so it couldn’t have been normal chest pains or cramps or anything like that. It felt like somebody had given her an electric shock.

“Woah, Jordan are you okay?” Alex exclaimed worriedly, rushing to her side to check on her.

“Yeah,” she groaned, rubbing her chest before removing her hand completely. “I’ve just been getting these painful jolts since yesterday.”

“You’ve been getting them too?” Reggie gasped, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of them and Jordan nodded. “Guess it’s not related to the pizza.”

Jordan furrowed her brows in confusion. “Pizza?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Luke spoke, glaring at her from the doorway. “What matters is what you think you’re doing here.”

“I came back to apologize assh-“ she stopped herself, taking a deep breath and starting over, nicer this time. “I thought you guys had gotten your answers and gone to get your revenge on Bobby, that’s why I didn’t come back to get you. I thought you knew you were ditching us, I’m sorry.”

She looked between the three boys sincerely, hoping her apology would be enough to put them on good terms again.

“We get it,” Alex said softly, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder, “You had no way of knowing.”

“Yeah, and the band wouldn’t be the same without you,” Reggie added cheerfully, the two boys then turning to look at Luke who Jordan was afraid to look in the eye.

“Maybe if you didn’t always think the worst of us this wouldn’t have happened,” Luke said stubbornly and Jordan sighed, wanting so badly to argue in her defense but knowing it wasn’t the time.

“I’m sorry,” she just repeated quietly, looking up at the boy and she watched his angry façade crumble. “Are we cool?” She asked quietly.

Luke nodded, “Reggie’s right. Like it or not you’re part of the band now. Just don’t expect me to be nice to you all of a sudden.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Jordan smirked, thankful to have things returning to normal.

“Ooh! We have a gig tonight!” Reggie announced excitedly, scrambling to his feet to show Jordan the flyer.

They all crowded around her to watch her reaction.

“Oh, what so a coffee shop open mic is cool but a school dance is lame?” She asked, teasing the guys.

“This place will be packed with producers,” Luke said defensively, crossing his arms over his chest as he pouted.

“Wait, for real?” Jordan asked, sitting up straighter at the news and they nodded. “Oh my gosh, this is insane! We’re gonna get signed!”

“Now all we have to do is get Julie to rejoin the band,” Alex said, dampening the mood and Jordan slouched forward again.

“Right, well, if you guys apologize and explain yourselves I’m sure she’ll understand,” Jordan said hopefully and they all nodded, the guys beginning to formulate a plan.

___

As soon as Julie stepped into the studio the guys were ready, immediately breaking into their little apology song. Jordan smiled at how dorky but sweet it was from her position off to the side on the couch.

“In case you missed it, we’re really sorry,” Reggie said and the guys all nodded.

“Yeah… I got that part.” Julie said, frowning at the boys.

“Yeah, we’ve been here for three hours,” Alex added and Jordan nodded despite the fact that no one was looking at her. They really had been stating in that position for three hours. She would’ve made fun of them but it gave her some peace and quiet to read her book.

“We almost sang to your little brother,” Luke said.

“He comes in here a lot. Mainly to use the bathroom,” Reggie explained and Jordan shuddered.

“It’s not our favorite part of the day,” Alex said, pursing his lips.

“But, Julie, it wasn’t okay that we flaked on the dance last night,” Luke said, getting the boys back on topic. “We know we let you down.”

“Yeah and, and none of us wanted to disappoint you,” Alex said, “You and Jordan are the best things that’ve happened to us since we became ghosts.”

Jordan aww-ed quietly at that, making a mental note to hug Alex later.

“So, in hopes that you’ll rejoin the band, we booked a new gig,” Luke announced, handing her the coffee shop flyer.

“A mega-important, life-changing gig,” Reggie added with his signature grin.

“Check it out,” Luke explained, pointing to the flyer. “Tons of managers go here to listen to new bands. All we gotta do is blow them all away and then we’re living the dream.”

“So, this means a lot to you, huh?” Julie asked, looking up from the flyer to stare at the guys, her face hardened.

Jordan frowned at that. Clearly, the apology hadn’t been as effective as they’d thought it would be.

“Kind of how playing in front of my whole school meant a lot to me.” Julie continued and Jordan watched as the realization of where this conversation was going dawned on the guys’ faces.

“That sounds like sarcasm,” Reggie gasped, processing the situation out loud, “I’m starting to think our plan isn’t working.”

“Look, we know we messed up,” Alex said, ignoring Reggie and trying to save the situation.

“But we need you in the band,” Luke finished.

Julie rolled her eyes at that.

“Of course you do. Because without me, no one can see you guys playing.” She spat, staring Luke down. “Y’know, I thought the music we were writing was special, but you’re too obsessed with your past to even care.”

“I do care!” Luke exclaimed, nearly shouting at the girl and Jordan sucked in a breath, worried about where this was going. Luke and Julie both had quick and fiery tempers. “Our band has a real chance at greatness. I’m not gonna let that get away from us again.”

“Uh-huh. Right.” Julie said, clearly not believing him. “So then why did you bail on me to get back at Trevor?”

When Luke didn’t answer Julie continued.

“I’ll tell you why,” she said angrily. “Cause there’s only one thing that you care about and that’s yourself!”

She spun on her heel after that, stomping out of the garage.

“Julie wait!” Jordan called after her, jumping up off the couch to follow after her but stopping short of the doorway when she didn’t stop.

The studio was silent for a moment, everyone worriedly looking at Luke who was staring up at the house dejectedly.

“Dude, she didn’t mean it,” Alex said quietly but Luke didn’t respond, merely poofing away.

Jordan didn’t stick around much longer, only long enough to hear Alex remind Reggie of what day it was. She nodded solemnly at the two boys before poofing away herself.

___

“What are you doing here?” Luke asked irritably when Jordan poofed in next to him.

They were resting on the extended kitchen counter the Patterson’s had between their kitchen and dining room while his parents moved around the two rooms.

She shrugged. “It’s your birthday. Even after we told them we hated each other your parents always invited me behind your back and my parents always dragged me kicking and screaming.”

When the Pattersons had moved in down the street Jordan���s parents had been so excited that she’d have someone her age to play with. What they hadn’t anticipated was Luke putting a spider in her hair the first time they met and the pair forming an immediate hatred of each other. Still, their animosity hadn’t stopped the Moss’s and the Patterson’s from doing whatever they could to make Luke and Jordan friends so Jordan came to every one of Luke’s birthday parties and he hers.

Luke gave a watery chuckle at the memory before the pair lapsed into silence.

“Do you hate me?” Luke asked quietly after a moment. “For leaving when you…“

Jordan cut him off with a shake of her head.

“No.” She said softly but sure. “Maybe if you had left after my parents…” she cleared her throat, looking away to hide her own tears that were forming in her eyes. “No, I could never hate you for a decision you clearly regretted from the start.”

Luke nodded thoughtfully at that and Jordan reached out, placing her hand over his that was resting on the countertop. She hoped the small gesture would be comforting.

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you,” Jordan began to sing softly as Mrs. Patterson carried the cake over to the table. Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, Luke’s favorite. “Happy birthday dear Luke, happy birthday to you.”

Luke turned his hand over to squeeze her own before hopping off the countertop to join his family at the table. When his dad finally lit the candle Luke leaned forward to blow it out, leaving his parents shocked and confused. Mr. Patterson relit the candle and Luke slid into the third chair. Jordan wiped the tears that were falling down her own face as she watched the Patterson’s, unknowingly reunited for the first time in twenty-six years, tearfully blow out the candle together.

Jordan leaned forward, squeezing Luke’s shoulder lightly as they watched his parents eat a slice of cake in silence. As she moved to pull away he reached over to cover her hand with his, holding it in place. As they sat like that in the silence that was somehow both deafening and comfortable Jordan thought back to the thin line Julie had mentioned the other day in the band room and whether or not she was walking it as carefully as she had thought.

Part 8

___

JATP Taglist: @meangirlsx

Sunset Swerve Taglist: @oopsiedoopsie23 @angryknightstatesmantrash @onlygetaway @deni-gonzalez @advicefromnixxxx @brooke0297 

[ghostlydahlia]

so here’s somehing from one of my wips! i had to cut this part bc it wasn’t really working with what i already had but i still wanted to share it

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

The beach was one of the only things that stood the same after they died. Reggie liked that. The sound of laughs coming from the distance and the gentle crashing of the waves always comforted him. And yeah, while he noticed a few new benches or different volleyball nets scattered around, the feeling stood the same. The water from twenty-five years ago was still there. The sand underneath him from twenty-five years ago was still there. Those were the only things that mattered anyway. The beach was one of the only things that he knew he would always recognize no matter how much time has passed. He liked that. 

“It’s a pretty sunset.”

“Yeah. I just like looking at the colors and stuff.” Reggie didn’t bother looking up to see Ray standing next to him. 

Ray looked down to the boy who had his knees pulled to his chest, his chin resting on his legs, and tilted his head. “You’re okay there kid?”

Reggie gave a simple shrug but nothing else. Ray looked around him to make sure that there weren’t too many people around and decided to take the empty space next to Reggie, still leaving a noticeable gap between them. There weren't a lot of people out that evening anyway; Ray wouldn’t look too crazy talking to air to that many people.

They sat in silence for a couple of minutes, Reggie hesitating to take Ray up on his silent offer. The sunset looked so beautiful anyway; it wouldn’t have been the worst thing for him to keep quiet and focus on the purples mixing with the pinks and yellows and the clouds that danced past him. 

A slight warm feeling grew in his chest the more he got lost in the scenery. He wished he could stay like this forever. Having no worries, being able to do what he wants with the people he loves. That’s all he wanted. 

The warm feeling quickly dissipated, knowing that wasn’t exactly possible though. 

“Everything’s changing,” Reggie quietly blurted out. “And like...I don’t feel the way Alex gets when he thinks about change, but, I don’t know.” He took a breath before drawing his attention to where he was playing with the grains of sand between his fingers, “it just sucks. I don’t even know why I feel like this,” he mumbled. 

Ray nodded and looked to the horizon, “sometimes our feelings don’t make sense, and that’s okay. We just experience them and do our best to put the pieces together, one step at a time.”

Reggie continued to play with the sand, slightly shifting in his spot, not knowing how to continue. Expressing his feelings to others wasn’t really his thing, let alone to actual adults. He wasn’t used to this and to be honest, wasn’t even sure if he wanted to continue. 

“Whatcha thinking there?”

Reggie’s head turned to Ray’s before he directed his attention back to the sand, “I don’t know. It’s just..” Reggie paused, trying to wrap his head around his thoughts. It’s not like things weren’t changing before he died. Ignoring the fact that his parents were spending less and less time with each other, everything was changing for the good. Sunset Curve was about to live out their dreams and make music, experience life. Together. 

But it was different now.

Well, of course it was different because the three of them were dead and had missed the past twenty-five years of life, but it wasn’t exactly just about that he supposed. 

Reggie looked at Ray from the corner of his eye. The man didn’t break his eyes away from the sunset, but Reggie didn’t know exactly how to read him now that he could have an actual conversation with Ray.

Was he just being nice? Did he actually want to hear what Reggie wanted to say, or did Ray feel like he had to? Did he think that what Reggie’s said so far made no sense and that he’s being sensitive over nothing? Oh god, Reggie was probably annoying him when he had better things to do and instead was keeping him here all because he’s overreacting about something that’s not even a problem anyways.

Ray noticed how Reggie’s eyes were slowly growing wider from his peripheral vision. “Take your time, we can stay here for as long as you need. I don’t mind.”

Reggie took a breath and forced himself to sink back into the sand no matter how badly he wanted to poof away. He hated this It was so much easier to talk to Ray when he couldn’t see him. Reggie could rant and blabber on about anything without thinking for a second that Ray would somehow get sick of him. Why was this so different?

“If you don’t want to talk about it, that's completely fine, Reggie.” Ray started to stretch out his body to lay on his back, “but if you do, just say what you feel. Just talk, don't think.”

Reggie gave a small laugh, “I am pretty good at that.” He gave one last look to Ray, who seemed to be studying the sky before he sucked in a breath and closed his eyes. “Everything’s changing and I hate it. And like I said before, I don’t get freaked out in the same way Alex does about it but, I just miss things, I guess. I miss my house that’s now a stupid bike shack. I miss hanging out with Bobby, but now he’s "rockstar Trevor Wilson”. I miss my brother and my parents who I’ve been too scared to look up because they probably got the divorce Luke was talking about. I miss going to the diner that was a couple of blocks from here but apparently that’s been torn down since 2005. And I know, it’s stupid because we’ve been dead and yeah, things are going to change because that’s the way the world works or whatever, but I hate it.” He paused to catch his breath before he continued to rush out his words. 

“And I know we met you guys and Julie, and she’s amazing and we have our band. I wouldn’t trade that for the world, but...it's not a permanent thing? One day that’s going to change too, heck, it's already changing and I just feel like I’m stuck. Pretty soon, everything and everyone is going to move on without me because for some reason, I can’t manage to keep up.” He shuddered out a breath and gave himself a moment to let his head catch up with his mouth. 

“Everything’s going good though,” he continued in a much lower voice. “The band is doing good, everyone seems to be happy. I shouldn’t be feeling like this.”

Reggie heavily sighed and cracked an eye open, quickly wiping his eyes before a tear had the chance to trickle down his cheek. 

Ray seemed to have been listening but hadn’t said anything yet. Did Reggie say something wrong?

Reggie let go of his legs and looked to his lap, fidgeting with his fingers, “sorry, I know that was all over the place and it probably didn’t even make much sense. It’s just, I don’t do this often, you know? And I have so much adrenaline just like, pumping through my body right now, that’s why I’m talking so fast, but-”

“Reggie-“ 

Oh, thank god. 

“You have nothing to be sorry about, and you are perfectly fine for feeling like this.” Ray sighed as he started to sit back up, “change is...complicated.” He huffed before he slowly turned to Reggie, “when Rose passed-”

“But that's a good reason to feel sad or whatever. Nothing like that has happened to me.”

Ray stared at Reggie for a moment with a puzzled look. “What you said earlier...is a pretty good reason to feel the way you do. And even if all of that wasn’t happening, it still wouldn’t mean that you have no right to feel like this. Things change and time moves forward, it’s okay to feel that you aren’t on the same page as everyone else. It’s a natural part of growing up.”

Reggie gave a wet laugh, “I’m pretty sure we can’t age anymore, which is going to be weird for Luke and Julie-”

Ray sighed, “Reggie, look at me please.” The boy sniffled before he reluctantly met Ray’s eyes, still playing with the rings on his fingers. “Nobody has anything figured out. That’s not how life, or the afterlife works. Everyone, including me, is stumbling through it just like you. It’s okay to want things to be how they were before and it’s okay to not know how to handle everything right away. You’ll figure it out at some point.” Ray let out a slight chuckle, “you literally woke up one day and you were in a different time. You had to figure out this whole ghost thing without much help, and you still are. Give yourself credit for that, mijo.”

Reggie's face fell as his throat got tight, trying to hold back tears that were threatening to pour out. He looked back down to his lap and gave a slight nod, “thanks.” 

Ray began to spread his arms out to which Reggie immediately launched at, burying his face in Ray’s shoulder with no shame. 

[in-tua-deep]

tua s1 rewatch with my roommate

episode one (I forgot for the first episode oops):

I have been treated to pictures of a lovely cosplay of Klaus who won a cosplay contest my roommate was in !!

Klaus putting his arm in front of Five during the funeral fight is good shit

“I have heard like nothing about Vanya” “yeah that’s pretty much how she’s treated in show as well”

“I can see why he’s the fandom favorite” - about Klaus

“Istanbul is in the firST EPISODE?”

I forGOT about the “rapists can climb” line when he breaks into Vanya’s apartment omg but also like,, his dumb arm wound

Episode two:

HERR CARLSON

Aww baby fives first time travel his little smile. Baby. Baby boy. And the dawning horror in the apocalypse baby nO

Five: you got anything stronger

Also five: takes one sip and then fills up more, takes another sip, and then immediately puts it down ?????

The motel dude for hazel and cha cha just looks at them like “yeah these are serial killers” and just rolls with it

Also actually why tf doesn’t the commission spring for better stuff?? Why would they cut costs?? They time travel? They could game the stock market so hard ?????? Give the assassins their own rooms omg

Also why didn’t five like. Crush his tracker. Why did he just leave it whole and intact outside of the Griddys.

Forgot how much I love Agnes

(Oh man it is storming bad here it just BOOMED)

Also idk if Diego actually deserved that taser hmmmmm but also like,, communication lads five was literally right there killing people and Diego is like “hmm something is up here” like. Yeah Diego ur big brother “I can get my sibling in trouble for something” senses are tingling

Wow I really did repress all these Allison and Luther scenes huh. Also it’s still super cute that Allison read Claire moon books

Allison: dads heart gave out, which wasn’t how I was expecting to find out dad had a heart but it tracks

“SHUT YOUR PIEHOLE BEN... said with love 😘”

Did five actually sleep at Vanyas?? The sofa looks undisturbed but he had to wait for work hours to interrogate the meritech people,, five,, please sleep. The whole “IF YOU CALL ME YOUNG MAN ONE MORE TIME” interaction makes more sense with five on. Zero sleep.

I didn’t remember that Patch straight up knows about the umbrella academy oops. Like she clocks Diego as overcompensating for his childhood. Queen

Is that an umbrella adademy Diego cross stitch on Diego’s wall?? Did he buy that? Make it?? Did grace make it?

Vanya, walking into the academy: five??? five? pspspspspsps

Also like. Who was Vanyas therapist??? Clearly they did not help her

Aww the tow truck driver :(

I know the show wants me to dislike Patrick I KNOW,, and I think her fathers funeral is extenuating circumstance?? But still Patrick is valid for not giving an inch regarding his ex who mind controlled his child. Vanya didn’t really deserve Allison snapping at her but like. She had some good points. Allison arguably would have had to deal with vanyas book more than anyone else

Five smiling proudly at Klaus’s drama at meritech bless but also KLAUS DONT BREAK GLASS ON YOURSELF

Me, spotting Leonard: BASTARD

Love how everyone greets Diego in the gym and don’t question all his knives or anything like “yeah that’s Diego he lives here and loves knives :)”

Why could Leonard have not been like. A normal ass guy. Vanya needs friends who sympathize with her holy shit get this person some socialization

Pogo really did have to lead these kids by hand to the recording rooms because literally no one was super invested in reginalds ~murder mystery~

ahafahJAGSJWGAI MY ROOMMATE JUST SAID POGO IS THE BEST CHARACTER SO FAR,,,, I will probably never include pogo in my fics because I do Not Care About Him lmaoooo

Aww five does to see Dolores and being like “it’s been a rough couple of days :(“,,,,, baby,,,, but also tag yourself I’m hazel going “elastic wrist splint yesssssss”

Five I am begging you PLEASE get some sleep

OH FIVE SHAKING DIEGO IN THE APOCALYPSE TO TRY AND WAKE HIM UP OHHHHH OH :(

Episode 3:

my roommate is super faceblind which is an issue bc she identifies people mainly by hairstyle so seeing the s2 stuff on tumblr is tripping her over bc she keeps seeing diego and going ??? who is that again? bc she’s seen his longer hair

okay there is no way that the eggs that grace put in that pan are the ones that ended up on the smiley face breakfast plate,,, but also grace that whole scene was a mood honestly i would be like “okay maybe mom killed dad BUT he deserved it sooooo”

“what the FUCK” - my roommate about cha-cha’s shitty wound care where she holds a curling iron against her arm

i didn’t remember that five got shOT AT THE DEPARTMENT STORE did i just erase that from my memory?? i mean yeah it’s a graze but he stitches it up and then slaps a bandaid on it so he has a wound that needed stitches on his shoulder for the entire show ??????? is he okay???? that would make moving your arm,,, painful,,,,,

a bandaid just slapped over it i’m actively yelling

“Sometimes when I see a million gifs of a show before I watch I get really surprised when they talk but he is exactly what I expected” - my roommate, about five

“I noticed they’ve only really showed diego in really badly lit scenes so far” - my roommate defending her lack of ability to recognize diego

i’m still laughing about pogo literally having to point out the murder tapes and now allison and luther are investigating and just. allison is lowkey defending grace and i’m laughing

“why is he saying woodwork is embarrassing that’s like one of the most middle of the wood hobbies to have. you’re respectable to grandpas who used to carve wooden ducks AND twenty-year-olds who can’t make anything to save their lives” - my roommate on leonard peabody

“i think he’s already crossing some lines he’s met this lady ONCE” - roommate on leonard/vanya

five having flashbacks in the car :(

did allison and luther draw straws for who went to fetch which sibling?? allison was like “dibs on vanya” and luther was just like “aww :(”

five luther and klaus in the van - BOYS NIGHT BOYS NIGHT let’s go pick up diego

“the coat he’s wearing does have a nice swish to it” - roommate about klaus’s coat

luther being like “you’re just as messed up as the rest of us and we’re all you have” like luther,,, baby,,,,, you literally ARE all he has,,,,,, his family is the only thing he’s really cared about since he was thirteen and maybe before then :(

“I can’t tell if those are supposed to be cake or yeast donuts... i think extruded donuts are cake donuts but she said she lets them rise so maybe they’re yeast?” - my roommate focusing on all the things that i do not

sometimes i forget that hazel and cha-cha pretended to be private detectives trying to find a lost child in a potentially dangerous situation,,, five would be disgusted

“she shouldn’t get a vote” “i was gonna say i agree with you” “she should get a vote!!” this is peak sibling energy honestly i think i’ve had that exact interaction with my siblings voting for a movie or something

“hashtag android rights” 

“I want to be the tailor who gets a call one day that says ‘i want you to make clothes for a chimpanzee”

is it telling that only luther in the flashback didn’t really talk to grace at all,, i mean five didn’t either but i think he was gone by that point in the flashback ???? 

wait diego tells grace that she worked for him for thirty years,,, the kids are 29 and later it’s implied she was built bc vanya kept killing nannies when they were like four but maybe s2 clarifies that some more?? or diego just is rounding up

“that’s an interesting fabric to her skirt” - my roommate about grace’s outfit

forgot that hazel and cha cha broke the door to the manor busting in,, do they ever fix that?? we’re only at episode three do they spend the rest of the season with their door open to anyone on the streets

okay that bathtub is WAY too small to allow for klaus to be moving his elbows about like that underwater smh

“how is HE useful on mission??” my roommate about klaus

where is the SECURITY SYSTEM??? luther LITERALLY said that reggie was more paranoid and yet some assassin can just bust down the door and have unrestricted access????? he built a whole ROBOT but no security system????????

“maybe it was like,, practice for the kids? someone breaks in and they take care of it? wait no that doesn’t explain the thirteen years they’ve been gone?”

“why WAS he on the moon?” - about luther

“I want to see what she’s embroidering!!” about grace during the gunfight in the living room she’s absolutely ignoring diego getting shot at

what is a rope-a-dope,,,, diego yells “EVER HEARD OF A ROPE-A-DOPE???” at luther but like. no i haven’t. what does that MEAN diego

aww i forgot they played sinnerman, love that song

“what are you doing dude, rumor has it you’re not shooting at me that’s all you need to do” i mean. the roommate is not wrong. allison could just end the fight with a yell. i understand she’s pissed off and has rumor trauma but like cha cha is actively trying to murder them

how is luther not winning he literally has super strength. does hazel have super strength? just punch the man and knock him out jesus y’all suck at this smh

why is there such intense music we all been knew about luther’s strength - oH HIS BODY

forgot about that

is it allison’s fault that klaus got kidnapped because she didn’t literally just rumor them to give up?? like she literally has that power. she could have been like “i heard a rumor you left and forgot about us” it didn’t even need to be violent?? i understand she has rumor trauma but this i feel is allowable circumstances

diego showing his worry about vanya by getting angry which honestly i think all the siblings do that rip none of these idiots have even heard of healthy communication in their LIVES

you know,, i don’t think vanya can drive. she takes the bus. she took a taxi to leonard’s house. we see her walking a lot. does she know how to drive?? i imagine that the umbrella academy were taught bc of mission related stuff but,,, vanya wasn’t?? that’s just depressing tbh

[cartoonfangirl1218]

Riverdale should have been a Disney show

Riverdale should have been a Disney show. There I said it. I'll admit the first season was fine Great even. Self-contained with an intriguing mystery and you waited at the edge of your seat for what will happen next. But then... Part of the problem for me is because I've read the original comics since I was a girl. I still do get some from my mom, and the way they have changed the characters just bug me.Betty used to be the girl next door, always hopeful, smart, trying to figure out the mystery. And it was perfect that she was a reporter because Betty was always someone who valued honesty so her being the roving reporter was perfect. And her taking pills for anxiety or some sort of disorder was also a nice take because she does take on so much, and tries so hard to help and be good and nice and perfect. All the stress. Archie was also great in the first season. A bit horny, but he means well, and he truly is an average American boy so his big trouble of choosing between music and football. He's a klutz and sometimes his plans go sideways but he means well, he's all for family and Riverdale and school spirit. None of this whole Red Hood/semi mafia/wrestling nonsense. I actually really liked their take on Veronica, she still a bit materialistic and thinks she can depend on her wealth to get her out of trouble but I do like their take on trying to be enterneauripal and working to act less high class society girl as she was used to. 

Jughead, I'm conflicted with. Because he's good I guess as a brooding, investigative journalist he's good. It fits the setting of the show. But I do have a soft spot for him as the sane man to Archie. Going about his business, surprisingly philosophical. And you can't forget the most important attribute to him. His love of food! I miss that. Like the one scene in season 1, I forget what exactly but basically he ordered burgers and when Cole Sprouse just protectively held the burger to him...such a nice touch. That sort of guy I can see as a DCOM. The genius ditz I guess it's called. But he's not dumb. He just prefers napping to being awake. 

Now the others...omg.I have a bone to pick when it comes to the other characters in Riverdale. Josie and the Pussycats-- they are such lively musicians who solve crimes, sometimes in space. ABsolutely wasted here. Melody barely had any lines. And they didn't have Alex or Alexandra Cabot which was such a shame. I know, I know they're in the new Katy Keene show but having them be step-siblings who used to date is wrong and weird and bad and no! Stop having the twins in these shows with vaguly incesteous feelings. It's weird!

Kevin Keller, all his storylines revolve around his bfs or lack of bfs or how much he wants a bf. The Kevin of Archie comics was so much more well-rounded. He was head of ROTC, he was class president, he ran marathons, he was Veronica's bff, he was a reporter. He had an appetite to match Jughead's. He even had a brief crush on Jughead! He was so much better than this sham. He was confident in who he was and did his best to help others feel good about themselves too because he knows not everyone is lucky to come out as LGTBQ in a supportive environment. 

Reggie. I think not giving him enough of an arc in season 1 really backfired because if he appears, it's only as Veronica's arm candy. Which is a shame because he is a good contrast to Archie. A bit richer yet a cheapskate. Thinks he's a casanova, loves being the class prankster. A modern day politician with his sweet words when all he cares about himself. Basically like 

Yet he has his hidden depths with his neglectful workaholic parents and jealousy of Archie's popularity. Cheryl. Omg Cheryl. They have ruined you here. I'm sorry, I do NOT find any of her lines iconic. It's like she swallowed urban dictionary and a gothic novel and came out all jumbled in a google translate. She may be abused but the way she still treats others like shit and gaslights her gf and makes everything about her is just...ugh!!! OMg, comics Cheryl is actually fun and iconic. She's as rich and pretty as Veronica and unafraid to use it. She wants to be a star like a modern day influencer. She's a red-haired Sharpay Evans basically. 

Also Jason, her twin whom they sadly killed off. He was also fun like a meaner, snobbier version of Reggie. But with a huge crush on Betty which I think could have been used to milk such drama. 

Polly also got hit badly. She was a good older sister. She was a reporter, and inspired Betty's enviormental-feminist activities. A sane person. Not a cult worshipping cuckoo. Toni Topaz, ah she was so good in season 2 and then they made her Cheryl's arm candy. Alas. I liked her as a friend to Jughead. In the comics, she was his equal in food contests. That's no small feat. She was cool, and joined Betty's band and... she was her own person. Remember when Toni used to be a photographer for the South Side paper. Yeah. Basically Toni as a 3d character with personality. Please return. 

Dilton. Oh Dilton. Once the smartest person in the Archie universe and they turned you into a survival freak to get killed by the gargoyle king. Or whomever. I just remember he got killed somehow. Honestly, they should have stuck to smart Dilton. They need a smart scientist there, cuz no one is using their brains in Riverdale. 

Chuck. They have done you SUCH A DISSERVICE! So so bad. Chuck was a good person! He was a cartoonist, and a basketball player and Archie's friend. (Yeah, that's right Archie has friends in the comics. Even though Riverdale makes some effort to show Archie and Jug's bond, they're mainly consorting with their gfs. In the comics, they had guy nights. Reggie, Chuck, Kevin, Dilton, Moose. Come on show. Friendships are just as important.) And what did they do, make him a lying scumbag, turn him good and then have him arrested because of what Cheryl did! No, no no. Bad writers. Just no. Ethel Muggs. You have also been wronged in season 3. Making her a crazy freak. Ethel in season 1 was nice. Ethel in the comics is nice. Plain but with a good heart even though she had a slightly obsessive crush on Jughead. Here, making her cult worshipper.... smdh.  Okay at this point I know I sound like a bitter, bitter person complaining how it'S nOt liKE tHe cOmICs. But hey, I admit season 1 was good even if they changed the characters a bit. It’s just that I watched Riverdale because of the property it derived from. Because of the comics. At the least I expected some faithfulness to the characters. Not make them all so inconsistent and crazy. 

It's just the writing is so inconsistent! The plots hop around and so do their moods. Bughead and Choni broke up for one episode and then they got right back together. Even though they had VALID reasons to break up. Nope. That made fans mad. So they had to get back together. Ugh. And Archie got attacked by a bear and was so traumatized that he broke up with Veronica because "he's changed" for like two episodes before forgetting about it and going back to Veronica. Oh which brings me to the ridiculous "love triangle" of Archie/Reggie/Veronica where she couldn't choose. Please, Archie and Veronica were reuniting and planning to go run away for a weekend together. Reggie was completely forgotten until he walked in on them. And Veronica couldn't decide because she loves them both? No, she didn't. She may have felt bad to tell Reggie but it's not because she loved him. Forgetting a guy so quickly...yeah great proof of love. Horniness maybe. But her indecisiveness makes her look bad. Don’t tease a will they, won’t they when the answer is so obvious.  If you're going to do something like that, you should have there be something called CONSEQUENCES! They can get back together but at least wait. Wait 8 episodes at least so they can have character development. But who am I kidding. Character development is not the goal of this show. The character's just move because the writer's want them too not because it fits their personalities. Such as Archie's grieved reaction for baby Teeth in season 3. 

Not only do I have no idea when (the ridiculously named) Baby Teeth appeared, much less why Archie or I should care about his death. But sometimes the show juggles too much. Too many characters. Too many plots. It's all so ugh!!! So my final thought on this is... Riverdale should have been a disney channel sitcom. Archie comics are about family friendly entertainment and sometimes imparted lessons... well so does Disney. I get the appeal of having Riverdale reach a new teen generation, but from what I can see the only big thing Riverdale on CW is that it allows alcohol and gartituous sex scenes. 

Which is another small gripe of mine. I can handle sex scenes (hello Magic Mike XXL) but so many at such inappropriate moments too It's like that scene in an action movie where they suddenly kiss when they should be running for their lives. No teen is that horny all the time. Plus there's always less is more. If one kisses so much it loses the meaning. If you think your shirtless Archie is going to distract me from lack of plot haha. No. Plot and consistency still sucks and shirtless Archie does not make it better.

But Riverdale as a Disney show can work. After all the comic stories are a bit formulaic. It's all high school hijinks. And all the characters fit an archetype. Archie, the protagonist. Veronica, the fashionista. Betty, the reporter. Jughead, the slacker. Reggie, the class clown/bad friend. Cheryl, the Sharpay, Kevin, the sane one. And if people want a season long story arc with dramatics, Disney can actually handle it too. After all they had the mysterious "threat' lurking in the background of My babysitter's a vampire season 2. Or the Juliet and Mason saga of Wizards of Waverly Place. And if people want adult situations, look on to Jessie. Rewatching an episode now, there were so many adult jokes and references that flew over my head so they could sneak those in. Heck, Disney channel is infamous for all the innuendos they manage. And they handle consistency. Cody and Bailey broke up in Suite life on deck, they actually stayed broken up for a good half season. Gabe matured from a prankster tween to teen in love in Good Luck Charlie. Actions have consequences, characters grow. Storytelling 101

And the best part is they don't even have to think too hard for the plots of the week. They literally can build on stories from the comics. All 80 years of it. And I have put some examples right here from my own Archie comics. Like Veronica literally being the fashion police. 

Veronica and Cheryl teaming up + rolling around in their money. 

Cheryl changing the Cherry Blossom Festival to the Cheryl Blossom Festival 

Archie doing his classic Valentine's Day mix up

Veronica and Betty buy Cheryl’s maid service when her father forces her to get a job. 

Jughead and Trula (Jughead's nemesis & psychoanalyst in training) get amnesia and become friends. 

A boy dares to change Veronica

Jughead falls in love with the lunch-lady 

Betty and Veronica pretending to be distressed damsels to get Archie's attention (it backfires) 

Toni and Jughead foil each other in a food eating contest. 

Betty's cast causes more pain to other students

Reggie dates Cheryl (for real) 

Reggie helps Kevin dress for the dance and his mystery date 

Riverdale Shore. 

Cabot vs Lodge

I think all this pretty much illustrates my point. Archie comics equals Disney sitcom all by itself. 

[eleanorbloom]

[OH] When You’re Ready Ch. 03

Disclaimer: I don’t own anything of the Open Heart World. The name Eleanor Bloom and her story was created by me, though.

Pairing: Bryce Lahela x f! MC (Eleanor Bloom) x Ethan Ramsey.

Word Count: 4.8k

Warning: Angst, adult language, and smut. 

Summary: Bryce has decided to let go of Eleanor because she’s in love with Ethan Ramsey. But a turn in her relationship with the attending might change Bryce's plans.

A/N: Thank you so much for all your kind words and your support. 

I have the urge to remind you all that English is not my first language so I apologize for any mistakes. As a perfectionist, I’ve been having a hard time trying to make this fic the more comprehensible as it can be.  I know my English doesn’t suck, that your people understand what I write (lol) but I’m sure there are some idioms or, I don’t know, the order of the words that may seem off, and I can't help but feel bad about it. Just know that this happens because I’m a Spanish speaker trying to write a fanfic in English.  

That’ll be all. Lots of love to my readers 

Let me know if you wanna be added to the taglist! :)

Taglist: @utterlyinevitable @binny1985 ​ @laiba-the-person ​ @choicesficwriterscreations @shanzay44

______

Chapter Three: All I Ask.

It matters how this ends

‘Cause what if I never love again? 

Eleanor walked into the locker room feeling her heart in her throat, a knot threatening to make her explode with rage and bitterness once again. When she reached for her locker, she found Sienna already fully dressed to leave Edenbrook.

“Oh my god, Ellie, are you okay?!” Sienna inquired as she perceived the mortified expression on her face.

“I’m not”

“What happened? Did you… Did you speak with Dr. Ramsey?”

“I did”

“And?”

Eleanor couldn’t help but let a few tears stream down her face, but she managed to avoid the sob.

“He’s going to the Amazon with the WHO”

“What?! Oh my god, that’s big”

"And he’s leaving tomorrow”

“Oh no. Ellie, I’m so sorry ”

Suddenly, all traces of sadness and rage disappeared from her. She wiped the tears off her face and cleared her throat.

“Don’t be. Let’s get outta here, I need a drink”

"Okay, I’ll text the others to meet at Donahue’s”

Sienna eyed Eleanor with concern. She wanted to tell her to stop suppressing her feelings, to stop pretending she didn’t care, but she preferred to keep it quiet, hoping that at some point she would explode and let everything out. Because she had spent all those weeks pretending that she didn’t care, that it didn’t hurt to ignore Ramsey, that it didn’t hurt that he didn’t care that she was ignoring him. Nearly five months of pent-up emotions.

 An hour later, Eleanor was at Donahue’s with Bryce and her new best friend, the vodka. Elijah was with Phoebe choosing a few songs on the jukebox to dance to; Sienna was with Danny and other nurses playing darts and Jackie and Rafael were deep in conversation at the bar. Bryce had noticed her mood but didn’t want to ask her directly, since he guessed who was responsible. Instead, he preferred to join her to drink, without judging that she was almost drinking the entire bottle of vodka by herself without any coyness, although he was willing to make her stop when it became dangerous for her health.

Suddenly, Eleanor’s face sparkled with fury. Bryce turned to check the source of her discomfort, knowing perfectly well who it was. Ethan was at the bar talking to Reggie as he took a seat.

“You’re so predictable, Ethan Ramsey"—She muttered as she took the shot of vodka in one sip—"I bet he’ll have a couple of shots, waiting for the moment when I’m alone, and if doesn’t find me alone he’ll just switch to some non-alcohol drink because he will have to wait for me until I decide to go home. All that wait just to cry apologies for something he didn’t want to say, but said anyway”

Bryce smirked as he heard her rant.

"Do you want me to leave you alone so you can talk to him?”

“No! No, please, I don’t want to make it that easy for him. I want to see what he’s capable of. If he’s just going to be a shitty wary that’s going to expect to find me alone, or if he’s able to get right up to me. Please don’t leave me alone, Bryce.

“Don’t worry, Elle, I won’t leave you alone if that’s what you want”

“Thank you, Bryce. You are the best”

“I know I am. Cheers for that”

They clanged their glasses and took another shot.

“Why are you so mad, by the way?”

Eleanor told him their talk with the details that only a drunk and upset person can do it.

“So, he’s leaving then? And he didn’t even tell you?”

“No. He didn’t want to tell me”

“Oof, what a douche. Hun, why do you let him treat you like this?”

“I don't know. I don’t know why I have allowed this torment for so long. But I got tired. I don’t care anymore. If he stays, if he goes. I don’t know why should I care when he has never cared for how bad I’ve been all this time”

Bryce looked at her with a sad expression. He hated to see Eleanor that way. Crying, hopeless. Suffering. He took her hand tenderly.

“Eleanor, I’m so sorry”—He said, caressing the back of her hand—“You don’t deserve anything you’re going through. It’s okay to be angry, you can’t allow him to treat you like that”

“I know”—She replied in a tiny voice.

“And you can’t keep wasting your time with someone who doesn’t value you, Elle. He may love you, but if he really valued you, he wouldn’t treat you like that. He wouldn’t let you suffer like that” 

Bryce stroked her cheek, looking right into her tear-filled eyes.

“You’re right, Bryce"—She stared right into his eyes without looking away, then wiped her tears with the back of her hand.

“You deserve the world, Eleanor”

She couldn’t help but give him a big smile as her cheeks flushed.

Then she turned her gaze to the bar and realized that Ethan was with a tense posture making glances toward their table.  Seeing Eleanor cry and be comforted by Bryce surely challenged his nerves more than he was willing to admit.

About fifteen minutes later, her friends began to return to the table to start the Karaoke session. They had fun with some of their favorite songs and other classics requested by other clients. Then was Eleanor’s turn to sing a song. She felt a twist on her stomach.

“Eleanor, it’s your turn, what did you request?”

“All I Ask”—She replied to Elijah, simply.

Everyone at the table stared at her.

"Eleanor…"—Bryce whispered—"Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes. I’m done hiding my feelings, pretending he didn’t hurt me just to make him feel the less uncomfortable”

The melody began to play, and Eleanor already felt her heart shatter without even having started the first line. Her friends stared at her for a few moments and then looked away at the awkward situation that was coming. 

“I will leave my heart at the door

I won’t say a word

They’ve all been said before, you know”

Eleanor was heartbroken and drunk, and practically putting on a show in front of all Donahue’s, but deep down her friends knew that that was what Eleanor needed right now, to release all her feelings in front of Ethan, though not directly. Because Eleanor had been holding back all these months, resisting love, the desire to be with Ethan, resisting the urge to stand in his office or his home and ask him once again to stop pushing her away and to be together once and for all, more times than she had already done. She had swallowed the love, the pride, the pain in inhuman ways. But what had happened today was the culmination of too many repressed feelings, and if her way of finding catharsis was through the saddest, cheesiest, and most heartbreaking song Adele had ever written, then so be it.

“So why don’t we just play pretend

Like we’re not scared of what is coming next

Or scared of having nothing left”

Eleanor took all the courage she had and turned her gaze to Ethan, who was staring at her with the most mortifying look she had ever seen on him, and she had seen plenty: When Dolores passed away, when he found out Banerji had a month to live. He was not holding anything, the pain, the guilt, the embarrassment.

“Look, don't get me wrong 

I know there is no tomorrow

All I ask is

If this is my last night with you

Hold me like I’m more than just a friend

Give me a memory I can use

Take me by the hand while we do what lovers do

It matters how this ends

‘Cause what if I never love again?”

At least Eleanor had a very good voice to sing the songs of Adele, so she wasn’t embarrassing herself too badly. Of course, she was not as good as Adele herself but made a few good notes, and the alcohol had given her too much courage to go for the high pitches, and the anger gave her too much feeling to sing with such a passion, that she astonished to all her friends. She was actually killing it.

-"I don’t need your honesty

It’s already in your eyes

And I’m sure my eyes, they speak for me

No one knows me like you do

Eleanor looked directly at Ethan again.

And since you’re the only one that mattered

Tell me who do I run to?"

The words came out with such rage from her core, that Ethan felt as if she had said it a few inches from him, and not indirectly through a song and standing several feet away from him. And he felt every one of her words, every look, every drop of anger and sadness. He acknowledged receipt of all this and accepted his responsibility. He felt broken at the sight of her because he wanted to do so much to ease her pain. But he couldn’t.

After the song was over, Eleanor returned to her place with tears on her face but not one iota of embarrassment.

“Eleanor, that was truly beautiful”—Sienna said, tears on her face too—"Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m feeling better, I think it took a lot of weight off my shoulders”

“That is the important thing”

“You were very brave”—Bryce said caressing her back.

“Guys, I just ridiculed myself in front of the whole bar and you guys are treating me like I’ve won a war”

“You did something for yourself that you should have done months ago. Show how you really feel”—Sienna replied, serious.

“Well…”

“We are proud of you, Eleanor”— Elijah added.

“It’s about damn time you take care of yourself and don’t let Ramsey do whatever the fuck he wants”—Continued Jackie.

“Even if that means to sing a sad song in front of him”—Concluded Sienna.

After that, Eleanor was in a better mood and managed to distract herself from all she had been through that day. However, the presence of Ethan, sitting there at the bar, probably waiting for her, was a latent nuisance in her stomach.

A few hours later, Eleanor and her friends decided to go home. The moment she passed by his side, Ethan got up from his seat and walked towards her.

“Rookie”.

His disposition had changed from hell to heaven. She was no longer Dr. Bloom. She was Rookie again.

“What is it, Dr. Ramsey?”

Ethan looked at her sadly at the coldness in her response.

“Can we talk?”

Eleanor looked away to the floor, anger washing over her again. Then she looked back at him, who was waiting for her answer with pleading eyes.

“About what? I’m going home”

“I know … I-“

“I’ve been here the last four hours, I’m sure you could’ve looked for me in all this time… But obviously you waited for me to want to go home to do it?”

Ethan knew she was berating him. She shook her head.

“I was hoping you weren’t such a coward and would look for me directly. But you behave like a shy teenager who has never spoken to a woman in his life”

“Eleanor, are you coming?”—Jackie asked.

Her friends were at the door, first-hand witnesses of her exchange with Ethan.

“No, I stay. Don’t worry about me”

Eleanor looked at Ramsey coldly. They took a seat in the back of the bar so no one could hear them.

“So? I thought we were done”—She broke the silence between them.

“No, we are not done, Eleanor”

Ethan lowed her head, pondering his words.

“If… If I didn’t tell you about my trip to the Amazon, was because I wanted to make things less difficult for us. The last time we spoke I made myself clear that we can’t be together not because I don’t want to, but because we can’t. And when I noticed you started to avoid me, I thought maybe you finally understood my point, and I was okay with that”

“Then why you threw all over my face that I was ignoring you, like you weren’t okay with that?”

“Because I realized that you didn’t do it because you understood my point. You did it to piss me off. To return the favor. As vengeance. So, if you did actually ignore me with that motive in mind, you didn’t have the right to reclaim something from me”

“I…”—Her cheeks turned red.

“That’s not the point now, Eleanor”—He interrupted—"What I’m trying to say is… You can’t stop saying that everything I’ve done it’s because I want it, that I’m responsible of all your misery. But let me be clear. I don’t want it, Eleanor. I don’t want to be apart from you, I don’t want to ignore you. I’ve never wanted to spend the last five months ignoring your existence, not be able to talk to you, not to even look at you”

Eleanor observed his features, tracing all sense of honesty and determination. She knew he wasn’t lying or playing the victim.

“I’m not comfortable with this”—He continued—"I’m not okay with that but if that’s what allows me to be away from you to not interfere in your career, I’m willing to do that and more. I know it’s painful for you, that it’s not the best option for both of us. But this is the only way I can cope up with the situation”

“The only way… Ethan, are you sure not talking to me, not even looking at me the is the only option?”

“To me, it is”—He responded categorically—Eleanor, what I want is to be with you. If I could, I would’ve never let you leave my bed the first time we made love, or I would’ve never get up from your bed the last time we were together. If I could, I would live in that dream all my life. But I can’t”

Tears started to stream down her face. Again. His words broke her in million pieces. Because she couldn’t stop reliving those nights in all these months. Now she was realizing Ethan couldn’t either.

“I need you to understand that I’ve never wanted to hurt you. If my actions have hurt you, I’m sorry, but I mean it when I say I’ve never wanted anything of this to happen. I would love to make you happy in the ways you want. Believe me. But you have fought so hard to be here, Eleanor. Years to get to be at Edenbrook. Years and especially difficult months to get the Junior Fellow position. I can’t let you jeopardize your career nor your reputation”

Eleanor was speechless. She felt dumb, like a stupid teenager that let herself go on emotions and never thought through the real meaning of all his actions. She still felt a little pissed off, because there were still a lot of things Ethan should have avoided telling her and that were mean. But everything else he had done was… reasonable. Fair. Thoughtful.

“Ethan… I’m sorry for yelling at you like that. I feel embarrassed about how childish I was today”

“No, Eleanor. I still believe that you have every right to be mad at me because I didn’t tell you I would be out. I always knew I should’ve told you, but I was afraid. I’m a coward as you said. I didn’t want to face this conversation. Your pain. But you deserved more”

Eleanor nod.

“Well, yeah. You should’ve told me. But I made an outburst. I didn’t want to listen to you, I was being stubborn just to get what I want, but maybe I’ve never really put myself in your shoes”

“That’s all I ask. To understand why I’m doing this from my point of view”

Suddenly, Reggie approaches.

“Ethan, I’m sorry, but we are about to close”

“Thank you, Reggie”

Eleanor grabbed her purse and walked to the door followed by Ethan.

Eleanor turned to him.

“I believe you when you tell me you’ve never wanted to hurt me by staying away from me. But there have been plenty of times when you have hurt me by behaving like a dick to me, unnecessarily. Because one thing is avoiding to talk to me, but you have ignored me, you have been cruel, you have looked at me like you hate me”

“Yes. I know. I hope you can forgive me one day”

“I could forgive you, but I’ll only do it when I feel assured that you won’t do it again and I think there’s not enough time for that now”

Ethan stared without saying a word. He knew he couldn’t promise her that. He knew himself.

“Well, I think you can go in peace now that we have left everything clear, don’t we? Have a nice flight, I hope the mission is a success and you return safely. Bye”

Eleanor started to walk down the street to get a taxi.

“Why are you leaving like that? You’re not even going to say goodbye?”

“I said bye. That’s a goodbye. Or was it too informal? Goodbye Dr. Ramsey. There you have”

Ethan took her arm, forcing her to look into his eyes. Hers were reddened, tired, anguished. Like she was holding a ton of pain on her mind.

“Eleanor…”

“What, Ethan, what?“—She answered as her voice was breaking. She didn’t want him to go. But she had to let him go. To let that goodbye lingering more than necessary would only do her more harm than it had already done her.

“Let me take you home”

No. She would lose her mind if she let that happen. But she wanted it so bad.

“You were drinking”

“I drank whiskey when I arrived, after that, just lemonade, because I figured I’d have to wait until the end of the night to talk to you”

She wanted so bad to be with him as much time as possible. But she was trying to respect Ethan's intentions. But… He was leaving tomorrow. That was the last time she would see him in god knows how much time.

“Okay, let's go”—She agreed.

They walked silently back to the hospital, where Ethan had his car parked. The journey was silent. Ethan didn’t even dare to turn on the radio. They were only accompanied by the noise of the engine and other vehicles traveling through the streets of Boston at 3 am.

Eleanor wanted to say so many things, but it would make everything worse. So she lost herself in the smell of his car. Every time she sensed that smell on someone’s car o in any place, it reminded her of him. 

She had always had a particularly olfactory memory, and although most of the time it brought her good memories of her childhood or adolescence, in terms of relationships it always brought her bittersweet memories, melancholy, regret. 

She knew that smell—The smell of Ethan’s car, a scent of pine and musk—, or his smell — a fresh citric scent—would only bring her pain.

Ethan parked outside the apartment. The street was lonely, no one could be seen in the distance, and the only sound was the murmur of cars passing by the main avenue. A lump wove in her throat. She was afraid.

Eleanor turned to him to say goodbye. She wanted to make it simple. She could swear that she wanted to make it simple. 

“Have a good trip, Ethan, I hope you get back safely”—She spoke softly as she hugged him.

"Thank you, Eleanor”

“Text me to know that you arrived safely, please”—Eleanor asked, looking straight into his eyes. Those sky-blue eyes that were always the beginning of all her madness.

Ethan caressed the nape of her neck with his thumb and then he closed his eyes while pressing his forehead into hers, trying to absorb all her presence, the silkiness of her hair, the sweet scent of her neck, the warmth of her skin, of her hands. Before Eleanor could pull away, he sighed:

“I hope one day you finally understand that everything I’ve done, everything I’m doing, is for you. Because it's never been about me, Eleanor. The only thing that matters to me is that you become the brilliant and successful doctor you really deserve to be”

There were so much sincerity and pain in his speech that Eleanor pulled away from him so she could see his eyes. She stroked his cheek.

“I know, in a way I understand it, Ethan… But I can’t accept that path has to be this painful… And so unfair”

“Life isn’t fair, Eleanor”

Eleanor wanted to refute him that in this case, life had nothing to do with it. Because life wasn’t being unfair to her. He was being unfair. But she was unable to say a word. She was mesmerized by Ethan’s look. His eyes that so many times had given her comfort, now they haunted her dreams, they didn’t let her sleep at night, and at that precise moment, was threatening the little sanity she had left. 

After a few moments, they began to look at their lips, mere inches away from each other, until they finally gave in to the inevitable. A brush of lips so satisfying and full of redemption that they sighed in unison, to come together again in a more intense kiss, capturing and biting each other lips. Ethan felt Eleanor’s tears stream down his cheeks. To alleviate her own pain and avoid a sob, Eleanor stroked Ethan’s hair tightly in the back of his head, intensifying the kiss even more, sliding her tongue in his, and all over his lips. 

Ethan didn’t have time to hesitate and was caught up by the same desire. Soon, he was sliding his hands under Eleanor’s coat, feeling the curve of her breasts, her waist, and her hips. It was a never-ending dance of lips, which was complemented by more caresses, and then Eleanor climbing on top of Ethan, straddling him with her legs.

On another occasion, she would have pulled herself together and walked away. But knowing that she wouldn’t see him again for a long time, it drove her crazy. And maybe not for a long time, but there was always the possibility that this would be the last time they would be together, that both of them would want each other. Because no one could foretell what would happen from now on, when both he and she had finally accepted that their relationship had reached a dead end and that it was up to Ethan to revive it, and he had been clear that that wouldn’t happen.

“Eleanor…”—He sighed, a glint of reluctancy in his tone. He gulped.

She ignored him and continued to kiss him passionately, as she began to move over Ethan’s lap gently. 

"Deny that you want this"—She whispered a moments later—"Say that you don’t want me and I swear I’ll go”

Eleanor pulled away from him and looked into his eyes. It was dark, but she was able to see the sparkle in his eyes slightly. Eleanor’s anticipation was stifling as she felt Ethan’s bulge between her tights.

“I want you more than anything in this world”—He replied melting at the sight of her on top of him, his arms around her body.

Without wasting another second, she kissed him again, intensifying her movements over him.

“Eleanor"—He gasped, feeling an electric shock down his spine as he rested his hand over Eleanor's hips, pressing her against his crotch, rubbing each other as their moans began to invade the car.

Suddenly, Eleanor slid her hand between his tights, feeling his arousal under her fingers. He went to her pants, unbuttoned them, and shoved his hand under her panties. He felt her wetness, her desire. She sighed.

“Ohh, Ethan…”

“You’re so ready”

“Yes” She mumbled.

Ethan tried to lower her pants, but he couldn’t do much, due to the uncomfortable position. For a second, Eleanor thought they could have gone to her room but abandoned the idea immediately. She knew that Ethan could have second thoughts on their way to her apartment and she didn’t want to risk the possibility to be with him. 

Instead, she returned to the passenger seat, took off her shoes, and after moving the seat backward, took off her pants and panties. Ethan imitated her and pushed the seat backward as well and began to unfasten his pants. Eleanor, anxious, unhooked his belt and pants before he could finish, and released his cock under the boxer, and lowered herself to slide her tongue in all his length, to finally cover the tip with his mouth and then go deep. After a few moments, she moved upwards, sucking him hard.

“Eleanor”—He sighed in pleasure.

The girl worked on him for a few moments, until Ethan stopped her and guided her to sit on his lap again. “Come here”

They kissed again, devouring each other, Ethan grazing her jaw, her neck greedily, while she was gasping loudly as the anticipation was taking her body, feeling his arousal right under her sex. Then he removed her sweater and pulled her shirt and bra up, exposing his breasts. He cupped them with both hands before taking his mouth straight to her chest and began to kiss them… and then to suck her nipples.

"Ethan” Eleanor moaned loudly “Yes!”

The sound of his breath while licking her nipples and the “smack” after his mouth sucked them resonated in the car, and it was just another source of pleasure for Eleanor. But there was still something both were missing. Eleanor shifted slightly as she directed his arousal towards her center.

“Fuck”—She sighed as Ethan was entering her.

It was a blessed feeling, although neither of them believed in God, least of all in religion. That pleasure, that ecstasy, was a catharsis after all those months containing their deepest feelings and desires, after reliving almost every night the precious time they had spent together and that now were long gone.

“Oh, I missed you"—He groaned, taking her butt harder, as he was picking up more speed.

“Fuck yes. I wanted you so bad”—She kissed him, tongues colliding, teeth biting and swollen lips asking for more and more.

“You feel amazing, Eleanor”

The noise of their bodies colliding filled the car, but they were soon muffled with the moans that each one was not able to suppress, in the face of the sensations that were overwhelming them.

If someone was passing by and they had caught them, they wouldn’t have cared. All that mattered at that moment, was the feeling of their bodies connected. The pleasure that one was producing in the other. The ecstasy, the madness of their touch. The smell of their bodies. Ethan went to her breasts taking one with her hand, sucking her nipples hard while the other hand was on her ass, gripping her roughly.

“Ethan, I’m close”

Ethan was holding back just to this moment. He grabbed her firmly by her hips and began to thrust her at an impossible pace. Eleanor couldn’t comprehend where all that sensations were coming from, how she started to melting so abruptly, because she climaxed just a few seconds later.

“Oh my god, ETHAN!”—She screamed as he felt her hot breath in his mouth. Her tights squeezed as she was climaxing and that was enough to make him cum crying out her name.

He saw Eleanor toppling over him resting her forehead into his. Ethan embraced her, trying to feel every inch of her exposed skin in his.

“I love you”—She whispered.

He tightened his embrace, just as he did the last time she had said those words, and Eleanor still couldn’t figure out if he did that to pent up and not say anything, or to catch some bravery to tell her something. Either way, she wasn’t waiting for an answer this time. She only wanted him to know, before leaving, that she still loved him.

After a few more seconds holding each other, Eleanor returned to the passenger seat. She took her clothes and began to put them on. He also fixed his clothes. Somehow, when she came back to reality, the atmosphere was just as tense and painful as before the kiss. Even though the orgasm was still latent between her tights, the fact of knowing that the goodbye had finally come, was shattering her.

She turned to him, look into his blue eyes for a brief second, and breathed:

“Have a good flight ”

And without further ado, she got out of the car towards the building. 

“I love you too, Eleanor”—He said just as Eleanor closed the building’s door.

 _____

Chapter 4.