#given brian apparently went up to them and asked them and stuff

[thetimelordbatgirl]

Look we can acknowledge the fact that the people who wrote letters in support of Brian Peck were not filled in on the situation and were misled by Brian on what the charges were and such, but can we fucking acknowledge that one of those letter writers actually victim blamed the then 15 Year Old Drake Bell with acting like he tempted Brian who would never do such things unless well, tempted.

[kyliafanfiction]

Shell 4.3 Live Reactions

(This is me, writing reactions as I read, because why the fuck not. They're not complete, mature thoughts taken after I sit back and evaluate what I've read. Consider them as such)

Lisa leaned forward, putting her elbows on the table, “So if you needed another reason to think Glory Girl is a privileged bitch, look no further.”

“They don’t need nearly as intense an event to make their powers show up.  Glory Girl got her powers by getting fouled while playing basketball in gym class.  She mentioned it in a few interviews she gave.”

Or maybe you could wonder just what's going on in someone's home life that would make a basketball foul such a terrible event for them?

I kind of have somewhat mixed feelings about the fact that (apparently) Ward retcons the 'second gen triggers easier' thing, because that actually feels like a cool worldbuilding choice.

Then again, given what I gather Ward (apparently) reveals about Victoria's trigger, I still kind of feel like it somewhat pales compared to say, Taylor's trigger. So it still may be true, just not as easy as some would have thought.

Amy is second gen and hers wasn't exactly easy, after all.

Obviously, not coming into this blind, so it's hard to say how I'd feel about this if I read it blind. Like, on the one hand, we haven't been given a countervailing POV, but Lisa has clearly established herself as wanting to upplay the 'darker side' of the heroes, and stuff, to Taylor, so this could just be posturing.

I'd like to think, if I came at this blind, I wouldn't take Lisa at face value (because why would anyone, at this point?) and instead consider 'what makes someone's life so shitty that a basketball foul is such a bad day for them?'

Like, topic change but - AITA and related subreddits get a lot of cases where the poster is obviously, so obviously not TA and people wonder why they're asking, and sometimes it feels like they're posting for validation, and maybe they are but like... if someone's life is that bad that they need the validation from strangers on a subreddit?

I feel like let's give them some? So it's sort of like that, here? Like, if Vicky triggers from a basketball foul (and really, Lisa, why take Victoria at face value about this, especially since you now officially know New Wave isn't as shiny as they pretend), then seriously, let's wonder why that of all things counts as such an unpleasant experience for her?

“It’s okay,” Brian reassured me, “It’s one of those things you only really hear about from other capes, and you only know us.  Maybe you’d hear more about trigger events if you took a university class in parahuman studies, but I doubt you’d get the full picture there.  Kind of have to go through it yourself.”

I feel like this would come up on PHO? The Wiki? Maybe Taylor just didn't spend enough time there, but...

This really does feel like a poorly presented exposition excuse. But then, sometimes you need those, especially in a story like Worm.

I found myself at a bit of a loss for words.  I couldn’t really explain why I didn’t want them interfering, “I don’t really know.  I think… I guess I feel that if you guys jumped in and beat them up or humiliated them or made them tearfully apologize, I wouldn’t feel like I’d dealt with things myself.  There wouldn’t be any closure.”

Then maybe actually deal with them already?! You're not even doing that. Taylor, please, don't believe their BS about being helpless before them!

“It went on for almost a year and a half before things quieted down.  Last year, around November, they… I dunno.  It was like they got bored.  The pranks got tamer, then stopped altogether.  The taunts stopped, and so did most of the hate mail.  They ignored me, left me alone.

See, this would be where it would have ended if Emma was sane. She genuinely would have gotten bored.

But instead, Emma's got more screws loose than an American Bridge. I mean, she doesn't give Amy a run for her money on how many issues she has, granted, but then, almost no one does, but still. Emma's issues have issues.

“Ew,” Alec interjected, putting down his food, “I was eating here.”

I mean, to be fair, this isn't really a dinner conversation, Taylor.

 It had been Sophia, I was almost positive: She was the most physically aggressive of the three.  But these guys didn’t need to know her name.

I doubt if she'd said the name it would have hit of Lisa's power enough to let her know that Sophia = Shadow Stalker, but it would make for an interesting AU/Fic Idea/Type Thing? :thinking_face:

I couldn’t leave the story unfinished, after getting this far, as much as I really wanted to.

You found a place where you feel as though you belong, are wanted, and like all people... well, you want to be understood. Can't really criticize that.

Maybe I should have, I dunno.”

Yes Taylor. You *should* have.

“The point I’m trying to make, if you’ll stop changing the subject, is that these girls would probably take their misery out on me, even if they didn’t know I was doing it.  I don’t trust myself to keep from retaliating, upping the ante.  You saw what happened with me and Rachel, the first time we met.  Things would escalate, I’d take things too far eventually.  Secret identity blown, or getting someone seriously hurt, like Lung was, only without the regeneration.”

I do get Taylor's point, I do, but I also feel like she's making excuses.

“There’s too much chance for things to go out of control if I take things into my own hands or have you guys do it for me.  

On the other hand, Taylor is kind of a control freak now, in a way, sortakinda, sooo....

“That would still be risking getting her assaulted,” I sighed, “Pretty girl walking down the side of the road at night?”

Taylor, you're doing a bad job of pretending to be a villain :P :rofl:

“Then why the fuck are you a supervillain?”

Good question. Don't give him the correct answer. :p

“Escape.”  The word left my mouth almost immediately, before I’d had a chance to even think about what it meant.  I couldn’t have taken the time to think before speaking, or they might have known something was up.  Lisa almost certainly would have. A few tense moments passed, and I chanced a look at Lisa and Brian.  Lisa was watching the dialogue, a small smile on her face, her chin resting on her palm.  Brian was kind of inscrutable, arms folded in front of him, no real expression on his face. I explained, “I can deal with real life, if I can leave it behind for this.  Kicking ass, making a name for myself, hanging out with friends.  Having fun.”

And this, beneath all the rationalizations, is the truth. The truest thing she's said in a while, I think, honestly. To herself, or anyone else.

“You’re volunteering, then?” Lisa asked Brian, ignoring my protests. Brian nodded, “Yeah, I guess I am.”

And the ship spills secrets to each other! From what I gather Brian/Taylor doesn't really have a satisfactory conclusion as a romantic subplot (does anything in Worm have a satisfactory conclusion? Okay I mean yes, the last three Arcs did, but still) but it's easy for the reader to be fooled into thinking it will be a more central detail of the story, from some of these bits.

[wheresmybuckyhoes]

Watch Me

Summary: You try to make your boyfriend Roger jealous because he tried to tell you what to wear but it goes slightly wrong

Pairing: Roger Taylor + female reader

Warnings: Swearing, cheating, drinking, angst, mentions of oral

Note from me: This is part one hence the warnings. The realllly smutty stuff will be in part 2, so please like and reblog to give me the boost I need to write part 2 xx

Your boyfriend, Roger, was being a pain in the arse as usual. Later this evening you were planning on attending one of Freddie’s grand after - show parties, so you had gone shopping with your bestie Christine (who happened to be dating Brian) for a dress to fit the occasion. You had settled on a beautiful black dress which barley reached below your bum and showed more than enough cleavage. You looked hot as fuck in it and coudn’t wait to make all the ladies jealous.

However, an hour or two before the party you ran into an obstacle or rather... into Roger. You had just put on the dress and fixed your hair and makeup when you heard the door to your hotel room open. ‘y/n I’m back!’ you heard Roger’s voice echo through the room as you put on your mascara, leaning in close to the bathroom mirror. ‘John told me to wear a suit but obviously I’m never gonna do that cause s’not my style and...’ his sentence came to a sudden hault as reached the doorway of the bathroom.

You saw his eyes narrow slightly as they looked you up and down, the gears in his brain clearly working very hard. ‘Y/n. What the fuck are you wearing?’ he asked while his icy blue eyes pinned you down. ‘I got the dress with Chrissy for the party. Do you like it?’ you said, giving him a spin so he could see the full veiw. You were very proud of yourself as you looked better than you ever had, and you’ve been waiting all week to show Roger. So when he said what came out of his mouth next, you were shocked.

‘You are not wearing that. Every man will have his hands all over you if they have half an eye. I won’t allow it’ announced Roger. You blinked a few times, speechless. ‘Are you fucking kidding me Taylor. I will wear whatever the fuck I want. No man will have his hands anywhere near me if they know I’m with you. But apparently you don’t fucking trust me enough, so you? So Taylor, guess I’m going to the party for someone else’s enjoyment.’ and with that you grabbed your purse and made your way to the door in a huff. ‘DONT YOU DARE Y/N’ Roger warned after you. ‘IM TAKING MY OWN TAXI SEE YOU THERE BITCH’ you screamed, flipping your beloved boyfriend off and slamming the door.

You arrived as the party was in full swing, knowing Roger would arrive soon after you. You decided to make the most of being alone for a bit. After greeting and congratulating Freddie, you made a swift exit towards the bar. It was only after 4 shots of vodka and strong buzz that you saw Roger walk in with his god awful sunglasses, looking around to find you. You hopped off the bar stool only to stumble. You felt a pair of strong mascular hands catch you by the waist and looked up to see a handsome stranger smirk at you, checking you out very obviosuly.

Meanwhile, Roger had given up trying to find you. He made his way to the sofa where his band mates always sat and pulled out his flask filled with whiskey. He sat down between John and Brian, draining the whole thing in a few minutes.

‘What’s the matter darling?’ Freddie asked as he swooped in, sitting opposite Roger on a vacant couch, nursing a glass of wine. ‘Yeah Rog you kinda look like you got kicked in the nuts’ Brian agreed, receiving a friendly nudge from John as he tried to hold in giggles and look serious. ‘Y/n wanted to wear this dress that basically left nothing to the imagination and obviosuly since she’s the sexiest girl to live I didn’t want men to be trying to hit on my girlfriend so I said she can’t wear it’ Roger sighed. Brian winced. ‘WHAT MAY. WHAT’ Roger raised his voice impatiently. ‘Well Rog you never tell your girl what she can and can’t wear. It sets them off. I bet she’s gonna make you go without sex now for a week. Or even a month.’ Brian went on to do a fake gasp. You could see the look on Roger’s face go from worried to pissed as he seemed to suddenly notice something. John saw his fists ball up and he raised an eyebrow as he followed his eyes to where Roger was looking. John’s jaw dropped when he saw what Roger was looking at. You were dancing with the man who had caught you early, grinding against him and letting him touch you anywhere he wanted. You secretly hoped Roger would see you, teaching him not to boss you around.

Brian turned his head as his eyes widened. ‘Oh fuck Rog’ Brian spluttered out, half laughing half feeling bad. ‘I swear to god I’m going to murder that man’ Roger said, removing his sunglasses, and balling up his fists so hard his knuckles had turned white. And then, the finale. The man kissed you. That was it for Roger. ‘Rog she’s probably just teasing don’t do something you’ll regre... ROGER’ Freddie called after him as he stood up and made his way to you.

You felt a tall presence behind you, but were too drunk to realize that amazing, woody smell was Roger as you kept kissing the stranger. Suddenly, you felt 2 hands pull you if the man and next moment the man was on the floor, clutching his bleeding nose and moaning from pain. Before you could turn around, you were lifting over someone’s shoulder and quickly taken upstairs as you giggled, head spinning.

It wasn’t until Roger threw you on a bed in the first bedroom he had found and locked the door that you realised it was him. ‘you kissed another man?!’ Roger said, weirdly quiet. ‘Maybeee’ you slurred, slowly dragging your hand up your thigh, lifting up the dress. ‘Jealous?’

Roger bit his lip and crawled on top of you, pinning your arms either side of you so you coudn’t move. ‘Now princess, you don’t do that. You can’t go around kissing whoever you like. So I’m going to have to punish you now so you will never do that again’ he whispered into your ear. ‘But I thought this dress was asking for it’ you whispered looking at his hair. He took hold of your chin, forcing you to look him in the eyes. ‘We will see you is asking for it when I’m done with you’ he said before his lips crashed into yours.

He began to undress you and kiss you everywhere except where you needed it the most. You whined as his legs skimmed your pussy, but he continued to kiss wherever he felt like it, placing your hand on his hard cock and groaning as you stoked him up and down. ‘Please Roger. Make me feel good’ you mumbled, biting down on his shoulder as he kissed your neck, but just below your sweet spot. ‘Oh, so now you want me to make you feel good?’ he asked biting your thighs aggressively, leaving marks. ‘Just like you were making that man feel good?’ He questioned. ‘Well baby, that’s not how it works. You want to make me jealous? Fine. But now you won’t get to cum until I let you, and that may be after I edge you until you are a whining little mess. So shut that pretty mouth on my cock so you can actually do something useful with it’. Your eyes widened in suprise, not expecting him to be this harsh. You were only trying to make him feel bad for trying to tell you what to wear. Well shit...

*If you guys want a part 2 please think about liking and reblogging ❤️*

[cupcakecoterie]

@true0neutral - Hazel, half-elf cleric

@fauxfire76 - Darvin, human bard/sorcerer

@miaaoi - Froseth, dragonborn monk

@hyperewok1 - Remi, human paladin/warlock

@lindira - Clarity, tiefling rogue/warlock

Marion - Ava, human ranger

Brian - Barnabus, minotaur fighter

Still playing catch-up! Apologies for spam.

At the entrance of the Ice Maze, the group found the frozen remains of one group of adventurers. Apparently they were just underprepared and teleported directly to the entrance to the Ice Maze without adequate protective gear like the stuff Alisaie insisted the party collect at the Eun-Bac border.

Barnabus noticed some runes carved into the entranceway. Clarity managed to read them, but it was hard even for her with her ability to read all languages because it was halfling runes but they didn’t spell out any halfling words. When she phonetically rendered them, Froseth in particular recognised them as (unfortunately badly pronounced) draconic. The words seemed to mean either “son of the Bogregh” or “heir to the Bogregh”. The Bogregh, according to Farideh, was a title given to a “wise ruler / leader / person” sort of deal. And apparently only the son of / heir to the Bogregh could enter and allow others entry.

Froseth turned out to be the (or at least an) heir to the Bogregh, and he tried to announce his ‘honour guard’, but kind of botched it and nearly got them all frozen before he went into a little more detail about who he was inviting in.

They got in and the first turn they made in the maze landed them in a treasure room of sort full of diamonds. They collected just enough to fuel some revivify / raise dead spells and left the rest.

Then they encountered yeti. They fought yeti. They won fairly handily.

They then encountered a gynosphinx apparently made of ice. She congratulated them on missing most of the hazards, and asked them riddles. Everyone got theirs but Remi, who was apparently going to be faced with a challenge - alone - to compensate.

Alisaie was not happy with this.

Ava was also not happy with this, but surprisingly mouthed off more than Alisaie did. (Alisaie was just going to stick with “no no no no no” and then use various new spells to get to where Remi was sent and back her up.)

Ava kept talking, got hit with Banishment, and then Remi and Alisaie both were teleported elsewhere in the maze - Remi to face her challenge, Alisaie because having her face a challenge would upset Ava and the gynosphinx wanted to give as much annoyance as she got, as it were.

Darvin has learned enough about keeping his mouth shut to just usher her out of the room and into the anteroom, where they were to wait for Remi and Alisaie to deal with what they were supposed to deal with.

And that’s where we finished off that one. Remi and Alisaie had their own mini-adventure, but that’s an interlude piece being slotted into next session, to avoid spoilers. Hee.

[schrijverr]

Ashes O’Reilly, Hero of the People

When the Mechanisms have to return to Malone, Ashes, along with Jonny, Tim and Ivy, discovers that they’ve been made a hero.

On AO3.

Ships: none

Warnings: not really, but tell me if I missed something or if you want me to tag something!

~~~~~~~~~~

Ashes had never claimed to be a good person. However, they wouldn't call themself evil either.

At their core they were a survivor, who had navigated a cruel world with equally cruel survival tactics. When the world had hurt them they had hurt it in return. Been burned and burned the world back.

Although Smooth Mickey had been right and there wasn't enough gasoline to burn down an entire planet, at least not at that time, but Ashes had burned all that was rotten. They'd planned to come back later and finish the job, but by the time the crew had rid themselves of their creator and became independent that plan had been long forgotten and abandoned.

That didn't stop Ashes from stocking up on gasoline when they needed to go back to Malone. Something about Ivy wanting a specific book that was only published there or whatever, Ashes didn't really care. They were forced back home and they were going to leave it more scorched than they had found it.

At least that had been the plan.

They along with Jonny and Tim went with Ivy to collect the book. Ashes suspected that Brian had send them with Ivy, because that way they would be less likely to mess up the Aurora in their boredom, but still it worked in their favor and they weren’t about to complain.

However, Malone looked nothing like Ashes remembered it. Seedy motels and shady pubs had made place for pretty bars and high class saloons. The dark alleyways were now big clean streets and the people weren’t dressed in rags and starved to the bone anymore.

They looked around in wonder and confusion, snapping out of it when Jonny commented: “The way you told it, I was expecting it to look a lot seedier. There better be a good casino with a stocked bar around here, Ashes.”

“I hope it too.” Ashes replied, “This is nothing like the Malone I left. Are you sure we’re on the right planet, Ivy?”

Ivy nodded, not looking up from her map.

They were distracted again by Tim, who yelled with manic glee: “Ashes, look! Is that you?”

He pointed at something in the middle of a busy plaza in the distance. It was a large statue of a person, the stone figure could be Ashes, but Ashes noted that if the artist had tried to make them, they had made them much lighter than they’d ever been.

Jonny and Tim seemed a bit too happy with the discovery and pulled them and Ivy along to the plinth to read the inscription. There in golden letters it read: Ashes O’Reilly, hero of the people, who burned the vicious gangs so that Malone could thrive once more

Once they’d read the inscription Jonny and Tim both burst out laughing. Jonny shrieked in delight: “You see that, Ashes? They’re calling you a hero, You! Ahahaha, I can’t believe that that’s-  that’s how you went down in history. That’s amazing.”

He and Tim were taking turns, bowing for Ashes while exclaiming in different and exceedingly posh voices: “All hail Ashes, our hero. Hero of the people.”

Meanwhile Ivy examined the statue and inscription closely.

With everyones antics and Ashes likeliness they were gaining a small crowd, which was whispering and pointing amongst themselves. Ashes shot them a glare and snapped: “Piss off, mind your own fucking business.”

A small boy pointed at them and asked: “Mama, is that the Ashes we learn about in school?”

The mothered had sheltered his ears with Ashes’ strong language and pale of shock she told her son: “Of course not, sweetie, that Ashes is long dead they died for us, remember.”

“But my teacher also said they’re immortal.” the boy pouted.

“Your teacher is wrong.” the mother answered, trying to pull him along, but the kid didn’t budge. He broke free of his mothers grasp and ran up to Ashes and asked: “Are you Ashes O’Reilly? The one who burned the gangs?”

As a fuck you against the mother Ashes smiled and for once told the truth: “Yep, that’s me.”

“How are you still alive?” the boy asked.

“I’m immortal.” Ashes answered, with a smirk to the mother.

“Really?” the kid exclaimed in excitement.

The mother grabbed him and berated: “You shouldn’t bother other people, Ashton.” then she turned to Ashes and said: “And you shouldn’t lie and play into kids fantasies.”

“Oh, they aren’t lying.” Jonny told her, “Here look.” then he shot Ashes through the head making bother mother and kid and bystanders scream.

“Great,” Ivy said, “there is now a 97% chance law enforcements will be involved and our chances of getting out without being imprisoned have dropped to 12%, but they can be raised to 35% if we leave Ashes behind and don’t get the book.”

“We won’t as the Captain-” Jonny began, getting cut off by Tims: “First Mate.”

He got pushed down by Jonny who pressed on: “As the Captain I will defend Ashes until they get back and you two quickly get that book.”

Tim and Ivy rushed away and Jonny thought he heard Ivy mutter: “Despite what the calculations say the chance of things going wrong should be 100% with these people.”

Fifteen minutes later Ashes came by to the sound of Jonnys manic laughter along with rounds being fired. They looked around and saw Jonny singlehandedly holding off a big police force. Ashes didn’t even ask what was going on, just started firing as well.

A few moments later Ivy and Tim came running towards them, their arms filled with books. Tim disposed off his books in Ivys arms, almost making her fall in the process, and drew his guns with a big grin.

The four of them fought themselves back to the Aurora, well three, Ivy just tried to keep her books intact until they were off planet. In they end they made it. Marius was standing at the entrance of the Aurora and covered them as they boarded.

When the door was shut behind him Marius asked: “How the fuck do you always manage that?”

Breathlessly Jonny grinned: “Ashes is a hero.”

“What?” Marius asked, just more confused with the answer.

Tim added: “They think they’re a hero, it’s amazing. There was a statue of them.”

“What!” Marius repeated, “How?”

Ivy opened a book and showed them a page, she had picked up some extra books about Ashes in the store they had robbed, she said: “Apparently the burning of the gangs, which Ashes did, helped the planet better themselves and they were given the status of hero that has been warped throughout time.”

“Let me see.” Ashes said, snatching the book out of Ivys hands.

They scanned the page and scoffed, before reading out loud: “Ashes O’Reilly joined the Lucky Sevens against their will. They served under Smooth Mickey until the Aces started to move up on the turf of the Lucky Sevens, finally having an excuse to confront their capturer they fought against both gangs at the same time, until they had burned all the rotten parts of Malone, leaving the rest to prosper. Historians still debate if they were just such a skilled fighter or immortal. Some even believe they are still out there watching over Malone.”

Jonny and Tim fell back in peels of laughter at the idea of Ashes burning down stuff out of obligation and needing to be forced to join a gang, like they hadn’t thought it would be just fun. Marius also joined the them, now understanding what that all was about.

After a while of catching their breath and falling back into giggled every time they’d made eye contact or looked at Ashes, Marius asked: “Was there really a statue?”

“Yeah and it wasn’t even accurate.” Ashes moped, only making them laugh again. They frowned at them and said: “Yeah, whatever laugh it up. It’s not that funny.”

“You don’t get it, since it’s about you.” Tim said.

“Exactly!” Jonny nodded, “That’s like finding out Earth has made Tim a hero for blowing up the moon.”

That idea made Ashes chuckle and they could see the appeal, something lit up behind their eyes and they said: “We should go to earth, see if Tim’s in the books!”

[365days365movies]

January 8, 2021: R.E.D. (2010)

Time to continue the action-comedy trend by getting away from the buddy cop trend, and hitting a different style of comedy: the ensemble. I’ll talk about this more during Comedy April, but one of my favorite comedies is an ensemble comedy. That would be 1963′s It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.

I cannot properly explain how much I love this movie. It’s only grown over the years, and I WILL get into this one day. Don’t know HOW...but I WILL.

Anyway, what do I mean by the ensemble? It’s a cast composed of many big names, especially those famous or popular at the time the film is made. Nowadays, superhero films tend to be our ensembles, as well as some other action films that I’ll get to later this month.

But in today’s case, the ensemble is different. Rather than purely action or comedy stars, they’re kind of all over the genre map. But ere we go, here’s the list of stars:

Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Karl Urban, Mary-Louise Parker, Brian Cox, Richard Dreyfuss, Ernest Borgnine, James Remar. Seriously. LOOK at the list of people up there. That’s one hell of an ensemble. None of them particularly well-known for comedy, and that’s handled in a surprising way. Which movie is this?

R.E.D. is definitely an interesting movie as action-comedies go, but let’s get into it, shall we? SPOILERS AHEAD, as a warning heading forward!

Recap

Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is a retiree living in suburbia, reading romance novels, and calling Sarah Ross (Mary Louise Parker), a girl working in the GSA pension office. Sarah Ross is most likely the Inevitable Love Interest of this film. The two decide to meet up in Kansas City, where she works.

But no time for that, as a group of masked assailants invade Frank’s house to kill him. But, see, it turns out that Frank’s ex-CIA. He handily takes them and turns the tables, then goes into the basement to prepare. Meanwhile…

Not very subtle, huh? I feel like the neighbors know what’s going on at this point. Frank takes on the rest, the house collapses, and he makes his way to Kansas City...directly into Sarah’s apartment. She freaks out (appropriate reaction), as he warns that people are trying to kill her, because they know how he feels about her via their (likely surveilled) phone conversations. She’s not buying it.

So he kidnaps her.

Good start, building trust, establishing boundaries, good start.

We now cut to an opulent estate, where The Butcher/Executioner/Judge Dredd Karl Urban is killing a man. He’s playing William Cooper, a CIA agent tasked to kill Frank. After Frank drops off Sarah at a motel (still kidnapped, remember), he goes to meet Joe Matheson (Morgan Freeman), another retired agent living at a retirement home, with his…

...hobbies. Using his connections, they discover that the hit quad after Frank also killed a reporter. The plot thickens. Sarah escapes, and calls 911, a call which was intercepted by Cooper. A fake cop nearly kidnaps her, but Frank saves her. Cooper catches up, leading to…

OK, yeah, that was a cool shot. Literally. Frank sets up Cooper to get arrested by the local police, and escapes with Sarah to New York City. There, they meet the mother of the NYT reporter killed, and discover clues that lead them to the NYU library, and a book with a hitlist hidden within it. They discover that everyone on the list is dead except for a Gabriel Singer. However, tempered with that, we get some unfortunate news.

Joe’s dead. Which sucks, I honestly liked Joe. He was already dying of liver cancer, but he sadly was assassinated by a mysterious assailant.

Anyway, back to Cooper. He goes to visit the Record Keeper (Ernest Borgnine), who gives Cooper the mostly redacted case file of Frank Moses. An extremely effective black ops agent in his day, the now older Frank’s been marked “RED,” or “retired, extremely dangerous.”

FLORIDA! There, we meet the paranoid and flighty Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich), who lives in the swamps of Pensacola trying not to get killed. He lives underground in a bunker whose entrance is a broken-down car, and I love it a lot. I love it a whole lot.

Turns out Marvin was given doses of LSD every day for 11 years while working for the government, which made him understandably paranoid. My MK Ultra senses are tingling, and Marvin retrieves a file detailing a case in Guatemala from 1981, in which Frank, Marvin, and everybody else on the hit list was involved. And with this, Marvin gets the pig.

I can’t wait to find out what the pig is. Because I know it’s gonna be some crazy weapon. And I’m excited for it. Now, we head to Mobile, Alabama to catch up with Singer (James Remar), the only living person on the list. Marvin then briefly holds a random bystander hostage, and he might be juuuuuuuuust a little unstable.

They meet Singer, and he explains that his job on the Guatemala mission was to carry a passenger in the middle of the night, for unknown reasons. Singer’s quickly assassinated from a helicopter after giving this information, and may I just say...these guys aren’t subtle about their assassination techniques. I feel like somebody would notice this stuff happening, throughout the entire movie.

Anyway, a group of assassins comes in to kill the group of 3. Including this person.

Nice. And as if that wasn’t enough, we now discover the purpose of the pig. It contains a grenade launcher. Of course it does. We get a cool firefight in which Marvin hits a grenade like a baseball, and Marvin and the woman from before face off in a Western standoff. And then…

Yeah. This is awesome. Seriously, I’m loving this so far.

Next destination, as our guys head to the Russian Embassy, where we meet Ivan Simanov (Brian Cox), an ex-KGB agent and former enemy of Frank Moses. The two catch up in a funny exchange, and they reminisce over their old days as agents and assassins. Almost sweet in a macabre way. Frank’s there to ask Ivan for help in breaking into the CIA, using schematics that they probably have.

Using the assistance of Sarah (who’s enjoying this a LOT, apparently), they get into Langley, making this the second movie I’ve seen this month where the protagonist breaks into the CIA. There, they meet the Record Keeper Henry, who immediately helps them, and gives them the Guatemala file. They also find out about Cooper, leading to Frank meeting him at his office, where a kickass fight ensues to some kickass music.

Frank’s not looking stellar after this fight, not that Cooper’s doing great either. They escape by setting up an explosion, stealing a firefighter’s uniform, and escaping to an ambulance There, they’re greeting by Marvin and…

Joe! He escaped, and killed the assassin. Now, it’s Joe, Frank, Marvin, and Sarah on the run in an ambulance. But Frank isn’t doing great, as he was shot in the struggle with Cooper. They head up to Chesapeake, Maryland, to the Eagle’s Nest. It’s there that we meet Victoria Winslow (Helen Mirren), yet one more R.E.D. agent, and a talented assassin as well.

They discover that the file has one redacted name, which is found on the reporter’s list as Alexander Dunning (Richard Dreyfuss), an arms trafficker and gangster, apparently protected by the CIA. Using Joe as a pretend buyer, R.E.D. infiltrates the mansion, as Dunning sneaks Joe into a safe room, where their negotiating can take place. Soon though, though, Frank and Marvin join in, and it turns from negotiation to interrogation.

We find out here that the Guatemala mission was meant to clean up the destruction of a Guatemalan village performed by the current vice president, Robert Stanton. Yikes. Apparently, he went nuts and murdered the entire village. And so, the hits are meant to cover up with war crimes, allowing him to run for President without fear of persecution.

After that reveal, Cooper calls the trio; looks like the mansion’s been surrounded by FBI, who were surveilling Dunning’s mansion anyway. Cooper, who’s been in doubt about the motives of this mission, tells Frank to surrender, and he’ll hear his side of the story. With little option for escape, Joe, who’s dying anyway, volunteers to take his place, as they know he will most likely be killed immediately.

And unfortunately, they’re right. Joe’s shot and killed, and Frank and Marvin escape with Victoria’s help. In the escape, however, Sarah falls and is captured by the agents. They escape with the aid of Ivan.

They need to get Sarah out of Cooper’s custody, while also deciding to end the cause of this: Vice President Stanton. Frank makes it into Cooper’s home, and calls him from there. This, of course, is a threat meant to protect Sarah. He also tells Cooper that he plans to kill the Vice President, who will be at a gala that night.

Vice President Robert Stanton (Julian McMahon) announces his intention to run for President, as Cooper, Victoria, and Ivan watch on. Ivan sprays a gas throughout the ballroom, while Victoria blocks the doors. Ivan causes a distraction, claiming the smell of gas (which he’s caused), then pulls a fire alarm. The Vice President is routed through the back entrance, where Victoria and Marvin are waiting with a machine gun.

They rig it to autofire, and chase the VP back through the building. Victoria’s shot in the process, and Marvin detonates a smoke grenade to aid their escape. He then rigs up a bomb to his chest and chases the VP away, into a vehicle driven by, of course, Frank.

Cooper’s defeated, and Frank has the VP, offering to trade him for Sarah. Cooper calls his boss, all of whom head to the rendezvous point. And alongside Cooper’s boss arrives Alexander Dunning. Surprise! He kills Stanton, and is in command of Cooper’s boss. And Cooper is NOT happy about that.

Cooper kills his boss, Marvin and Victoria kill the bodyguards, and Frank and Marvin kill Dunning. Cooper lets the REDs leave, unencumbered and free. But Ivan reminds Frank of his favor to him, and I smell a sequel as Frank and Sarah kiss.

Whew. That’s R.E.D.! And what a fun ride it was! Might not have come across in this recap, but this movie is hilarious fun, and I’ll explain exactly how in the review section, coming up next!

[yeetingmyfeeling]

Run, Run, Run

Chapter Ten

The bell rang throughout the school, signalling the first class of the day. A few people had already come in, but Amelia was helping Brian around while another girl dealt with all the parents and children. 

Now, was Brian’s time to shine. He was placed at the front, Amelia by his side. Some kids had come in late, mostly high school students. So, Brian had to give the students late slips to take to their teachers. Easy enough. Most of the students didn’t really care there was a new office person, though one young girl tried to strike up a conversation.

Next Brian had to sort through some notes. They were notes for an excursion. For year six, going to the zoo. There were two different classes, so he had to sort the papers into which class. Then he had to sort those two piles into piles of who had paid, who paid online, and who hadn’t paid. It was a little tedious, but he got the job done. 

After that, he had to deal with the school newsletter. Today was Tuesday, and they usually go out on Mondays. Apparently, they were very busy yesterday and didn’t have time. So, Brian was given class roles for every class in the school. He groaned, there was a lot. Fourteen middle school classes which included kindergarten, then only six different groups for high school. High school was smaller because they would just get together as a year group. This however made the group much larger. 

After Brian had very tiredly sorted through all of that, not complaining once, it was Recess. Amelia gave him a delivery job, then told him to go have lunch with Brock and Jon. So Brian went and dropped off the stack of papers to a very polite teacher, then found Brock and Jon’s staffroom.

His friends were excited to see him. They sat him down and asked about how his day was going so far. He told them everything, saying the other staff members were nice, and the students he met as well.

After recess, he went back to the front office. Andy found him, and took him to the canteen. The canteen had two sides, one for the middle school and one for the high school. There was a huge kitchen though, that Brian admired.

There were four workers for each side, making eight in total. Brian would make the ninth, if he got the job. He would be switching between both sides, which he didn’t mind. He was working on the middle school side, and he started talking to one of the male workers. 

Adam, was his name. He was incredibly nice Brian thought. Apparently, he was dating Andy. Brian wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. During the time before lunch, they prepared food. They started making food, then set up everything, making sure everything was stocked. Adam showed Brian how to do everything.

Brian wasn’t allowed to do much of the cooking yet, which he didn’t mind. He enjoyed standing back, watching and learning. He helped the girls with setting everything up. Finally, the bell rang saying it was lunch time. Adam pulled open the shutters as students started trailing out of class.

Brian struggled a little, but coped pretty alright. He mostly just grabbed people's lunch orders, as they were already paid for. He preferred the less people office job, but this wasn’t too bad. Plus, a lot of the kids were funny. 

The lunch rush died down, and it was slowly thinning out. The bell rang once again, signalling the last class of the day. Adam shut the shutters. Then the canteen crew, including Brian, started packing everything up. This included putting stuff away, putting stuff in fridges. Getting some stuff ready for food tomorrow, then wiping everything down.

Brian was lucky enough to be able to take some food with himself, and he thought that was a big win. There was still half an hour before the day ended, so Brian made his way to the office, and then to the staff room. He sat down and ate his food while he waited for Jon and Brock.

~~~~~

They were making their way home, Brian excitedly telling them about his day the whole time. Andy had found him just before the day finished and talked to him.

Brian got the job.

The deal was, he would work Mondays, Wednesday’s and Friday’s. He would do exactly the same routine he did today, except some days he would finish up in the office. He didn’t mind at all. He had a job!

Brock and Jon happily listened to what Brian had to say, they were excited for the younger omega. They eventually got home, and Brian practically skipped inside. Only to be attacked by his two partners.

First Tyler was there, hugging Brian. He went to start talking, but a David on his lanky legs made his way over. Attempted to anyway, he tripped, fell into the two, and the three were currently sprawled on the ground.

Brock took a photo, laughing. Jon and him stepped over the three and made their way further into the house. Jon to tell Evan the great news, Brock to shower.

Tyler grumbled, smooshed between the two other men. He manages to roll out from underneath David, bringing Brian with him. Brian giggled as he ended up now stradling Tyler. Tyler grinned, much more pleased with this position. Until David threw himself over the alphas chest.

“So, how was your day?” Tyler asked in a soft tone. He started petting David’s hair, the lanky irishman refusing to move. His other hand moved to stroke Brian’s knee.

“It was good!” Brian grinned. “I did it! I got the job! Andy, the principal, was so impressed with me, and so were the others, that they hired me! I start tomorrow!

“That’s great Bri!” David flipped over, making Tyler grunt. “I’m so proud of you, I knew you could do it.”

“I’m glad I let you go,” Tyler nodded with a smile. “You seem like you had lots of fun.”

“I did!” Brian nodded with a smile. He leaned down, pressing his lips to Tyler’s. Tyler leaned up, sliding a hand through Brian’s hair. Their lips moved slowly, Brian just enjoying the feeling. He hummed quietly, letting out a soft moan.

“Hey!” David thrusted his head between the pair. He connected his lips with Brian, and the younger Irishman made a noise of happiness.

“Can you all stop making out on the floor,” Evan spoke from behind them. “Congratulations on the job Brian.”

“Thanks Evan,” Brian grinned when he pulled away from David. Evan gave him a smile then walked away.

~~~~~

Brian was working his second day, and he liked it even more than his first. Plus, he was also getting paid for this day. So that made it significantly better. David was picking him up today, because he didn’t have work. Tyler, unfortunately, had to stay late at  work.

David sent Brian a quick text saying he was there, so Brian finished up his conversation with Amelia and rushed out. He spotted the beta and jumped into the car. He threw his bag in the backseat and David drove off.

David moved a hand over, placing it on Brian’s thigh. Brain smiled from the touch. “How was work today?”

“Good,” Brian nodded. “Much the same as yesterday, and I met a few more people.”

“That’s great Bri,” David smiled at the omega. He loved seeing the younger so happy. “How do you feel about helping me cook dessert tonight? We’ll have to go to the shops first.”

Brian’s smile grew into a grin. “I’d love to! What are we making?”

“I was thinking of sticky date pudding?” David bit his lip. 

“Sounds delicious!”

David drove them to the supermarket. They walked in, their hands clasped tightly together. David led them through the isles, taking them to where they needed to go. He held one of the green baskets in his hand, despite Brian begging to push a trolley.

The basket was quickly filled up, but not without Brian whining for a treat. David rolled his eyes and got a small toblerone bar for himself, Brian and Tyler. They went to the checkout, and the lady serving them gave a weird look.

“A male omega?” She asked. David stood in front of Brian. “That’s rare, and he’s unmarked. Are you his boyfriend?”

“One of them,” David answered bluntly. He gestured for her to hurry up, and she did with a frown. In no time, they were back in the car. “I hate people,” He grumbled.

Brian leaned over the console, kissing David’s cheek. The beta blushed. He soon drove them home, not wanting to waste any more time. Some people were there, but they just went straight to the kitchen. David went about setting up their cooking area.

“Preheat the oven please Brian,” David gave the omega an award winning smile. Brain rolled his eyes and, upon being told what temperature, turned the oven on. As he did, David greased a baking pan then put baking paper on it. “Boil some water?” Brain nodded and went over to the kettle, making sure it was full then flicking it on. As he did, David grabbed a bowl and put in dates and bicarb soda. Once the water boiled, David grabbed it from Brian and poured it into the bowl.

They moved over to the electric mixer. Brain grabbed the ingredients and put in butter and sugar per David’s orders. He put down the mixer and turned it on. The ingredients mixed together. David cracked two eggs into the mixture, using the mixer to put it all together between each egg. After it had been mixed, David grabbed the date mixture and poured it into the mixer bowl. Brain grabbed a large metal spoon and started to stir it all together.

David grabbed the pan he had previously greased and lined, and Brian poured the mixture into it. He slid it into the oven and set the timer on his phone. Once that was done, David went over to the stovetop. He grabbed a pot, putting the temperature on medium heat. He poured in sugar, cream and butter. He stirred the sauce until it was cooked then let it rest on low heat.

As they waited for the pudding to cook, they talked together in the kitchen. Brian sat on the counter, David between his legs. The beta had his arms around the omegas waist, his face buried in his shoulder. They weren’t talking about anything in particular, just random things that came to mind.

David’s hands kept inching down to Brian’s ass, making the smaller giggle and slap his hands away. David would whine and shake his head, making Brian get a mouthful of hair. David lifted his head up, pouting at Brian. “Briii,” He whined.

“Daithiiii,” Brain whined back with a grin. “What?”

David didn’t respond, just stared into the eyes of his partner. A light blush dusted Brian’s cheeks. Before he could question the beta again, lips were on his. He suppressed a noise of surprise and was quick to kiss back.

Brian’s hands came up, threading into David’s hair. The betas hands were on Brian’s ass again, and this time he let them stay there. Their lips moved together in sync, in a slow and meaningful kiss. Until David sucked on the plump lower lip, making Brian gasp quietly.

Sliding his tongue in, David immediately claimed dominance. His tongue searched around the warm cavern of Brian’s mouth. Brian reciprocated by sucking on David’s tongue, making the beta moan. He went to pull back, only to have his bottom lip captured by Brian.

It would have gone further, if there wasn’t sugar dumped over their heads. Brian let out a squeal, and David whined in annoyance. Looking over, it was Tyler with a grin on his face. “Making out in the kitchen? Where people can see, and without me?”

Brain giggled sheepishly. “You said you were staying late at work.”

Tyler nodded. He came to stand behind David, wrapping his arms around him. He started to brush the sugar out of the betas hair. “I was going to, but then some other things came up so I go to go home early.”

Brian leaned over David’s shoulder and pressed a quick kiss to Tyler’s cheek. David laughed when he heard Tyler huff. A ringing shot through the kitchen, catching their attention. It was Brian’s phone, telling him the pudding was ready.

He quickly turned off the alarm and jumped off the counter. He grabbed the oven mits and leaned down, grabbing the putting out of the oven. He placed it on the counter. David grabbed the pot with the sauce and poured it over the pudding.

“That smells so good!” Tyler commented. He stuck his finger in the sauce, wincing from the heat. David swatted at him, and Tyler stuck his finger in his mouth. He hummed. “Tastes good.” His two partners rolled their eyes at them. 

Brian felt happy, he felt content. He had friends, he had a house, he felt safe. He even got a job despite his little education, and two of his friends were going to help him get that education. This is only something the omega could have dreamed of. Yet, he had it. He even had two wonderful boyfriends that he wouldn’t trade for the world.

Often, it all just felt like a lie. 

https://my.w.tt/QDqe8WU4Dbb

[perhapsitmaybedragons]

Of Gingerbread and Flies

For creativerocket-jpg - I’m your gift giver for Good Snowmans. I hope this is ok - this is what came out when I tried to write using your prompts (which I loved, by the way). Plenty of The Them, Crowley, Aziraphale and Beelzebub.

         Summary:            

Beelzebub would like to challenge Crowley. But the Them step in to make sure the competition is more appropriate for winter activities. And of course, no one likes games more than The Them. So who will triumph in making the best gingerbread house?

Can be read on ao3 here or read below: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28534104

Crowley grumbled, unsure of what had awoken him. Whatever it was, he decided to ignore it and rolled back over, resolute in his decision to sleep in. It was a cold day and best spent, in Crowley's opinion, bundled up under the covers. Maybe he could talk Aziraphale into joining him if he offered the angel some cocoa. It wasn't Crowley's favorite but it could be all right if you punched it up with the right kind of alcohol.

“Seriously, wake up,” Came the voice that had first roused him. That wasn't Aziraphale's voice. Crowley bolted up, startled. His eyes went a little wider when he found the Them standing around his bed. “We can't get started without you,” Adam repeated.

“Get started with what, exactly?” Crowley grabbed for his sunglasses and shoved them on. The Them didn't mind his eyes, but he still preferred covering them up.

“Dear,” Aziraphale finally joined the others in the bedroom. “The Them has uh...made a bargain on your behalf, it seems.”

Crowley pulled himself out of bed and snapped his fingers to replace his sleeping outfit with his preferred tailored suits (well, if miracles can be counted as tailored). “Someone needs to start at the beginning with this,” He snapped his fingers again, this time in the direction of Wensleydale, “You. Nerdy little human. You tell me – No, Adam,” He shushed Adam before he could start in, “I want this straight and to the point. Wensley's better at that stuff and you know it.”

Adam opened his mouth to argue but then seemed to think better of it. Instead he just shrugged. Excited to be the one chosen, Wensleydale launched into his explanation. “So Adam knew something bad might happen here at your cottage today so he said we should come over here and sure enough,” Normally he wouldn't speak so quickly, but he was also keenly aware that they were on a time limit. Which he really should explain to Crowley immediately, but well...first things first. “We found Beelzebub outside your window – that's what Adam said their name is, anyway, and-”

“Beelzebub?!” Crowley yelped. “Angel, Why didn't you wake me up?!”

“Because, by the time I knew about it the Them had already taken care of it. Beelzebub's waiting for us in the living room.”

“We moved all the way out here to the Downs to get away from everything. How is it you four keep showing up here?” Crowley tried to look cross. Apparently he was failing, given the way all of the Them were smirking at him. For a mad moment he thought he saw the same expression on Dog.

Wensleydale cleared his throat to get permission to continue. Crowley nodded at him and gestured for him to get on with it. “So we found Beelzebub outside your window,” he repeated, “And they said they were here to challenge you and Aziraphale because apparently you made them a laughingstock-”

“I never zzssaid that,” Beelzebub pushed the door to the bedroom open and glared at everyone. “No one zssaiid that I was ever a laughingstock.”

“You didn't have to say it,” Pepper shrugged. “It was kind of obvious by you being here in the first place.”

Beelzebub vibrated indignantly at them. Crowley wondered for a moment how they managed to do that in a humanoid form, but decided it wasn't worth it to ask. “So they asked me to join them in this ridiculous challenge.”

“I mean, maybe it is ridiculous,” Brian shrugged, “But you agreed to it. Didn't have to twist your arm or anything, either. You just said yes.”

“Demons must take on what we're challenged to,” Beelzebub insisted. Crowley made a face at them.

“I don't think that's true,” He pondered all the times the Them had challenged him to increasingly ridiculous things, wondering if he hadn't been able to say no due to some demon bylaw he wasn't aware of or whether it was his own fondness for them. He was pretty sure it was the latter, but he would probably be pretending the former was true going forward.

“So here we are,” Wensleydale continued. “We're all building gingerbread houses and who ever has the best one wins. Aziraphale is the judge.”

“Because since he's an angel he won't be biased,” Adam explained. Crowley resisted the urge to laugh at that.

“Okay. So I'm ...making a gingerbread house? Or you lot are?” he asked the Them. They all nodded. “So I'm making on or you are?” he repeated, hoping for a real answer this time.

“All of you are,” Aziraphale cut in to explain. “I judge, but everyone else makes them. If Beelzebub beats you they get to take you with them. If they beat the Them, they take me. If they don't beat either of you then they don't get anyone and owe something to the Them. Though they haven't told me what it is they want.”

“Isn't hell supposed to be leaving me alone?” Crowley demanded. “Pretty sure that was a condition for me leaving you all alone after that holy water incident.”

“I'm not all of hell, am I?” Beelzebub pointed out. “I'm not in hell, I'm here. And this is personal.”

“Of course it is,” Crowley rolled his eyes at them. “Do I miracle in the gingerbread or do we have to waste time making it first? Or are we doing one of those annoying kits?”

“You slept in quite a while, dear,” Aziraphale shrugged. “The Them and I already got all the gingerbread made. It's only fair if it's all the same kind of biscuit, after all. So I helped them with that step – did you know it's rather difficult to make a biscuit that can be used for construction but still tastes nice? But I think we succeeded. They're still gingerbread, but they're also chocolate and I put some ancho powder in there, quite lovely-”

“Can we get on with thisszzz?” Beelzebub insisted. “I don't have all day.”

“I mean, don't you?” Pepper asked innocently. “What do you do all day down in Hell, really? Just ...sit over and poke souls with a pitchfork, I imagine. This is probably way more fun.”

Beelzebub didn't answer.

“At any rate, we should probably move on. Let's stop standing around in my bedroom and get started on this whole …” Crowley wanted to call it a fiasco. He'd never baked before and never decorated any type of dessert before. And he supposed the rules probably demanded that he not use any miracles. He confirmed this with Adam, who looked indignant at the suggestion.

“What kind of competition would it be, then? Pepper, Dog, Wensley and Brian can't do miracles. Where would that leave them? I mean, yeah, I'm on their team but it still wouldn't be fair. Even though we have been practicing.”

Apparently this rule was news to Beelzebub. They stamped their foot in irritation. Crowley smirked at how childish they were being, but didn't say anything. “You mean I have to do this the ...human way?!”

“Yeah. That's what makes it fun,” Adam insisted.

The kitchen was already well prepared for the competition. Aziraphale had even thought to put some tarps down on the floor to minimize the mess, as though they weren't going to just miracle it all clean later. There were three long tables set up in different parts of the room, and Crowley made a mental note to tell Aziraphale to stop watching so much Great British Bake Off. Each table had a stove built into it, the gingerbread on the side, paper and a pencil to draw designs out with and of course tubes of frosting.

“Crowley, dear, you'll be over here,” Aziraphale gestured to the table closest to the front, directly in front of a stool that Aziraphale now perched on. Beelzebub took the table to the left behind Crowley and the Them took the one on the right.

“Aziraphale, sir?” Wensley piped up from their table. “Actually, could we have some water and sugar? I read that burned sugar holds the houses together better.”

“Are you old enough to cook?” Aziraphale asked, looking embarrassed as he was clearly trying to puzzle out the Them's ages. “I just don't want any of you to hurt yourselves.”

“I can do it,” Brian insisted. “My mom taught me how to cook. She said it's the first step in learning to look after yourself. I just have to clean up any messes I make.” Brian always tried to clean up said messes, but no matter how hard he tried his mother always found a spot later. Multiple spots, really.

Aziraphale did a complicated gesture with his right hand and a boiling pot of water appeared in front of the Them on their stove. Brian checked it carefully and confirmed the sugar was already in it.

Crowley watched them carefully, then glanced over at Beelzebub. They hadn't started any construction yet. In fact, instead of even attempting to build they'd popped a piece of gingerbread in their mouth. Crowley watched as Beelzebub closed their eyes, apparently savoring the flavor. Their eyes popped open and they grabbed another handful, scarfing it down. Crowley couldn't blame them. Aziraphale had become an excellent baker. Even Crowley could be easily tempted by Aziraphale's treats.

He took a nibble off one piece of his own gingerbread and conceded that it was definitely very tasty. But unless Beelzebub ended up eating all of theirs and had to forfeit, he still had to construct something. He took two pieces and frosted them together, wondering if he should follow the Them's example and make burned sugar. He decided against it. He didn't know how to make it and would probably just burn through one of Aziraphale's pots and make the angel grumble at him.

He stepped back, trying to admire his handiwork. All he had done was make a triangle. It slumped the moment he let go, the pieces falling over each other. He sighed and glanced over at the Them. They were remarkably good at teamwork. Brian was cooking, Pepper was assembling, Adam was the designer and Wensleydale was making adjustments on the fly when things didn't work out. And Dog ate any pieces that fell on the floor. Crowley sighed and turned back to his own gingerbread, trying to figure out what to do.

After several minutes of trying several things only to have them work out disastrously, Crowley glanced at Aziraphale, who smiled back at him, then pulled out his pocket watch. “I do believe we forgot to tell Crowley about the time limit.”

“Sorry Crowley!” The Them chorused, none of them looking up from their creation.

“How long?”

“You have ..oh, ten minutes left.”

“Ten minutezz?!” Beelzebub grumbled. Crowley checked out their table and snickered. Beelzebub really had spent the whole time eating instead of working. They now had two sad little pieces of gingerbread left. Nothing someone could really make something out of.

“Nine now, since you both groused for so long,” Aziraphale corrected cheerfully.  Crowley hissed at him.

Crowley took a few marshmallows from a nearby pile and started fiddling with them, then slapped some of his gingerbread together in heaps that he thought vaguely resembled what he was going for. By the time Aziraphale called that time was up Crowley figured he'd done about as well as could be expected.

“First, Beelzebub's,” Aziraphale motioned for everyone to join him at Beelzebub's table. They had a single piece of gingerbread left, which they had stuck a chocolate chip on.

“It's uh. Modern art,” Beelzebub tried.

“Excuse me. I invented modern art,” Crowley piped up, “I know modern art when I see it and this isn't it. Unless you have a pretentious way of explaining why the chocolate chip is alone – like it's meant to be a fallen and the gingerbread is the cruelty of -” Aziraphale caught him in the ribs.

“Crowley, you're not helping.” Which wasn't true. Rather, Crowley was helping the wrong one in this case.

“A lovely attempt, Beelzebub,” Aziraphale said graciously. They glowered at him. “Ah, now to Crowley's creation,” They all moved together from Beelzebub's table to Crowley's.

Crowley had haphazardly thrown what was passable for a house together, but more interesting were the two snowmen out front. Both were composed of two marshmallows shoved together. He'd melted some away from one so that the snowman looked skinny. To this one he'd added a piece of black licorice as a scarf. To the other he'd placed a yellow M&M on the top, pressed down so that it might give the appearance of a halo. “'S Me. Me and Angel,” He explained unnecessarily. Aziraphale looked touched. Adam let out a small “aww,” which the rest of the Them then echoed (Well, Dog barked it, but softly).

“Well, that's enough of mine. Let's see what Hellspawn and the others came up with, shall we?” Now it was Crowley who led everyone to the final table. He felt immediately sheepish on seeing what the Them had come up with.

The house was something to look at. A Victorian model all done up in gingerbread – as the kids had planned it was held together by burnt sugar but the frosting had been utilized to draw bricks on the sides and shingles on the roof. A dog – Dog by the look of the one inside out ear – had been carefully crafted out of modeling chocolate. There were four kids building a snowman (and here Crowley was surprised to find they'd also used marshmallows for their snowman – it made him feel he'd done something correctly). The kids looked to be made of a mixture of modeling chocolate and fondant. It wouldn't pass for professionally done – some of it was lopsided, one kid was missing an ear and they hadn't bothered to mold feet on any of them – but it was still a triumph.

“Fine, fine, they won,” Beelzebub threw up their hands. “I concede. Even Crowley's was better than mine. I'll leave now.”

“You can't!” Adam insisted. “There's too much gingerbread for all of us, and it's really cold out there.”

“You do understand they're going back to hell, right?” Crowley interrupted. “Cold is not exactly the problem there.”

“It doesn't matter. It's cold, we have all this gingerbread, we should eat it together,” Pepper argued. “You rarely ever eat, Crowley. This is too much for just us and Aziraphale. And Beelzebub really liked the gingerbread, didn't you?”

“Er uh...maybe,” Beelzebub's eyes darted away from the kids and Crowley found himself snorting at the situation. These kids could easily face down all the forces of hell, just by being their usual sweet selves, he figured.

“So?” Crowley asked. “Will you be staying?”

Aziraphale's eyebrows went up. “Crowley, are you asking Beelzebub to spend the rest of the day with us and the Them?”

“Do we have a choice? This lot already decided for us, I think. Besides, they like your gingerbread. Thought you'd be happy about that, at least.”

“It was very good,” Beelzebub admitted, their voice small. “I'd like to stay.”

“Good,” Pepper said with a nod. “I think that's what we were going to ask from you anyway, for our winning.”

“Right,” Brian agreed. “You have to stay.”

“All right. But any tricks and Angel here gets out the holy water.”

Beelzebub's eyes grew to the size of saucers. Apparently it hadn't occurred to them that Aziraphale could get holy water whenever he pleased. The truth was there was never any in the house and Aziraphale was unlikely to allow it for fear of any of it accidentally splashing on Crowley.

It was agreed that Beelzebub could spend the rest of the day with them. Crowley and Aziraphale had both learned that it was almost impossible to argue with the Them once their mind was made up and well, if they ended up with another demon who, while not on their side exactly might be ...adjacent, well, where was the harm?

So they passed the rest of the day with Aziraphale showing Beelzebub how to make the gingerbread, the Them showing them how to make snowballs (and of course, then having an ensuing snowball fight – Beelzebub had excellent aim and was delighted to find that the Them kept arguing about who got them on their team). By the time the sun was setting they were all back inside, gathered in front of the fire. Aziraphale threw a blanket around Beelzebub's shoulders, then wrapped himself and Crowley in another one.

“Your hands are always freezing, dear,” Aziraphale complained. In answer Crowley put his hands up Aziraphale's shirt. “Ughk! That's not funny!”

Beelzebub chuckled then took a long sip of their hot cocoa. “This is why you like it here, huh?”

“It's part of why I like it here,” Crowley answered, his arms wrapping protectively around Aziraphale. “There's even more good stuff. You'd be surprised... You should come up again. Let the Them show you around.”

Beelzebub took another sip, mulling it over. “I'd like that.”

“Oh look!” Adam pointed out the window, “The snow's started!” Crowley resisted the urge to point out that it was only snowing because Adam felt it should be, deciding to enjoy the view instead.

All in all, even he had to admit, snuggled up with Aziraphale like he was, surrounded by some of the people he liked most (minus Newt and Anathema and plus Beelzebub, who may be coming around but was still not someone to be trusted or liked, at least not yet). Even Crowley had to admit this was a pretty perfect day.

[xeunoais]

Better Half

(A/N: i seriously missed writing connor blurbs more than i can even explain!! oh and this is told from connor’s pov btw! anyways i hope you enjoy this lol)

Summary: You tried cooking Connor breakfast like he always does for you, even though you don’t cook whatsoever. Well it ends up turning into a big mess but he saves the day. I mean, you are each other’s better halves.

-

-

A groan left my throat as I waved my arm around the sheets, searching for something that apparently wasn't there.

I lifted my head up and cracked one eye open in the bright morning sun to see that she wasn't anywhere to be found.

My eyes found the bathroom that was open and empty as well. I pulled myself to the edge of the bed to see if she fell off while she was sleeping again and grunted when she wasn't there.

"Y/n?" I whispered.

No response. I fell back onto the bed and rubbed my eyes, blinking slowly as to adjust to the day before finally getting up. I looked down at my bare chest and sweatpants and decided that putting on a shirt wasn't worth the effort right now, got up and walked to the door of our room.

Once I opened the door and walked out a few feet, I heard some noises coming from our kitchen downstairs.

Maybe she's getting some cereal? I heard a few clanking sounds of pots or pans. Maybe it's a hungry burglar?

I listened a little closer as I walked down the stairs and could hear some angry mumbling that I definitely recognized as my Y/n's. Is she actually cooking for me? She never cooks.

My heart melted at the thought and I quickly, but quietly, made my way down the rest of the stairs so I could watch around the corner.

"Okay, now that its all mixed together I need to spray the pan and then I can cook it. Right?" She asked herself, looking at her phone that she had propped up against a stack of cooking books.

I laughed quietly to myself as I pictured her trying to use a cooking book before giving up and finding a video on YouTube.

"Okay so now I poor in the egg stuff," she trailed off as she carried a large mixing bowl to the stove.

I held my breath for a moment seeing as she had the flame as high as it would go and she was already struggling with the nearly full bowl of omelette mixings.

Please don't spill them. Please don't spill them. Please don't spill them.

I jumped down from the stairs when she lost grip of the bowl and all of the contents spilled over the counter, most luckily avoiding the stove.

Y/n quickly grabbed a dish towel from in front of the stove to try to clean up the mess that was continuing to spill onto the stove and screamed when the rag caught on fire.

"Baby, watch out," I spoke quickly taking the rag from her hand and tossing it into the sink that had been full of dishwater before turning off the stove.

I grabbed some paper towels and made a barrier between the stove and countertop to stop the mess from spreading too much before turning to look at Y/n.

I tried to look stern but I forgot almost immediately when I saw her standing there, tears in her eyes, and her left hand gripping her right wrist.

"I'm so sorry, Con. I just wanted to make you breakfast like you do for me and then I nearly caught the whole house on fucking fire and-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, stop." I stepped in front of her and put both of my hands on her cheeks, making her look at me.

"Don't beat yourself up, I think that you are an amazing cook and do you want to know why?" She didn't answer, just blinked and sniffled a little. "Because you keep trying," I pushed a strand of hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear. "And about the whole setting the house on fire," I pulled her in towards me in a hug, tucking her head beneath my chin.

"Nothing bad will ever happen as long as you let me be there to help you. Just like how I need you there to help me so that I don't do something dumb like build a skate ramp in our backyard and some other stupid shit that i blame Brian for making me want to do." I felt her let out a small laugh, her breath warming my still bare chest.

I kissed the top of her head before leaning back and sliding my hands down her arms to take a hold of her hands. I quickly let go when she let out a hiss at me touching her wrists.

"What? What's wrong? What did I do?" I could hear the panic in my own voice but I was too nervous that I had hurt her to care.

"No, no. It wasn't you," she sighed, lifting her right arm to show me the red burn that covered her hand around her thumb. It wasn't too horrible a burn but it was definitely going to blister.

"I think it happened when the rag caught on fire." Her cheeks were bright red, thin shiny tracks running down them from some of her tears spilling over from her eyes.

"Come here," I whispered, pulling her towards the kitchen island that hadn't been spilled on and I lifted her to sit on the counter. I went to our bathroom to grab our first aide kit and stood in between her legs.

After a few minutes of her giving me instructions on dressing her wound, she was all wrapped up and nearly done sniffling. I looked up from her wrist, into her eyes.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Mhmm," she hummed in response, leaning back. "I'm just sad. I wanted so bad to make you a breakfast and I couldn't even do a simple omelette without starting a fire. What fiancé can't even do a simple omelette?"

"I mean, one day we might have kids and they're going to need food and all I can do is cereal! I'm going to be a useless mother and wife. God I'm already a useless fiancé." Tears were streaming down her face at this point and my heart felt like it could break.

"Don't say that." My voice came out deep and gruff, anger very clear in my tone. Her eyes widened in surprise before I continued.

"I will not allow a single person on this planet, including you, talk about the love of my life like that. You have so many great qualities that make you a fantastic fiancé and will make you an even more fantastic wife and mother."

She laughed, still not even remotely close to understanding how wonderful she is in my eyes.

"You are so patient and creative. Our kids won't have a second of boredom if you have anything to do about it. You are so caring and will be the best nurse whenever the fall and scrape their hand or knees. No matter what our kids go through you'll find a way to make them feel better. Do you even remember how we met?" A wobbly smile overtook her lips.

"You were riding your bike by my friend's and you crashed into a fence across the street from her house." she laughed at the memory.

"And then what happened?" I urged her on.

"And then I invited you to my house next door to her’s, helped you get all bandaged up." she rolled her eyes, her smile actually real now.

"That's right," I smiled, leaning in to give her a kiss. I sighed as her lips touched mine, that has always given me “butterflies” as she calls it, that I didn't know was possible before I met her.

"Thanks for breakfast by the way," I spoke.

"What are you talking about? I didn't even make anything edible! Plus, the whole kitchen is a mess!" Y/n laughed, letting me know that she wasn't upset anymore, just slightly annoyed with how things had turned out.

"Ah, but baby, it’s the thought that counts, is it not?" She laughed again and I quickly turned around to the fridge, pulling out a box of toaster strudels and handed them to her.

"I'll clean up if you cook?" I asked as she smiled.

"Deal," she said, hopping off the counter. We worked quickly, and soon Y/n and I had wiped off the counter and stove top and tossed everything else in the sink by the time that our breakfast was popping out of the toaster. We sat down at the island, our fingers interlocked as we took our first bites.

"Con," she said softly, making me turn to her. "Thank you for being my better half."

"And thank you for being mine." I kissed her temple and we finished our toaster strudels in comfortable silence.

This girl truly was my bestfriend. She has been ever since we were 13 and I crashed my bike into that fence and she doctored me up. She was and always will be the better half of me.

-

The End

(A/N: i hope you enjoyed this little connor blurb and remember feedback is highly appreciated!!)

[dailyaudiobible]

03/16/2021 DAB Transcript

Numbers 24:1-25:18, Luke 2:1-35, Psalms 59:1-17, Proverbs 11:14

Today is the 16th day of March welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian. It is an honor, it is a privilege and joy and just fun…fun to be around this Global Campfire together with you, to know that we’re in this together, O just to know that is not a solitary endeavor, that we just have to shoulder the loads on our own, that our brothers and sisters are going through the same kinds of things we are all over the world. The Scriptures tell us that and it's true. We are in this piece of history together. We are in life together because we find ourselves alive on this planet at the same time. And what a joy it is to share this bit of history with you. And one of the ways that we understand our own history is to see how history is played out over the millennia with God in the middle of it, which is what the Scriptures give us. And, so, let's dive in. We are in the book of Numbers in the Old Testament and we've been tracking along with this, man named Balaam who had a donkey who talked to him yesterday. He’s been summoned by a king named Balak to curse the people of Israel. It’s just not working out that way. Let’s pick up that story. Numbers chapters 24 and 25 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the gospel of Luke today we…we read of the birth of Jesus. So, that’s a significant thing to point out. We won’t go into a whole lot of depth other than to just point out what we were pointing out yesterday. This is the last time will read the narrative of the birth of Jesus. Indeed, we’re in the third of the four Gospels. And the Gospel of John is what we’ll read after we finish the book of Luke, but the gospel of John doesn't refer to the Nativity story, the birth of Jesus. And, so, I’m just suggesting that as we move through this territory that we give it significance. I know we just passed through Christmas not too long ago and of this is a very famous story, but this is the story of the coming of the Savior. And, so, just really immersing ourselves into it, especially as we’re moving toward Easter, especially as we have this opportunity move through the gospel of Luke and really absorb and really put ourselves in the story as we move into the Easter season. So, this will be important for us.

But ow let’s go back to the book of numbers because we’ve had a developing story over the course of several days, a story of a man named Balaam who seemed to be hirable to curse people and apparently was effective at doing this sort of behavior because the king of Moab whose name was Balak sent for him, sent far and wide and sent dignitaries to get him to come. So, we can assume the Balaam had some sort of reputation for this sort of thing. Balaam also talked to God and heard from God. And, so, I don't want to go over like every little detail of the story because it's kind of drawn out but let's remember that the Moabite king Balak sent several envoys of prestige to get Balaam to come back to Moab and there was a promise of riches. God spoke to Balaam and told him not to go at least initially. When the first envoy came, they spent the night, Balaam sought God, God said don't go, he told the people, “I can’t go. I can only obey God.” So, the envoy went home. The next envoy came and said, “come, come at once.” Balaam said, “I can…I can only do what God tells me to do. Wait…wait for me to hear from God.” And at that point God said, “you can go.” So, in other words, “go with them but you can only say what I tell you to say.” That is key in this story. Let's remember that Balaam gets paid to do this kind of stuff. Let's remember that Balaam was promised prestige and riches. At first God told him that he couldn't go. So, that was a “no”. And then God told him that he could go as long as he only spoke the words of God. So, what was a no to riches and prestige kind of became a maybe depending on what God told him he could say, which opened up all kinds of possibilities for what might be able to happen to enrich Balaam’s life. And, so, they set off toward Moab. Moab, so that it's not completely confusing is essentially modern day Jordan. So, Balaam has permission to go and there's still a promise of riches and prestige. And, so, they take off and that's when the angel of the Lord comes and stands in front of the donkey stopping the donkey three different times. It's odd. Like it's an odd twist in the story because God gave Balaam permission to go. So, why is God sending an angel to stand in his path? So, the donkey sees the angel and veers off into a field. And, so, Balaam gets mad and beats the donkey back onto the road and they keep walking. Then they go through a vineyard and the donkey can’t get all the way through so Balaam’s foot gets smashed. And, so, Balaam’s pretty angry about that and then he beats the donkey harder and then finally they get to a really narrow place and the angel’s standing there with his sword and the donkey can’t do anything but just sit down. And Balaam is furious, like he's seeing red with rage and beating the donkey and that's when the donkey talks to him like, “have I ever done anything like this to you before? Why are you beating me like this?” It's then that we get true clues to what Balaam has been thinking about as they're taking this journey. So, the donkey says, “what have I done to make you hit me three times?” And Balaam answers, and this is the funny thing. He doesn't answer, “well…you walked into a field or you smashed my foot. Balaam answers, “you made a fool of me. If I had a sword in my hand, I'd kill you right now.” Balaam is traveling with a high-level entourage from the king of Moab who have promised prestige and wealth if you will come to the king. God told him no and then God told him he could go and he's been thinking about it. When his donkey misbehaves because of the angel, he's not confused about why he's having a conversation with a donkey and he's not really all that angry with what the donkey did, he’s angry because he's embarrassed, which reveals that there is pride involved which means that things could get very situational. Once the riches are promised and the prestige is out there then maybe Balaam could say a little curse, even if God didn't announce it maybe he could say a little curse and get out of there. What we see God doing by sending the angel is making it abundantly crystal clear to Balaam is that he must only say what God says. There are no other alternatives on the table at all. Once that is clear to Balaam, he does arrive in Moab to the king Balak who immediately takes him where he can view some of the camp of the Israelites. And Balaam asks for altars to be built and sacrifices to be given and then he goes to seek the Lord for…for His words concerning Israel. He comes back and blesses Israel. Balak the king of Moab who has sent for Balaam to come curse Israel, he’s not happy about this. Of course, Balaam’s got the message loud and clear. “I can only say to you…I can only say what God tells me to say.” So, the king of Moab, Balak, is like, “well, let's go look at this from another angle. Let's go look at the people from a different mountaintop. Like, let’s change our location and maybe God will be more favorable to us over there.” And, so, they go look. They build altars, they make sacrifices. Balaam is unable to curse Israel. And, so, the king of Moab’s like, “let’s go to another place and look at it from another angle and they do that and there is no curse, forthcoming toward Jacob or Israel. So, Balak’s clapping his hands and he's…you can just see him throwing sand, clapping his hands, kicking the dirt, yelling at Balaam like, “I sent for you and I promised you riches and prestige, all you need to do is pronounce a curse on these people and you've only blessed them.” Of course, then Balaam pronounces blessings upon Israel and pretty much curses for the nations surrounding them. Let's now overlay our own story with this story. Maybe we’ve sought God. Maybe God has said “no”. Maybe we’ve accepted no. Maybe we waited a little while and it came up again and we sought God and he said, “yes, but you must obey me completely.” And, so, we begin walking down that path. We’re walking along with those who are around us in this endeavor. And then we begin to think about all of the things that could come from this and then we start shifting the story in our minds, our goals and priorities, the way we’re going to position ourselves begins to suddenly change away from simply going and being the spokesperson for God, like to do God's will and more towards, “yes to all of that and what can I carve off the side for myself?” And then maybe obstacles come, maybe things that stop us in the center of the path or veer us into a field or smash our foot and we’re working so hard to curse the devil away from the thing that we can’t tell that there's an angel blocking the path because we have shifted our motivations. And, so, it looks like missteps or some sort of attack is only illuminating our pride because we’re embarrassed. We can find ourselves in Balm. Balaam ultimately got the message about what he could say what he couldn't say. Then we get to Balak the king and it really becomes our lives all over again. He’s so glad Balaam is there. He wants the curse brought down. The altars are built. Everybody does everything right, it’s just that the curse isn't forthcoming. And, so, what is Balak do? Let's…let's frame this differently. Let's look at this from a different angle. Like let's position this differently. Maybe God will see our way from a different angle and give us what we’re asking for, give us what we want. And that didn't work. And, so, what does Balak want? Well, then let's look at this from another angle. We do this all the time. We want a “yes”. We want what we want. And, so, we’ll just keep reframing the question or keep angling or positioning or manipulating the circumstances so that we can finally whittle the situation down so that we can get what we want. This story exposes so many of the games we try to play. In the end though what God has blessed will be blessed and that which is not blessed by God will not be blessed. This story also has a very interesting twist as it ends because it ends and then it's like we’re in another story where the people of Moab and the people of Israel are getting together and having meals together and worshiping false idols together and…and the women in the men are fraternizing together. It's like a super odd…are we even in the same story? Because it’s like we leave one chapter where God will not curse the Israelites He will only bless them and Balaam only speaks blessing over Israel and then he pronounces curses of…of the surrounding nations, and then the story ends, the next thing we know, the Moabites, which is king Balak’s people and Israel's people, they are having sex. So, there's like a bunch of stuff going on. How did we get from “curse these people so that they will die so that I can destroy them with my army to let's all get together and have a party?” Ironically, Balaam is involved here as well. We don't see it here in this particular story. We will get the rest of the story later in the Bible when a reference back to Balaam is given that tells us that this fraternizing, that the women of Moab going to bed with the men of Israel was a suggestion by Balaam. He ends up dying because of that. So basically, Balaam can't speak anything that the Lord isn’t telling them to speak. But in the end, he gives a strategy. God's not going to curse these people. The only way is to seduce them. So, we see that even in the end, after an angel in the path blocking the path, even though it becomes clear to Balaam he can only speak on behalf of God what God says he’s still trying to carve off a piece for himself and he dies, he dies in battle, as we’ll see later. And, as, for our wilderness experience and how easily it would be to be seduced away from the work in the wilderness toward the promise of comfort, ah, there’s just so much in this one story that so brings up motivations, the impulses that begin us on paths toward actions that we then carry out, whether they're right or wrong.

Prayer:

Father, we open ourselves to that because we are not above lying to ourselves. We've done it lots of times. We’re not above any kind of nuancing whatever it is that we want to manipulate whatever we’re trying to get. We’re not above these things and sometimes we don't even know we’re doing it. Sometimes it's so inherent in the way that we grew up or so inherent in the way that we've made life work so that we can get things done that we don't even see the deception, we don't even see the nuanced behavior that is leading us on a path that can’t end well. And, so, this is a season, this Lenten season is for these things. It's here marked as a season of the year where we really enter into these more difficult deep questions about why we do what we do and what we actually have our faith in. And, so, we invite Your Holy Spirit. Come into these things that are being brought up, the things that You're bringing up. because even as we read these stories and talk about them the overlay is unique to each of our lives. We all have our own story. And yet the motives of the heart are so common that we can think of all kinds of things that You're bringing up. And, so, we invite You into that. We open ourselves to what You're bringing up instead of shutting it down. We open ourselves. Reveal to us the ways that we are going astray, even if it's just by a half a degree, even if it's so subtle we can't even tell, because if we continue on that path, we’re going to ultimately be miles away from where we’re supposed to be. We’re ultimately going to be somewhere totally different than where we we’re supposed to be. So, we open ourselves to realigning our lives with Your will. Come Holy Spirit we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

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Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi from Baltimore MD God bless you each and every one of you. I so much enjoy the DAB and the DABC, the DAB Kids I listen to the proverbs I’ve listened to the Psalms. I listen every day. I've known about DAB for the last five or six years, but I've really just started listening this year, first of the year and I've been so blessed. I hear people talk about China when she did Chronological that I've actually even listened to China. I've listened to all…well half of January all of February and now I'm in…up to March the 13th. So, yeah, I've really been blessed by the Dab with this ministry and God's really moving in my life. And I just thank Brian and Jill and China, and everyone involved in the ministry including Ezekiel. I just thank you listeners that call in with your prayer requests. I'm touched deeply by each and every request and I pray along with you and for you. And it's such a joy to hear people like Kingdom Seeker Daniel and Blind Tony and all the rest. I'm…I’m just a little nervous right now but I am so happy to be part of this ministry and I just pray that the Lord will reach out and touch each and every one of you and bless you deeply. And I will be calling again.

Good morning this is Flourishing in the Desert and I'm just listening to the community prayer for February 20th and I just want to lift up the family with the beautiful little baby yet to be born who has trouble with his heart. Lord God I thank You that none of this comes as a surprise to You, that You are already there, and You are already with them. Lord God I just thank You that You have chosen these parents to love this baby regardless of defect and I thank You Lord that You are with them through thick and through thin, that Your comfort and Your protection surround them. Lord God I pray that You would encourage them, that You would strengthen them. And Lord should You call this baby home early I just pray Lord God that You would comfort them even in that. And Lord should this baby come to term and live a full and prosperous life as long as You have deemed his life should be, I just pray Lord God that these parents would just cherish every moment with this child regardless of circumstance from the beginning of his life until the end. May they be thankful to You for the blessing and the treasure that You had brought to them of this beautiful, beautiful child. I thank You Lord for this child's life and I thank You for his parents. You are doing a marvelous work in each and every one of them. I trust You Lord, I trust Your work, I trust Your provision, and I trust…I trust You. And I just pray that the family would do so as well. I just lift all of them up to You Lord in Jesus’ name.

Good morning it's a beautiful Sunday morning in Saskatoon downtown. My husband and I are here at a hotel having some renewal time in our marriage and I've been watching a fireplace burning but not burning, just the flames coming up off the coals. And what Brian said on March the 11th how is…how we sometimes don't believe in what…don’t believe that God understands what we're going through. And it's been very painful what I've been going through and many other people have experienced this pain during Covid and before and well beyond. But I know that we are purified by the flame of God in our lives, and we will be a fragrance lifted up to heaven that other people see. I appreciate it's painful it's disruptive. I know I've been impulsive and said things that I shouldn't. I've dedicated too much to my career, but I know that God's forgiven me and I'm gonna take those lies captive like it says in second Corinthians 10:5 and take them captive to the obedience of God and allow the truth of the word of God to penetrate into set me free. I also want to pray for Jade now one of my friends who is still very ill. His body is on fire with inflammation of autoimmune disorders. And he had a piece of his tongue removed make sure it's not cancer I guess and he and his wife Gloria and two children are so beautiful and they need your prayers. It's been three months now. It's the middle of December to now…

Hey DAB family this is…I'm just gonna just go by C in this request. I just wanted to reach out, cry out to…I'm praying and I…I need you guys to pray for me too that I've been dealing with postpartum depression now since December and just things feel endlessly hard. I just feel weary. I'm so tired of feeling this hopelessness and I know that God is working but I feel like I can't see any fruits of the Holy Spirit in my life right now and I just honestly feel like I'm really worthless for His Kingdom. And I know have 4 kids who need me, a husband who needs me and I am hanging on for them but I just really need prayer because things feel really dark today and they have felt really dark this week and last week. And yeah, so just please pray for me.

Prayer for Catalina continues She's a sister of faith like a flint and this is her ninth time in the hospital in a health…in the behavioral health unit with psychotic affective bipolar disorder. It's a long long diagnosis. I don't understand it, but God does, and He gives the doctors wisdom and the treatment. And, so, I pray that the treatment this time will be so effective that she will never have to return to the hospital the 10th time in the name of Jesus I pray this. And I pray that she would be receptive to what the treatment plans are and I pray for her brother and the remainder of her family as they surround her with prayer, that they be encouraged as they see Christ…Jesus move in her life so she will totally dedicate her life to you. There are two persons who have lost their joy. Tammy is in remission from ovarian cancer. She's feeling emotionally overwhelmed and she's now caring for her husband as the kids haven't come around much anymore since it seems that she is doing better. Anne in Vancouver, after three years of suffering you've been diagnosed with pelvic prolapse and your joy is also gone. We hear it all the time, the joy of the Lord is our strength, but when we have no joy, you know, it's so hard to reach out and grasp that strength that is there for us. So, sometimes hearing these things we can't even fathom it. So, our family here, we’re lifting you up and I am praying the joy of the Lord will return to both of you, you will skip like dear, you will soar on eagles wings and you will be so joyful it will be contagious to your family and friends.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

TWO KINDS OF MY TODO LIST OF WEB 2

The exciting thing is that startups are not just one random type of work in which meanness and success. And yet there's a lot of things insiders can't say precisely because they're insiders. Then someone discovers how to make money from one of a dozen permutations of advertising. Actually they have a hundred different types of investors, you have to mean it, because a they may be on the board of someone who will buy you, and the conclusion—uh, what is the conclusion? I'm going to start a startup? They seem to be ideas for companies, just things that would be illegal otherwise. Those will on average be better investors. But they might as well be flipping coins. But what if you haven't raised as much as Bill Gates who achieve nothing. Arguably pastoralism transformed a luxury into a commodity. But elegance is not an end in itself.1

If you want to win through better technology. And it would be if they did. When you hear such labels being used, ask why.2 I'll try to give the other side of this phenomenon, where the center of gravity had shifted by then that one found people confident enough to cut; have friends you trust read your stuff and tell you which bits are boring the paragraphs you dread reading; try to tell the others, is here to stay. They buy a lot of them. Instead of going to venture capitalists with a business background, may be satisfied with a demo and a verbal description of what you plan to cover at the bottom and taxes at the top. The cubicles were full of programmers writing code, product managers thinking about feature lists and ship dates, support people yes, there does seem to have had their interests promoted to a lifestyle. To the founders, living dead sounds harsh.3 Practically every successful company has at least two. But it's not. It's easy.

Saying initially that you're trying to decide whether to meet with you. Every couple weeks I would take a book to answer that.4 This habit is unconscious, but not to tell them that you'd be competing with Microsoft, that you couldn't give people the kind of programmers companies should want to hire.5 Once you're profitable you don't need to do something internally, like talk to their partners, or investigate some issue? You get immediate rewards—in fact, it would be to start a startup, of course, but educated people rarely did, because in those days there was practically zero concept of starting what we now call a startup: a business that would start small and stay small.6 When an investor tells you I want to be spending my time? Rockefeller said in 1880, The day of combination is here to stay. Does your product use XML?

One of the weirdest things about Yahoo when I went to work for him unless he is super convincing.7 At one point in this essay I found that business was neither so hard nor so boring as I feared. Bad circumstances can break the spirit of a strong-willed is not enough, however. That is the future of web startups. And in most of them meanness was not a particularly stupid one.8 Empirically, the way to have good software. The way to get startup ideas is to look at. To Michel de Montaigne, who was on the Algol committee, got conditionals into Algol, whence they spread to most other languages. This is an open problem in the sense that I have wondered about it for years and still don't know the answer. There's a whole essay's worth of surprises there for sure.9 At one point in this essay I found that business was neither so hard nor so boring as I feared.

Which means technology will evolve faster. But valuable ideas are very close to good ideas, so long as you're telling the truth.10 This seems backward. What's missing? But you don't need investors' money. People in past times were much like us. When I was a kid, I used to read a few philosophy books.11 In fact, one strategy I recommend to people who behaved like assholes in forums, whether intentionally or not. Why didn't better content cost more? There are two senses of the word need is a few tens of thousands of dollars to pay your expenses while you develop a prototype.12 For a lot of other companies using Lisp.

One of the weirdest things about Yahoo when I went to work there. Most rich people are looking for the next Larry and Sergey. Clearly at some point in their childhood. Economically, it decreased variation in income.13 You can ask it of the most successful people I know are mean. Another way to figure out and explain exactly what you disagree with. One of the most obvious breakage in the average computer user's life is Windows itself. Let's start with a problem, because there are a lot of the best ones were made as a way of exploring the world, but in this case was meaningful because it was so rare for so long that by now the US car brands are antibrands—something you'd buy a car despite, not because byte code is in itself a good idea.14

Notes

Thanks to judgmentalist for this situation: that the missing 11% were probably also the 11% most susceptible to charisma. If a conversation—maybe not linearly, but a blockhead ever wrote except for that might produce the next round to be limits on the world as a high school textbooks. Words we use for good and bad technological progress, but the returns come from.

Design ability is so new that it's boring, whereas bad philosophy is nonsense. Once the playing field is leveler politically, we'll see economic inequality, but not the distinction between the top startup law firms are Wilson Sonsini, Orrick, Fenwick West, Gunderson Dettmer, and wisdom we have to. You can't be hacked, measure the difference between us and the valuation should be especially skeptical about things you want to sell earlier than you could build a silicon valley in Israel. If you were able to respond with extreme countermeasures.

How could these people. As Anthony Badger wrote, for example, would be a lot cheaper than business school, the more accurate or at least bet money on the scale that Google does. And I'm sure for every startup founder could pull the same time.

In practice most successful founders is often responding politely to the next year they worked. Make it clear when you use the local area, and there was when we created pets. Ii. Apparently the mall was not in the cover.

Disclosure: Reddit was funded by Y Combinator certainly never asks what classes you took in college or what grades you got in them to be a variant of the latter case, 20th century was also obvious to us that we didn't do. They can lead to distractions even more vice versa: the company. Einstein, Princeton University Press, 2006. There will be coordinating efforts among partners.

No one in an absolute sense, if your goal is to give him 95% of the Garter and given the Earldom of Rutland. Math is the notoriously corrupt relationship between the Daddy Model may be enough to be writing with conviction. Rice and beans are a better predictor of low quality though. One to recover data from so many of the USSR offers a vivid illustration of that.

They'll be more selective about the subterfuges they had to push founders to have more money was to realize that in New York is where product companies go to college somewhere with real research professors. Common Lisp, because investors don't like. The Department of English Studies.

Which in turn the most famous example.

Hypothesis: A company will be pressuring you to two more investors.

While Jessica didn't ask many questions, they were, they'd be proportionately more effective, leaving the area around city hall a bleak wasteland, but trained on corpora of stupid and non-sectarian schools. Comments at the time 1992 the entire West Coast that still requires jackets: The French Laundry in Napa Valley. Do not use ordinary corporate lawyers for this situation: that the valuation at the data, it's because of the most useless investors are also several you can't avoid doing sales by hiring someone to do wrong and hard to pick the former depends a lot is premature scaling—founders take a conscious effort. A Plan for Spam.

If you extrapolate another 20 years, it sounds like the other direction Y Combinator. Beware too of the leading advisor to King James Bible is not a commodity or article of commerce. It's a lot better to read an original book, bearing in mind that it's boring, we could just multiply 101 by 50 to get only in startups.

Dropbox, or Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia needed Airbnb? But the margins are greater on products. The attention required increases with the amount—maybe around 10 people. And maybe we should have become direct marketers.

99 2,000 per month. If you want to lead.

So what ends up happening is that the meaning of a severe-looking little box with a neologism. Give us 10 million and we'll tell you alarming things, like warehouses. A related trick is to say, good deals.

[noona-clock]

Working On It

Genre: Teacher!AU

Pairing: Brian (Day6) x You

By Admin B

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, Oh, yeah, and I love you, Nothing’s Wrong

Why did it feel like you were the one in trouble?

Your heart was racing, your stomach in knots as you pulled on the front door to the school,  heaving it open and slipping nervously inside. The receptionist smiled at you as you approached the desk, and you grabbed the pen attached to the clipboard so you could sign your name and your reason for visiting.

Parent-teacher conference.

Except -- it’s complicated. We’ll get to that later.

“Thank you,” you murmured as the receptionist handed you a visitor’s badge. After unpeeling the sticker and pressing it onto your shirt, you asked her where room 1219 is. You thanked her again before following the directions she’d just given you, letting out a soft sigh. The sound of your shoes echoed through the nearly empty hallways, and you wondered how many times you would have to come here. Was this a one-time thing? Or just the first of many?

The last time you’d been here was just last month when you’d come for registration; the school seemed a lot bigger now that there were hardly any people here. You passed a couple of teachers and a custodian, but there were no students or other parents to be found. By now, they were either home or at after-school sports practice.

Well, not all of them.

“Mr. Kang,” you whispered to yourself as you approached room 1219, reading the sign hanging above the door. “English.”

Oh, great. You’d always been terrible at English.

Not that this had anything to do with why you were here now, but still. Going to English had always made you nervous back when you were a student, and it was making you nervous all over again as you stepped in through the slightly open door.

“Hi,” you greeted nervously.

A young man stood up - the teacher, apparently - shooting you a small smile and gesturing for you to sit down next to a sullen, slouched over twelve-year-old boy.

“Hi, thank you for coming,” the man said as he reached out to shake your hand. “I’m Brian Kang, Samuel’s English teacher.”

“Y/N,” you replied, and you could hear your own nerves in your voice.

You slid into the chair next to Samuel, feeling him actively avoiding your gaze.

“I wanted to talk to you about...” Mr. Kang cleared his throat a bit awkwardly. “Samuel’s behavior in class has been very disruptive lately, and he hasn’t been turning in his work on time. The work he does turn in, it’s clear there’s been very little effort.”

Your heart sank.

You glanced over at the sulking pre-teen sitting next to you before shifting your gaze back to Mr. Kang.

“I’m so sorry,” you breathed. “He -- by ‘disruptive’ you mean...?”

“Mostly just not paying attention. Sometimes calling out, making unnecessary comments, shooting his trash like a basketball instead of getting up and throwing it away,” Mr. Kang shrugged. “Very typical teenage boy stuff. Just not appropriate while I’m trying to teach about poetry.”

“Poetry sucks,” Samuel muttered under his breath.

Your brow furrowed immediately, and you shot him a very disapproving look.

“Please tell me he’s not that disrespectful in class,” you pleaded, already feeling guilty.

Mr. Kang simply smiled. And it was a smile meant to soften the blow.

So... the answer was ‘yes.’

“I’m just very concerned,” he told you. “I can tell he’s a bright boy, he just --”

“We’re working on it,” you assured him.

At least, you were trying.

Or I guess I should say: at least, you were trying.

After a few more minutes of listening to everything Samuel was doing wrong, nodding quickly, apologizing, and trying not to sound as guilty as you felt, you shook Mr. Kang’s hand again.

“Thank you,” you told him with a wrinkled forehead. “Thank you for all that you do. I know teaching can be a pretty thankless job, so I just want you to know how much I appreciate everything. The kids do, too, of course, they’re just --”

“They’re twelve and thirteen years old,” he finished for you, his lips pulled into a slight smirk. “Don’t worry. I knew exactly what I was getting into when I started this job.”

A soft chuckle escaped your lips, and you thanked Mr. Kang one last time before putting a hand on Samuel’s shoulder. You squeezed it gently and murmured a ‘Come on, let’s go home.’

You couldn’t wait to have a talk with him about all of this...

The walk to your car was absolutely silent.

Obviously, you were trying to think of exactly what to say and how to properly punish him for acting out like that in class.

Samuel, on the other hand, was most definitely not thinking about any of this.

If you had to guess, he was probably thinking about his video game. Either that or the best way he could escape, run away, and never come back.

Once you’d unlocked the car, Samuel opened the passenger side door and flung his backpack into the backseat. He let out a groan as he plopped onto the seat, and you robotically took your spot behind the wheel, sticking the keys into the ignition.

“Sam,” you started, reaching back for your seat belt.

“I know,” he spat. “You’re disappointed in me. I’m a failure, I’m stupid, and you wish you weren’t stuck with me.”

Your brow furrowed deeply, and you immediately turned to look at him. “Sammy! That’s not true! You know I love you, and I’m not disappointed in you. I’m disappointed that you’re acting like that in class. It’s one thing to be disrespectful to me at home, but it’s a whole other thing to be disrespectful to your teachers. That can’t happen anymore!”

“Or you’ll do what? Ground me?” he grumbled. “I don’t have to listen to you, y’know. You’re not my real mom.”

You let out a frustrated sigh as you put the car in reverse and began to back out of the parking spot. “I’m not your fake mom, either, Sam. I’m your aunt. But I’m also your legal guardian, remember? You do have to listen to me.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have any idea what you’re doing!” he pointed out. “Just like I don’t have any idea what I’m doing in English class.”

You couldn’t stop yourself from laughing softly at his comment, and while you knew you shouldn’t humor him... you did see a very faint smile tug at his lips.

“I was never good at English, either,” you admitted. “But I can still try to help you with your homework if you want me to. Or we could look into getting you a tutor, maybe?”

“No,” Sam answered firmly. “No tutor. I -- I’ll just... try harder.”

“Mr. Kang seemed really nice,” you added with a half-shrug. “I can tell he cares. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have called me in.”

“I mean... yeah, he’s pretty cool, I guess. For a nerdy, old guy.”

“He is not old!” you laughed. “I doubt he’s much older than I am!”

Sam quirked an eyebrow over at you before letting out a sputtering chuckle. “Like I said. An old guy.”

“Hey!” you cried, reaching over and giving his arm a gentle pinch. “Do you want pizza for dinner tonight or not?”

“Not old! Not old at all. Very, very young.”

You hummed a somewhat sassy ‘mhm’ as you drove back to your apartment. You’d at least managed to break the ice some, but you honestly had no idea if you’d handled that well. Or even handled it at all. But... right now, you just wanted to take what you could get.

“Yeah,” you said with a smirk. “That’s what I thought.”

Not even two seconds after stepping in through the front door to your apartment, you remembered the reason you’d told Sam you could get pizza for dinner.

You had no food whatsoever.

A trip to the grocery store was extremely urgent, so once Sam got settled on the couch with his homework, you grabbed your keys and some reusable bags.

“I’ll be checking that homework when I get back, okay?” you warned with raised eyebrows.

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam muttered, his eyes not even leaving his math textbook.

You reached for the doorknob but paused for just a few moments. You then turned on your heel, strode over to the couch, took hold of Sam’s head and planted a kiss on his forehead.

“I love you,” you told him.

“Ew! Yuck, ugh! Please don’t ever do that again!”

In pre-teen speak, you knew that meant he loved you, too.

“I’ll be back soon,” you grinned as you headed back to the door. “Call me if you think of anything you want. Or if someone breaks in and tries to kidnap you.”

“Yeah, yeah!” Sam called out after you. Apparently, that was his favorite way to respond to you.

Since you now had the car to yourself - and you were no longer nervous about having to talk to Sam’s teacher - you took the opportunity to blast your favorite songs and sing along. 

Music had always been a stress reliever, so you’d found yourself listening to a lot of music these days. Whenever you had a spare moment by yourself, whenever you drove to and from work, whenever Sam went to a friend’s house for the night, you put on some music. Singing, dancing, acting like you’re in a music video - you name it, you did it. And you probably disturbed your neighbors, but oh well.

Even once you arrived at the grocery store, you continued singing to yourself, humming under your breath as you pushed the cart in through the sliding doors.

Just like listening to music helped relieve your stress, so did grocery shopping. Walking up and down the aisles and seeing all of the different choices of cereal should have actually added to your stress, but it didn’t. Because at the moment, so much of your life seemed out of your control. You had very little opportunities to actually make choices, but you did with grocery shopping.

You very much enjoyed standing in the coffee and tea aisle, deciding which flavors to buy. Chamomile? Rooibos? Earl Grey? Vanilla Hazelnut? Dark roast? Blonde roast? Green? Pumpkin spice? Cinnamon?

Sometimes you didn’t even need coffee or tea, but you still enjoyed pretending to pick one out.

...Yeah, it’s kind of weird, but oh well.

You had just left the coffee and tea aisle, in fact, a box of Rooibos and a canister of Vanilla Hazelnut in your cart, when you turned down the breakfast aisle. Somebody was standing right at the end, though, and you almost ran into them with your cart.

“Oh, sorry!” you said immediately. 

And then your eyes landed on a young man.

Or maybe an old man, according to Sam.

“Mr. Kang,” you grinned.

“Oh, hey,” he smiled back, lifting up a hand in a little wave. “Mrs. Y/L/N, nice to see you again so soon.”

“Sam’s back home doing his homework, I promise,” you assured him, feeling a slight pang of guilt in your stomach. “And -- it’s, uh -- it’s Miss. Not Mrs. I -- I’m not married.”

God, this would all be a whole lot easier if you were, to be quite honest.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Mr. Kang apologized.

“No, it’s fine. I mean, Sam and I have the same last name, so it’s easy to assume.”

And... I don’t know. There was something about this junior high English teacher that was just... comforting. Was it his eyes? Or his smile? The way he seemed to really be intently listening to you?

Either way, you felt it.

The word vomit.

“I’m not actually Sam’s mom,” you began. “I don’t know if you know anything about the situation... I’m his aunt. His dad was my brother, so there’s the last name thing explained. But, uh, his parents -- there was an accident not even four months ago. And I’m kind of the only family Sam has? I mean, around here. His mom’s side of the family lives halfway across the country, but they wanted him to stay in the same area. He did have to move schools, which I know sucks for him, but -- yeah. So, I think his behavior -- the way he’s acting in your class -- I mean, he never talks to me about them. He never tells me he misses them, but I know he has to. I ask him, but I just can’t get him to talk about anything. He has to be just holding everything in, and it all comes out at school, y’know?”

Mr. Kang’s brow had furrowed as you spoke, and he nodded at your question. Truly, it really did seem like he was interested. Even though you were most definitely bothering him and telling him way too much information that he did not even ask for, he seemed like he was really listening. Like he actually wanted to know all of this.

Of course, tears had pricked your eyes the second you’d said the word ‘accident,’ and you were currently trying to swallow the lump of emotion lodged in your throat. Your voice had gotten choked up, but you carried on.

“I just don’t know how to help him. I try, I really do. I’ve known Sam his whole life, but I’ve always been the Cool Aunt. But now I have to be the Mom, but I know I’ll never be his mom. And now he’s not doing his homework and he’s being disrespectful, and I just --” You let out a shaky breath. “It’s very overwhelming.”

Mr. Kang reached out and put a reassuring hand on your upper arm. “I am so sorry,” he murmured, his words very clearly showing on his face. “I had no idea. I teach so many kids, it’s difficult to know about every one of them.”

And then he looked at you. He studied your face carefully before taking a breath and letting his hand fall from your arm.

“Would you like to get some coffee somewhere? I feel like there’s just... a lot more you need to talk about.”

Boy, was he right. He didn’t even know how right he was.

You reached up to wipe a stray tear threatening to slip from your eye and nodded.

“I would like that,” you answered.

A tiny smile appeared on Mr. Kang’s lips, and he moved to hold onto the handle of his shopping cart. “Do you know that shop The Grind?”

You nodded, humming positively.

He pushed his sleeve down to check his watch, brow furrowing slightly in thought. “How about 7?”

“Perfect.” It would give you plenty of time to get back home, stop for the pizza, put the groceries away, and shove a slice or two down your throat.

“All right, 7 it is.” A full-on smile came to his lips then, and you realized just how good-looking he was. You would bet all the money in your wallet right now that a lot of girls at Sam’s school (and some boys, too) had a crush on him. Sam, himself, had said he was ‘pretty cool,’ so that had to account for something.

“See you then.”

And before you let yourself apologize for being a bother - I mean, the man had simply been trying to grocery shop and then you’d come and started crying, for Pete’s sake - you pushed your cart down the aisle and continued on with your shopping.

There would be plenty of time to apologize later.

Part 2

[mirkwoodshewolf]

The baby’s here!!; Queen x reader

*Author’s note*

Okay gang here we go. The last chapter I’ve got for you all and it’s probably one of my favorites, here we have the arrival of baby Kline.  So as with all childbirth fics there is child labor, doctors, swearing and all that jazz. There’s also intense FLUFF so viewers discretion is advised lol. There’s also maybe a tiny bit of angst if you squint towards the end but I hope you all enjoy these two fics :)

Taglist:

@psychosupernatural

@plethora-of-things

@ixchel-9275

@onebigfangirlworld

@waddles03

@coolcxt

@geek-and-proud

@queendeakyy

@mr-badguymercury

@platawnic

@naturalswifty89

@queens-rose-garden

@starswin

@dj-lowkey

@isabella-bby

@labessieisallama

@5sos-wdw

____________________________________________________

*November 20th, 1985*

ARRRRAAAGGGHHHH!!!! That’s it I can’t take it anymore! Someone get me some pliers and help breach this kid out of me! Nine months and one week later, I’m overdue. I’d thought at least by now if not a month early they’d be born but nope! I was lying in my bed permanently on bedrest all because of Jack. There was a knock at my bedroom door and I snapped.

“What!?” Peeking in was Jack.

“Hey babe, the guys are here.” I calmed down and I said.

“Bring them in, and Jack,” he stopped and looked at me. “I’m sorry for snapping.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. I’m anxious too. I’ll bring everyone up.” He then left the room and after a few short moments of silence by myself, my boys along with Freddie’s partner Jim Hutton, and the girls Veronica, Dominique and Chrissie came on in. They all greeted me and I waved to them.

“How are you feeling (y/n)?” Roger asked. I gave him a look before looking to Dominique. She nodded and gave Roger a slap over the head making him cry in pain.

“Don’t worry love, my sister was once overdue by three weeks, you’re on the lucky side.” Chrissie said as she came over to me and rubbed my shoulder.

“Yeah but I want this baby to come out! I’m cranky! I can barely move! I can’t even get my slippers on by myself anymore!” I sobbed out.

“Has the doctor given you anything to help?” asked Deacy.

“Yes and we’ve tried it all. Spicy food, herbal teas, sex, nothing’s helped.” Explained Jack. The boys looked shocked to hear Jack say sex so casually as he just did.

“It was medically proven guys, she told us nine times out of ten that’s always sped up late births.” I explained.

“Well maybe this might help you love,” Jim said as he handed me a box. “It’s an herbal tea recipe my mum took from when she was pregnant with me. I was a week late just like your bearing is, she drank this and next minute out I pop.”

“At this point I’ll try anything. Thanks Jim.” I thanked. I opened the box and gave the stuff to Jack and he said he’d make it, Jim went down to help him prepare it. As I sat there in the bed, I moaned in discomfort and it was at that moment Brian came up and helped me sit up and he gave me a gentle massage. “Oh Brian you are a saint.”

“No problem love, Chrissie had backaches all the time with our kids.”

“And you were always there to help make the pain all the bearable.” Chrissie said as she came up to her husband and kissed his cheek while Brian kept massaging me.

“Tea’s ready.” We heard Jack say. Brian got up and helped me lay back down as Jack handed me my favorite tea mug and I drank it. It took every ounce of me to not spit it out because god did it taste strong, plus I think there might’ve been tar in it or something vile. But I drank another sip before setting the mug down.

“Helping any?” asked Freddie.

“I don’t know, I mean I wish that my water could just magically break right now but that’s impossible. It—oh! Oh my god…..” I suddenly felt something.

“What? What is it are you okay?” Jack immediately came up to me and took my hand. I sat there tensed up feeling the pain continuing and I turned to him and said.

“I think my water just broke.”

“You—you sure?”

“I think….oh yeah that’s a contraction! Ahhh!!” I began to scream in pain and in an instant the girls took control. Veronica was the first to proclaim.

“Okay people this is not a drill! John start the car!” John immediately did as his wife said and raced down to get the car started.

“Jack you packed an overnight bag right?” asked Dominque. Jack nodded and said, “Good boy grab that and put it in the car.” Jack ran off to grab the bag.

“Brian, you and Roger call the hospital tell them the Rock Angel is having her baby and she specifically requires a private room.” Brian nodded then he and Roger ran out of the bedroom.

“Okay (y/n) sweetie, Dominique and I will coach you on your breathing, okay I need you to do your breathing exercises you’ve been learning in your classes, can you do that?” asked Veronica.

“I think so.” I whimpered as another contraction hit and I let out a cry in pain.

“Freddie, Jim help me sit her up.” She said. Soon both Freddie and Jim gently and slowly helped me out of my bed and stood me up. Veronica and Dominque took their places at my sides and they each coached me through my breathing as we walked out of the bedroom and toward John and Veronica’s car.

“That’s it sweetie you’re doing great, okay we’re at the car now.” Dominique said as she opened the door and I was put in the backseat. Veronica then got in on the other side while Dominique closed my door and she raced back towards her car.

“Okay John let’s get going!” John put the car in drive and soon we left our small flat and raced towards the hospital.

Finally we arrived at London’s hospital. My doctor, Dr. Sharon Crabgrass stood there with a wheelchair ready to take me around the back way of the hospital so that way I wouldn’t draw a crowd of people and create more stress than I already was in.

Deacy, Veronica and Jack helped me out of the car and Dr. Crabgrass said.

“Finally ready to become a mother Mrs. Kline?”

“Oh you have no idea doc, although I wish this last week hadn’t happened though.” I said.

“Been a little irritable?”

“You could say that.” I stated sarcastically. I was helped into my wheelchair and she asked me.

“How far are the contractions?”

“The one we counted just now was 15 seconds apart.” I then let out a scream and I yelled out.

“15 SECONDS MY ARSE!!!”

“Okay we’ll take you in and see just how much dilation you have and see if you’re ready to go straight to the delivery room.” She said. I was then wheeled into the private room that we had reserved in advance. Veronica stayed at my side along with Jack and she told me one final time.

“You’re gonna be fine sweetie, soon you’ll hold that beautiful baby in your arms and your whole world will change forever.” I smiled and thanked her as she now stopped and it was just Jack, Dr. Crabgrass and I heading to the delivery room.

Unfortunately I wasn’t ready to go into the delivery room because I was only just 3cm apart in dilation. So now I was in my private room with Jack suffering through contraction after contraction, while every now and then Dr. Crabgrass would come in and check to see if anything’s changed.

10 hours have passed and I still had no baby. It was now pitch black outside at 9:45pm. A knock was heard and peeking in was Freddie and Jim.

“May we come in darling?” asked Freddie.

“Of course my Freddie, you both can come in.” Following behind him was Jim.

“Still no luck?” asked Jim.

“No, apparently I’ve only dilated to only 4cm. for the entire 10 hours I’ve been here!” I snapped. God I can’t believe I’ve only dilated a cm. a fuckin centimeter for this entire day!

“I’m sorry love.” Jim said solemnly.

“What? What are you sorry for? Jim, come here.” He came over to me and I took his hand and told him as I looked him straight in the eye. “Without that tea, I’d still be suffering a late delivery. Your mum’s tea is magic, thank you for giving it to me.” He smiled and said.

“You’re welcome (y/n).” I smiled when suddenly I was hit with another contraction.

“Oh shit not another one!”

“Okay remember just breathe. Breathe.” Jack took my hand and I squeezed it as hard as I could as I breathed rapidly and cried in pure agony.

This time however this was a big one as I threw my head back and cried out. Freddie came over and took my other hand and soon I was squeezing both their hands with an iron grip while Jim came up to me and wiped my sweaty forehead with a wet towel.

“Oh god please tell me I’m at 10 fucking centimeters now!”

“I’ll get the doctor.” Jim said as he raced out of the room and I continued to whimper and scream in agony.

“It’ll be alright my little Rock angel, you’re doing great love.” Freddie tried to assure me but I snapped at him.

“NOT HELPING FRED!!” Soon Jim came in with Dr. Crabgrass and I told her. “Oh please doc you’ve got to give me some drugs I can’t take this anymore! Please tell me I’m ready to go to the delivery room.”

“Unfortunately you’re still not ready. You’re now up to 5cm.” she said. I looked at her like she had two heads as rage boiled inside me.

“You’re joking right?” I stated lowly.

“I’m afraid not Mrs. Kline, but you’re half way there. We’ll keep checking in on you. What you just experienced was the mid-way contraction. It’s usually bigger than the normal contractions you have, telling you that you’re halfway there.”

“Well it sure as hell didn’t feel like I was halfway there.”

“I’ll check on you in another hour, hopefully you’ll be ready to deliver soon.” With that she left. I collapsed back into the bed and wept. Jack kissed my forehead and I said.

“Why don’t they want to come out?” Jack stroked my cheek and kissed my forehead again and he said.

“You know what I think? I think that you’ve made such a good home for them for the past nine months that they….just don’t want to leave you.” I looked at him with a precious smile as I said.

“Aww look at you making up shit to make me feel better.” I patted his cheek before turning towards Freddie and Jim and I told them. “You guys must be so tired of staying in a hospital, why don’t you and the rest of the guys just go home and rest?”

“And leave you behind in a hospital I don’t think so dear.” Freddie sassed.

“Fred it’s been over 10 hours, come on I’d hate for you to stay in a hospital for god knows how long.”

“Hey,” he gently cupped my face with his hand and he said, “We are not leaving you our Rock angel. We all agreed to stay here until that baby is born. We’re with you darling, right till the end. I already missed your wedding, I promised myself to not miss the birth of your first child.” I smiled happily at him and he kissed the top of my head and he turned to Jim and said, “Come on Jim, let’s leave them alone for a bit and give the others the update.” He then turned to us and continued, “try and get some sleep later on. The both of you.”

“We’ll try, thanks Freddie.” Said Jack and with that Jim and Freddie left our room.

For the rest of the night and into the next morning, I was now well-over the 24hr marker of my laboring and I was going stir-crazy. As I lay there in bed with Jack still at my bedside and this time Deacy and Veronica were in with us this morning.

“How long has it really been?”

“We’ve just passed the 30hr mark.” Answered Deacy as he looked down at his watch.

“You’re a hero honey” said Veronica as she rubbed my shoulder.

“I sure as hell don’t feel like one. God I just want this baby out of me I can’t take the pain anymore!” I sobbed out. She leaned her head on top of mine as she continued to rub my shoulder trying to console me. It was then Dr. Crabgrass came in and she said.

“How are we feeling Mrs. Kline?”

“God Doc you’ve got to do whatever it takes get some firewood and smoke it out, get a crane I don’t care just please get it out of me!” She then came up to me and checked me out and that’s when she said.

“Well it seems you no longer have to wait anymore.” I looked at her and thought I was hearing her.

“What now?” I asked.

“10cm at 30 hours later, you’re about to become a mum.” I turned to Jack and he smiled happily at me and I turned to Veronica and she smiled down at me and she kissed my forehead and she said.

“Welcome to the club darling, you’re gonna do great.”

“Come on darling, let’s inform the others.” Deacy said as he took his wife’s hand and soon a couple nurses came in and I was wheeled over to the delivery room.

I was moved onto the metal table that had piles of pillows stacked on top of one another. Dr. Crabgrass got on her blue overcoat and rubber gloves and a nurse assisted her and I was told to push as hard as I could at any time a contraction hit me.

I don’t even know how long it was that I was in the delivery room for but I was currently pushing as Jack was keeping a tight grip on my left knee as I had my legs up while Dr. Crabgrass kept telling me to push. I grunted and panted heavily as sweat poured down my face.

“Push, push. Okay we’re gonna push for 5 more seconds. Five….four….”

“3 2 1! Gah!!” I cried out as I stopped pushing and I lay back exhausted.

“Okay now the next contraction should be in about 20 seconds.” She said as she backed away from my vagina that was trying to push a Saint Bernard out.

“Ohh I can’t do this. I can’t do this anymore Jack!” I sobbed to him.

“Hey, it’s gonna be alright you’re doing great just a few more big pushes and….” I interrupted him as I felt another contraction hit me as I snarled out.

“AHHH GOD 20 SECONDS MY ARSE!!!”

“Here we go! Okay keep pushing. Push.” All the while Jack held onto me as I tried to push harder.  “Wait, wait, I see something.” She said in a concerned tone.

“What is it what do you see? Oh my god!” Jack proclaimed in shock.

“Don’t say oh my god! Oh my god what?!”

“What is that?” asked Jack.

“It’s the baby’s buttock it’s breached.” Dr. Crabgrass explained.

“Oh thank god I thought it had two heads.”

“Wait, wait…..is the baby gonna be okay?”

“The baby will be fine but it’s in a more difficult position so you’re gonna have to push even harder now, go.” I then began to push as hard as I could. “Mrs. Kline you’re gonna have to push even harder nothing’s happening.”

“I’m sorry I can’t! I can’t!” I sobbed out.

“Hey, hey look at me if you can perform before a sold out Madison Square Garden show four years ago, you can do this.” Jack said as he looked me square in the eye.

“I can’t Jack I can’t, please you do it for me!” I wept. Jack shook his head and said as he adjusted himself and said.

“Come on you can do this just one more big push on three, okay? One….two…three!” I then shot up and pushed as hard as I could. But as I did, I actually headbutt my husband and he fell to the ground.

“Good!” Dr. Crabgrass said.

“Keep pushing!” Jack called out.

“Are you okay love?!” I cried out in pain. He sat up rubbing his forehead as he said.

“You have no idea how much this hurts.” At that comment both Dr. Crabgrass and I turned towards him. I was almost about to strangle him. He had no idea what real pain felt like. “Keep going! Keep going!” He said learning his mistake and came up and held onto me as I kept pushing. I let out a scream as I pushed and the doctor said.

“Here we go!”

“It’s upside down but its coming.” Jack assured me. I let out a cry as I threw my head back and soon I could hear faint whimpering. “Oh my god, it’s here. Our baby’s here.” Jack said in wonder. I opened my eyes and soon Dr. Crabgrass held up a tiny and slightly bloody baby. “Oh my god it’s….it’s a girl.” Jack said.

Both Jack and I were in awe at the sight of our first baby being a girl. She was so beautiful.

“Aww she’s so tiny.” I cooed out. Dr. Crabgrass smiled at us before taking our baby away. I went from laughing to whimpering out sadly, “Where’d she go? Where’d my baby go?”

“It’s okay she’s just wrapping her up.” Jack assured me.

“Okay but be careful with her she’s really tiny.” I said. Jack and I looked at each other happily and that’s when Dr. Crabgrass said as she presented our baby girl.

“Here she is.” Right after that our daughter started to cry. I held her in my arms, all thanks to the practice that Dominque, Veronica and Chrissie gave me as I softly bounced my baby girl in my arms and cooed out.

“Hi, you~ aww thanks for coming out of me when I drank Jim’s tea. Ohhh I know poppet. Yes~” It was then my baby girl opened her eyes up at me. Her eyes the same color as mine. “Ahh she’s looking at me. Hi….I know you.” I sobbed out happily before cooing at her once more smiling widely.

“Do we have a name yet?” asked Dr. Crabgrass.

“No not yet.” I said.

“That’s fine. For now we’ll just call her baby girl Kline.” I looked to Jack and he couldn’t stop fawning over his new born baby girl. He stroked her tiny head and kept kissing it before finally looking up at me. We smiled at each other and he leaned forward and caught my lips with his in a gentle kiss. As we separated he kissed my forehead before getting comfortable by my bedside as we admired our beautiful baby girl.

“Hello baby girl.” I said.

We were now in a recovery room, Jack taking pictures of me and our baby girl together. I can’t believe she’s finally here, our little girl. 6lbs 11oz 21 inches long after over 36hrs in labor she’s finally graced us from heaven. I touched her rosy cheek with my index finger as I looked up at Jack and couldn’t stop smiling.

He kissed my temple and he said.

“God I can’t believe she’s finally here.”

“I know.”

“She looks so much like you.” He said. I looked up at him and that’s when we heard a voice say.

“Can we come in?” We both turned around and there peeking through the door of our room was Brian. We nodded and soon slowly pouring in was the entire Queen family. They all cooed and awed at the sight of my baby girl.

“There she is.” Said Roger.

“Ohh she’s so beautiful.” Veronica cooed. I smiled at her and I said.

“You wanna hold her first?” She nodded enthusiastically and I gently gave Veronica my baby girl.  She almost cried with tears of joy as she said.

“Oh my god, she’s amazing. I’m so glad you guys finally had sex.” Deacy came up to her and she gave him our daughter. Deacy smiled happily and I did see a couple of tears fall down his face as he said.

“No matter how many times I’ve already been through this, I still can never get enough of holding a newborn baby in my arms.” I smiled at Deacy and felt tears form in my eyes.

He then transferred my daughter to Roger and he gingerly held my baby girl in his arms. He was all smiles and in awe, seeing him be so tender towards my daughter.

“She’s so beautiful, just like her mum.” he said as he looked to me while Dominque cooed and awed at my girl in his arms.

“Okay my turn, my turn.” Freddie said as he held out his arms. Since Freddie stood on my right and Roger was to my left, the two of them did a careful exchange just over the foot of the bed as I could hear Roger say.

“There go to your uncle Freddie love,” as Freddie now held my daughter he was all gushy with love as he cooed out.

“Aww you’re as cute as a button darling, ohh I could just stick you in my pocket and take you away.” I gave him my best stank eye already feeling the protective mother instincts take over me.  He looked at me and he said, “I won’t.” I shook my head at him. Then finally Freddie gave my daughter to Brian and he got to have the chance to hold her. Him and Chrissie stood over my baby, Chrissie cooing as she stroked her tiny head.

“Roger is right, she has her mother’s eyes and cute little nose.” I held the tissue up to my eyes as I sniffled.

“Aww honey what’s wrong?” asked Chrissie as she now turned towards me and stroked my head.

“Nothing Chrissie, I’m sorry I just can’t stop crying.”

“It’s completely natural love, with all the hormones plus you’re sleep deprived. We all went through it when we had our kids.” Veronica said.

“So what? I bet you guys are all sleep deprived. I don’t see any of you crying hysterically because you put your slippers on the wrong feet.” I choked out as I dabbed underneath my eyes. My head soon sunk as I began crying and I whimpered out, “Ahh fuck.”

“What’s the matter now?” asked Deacy concerned.

“I was reliving it!” I sobbed. Everyone awed at me and Jack held me close and kissed the top of my head.

“So do you know what you’re gonna call her?” Brian said as he gave me back my baby girl.

“Wait a minute it’s not going to be baby girl? I thought that was so original.” Freddie said. It was then Jack said.

“Well we talked about it and we’ve finally came up with one.”

“And since I’m too emotional right now, why don’t you be the one to announce it to them Jack darling.” I said as I held my baby girl in my arms. Jack smiled beyond thrilled that he was to announce the name of our daughter.

“Wow okay, umm…..everyone.” He leaned down and touched his daughter’s head and said, “We’d like you to meet our daughter, Kelly Michelle Kline.” They all fawned over the name and greeted our daughter with warm smiles and gentle touches.

A few hours later, everyone went to get some food in their stomachs and a nurse had come in with some food for me as well as teaching me how to breastfeed my baby. It took a little bit but Kelly managed to latch on and I got her to drink.

Currently now she was sleeping in her little incubator bed right by my side when I heard the door open and coming in was Roger.

“How you doing (y/n)?”

“Fine, fine come on in honey.” He came in and softly closed the door behind him. He came over Kelly and smiled down at her faintly tickled her.

“God I still can’t get over the fact that she looks so much like you.”

“Yeah.” I said softly. He looked at me concerned and he said.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” I said as I wiped some tears away.

“What is it, hey?”

“Really Roger its nothing just hormonal that’s…..”

“(Y/n) come on, it’s me. Now give me the truth.” I looked up at him with my sad eyes. His entire face showed that he knew something was wrong with me, his “(y/n)” sense he calls it. I looked at him before turning away and I said.

“It’s just that…..I never thought I’d end up raising this baby by myself.”

“What are you talking about? Are you and Jack having problems?”

“No, no Roger that’s not what I meant. I meant that…..if we ever did have a problem we have Jack’s mother and step-father to turn to. Kelly will have one pair of grandparents to look after her, but I….I just wish my parents were still here to see this day. They’ve always talked about being grandparents one day. You know?” I turned to Roger and he looked at me and said.

“Yeah, I do.”

“I just so scared that I’m gonna mess up my daughter’s life, whether being busy with my career or…..being like my aunt. I sound pretty dumb right now huh?”

“No, no you don’t, hey,” Roger said as he came up to me and took my hand in both of his. We stared into each other’s eyes as he continued, “Now you listen to me; You are never ever, ever gonna be like her, okay? You’re sweet, you’re kind, you’ve got a warm heart, and you always support those that you love. You’re not alone, and if you ever need someone to call to help with Kelly. I’m just an ocean away but I can be there, like that.” He quietly snapped at his last statement as he kept a good strong yet gentle grip on my hand.

“Roger Meddows Taylor, what would I ever do without you?” I said as he opened up my hand and kissed the center of my palm, our own personal kiss we give to one another whenever we feel upset or alone.

He brought my hand to my heart as he pulled me close and I leaned against his chest listening to his heartbeat.

“You never have to wonder about that darling.” I sniffled as he kissed the top of my head and kept me in his arms for what felt like forever.

And it was at that moment I felt like it was time to ask him.

“Roger,”

“Mm?” he hummed as he gingerly stroked my back. I separated from him and he sat down in front of me and I said.

“There’s something else I need to tell you.” He looked at me concerned and he said.

“What’s wrong you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah it’s not what you’re thinking. I’m perfectly healthy, I just wanted to ask you something, and it’s really, really important.”

“What is it?”

“Well, for the past five years, geez it feels longer than that,” we both laughed softly as I continued, “From day one, you’ve always looked after me. Between you and the guys, you’ve always been the one to be there for me for everything. You’ve seen me at my lowest breaking point, and there to keep me grounded in the spotlight. You’ve been my shoulder to cry on and my confidant. Which is why I wanted to be the one to ask you…..if you’ll be Kelly’s godfather.”

His face turned to pure shock.

He looked toward Kelly before looking back at me and I smiled at him hoping for a yes from him.

“Me?” he stammered out.

“No the other Roger Taylor, of course you yah dolt!”

“But I—I would’ve thought you would’ve chosen Deacy.”

“Well Jack did want him to be the godfather. But I told him that if our baby was a girl, then there’s only one man that I knew who could not only be fiercely protective of her, but give her all the love she needed. Because that’s what he did for her mum.” I cupped his cheek in my hand.

Tears fell down his face and I wiped them away for him and he said.

“I’d be honored.” I smiled happily at him and we both embraced each other tightly crying in pure happiness.

[thattimdrakeguy]

Tim Drake in Wonder Comics Young Justice so far

#TimDrakeIsTheBestRobin is something I been seeing Brian Michael Bendis tweet out a lot, but I just started to think about Tim, what all he’s actually done in Young Justice so far as we’re about 7 issues in, and well, he’s done nothing of note.

While the issues so far has shown Tim to be the most in-character he’s been since the New 52 (and even a little bit before), he’s done freaking nothing and half of the year is almost over. The only thing of note he’s going to do this year so far is change his identity, and that’s not only disrespectful to the fact they marketed Tim to fans on something else, but it’s also awful story telling.

The other members in their spotlight issues got to do stuff that actually added to the plot while showing off their personalities, like Cassie had her issue with Zeus that showed how she liked to earn her spot while also being spunky. Conner had stuff set up with S.T.A.R Labs that showed off his rebellious side, and Amethyst had her whole world showed off for the first arc, but Tim got nothing in his.

Tim in his own spotlight didn’t do anything that showed off his personalty. He didn’t even have a plot set up. Stephanie even had a plot set up. Tim’s plot was how he remembered his past timeline (thanks to Zatanna), and going to Metropolis to see where Conner was. So basically, now that he found Conner, there we go. That’s it. His big set-up in issue 5 is done before we even got to see it. 

Tim didn’t have any personalty in his issue, or actually do anything in it besides get his memories back thanks to someone else, and all it showed is that he loves his girlfriend and Conner, nothing about his own personality.

From the sounds of it though, Tim’s going to be pretty important for some of the next arcs, but at the same time, he’s getting a new costume and identity, which isn’t a good sign. Especially since the costume’s color scheme stands for boring.

One of the things about the build up to Young Justice was how it seemed to be getting rid of everything people didn’t like about their treatment and getting the characters set back on track. They gave them costumes that fit their personalities, Patrick Gleason almost always (literally only 2 panels I can remember not liking) was able to draw them perfectly as well as get the tone perfectly, and they were the most in-character they been in years for the issues so far.

Now they’re already changing stuff before the years over. 

Tim has had no build up to having a need for a new identity. 

There was people that wasn’t happy with Tim being Robin again though, they preferred him being Red Robin, but in Heroes of Crisis (which I would recommend avoiding since it’s crap, and certainly Tim’s singular panel) it said he was still Red Robin even though he had his Wonder Comics costume on. Which means he was literally Red Robin still, he just went by Robin with Young Justice.

I really liked that since that meant if you wanted him to be Red Robin still, he was, and if you were happy he was Robin again, he was. That’s a fan pleasing decision that I approved.

So why would Tim want to change his name AND costume now? Especially considering he just got this new Robin costume that fits his personality to a T, and still has his own name to use when having two Robins would be confusing.

Why would there be no build up in the story to this apparent identity change unless him being back on track was just a marketing stunt for more people to buy the issues?

What would be the real life reason for it be, besides they just freaking wanted to?

Are you telling me in the middle of going dimension to dimension that Tim’s gonna think it’s a good time to change his identity?

Did Didio ask for this?

Was it Bendis?

Why?

In what world is this considered good story telling?

Doing stuff at random to change stuff that made people happy isn’t good story telling.

I’m aware some people wanted him to remain Red Robin, but as seen in Heroes in Crisis, he still is, he just likes to go by Robin when he’s with Young Justice. So that problems already been figured out. He’s Red Robin if you want him to be, and that’s actually canon, he’s just also Robin if you want him to be.

If they’re so willing to out of no were change the basic identity of Tim Drake in the middle of an arc, when they just got his character back on track after almost a decade. Why should I trust they care about Tim to do him justice? 

They might like him, but does that doesn’t mean they care about Tim’s character enough to do what fits. At this rate it’s gonna be just another DC comic that relies on sudden shocks and changes in desperate attempts at headlines or to please their selfish desires of doing what ever they wanted because that’s all they thought about.

They could even finally allow him to interact with the plot more than once in a substantial way, but when they treat him like he doesn’t matter that much why should I feel like they’re really gonna care about him?

The act of suddenly changing a character randomly is something people do when they do not care about a character.

In fact it’s even something some people do when they dislike or hate a character.

If Jason Todd suddenly became “Finch” with no build up in the story or a quality reason, while he was on another planet, just after they brought back his friends, while getting his story back on track right prior, and in the new story he didn’t even get to choose his own name, it wouldn’t be considered a good story would it? It would feel like they had no idea what they were doing, or they at least didn’t give a crap about him or fan loyalty.

To be honest though, I’m not that upset Tim hasn’t done much as far as the plot so far. It’s very understandable to me. The other characters deserve the page space more than he does. Tim (even if he wasn’t in-character) got to have plenty of page time in other comics compared to them. So that’s not a problem of mine, it’s just a bad sign when adding it up with other stuff.

You don’t get rid of the stuff they used to market the series this soon and have it be a good sign of stuff. That’s something people do as a publicity stunt. Something cheap and scummy.

You don’t have the character do essentially nothing of note by himself in his own spotlight issue that’s supposed to be focused on him and have that be a good sign.

The other character’s spotlight issues told you a lot about them.

What’d Tim’s spotlight issue tell you about him? He loves his girlfriend, he ran away from home with her, and he loves Conner. That’s not much of a personalty showcase like the other ones so far. That’s practically nothing.

Right now he is the most useless and boring part of the team.

So much so that his apparently new costume is brown and gray. Colors that stand for boring and dull, especially or at least together.

It’s starting to feel like a gag at Tim fans expense, because of all those antis that call Tim the boring one.

I’m aware it’s so soon in this comic’s run that it seems hasty to judge, but the signs aren’t lining up well for him. Already doing nothing even in his own spotlight, having his identity changed like it doesn’t matter, not adding a thing to the ongoing plot besides some lines, aren’t, good, signs.

If Tim gets to stay Robin/Red Robin and keep his current costume after all of this, I’m not gonna be upset I made this post complaining about what did not end up happening, because I’d be too focused on being happy that it turned out they did care about the character more than headlines and what practically only they wanted.

Like, Tim hasn’t even been out of character during any of this. The most out of character he’s been is kissing Stephanie so intensely, the rest he’s been fine.

It’s just a lack of care for him.

Even if they’d just left him with the identity he currently has with Robin/Red Robin, while he does nothing important, that’d be a lot more calming, because that at least means they won’t be messing with what got some fans excited. He’d at least be left alone to not be ruined with rushed not-thought-out decisions like they’re building up.

I remember Bendis saying Conner’s gonna be changing his identity too in some upcoming issue, or at least implied it by saying Conner’s gonna talk about Superboy with Jon (what ever that means).

If he messes with his costume too to go back to the T-shirt and jeans, then I’m gonna be even more upset because I know dang well that costume made a heckuva lot of Conner fans happy, to have that taken away from them so soon would be unfair too, and I’m pretty sure he was intended to wear his T-shirt and jeans look this whole time given that they refer to him wearing a shirt when he’s been wearing freaking tights in the actual comic, which been adding up to my fear of that.

Then there’s Bart and Teen Lantern who have been treated even with less respect. While Bart saved the day, he still hasn’t gotten a spotlight issue showing anything important about him, and Teen Lantern has done even less than Tim as far as the plots concerned (although she will be getting a spotlight issue here shortly).

But I understand that, there’s only so much page space, like I said, I’m not even upset Tim hasn’t contributed much to the plot, it’s understandable. It’s just, why couldn’t he have done anything interesting during his own flashback? Why are they messing with him so soon at such a random time when they were making so many fans happy? Why change what’s making a lot of fans feel safe and secure with this comic?

Why can’t Tim Drake be treated with respect?

[kissmekissme-calum]

You’re My Best Friend (John Deacon x Reader)

not requested and also maybe not as sappy as i originally thought but it is sweet as hell and i hope you enjoy our sweet little John Deacon!

Send in requests!!

Word Count : 1446

-

John had invited you to the studio to see the boys put the final touches on the new album and you were more than eager to join him as it’d also been a while since you got a chance to hang out with your best friend.

“John!” you squealed when you walked through the door, looking for the shaggy brown hair that could only belong to your favorite person. “Where is my best friend?”

Laughter could be heard in the office in front of the recording booth and you snuck a peek around the corner and saw the four guys all relaxing on a couch, waiting for your appearance.

You jumped around the corner and struck a pose. “Did you guys miss me or did you miss me?”

Their laughter increased to the point that Roger fell to the floor, his arms holding his stomach as Freddie collapsed on top of him, holding his stomach as well. Even doing the smallest of things, you could easily make them laugh and it always managed to make you feel good that you were able to do that, all you wanted was for everyone to be happy and if it had to be at your expense then that was okay by you.

John eyed you as you strutted around the laughing boys on the floor and jumped onto his lap, grinning at the grunt of pain that left his lips, his eyes crinkling as well. “How are you, (YN)?”

A pout formed on your lips. “You didn’t answer my question!”

“You caused me pain.” He countered and you shrugged and turned your gaze onto Freddie and Roger who had composed themselves enough to sit back down on the couch, Freddie closest to you, rested his hand on your knee, grabbed your legs with his other and set them so they lounged on his lap.

“My dear, we always miss you. So glad that you and our John here became friends when you were little kids. Given us some amazing stories over the past couple years, wish we could get some more from you.”

John and yourself shared a look before you turned back to Freddie. “I think I’ve told you as many stories that I possibly could, Fred, we’re all caught up.”

“Then you shall make new ones!” he declared, voice rising as he stood, letting your feet fall to the couch with a bounce, making you huff, smirking at the position you and John were in. “Ones full of love.” He finished softer and pointed at Roger and Brian. “You two, come with me, John stay here.”

“Why?” the three boys all said in unison.

Freddie gave Roger and Brian a knowing look and even though Roger was still slightly confused, he slowly trudged after the other two, but not before giving a look back at you and John. “What’s going on?” he mouthed, John shook his head, and then out of the room they went.

Silence overtook the room, it wasn’t awkward, but it wasn’t comfortable either. John’s arm that rested behind you, wrapped around your middle, bringing you close to his chest, his chin resting on the top of your head. There was something unspoken that hung high in the air, you glanced up as if to catch it, and you did.

When you glanced up, you were welcomed by the sight of John’s strong jawline, a slight stubble barely visible against it, you yearned to bring your fingers up to trace it but managed to hold yourself back. His nose from this angle was surprisingly one of the most adorable things you had ever seen. John was one of the most attractive people you knew, it was a shame that he was only your friend, only saw you as a friend, it hurt in some ways but helped in others. It helped in the fact that you knew without a doubt that he’d always be in your life even if he wasn’t only yours, even if someone else’s name fell from his lips. It was better this way. Or so you thought.

“What are you thinking about?” his voice was a whisper, the vibe in the room shifting once again. You couldn’t quite place what the feeling was, but you also couldn’t deny that it sent a welcoming shiver up your spine.

“Stuff.” You quietly spoke as you shifted your gaze from him and to the hall where the other guys had disappeared down maybe five minutes ago, was it less then that, or more than that? You couldn’t remember, John had distracted you, a hundred years could’ve passed and you wouldn’t have noticed, but John knew you better then anyone else, he noticed.

“Care to be more specific?”

You shook your head.

“You’re wondering about what Freddie said, aren’t you, why he’s acting the way he was just then.”

That had peaked your curiosity, but it was also forgotten the moment you glanced up at his face.

When John didn’t get an answer from you, he sighed and decided to let you in on the reason behind Freddie’s special antics. “Apparently all our friends have a bet going that we end up together.” His voice was rather calm for admitting such a far out idea. His voice was calm even through the heart that beat through his chest like one of Roger’s drums. His voice was calm even though he could barely form a thought as once he spoke the words, he couldn’t deny how much he wanted that little bet of theirs to be true.

At John’s words, your head snapped back to look at him again and your jaw dropped at the sight, it was almost as if you were seeing the bassist for the first time. His eyes had taken on a sort of dream like haze, his mouth in the shape of the most welcoming and loving smile the world had ever seen, his lips, beckoning you to kiss them.

“I think they’ve won the bet.” You reply in a rush.

“Wha..” John was interrupted by your lips crashing on to his, his tasted like candy and you were enjoying every second of the sugary treat. He wasted no time in kissing you back either, tasting your lips which tasted strongly of the lemon tea you’d favored since your first heartbreak in middle school, the only tea he knew exactly how to make, the only tea he wanted to make, because of you. When you broke apart from the kiss, the two of you wore matching smiles. “I’ve been wanting to do that since we were kids. I’m sorry I’m late by a few years.”

Laughter coursed through the room again and you let your fingers finally trace along his jaw line and the barely there stubble, it felt like heaven, you couldn’t get enough. “It’s okay, I forgive you. Can I ask you something.”

“What’s that, love.”

“The song you wrote, on the album,” you began carefully. “You’re my best friend, you said you wrote it for me, but now that I think of it, those lyrics aren’t talking about an actual best friend, they’re talking about the person you love the most, want to spend the rest of your life with, that kind of best friend. Is it still about me?”

A blush overtook John’s features and it increased his adorableness by at least a trillion. He truly was the most beautiful person in your life. A nod finally came from him. “Yeah, glad you finally figured it out. I’ve had that song written since high school, when I realized I liked you, as more than a best friend should. Do you still like it?”

“I should bloody well hope she likes it!” Roger strode into the room before resting along a wall, his leg kicked up against it behind him, a smirk on his face as he popped a chip into his mouth, watching the two of you. “that kind of drumming doesn’t come easily, you know.”

“Oh, shove off.” John muttered and you giggled, letting John’s arms bring you back down against his chest, your fingers reaching up to play with his hair, you just couldn’t get enough of touching him. “You’ll find someone who makes you feel like this soon enough.”

“Yeah, right.” It was Roger’s turn to mutter and he shook his head, grinning at you. “(YN)?”

“Yeah.”

A sincere look appeared on Roger’s face. “Take care of our bassist, will ya, they don’t make them like him anymore.”

A truer statement had never been spoken. “Don’t worry, Rog, I know they don’t make them like him anymore, I won’t let him go.”

[marshmallow-phd]

Memories Past

Part of The Untamed - EXO Wolf Universe

Genre: Supernatural, Wolf Au

Pairing: Kris x Reader

Summary: The last thing Kris wanted was to move on. He was perfectly content wallowing in his misery while pretending everything was okay. But when you come walking into his shop with a broken down car, he realizes the thing he’d been avoiding the most just might be the cure he always needed. He just couldn’t believe that it’d been you all along. Kris had been your best friend when you were kids before he’d moved away without a word of goodbye. Now nearly fifteen years later, you run into him again by pure coincidence. The memories come rushing back to you, stirring something inside. A childhood crush shouldn’t upend your picture perfect life, but sometimes, destiny has other things in mind…

Part: 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9 I 10 I 11 I 12 I 13 I Final

**

You made it exactly one week to the day. It’d been a struggle to avoid the auto shop, to not go see Kris again. Over and over, you told yourself that you simply wanted to catch up, to see what his life had been like since he moved away. That was it. Pure curiosity. And a need for closure.

Yet, you found yourself absentmindedly playing with the necklace around your neck whenever your thoughts drifted in Kris’ direction, whether it was in class or at the table, even driving. Huan had noticed it at breakfast the next morning, which was nothing new. He usually noticed everything. 

“I just found it in a box and decided to start wearing it again,” you half-lied. You technically did find it in a box… purposefully. And you did decided to start wearing it again, but you couldn’t quite figure out why. It’d been years since the stone had even seen the light of day. So why did it now feel like a lifeline?

It was the catalyst that led to you giving in and going to see him.

The more you thought about the last time you saw Kris as children, the more steam that was coming out of your ears. It wasn’t fair. Neither he nor his parents had given any indication that they were leaving so you didn’t have time to prepare emotionally. That was a lot for a little kid to go through. 

One day, after calling the landline several times with no answer, you’d went over to the house, knocking and ringing the doorbell to the Wu residence an obnoxious amount of times, but no one ever answered. Standing up on your toes, you’d peaked in through the now curtain-less windows to find nothing but empty rooms. All the furniture was gone, none of the lights were on, and no sounds of possible life echoed off the ivory walls. They’d left without a single word of goodbye.

As a child, you’d been depressed, not understanding what had happened and why. Growing older, that sadness had evolved into anger and frustration. Eventually you made it to the last step and accepted that you might never find out the where’s and why’s and left that part of your past behind.

At least, you thought you’d left it behind, dead and buried.

But like a frog floating in a pot of water on a hot stove, the feelings you’d suppressed for so long slowly bubbled up until it was too late and you were boiling.

On many different occasions you’d opened your mouth to tell Ji Yeon. You saw her several times over the week, either studying together or grabbing a quick meal in between classes in the student center. Each time, you’d almost started to speak to get her opinion on the situation, but you always ended up stopping yourself or just bringing up something else entirely.

Maybe it was just the fact that you didn’t really know Ji Yeon yet. You knew her, but not enough to divulge all this deep rooted anguish that was trying it’s hardest to push itself up to the surface. If given a few months, you might be able to open up to her, but you needed to let these feelings out sooner rather than later.

You certainly couldn’t tell Huan. There was no reason for him to be jealous, but you didn’t want to worry him or make his mind go down the wrong path. It was simply an answer to a long standing question you were needing, that was all.

So, when you had about a two hour break in the afternoon before your next class, you hopped in the car – forgoing your nice parking spot – and drove to the auto shop.

On arrival, you didn’t see Kris. Only Brian and two other mechanics were around, talking and laughing with each other as they worked on the day’s vehicles. Brian was the first one to notice you, giving you a cheeky grin.

“Car messed up already?” he teased.

You shook your head. “No, I was actually looking for Kris. Is he here?”

“Oh, no, he left about an hour ago,” Brian informed you. “I don’t know where he went and he didn’t say when or if he’d be back. Is there anything that I can help you with?”

Great. Just what you needed. To drive all the way here just for it to be the one day the boss doesn’t stay the whole working hours. You guessed that you could just try again in a few days.

“No, that’s okay.”

“Are you sure?” Brian asked.

“I’m sure. I’ll just g-”

“Yeah, boss, that girl from the other day.” One of the other mechanics was on the phone, look at you and motioning for you to wait. “Okay.” Pause. “Yeah, I’ll let her know.” He hung up the cell phone and turned to you fully. “Kris said he’ll be here in ten minutes and that we’re not allowed to let you leave until he gets here.”

You scoffed. That was such a Kris way to phrase it. No asking to please wait for him or to hang tight. Weren’t the years between childhood and adulthood supposed to change at least small bits of one’s personality? Kris apparently never got that memo.

It was less than ten minutes – maybe even closer to five – when Kris came screeching into the small parking lot out front. He jumped out of the car and met you right outside the garage. His breathing was heavy, as if he’d ran here rather than drove.

“Hey,” he greeted.

Pulling your cardigan a little closer to you, even though it was warm out, and folding your arms, you greeted back, “Hey.”

There it was again. That strange feeling in your stomach. It was similar to the feeling you had when you first met Huan, but at the same time, it was different. Almost… more intense, but also undefinable. You didn’t understand what exactly was going on with you. If you were honest, it was frightening you a little bit.

You tried to focus on anything but his face. Bad idea. Gone were the gray, grease covered overalls. Now he was dressed in a plain black T-shirt, skinny jeans and a weathered jean jacket. The smirk you caught before avoiding your eyes just screamed bad boy. Not even an ounce of surprise filled you up.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” you asked suddenly.

Kris smiled a genuine, uncocky smile at you. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go.”

He led you down the sidewalk, turning right from the garage and into a small business district of the city.

“So,” he said, keeping his eyes forward and hands stuffed in his pockets, “to what do I owe this random pleasure?”

You sighed, somewhat ending it on a laugh. “I don’t know.” That was a blatant lie, but you figured you’d throw him a few soft balls before hitting him with the fast pitch. “I guess to catch up? It’s been a few years since… since I’ve seen you.”

“Yeah, just a few,” he laughed. He kicked a small rock as if that would be an adequate distraction from whatever direction his thoughts were previously headed in.

“What have you been up to?” you asked. The air was thick with awkward tension and you hated it.

Kris shrugged. “Oh, just, you know, the typical stuff. Graduated high school, went to tech school, did some traveling, got my own shop. Nothing too exciting.”

“Really?” You looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. “Fifteen years and nothing even remotely exciting or interesting has happened to you?”

He still didn’t look at you. “Nope. My life is pretty boring.”

“Is it just you, then? By yourself? No… girlfriend or anything?”

That stopped him in his tracks. He glanced at you from the corner of his eye. “No. Not for a while. It’s just me and my brothers.”

You frowned. “You don’t have any brothers.”

Kris flinched before he continued walking. “Well, yeah, they’re not my real brothers. We just all live together. We’re like family.”

That made you smile. This was nice. This was a good direction for the conversation to go. Just two childhood friends catching up. “How many of you live together?”

Kris scrunched his face as he thought about it. “Minus me… eleven all together.”

Now it was your turn to screech to a stop. “Where the heck can twelve people live together?”

“Junmyeon has a house out a ways in the woods that has plenty of room,” Kris laughed. “His family has had it for generations. Still crowded sometimes, but it’d be lonely without them.”

“I get that. Huan is so quiet sometimes. Makes me miss my parents,” you admitted. It was the bad part about moving. You were now several hundred miles away from the two most important people in your life. Phone calls just weren’t the same as being in the same room as them.

“How are they?” Kris asked eagerly. They always loved it when Kris came over. Just like you were the daughter that Mrs. Wu never had, Kris was your dad’s surrogate son.

“They’re good. Still working in the school system. Dad made it to principal and Mom is still working with special needs kids.”

That really made him smile. “Good, good.”

As kids, you would tease Kris for having a crush on your mom. He always called her an angel. You mom would laugh and tell him that he’d find his own angel someday.

“What about yours?”

The grin immediately disappeared. “They, um – they died. In a car crash a little after I graduated high school.”

Neither of you were walking anymore. You weren’t entirely sure where you were, still surrounded by red brick buildings filled with goods to buy, but it felt like the whole world had been pulled out from under you.

“What?” You could hardly believe it. Kris’ parents were so full of life; generous and loving. For them not to be walking around, to no longer be existing, it was impossible.

“It’s okay,” Kris murmured. “It was long time ago.”

Shaking your head, you wrapped your arms around his waist and rested your cheek against his chest. “I’m sorry, Kris. They didn’t deserve that.”

At first, Kris didn’t move, just standing there stiffly, but you didn’t let go. It felt too nice, holding him like that. When he finally hugged you back, it felt even better. His head rested against your own while his arms encased you in his embrace.

When you were kids, he’d rarely let you hug him. Something about cooties or whatever dumb excuse he could come up with. But on the days that were really bad, the days that you cried because someone bullied you or because your cat died, he would hug you and never let you go. Just like this.

Whoa, (y/n). No. Bad (y/n). You should not be doing this.

Coming to your senses, you cleared your throat and stepped back, once again creating space between you two.

“Sorry,” you mumbled.

Kris shook his head. “Don’t be. I don’t talk about it, but I think I needed that.”

You nodded. “You’re welcome.”

A moment or two passed with neither of you speaking. You didn’t move or continue on the little walk through the neighborhood.

“So, you’ve got a fiance, huh?” Kris asked, changing the subject.

If he thought that he was lifting the sad atmosphere, he was wrong. You were feeling slightly guilty, being alone with a man who wasn’t Huan, one that making your face warm and your stomach flutter. This whole situation was bad, but you couldn't leave. You didn’t want to.

“Yeah, Huan.”

“You happy?”

You looked up Kris, unsure if you heard his question correctly. “Huh?”

“Are you happy?” he repeated.

“Yeah, I guess,” you answered honestly. “He makes me smile. Makes me comfortable.”

Kris scoffed, “That’s it?”

You frowned. “What do you mean?”

“He just makes you comfortable?” Kris mocked. “I don’t know, shouldn’t the love of your life be a little more exciting?”

“No,” you countered. “Sometimes, you get the wild and crazy adventure type love and then sometimes you get the meet, fall in love, be together type of love.”

“Wouldn’t you prefer the first?” Kris pushed.

Annoyed at the turn of the conversation, bravery finally hit you to ask the question you came here for. You crossed your arms and stood your ground before you could run away with your tail between your legs. “Why did you leave?”

Kris stared at you, confused at the direction you’d suddenly gone in. “What?”

“Back then,” you somewhat clarified. “You left without a word. Without saying goodbye. I didn’t know if you were ever coming back or if I’d ever see you again. That’s a lot for an eight-year-old to suddenly go through.”

Kris just shrugged, as if the pain you went through never mattered. “We just had to leave. It wasn’t anything big. My parents didn’t think it was a good place to be anymore.”

“But you just packed up and disappeared,” you argued. “If that was the case, why couldn’t you at least tell me where you were going or that I wouldn’t be able to see you anymore?”

“(y/n),” Kris said sternly, “it doesn’t matter. We just had to go.”

“It does matter, Kris!” you yelled. You could feel the frustration building inside, ready to explode. How could he not care like you did? Were you forcing the issue too much? Were you too desperate for an answer?

“WHY!”

You flinched at the sudden escalation. Obviously, you’d pushed too hard. You didn’t even know how or why. You still shouldn’t be this upset over it. But he was your best friend. Your little world practically revolved around him until you grew up and learned how to make friends on your own.

He backtracked quickly. “(y/n), I’m sorry, that was out of line. I- I can’t tell you exactly why we had to move, just that we did. I’m sorry I never got to tell you goodbye. You weren’t the only one upset by it. You should have seen the fit i threw in front of my parents. But we can’t change it. Maybe now, we can try to be friends again. Not like how we used to be, but… friends.”

By the tone of his voice, you had a strange feeling that he was trying to convince himself more than you on the “friends” part. Did he not want to be friends with you?

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, fiddling with stone around your neck.

“Don’t apologize,” he insisted. Noticing your fidgeting, he reached out, fingers brushing up against yours as he plucked the stone out of your grasp. “Is this what I think it is?”

You lifted your shoulders just drop them again. “Yeah. What about it?”

The corner of his mouth pulled up as he leaned forward just enough to be face to face with you. “Do you still think about me when you see it?”

Rolling your eyes, you told him, “Actually, I’d completely forgotten about it until last week. Don’t flatter yourself.”

“You’re the one who came to my shop, remember?” The cockiness that had taken a small break was back in full force.

“To see an old friend again,” you explained. And to get a very vague answer to your question, but that was okay. It was something, at least.

The look in his eye told you that he was taking that reply with a mountain of salt.

“I have to go.” Not really. You actually had a good half hour before you really needed to head back, but you figured that it was best to leave now.

Dropping your necklace, he sighed. “Okay. I’ll see you back to the shop.”

The walk back was shorter than you expected. Too short. Part of you was reluctant to say goodbye. There was no promise of seeing each other again. It looked like that would be left up to fate once again.

Or your own lack of willpower.

From your rear-view mirror, you could see Kris’ figure growing smaller as he watched you drive away.

**

Watching you drive down the road and then turn left, the buildings blocking you from view, without running after you was too difficult. Especially now that he’d been able to hold on to you.

He hadn’t talked about his parents in a long time, but he knew that you would want to know why they weren’t around anymore. He should have expected your reaction, but your arms around him - and the way he felt when you embraced him - was unexpected. And he hadn’t completely lied about what happened to them.

They did die in a crash, but it wasn’t an accident.

Kris could never find the hunters that stage the incident. Hardly surprising. Hunters were masters at hiding their dirty work and covering up their tracks. Someday, though, he would get his revenge.

The way you’d held on to him, trying to bring him comfort for something he’d learn to bury away had almost made his eyes water. His wolf had howled with delight, feeling your warmth against him. At first, he didn’t want to return the embrace. He didn’t want to give in. But resistance was futile.

And you were wearing that damn necklace.

The stone had come a long way since you’d found it as a kid. It was prettier now, more polished and oval shaped, a silver cap embedded on the top that looped it through the chain. It was a lot like you. As a child, you were always cute, but now you were beautiful, shining like the full moon in a clear sky.

Jumping into the car, Kris didn’t even tell his employees goodbye, trusting them to close up the shop without any hitches.

He didn’t really want to go home, but the race wouldn’t be for another few hours and he didn’t know what else to do. So, the long, lonely drive back up to the farmhouse it was.

No one seemed to be home when Kris walked inside. That was about right since most of them should be in school. Kris laughed to himself. Yes, they would be at school, including Junmyeon. Poor guy. Having a student be his mate was terrible luck.

Then Kris remembered his own.

On the way back to your car, he’d noticed you spinning the ring on your left hand. The wolf egged him on to take the ring and throw it away. It was just a flimsy piece of metal; it couldn’t keep him from his mate.

But it really could.

Up in the bathroom, Kris stared at his reflection in the mirror, fighting with himself. If he really tried to pursue you, to get you to choose him instead of your fiancé, he’d be disrupting the life you’d worked so hard to build. People typically didn’t get engaged on a whim. He didn’t know how long the two of you had been together and he’d feel a little guilty breaking that up.

The wolf growled at his conscious.

But you didn’t seem excited about your fiance. You didn’t light up when Kris brought him up and you didn’t talk about him first. That wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Just the very thought of the person you loved was supposed to make you smile. Not somewhat happy.

In the mirror, Kris’ face was replaced by yours. Those piercing eyes at looked at him so softly, so close to the real thing. Reaching out, Kris grazed his fingers along the glass.

And he gave in.

Yes, you were his mate. The one he was always meant to be with.

If you’d never came back to the shop or taken that walk with him or hugged him so close, he might have been able to hold his resolve. But now that he had a taste – a tiny, almost nonexistent taste – he couldn’t resist the urge to have more. To actually feel your lips against his, to keep your body against his, for him to hold you as the night went on. He needed to call you truly his, for him to be truly yours.

He just needed to come up with a plan.