#your rebuttal papers on why he’s not a bad guy will only be accepted with:

[rowanthestrange]

The Media Overanalysis (O)Mega Essay: Why Rogue Is The Bad Guy. Duh.

Code Mauve. Sorry, you’re a mutual and directly responded, so now you get The Post. It was bound to be someone eventually, and it was you. It’s nothing personal. You were just the first to dare my parapet.

@icantleave replied: rogue definitely isn't the master because the master is simply incapable of cosplaying someone this genuine and unlike himself, his disguises are always essentially very him with a few traits hidden or amplified.

Either there is a psy-op and Disney aired a different version of this or a solid quarter of you got brain broken by American Mr Darcy- no don’t try and run, get back here. The only running you’re doing is this essay equivalent of a 10k.

You are intelligent. All of you. And yet what the hell does this mean? “rogue definitely isn't the master because the master is simply incapable of cosplaying someone this genuine and unlike himself”

We’re going through this episode. All of it. This is not actually an ‘it is the Master’ post, it is a ‘but at the very least he sure acts like the Master would’ post, which is the above premise. But also just in general that Rogue is The Bad Guy.

Take it as the Master cosplaying Jack; a Pantheon member whose theme is Roleplay who like the others has watched the show and is deliberately filling the void daddy created and getting in by cosplaying the Master cosplaying Jack (has to be doing both to be skilled at Roleplay ala Maestro and the Toymaker’s skills in their areas, else he’d just be shittily cosplaying Jack); or literally he is just baddie Chuldur #6 fanboy who wants to bang the Doctor he saw on TV cus he’s sexy and they get Doctor Who out there as well as Bridgerton. All the concepts are adjacent:

Baddie fanboy roleplaying as Jack to fuck-slash-fuck-with the Doctor.

Places people. Let’s take it from the top:

-We start with a scene showing someone (Chuldur #2) who wants to roleplay as the bad guy because that would be fun.

-(Bonus: the writers talking about themselves - “Wonderful party, your Grace.” “Some are saying best of the season. A triumph. A new standard set. And I, of course, could not comment. But I think the real estimation of an evening is in the matches made.” I quite agree.)

-(We are also in Tredegar House, which you may recognise from The End Of Time, Spyfall, and other times in New Who. We like this place.

-There is electronic interference in Ruby’s earpiece. The Doctor scans this and finds it’s coming from Rogue. The Master is a frequent user of manipulative electronics both towards other people and to disguise himself. Put a pin in this, it’ll come up at the end. ✅

-The Doctor meets Rogue to the backing of hit pop song, Billie Eilish’s “I’m The Bad Guy”. The Master is a famous lover of fun pop, and being obvious to an oblivious Doctor. ✅✅

I wrestled with iMovie at midnight to put the lyric subtitles to this video and you are going to watch and appreciate it:

[If at any point you want out of this essay, all you have to do is come back to here and watch this video again while singing in your head along with the lyrics to receive a passing grade.]

-They deliberately work the lines around the music, not just thematically but so you can clearly hear what the backing song is. And made sure they kept the scene going long enough all the way into the next section just so they could keep the line: “I like it when you take control, even if you know that you don't, own me, I'll let you play the role, I'll be your animal.” Fuck’s sake. Most Thoschei song. Interchangeable freaks.

-Rogue is critiqued by the Doctor for not acting appropriately broody enough. The Master well known for being a fairly shit actor. ✅

-That is an American accent. This is a red flag for either being a Pantheon member, or the Master Dressing For The Occasion (which Rogue certainly has).

-“Do you practise in a mirror?” - him roleplaying would mean literally yes.

-“I didn’t know the Duchess employs a court jester.” - Alexa please search every time the Master has called the Doctor some derivation of clown. ✅

-“O…Kay…Rude. Lord-?” “Not a Lord.” Our last outing with the Master was all about his psyche-destroying discovery of being made from the Not-A-Time Lord Doctor; and if he is Pantheon The Rogue roleplaying as the Master, then just chef’s kiss line. But I will be magnanimous this early in proceedings, and let you go ‘technically a valid meta read is saying that conforms he’s not a Time Lord’. But the paragraph stands.

-He calls himself Rogue:

1. noun: a dishonest or unprincipled person. "You are a rogue and an embezzler" Similar: scoundrel, villain, reprobate. 2. noun: an elephant or other large wild animal living apart from the herd and having savage or destructive tendencies. "a rogue elephant"

If it’s the Master then straight up naming himself “The Bad Guy” is on brand. The Master is a Rogue Time Lord. That is what fandom has long called them - ‘Rogues and Renegades’. The Master is shite at names, if you haven’t had the pleasure of the Third Doctor’s company yet. Shitty anagrams, tenuous links to goals and character aspects, and crappy puns are the standard ✅. If Pantheon, then his choice in lifestyle that’s more about personally having fun (ultimately still Doctor compatible), with a group, in a non-competitive game which has no win condition other than enjoying the game, though rip to the NPC’s being played with as character, would definitely put him somewhat apart from the wreaking havoc on the universe others. If a Pantheon member, he literally did choose his own name from D&D.

-Just generalised throughout: Rogue is not actually suave. Some people find his secret awkwardness under the posh gear charming. The Master is not suave and is awkward, but desperately tries to style it out like he is anyway, that’s just his character. ✅

-We kinda feel like we’re going into some Karny Shobogony kind of cave area, we’re not, but just for the hitting home that this is another Upper Class Gallifrey mirror for the season. You don’t need to think the Master’s involved for this, don’t worry, wasn’t in Dot And Bubble was he, but that was a clear enough mirror. A person appearing as a servant forces their way up the social ladder. If you like some mirror play and are really deep in your TC ‘what kind of person would name themselves Master’, you’re having fun. Also I can’t see that type of death lightning without thinking of Simm!Master. Costly effect, but we went with it, and it does add some panache.

-Chuldur #5 is roleplaying Emily (this is used both in her disguise and out - potentially playing the same ‘character’. We’ll come back to this too, explore more later), who will be something of our Master this evening in the Gallifrey mirror if you’re going in for it. Also coincidentally is half the mirror pair with Ruby to the Doctor and Rogue. “Emily, please-” “But you consume me sir. I think of you every waking hour and I hate myself for it!” yeah we know babe… Anyone else hearing Dhawan!Master’s “I cannot bear that”?

-“I love these old skies” - all the stars makes it arguably sound more like a Flux reference rather than just light pollution. And we all know what event by who triggered that off.

-Finally we get more lines from Rogue, this has all been very one-sided. “Do you never stop chattering?” - a frequent refrain of the Master, who, fun fact has told the Doctor to shut up in every incarnation in New Who (and probably Old but this is the trivia I have) ✅

-If Rogue is supposedly wanting to stop the bad birdies, real weird he doesn’t give an appropriately flying fuck about the mysterious lone shoe. And simply says “I suggest look for the other shoe” like it doesn’t matter with a shrug. Because the Master is stupid and shite at keeping in-character. ✅ Makes sense if he’s on the bad guy’s team though. Also Cinderella. Noticing themes in today’s mirror subtext.

-They find it plus corpse. “And you knew. You didn’t even flinch.” Actually wrong, the Doctor can’t see behind him but we can. Rogue doesn’t flinch at the shoe, or coming up to the body, but when the Doctor says it’s the Duchess, Rogue does a slight ‘oh’ lean back, and then a sigh with a bit of a slump. To me this reads as a ‘oh you fucking idiots’ for doing it this blatantly, but I won’t mark it, cus you could argue that ultimately maybe a bounty hunter might care more about the death of the duchess in particular and sigh about it etc. (Or he is Pantheon roleplayer getting annoyed his gang can’t stick to a character and risking the outline going off-track and more bodycounty). “And you knew” - Rogue doesn’t keep eye contact but closes his eyes, opens them immediately up and a little to the side, thinking of what to say next style. ((This specific circumstance he couldn’t have known about prior, cus the murder happens while he’s inside))

-“This is a murder far beyond the technologies of planet Earth. It could only be done by someone brilliant.” “And monstrous.” [-horny flirting tone looking him up and down] “And ruthless.” “And contemptible.” Both: “You.” He is the Master and in with the bird gang. No bounty hunter with a heart of gold is calling the murderer brilliant because also, may have been easy to miss, but the Doctor hasn’t done anything brilliant yet unless you include owning a scanner and briefly infodumping about constellations. That is a Master talking about himself kinda line. ✅

-The Doctor thought Rogue was a murderer who was calling himself brilliant, and it only made him more horny, and proceeded to dance along with that little two-step. If I’m Master-brained, what’s he? Cus he’s usually only into one murderer. If that guy had snogged him instead of pulling the gun they’d have fucked right then and there, that scene has so much sexual tension that should not be there.

-Edit - courtesy of @katoska: “#though dimensionally transcendental pockets would explain where he'd hidden that big gun in that form fitting outfit.” - And why wouldn’t you have given him one of Jack’s guns, they’re all smaller? But they made Rogue a huge one.

-“So who do you think I am?” “I know you’re a Chuldur.” “The shapeshifters? Ha, I’ve heard of them. I’ve never met one,” *tilting head back towards Rogue and smiling* “Unless I have.” Please, if nothing else, come out of this thinking at minimum he is bad birdie Chuldur #6. Maybe we’re rewriting Frobisher. Heavily, heavily rewriting.

-“[his ship] cloaked behind that shed.” Calling the TARDIS a shed. It was Three that technically said it but the Master has repeatedly expressed his disdain for our beautiful police box before so that’s a Master-fitting line, be it intentional disdain or not yet. ✅

-Won’t call it a point, but he tells us he is a bounty hunter sent here to find them for the money. (Note: not kill - at the very least a bounty hunter would be bringing back the body to get, you know, the bounty). Aside from being a cheap and easy backstory it’s evidently morally bad, for all the Doctor literally goes ‘that is so…cool’ - which is absolutely not his usual position on bounty hunters.

-The thing he uncloaks the ship with? Same thing that controls the traps. How multitool. How sonic screwdriver. Or Laser screwdriver TCE as you prefer.

-His ship is a bird. It has wings, two eyes, and a beak. He is with the birds. He is The Bad Guy ✅. He is using and familiar with the bird ship; or at the insane alternative a TARDIS that completely disguised itself both outside and inside as neighbouring bird ship. There is no good guy answer for why he is in a bird ship. We never ask how the birds got here. But it was probably the bird ship. Bird ship.

-Meta so I can’t give it a point cus it’s beyond our scope but: “Oh you’re the Duchess! Of course, I should have scented you.” Not immediately recognising one of your own species when you should have sensed them thank god that’s not a mirror.

-His ship has an angular console in the middle of it with mirroring angular shape above it, the same taste in decor as the Master does with a TARDIS, like it’s almost designed to put you in mind of one, cute. ✅

-“This place is a mess.” Dhawan!Master’s TARDIS house and console room proper were a massive mess, these guys share housekeeping habits too. ✅

-“I live alone.” The Doctor notes this sort of ship would be piloted by two. Aw sad. Except he’s lying, he’s obviously lying, because he has dice on the table and he’s not playing D&D in his bird-shaped ship alone or with only two fucking people, is he? You need a group. Maybe of Bird roleplaying enthusiasts. Liar. Bad conduct. And failed to remove the evidence that contradicted the lie - dumbass Master behaviour. ✅

-Rogue declares “You’re a killer.” And the Doctor goes “Oh well,” before trying to sonic himself out of the situation, without actually defending himself against the charges. Maybe doesn’t feel the need to. For some reason.

-“What do those things do?” “It’s a trap. Triform on.” Now that could easily be a Master when he’s being sexier line, complete with his classic dumbass behaviour of declaring to the Doctor that something’s a trap before actually springing it. ✅

-He says he is going to send the Doctor to the incinerator. Why? ‘Uh he’s a bounty hunter’ Yeah. So why would he burn the evidence that would get him the money? Can’t just rock up and say ‘I dealt with it I pinkie-promise’.

-The Doctor attempts to sonic his way out of the trap before it finishes charging. Rogue says immediately that it’s deadlocked. The one thing that stops a sonic screwdriver. You can’t deny, that is the level of forethought the Master would manage to scrounge together. ✅

-Rogue scans the Doctor’s gadget, allowed in cus it doesn’t recognise it as dangerous device (oh the old ‘temporal grace field’ in the TARDIS, that’s a nice little mirror), and apparently the scans say it’s a screwdriver. I can’t prove this is a lie, but even we don’t think it’s a screwdriver, the last one with 14 literally was so much not a screwdriver it couldn’t unscrew screws, so unless it connects to the system with the name 15_screwdriver_1 again, feels too convenient. But a toxic Doctor fanboy would be able to identify what it was.

-I don’t know why we have a Sonic Monocular scene that cost us money and effort to produce when we could have just glanced across the table, but since all things that cost money in production have a reason, maybe the laser screwdriver style object we pan over? Point of interest but not a countable one, and either way the main argument is aligning character traits not convincing you he literally is the Master.

-“Roll for insight”, he cracked a smile, so surprising it uncloaked the Doctor’s full Scottish accent. This is the first positive character trait we have seen. We are just shy of halfway through the story.

-Telling the Doctor to “Roll for insight” after he sees the dice, is a dungeon Master’s instruction.

-of course he likes D&D, he plays it with the birds on the bird ship, he’s sent the birds he plays it with off out to continue the game in Bridgerton, he’s being their dungeon Master in real life too

-Seriously if you think Rogue is genuinely just a good guy bounty hunter and we should believe that uncritically, why would they tell us he likes roleplaying in D&D so much he picked his name from it? He roleplays. That’s one of the very few things we know about him. Why not chess? Or Minecraft? He could have liked Tetris? Why would he like roleplaying in the episode about roleplaying if him roleplaying isn’t relevant?

-The Master too adores roleplaying while also not being that great at it. Just putting that out there.

-“And it says that you’re wired for sound!” *sonics* ‘I Just Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’ by Kylie Minogue plays. *Rogue looks up in full wide-eyed uh-oh then turns to the Doctor* “Now this is a surprise.” - I mean, yeah, it is actually. I mean why would there be such anachronistic music playing in a ship owned by a guy from…well funny I guess he never said and the Doctor never asked. Well from a species like…well alright uh guess we didn’t do that either. Said ‘planet Earth’ that’s a pretty alien way of phrasing it. “Hey but in the Whoniverse Britney Spears’ Toxic is a traditional Earth ballad”, and maybe usually I’d let it go, but this is the second anachronistic bit of music we’ve heard, and the third we hear later is even more pointed to draw your attention to it. No. It’s weird. You know who it wouldn’t be weird to though? Our pop loving Master! And that’s the most Thoschei Thesis Statement song in Kylie’s repertoire! ✅ (Or Pantheon sharing daddy’s Spice Girls thing for 90’s pop). The Master would also absolutely have forgotten to delete his playback history before all this and pull an ‘oh shit’ face not from embarrassment but cus he knows this looks fucky because he doesn’t have a poker face he’s an idiot that panics the second anything in his plans ever goes wrong. ✅

-The Doctor mouthing: ���Boy your loving is all I think about.” A sentiment that’s cropped up multiple times now this episode. Also in a Master mirror. Mhm. It’s a sickness babes.

-But hey we’re up to two positive character traits for Rogue so far - likes D&D and Kylie (both anachronisticly).The Doctor was willing to follow him out and blow him in the shrubbery for less, and honestly, respectable. “I just have a crush on prettyboy American Mr Darcy” is a defence, not a good one, but still.

-The Doctor and Master with one turning the music on and the other trying to turn it off would be a scene, you can imagine it, don’t lie, you’re imagining Missy and Twelve right now. (I think for annoyer-and-annoyed Three and Delgado could go either way depending on the episode. How appropriate for them.) ✅

-Also Rogue attempting to snatch the sonic screwdriver from the taller Doctor’s hand as he plays keep-away. Bitchy, gay, very character-breaking with the rest of the episode, deeply funny. The Master would. ✅ Then gathering himself, putting on the I’m In Charge voice and holding out his hand for the Doctor to hand it over and he does. (Huh, have you guys as a whole watched Delgado? Is this what creates the ‘the Master would never’? Cus actually if you’ve not seen these two just be a bit silly with each other and think that’s just fan characterisation that would actually explain a lot. Eh, but Missy and Twelve(/Clara) have some silly too, if not Three and Delgado level. Hm, to ponder).

-Psychic paper would also not work on the Master and he would say “it says ‘you’re hot’” to fluster the Doctor. Also we know he’s lying about it saying that, because he’s the one saying he’s seen it written, yet immediately follows up as the Doctor babbles with, Rogue: “Is it ‘you’re hot’, or I’m hot’?” Rogue would know which word was written the funny ambiguity is only from the non-seer’s side on hearing the other person say ‘you’re’. ✅

-“Suits you, flustered, it’s a good look for you.” Finally we get some fun confidence - which only appears the second he actually gets an upper hand with the Doctor on the back foot. Like someone else we know. Also yet again we have the phrase “a good look” for you in this episode all about shapeshifting. The phrase is applied to Rogue by the Doctor, to the Doctor from Rogue, and among the birds to each other. It establishes an equivalence between them, which is odd if Rogue is supposedly the only one not shapeshifting and roleplaying.

-The boss thing, callback to the Meep. Again this isn’t a ‘convince you it really is the Master’ thing, it’s character analysis that their traits overlap and he is a bad guy. But since we’re here, the Master is often technically working for someone else he intends to double-cross while thinking he’s ahead of them (nearly every time incorrectly), and we know he is/will be involved with the Pantheon — given this guy is a dice rolling gameplayer, the Master gambling and losing to the Toymaker, just vibes like it’d be out of order and future toothening imo — while there’s nothing to say our hidden ‘The Boss’ is Pantheon, I’m gonna Occam’s Razor and assume both those plot threads tie together, and for now that’s a reasonable way to explain how the Master got involved with the Toymaker at all.

-“I’m just so trigger happy.” Literally a Master line, and one we just had: “Oh, shoot. I should've said, somebody needs to cut you down to size, then zapped you. I was just trigger-happy. I'll use it next time.” ✅

-Floating Doctor heads literally the Master’s nightmare. Literally literally but I can’t remember where from and ‘master nightmare floating head doctor who’ gets you about as useless information as you’d imagine.

-Look. Rogue goes from confidently being about to kill the Doctor. The Doctor forces the scanner to show some other of his faces with the psychic paper, does his whole speech saying he’s “not a Chuldur. I’m something much older and far more powerful. A Lord of Time from the lost and fallen planet of Gallifrey” (this is a special surprise that will help us later) “Now, let me go, bounty hunter. We have work to do.” It is cringe, it is up himself and lording over others which is nearly always punished, the Doctor uses his special Deep And Majestic voice, and our stoic confident Rogue is suddenly wide-and-starry-eyed and breathily says, “Wow.” In the fakest response I have ever seen. Sadly I am not allowed more than one video. But oh my God, if you need a refresher it’s 18:14. And if you think it isn’t fake, yes you need the refresher.

You can’t be buying that OwO “Wow”. You think that was the turning point? I know I’m supposed to provide better analysis, but the writing is cringe, the acting is completely counter to what it was a moment ago for both parties, is over the top, and you think a bounty hunter would do a 180 from that?? Why?? ‘Oh you’re showing me the faces you’ve been before, yeah, I know, you’re a shapeshifter’. Nothing in the scanner says he’s a Time Lord, just the words from his mouth, why would he not be lying to save his own skin? And again, what would a Time Lord mean in the universe now? Who gives a shit, if you know what they are you know they’re all dead and reasonable shot you’re happy about that. Failing even that, Rogue is working for the same Boss as the Meep - if the word Time Lord rang a bell it’d be cus Fourteen caused problems last time ‘bring him to me’, surely. “Wow” uwu so cool! Really??? Nothing, not a thing Rogue has done so far, indicates he would be “Wow” to that. Not a damn thing.

Fakest response I’ve ever seen - Groff is actually a good actor so it’s supposed to be fake, at least one of the writers is award winning and may well be both, and Ncuti went out of his way to make it look like unnatural arrogance that doesn’t fit with the previous acting choices either in this scene or the whole show so far. So either all these people were crap at their jobs, or, it’s supposed to smell like bullshit. Would the Master look exactly as fake going “wow” because his character needs to have the heel-turn now? Yes ✅. And that you pulled this speech in front of him would complete its vast circle of cringe and roleplaying.

And what happens next? We cut straight to Ruby and Cosplaying Chuldur #5: [Giggling] “We can’t keep hiding like this!” You guys are smart, don’t pretend you’re not smart, if you follow me you know how good writing works, and are choosing to ignore the meta and mirrors and themes of the episode in a way you wouldn’t with a normal Rusty-written one that you’d sit and deeply analyse. Different writers yes, but smart and capable and award winning ones. These aren’t two disparate stories smushed together, they’re the same story in different keys, that’s the Rule One here.

Continuing, Ruby tries to convince High Society Lord- Lady that she doesn’t have to marry another Lord but could be a normal person, and then the Lady says “I’ll marry someone lesser, and smaller…it may not be love but perhaps a kindly smile at dinner…and then a shared grave” cus she doesn’t want a normal person, that’s what Ruby wants her to want, she wants to marry her kinda shitty Lord. Because that’s what this fantasy roleplay is all about.

Okay essay portion over we got out of hand, bullet points, re-engage.

-A motherfucking owl hoots, with the subtitle “owl hoots”, while Rogue recloaks the giant bird ship, giving us a second look at it again, making sure we get the full distance shot and shimmery cloaking effect to highlight the wings if they get lost in the shadows. Rogue. Is with. The birds. It’s a bird ship. There is no good guy explanation for the bird ship and its D&D equipment that can only be used by multiple people in our episode about obsessive-roleplaying birds.

-Rogue has now packed. ‘What?’ Rogue has now packed. He is now carrying a small bag, cross-body strap over his shoulder. We will not use anything from this bag or see him access it or acknowledge it at all. He’s just brought it with him. Perhaps like he knows he’s not going to be going back to the ship again. Curious.

Dice Bag propoganda post

-“You ready for this?” [low tone] “It’s not my first shed.” - woah woah woah, where’s all the sparkle of a minute ago babes, I thought you were ‘OwO wow’, if you know what a Time Lord is you know what a TARDIS is, but you’re not excited no mo? Or he’s doing it to deliberately make the TARDIS inside reveal cooler in contrast because he knows how much the Doctor likes this moment.

-“O my God” - haha namedrop. This happens to be Mastery behaviour cus this is just the Dhawan!Master pretending to be O entering the TARDIS scene. You were catfished by this before, come on babes. ✅

-“Come with me, and we’ll be, in a world of pure imagination…” - what are you imagining babes? Are ya roleplaying son? Cosplaying? Engaging in a bit of the old fantasy right now. No? He’s just feeling in a chocolatey kind of mood? Uhuh.

-“I’m in love!” - Now isn’t this a 180 on the character? From so reticent and ‘most serious man on earth’ to loudly declaring his love for the ship. Which just so happens to be the Doctor’s number one kink. And what does the TARDIS do in response? She growls. Rule one basic storytelling - the new boyfriend is evil, we knew cus the beloved dog growls at him. Rogue said he was in love and she growled. Gave Jack a bar, an ensuite, and let him tinker with her insides. But to Rogue she growls. Baddie. ✅

-The TARDIS lights are in a red-and-white checkerboard pattern. Our dimensionally transcendental TARDIS is literally a 5d chessboard. I won’t count it, but come on.

-Speaking of dimensionally transcendental, that’s exactly what Rogue called her. Yet didn’t anticipate a TARDIS thirty seconds ago. It takes work to argue he knows about dimensionally transcendental spacetime ships but not know of TARDISes that Time Lords travel in, but does know enough about Time Lords to be dazzled by them when he clearly isn’t of earthly Lords. Much easier to go ‘eh’ keeping the story straight when you’ve got extra knowledge you’re pretending you don’t have, but also need to come across as intelligent, is hard. We’ve all played D&D or at least Let’s Pretend. It’s hard. Lying is hard.

-After a quick “and so clean” back-and-forth, Rogue runs up the stairs, hand on the bannister and leans on the railing. The TARDIS growls again, louder, like a whale. Like she did in the episode with the Not-Things, and with The Maestro. (Arguably her ‘Pantheon’ noise?) Both of them notice. Rogue’s expression immediately turns from an awed open-mouthed smile to blankness, with a head tilt and turn, slowly coming back. “What was that?” The Doctor claims indigestion and she doesn’t like bounty hunters. Not true of the ones with hearts of gold. We’ve seen her with Jack, and River, and she adores them. “It’s the moral void - no offence.” So you’re admitting it. Stating it directly. He’s not got a heart of gold, the omnipotent spacetime ship can see that he’s a moral void. That is what you have said. ✅

-“And this, from the ancient and fallen world of Gallifrey…Where the hell is that?” *buzzer* Wrong. You tried to be clever and aren’t - that wasn’t the line. The line was ‘lost and fallen’ not ‘ancient and fallen’. Oh but Gallifrey is ancient though- *buzzer* He says in the same sentence he doesn’t know of Gallifrey. And yet, he got all wide and starry-eyed over a Time Lord, when he is saying he knows nothing about them. Why? Because he can’t keep his character straight pun intended, which is a character trait of another undercover ex-agent we know. ✅

-“Well I might take you one day.” - bananas response by the Doctor for multiple reasons. ‘I’ll take you to my lost and fallen homeworld’ ok what? Second, Fifteen has for once been very open about his loss in this regard, said repeatedly that it’s gone, and how much it hurts him. Said it to Ruby, to Carla, to complete strangers. But here he’s out of character. Why? Maybe he’s roleplaying one that doesn’t hurt. Maybe because he thinks it’s the Master and is fucking with him. But I’m going with the roleplaying and saying what this character feels. Fucky from the Doctor rather than Rogue.

-“In a few minutes it will no longer be a deathtrap, you are welcome.” [Rogue casually] “Why, what does it do now?” This is all important but also pause to reflect for a moment on whether the character we saw up to this point would have handed his essential survival and work gear to a shapeshifter who claimed to be a Time Lord with zero proof and let him just modify it however. ‘He’s just a very trusting bounty hunter, is all.’ I mean he wasn’t at the start of all this though, was he.

-Doctor boundaries: I can’t let you kill it, “So instead we will transport it to a random barren dimension, no-one to hurt, no way back.” Passing over the obvious, the Doctor is the one programming this. We agree we’re probably not literally installing a randomiser onto the device, we’re just randomly picking one and assigning those coordinates. How do you know it’s barren? Oh the TARDIS is dimensionally transcendental we just reminded people, so she can probably see, she’s picking it. Ok. …So there’s no reason she wouldn’t have a record of what she set it to. That’s information we should have. Ok. Which are the letters Rogue says. Ok. What about your bounty job? Not even a response to the no-killing? Or that this seems worse if anything? No. Just ok. We’re saying that a lot in this episode. Ok. Just going along with things. Ok. I know what that word means. Ok.

-“Who did you lose?” “How do you know?” “Cus I know.” Cus we covered this earlier actually when he mentioned the usually two-person’s for captaining an asteroid hopper. Forgot? No worries Rogue, been a long ten minutes. No attempt to make a proper backstory just stares at the Doctor like a cow looking at an oncoming train and goes, “There was- …Yeah. We travelled together, we had fun, you know. And then a day came along, and at the end of that day…I lost them.” Now if this was the Master you’d be saying no shit he can’t provide details and only parrot what the Doctor always says in these situations, he is a moral void, bro has one friend and only knows what it’s like to love that one friend obsessively, he can’t even empathise enough to improvise a backstory that feels realistic. Maybe only lies have details but you can argue my guy didn’t even commit to a gender. It’s also a valid read to assume he’s just short on words at losing his fellow they/them bounty-hunter crook friend. Maybe the OwO Time Lord thing is enough to make him open up a little even if the Doctor’s done nothing to earn that trust yet. But both work just fine, if it was the Master it’d be how he’d do it. ✅

-“What about you?” The Doctor’s expression hardens here. Maybe cus it just hurts. Maybe for other reasons. [coldly, we linger on him] “I lost everyone.” Rogue still with too-wide-cow-train eyes . “But at the party I saw you with that woman...” That tone. And how we immediately wave his ‘Best Friend’ aside. Look, again it’s a watch the scene. These two are good actors, they’re excellent. And down to the ‘huh’ head tilt before Groff’s line with every microexpression he is radiating a guy playing a role while still trying to poke his roleplaymate in his open wound with a stick. There has never been just one layer in anything in the show so far why would it start now in the episode about cosplaying people to death do you part, why? Why?? The one mirror everyone can accept is Captain Jack and he was literally a con man. This is a con man you are being conned. If you look at his face and think he’s being earnest you are extra weak to con men do not give strangers your credit card details. Didn’t you have jerk friends? We all had jerk friends. That is the expression the jerk friend made when they were just asking questions *blink* *blink* don’t get upset. Or Groff is a garbage actor. But he isn’t. Just the character he’s playing is crap at acting. Go back and watch O, the cow-eyes are textbook liar, any liar, but especially the Master ✅. They’re doing a scene, it is diegetic. The acting is diegetic.

-“You don’t have to stay a bounty hunter, [beat pause] Rogue.” You can say it’s just cus he knows Rogue isn’t his real name but the Doctor’s usually fine with that sort of thing. “You could travel with me[…]the worlds I could show you…” “And what if I like what I do? Would you travel with me?” “That is quite an argument. ((No it isn’t he doesn’t like bounty hunters)) I’ll tell you what, when we both get out of this, let’s argue across the stars.” This is the Doctor and Master scene, we do these scenes every incarnation all the way since half-share in the universe, you don’t have to think he’s the Master but we know these lines damn well are. ✅

-They nearly kiss but the TARDIS cockblocks them with a beep of being finished with the rewiring, because again, she doesn’t like the moral void, and does not want the Doctor to stick his dick in it. And what does the Doctor say as he steps back from their almost kiss? “The trap is ready.”

-[Rogue is sans new bag for the indoor scenes here, I believe this is just a costuming error that happened from them probably reshooting the dancing a bajillion times, it will come back when they’re back outside again and in every subsequent scene onwards]

-They meet back up with Rubes and Roleplaying Chuldur #5. Ruby asks a very good question. “Ok, but what does anyone get out of killing these people? I mean I know they’re posh nobs and all that, but we found the housekeeper dead. I mean why would anybody do that?” And the Doctor, instead of saying ‘it’s how they steal their bodies they’re shapeshifters’ says the meta-important answer first. “The dance. The drama. The emotion.” THIS IS ABOUT GALLIFREY. High society here is a mirror for the aforementioned fallen Gallifrey. The Master didn’t just genocide the Time Lords, he killed every Shobogon/lay-Gallifreyan without Child-stolen regenerations, he killed every TARDIS, every living thing on the planet. Why? The drama.

-“It’s cosplay. All of this is cosplay.”

-The Doctor turns to a non-plussed looking Rogue and says: “You said that a Chuldur comes to a planet and tries on people like outfits just for the fun of it.” …Wh- when? When did he say that?? (I’m being facetious - he doesn’t). Also does that seem rich coming from the ‘multiple costume changes per episode’ Doctor? Mirrors.

-(If the background music here is Vitamin String Quartet I don’t recognise it unfortunately. Fun Fact, I used them exclusively as background music for my own wedding, cus I thought it’d be fun for people to try and guess the songs if things got boring and it’d be a conversation starter. Ate my wedding cake to Poker Face. We like resonating with the universe here.)

-“Those TV signals beam out across the stars.” “What are these T-V signals?” I can’t add more than one video, so if you’re not willing to take the description on faith it’s 24:45. But watch Rogue here. He slightly turns to her with a little glare and that exact same frustrated little sigh he did with the Duchess corpse earlier. Dungeon Master’s stupidest soldier? Cus you’d think if he was annoyed she was being anachronismatised (real word), he’d have given the Doctor the shut up glare but doesn’t give him bother for it at all. Maybe he’s just a conflict averse bounty hunter. But that’s what the Master would have done, he has low lackey/idiot friend tolerance. Both reads valid. ✅

-The Doctor dances, we know what that’s a metaphor for and what episode it’s from. Good thing Rogue knows all the moves ahead of time.

-Just putting the reminder here cus there’s no clear place - I go with Master because Dungeon Master, I’m A Bad Guy, the mirrors *gestures at everything above* etc. but mostly because this is a deliberate attempt to cosplay Jack. Thus it requires someone who has watched the show. The Pantheon, the Master seems like a good bet, however, could admittedly be Chulder #6 (and they’re just supposed to be a very strong but purely mirror for the Master) and because of their different dimension-ness has watched the show on TV and has figured out how their self-insert is gonna bang the Doctor. But one way or the other, our baddie here has seen Doctor Who The TV Show in the same way the birds watched Bridgerton and this is an intrinsic part of this that shouldn’t be separated. That we have a fanboy who is deliberately cosplaying Jack and invoking him and references to that episode is important.

-Rogue: “So what is this ancient Earth tradition of cosplay?” No-one said it was ancient (twice now), no-one said it was Earth, no-one said it was tradition, even Ruby had to clarify ‘so you mean it’s literally dressing up and playing at Bridgerton?’ Rogue almost certainly already knows what it means. And we know the birds do. This is our baddie having fun. Because as the Doctor says next: “Oh, Rogue. It’s when fans dress up as characters that they like.” (Point to Pantheon, because roleplaying the Master would be dressing up as a character from Doctor Who that they like).

-General note again: both prior to but especially 13’s era really spent some subtext time building up the whole ‘The Doctor’ and ‘The Master’ are roles they play. If you know you know. We’ve been continuing on Chibs’s themes. Just reminding.

-The Doctor takes the male i.e. leading position judging by the other couples visible. As per traditional Thoschei.

-Lights dim in our usual diegetic/non-diegetic playing that we’ve been doing. Soft point to Pantheon - remember if The Rogue’s theme is Roleplaying it must be a double bluff for him to actually be being skilled at it, and he is cosplaying the Master cosplaying the Doctor, with the conceit that the Doctor gets this but not that it’s someone cosplaying the Master, thus he’s winning. If he is Pantheon this is the only potential evidence of fuckery besides having brought non-native-dimensional creatures into ours, which we do have other explanations for.

-“We need to have a big fight so one of us can storm out and the Duchess follow us.” “The Chuldur cosplay, not me.” Mhmm. You had D&D dice. But regardless if you buy that, we have now spontaneously swapped from engaging starry-eyed Personality B, back to Personality A: strong and silent.

-“How dare you my Lord! You would ask me to give up my title? My fortune? But what future can you promise me? *Rogue shaking his head, not good at deviations from the script, nor is the Master fwiw* ✅ “You cad! Tell me what your heart wants, or I shall turn my back forever!” “I…” Fifteen whispers, “Say anything.” If you are not internally writing the pre-show Doctor/Master fanfiction I cannot help you. Jo describing the Master like a jilted lover or whatever the hell it was. But at least here, with admittedly a little open-mouthed smirky smile, Rogue gets down on one knee and offers his ring. (From non-marriage hand, 4th finger, don’t completely see him pull it off but he was wearing it in the dance scene). If we are re-writing history with this cosplay, which given the Doctor’s reaction he certainly seems to consider it meaningful, that’s definitely what the Master would do here. ‘This is what I wanted you to do back then.’ ✅

-Obviously the Master has used that sort of flat-topped large round ring before, we’ve had the callback to it with the red-nailed woman and the tooth just recently. The insignia is not entirely decipherable. Most default I’ve seen is an angel (Master coding, especially if we’re wearing it upside-down hoo), I’ve also seen a ‘rod of asclepius with 3d coiling tails’ (A Doctor fanboy who has come prepared for this moment), and just plain bird of some kind given the little wings.

-The Doctor says a very genuine “Sorry I can’t- …I ca-” and runs off. (Which definitely happened the first time). This almost certainly isn’t River trauma, Twelve wore the implied wedding ring until it fell off when he regenerated. And we’re just supposed to be making a scene and this is an obvious way to do it - he’s already nearly kissed him and invited him, the Doctor put relationship on the cards, and could easily still be haha fun joke but you are still coming right? If it was just Yaz Making Everything Feel Like Touching A Hot Mind Stove then the near kiss feels like that would have been included in the trauma reaction. So presumably engagement based triggering specifically. Probably not from Cameca either. That had cocoa involved.

-Rogue seems a little surprised at this reaction. Fair all round, the Master might not have expected it either, but also the sort of thing a fanboy might not have been able to pre-empt - it wasn’t in the show after all.

-They actually join back together almost immediately and they run outside, so it wasn’t that overwhelming.

-“Oh, we must play them!” - no ‘aha’s’ from the peanut gallery, we already saw the birds can potentially not recognise each other in costume, and in the baddie camp (bird ship, he’s in a bird ship) we can be pretty sure that Rogue didn’t arrive here looking like Mr Darcy since none of the others were pre-costumed and just nicked people when they got here. (number 2 shows they didn’t pre-organise characters - “nice costume”). If Chulder #6 - nicked a guy. If Pantheon - conjured himself a bespoke Darcy form. If the Master potentially still body-stealing or simply we’re cloaked - remember the electronic interference from the start that pointed the Doctor to him specifically rather than the Chuldur? Dhawan!Master previously cloaked himself, plenty of scope there. (Why would the Master need to cloak? If the Doctor’s already familiar with his form. Either from other plans or the fact that, well, there’s a world where this could literally still be Dhawan!Master.)

-The Master nicks bodies by the way, for New Who-onlys. We haven’t actually done it for a while, and for earring interference reasons I don’t believe we’re doing it now, but it’s actually a Classic Who staple.

-“Now keep the Duchess talking, a Chuldur is strong, and if she starts to change you it won’t stop.” First, now that’s a meta, second, do we want to add a sketchy point for the gendering of the Chuldur? Cus we’ve seen one of them explicitly say they’re fine with different bodies (‘oh I wanted to be the Duchess’)? Hm. It’s an assumption on thin ice but I’ll allow it. We don’t ask Rogue why he knows so much about the Chuldurs considering they’re different dimension beings. There are non-problematic options there to be sure. But will say that Dhawan!Master was previously messing around with different dimension beings hoping to find out if they were what the Doctor was, got trapped in their dimension at the end, and these ones are literal shapeshifters. If it is the Master, he has plenty of reason to be here with them and know a lot about them. ✅ If he is a Chuldur, well, obvious reason.

-[Rogue now has his bag back on. This is why I believe it’s a costuming error it wasn’t on indoors just then - the TARDIS and real outdoor areas were obviously filmed in very different times and places, the fact the bag travelled to both is suggestive that it was clearly supposed to be a part of his outfit at this point. BTS: the indoor and outdoor scenes were obviously filmed at different times, (3 weeks of night shoots oof) they’re not actually walking in and out of the building. But it’s also a deliberate costuming addition after the ship because he wasn’t wearing it in the night scenes where he’s holding the Doctor at gunpoint or anything. Tl;dr - no bag before the “Wow” heelturn in the ship, carries bag after.]

-There’s not one but multiple of the Chuldur shapeshifters. A ‘family’ according to Rogue. (Who are playing two characters that are getting married. Oh Doctor-Master mirrors, never change). Something you’d think would be on the bounty hunter note - are you just getting paid for the first one? Can you claim extra if you make multiple runs? These are important questions. Or not.

-“I want to be the Doctor.” …How does she know it’s the Doctor? ‘Uh, the Duchess was introduced to him earlier.’ Yeah. The Duchess. Who died. Childur 1 was still the housekeeper when that happened. She knows who the Doctor is.

-Doctor-Master inverting with the “Run.” “I’m the one who usually says that.” Our beloved theme returns to us. Of course maybe it’s just the cosplaying self-inserting whatever could be any baddie by which i mean really only Pantheon or Chulder #6. Bird ship. The Master was literally cosplaying as the Doctor the last time we saw him, like physically in the Doctors clothes. And probably underwear. Does anyone in this essay smoke weed?

-“Breaking spines! Removing tonsils! Live vivisection!” Gallifrey Time Lords mirror previously engaged, re-engage plus Timeless Child. But we uh haven’t had them do any of that stuff yet and they already suck people dry (don’t. I think it’s meant to be a kind of bolus, if you know your birds of prey) so I don’t know why this line is here. Actually maybe I do - now they’re roleplaying playing scary beasts hunting prey, doesn’t mean they’re actually going to do any of those things. Removing tonsils stands out. …We have a rogue (can’t say that now. Odd?) line from Ruby at the beginning about falling over in front of a fit dentist, the Master’s in the Toymaker’s gold tooth, tonsils feel adjacent, it’s almost certainly just funny, and it is, but if that bangs any bricks together in someone’s head go to town.

-I think the “breaking spines! removing tonsils! live vivisection” line is there to showcase that they are roleplaying Baddies. Because while murdering, they have done literally nothing like that, and it’s the sort of silly thing a child would say when playing a monster trying to think of the nastiest things a monster could do). “We still have the big finale wedding to come. And then… London. We can play our games on a magnificent scale. Parliament first, then royalty. I can be King. And we can start wars with the French and the Spanish and the Portuguese, and everyone who doesn’t look British.” This is their spitballing Season Two. As another point to all being one character and that them being Secret Monsters may be accounted for in the game - Emily is always called Emily whether humanning or in bird form.

-The Doctor and Rogue hide in the carriages. (Matilda style). If you’re building that pre-show Thoschei story, hiding from Time Lords in a TARDIS was probably already there, but if it wasn’t, now it is. Or hurr durr hiding in a carriage is funny I don’t know.

-“Back to the house. We must advance with the wedding! That should get them out of hiding.” …Bestie? What does that mean? Why would that get what we were led to believe that you believe are ‘two random interesting people one introduced to you earlier as the Doctor’ out of hiding? They have skedaddled so as not to be eaten by birds, right? They’re gone, lassie, why would they come back? …Unless she already knew who a character called the Doctor was before they were introduced? And that the Doctor’s M.O. will bring him back? Cus they’ve been watching more than one show.

-We modify the transporter: “I can make this transport gate carry four.” “What if there’s more?” “Right…Six. Six maximum.” How convenient. Personally don’t feel that worry is realistic for the character to have (while acceptable to write), and that if Rogue was as he was originally portrayed, he would be saying “Worst comes to worst, I could always…” *lifts jacket* *Doctor has brief moment of distracted horniness* “Nobody is going to be shooting anybody.” But he’s so perfect pacifist for the Doctor so quickly, I guess he just never would. Of course if he’s on their side, especially if also a Chuldur, he’s not wanting to kill any of them.

-Also feels like a Dungeon Master-whisper in the ear the Doctor just goes with: What if there’s more birds? *sets it to 4* What if there were more. *immediately sets it to 6 skipping 5 entirely*. (We talked about Missy’s comment of there always being a way out being potentially meaningful re: the Master’s traps for the Doctor; and counterbalancing the Doctor giving them a way out ‘come with me don’t be evil’. This would be a fun thing to do with that. Trying to create and order a good story and satisfying conclusion based on the Doctor and other players’ choices - pure DMing work at its finest.).

-“And I thought I was interesting. A bookish little wallflower risking it all for a secret love… But you. You are wild, and brave, and rude, living a life of adventure” again you don’t have to be team Master to enjoy the Gallifrey mirror. The potential in these mirrors for the Master is mmm gorgeous and I’m so here for it. Going back in time to when One ran away with Susan and slapping him for not proposing because he would have come with you, we could fix the universe, we-

-Question, cus I’m bored and this has become sort of a general analysis essay: When the birds transformed there were at least some people inside who screamed, you hear them. …Why is the party still here and going on and everyone’s chilling. Eh maybe Dot And Bubble explained that. Or maybe it was delayed screaming at seeing the gays. That’d be a Time Lord mirror. A marriage proposal probably gets you arrested for public indecency.

-The birds speak English, French, and German. Or at least a few words thereof. Multidimensional telly and I’m surprised it’s got foreign channels? How anglocentric of me. *shakes head*.

-“This is the endgame, Chuldur’s leave no witnesses ((yes they do they just abandoned bodies everywhere)), they’ll slaughter everyone.” If he’s not a bad guy then why, why the fuck, did he spend about fifteen minutes fucking around and not shouting “If we don’t stop the Chuldur they’re going to massacre everybody the second they stop having fun! Yeah, I’m bringing the gun!” like you mention this now??? Of course he mentions it now, he’s building dramatic tension because he is like our favourite dramatic bitch. ✅

-R:“I’m sorry.” 15:“They got her.” Ruby cosplaying as a Chuldur cosplaying as Ruby (see you thought my Pantheon cosplaying as the Master cosplaying as Jack was too much - we did double-layering in the episode itself) enters the room. Rogue gives his line but immediately turns away and watches only the Doctor and his reaction (who stares for a moment then gets up and walks away). Autism collective that we all are, this:

is not an expression of someone whose heart is breaking for his new friend. Just so we’re clear. Which is an odd choice for a new love interest - no sympathetic pain, eyes closing, not even a pat on the arm. He’s just observing what the Doctor does, and then gets up and follows the Doctor out. ✅ If he’s a good guy (he’s not, bird ship) you’re not selling him well. And if he’s a bad guy turning noble, he doesn’t have that part down yet. (Also Rogue said he’d tried looking for Ruby but they’d locked the doors. They manage to get through the section they’re in just fine. YMMV. Not enough on its own imo).

-“Madam. Your Grace …Your Birdiness. I cannot sanction wedlocke…between creatures from Hell.” They let the vicar be the one with the banger line, damn. Only one with a spine. Dead obviously but getting a high-five from some angel out there. (Me turning that into a vicar’s reaction to being asked to wed the Doctor and Master, whatever the fuck they are.)

-Speaking of which, here we explicitly see a Chuldur kill a man and copy his outfit but not his face. The Chuldur. Have no difference. Between body. And clothing. *flashback the Not-Things, and Fourteen regenerating* If you weren’t sure they were mirrors, you should be now.

-“How long do they live for?” “Chuldur?” “Mhm.” *Rogue comes up from behind to stand alongside him where he can see him.* “They have a lifespan of about six-hundred years.” “Good, good. That’s a long time to suffer.” A slight negative in ‘this can be validly read as the Master’ behaviour, because this yields only a tiny expression change of a slight raise of eyebrows, not a wild-eyed smile, and I don’t think the Master’s been able to restrain himself that well since he was Delgado. God what that man could convey with an eyebrow. Also we’ve all agreed that the funniest thing is that the plan doesn’t even change, he just knows how long their torment will last now and is happy about it, and if you ever need to explain the horror underpinning the Doctor it’s that.

-Now this is a hell of a thing to reveal about yourself to your brand new love interest and companion. That you’re down for some serious torture. Thirteen went well out of her way to be a monster only when they couldn’t see her. (Works nicely as a soft threat though. ‘If you’re involved with killing mine, I will torture you til you die or the sun does’. Good to have boundaries in a relationship.)

-“Taste his inhuman scent.” - A) Nice double-meaning line considering *gestures above*, B) Confirmation she knew earlier the Doctor wasn’t human, and so combining that with the belief he would come back if they started the wedding…

-“And I am one of a kind.” “He is quite unique…” Hold this in your mind we’ll be back to it in just a minute. *

-The birds immediately recognise the transport trap, by name, and that there’s only one third of it. Which would make a lot of sense if Rogue and the birds’ ship are the same bird ship so they’ve seen it before. Can’t be that they’ve encountered Just A Bounty Hunter Rogue before - he ‘didn’t know’ there was more than one, there’s no visual recognition, and previously it led to an incinerator not something escapable from.

-That we don’t see presumably Rogue placing the other traps, not even a glimpse of someone shuffling in the background, is to me extremely interesting. Not only like with the Carla flashback scene, playing with the unseen, but perhaps critically that this certain someone might know where the cameras are…

-Were you going “why don’t they just take their shoes off” when they got stuck in the triform? Well makes sense that they didn’t now, right?! Cus we know now there’s no difference to them between their clothing and their skin! …Admittedly Ruby…hopefully is fine and as human…well maybe not human…hopefully she’s whatever she was at the start of the episode. I, uh, maybe would mark that down as a concern though.

-Ruby’s chemistry with Lady roleplaying #5 was rewarded by attempted murder as Emily sought to turn into her. That happens a lot here. Let’s not worry about them as the partner mirror for Doctor-Rogue. Or what just happened with Dhawan!Master and 13. If you consider ‘Poker Face’ to be obviously meta-relevant here but ‘I’m The Bad Guy’ not earlier, question yourself.

-* I told you we’d be back. “She smells like a Chuldur.” “Idiot! It’s a false scent from that cheap psychic jewellery!” - The Doctor smells unique but this doesn’t mean they aren’t palling around with the Master. We’re specifically given a reason for this to not be an issue and well, I guess that would explain why she gets earring interference when Rogue’s around huh? If they’re using the same technology. (Same goes for a Chuldur faking being a human etc.)

-Do I believe the Master could perform a fireman’s lift to yeet #5, yes surprisingly, he is actually physically strong, a fencer, rower, and it’s been noted before. (Ainley’s six pack haunts me still). Dhawan!Master in particular has lugged corpses. It’s only running he doesn’t do/have stamina for. However, do I think he would risk it in-situ just for cool points? Don’t know. However, for this free bit of mental torture to work, the final bird has got to be in the enclosure. If it’s not all or nothing, then of course the Doctor would release Ruby. To get the Doctor to have to choose either to kill his companion or the world? He would carry the earth like Atlas. ✅

And that’s what he immediately proceeds to do with no hesitation. ✅

“Doctor, press send. We’ve only got one chance.” “I can’t.” “Press. The button.” *The Doctor openly, loudly panicking* “It will send Ruby!” “No, Doctor, it’s fine.” “NO! No! No! No!” “If you don’t press send, the Chuldur will escape and Ruby dies anyway.”

The Rogue that you think is real is not doing this. Is not convincing the Doctor to kill his companion. He is taking out his gun, and shooting the struggling birds while they are still stuck to the glue trap. It’s not a nice thing. But it is the Heart Of Gold thing. But he’s not that. He’s just The Bad Guy. ✅

“They’ll kill us. Then this house. Then London. Then the world. You know that. You absolutely know it.”

He doesn’t. The Doctor doesn’t know a thing about the Chuldur other than that they are shapeshifters and what he’s seen. How does he even know what London is?? And he wasn’t there for the scene where the Chuldur said it themselves.

He can’t have logicked that out. There were a few deaths sure, but one housekeeper and a duchess not only isn’t ‘these are extremely dangerous and fast killing machines’-worthy, that leap doesn’t make sense.

It’s not even true in their possibly-just-roleplay Baddie Plan. ‘And we’ll start wars with x y and z and everyone who isn’t British! Bloodshed, cannons, gunpowder!’, like that is a lonnnnnnng plan. Like I said before this situation is no ‘we don’t have time to run away and regroup’ thing, they’re slow killers, and especially with Ruby with battle mode engaged she at least would be fine. But it’s that taking over London bit. Very specifically. He claims he hasn’t met them, doesn’t know how many there are, he’s not admitting to any prior knowledge of these guys. So the only way he comes up with that line is if he already knew what they wanted out of their campaign in the first place.

They have not yet proven any more dangerous than any human gunman, in fact less, they clearly can’t spray bullets, they kill one at a time and so far only people they’ve wanted the appearance of in some way. They have been in rooms crammed with people who survived the encounter. Are you going to have to leg it to the TARDIS to regroup? Yes. Would people die? Sure. But probably not her, she’s fast and has a battle bot controlling her movements. Multiple posh nobs have died already and we only got a little sad over the housekeeper. Our hearts will survive. The one putting the pressure on the situation is not the Chuldur. It’s Rogue. There is no time limit. No rush. It’s waiting for you to press the button on the Laser TCE- I mean control stick. But Rogue is not giving him a second to think. ✅

*Rogue approaches, step by step.*

“So can you do it?”

GUYS, your supposed hero is TORTURING the Doctor, who is fucking ugly crying his two broken little hearts out. ✅

“Can you lose your friend to save the world.”

‘I am very sane and staring at you in a normal way the normal amount. Choose to kill your friend yourself, or choose to allow the genocide of every person on this planet including her. I want to see you choose, choose, choose.’

“Ok, but what does anyone get out of killing these people? I mean I know they’re posh nobs and all that, but we found the housekeeper dead. I mean why would anybody do that?”

“Remember how we used to run through those streets as children? The alleys where we'd hide from Borusa as we skipped classes? All gone now. Come on, ask me why I did this.”

*Sobbing Doctor shakes his head, making his decision* [quietly] “No.”

*Rogue with hitherto unseen tenderness, wiping one of his tear away* “I know.”

No, he doesn’t! If he is a random fucking bounty hunter he does not in fact know that. He knows because he already knows the Doctor. From real life or from being a bad guy who just kind of likes to watch TV - which actually I guess does describe the Master✅✅

*Rogue kisses him. Because a tortured ugly crying Doctor is hot to him.* ✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅✅

(If I need to explain why the Master snogging the Doctor here, or the fact that he genuinely loves him in his own twisted way, you can’t be helped, or maybe were just a Ten viewer when you were 8 so missed stuff, and have watched nothing else in the show and just stumbled back in here - go watch Twelve there’s Simm!Master in it for you, and Thirteen’s second series onwards).

Live ‘About To Be Ripped Apart By Murderous Birds In Another Dimension If She Even Physically Survives The Trip’ Slug Reaction. Ruby straight up like ‘well at least he won’t be alone’, babes we’re gonna get you some sertraline, a psychologist, it’s gonna be ok, you’re worthy of life, we’re gonna get you help, we have a therapy circle.

The grin and hoppidy-skip jump Rogue does here when they break for air and he’s holding the Laser TCE/controller is a level of happiness we have yet to see from Rogue. A still cannot do it justice. (40:17 - though if you’re going, may as well watch the whole torturing scene from 39:00). It’s a bit more than a wee smile.

Then Rogue leaps over and knocks Ruby out of the triangle! Something he could apparently have done at literally any time before or during torturing the Doctor to his breaking point!

Why can he do this when she is molecularly bonded to the floor? We don’t know! It’s not explained! But he clearly knows his fucking device doesn’t he?! Why didn’t he tell the Doctor at any point that it would be possible to get Ruby out with a thing called a matter exchange? Who knows?! Maybe it slipped his mind til the last moment? The Doctor being the one to take her place would sure have been an answer, but oh well!

‘Maybe he didn’t want to risk his life for Ruby’s unless he really had to.’ - Then that’s shit hero and love interest behaviour isn’t it! But since it says “Matter Exchange” I’m pretty sure he could also have knocked Ruby out of the triangle using that vicar corpse on the floor a few feet away, then neither would have to die! So he must be real sure he’s gonna be ok! ✅

He’s so happy and chill. The music is happy too. Rogue jauntily throws the bouquet - ahh look who’s next to be married *wink*. This is the happiest and funnest and most genuine he’s looked the entire episode. Almost like he got exactly what he wanted! ✅

“Find me.” *click*

Ruby you’re such a dick, why couldn’t you be as happy as him? If you’d trusted the Doctor to find you instead of you die by bird and/or dimensional anomaly before he got there this could have been such a peppy scene the whole time. It’s almost like Rogue is absolutely certain he’s not going to die doing this. You know I know a character who’s been transported to a different dimension at the end of his episode before and got out of that just fine! ✅

Almost like this was the end of a live D&D session he was hosting. That’s a wrap everyone, great job. Just imagine what I’ve got in store for us next week. Good thing the car transports all six of us together! Well done for not panicking, screaming, or interrupting what I had going on with the Doctor at the end, and trusting this wasn’t going to teleport you into an incinerator. Thanks for playing along, excellent improv as always, I’ll be marking your RP points highly.

And then the Doctor screamed “I’ll find you! I promise I’ll find you!” it was very romantic, and then he got out the sonic and started scanning everything for traces, anything, he was still upset and panicky of course, I mean his new love interest had just snogged him and given his own life to save Ruby’s. But Rogue had believed in him to do this impossible impossible task so he would. So he and Ruby ran back to the TARDIS as fast as they could, maybe she’d picked something up or *gasp* she was the one who configured the trap in the first place so maybe there would be a record of what random dimension she chose! Except she wouldn’t let them access it for some reason and she kept growling and the Doctor was crying with anger and-

No wait, none of that happened, sorry, not sure why I thought it did.

Actually the Doctor went to comfort Ruby and her comfort him, sombrely put the bouquet down where Rogue was. (And left the trap technology behind. So got engaged and invented a glue/tarmac trap.) The Doctor remotely sent the Bird Ship to orbit around the moon, “so it can wait…as long as it takes”. In the 19th century. …Babe, you know they can see the moon, right? They have telescopes. This is a mavity waiting to happen.

(Genuinely choosing not to think about how we last left Dhawan!Master messing about with the two moons in the 1900’s, I’mma be real, I don’t know what was going on and when there, hope it doesn’t fit in actually because I’m not gonna get it. If he’s the Master he turns up, that’s all I ever need to know.)

-“Can’t we use the TARDIS and go find him?” Ruby asks. Good question. If the TARDIS can determine whether a dimension is uninhabited or not that’s definitely gonna narrow it down. Maybe she could outright search for him? If she, you know, didn’t hate his moral void.

-“There are as many dimensions as there are atoms in the universe.” *Ruby arm cuddles* “Anyway! It is what it is, so onwards, fine, next.” So is it ‘as long as it takes’ or are you not even going to try and find him? That and the bouquet really feels like you’re giving him up for dead and just hoping he finds his way back himself some day. It’s not what you were told to do. You can wear that ring and salute the sky with a smile all you like. He said “Find him.” Bad fiancé behaviour.

Cus the thing is, here is the ‘uwu small bean Rogue’ paradox. If this is just a normal guy, he’s not making it back on his own. He’s dying to the birds. The Doctor isn’t looking for him, and Rogue clearly didn’t think he could return on his own - he says “Find me” not “I’ll be back”. So if you believe we’re going to see Rogue again…he’s going to not be a normal guy, but be the type who can survive and make his own way back from a wrong dimension surrounded by free murderous birds. *piano rendition of The Cat Came Back starts playing* ✅

But luckily he’s not normal. He’s a man/bird with so much forethought he knew he wasn’t going to be coming back to his bird ship and took whatever it was that can save him from a teleport trap from the spaceship with him in that bag. Always have a getaway plan. That’s Masterful thinking. Unless you just think he wanted his wallet and keys on him ✅ (Point against Pantheon though - pretty sure being able to move reality around doesn’t require props. But then D&D. Maybe he just likes props.)

-“Doctor, you don’t have to be like this.” “I have to be like this because this is what I’m like.” And in our story about roleplaying, shouting out our longtime theme of the most important roleplaying of all, that we follow a character who’d rather be called Lulubelle playing The Doctor™. Doctor Who is a show.

-The fires whole and reflected and internal everywhere, like our Gallifrey mirror is on fire.

-Final additional literal-meta that may be of interest: the costume designer said Ncuti’s outfit is designed as a nod to Three - the original Thoschei pairing origin. We canonise Shalka!Doctor - famously and frankly exclusively known as ‘that animated one who made a robot boyfriend Master to be his Companion’, with lines in the episode Cornell said was indeed intended to suggest a relationship there and would have continued had that pilot been picked up. Relevant or not we’ll see.

And to all those who read that and yet still think that I am just very cynical and mean, and he really does have a single heart of gold, he’s just got flat affect and is socially awkward and autistic maybe and-

His ship IS A FUCKING BIRD. OWL HOOTS.

🎉 You did it! You read the full analysis! Great job! You passed Media Overanalysis, Rogue Edition. I told you it was a 10K. Look at how much you just read that had already been effectively covered in the first minute with just one thing.

“I’m The Bad Guy. Duh.”

(‘I am now convinced, but do you have a blessedly far shorter essay about why a Chuldur/Pantheon The Rogue perfectly cosplaying the Master cosplaying Jack would be the way to go?’ Why yes I do, strawman.)

Assorted later Additions:

Pantheon!Rogue: Why the bird ship?

Maybe that’s why the ship’s so fucky actually, DM’s love their props, this is about playing D&D In The Real World, so maybe he got one originally, short hop standard Asteroid Hopper. but now they’ve just kept (perhaps Pantheon-magically) editing it over time as the campaign and rule of cool needed. Appearance, better space travel, time travel etc. “It should look like a bird!” “…Yeah! It should look like a bird! Great idea Emily, we’ll work that in!” Of course if he’s a Chuldur this is just…their ship. Maybe classicly upgraded.

What might Rogue’s original plan for the Chuldur’s live D&D Session supposed to have been:

We know they were going to have a big wedding, but maybe that they’re also Baddies going to take over the world muhahaha! Cus they went into that monster-playing real quick and also they said that the panicking and screaming is their favourite bit - so there must have been a plan to include that after the wedding part of the game! They thought the wedding would lure The Doctor out so there must have been nefariousness in it or else why would The Doctor be drawn out? They were playing Baddies! So, thinking like what our lead bird would want for a moment, if you were to DM that, maybe he’s both playing the bounty hunter sent to catch them …But maybe also was going to do an “I Object!” scene too. Their faces in that scene, they’re so excited. Let’s say Rogue doesn’t know the Doctor was coming in advance. He’s already got ‘I’m The Bad Guy’ playing if this wasn’t a live magical edit on seeing him. Oh, maybe that’s why he chose to look like Mr Darcy. Maybe he was going to woo one of them - a good reason to already have the ring. Cus a big wedding can’t go right, that’s not drama, that’s boring. We know he’s probably cloaked - not only do they not recognise him but we have Ruby’s earring interference pointed directly at him (same tech frequency problems?) and even mention the psychic jewellery’s ability to mask a scent with a false one. So he was an NPC just meant to turn up and add some of their beloved drama. So he’d woo a Chuldur, he’ll object and then he would reveal himself as a bounty hunter with his Big Glowy Gun and trap! It was a dastardly trick! You knew he was a Rogue and a cad all along, you just let yourself fall for his deceit! *teleports to ship rather than incinerator* BRO. Even the bird’s D&D plot would naturally be the ‘I was tricking you and am actually your enemy’ twist!

Post-Empire, The case for the Chuldur Phoenix: Rogue being (unbeknownst to himself) the Master cosplaying a Chuldur cosplaying the Master.

[veintrry]

seeds that don't fester mold with time.

arataki itto x gn!reader, unrequited love, angst, itto being itto 5.8k

silly guy w a broken heart

an: big happy nice guy go :(((( @goodsoup101 this one's 4 u pookie bear <3 can't say I'm proud of this one

The boastful red Oni had always been known for his large figure, but despite his intimidating size he held an even bigger heart inside; One that he – not out of his will – had found to be thumping faster for you than it had at any other Onikabuto match! Though, as his love festers how long could he withhold his feelings till everything becomes too much? He hopes that he could acquire the achievement of having blossomed a love for him too, but sometimes it's better to savour the match than the outcome.

You could say without a doubt in your mind that Itto was one of if not the nicest people you've known. You knew he could be kind of overwhelming at times… but he always had the best intentions! That's why you liked him and truly cherished him, he was a down to earth guy and you greatly respected him for it. However, as it seems, that respect didn't make you blind enough to accept his countless requests to join the Arataki Gang.

He liked that, though. No challenge is too tough for the Mighty-Do-It-All-In-One-Arataki-Itto!

It had been a sunny day, too sunny you'd say. The sun was blazing its rays down upon inazuma, serving as a reminder to how with each passing day you found summer nearing. Frankly, you weren't looking forward to it. There were good and bad aspects: The good part is that business will be booming with more people who want to have something fresh and sweet to cool them down. The bad side? You worked at a protein stall, it was filled with fruits from inside and outside of Inazuma, however the ones from the country were without a doubt the best, being fresh and all. Point is though; you have to do a lot of back and forth to transport these fruits from Ritou to Inazuma city, and it isn't easy.

Luckily for you, you were spotted by Itto.

He and his crew were standing around by the docks of Ritou watching boats come and go, trying to think of anything they could do. Itto had been suggesting ideas but the reception has only been either disappointed faces or repeatedly re-stating that they had already tried that.

"What about another festival? This time, we'll have the Ultimate Epic Onikabuto Tournament!! Ehh??" Itto suggested but their reaction is no different than the previous one. Akira pipes up, likely with a rebuttal, "Boss, we couldn't even get the papers last time!" Itto gives a grin as though he had expected this. Yes, of course a true genius such as himself would've thought ahead.

"Ah-ah, We have Shinobu." He tuts, wagging his finger. "But Boss- Shinobu is too busy with exams!" Genta adds on, and maybe he wasn't that much of a genius as the Oni's face merely drops at the realisation, his mouth forming into an 'o' shape like it hadn't crossed his mind once beforehand. He curses under his breath, snapping his fingers as he tries to think of something else and to his luck, he does, pointing his finger upwards as though his eyes had been opened.

"Well, what if-" His words trail till his voice eventually dies down and his eyes seemingly look past the gang and towards something else, someone else. It was you. You two had come to be quite familiar with each other as soon as you came to Inazuma as he and his gang visited your stall often at the market and have attempted to recruit you a couple of times, although one could see how that's gone. He thought you would've made a great addition with your personality and despite how you mostly just live your day to day life as anyone would he had witnessed you fight at times, and, honestly, it drew him in. It felt as though you were on a stage, capturing his attention even when you had no intent of doing so. But this isn't about that!

You were moving a cart filled with the new storage you had ordered for the stall, but it seems that to your dismay you had forgotten just how long the staircases were. Your face turned bitter as your gaze lifted up, watching as the stairs only extended further and further.

It's not like he doesn't know you could take the other path, but you seemed too fatigued! Plus, this was the perfect opportunity! He'd show you just why you should join the Arataki Gang! "Boss? Boss??" "Do you think he fell asleep standing up?" "With his eyes open?! Creepy…" The rest of the crew conversed amongst each other as to the cause of Itto's blanking out only to be interrupted by the thunderous clasping of his hands.

"Alright, Gang! Our mission is to recruit," He outstretched his arm, finger pointing to your figure "Them!". They were going to remind him that this hadn't been the first time they had attempted to, but seeing the determination glistening in his gaze, they opted against it. Still he didn't fail to acknowledge their original response. "C'mon guys! I know they miiight have refused a couple of times but they just don't know what they're missing out on! We're the Arataki Gang, we don't just stop at no!"

And this is probably why they needed Shinobu, because now they were all walking towards you with confidence and excitement, hyping each other up. It was the peak essence of the Arataki Gang.

You don't fail to miss the overzealous presence that grows closer and when you face the location it arose from you weren't the slightest bit surprised at the discovery. As always it seems that the crew were up to something astounding or unusual, or both. Is what you assumed.

"Hey hey, compadre! Seems like you're in a tough spot." The Oni starts, greeting you with a wide grin on his face as he chuckles. He's quick to close the gap between you two, standing relatively close to you. "Ah, Hey Itto." You reply dryly, staring at the others in acknowledgement. "Shinobu isn't with you today?" You ask, noticing the lacking presence of a certained green-haired rebel. She was the only real sensible one so when she's not here it's hard not to notice.

He rolls his eyes, an arm on his hip as he uses his other hand to make overly exaggerated gestures. "Well, we invited her to join us but she said that she was 'busy' being 'productive'." Curling his fingers as he air quotes. "Pssh, it's whatever, we don't need her!" Disregarding how clearly offended he was by her 'abandoning' the group. All you do is giggle at usual behaviour. It was always nice to see him just being himself every day, it made you feel like even if everything went to hell he'd always stay the same.

"Either way, don't you worry about this cart! We'll take care of this one." We? Take care of the cart?? Wait, what.

You didn't get a chance to indulge in idle chit chat with the rest of the crew nor did you have time to process what he said before having the handles pulled away from you, looking forward only to see that the crew was beginning to lift the cart from each side. Your alarms were beginning to go off.

"Itto- What's this?? Really, there's no need for- Oh god." You could barely let yourself finish a comprehensive sentence. You didn't know how to feel about this. An arm slithered around your back, the hand on your shoulder pulling you closer. "Heyy, don't worry about it! The Arataki Gang is here to handle everything!" He reassured, patting your back as you nervously watched the rest climb the stairs slowly. This didn't seem smart, most of Itto's ideas weren't despite his good intent.

"Itto, I don't think-" You started but the sound of multiple items tumbling down the multiple staircases all at once cut you off and as you watched all the vegetables and fruits fall down, getting bruised with each drop, you just covered your mouth in shock, unable to fully comprehend what you saw or what it meant for you.

Despite the sound that had put both you and Arataki into a frozen state while the others kept climbing without looking back, it appeared the noise had fallen onto deaf ears. You made a mental note to suggest they go get that checked out. Only when reaching the top as they set the cart down did Genta comment, "Wow, Boss! This cart was really ligh- Oh." The silence was deafening as they had witnessed exactly why the cart had lost most of its weight on the climb up.

Passersby who were around to witness what happened merely felt pity for you. But Itto? Itto just felt guilty as he peered over at you to see you practically on the verge of tears. This wasn't what he wanted.

He raises his hands up as he tries to calm you down, "Hey! It's all okay- We'll handle it, trust me!" He stutters over his words nervously trying not to push you over your limit. Dense as he may be he knows he's messed up and as he looks around trying to ponder what to do, he starts picking up the fallen produce, his crew quickly rushing down the stairs and helping him.

You weren't upset. Sad, and somewhat exhausted? Yes, very much so. But you wouldn't take it out on them knowing they didn't mean to cause this. Still, you couldn't help the heavy sigh that leaves your mouth and it makes Itto's guilt weigh heavier on him. "Guys, it's fine," You reassure, stepping closer to aid them. "Things happen. Just leave it be, I'll take care of it." You're stopped on your path as Itto stares at you, in a way it was threatening. Cradling the bruised fruits in one arm as his other latches onto your shoulder, keeping you in place. There was a firm expression on his face. "No," He states. "This is my fault. I'll take care of it." He turns his head back towards the others. "You guys too, as well. It was my idea. Leave it to me."

You were about to retort before the rest of the gang did it for you, and you must admit they did it better than you could've. They had more of a solid reason compared to you as well, after all, they were a team.

"No way we're leaving you to it all alone, Boss!"

"Yeah, we're a gang, we stick together!",

"That's right, Boss! You know that best!"

They all spoke their thoughts, encouraging one another and Itto mainly as they maintained their ideology. Truthfully, you admired the gang's connection and commitment to one another. You believed that to have them be so passionate about this showed how good of a leader Itto was despite his few flaws. You were glad he had such good understanding people with him, and you were glad for them too.

An airy chuckle leaves the large man, his shoulders that before were sunken down like he had just been scolded raised back high as confidence seemed to seep back to him. It appears that he could always rely on them to snap him out of his concerns. "If you want to help me then I have something else you could do for me!" He peeked over at you, scanning your expression for any sign of resentment before turning his head to fully face you, relieved to be proven wrong.

With a bow he clasps his hands above his head, asking for your forgiveness as he makes a promise to compensate you, "I swear on the Arataki Gang's deep history that we will repay you for all the fruit!" The face of astoundment said it all. You doubted it. Severely. Not because you didn't take his word for it, but it's a lot of effort to put in. And you also weren't sure just how deep the history was.

"Uhm, Boss?" Mamoru steps all the way down, standing behind Itto. "I don't think we have that much mora…" He whispers into his ear. Right. Mora. Damn, society these days, always about mora! He snaps his fingers. And rather than it being a way to curse the blockage that had come onto their path, it switched a light bulb above his head.

He ecstatically widens his arms, forgetting the fruits in his hands as they fall once more, repeating the torture they had experienced before. You wince at the sight and so does he murmuring a small 'sorry' before resuming, "Then we just go and get them ourselves!" To this, a 'what' was said in unison by everyone, all except him. Hell, if it was that easy you wouldn't have been so damaged by the event that had occurred before you, no, you'd be on your merry way to pick some new fruits.

One thing you did know though, and you realised as soon as you laid eyes upon his face, was that there was no way you could persuade him. Itto wasn't easily swayed when it came to making up to people. He stuck to his words, an Oni never lies as he says. Albeit the bitter situation, you felt a tinge of happiness in your heart and a smile slipped onto your lips, your eyes narrowing onto his appearance in delight.

And he notices this. He notices it and he never forgets it like it had engraved itself into his mind. The wrinkles around your eyes, how your lashes curled in their own respective directions,, the glimmer in your orbs and the light that reflected off them, the slight soft arch of your brow. He doesn't forget them. Not even the curve of your lips, or the small tilt of your head.

When it came to you, he became more observant than usual, and he noticed things others wouldn't, but he wasn't aware that this could make him realise things about himself. In this moment he begins to feel something weighing on his heart, but this time it wasn't guilt. It was something very different.

Within that strange emotion he found a stronger drive to repent as soon as possible in hopes of seeing you smile at him that way again.

–

You were originally worried sick about what you were going to tell the boss, it had been all you could think about as you observed the others cleaning up at the boat docks, not wanting to leave them alone. But soon after taking care of the mess they had quickly left, departing after repeating once more that they'd bring you all that they damaged.

You appreciated the intention, but you didn't get why or how they thought they'd do it. Inazuma was filled with large land and some of the storage you had was exclusively grown outside of here, so unless they also had ordered the same exact shipment you couldn't see it happening. A sigh escapes your lips, you'd get wrinkles at this point. There wasn't much you could do about it other than pray to the Archons that something may save you from the wrath you felt was bound to come when you attended work.

It was difficult to think up a good excuse to tell your boss. I mean, this would be bad for the business. Really bad. You can't just lose the stock you need, there is only so much left and at this point you should just issue another order as soon as possible and try to make do with what you had.

Pondering about it wouldn't help you, you reminded yourself as you stayed seated on the stool of a local Inazuma restaurant, an empty glass next to you with only some small snacks for you to nibble at. The place had dim orangeish lighting, the wood was dark almost that of something you'd find in a cabin. You'd think this place would be bustling with people but in contrast it was rather quiet. It somewhat reminded you of that Tavern in Mondstadt.

You had known a couple of things about wine and alcohol due to the course you took having included it. You were beginning to wonder if maybe you should change your career path, go for something else. Mondstadt was the city of freedom after all, therefore those who stay there must be living in the land of the free.

Your thoughts were interrupted by the door swinging open, the jingle of the bell indicating the arrival of a customer. The one who entered was a long white-haired Oni you were immensely familiar with and you were more than certain was here for you as his eyes searched around till they located your figure, the smile making its way onto his lips as his eyebrows raised in excitement, verifying your hunch.

"There you are! I knew you'd be here." He exclaimed, taking a seat beside you despite his intent to only fetch you and get back on the road. "You did?" You ask. It wasn't like you often came here, you thought he must've asked around. You wonder what it must have been like. "Betcha. My Oni senses are never wrong!"

Now that was a new one. You gave him a smug smile before repeating what he had said, "Oni senses?" His face inches closer to you, "They're real." He quickly replied, a serious glint in his narrowed eyes as though this had not been the first time someone had questioned its authenticity. "Sure, sure," You disregarded it, giving him the belief he desired. You weren't sure you wanted a whole adventure just to discover if it's true or not.

"So, what is it that you wanted?" You inquire, assuming that he had been searching for you for a reason. "Awww, come on, bud! Do I need a reason to visit my favourite person?" Itto nudges you with a smirk. Favourite? You didn't know that. You knew you were somewhat close, you suppose, and he asked you to join the gang but to think you were his favourite. No, you're just over complicating things.

"I don't suppose you randomly decided to come visit your so-called favourite person for no reason now, do I? You're always up to something, Itto." He bites his bottom lip, pouting at your words, resting his head on his knuckles. It's true he always had something planned, but to think you didn't believe he'd be here just for you… it was kind of frustrating.

"Well, there is a reason for me coming here -But that doesn't mean I wouldn't come here just to see you!" His words are added on quickly so you don't have time to give a rebuttal or that cocky look he knew would've come otherwise.

There was more he wished to say, so much, but only one slipped out, and if he hadn't said it himself he wouldn't have even realised he had spoken at all. "I would come visit just to stare at you.." It's a mumble under his breath, muffled by the hand that partly covered his mouth, and as he whispers he isn't sure if he wants you to hear or not. He steals a glance at you, searching for a reaction, but you still have that smirk. Maybe you didn't hear…

He feels disappointed.

You notice the furrowing of his brows, though before you inquire as to why he seemed so bothered he had straightened his back, returning back to having that carefree smile you've become all too familiar with. "Now are you going to keep me waiting or what?!" He hops off the stool and gestures for you to join him and you hurriedly pay for your items before departing from the restaurant with Itto beside you.

–

"Seriously, where are you taking me?" You asked him again for what felt like a thousand times, hoping he'd finally told you. You knew the path, you often took it to get to work but you weren't sure why he'd need to have you go all the way here now. It didn't seem like you two were browsing the markets or stalls but rather Itto was specifically guiding you somewhere and as the streets of Inazuma City got more and more crowded you felt something large clutching onto your wrist. "Don't get lost behind!"

His hand was wrapped securely around your wrist, and you were grateful for his size seeing as he was able to see where he was heading much better than you did. Pulling your arm back to intertwine your hand, you felt more secure now that you could actually hold onto him properly, and you thought that maybe he felt the same considering how after the momentary hesitation he displayed, he held back even tighter. Every once in a while he'd squeeze your hand as if asking you if you were holding up and you'd merely reciprocate the gesture, answering him.

Luckily, thanks to his guidance you made it out of the crowd quicker than expected. You intended to wonder why there had been so many people but it appears the Oni before you was too excited to let you have that. "Come on, don't get distracted!" He pulled on your hand a bit reminding you of what you were here for and you merely gave him a nod, snapping out of your thoughts.

After a while he pauses, walking behind. "Alright, keep your eyes closed, 'kay?" Another hand laces its way over your eyes, blinding you. "Uhm, Itto, how am I meant to walk then?" To this you received a thunderous laugh in reply as though you had just about asked the dumbest possible thing. Which is impressive considering its the ever so dense Itto.

"That's what I'm here for!" He clarified, and you wanted to trust him, you did, but accompanied by the fact that you'd be looking like a lunatic to everyone around you, you felt somewhat embarrassed and he picked up on it. "Hey, don't worry about anyone else."

You feel the warmth of his breath hit the outer shell of your ear as he whispers, his voice evidently having softened. "You can't see them, they can't see you, right? Just focus on me, The Great Arataki Itto!" To this you let out a light giggle and he's content with that. Yeah, he can be fine with all of this.

He enjoys just being in your presence, being able to hold you like this, to be so close to you, to be just the comforting loud Itto you and many others know. Maybe you'll never realise how he feels. Still, he'll try. Someone as great as you should be made aware of it.

"Don't keep me waiting. Let's get going, Itto!" You nudged him out of his thoughts as you chuckled and he focused back on your figure. He should be living in the moment rather than getting caught up in such cheesy ideas. "You ready?" "Born ready." Yeah, you were going to be proven wrong. "Let's goooooo!" He yelled out, picking up your figure with ease, the arm behind your back supporting you as his hand reaches to keep your sights darkened.

All you feel is the slight hops as the wind hits your face as he runs, jumping down a short staircase as you let out a short yelp, bringing yourself closer to him as much as you can despite the little space left to do so, your actions only being recognised by his laugh and you could picture how he looks: his eyes shut, his already big smile widening more than you knew it could, how his hair frames his face. Sometimes you think Itto really is otherworldly entirely.

Eventually the running changes into small steps as you hear other whispered voices and Itto shushing them. The secure grip on you he has loosens as he slowly tilts your body, setting you down back onto the ground and you stumble back into his chest, relieved at the contact you didn't know you missed and an overwhelmed whine leaving you. "Don't tell me I was going too fast for you?" Your head tilts upwards to where the voice was coming from, feeling his well-structured chest behind you and slowly he removes his hands, revealing his face to you again. You smile.

"It's okay, many struggle to keep up with The Great Arataki Itto." Though he will slow down if it suits you better. Opening his eyes to gaze at you, the arm that stayed around your waist tightened ever so slightly at the sight of your smile. To be smiling at him so softly, he must be really lucky. The surprised expression he held warped into a reciprocated smile back, it wasn't wide as it normally was. In fact, it was barely noticeable. Though, his eyes held the real passion.

A cough interrupts the moment as you both glance over towards the source to see the Genta and Akira attempting to hide the smirks that grew at the sight, with Mamoru being the one to derail it, arm on his hip. He exchanges a knowing look with Itto and suddenly the Oni is no longer as quiet, seemingly having been reminded of the original intent.

"Right, right! The cart!" He exclaims, only for you to repeat, "The cart?" You tilt your head. "The cart!" The rest of the crew repeat simultaneously. OH. THE CART.

Somehow your eyes seemed to totally ignore the form that stood behind the crew. It was the very same cart you had been pushing earlier this morning, and to your surprise much like before, it was full. You wouldn't believe it. No, really, you couldn't, so you approached the cart and even felt the fruits and vegetables to verify that they were real and weren't made out of wax or something. You didn't think they'd poison your customers but you also did not know how far they'd go for you, and from this you could tell that they would go far.

"How even…?" You turned sideways, looking at the others puzzled. It was near impossible to get all of this done in a day, actually, it hadn't even been 24 hours! This didn't make sense, it was practically insane and yet here was the cart filled to the brim - it might've had even more than you needed. "Ehh? Whaddya think?" His arms raised outwardly, almost seeming like a prideful king. "Pretty neat, huh. We know." Confident as always as his hand finds home back on his hip, the other twisting as if to add flare.

Your confusion still wasn't answered, it only prevailed. "No, but really, how?? There is just no way this could be done in such a short time!" You began to question how far they went to get these, how much time, the struggle, I mean, this was no easy feat you knew that much. "Nothing is too far-fetched for the Arataki Gang!" His reply fell on deaf ears as you were too immersed, observing all the carts containments.

A chuckle leaves him and he approaches you, leaning down to you. "Maybe now you'll reconsider joining us?" You turn and you don't miss the corner of his lip lifted up into a smug smirk or how his eyes narrow down onto you as though he had you cornered. How could you deny them now after you've seen just how cool and incredible they are? "Tough luck, Itto."

You lightly hit his chest. "I'm thinking of going back to old Mond'." That's how.

And he didn't get it. He didn't get why you were still smiling without a single sign of sorrow or concern on your face. Why were you so relaxed when your words had been so… so painful to him? You see the confusion in his eyes, and you expect him to recover and encourage you, maybe say something about how his offer will always stand but he doesn't. Yes, he goes back to his go-lucky demeanour but you notice how it's slightly off. "What do you mean, compadre?! You can't leave us in the dust so abruptly!"

Pssh, what do they even have in Mondstadt? It's not even that great compared to Inazuma. Sure he's heard about the tails of their Archon, the city of freedom, blah, blah, blah, but when did you become interested in going there? "Pfft, I'm not leaving you in the dust. I've just been thinking…" You lean your back against the cart, holding onto a sunsettia, rubbing it with your thumb. "Mondstadt was really beautiful when I last visited Dawn Wineries vineyard. And, I've been thinking that maybe it's finally time I try leading a different route in life."

The Oni absorbed all that you said like a dry sponge, he was picking at everything you said. Were you not happy with where you were, weren't you content? But what about the people you know here? "What about me?"

Shit. He didn't mean to say that aloud.

Itto straightens his back and rubs the back of his hair as though dismissing what he himself said but you noticed the weight that question held. The face you, and only you, got to see. You don't think you've ever seen a face so tense. You felt like he was pleading with you, his crimson eyes penetrating you, reading you so clearly and you begin to question if you had underestimated Itto all this time. You cocked your head to the side, "Will you miss me?"

You were regarding the others behind him who were obviously aware of the conversation going on but were leaving out of respect for privacy.

Miss you… He repeats the question in his head, pretending to ponder it, to not blurt out what he thinks then and there. Itto looks back to see you two were alone and when he faces you again the expression he wears is sombre. "Let's go somewhere else, why don't we?" He gives you a hum, raising a brow at you and offering you a small simper hoping to dismiss what occurred, and although you agree to go elsewhere you wouldn't let it go.

–

You observed as Itto hopped from rock to rock, nearing the shore. He moved effortlessly, you shouldn't be surprised with his build. He turns you, urging you to hurry down and you do, latching onto the hand he offered you when you make it to the bottom. The two of you roam around the beach for a while before finding a shelter where you could sit and savour the view. That is, as much as you can with the atmosphere.

The white- haired Oni had been trying to smooth out the tension but you couldn't let it go. You didn't want to turn a blind eye and move on past it like it was nothing. You get that you leaving can be a big deal but you didn't like how he avoided his own emotions, it felt like he was hiding something from you.

As for him, he wanted to just relish in the few moments he has before everything falls apart. He was glad he got to take your hand for a bit as you walked and was said when they were separated because he knew that would likely be one of the last few touches of yours he'll ever have.

"Itto, what is it that's weighing on your mind?"

You are the one to interrupt the silence. Awaiting his answer that you knew he already had prepared.

He debated lying to you, making up something else or just acting as though it really only was you moving away that made him behave strangely. But he couldn't find it in him to do that to you, to deceive you so shamelessly. "I.. don't want you to go." It comes out as kind of a question, towards himself that is.

There was a conflict going on inside Itto and he didn't know how to resolve it. He desired your happiness, your comfort, of course he did, you mattered greatly to him but he found himself wondering why must you find that elsewhere, why couldn't he be the one to offer you that. Should he support you in your endeavours or should he allow himself to be selfish?

At the end of the day though, it was your choice, you both knew that, but you were curious nonetheless as to the underlying reason of his want for your company, "Why do you want me to stay?" Your words were carefully picked out. You weren't asking him why he didn't want you to leave, but why you should stay in the first place.

And, unlike what you expected, his answer comes quick as though it had been decided ages ago.

You hear him say it, you know you do, but with how the sound of gentle ocean waves sway and hit the sandy shore with a sound and how the wind appears to sway in his direction, almost leading you. You think that his words are taken with it. But you saw how his lips moved, how he had clearly confessed what held him back to you in a solemn tone with an expression almost as if he had already given up.

"Because I like you."

It was pitiful and yet he still smiled at you. He thought that it's no way good for him to offer you such a sorrowful face when saying such a thing.

"I don't just like you, I love you, and, I'm reminded of it with every moment I'm with you. Even now, even when I feel horrible and like I'm trying to keep you to myself my heart beats for you relentlessly. I don't know what to do."

You were unaware of the predicament you had put him in. How all those moments you two shared were never something small to him in the end. The reality is, Itto was always aware of his feelings, but, he wanted to keep reminding himself that this was enough, that your friendship was more than enough. But he was never that great a liar, if he was, he wouldn't have told you the truth and you wouldn't be here.

A hand reaches for his shoulder. His heart drops. He doesn't want to look at your face, because this was already confirmation of his rejection, he knew it. You don't need to say it. Don't say it.

The swirling glimmer in his orbs are no longer from the twinkle he normally held but what appeared to be tears, glossing them. He blinks them away as to not allow you to see him like that and you swallow your guilt. You don't need to speak. You merely inch closer to him, replacing your hand with your head and despite how you feel him freeze up for a moment, he slowly rests his head atop yours and you stay there for awhile.

Before, you recall thinking that Itto would be the one person in your life that would always stay the same no matter how much time flies. You weren't aware that you'd be the one to change him.

Before you departed Inazuma the owner had mentioned something odd on your last day about how the fruits seemed to rot quicker for some reason. You said it must've been the seasons changing but you thought it was peculiar nonetheless. You wondered what cause it, they were the same as any other fruit.

[lesbian-deadpool]

Happy Little Accidents

Part Two: Hope

Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Words: 2,317

Warnings: I don’t think there is any?? Crying/light angst, adoption process, stress??

Request: Yes

Summary: You work on getting you little girl back. And hope that it’s successful.

A/N: It’s been a long time coming, I haven’t proof read it or anything (but when do I ever? Lol), so bare that in mind.

Ko-Fi

(Not My GIF)

***

Being a pair of Avengers and going through the adoption process was so very complicated.

On one hand, you were well known across the globe. Household names.

But on the other. You were dangerous people, with violent past's -and futures to come- with more enemies than you could count. Some of which you didn't even know existed. And who in their right minds would ever let a child into that environment? People have been turned down for much less.

However.

You were basically celebrity's. And as everyone knows, that comes with a lot of special treatment. Even if you and Natasha -And most of, if not all of your team- denied to use any of it. But in this case? For little Hope? You would do whatever you had to.

So, it was thanks to that, that you were even allowed to be considered for adoption.

And there was so much work that had to be done.

Papers to sign, meetings to attend, visits and screenings every which way. And so much more.

It was a long and tedious journey. And you still had a long way to go.

Right now, you had to watch as someone picked apart your home -once again- to make sure it was okay for your little girl to come home. Where she belongs.

You had moved not too long ago, maybe a little over two months, and in that time, it had been looked at three times. Which really made it seem like you weren't doing anything, in their eyes, considering you were busy working and renovating the whole place out at the same time.

The day after you and Natasha had to say goodbye to Hope, you knew that you had to get a bigger place than the apartment you had both shared. And began looking for new homes the very same day.

Tony's help wasn't needed, you had plenty of money, but he insisted. So when you two found a townhouse that you absolutely adored, not too far from SHIELD HQ -where you both now worked most of the time. As when Fury found out that you were both to be adopting Hope- or trying to at least, the man lowered your hours and took you off missions altogether. Just until you were all settled-, the billionaire bought it for you, the moment he got wind of it.

You were moved in three days later. Deciding to work on the house while you lived there.

"So, where would the child be sleeping?" Your caseworker asked.

"Oh, right this way," you said, leading her down the hall to the newly decorated bedroom. Natasha following behind.

You gestured to the light pink, yet slightly sparse room. "This is it."

"We still have to pick up some of the furniture. But we've been waiting for the room to be decorated first," Natasha said, excusing the bare room.

"Yeah, Hope's not going to sleep on a stack of paint cans," you tried to joke. To which you barely got a smile from your caseworker, Stephany Halla.

"It look's decorated to me?"

"Oh." Natasha smiled. "We're having a friend of ours paint a mural or two on the walls."

"Yeah, Hope has a few favourite Avengers, so he's gonna paint them. And he's been learning how to draw cartoon characters for it, too."

"He's actually trying to adopt the two kids he took in with his fiance."

"Steve Rogers?" Stephany asked.

"That's the guy," you said, nodding along with Natasha.

"I've seen him around the office," She spoke again a few moments later. "So, when are you planning on getting the furniture for the room?"

"Hopefully, within a month," Natasha replied, "But with our and Steve's schedules, things are up in the air."

It was a difficult start to the adoption process, more so than it was now. Considering that the children legally didn't exist to the world. So, everything was so confusing and thrown up into the air while waiting for the kids to be registered.

Almost like you didn't know whether you were coming or going. Everything stuck in limbo as you waited to see what kind of adoption process you would have to take. And even with all of your connections in the world, you were still left in the dark.

There was the fact that the kids were found overseas in Romania, so they could be considered Romanian. And so, you would have to go through international adoption.

However, none of the children have birth parents and were brought to America because you had rescued them. So, some would say they could be considered immigrants.

Nothing like this had ever happened before.

Babies that had been grown in a lab and saved from a further torturous life, that now needed legalization in the world's eyes.

You and Natasha had to watch as Government's essentially fought over these children you saved. Over the same child, you clothed and fed. The one you played games with and bonded with the little girl you grew to love and consider your own.

So, as the world fought for the right of your child, your little Hope, you waited. Just wishing and wanting to bring your daughter home.

But, luckily for you, the children were now classed as American citizens. Which made it ten times easier for you to adopt than it would otherwise.

Which is honestly just crazy to you, considering just how intensely hard this is.

There were times you didn't believe you could ever adopt your child.

On more than one occasion, Natasha would come to you, saddened to her core, because she truly believed that you would never have Hope in your family.

It was so fucking hard.

Natasha had rolled over one night after you two had -once again- gone through the rules and regulations of adopting. Uttering how you were, "Never going to get her back" that there was "Juts no way, they will let us adopt", as she cried into your arms.

But still, the process continued.

"Well, your home seems to be in good standing. So for. But I advise you to get the furniture for the child's room as soon as possible," Stephane commented as she began packing up her belongings and paperwork.

"Oh, we know."

"Steve did say that he was going to start work on it in the next few days," Natasha added, nodding along with you.

"Well, that's is good news." Stephane smiled. "I'll see you at our next meeting with Hope."

Natasha sighed happily. "We can't wait."

"Well, goodbye then."

You whished the dirty-blonde woman farewell, closing the door behind her.

"We get to see our daughter in a couple of weeks," your red-headed girlfriend said excitedly, dancing from side to side out of pure happiness. Her bright smile filling your soul with warmth, that travelled all the way into your bones.

You matched her emotions, hands coming to curve around her shoulder blades and pulling her close to you.

"I know, Honey. It's been so long since we've seen her. And we're gonna bring her home one day."

That was all you could say before your mouth was covered, with the crushing feeling of Natasha's plump lips against yours.

***

Nerves rattled through you, but you hadn't the faintest idea why, considering this wasn't the first time you had seen Hope. However, it had been one of the first times you were able to see her since the day she was taken away from you.

If you thought you were bad.

Natasha was far worse.

She was practically shaking. From nerves or excitement, you didn't know. But you had a good inkling to think that it was both.

You had done so much for this child in the short span of time you had known her.

And yet, you couldn't imagine your life any other way. The thought of how your life had been that time last year.

No Hope. Surrounded by missions and work. Every free moment you had was spent with Natasha, and the rag-tag group of hero's you had grown to call your family.

It all seemed so foreign now.

Like a past life.

'Wow', you thought, 'Maybe I really am growing up'.

A part of you was afraid that the girl you thought of as your daughter wouldn't recognise you or your []. And would be scared of the two strangers that had just barged their way into her life. Breaking both of your heart's.

"Mommy! Mommy!"

Was the thing that greeted you, as soon as the door had swung open. Making you realise just how stupid your train of thought really was.

Natasha rushed forward, scooping the girl up into her arms, with a bright smile upon both of their faces.

"So, I still don't get a name, huh?" you joked, walking over to the reuniting girls.

Brushing a hand over Hope's short hair. Grinning when she reached her arms towards you, ready to give you a hug of your own, which you gratefully accepted.

"Don't worry," Natasha said, rubbing Hope's back as she hugged you, "You'll get a name soon."

"I better. Or else I'm gonna have ta tickle it out of her."

Hope's squeals reached your ears as you threateningly poked her side with your fingers.

"Here, baby. I'll save you," Natasha called, pulling the giggling girl from your arms. Both of them watching as you pulled your hand's in front of your face, wiggling the fingers almost spookily as them. The girls turned to each other, "They're silly."

Then they walked away.

With you calling after them.

"Hey! I may be silly, but-... I have no rebuttal!"

Natasha laughed at this, then greeted the care worker that was patiently waiting for you both. The one that you had only just noticed.

"Hello, Stephany," Natasha said in greeting, shaking the woman's hand. You following suit.

"Hey. How have you two been?"

"Missing this little one," Natasha replied, bouncing the girl on her waist. Receiving fun-filled giggles in return.

"I bet you have. And you, Y/N?"

"Exhausted," you told her honestly, "With moving house and everything, I just want to have Hope home, then sleep for a week."

The care worker laughed at that.

"Let's hope that that's sooner rather than later, then."

Your few hour's with Hope passed faster than you ever could have imagined. You played with blocks, ate lunch, "helped" Hope colour in her haphazardly filled colouring book. You absolutely adored the way her eyes lit up, and she started dancing and flailing her arms when she saw bubbles for the first time. You almost couldn't continue blowing them because of your bright smile.

And now you were watching as Natasha spoke gently to the little girl. Hope's hand's resting on the red-heads cheeks, watching her mother with such concentrating eyes.

You adored your little family.

You just wished you could have them all home.

'One day', you thought, 'one day'.

Saying goodbye was one of the hardest things you've ever had to do.

Just like the last time.

And the time before that.

And the time before that.

And the one before that.

It just got harder and harder each and every time you did this.

Hope was crying. And so was Natasha, albeit silently, as she tried to console the toddler.

"I know, my little love, I know-"

"Mommy!" Hope cried.

"I know, angel. We'll be back before you know it, I promise."

"Mommy!"

"I know."

Once in the car, you let your tears fall, Natasha sobbing in the seat beside you.

"I don't think I can keep on doing this anymore," you admitted. Deciding it was best you explained when Natasha turned to look at you, an incredulous look upon her face, "Keep on seeing her, and not being able to bring her home."

"We'll get there," your [] reached over the centre console to squeeze your hand, "We will. You're the one who's always saying that we've got to take after her namesake and have hope."

"But it almost seems endless, Nat."

"I know, honey." She wetly kissed your tear-stained cheek. Her lips, brushing against it as she continued, "We'll bring her home. I just know it."

"I hope you're right."

***

She was right.

Of course, she was right.

She was Natasha Romanoff, after all.

It was like she just had this inability to be wrong.

But in this case? You were so fucking happy about that.

Granted it had taken a while longer -a good eight months- but finally, you were here.

Exiting the courthouse with Hope in your arms, and Natasha by your side. Bright smiles upon all of your faces, about to take the little girl- Your daughter home.

You would never have to say goodbye to her, like that, ever again.

She was legally a part of your family now. And nothing would ever change that.

"Ready to go home, sweetpea?" Natasha asked the beaming girl.

"I don't know about you," you started, "But I think this deserves celebratory ice cream."

"I think you just want ice cream before dinner."

You gave an overdramatic gasp.

"Why I would never! How dare you accuse me of such a thing?"

Natasha laughed at your antics but nonetheless nodded her head.

"I agree. This does deserve celebratory ice cream."

"Yes!" you exclaimed happily to Hope, your free arm raising above your head in victory, making the girl copy you by raising both of her arms.

She was already taking after you.

Your red-headed girlfriend sighed dreamily after you, as you chanted, "Ice cream! Ice cream! Ice cream!" On your way to the car.

She couldn't remember a time where she was this happy.

It had been a long time since then.

And Natasha just couldn't wait to see what the rest of her life would bring with the two of you now by her side.

***

Permanent Tag List: 

@imnotasuperhero, @veteranwerewolf95, @natasha-danvers, @marvelfansince08love, @higherfurther-romanova, @lesbian-x-blackwidow, @sestra-inestro, @thelastavenger-3000, @mixed-fandom-mess,

SFW Tag list: 

@peggycarter-steverogers, @natalia-quinzel,

[moldisgoodforyou]

james and julia

this is for u james anon :) also let’s hope the tags work this time lmao 

___

“What’s up with the boys lately?” Julia asked Sophie after a stall in their conversation over ice cream. The six of them hung out occasionally, mainly when they went out, and Sophie loved the way they all fit together so seamlessly. She easily fit in with the boys and Rafe could hold his own hanging with the girls (probably thanks to his sisters), so it was no surprise that all of them together was always a fun time.

“Hmm. Nothing special, really...oh, James is getting back to dating. I did a complete overhaul of his Tinder the other day.” Sophie told her.

“Back to dating?” Julia cocked her head.

“Yeah, and his girlfriend broke up after three years a few months ago. Something about her not being able to handle long distance anymore, I don’t know. He took it pretty hard. Obviously.”

“Poor guy.” She commented, sitting back in her seat, thinking.

Sophie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, and my idiot boyfriend suggested he needed to get over her by getting laid.”

Julia snorted. “Lovely.”

“Right? Anyways, James went on a date after like a month and I’m pretty sure he came home and was miserable for a straight week, so I’m glad he’s kind of moving on. I don’t think the guys ever really liked her, but you know how stubborn people can be about high school relationships.”

______

After that conversation, Julia swiped through her Tinder that night, more purposeful than ever. It didn’t take long for James’ profile to pop up, and they two matched right away. She sent him a teasing message - funny seeing you here - then immediately cringed at her choice of words. James replied with an equally teasing tone, and the two texted for a while that night - and two nights following.

The group all went out that weekend and there was an awkward tension between Julia and James, but Sophie couldn’t quite place why. Instead of being the class clowns of the group like normal, they were both unusually quiet, not really contributing to conversations. When Sophie leaned over to Rafe, whispering her observation, he furrowed his brow, not having noticed a single thing.

“I’m gonna go get another drink, anyone want something?” Julia asked at the end of the night, raising her empty cup. “Yeah, I’ll come with you.” James stepped up, following her through the crowd to the bar. After they both ordered their drinks, standing shoulder-to-shoulder so they could fit in the tightly packed space, he broke the silence first. “So.”

“So.” Julia echoed, raising her eyebrows.

“Can I take you out?”

“That’s awfully forward of you.” She commented, smirking.

“Sorry, out of practice.” He offered a cheeky grin back. “Dinner tomorrow night? At that Mexican place on ninth, I’ll pick you up.”

“Sophie’s gonna kill me.”

“That’s not an answer.” James nudged her arm with his elbow playfully, sliding cash across the bar to pay for both their drinks. “And Rafe will probably kill me too, but hey, at least we’ll go down together.”

Julia hid her smile in her cup as she took a quick gulp, more for confidence than anything. “Or we could get out of here now. It’d probably take them a while to notice...”  

“Now who’s being forward?” He smirked, then glanced over to where their friends were, blissfully unaware. “We’ll have to -”

“Go out the front, I know. Yours or mine?” She grinned, taking another long drink and willing herself not to shudder at the cheap vodka.

“Mine, I’m closer.” He knocked back the rest of his beer, then offered his hand. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” Julia nodded, accepting his hand. “I still want that date though.”

He laughed as he leaned closer, making her shiver as his lips brushed against her ear. “You got it.”

Meanwhile, Rafe and Sophie were starting to get suspicious. “What do you think they’re so held up for?” She asked, pulling out her phone to text both of them separately. Rafe shrugged. “Friday night, we know it’s always packed here.”

“Ahh.” Sophie nodded in recognition, showing the group her phone with individual texts from each of them with a half-assed reply about meeting someone. Allie grinned. “You think it was that guy on Tinder she keeps texting?”

“Maybe. Wait, is this the first time -?”

“Hell yeah it is.” Rafe grinned, high-fiving Colin and Sophie rolled her eyes. “Well, good for him, I guess. Hope it’s a nice girl.”

_____

The next night, both Julia and James were getting ready for their date at their respective houses. Julia had refused to spill any details, claiming ‘a lady doesn’t kiss and tell’ when Sophie begged for the story. Colin and Rafe had snagged a few cupcakes and spare gel icing from the house chef, eloquently writing Congarts on the Sex - misspelling and all - as a present for James. He had laughed and snapped a photo, but didn’t tell much, just that it was a fun night and she left right after.

“Skirt or the jeans?” Julia held up both options with her turtleneck sweater, glancing in her closet for shoe choices.

“Depends on what sweater you’re going to wear.” Sophie stood and started rifling through her closet, shaking her head as she pushed multiple hangers over.

“What do you mean! This sweater is fine!”  

“Yeah, for church, not a date with someone who’s already seen you naked!” She retorted, pulling out a v-neck sweater instead and a sleek leather skirt. “You want this, with the white boots. Trust me.”

“You’re the worst.” Julia grumbled, but took the clothes and changed anyways. “Should I curl my hair?”

“Hm...no. Not worth the effort. Are you planning on hooking up with this mystery man again tonight, do I have to go to Rafe’s?” Sophie handed her a lipstick to match the outfit.

“Um - uh, probably not -” Julia stuttered, racking her brain for a solution. “You know, when was the last time you two went out?”

“We went out last night.” She raised her eyebrows. “Are you nervous?”

“Going out with all of us doesn’t count. I meant on a date.” Julia took a breath, pleased with her distraction, and smoothed the color over her lips.

“Um...” Sophie trailed off, thinking. “A couple weeks, I guess, I’ve been busy. Where are you going, Rafe and I will go and stake out the date for you.” She grinned. “We’ll be subtle, I promise.”

“You and Rafe have like half an ounce of subtlety between you two, combined.” Julia snorted. “Make him take you to that new restaurant, the one that was in the student paper.”

Sophie thought it over for a moment, her smile faltering. “It’s kind of expensive.”

“Your ability to forget your boyfriend is rich is impressive.”

“Jules.”

“I’m serious! Plus he gets so excited when he can take you out, it’s kind of adorable.” She pressed. “It’s not like you’re doing anything else tonight.”

“Yeah, he kind of does.” Sophie agreed - Rafe loved spoiling her as often as possible, even though she was still getting used to it. “Can I at least get his name?”

Julia had prepared for this question, at least. “It’s Jack, and no, you don’t know him.”

“Ugh, a J name.” Sophie shuddered jokingly, shooting a text to Rafe.

“Yeah, his only downfall.” Julia laughed, albeit a little forced as she thought of the main reason the two of them were probably doomed.

___

Meanwhile, Rafe was hyping James up for his date, blasting rap music way too loud as he ironed his clothes for him. (“Because no one fucking appreciates a well-pressed pant around here,” Rafe had argued, snatching James’ wrinkled clothes out of his hands.) “You kind of did things backward with all this.”

James shrugged. “Guess so. It was her idea.”

“The date or hooking up?”

James grinned as he accepted his freshly ironed shirt from Rafe. “Hooking up.”

“You should be careful though, you know? I mean, you shouldn’t launch into all this so quickly, take it easy.” Rafe told him a little warily, just wanting the best for his friend.

“I know, I know, it’s casual.” James reassured him.

“So...are you gonna need the room? It’s kind of early for dinner.”

“Uh...I mean, I’m not sure...”

Rafe’s face lit up as he received a text from Sophie and he eagerly shot back a reply. “Never mind, looks like I have a date night tonight too. Where are you taking this girl? If you’re going to that new place, I’ll see you there.”

“No, just the Mexican restaurant on ninth. Not pulling out all the stops.” James laughed, shaking his head at Rafe’s sudden mood switch. “Sophie’s got you wrapped around her little finger.”

“I...yeah, probably.” He decided against a rebuttal. “But she’s finally letting me take her out on a nice date, for the first time in ages, so I’ll take it.”

“Didn’t you go to the art museum downtown a couple weeks ago?” James asked, grateful for the conversation topic changing.

“Yeah, and it turned out she had to go for one of her classes and do a few sketches. I swear she can’t go three seconds without being productive.” Rafe shook his head, though he smiled fondly as he talked about her.

“Fucking simp.”

“C’mon, you’re the romantic, you know it’s love.” Rafe grinned and James rolled his eyes as he grabbed his keys and headed out the door. “I’m leaving, have fun.”

“You too! Text me if I have to go to Soph’s!” Rafe called after him.

_____

After Rafe and Sophie’s dinner, Rafe insisted on taking her to a swankier bar downtown by the restaurant instead of their normal college spot. When she paused, calculating in her head and reaching for her phone to check her budget app to see if she could swing expensive cocktails, he grabbed her purse and slung it over his shoulder. “On me, angel.”

“Everything has been on you lately.” She protested, holding her hand out expectantly for her purse.

“Good, so it’s how it should be.” Rafe shot her a grin and took her hand as they walked down the street. “You should have brought the navy purse instead, the black kind of clashes with my outfit.”

Sophie snorted, giving in. “Didn’t think you’d be wearing my accessories tonight, my bad.”

“Ah, but you should never assume.” He pressed a kiss to her temple, glancing in the window as they walked to the door - and did a double-take, spotting James. “Hold on, is that -”

She turned and followed his gaze, seeing Julia opposite James at a dimly-lit back table through the bar. “Holy shit.”

“Do you still want to go in?”

“Yes, we’re going to go interrogate -” She tugged on his hand, pulling him into the bar as Rafe leaned back. “Soph, maybe we shouldn’t -” He hissed, but she ignored him, walking right past the hostess’s stand.

“Ma’am, all our tables are reserved -” The hostess called toward Sophie, but Sophie turned on her heel and shot her a sweet smile. “That’s alright, we’re meeting friends.” She tugged her hand out of Rafe’s and strode over purposefully as he followed quickly behind. Once she made it to their table, she just stopped short of slamming her hands on it, both the drinks rattling a little.

James glanced up with nothing but fear in his eyes. “Oh, Sophie, nice to see you here -”

“What the hell is going on here?” She demanded, shooting glares at both James and Julia. James slunk back a little in his seat, while Julia just winced.

“Actually, yeah, I’d like to know too.” Rafe chimed in, sliding into the booth next to James as Sophie did the same.

“I told you they’re both off limits, James.” Sophie pointed an accusing finger at him. “Did you somehow forget my one rule? Literally just one?”  

“To be fair, you don’t speak for me -” Julia started, only for Sophie to whirl on her. “You! You were being so sneaky when you normally spill every detail - I should not know how big every single dude you’ve hooked up with is -”  

“Wait, you two hooked up? Julia’s the mystery girl?” Rafe made the connection a moment too late, then threw his hands up in exasperation. “Dude!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” James apologized quickly. “But if we’re pointing fingers, it was her idea -”  

“James!” Julia sighed, shaking her head. “Oh my god, I knew this wouldn’t work.”

“You said we could keep it a secret!”

“Not from fucking Sherlock over here!” Julia snapped, jamming her thumb toward Sophie.

“Was it worth it?” Rafe interrupted the argument, stepping on Sophie’s toe gently to hopefully put out some of the flames in her eyes. She only kicked him in the shin in response.

Both James and Julia shared a glance, debating their answers. “Honestly?” She asked.

“Yes, honestly.” Rafe nodded, sending a warning look to Sophie to keep her quiet.

James hesitated, not wanting to hurt Julia’s feelings. “I mean, I think you’re really nice -”

“Yeah, and the sex wasn’t bad -”

“Oh my god, please don’t even start there.” Sophie mumbled, her face twisting at the thought of her friends together like that.

“And I think you’re pretty -” James started again.

“But there’s nothing there.” Julia finished for him, offering him a quick smile. “I think we’re perfectly fine as friends, but that’s it.”

James nodded in agreement, relieved she felt the same. “Yeah, exactly. No hard feelings.”

Sophie let out a slow exhale. “Alright. I mean. You’re sure? Because if there’s really something, I can, like, chill out. Probably.”

Rafe smirked. “I’d say your entrance here contradicts that.”

Julia laughed, breaking the tension. “I’m sure. We were just talking about his ex before you interrupted, so I don’t think anything’s going to happen.”

Rafe shoved James’ arm, shaking his head. “That’s the one topic I told you to avoid.”

“We actually were having a decent conversation, if you two don’t mind? The least I can do is get you another drink, Julia.” James laughed, pushing him back aimlessly.

“...Fine.” Sophie stood, shaking her head. “Just as friends, though.”

“Just as friends.” Julia promised, sending her a grateful smile.

As Rafe and Sophie left, he let out a loud laugh as soon as they exited the bar. “Jesus Christ, Sophie. James looked like he was about to piss himself, he was so scared.”

“Good! She’s off limits! I warned him!” She exclaimed.

“I know, it’s like incest.” Rafe shuddered and slung his arm around her shoulders, walking with her to find another bar. “But hey - you think Allie and Colin might be a good match?”

“Rafe Cameron.”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding!”

taglist: @whoeveniskendall @kkmaybank @karsinner @outerbanksbro @outerbankspreferences @randomficsandshit @sunshineitsfine44 @jailcalledlife @tovvaa @moniamaybank @illbesafeforyou @dontjinx-it @freddymaybank @jjmaybankzz @g4bster @oopsiedoopsie23 

[captainseaweedbrains]

The Dance of the Color Guard, Op. 64 Ch. 4

Katniss and Peeta used to be best friends when they were kids, but now in high school, they're barely on speaking terms. It isn't until they are forced together as the titular star-crossed lovers for their marching band's field show that they will have to face their past mistakes and try to get along if they ever hope of defeating the notorious Capitol Height's Imperial Marching Crusaders in competition.

It's all about winning and if that means pretending to be in love with Peeta Mellark, so be it.

A/N: Thank you to @rosegardeninwinter​ for editing and helping push me to finish! You are the best and any mistakes found are mine. :) 

Start at the beginning on Ao3: X

Ch. 4 Ao3: X

June

“Peeta really isn’t that bad,” Madge said for what felt like the millionth time. Katniss rolled her eyes and flipped the page of her magazine. Ever since learning that Peeta was going to be the Romeo to Katniss’ Juliet, Madge had been defending him every chance she got. “He’s really not. And he’s so smart, Katniss. Picks up on things real quickly. So all this moping around you’ve been doing all week is stupid.”

Katniss frowned and shoved her sunglasses further up her nose, preferring the screams of the children running around them on the pool deck to Madge defending Peeta Mellark to her once again. Was she being overly dramatic about this? Maybe. Was Madge right that Peeta wasn’t as bad as she made him out to be? Perhaps. But it still sucked and she couldn’t stop complaining about it.

“I know you’re Team Peeta,” she sighed, “but would it kill you to see things from my perspective just this once? Isn’t that what girl friends are supposed to do? Side with their other girl friends?”

“Maybe if you were right about him being a bad person, I would,” Madge sniffed, picking up her own gossip magazine to flip through. “But as of right now, you’ve provided me no evidence in support of your claim.” It was times like these Katniss wished her friend wasn’t the daughter of a prestigious lawyer.

“Gale sides with me,” she argued, pointing at her tall friend standing in line between two twelve-year-old kids for their slushies. “Doesn’t that count for anything on my behalf?”

“Gale’s an idiot.”

“An idiot you’re dating.” Madge stuck her tongue out at that, unable to refute her long-standing relationship with Gale and Katniss smiled. Of all the relationships she’d seen throughout the years—and band romances had provided plenty of weird, random romances, the weirdest being Johanna Mason and Melinda “Cashmere” Hewitt—Madge and Gale’s was the only one she saw that made no sense on paper yet made complete sense in person. The spoiled rich girl with a heart of gold and the rough-around-the-edges boy from the bad part of town? She never used to buy it in the movies, thinking the concept too ridiculous, but Madge and Gale proved her wrong time and time again.

Even when they had broken up sophomore year, claiming they were just too different, Katniss was still proven wrong because they couldn’t shut up about each other—griping about how she just didn’t understand and he always has to be right and I can’t believe I lost my virginity to that, a fact Katniss could have gone her whole life not knowing. When they got back together, it was hard to say who was more thrilled about it: the happy couple or Katniss.

“Come on, Madge,” she sighed, flopping back in her lounge seat. “Why must you always be the diplomatic one?”

“Someone has to be between your impulsiveness and Gale’s anarchy attitude.

“Did someone say anarchy?” the anarchist himself joked, handing Madge her lime-flavored slushie with a kiss on the lips for a tip. He handed Katniss her watermelon one and jokingly asked where his tip was. Katniss threw her three dollars at him with a “Keep the change” rebuttal. Gale laughed and pocketed the cash, lifting Madge’s legs up and over onto his lap so he could sit.

“So what did I miss?”

Madge snorted and offered her boyfriend a sip of her slushie. “Here’s a hint: it’s Katniss’ favorite subject.”

Gale rolled his eyes and accepted the drink. “Mellark again?” He took a large sip and winced at the sudden brain freeze, handing the large cup back. “God, I’m so sick of hearing about that guy. Katniss, get over it and move on already.” Even Gale was getting sick of her talking about it? Somehow, that hit lower on the pathetic scale. Gale was her complaining companion. Her bitch buddy. The person she reserved all her annoyances for because she knew he’d have his own trivial things to complain about. Hell, their friendship was founded upon complaining, starting in 8th Grade Science when their teacher kept giving them busy work to cope with the very public scandal of his wife sleeping with their school principal. They complained about everything with each other.

And now even Gale had said enough.

Well this sucked.

“Fine,” she said, not really feeling fine about it. “I won’t talk about it anymore.” Her friends looked doubtful. “I mean it! No more talk of Peeta Mellark and how my whole summer is practically ruined because I have to have extra practices to teach him how to dance on the field. And I’m not going to talk about how that cuts into my shifts at Aunt LuLu’s store, which means my spending money is going to be next to nothing by the time school starts. So if you two ever want to do anything more fun than hanging around the school parking lot, I guess you’re shit out of luck.”

Gale smiled sweetly at Madge. “I’m so glad she’s not talking about it anymore.” Katniss scowled and gave them the middle finger, causing them both to laugh.

“I think you both are very biased over this whole thing,” Katniss said after a while. Gale and Madge didn’t say anything, too focused on tanning and summer reading homework. That didn’t seem to stop Katniss from continuing. “You’re both too friendly with him because of classes and band. He’s gotten to you.”

“One of us is biased,” Gale said, “and it’s not us. It’s you. You’ve hated him for as long as I’ve known you.”

“With good reason!” she huffed, crossing her arms. They didn’t ask her to elaborate on that, already making it clear they were done talking about Peeta Mellark and all the annoyances he brought to her life, and she hated the fact that she did want to keep talking about him. About marching band. About the whole stupid situation. But she kept her promise and kept her mouth shut. 

No one said anything further until Madge declared herself starving and Gale suggested they stuff their faces with greasy burgers and fries at Sae’s.

**********

Sae’s Diner was packed with its usual lunch crowd—men and women from the factories nearby on lunch, sitting at the worn pastel-colored counter; a couple of kids they recognized from school goofing off in the corner booth, shooting straw wrappers off the straws; and a book club filled with women in their fifties discussing some brick of a book over coffee and Sae’s famous blueberry and cream pie sitting in the center of the small diner. The old woman herself smiled warmly at them when they’d walked in, asking if they were wanting the usual. 

“You’re the best, Sae,” Gale thanked as they waved and headed to their booth next to the front door. 

As they waited for their cheeseburgers and chocolate milkshakes, Gale chatted about some war movie he and his brothers saw that sounded god awful boring, no matter how much he tried re-explaining the plot to them. Madge and Katniss rolled their eyes and told him if he wanted to see the movie again so badly, to go see it by himself. “I’m not going to the movies by myself like some weirdo,” he scoffed, taking his hands off the table as the waitress deposited their plates of food and drinks. 

“Why not?” Katniss asked, picking up a french fry to dip into her milkshake. “I do it all the time.” 

“Because you hate people.” 

“So do you.” He shrugged, not having much to argue there, and picked up his burger. 

“So what time is Trinket summoning you tomorrow?” Gale asked, changing the subject completely, and tearing into his burger. Grease dripped down his hands and Madge tossed a pile of napkins at him. He accepted with a smile and slid his side of pickles over to her, something he purposely ordered more of because he knew how much she liked them. Madge happily bit into one, her eyes gazing at him with such adoration, Katniss rolled her eyes. Their coupling was too much for her sometimes. 

“I thought you didn’t want me talking about marching band,” she said innocently enough, taking a bite into her own burger.

“I didn’t want you talking about Mellark,” he said pointedly, wagging a fry at her. “Marching band is different. Less annoying and less boy drama. So what time does Miss Cream Puff have you coming in?”

It irritated her that Gale simplified her great dislike for Peeta Mellark as mere boy drama because it was far more complicated than that, but there was no point trying to explain it to Gale. He understood a lot about her, but when it came to Peeta… Well, it was best to let him believe whatever he wanted. “Eight a.m. sharp,” she said sourly, dipping another french fry into her milkshake.

Gale winced. “That sucks. Why so early?” 

“Peeta couldn’t get out of working his afternoon shifts and it was either that or not have a single weekend off until November.” She was still bitter about the change in schedule. Originally Miss Trinket wanted them twice a week outside of color guard’s normal rehearsal times, but with Peeta’s work schedule not being as flexible as Katniss’, she’d decided to make it morning rehearsals and make those shorter, which forced them to add another day of rehearsal to make up for the cut time. Now instead of having rehearsal four times a week, Katniss had five with her weekends full of shifts at Aunt LuLu’s shop for the extra cash she desperately needed. This summer was going to blow.

“I still think you should’ve been picked for Juliet,” Katniss told Madge teasingly. “You and Gale, maybe?” she cooed. “The true star-crossed lovers of Athens Ridge.” 

Gale scowled. “I’d rather drop dead than have to deal with Trinket when she’s in choreographer mode. She’s a total tyrant.” 

“She’s not so bad once you get used to her.” 

“Tell me what you think after dealing with her for a whole season, oh captain, my captain.” 

Point taken.

Much like at the pool, they talked for a bit about things going on in their lives—Madge taking some online French class because her grades last semester weren’t great; Gale’s successful find for parts with Thom in the junkyard. Katniss didn’t say much as she munched on her burger and fries, afraid Madge would lecture her again on Peeta Mellark and her inability to let things go with him. That and she promised she was done talking about him. But outside of marching band and him, not much was going on in her life. She felt a bit pathetic about that. 

Conversation picked up when Sae came over, asking how things were doing. The three smiled at the old woman, happy to fill her in on all the small details of their lives. Sae was the unofficial grandmother of the Seam. Always there to show her support for her kiddos. Her small diner was covered with pictures of sports teams she’s sponsored over the years, pictures of her and kids dressed in dance gear, holding certificates. 

“Did you hear the news about Katniss, Sae?” Madge asked when the topic of marching band came up. Sae was always interested in that, loving watching her talented kids play as they wove around the field. “She’s going to be our Juliet this year! Isn’t that exciting?” 

Sae’s grey eyes warmed, turning to Katniss. “Is that so? Captain and the lead part?” She shook her head in astonishment, her salt and peppered colored hair coming loose from her hair tie. “You were always so talented with those flags. I’m not surprised. Who’s your Romeo?” 

“Peeta Mellark.” The name felt lodged in her throat, but thankfully, it squeezed out without too much of a squeak in her voice. 

Sae didn’t know all the kids on the west side, but she definitely knew Peeta. He would often tag along with her and her dad on their trips to the woods, stopping at the diner after for hot chocolate and pie. In fact, his picture was one of the first ones you saw coming in—Sae and six-year-old Peeta smiling at the camera, her arm around him as he proudly held up his lost baby tooth. Her dad had taken the picture, she remembered, and if the camera’s lens had shifted a little more to the right, it would have also captured five-year-old Katniss pouting on the side, upset that he kept losing his baby teeth when she’d lost none. It was a picture her gaze avoided whenever they visited Sae’s, unable to stomach the sight of an old friend turned asshole, the memory of her dad’s laughter as he took the photo. 

“Oh, Peeta,” Sae chuckled, the familiar twinkle she always got in her eyes when he was around. The old woman doted on him when they were kids and he ate up her attention like there was no tomorrow. “How is that boy? Staying out of mischief, I hope?” 

Gale and Madge looked to her with knowing smiles, wondering what she would say. Katniss cleared her throat and looked down at her half-eaten plate for a moment. “Fine, I guess. We don’t hang out anymore. You know that, Sae.” 

She did know that, but it never stopped her from asking whenever he came up. “Aye, girl, I do. I suppose you aren’t happy with Effie Trinket’s choice, then?” 

Gale snorted. “Happy? More like obsessively pissed. She hasn’t shut up about it since May.” She glared at her friend and he shrugged, popping a fry in his mouth. “What? You haven’t.” 

Sae gave one of her warm, crooked teeth smiles. “Maybe this is the push you kiddos need to kiss and make up.” Katniss’ cheeks warmed at the mention of kisses, remembering Leevy’s comment how they were so going to have sex by the end of the year. She still hadn’t fully forgiven her friend for that suggestion.

“I’m afraid that’s impossible, Sae,” she said, her voice still a little strained. “We’re just too different.”  

“Ah, well. I suppose we grow in different directions sometimes,” the woman sighed with a shake of her head. A woman from the book club table called for her and Sae gave them a parting wave and smile. “Tell Peeta ol’ Sae misses her boy and that he needs to come in more. I haven’t seen him in ages.”

Katniss pointedly avoided Gale and Madge’s amused smirks, focusing on the burger in front of her. “I’ll be sure to pass the message along,” she muttered, taking a big bite of her food to avoid continuing this conversation. She loved Sae. Thought of her like a grandmother. But there was no way in hell was she telling Peeta that. No way. Then he’d think she was gushing about him to anyone who would listen, thrilled to be his Juliet, a role many girls at school would kill for (Probably. Maybe. She thinks.), and then his stupid ego would just get bigger and he’d be even more obnoxious to deal with. No, best not to mention anything and lie next time she saw Sae. 

A small part felt guilty at that, though, because Sae was like a grandma who wanted the best for her, and Peeta too, she guessed, but again, Sae didn’t know what happened between them. And Katniss wasn’t going to fill her in on their broken history six years too late. 

Her phone next to her plate vibrated, signifying a text message just came in. Wiping her greasy hands, Katniss frowned, picking up her phone. Who was texting her? Everyone who’d text her was either sitting right across from her or were busy at work or camp. The little text message lit up at her touch, showing it was from an unknown number, and her frown turned into a scowl as she read it. 

Hey!!!!!!!!!1!1111!!!!!!! the message read with a thousand typo-filled exclamation marks. God, who text like that? Trinket gave me ur ######## Hope thats cool. Thought Id give mine!!!!!!!111111 🤗 Ill see u  Mon dearest Juliet ❤️❤️❤️❤️!!!!!!!!!!!!111!😘😘😘😘!!!111!!!!!! 

For the briefest of seconds, Katniss swore her vision blacked out. One moment she was staring at her phone. The next, darkness. Like her brain couldn’t process the simple text on her phone and chose to shut down instead. When her vision cleared, the message was still there, glaring brightly at her with those thousand exclamation/number marks. 

Peeta Mellark texted her. He had her number.

         Her stomach churned and now she feared that what her mother always warned about Sae’s greasy food would come true now and she’d throw it all up. 

Peeta Mellark texted her. It was truly official. He had her number and she had his and they were partners now. If she had any doubts about this whole thing before—as if she had dreamt the last four weeks of her life—they were wiped clean now. Replaced with this typo-filled text message from the very boy who hurt her. 

“You okay?” Madge asked.

Katniss nodded and clicked out of the message, tossing the phone into her bag. She’d deal with it later.

[kob131]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4l1pL3ATN0

Let’s break down Vexed’s Weiss video, shall we?

“You know how i feel about Weiss, she’s my favorite character.”

Vexed, what does that even mean? Considering how invested you are at this point in the show’s failure, I don’t know if “favorite character” means “character I like” or “My go to shield to deflect accusations that I hate the show.”

“Weiss worked because they had a plan for her-”

They also had a plan for Blake and you proclaim her as the worst so clearly that doesn’t mean anything.

“Weiss could have been selfless and traveled with Qrow and Maria to hand over the relic-”

*slams down a huge stack of papers*

1. Cordovon SPECIFICALLY said WEISS could come home. She never said anyone else could come as well. And considering her attitude, there is a good reason to assume she WOULDN’T let anyone else with her. 

2. Weiss coming home would likely result in the Relic landing in Jacques’ hands. Even if we didn’t know already that Watts was going to meet with Jacques (which would end with him getting the Relic), Jacques is shown to be self serving and pretty damn weak. Meaning if someone threatened his life for the relic (say, a psychotic scorpion Fanaus?), he’d probably hand it over. And Weiss would logically have no way of stopping this. After all, she escaped in part thanks to her weapon (which Jacques would take from her) and Klein (fired). If either DID happen, you’d screech ‘Stupid for the sake of the plot!’

3. There is no way for anyone to sneak with her. You can’t hide anyone away in the ships for that long, they can’t take Qrow because why would Cordovon let Weiss take back a suspicious bird and she’d be powerless on her own.

4. You screeched for two years that spiliting up the main cast was a terrible idea and now you demand that they should have done just that? Way to flip flop.

5. You’d bitch about the others letting her go as ‘letting their friend be kidnapped and shipped back to her abusive household.’ You already twist so much to benefit your agenda so I know this for certain.

This shit was pointed out a year ago. Get with the program.

“Why didn’t Weiss go back?”

*jabs above* In your own words: it’d be ‘stupid for the sake of the plot.’

“Let’s play a quick game-”

Yes lets.

“5 seconds to answer: Why did Weiss escape to Mistral?”

Because she was being coped up in a room by her father, thought her sister was in Mistral and escaped to go find her..and she didn’t know where Team RWBY was and the source of her escaping was Jacques’ abuse.

That took me a nanosecond. It took you several months to ask it. Speed up.

“If you answered: ‘to escape her father’ You are wrong. If you said “To meet up with team RWBY, you are wrong. She did it to find Winter-”

Yeah huh, smug asshole?

Mind sating WHY she went to find Winter?

... No? Strange. One would think explaining a character’s actions would be your priority here to show it doesn’t make sense.

Oh right. You didn’t explain because the explanation was exactly what I said: She didn’t know were Team RWBY was and she was escaping her father. Both of which DO NOT APPLY in this situation. Gee, it’s almost like context and truth is your fucking Kryptonite.

“Why didn’t she offer to take the relic to Ironwood?”

Because it’s stupid, forces her back into the same situation she was in before and goes against the thing you screeched for years about.

“Weiss thinks she’ll be taken back to her-”

She KNOWS she’ll be taken back to her father. Cordovon specifically said “I’ll take you HOME”. You played the fucking clip were she said that Vexed, is your short term memory shot?

No wait, he had to write out the script, record the audio, find the clip and download it, edit this all together and post it. AT least because I would assume he would do the bare minimum of research to make sure he wasn't spouting shit. So either he is so assured that he’s right he didn’t even pay attention to this VERY OBVIOUS detail or he’s relying on the audience’s negative perception of RWBY to cover his tracks. This is why I do not accept the idea of Vexed Viewer making mistakes like this: he spends weeks making these videos. I can catch myself making stupid claims with posts that take an hour to type up. Clearly he should know better.

“Oh wait, they didn’t take her back to Ironwood-”

Which is noted by the characters to be something unusual and unexpected. So to present this as a rebuttal to Weiss not wanting to go back to Atlas is to expect the characters to know the plot and script instead acting on known information (like, you know, human beings?).

“Oh look at all these times Jacques should have been able to be taken back to her father because you claim she’s a minor!”

No one has ever argued that Vexed. As I have shown, she KNEW she would be handed over back to her father because that was the offer CORDOVON GAVE HER.

This is blatant strawmanning to avoid the fact that the actual argument against you can’t be denied. And since you refuse to not bitch like a self entitled brat, you won’t admit you were wrong. 

“There is no downside to Weiss return-”

“Cordovin: (sighs) If Miss Schnee has truly come to her senses and wishes to return to her family, then, of course, the Atlas military will escort her home. But the kingdom will not be responsible for her "friends" of... questionable character. (glances at Blake specifically upon saying her last statement) “

Reminder we have just passed the five minute mark. Of a twenty two minute video. And Vexed has made, being abnormally generous to an unwarrented degree, two demonstrably false to the point of lying arguments. 

Starting to realize the sheer volume of his failures?

“I had to believe that a protector of the world would rather be with her friends than save the world”

*glares up at everything said previously*

No, you WANTED to believe that. You CHOOSE to believe that. You ACCEPTED it over far more rational, simple and according to you, convenient explanations.

Unless of course, you’re looking for anything and everything to bitch about in RWBY and this is your confirmation bias.

“The writers decided for Weiss to be annoying in Volume 6′s Brunswick part.”

Oh? So these parts should be so bad that they override your supposed ‘favorite character’ right? You aren’t just bitching and completely contradicting that criticism shield your dredged up right?

“Weiss screams loudly and starts hyper ventilating-”

Funny thing is he uses Keiven from Home Alone putting on after shave to say Weiss Screamed louder...even though they sound about the same (Weiss just has a higher pitch from being a woman) and Keiven screamed longer. 

Not to mention that in the original scene, it was being played like a horror scene. Same music, same angles, same pacing: it’s to sell how disturbing and unsettling the sight of these bodies are. Of course, if you were just going off memory and Vexed’s footage, you wouldn’t know that. 

“Weiss is a trained warrior and fought at the Fall of Beacon were people were dying left and right-”

A. Weiss isn’t fully trained yet. She was a first year at Beacon and had two more years at least.

B. Huntsmen are not warriors. Their training is not built to break them like a soldier or warrior. Not to mention Weiss grew up in a relatively peaceful time so it’s not like death was a close up constant like this (unless you count the WF which is different.)

C. Number of times Weiss has seen a dead body on screen before now? ... Zero? Hm, guess Vexed ‘convienently’ forgot that.

D. Any off-screen deaths Weiss would have seen at the Fall of Beacon you would have bitched about as not being shown. You bitch about stuff on a lower level (he’s bitched about the phrase ‘Oh God’ before) so there’s a perecedent for this/

And E. These bodies are in a different situation than any in the Fall of Beacon. Those are freshly killed bodies on a battlefield. Weiss would be expecting those. These are mummified bodies in a civilian setting, with the killer nowhere in site and out of nowhere. No shit she’d be shocked: Yang (someone who lost an arm) is also acting the same and Qrow (a seasoned warrior who actually DOES fit your description) is shocked too.

Once again though, this stuff wouldn’t come up in your mind because Vexed doesn’t acknowledge it or consider it. Thus you’re being guided away from these issues. 

Starting to see how sneaky Vexed is?

“Weiss is being dumb and could break through the cellar door!”

Once again, he’s being sneaky, splicing this next to the body discovery point, trying to make them seem like similar situation...even though the moment he is talking about is them running from the Apathy. Grimm that have been shown to be immune to regular weaponry. AND is making them sluggish AND is advancing on them. She’s panicked and all the shit Vexed is pointing to takes time and concentration: stuff their situation is ROBBED of. And yet again, you wouldn’t know that because Vexed NEVER GIVES CONTEXT HERE. Only after this is stated.

“I know you guys are saying in the comments-”

Just another strawman.  Vexed is pretending to addressing points by making up weaker ones. Even then, his bullshit counterargument “The Apathy drain your will, not make you a damsel in distress” kills his OWN argument as a lack of will would cause Weiss to lose concentration and fail.

For Vexed’s argument to work, Weiss would have to either not be panicking (stupid and unrealistic) or ignore her own powers’ limitations (bad writing).

“Thank God Yang was down there-”

Ruby had just disintergrated the Grimm. They were given a reprieve. Once again, Vexed doesn’t show this.

“You can’t have her be fearless now-”

She’s neither trapped nor panicking nor being affected by the Apathy. The fear bullshit is on you.

“*Vexed cringes*”

Oh look, that thing I was doing about ten minutes ago. Catch up Vexed- Oh wait, you’re too busy gutting your own eyeballs.

“We don't see Weiss in Atlas-”

Gee, not like we have to set up the Ace Ops, set up Ironwood, Winter and Penny again, set up Watts and Tyrian’s threat, set up Robyn, work through all of this and much more and end it all. It’s almost like that’s fucking SECONDARY to telling the story and as you showed, Weiss already has moments in Volume 7.

So I guess Vexed is basically saying “Volumes 4 and 5 weren’t THAT bad” since he’s been begging the CRWBY to go back and overstuff the Volumes AGAIN.

Next part has him actually praising the moment between Weiss and her mom. Sounds good right? It would...if it actually matched Vexed’s standards. 

How many times has he ignored things like distance, positioning and the such in things like the Adam Vs. Yang and Blake fight just to push his bullshit through to the audience? Just how many moments that would qualify for, in his own words ‘well written, well directed moments’ just so he can prove a point?

At the very least before, I could give a bare minimum level of respect for Vexed for sticking by his principles, as stupid as they are. But no, he just praises a scene because he likes what happened in it even though stuff of similar quality he overlooked or bashed. 

“Weiss just gets handed her proof about her dad and doesn’t have to do anything!”

Except endure being shot at by her mother and there’s nothing that's been shown before that could be used as proof besides this. What do you want, proof to magically appear in Jacques’ office? To have Weiss gain fingerprint scanning tech despite never showing that before? To have Jacques be excepetionally dumb? At least we get something respectable out of Weiss’ mother here and it isn’t a huge leap in logic like the others.

“I’d have more of a problem if this scene wasn’t so good and I’d have less of a problem if this made sense for Willow. It doesn’t but this isn’t her video-”

No no no no no.

No.

After all the tangents and bullshit you’ve pulled in other videos AND THIS VIDEO, you denying proof for something you call ‘a point of contention’ is pretty fucking rich of you. Just because you like a scene doesn’t mean you can just ignore the problems with it, same with the inverse too. How is this any better than a Yang fanboy ignoring issues with scenes involving Yang because they like it?

Literally all you had left was your own daman principles, Vexed. Now you’re burning them.

“One thing the writers have made very clear is Weiss really enjoys dunking on her father-”

Using her ignoring her father’s call in Volume 3, her breakdown at the Atlas Elite and her talk back to Jacques in Volume 4? One of which is not ‘dunking’ (or extreme humiliation) and the other is only partially about her father and mostly about how detached the elite of Atlas are.

“-SO I shouldn’t be surpised she came in like a-”

Not even gonna let you finish that shitty reference. That was just unnecessary and not even funny. It feels more like a combination of a Family Guy cutaway for it’s abruptness and a fanboy cheering for it’s framing.

“The Jacques being taken down scene was bad because it was matter of fact and silly instead of emotionally driven-”

Vexed, the issues Weiss has with Jacques is rooted in his abuse of her and her family, his entitlement to the family business and his business practices harming her family name. This takedown has nothing to do with any of these. She is not confronting him about the damage he has done to her and her family nor the damage he has done in his pursuit of growing the business. She is confronting him about the election fraud, a story point.

No shit this isn’t emotional- Weiss’ emotional ties here are SHALLOW. It would ring hollow to the audience for her to make this emotional because she has no emotional attachment to the actions he performed. All she would have is it being her dad, which isn’t enough. 

Then again, from the perspective of a Weiss fanboy, this would look bad because that moment you’ve been writing in your head didn’t happen. I should know.

“*Vexed bitches about a joke about Weiss not knowing if she can arrest Weiss because ‘hur dur book smart!’*”

She’s not an officer, she’s a Huntress. I don’t think they can actually arrest people.

“This should have been between father and daughter in an epic moment-”

*rolls eyes*

Vexed, look at this scene. Look at all the other shit happening here. Then remember the people dying to the cold in Mantle.

What makes you THINK it was meant to be that way? Hell, what makes you think that would be a GOOD IDEA?

.. Yeah, that’s what I thought.

“I wanted to see the sister dynamic that has been missing from RUby and Yang-”

You had your chance in Volume 6. You ignored for Bumbleby bashing. You don’t get a say.

“Hur dur, characters ssay things we know already!”

Gee, it’s almost like Weiss and Winter talking about this was to restablish were they were because a certain group of people made it certain that they needed everything spoonfed to them or else they throw a tantrum.

“Ironwood done nothin’ wrong!”

There’s Vexed’s pandering again.

The man made no attempt to talk anything through until he was forced to with Mantle. He lied to Team RWBY about Amity and made them operate under false information. And I have made the fuck ups in Ironwood’s plan in Episode 11 VERY clear.

Stop pandering to the RWBY hate crowd and have some fucking principles.

“Oh, Weiss lied to Ironwood! How hypocritical”

*holds up a piece of paper saying ‘That’s the point’*

“Why would it bother Winter that she’s chosen as the Winter Maiden? ANd why does she say that she wasn’t given a choice when she said she was ‘proposed’?”

gee, wasn’t it you guys who claimed Ozpin proposing to Pyrrha wasn’t giving her an actual choice? Hm, I guess things change...when they benefit you.

“Wow, Weiss is so bad for not telling Winter about the Relic!-”

COnversation wasn’t about that and it wouldn’t come up, nor is it a particularly serious thing. But nice try Vexed.

“Weiss runs away because she pains to carve out her-”

Wait a minute, didn’t you say that Weiss was going to Msitral to find Winter? Hmmm, awfully inconsistent of you vexed. Almost you lie constantly for your own benefit.

“HOW MANY TIMES WILL YOU TALK ABOUT FINDING YOUR OWN WAY?!”

Gee, didn’t know that, by your own admission, three times in four Volumes was SOOO awful.

“This is how they treated their relationship?”

As a narrative tool to emphasize a theme of the Volume? Good on them.

“You know, everyone still thinks Weiss is this pampered heiress-”

One guy said that. In the entire Volume. About self reliance and finding your own path.

“Weiss never said a word to Robyn and didn’t support her-”

You know Vexed, what’s the difference between you and a whiny Bumbleby shipper bitching about them not kissing yet? You sound so entitled and so whiny about you not getting your way. Your arguments are breaking down into disjointed bitching, just like an entitled brat.

It’s fucking pathetic.

“Maybe she’ll try her luck doging the coronavirus at RTX! Maybe she was too busy watching Gen:LOCK.”

Aw, what’s wrong? baby didn’t get his undeserved baba?

I can’t believe how much has changed Vexed. You’ve pretty much outed yourself as an entitled fan perpetually whining about the show not being the way you want it. You have no respect earned. You have no principles. You have no standards. You don’t even have an end goal: all you have is your whims.

Pathetic.

[marshmallowatheart]

To All The Boys I've Loved Before (Part 37)

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20) (21) (22) (23) (24) (25) (26) (27) (28) (29) (30) (31) (32) (33) (34) (35) (36)

Dear Veronica,

Have I told you how much everything sucks without you next to me? Because it does. It sucks so bad.

Have I told you that your simple presence makes everything better? Because it does. Like a thousand times better.

There's not a day that goes by that I'm not grateful that my everyday has you in it.

- L

P.S. Have I told you kissing you when I was twelve is the best decision I've ever made?

She kinda hates that she's swooning because of Logan Echolls but she kinda loves that he's making her swoon. Her eyes graze over his messy handwriting again and she inks her own blank piece of paper.

Dear Logan,

Have I ever told you kissing you in the middle of my kitchen is the best decision I've ever made? Because it is. At the time, it felt like the bravest thing I've ever done.

Everyday is definitely better with you in it.

- V

It feels sappy as she writes it but she's full of sappy emotions caused by this brown eyed boy that she's come to love; she knows he'll smile that smile that makes his whole face kinda just light up and that makes it worth it.

She doesn't expect a response but she gets one. She feels a rush, a warm and jittery rush that's become accustomed with being Logan's girlfriend.

Speaking of kisses, I really love it when you kiss me. You know, in that you can't help yourself kinda way. It's sexy as hell.

Logan's fighting a smile, eyes flickering between Veronica and his notes - he's got to keep up appearances for the sake of not getting caught but he finds it difficult to not look at her and to not smile when she's writing him back. Her letter may have triggered their reunion but he doesn't usually receive such affection written responses from her.

I like it when you hold me tighter. Like you can't help yourself. Like you want me as much as I want you.

His heart beats ridiculously faster as he reads the note, he blows out a low breath, looking at the words as though he were looking at her all while trying to control himself. He reminds himself that they're in class, that even though he can see her he can't touch her.

God, Veronica, I always want you. Always. I don't think you understand how much I want you. It's hard not to lose control when I'm with you, bobcat but I can't.

She swallows, fighting the urge to grab him by the hand and drag him out of class. There's only one response she can think of to him, it's a response she's given him before but it's never left her mind and so she writes,

What if I want you to?

She doesn't get a reply but after class he's tugging her away and into a supply closet.

"Maybe notes in class aren't allowed for a reason," he whispers into the dark of the cramped room, hands on her waist, completely focused on her.

She grins, tilting her head slightly and toying with the seams of his shirt. "Here I thought you were a bad boy."

"Am I a bad boy?" His voice hoarse, his body pressing into hers and forehead resting against hers. "'Cause I gotta tell ya, I've been feeling rather reformed."

"Mmm," she hums, nose nudging his as her eyes stare at his lips before flickering up to meet his eyes. "Do good boys pull their girlfriends into mop closets? How does one gain access to such things?"

He lets out a soft snort, lips kissing her cheek before whispering, "Coming from the girl that uses the girls bathroom as her own personal office."

He doesn't leave her time to make her quips, hands find her bottom and his mouth finally goes to hers.

It's a short kiss and she already wants more, drifting closer as he makes them come apart. He gives her a light smile, keeping an inch of distance as he speaks, "I want you to promise me something."

"Hmmm?" She finds herself humming, eyes still trailing on his lips that's messed with her watermelon lip gloss.

"You'll tell me to stop. Whenever it feels like too much. Tell me to stop," he says, eyes forcing here to look at him and she knows he's referring to her note.

She nods her head, easily accepting these conditions that he's made solely for her convenience. "Does that mean you won't be pulling away when we're in the middle of a make out session?"

"I can't promise that entirely but we can test the waters," he promises. "You need to tell me to stop if it's too much, babe. It's so easy to get carried away with you."

She breaths into him, body lifting as she kisses him, eyes closed, she whispers, "I can do that." She hopes that she can because it really is way to easy to get carried away with him.

"I want you to be comfortable," he tells her, tucking her hair behind her ear. "I also want you to be satisfied."

"Mmm," she nods, his hands are on her cheeks and she wonders if he can feel how warm she is. She wonders if he knows it's because of him. "And I don't want you to be tardy."

He squishes her face a bit and she wrinkles her nose at him, he grins, kissing her again before letting his hands fall away from her cheeks. "Who needs physics?"

"You do," she laughs, pulling him back for a quick kiss but halts midway. "Remember," she starts and he laughs, soft and warm and she feels like she's floating on a Logan high. "Force equals mass times acceleration."

"Mmm," he hums into her mouth, kissing her as much as he can.

"Light is a particle that can exhibit properties of a wave," she lets out, airy and he's giving her light kisses before they have to part ways again.

"I'd learn more staying here with you," he whispers and she pushes him away. He gives her a final kiss and she sighs, needing to cool down. She really wishes he didn't have to go to physics.

--vm--

"These are for you," Carmen chirps, smiling as she places an open box full of cupcakes on Veronica's table. "Thanks for being my knight in shining armour."

Veronica peeks into the box and playfully remarks, "What do I have to do for a pie?"

Carmen's smile slips away and Veronica mentally cringes. "I'm kidding," she assures. "They're great. Thanks."

The brunette relaxes, relieved and takes a seat next to the blonde. "I really am so grateful for what you've done for me, Veronica. If you ever need anything, at all, I'm your girl, Captain."

"I'm gonna hold you to that," she teases, chuckling. "I hear Tad's been trying to get you back."

Carmen nods. "He's been calling and coming around but I can't. He says I'm flushing our two year relationship down the toilet like he wasn't the one that had done that all by himself."

Veronica nods sympathetically. "He's a jerk. You deserve better. You deserve much better," she adds, channelling Meg.

"I know," Carmen smiles, acknowledging and assuring that she's not backsliding. "And I saw what Logan did yesterday, that was just amazing. You're really lucky, Veronica. He really loves you."

I'm in love with you, Veronica Mars, she remembers the warm night they'd confessed their true feelings to each other.

Veronica nods, soft smile and then she realises that he hasn't said it again. She realises that she hasn't said it at all.

--vm--

"You're friends with Ryan's sister?" Heather frantically asks the moment she's in the backseat of Logan's car.

Veronica's brows furrow, she glances at her sister's wide eyes and deep frown. "Yes. And why?"

"Who's Ryan's sister?" Logan asks, eyes flickering between the Mars girls.

"Cindy Mackenzie," Veronica tells him. "Goes by Mac. She helped me with the test scores."

He nods and any response he had was drowned out by Heather's exaggerated groan. "In all of the girls in all of Neptune, you had to try to be friends with her."

"What's with the tone, Snippy?" Veronica redirects, surprised.

"You're not capable of having girlfriends. You're gonna have a fall out and Ryan's gonna hate me," she slumps, pouting with a huff.

"First off, ouch," Veronica frowns, surprise turning into anger. "How am I incapable of having girlfriends?"

"Because you're seventeen and you don't have any?" Heather throws out. "Georgia's obviously been conditioned by Wallace to like you so that doesn't count."

"Okay you're being way mean," the older Mars shakes her head, disbelieving that her sister is saying these things to her, especially for no good reason.

"It's true! You get along well with us, your family and you get along with guys," Heather tries to explain, defending her criticism and feeling the slightest bit guilt for the way Veronica's face crumbles for a second. "But you don't do well with girls for some reason."

Everything feels like white noise and Veronica doesn't care for Heather's explanations right this second. "Well, I don't appreciate being judged by my people preferences."

Heather pouts, loud and dramatic while Veronica crosses her arms as she glares out the window.

Logan sucks in a breath, his car has never been this silent with the two of them in it. He swallows, looking between both girls before looking into the rear view mirror and asking, "So how was school?"

Heather decidedly continues to speak to Logan while Veronica continues to silently stare out the window.

--vm--

"I don't think she meant it to be as mean as it sounded," Logan tries to placate the angry Veronica before him. "She's just upset that there's a possibility of another thing getting in the way of her being with the boy she likes."

Veronica gets out the water bottles from the fridge, twisting on the cap, she rants, "So I'm just supposed to get over it? She was outright mean to me for no good reason. I'm her sister. I take care of her. I do everything she wants. She's never spoken to Meg that way. She always says whatever she wants to me. How is that fair?"

She gulps down the water and Logan's still thinking of a rebuttal, a way to ease the tension between the two sisters when Veronica continues her rant, "And if I had to say anything resembling something she doesn't like, she throws a tantrum and goes to her room, giving me the silent treatment."

She's visibly upset and Logan really doesn't know what to do considering the person the other side of this battlefield is Heather. He touches her arm, moving closer, his other arm caressing the top of her hair and he softly says, "She's a kid, babe."

"You know once she got upset because of a joke I made," Veronica snorts, letting Logan hold her.

Heather's retreated to her room, it's the first time that he's seen her lock herself away when he was here. "What was the joke?" He prompts, hoping that she lets out all her pent up frustrations on him rather than her little sister.

"It was before we got Backup," she tells him, moving out of his hold and getting together ingredients to make them a sandwich. "So we were talking about getting a dog and Duncan had asked what she was gonna name it so I jokingly said that it was after her crush," she recalls, buttering the slices of bread.

"She threw a hissy fit and stormed off. She wouldn't talk to me. I baked her cookies and left it as an apology on her night stand and she still didn't talk to me," Veronica goes on, pausing only to shake her head and grab the ham. "She ate the cookies though. And you know what? I won't so much as get an apology out of this," she blows out, placing the ham on the buttered slices of bread laid out.

"Wait, why would that have made her upset?" He asks, confused as he helps her by breaking out the lettuce.

"Because her crush was Duncan."

This surprises him and he shakes his head, "What is with you Mars girls and Duncan Kane? He's not that special."

For the first time since the car ride, she cracks a slight smile. "Are you jealous?"

"I mean, I had at least thought I had Heather on my team," he sighs, trying to subdue his disappointment.

She's cutting up the sandwiches and feels herself lighten a bit. She hands him a plate and says, "We both like you better."

"Yeah?" He asks, eyes meeting hers.

She smiles, accompanied with a easy nod and a soft, "Yeah. Can you go give this to her please?"

He gives her a soft smile, taking the plate from her hand and says, "You're amazing, you know that, right?"

Veronica hums, nodding her head and hopes he doesn't see the doubt that lingers behind her eyes.

[lillaxtrigger]

The ghostly maid: Love fishing

Nightfall befell the manor. Trevor was in his bedroom, sleeping like a baby. Suddenly, someone banged on his door, jolting him awake and making him fall of his bed. The boy opened his door and saw Jewely on the other side. "Jewely? It's two a.m in the morning. What's up?" he said. "You have a guest." she simply said. Jewely lead him to the living room, whereupon Pike and a woman were waiting. "Pike? What are you doing here? Who is that?" Trevor said. "Hey Trevor, this is my mom. Mom, this is the friend I was telling you about.". The woman approached Trevor and held out her hand. "Hello there young man. My name is Jane. I've heard a lot about you.". Trevor shook her hand and said: "Uh...It's nice to meet you.". Jewely suddenly appeared, which spooked Jane.. "Greetings, Manquer Jane. It's a pleasure to meet you." she says. "A ghost?..an actual ghost." Jane said as she shook. "Relax mom. This Jewely, Trevor's maid. She's cool." Pike said. "And a ghost." Trevor added. Jane approached Jewely and tried to touch her, but her hand passed right through her. "Would you like some coffee?" Jewely said. "Um...sure. I would love some.". She followed the ghost girl into the kitchen. "Pike, what is happening?" Trevor once again asked. "Your parents got divorced?" Trevor said in shock. "Yep." Pike nonchalantly said. "Well, why?". "Numerous reasons. Mainly money. My dad was always kinda cheap. I mean, he didn't even spare some to buy me a decent pair of shoes. Thanks for the new ones, by the way.". "No problem. Is that it?". "Well, there's a bunch of other stuff, but I don't want to get into it right now. The point is that my mom had enough and filed for divorce. Then he kicked my mom and me out.". "Oh. And you want to stay at my place?" Trevor said. "Yeah, just at least until my mom finds somebody new. You don't mind, do you?". "Are you kidding? My best friend shows up after getting kicked out of his home and asks if he can crash with me. How can I say no?". Pike breathed a sigh of relief and said "Thanks man." Both of them whoo'd in excitement. The whooping could be heard all the way in the dining room, were Jane was drinking coffee out of a teacup. Her shaking was causing coffee to be spilled on the table, which Jewely quickly cleaned up. The maid saw that the guest looked frightened and said: "You really should try to relax. I know that what you're going through right now is frightfully stressful. Believe me. I've seen it happen so many times to my former masters that I have lost count. You should be relieved to be out of such a bad relationship.". "That- that's what I...". Once Jane started to relax, she said "T-Thank you for your hospitality. Shouldn't have Trevor's parents have woken up by now?". "I've afraid they can't join us." Jewely said. "Why? are they on a business trip?" Jewely simply closed her eyes and sunk her head. "No...When did they go?". "I'm afraid they left when the boy was only 8. Bénissez leurs pauvres âmes." "So he's been living by his lonesome all this time?". "The servants do tend to his needs and I try my best to raise him. But due to his parent early departure, I'm afraid that the company his family owns demand him to have accelerated training, draining most of his free time. He has managed to find solace through your son, though.". Hearing this, certain comfert washes over Jane, as well as pride in her son. "I'm certain that Trevor has offered Pike a chance for both of you to stay here for the time being to Pike by now. I'm sure that Pike will accept wholeheartedly, but the decision is ultimately yours." Jewely said. A month has passed. Jane laid by the poolside, while a servant hands her a Martini. "Your cocktail. Ms. Jane" he said. "Thank you, Bellman. That will be all." she said. The servant walked away. Pike was looking at his mom through the second-floor window with a disappointed stare. Trevor walks over to him and says: "Alright Pike. It's been fun, but I feel like both have you have overstayed your welcome. I understand that you and your mom are trying to get through the whole ordeal. But you two have to move on. It's been over a month now.". "I know. I'm ready to go, but my mom is a different story. I keep trying to get her to look for someone, but she keeps saying that she's not ready to find someone new. I don't know what going on with her.". Trevor looks out the window to see Jane, then he says: "I think I know what's wrong.". "You do?" Pike questioned. "Yes. Pike, I'm afraid that your mom is slowly becoming something called...a golddigger.". "...What's that?". "It's a term used to describe a person who latches onto someone with a lot of money and leech of them.". "Oh come on. She can't be turning into that in just one month." Pike said. Trevor pulled out a receipt and read it, saying "1,500 dollars for chocolate. 5,000 dollars for a massage chair. 10,000 dollars for stupid shades And I had to cover for them, making the chairmen of my company question my buying habits. If this doesn't stop, then I'll be forced to kick you and your mom out.". "I've tried dozens of times to get her to try and meet people, but she keeps brushing it off.". "Okay, what do you suggest we try?" Trevor asked. Both of them thought for a moment, then Pike suggested: "What about one of those CEO guys you have meetings with?". "That could work, but we need to convince her to be with them.". "Don't worry about it, I got it covered.". Trevor and Pike were standing outside the meeting room. Pike was looking inside and saw that over half of the people in there were old men. "Trevor, what's wrong with you?" Pike said. "What?". "You told me that most of these guys were available.". "They are available. Some of them have gone through divorces like your mom.". "You also could have mentioned that most of them were near their deathbeds," Pike said. "Well, your mom is pretty old too." Trevor rebuttal. "She's 35!". "Well, what do you want from me? This is a much as I can pull off." Pike looks back inside and said "Okay, I see a couple of guys in there that look around my mom's age. We might still be able to pull this off." Jane approached them, wearing a grey business suit, saying "Boys, why am I doing this again?". "Because, uh..." Trevor stammered. Pike finished his sentence, saying: "Trevor needs you to fill in for his assistant in this meeting. The other one is sick.". "Assistant? I don't know." Jane said. "Oh, come on. It's easy. You don't really have to do that much. Right, Trevor?". "Uh, y-y-yes! It's stupidly easy to be an assistant." Trevor said. "And, it the least you could do. After all, we have been living in his house.". "I...I suppose.". Trevor and Jane entered the meeting room, where all eyes were on them. "Hey, everyone. Sorry that I'm late, I...I was stuck in traffic." Trevor said. "Mm-hm. So who is this women you brought in with you?" a chairman said. "This is Jane. She is my assistant who will be helping me with today's meeting.". Trevor sat down and said: "Jane, will you pass these papers around?", then got out a small stack of papers. After a while, Trevor and Jane came out of the meeting room. "Well, that was rather...interesting. I'll wait out in the car." she said. After she walked off, Pike asked "What happened?". "Nothing, that's what. I tried to get your mom to go around and nobody but one guy seemed interested." Trevor said. "What was the one guy?". "Well, he was this crotchety old man, who kept hitting on her in the middle of the meeting and wouldn't stop no matter how many times she said no. It was super uncomfortable.". "Do you got any idea's?" Pike asked. Driving in the limo, the three sat in the back, wearing casually fancy attire. "Oh this going to be so exciting. I've never been to a country club before. Isn't this exciting, sweetie?" Jane said "Uh, yeah. Can't wait to do country club stuff with you. Have you been here before, Trevor?". "Oh yeah. I've been here back when my parents were around. They used to take me all the time." Trevor said. "Well, I'm sure that wherever they are, they're hoping the best for you, Trevor.". "T-thank you. I don't really remember that much from my time in the club. But if I remember anything, my parents sure loved it. They even tried to buy it out once.". The three got out of the limo and went inside the country club. They entered the lobby and looked around, seeing the floral decor match the red carpeting, making the gold colored walls pop. "Oh my, It's like I'm in a royal palace." Jane said. "Yep, this place hasn't changed much...the flowers are new though." Trevor said. Pike saw a group of gentlemen pass through and told them: "What up, guys!". The group turned and one of them said: "Excuse me!?". "We was wondering if you'd like to show my mom around here?". "You "Was" wondering?" another one said. Trevor got in front of and said: "Pike. L-let me speak.". He turns to the gentlemen and says: "Excuse me, fine gentlemen. This fair lady of ours is looking for a night of pleasantries and delight. Might one of you exquisite men take this maiden and show her a momentous time?". "Oh. Why certainly young man. We would be delighted to." one of the gentlemen states. One of them grabs her hand gently and says to Jane: "Come with us, my lovely lady. We shall show you a spectacle of grand design and fancies.". "Oh my, how fancy. But I was looking forward with spending time with my son." she says. "Hey, don't worry mom. Well catch up later. You just enjoy yourself right now." Pike said. "If you say so.". Jane was whisked away by the group of gentlemen. Piek turns to his friend and says: "What was that?". "Oh! When you grow up around some stuffy people. You tend to know how to fake some mannerisms.". "Alright. What do you want to do?". "You know, from all my time here. I have never played golf.". Both boys were on the golf course, near the hole. Trevor's was lining up his stroke. He hit the ball and launched it into the hole. "Yes. I did it. How many strokes was that?" he said. Pike looked over a piece of paper and said: "23.". "Yikes! How did I get so many strokes?" Trevor asked. "Well, not even mentioning all the times you missed, you kept getting into the rough, sand, and water. You kept hitting trees which bounced off and hit you in the head. For the water, you tried to get the ball out by going in and stroking the ball out, which unsurprisingly didn't work, and I had to save you from drowning. And in the sand you tried getting the ball out using the putter. But you couldn't, so you got frustrated and just started swinging randomly.". "You counted those!? Man! Ah well, not bad for my first game, I'd say.". "This is the first hole." Pike remarked. Trevor sighed in defeat. "I don't get it. You said you've been here a lot before." Pike said. "Yeah, but I haven't been here since my parents were around. And I haven't exactly played golf before. I just watched my dad play it. I guess it's not really the same, is it?". "Hm, what you say we do something else?". Both boys were playing tennis. They were on opposite ends of the court, hitting the ball back to one another. As Trevor hit the ball to Pike, he got a chance to look up. "Hey, look up there." he said. Pike tried looking up, but the tennis ball hit him in the face and knocked him down. "Gah! Did you do that on purpose!?" Pike shouted. Trevor ran up and said: "No, no! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to do that! But look.", then pointed to the balcony of the building. They saw that Jane was having lunch with one of the gentlemen. They looked like they were talking and laughing. "Hey, looks like your mom got herself one of those guys. This might not have been a waste of time after all.". "Yeah, but won't this turn her into a gold digger faster?". "Pike, can I be honest with you. It might already be too late." Trevor confessed. "What do you mean?" Pike asked. "You said that your dad was very cheap and wouldn't spring for either of you, right? Well, I've been doing some thinking and realized that the jump from cheap accommodations to wealthy living might have turned your mom faster than I anticipated. Our best bet as of now as to just pass her on to someone else equally as rich, maybe richer.". "I hope this works out, then.". Some time passed as Trevor and Pike were sitting on the couch. "Why is this taking so long? Should that guy have asked her to move in?" Trevor said. "Will you calm down. It's only been a week. Relationships take time to forge. I'm sure that everything will work out." Pike said. Both of them heard the front door slam. The boys checked and saw Jane go through the hall in anger. "Uh, hey mom. How did your date with Remington go?". "It was just awful. He was so boring, always talking about his boat collection. When I told him if he had any other interests, he got all defensive. After we fought, I broke up with him. I need a martini." she said, then walked off. Both boys got back on the couch and sighed. "What do we do now?" Pike asked. "Does your mom by any chance swing both ways?" Trevor said. "I don't think so.". "Then I'm out of ideas.". Pike realized something and said: "I think I might have one more. It's not ideal, but it might work.". "Let's hear it." Trevor said. Both boys were on the computer. Pike was typing as Trevor said "Online Dating?". "Yep. Now, I know that online dating isn't a reliable assay, meeting someone face to face. But, we are running out of options. I've already created a profile for her. I just need a description.". "Hmm...how about...Woman seeking a wealthy man to have fun with." Trevor suggests. "Okay, but we need more than that. How about...Single mother looking for a rich entrepreneur with great looks, tons to spend, and know how to have a good time.". "That might work. We just need a picture of her to post.". "I got one." Pike said. He then uploaded a picture to the site. It was that of a young woman. "That doesn't really look like your mom." Trevor pointed out. "It was when she was in her 20's. I thought that posting a more flattering picture might get more people.". Pike posted the profile and said "Alright. Now we just wait and see how many people respond.". Three days later, noise could be heard outside the mansion. Pike looked out the front balcony, saying "What's all that noise?...Oh god!" He looked down and saw a mob of men standing at the front door, murmuring to one another. Trevor rushed to Pike and said: "Pike, what's happening? What going oooooh...Oh!...Oh...oh no." Pike looked down as Trevor was backing up. "I don't get it. Why are they all here?" he said. Pike looked back and saw that Trevor was trying to sneak away. He stopped in his tracks when Pike said in a stern voice: "What did you do?". "Um...Remember a couple days ago when we set up your mom dating profile?" Trevor said. "Yeeees...". "Well. I check to see how many people sent requests. Turns out, your mom is pretty popular.". "How many did you respond to?." Pike asked. "Um...all of them.". Pike was slack jawed as he said "All of them!? Trevor, there are at least 35 people down there. Are you telling me all those guys want my mom? What were you thinking!?". "I...I thought that we could go through them individually and see which one your mom like the most.". "They're not sheep, you idiot. Sooner or later, they're going to realize why they all showed up and start-" Pike said. But before he could finish. Everyone in the crowd started to throw punches and kicks at each other. "...fighting." Pike finished with frustration. As they saw the crowd mercilessly beating each other, Trevor remarked: "Man, all this over one woman? These guys must be desperate.". Pike, who looked stressed, said: "Maybe this could work out. They'll wear each other out and then we can shove them off the property.". "How did they get past the front gate?" Trevor said. "As long as my mom doesn't show herself, we should-" Pike said, but was cut off when Jane said: "What with all the noise out here?". They looked down and saw Jane at the front door, confronting the mob. "I'm trying to sleep and I hear a lot of you fighting.". The crowd stopped and all gazed at her. "Maybe they won't know it's her." Trevor said. The crowd started to murmur amongst themselves once more, saying: "Who is that?" "Isn't that the girl from the profile?". "She looks a little older." "But it does look like her.". They started to grow angry. "Oh no. MOM, RUN!" Pike shouted. Jane ran back in with the angry mob in hot pursuit. Trevor and Pike ran back inside and saw that the mob was tearing up everything in the house. From the walls and the carpet, to the living room and the dining hall. Jewely appeared and said: "Oh mon Dieu, where did all these people come from? They're tearing up everything!". "Jewely, do you know where my mom is? We need to get her out of here." "No, we need to get to the bomb shelter in the backyard. We'll be safe there. Jewely, find Pikes mom and get her there, pronto!" Trevor said. Jewely went around and looked for Jane while Trevor and Pike headed towards the backyard. As the boys ran through the halls, they saw the guys tearing through everything. In the living room, the TV was smashed, the couches were broken, and the paintings were torn apart. In the dining room, the 20-foot table was split in half and the pottery around it was in pieces. In the kitchen, food was everywhere, silverware all over the floor, and fridges tipped over. They finally made it to the backyard. Pike looked around and saw a garden, lawn decor, and brick paths, but not a shelter. "Where's the shelter? I thought you said it was in the backyard." Pike said. Trevor tipped over a bird bath, revealing a hole in the ground, then said: "It is in the backyard.". "You put it under a birdfeeder?". "Well yeah, it's underground so people can't find it. And hidden in plain sight. That mob of lonely madmen will never find us." Trevor said as he entered the shelter. Pike stood still, looking back at the mansion. Trevor peeked out and said: "What are you doing!?". "We have to wait for my mom.". He looked up and saw Jewely coming out of a second story window, holding Jane. They floated down near the shelter entrance. Jane was panicking, saying: "Pike, what's going on!? Who are all these people!?". "I'll explain later, now we have to-" Pike was saying, but he stopped when he saw some of the guys go through the back door. "Come on!" Trevor screamed. Pike and Jane rushed into the hole before the mob could get them. Trevor sealed the hatch shut. Jewely phased down into the shelter. After they climbed down, Trevor said: "I hope the other servants are doing okay.". "We are doing just fine, master Trevor." a raspy male voice answered. Trevor used his phone to light up the room and saw the servants huddled together. "Oh...neat.". "Will someone explain what was going on!?" Jane yelled. Pike sighed and said: "Mom. We-". "This is my fault. I was the one who brought all these guys here." Trevor spouted. "Trevor, you don't have to apologize. It was my idea to begin with.". "But I was the one who blew it out of proportion. If I had the least bit of foresight. None of this would have happened.". "What did you two do?" Jane said. "We used your name on a dating site to try and get you to meet someone.". "Why didn't you ask me first.". "Because we knew you'd just blow it off. Trevor said that if we didn't someone for you. He'd be forced to kick us out.". Pike said. "But why?". "Why were you spending my money on useless junk?" Trevor said. "You said we could spend it on whatever we needed.". "I meant like food and stuff, not tacky shades. I took you and Pike in so that you can maybe get back on your feet. I didn't think you'd turn into a leech.". "Trevor!" Jewely shouted. "Hey! You shut your-" Pike said. "Pike, stop." Jane said. She turned to Trevor and said: "You know what's funny. My ex-husband said the same thing a couple years back. I thought that he was being cheap at the time. But hearing it from you, I'm...I'm starting to think that he may have been right.". "Mom...No...No he wasn't. He was still a cheap tight wad. He didn't get me anything either. He didn't get me school supplies, so I had to make due with the same pencil for a month. He didn't get me a good pair of shoes, so I had to keep stapling my souls together to keep them from falling apart. Heck, he didn't even fight for custody over me. He wasn't right at all." Pike said. "If I may butt in. Both you and your former husband have problems. But you know what may be the difference is between you and him. He doesn't want to learn from it. But do you?" Jewely stated. "Yes. Yes I do. Pike. Tomorrow, we are going to find a place of our own. I'm going to get a job to help support the both of us." Jane said. "I'm sorry about what I said. It was out of bounds." Trevor said. "Trevor, sweetie. You have nothing to apologize for. And Pike, I don't want to get in the way of you two. We'll pack up and search for a new place tomorrow." Jane said. "You...you don't have to do that so soon. You could stay for a couple more weeks.". "No, we should really get going." "Hey. This is heartwarming and everything, but how are we gonna get rid of the mob outside?" Pike asked. "I called the police. They should be here any minute. They might have to bring the S.W.A.T team though.". Trevor, Pike, and Jane went out the front door of the mansion. Both Pike and his mom had their stuff packed. "Are you sure you don't need anything else?" Trevor said. "Trevor, we'll be fine. You've done plenty." Jane said. "We'll we be fine? Dude, look at your house." Pike said. Look at the entire mansion from the outside, the windows were broken, the roof caved in, and one of the walls collapsed. "Um...Well, it's nothing that insurance and lawsuit money can't fix. I'll just stay in the shelter until then.". "Okay, then. Tell Jewely that I said bye." Jane said. Both of them walked to their car and drove off. "Oh, and Pike. You're grounded for using my information without permission." Jane added. "Aw.".

[1989dreamer]

The True Measure of Our Thanksgiving (Teen Wolf (TV)) fic

Summary: Derek loves cooking food, and his cousin's birthday happens to be on Thanksgiving this year. Too bad his boyfriend who doesn't believe in celebrating thinks it's all an elaborate ruse to let the Hales off the hook for wanting turkey this day. Turns out, that's not the worst thing that could happen.

Read it on AO3

Warnings: accidental outing, bad words used, homophobic characters

Title comes from a W.T. Purkiser quote. (I liked the way it sounded.)

Derek shoved the door open with his shoulder, grunting in greeting at the pair of sneakers sitting on his coffee table. Attached to the sneakers was a pair of jean-clad legs.

The owner of the legs and sneakers grunted back at him.

“Want to help?” Derek called over his shoulder as he set the bags of groceries onto the counter. He flipped the oven on to preheat and grabbed a large bowl to set the turkey in. It would take about two hours total to dress and stuff it and cook it. In the mean time, potatoes needed to be boiled and mashed, pies needed to be prepared, green beans and corn needed to be turned into a casserole. It was a bit much for one person to do, and Derek would greatly welcome any help from jeans-and-sneakers, better known as Derek’s boyfriend Stiles Stilinski.

“Nah,” Stiles said even though he stopped reading his psychology textbook when Derek had returned from his last-minute run to the grocery store.

“Come on, you know you love it when I cook.”

“I do,” Stiles admitted. “Just not when you do it to celebrate the systematic destruction of a native people.”

Derek sighed and rolled his eyes. “You know that’s not why I’m cooking today.”

“Oh, yeah,” Stiles said derisively, rolling his eyes too. “Your thinly veiled excuse of it being your cousin’s birthday.”

“It is,” Derek said. “I’ve told you. My cousin Malia is turning twenty-five this year. We’re doing the main course food because everyone else can only do simple dishes or desserts.”

“And you guys just happened to be celebrating her birthday on Thanksgiving.”

Derek slammed his hand on the counter. This was an old argument and one he was tired of. “Stiles, Thanksgiving is the only day off that we get that is close to her birthday. This year just happens to be the exact date. We’re not trying to oppress or devalue anyone.”

Stiles snorted. “Yeah right.”

“You know what? That’s it. You’re uninvited to her party.”

Derek turned back to his food prep, throwing his whole body into ignoring Stiles.

Finally though, he was just waiting on the turkey and the drippings to use for the gravy. Stiles was still sitting on the couch, his homework stacked neatly beside him.

Derek glared at him. “What are you still doing here?” he demanded. “You’re not invited, remember? Go on, get. They’ll be here any minute.”

“You’re kicking me out?” Stiles said, incredulity in his voice. Derek nodded. “Why? What did I do?”

“You refused to listen to logic,” Derek said. “You continued arguing long after I conceded your point and explained mine. It really is my cousin’s birthday and I am hosting the party here this year. I told you that you were uninvited. If you’d listened to me instead of pushing your agenda, you would have realized that rescinding the invitation means you have to find your own accommodations for the day.”

“You can’t kick me out,” Stiles said. “Seriously, Derek? What the fuck crawled up your butt and died?”

“You did! You’re not listening to me at all.”

Stiles’ rebuttal was interrupted by the oven timer going off, and Derek turned his back on him while he looked the turkey over.

By the time he had the gravy started and the turkey resting, Stiles had claimed his stool.

“So, you think I’m not listening to you when you keep making the same lame excuse of why you have to celebrate this fucked up holiday.”

Derek stomped away from him, heading for the guest room neither of them used. Stiles scrambled after him.

Inside the door, Derek pointed at the large box wrapped in polka dot paper. “A new home spa,” he said. “You helped me pick it out.”

“Seriously? I thought that was an early Christmas present.”

Derek bit his tongue hard enough to taste blood. “You know my family doesn’t celebrate Christmas,” he said.

“You just say that so you can—”

“Think very carefully about what you’re about to say,” Derek warned him. “If it’s anything other than an apology for how you’re acting right now, then you can leave.”

“Excuse you?”

“You heard me,” Derek said. He went back to the kitchen and threw away the burned gravy, starting a fresh batch. Stiles stared at him, mouth hanging open.

“What?” Derek demanded after a few minutes of unsettling quiet.

Stiles shrugged. “You just told me to get out.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you don’t mean it, do you?”

“Do you plan to apologize?”

“For what?”

Derek shook his head. “Never mind. Just go. I don’t think I can deal with you and your comments.”

“What comments?”

“Seriously? You’ve been accusing me of using my cousin’s birthday as some kind of scheme to celebrate Thanksgiving. You refuse to believe anything I tell you, like about the present or about the fact that this is the only day that everyone has off.”

Stiles opened his mouth, and Derek lifted his hand to stop him. “No, I don’t want to hear it. If you don’t mind, you still need to put away your books before my family gets here.”

“Fine, but I’m not leaving the apartment.”

“And why not? Can’t you just go visit your dad or something?”

Stiles sniffed. “Now who’s not listening? My dad is celebrating the hell-holiday. Along with Scott and his mom. That means I have nowhere to go right now.”

“You never said that,” Derek said. “You were too busy lecturing me about me Thanksgiving to say that. By the way, why didn’t you lecture them as much as you did me?”

Stiles shrugged. “We live together.” He paused. “And they never listen to me anyway.” He blinked, rubbing at his eyes, but Derek still saw the tears there. “I thought we could spend it by ourselves this year,” he muttered. “You know, no one but us. No obligation to cook a mountain of food that we’ll be sick of before the day’s through. I could maybe propose, and we could watch your favorite show.”

“Propose?” Derek tilted his head, studying Stiles. “Why do you want to propose? Today, of all days?”

“I don’t know.” Stiles refused to look up, and Derek could see the blush staining his face red. “I just…I don’t know. I guess I thought that was the next step in our relationship.”

“And you thought arguing with me about my cousin’s birthday was the way to set it up?”

“No,” Stiles said. “I kept pushing it because you wouldn’t back down on us hosting. I may not believe in celebrating Thanksgiving, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to spend it with you.”

The doorbell rang, and Derek sighed. Of course, they always had the worst luck. Just when they were making a breakthrough in their relationship, which Derek knew wasn’t quite marriage-ready, but that was a discussion for another time, they were interrupted.

“Truce?” Derek asked.

“Truce,” Stiles accepted.

“Go, put your books away. We’re going to be eating in a few minutes.”

“Derek, be honest, do you think we’re going to be married?”

“Married?” Derek repeated, wondering how he could answer that without hurting Stiles. “Eventually, maybe,” he finally settled on. As expected, Stiles’ face fell, disappointment and hurt flashing in equal measures. “It’s not that we won’t ever be married,” Derek added. “It’s just that we’re not there yet.”

The doorbell rang again, and Stiles nodded sharply, grabbed his books, and marched to their bedroom.

Derek sighed and threw open the door.

“Who pissed in your Cheerios?” Laura grinned and shoved him back.

Cora was next, and she stood on tiptoes to press a kiss to his forehead. “Don’t listen to Laura. She’s just mad because her boo had to work today.”

Derek smiled internally because as much as Laura loved her husband, he wasn’t to everyone’s liking. He always tried to pick a fight with Derek over the smallest things even though Derek refused to engage him.

Mom, Dad, and Uncle Peter were next with Malia and her girlfriend following closely.

Everyone except Malia was carrying something, whether it was a wrapped gift or another food dish to add to Derek’s stash in the kitchen.

“Wash up,” Mom directed. “We’ll be ready to eat soon.”

“Where’s your fucking faggot, Derek?” Laura asked, laughing loudly. Of course they would start that not even five minutes through the door. Derek didn’t know why he put up with them aside from the fact that most of them were able to control themselves. Laura and her husband were the main instigators. Derek thought Mom and Dad were happy to pretend that Stiles was just a really good friend, and Derek had given up on correcting them.

“Stiles is just,” Derek began only to trail off as Stiles himself marched up to Laura. “There.”

“What did you call me?” Stiles asked, his voice low, dangerous.

“A fucking faggot,” Laura repeated, leaning closer.

“Laura, really,” Mom said. “Must you do this every time you see Derek’s…significant other?”

“Why do you always have a problem with me and not Heather?” Stiles demanded.

“What’s wrong with Heather?” Mom asked, looking at Malia’s girlfriend. She didn’t know, Derek thought helplessly. She hadn’t known that Malia was dating a woman. Stiles had just outed her to them.

That was just horrible. A terrible thing to do to someone. Derek would know. Cora had accidentally outed him when he was a senior in high school. She’d more than apologized and had become their biggest supporter.

“Leave it, Mom,” she said now. “We’re here to celebrate Malia’s birthday, not anything else. What they do privately is none of our business.”

“But it is my business,” Mom said. “I should know these things so I can tell you if you can reveal them or not.”

“Newsflash, Mom, not your choice.”

It devolved quickly into a shouting match between Mom, Dad, and Laura and Stiles and Cora. Malia sank onto the couch, Heather holding her hands. Peter looked from one group to the other before making his way to the couch, a dark look on his face. Derek intercepted him, shoving him back. Over his shoulder, Peter yelled, “You’re not my daughter!”

“Get out before I call the cops,” Stiles threatened. Peter sneered in his face before Cora managed to drag him away and shove him out the door. She did the same to Laura, who was laughing too hard to shout more insults. Mom and Dad left under their own power, but at the door, Mom turned back.

“I hope you know how disappointed I am in all of you,” she said.

“The feeling’s mutual, Mom,” Cora said, slamming the door in her face. She threw the deadbolt before joining the rest of them at the couch.

They sat in silence for a few awkward minutes, listening as the various cars the Hales had arrived in departed.

Finally, Derek lifted his head. “I’m sorry,” he said to the group. “I know that wasn’t what any of us wanted.”

“It’s fine,” Malia said, but she held Heather’s hand in a death grip.

“You know what we need?” Cora asked. “Wine. Stiles, do you have any?”

“White or red?”

“Red would go well with the turkey,” Derek said. “I think we have a few bottles of Pinot Noir in the cabinet.”

While Stiles grabbed the bottles and glasses, Derek set the table. With less people, there was more room for all the food. He only grabbed the brownies Heather had been carrying, leaving the rest of the Hale food in the kitchen.

“Wise choice.” Cora nodded.

Soon, they were seated, each with a glass. Malia raised hers. “A toast,” she said. “To the best part of the family—the ones you choose.”

“Hear hear,” Cora cheered. “And thanks for letting me be here. It’s an honor to be amongst people who care about more than image.”

They all drank deeply.

Derek passed the carving knife and fork to Cora and started handing the other dishes around the table.

“I’m sorry we outed you,” Stiles said, offering more wine. Malia declined while Heather grabbed the bottle from him.

“It’s okay. The rest of the family is uncool,” Malia said. “I’m glad for one thing though.”

“Oh yeah?” Derek asked.

Malia grinned. “I don’t have to invite them to our wedding now.”

“Oh, hey,” Stiles said. “That means we don’t have to invite them either.”

“We’re not getting married, Stiles,” Derek said, hoping that it didn’t turn into another fight like earlier.

Stiles nodded. “Yeah, I know. But when I ask you, and you say yes, we won’t have to deal with your mother.”

“True,” Derek agreed. “And it might not be so far off that we won’t be ready soon.”

“Really? Cool!”

“Indeed,” Cora said, raising her glass again. “To family that matters, family that ties, and family that is modern.”

“You watch too much TV,” Malia said, clinking her glass with Cora’s, “but a rousing speech nonetheless. To family.”

“To family,” everyone repeated.

“To family,” Derek said, again, softer, staring at Stiles. “To our family.”

~ Fin ~