#it's not meant to be a solution it's meant to keep shit from escalating even further and fucking killing a whole bunch of us

[drewandareview]

Can We Stop Entertainment From Becoming Balls?

Originally published June 24th, 2013

Just in case you didn’t already know, Hollywood likes money.  So Hollywood wants to make movies it knows people will pay for.  That’s why you see so many blockbusters meant to target specific audiences and not necessarily to be flawless entertainment.  Hollywood puts effort into making money, not making history.  It’s a fact a lot of people resent but you know what?  I get it.  Money’s awesome.  

That’s why the task of getting a Hollywood-style release of a more unique and artistic movie is a horribly formidable task.  If your movie doesn’t appeal to mass audiences like Action Romance 2.0, it shouldn’t get the same distribution.  Fiscally, that makes a world of sense.  The big theaters are reserved for money-making movies.

So where do the less popular movies go for a home?  Before, a lot of them were hobos.  But now, we live in a time where there are a lot of homes available.  There’s places like the Internet, Netflix, etc., where these less dependent filmmakers are finding a home.

Unfortunately, this whole “new home” business is busting Hollywood’s balls in an unexpected way.  With all these new homes, there are various new ways (both legal and illegal) you can watch a movie.  It’s not just limited to “buy the DVD”.  Therefore, the giant source of revenue Hollywood was able to rake up from home movie sales isn’t providing nearly as much as it used to.

Now Hollywood is making even less money and has even less of a reason to distribute a movie that strays from the blockbuster norms.  So how are they going to make up for the lost money?  It’s not as if they can crank out any more blockbusters than they already are: That shit isn’t easy.  They have two ways: Keep the movies in theaters longer and make the tickets more expensive.

This transition makes perfect sense from a financial standpoint and while most people won’t appreciate the escalated prices, most people probably won’t have a problem with the entertainment offered.  Most people are the target audience, after all.  As for the people with more unique or refined tastes, now it’s easier than ever to access the content you want with all of these new homes.  Plus, it’ll debatably be cheaper.

But that seems a little unfair.  I wish there were a way for blockbuster movies to be cheaper and artsy movies to be allowed the big screen experience.  Is there a solution to this giant problem?  Well, not exactly.  The majority is always going to rule; that’s just logic.  But Hollywood might be able to make money in other ways to lower ticket prices. Maybe they can stick their heads in this Internet business and see what they can find.  As for the fans of filmier films, there are special theaters out there devoted to playing those kinds of movies.  If these fans are in the right place among the right community, they’ll still have their theater experience.

But what about Broadway?  Broadway essentially has the same model as Hollywood: Blockbuster shows and artsy shows.  The problem is that shows require a lot of maintenance and the general audience for shows is much smaller.  By nature, Broadway is even more exclusive now than Hollywood will be in the future.  Just imagine the future of Broadway.

I think the most we can hope for is touring shows that visit places with a particular affinity for theater.  And that’s for the blockbuster shows.  If you want more unique shows, you’ll have to be in a place that not only happens to like theater, but also happens to like avant garde theater.  That won’t be easy, but I’m sure it’s not impossible.

I think entertainment is definitely going to change.  But we’ll probably adapt.  Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

[btsqualityy]

Magnolias in Springtime

Namjoon x Reader

Genre: Arranged marriage!AU, ABO (Alpha/Beta/Omega) dynamics, fluff, smut, and just a smidge of angst 

Warnings: Talks of arranged marriages, brief mention of polygamy (nothing comes of it, promise lol), oral sex, fingering, unprotected sex, knotting 

Author’s Note: This fic is based on a prompt from the Spring Fest “Spring Will Come Again” hosted by @bangtanarmynet​! I really hope you guys enjoy it! P.S: There will also be a part two to this fic so stayed tuned for that!

Prompt: While their parents discuss behind closed doors the terms of their arranged marriage to each other, they meet in the blooming garden to go over their own conditions.

Your pack was your entire life.

Growing up as what some of the elders in your pack referred to as the spoiled only child of the Pack Alpha and the Pack Omega, you were doted on by everyone. As a child, you marveled at the Alphas when they brought back the animals that they had haunted for the pack’s dinner and now as an adult, you were having Alphas dedicate those kills to you as a sign of intention to marriage. 

As a child, you tried to take notes on how the Betas seemed to be able to de-escalate any and all types of conflict, always seeming to have a solution that would placate everyone. Now that you were an adult, you found yourself going to those same Betas whenever you had conflicts with your parents or your best friends, because you knew that they would understand you. 

As a child, you thought that it was the coolest thing when you watched the Omegas essentially hold the pack together. They were the ones who gave birth, they were the ones who mostly took on child rearing and cooking (even though the Alphas and Betas in your pack always helped out as well), and they were always there when you happened to skin your knee as a child or just needed comfort. Once you became an adult and presented, you found yourself gravitating more towards the Omegas as you were also one now, and they took you under their wings as you learned just what it really meant to be an Omega. 

So in short, you loved your pack and you were extremely grateful for everything that they had taught you. Oddly enough, that gratefulness is exactly how you ended up in this situation. 

“We really appreciate the fact that you’re doing this for us Y/N,” your Alpha father, Byung-hoon told you as he, you, and your mother Deiji waited on the edge of the Kim Pack’s territory. 

“I told you that it’s fine Daddy,” you muttered, bouncing yourself up and down on the tips of your toes.

“Taking on this huge responsibility for our pack isn’t fine, but we’re grateful that you’re willing to do it,” Deiji said. Instead of answering her though, you decided to change the subject.

“Their territory really is beautiful,” you pointed out as you looked around, seeing multiple bushes of plum blossoms and azaleas. “At least I’ll have something pretty to look forward to once I move here.”

“That you will,” a deep voice added and when you turned around, you saw a large, muscular man walking towards you and following behind him was an almost equally tall woman who was easily one of the most beautiful women you had ever seen in your life. 

“Ah, hello Pack Alpha Ho-jin,” your father bowed and you and your mother followed his lead, holding the bow for a few seconds before straightening up again. 

“Hello Pack Alpha Byung-hoon,” Ho-jin replied as he and the woman bowed as well. “This is my wife, Pack Omega Eun Kyung.”

“Nice to meet you all,” Eun Kyung smiled. 

“This is my wife, Pack Omega Deiji and this is our daughter, Y/N,” Byung-hoon introduced.

“Hello,” Deiji smiled.

“Hello,” you echoed, even though your smile was a bit more forced than your mother’s.

“Oh, you are absolutely gorgeous,” Eun Kyung gushed as she stepped forward, reaching out and grabbing your hands. “Our son is a lucky man.”

“I’m sure that I am lucky as well, Pack Omega,” you replied.

“Please, call me Eun Kyung,” she corrected you. “I am going to be your mother-in-law soon.”

“Speaking of, where is Namjoon?” Your father wondered.

“He went off hunting with some of the other Alphas and Betas in our pack,” Ho-jin explained. “We plan on having a very big feast in order to celebrate their impending nuptials and he decided to go and try to find some extra meat.”

“Yeah, or to avoid meeting the wife that he doesn’t want,” you thought to yourself.

“He sounds like he’ll be an amazing provider and Alpha,” your mother smiled.

“Well, why don’t we all go into my office so that we can go over the terms and conditions of their marriage?” Ho-jin suggested before turning to look at you. “Y/N-ah, feel free to look around our territory and get a feel of the place. This will be your home soon, after all.”

“Of course,” you nodded. “Thank you.” After receiving a kiss on your head from your father and a pat on the hand from your mother, you watched silently as the four of them walk away together. As soon as they were out of sight, you let out a large rush of breath that you didn’t even realize you were holding. Even though you weren’t completely excited about this arrangement, your inner Omega wanted the parents of your future husband to like you and after meeting them, you were happy that you could seemingly not have that to worry about. 

Deciding to take your future father-in-law’s advice, you walked away from the front of their territory and ventured around. You were amazed at how vast their territory seemed to be in comparison to your pack’s, large buildings and houses searching as far as your eyes could see. As you walked, you took notice of what seemed to be a schoolhouse, a building that seemed to be a sort of meeting hall, and even a building that looked like a store front with mannequins in the window.

The thing that caught your attention though, was a large archway that was covered in gorgeous magnolia flowers. When you stepped over to it, you gasped at what laid behind it: A large wall full of nothing but magnolias stood a few feet beyond the arch, a small bench placed in front of it. 

“Gorgeous,” you whispered in awe as you stepped over to the wall, reaching out and gently touching the flowers. 

“Who are you?” A deep voice called out and you jumped up a little, your heart almost beating out of your chest as you turned around to find the source of the voice. Standing right underneath the archway, was a tall, tan skinned man whose presence seemed to command attention. 

“I-I’m Y/N L/N,” you replied, still feeling a little hesitant and the man’s eyes widened. 

“You’re Y/N?” He wondered and you nodded your head. “Well, you’re a lot prettier than I thought you’d be.”

“I’m sorry, who are you?” You questioned. 

“I’m Kim Namjoon,” he said, smiling at the soft gasp that escaped you. “Your future husband.”

“Oh,” was all you could utter in response because holy shit, your future husband was hot.

“Where are your parents?” Namjoon asked as he stepped closer to you. “I assume that you didn’t come here alone.”

“Um, they’re talking to your parents about the ‘terms and conditions’ of our marriage,” you told him and he scoffed out a laugh.

“Of course they are,” he chuckled as he took a seat on the small bench. “Well, I think that while they’re doing that, you and I should probably go over our own terms and conditions.”

“Our own?” You echoed as you sat down on the bench as well.

“Seeing as though we’re both fundamentally being forced into this, I figure that there’s things that you don’t want and that you do want,” he said. 

“That’s..true, I guess,” you nodded. “You go first.”

“Well, seeing as though you weren’t raised in this pack, I’d like for you to learn the ways of the pack and just be a proper wife,” he began.

“I’ve been learning about your pack since the discussions of a possible arrangement started,” you told him. “I have to wonder though, what exactly is your definition of a ‘proper’ wife.”

“Basically, just keeping house, cooking and cleaning,” he elaborated. “As my father plans to step down once we’re married, I’ll be too busy running the pack.”

“Well, sorry to burst your bubble but I wasn’t raised to be a docile Omega and I don’t plan on becoming one once we’re married,” you huffed.

“Why not? I mean, surely you don’t expect to run the pack with me?” He laughed.

“Actually, that’s exactly what I expect,” you smiled. 

“How can you expect to lead this pack when they don’t know you?” He asked.

“Since I’m going to be here for the rest of my life, then they’ll have every opportunity to get to know me,” you shrugged. 

“We’ll talk more about that one later,” Namjoon sighed. “Anything that you wanted specifically?”

“I know that your pack is going to be providing aid to mines once we’re married and as much as I plan on being involved in this pack, I also hope that you don't expect me to never see my pack again,” you said. 

“That’s the custom when you marry into another pack though,” Namjoon pointed out. “Plus, no offense or anything, but your pack is broke in terms of both money and resources and I don’t imagine there to be much to even go back to.”

“I am my parent’s only child and my pack is very close knit so I’d love to still be able to see them and for them to come see me,” you continued. “At least three or four times a year.”

“Alright, I guess that’s reasonable,” he relented. “Especially under these circumstances.”

“Thank you,” you smiled. 

“Oh, another thing,” he said suddenly. “I know that this marriage isn’t exactly something that either of us want but you cannot have any...uh, lovers on the side.”

“I’d never do something like that,” you frowned. “But I hope you know that the same goes for you.”

“That’s fine,” Namjoon nodded. “It’s not my style anyways.”

“In addition to that, I read your pack’s history and the whole taking more than one Omega as a wife thing isn’t going to fly with me,” you stated firmly.

“It’s tradition though,” he shot back. “Every leader of this pack throughout its’ history has had more than one spouse.”

“Your father doesn’t,” you pointed out. 

“Because he didn’t want one.”

“And you do?” You demanded to know and Namjoon just chuckled.

“You really meant that whole not a docile Omega thing, huh?” He wondered and you nodded while smirking. 

“You’re going to be Pack Alpha,” you said. “You have the authority to change tradition.”

“Fine, no additional Omegas,” he agreed. “I hope that means you’re going to be willing to have lots of pups then, since that’s what the whole multiple Omegas rule was for.”

“How many?” 

“At least 5,” he replied and you just laughed.

“5 is a pretty big number coming from a man who’s not going to be pushing them out,” you giggled. “Two, at most.”

“Three?” Namjoon bargained and after thinking for a few seconds, you nodded your head. 

“Deal,” you answered. “Anything else?”

“Just one more,” he added. “No roses at our wedding.”

“What? Why?”

“They’re overrated and cliché,” he shrugged. 

“What about magnolias?” You asked. “Those are my favorites.”

“I like those,” he smiled.

“Well, it’s settled then,” you announced. “No roses.”

“You know, this marriage thing is easier than I thought,” Namjoon said thoughtfully, making you giggle at him. “Do you have anything else you wanted to bring up?”

“Nope,” you shook your head. “I’m good.”

“Shake on it?” He extended his hand out to you and you let him grab onto yours, shaking each other’s hands. 

“Namjoon?” A deep voice called out and Namjoon sighed heavily. 

“That’s my dad,” Namjoon told you. “Should we head out there?”

“Yeah,” you nodded, standing up and waiting for Namjoon to do the same before the two of you walked back towards the front of their territory. As you did so, you couldn’t help but to Namjoon hadn’t let go of your hand the entire time.

“Ah, I see that the two of you met and are getting along!” Ho-jin announced happily.

“I’d say that we are,” Namjoon nodded as he looked down at you, and you nodded as well. 

“Well, why don’t we all move into our house?” Eun Kyung suggested. “We can have dinner and get to each other more.” After receiving nods all around, the group of you began to move towards the large cluster of houses that were a few yards away from where you were currently standing. As you let Namjoon lead you, you thought that maybe all of this actually wouldn’t be so bad. 

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

A few days later, your time visiting Namjoon’s pack was winding down. After the first day, your father had happily told you that the negotiations between him and Namjoon’s father went off without a hitch and that the wedding could move forward immediately so the last few days of your visit had been spent planning your wedding.

“So maybe you and Namjoon can have your ceremony closer to the evening?” Eun Kyung suggested. “So that way we can move right into the reception afterwards.” You, her and your mom were currently in the dining room of Ho-jin and Eun Kyung’s house, going over some wedding details.

“That’s a good idea,” Deiji concurred. 

“Yeah,” you agreed. “Having the ceremony around 5pm sounds good.”

“Great,” Eun Kyung smiled as she wrote some things down onto the notepad that was on the table in front of her. “A later ceremony will hopefully ease some of the anxiety you’ll have that day.”

“Anxiety?” You asked.

“About your wedding night,” Eun Kyung clarified and your eyes widened. “When Ho-jin and I got married, we had our ceremony in the early afternoon and I was so nervous waiting for the reception to come because I knew what was going to happen afterwards and I had never been to bed with anyone before.”

“Oh,” you murmured. Of course, you knew that it was expected that you’d have sex with Namjoon on your wedding night and if it were up to your parents and Namjoon’s parents, get pregnant immediately but you had done your best not to actually think about it.

“Anyways, I think maybe roses for the flowers,” Deiji changed the subject and you gave her a small smile in thanks. 

“Oh, that would be gorgeous,” Eun Kyung gasped. “Namjoon’s grandmother actually has a garden full of red roses and I’m sure that she won’t mind us using some.”

“Actually, no roses,” you spoke up and both older women looked at you.

“I thought you liked roses, Y/N-ah,” Deiji said.

“I do, but Namjoon doesn’t,” you explained. “We agreed on magnolias instead.”

“You both agreed?” Deiji repeated and you nodded your head, making her smile. “That’s great.”

“You know, it’s so nice to see you actually trying to make the best of this whole thing Y/N,” Eun Kyung said. “I know it’s not ideal and you could be fighting this tooth and nail but the fact that you’re not says a lot about your character.”

“Thank you,” you smiled lightly. 

“Alright, magnolias it is,” Eun Kyung muttered as she wrote that down onto her notepad as well. Before the conversation could continue any further though, there was a sudden knock and when you looked up, you saw Namjoon standing in the door way to the dining room. 

“Hey, you all back from hunting so soon?” Eun Kyung wondered, referring to how Ho-jin, Namjoon, and Byung-hoon had decided to go off and hunt right after lunch. 

“Animals weren’t really out,” Namjoon shrugged. “Dad wanted to show Pack Alpha Byung-hoon our warehouse and I decided to come back here to spend time with Y/N.”

“With me?” You echoed in awe and Namjoon nodded.

“I wanted to show you around a little more, if you’re willing,” he offered. Before answering, you looked over at your mother who immediately waved her hands at you.

“Go, go,” she encouraged you. “We’re here for another two days so we can pick this up again later. Right, Eun Kyung?”

“Absolutely,” she agreed, turning to look at Namjoon after. “Show her the river.”

“I got it Mom,” Namjoon chuckled. “Y/N?”

“Sure,” you replied before standing up, walking over to Namjoon and grabbing his outstretched hand. 

“We’ll be back by dinner,” he called out to your mothers before turning around and leading you through the living room and out of the house. 

“Thanks for getting me out of there,” you said as the two of you walked down the front steps and began to walk away from the cluster of houses. “All that wedding planning was starting to get to my head.”

“I figured, which is why I got out of there right after lunch,” Namjoon laughed. “But I also genuinely wanted to spend some time with you too. It feels like I haven’t had a moment alone with you since the first day you got here.”

“I think our families are making sure of that,” you pointed out. “I think they’re afraid that we may realize that we hate each other if they leave us alone together for too long.”

“I think that’s actually a great assumption,” he chuckled. “They don’t have to worry about that though, at least not on my end.”

“Mines either,” you murmured shyly. “So, where are you taking me?”

“Well, even though my mom suggested that I take you to the river, I think that there’ll be plenty of time for you to see that later,” he told you. “I actually want to show you something that I’ve been working on.”

“Cool,” you nodded as the two of you continued to walk and you noticed that he was still holding onto your hand. On their territory, there were a few different clusters of houses and Namjoon was leading you over to a different one, stopping in front of what seemed to be the largest house. 

“What do you think?” Namjoon asked and you took a second to look over the outside, liking how it was painted a light brown color, had a large porch that already had a swing attached to the ceiling of it, and a large set of stairs. 

“I think it’s beautiful,” you smiled. “You built this?”

“Yeah, for us,” he revealed and you looked over at him in shock. “What? I hope you didn’t think we’d be living with my parents once the wedding is over.”

“Namjoon, I don’t even know what to say,” you murmured in awe.

“Want to take a look inside?” Namjoon wondered, reaching down and pulling a set of keys out of his pocket. You nodded your head rapidly and he chuckled before leading you up the stairs and unlocking the front door. Walking inside, you let out another soft gasp as you looked around. 

As soon as you walked into the front door, there was a little open space which could be used to place your shoes and jackets and then a staircase that led upstairs to the second level of the house. On your left hand side, there was an archway that lead into the dining room and kitchen and then on your right hand side, there was another archway that lead into the living room and another room that Namjoon said he planned on converting into a study. Once you went upstairs, you saw that there were a total of five bedrooms and the master bedroom was the largest and complete with an en suite as well. 

“I love it,” you gushed as you turned to look at Namjoon, who was leaning up against one of the walls in what would soon be your shared bedroom. 

“I thought I’d leave the decorating up to you,” he said. “That way you’ll have control over something here.”

“Good, because I already have ideas,” you grinned, deciding to throw caution to the wind and walking over to him, not waiting for him to ask what you were doing before throwing your arms around him. He hesitated for a second before hugging you back as well, and the two of you stood there for a few seconds with your arms around each other. 

“I’m happy that you like it,” he whispered and you craned your neck in order to look up at him. 

“I really appreciate it,” you told him.

“Anything for my future wife,” he smiled and it was when he said that that you realized how close the two of you still were. You dropped your arms from around him and stepped back, forcing him to let go of you as well. Feeling your cheeks warm up from embarrassment, you turned your back towards him and walked over towards the window to look outside.

“You know Y/N, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Namjoon began. “Why did you agree to all of this?”

“What, marrying you?” You asked for clarification and Namjoon nodded.

“I mean, I know the basic reason why but I feel like there’s more to it than that,” he said. “A lot of packs run out of money and resources at some point but their leaders usually figure something out instead of marrying off their children in return for more resources.”

“True,” you sighed before turning to look at him over your shoulder. “Long story short, I don’t want my pack to die out just because of my father’s mismanagement. I love every member of my pack and they have all been so vital to how I grew up and how I’ve become the person that I am. If me marrying into another pack will guarantee that those people can continue to live comfortably, then I’ll do it.”

“That’s incredibly selfless,” Namjoon replied as he walked over to stand next to you. 

“I guess so,” you shrugged. “But to me, I’m just repaying the people who gave me so much.”

“That’s amazing Y/N,” he muttered. 

“What about you?” You reversed the question. “Why did you agree to this?”

“Well, my reasoning was a lot more selfish than yours,” he chuckled. “It’s always been my dream to lead the pack and when my father came to me a few months ago saying that he was getting ready to want to step down, I was super excited. However, it concerned him that I’m 26 and not mated to anyone yet so he made it a stipulation that I meet someone and get mated before he allows me to take over for him. Since I planned on getting married at some point in my life, that stipulation really didn’t matter to me so I agreed.”

“Ah, I guess that explains why you weren’t too keen on me wanting to run the pack with you,” you said.

“Kind of,” he shrugged. “Although, after hearing why you agreed to all of this, I have to admit that I’m reconsidering that.”

“Really?” You smiled hopefully. 

“Of course, you’ll still have to get to know the pack and our ways,” he pointed out. “But I don’t think it would be the worst thing to have you by my side.”

“Great!” You exclaimed happily and Namjoon couldn’t help but to laugh from how excited you clearly were. 

“Do you want to go look in the other bedrooms?” He suggested. “Maybe see what you might want to do with them?” 

“Mm, we don’t have to. I don’t want to overwhelm myself,” you giggled. “Why did you make so many bedrooms anyways?”

“Well, for our future children,” he confessed and you felt your cheeks immediately become hotter. 

“Oh,” you whispered. 

“Is that ok?” Namjoon wondered. “I know it might’ve been a little presumptuous of me, especially since I did it before we had our conversation about what we both wanted the other day.”

“No, no, no, it’s....it’s fine,” you shrugged. 

“Oh, I get it,” he smirked. “You haven’t been with anyone, have you?”

“Namjoon!” You shouted in surprise.

“You’re nervous,” he surmised. 

“Can you blame me?” You scoffed. “I mean, it’s already embarrassing to have basically everyone know that I’m a virgin but knowing what’s expected of us on our wedding night....it’s nerve wrecking.”

“It’s not that big of a deal Y/N,” he shrugged. 

“Aren’t you nervous?” You asked him, only to see him shake his head. “Why not?”

“Because I’ve thought about filling you with my knot since the first day that I saw you,” Namjoon confessed. “So if you let me have sex with you on our wedding night, I’d consider myself to be a very lucky man.”

“Really?” You whispered.

“Of course, but I’m not going to push you,” he told you. “If you deicide that you don’t want to, then that’s completely fine. If you do though, just know that I’ll be more willing.”

“Good to know, I guess,” you muttered, more so to yourself but Namjoon still laughed at you. 

“Cute,” he smiled widely as he reached down and grabbed your hand, intertwining your fingers with his.

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

A month later, your wedding day had finally come. After spending a week in Namjoon’s territory, you and your parents had traveled back to your pack’s territory where you prepared for the wedding alone. The only other time that you were able to see Namjoon had been when he and his parents decided to visit your territory in order to sign the treaty that would make the connection between your two packs official. 

Fast forward to now, you were standing in the guest bedroom of Namjoon’s parents’ house, getting ready with your mom and your two best friends. 

“I really wish you would’ve let me make you a more form fitting dress Y/N-ah,” Taehyung sighed as he pullzed up the zipper on the back of your dress. Your dress was pure white, with long billowing sleeves, a scooped neckline, and a loose, long skirt with a small train. 

“You know that I hate tight clothing,” you pointed out. “This feels more like me.”

“And you look beautiful,” Jimin spoke up, taking a second to stick his tongue out at Taehyung.

“That you do,” Deiji grinned widely as she placed a crown of magnolias on top of your head. “You look like a dream.”

“Thanks Mommy,” you giggled. Just then, there was a sudden knock on the door. 

“Everyone decent in there?” Your father called out and Jimin walked over to the door and opened it up, making your father gasp when he saw you. 

“Oh Y/N-ah,” he murmured as he paced over to you, setting his hands on your cheeks. “My baby girl.”

“What do you think?” You asked him. 

“I think that Namjoon is a very lucky man to be marrying such a gorgeous woman,” Byung hoon replied, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to your cheek. “You ready? There’s still time to back out and we can always figure something else out.”

“I’m not gonna do that Daddy,” you huffed with a smile, reaching out and taking the bouquet of magnolias that Taehyung was handing to you. “I’m gonna do this.”

“We can’t thank you enough,” your father murmured and you just leaned forward, giving him a kiss on the cheek as well. 

“What’s done is done,” you said. “So don’t stress about it.”

“Well, let’s go get you married,” Taehyung smiled as he reached up and pulled your veil down over your face.

“Let’s,” you whispered as you wrapped your hand around your father’s arm and let him lead you out of the bedroom. 

The ceremony was an unrushed affair once you met Namjoon underneath the little archway that had been placed near the large wall of magnolias where the two of you had first met. You found yourself not even paying much attention to what was happening during the ceremony and before you knew it, you were facing Namjoon as the preacher pronounced you man and wife.

It wasn’t the first time that you’d ever been kissed, but it still felt different all the same. Namjoon was so gentle as he reached out and grabbed the hem of your veil, lifting it up and over your head to reveal your face. He then placed his hands on your cheeks, cradling them as he leaned forward and kissed you softly. You found yourself kissing back on instinct, your hands reaching out and grabbing onto his suit jacket. 

The reception was definitely more fun than you imagined it to be. The food was amazing and so was the music, and you couldn’t help but to smile at how everyone in your new pack danced around happily as they celebrated your marriage. You found yourself having fun as well as you allowed Eun Kyung and Ho-jin to lead you around, introducing you to some members of the pack as well as spending time with your own family and friends as well.

Now that the night was over though, you were quietly walking back to your new house with Namjoon, which had been decorated to your liking. 

“Did you have fun?” Namjoon asked and you looked over at him, nodding your head.

“I did,” you smiled. “Your pack sure knows how to throw a party.”

“It’s your pack now too,” he pointed out and you hummed in reply. Once your new house came into view, Namjoon helped you walk up the front steps before pulling out his keys and unlocking the front door. 

“Wait,” he said when you moved to step into the house and before you could ask what he was doing, he leant down and picked you up bridal style.

“Namjoon!” You shrieked as he carried you into the house and you reached out to shut the front door for him. He then carried you up the stairs and into your bedroom before setting you down on the ground.

“What was that?” You giggled as you looked up at him.

“Well, I couldn’t let you be deprived of a prime wedding experience,” he shrugged, making you smile. A somewhat awkward silence then settled over the two of you then and it wasn’t until then that you felt your nerves kick in. You had been successful in not thinking much about your wedding night for the past few weeks but now that the two of you were alone, it was all that you could think about. 

“You know,” Namjoon spoke up suddenly. “We don’t have to do anything tonight.”

“Namjoon, we talked about this,” you replied.

“We did and I meant what I said then,” he said. “We don’t have to do anything just because people might expect us to.”

“Really?”

“Really. Plus, it’s kind of insulting if you only have sex with me because you’re expected to,” he joked, making you giggle.

“You have a point,” you smiled. “What if I said that I wanted to though, because I want to?”

“Do you remember what else I said to you when we had that conversation?” He wondered and you felt your cheeks warm up immensely as you recalled his words. 

“Yes.”

“What did I say baby?” 

“You said that you, uh, wanted to....uh,” you stammered and Namjoon smiled, deciding to take pity on you.

“I said that I wanted to fill you with my knot,” he finished for you. “And I still mean that.”

“You’ll be gentle?” You checked.

“Absolutely,” he stated firmly. “And I’ll go as slow as you need me to.” You knew that this was a big step, losing your virginity. However, something about Namjoon made you feel so at ease and besides, he was your husband now.

“I want to,” you announced, causing him to grin widely.

“Can I kiss you?” He requested and you nodded your head. He reached up and placed his hands on your cheeks before leaning down and pressing his lips against yours. You immediately moved closer to him, placing your hands near his waist. He then took one of his hands off of your cheek and before you could ask what he was doing, he reached up and took the crown of magnolias off your head before throwing it over his shoulder.

“Someone seems eager,” you teased.

“You have no idea,” Namjoon chuckled deeply. He kissed you again, this time much deeper as he walked you backwards towards the bed. Once you felt the edge of the bed hit the back of your knees, you pulled away from his lips and looked up at him. 

“Help me take this off?” You whispered, taking a second to turn around so that your back was facing him. Without any hesitation, he reached out and pulled down the zipper on the back of your dress. The feeling of his fingertips against your skin made you shiver and when your dress dropped down to the floor in a pool around your feet, the feeling of his eyes on you made you get chills. 

“Did you wear this for me?” Namjoon asked before leaning forward and pressing kisses along the curve of your shoulder, referring to the white, lace bra and panty set that you had been wearing underneath your dress. 

“Maybe,” you breathed out, his lips on your skin making it hard for you to focus. 

“Gorgeous. Lay down for me?” He said and you nodded before bending down and crawling onto the bed. When you flipped over to lie on your back, Namjoon was working on taking off his suit jacket and unbuttoning the white dress shirt that he had underneath.

“You still ok?” He checked in as he climbed onto the bed as well and you smiled as you reached up and wrapped your arms around his neck. 

“I’m ok,” you confirmed, leaning up and kissing him again. The kiss quickly became heated, your mouth falling open as Namjoon slipped his tongue inside. He then pulled away from your mouth, moving down to press kisses to your jaw before moving down to your neck. 

“Been thinking about this, about you,” he whispered against your skin and you just blushed as you looked up at the ceiling.

“About me?” 

“Mmhmm,” he hummed. “Been thinking about your scent too.”

“What do I smell like to you?” You wondered, doing your best to keep your eyes trained on the ceiling as you felt him start to move down again. 

“Like...pineapples and bananas,” he murmured as he grabbed the cups of your bra, pulling them down so that they sat right underneath your breasts. He then leaned down and sucked your right nipple into his mouth, making you arch your back up from the bed.

“Holy, huh,” you moaned and Namjoon chuckled at you, which automatically made you pout. “Don’t laugh at me.”

“I’m sorry,” he apologized after popping your nipple out of his mouth. “You’re just so cute.” You couldn’t find the words to say anything else because Namjoon reached underneath you and you lifted your back up so that he could take your bra off completely, and he didn’t waste any time before taking your left nipple into his mouth. 

Once both of your nipples had stiffened to a peak, he moved downwards again, trailing his lips across your skin until he made it down to the line of your panties. 

“Lift up for me?” Namjoon asked and slowly, you lifted your hips and waited until he had grabbed the waistband of your panties and pulled them down before lowering your body back onto the bed. Once he pulled them off of your legs and threw them off the bed, you watched as he sat his hands on your knees and looked down at you. 

“Still good?” He wondered.

“Seriously, stop asking,” you giggled. “I’m nervous as hell but I want to do this so I’m good.”

“I just, you know you can tell me to stop at anytime and I will, right?” 

“I know, and that’s why I want this,” you smiled. “Want you to give me a bite.”

“Fuck, ok,” he exhaled harshly. “I want to eat you out first though.”

“Ok,” you nodded and you allowed him to push your knees apart, exposing your folds to him. He laid down on the bed so that he was right in between your legs, and you let out a loud gasp when you felt his tongue make contact with your clit. He used the tip of his tongue to make slow circles around your clit and even though he wasn’t placing a lot of pressure behind it, you felt like you were going to lose your mind.

“Holy shit, that feels...good,” you huffed and you felt Namjoon hum against you as he closed his entire mouth around your clit. The feeling was almost euphoric, and you couldn’t believe that you had been missing out on this for the last few years since you presented as an Omega.

“I’m gonna give you a finger ok?” Namjoon spoke up after taking his mouth off of you and you nodded, wincing lightly when he began to push his pointer finger inside of you. He then began to slowly pump the digit in and out of you, which made you moan lightly. 

“Feels good?” He asked. 

“Yeah. Weird but good,” you told him. 

“Good,” he smirked. “You’re getting wet.”

“Don’t say that,” you groaned. 

“Why not? It’s a good thing,” he shrugged. “It’ll make it easier for you to take my knot.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“Good thing you’re stuck with me,” he smiled before leaning down and taking your clit back into his mouth. As he fingered and licked you simultaneously, you found it a little harder to breathe because of the pleasure that was building in the pit of your stomach. 

“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” you hissed when he tried to ease his middle finger inside of you. 

“It’s ok baby, we just gotta get you stretched out a little bit,” he whispered and you just decided to be quiet and let him do it. Admittedly, you admired how much time he was taking making sure that you were properly ready and it made your heart soften because you had never had a man (other than your father) be so gentle with you. 

“Namjoon, I-I think I’m going to come,” you whimpered and Namjoon took his mouth off of your clit for a few seconds. 

“Go ahead baby,” he encouraged you before placing his mouth back on you. Sure enough, it didn’t take much longer before your body seized up, your orgasm washing over you. Namjoon continued to stroke you through it and by the time that it passed, you were reaching down and pushing him away from you. 

“Holy shit, that felt good,” you giggled, making Namjoon laugh as well. 

“That’s good,” He replied as he sat up onto his knees. When your eyes trailed downwards, they widened a little at the sight of the bulge in his pants.

“Should I, um,” you stammered as you motioned towards his pants and he looked down, chuckling before looking back up at you. 

“You don’t have to and besides, seeing you come turned me on and I doubt I’d last,” he admitted.

“Oh, ok,” you smiled shyly. He then pulled off the dress shirt that he had on, letting it fall onto the floor before moving onto his slacks, unbuttoning and unzipping them before pulling them down. He pushed them, along with his underwear, down his legs and your jaw dropped a little from the sight of his cock.

You didn’t know what you expected, but you definitely didn’t expect his cock to be so thick and long. You had to admit, actually seeing it made you even more nervous.

“Hey,” Namjoon called out and you looked up at him. “It’ll be ok. I’m still going to go slow.”

“O-Ok,” you whispered as he climbed between your legs. He reached out with two fingers and gathered some of your slickness from your orgasm before using it to lubricate his cock. 

“Ready?” He questioned as he positioned his cock right in front of your entrance and once you nodded, he slowly began to push into you. The stinging pain hit you immediately and you yelped out loud, reaching up and clutching onto Namjoon’s forearms. “Y/N?”

“Hurts,” you muttered through grit teeth.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, bending down and pressing a kiss to your forehead. He didn’t try to push any further, he waited until you gave him a small nod before pressing his hips forward again. You were almost ready to tell him to forget the entire thing as the stinging pain seemed to become worse the more he pushed into you. Before you knew it though, he had bottomed out and was looking down at you intensely.

“What?” You asked him.

“You just, you look so beautiful,” he complimented you.

“Are you just saying that because you’re inside of me right now?” You joked.

“I mean it,” he laughed. 

“Well, thank you,” you responded and he leaned down to kiss you again. He then slowly pulled his hips back before pushing back in, which caused you to let out a stuttered moan into his mouth. The pain was still thee but as he began to fuck you, it slowly went away and was replaced by what was probably the greatest pleasure that you had ever felt in your life up to that point. 

“So tight baby,” Namjoon grunted after he pulled away from the kiss. 

“F-feels so full,” you whimpered. 

“Good. I’m gonna fill you even more with my knot,” he said gruffly as he looked down at you. “You want that?”

“Yes.”

“Say it,” he instructed you.

“I-I want your.....k-knot,” you stuttered and he literally groaned at your words. He began to fuck you a little faster, making you grip onto him and wrap your legs around his waist.

“Been thinking about this,” he moaned. “Been thinking about how good you would feel wrapped around my cock.”

“Me t-too,” you confessed. 

“Fuck, you’ve been thinking about me baby?” 

“Yeah,” you nodded. “Since you told me that you wanted to...fill me with your, uh, knot. Thought about you calling me baby too.”

“You like it?” He smiled.

“Love it.”

“Then I’ll call you that as often as I can,” he promised. He continued to fuck you, and you realized that you were feeling the same buildup of pressure that you did when he was fingering you. 

“I-I’m gonna come Namjoon,” you announced breathily and he sighed.

“Thank god,” he huffed as he began to thrust into you both faster and harder, and your grip on him became so tight that you were sure you’d leave marks on his skin. “I wanna knot you so fucking bad.”

“Do it,” you encouraged him. “Want you to bite me too.”

“Come first,” he shot back as he focused all of his energy into making sure that you did so. After a few more thrusts, you were coming right onto his cock, your essence covering more of his cock every time that he pulled it out and then pushed it right back in. 

“Ready for a bite?” He asked and you nodded your head numbly. Leaning down, he stuck his face in your neck and began to suck on the skin there. As soon as you released a moan at the feeling, you felt his teeth sink in. 

You had heard a lot about mating bites and how it would feel when you finally received one, but you could truthfully say that the feeling was indescribable. You truly felt like you were now connected to Namjoon in a way that you had never been connected with any one before and the feeling was almost so overwhelming that you almost didn’t recognize that Namjoon’s knot was pushing its’ way inside of you.

“God damn,” Namjoon groaned deeply as his knot fully popped into you, and you gasped when you felt his cum pouring into you right after. You leaned up and after finding the perfect spot, you sunk your teeth into his neck as well, giving him a mating bite too. 

Namjoon collapsed on top of you and the two of you stayed like that for a while, at least 15 minutes, basking in the after glow of your new matching mating bites. 

“No offense or anything,” you spoke up. “But you’re heavy and it’s hot in here.”

“Some offense taken,” he laughed as he lifted himself off of you. “My knot has gone down but it’s gonna hurt when I pull out.”

“Go slow, ok?” You requested and he nodded, looking down in between your legs and slowly pulling out of you. It did hurt a little and you even winced a little bit, but it wasn’t that bad all in all. 

“Y/N-ah?” He called as he laid down next to you and you gently turned over onto your side to face him.

“What happened to baby?” You simpered with a teasing smile, making him chuckle. 

“I’m still gonna call you that,” he assured you. “But I wanted to talk to you seriously.”

“Ok, shoot,” you shrugged. 

“I know that you didn’t necessarily choose all of this and neither did I, but I don’t want you to worry,” he began. “I take this marriage and this relationship just as seriously as if we met in the conventional sense and I really mean it when I say that I can see myself falling in love with you.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he smiled. “Even though we haven’t known each other long, I can already tell that you’re kind, selfless, loving, and the most gorgeous woman that I’ve ever met in my life. I’d only be so lucky if you fell in love with me.”

“Well, I think that I can fall in love with you too,” you confessed, making him grin widely. “And I hope that I do.”

[transmalewife]

Alright, let's talk about attachment

I can’t find clear information on when exactly the non-attachment rule was added to the code. It was either soon before or soon after the great sith war. Either way, for the VAST majority of the existence of the Jedi, it wasn’t a thing. Jedi got married and had families for over 20000 years, then added the non-attachment rule, which ultimately led to their destruction. And before anyone tries to tell me I believe they deserved to be genocided, I don’t. I have never actually seen anyone say that, but I see people argue against it constantly, and imply anyone who doesn’t think the Jedi were perfect and blameless thinks that. I don’t think they deserved to die, I think they needed to change. And Yoda says that himself, many times. The Jedi weren’t prepared for the return of the sith, or the war. They had separated from the military 1000 years before, and the galaxy was in relative peace all this time, so the order’s role changed to one that worked very well with their rules. Detachment meant they could be impartial when overseeing political disagreements, lack of possessions meant they would be focused on the mission at hand and not prone to taking bribes, and distancing themselves from the general population meant they were more or less uniform, and could be trusted not to side with someone for personal reasons.

All of this falls apart once they become an army again. Impartiality is a flaw when they have to defend one side at all cost and not even allow themselves to consider compromise. Lack of possessions and attachment to people means they are prone to taking unnecessary risks, because they have nothing to lose, and do things like send 14 year olds into battle, thinking of the “greater good” over the safety of children. And the order being a monolith, with set rules and philosophy distinct from the rest of the population meant the Jedi trusted Dooku long after they should have stopped, because he used to be a Jedi after all, surely he still follows the code.

Now, I am not saying non-attachment is always bad, I think it served a very specific purpose in the order, and to some extent worked for many years. However.

Humans are a social species. Human babies NEED physical contact and affection to develop physically. Children need a stable, strong, and supportive relationship to their caregiver to properly develop psychologically. And after last year I don’t think anyone will argue that adults don't need connection with other people just as much. And not just shallow interactions, but open affection and love. Love of any kind, because claiming that the Jedi only forbid romantic love is just untrue. I think people tend to forget that "Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is essential to a Jedi's life. So you might say, that we are encouraged to love." isn’t the actual doctrine, it’s a literal pick up line that Anakin uses on Padme.

Ahsoka and Obi-Wan both get criticized by other Jedi for their entirely platonic attachment to Anakin, and vice versa. Now, humans are the most common species in the galaxy, and in the Jedi order. Many other species are near-human, so it’s safe to assume at least some, if not most of them also need that companionship and affection to develop and live happy and stable lives. I do believe that non-attachment is a valid philosophy and chosen path in life if done carefully and within reason, I just don’t think we have a single major character that actually applies to. And chosen is an important word here. Jedi don’t get much of a choice. I’m not trying to start the baby-stealing debate here. I hear the argument of ‘force sensitives are dangerous if left untrained, and said training should start as early as possible’. I think finding a way to deal with that problem was an insanely complicated decision, and taking children into the temple as young as possible is not a bad solution. I don’t entirely agree with not letting them see their families later, (especially since in legends Obi-Wan was allowed to visit his family, which implies Anakin couldn’t go free his mother specifically because he was already too attached), but the idea is sound. I do also understand that no one is forcing Jedi to stay in the order and they can leave for whatever reason at any time. But that isn’t exactly a free choice either. Leaving the order means leaving the only home you remember, the only people you know to make your own way in the galaxy, and staying with those people means you can never fully love them. It’s a difficult solution to a complicated question, and for the most part, it worked (not always, and not exactly as intended, but I’ll come back to that.) Children grew up in the order, were trained to control themselves and the force, and became Jedi who were impartial, patient, and balanced. But everything falls apart when you introduce someone who wasn’t raised in the temple.

In The Rising Force, 13 year old Obi-Wan had barely been off Coruscant in his life. He describes himself as sheltered and unaware of all the pain in the galaxy, and says it was done on purpose, so younglings wouldn’t have to face the dark side before they were ready for it. But Anakin had seen nothing but darkness, pain and injustice before he joined the order. He was severely traumatized, and while the temple might have had some ways of dealing with trauma and PTSD in adults, they had no experience in treating the same in a child, because their children were kept safe and protected. The idea of letting go of your pain and fear only works if you know you have a safe place to come back to, if you’ve spent the first decade or so of your life in the most protected place in the galaxy. Anakin spent the first decade of his life as a slave. He couldn’t let go of his fear, because fear was what kept him alive. Fear is not irrational if you are constantly in danger, it’s what protects you, keeps you aware of the limits you can push before you get punished. And that mindset doesn’t fade just because you’re out of that situation, especially if your only family, the closest person to you, is still facing that danger every day.

I’ve seen people use every excuse possible to explain why Anakin didn’t see his mother again to avoid blaming the council, including, and I shit you not, “He just didn’t have her comm number”. But to me that seems disingenuous, when we see in his first meeting with the council that they already consider him too attached. It's one of the main reasons they don’t want him to be trained, so it seems logical that they wouldn’t allow him to see her once he became a padawan. I also want to mention that what Yoda says, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” Is just… blatant catastrophizing. Right? Like we can all see that the escalation is not rational there at all. Maybe it could apply to something else, but not to a child who just left his mother for the first time in his life and went from a tiny dustball in the middle of nowhere to the most populated planet in the galaxy, and is now being tested by a bunch of old people with the power to decide his future. Obviously he’s afraid, and obviously he’s not dealing with it the way Jedi younglings do. That, in and of itself doesn't doom him to fall. Also what Yoda misses there is that suffering leads to fear. This is a closed loop, and one that has defined Anakin’s entire childhood.

Let’s come back to how the system doesn’t always work. The way I see it, most of the characters we see are attached. Obi-Wan is considered one of the greatest Jedi of his time. Windu describes him as “our most cunning and insightful Master—and our most tenacious”. And yet, he was not insightful enough to look past his love for Anakin, his attachment, and see how close to falling he was. Ahsoka was so attached to Anakin she refused to listen to Maul on Mandalore, refused to even consider the posibility he could fall. She was arguably the person with the best shot at preventing the empire forming at that point, and she loved anakin so much she doomed him and the entire galaxy. Aayla admitted to thinking of Quinlan as her father, and also, apparently in legends had a long relationship with Kit. Even Mace didn’t follow the code when he decided to kill Palpatine, which directly led to his death and the empire. He also indirectly caused the war to start. According to wookiepedia “Windu viewed Dooku as the shatterpoint of the entire Separatist movement, which meant striking Dooku down would theoretically end the imminent clone war before it even began. However, Windu's prior attachments to Dooku clouded his judgment.” I’m not even going to mention Kanan and Ezra, who are obviously family.

So basically everyone is attached and lying about it. How has no one thought that maybe this isn’t the healthiest way to live and tried to change the code? Well, I have a theory, and it’s Yoda. He was 900 years old when he died, and was on the council for the vast majority of his life. I can’t find when exactly he became grand master, but it’s safe to assume he held some degree of power over the entire order for most of a millennium. At the end of TPM he tells Obi-Wan “Confer on you the level of Jedi knight, the council does. But agree with your taking this boy as your padawan learner, I do not.” Then he reverses that decision by himself. So either he has the power to veto the council’s word, or who gets trained is entirely up to him. Either way, not great, considering his lifespan is so much longer than most Jedi, and therefore his approach to life is vastly different. Humans need love and closeness to live. However, while we don’t know much about Yoda’s species, it probably isn’t a social one. You could count all the characters of this species on two (human) hands, and Yoda lived in complete isolation for 20 years on Dagobah, and only went a little bit insane. They are naturally rare, and therefore probably lead solitary lives in nature. Moreover, Yoda outlived every master who trained him, and almost every padawan he trained himself, (there’s a great post about that here) so even if he wasn’t naturally predisposed to non-attachment, he would have had to learn it to deal with all the loss he had to live through over the years.

A lot of people think that Anakin fell because he had attachments, which is not true. He fell because of how his attachments played out and/or ended. The most obvious example being Palpatine, who used Anakin’s trust and friendship to groom him for over a decade and actively undermine Anakin’s trust towards anyone else, especially the order. (more on that here). Obi-Wan refused to take on the role of a father figure that Anakin tried to shove him into, so he turned to someone who did accept it. It’s not Anakin’s fault that it turned out to be the worst person alive, nor can we expect him to notice when he’s known Palpatine since he was a child. Another failure of jedi non-attachment, because a loving parent or guardian would not let their child be used as a bargaining chip when the most powerful politician in the galaxy blackmailed the order into allowing him to meet Anakin regularly, but a distant teacher and detached knight thinking of the greater good might. The other attachments Anakin had were taken from him (Shmi and Ahsoka, the last orchestrated by Palpatine who was fully ready to give her the death penalty to make Anakin more unstable), or he was forced to lie and hide them, compromising his vows as a Jedi (Padme) or refused to choose Anakin over the order/their principles (Obi-Wan, and again Ahsoka, and to some extent Padme, but he’d already fallen then). All these people had every right to make the choices they made, but it wasn’t the act of loving them that made Anakin turn to the dark side, it was how those attachments played out.

I think everyone agrees that Yoda is as detached as a Jedi should, if not can, be, and that didn’t prevent Dooku from falling. We see that explored in more detail with Barriss and Luminara. Luminara is detached and distant, she’s fond of Barriss, but their relationship is not familial in the slightest, and she repeatedly shows her willingness to put the greater good and the mission before Barriss’ safety and even life. And yet Barriss still falls. A complex combination of events and choices caused each of those characters to fall, not the simple presence or absence of attachment.

And lastly, just as attachment can make you unstable if your relationship with that person is unstable, it can also make you stronger. There is a reason Anakin and Obi-Wan were the face of the army. Not only did their obvious attachment (the strongest between two jedi we are shown) make them more relatable to the public, but they, when working as a team, are shown repeatedly to be more or less undefeatable. They spend half of aotc flinging themselves off great heights because they know the other will be there to catch them. They know from years of experience that they have backup and they know each other well enough (or force bond communicate) that they can trust the other will be where he needs to be to help/save them. Contrast that to how Windu and Palpatine fight in rots once the window breaks- very carefully, clearly holding back to keep themselves safe. Neither of them has backup until Anakin arrives, but until the last second they can't be sure which one he will choose. Anakin and Obi-Wan fight the same way on Mustafar, especially when balancing on that thin bridge. No acrobatics, swinging arms to keep balance, keeping their distance, being almost uncharacteristically careful compared to how they treated heights in aotc, in tcw, and on the invisible hand in rots, because they both know the other won't catch them if they fall this time.

[dammit-neal]

Episode 4x04 Thoughts

Okay, dead brother? It's a *little* soap opera-y. HOWEVER, this could be balanced and well handled, so long as the writers, directors, and editors keep a firm grip on the tone. They were heading that way this episode with the amount of humor they infused in the telling of the secret, but by dragging it out the whole episode it got a little melodramatic.

I will say though, the Big Secret isn't *entirely* out of nowhere. We've known since Maddie was introduced that their home situation is... Unusual, and definitely lacking in support, which becomes all the more evident when the Buckley siblings go through crisis and near-death situations and there's just CRICKETS where the parents should be. (Like, yeah Eddie's parents overstep left, right, and center but at least they *showed up.*) The point being, yeah this is dramatic, but it’s not like TA-DA! DRAMA because it has a decent foundation in existing canon. So  even though there was zero clue or mention of a dead family member beforehand, the more than I think about it, the more I think there are enough building blocks to support it if everyone's careful.

Also, it’s not new for 9-1-1 to be this dramatic either. All the traumas that other characters have experienced, the way the writers handled them, the amount of drama and melodrama allowed? We’ve been here before. This is definitely one of the more dramatic arcs, but I think it can hold. 9-1-1 has walked this path before and we will walk it again! (We might sign for custody of the characters when we're done, but we're gonna see it through.)

Admittedly, I'm still too close to the new episode, it's too fresh in my head. As soon as I refine this shit down and it joins the rest of canon in my brain, I'll reassess. 

Right now I'm gonna go rewatch because this episode had some GEMS!

Buckley siblings being there for each other, even though they're a little awkward at it, the love and good intentions and fear of screwing up and causing MORE pain was always the motivation.

The Han siblings trying their best to be there for the Buckley siblings. It was ADORABLE, and beautiful to see. Even if being there meant physically running away (I see you Albert helping your bro keep a secret! Also damn, you can sprint!!)

Chimney trying his HARDEST to keep the secret. Did he succeed? Not by most people's metric, there were A LOT of slip-ups, but none of us can claim we didn't see real effort there.

The entire firefam helping Chim keep Buck's secret. They knew it would take the *lightest* prompting for him to explode with it, but instead never asked and made sure he wouldn't tell. Extra shout out to Hen, who had it literally DANGLED in front of her and was like "Nope!" That shit is DIFFICULT to do

Eddie and Buck playing The Hardy Boys (y'know if the Hardy Boys flirted with each other while solving crimes.) That was hilarious, it's fun when Eddie gets off his Dad/Military-Man horse to screw around with Buck, and I'm pretty sure Buck's one of the few people who get that side out of him. It was funny and cute!

May being a total BADASS at the 9-1-1 center! Woman, you have EARNED your solo run and then some! Cool, calm and collected is our May and reaching out for assistance and counseling as needed. 100/100 for communication, my friend!

Bobby being there for May!! Loved that! His perspective on being a first responder sounds like it might be more helpful for her than Athena's, and that isn't shade on Athena. They just are different people, and I think her step-dad telling her it was okay to feel bad without also taking unearned blame. It helped her cope.

Shout-out to Michael. It takes a big man to step up and offer a solution. It takes a bigger man to admit--especially to his own child--that he might not have the solution. That moment of "this isn't really my field of expertise so I can't advise but I'm here and I love and support you anyway"? That is some delectable shit right there, three thumbs up.

Second shout-out to Chimney this episode! His handling of the bomber was f-ing brilliant on so many levels!! Getting Eddie out of harm's way. Talking the bomber down, distracting him, he de-escalated the situation single-handed and ALSO found an outlet to vent about Buck that wouldn't cause him harm. Genius! And HYSTERICAL.

Eddie's growth! He's past the hitting out his feelings phase, and he's reaching out to make sure Buck doesn't follow that path. Also, trying to make room for Buck to talk about what's bothering him? Standing back and giving him space when he didn't want to talk? He was there for him so good.

Shout-out to Buck for speaking his mind! Notice this: he swallowed so much shit against himself, but the thing that made him break the first time? Is when they were hurting his sister. His protective instincts are very strong, we see it in his job as well. But the second time he spoke out?? That was for himself. PEOPLE we got Buck sticking up for himself to the people he is DESPERATE for acceptance from and that is one of the most difficult things to do. Dare I call this the emerging of Buck 3.0? And I suspect we'll see more in the upcoming episode.

In conclusion, I think the 118 should be renamed Bobby Nash's Home for Kids with Shit Parents. We got Eddie, Chim, Buck. At this point can we just assume that Hen's parents are shit as well? And then there's Bobby, like he knows he's got step-kids, but does he realize just how many? He must, he cooks dinner for all of them every day... Right?

Next episode I'm looking forward to:

Good tone and pacing that steers clear of melodrama while still delivering tasty dramatic beautiful emotional moments.

The firefam proving to Buck that they love him, accept him, and have his back

Buck realizing he doesn't need his parents in order to feel whole. A continuing growth arc where he is able to acknowledge his feelings and ask for what he needs.

A good balance between the emergencies and the personal moments. After episode 1, the focus has HEAVILY been on the personal, leaving the emergencies to fit themselves in where they can. Obviously not expecting next episode to rebalance that scale, it's a Begins episode, but after that? Back to business.

This is a Buddie wish: continue to see these fun moments between them that we're seeing this whole season. All the banter. I REALLY hope Eddie and Chris get a chance to show up for Buck the way he's showed up for them so many times without undermining Buck's personal journey or ability to stand on his own two feet.

I REALLY hope Bobby gets a moment to be the dad Buck needs. That would be beautiful and so necessary for Buck. His heart is so big, he needs to know who he can trust with it.

I'm sorry 9-1-1 writers. Your job is thankless and my demands are MANY. But I still have high hopes for next week!

Whoever made it to the end of this, thank you. It was supposed to be like a paragraph, I swear, but... Well, here we are. I'll probably write more throughout the week as I process, too. I'd love to know your thoughts as well, hmu!

[buckyskorpion]

11 hours - part five

Pairing: Biker!Bucky x Reader

Summary: bucky is the mystery you can’t wait to solve. if you can get out of his bed long enough, that is. a biker au.

Warnings: gang-typical violence, sex scenes, alcohol mentions, probably more to come so stay tuned

A/N: alright things escalated VERY QUICKLY but shit had to go down sometime. i hope you enjoy! and sorry for the delay, i really been goin thru it recently. this part is 7k to make up for it lmao i wont be taking tags for this so please dont ask.

title taken from 11 hours by wet | playlist | my ko-fi

masterlist

It’s a big day. You had held Bucky’s hand as you stood in the doorway to his apartment, playing with his rings so you didn’t have to meet his eyes. You were nervous, not because you didn’t trust Bucky but because with every secret spilled you felt like a layer of your skin was being peeled away. But you’d held his hand and told him to pick you up tonight from your office. You handed him your business card, a physical embodiment of trust you hadn’t given to anyone else. It wasn’t your apartment address, sure, but it was something and Bucky held the card with the biggest, boyish grin on his face that melted your heart.

The real reason you’re so nervous is because if whoever followed you from Bucky’s apartment is following Bucky, then they’ll follow him right to your office door. You’d had a long talk to yourself in the bathroom mirror the other night, however, and decided you weren’t going to let a hypothetical stalker ruin yet another relationship for you. Not that stalkers are common in your life, but using any excuse to distance yourself and cut people out is most definitely your regular MO. Not this time.

That being said, stalkers aren’t common in your life so you are, understandably, fixated by it. You are sure it has something to do with Bucky because you don’t believe in coincidences and the guy literally followed you from Bucky’s apartment. The big question is, was the stalker after Bucky or were they after you? Since you have next to nothing to go on, you aren’t exactly on your way to answering that one yet. But you’ll get there, eventually, and you’ve got some ideas.

In the meantime, you wait for Bucky and attempt to tidy your organised mess. He’s meant to show up at seven on his bike, but seven is going on eight and he’s yet to show. You try not to picture the worst or convince yourself you’re being stood up, even though that’s what it feels like. The one time you give out personal details and he doesn’t show. That would be your luck. You kick a filing drawer closed a bit too harshly, the metal clanging loud in your deafeningly silent office. Whatever. It’s not like anyone is left in the building to judge you because Bucky is over an hour late and every other office in the place is long empty.

You water your desperately dry indoor plants, even the one on top of your bookshelf - a testament to how hard you’re trying to distract yourself from the imminent heartbreak. You stand on tiptoes on your swivel chair to reach the crispy fern, something your dad would yell at you for if he could see you, but he can’t so you just pray the wheels don’t slip out from under you. It’s a very precarious precision for you to be in when someone bangs your office door open and stumbles inside, that’s for sure. You nearly break your entire body falling from the chair, but catch yourself on the bookcase before any real damage can be done.

The invader slams the door shut behind them, making you flinch once again as you spin around to face your would-be attacker. Only it's not someone breaking and entering - it’s Bucky, panting heavily and bleeding from his temple while he turns slowly on his heel and assesses every corner of your tiny office for threats.

“Bucky?” you call out, hesitant to approach and startle him incase it’s not your office that he’s seeing. His dog tags hang out the neck of his t-shirt when they’re usually always carefully tucked under the fabric, and you notice now he’s not just bleeding from his head but somewhere under that shirt as well. He looks over at your voice and it takes a second for him to focus properly on you, shoulders visibly slumping, closing the space in three quick strides.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, pulling you bodily into a crushing hug. You wrap your arms around his waist, carefully holding him in case he’s got even more injuries you can’t see, but he squeezes you so tight you find it hard to breathe. He has one arm around your shoulders, that hand tangled in your hair and he presses your head into his shoulder. You feel him nose into the hair at the crown of your head, breathe in deep, let it out in shudders.

“You’re hurt,” you say into his t-shirt, and he shakes his head while still pressing his face into your scalp.

“M’fine, s’just blood,” he mumbles, barely coherent, so you let it go for the moment. You let him hold you and you hug him back, splaying your palms flat against his back and pressing him impossibly closer to you.

Eventually, you peel yourself from him in order to give him a once over. He smiles down at you like he’s amused, but you hardly find the situation funny when Bucky’s blood is literally all over you, now. You take his hand and make him sit on your swivel chair, spinning uselessly in the middle of the room from where it slid out from under you and rolled away. There’s a first aid kit in a box near the window, because you can never be too careful, and you take to soaking gauze in alcohol solution instead of speaking. You don’t trust what would come out of your mouth right now, anyway.

Luckily, Bucky fills the silence for you. He bites his lip as he looks over at you, taking in the tense set of your shoulders and jerky movements as you dig around for bandages. Then he says, “I got caught up, I really am sorry.”

You nod, but you still don’t speak. Instead you grab your supplies and move over to Bucky, avoiding his eyes as you assess the one wound you can see. Bucky has a thin cut from the corner of his eye to his hairline, shallow but bleeding profusely due to the thin skin there. You suck in a deep breath and start dabbing the soaked gauze on the wound, outside to inside, watching as the white turns coppery red with every swipe. Your stomach twists at the sight, and to your horror, you find you could almost cry.

“Doll,” Bucky says, eyebrows creasing up as if he’s just as upset as you feel. He hooks one big hand around your thigh, tugging until you let him manhandle you onto his lap. “I mean it, I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”

“I don’t care that you were late,” you snap, clenching your jaw until you can get your flash of frustration under control. You drop your hand from his face, curling up further onto Bucky’s lap despite yourself as his arms come round to hug you to his chest. His bloodstained, most likely injured chest. You take a deep breath and ask, “What happened?”

“You wanna know?” Bucky asks. When you finally meet his eyes he doesn’t seem to be shutting down, shutting you out like you expect when it comes to talking about Bucky’s biker lifestyle. He just looks sad, and you let yourself soften just a bit to run your fingers down his jaw.

Bucky’s eyes flutter closed when you touch him, and you say, “I already told you - I just wanna know. No secrets.”

“No secrets,” Bucky affirms, smiling as he opens his eyes again. The corners are tight, though, as he starts to explain. “One of the things we do - the gang, y’know - is run protection details. Me and Sam were on it, supposed to be a simple job, but we got shitty intel and ended up having to fight our way out of a crappy spot. We got out, finished the job, but it definitely didn’t go to plan. ”

“Protection for what?” you ask. This is the most open Bucky has ever been when talking about his gang, so you’re not going to pass up this opportunity for a bit more information.

“For who,” Bucky corrects, smiling at you like he knows what you’re doing. He starts stroking up and down your shoulder blades as he talks, soothing the both of you it seems. “Rich businessmen, low-level politicians, mob affiliates - anyone who’s got a target on their back and need to get from point A to point B. They’re easy jobs for us ex-army guys and they pay well.”

“Better pay than fixing cars, I bet,” you say. Your attempt at levity works and Bucky grins. The way it makes his face turn young and open is so at odds with the trickle of blood down his cheek.

“Gotta be able to pay for your drinks somehow,” he says, and you slap his shoulder. He mock-winces and says, “Hey! I’m bleeding, ya gotta be nice to me.”

“Don’t gotta do shit,” you mumble, reminding you to press the gauze you’re still holding back on the wound on his temple to stem some of the bleeding. He hisses for real this time, the sting of the alcohol probably burning a bit, especially so close to his eye. You press a kiss to his cheek and in apology and Bucky hums, tightening his grip around your body to hold you close again.

“M’sorry I ruined our night,” he says, “I wish I could promise it won’t happen again, but I can’t.”

“Don’t be sorry,” you say, and he meets your eyes, slightly confused. You smile and say, “Not when you’re hurt. I know what I signed up for, I just want you to be ok.”

“What if, one day, I’m not ok?” Bucky asks, serious now, and you take your time before you answer him. His cut is clean of dried blood, and it’s stopped oozing any more. You doubt it’ll get infected so you should bandage it up but you can’t make yourself move from Bucky’s lap. Not just yet.

“I’ll fix you up,” you say. “That’s what we’re doing, right? Taking care of each other.”

Bucky blinks, once, as if allowing your words to download in his brain like a data file. Then he kisses you. He slides a hand up to cradle your head and presses soft, slow kisses to your lips like he’s got all the time in the world. He came storming in like a hurricane but now you’re in the eye, calm and quiet settling over you both as you cup his jaw and kiss into him all the tenderness you're too afraid to say. You mend his bleeding head and adrenaline-addled heart while he soothes your fear. Taking care of each other, and it feels nice to let someone else do that for once.

You know what Bucky is leaving out. The I hurt people admission, the fact he might have killed someone tonight, that the blood on his shirt isn’t just his. You really thought you’d care more - about the not knowing, about the truth of it, about everything. But he’s breathing and alive underneath you, trailing kisses and stubble burn from your mouth to your cheek to your temple, and all of those superfluous details become white noise. You’re surprised to find the simple fact that Bucky is alright is enough to supersede all the gaps you would usually itch to fill.

Bucky spins you both, tucking your legs up closer so you don’t overbalance as he looks around your office in a dizzying circle. A spike of nerves makes you feel sick for a second but Bucky smiles as he looks around, like he’s pleased with this part of your life he’s been able to see, and it makes you feel less afraid.

“This is where the magic happens, huh?” he asks, and you laugh at his teasing. “It’s very normal.”

“What did you expect? Like ‘Sherlock Holmes’ or something?” you ask. Bucky shrugs, mouth twitching like he’s trying not to laugh.

“Maybe,” he says, then squints at you like he’s considering something. “So, no violin?”

“No violin, and no Mrs Hudson. I make my own tea,” you say, grinning up at Bucky even though he’s being stupid.

“Yeah, right,” Bucky snorts, “Pour your own wine, you mean.”

“Are you calling me a drunk?” you gasp, reeling back from Bucky and almost sending yourself off his lap and onto the floor. Bucky grips you tighter, laughing at the offence written all over your face, and then extracts an arm to point meaningfully at the half empty bottle of red by the side of your desk.

“The evidence speaks for itself,” he says. You fold your arms in a huff, if only to have him kiss the top of your head in a silent apology.

“You stick to the gang stuff, I’ll stick to the investigating,” you huff, and Bucky kisses you again until you wipe the frown from your face.

“Alright, smart girl,” he says. He stands, holding you up like it’s nothing and you can’t deny how hot that is, even if he is being condescending to you right now. He sets you down on your feet and smooths out your jacket, the warmth of his hands seeping through the leather as they pass over your shoulders and down your arms. He links his fingers into one of your hands, smiling down at you, and says, “Can we rain check dinner? I think I need a shower.”

Bucky stands unnaturally close to you as you lock up your office and head out, scanning the street while you lock the back door and set the alarm system for the building. He takes your hand wordlessly and leads you to his bike, parked haphazardly on the sidewalk and just begging for a ticket. He hands you a helmet but is looking over your shoulder, not at you, and both of those things are worrying - you’ve never known Bucky to wear a helmet, let alone offer you one. You didn’t know he owned one. You feel fidgety, your skin crawling like you’re being watched, and Bucky must feel it too because he’s a bit rough in manhandling you onto the bike as quickly as possible.

“Bucky,” you say, and he twists around to give you a clinical once over - much like you’d done to him when he’d come to you bloody and breathless. You feel sick to your stomach, guilt and fear twisting in your gut, as you ask, “Do you think someone followed you here?”

Bucky’s face is impassive, but you’d like to think you know him well enough to read the tick by the corner of his eyes as a silent, muttered, shit. He licks his lips and says, “I can’t know the answer to that for sure.”

“But there’s a chance,” you say, and your heart is hammering so loud you barely hear your own voice. If someone finds your office then they find you, and the carefully constructed bubble of anonymity you’ve created is shattered in the space of a second. But you knew that, that’s what Bucky asked you on his couch - will you stay? Knowing Bucky is the antithesis of your comfort zone, will you stay anyway?

“Nothing is going to happen to you,” Bucky says definitively. You scan his eyes for trace of a lie but there is none. Bucky’s jaw is set, and he reaches up to grip your chin and hold your gaze on his, making sure you hear him. “Just like you said - we take care of each other. I’ll always take care of you.”

You let out a shaky breath, one you hadn’t known you’d been holding, and Bucky kisses the trill of fear away. You feel like you’ve dived off a cliff face, Bucky holding your hand all the way down the precipice of trust you’d promised yourself you’d never cross. But Bucky promises he’ll take care of you and god, it’s stupid but you want him to. You want his to be the arms you land in at the end of this free-fall. Even if, given who Bucky is, that’s the most dangerous place to be.

“Speaking of no secrets,” you say, more of mumble into his mouth than anything. Bucky pulls away, adorably puppy-like look of confusion on his face, and your stomach twists with guilt. “Remember the night of the party? At Sam’s bar?”

Bucky nods. He’s twisted uncomfortably on the seat of his bike and the helmet you’ve yet to put on is digging in o your stomach where you’re holding it. This isn’t the best place to be having this conversation but Bucky’s promise has made you brave, and if you don’t go against your own word now you never will. Not once have you ever spilled details of a case before you’d cracked it. This isn’t a case, you have to remind yourself. This is your life.

“That morning, when I left,” you say, omitting the fact it’s the first time you ever used his front door and will most certainly be the last, “someone followed me from your building. I shook them off, but they were waiting for me to leave and I don’t know if they were casing your apartment or if they were there for me, or what. I’m sorry, I should’ve told you, I just-“

“You just what?” Bucky doesn’t sound angry. Worse, he sounds cold. Shut down, clinical, and the way his face has pinched off makes your heart break.

“I didn’t know if I could trust you,” you say, looking down at your lap to avoid the way he’s looking at you like a stranger. Saying it out loud makes it sound so much worse, but it’s the truth and Bucky deserves that at least. “To be honest, I’m still not sure. But I want to. If I’m going to trust anyone, I want it to be you.”

It’s several moments before you’re brave enough to meet Bucky’s eyes again. He is coming back to you slowly, the shutters pulling up from his eyes as confusion seeps out. He scans your face and says, “Usually I would tell you that’s a really stupid idea, but I think you already know that.”

“Stupid ideas are kind of my thing,” you say, and that makes Bucky smile. Relief is bone deep, hits so hard you could slump from the bike in a pile of goo. He’s not mad. In fact, he leans forward in what must be a truly uncomfortable twist to press his forehead against yours and closes his eyes, breathes in deep. You follow suit, so ridiculously relieved you still get to do this while simultaneously trying to control the adrenaline rush from handing over what feels like you’re entire life to someone else.

All your life it feels like it’s always been you versus the world. Your dad raised you that way, to rely on no one but yourself so you can never be let down, not even him. It feels wrong on a cellular level to trust Bucky like you are so blindly doing. Every instinct screams at you to run, to figure this out on your own, that Bucky would normally be one of your main suspects in a regular case. But here you are, showing Bucky all your cards, hoping against hope that you won’t live to regret it.

“No more secrets,” Bucky says, and you nod. You feel his eyelashes tangle with yours as you move, pressed so close like this, and you open your eyes to stare at the veiny lids covering his. “Next time someone follows you, you tell me.”

“Yes sir,” you say, grinning at the warning pinch he gives to your hip.

“Let’s go to the shop,” Bucky says, pulling away from you and turning back to gun his bike to life. “The guys can help us figure this stalker shit out.”

“The guys?” you ask, and your chest does something painfully restrictive at the thought of letting more people in. “As in, everyone? Like, your gang?”

Bucky laughs, like the way you say ‘gang’ is so goddamn amusing, and throws you one last look over his shoulder. You tug the helmet on as he revs the bike, suddenly regretting every other time you’ve gotten on this thing without one, as Bucky says, “Yeah, doll, my gang. That’s kinda the whole point - we help each other out.”

You hadn’t really thought of it like that before. Truthfully, your mind had been filled with shady drug deals and bloody fights, turf wars and tattoos and angry men on bikes. Bucky’s friends and the nights you’ve spent with them seem like a different world, the joy and love entirely removed from the illegal life Bucky leads outside of your reach, but you have to remind yourself - they’re one and the same. Your Bucky cannot be removed from the biker you’ve been kept seperate from.

Clinging to Bucky’s waist, you say, “Sounds very after school special for a gang, tough guy.”

You can practically see Bucky grinning just by looking at the back of his head as takes off, the streets of Brooklyn peeling away as heads for White Wolf Mechanics. Your anxiety and fear sheds off as well, floating away in strips down the tarmac like an outer layer of skin. You feel vulnerable, all new and exposed as you hold Bucky close so you don’t fall. That’s what makes it feel bearable - Bucky’s back against your cheek, the hand he places over yours against his stomach when you pull up at a red light. His promise, echoing under the rumble of the bike beneath you. I’ll always take care of you.

~~~

The shop looks closed from the outside, but you can hear a low bass-line from the street and people laughing somewhere inside. Bucky brings you round the back, the roller doors out front closed this time, and into the back rooms you’d yet to see since that first visit a few weeks ago. To your left you see what must be Bucky’s office, but the room he tugs you to looks more like a bachelor pad living room than a mechanics break room.

Sam and Steve lay sprawled on leather couches, beers open on the coffee table made of old crates stacked together. The Killers pumps through a very, very nice sound system which Natasha is quietly singing along to where she lays on top of the pool table, legs kicking off the edge to the beat. Her beer rests on her stomach, rising and falling with every breath, and she doesn’t even raise her head as she waves at the two of you entering. Sam lifts the icepack from his eye to look at you, grinning wide, and kicks Steve in the shin to get his attention.

“Barnes is back,” he says, rolling his eyes as Steve blearily blinks awake from what was clearly an unplanned nap. Steve focuses on you and Bucky, eyebrows drawn down in confusion, and Sam adds, “and he’s brought his girl.”

“Shouldn’t you be at dinner or something?” Steve asks, then seems to remember himself and smiles all big and perfect at you. “It’s great to see you again, by the way.”

“Quit brown-nosing, it’s embarrassing,” Sam says, and throws his icepack at Steve’s head. He swats it away, squawking at the wetness it leaves behind on his hand and cheek, which makes Sam grin.

“I need a beer for this,” Bucky mutters so only you can hear, which makes you smile. You lead the way to the minibar in the corner, right by the bookshelf full of video games and the cardboard cut-out of Guy Fieri (you don’t want to ask). Bucky follows, grabbing your hand and tugging you back into his chest as you walk - even without the watchful eyes of the other gang affiliates which usually follow you at his parties, Bucky seems hell bent on making sure everyone knows who you’re here with. Even his closest friends.

You can’t say you entirely mind.

“So, to what do we owe the pleasure?” Natasha asks. She’s sat up now, twisting on the pool table to face you both as Bucky grabs you some beers. Sam and Steve still continue to argue about nonsense on the couches and are ignored by the three of you for the moment. However, they stop bickering as soon as Bucky speaks again.

“Someone’s been watching my building,” he says. The silence is thick, and you feel almost guilty for ruining their fun night with your stalker woes. Bucky hands you a beer and looks at you pointedly, eyebrows raised. You take a sip before you follow his not-so-subtle direction to start talking.

“I was followed home the morning after Sam’s party at the bar,” you say. You have the full attention of Bucky’s closest friends, and you can’t help but feel a little intimidated. You take a deep breath and decide to look at the situation like you were debriefing a client on a case - remove yourself from the equation. “There was a man smoking against the building next to Bucky’s. He followed me about four blocks before I lost him. He was over six foot, caucasian, brown hair and stubble.”

“Sounds like every white guy,” Sam says. “You could be describing Bucky, for all we know.”

“Yes,” you say, frowning. “If I was putting a tail on someone, I would make them very nondescript. Makes sense, right?”

“And you’re sure he was following you?” Natasha asks. You glance at her, but she doesn’t look like she’s condescending you or anything. Surprisingly, she looks like she believes you far more than the other two men in the room. Maybe your trial by fire proved to her you know what you’re talking about, so you nod.

“Definitely. Either he knew I was there and was waiting for me to leave, or he was watching Bucky’s apartment and would have followed anyone who came out of it. Without more information I can’t be sure if he was there for me or Bucky.”

“You’ve never seem him before?” Steve asks. You shake your head, and he says, “Could you describe him a bit more detailed? I might be able to draw him.”

“Sure,” you shrug. “Or, we can just wait until he shows up at Bucky’s again and follow him.”

Bucky does not like that idea at all. He practically growls, grabbing your elbow and turning you to face him as he glares at you. Roughly, he says, “Are you fucking insane?”

“What?” Mildly annoyed, you tug your arm from Bucky’s grip and say, “If this was a case, that’s what I would do.”

“This isn’t a case. This guy is going to be a hell of a lot more dangerous than some rich businessman cheating on his wife,” Bucky says, voice raised to an almost shout in one of the quickest escalations you’ve ever seen.

A switch flips in your brain, and you see red.

“Thank you for the condescending analysis, Bucky,” you snap. You ignore Sam’s muttered ‘oh shit!’ for your own health and sanity. “But you have no idea the kind of people I’ve dealt with in my life. I can manage a fairly mediocre stalker.”

“A fairly mediocre stalker who works for someone who won’t hesitate to use your hamstrings as handcuffs,” Bucky hisses. He steps towards you, chest brushing yours as he breaths deep and ragged, and oh- there’s the Bucky you’d been missing. The guy who’s still wearing clothes stained with blood, most of it not his, angry in an incandescent kind of way which reminds you he could hurt you in many more ways than just a broken heart. He leans down to say into your face, “This isn’t something you fuck around with, alright? There’s a reason why I’ve kept this world from you.”

“I thought we said no secrets?” you say, raising your eyebrows. You will yourself to hold your ground, even if you are shaking like a leaf and your words come out soft in the face of his anger. Like you’d poked a pin in his chest, Bucky deflates. He backs off of you, face crumbling from anger to guilt as quickly as he built himself up there.

“I won’t let you get hurt because of me,” he says, shaking his head. The switch in your brain flips back, all indignation and pride fading away. He’s still trying to take care of you, just like he promised. Already it’s abundantly clear you’re not going to make that easy for him, and you wonder how long it will take until he gets sick of trying.

“This isn’t going to work if you don’t trust me,” you say, gesturing between you. “I let you into my world, now it’s your turn. I know it’s dangerous - I could have left, remember? But I’m here. So let me be here.”

“If someone touches you-“

“I’ll get over it,” you say. Bucky stares at you like you’re crazy, and maybe you are, but it’s true. “You said you were going to take care of me - how’re you gonna do that from all the way over there?”

You don’t mean the other side of the room, the valley of the pool table and the metaphorical arms-length which which he’s keeping between you. There’s only so much Bucky can hide from you before you either dive right in or walk away. This is the turning point.

“Fine,” he says. He looks physically pained as he scrubs a hand over his cropped hair, but at least he’s not angry anymore. “I still think thats a fucking stupid idea.”

“Like I said,” you say, offering him a smile he shakily returns, “stupid ideas are kind of my thing.”

“Uh, can I say something?” Sam asks, breaking the illusion that it was only the two of you in the room for that particular argument. You both turn to look at him, and he almost backs down with the weight of both your gaze. He carries on, however, saying, “I’m glad you guys have had this breakthrough in your relationship, but that doesn’t really help us in figuring out who this guy is. Or who he works for. Or why he followed you. Or how he knows where Bucky lives in the first place.”

“We could go around and ask,” Steve says, shrugging at Natasha’s eyeroll. “What? Baseball bats really jog people’s memories.”

“Why don’t we ask the private investigator for some expert advice,” Natasha says, giving you a look that seems to say men, right? You’re still trying to get your head around the image of Steve threatening someone with a baseball bat when you’ve seen him with his own puke on his jumper singing Sweet Caroline into a toilet bowl.

“Well,” you begin, darting Bucky a look but he seems to be listening and not getting ready to yell at you again, “since apparently following the guy is off the table for now, I would start with me and Bucky. Enemies, bad blood, someone with an axe to grind. Pull at some threads and see what happens.”

“That shouldn’t be hard,” Sam says, “Bucky’s got more enemies than friends.”

“So do we all, punk,” Bucky grumbles, glaring at Sam. “We’re in a gang.”

“This ain’t about me.” Sam holds his hands up in mock innocence, grinning big like he gets unrivalled joy from making Bucky’s face do the twitchy, dark thing it’s doing right now. The impact is somewhat lessened by the swollen, black eye Sam’s sporting from the mission gone wrong today, you assume, but it doesn’t curb his enthusiasm.

“I can put together a list of the most recent run-in’s you’ve had by tomorrow,” Natasha says to Bucky, ignoring the bickering with practiced ease. “Until then, we should put some protection on your building.”

“You guys have bodyguards?” you ask before your brain can tell you that’s a dumb fucking question. All three of them laugh, Bucky hooking an arm around your shoulder to ruffle your hair as he tugs you into his side. Point taken, you think as you pout under Bucky’s arm.

“I’ll stay in the spare room,” Steve says, swinging himself off the couch to his full, ginormous height. That image of him with the baseball bat starts to take a bit more shape in your mind, and you don’t doubt for a second he could offer some extra protection where the stalker is concerned. To you, he asks, “You don’t mind if I third wheel?”

“It’s not my apartment,” you say, attempting to hide your blush under the weight of Bucky’s arm. You are unsuccessful, if Sam’s smirk is anything to go by.

“We’ll survive one night, punk,” Bucky says, giving you a squeeze. “Or just buy some earplugs.”

“Gross!” Sam cries, flailing an arm around. “Too much information!”

You have a feeling akin to whiplash at how well these people are taking a stalker and potential threat on their lives. Joking around, Steve fake-moaning just to make Sam scream, Natasha laughing until tears form in her eyes at the antics of two grown men chasing each other around the couches like school children. Glancing up at Bucky and the warm look he’s giving them all, you suppose it must be lot less scary to face something like that with friends. Family, you think, as Sam crash-tackles Steve into the couch and smothers his face with a pillow.

“You’ll be alright?” Natasha’s soft voice manages to scare you, jolting under Bucky’s hold as you turn from watching Steve and Sam to find her right by Bucky’s other side. She’s looking up at him, lips pressed into a firm line, and you remember the last time you were here - James is the only family I have. Maybe some are taking this development a bit easier than others.

“Always am,” Bucky says, using his free arm to punch her lightly on the shoulder. She gets him back, much harder, and you feel Bucky wince away from her and into your side. “Serious, Natashenka. I’ll be fine.”

“Good,” she says. Smirking, she adds, “I’ll kill you if you aren’t.”

You look back to Steve and Sam before they can notice you eavesdropping, a hot, honey-thick feeling melting through your skin. You want to know what that feels like in a way which burns; to have people who have your back like that, and your dad doesn’t count because he literally has to. You understood Bucky’s gang even less than you originally thought - he’s not just a biker, a criminal, a hit man or an ex-army vet turned enforcer, whatever the case may be. He’s a guy doing what he has to do to protect the people he loves, because he’s surrounded by them. You’ve never had to protect anyone but yourself.

You tuck yourself closer into Bucky’s side, letting the warmth and smell of him consume you. That’s gonna change, you think. This feeling in your chest is telling you that change is already happening.

~~~

Steve does not have to get ear plugs to survive the night, and you make both him and Bucky coffee before you head off. Shower, new clothes, work - all that normal people stuff you have to do. Steve, golden in the morning sun with the brightest smile on his face, and Bucky’s moody scowl at the early hour and dark rings under his eyes, wave you goodbye. You kiss Bucky’s pout before you go, letting him grab your ass for a second before you slip away.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” he says, and Steve snorts like there’s some joke you’re missing.

“I’ll go out the laundry window,” you say, as if this is a new development and not your usual routine. “Nobody’s gonna follow me, promise.”

“Hmph,” is all Bucky says and then you’re really gone, racing down the stairs and out the window like you always do.

Sorry Bucky, you silently think towards his apartment as instead of making to cut through the gym parking lot, you wrap back around his building and scan the street from behind the bins. Sure enough, opposite Bucky’s building with a baseball cap on and another cigarette, stands the same dude who followed you the first time. You really weren’t lying - stupid ideas are kind of your thing.

You make sure you’re hidden by a group of pedestrians as you slip out the side alley of Bucky’s apartment building and walk away from your stalker. He doesn’t notice, and you manage to walk a block and cross the road without him any the wiser. Your roles have switched as you hang out at the news-agency a few doors down from where he’s waiting, pretending to flick through a magazine. It’s easy to take a few picture of him over the top of the page with your phone, grainy but useable for when you show Bucky later.

You can deal with Bucky being angry at you, because you know how to do your job and this is the most efficient way to get intel. It’s always easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Eventually, you watch your stalker watch Bucky and Steve leave his building. It’s 9AM and they head to their respective bikes, revving off down the street in the general direction of Steve’s tattoo shop. Your man hunches his shoulders and pulls out his phone, taps into it for a bit, before he walks off in the opposite direction to Bucky and Steve. Not following them, then. Your stomach twists as you fall into pace a few people behind him. Just following you.

He gets on the subway, which makes  it very difficult for you to remain unnoticed but you manage to sit at the internal doors in the next carriage and watch him through those. He gets on his phone again, talking to someone with evident frustration if his clenched jaw and balled fist is anything to go by. He gets off in Manhattan, walks a few blocks, before ducking into a darkly lit bar called the Lerna. You decide it’s probably best not to follow him there, but you snap a few photos on your phone of the bar before doubling back out to Brooklyn.

You call Bucky as you go, a bit jittery at the incoming argument you know you’ve created, but you can’t help but feel it will be worth it. Now you have something to actually go off - a face, a name, some concrete facts. Much better than stabbing around in the dark. A few rings go by before Bucky picks up, saying, “Miss me already?”

“Get over yourself, tough guy,” you say, but you’re smiling. Maybe you do miss him already, just a bit. You were so focused on getting your information you didn’t get to fully savour Bucky this morning, all tanned muscles and tattoos, all yours. You force yourself to ruin the moment by saying, “I’ve got some information for you.”

“Me too,” he says, which surprises you. “Nat’s gotten together some potential candidates for your stalker. Have you got time to come to Steve’s tattoo place?”

“Sure,” you say, beginning to pick at your nails as the nerves set in.

There’s a beat of silence before Bucky must realise what you’d said before, and he doesn’t sound nearly as light and playful anymore “You said you had information? On what?”

“I’ll just show you when I get there,” you rush out, closing your eyes at the way Bucky sucks in a breath like he already knows what you’ve done. “Don’t be mad.”

“Oh, I’m not mad,” he says, as if through gritted teeth. “I’m fucking livid. Please tell me you didn’t follow that guy this morning.”

“Ok, I won’t tell you,” you say. “See you in twenty.”

“You’re dead meat,” he says before you hang up.

It could’ve gone worse, you muse as you round the corner to the subway station. Sure, Bucky threatened you with lethal violence and sounded even angrier than he’d gotten at the shop yesterday, but you can still imagine him smiling at his phone as you hung up the same way you’re smiling at yours now.

You text him the photos with a quick, Don’t say I never do anything for you xx

A minute after the photos deliver, Bucky is calling you again. You frown down at his caller ID, confused - you were on your way, why is he calling you back already? But before you answer that question, someone grabs your arm and tugs you away from the subway steps and into an alley instead. His grip is bruising, unbreakable, even as you scream and kick before he shoves a gun into your neck and you fall deathly silent.

“Scream and you’re dead,” the man says, hot on your ear. You can’t shudder away, his vice grip too tight and the cold steel on your jugular paralysing. You twist a bit to look behind you despite yourself, your stomach bottoming out at the familiar face which grins back at you. Baseball cap, brown hair, stubble - just like any other white guy. He sneers at you and says, “Not so clever now, huh?”

All you can hear, as your stalker marches you down the alley and into a waiting SUV with a gun to your back, is Bucky’s voice yelling this isn’t something you fuck around with. You’d let him say ‘I told you’ so a thousand times if it meant you got out of this alive. Hopefully, the phone tucked into your back pocket will be enough to save you. You hope Bucky is listening, the call you just managed to answer still catching the grunted conversation your kidnappers are having. You’ve never needed someone before, but god, do you hope Bucky’s got you now.  

Part 6

[kurowrites]

Short lan zhan au: lan zhan is short, but also all lan strength and muscle. Imagine wei wuxian reaction when he carries him for the first time.

Of course Lan Zhan is really stronk, hahaha!

He isn’t built broad like NMJ, but in terms of strength, they might actually be able to go toe to toe. Not that they ever will.

WWX is like, vaguely aware that LWJ is strong? He’s probably seen him do some things during a training session or two, and he’s definitely an admirer of LWJ’s skills, so it kind of goes without question that LWJ is strong.

LWJ is not like the cultivators of the Nie clan, who basically make competitions out of deadlifting shit and competeing for being the Beefiest, but on occasion, he’s definitely shown up some of the overconfident members of the Nie clan.

(Especially when he notices WWX watching them competing. How dare he, when LWJ is right there and he’s stronger.)

So yeah, it’s not actually a secret that LWJ is strong.

That doesn’t prepare anyone, least of al WWX, for the first time LWJ does some real heavy lifting, hahaha.

The Jins are at fault, of course.

WWX gets into a (verbal) fight with like three of them, and they shout things at each other while some other disciples try to keep them apart.

It doesn’t really work, they’re trying really hard to escalate this into a physical fight.

So LWJ is there, observing the situation. He is faced with a dilemma: He might be able to shut the three Jin disciples up, but WWX definitely won’t listen to him. And considering that there are currently more Jin disciples standing around, he can’t send them all running with an angry glare... his glare isn’t quite that powerful.

So the best solution is really to remove WWX from the situation.

The issue being that WWX won’t voluntarily remove himself from the situation.

Luckily, LWJ is Stronk.

So he just grabs WWX, lifts him, and carries him away.

All the disciples: :0 :0 :0 :0 :0 :0 :0 :0 :0 :0 

WWX: :0 

WWX is so shocked that the can’t even react for like two minutes.

Then he remembers he still has functional limbs and is like LET ME DOWN.

So LWJ lets him down, because he’s an Adult and they have removed themselves from the Jin situation.

WWX: Ah shit no that’s not what I meant. D:

And he’s like really, really disappointed when LWJ just walks away.

(LWJ is just really, really embarassed that he just did that, and that he touched WWX. He needs to go and play the guqin a little, or he will agonise about his hand on WWX’s waist forever.)

And that’s how WWX’s little pet project “get LWJ to carry you around as often as possible” starts.

[xbellaxcarolinax]

Heartbreaker- Part 3

Pairing: Modern Ivar x Female character/ reader (She)

Word Count: 6332. Yikes.

Warnings: Sexual content, language, angst

Moodboard@peterquillzsblog

AN: The third part of this thing I did for @youbloodymadgenius 400 Followers Writing Challenge. I’m a bit insecure about this part, and it was hard to write but I hope ya’ll like it. Shout out to my girl @shannygoatgruff for helping me and encouraging me with the writing process. You da best.

Part 1, Part 2

...

The stars were mocking her, she was sure of it.

Her eyes were glued to her ceiling, the stupid LED’s sparkling brighter now that the sun had completely set and the moon had taken its place. She started learning her constellations when she was 10, the age when shit at home started to hit the fan. It was her attempt at an escape to avoid her parents fighting in the other room. She ignored the yelling and banging against the walls by running to her tiny window and staring out into the sky in the hopes of catching sight of Orion’s Belt or any of the dippers. The stars were nicer then, comforting her as she did her best to drown out her mother’s screaming. They weren’t so visible now that she lived in Oslo, the city lights blocking everything that glowed in the sky. She had to settle for the cheap projector she purchased off amazon when she first called the city home, and it had been enough for her to get by until now. It ridiculed her, the fake stars shimmering together as if to form a smirk.

Fuck that.

She reaches behind her nightstand, yanking the cord from the wall with force, cutting off the starlight and leaving her ceiling pitch black. The candles were still flickering as the only light source, the scent of roses still strong. At least it smelled nice. Flopping back against her pillows, she runs her hands down her damp face from her salty tears, dropping her arms to her sides and dragging the sheets over her still naked body. She hadn’t moved since he left. She couldn’t move even if she wanted to. Her body felt rooted to the mattress, her skin glued to the sheets. She gives the dark ceiling one last glare before rolling to her side, burying her face into the pillow where Ivar’s luxurious hair had left the fragrance of his coconut shampoo and his Armani cologne. She was fucking pathetic.

Sending him away felt like a mistake.

She wanted to feel powerful kicking his ass out. She wanted to feel in control and confident watching him leave, but she didn’t. He wasn’t even angry. As soon as she told him to leave, he silently gathered his wrinkled clothes thrown about in their haste. In rigid movements he dressed himself, grabbed his crutch, and turned to look at her over his shoulder, his eyes scanning the shape of her body under the thin sheets. He said nothing, just stared at her with this look of longing, like they were the most unfortunate pair to grace the earth. It certainly felt that way. Then he reached over, holding her head gently to place a kiss on her temple before leaving her bed. All she wanted to do was to cry and call him back as soon as she heard her front door close with a soft click.

The facade immediately collapsed and the smirk slipped from her lips, settling into a deep frown. Her eyes welled up with tears and cascaded down her cheeks without so much as a fight. She had felt a heaviness in her chest, a burning that ached over her as if Ivar himself had reached inside her and ripped out her heart. He had broken it, so why did it hurt just as much when she tried to hurt him?  

Because she loved him. She loved Ivar.

She was in love with him. Completely and hopelessly and stupidly in love. Like a fucking idiot. She loved him when he visited her at the museum. She loved him when he took her home. She loved him when he took her to bed. And she loved him more when she watched him leave, his expression forever implanted in her mind like a photograph. She’d never seen such a look on him before.

When the hell did it start to get to that point? She wasn’t too sure. It started simple enough, boundaries were set, and they were both happy with what they had. The sex was great, and even greater still when she realized her feelings were getting involved. She found love in the simplest things. She felt it in their little touches whenever she handed him something, in the smile that lit up his face when she made his favorite meal of steak and potatoes, or the way he looked at her when he knew she was wearing something particularly naughty under her clothes. Or maybe she loved him from the moment they met at that fucking party. Apparently it only takes the brain 2 seconds to fall in love with someone. She couldn’t even remember where she’d read that. Probably from that corny lifestyle magazine she picked up while waiting her turn at the dental office. Whatever. The damage was already done.

She fights to ignore the delicious throbbing between her legs, her body craving more of him and his touch. It bothered her, how her body was betraying her. With a sigh, she shifts away from Ivar’s scent, curling into herself and making a mental note to wash the bed sheets as soon as possible. A bath would be nice, preferably with lots of bubbles, but she was too lazy. She’d just have to wake up earlier.

She takes even breaths to calm her heart rate as she watches the candle on her nightstand flicker, hoping she’d find sleep soon.

.

Morning came a lot quicker than she hoped.

She was the epitome of a zombie, which meant she’d need her morning coffee. Her eyes were sensitive against the morning light and her body ached from more than just a sleepless night. She took a quick shower, fed Benji, and made her caffeinated drink. She was in complete autopilot, that is, until there was a knock on her door. Irritated at the early disturbance, she goes to the door with half a mind of what was on the other side of it.

Pink daisies. Twice as many as before. This time, they were arranged in a stained glass vase, much like the windows of a cathedral, with vivid colors of green, blue, and red, depicting a simplistic design. It must have cost him a pretty penny no doubt, but money was never a problem for him. It was lighter than the porcelain vase, but still heavy in her hands. She places it on the counter, her fingertips skimming over the silky petals as gently as she could without damaging them. They were beautiful, but she found herself unable to admire them. She had a melancholic view of them now. They couldn’t be her favorites anymore.

There was that white card again, hiding within the stems of the bouquet. She hesitates, her fingers grasping the rough textured paper, reluctant to peer inside in fear of another hurtful message. With a shaky breath she flips it open.

I’m sorry.

Love, Ivar.

The words were written messily, unusual for him as he had perfect penmanship learned from his years in boarding school. Again, the water from the vase dotted the card, causing the black ink to bleed a bit. Her fingers follow the streaks down to the edge, picking up some of the faded pigment. It was as if he were the one crying this time, asking for forgiveness with fucking flowers. Either this solution worked for him in the past or he was just really fucking stupid.

She bites her lip, fiddling with the card before opening her junk drawer and tossing it inside. She didn’t have the strength to get rid of it. She carefully takes the vase in both hands, setting them down on her coffee table and arranging her candles and other knick knacks around it until it pleased her. She sits on her sofa, watching Benji put both his paws on the surface of the coffee table, curious of the new scent in the flat. Pulling her phone from her back pocket, she searches her contact list, going to her blocked numbers. Ivar’s name was the only one on that list.

Unblock?

She pauses, her finger hovering over the button. One tap, and she would be signing up for more heartbreak. Then the image of the blonde appeared in her mind, her in bed with Ivar, smirking and devious. Mocking.

It wasn’t worth it.

With a sigh she tosses her phone onto the table with a loud clack, the corner smacking against the edge of the vase and spooking Benji. She sucks her teeth.

Forget it.

…

Ivar runs his large thumb over the smooth cream colored domino piece, watching Hvitserk deal the pieces out to him and Sigurd. He’s been in a foul mood since the night he left her flat and he’s been hugging alcohol and cigarettes to his side like long lost friends, specifically Patrón and Marlboro. They dulled whatever strange feeling he felt that fluttered in his chest whenever he thought of her.

Normally, women were never a problem for him. It was always the same routine. He’d find himself a pretty girl, date her for a bit, and find another one when he got bored. He’d tell them that love was out of the equation and that was it. There were a few that grew attached, but he’d nip it in the bud before it could escalate. Others were understanding. They’d have their fun and go on their merry way to do it over again with some other asshole. It was supposed to be simple. So why was she making things so fucking difficult?

Well, he wasn’t being entirely fair, he had to admit. They were both difficult. She had fallen in love with him after he warned her not to, and he couldn’t bring himself to keep away from her after he’d sent her away. He had a routine, dammit, but now all he finds himself wanting is a fucking routine with her. Like maybe a normal one. He had gotten use to her, her smile, her touches, her scent, fuck. How long had it been? A year? The longest he’d ever been with a girl. Seriously. And now Freydis was up his ass for attention. He knew the bimbo didn’t feel anything past physical attraction for him. It was just for his time and money, which he didn’t mind at first, but the bitch was terrible in bed and an unpleasant person to be around.

And so he hoped she’d appreciate the flowers. Women loved flowers, right?

Ivar gives the longest sigh he could muster in order to keep his thoughts at bay, deciding to stare at the domino in his hand. It had 2 giant black dots, and the longer he stared at it, the more they appeared like scrutinizing eyes, judging him and his decisions. He slams the piece face down on the table with a glare. Fuck, he was going crazy.

"Where'd you even get these?" He grunts, snatching up his forgotten beer and taking a sip. It wasn’t tequila but it’d have to do for now.

"Bjorn bought them for me from Cuba." Hvitserk says pointing at the little wooden box they came in with the Cuban flag expertly painted on the surface.

"He brings domino's but no cigars?" Sigurd grumbles, arranging his pieces away from the prying eyes of his brothers, “I’d rather cigars.”

"Domino's are way cooler than cigars, Sig," Hvitserk argues, "And maybe Bjorn doesn’t like you enough to bring you fucking cigars, but forget that. What I really want to know is why our baby brother here looks like fucking shit." Both the older brothers turn to look at Ivar with knowing looks, ready to tease if need be.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Ivar argues, slamming his first piece down to commence the game. Maybe he wasn’t sleeping much these last few days. And maybe he had bags forming under his eyes and wasn’t eating much, preferring his alcohol and chimney sticks, but he wouldn’t go as far as to say he looks like shit. Then again, he wasn’t looking into his bathroom mirror much either.

“Hvits is right. You look like a kicked puppy, and not even a cute one.” Sigurd snickers, placing his own piece down with that stupid little smirk on his face.

“There is no such thing as ugly puppies.” Was the grunted reply.

“Point is, you look like shit. Have you been sleeping? We know how much you love your beauty sleep.”

“And fucking,” Hvitserk chimes in, placing down his domino, “I think Ivar has us beat. He’s competing with Bjorn at this point.”

“Or maybe it’s that little vixen of his causing trouble. How is she doing by the way? We haven’t seen her in a while.” Ivar flares his nose at the nickname that Sigurd had given her. He fucking hated it now more than ever.

“Shut. Up.” He snarls, sliding his domino piece hard enough to push the rest off the table.

“What the fuck, Ivar! If you break my shit, I’ll-”

“So this is what you guys do when I’m not at the office?” Ubbe bursts in through the door of their little lounging area, a frown forming on his lips as he eyes them in pure displeasure before they settled on the game pieces, “Who’s idea was it to play dominoes when we have clients blowing up our fucking phone’s? And drinking beer? That’s just brilliant. Assholes.”

“That’s why your girl is the secretary, Ubbe, she can handle it.” Sigurd waves his hand around, glad that Ubbe’s outburst overshadowed Ivar’s. When the youngest got mad, it wasn’t pretty, but it was fucking entertaining.

“It was my idea, by the way,” Hvitserk chuckles, placing all the pieces that fell back on the table top, “Wanna play? There’s more beer in the mini fridge.”

“You’re all fucking garbage.” Ubbe mutters, but heads over to the fridge to pull out a beer before plopping down on the empty chair beside Ivar with a sigh, “Before I forget, Ivar, Torvi says some guy just came by to drop something off for you.”

“I’m not expecting a package.”

“You sure? I’ll tell her to bring it in.” After a few minutes, Torvi peeks her head in through the crack of the door before fully opening it, a bouquet of wilted pink daisies in her hands. The color drains from Ivar’s face as the blonde approaches, handing him the flowers with this odd look on her face. Who would send Ivar fucking flowers anyway? And dying ones at that. His brothers immediately start to laugh at Ivar’s stunned look, another session of teasing on the way.

“You have another admirer, little bro?” Hvitserk chortles, mixing the domino pieces for a quick shuffle before dealing them.

“The flowers look like shit.” Comments Sigurd, leaning back against his chair. Ivar, still bewildered into silence, blinks stupidly. He stares at the wilted daisies, the petals easily falling off when he brings his fingers to touch them. They really did look like complete shit. Just like how he felt.

“There’s a card clipped in there. You gonna read it or what?” Ubbe taps his youngest brother's shoulder to elicit some kind of reaction from him. Ivar composes himself before quickly snatching the white card. It was one he had already written a message in by the looks of it. The card was bent at the edges, and he recognized the black ink from his favorite fountain pen.

Finally summing up the courage to read the message, he flips the card open, his previous simple apologetic words were crossed out. A new message was written below it that had his little cold heart hammering in his chest. He bites his lip, his blue eyes scanning the 4 words over and over again.

Sorry isn’t good enough.

…

The Tune ship is a fast sailing vessel able to transport passengers quickly across 100 meters. It is speculated that the vessel was a warship, able to carry its passenger and light cargo farther distances at a much faster-

“Ahh, there you are. In the library just as I assumed.” She quickly removes her eyes from her laptop screen in favor of the intruder that addressed her. She immediately stands, pushing it aside and placing her hands behind her back. The museum director, Mr. Kent, chuckles at her nervousness, smoothing a hand down his pale beard. He must have been a blonde in his youth as his hair had a faint yellow glow when under sunlight. He was a decent man of English origin, specifically from Winchester, who had taken over as the museum director about a year ago. He was a man who loved to dress well, fancy suits and shoes to demonstrate his abundance of money, but it wasn't haughty, not like the Ragnarsson’s. Mr. Kent came from even older money, and apparently from a line of kings that ruled England centuries ago. He had a massive reputation, to say the least. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m actually in need of a favor. Do you have a moment?”

“Of course, Mr. Kent, what can I do for you?”

“Please,” He chuckles, “Ecbert is fine. As for the favor, my grandson will be moving from Winchester in a few short weeks, right before the gala for the Tune ship exhibit. I’d like for him to shadow you during your tours, if that is alright with you?”

“Oh! Yes, of course. It would be an honor.” Fuck no, it wouldn’t. The last person that shadowed her was super fucking annoying and ended up getting fired anyway, but since this was Ecbert’s grandson, it would be different, he’d have privilege. Hopefully he wasn’t douche.

And shit. The fucking gala. She’d almost forgotten about it. It was the only event that the museum held in which she could attend, dress up, and feel pretty, but it was the one event that made her more nervous than anything else. She’d be surrounded by the richest people in the country, patrons of the Viking Ship Museum and other prestigious institutions and universities.  And champagne, lot’s of champagne. Rich people knew how to party.

“Excellent,” He smiles, clapping his hands together as if to solidify their agreement, “Don’t let me take up more of your time, I know you're doing your research for the new exhibit. I’ll be happy to give you access to the archives if you’d like? You might find something of interest that isn’t in the scholarly journals online.”

“That would be fantastic, Sir, thank you.”

“Have a great day.” She watches the older man leave, before plopping back down onto the cushioned seat with a sigh. He wasn’t as intimidating as their last asshole director, but she still treads softly around him. You can never get too comfy with those above you.

She did some more research for another half hour before checking her watch. Another tour of the Oseberg ship was scheduled in a few minutes and she would be free to go home and feel sorry for herself and her love life. She puts away her laptop in her purse, quickly rushing over to her office to freshen up before the tour. It was a busy day at the museum as they were now at the start of tourist season, which meant the museum allowed for bigger groups to be guided, and more people meant more noise and more irritation. Walking toward the entrance of the museum, she scans her eyes over the group of the afternoon, suddenly hoping to find a pair of blue eyes looking back at her. But that wasn’t the case. She frowns. He wouldn’t come looking for her after that fucking stunt she pulled. She shouldn’t want him to look for her anyway.

She sighs, plastering the fakest smile on her face before greeting the group.

.

Her phone was truly the devil. Honestly, did it intend to constantly notify her on Ivar’s posts and images? And since when did he post so damn much? She’d have to turn off her notifications, or block him off of Snapchat. Actually, why not just throw the whole fucking phone away? Ridiculous. She grumbles to herself, wondering why she hadn’t deleted him off of any social media apps yet. There was an answer to that, she just didn’t care to admit it. She was never into that stuff anyway, just keeping her accounts for communication purposes for her friends and family back home. It was getting rather lonely. Her time was mostly spent with Ivar, and now that they’re having their little rift, she realized her lack of friends. Had she really revolved her life around him? Shit.

Stretching her legs down the length of the sofa, she makes herself comfortable for the stupid shit she was about to do. She grabs her phone, scrolling through her apps and goes on Instagram. Ivar had posted 3 new photos. He was out at some bar in the city having a good ass time it seemed. His best friend, Heahmund, was in all of them, probably as a chaperone since Ivar couldn’t handle his liquor much. Heahmund was a good friend for that and Ivar was lucky to have the British fuck look out for him.

Ivar’s story was filled with clips of him goofing off. He was totally drunk, she could tell by how lidded and unfocused his eyes were, and how pink his lips were from constantly pursing them over a glass. His hair was all fucked up and out of its usual bun, as if he were fucking someone right before the video was recorded. Almost immediately after the thought, a drunk Freydis comes into the shot. That explained it. She should really throw her phone away.

Freydis giggles at the camera before placing her lips to his cheek, trailing them down his neck in sloppy kisses.

A rage boiled within her and she felt her fingers tighten around her phone. She needed to calm down. He was doing his own thing and she might as well do hers, though it was much easier said than done. The other videos he posted were of him taking shots of whatever it was, most likely tequila, and grinning into the camera like an idiot. Or maybe she was the idiot. Why should she mope around while he was having the time of his life? She knew how to have fun!...Right? Well, sometimes. Okay, maybe not. That party she met Ivar in? It was an invitation she had refused countless times. She couldn’t be bothered with the guy who begged her to go, but she went anyway due to her lack of socialization at the time.

Going out and partying was never fun when she was always the sober one. She did drink of course, but her tolerance was a lot better than most, say, like Ivar. She couldn’t count with her fingers the amount of times she had to call an Uber to get his ass home. The very few times she’d gone out with his brothers, it always ended with the same outcome, except Ubbe would end up saving their sorry asses.

Ubbe was the sweetheart, why couldn’t she have felt this way about him instead? Right, he had a girlfriend. She grumbles to herself, thinking she's better off alone.

…

“Where are you going?” The scent of alcohol had rooted itself deep within Freydis’s pores, her breath tickling his ear in an unpleasant manner. She stops him when he slips off the bar stool, pulling him by the collar of his shirt to bring him back to her side. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like how her hands felt on him or the look she wore. He didn’t like any of it. The loud trap music that blared from the speakers had activated him earlier that night, but now it made his head ache something terrible. The bass seemed to be vibrating right through him and he rubbed the side of his temple to subdue the growing headache. He reached out to stabilize himself on the bar counter. He was so fucking drunk.

“I gotta pee. Get off me.” Ivar grumbles, pushing her away with little grace. Clingy bitch.

“What?” The blonde scowls, her eyebrows arching and her lips set in a tight line. Shit. He said that out loud?

“Nothing.”

“I think he called you a clingy bitch, actually.” Heahmund repeats Ivar’s demeaning words, a chuckle escaping his red stained lips from the wine he was drinking. This was the fun part of the night for the older man. Ivar had no filter when he was drunk. Well, he never really did have a filter, sober or not, but it was a lot funnier when he had alcohol in his system. He could be ruthless.

“I fucking heard him, asshole.” Freydis snaps, seemingly sobering up now that she was angry. Heahmund breaks out in a smile to which she glares in return.

“I gotta pee.” Ivar announces again, not bothering to look at Freydis before stumbling towards the restrooms. He belches after letting out a series of hiccups, pausing to place a hand on the wall to steady himself. He was so fucking drunk. How many shots of Patrón had he taken? 3..4..? He started counting out loud, bringing his unoccupied hand to his face in order to use his fingers. Wait, there weren’t enough fingers on that hand. He stumbles again when he lets go of the wall, using the other hand to make his calculations. 5...8? Shit, he lost track. Forget it. It was a lot of Patrón.

Using his shoulder, he bursts in through the restroom door, mumbling an apology when he runs into someone. Ignoring the blurry image of the guy scowling at him, he makes his way into a stall and pisses his life away, his head resting against the cold tiled wall as he scrambles to gather his thoughts. He wasn’t happy. The alcohol wasn’t making him happy. Freydis wasn’t making him happy. What the fuck was wrong with him? He was a simple man with simple pleasures yet for some reason, a basic routine and a basic girl weren’t enough anymore. This was all her fault. Why was she torturing him without even trying? In his intoxicated state he could still remember how her voice trembled when she cried and how her eyes looked when they glossed over with tears. How drunk did he need to be to admit that he had hurt her? Really fucking drunk. Like now.

He slams the red door of the stall open, not even flinching when it banged against the stall beside it, maneuvering himself clumsily over to the sink. Gripping the porcelain, he leans forward to get a good look at himself through the streaky mirror. His eyes were so low he could barely see himself, cheeks flushed bright pink and lips matching in color. When did his bun get loose? He looks at his wrist hoping to find a hair tie but scowls when he finds none. He grunts in annoyance, turning on the tap to wash his hands before dragging his wet fingers through his hair. The cold water felt good on his heated face and he closed his eyes for a moment. He gazes at himself one last time before coming to a decision. He needed to talk to her. Right now.

Digging in the pocket of his simple denim jeans, he whips out his phone, struggling to find her contact name before pressing the call button and bringing the device to his ear.

You have reached the voice mailbox of 45-

Fuck. He forgot. She blocked him.

He wanted to throw his phone in frustration. Why did she block him? Did she not understand that he needed to talk to her right now?

Oh wait. Snapchat. Snapchat has video calls. That’s it. Ivar immediately takes a fat finger to scroll to the app, forcefully pressing down on the little ghost in haste. Finding her name in his contacts list, he presses the little video icon, hoping she’d answer. After a few seconds he almost gives up, but then his screen lights up, and he is rewarded with her tired eyes.

“Hey,” He breathes, noting the dim light in her room, “Were you sleeping?” He slurs, and immediately curses himself for sounding so stupid. He clears his throat in the hopes of gaining his language skills back.

“Ivar?” Her voice was heavy with sleep. It was exactly how she sounded when he used to wake her up in the morning with soft, lazy kisses to her shoulder. He missed that. “It’s like 2am. What are you calling me for?”

“I...I don’t know. Missed...your voice.” The words poured out his mouth like vomit. Actually, he was shocked he hadn’t gotten to that point. He threw up at least once after a hard night of drinking. His eyes fell shut as he leaned his head back against the wall beside the sink. God, this speech impediment was bad. He hears her snort tiredly on the other end.

“You’re drunk.”

“Mm...noooo, no. Mm not.”

“I can smell the tequila from here.”

“Wait, really?” His eyes pop open as he brings his phone closer to his face. He couldn’t focus all that well, but he could make out her sleepy features. Those pretty lashes of hers brushed over her cheeks with every lazy blink, and her messy hair was placed in a high ponytail at the top of her head.

“No.” Was her flat reply, pure irritation seeping through the word. Ivar stares at her displeased look for a moment longer, sighing in an almost dream like manner.

“You look beautiful.” He answers back, sliding down the wall to sit in a much more comfortable position. He didn’t care if the floor was dirty, he was drunk, and he didn’t want his legs to start hurting like a bitch.

“Shut the fuck up,” She says, “Words of a drunk.”

“I’m being serrrrious,” Ivar whines, “You always look amazing, you know that?”

“Right. Is Heahmund still there?”

“Yeah,” He pouts, “Why? You’d rather talk to him? You like him or something?” Ivar had never been the jealous type, but he was whenever it involved his brothers or Heahmund. When he had started seeing her, their interest zeroed in on her like fucking hawks, and so he made it abundantly clear to them that she was off limits. She was his conquest, no one else’s. So no, he wouldn’t consider himself the jealous type, but everyone else needed to stay the fuck away from her, even if she wasn’t his to play with anymore.

“No, Ivar, to make sure you’re gonna get home okay.” She sighs, shifting in her sheets and rubbing her face in frustration, “And it seems you will.”

“Aw, you worry about me?” He grins stupidly, his mood shifting wildly as he rubs his phone on his sweaty cheek as if to send her affection.

“No more than you do for me. How’s Freydis by the way?” The bitterness in her tone was enough to bring him down from whatever high he was feeling. Ivar scowls, shifting the phone back so they were now directly looking at each other. He blinks, trying to clear his head again. Freydis. He forgot about her already. And he didn’t really care anyway.

“Clingy bitch,”  He muttered his words from earlier, “I don’t wanna talk about her. I wanna talk about you.” He almost laughed when she pinched the bridge of her nose in annoyance.

“What about me, hmm?”

“I dunno,” He shrugs, his eyes searching hers through his fingerprint covered screen before passing them over her visible form again. She was wearing that one t-shirt she favored, the comfy one with the large neckline that always slid down enough to expose one of her smooth shoulders. Her messy hair and tired eyes reminded him of the many nights spent together tangled under his sheets. It made him swallow thickly as he brought a hand down the center of his jeans to ease the growing ache. Fuck, he needed to get his shit together. Still, in their silence he conjured up images and ideas in his head that he certainly shouldn’t at that moment, but fuck it. He licks his lips, feeling the sly grin stretching across his face at the words his brain had given to him, ready to spill from his mouth, “Maybe I just want to talk about the way your back arches under my hands, or the sounds you make when I-”

“Ivar,” She stops him immediately, her face blooming that pink color he loved, “Kindly shut the fuck up.” She looked like she was about to say something more, something much harsher and meaner, but she stopped herself. Instead, she takes in a breath, rubbing her eyes, and suddenly, she didn’t seem all that tired anymore. “Did you like the flowers?” She asks instead.

“Huh?” His eyebrows curve in confusion as his hazy mind tries to decipher the meaning behind the question. What was she talking about? Flowers? What flow-Oh. Right.

Sorry isn’t good enough.

He sighs, leaning his head back against the tiled wall. He could hear the transition of trap music out in the bar to some basic pop he hadn’t heard on the radio in years. He was in no mood for Kesha.

“I hated them.” He mutters truthfully. The wilted daisies made his heart sink. He’d never felt that way before. Was that how he made all those other women feel? He chews the inside of his cheek, ignoring the pulse behind his eyes and the ache in his head. Finally, the nausea kicked in and his stomach churned for the inevitable. He swallows thickly, running his hand through his messy hair, her eyes following his every movement trying to read his expression. Even in his intoxicated state, he made it hard for her to read him.

“This is a lot harder than I thought it would be.” He says miserably. Why does he fuck everything up? If he had never gone to that stupid party in the first place, he would have never met her, and he wouldn’t be feeling that way he does now. Like complete trash.

“What a shame,” She says, cocking her head to the side, her ponytail brushing against her cheekbone, “Just take your own advice, and try not to fall in love.” She gives him one last look before she hangs up, having him stare at his screen for a few seconds to understand what just happened. He remains seated on the dirty bathroom floor for a few moments longer, continuing to ignore his churning stomach and the tightness of his throat.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Heahmund bursts in through the door, immediately grabbing hold of Ivar’s arm and helping in lifting him up to his feet, “You’ve been in here for 20 minutes. Freydis left in a cab.”

“Good for her.” Ivar grunts, shoving his phone back in his pocket. He pushes Heahmund away, going back to stand in front of the mirror. He looked sick, sweat building up near his hairline.

“What’s wrong with you, hmm?” The older man questions, crossing his arms and using that tone on him as if he didn’t have 4 fucking older brothers already.

“Being a fucking idiot, that’s what.” Ivar says, closing his eyes as his chest burned with that familiar sensation.

“Finally feeling bad about what you did, huh?” Heahmund questions, “You know, no amount of fucking flowers and alcohol is gunna fix anything or make you feel better. You needed a reality check. She gave it to you.”

“And you call yourself my friend, traitor?” Ivar managed to say before pushing past him and into a stall, heaving out all the contents from his tequila filled stomach.

…

The Tune ship exhibit was coming together.

The fragments of the ship were strategically pieced together to form the remains of the ancient ship to its former glory. Well, most of it anyway. It was a fraction of what it once was in the past, but it was still an impressive archeological find, and although it wasn’t as massive as the Oseberg or the Gokstad, it was still considerable in length. She felt like a speck of dust standing beside it despite its lack of framework. She observes the rotted wood and the grooves within each ancient plank, wishing she could reach out and touch it; to feel what they must have felt like a thousand years ago. It’s been 2 years since she began working at the Viking Ship Museum and she still found herself in awe at every artifact that entered their exhibits. She supposed it was the bookworm in her. Ahh fuck. That’s what Ivar calls her.

She immediately frowns, her face twisting in displeasure. Somehow, her thoughts always went back to him, and that irritated her greatly.

“Hello?” The unrecognizable voice echoes throughout the empty exhibit. She looks over her shoulder at the intruder, her gaze gravitating to meet the clearest blue eyes of a boyish young man. The blackest hair she’d ever seen frames his blushing cheeks and the tips brush softly over his shoulders. She blinks at him, cocking her head.

“Uhh, hi?”

“I’m sorry,” He lets out a nervous chuckle, looking around the unfinished exhibit to avoid meeting her eyes from his embarrassment, “I didn’t mean to startle you.” He had a gentle voice, a hint of shyness in the undertones. And extremely British.

“No it’s fine,” She approaches him, sticking out her hand to greet him with a handshake and a small smile, “You must be Mr. Kent’s grandson. I wasn’t expecting you so soon…?”

“Alfred,” He answers, grasping her hand and offering her a timid smile back, “It’s a pleasure.” 

...

@a-daydreamers-day @heavenly1927 @didiintheblog @inforapound​ @a-mess-of-fandoms​ @leilabeaux @shannygoatgruff​ @syrenak @soleil-dor @walkxthexmoon​ @zuxiezendler @homeyzeus @redenzione​ @mariaenchanted​ @laricebabe @hecohansen31

There are some of you that Tumblr won’t let me tag! They are in bold. I’m sorry 😭

[queenof-literature]

Wolfie

Wild meets Wolfie. The second part of my series, Hero of Wild! 

https://archiveofourown.org/series/1778263

AO3: queenofliterature

Link could always talk in his dreams.

He didn’t know why, it always came out as a painful gargled mess in real life. Once, one of the treasure hunters at Dueling Peaks Stable heard him trying to talk to himself and said he sounded like a demented toddler, causing both brothers to cackle. He kept trying, he could feel the words on the tip of his tongue and each time he thought for sure he could reach them. He never did. There weren’t always cruel words when he tried to talk, sometimes it was just scathing glares like the gossiping women in Hateno. Sometimes it was mothers dragging their children away from him as if he were a rabid dog. Eventually, Link never talked again. Not that he couldn’t take a joke, but he was the Hylian Champion. What would people say if they heard their champion talking like that? Not to mention that using his voice sent waves of fire through his throat. Enough people knew sign language, he could get by with a notebook if he had too. It was fine.

It wasn’t fine.

Watching all the other Links chat the long traveling days away hurt more than he expected. They were fun, and they understood him in ways others didn’t. They were Heroes of Courage too, they knew how hard the expectations could be. But Link, or, Wild now, wasn’t one of them. He had failed his Zelda, his Hyrule, and his friends. Why should he deserve new friends? But a selfish part of him wished he could talk to them. Wished he didn’t have to try and wave for their attention to add an abysmal amount to their conversation that had already left without him. It wasn’t their fault they could talk. It wasn’t fair to ask them to slow down so he could sign something half of them didn’t understand completely. Apparently, sign had changed over the centuries.

He wanted so badly to be able to talk. He had so much to say, so much that his Zelda had taught him and what he had learned on his adventure. Did they know how cooking hot-footed frogs bring out certain properties that are cancelled out when combined with other materials with hidden properties? He had done so many experiments with his cooking and he had found out so much! Oh well. He’d probably just annoy them anyway. That’s what happened when he talked in his dreams. People would make fun of his voice. Zelda would make fun of him for being a failure who can’t even talk properly. The other champions would blame him for his death, and when they didn’t they told him to shut up and do his job, in his dreams he never took his vow of silence. He thinks he had dreams, deep in the Shrine of Resurrection. His death on loop, his failures repeating in his mind. Sleeping leads to dreams.

He didn’t like dreams.

~

Twilight had the last watch tonight, although Wild tried to take over a watch every single night. Twilight tried to connect with Wild, he really did. He just didn’t know how. Focusing on everything was hard to do. If Wild wanted someone’s attention, he had to wave and hope they noticed. He would never go out of his way to gain someone’s attention, and he would never do more than a little wave. Sometimes Twilight would be able to catch it and ask who he wanted. Most of the time it was just little facts about his Hyrule. He was trying to be helpful and Twilight appreciated it. It was just hard to communicate with the shy boy. Especially when they were walking, when they all had to look out for monsters.

Twilight could see why his name was Wild. In that battle against the Lynel, he was an elegant force of chaos, breaking equipment, finding odd ways out of a situation, and seeing the battlefield in ways no one did. That was his element, the wild. Twilight wanted to get to know him in his environment, but it’s not like he wanted to chuck the boy into danger. He just wanted to see that spark again. Ever since Wild joined the group, the hollow spot he felt wasn’t so hollow. He never told anyone, he would sound insane, but Wild was meant to be here the entire time. Twilight just didn’t understand why Hylia waited so long.

Speaking of Wild, the boy was sleeping curled up in his thin bed roll away from the campfire at the edge of camp. He wanted to sleep further away, but everytime he tried Time told him to get at least within the bounds of camp, as to not be taken by a monster in the middle of the night. Wild huffed through his nose, but did as he was told.

Everything about him was a paradox. He was untamed, and yet he wasn’t disrespectful. His scarred face showed experience, but his age showed adolescence. His eyes were ancient and haunted, but also carefree and bright. Wild was a conundrum that Twilight and the others desperately wanted to solve.

Wild came with so many questions. Why couldn’t he talk? Was it physical with the scars on his neck? Mental, with the anxiety he clearly faced? Both? Neither? Did he just hate them? Twilight and the others had no idea.

Something about Wild made the wolf within him claw to get out. Not in an angry way, or a way that hurt. But in a way that the wolf wanted to help him, protect him, and ease his pain. He wanted Wild to talk to him and to trust him. Perhaps it was him being jealous of Warriors and Wind, and he shouldn’t pull Wild into his jealousy. No… it was deeper than that.

It felt like Wild was to Twilight as Twilight was to Time. Damn. He’d have to talk to the Old Man about this tomorrow.

~

“Link.”

“Link.”

“Link!”

Link’s eyes snapped open, only to be met with a lid of glass, surrounded by water. No no no. Not again. He didn’t die again. He didn’t. He didn’t fail again!

“Link, you failed me.” The voice was Zelda’s.

“No. Please Zelda this is a mistake. I’m coming. Let me out! Zelda I’m coming!” Link screamed, slamming his hands against the glass, hands turning red. But the glass didn’t budge.

“You left me, Link. You arrive one hundred years late to stop Calamity and you disappear two weeks later. I’m rebuilding a kingdom and you’re playing hero. You think your shiny new friends care? You’ll kill them, just like your last ones.” Zelda’s voice filled his ears no matter how hard Link covered them.

“No! Zelda I’ll come back! They need my help! The Master Sword told me!” Link pleaded.

“So now you feel your connection to the sword? I prayed for seventeen years. You don’t deserve the sword Link. You deserve nothing.” Water began to rise within the chamber. Link panicked and banged on the glass once more, but nothing changed. Nothing would ever change.

~

Twilight was twenty minutes into last watch when he heard soft noises coming from within camp. Twilight sighed, there were many restless nights with eigh-nine Heroes of Courage in one place. Whether it be nightmares, insomnia, the Heroes of Courage sometimes just had a hard time with sleep. But someone would sense it and wake up to comfort their friends. Twilight was close with them, but he didn’t want to step on any toes or cross any boundaries.

Hm. He should have heard rustling by now, one of the other heroes rising to comfort another one. But all he heard were the same soft noises becoming increasingly strained. Now that he thought about it, Wild hadn’t slept in the past few days they were together…

Twilight whipped around and looked at Wild from across the campfire. His scarred face was pulled into a pained expression, even from what little Twilight could see under the hood he insisted on keeping pulled up, even in sleep. His skin was pale and clammy, and his hands were scratching at his scars, turning them a bright red. Oh Hylia, Wild suffered from nightmares, and pretty terrible ones if they all looked like this. Perhaps he hadn’t slept at all since they were grouped together because of them. Wild seemed like the type to be embarrassed at needing help. They all were to an extent.

Twilight desperately thought of a solution. If it were the others, he could wake them up and give them reassurances or a gentle hug, depending on who it was. But with Wild, he had no ideas. Wild didn’t like to be touched at all so he couldn’t imagine he’d be very keen to affection after a horrifying nightmare, Twilight knew for a fact he slept with a knife and his slate nearby. But he couldn’t just leave the kid alone in a nightmare that would probably only escalate. Shit, what did he like? Maybe Twilight could throw a rock at him to wake him up? Hylia no that’s an awful idea. Shit he was so bad at this. Oh wait! Animals! Wild loves animals just like him! He could transform into a wolf and be gone by morning. It wasn’t ideal, Wild wouldn’t assume he spoke sign and therefore wouldn’t be able to talk, but he could at least offer physical comfort if Wild wanted.

He would have to be careful. The others knew about Wolfie, but if Twilight wasn’t there come morning, they would panic and wonder where he was and why he left them unprotected. And Wild hadn’t met Wolfie yet, and there were many savage animals in his Hyrule. This wasn’t his best idea, but it was the only one he had. Slowly, Twilight crept out of camp. Not far enough to leave the camp unwatched, but far enough from prying eyes who might happen to be awake. His transformation to Wolfie didn’t really hurt anymore, it was just the uncomfortable feeling of bones shifting. Once he was fully transformed, he silently trotted back to the edge of camp where Wild was.

What was the best way to go about this? He certainly did not want to get stabbed if Wild saw a giant wolf looming over him. So maybe a quick wet nose to the face then back up? Yes that seemed best. Twilight stalked forward, pressing his nose between the hands scratching at scars to stop him before he hurt himself further, then quickly backing away as Wild jolted awake with a small gasp and grabbed the rusted knife under his bedroll. Wide eyes gazed rapidly around for a threat. Wolfie shrunk down and whined, trying to make himself look as nonthreatening as possible.

~

Link gasped awake. A threat. His hand immediately went to his knife, desperately looking around to what was trying to kill him tonight. Yiga? Bokoblin? Moblin? After frantic eyes scanned the whole area, they landed on a hunched over wolf, stunning Li-no Wild. That’s right, he was in the camp with the other heroes. Keeping the knife in front of him, he eyed the wolf suspiciously. Wolves didn’t act like this, they would have bit him immediately since he was at the edge of camp. He knew he should have slept in a tree like always, but it seemed rude to be up high and more protected than his new group. The wolf, still having his head down slightly, approached him slowly. Not in the slow stalking motion that meant it was waiting for an opening. It almost seemed inviting. Wild wished he could talk to it. Was it hungry? He could spare some food but he didn’t want other wolves coming to this area. What in Hylia was going on?

~

Twilight continued to approach slowly, watching the knife wearily. Wild let him approach, though Twilight could tell he was nervous. Who wouldn’t be? At least Wild has some sort of self preservation. Soon, Twilight was at the knife. This was the moment of truth. He ducked under the knife and sniffed Wild’s hand, before nuzzling it slightly. Wild almost dropped the knife in shock, blue eyes wide. Twilight began to walk closer to Wild, before huffing and laying his head down in his lap. Looking up, he saw the clear shock on Wild’s face. Hesitant and shaking hands reached to pat his fur. Once he realized it was okay, Wild buried his hands into soft fur. Twilight wagged happily that his plan had worked, until he felt something wet on his head. It seemed the soothing motion only had Wild’s nightmare come back full force. Wolfie whined guiltily.

Wild attempted to tell him he was okay, but all that came out were rasps and words so broken Twilight couldn’t even begin to comprehend them. Twilight’s heart broke for the boy. It seemed he really wasn’t physically able to talk. Wild’s hands went to scratch at his neck and face again, but Wolfie intervened. He wanted the boy to cope however he could, but he didn’t want Wild to hurt himself. Wolfie sat up and nuzzled into Wild’s neck to prevent his hands from reaching it. Wild tried to say something but Wolfie couldn’t understand no matter how much he tried. Wild’s dam broke completely as he buried his face into Wolfie’s fur and cried, trying to use the fur to muffle any sounds he made. Twilight stayed the entire time, even as Wild’s small cries turned to hiccups and he got drowsy, Wolfie stayed.

His original plan was to leave as soon as Wild fell back asleep, but the teen had all but collapsed on him as they laid down. He didn’t have the heart to move and possibly wake the boy, leaving him alone to transform back into Twilight who he felt he couldn’t open up to yet. So Wolfie stayed. Time could make up an excuse for him in the morning, he was the only one who knew. He would see Wild draped on top of him and the tear tracks on the younger’s face and know what happened. As a wolf, he had better senses. If something came close to them, he would know. For now, he stayed by Wild’s side.

~

Time’s eye opened a crack, he’s always one of the earliest risers in the group. He sat up, back cracking slightly from sleeping on the ground before turning to say good morning to his protege on watch. Time froze when he realized his protege was nowhere to be found. He grabbed his Biggoron Sword and stood quickly. Twilight wouldn’t just leave them unguarded. Time’s eyes scanned the area, before landing on their newest addition draped on the wolf form of his protege. Time’s posture relaxed, although his abrupt rising woke some others in their party. Legend and Warriors had also awoken.

“Seems the new guy has finally met Wolfie.” Legend smirked at the sight before him, smirk only dropping when he noticed the tear tracks on Wild’s face.

“Seems like he had a rough night.” Warriors commented. “Leave it to our resident wolf to cheer him up.”

Wolfies’ eyes peeked open glaring slightly at the other heroes, almost daring them to wake the boy on top of him before dozing off once more. Time chuckled slightly. Seems his protege was a little protective over their newest member.

“Where’s Twilight?” Warriors asked, masking his concern. “He wouldn’t leave us to the monsters would he?”

“No.” Time shook his head. “Wolfie isn’t panicking so I’m sure he’s just checking the perimeter or scavenging. He wouldn’t leave us without Wolfie here to alert us.” Time resonated. He held back his relief when the others bought his excuse. Time smiled once again at Wolfie and Wild, not making too much noise and risk waking the others. Breakfast could wait a little while.

[my-soul-sings]

I had this scenario in mind and I can't stop laughing about it.

Taehee and Yooha: *arguing as usual*

Taehee:*loses his shit and throws an apple at yooha*

MC, reading a book about ancient Greece: Did you know that in ancient Greece, a way of proposing marriage was to toss an apple?

Taehee: .......

It was just business as usual in the house. Biho dozing off on the couch while holding a book, Hansol had gone out to do some busking with his band, and you were scrolling through Wannabe on your phone in the living room, trying to think of a concept for your new post.

The keyword: ‘trying’.

“For the last time! If you’re going to leave your half-empty wine bottles in the cellar, at least seal them properly! Now there are ants in the kitchen cabinets! Happy?” Taehee’s shouting echoed throughout the apartment, and you winced at the tone in his voice. It was loud enough to even make Biho stir in his sleep.

“Calm down, they’re just ants. Don’t tell me you’re afraid of them?”

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about! This is about you being irresponsible and messy and—” You promptly tuned out the nagging, while you shook your head and sank further into the couch.

It was easy to describe the kind of person Taehee was: nice, gentle and mild-mannered. He rarely wore his emotions on his sleeve, being the type to keep his feelings bottled up inside while plastering a convincingly courteous smile on his face. You couldn’t recall a time when you had ever made him angry, not even when he saw the state of your room on the last Cleaning Day (you had forgotten to clean before his routinely inspection).

But things changed ever since Yooha arrived. It was like the fox knew exactly how to push all of Taehee’s wrong buttons. Every. Single. Day. It was like he was doing it on purpose, and you wouldn’t put it past him; the fox seemed amused by Taehee’s outbursts sometimes... or maybe it was just his default smug expression that made it seem like that.

Their fights were gradually becoming more and more common, and all you, Hansol and Biho could do was tune them out whenever they argued. The thing was, you knew this couldn’t go on forever. It had to end, for the sake of everyone’s sanity in this house. At this rate, you wouldn’t be surprised if one day their fight escalated into a physical brawl—and if goblin fire was thrown into the mix, the entire house just might become collateral damage.

Their argument was escalating in the background, and you bit your lip, racking your brains for some sort of solution. You wanted to plan your concept for the next few Wannabe posts in peace.

Yelling at them might work. Getting angry would guarantee an immediate end to their fighting, but that was only a quick fix. You had gotten angry many times before, forcefully breaking them up and sending them to different corners in the house to be quiet and reflect on their behaviour. And yet they continued their bickering like cat and mouse. Clearly, it wasn’t a long-term solution. You needed something more. Something better.

Your eyes fell on the two, studying them. Taehee’s face was growing red, as was Yooha’s. More insults were traded, their voices escalating still even though you thought they had reached their limits.

The rally ended with Yooha’s sheepish admission that he had left some wine bottles open in their room and that there were probably ants in Taehee’s bed by now.  

Even you gasped at that. And it was obvious in Taehee’s darkened eyes that he had reached breaking point.

It all happened in slow motion. The vengeful goblin reached for the basket of apples on the kitchen island, his fingers curling around the red fruit so tightly that its juice might come out. Then with exceptional grace, he drew his hand back and released the fruit from its grasp.

And then the apple was airborne, its trajectory a straight line towards the centre of the fox’s face.

Even Yooha’s reflexes couldn’t save him from this one. The apple pelted him right in the nose, and the smacking sound was audible even from where you were on the couch. Yooha’s groan was quick to follow, along with a string of curses.

You snapped to your senses. Enough was enough, you had to break this up now, before further damage was done. This was the first time their fight had gotten physical, and you weren’t sure if this meant irreparable damage had been dealt to their friendship—if you could even call it that.

In your panic, you racked your brains for a solution. You were already walking towards them, and you only had a few steps before you would be confronting them. There had to be something you could do other than blow up at them.

As your eyes darted back and forth between the apples and the two men who were now just having a death-stare match, your mind somehow directed you to a recent post you saw on Wannabe, something to do with apples...

It was the last thing that lingered on your mind when their attention fell to you, the sheer hatred and fury in their eyes making you nervously blurt out without thinking, “D-Did you know that in ancient Greece, people proposed by throwing an apple at their lovers?”

Silence. All you got was painful, excruciating silence. Mentally, you were kicking yourself for speaking without thinking. It sounded a lot better in your head for sure, but the execution... probably not the best timing considering the predicament they were in.

Well, if anything, at least their anger was now being replaced by confusion as they registered your words. Taehee looked at his hand—the culprit that had committed assault—and as the realisation of what he had just done sank into him, you watched as his features gradually contort into horror.

“Hey, I think you’re misunderstanding our relationship—” Yooha began in an incredulous tone. But you couldn’t bear to hear another word, or stay a second longer.

Irresponsible as it was, you fled the scene, leaving the two to pick up the pieces from their spat.

At the very least, the house was quiet again. Although, you doubted you would be able to focus on concept-planning for a while until the embarrassment wore off.

***

A/N: Sorry i took so long to do this ;-; just had two submissions back to back but i’m done so i finally got to work on this! Tbh i think this sounded funnier in my head but after writing it.... well i did my best HAHA i hope it was still relatively decent? Thx for the ask btw hehe <3 <3 

[slxyangel]

Handcuffs (Duff McKagan x Reader)

Summary: Hii! I was wondering if you could write something about Duff and his girlfriend have been fighting on tour. Everyone is annoyed with the fighting, so Axl handcuffs them so they can’t run away and avoid their problems. Thanks. This was requested by  @julessworldd​ and I finally had time to get round to writing it. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Wordcount: 2.1k.

Warnings: Some swearing and that’s essentially it.

A/N: The name of the fic sucks super super bad, but I swear it’s funny; tell me your thoughts on it :) Also, get ready for a lot of Duff, bc all of my requests rn are about him. I might leap them with some other works I have in mind *wink, wink*.

REQUESTS ARE OPEN

Masterlist: https://slxyangel.tumblr.com/post/189625800403/masterlist

Waves.

The boat is drifting from side to side.

A lot of waves.

Like, a dangerously fucking lot of waves.

What the hell.

Wait, these are not waves.

This is you being carried around in God knows what to God knows where.

And now you are almost violently left (or, more accurately, thrown) in a bed. You open your eyes to see several arms, probably more than two, probably less than six, toying around your recently awakened figure. Seriously, what the fuck?

As you try your best to figure out what is going on, what was going on before you were tossed around under yet to clarify circumstances, and what apparently will still be going on for a while, you identify your captors by their features. Fibrous arms, tan skin, callous hands and a mop of dark curly hair? Pale, tattooed arms, twinky frame and red strands of straight hair? Obviously, it has to be them, it couldn’t be any other people on the planet.

And the milliseconds it takes for you to draw their names in your head are enough time for the skinny diabolic peanut to handcuff your right wrist. Then he backs off, along with his accomplice, just a few steps. Well, not that they have much more space to back off inside a tour bus.

Obviously, it has to be them. It has to be Axl and it has to be Slash. And it has to be the two of them together.

You turn your incandescent eyes from their main objective to the place where your no-longer-free-hand is tied to something else. And that something else turns out to be another hand. Another hand attached to Duff.

- OBVIOUSLY, I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL THE TWO OF YOU.

And this time you say it out loud.

Like, so damn out loud that your boyfriend, now turned into an annoying physical extension of your arm, wakes up from his most definitely no longer peaceful sleep. And when he does, since you are in a tour bus and the place is small and the space is used to the millimeter, he bumps his head against the cupboard strategically placed above him. His blow raises general laughter among his bandmates, who are all around to see the spectacle you two are surely about to give. And when you see Slash waving a tiny metallic key with a mischievous smile, your anger tells you that Mamma didn’t raise no disappointer.

- GIVE ME THAT KEY.

You sit up and stretch your free arm towards the guitarist, but he doesn't give you enough time and immediately puts the key in his mouth, just enough to bite it with his front teeth and show you what he is doing. He can’t hide his smile, or he doesn’t want to. He finally closes his lips around the metallic thingy and it disappears from your view. He hasn’t swallowed it. He hasn’t swallowed it, right??? I mean, he might have, cause it’s Slash. But holy shit tell me he hasn’t.

- This last week with you has been a fucking nightmare -- Axl speaks with voice clear as a day, he is enjoying. Thoughts of the cruelest methods of revenge start pacing your head --, and for “you” I mean you two lovebirds. What are you? Fifteen years old? You can’t be running around yelling at each other, then go with the silent treatment and then come to the rest of us bitching about how the other has pissed your ass so much, this has to end. And since some of these cowards -- now he points at the members of the band who are not handcuffed to your wrist -- were brave enough to complain the same way I am doing right now but not enough to put an end to it, I took matters into my own hands. Well, yours, more exactly. And I’m not gonna take the cuffs off until you talk it out and solve your problems like the adults you clearly aren’t.

- Oh, now that’s surprising -- your answer comes off bitter -- I didn’t know the “adult” way to solve things involved handcuffs.

- Well, you can take them off now because I don’t need this shit to talk to my girlfriend -- Duff finally opens his mouth. He sits up in the bed, right beside you, not that he has many more options. His free hand is covering the spot of his head he just hit with the furniture --. Though now that I mention it, maybe she does.

- Excuse me??? So I am the one running from the problem here??

- See? I told you all she was bitchy.

- YOU TOLD THEM I’M BITCHY?

- Yes he did -- Slash answers your question before Duff has time to, but his words sound weird.Good thing he mustn’t have swallowed the key.

- Slash, we’re trying to solve a problem here -- Steven adds, also looking at the panorama -- so shut the fuck up.

- Sorry mate, she asked.

- Well, sorry to break it up to you  but I’m not the one who’s ignoring her boyfriend here, in fact it’s pretty much the other way around -- your intervention is directed to the general public, since they seem to be so aware of the issue because of someone’s loose tongue. But that someone takes the hint.

- So now I am ignoring you???

- No, now you aren’t ignoring me because you have a fucking handcuff and you can’t run from me like you usually do.

- Oh my god, do I run from you??? -- Duff sounds genuinely shocked. This bastard knows how to play his part in front of the guys, but it won’t wash, not with you.

- No he doesn’t -- Steven adds, always being the advocate for love.

- Yes he does -- that’s Slash, always being the advocate for chaos.

- SLASH!

Now he doesn’t even bother to defend himself, he did it on purpose, he is fucking enjoying. Lowkey, you find that funny, but he obviously hasn’t contributed to the plot for the sake of a solution, but for the sake of drama. I mean, the guy is only missing a bowl of popcorn and the 3D glasses. On the other end of the spectrum there’s Izzy, who hasn’t opened his mouth a single time and looks like and unbothered wine aunt. Like, literally, he has a glass of wine in his hand. And now returning to the point that keeps us here…

- I don’t run from you, babe.

- Ooohhh don’t use the babe card on me right now because we are arguing and I might as well stab you in the eye, Duff.

- Jeeeeeesus, I don’t run from you -- the bassist backs off before your eyes start going up in flames --, I don’t know, I have stuff to do. But you can always talk to me.

- No. I can’t because YOU NEVER HAVE TIME.

- BECAUSE I’M ON TOUR!!!

- OH so since you’re on tour you don’t have time to talk to your girlfriend but you do have time to fuck her??? -- There is a general snort. Well, at least no word from Slash, which is kinda disappointing.

- Holy shit -- Duff has opened his eyes so much it looks like they are gonna jump from his skull and leave the place rolling -- don’t give these fuckers one more thing to pry about because. They. Clearly. Don’t. Need. It. -- He shots deadly glares to each of his bandmates.

- Well, you were the one telling them I am bitchy. For which, by the way, you also have time.

- Jesus Christ how the hell did I think this was a good idea????? -- Axl starts regretting having put handcuffs on both of you, and you don’t blame him.

- Then take off the cuffs -- you suggest, slyly.

- Slash won’t give me the key.

- I wouldn’t have worded it better than that -- the guitarist finally puts the key out of his mouth, but he doesn’t give it away. It must be tiring to try to intervene in someone else’s argument while trying not to choke on metal.

- Then this is what you get for being such a brat -- now Duff is the one calling him out. Good, at least there is one thing you two agree on --. Now, honey, I’m sorry. I never meant to ignore you, but I didn’t notice you were upset about it or anything until this past week. I know things shouldn’t have escalated the way they did,  I guess I was just overwhelmed by everything and I ended up projecting stuff into us two.

- Duff… -- that was so sweet. You actually never thought he would back off so easily, especially since you had been so picky with each other for some time now. -- It’s fair, I’m not mad at you. Actually that’s on me, because I am the one who hasn’t been clear about her feelings lately. I don’t know, I have been feeling a bit off, but I never got round to talk to you about it, because I see you have so much going on around, and so much to do, and so much pressure, but at the same time you are living your dream and you look happy and you deserve to enjoy it. I really didn’t want to be the one to pop the bubble worrying you with my stuff, and I just thought it would eventually vanish. But it didn’t, and I made you pay for something you are not to blame for.

- Babe -- he uses the word with feet of lead this time, just in case your reaction to it resembles the one you had before. But no, now he can definitely use the babe card -- please, I need you to know that you can always talk to me about anything. Always. No matter what. That’s what I’m here for. -- now his handcuffed hand holds yours, and his other hand travels to your cheek. The touch is so tender, so concerned that you can’t help but lean into it and close your eyes for a moment. You hadn’t realized until now how much you had missed that. -- But I need you to tell me, please. I can’t guess what’s going on out of the blue, so please, please, always tell me. I really don’t want us arguing like this again, especially if it has a solution, so let’s communicate from now on. Okay?

You nod against his hand. In the end, it turns out that you only needed to talk, to have a conversation instead of throwing things at each other to see who hits harder. In almost perfect synchronization with each other, you two lean in for a hug. Well, better said, a semi-hug, because let’s not forget that you are handcuffed and basically can’t move your arms. But who cares? You love him so much you feel your heart is gonna burst out at any moment and, now that you finally have him around you, you don’t understand how you were able to live without it for a WHOLE ENTIRE WEEK. Insane.

From your place between Duff’s hair and the scent of his neck, you hear Steven saying “Told ya. Pay me” and Slash responding with a huff, before he slaps what you presume is a banknote in what you presume is the drummer’s hand. So the fuckers have been betting on whether you would or wouldn’t fix things.

- So you fuckers have been betting on whether we would or wouldn’t fix things? -- Duff reads your mind and speaks your words as you two separate from each other. He shakes his head and smiles -- That’s really really ugly, and you really really never disappoint.

- Thanks dude! -- Steven smiles back and Slash doesn’t seem to have anything else to say now that he has a lighter wallet. He even gave the key to Axl -- I just believe in love.

Duff moves his hand up and exposes it along with yours so that Axl can unlock the cuffs. Instead, the vocalist hands him the key and says “You’ve earned it”. Your boyfriend takes the metallic piece and frees your wrist before he frees his. Then, he grabs the handcuffs and the key, he puts them in his back pocket and, winking at you, says:

- If any of you was expecting to have these back, they can go choke on a fork. They are mine, now. For the inconvenience and for the celebration.

[popculturebuffet]

Adventure Time: What Was Missing Review

We celebrate Bi-Visablity day with our first look at adventure time! We get our first true taste of Bubbline when the two are forced to work together along with Finn, Jake and BMO to try and get a door powered by music and honesty open to get their stuff back from a well meaning creep what stole it from them. Gay Subtext, Jake shapeshifted into billy idol and rpping off a childlike robot’s face insue. Quit the band and then rejoin the band when dramatically approriate under the cut. 

Happy Bi Visablity Day! As you can tell i’m running behind, real life stuff coupled with not finding about this day until yesterday, something that for obvious reasons won’t happen again but i’m not going to stew in it too long. Point is it’s a good day, a proud day, and a day I naturally felt the need to celerbate as i’m bi myself, and have tons of bi characters I like, as seen by the fact that the two big arcs I covered for pride both had a bisexual as one of the main leads.  However my pride reviews also left me in sort of a bind as i’d used up most of what was in my tank. Luckily I had a few ideas, and among them a review I INTENDED to get to for Pride Month, but my overestimating my own productivity meant some got shelved for later. SO let’s take this one off the shelf and talk about adventure time shall we?  Adventure Time was my faviorite show once upon a time, being one of the front runners of the second annimation renisance of the 2010′s, it wasn’t a hgue suprise.. but it did take me a while to go from casually watching it to REALLY obessing over it, similar to regular show. Like Regular Show while the show wasn’t bad, it was just okay, with creative settings and what not but fairly simplistic characters. Season 2 would sharpen the comedy and add a smidge of emotoinal depth but it was with that season’s finale the show really showed what it could do: IN the same show that earlier in the season had a snail hyjack our heroes house and the two agree out of the kidness of hteir hearts and wanting hteir house back to help him get laid, we had a deathless, relentless monster who was determined to kill everything and voiced by ron goddamn perlman, who nearly succeded in beating our heroes and did end up possesing one of them and killing her for about 5 minutes. It showed the show could really step up in scope when it wanted while still getting really fucking weird and funny.  So season 3 crystalized all that, still having tons of great comedy but also having episodes like Memory of a Memory, which not only gave Marcie’s rather sad and complicated backstory, or at least the first pre-simon part, and the infamous Holly Jolly Secrets where we found out local weirdo and king of incels and ice the ice king was actually once a meek researcher who put on a cursed crown and ended up slowly devolving into madness like something out of a john carpenter movie. The show really deepend the cast, while keeping tthe usual brisk tone and it paid off getting better and better, then backsliding a bit, then going back to better by the end.  I did slide out of the show after a while, but I never really stopepd caring about it and the last year really made me step back and remmeber how much I loved it. And this episode is one of those reasons and one of the things that made season 3 what really defined the show. It was also one of the gayest episodes in cartoon history, before other cartoons actually got away with doing more.  What Was Missing was written by future Steven Universe creator and all around Peach, Rebecca Sugar, who was part of why the show got so sucessfl and steered the ship for a few seasons before leaving to make Steven Universe and even more animation history. Seriously I can’t blame her for her current sabatacle: Whatever she does next is going to have the pressure to utterly change the game and no one wants to step into that right away after running a show for 6 years. So what makes this so great? Well let’s figure it out shall we? 

The episode opens with Finn going to get his secret hunk of Princess Bublegum’s hair. Yup. I’ve had troulbe parsing this because what he’s doing is entirely wrong. BUTTTTT it’s also a 13 year old boy, said hair is naturally just a wad of gum, and the show clearly show’s he’s embrassed by the fact he still has this and that the person who thinks there’s nothing wrong with this is Jake, whose the same guy who once did this to his brother. 

So while his longterm relationship shows h’es good with women he’s not a good judge of what’s approriate. But after teasing his brother and letting him know he knows about the hair, Jake offers to share his hidden possesion, his blankie.. before a weirdo with a key on his head comes in and steals the blankie, the hair wad, and BMO’s controller then creates a door in time and space and heads through.  Our heroes chase after this dude through his doors  as he steals a toy from a kid for.. some reason, it dosen’t quite synch up with his later motive, and something from Bubblegum, who comes with along with Marceline who seemingly has something stolen. Our quintent eventually chase the guy to a giant door that’s unopenable, the door of the door lords.  PB explains what’s up: The dipstick who stole their stuff was a doorlord, a race that she attempted to lockup long ago.. but found it impossible “Because their doorlords” aka because you really can’t keep someone in prision who can just make a door out of it and whatever magic they had she clearly couldn’t contain, likely because of her later established hatred of magic and most likely just calmed down after that to avoid escalating things further. Or something. Why they never showed up again.. I really don’t know. The concept, a bunch of mysterious beings that can fold time and space and don’t talk, and as the episodewill prove have good intentions but go about them in a bad way, is really good and given the show had 7 more seasons after this, and started to really pile on the mythology, I question why this bit of it never came up again despite being really intresting.  

Marcy chides her for not just killing them all, which is hilarious in hindsight to me. While they likely had’nt thought of it  yet, her later backstory has her committing genocide on all the vampires of Ooo, hence why she’s the only one we see until Stakes. It just adds a bit of probably unintend depth to the line: Her ruthless, carefree pre-character development self probably just thinks that’s the easiest solution without considering the fact some of them may be innocent because she rarley considers anything. Just good character stuff. 

So Finn reads the door which reveals the gimmick it has: to be opened it has to be a song sung by a genuine band.. and the genuine part is something I honestly dind’t think about first few times watching this, but is a nice hint at how to really get the door open. More on that later. Finn suggests starting said band since most of the mhave musical talent with Jake agreeing as long as he can be the group asshole. 

Marcy, being the one who’s a musician for an unliving, is naturally the first to take charge, to Bubblegum’s annoyance but she suggests a chill jam, with Jake taking on a british accent, because 50% of all assholes in media are british and because only in britan could you sell an ep of you and your bandmate/brother fighting. No really that’s a thing that happened, thank yout odd in the shadows for letting me know that happened. 

The best thing? This CHARTED.  So yeah our band is formed and Marcy suggests a laidback jam and putting on a decent one that’s a nice gentle song about burying people in the ground but seems to be nice.. then it becomes clear what it’s about, and why there’s so much danged tension between her and bubblegum with one simple line. And it’s always a credit to a writer when you can pivot everything with a line, it’s a skill most need. 

“I’m going to drink the red from your pretty pink face” Yeah there’s no real grey area here. This is about explicit as you can be with their former relationship without outright shouting “They were a thing once” Or having Marcy do an accoustic version of Jodeci’s Freak N You. Which is a thing I want now if anyone reading this has olivia olson’s ear, or if by some miracle she’s reading this in which case “Hi I really love your work also why in the hell are you reading this i’m not that good holy shit thank you”, please ask her to do that.  And now we get to why I chose this one: I admit I put this one on the backburner because, as far as I was concerned, it wasn’t on screen full died in wool gay content.. and I was wrong. You have to take steps to get representation, fight hard, kick and claw and scratch and bite to get representation into media, let alone CHILDREN’S Media because god forbid we show kdis that GASP gay people exist and would give them slightly less money to throw at their competitors in money fights I assume bilionares have. just fuck off with this shit already, christ it’s 2020 and most shows that have had gay characters have gotten tons of attnetion and conservative assholes protesting it only makes the rest of us aware it exists and more liable to check it out. Fuck off and do the right thing you fucking greedy, selfish, incosidrat emorons. 

That tyrade out of the way the point is representation takes time and Rebecca took a hell ofa risk to her florshing career pushing for this. You don’t get to steven universe without this episode, for a number of reasons, and you don’t get to all the other gay without an example to point to and say “see this works your being stupid,, stop being stupid and let us gay dammit”. So I felt this episode, and these two in general as we’ll get to in later reviews, deserved it’s fair due. 

Back to the actual plot, Bubblegum responds to this mildly flirty and remotley suggestive line. with “Marceline, that’s too distastful” Peebs.. she just made a suggestivish metaphor about wanting to make out with you, she isn’t talking about how good your vagina tastes. which is probably really good because bubblegum is delcious but that’ snot a line of discourse i want to get into now or ever.  MOre on this in a sec.  Marcy naturally dosen’t take this well, nor should she, and launches into one of the series greatest songs and one of rebecca sugar’s best work, which is saying something. “I’m Just Your Problem”

Olivia Olson deserves credit too: While Rebecca wrote and composed this amazing bit of music, but her delivery is great, keeping the same tone the whole time while still singing beautifully and conveing just how.. hurt marcy is, with the excellent animation complimenting it. Rewatching it is a joy and I wish it hadn’t taken me this long to get back to the song again.  It’s also a real tearjerker, in a way I didn’t even realize at the time, as the lyrics point out why Marcy is so upset with her: She’s frustrated with how PB seems to resent the fact that unilke her subjects she dosen’t worship her, she dosen’t do what she says.. befor edigging in deep, asking if THAT’S why she avoids her and really cuts both her and the audience deep with this line  “It’s like i’m not even a person am I?” The animation also deserves credit for a moment.. I didn’t notice it before rewatching the song a few times for this review.. but while PB starts and ends the song angry... around this part she looks hurt.. like for one moment her stoic, needs ot be in control, needs to be mature and queenly at all times mask is broken and she’s shaken by realizing just how much she hurt her. It says VOLUMES about what they used to be without giving us a full backstory and it’s wonderful. She still cares.. she just can’t express it properly. Marcy continues her muscial slam saying she dosen’t need to justify herself, and that she dosen’t need to apologize, and shouldn’t be as the gate almostopens.. only for it to stop when Marcy refuses to be open.  And that gets to the heart of why the two fell apart back then, whenever back then was and what’s obvious from here: Both have a habit of holding people at arms length emotoinally but both are such VASTLY diffrent people they couldn’t get through each others walls. For Marcy she’s immortal and has gone through a few hundered years of watching anyone she cares about die, loosing her mother, having her biological dad abandon her and be utterly terrible at actually connecting with her or being empathetic anyway, and having her surrogate dad slowly go insane and having HIM abandon her too if for her own good and then presumibly finding him later as a horrifying shell of his former self, and her ex boyfriend solkd the one reminder she HAD of said man and insulted her over it. She’s had a hard, devistating life and as we see her at this point she keeps people at arms length because she knows they won’t last, it taking some time for her to stop treating finn like a toy to play with and start treating him like her friend and realize that even with her immortality just jackassing around for hundreds of years willl only make her more miserable.  PB also does.. but it’s becaue she’s a very regimented person who belivies things have to be one thing, is utterly rigid in her way of thinking, and rules her people with a benveolnt cnady coated iron fist. She means well, can care about people and is better at forming connectoins despite knowing they’ll be fleeting.. but also has a bad habit of just.. not thinking about what others FEEL just waht’s best to them. She opresses her people, spies on them, locked up an innocent child instead of helping her or adopting her like she clearly needed, and tried to genocide a whole race of robots simply because they MIGHT be a threat to her world. PB at this stage needs things so structured and so her way, she forgets sometimes.. she’s wrong. Wheras Marcy sees her immortality as a curse and hides it behind a seemingly carefree nature, PB sees it as neccity but let it cut her off from other people, still brefirend and love them but hold them a ta distance so she could do the things that needed to be done, the work that needed doing ot insure her people surivive forever and she dosen’t outlive them.  Both have been left stunted by their immortality, and both were in no shape for a relationship, thouguh while I’m sure marcy didn’t help with her issues with honesty, PB probably did the most damage, both not wanting to risk something outside her perfectly consttructed bubble threanting things, and not being able to resist trying to control her lover instead of treat her as an equal. Thankfully both would get better and by present day the two are toegheter or about to be, and both in the place for that to actually WORK. But this shows sometimes relationships just dont work because your not ready yet.. but that you CAN get a second chance, and the one benfiit of being immortal is you don’t have as big a risk as dying without having that chance come up. 

But yeah this fails, and while Jake storms off, Finn tries to have a friendly pasta dinner to keep everyone left together, with Marcy going to get a hot pot for them, and plugging it into BMO which is neat.  It’s PB”s turn and she just tries harmonics and it ends up sounding like a worse version of that song bill and ted play at the begniing of face the music.. and THAT probably woudlv’e worked better. 

At this point everyone falls apart with Marcy spitting on PB, PB walking off in a huff and jake leaving because it’s that part of the true hollywood music story. Also he’s shapeshifted into billy idol, which is awesome.  It’s then we get the second song of the episode.. and one every bit as good as the masterpiece above. 

Finn laments what happened, in song because of course, before admitting how he just wanted htem all together.. and wonders if their even his friends.. as the door glows and he finally realizes what opens it: The truth. This is where the genuine hint comes back together.. the genuine wasn’t in talent.. itw as in emotoinal honesty.  I really haven’t talked about Finn a bunch this review, mostly because he’s mostly just trying to help and be earnest.. but this scene beautifully ties that together showing that deep down, Finn is bothered by how dismisive the others can be of him sometimes and wonders if he’s a “Joke, your knight or your brother” That sometimes he wonders if they care. It’s both relatable as hell and really fits the character, showing PB’s sometimes dismissive attidue of him REALLY bothers him, and Jake and Marcy are guilty of the same at times. He genuinely admits though that through all this.. their his closest friends.. and it’s a really sweet song and really shows what finn is at his core through all his developments good and bad to come: An honest kid who just wants the best for people, and cares about those around him.. and gets those around him to open up as a result. It’s a freaking powerful sequence, and Jeremy Shada acts the hell out of it and the nimation is beauitufl. Good stuff.  The door finally opens and we find out the Door Lord just did all of this to get them to bond and work on their issues... which as I said is well intentioned.. but in a funny bit they whollop him anwyay because you know.. he did so by stealing from them and making them solve a musical riddle. Who does that? BMO gets his controller back, Jake gets his blankie and Finn gets his wad of hair with PB giving out an OH you like this is normal and FInn rexamining all of his life choices. Don’t worry bud, your about to make some considerably WORSE life choices that will make these look midly better!  We get one last bit of Bubbline tease as it turns out PB’s item.. is a t-shirt marcy get her, complete with blushing. Yet there was STILL  vitroicllically insane crowd who swore they weren’t gay because htey wante dto pair either of them with a 13 year old which .. agian no. Just no. No no no no. We also find out Marcy had nothing stolen she just wanted to hang out and we end on her chasing them.  Final Thoughts: As you can probably tell, this episode is a masterpiece and easily one of the series best, and not only that.. but it’s better than I remember. I THOUGHT this would be a quick review but the two hours it took to get this written and the more and more I found in the songs to talk about said otherwise. It’s easily the episode that put the show on the map, with holy jolly secrets being tied with it in this regardf or diffrent reasons, and the one that showed just how far it came. The music as I gushed is utterly fantastic and we’d get more.. then suddenly none once rebecca Sugar left because they coudln’t find anyone else apparently even though that makes no sense. Point is the episode is beautiuflly animated, deeply trenched in it’s characters, and even has some really funny bits like the runner about jake being the jerk in the band. IT’s great stuff and I highly recommend it even if you’ve seen it before. If you liked this there’s regular Loud House Coverage every weeeknd at some point, and regular ducktales coverage every monday if you’d like to follow to see that, and more reviews on my tabs and you can comission one for 5 bucks if your intrested of any episode of any show you want. Until we meet again, Go team venture. Play us out jodeci. 

[isocrime]

Where do you fall on the MCU CW wank? What did you think of the showdown in Siberia?

i’m not particularly familiar with this wank! i didn’t watch ca:cw until it was well out of theaters, and i wasn’t really in steve/tony fandom at the time so i wasn’t keeping close tabs on the drama

also i’ve only watched the siberia showdown once so i might not have all my facts straight

here’s my understanding: tony, exhausted, already beat half to shit (and he’s a human in his 50s under that armor so he’s not healed), watches video of his parents being murdered by the guy next to him and loses his fucking mind. bucky, being a smart cookie, decides to get the hell out of dodge, and steve does his best to cover his retreat. things go downhill fast, and they have a slug-out in the bottom of a missile silo that ends with bucky getting his metal arm turned to slag and tony having his metaphorical heart shattered.

okay i re-watched a quick cut of the siberia scene

now i think there’s something interesting about the fight tactics. tony and bucky are long-range, lethal fighters. iron man is built for airborne dogfights, not punching -- the movie even says it when friday tells tony he can’t beat steve hand-to-hand. Meanwhile bucky is first and foremost a sniper and an ambusher. if tony and bucky really want to kill each other, they should hang back and try to murder from a distance. but if they’d actually rather not do murder, they have to get in close and wrestle, which isn’t their strong suit. 

and they end up choosing to wrestle! which means that tony isn’t actually up for murdering bucky in coldblooded revenge, and bucky’s being as non-lethal as bucky gets while he tries to get away. (ignore the fact that the real reason it was choreographed like a bar fight is that a brawl is more fun to watch -- i’m enjoying my meta)

steve, on the other hand, is all melee anyway, so it’s hard to say what his lethality intentions are. his goal at the start is to protect bucky, even if it meant using deadly force. but by the end of the fight...i think steve just wants to take tony down.

right before the end, bucky goes for tony’s arc reactor. he knows if he destroys it, the suit will power down, making tony unable to fight but not dead. (tony hasn’t needed the arc reactor to live since before bucky’s character was introduced, i think bucky would have known tony’d be fine)

then tony blasts bucky’s metal arm off, stands still for a dramatic moment, then hits bucky with a non-deadly repulsor blast, then stands still for another dramatic moment, all this time not killing bucky yet.

which is when steve comes at tony, hard, and, uh, beats the tar out of him. tony gets the upper hand, then stops and tells steve to stay down. but steve comes at tony again and really really beats the tar out of him, and tony thinks he’s about to get killed for real.

non-lethal, non-lethal.....coulda been lethal. steve’s the worst behaved of the bunch, imo. 

it makes sense for steve to be a wreck! his judgement is all fucked up. he’s an overprotective mess over bucky -- who died on steve’s watch once anyway, landing him with some spectacular survivor’s guilt -- which means he’s thinking in emotinoal absolutes. steve KNOWS that tony is going to kill bucky which means steve has to do ANYTHING he can to stop it, no price too high. plus steve gets caught up in the need to win fights, even ones where he doesn’t need to keep fighting, because he’s stubborn and has a chip on his shoulder and has a bit of a temper.

(i also think this fight is an example of why mcu steve is a terrible captain america as written: he's not cut out for the shield. this fight wasn’t about protecting the world, it was about protecting the person he loved. in terms of superhero symbolism this scene was like if both bucky and a school bus full of kids were falling and steve picked bucky to save. not superhero-like! you could argue that putting bucky first doesn’t make steve a bad person, but it definitely makes him a bad cap.)

tony is also a wreck! bucky is a guilt-ridden half-brainwashed disaster who definitely has moments where he’s pretty sure tony’s justified in trying to kill him! nobody is behaving well!!! but steve’s goals and reasons still seem to be the most questionable to me. he seems the most like he’s acting out personal beef and escalating instead of de-escalating. so that’s my stance. i am not sure if this is actually what the wank is about but that’s what i think!

SIDE NOTE: this fight scene is terribly written. the character goals are all over the map! you never know what the characters immediate goals are, or really their long-term goals.  there’s all these moments where a character is slammed into the wall and then they just kind of grapple there uselessly for a minute before breaking apart. nobody has any concrete, stated goals at the end beyond “do cool punches together” and “exchange brief, emotionally loaded lines”

in a good fight scene you know what everyone wants at all times -- you just don’t know how they’re going to get it or what they’re willing to sacrifice for it. both in the long term (ie, i wanted to hide in here and instead there is an angry blacksmith swinging a sword at my nose) and in the short term (ie, i’m handcuffed and need to be not handcuffed so i can be better at not getting stabbed). mcu movies are TERRIBLE at this a lot of the time. spiderverse is great at this -- think about the fight with peter, miles and doc ock in the lab where they’re trying to get the data to make the goober. the whole time their ultimate goal is to escape with the computer. along the way they encounter a bunch of immediate problems -> solutions such as “can’t find the files -> take entire computer” and  “miles can’t swing -> give him a webshooter and push him off the roof.” every time the viewer gets two KEY pieces of information: 1) what is the immediate problem and 2) what tools do the characters have to solve it.

MCU CONSISTENTLY FAILS TO DO THIS!

take the bit in the siberia fight where steve lassos tony around the neck and uses him as a flaily parachute. we start with bucky trying to climb out the roof and steve helping. tony is fighting them. steve tells bucky to go on ahead and we briefly see steve pulling a gizmo out of his pocket -- what does it do? we don’t know. steve has a Plan. what does he need it for? we don’t know! we won’t know until tony flies upwards (ah steve had predicted that the problem would be “stop tony from flying,” rather than...any of the other things tony could have done) and steve flings his lasso around tony’s neck and drags him down (oh he had a handy lasso gadget i guess). how unsatisfying! we didn’t get any chance to predict what would happen, it just did, and in retrospect you can figure out the motivations. it has zero story content.

the action does NOTHING to help tell the story. it just looks cool. that’s it. there’s nothing for the viewer to engage with or chances to use your brain. the only thing the fucking movie asks from you is that you wait and see.

fucking disgraceful.

OKAY I HAD SOME FEELINGS PROBABLY THIS SHOULD BE TWO POSTS BUT WHATEVER BYE

[serpentcrown]

( 31. Revolter. Owner of the Rosewood Maiden. Nobility. Shit-stirrer. )

Zoya Nathair, daughter of the Duke of Serpents, born Zoya Casimira Lucem Zilvinas Nathair. Spawned a ghost story known as the Gaunter of Hightown in her youth. Known informally as the Prince of Snakes – an insult coined by her Lowtown cohorts, turned pet name & warning with time.

FULL APP / PLAYLIST / PINTEREST / SKELETON

( tw mentions of death; implied body horror; implications of negative views regarding gender roles/misgendering – Zoya often wears tailored men’s clothing and people likely have some Thoughts on that + her title as the Prince of Snakes partially stemming from this; not quite transphobia / misgendering but seemed pertinent to mention! )

It is an open secret in court, how something occurred with the Duke’s only daughter: nary a glimpse had been seen of her, the girl sick since birth. In what would have been her fifteenth and last year alive, the Nathairs retreated to their ancestral estate in the countryside near the Volkan to be with their youngest on her deathbed… only to return a scant few months later with a girl so vibrantly alive it seemed a scandal.

Rumours abounded: Vitalus! Conspiracy! … Necromancy? But if so, who? Certain threads of the truth followed them, sticking to the narrative like burrs to linen. The girl truly had been ill, and deathly so. A guest had come calling while out in the countryside. The Duke had begun frequenting Wyrmwood’s on a twice-monthly schedule, or rather, had sent a servant there.

No matter the tall tale, Zoya Nathair was undeniably alive – teetering between vivacious and vicious; a girl with a silver tongue that could cut like a dagger. Though seemingly cut from the same wolven pelt as the rest of the Nathair bloodline, she courted trouble and consequence like a cat intent on testing its nine lives – and lo, she’s always landed on her feet, no lives lost… yet. Since taking her proper place among the Tyrholm nobility, Lady Nathair has only seemed to escalate the amount of hubbub she can cause in a year. It took a sharp turn for the immediate worse when she won a tavern-cum-brothel in a game of cards at age 25, and has only gone downhill from there.

Somehow, the woman has found a way into the pockets of a good few families of noble standing – and yet no proof has been found yet that might send her to the gaol or gallows. Not even the way she so boldly teeters towards treason has gained her any consequence, much to the annoyance of a good few who would see her gone. That she has accrued such favour with the commoners does not help, either, as mere association with Lowtown drivel is cause for any sensible noble to turn their nose up.

Somewhere along the line, whispers of the Prince of Snakes made their way to Hightown and the castle. Supposedly, it began as an insult – the girl was certainly as arrogant as a princeling; the cut of her habitual uniform of expensively tailored men’s clothing rendering her an odd yet attractive figure… but in time, it had become a pet name. A title. A song had even made its way out of Lowtown, its very first verse sparked by common delight at noble misfortune–

Duke of Serpents, Prince of Snakes, king of liars, thieves and rakes– ruby, diamond, pearl and stone: rob you blind of blood and bone.

Stranger words still reached noble ears: that she had her hands in more sinister dealings than mere theft. That if there had ever been a Nathair wolf that hungered, it was her. Strangest of all was the notion that the Prince of Snakes truly had a serpent’s eye, and those in court more inclined to gossip and tall tales swear they’ve seen it – that in certain angles of light, there’s a glint of unnatural amber round the rim of her right iris, yellow as a snake’s.

Zoya does not mind it – the nobles can say whatever they like; she’ll take what she wants in due time. But the truth is this: she did die, that year. A guest did come calling, one whose hands counted only eight fingers, and her right eye is not only serpent’s yellow, but a cursed thing, a twisted blessing. Whether the hunger in her was simply latent, or a consequence of resurrection, she does not know. 

What began as a game for her own amusement – Zoya wilfully testing the limits of courtly patience just to see – has since become less playful and more serious. She cannot deny the delight she feels in the chaos she causes, nor that power has a certain intoxicating scent – but there are other concerns she does not speak. For now, she bides her time. Things are afoot in Tyrholm. She had best stay ahead of the pack.

MISCELLANEOUS PLOT POINTS

PURVEYOR OF SUNDRY GOODS–– if you need something, especially something Not Meant For Public Knowledge, chances are she can get it – for the right price. This does not necessarily mean gold: she has other ways of obtaining that, and secrets pay dividends. Illegal objects, illicit substances – fantasy smuggling, babey! let’s go

THE LOYALTY OF WOLVES–– she takes care of her own, which in Zoya’s case has rapidly become the lowest-of-Lowtown side of things. This would likely be information that finds its way to people with direct ties of their own to the less well-lit streets of Lowtown: she curries Lowtown favour in what should be described as a fantasy mobster’s version of taking care of the neighborhood. Will she swear up and down that this is a way of accruing power? Yes. (Is that solely it? No.) Cause for concern for some, perhaps, or point of intrigue for others!

FAITH IS A FLICKER–– though perhaps not traditionally devout, her resurrection brought out an unsettling feeling in her – a cross between curiosity and a distinct need for answers. She keeps a little shrine to the Undying in her home, and will sometimes be found in the Sanctum; off-hours, mostly, gazing at the reliefs and stained glass with a troubled – troubling – look in her eyes. This could be the cause for conversations of massive deflection – or perhaps you catch her in a moment of weakness and pull the truth from her tongue.

DEATH CAME CALLING AND THE UNDYING ANSWERED–– Zoya essentially eked out life where there was none for years, courtesy of her father’s coffers keeping her in Vitalus visits and medicine. The cost of resurrecting her left a metaphorical scar: I’m toying with the notion of necromancers being able to sense it on her, if you will, inklings of the sheer cost of what was done. Her right eye is not only serpent’s yellow – kept at bay by eye drops special-ordered from Wyrmwood’s – but she sees things if she doesn’t keep up with the chemical solution, or otherwise cover her eye up. Strange silhouettes, figures shifting at the periphery. Did her resurrection wake something latent within her, or is it a remnant? Who Can Say.

( will be habitually updated once I can think of more! )

[i-write-shakespeare-not-disney]

Directory’s Commentary- Love for You, Keith and Lance talk in the car

You know the drill :)

A while later, Keith came back and shut the console off mid-game. Keep in mind that by now, Keith has been sitting with the information that Lance had a panic attack AND never told him for a while. After everything else and trying to do better, he’s annoyed as hell now and hence... no patience. “What the hell?” Lance snapped. He wasn’t so much angry that he’d been playing, but the fact that Keith had hardly talked to him since he got back and simply decided to disconnect the game instead of asking Lance to pause it. “What was that for?” 

“We need to talk.” Lance stared at him, and Keith gestured to the door. “Outside. The last thing I need is for the kids to wake up.” And also, he wants to stop fighting in front of them, because the last time they argued inside, Violet got really upset if I recall correctly. It’s an attempt to shield them from arguments. 

Lance scoffed and got up to follow him outside. They got into Keith’s car and stared at the front of their house for a while. “What the hell happened?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you’ve been getting panic attacks in the middle of the day?” Keith asked in a flat voice. Y’all ever realize how when someone is pissed, it’s scarier for their voice to be all calm and quiet as opposed to loud and angry? Yeah. Keith is now at quiet voice anger. Lance frowned, unsure of what he meant. “Why didn’t you tell me… you can’t handle watching the boys?” He only got Violet’s understanding of it, so to Keith, it’s like Lance couldn’t handle the boys on his own because of the trauma, which he feels Lance should’ve told him. Lance meanwhile takes this as a jab at his parenting. Keith finally turned to look at him, his face bathed in moonlight. “Why do I have to hear it from my concerned, eleven-year-old daughter?” Then what upsets Keith is that Violet got subjected to seeing it and dealing with the worry on her own for Keith’s sake. There’s things younger children should have to do or feel obligated to do, and Keith- having never gotten a decent childhood- doesn’t want his daughter sacrificing any bit of childhood for them. Plus what he says later-

Lance clenched his jaw and ran a hand through his hair. “I can handle taking care of my sons,” he muttered. “And she’s my daughter too. The whole “My eleven year old.... etc” felt like another jab. Like he wasn’t part of it or something. And granted, because Keith had them, he has this extra sense of protectiveness, which isn’t to say he loves them more than Lance or anything, but y’know for Lance it’s like... what I didn’t have them so I’m not part of this conversation? It feels territorial which isn’t fair because they’re his kids too. What did she tell you?” Lance just wants to know what he needs to clear up, but of course to Keith it’s like wjhkadsjfakfj WHAT DO YOU MEAN just tell me what the fuck happened like you should’ve WHEN it happened!!!

“Why don’t you tell me?” Keith snapped.

Lance looked over at him and glared. “I freaked out for a second, okay? It happened once; it doesn’t mean I can’t handle my kids. Violet freaked a little, but I was fine-”

“You told her not to tell me!” Keith yelled. THIS is a big yikes. From personal experience, there is ALWAYS a sense of guilt and confusion and fear when a parent tells you to keep something secret from the other. Lance had NO malicious intentions, but it’s still heavy for a kid, and once Keith found out it just felt.... well like being lied to and roping their kid into it. 

“Because you don’t listen!” Lance yelled back. Lance does feel justified because he DID want to tell Keith himself, but Keith never opened a space for him to talk. So now they’re both just pointing fingers at each other. “Because no matter how many times I tell you I can’t sleep or I don’t want to, it just seems so easy to you. Just send me to sleep every time I get a little frustrated, because you’re not the one with the fucking nightmares!”

“They would go away if you-”

“No they won’t!” Lance shouted, hitting the dashboard. “Fuck. Keith, come on. I don’t want a fucking psychologist because I know what’s wrong with me. I know I’m traumatized, I know that…. Talking about this shit with someone isn’t going to make the nightmares stop. I don’t want to be given medication meant to numb my brain until I sleep. These aren’t stopping until I make it past the fucking cycle. What I want is to be comforted by my husband, to be with my family, not have my brain picked at by a stranger telling me I’ll be okay!”Per usual, I really want both sides to make sense and be justified. I need Keith’s side of “you should have told me, why did you hide this AND tell Violet not to tell me” to be valid and I need Lance’s pain and anger of everything he just said to make sense too. And what makes them clash is the lack of communication and the different stages they’re in. Keith is expecting Lance to be able to just act on the problems and work for a solution and tell him things, but Lance needs him there giving him a space to safely tell him what he’s going through and give him the comfort he needs at a pace. Keith isn’t giving Lance a chance to say what he needs, but Lance also isn’t bringing it to Keith’s attention and he’s putting on a face so Keith doesn’t realize what he needs. As you can see it starts to go in circles. And right now that he IS telling Keith, it’s like.... Keith is in a very angry and frustrated state now and he’s taking Lance’s tone and words as an accusation. Like he’s not a good enough partner or parent rather than a cry for help.

“What happens if the next time you panic, you hurt Charlie or Oliver?” Keith said in a quiet voice. “What, I’m supposed to come home and shrug and say it’s fine because you’re having a hard time?” Another fair point. Things could have gotten really bad if Violet hadn’t arrived, and it’s a valid concern. Keith as a parent definitely prioritizes the kids over anything, so while he’s now aware of what Lance says, he’s also pointing out that by not telling him before, the kids could’ve been in danger in some way because of a PTSD episode. 

“I’m not going to hurt them.”

“You don’t know that.” Keith sniffed and ran his hands through his hair. “God, Lance. You think you’re the only one traumatized? I was in the war with you. I jump when I hear certain ringtones and alarms because they sound like the sirens in the Castle. I have to stop and breathe when the construction workers next door are a little too loud demolishing shit because it sounds like the blasters. I’m there with you. Keith’s trying to say “we’re in this together” but with how upset he is, it’s not coming across. But he’s also trying to remind Lance that he’s not weak or dumb for struggling, that he is too. Because Keith thinks that shame is part of why he won’t say anything. I get nightmares too. But you’re…. You’re losing sleep. You’re having these panic attacks and flashbacks in the middle of the day when you’re alone with the kids-” The argument was STARTING to de-escalate here, or at least Keith was trying to reel it back and take on a more comforting approach, but again, to Lance it just sounded like Keith was blaming him. For not handling it, for struggling too much with PTSD in comparison, for bad parenting, etc. 

“Maybe if you stayed home I wouldn’t be alone.” Then this happened.

The change in Keith’s face was immediate, and it made Lance’s stomach churn. He knows Keith’s expressions by now. He knows that this means anger there’s no coming back from tonight. “Goddammit. This again?” he hissed.

“I-I know you want to provide for us, Keith, but…. God, I don’t care about how much money we have or how many luxuries we can afford. I just want you here with us like you’ve been this week-”

“You’re the one always talking about giving the kids more than what we had!” Keith exclaimed. “For fuck’s sake make up your mind! It is a lot of back and forth with of them, isn’t it? I don’t like being home all day, Lance, I need to be doing something. So.... The “I don’t like being home” came across in the worst way for Lance. To Lance, this was “I don’t like being home with you. I don’t like our home. I need to be away from the house, from you.” But Keith meant it in the sense that... he can’t be still. He can’t be stagnant. He has to be doing something besides trying to figure out how to pass the days, especially when Violet’s at school. While Lance enjoys being home with the kids and figuring out games and knows how to pass the hours, Keith just can’t. Sit still. Working gives me a routine, and it gives me the chance to give the kids things they need and things they want. And even then we’re still barely making it because we spend on so many pointless things-” I just hear this from so many adults in my life. They’re always working for more money, and when they have it they get so excited they spend it all, and then it’s a struggle with no money again and over and over. 

“Alright! Whatever. You’ll go right back to work Monday and it’ll be the same as ever,” Lance muttered. In my head, the underlying message in that sentence was “Shut up, soon you’ll go back to work and none of this will matter because you won’t have to deal with it.” “The nightmares will stop soon. We’ll just go right back to normal.” Normal for Lance is... well, the routine. But as mentioned before during the sleepover, normal isn’t okay for Keith anymore. It’s scaring him. So he stays quiet.

Keith didn’t say anything to that. Lance wasn’t sure if he expected him to. But he knew what he didn’t expect was for Keith to get out of the car and leave him alone. The silence says a lot. But leaving I think says more. I can’t even put into words the emotion or the intent or the unspoken words I wanted here. I think that sense of someone just walking out on you says a lot and I hope that it causes the emotion I wanted. I just know my heart falls to my stomach at the concept of Keith leaving Lance alone, and Idk. It’s something I can’t fully express in words, so I left it as an action. Lance stared at the dash for a moment, feeling sick to his stomach. Then he got out of the car, manually locking it before he went back into the house.

[uzumaki-rebellion]

“Wet Sugar” [Part 9 of 30]

Summary: Erik returns...

NSFW. Mature Audience. Smut

If you enjoy it, please like/comment/reblog, etc! Share the love!

"You've crossed my mind, a thousand times The cost was fine, I draw the line I'm back, relapse, I'm fiending Yes, what's that? The fact, I'm dreaming Coconut oil, the scent of your body still lingers on sheets I got a shot at you, you wouldn't reach Cock back, cock back, trigger release Pop that top, take a sip of your holiest water I know I'm a part of your flow now See when you cut her, don't matter you love her And now you got part of her soul, now I ain't know then, but I know now…"

Ari Lennox (Feat. J. Cole) – "Shea Butter Baby"

Erik couldn't breathe any relaxed air until they had flown out of Nigeria.

It became clear after they had left the African continent that Klaue was on a master hit list in several countries he was doing a brisk business with. The man tried to play it off that he was not concerned with the new threats, but Erik could tell from Klaue's unnatural quiet manner that the man was facing a crisis. 

Confirmation came when Erik and Limbano took down two outed S.H.E.I.L.D. agents in Egypt as they slipped into Europe via Italy and had to take a long land haul into Afghanistan with several vehicles. Slipping into ghost-mode, they needed the help of Tahir to route them into Kabul safely. The irony. Kabul being a safe space for them.

Brain on battle mode, Kabul was to be the place to exchange coveted goods that Klaue would not reveal to anyone, not even Erik. Two weeks in the waiting period, Erik was told that he would take the secret goods back to St. Thomas and watch over them until Klaue could find a buyer. Erik could only think in three-hour units of time while in Kabul. Any future thoughts of the Virgin Islands or what waited there for him could not be entertained. Battle mode meant survive while completing the immediate task. Compartmentalize. Stay alert. Prepare alternative solutions ahead of time. Being off the grid was a life of extreme uncertainty even with the best-laid plans.

Stress ate at him.

He was abrupt with everyone around him, including Klaue. His evenings were spent in the bar inside the five-star hotel he stayed in. Klaue's way of rewarding him for saving their asses in Botswana. Erik spent twenty hours of each day holed up in his suite, ordering room service, watching mindless cable, and drinking for the four hours he left the room each day. Klaue gave him a week there. He wished he could enjoy it, but all he wanted was to finish the transfer and get the fuck outta Dodge. Return to sun, sand, clear waters…

He refused to check on Yani. Had to. Too much was happening around him with Klaue that he couldn't spare the mental energy just to look at any recent pictures or posts on her social feeds.

After polishing off what amounted to a full bottle of whiskey in one of the few hotels in Kabul that allowed liquor for tourists only, Erik received a private text from Klaue that the pick-up would go down the next day.

"Shit," Erik whispered, feeling a little unsteady as he went back to his suite. Everything was need-to- know with Klaue there, and Erik wished he had word four hours previous before he drowned his liver in alcohol. He would have to drink a lot of water to piss it out.

Showering and then packing, Erik wasn't surprised when Klaue showed up at his door.

"You look quite comfy in that robe, mate," Klaue said.

Erik finished organizing his duffel bag on the king-sized bed and stuck his hands inside the pockets of the plush robe.

"Wish you woulda mentioned go-time sooner."

"I have to keep things close. You know this. We're going near the Bagram base. My contact is an insider. Only you know this."

Erik studied Klaue's face.

"That's risky."

"What are great rewards without great risks?"

"Shits been hella sketchy, man—"

"I told you. Last gig before a little break. I'm going deep underground right after."

"How long?"

"I'm going to play it by ear, but I need you working the moment you get to Our Lady's Manor. You are going to take my prosthetic with you."

The statement gave Erik pause.

"Do what you have to do to stabilize the damn thing. I have some vibranium there, enough for you to experiment with. Use all your goddamn talents to fix this thing. I'm heading to Jo'Burg after this—"

"Are you fucking crazy? Why would you go back—"

"Why wouldn't I? The place I'm least expected to show up. I have more security there and ways to completely vanish."

"What are you gonna do? Fly over and parachute down, because there is no way you can cross borders…fuck…you're going to jump in? You crazy muthafucka."

Klaue gave a wicked smile.

"I'm a pirate at heart. You know that. Fly in…drop in."

Erik did his absolute best to keep his face neutral. He should go with him. If things were different, that would be exactly his plan. Go to South Africa, experiment on Klaue's arm there and other weapons, then prep for a Wakanda opening. Smart move would be to post up on the continent.

But he wasn't being smart.

He was being reckless. Unscripted. Compulsive. Opening himself up to trouble.

It would be so easy to tell this devil that he was going to Jo'Burg too. Huntsman or Limbano or Shipley could oversee the St. Thomas compound. He didn't need to be there…

"Run it down for me. I don't want to wait for tomorrow. You know I don't like last-minute shit."

"That's why I'm here," Klaue said.

Erik sat on the bed and focused.

###

"I don't like this."

Limbano drove to the second checkpoint of their journey, his voice gruff, and his fingers tapping on the steering wheel of the jeep they were in.

"Everything is cool, my friend," Tahir said, checking his cell, "the man up ahead is one of ours. Move over to the next lane and relax."

Limbano did as Tahir instructed and Erik could feel the man's tense mood escalate. They just needed to get past the checkpoint and then head out toward the desert following the GPS coordinates Klaue finally released to them.

Fake I.D.'s clipped to their military-issue gear, the first checkpoint had been a breeze to cross through. Erik just had to keep his face forward when he spoke so his slugs wouldn't tip off the private contractor's checking them through.

Their rendezvous point had a limited time gap, and they were ahead of schedule thanks to Tahir and his groundwork. The military base did external vehicle patrols in ninety-minute intervals and Erik had their timing down to a T. Once they passed a certain point that brought them closer to the base, they could not afford to attract any attention, hence the U.S. military get-ups to blend in.

The guard at the second checkpoint was a beefy-faced Afghan police officer in a drab olive-colored uniform. A brown flak vest covered his chest and the helmet he wore on his head looked cumbersome. He had an AK-47 pointed toward the ground as he directed cars to drive through or pull over to be inspected. Several vehicles were pulled to the side and being thoroughly checked by other officers. At their approach, his furtive glances inside their jeep let Erik know he was a newbie. But a newbie easily swayed by money to look the other way.

The police officer held up a biometric scanner to Limbano's face. He cleared.

They were waved on and Limbano visibly relaxed. Tahir patted him on his shoulder.

"Head West," Tahir said.

Behind them were Klaue, Shipley, Huntsman and a native interpreter…just in case. Erik and Tahir were fluent in Arabic, but not the nuances of a lot of Afghan contacts they could possibly run into. A third jeep brought up the rear. They all made it through the checkpoint with ease.

Simple plan.

Get in. Collect the goods Klaue had planned for Erik to smuggle back to the island. Get back to the local airport and part ways. Outside of Erik and Tahir, everyone else was firepower, each jeep filled with enough weapons to start a mini-war if needed. Whatever was inside those artifacts needed a small vetted army to get it out of the country. On top of that, Klaue only wanted Erik to guard it while they all went into hiding.

Someone inside the Airforce base was in cahoots with Klaue. Whatever was in the "package" was worth the risk, and worth going underground for a spell. Erik could only think of one thing. Intel. Intel that could destroy lives and save Klaue's as long as he held it. Intel he wouldn't take with him to South Africa. Intel that couldn't be downloaded or transferred from military protected servers, but handed off in person. Saving the man's life twice had afforded Erik the privilege to hold the goods. Alone.

They bypassed going through the private contractor checkpoints and went off-road to rendezvous ten miles from the base.

"Fuck is that?" Erik said.

They all caught sight of a speeding unescorted military S.U.V. heading their way kicking up a sandstorm behind it.

"Klaue, what is this?" Erik barked into a two-way radio.

It was too damn soon for the pick-up and too damn close to the base. They didn't even have a chance to do reconnaissance…

"It's our guy. Don't know why…shit—"

Klaue's voice dropped on the radio as they saw a wide swathe of desert sand billowing up at least five miles behind the runaway S.U.V. A caravan of vehicles chasing the lone rogue.

"Gun it!" Erik shouted to Limbano as he grabbed the AK-47 Tahir handed him.

The jeep surged forward as Limbano switched gears.

"Always cutting it fucking close…" Erik grumbled.

Limbano swung the jeep around next to the S.U.V.

A white woman in civilian clothing leaped out of the vehicle carrying a gun-metal hardshell attaché. A camo bucket hat covered her hair, and dark wrap-around visors kept her eyes hidden.

"My cover was blown!" she shouted handing Klaue the case.

Klaue's eyes peered over her shoulder as the surprise vehicles barreled down on them. Erik counted five S.U.V,'s and three military jeeps. Tahir stood next to Erik with an RPG resting on his shoulder.

"They'll scatter and surround us if I shoot this now," Tahir said.

"They'll circle us either way," Erik said as the other men stood near their closely parked vehicles with their AKs. They'd have to use their own jeeps for cover.

"What happened?" Klaue asked as the men grabbed weapons.

The woman removed her shades.

Shit. She was Klaue's squeeze from St. Thomas. Amy.

"Site exit codes have been switched every four hours on base. It took longer to secure the package and I had to move before the attache was seized and I missed your window. There was nothing I could do. I had to move," Amy said. Her eyes glanced behind her.

The vehicles were separating.

"Good luck!" Amy said as she ran back to her S.U.V., hopped in, and gunned it past them.

SSS-BLAM!

A rocket grenade streaked overhead from the sky and hit one of the oncoming jeeps.

Erik's eyes stared as a Mi-17 flew in low and fast.

Tahir let one of his rocket grenades fly striking another S.U.V. Erik kept his eyes and AK-47 on the chopper.

"This you?" Erik yelled at Klaue.

"Always have a Plan B, C, and D," Klaue said winking.

The chopper touched down behind their jeeps and a woman jumped out in full fatigues carrying a small laptop. She slammed it on the hood of Erik's jeep and typed fast.

"Nice to finally meet you in person, Killmonger," the woman said when her eyes caught his.

Erik grinned.

"Nice entrance, Linda," he said.

"Load up!" she yelled. Klaue and the others ran to the chopper. Limbano stood next to Erik, accustomed to seeing things through like him.

"This will shut down their S.U.V.s. They put Safetrak software on their cars to retrieve stolen vehicles, but that left them vulnerable to people like me. I can only disable the S.U.V.'s though…one more second….and done. Last one back!" she yelled running toward the chopper.

Once Erik and Limbano dived into the chopper behind Linda, the Mi-17 lifted up fast. Linda grabbed two hand grenades from her vest pockets, popped the pins, and dropped them down on their jeeps blowing them up.

Swooping away from the scene, Erik glanced out the open side door. Below them, he could see Amy driving her S.U.V. like a rabid bat out of hell as she headed for the mountains.

"She might make it," Erik said.

"She'll make it. I gave her a nice nest egg for this," Klaue said clutching the attaché that brought all the trouble.

Erik buckled up into his chopper seat. Linda plopped down next to him securing her own belt.

"Nice work," he said holding out his fist. She bumped her fist with his.

"I get your final approval then?"

"Hell yeah," he said.

Her face was flushed from the exertion and her smile was wide.

"Buy me a drink and thank me properly," she said.

"Bet."

###

Linda drank him under the table.

Once they escaped the desert, Klaue released everyone after money was deposited in offshore accounts and secret banks on the deep web. Erik was already comfortable with funds, but the Kabul job rewarded him handsomely with extra. Part of it was a babysitting fee to keep Erik off the market in St. Thomas for the next three months, or until Klaue was ready to emerge again from hiding.

Housed in a Lebanese hotel, Klaue treated them all to a lush meal and the best alcohol he could throw money at. They cut loose.

Everyone spruced up a bit for dinner, and Erik was right about Linda being sexy when she went all out. She was comfortable and fit in with all the testosterone and masculine energy surrounding her. Even while wearing a fancy red cocktail dress. She cursed like the best of them, and damn if she didn't make some of them look like children trying to hold their liquor.

The Black geek in both of them came out later in the evening when they started discussing ways to shut down security systems that were more complicated in just two years. He felt like he was back at M.I.T. or his old Stark internship while shooting the shit with her over coding and cybersecurity. She had a brain he could respect. She also didn't make fun of him when he had to slow down his drinking to keep his eyes from swimming. For the first time in weeks, he was feeling breezy. He survived some tough jobs and could now chill for a couple of months with a bounty in his bank account.

Tahir found a club that played decent enough music and he brought along more women that made their little party merrier after dinner.

Erik couldn't tell exactly when he let his guard down low enough for her to climb over, but on the cab ride back to the hotel Klaue set up for all of them, Linda crawled onto his lap, her lips smacking on his, and the liquor pushed him to respond.

He missed being around a woman.

Missed how they smelled.

Missed titties.

And feminine curves.

Kissing.

Softness.

He took her to his hotel room, and in his stupor, tried his best not to think of where he was headed next once he left Lebanon. Erik wiped away all images of a certain young woman with eyes that cut deep and a voice that melted his insides.

What he was about to do was just a release. No different than jerking off to porn. He wasn't cheating. That island girl was not truly his woman yet. Not until he had her in the biblical sense. And she was probably dating or seeing someone for sure. Some nigga probably slid into her DMs and wore her down. He wouldn't blame her if she moved on fast. Hell, he expected women to handle their business in his absence. He couldn't be mad if some other dude got between her thighs before he did…

Liar.

He must've been really off with the sauce if he was hearing Yani's voice in his head.

She told him before he left St. Thomas that she hadn't been with a man all the way since Chez got her pregnant. He wanted to be the first man stroking her walls with his dick. Be the first to cum inside of her. Over and over.

The liquor didn't stop his manhood from plumping up and making his pants tight.

Linda took notice and kissed him with a passionate fervor. He let her tongue slip deeper into the recess of his mouth as he felt up her chest, groaning when he held breasts and nipples again.

Stress relief.

That's what he kept telling himself.

Rolling a condom on his engorged length, he widened his knees on the carpeted hotel floor as Linda arched her back for him, ass poked out, her hands gripping the couch she was facing. She must've been really horny for him because she cut the foreplay the moment she saw his dick. They went from kissing to him lining up his glans against her weeping slit in zero to five.

"When's the last time you had dick?" he said as he pushed into her.

Her head turned back to look at him.

"Good dick, or just dick?" she asked.

He slapped her ass.

"Good dick," he huffed out as he let her feel inch by slow inch of him. He was planted in her nice and tight and her gasps let him know she was pleased.

"Oh…shit…your dick is feeling fucking great right now and you haven't even started yet," she said moaning when he pulled out slowly and sunk back into her again.

"You acting like you wanna rush shit," he said swiveling his hips as he pumped into her. Her back muscles quivered. She clutched the couch tight and pressed her forehead into the cushion.

"Fuck! You're stretching me out…hold up…let me—"

He slapped her ass again and grabbed both of her arms and pulled them back. Her head was lifted up and she couldn't get loose from him.

"Ain't no holding up. You want this hard and fast. That's how you're acting," he said.

"Oohhh!"

"Huh? Saw my shit and wanted the dick bad—"

"Yeah…yeah—"

"You gettin' it-"

"God, yes! Fuck me!"

Lips curled, balls slapping her ass, erratic horniness fueling his thrusts, Erik made Linda beg for the pounding he gave her. Pumping in and out of her his glutes flexed and unflexed, his back muscles working just as hard.

Her cell phone lit up and vibrated on the couch.

"Who calling you right now?" he asked, not stopping his thrusts. He could see the avatar of some tanned male torso.

"Shit, Sergio!" she squealed.

"Boyfriend?"

"Ooohhh!" she screamed letting her head drop down even as his grip held her arms tight.

"You fucking me and your man is calling?"

"Shut up and keep fucking me!" she shouted.

"Answer your phone."

Erik released her hands and they dropped to the floor. Her head turned to the side looking back at him.

"Hell no!" she yelped as he double-tapped her pussy, cramming himself even deeper making her eyes squeeze shut, "You feel so fucking good Eri—"

"Answer your phone, bitch!"

He struck Linda's ass again then reached down and gripped her neck. He stopped thrusting and she threw her ass back trying to keep his momentum in her pussy.

"I can call him back later."

Reaching for her phone she lifted a finger to swipe it silent, but Erik snatched up her hair and yanked her neck back.

"I said answer your damn phone. Now!"

His tone froze her. He kept his body still.

"Bitch, don't play wit me. Answer it. Talk to him."

"You are so foul," she hissed.

"I'm foul?"

The weight of his dick had her mouth open.

Erik leaned over her sweat-laced back and swiped her phone putting it on speaker. Linda slapped his hands.

He resumed fucking her.

Slowly.

"Sergio?"

"Linda…sweetheart, why haven't you returned my calls. You have me worried…"

Spanish accent. A few words of Spanish endearments to seduce her ears from so far away. Andulusian dialect. But not native to the region. His English was perfect. A dual-language learner like himself.

"I am fine, babe. New job is keeping me…keeping…busy…hmmm"

Erik pumped a little faster as he gripped her waist, causing her to lose track of language. "Sounds like your phone is cutting out," Sergio said.

"N-n-no…it's fine…"

Linda shoved her right hand over her mouth as Erik squeezed her nipples and long-stroked her pussy.

"Get this dick," Erik whispered and her hand left her mouth and reached back trying to hit him once more to silence him.

"Squeeze my dick, bitch," he said a little louder. "What was that?" Sergio said.

"I have the t-t-tv on, Serg," she blurted out in an odd octave.

"Is everything okay?"

"It's good…soooo good," she hissed dropping her head on the couch again. She bit the cushion to prevent her cries from escaping her lips.

Sergio prattled on about his job, the weather, when she was returning to Spain, and Linda responded with muffled grunts and groans that made Erik's dick harder.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked.

"I'm just tired, Babe," she blurted out fast. She pressed the mute button on her end and Sergio kept talking. Linda tossed her ass back hard.

"That's it…give it to me…show me how much you want this dick."

"Erik! Shit!"

"How you letting me fuck you like this?"

"Oh God! You're so deep inside my pussy…Erik! Erik!"

She was turned on by her boyfriend being on the phone.

"Take it off mute. Let him hear me wearing this pussy out! I'm bustin' this shit wide open—"

"Damn—"

"You want him to know I'm digging you out—"

"Fuck—"

"Play with my balls."

Linda's fingers reached past her mound and stroked his fat sack.

"Take it off mute!"

Her fingers left his balls for a second as she unmuted herself while Sergio was still jabbering non-stop. Erik hunched down tight against Linda's back.

"You a dirty bitch," Erik whispered in her ear. "Yes," she squeaked.

"Yes, what?" Sergio asked.

Erik tried to hold back a laugh as Linda covered her face from embarrassment.

"Nothing," she gasped into the couch.

Erik pulled out of her while she still held her phone in her hand. He motioned for her to lay back on the couch facing him. She did what he wanted and he plunged back into her while holding her legs wide open.

Her slippery walls made him hit the bottom off her vagina and his long strokes made the squelching sounds their friction created louder. Soon, her pussy was taking in too much air and queefing sounds erupted. Erik threw his head back. Her pussy felt so good to him at that moment.

"Oh shit!" he shouted.

When he looked down at Linda her face looked horrified that her pussy was making farting sounds.

"Linda, what's going on?"

Sergio sounded distressed.

"I'll call you back, Serg. I'm getting a call from my boss," she shrieked into the phone. She ended the call and tossed her cell on the couch. Erik pulled all the way out so that her vagina could release the rest of the air trapped in it. He settled himself behind her on the couch and pulled her body to line up with his so he could insert his erection back in while holding her leg up.

"You didn't want your man to hear me cum in your pussy?"

Linda yanked on his locs with her right hand. He shifted his arm so that he held her leg back and could stroke her clit that sat like a tiny pink pearl. He could feel the light stubble on her shaved mound and outer lips as he rubbed her clit. "You gon' let me cum in this pussy?"

"You know I will," she said, a bit of sass in her voice. He pumped harder to knock the confidence out of her voice. He liked her begging voice more.

"Show me you want me to nut all in you."

He pressed that slick pearl of hers harder and her legs trembled. She arched her back and pushed against him, trying her best to slam her pussy down his shaft.

"I like that. Keep doing that," he commanded. Pinching her clit, he watched her breasts jiggle as she forced herself back on him, trying to match his pace. Her body jerked and shuddered. She was cumming on him and he wasn't ready for her to tap out so soon.

He held still as the last big gasps fell away from her tense mouth. When he thought she was done he thrust his hips into her again and she laid there like a dead fish.

"Help me out, baby," he whispered to her, trying to coax her to wiggle or grind her hips, or anything that would help him release.

She gyrated a little bit and he heard her suck in a breath when his dick went deep. She came back around again and started fucking him with added zeal, ushering back the intensity of his arousal.

"I'm gon' cum on your clit."

His heated panting had grown heavier and he could hear her whimpering as she opened her legs wider for him.

"Here it comes!"

He pulled out and she removed the condom from his erection. Rubbing the tip against her clit, his semen splashed a fierce streak across the top of her mound and all over her stomach. Her fingers rubbed all over his sensitive glans, smearing his cum around the spongy slick head. It was a decent orgasm. He wanted another.

They retired to the hotel bed and Erik fucked her again in missionary, this time making sure to cum first. Linda's orgasms wiped her out and it took her time to snap back from her release. His second orgasm with her was so much better, the condom felt like it had more ejaculate in it than the amount he spewed on her stomach earlier.

She gave him a nice blowjob in the early morning before they had to leave the hotel. He found it interesting that she didn't like oral sex done to her. He tried to go down on her, but she admitted readily that it wasn't her thing. His curiosity compelled him to pester her about it until she explained.

"I just don't like it. I don't get pleasure from it. It doesn't excite me."

"Have you ever had one great session?"

"No."

"Really? Cuz I can eat some pussy—"

"Erik, I don't like doing it. Do you know how many men have told me they eat pussy well? It doesn't matter. I don't enjoy it, so I don't do it."

Her voice had a touch of petulance to it so he didn't push her further on it. It was just a rare thing for him to encounter.

They shared a friendly kiss when they separated at the airport. He almost felt bad that her first job with Klaue went well but she would be left hanging until he came out of hiding.

"Hopefully we will work together another time," she said. Eyes twinkling at him, she sounded sincere. Welcoming to anything more that could happen in the future. She knew her stuff and would come in handy when he decided to make that final move. He'd keep her name on the backburner. Klaue was stoked on her so Erik would see her again. She rubbed his arm and the non-sexual touch bothered him suddenly. He was going to fly into Turkey, change planes with Klaue's goods hidden in his computer bag, fly to Miami, and then hop a flight to the Virgin Islands. He didn't want to feel another woman's touch on him. Not now. His body was filled with strange jitters. He felt nervous. Perhaps it was a bad idea to mess with Linda. He needed to feel pure. Clean. And he didn't feel that way. He had killed four people while he was away from Yani and Sydette. He didn't want that energy around them.

When he landed in St. Thomas, his mood lifted tremendously. Whatever it was about this place, it made him feel lighter and unsullied when he rode the taxi to the compound.

Once his retina scan gained him complete access and control of the compound at the front gate, Erik stood in the main driveway for ten minutes with his belongings and Klaue's next to him. Three months. He had ninety days to experiment and watch the compound. That's all. Ninety days to be still when he wanted to be.

The sun warmed his body and he took off his shirt, letting the light and heat burn away the tension he carried in his body from being with Klaue. He was back in the same place as her. That girl was somewhere on that rock with her baby. Their baby.

He tilted his head back and let the light strike his closed eyelids until all he could see were visions of pure red.

Go to the beach.

He could cleanse his body in her seawater. Take a few days alone to settle himself.

Then and only then would he feel secure enough to face her once more.

###

Yani stared at the estimate on the piece of paper that the mechanic handed her.

"This much?" she said fretfully.

"I'm afraid so, Miss."

The mechanic, Petey, gave her a sympathetic look.

"Are there things you can hold off on doing right now?"

"I took off as much as I could already."

Sydette wiggled on the side of Yani's hip, the yellow and red beads in her hair pressed into Yani's shoulder.

"I'll have to come back," she said.

"I wouldn't wait too long to fix—"

Yani left the auto shop ignoring the rest of the mechanic's words.

She felt cheated.

Buying the little-used Subaru seemed like a great deal at the time. She finally had her own car, her own transportation, and things had been going well until she noticed the Subaru vibrating hard when she came to a stop sometimes. Then there were the transmission leaks, and the need to replace two balding tires. She took the car in and the diagnosis was a failing U-Joint. It would cost about five-hundred dollars for everything and a little more if they had to order and ship parts from the States. She couldn't afford all that now. She had just put aside hard-saved money for the deposit and first month's rent on a new apartment she was sharing with a fellow nursing student from the university. She and Marla were both single-mothers and decided to pool their resources and share childcare duties around their school schedules in the fall.

She texted Chez.

I coming by to pick up the baby's money.

As she drove into Red Hook, she prayed that he had all that he was supposed to give her. His portion of childcare funds would help her get through this crisis. She could dip frugally into her savings to cover the rest. The summer season at the restaurant was coming, so she could count on tips to help plump up her funds again soon.

Pulling up in front of Chez's house, she texted him again.

I'm here.

Come inside.

Bring me the money, I have to take the baby home.

I can't, I'm here with Star. Ursula is at work.

Bring her outside then.

She's sleep.

"Fucking annoying, man," she yelled at her cell.

Sydette babbled at her from the backseat.

"I know, I know…it's your little sister. I won't wake her up. Shit."

Yani unbuckled herself and then Sydette from her car seat and carried her to the front door.

"Detty!" Chez squealed holding his hands out for his daughter.

Yani let him take her and put her hands on her hips.

"Come in for a minute," he said.

"No."

"Let me have some time with her before you jet. Let her play with her sister—"

"You said she was asleep—"

"She was, but my ringtone woke her up. Ten minutes. Let the girls be together."

"I'll just go to the house and come back—"

"Don't waste gas. You here."

"If that bitch comes home, I don't want no problems—"

"She's not coming back until three. Trippin' all the time."

Yani stepped in and saw the chaos of their household. Clothes everywhere, adult clothes, and tons of toys. More than Sydette owned. The place stank of baby wipes, cheap perfume, and cigarettes. Shoes were everywhere unorganized. Chez's various trainers, flats and heels that belonged to Ursula. A whole two-bedroom house and no place to put things away properly? Pigs.

Chez made space for her on the hard couch that was all fashion and no comfort. It made Yani's ass hurt immediately.

Chez set Sweet Pea on a blanket on the floor, and their daughter sat there looking around confused. This wasn't Auntie's house. He ran into a bedroom and came back carrying his now nine-month-old. Wide-eyed, Star looked half-sleep and irritated, her thin hair plastered to her skull.

"Look whose here!" Chez said sticking Star into a walker where her legs dangled. Sydette looked at her sister, then stared back at Yani.

"Say hi to Star, Sweet Pea," Yani said.

"Mum," Sydette said. She stuck a finger in her mouth and then pointed at Star.

"Yes, that's Star."

Chez patted Sydette's hair beads. He walked back to the couch and sat down next to Yani. They both watched the girls.

"See, they get along good."

"If you say so," Yani said. The annoyance was back.

Sydette crawled over to a pile of wooden builder blocks and began playing with them. Star shook her body to try and move, and Yani cracked up with Chez. The baby looked hilarious flopping her arms and legs like someone electrocuted her. She was cute. Literally Chez in tiny light-skinned female form. The laughter left her when reality came back again. That was his cheat baby. The outside house child. The creation that tore apart their family.

It wasn't Star's fault, and Yani did her best to keep her hateful feelings toward Star's mother away from the baby itself.

Chez turned on the tv and found a toddler-friendly channel that caught both children's attention. Yani held her hand out.

Chez reached into his pocket and pulled out some folded bills.

"All good in the hood. I even got you two hundred extra this month," he said. She was relieved.

She reached for the money. He put it back in his pocket.

"Tell me about school. You all set?"

She rolled her eyes.

"C'mon, Chez. I have to go—"

"You can put your business on social media, but you can't talk to your baby's faddah about it? How that sound, Yani? Serious? I need to know what you are doing while you have my child, just like you get in all my business—"

"Chill, damn. I have my schedule ready for the first semester."

"You look excited."

"I am excited."

"Good. What are you taking?"

"Pathophysiology, Health Assessment, Intro to Nursing, and Communication for Health Professionals…yeah that's first semester."

She explained to him what the courses would entail and how she was excited about wearing a nurse's uniform. She excluded any mention of her new apartment and roommate. Yani didn't want him to know anything about that until school had started for her and she had a routine going that Sydette was comfortable with. She didn't need Chez rolling by checking on her and scaring the other woman.

Yani checked her cell.

"We need to go, Chez."

"I miss talking to you like this."

He glanced over at the girls. They seemed content. Star played with the noise-makers on her walker and Sydette had her hands clapping with Cookie Monster on Sesame Street. Star squealed and Sydette stared at her, reaching up and hitting one of the noise-makers herself. Star grabbed her fingers and Sydette squealed too, then looked over at them with a smile on her face.

"I want the girls to be together more. I want them to be close. No matter how much I messed up, they are still blood. Yeah?"

"Yeah."

He pulled her money out again. She reached for it and he pulled his hand back.

"We can still be close too, gyal."

"No, we can't."

"I think we can."

She felt her skin crawl. Her belly clenched tight.

"What is this?" she asked. Her eyes went to Sydette.

"I give you something extra this month…you give me something a little extra. We stay real friendly."

Closing her eyes, Yani shook her head. She should've never come into the house.

His hand snaked over and rubbed her thigh. She kept still. Ran through options. Came up with none. She needed that money. She had to fix her car so that it was safe for her and her baby. She needed to have her own apartment so that she could be close to school and the inexpensive daycare she found. Her Aunt's house was too crowded, too loud, and too stressful for her and Sydette.

"What…what do you want me to do?"

"Everything you used to do," he said.

His eyes looked unbothered by the request. She leaned forward as he spread his legs, then snatched the money from his hand and stuffed it down her bra.

She jumped off the couch and hurried over to pick up Sydette.

"You are a piece of shit!" she screamed at him.

He sprang from his seat to catch her and she used her foot to push Star's walker, rolling the baby toward him.

"Kicking mi pickney?!"

"I didn't kick her!"

Her heart was in her throat when she rushed to the front door as Chez picked up Star.

"Bitch!"

She flipped him off and slammed the front door on her way out.

###

J'ouvert was not for the weak.

Yani was up at three in the morning doing her make-up for the breaking in of carnival season before daybreak. There would be a shit-ton of drinking and walking. And dancing. Playing Jab Jab with colored chalk and paints. And people-watching. She was going to meet her friend Kemba's co-worker who was single. Conrad. Two kids. A J'ouvert fete seemed the best occasion to meet and dump someone if there was no connection. Conrad's IG photos were cute, and they spoke a few times over the phone. He had liked a couple of her swimsuit photos and didn't act creepy about her posing on Junior's album compilation. Good job. Good teeth. Baby Mama lived in Orlando, Florida.

Yani watched Twyla throw a purple plastic shower cap on her head.

"Last year I thought that shit would wash out my hair easy without protection…nope!" Twyla said tucking loose locs under the cap.

Their cousins Cee Cee and Sonya wore black satin bonnets.

"You sure you want to leave your hair out? Some people were throwing colored paint like last year. That shit was thick and took too long to come off." Sonya said.

"What is a little colored paint or powder on a baldie, huh?" Yani said.

Sonya sucked her teeth, "Yuh brave cuz."

Yani adjusted her blue jean bootie shorts, tugged on the black fishnet stockings that pinched at her thighs, and admired her black sleeveless top with the silver lettering under her breasts: Cruzan Junction. Twyla's shirt said, 'Thirsty?'. Her other two extra-thick cousins had 'It's All Natural' on their shirts.

"Kendall really on the mobile stage?" Cee Cee asked lining her lips with a lip pencil and pushing Yani away from the bedroom wall mirror.

"You loud women woke the babies up," Leona said carrying Sonya's toddler son, Bam.

"Twyla's the one that's loud," Yani fussed shoving Cee Cee back over so she could check her eye make-up. She rubbed mica-infused lotion on her arms, neck, and face to make her skin sparkle like Killmonger's earrings once the sun rose up.

"It smells like liquor in here," Leona said.

Yani watched her cousin Sonya hide the big plastic cup of Henny she was already breaking in behind her back. Yani hid her drink in a yellow custom cup, pretending not to hear the liquor comment. Her hips were already revving up and Conrad texted her that he would meet her by the mobile music truck/stage.

Leona took Bam back to Sydette, and once she was gone, more Henny was poured into other hidden cups.

How she missed this time with her cousins preparing to fete. She had laid up in her bed with a tiny newborn Sydette the previous year watching the women prepare and she felt sad, tired, and out of place. But not this year. She was going to make her bumper roll, and if Conrad was choice, he would get her rump on his groin as she threw it in a circle.

Cee Cee pulled out a joint and Twyla snatched it stuffing it into her bra.

"Yuh, craze gyal? She right there in the next room!" Twyla hissed slapping Cee Cee's arm.

"You know Auntie did this in her day. She nuh always a saint."

"True!" Sonya clucked. They all giggled and sipped.

"Aw, damn!" Twyla said peeking out of their shared bedroom window.

"What?" Yani said coming up next to her.

It was sprinkling.

"It's not supposed to last long. On and off. But it'll help cool us down," Yani said.

"It'll be messy out there," Twyla said with a scowl.

"Messy is your middle name," Yani teased.

Twyla punched her.

"Ow, bitch. You always so rough!" Yani complained.

"Let's go!" Cee Cee cheered clapping her hands.

Moist air, a soft sprinkling of water dropping from the dark sky, Yani rode shotgun in Leona's car with the window down and her right arm hanging out feeling the air.

Cleansing.

That's how it felt riding with her family.

A stripping away of stress and worry. Freedom to dance in the streets as a Galiber Queen, long blood descendants of the first rebel Queen in their family, Queen Mary Thomas of St Croix.

Self-proclaimed royalty was still royalty and having Thomas blood in her veins garnered respect on the island to those who knew. Every girl born to them was a Queen, skipping Princess on mere principle. From St. Croix to Copenhagen, to St. Thomas, Mary's bloodline was kept alive.

"What you grinning for cuz?" Twyla asked, glancing at her as she drove toward Charlotte Amalie.

"Fireburn!" Yani shouted.

All of her cousins laughed.

"Fireburn!" Twyla yelled out of her open window.

"Respect," Yani said. She sipped more Henny from her cup, the burning of the liquor down her throat equal to the burning that lived in her DNA.

Her eyes appreciated the light rain. A cleansing. Water. And fire. And faith in her heart that all things came together for her good, a Galiber Queen.

###

Erik bought a Henny rum punch from the mobile bar with "V.I. Feters" spray-painted with pink, green, and purple letters over its white covered façade. Drinking that hard so early in the morning was a different kind of treat. He sported black trainers, black joggers, and a white tank, his body enjoying the itinerant sprinkles of rain as revelers partied hard. This J'ouvert thing was no joke. He had no problem mingling and dancing with the crowd.

The early morning darkness brought out the surreal beauty of the hills twinkling with house lights on looking like stars decorating the island. Stars and diamonds. The dancing crowd reminded him of Brazil and the times spent celebrating carnival there as a child and a young man. He gazed in wonder at all the different people dancing as individuals or as part of clubs wearing matching colored t-shirts, waving white towels or shirts, blowing whistles, and partying hard. The Black diaspora was the same everywhere they were in the world celebrating any type of bacchanal.

He was confused when he saw so many women wearing shower caps, and bonnets, but when colored chalk flew around him striking bodies with gleeful exuberance as the sky turned a brilliant purple, Erik figured out why the coverage was needed. Dark black and dark brown bodies decorated in pink, green, blue, purple, red and yellow colors smeared from the light sprinkling of rain looked wondrous and whimsical. The colors became more vibrant as the sun rose above them and the music became more infectious. Soca rhythms soaked the streets and rattled the mobile D.J. stage that most of the people followed like a huge New Orleans second line. Umbrellas included.

Erik tried to stay low key and not very close to the mobile stage. He had heard a radio broadcast mention Kendall's name, and he knew if the young rapper was there, Yani would possibly be there too, and he still wasn't ready to see her just yet. He followed the source music from a distance, sipped on his drink and flicked hands from grabbing him. The women were pretty aggressive, especially the white ones, and although he appreciated the variety of beauty and revealing shapes around him, he didn't want to be touched by strangers, didn't want to be rubbed upon while he walked and drank and shook his ass a little bit. He just wanted to observe. Marvel. Allow his drink to keep him comfortably buzzed.

The revelers became a little too dense when the mobile D.J. truck stopped. Erik slipped back near a light post to give himself room to breathe. The merrymakers surged around him anyway and a familiar face caught his eye. Her hips shook fast and she danced with a man with a t-shirt wrapped around his head.

Erik drifted away from the light post as a slender woman climbed up part of it to wiggle her backside suggestively to the crowd while wearing an outfit that was almost a bathing suit. He eased over to the woman he spotted that had his heart beating a little faster. He reached out and touched her hand and she jerked away from him, her eyes narrowed and her lips curled up in a challenge.

"Who this big nigga, yeah?" she said in a loud voice.

"Your name is Twyla, right?" he asked.

"Who you?" she said standing closer to him.

These Galiber women were fine as fuck and Erik saw men shaking hips and moving around them while sneaking looks at her tall amazon ass sprinkled from head to toe with colored chalk.

"I know your Aunt Leona and your cousin…Yani."

"How you know dem, Black?"

Twyla had her own red cup in her hand and guzzled down its contents. Her eyes took him in.

"Our Lady's Manor."

Her eyes did a slow pan of him from top to bottom.

"Ah, the bad man on the hill. You fuck up Chez, yeah?"

"Something like that."

"Why are you pestering me? Yani is around here somewhere—"

"I was just saying hi, that's all."

"Okay, hi. Now what?"

She made him smile.

"You cute bad man. Mi see why Auntie liked you so much. You not ugly like dem other ones."

The longer he stood talking to her, the more anxious he got. His nerves were spiking. Why did he actively talk to Twyla? Yani could probably spot him now. He needed to blend back into the sea of colored black bodies. He wasn't ready—

"Mi call her for you—"

"Nah, I'll find her eventually…"

He walked away from Twyla as she held her cell, making his escape toward the mobile bar that pulled up far behind the D.J. truck. Ordering straight up Hennessey he leaned against the side of the bar and took small sips of his drink. He felt weird. Off-balance. The push and pull of yearning to see her, but not wanting to see her was confusing. He was a grown-ass man who had faced shit in his life over the past two months that most people would never recover from in a lifetime, and yet there he stood hiding near a liquor stand afraid to see a woman. Him. The fuck?

On God—

His stomach dropped when he heard Yani's voice over the loudspeakers on the D.J. truck. She stood near the D.J. and Kendall on the portable stage. The mic was near her cheek and she talked to a man next to the D.J. who had switched the Soca beats to a grime sound that echoed around them all. It was a nice switch from the Soca and Reggae. Kendall's voice was picked up too and there seemed to be some confusion over another person being on the stage with them.

"Just start it and we'll figure it out," Yani mumbled.

Kendall took his own mic and faced the joyous fete crowd.

"This is for my Queens," Kendall said with a quiet storm drawl. It made Yani laugh and that sound made Erik shake his shoulders as if something light crawled across them.

Yani was covered in blue and pink chalk. Her bootie shorts accentuated the thickness of her lower half, and her black top was just titty spillage. Her short fade was no longer blonde, but platinum and somewhat straight.

"Queen Yani!"

Twyla shouted from the crowd to her cousin.

"Yes, yes, y'all, the Black Mermaid is here, Queen Yani, mi blood, mi Fam. We come from a long line of women rebels, seen? Yeah…tell 'em, Yani."

Yani lifted the mic to her lips and sang what sounded like a vengeful folk song.

"Queen Mary, ah where you gon' go burn?

Queen Mary, ah where you gon' go burn?

Don' ask me nothin' at all

Just get me the match and oil

Bassin Jailhouse, ah deh de money dey…"

Some of the revelers knew the words to Yani's a cappella performance and joined in until Kendall jumped on it.

"Where you gon' go burn, Queen? She gon' burn it all!" he yelled as a thunderous futuristic-sounding bass line slammed down and he shook his head in a wild frenzy to accompany the hard beats. Yani jumped up and down getting Kendall more hyped before she declared,

"And Queens don't vibe, hear me now…"

"With no fuck niggas!" the crowd responded back as Yani held the mic out to them.

The fete audience went buck, booties thrown in wild circles standing, and on the ground, backs arched deep, heads bobbing like marionettes being plucked by puppet master strings. It was just a cold as fuck live performance.

He couldn't get over how bold Yani was. That one line was the refrain throughout the entire song, the call and response from the crowd always the same. They finished and another boisterous Soca beat pumped up again and Erik watched Yani drop down from the truck into the arms of a man who pulled her into the melanated wave of people. The throng of bodies grew.

Yani danced with Twyla and her younger sister Anika who wore a pink tutu and carried a super soaker that sprayed blue colored water. Erik smiled when he saw Yani toss pink powder at her friends and sister with packets she held in their hands. The merriness was infectious and Erik wanted to join her, but there was pleasure in watching her be free. She bent over to allow Twyla to smack her butt and Anika shot a stream of blue onto her chest. Yani chased her tossing colored powder that flew over other people who also threw colors at everyone.

A few revelers, mainly males, asked to take pictures with her, probably fans of the album compilation. He didn't like how close most of them got to her, arms thrown around her shoulder or waist.

He lost track of her and drank a little more. It sprinkled again and he moved closer to an occupied bench and watched people jump on top of cars to dance, hang off of the D.J. stage to shake ass and grind on willing participants. He enjoyed the view of the waterfront and boats.

He thought about returning to the compound before the street party officially broke up to avoid gridlock. Perhaps get some sleep since the whole celebration started at four in the morning. A few women brushed up against him trying to entice him to dance but he wasn't feeling it. A frisky college-aged white woman standing up behind him on the bench tapped him and then wrapped her arms on his shoulders, her beer breath odor strong as she tried to rock with his body to the music.

"Nah. Let's not," he said when he turned back to make sure she knew he wasn't having it.

"You're not all that," she snapped.

"Yeah, okay," he replied turning from her and enjoying the last of his drink.

She kept bumping into him from dancing and he stepped a couple of inches away from her so he could keep his spot and not be bothered. He tossed his empty cup into the trashcan next to the mobile bar and saw that the D.J. truck was moving along with Kendall still bouncing to the music.

The bitch's hands came down on him again and his anger flared up white-hot.

"I told you once already—"

Lips on his neck.

The alluring scent of vanilla and nutmeg and fresh rain on soft brown skin.

He froze and his eyelids shut.

Sliding his hands up to caress the arms that held him, a shuddery breath left his chest and made his throat tight.

He spun around and she stood on the small bench a little above eye level with him.

Yani.

Her bewitching eyes connected with his and her inviting smile centered him. Wrapping his arms around her painted waist, he pressed his forehead into hers.

"Killmonger, why are you shaking? I scare you?"

Yes.

###

Part 10

Previous Chapters Here

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[silenthillmutual]

The decisions place you in the context of higher authority. No longer an army of one, you have decided to mobilise the population to fight the disease alongside you, since your personal accomplishments were not enough.

i feel like there’s a lot to unpack with this part of the letter

first i’d like to point out that part of daniil’s dialogue with andrey involves them recounting being involved in some sort of riot together

adding all the sums together my guess is that daniil is something of a troublemaker, and that despite some of the truly bitchy things you can have him say (that i will assume are his internal monologue if you choose to have him not say them), the kind of trouble he makes has something to do with unionizing people

i don’t really know how to put this other than like. clearly daniil is a very Proud person. a lot of educated people get that. and one good way to get someone whose fatal flaw is Pride to do what you want them to do is to insult something they should otherwise be proud of...you know, their accomplishments. so the Powers That Be don’t want him to:

make any sort of connections or home among the people of the town

make the town join forces, as it were; part of your job as daniil is negotiation, but you will also get most of your news from people on the streets, many of whom are disgruntled about some sort of inequity they’re dealing with and that you can, if you want, react with outrage at their treatment (see: aspity’s lies about the water, his disgust at how vlad the younger talks about the people who work in the termitary, etc)

actually be successful in combating or even surviving the plague. this is a win/win situation for them; you get a threatening letter from them about how they will leave your laboratory alone (for now) if you are successful in this endeavour, but the truth is that it really doesn’t matter. either what you do should you survive will not be enough for them, or you will die, in which case there is no one left to defend Thanatica. 

i rarely even get that kind of depth and subtlety from books i read or movies i watch so it’s very awesome to see this sort of thing being emulated in a video game.

We expect that the measures you have taken are temporary. Speaking of what may be described as the microclimate of the town, we don’t want any irreversible changes to take place. In particular, we hope that the instructions you have issued would not lead to any undesirable moods among the local townsfolk. We would rather avoid mass psychosis, depression, or panic that are sometimes characteristic of situations like this.

i think there’s two really interesting things going on here.

the first is that this raises a very valid concern, one that you have to talk about in areas of study like cultural anthropology: cultural relativism. you want to study a culture and interact with it, but without being too biased, passing judgement, or changing the way the culture exists too much. to a degree, all of these are unavoidable, both in-game and in the real world. you know that daniil is guilty of the first two even if you never have him say some of the things he’s thinking. 

but i think too many people look at this without nuance - not just as far as this game goes, but for plenty of other media and facets of real life. you don’t want to be ethnocentrist, of course, but not every cultural practice is good or defensible. you see it all the time when weebs try and defend things like hen.tai, lo.licon and shot.acon. there’s an ethical dilemma that comes in engaging with other cultures, and it’s really not as cut and dry as simply calling yourself an outsider and assuming these practices are okay. 

this is a huge misstep that happens in the film Midsommar. i read an article about how the main group being anthropologists is actually essential to the horror of the film; they are able to be gaslit because they let their cultural relativism put them in danger. they ignore the warning signs that they are being initiated into a cult, that they are being manipulated, and even that the cult is made up of white supremacists. it’s very possible that the reason Pelle is a foreign exchange student is to find people like this group of anthropologists who have stepped back too much from themselves their culture. 

this also reminded me a bit of a discussion on reddit i saw about colonized countries talking about their relationship with their colonizers and how those two interact, although Pathologic is so vague i’m not sure if you’re meant to read daniil’s route as being related to colonization or not; i know artemiy’s route has more to do with that, and that seems to be connected to some of the other families in town, specifically the olgimsky’s. 

the second thing that i think is interesting about this, is that it is once again setting daniil up for failure. they don’t want him to change the town too much, but they want him to be successful in combating the plague. given that the town has no hospital or morgue, that the only access to the outside world for them is the train, and that in order to keep the disease from spreading he has to issue quarantine and change how people go about their daily lives? he can save the town OR keep it from changing; he can’t do both. not to mention that the Powers That Be are sending people to help enact whatever changes daniil deems necessary... they are purposefully escalating the situation, knowing that they are going to make him fail in some way or another. 

Please keep in mind that when we offered to cease the persecution of your laboratory and to facilitate your research, we meant that as a reward for you being able to find a surgically precise solution to the problem. It is of no importance to us if you do it yourself or instigate the Inquisitor to do it on your behalf. 

so in other words: the government openly admits to persecuting him. not just laughing him off or ignoring his requests for funding or what have you, but actively attempting to sabotage him.  they will only stop these activities if he is successful - and success to them is “surgically precise” - which i take to mean does not rely on herbalism. this probably sets up why daniil is a pain in the ass on artemiy’s route; his life more or less depends on there being some quantifiable and scientific explanation for the plague and how to combat it. 

the government also doesn’t care about the town. it doesn’t care if the town is successful. they’re not sending other doctors, they’re not acknowledging rubin or artemiy as healing professionals. they’re sending enforcers. if daniil fails to find something of worth to them, everything he’s worked for up to this point in his life will be destroyed. and he will fail, as he’s been told at every turn that there is no scientific explanation for the sand pest and no precise cure. what fixed it last time was herbalism. he’s going to fail, no matter what he tries to do. this is the letter you receive by the end of day 4, and the game is 12 days long. you know before you even hit the halfway point that there is not going to be a happy ending for daniil. 

daniil certainly has a tendency to look down on herbalism, but given that he seems to have had high regard for isidor burakh i think you can take this one of two ways, or perhaps take the third option and say both: either there is some elitism going on that ties into racism, or this could be comparable to people looking at the anti-vaxxer trying to cure every disease under the sun through the power of organic foods and essential oils. (again: i think it’s a bit of both. were there more time for him to explore shit, it’s very possible daniil would grow out of the former. he seems really interested in artemiy, has little tolerance for how the ruling families run things on a basis of violence and various -isms, and again he seems to have some esteem for both rubin and isidor who we learn later are more akin to herbalists, as isidor and artemiy specifically are indigenous) i think this explains a lot of why he says insensitive things (or says things insensitively). 

i think it’s also important to keep in mind that he doesn’t know what’s going on in the clara or artemiy’s routes. he only has his point of view, which as an outsider is going to be heavily skewed by whatever he is told. he can’t possibly know everything. 

i think the last thing i wanted to end this overly long post on was this: his field of study is thanatology. the study of death.

why in god’s name do the Powers That Be want to destroy research into longevity? just food for thought, but this game is 17 years old, and i think it’s especially relevant now.