#somehow every reason Roger gives seems impossible but it’s always the truth

[seasidesandstarscapes]

POV: You’re Ulbrickson and the boys have managed to break another oar

[ifmywishescametrue]

omg now im jealous about all of the breaking up and making up stories!!! they're all so wonderful but is it okay to ask for a steve/tony one? i know you've made one inspired by ts (amazing) and this time, maybe they meet/bump in a coffee shop? idk angst potential but also hopeful/happy ending aahhh. your stories are amazing esp ivy!!! thank you! <3

thank you so much!! it ended up being more cute than angsty, but I hope you like it!

Steve's pencil drifts idly across the page of his sketchbook with no end vision in mind. He's killing time until Nat shows up, which could be anywhere between the next five minutes and the next two hours with her vague text that simply said running late. When he looks up to reach for his near empty coffee cup, he freezes with his hand in the middle of the air.

At first he thinks it might not even actually be him. Tony's hair was never quite this well styled before, always a tangled mop on his head that sometimes fell into his eyes. Steve used to spend hours sometimes running his fingers through those wild curls while Tony slept on his chest. It's been tamed since then, cut shorter and held into place by some type of product. The facial hair is new, too. He remembers a time when it would always come in patchy and uneven, and Tony would pout as he shaved away the latest attempt at looking older than he was. The eighteen year old boy in oversized hoodies and stained jeans he met years ago has been replaced by a man in a well-pressed, expensive looking suit with a leather briefcase, like he just stepped out of a boardroom a minute ago. From what Steve has read about his life since they broke up, he probably did.

Steve stares without fully meaning to and for much longer than he would have if it was intentional. He watches him order his drink and smiles when the barista’s eyes widen at what he knows is an overly complicated order, wondering if Tony ever did finish his quest to find that perfect combination of syrup flavors, sugar, and cream that only he would ever like.

He catches the double take when Tony notices him there, right as he’s taking his first sip of the iced drink, and the cough when he chokes on it is anything but subtle. Steve looks away with red cheeks and tries to pretend he wasn’t staring, but it’s a futile effort. He can’t say he minds, though. Not when it means Tony walks over to him and unceremoniously drops himself into the chair across from him.

His mouth forms a familiar smirk, and he says, “You seem to have a staring problem, Rogers.”

Suddenly, Steve is nineteen again, falling hopelessly in love with the boy in his introductory chemistry class. It felt sort of like fate at first when they were paired together for the final project, and Steve remembers thinking that his chances were shot to hell when Tony sat down next to him and said those exact words. He never was any good at being discreet.

Back then, for that first time, all he could manage was a stuttered apology in response. But eventually it became their thing. Something just for them that no one else could ever understand. When Steve would watch him from across the room at parties, because he knew how much Tony loved having his eyes on him, and Tony would saunter over with that same smirk and those same words, there was only ever one reply.

“Guess I just really like what I see,” Steve says, and Tony’s face splits into a grin that matches Steve’s own. He’s still beautiful, even if it’s different now. Less softness to his appearance and more defined edges and sharp lines, but heart stoppingly beautiful nonetheless. He doesn’t quite say as much, but he does comment, “You do look good, by the way. Different, but good.”

Tony’s smile softens into another familiar one. It’s his smile for compliments, when he’s thinking self-deprecating thoughts that he won’t voice. Instead he’ll turn the attention back around, shifting the spotlight.

“So do you. The good part, but not really the different part.”

Steve runs a hand through his hair, contemplating if not looking different contributes to the good or not. He should look different somehow, shouldn’t he? After two and a half years not seeing each other in person and what feels like a lifetime’s worth of heartbreak in between then and now, he should look as changed as he feels. As changed as Tony looks now, like he’s someone new entirely. He’s pretty sure the t-shirt he’s wearing now is one he owned back then.

“Thanks,” Steve says anyway, for lack of anything better.

Just before it has the chance to fall into awkward silence, Tony says, “I didn’t know you were in New York these days. I would’ve called or something if I’d known.”

Steve raises an eyebrow. “Would you have?”

“I don’t know, maybe. I would’ve thought about it, at least. You know, stalked you online, found your number, dialed and hung up a few times.”

Steve laughs, fiddling with the straw wrapper from earlier to give himself something to look at other than Tony. “I moved back last year. Thought about calling, but I figured you were busy. Didn’t want to waste your time.”

It’s only a partial truth. He did think about calling when he came to Brooklyn after his year-long internship in London ended, but he didn’t want to know what Tony would say if he did. If he would have some sort of transparent excuse to avoid seeing him or if it would be an outright rejection.

“I would’ve made time for you,” Tony says, so painfully sincere that Steve has to look up again to meet his eyes.

He wonders if Tony is thinking of that last fight, if it’s a purposeful or coincidental reference to some of what Steve said. It was by far the worst fight they’d ever had, all over the phone with an ocean between them and so many things that Steve still wishes he could take back. Accusations flew on both sides until the entire thing was blown so completely out of proportion, yet impossible to reel back in. He should have just hung up the phone before it went that far. Before he could tell Tony that he always felt unimportant compared to everything else in his life, which was sometimes true but entirely unfair. Before Tony could say that Steve talked about Peggy in the same way he used to talk about him, and he didn’t have to finish the thought for Steve to understand the implication.

“Are we talking about it?” Steve asks.

Tony shrugs, feigning casual, but just the corner of his lip is between his teeth in that way that means he’s nervous and trying to hide it. “I guess that depends on what this is.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we said back then that maybe it was just bad timing. You were in London, and I was in Boston until graduation, and it was always going to be a bit of a mess, but there was always that someday chance, right? So maybe this is someday, and we talk about it, and try to get it right this time,” Tony says. “Or maybe that was just something we said and didn’t mean, and I ask you about your life, and you ask about mine, and we talk and laugh and pretend that we’re friends again for the next half hour or so before we go our separate ways.”

It’s an easy choice, really. If there’s one thing that Steve’s sure of, it’s that it’s always been him and always will be.

“I don’t want to go separate ways,” Steve says. “The first time was hard enough, and I never really moved on. I got better, but I don’t think I’ve been more than just fine in a long time.”

Tony nods slowly, “I kept thinking you would call, you know. Back then. I thought you would call and tell me that it was a mistake and it would be okay again, but you never did. Although, I guess I could’ve called, too.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“For the same reason as you, probably. I couldn’t risk it if you didn’t want me again. Couldn’t risk getting back together just to break up again, either. We weren’t exactly the poster children for making long distance work.”

“We were terrible at it, weren’t we?”

Tony’s smile is tinged with the pain of the past. “It’s kind of funny because I remember thinking that it might be a good thing for us when you told me about London. Can’t get sick of somebody if they’re not always around.”

“You thought I would get sick of you? You never told me that.”

“Why would I?” Tony laughs. “Just put all my insecurities on display like that? Come on, Steve, that doesn’t sound like me, does it?”

Steve laughs with him briefly, “No, but I could’ve told you back then that it wasn’t possible. Told you that I wanted you around all the time and I missed you every second you were gone. I might’ve even stayed if you had told me. I was thinking about it, you know? I almost turned the internship down. Probably would’ve if you’d asked even once for me not to go.”

“It was your career. I never would’ve asked you to give that up for me.”

“There would have been something else. Another job somewhere closer to you.”

“I still wouldn’t have asked,” Tony says. “And I would have told you to go if you’d said you were staying.”

Steve knows that, which is why they never talked about it much before he left. Tony pretended to be happy for him, and Steve pretended to be happy for himself, when really it already felt like the beginning of the end. A year apart is longer than it seems, and it didn’t take more than a few months to realize it.

“I never…” Steve starts, trailing off when he doesn’t quite know how to finish the sentence. “There was never anyone else. Not while we were together, and never with Peggy.”

“I know. I knew back then, too, that you were never that kind of person. Jealousy’s just a real bitch sometimes.”

“There’s really not been anyone since, either,” Steve adds, and Tony’s mouth quirks into a half smile. “I mean, a couple of people here and there, but nothing like what we were.”

“There’s not a whole lot out there like what we were, is there?”

Steve smiles, leaning back in his chair, “No, there’s really not. But I do remember reading a rumor that you got engaged.”

Tony groans, and it’s so much like he used to sound when he was nine pages deep into a ten page essay at three in the morning that Steve has to laugh.

“Don’t you dare laugh. That rumor haunts me, Steven,” Tony says, belied by a grin that he seemingly can’t control. “Do you know how I found out about my supposed engagement? When my mother called and asked why I hadn’t told her I was planning on proposing.”

“So I’m still the only person you’ve ever proposed to,” Steve teases, just for the way he knows Tony will get indignant about it.

“How many times do I have to tell you that one didn’t count?”

“You were on one knee, you asked a question, and you had a ring. All the boxes are checked, sweetheart.”

“It was a blue raspberry ring pop, and you ate it,” Tony argues. “Not to mention that I actually asked you to marry me someday in the distant future. That’s not a proposal.”

Steve laughs again, thinking about that day in the middle of their living room, just a few weeks before Steve got the call that would take him to London and change everything. It was almost like a joke, and for anyone else it would have been. Not for them, though, because Steve remembers the look in Tony’s eyes when he dropped down in front of him, spur of the moment and impulsive like almost everything was back then. He remembers how it still felt like a promise, even if it wasn’t the real thing.

“But I said yes, which I think technically means we’re still engaged.”

“Absolutely not,” Tony scoffs. “It’s going to be a production when we get engaged. Elaborate and planned and romantic as hell.”

“When, huh?” Steve grins.

Tony’s cheeks pinken a touch, but he doesn’t take it back. He reaches for Steve’s hand on the table. “Yeah, when. Is that alright with you?”

Steve threads their fingers together, holding on tight. “That’s alright with me.”

[quietmyfearswith]

setting off ; stucky x fem!reader

status — completed oneshot

word count — 2,463 words

summary — in which steve and bucky get the happy ending they deserve with their best doll.

warnings — implied smut, fluff, talks of starting a family, no curse word i think?

pairing — stucky x fem!reader

a/n — pretty self-indulgent lol,, feedback is appreciated and asks/messages are open!

tagging — @la-cey​ @pedropcl​ @iloveshawnieboi​ @isysen​

masterlist | series masterlist | join my taglist (please follow the rules)

“Can someone at least give me a hint of where we’re going?” Y/N whined for what would be the fifth time in the last hour. She had been asleep for the first three hours of their travel, but now that she woke up she struggled to return to slumber so instead she ate some snacks as she begged her two boyfriends to give her a faint clue of where they were going.

Steve was currently driving to their destination; he was exceeding about five kilometers the stated speed limit, which was enough evidence that he was excited to reach the end of their trip. Thankfully, the pick-up truck they bought allowed two more passengers beside the driver in the front so she was sandwiched in between the two super soldiers.

“It’s not a surprise if we tell you where we’re headed, doll,” Bucky swatted her thigh playfully, before gulping down the rest of his water bottle. “It still would be,” She argued as she swatted his thigh too, “You can tell me the location of where we’re and I still would be surprised with the actual place we’re gonna be staying at.”

Pissed with her logic, his metal fingers tickled her sides, causing her to attempt pushing his hand away, giggling as she squirmed further into Steve’s side. “Stevie! He’s being mean to me again!”

“Knock it off, you two!” Steve scolded them, chuckling to himself when they settled down immediately and both pouted at him. “Are you sure you’re our boyfriends and not our babysitter?” Bucky giggled at her comment, even pecked her cheek to show how proud he was of her remark.

The former Captain America playfully rolled his eyes as he sighed, “And here I was pulling up to our destination when I should have gone here alone and not show you the present we got you.” Upon registering his words, she sat up straight and twisted left and right as she excitedly asked, “Your present? What did you get me? Please give me a clue! Please, please, please!”

Bucky laughed at her pumped up state, bopping her nose he assured her, “Well the only clue we’ll give is that we looked and searched hard for this gift of yours — we knew you had to have the best one.” Pouting and nose scrunching up in confusion, she turned to Steve and before she could even speak, he was already saying, “What Buck said is true, we hope you like our present.”

Pressing a kiss to Steve’s cheek — she wanted to kiss his lips but didn’t want to distract him from driving — then a short, teasing kiss on Bucky’s lips she reassured them, “You both know I will always appreciate whatever it is you give me.”

Covering her eyes with his flesh hand, the former Winter Soldier smirked, “Well the only way to find out is when you see it. Keep your eyes closed for a while okay?” She whined but was quickly being shushed, “We’re pulling in now and you’re about to see your present!”

Once she felt the car come to a stop, she clawed at the hand that was shielding her from seeing her present as she thought she was permitted to look at it. But as she was being guided out of the truck with the hand still covering her eyes, she felt that maybe it still wasn’t the cue for her to see it.

“Okay stand there, are you alright?” Steve asked after guiding her to stand at a certain angle. “I’m fine, Steve! Now show me already! I’m getting impatient,” She was about to beg their ears off until Bucky slid his hand out of her eyes and she gasped out upon seeing the house. “Here you go, doll. Our brand new home.”

Her eyes became glossy as tears were peeking out, as she turned over to them and choked out, “A lake house?” Steve nodded, wiping the tears off her eyes before they got the chance to spill and kissed her lips, “Yes, doll. Your dream lake house.”

“We chose a secluded one so that way no one can complain when we’re too loud at night,” Bucky’s cocky reply was short-lived since Steve hit his arm which only made their girl laugh and hug them both. The two took her tight hug as a sign that she loved it. Removing himself early from the hug, Steve called, “Come on now! We still need to show you around the house!”

With every step she took, she clung onto each of her boyfriends’ hands tightly. The white coat of the house made her feel even more serene. Having multiple levels, she wondered about how many rooms there were, “How many floors and rooms are there? There seems to be way too many.”

“Five rooms, excluding the game and theater room that is. And there are two stories plus the basement.” Steve recalled as he opened the front door, the sight of the living room immediately greeted her. Soft couches, neat fireplace, and bookshelves beside a vinyl player greeted her. Sitting down on one of the seats, she giggled when the mattress was soft enough that it almost engulfed her completely, “I love this so much!”

Bucky picked her up and hoisted her over his shoulder, “Wait ‘til you see the kitchen!” Placing her back to stand on her toes, he showed her how they fulfilled her dream kitchen of having two refrigerators, two ovens topped with an incredible gas stove, as well as a spacious countertop for when she baked and cooked for them. Smiling, she hugged Bucky and kissed his bearded cheek, “I love it so much! ‘M gonna stay here all the time now.”

Perking up at her statement, Steve smirked as he offered his arm for her to hold on to, “May I show you my favorite part of the house?” Finding it silly with how fancy he was being, she tangled an arm around his, while her other arm stretched out for Bucky to hold on to and his bionic hand laced with hers, “I’d love to see it, Mr. Rogers.”

Opening the black, wooden door, she was shown the master bedroom with a bed large enough to accommodate the three of them. “You cheeky bubba! The bedroom?!” She laughed as she plopped herself down on the soft mattress.

You’d think despite them being centenarians they would be stiff and boring, but the way they jumped in the bed and tickled her sides or rubbed their beards on her neck to elicit even more giggles from her suggested that they were more lively than you would suspect.

“Stop! I concede,” The last word was prolonged into a squeal with the way they were attacking her gently. Taking mercy on her, they stopped as they laid beside her, an arm draped over her figure as they traced her skin with their fingertips.

“I love it,” She spoke, filling the tranquil silence, “Thank you so much for this. I love you both so much.” Bucky cleared his throat and kissed her tricep, “Well this was something we hoped you’d love. And something we wanted to give you, as a thank you.”

Both super soldiers agreed not to mention the little part he slipped up; Steve smacked his flesh hand and groaned a bit. “As a thank you?” She sat up as her eyes shifted over between the two men. They followed her as they sat down too and explained to her, “Buck and I have come to realize how much you have sacrifice for us.”

“The way you stood up for me when the whole Accords happened,” Bucky continued and recalled how she stopped their airport battle when she stopped them upon uncovering the truth and seizing Zemo for discovering his plans. “You fought and stood up for me when everyone else was convinced I was the bad guy.”

Her hand caressed his cheek — her touch had cured him of his terrible association with physical contact. Images of when HYDRA treated him horribly in Bucky’s own time vanished from his mind every time he physically came in contact with someone thanks to her gentle handling of him and her incredible patience. He nuzzled his cheek into her palm, she was about to speak until Steve spoke up, “When we said that we wanted to step down from being Avengers, it was because of you.”

“Me?” This shook her to her core. She knew about their exhaustion with all the fighting that they had to do in order to save the world — everytime they needed to be patched up and taken care of, she’d done all that for them without complaints. But never did she imagine they would quit being part of the team for her, “I’m so sorry if I made it feel like you have to do all this for me.”

Sensing her panicked state, they both calmed her down as Steve rubbed her thighs while Bucky massaged her shoulders to settle her squirming body, “It’s not like that, doll. I should have been clearer with what I meant.”

Managing to relax, she looked up at Steve with her eyebrows furrowed in confusion, encouraging him to speak his mind, “Buck and I talked about how tired we are. All this fighting — even though they all were for a good cause, of course — has started to take a toll on us. Not just physically, but emotionally as well,” He cleared his throat as he felt himself beginning to tear up, “It was evident that we badly needed an exit from this lifestyle that was forced upon us.”

“But we somehow got a hint that maybe there would be no way out for us,” Bucky continued when Steve stared at him to go on, Y/N too followed his gaze and looked at him, “That maybe it was set in stone that our fate would be to fight in battle forever.” Her heart clenched and fell into pieces at that thought. “What a cruel fate that would be, love,” She sympathized.

“Then you came along,” Steve resumed with a smile on his lips, “We now found a reason to keep going and fighting. Because we wanted you to live safely and feely.” She thought that what he said would be impossible to top off with the way her heart was beating wildly against her chest, lips pursing as she pouted in adoration. But Bucky wasn’t going to let anyone — not even Steve — outdo him so he pressed a kiss on the top of her head as he spoke sincerely, “We wanted to give you the life you deserve. A life far from danger and uncertainty. So we bought this secluded lake house — giving us the chance to be ourselves and do whatever we want.”

What Bucky said was a close runner up to Steve’s words and she couldn't help but coo at their word as she tried her best to wrap her smaller arms around their hulking figures, “I love you both! So so so so much! I’m incredibly blessed to have the two of you in my life!” Wanting to snap out of their dreamy state, Steve clapped his hands, “Well how about we prepare our lunch.”

Excited at the thought of preparing a meal in her new kitchen, Y/N jumped off the bed with a smile as she scurried off to the kitchen, “I’m gonna make us some sandwiches!” As the two two super soldiers looked at each other after both taking note of how excited their girl was they both thought of the same thing — they made the right and best decision.

After munching down the delicious turkey avocado sandwich with chipotle mayonnaise, they all retired to the deck; both Steve and Bucky were lounging around on one of their chaise lounge chairs as they were clad in their swim shorts while Y/N swam around for a bit on the clear, warm water.

“I can get used to always swimming,” She stated once she reached the top of the pool’s ladder and walked towards them, sitting down on Steve’s lap as she drank some of the iced tea they had prepared. “I, on the other hand, know that I can get used to seeing you in your swimsuit,” Bucky wolf whistled as he openly gawked at her bikini-clad figure.

Despite being with them for quite a few years now and getting used to Bucky’s playful behavior, she still gets bashful when she’s on the receiving end of Bucky’s silver tongue. She clicked her tongue at him as an attempt to weakly silence him, “Bucky Barnes! You and your silver tongue; someday I will catch you off guard the way you do to me.”

Steve decided to join in but unfortunately it didn’t help her cause, “Oh doll, I love you but we all know you get flustered even at the mere thought of flirting at us.” His arms wrapped tightly around her waist as he placed a kiss on her shoulder, as if he was comforting her; which Bucky found amusing as he chuckled. She hit Steve's shoulder as she scowled at Bucky, the two then decided to end their playful banter against their girl.

Upon being signalled to pull his chair closer to where Steve was sat, Y/N played with Bucky's metal fingers as she laid her head on her other boyfriend’s chest, “I love you both. Really, I do,” She lifted her head to kiss Steve’s slightly chapped lips deeply before muttering, “I love you, Steve.” To which he said the same without missing a beat.

“I love you, Bucky,” She declared before leaning over to kiss his lips with the same passion and vigour. “Can’t wait for this new chapter that’s waiting for us,” She sighed out, blissed and content.

Steve’s warm palm caressed her stomach as he spoke with hope, “Who knows? Maybe we can start our family now.” She knew it was something he wanted — even way back in the 40’s he was already hopeful for a family of his own. Bucky, however, always wanting to spite and retort Steve just for the sake of it quickly countered, “Or maybe just adopt a bunch of dogs so the house isn’t too quiet.”

Y/N laughed when both her boyfriends stuck their tongue out and made silly faces to tease each other even more; breaking up their fight, she turned to them and reassured them, “No matter what lies ahead, I know we all can agree that we will venture it together.” And the silence laced with the content smiles they had on their faces gave her the confirmation that indeed, they will go through it all together.

[thecandywrites]

Blood For Gold Part 12

Wow, my personal life has taken some hits lately, things are going sideways and I've gone through some loss and am about to experience a lot more. And this has been one of my few saving graces in dealing with all of it.

So. Let's go from bad to worse and from big to overwhelming shall we? introducing some new characters. to the right of Ramsey, Audra's mother's mother- Loreiris aka The Saharan Viper. Her parents, Jodhaa and Akbar (I know, super original right? I love that movie) then Akbar's mother, Rahelle. To the right of her, The Jade Empress/Sultana- aka Grandma Anavia, then Audra's heir father- Leucordorize, aka Cory, and his wife, below him, Maradiem.

As always, thanks to @kriskukko for sharing that regency orc art with me. And to @punkhorse96 for all of your wonderful feedback.

Blood For Gold

Part 12

You barely had your “gifts” moved to Amara’s room and had your “Will” in her possession by the time Axal came back and crashed into your bed.

“And?” You asked as you sat in your room and took off your jewelry and makeup at the vanity.

“And the reason Audrey Rogers is his favorite is because she has a double headed, polished red jade dildo that she wears in a harness and rams him with it, just, balls to the wall, rails him with it, railed me with it too, it was glorious.” Axal proclaimed proudly as you dropped your earrings onto the surface of the vanity.

“What?” You blanched, completely taken off guard by that revelation.

“Ramsey loves both men and women, but he is much more preferential to men and if I may be so bold, is very preferential to me. Lucky me, lucky, lucky me.” Axal cooed as he rolled over to look at you through the mirror and even from here you could see the beginnings of hickeys on his skin, despite his high collar on his borrowed English clothes.

“He...he likes to be railed?” You asked, flabbergasted.

“Yes, and it’s because he loves men more than women and has been...I believe the English term is a rake?” He asked.

“Yes, a boyish playboy, that’s what that means.” You confirmed.

“Well his parents are done with it and beyond fed up with it. And in an effort to shake him of his rakish ways, he claimed that you were the only one worthy of him, conveniently at your wedding to Edward, so that you were thankfully no longer on the marriage market and thus no longer available, like a pregnant woman only wanting preserved meat in a fresh produce market and even when he went to the stables, supposedly “comparing” all of them to you, and since there is only one you- Audra, he and his parents were at an impasse until you became a widow, only a year later, which Ramsey confided in me that he was not expecting at all and honestly terrified him because he thought he would have more time, on the range of three to five years, even a decade at least, but his father is pushing him, practically has a cannon to his head by the way Ramsey went on about it. Apparently when it was found out that you would be available, the calendars were marked as to when you would be available again and the ball at Havenfield was planned thusly, to encourage him and you to get together and Ramsey has been recieving coaching for a year by his father about how to properly court a moura bride based on your master. Ramsey is only pursuing you because you are, in his mind, his last and only saving grace from ruination at the hands of his parents.” Axal informed you.

“Oh...oh my gods, he has the homosexual panic in a heterosexual society then?” You asked.

“Very much so.” Axal confirmed as he winked and clicked his teeth.

“But if he likes to be railed and wants to be railed by you- then that means that he and I are at an impasse, I will never share a lover, let alone a husband with you or anyone else for that matter, it’s practically incest, even by our lax Dorierran standards, let alone the English ones. I would never stand for it and I would never be allowed to have a lover of my own here, I like to be railed, not to be the one railing necessarily and I’m turned off to the idea and by the idea.” You argued, finding aversion to the idea of railing Ramsey. Demsey Draft, if he asked nicely, perhaps, but not Ramsey.

“I know, that’s why I have a solution for all of us. So at 3C’s, there is a lady I have in mind, Buchon Octavia Lafronze.” Axal grinned.

“Octavia? Really?” You asked, intrigued at his choice.

“You see, all Ramsey needs is a public wife, a highborn lady who is preferably beautiful, to give him an heir and a spare right? And one that would play to the public right? You have no desire for that. I have always known this about you. She’s closer in age to him and she would have the right temperament and would be a better fit and her mate, Drina, could always pose as my wife if I need to do so here, I will send for them tomorrow morning. She can be here by the end of the week. You just have to play along for about a week and a half. Surely you can do that can’t you?” Axal petitioned as you realized that your circumstances weren’t nearly as dire as you thought they were as you were relieved that Ramsey was not another version of Richard, but rather...in a bind himself, and while he was desperate, he was not as malevolent as you thought he was only a few moments prior. This suddenly made more sense. It wasn’t necessarily Ramsey that perhaps sent for Calla and Bennie, it was probably and most likely his father, wanting to clear out obstacles for his son. That made the most sense.

“I can.” You decided.

“Excellent, however in the second order of business. There is no Demsey Draft at The Red Velvet Rope.” Axal declared before you turned to face him with a frown.

“What?” You asked.

“There is a guy who is called “Draft”, his real name is Kondus Rogers, he’s actually Audrey’s Rogers’ husband and he’s the one who fashioned his wife’s dildo after his own cock which is just as equally impressive, but he is a minotaur, a brahma bull minotaur at that, he’s huge, giant cloven hooves, wide impressive horns, he has to come into rooms ducked and sideways, beautiful, glorious man. But there are no other “Drafts” and certainly no Demsey’s that work there. There is only one moura orc who works there but he’s a midnight orc, like, dark, dark midnight blue orc. But his name is Louko, aka Louis Charter and his moura mark is barely a speck of gold on the back of his neck. That’s it. I went through the whole “catalog” too and looked all of them over, some more thoroughly than others.” Axal informed you as you recalled seeing a minotaur serve you that Sultan’s feast there.

“That...that’s impossible.” You shook your head no, not wanting to believe him.

“I can only tell you the truth of what I found. That is the truth and the whole truth. I would not hold anything back, especially from you. Unless The Red Velvet Rope is keeping him locked up in a high tower or locked in a dungeon or he works at two whorehouses and is really a whore for another place and he was on loan, I don’t know what else to tell you.” Axal shrugged before he got up, stretched and kissed you on the cheek.

“Goodnight Audra, I love you. Don’t do anything I would do and probably will be doing.” Axal wished you before he left your room through the secret door and made his way to Ramsey’s rooms for the night, sauntering all the way.

“He...he can’t be right.” You said to yourself in the mirror before the thought occurred to you.

Convenience and coincidence rarely went hand in hand by happenstance, unless… what if it was connected? Your gut told you that it could be. But your rationality had a hard time figuring out a way for the two to be connected, much less how.

The next day you were surprised to learn that the rest of your family had moved with haste and had somehow, by nothing short of a miracle, had gotten ahold of The Blue Blaze, a speed train meant to expedite moura bride’s travel on the continent that traveled twice as fast as the normal steam trains and had somehow bypassed every other train, even the Orient Express trains, which were delayed by half a day so that The Blue Blaze could pass and supersede them and you felt like you were being led to the gallows the way you had been immediately prepared for your family’s arrival and your nerves were beyond frayed and you were consumed with anxiety because your gut was screaming at you that you needed to flee now before you could face your mother’s shame that you had been defeated in only a year and a half. Moura’s were bred and prepared to live in circumstances much graver than yours had been and come out rather unscathed after decades of “mistreatment”. You felt your mother especially would be extra harsh on you and you had only been able to speak barely a word about it to Amara who seemed immediately aware of your unease and had asked you about it back at the palace as you were waiting for the carriages to come around and take you to the station.

“Why are you so anxious?” Axal asked as he noticed you were pacing the platform, wringing your hands and double checking your jewelry to make sure it laid right as you silently prayed to all the gods who would listen as the Raymonds and all their guests were waiting for the train to come at the station. You were actively ignoring the stares from others on the platform because you were dressed in your traditional clothes as a proper sultana from perhaps Constantinople or the Middle East or even India instead of an English lady and you looked and felt even more foreign here now than you did when you first came two years ago. You felt lost and like you didn’t really belong anywhere. You felt you didn’t belong here in England and you didn’t belong in Dorierra either. You felt like you were homeless and homesick for a place that was neither Dorierra or England. You were excited to see who else might have been coming but you were agonizing over the unknown of how they would react on seeing you again and anxious to know how they would react once they learned the truth of what had happened and to know that you lost to one of the moura's oldest foes.

“I’m not the same woman I was when I left, I’ve been...I’ve been wounded and I’ve been trying to heal but...the wounds that are the hardest to heal from are the ones that no one can see.” You tried to tell him as even Demsey was watching you, wishing he could offer you some kind of aid or comfort as you were clearly distressed. Even Ramsey seemed anxious but he was practically ignoring you and almost glued to his mother while Charlotte was completely oblivious to the plight as she and Zax continued to talk as even Jane felt sympathy for you as Rian kept her company nearby, since Charlotte and Jane kept each other company while Axal kept you company, even choosing to pace with you a little bit, so that you weren’t the only one doing so.

“Do you know why Audra seems as tight as a bow string?” Demsey murmured to his sister Amara who was standing closest to him.

“Apparently, when Audra left, she was similar in many ways to Bennie, Audra is self conscious that her mother will be displeased to see how much she’s changed and think that the changes were not for the better.” Amara murmured to her brother.

“Surely once her mother learns of what she’s gone through, she will have some understanding, and if her mother thinks she’s changed for the worst, she will need to have her head examined. Because Bennie plays to Sierge the way an actress plays to the adoring masses. Audravienne is actually genuine and authentic.” Demsey tried to reason as Amara smiled at her brother’s discernment.

“When I came to check in on her, she was having an attack of anxiety and panic about it. According to Calla, Audra’s mother is...demanding and exacting. Not necessarily soft or all that motherly. And what’s more is Audra’s father isn’t even her father.” Amara murmured, having wanted to tell her brother about this but not getting an opportunity beforehand.

“What do you mean?” Demsey asked.

“Apparently the stables are as their name implies, moura women are dames, moura men are studs, and the stable masters decide who breeds who, on any given day in order to improve genetics. Audra told me that she has two fathers, a house father, or the father who presided over her home and is for all intensive purposes married to her mother and raised her and her siblings as his own. But her heir father or the father who sired her, is someone else, someone who is popular among the stables because he throws the ideal that Audra seems to embody. The way a white mare will throw color onto a foal. Audra told me that her heir father has fathered thousands of children and he never once even learned Audra’s name. I got the impression that they were very estranged. That’s why Axal and Audra look like the twins they are but Rian and Zax look nothing like them, they all have different hier fathers but the same mother.” Amara revealed to her siblings who seemed to gravitate around them.

“Is that true?” Kiera asked Leumeni before Calla approached since she had overheard her name.

“Yeah. Audra’s father is known as the Buttercup Stud. Every kid he has the closest to “the breed standard”, sadly, just like horses or dogs are bred to conform to a standard, the stables are overrun with him and his offspring.” Leumeni reluctantly confirmed.

“Would I ever have to... ?” Kiera asked.

“No, never, over my dead body, any bride who is not moura who comes into Dorierra is automatically disqualified from ever having to be involved in the stables part of Dorierra.” Leumeni finished for her as Amara realized the two had grown that close already but either Leumeni wasn’t being completely honest or you had been over exaggerating, which didn’t seem likely as Demsey seemed to catch onto Amara’s alarm as even he was surprised by Kiera’s interaction with Leumeni as he blinked in surprise at her and gave her meaningful look which she quickly and almost guiltily avoided.

“What’s going on?” Calla asked as she came over with Tzane.

“We’re trying to figure out why Audra’s anxious.” Amara informed her.

“Oh, it’s because of Audra’s mother, her mother, Sultana Jodhaa Lilita, is one of the most beautiful women in the world, but in marinai there’s a term, it means “tiger mother” in the most direct translation. But it means that the mother is demanding and pushes her children for very high levels of achievement and always towards perfection, to the point anything less than perfection is not allowed, much less accepted and severely punished. She makes my mother look like a kind, soft, warm hug with a blanket compared to her. Hell, I’m anxious. Lilita can cut you down to your kidneys with just a look. Much less a word. She can weigh and measure kings and they would be found wanting in her eyes. The only kind, soft mother figure in Audra’s life is actually her heir father’s wife, Maradiem, something of a step mom I guess? In English? But I sincerely doubt she will be coming, or her heir father for that matter, I doubt he could be bothered. Now Audra’s father Sullimon Akbar, he’s wonderful. Firm but gentle and kind and honestly the ideal father.” Calla breathed but the sound of the train coming into the station pulled their attention back as Demsey watched as you seemed to stand extra rigidly as you seemed almost frozen in fear as he was ready to march back to Windsor and go ahead and get Heavencrest geared up for you. You had clearly been through hell and if your family thought they could come here and judge you harshly for it, they were going to be in for a rude awakening, he wouldn’t stand for this and neither should you. He needed to shield you from this. He didn’t know how but he was determined.

Meanwhile Ramsey was in a similar state of panic, he could see your own anxiety as his own whirled within him. He had heard from his mother that your own was a “typical” moura mother, meaning, harsh, demanding perfection, and not exactly soft, kind, understanding or sympathetic like his own, but rather, like his father, and he worried what kind of scrutiny he would undergo himself.

The moment came and your tears flooded your vision at seeing your mother and your house father again as you did your best to bow and greet them respectfully, but you had barely lowered yourself an inch before your mother, uncharacteristically, practically ran to you, grabbed you up and held you fast, hugging you so hard your back popped, which you weren’t expecting. Nor were you expecting her to be crying too. Along with your Papa who also hugged you from the back so that you were effectively sandwiched between them before you just broke down crying, relinquishing yourself to their arms as you noticed that even your grandmothers, Loreiris, who was your mother’s mother and your house father’s mother, Rahelle were here too as they tried to squeeze in and hug you too, which you happily did.

“You are just as beautiful as the last time we saw you.” Your mother cried into your shoulder, before you noticed your hier father- Cory, and his wife- Maradiem and their other children, your half siblings and Cory's own mother, the Jade Sultana- Anavia, standing next to them, wearing their more traditional elven clothes.

“Father,” you greeted formally after wiping your eyes and greeting him respectfully and traditionally, as you were taught.

“No formalities here Audravienne.” He gently cooed to you as he hugged you too. For one of the few times in your life and for the first time, using your name to do so as all of you were once again, brought to tears at being reunited as Maradiem huged you just as tightly as your own mother had as even your heir grandmother hugged you tight as did your “hier siblings”, never in your life did you expect to see everyone in your family, nor their warm greeting, but you would be lying if you tried to deny that you didn't want or need it.

“I thought…” Demsey began before Calla cut him off.

“Uh, I’m pretty sure that’s the first time he’s ever called her by her name, even when she was leaving to wed Edward, he didn’t use her name.” Calla murmured to them as she and was effectively shocked before you introduced their hosts as they greeted Yalin and Gregori, giving them many gifts, in thanks for inviting them and hosting them as Gregori happily took the swords with pleasure while Yalin happily accepted all the jewelry, feeling like she was suddenly carrying fifty pounds of gold and jewels before Yalin and Gregori had to hire all the available carriages at the station to bring everyone back as you were squished between your mother and your housefather as your mother held you the way you had always needed her to and once back at the palace, your family insisted on talking with you privately which Yalin and Gregori opened up one of the audience rooms for your family as all of you filed in and the doors were shut, leaving Bennie and Calla and their siblings and the Voyambi’s on the other side as Calla and Bennie pressed their ears to the door while Yalin and Gregori, Ramsey, Charlotte pressed their ears to the other doors on the other side of the room while Jane sat anxiously by, worrying about what was going to happen next.

“What happened? Why are you a shakan?” Your mother implored in marinai as she held your hands in yours.

“Because of the abuse Mama.” You answered honestly.

“What abuse? The contract should have shielded you from any and all abuse, tell me.” Your mother warmly invited.

“I was alienated, persecuted, beaten, raped, poisoned, forced to drink mourkatili by the gallon.” You began before everyone gasped in outrage.

“And did you kill them for trying to kill you?!” Your mother demanded.

“No, I could not repay any of it. All I could do is gather all the evidence I could that it was happening in the first place. They poisoned their own father with Jade’s Crown, it made him go crazy! He would be himself during the day and a violent madman at night and I was locked away with him like a prisoner, three months after I married him, he could not hide it from me anymore and once he showed it, it just got worse and worse. Then when it became apparent that he would die soon, they poisoned me with cyanide and mourkatili, it was in everything, even the water I bathed in so that they could bury me with him. In only a month I was addicted to it, I was constantly drunk and my kidneys bled into my urine, my colon bled into my stool. By gums bled into my mouth. It took me five months to wean off of it without going crazy myself.” You explained as Bennie and Calla shrunk down on the other side of the door, both of them holding their hands over their mouths to keep them from throwing up as tears streaked down their faces.

“What are they saying?” Amara pressed.

“The Morrigans made her drink mourkatilli.” Bennie answered as she wiped at her eyes, her tears streaking her eye makeup and staining her handkerchief as she and Calla both shuddered at the very thought.

“Mouras, more or less, are immune to every kind of poison. To give moura a shot of cyanide, it’s like giving yourself a shot of whiskey. It can get you drunk, and make you sick if you drink too much, but not unless you drink amounts that would kill a village, you’ll recover, you’ll have a hangover, but you’ll be ok eventually right? However a millenia ago, there was the poison of poisons that was made, a poison that would kill anything and everything, including and especially a moura. Mourkatili means “moura killer”. Before the gold plague the only thing that could kill a moura was battle, very old age or a broken heart. We were immune to everything else, until mourkatili was invented. Only it behaves like whiskey laced with morphine or laudinoum or opium or any other very addictive drug, for a moura- it’s better than morphine, better than laudinum, better than opium, better than sex, better than anything and everything. It’s both sweet like candy, yet zesty like orange juice and numbing like morphine, but it makes a moura body bleed, it’s killed countless moura babes still in the womb, when their mother’s bodies choose between saving the baby or saving itself, the body will always choose the latter. It’ll make a moura mother instantly abort a baby, no matter the stage of pregnancy, but that baby will be dead before it’s birthed. It makes your gums bleed around your teeth, it makes your throat bleed, it makes your stomach bleed, it just makes everything bleed but it also makes the blood in your own mouth taste like chocolate. It’s the very first poison mouras are trained at the stables to detect because one sip could either kill you, or turn you into an addict and you kill yourself trying to chase the high it gives you. It’s the single biggest danger to a moura’s life and health and with such a dose, Audra’s internal organs probably look like they’ve been shot with a bird shot and the chances of her mothering a child after this will be especially hard, if not impossible for her. No wonder the stable masters didn’t let her come back and gave her the shakan status, because the shame of having an addict in the family is worth killing her for- to preserve the family honor. The Morrigans destroyed her and poisoned her and tried to kill her and it’s a wonder she’s alive. A single drop of it in a well can kill all the inhabitants of a city ten times the size of London. And she...she just told them that they made her drink a gallon of it. That much should have killed her, made her an addict at the very least. Fuck, how is she alive? How is she…?” Calla wept as Bennie and Calla hugged each other as the Voyambi’s stared in horror at each other as Demsey was seeing red, he wanted to run Richard Morrigan through with a thousand swords and make pay with everything he had, including his life for what he did as one look around, Calla and Bennie's brothers were of the same mind as all of them curled their lips in anger and disgust as all of them were heaving mighty breaths as Duke and Duchess Voyambis were even appalled by such knowledge, to know a countryman would behave so.

Meanwhile back inside the audience room-

“It is because I have that proof that they are paying double to me what Edward claimed he could. But the stable masters knew that the chances of my recovery were slim. And I was more trouble than I was worth. So they branded me a shakan and I’ve been alone and by myself ever since. The Morrigans even blocked all messengeraris, all my letters, everything, even after I left them. There was no way for me to tell anyone and they isolated me from every other moura, it wasn’t until only a few weeks ago that Calla left a note inside a book that found its way to me that I was able to find Yalin, and she introduced me to others.” You explained to your family.

“Where are the Morrigan’s now?” Loreiris demanded, drawing her sword as everyone else did the same before Gregori and Yalin hurriedly opened the door as Bennie and Calla did the same, falling over each other to try to get through the door first as all Demsey saw was your whole family have a weapon drawn as they all stared angrily towards you, as you stood there with your hands up, using the universal signal for stop and they didn’t need to think twice, he bolted for you, leaping between Calla and Bennie, thinking they were going to attack but Ramsey managed to get to you first since the door he was overhearing from was closer to you before he pulled you behind him, rather hoping to be run through, so that he wouldn’t have to live without Axal as Demsey was there with him only a couple of seconds later.

“Oh my gods, they’re not after me, they’re wanting revenge on the Morrigans, I told my family what they did to me.” You confessed as you ducked and evaded both of them before Jane burst into tears and sunk down to the floor and you and Rian were the first to her.

“My parents are done for aren’t they?” Jane sobbed.

“Who is this girl?” Your mother demanded.

“This is the Morrigan’s only daughter, who is innocent in all of this. But her parents, as awful and abusive as they are, are the only things between her and living in the street. She was my only friend through all of it and she helped me gather evidence.” You answered as you helped pull her back up to her feet as you consoled her.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, if I can have a moment of your time and attention. While it is true that the Morrigans have wronged Sultana Audravienne, they have been under intense investigation for the last few days. A year ago, when the stable masters initially investigated this matter, they found solid evidence of wrongdoing and have kept that evidence, and they attempted to resolve this matter, thus the current contract that she has with them and the Morrigans. If you wish to legally press charges and wish to sue for damages and accuse them of whatever they might be guilty of, that can be arranged. But if you attempt to kill them in revenge, you will be wanted for murder which will spark a war. Right now, we must do things the proper way here in England. But this will take time. Up to a few weeks at least, maybe even a month. For now, settle in, come together, enjoy being reunited with Audravienne. There is a masquerade ball in only two days, and it will take us about a week but there has been a request for a proper Kamoba battle, which we will gladly host here. Let the tempers flare in the Komoba battle so that in court, we can all keep our composure and our heads and our wits. I will have the best lawyers involved and this matter will be resolved before you depart.” Gregori offered your family which seemed to be the magic words in appeasing them.

“Fine.” Loreiris huffed as she resheathed her sword as did everyone else in your family resheathe their weapons before Axal managed to pull you away from Jane and brought you back over to your family where you received even more hugs and words of encouragement and praise and understanding.

“Are you disappointed?” You asked your mother.

“No, I’m shocked, and I’m angry and very disappointed with the Morrigans. But not with you. You are blameless in this. You survived. You are here and you have persevered against mourkatilli which is a battle far too many lose to. No. I am proud of you. So proud of you. Since you are free of mourkatili now, we will have those masters reevaluate you. You will be coming home. Never again will an Englishman be in any position of authority over you and never again will you suffer at the hands of anyone, lest of all an Englishman. No, no child of mine will ever marry an Englishman after this” Your mother insisted as she said the word “Englishman” with particular hate and disdain and disgust As Yalin, Calla and Bennie all winced and grimaced as they gave each other meaningful looks.

“We’re screwed.” Yalin murmured worriedly to her husband before she translated your mother’s words to him.

“Oh I wouldn’t worry about it. Richard Morrigan has practically dug his own grave, all we need to do is prove he is the only Englishman who is like himself before we let himself bury himself in it before Audravienne is awarded everything he has and thus we will come to have everything he has. We can prove that we are different and that Audravienne would be treated very well here. Ramsey is up to the task to prove he is different.” Gregori returned confidently as Yalin looked from Gregori to Ramsey who looked particularly terrified of the idea as Ramsey looked to Axal who looked particularly anxious with his mother’s words as well.

“Mama, not all Englishmen are like the Morrigans.” You gently countered, thinking of Demsey Voyambi more than anyone.

“I mean the Raymonds, your hosts, act the opposite to the Morrigans, they have been very kind, welcoming and hospitable, they invited you here haven’t they? They are hosting us aren’t they? And they offered to help us. They are good people.” You tried to intercede for Axal’s sake as Axal blew out a breath of relief and gave you a look of gratitude and appreciation as Yalin too was giving you a grateful look.

“It is the Dauphin that has made us coming together possible and you just heard with your own ears what they are about to do for us. We can not snub them or begrudge them. They are innocent in all of this. Let us see how it plays out.” You desperately pleaded.

“What is Audra saying?” Gregori whispered.

“Audra is interceding for us.” Yalin proudly revealed.

“Excellent. Knew she would.” Gregori insisted.

“And you must make sure that her confidence is well founded and must be richly rewarded.” Gregori insisted to Ramsey.

“Yes, of course.” Ramsey forced a smile and a nod.

"Who are you?" Loreiris demanded as she stood before Demsey and appraised him.

"I'm Duke Demsey Voyambi." He cordially answered.

"Who are you to Audra?" She asked as she searched his eyes.

"A freind." He allowed.

"A friend?" She repeated with a raised brow.

"Yes." He nodded.

"A friend who put himself between her and her family? With a look in your eyes that said that you were about to fight all of us off if we posed a danger to her?" She posed.

"Absolutely. She has suffered more than enough and she should suffer no more, not by anyone's hands, not even those who may or may not share her blood." Demsey insisted as Loreiris mouth quirked a lopsided grin at him.

"A good friend then." She surmised.

"I hope so." Demsey found himself nodding.

"Good. But you should know, that the next time you try that, you will be run through and I have a feeling Audra would prefer you alive, rather than dead. Do not face a blade without the proper protection, or a blade of your own." Loreiris advised cooly before she turned and returned to the others.

[anika-ann]

Errare Humanum Est - Pt.4

Learning to Breathe

Type: series, soulmate AU series  (part 1, part 2)   x Supernatural

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader (past?)    Word count: 2600

Summary: You must get on the road so things finally start moving. One little thing tho - you really need some clothes of your own. ...yay?

Warnings: swearing, amnesia, Dean being Dean being themselves

The briefest guide to SPN characters of Team Free Will (at the end of the post)

Story masterlist

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You grew tired of staring at the screen after a while. There was so much information to look up, but you didn’t even know what you should be looking for. You had to mentally confirm Dean’s earlier words – brains were weird, like really freaking weird. You couldn’t remember your favourite drink or food or the reality of soulmates. On the other hand, you knew how to operate a tablet and what the Internet was. The names Natasha and Ryan popped up in your mind with no obvious reason, Rogers downright striking something in you.  

You wondered if any of those had to do something with your soulmate; your mind always ended up with him (and you were ninety percent sure they were a ‘he’), still fascinating you.

You shut the tablet down and eyed the couch. You knew you weren’t tired enough to fall asleep, your brain was too frantic for that, not to mention you had been sleeping (read dead, apparently), so you had your fill, but you didn’t have too many options. Your feet itched to take a walk, but you resisted – Sam had been right, you couldn’t just walk, less so in the middle of a night. The alarm on a nightstand read 4 a.m. You had no clue when Sam and Dean were usually getting up.

You didn’t know the men and their behaviour was puzzling you. They seemed to have never met you before, yet they were inclined to help you – with no outlook for a reward. God only knew why they were doing what they were and maybe quite literally the God. Castiel claimed to an angel after all. They had spoken of monsters. Who the hell were these guys?

It was hard to doubt their words – with little knowledge and unreliable sources on the internet, there was neither confirming nor denying their words. Then again, seeing Castiel just vanish into a thin air was pretty convincing.

You felt a headache starting to build up and decided to lie down on the couch at least, not even daring to hope for getting a shut-eye.

You were out in no time.

Gentle voice of a man you couldn’t remember guided you into the dreamland while whispering senseless words; there was one though that struck something deep inside you, making you jolt awake with a gasp and a faint pleasant taste on your lips.

“Doll…” the soft sigh followed you to full consciousness, echoing in your ears, tingling your spine.

“Morning, Natasha,” a different male voice greeted you and you yelped, spinning its direction, memories of yesterday events flooding your brain.

The tall long-haired man standing in the bathroom door was Sam and the man sitting on the bed, looking like he just woke up, short hair sticking in every direction and expression utterly confused, was Dean.

“S-sam,” you stuttered, your mind elsewhere.

Doll. Doll.

It definitely sounded like an endearment. A pet-name. The man’s voice was laced with emotions, gentle and warm, powerful and tender. You knew him. You must have known him, his name was on the tip of your tongue, begging to roll off and yet no sound came out when your lips parted. You blinked several times, chasing your dream, unable to add neither a name nor a face to the voice.

Your chest tightened, making it hard for you to breathe in, an inexplicable fear squeezing your lungs, sudden tears gathering in your eyes.

“Natasha?” Sam’s voice sounded from distance, strangely muffled. “Natasha? What’s wrong? Can you hear me?”

Your eyes automatically snapped up when a gentle hand appeared on your shoulder; Sam’s face was blurry, making you blink the salt droplets away.

Then, as if someone snapped their fingers, the suffocating feeling vanished and you welcomed the change with a fierce inhale.

“Natasha?”

“Yeah, yeah,” you panted. “I’m fine. I’m okay. Sorry to scare you first thing in the morning,” you tried to smile at him, probably failing.

He gave your shoulder a hesitant squeeze, his green-brown eyes mirroring concern. He exchanged a glance with Dean, who seemed way more awake than a minute ago.

“You good, kid?” he threw at you, his eyebrows furrowed.

Kid? Fire Princess? Sweetcheeks? What would come next? The ‘doll’ one? You hoped not.

Funnily enough, the addressing brought you back to reality better than anything else, your mind set straight; well, as much as it could be when you still didn’t know your own name.

Dean behaviour towards you was different than Sam’s and you couldn’t tell whether you liked better or not – it was just… different. And it ignited a spark inside you.

“I’m good, dad,” you hummed back, raising one corner of your lips, this time succeeding.

“Looks like she’s alright,” Dean smirked at Sam and the taller man rolled his eyes.

“It was just… a strange dream. It was probably nothing,” you explained, which caused Sam to finally release you. You found yourself missing the soothing weight of his hand and wondered what it said about you.

“Okay. We should get something to eat and get on the road. Dean?”

“Food. Coffee. Then think,” the man explained, making you chuckle. You stomach growled in agreement, blood rushing to your cheeks at that.

“Sounds good.”

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Running the facial recognition brought no results, much to Sam and Dean’s annoyance. It was ‘all quiet at Castiel’s front’, which was a statement you didn’t quite understand, but you assumed the expression was a private joke.

In other words, you had no clue who you were besides your soulmarks, the made-up name and a pleasant male voice following you from your dreams – not that you shared that with either of the brothers.

The name on the other hand….

“Uhm…” you started intelligently, as Dean and Sam were finishing their coffee (and yours, because you found out that coffee was not quite your thing), catching their attention. “I looked up some names common in the US and… uhm, Rogers-“

“Okay. That’s cool. Common enough, not too obvious like Smith. Good choice, Nat.” Dean glanced at you briefly. “You don’t mind being called Nat, right? ‘Cause I will call you that, it’s shorter.”

You blinked, confused. Huh? What did Dean mean? “Good choice…?”

“Well, yeah. We need to make you an ID. We should be heading to the bunker…” Dean mumbled absently, staring into the cup as if he wished there was more of that disgusting liquid.

“ID? Like… a fake one? You can do that?!”

They could make a fake ID? Seriously, who were they? Was Dean and Sam even their real names? You tried not to panic, because they had been nothing but kind to you, seemingly genuine and honest, but… but.

“You need to have one. We could just drop you at a police station and call it a day, but we think it’s better if you stay with us. For that, you need an ID,” Sam hurried to explain and you honestly didn’t know how to react.

You didn’t like the idea of lying about your identity to anyone, then again, you couldn’t remember your actual identity and apparently had been brought back from the death, so you were out of options so to speak.

“Okay,” you sighed, ignoring the unpleasant knot in your stomach. “You talked about… a bunker?”

Which didn’t sound ominous at all. Or creepy. Nope.

What did they do for living again?

“Yeah. It’s our base of operations.”

“For?” you urged Sam, your shoulders tense. Here it came; the fearsome reveal of the truth. Sam sighed and eyed you warily, as if agreeing with your unspoken thoughts.

“This is gonna sound crazy… but the unhuman things we talked about? We hunt them. We are finding strange crimes all over the country and go there to investigate them, finding the ‘cause’, which usually is some kind of a… monster….”

“And you kill the monster,” you finished breathlessly, feeling your heart jump to your throat.

Wow. Wow. You had no idea what to say to that announcement. There was no doubt Sam wasn’t lying. Why would he even make up such thing? They were killing monsters… things that were hurting people. It was unimaginable, incredible and impossible to wrap your head around, but strangely, it kinda…. made sense.

It only meant one thing.

“So… you’re heroes,” you exclaimed breathlessly, astounded.

The brothers stared at you blankly, frozen at your words.

What? What did you say wrong? They couldn’t be offended at that, right?

Dean chuckled and patted your shoulder. “Thanks, kid. I wish more people saw it this way…”

“Oh,” you paused, your mind racing. Right. They were able to make fake IDs. They probably didn’t have the jurisdiction to do what they did. And they were probably impersonating police officers of something like that to ‘investigate’, which meant they were technically outlaws. The revelation should give you creeps… but somehow, it didn’t. Knowing the truth actually calmed your nerves.  It probably had everything to do with the fact that knowing anything at all was better that knowing nothing – which seemed to be the standard for you now. “Right. Your lives must be peachy. Thanks for having me nevertheless.”

Now you most definitely broke them, didn’t you? They looked like you broke them. Dean’s expression was wary as he stared at you blankly and you shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.

“That’s it?” he asked, his green eyes looking like seeing the bottom of your soul. Ha! Was that a thing? Could he see your soulmate there?

Never mind…

“Uhm… yeah?”

Dean turned to Sam who was watching you with equally weirded out expression on his face and met Dean’s gaze as the shorter brother spoke up again.

“I love her.”

Your eyebrows shot up at that, but you recognized he wasn’t exactly confessing his undying love to you. Yet, you couldn’t deny that both brothers seemed happy about your reaction. It was strange, but all of what they were apparently doing, the way they lived… it didn’t feel that unreal.

For all you didn’t remember about your life and the world in general, you couldn’t help a distant feeling that there was a certain level of insane you should be used to.

Momentarily, you were grateful for that, because otherwise accepting all of this madness might actually cause you to fold like a house of cards. Instead, you just shrugged when Sam looked at you, relieved.

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Breakfast absolutely was the most important meal of the day for Sam and Dean. You spent almost an hour with it, but you couldn’t complain – they fed you, they clothed you (though the way they did was beginning to be a problem, people stared and you didn’t really feel comfortable wearing that), they were patient with you not knowing shit… . You didn’t want to be too much of a burden to them; there wasn’t much you could pay them back with. At least not yet.

You were in the town of Clayton in Ohio. You somehow understood that it was in the United States, you knew there was such thing, but you were glad to have it shown in a map – not that it told you much. The names of towns and cities didn’t remind you of anything. Nothing seemed familiar.

It sucked.

Apparently, the famous bunker Dean had mentioned was in Lebanon, Kansas, which was about a 13-hour drive. You were horrified, but once again kept your mouth shut, knowing very well that you had no right to say a word besides ‘thanks’.

You obediently climbed on a backseat of a fancy black car, not forgetting to compliment it instinctively. Dean flashed you a pleased grin, patting his ‘Baby’ on the roof before taking the wheel.

Funnily enough, he pulled over after what could be five minutes, earning himself your puzzled gaze. Huh? Sam seemed equally confused until he looked outside, nodding and catching your eye in the rear-view mirror.

“So, Natasha… ready to do some shopping?”

You weren’t; apparently, Dean wasn’t either, because he excused himself, taking a beeline with the car to get gas and left you alone with slightly uncomfortable Sam.

“I… I promise that when you manage to… help me get on my feet anyhow, I’ll pay you back,” you said quietly, worrying your teeth over your lower lip.

Sam quickly fixed his expression, his face inviting once more. It made you feel worse. He was suffering just like his finances… wait, how did they get finances? People didn’t pay them for what they were doing, were they?

“Don’t worry about that. I’m just wondering if I’m the right person to help you with shopping.”

You chuckled at that, imagining Sam carrying tens of shopping bags.

“I won’t need much, Sam. In fact, I wouldn’t need anything really-“

“Absolutely not,” he shook his head, his long hair swaying around his head. It was cute. “You need your own clothes. Dean’s too big and… his wardrobe is not exactly for women.”

“Well, I probably should merge with the crowd, right? And you’re the only crowd I know, so…” You looked around the shop, a slow smile spreading on your face when you found what you were looking for. You held up a female plaid shirt, clearly surprising Sam if his confused expression was anything to go by. “What do you think?”

༻༺༻༺༻ღ༺༻༺༻༺

Shopping wasn’t terrible; you only picked necessities, blushing like a tomato (did you like tomatoes?) when you headed to certain department Sam didn’t dare to follow you to. You didn’t bother with cosmetics – you could use theirs and as far as you were concerned, you didn’t need the particular set of supplies for women just yet.

It took you only half an hour, Dean already waiting in front of the shop in his Chevrolet, lightly drumming his fingers on the steering wheel in a catchy tune. He grinned a boyish smile when he saw you, not at all bothered by your presence and continued enjoying the music from the radio. He was downright adorable.

Two men built like rocks who hunted monsters for living and you both found them cute within an hour. They were incredible goofballs. You loved it.

“Look at you, all in plaid and yet looking like a woman,” he hummed and your cheeks coloured in intense red.

“Dean, shut up,” Sam scolded him, eyebrows furrowing as he circled the car and took the shotgun seat.

“What?” Dean complained, turning his palms up. “That was a compliment.”

“It was accepted,” you assured him and smiled at both him and Sam, which caused the driver gesture towards you as if he was saying ‘see?’ to Sam – he only rolled his eyes in response.

“You don’t mind music, do you?”

“Not at all,” you replied to Dean, not even considering a different answer. Even if had been annoyed at it, you sure as hell wouldn’t say.

“I might actually love you, Nat,” Dean threw over his shoulder, staring the engine. “Oh and we’re not heading to the bunker. I found us a case-“

A case? As in… a monster case?!

“We already have a case!”

“It’s witches, Sammy. I couldn’t ignore that.”

You caught Sam’s expression in the rear-view mirror, his nose scrunched in disgust, which spiked your interest despite the worries twisting your gut.

“Oh God, I hate those.”

“As do I, Sammy, as do I,” Dean agreed grimly. “It’s in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Oh and Garth agreed to make Nat an ID and deliver it to Bedford, which is on our way.”

Your lips parted in silent shock. What? That fast? Who was Garth? Also… just how much Dean managed to do while Sam was playing your walking wallet?

“Good. Thanks for taking care of that.”

“Thanks,” you echoed Sam’s words, too taken aback to speak out loud. “Thank you, Dean.”

“Sure thing, Nat. Sure thing. Now let’s get this show on the road.”

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Part 5

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Heya, lovlies!

I’m not posting another chapter for at least a week, because life, but I hope tha wait will be worth it. We’re gonna take a step back and see how Steve has been doing and how spy!Natasha is onto something. Thank you for reading!

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Tags: @cxptain​​​ @smilexcaptainx​​​ , @murdermornings​​​ @irepostthingsiwanttoseelater , @polarcrystall​​​ @eliza5616​​​ @rayofdawnworld @victor-criss-bish​​​ @skychild29​​​  @elysianecho​​​ @simmisblog​​​ @scentedsongrebel​​​ @orions-nebula​​​, @sergeantrosabellaswan​​​ @songofcosplay​​​, @ilovesupersoldiers​​​ @wxstedhexrt​​​ @silver-winter-wolf​​​ @guardian-tn @janieavalos  @vxidnik​​​, @patzammit​​​ , @annathesillyfriend​​​ @maravderofthephoenix​​​

Anyone wants in or out, shoot me a message or an ask :)) It’s (usually) no problem ;)

[im-the-punk-who]

I'm going to be a little shit and say soft Gunnbones bc yeah ❤

SAMMMMMMMMM YOU LITTLE - listen i take no responsibility for this.

Also I am 90% sure these sound nothing like them but in my defense I have literally never paid attention to Ben Gunn in my life and Billy doesn’t even know what Billy sounds like.  (Also on AO3!)

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

“The task I am giving to you is of the utmost importance. Deliver Flint, then find the cache and return with it.”

The words echo in Ben’s head and he feels fear grip him again. The threat in Silver’s voice - with it or not at all - sends him further into the forest. It’s even more eerie than it had been the first time he’d seen it. Now, there is no battle, no war. No one to run from. Just him, alone - in a forest filled with an increasing number of ghosts - and a nearly impossible task. 

He’s been here a week already with no sign of even a shovel mark. He’s had to remember the trapping his father taught him - snares and watching for game tracks and how to make a spear from a knife. 

Those memories had served him well when he’d attempted to escape the maroons, and he’d been thankful for them.

Now he wishes he hadn’t ever told the crew of the Walrus about his ability to survive.

He knows he’s never going to be able to find the cache. He knows that, at least. There are too many places Flint could have hidden it and as good as he is at surviving, hunting has never been his forte. 

He just hopes that maybe he can stay here long enough that John Silver will forget about him, as he wants the world to forget about Flint.

“And I’ve got a long fucking memory-”

The snap of a twig too heavy to be a deer makes him spin - and he almost loses his footing when he gets tangled in the foliage that snakes the ground. 

When he looks up, at first, Ben thinks he must be done for. Surely - 

“Ben?” Billy Bones lowers the knife. 

“What are you doing here?” 

It’s an all too familiar feeling - his life in Billy’s hands. Ben remembers the last time, being so sure he was dead in that water that smelled like burning powder and blood, only to somehow come out alive. 

- Or not at all -

“Mr. Silver sent me here to find the cache.” Billy’s mouth hardens and Ben wonders again if he’s about to meet his end at the hands of - well. 

“Sent you here to die, more like it.” 

As punishment.

“What do you mean?” 

“Flint’s the only one who know where it is, isn’t he?” Billy seems like he wants to say more, but instead he just shakes his head. “Nevermind. Come on. Might as well stick together.”

Ben wants to ask why. Why didn’t you shoot me? But he follows silently. He knows when not to tempt fate. Unsurprisingly, Billy has more than enough food to share. Ben had taught him when they were on Nassau and living between the town and the plantations how to trap. It had been hell trying to hide and not get caught and feed everyone and still somehow fight a fight he didn’t understand - but somehow it had felt less like hell than when he was alone in the cage, back on the maroon’s island.

He still has nightmares about that.

But right now, as they sit around the small fire Billy has started and wait for the rabbit to cook, it’s not that near death experience that’s weighing on his mind.

“Why didn’t you shoot me?” 

His voice is soft - in truth the words barely come out. Billy looks up from the spit.

“What?”

“In the water. When the Walrus sunk. Why didn’t you shoot me, too?”

Billy stares at him, and then back at the fire. Ben knows it isn’t, but it feels like an eternity before he speaks.

“Out of all of them. Every one of those men that I fought and bled alongside, not one of them would disobey him to help me. I propped him up, tried to help him get rid of Flint - what we all wanted - and in the end he betrayed me and took everyone with him. Except you.” 

The intensity of Billy’s gaze has always scared Ben, a little. He usually feels small and insignificant in the face of that intensity at the best of times but now, it feels different. Now he feels like the center of it and he feels almost too big for his own skin.

“You were the only one who cared if I lived when the Spanish raided Nassau. That meant something to me.” 

“It just wasn’t right.” 

It feels like an excuse for the real reason he hadn’t been able to stand the thought of Billy dying tied and beaten. The real reason he had - for possibly the first time in his life - stood up against something he thought was wrong. 

Now when he thinks about all that Silver has done to see his own ending be the one that gets told, he’s more terrified than ever of John Silver - even though he knows the truth and not the story. 

Even though he knows the truth he’s still terrified of the man who managed to weave such a convincing lie it stopped what had seemed like an unstoppable war, dead. Cold. That kind of power reminded him too much of the unshakeable and unquestionable authority the queen of the maroons had used to kill his shipmates - that his captain before that had used to keep them all in line. The kind of power he’s been subject to all his life. 

Ben has been running from power for so long but in that moment he had defied John Silver in freeing Billy. And somehow Silver had known and sent him here in a fruitless search for what it had cost him. 

That Ben would do it again if it meant saving Billy Bones’ life - that didn’t feel like powerlessness.

“It just wasn’t right.” He repeats.

Billy exhales, tilting his head in agreement. “Well.” Ben waits, but there isn’t more to the thought. The rabbit is done; cooked until the skin has just started to burn on the outside, and Ben’s mouth waters at the thought of food. When Billy pulls out a soggy but mostly intact chunk of cheese to slather over the meat, it seems almost an impossibly decadent feast. 

As they eat, Ben can see Billy thinking. Finally, “What happened?”

He looks up, confused.

“After they defeated Rogers. I assume if you’re here looking for the cache, Flint isn’t giving up the location to Silver.” 

It hits Ben, then - that Billy doesn’t know. Doesn’t know the truth or the lie and it’s in Ben’s hands, which he learns. He thinks back, to trust. To sparing Billy, and Billy sparing him in return. To powerlessness and power over a story. In another small act of defiance against John Silver, he tells Billy Bones the truth.

“The war’s over. Mr. Silver sent Flint to a plantation in Georgia. He’s there, I assume for good from what it sounded like.” Except he’s got - well...

Ben thinks about that too. Seeing the man he had come to fear second only to John Silver himself weeping openly, kissing the blond man who’d been in the field, there. Thomas Hamilton.

“You make sure that Flint sees Thomas Hamilton.”

Ben hadn’t understood that part of the instructions. Why this Hamilton was so important his presence would stop Flint from fleeing, in Silver’s mind. But then he thinks about what he had seen in that field, and about how John Silver is still on the island with the Maroons. With his Madi.

And Ben looks across the fire to Billy. 

“You’re telling me that Silver expects Flint to stay put - after he betrayed him and sold the Flint’s war out from under him, just because an old lover is there?” 

Ben shrugs. He hadn’t known Flint long enough to know, either way.

“He seemed certain of it. Told me to make sure Flint saw that Hamilton fellow and then come back here, for the treasure.”

“Without a map.”

“I did ask.” He’d asked only once - just before they’d reached Georgia. Asked Flint if he’d give up the location now that he was being given what he’d been promised. His end of the bargain.

Flint’s answer had been a puzzle Ben is still trying to figure out.

“Already?.”

It had seemed both cruel and sad, somehow, but Ben hadn’t gotten a chance to ask for clarification before Flint’s attention had been drawn completely elsewhere. 

“He’ll be back for it.” Billy’s voice interrupts his memory.

“Huh?” 

“Flint would never let something like this go.”

“Silver said he wouldn’t - couldn’t - be seen again. That he’d stay where Thomas Hamilton was.”

“Flint’s never cared about anyone enough to give up this war before. He’s addicted to getting something from it.” 

Billy seems so certain, but again the image of Flint - looking so wholly different than Ben had ever seen him, leaning against Thomas Hamilton - enters his mind.

“Well either way I’ll be here for years - trying to find the cache without a map.”

Billy looks over at him again, seems to be measuring something. What, Ben isn’t sure. 

“Don’t.”

“What?”

“Don’t look for it. You’re safe here. Silver won’t come back, not if he hasn’t already. Don’t look for it till I bring you the map.”

[kayteewritessteve]

Love and War - 14/16

Description: In a harsh medieval world, you set out on a perilous quest that will lead you onto a forbidden land. A land ruled and controlled by a ruthless Warlord King, one who does not look favourably upon trespassers of any kind, and punishes all with an iron fist. You may not know exactly where this quest will end, but what you do know is you will forever be altered by it. And that knowledge alone is what truly terrifies you the most.

Catch up HERE.

Word Count: 5,800 ish.

Pairing: Medieval!Steve Rogers x Reader.

Rating: PG for now. May become 18+ later.

Warnings: Violence. Curse words. Mentions of fears and potentially brutal medieval tactics. Most likely more to come down the road. Please don’t let these warnings scare you too much, give the story a try before you judge it.

A/N: I sadly don’t own any of these characters. And no beta reader either, so I do proudly own all these errors and this story, so there’s that.

You awaken to the feeling of being jostled, before you’re laid down on a plush, yet cold surface. It feels almost like a bed, but one that has been left unused in a cold room. You shiver from the chill slowly seeping into your body, as you slowly open your eyes to peer around. To establish where exactly you are.

Last you remember, you were in your room, wrapped up in the arms of the man you loved. The man you’d just married. The man you’d get to spend your eternity with.

But now, now you are alone. Now you are laying on some cold bed, with no muscular, warm arms anywhere in sight. Which means no Ari anywhere nearby, at least as far as you can tell. He must still be speaking with Athos, and you can only imagine how that conversation is going—though conversation is probably not the proper word to use here, it would probably be more accurate to say argument. As you knew full well that it would become very heated between them the moment Ari told his father the truth. Told him you were now wed, and that the deal with Hepha would be impossible now.

You smile at the thought, both of foiling Hepha’s ridiculous plans, but also at now being able to call Ari yours. Truly and entirely yours. He belonged to you, as you belonged to him. And nothing, or no one, could stand in the way of your undying love now. It would always be just the two of you, for forever and a day.

Your eyes finally fully open, but all you see is darkness. You wait for them to adjust to the low light of your room, but they never do. And it’s after a few moments that you realize something is over your face, some soft material is blocking your sight. You go to reach up to pull, what you assume is blankets, from your face, but your arms don’t move. They don’t respond to your commands, and that—well, that just isn’t right.

You begin to panic as you clue in that you have no control or power over your own body, your own form, and that you are essentially trapped within your skin. That realization only stand to cause you more anxiety, more panic. Why can’t you move?! Where is Ari? Where are you?!

“Ah, I see she has finally awaken,” you hear a disturbing voice comment, and a chill runs down your spine at the voice. One you knew all too well.

Before you can even think about why he is here, the fabric is pulled from your head and you blink a few times to clear your panicky haze. It doesn’t take but a moment to notice you aren’t in your room anymore.

No, from the looks of it, you aren’t even in a structure of any kind. Your eyes dart around as well as they are able, what with your current paralytic state and inability to even so much as move your head. The jagged rock surfaces, looking as if they were chiseled away painstakingly, bit by bit, and entirely by hand, is all you see. You are clearly underground, or maybe in a cave of some sort.

But then your wandering eyes land on 3 shadowy forms off to the side. 2 you recognize instantly, but the 3rd, a feminine form, is new to you. You go to speak, but no words come out, your lips not even moving at all.

“Don’t try to speak,” Hepha says as he moves from the darkness and into the light. Coming towards you and you go to shrink away from him, but once again, your body remains immobile and unresponsive. As he nears you, you can’t miss the smug grin on his face, as if he is proud of himself somehow. As if he is pleased with all of this. “No words will come out, you are under a spell that has paralyzed you.”

You want to snark back at him, make some sassy comment about having already clued in to that. But once again you can’t utter a word, so you settle for a loud sigh and an eye roll, only having control over your breathing and eyes. He’ll know your true disdain for him, if it takes every ounce of strength and determination that you have within you. He’ll know you loathe him in this moment, as you wouldn’t have it any other way.

He chuckles, shaking his head, “I see you still have your spirits about you, even in your current state.”

You just glare up at him, channelling all your hatred for this, this good-for-nothing bastard, into your eyes. Hoping he’d get the message.

A movement behind Hepha catches your eye and you snap them in that direction. Seeing a strange woman and Charandas; Hepha’s loyal dog and servant, now both moving towards you. The woman’s face is neutral, calm even, and something in her eyes tells you that everything will be okay. That you are safe here and she will protect you. But you don’t understand how that is even possible, or why she is even here.

You are curious how Hepha managed to bring this woman here, how he talked her into being a part of all of this. Something about her tells you she isn’t the type to partake in kidnap or imprisonment. So he must be holding something over her, he must be threatening something she loves. And if that is true, it wouldn’t surprise you in the slightest. Hepha was a manipulative snake, through and through.

The strange woman begins to pull out weird objects from her satchel, and you study her for a moment, before your eyes snap back to Hepha. A question settling within your curious glassy orbs.

And luckily for you, the buffoon seems to recognize that, and gives you a wretched grin, “I gather you are curious as to why you’re here?” He raises a brow then glances at the woman, “and who she is, perhaps?” You go to nod, but once again nothing happens. So you just stare pointedly at him, waiting for him to go on.

He chuckles. “I’ll start with the simple question,” he gestures to the woman, “this is Medea, and she is here to do a few different things. One of those was to paralyze you, and then to put you into a deep sleep. As I can’t have you escaping on me this time, now can I?”

You just glare up at him. Millions of questions and concerns running through your head, but you can’t seem to focus on any of them. The only thing you can feel in this moment is sheer anger and unwavering fear. Both of which are clouding your mind.

“As for why you are here, there are also a few different reasons for that as well, but the main ones being that you lied to me. You’ve made a fool of me, Y/N, and I can not allow that to stand. Aasira does not love me, she does not love anyone. You tricked me into believing she did, and for that you will pay.”

His hands move to clasp behind his back, as he begins to slowly pace. You can only intermittently see him, as his slow wandering brings him back to your line of sight, before he disappears again. Only to reappear a moment later. This goes on for a moment before he speaks again, his voice dripping with sheer anger and venom, “and because I overheard Alarick,” he spits the name out like spoilt milk on his tongue, “telling Athos about your little union. About how you both went behind everyone’s backs to secretly wed.” He abruptly stops pacing and leans towards you menacingly, “you think some stupid piece of parchment will stop me from obtaining what I desire most? The one thing I have yearned for above all else?”

He laughs loudly, standing back up as his head tips back, “if you truly do believe that, then you are more of a fool than I thought.” He shakes his head then his eyes meet yours, “I will stop at nothing to destroy the love between Alarick and you. He doesn’t deserve you, he doesn’t deserve to be happy. I have, and will always, love you more than he ever could. He will never care for you as I do.”

You narrow your eyes at him, this man truly is an utter buffoon. Taking someone against their will isn’t ‘love’, stealing them away in the night and bringing them to a desolate place such as this, is not ‘caring’ for someone. It’s kidnap, it’s deceit. He doesn't love you, he is a lunatic if he truly believes this is love. That this is how you show your feelings for another.

Why can’t he see this is madness?! That you don’t love him and you never will! That you love Alarick, and only Alarick, and that will never change. No matter how ridiculous his ploys become. Ari is your one true love, he is your everything, for eternity.

He is pacing again, his voice still oozing malice and spite. “I was so angered by your actions, by your betrayal, that I came up with this little plan. One that would effectively kill two birds with one stone, so to speak,” he abruptly stops pacing, his hands unclasping from behind his back to gesture around the dimly lit space, “I will imprison you within this cave, and keep you and Alarick from each other. He will live out his days searching for his true love,” he spits venomously, “unable to rest, unable to so much as breathe without you. He will crumble, he will wither away, he will become a shell of the man he once was. And that will be my revenge on him. He will spend his entire life endless wandering, hopelessly hunting for you. But he will never find you, and will instead be left entirely alone and miserable. Which, in my eyes, is all he deserves.”

He chuckles, a zestful sound to match the joyous smile now upon his lips, as if that image of Alarick brings him great comfort. Allows him sheer happiness in this moment.

He looks down at you once again, his calloused hand coming up to caress your cheek. The feeling of his disgusting hand upon you, makes you sick. Makes you want to cringe away from him, puke and smack him, all at the same time. You are utterly revolted by the contact, the only man who should ever lay a hand on you, is Alarick. And if he knew of this, of this bastards hands upon your skin, he’d be on a warpath, a complete rampage. He’d be truly out for blood.

“Now that just leaves the final reason as to why I’ve chosen to imprison you here, my love.” Those two words leaving his chapped lips only stand to disgust you further. “I refuse to share you with another, I refuse to lose you to that, that beast. I will hide you here, in this place, where I may visit you whenever I so please. Where you will belong to only me. My most prized possession for which only my eyes may gaze upon. You will be only mine, forever.”

He glances over his shoulder, ushering the strange woman forward with a movement of his fingers. She quickly scurries to the other side of you, picking up your left hand and clasping it tightly within her own. Though not tight enough to hurt, just enough to have a firm grip on it. Then she closes her eyes and begins to chant, the words foreign to you, sounding as if she is speaking in tongues.

After a few moments of this, your heart pounding hard against your rib cage, like a galloping horses hooves against the ground, your eyelids become heavy. You try to fight to keep them open, but the immense weight now upon them slowly begins to win out. You start to lose the battle as they flutter for a moment, before all that is left is darkness. Is a black void for which you are now trapped.

The final thing you feel is complete and utter hopelessness, and the crippling fear that Alarick won’t find you, that he will not be victorious in rescuing you this time. You prey he can find peace with this, that he can move on from the loss of you. That should he never track you down, should he never set eyes upon your skin ever again, that he can come to terms with that. That he can learn to live without you.

Those thoughts break your heart, but true love is hoping with all hope that the one you adore is alive, is happy with their life, and content in its outcomes. Even if the cost of that is your own wellbeing, even if the price is your own heart, happiness, and future. You want nothing more than for them to be settled, to be happy, to be truly okay.

Ari’s face, the last image you see as the darkness finally consumes you, swallowing you whole.

“My Lady,” you hear a frantic whispered voice attempting to pull you from the dark. “You must open your eyes, My Lady.”

You groan, your eyes slowly fluttering open, feeling as though they are currently being held down by some invisible force. They finally open fully and take a second to adjust to the low light, before they settle on an unfamiliar face leaning over yours.

“My Lady,” she whispers hastily, “I haven’t much time, but I need to tell you something of grave importance. And you must remember these next words entirely,” she glances around the space quickly before her eyes lock with yours. “I have made a talisman from your ring,” she holds up a beautiful ring in front of you. One you’ve never seen before, but yet she claims is yours. “It is the key to all of this, My Lady. It will unlock everything. When you finally rise, you must put it on, it will give you all that has been stolen from you. It will return all that is lost.”

You furrow your brows at her cryptic words, your eyes moving from the ring in her hands, to glance around the dark unfamiliar space. Where the Gods are you?! And who is this strange woman?!

She chuckles quietly, “I am Medea, My Lady.”

Your eyes snap back to her, seeing a sweet yet sad smile upon her lips. Did she just—How does she know what you’re thinking?!

“I can hear your thoughts,” she whispers. “You will escape this place one day, but until then, I promise you will be safe here. This is all part of the prophecy, Fate has chosen this path for you. It was set in stone long before my time, and will play out exactly as it should, long after I am gone. You will see, all will be made right in the end. But you must remember this ring, My Lady, you must replace it to it’s rightful spot upon your finger. Heed my words, this ring is the key to it all.”

Why are you doing this?! Why am I here?!

“Because the Fates have decided upon it, because this is as it should be. All will come into the light one day, all will be made known to you in due time.” She smiles, but you can tell it’s forced, “even if Hepha had not sought me out and threatened my life, or the lives of my children, I would have been here. As this is my destiny, my part in Fates plan, and I’ve known it all along. I always knew he would come, and that his arrival would be my undoing.” She sighs, “though even with that said, can you promise me one thing. Just to ease a dying woman’s mind.”

You furrow your brows again, and attempt to slowly nod but nothing happens. Your head doesn’t move, not even slightly. Promise you what, exactly?

“I knew this would all come to pass many moons ago, that this is how my life would end. But a mother's love is unwavering, it is unbreakable, and even with the knowledge of all that is to pass, I still need to hear the words. To know without any shadow of a doubt that they will be okay.”

What do you mean? Who will be? Your children?

“Yes, my children,” she sighs, tears now forming in her eyes. “Promise me you will look out for them. Promise me you will love them.”

You stare at her for a moment, completely and totally lost. Where will you be? Why do you need me to promise this to you?

“I will be long gone from this place.” She glances up at the rocky roof wistfully, as if to look to the sky, “somewhere near yet far.” Her eyes drop back down to meet yours, “and I just need to know they will be okay, that someone will watch out for them, will truly love them. And who more fitting than you, My Lady,” she gestures to you.

Who are your children? Where will I find them? How will I find them?

“You won’t find them, they will find you, when the time is right,” she grasps your hand tightly. “Please, promise me they will be safe with you?”

I don’t know if I can promise that. I don’t even know who I am, or where I am. How can I make a promise to you that I can’t possibly keep. How can I vow to keep them safe, when I have no idea what the future will hold for me.

“I know what it will hold,” she nods and squeezes your hand gently. “They will rescue you one day, but you must promise to watch out for them once they do.”

Okay, I promise I will do everything in my power to keep them safe. To love them. And to watch out for them.

She is about to speak, when the sound of rocks crumbling halts her. Her whole body becomes rigid and unmoving for a moment, before she leans down and whispers, “sleep now, My Lady. And thank you for allowing this old woman one final moment of peace before her end. But please remember, the ring is the key to all of this. You must find it and put it on once you wake, it will be hidden somewhere within this cave. Find it. Return it to it’s rightful place. And follow your Fate chosen destiny.”

Okay, I will, Medea. I promise.

She smiles one last time at you, before your world begins to slip into darkness. Your eyes feeling heavy, and the only thought running through your mind is your promise, and the image of the ring you will need to find once you awaken.

And then, all is just never-ending blackness. A void of nothingness that’s clouded in utter silence.

“Y/N!”

“Oh Gods, Y/N please wake up!”

“What’s wrong with her? Why isn’t she responding?”

“How should I know?!”

Your eyes snap open, as your body lunges up from your laying down position. You hear gasps around you as your eyes adjust to the low lighting. You frantically search the space, as the hazy forms around you begin to morph into people. Not just people but your friends, your family.

As they come fully into focus, you see the worried and startled expressions now written all over their faces.

“The ring is the key to all of this,” you whisper, going to stand but your limbs are wobbly and tingly.

Sam quickly grabs hold of you, “slowly, Y/N. Nice and slow.” He helps you stand, holding you up for a moment while you regain your balance and control.

After a few moments you feel okay, and give him a nod, “thank you, Sam, I believe I can stand on my own now.”

He looks hesitant, but reluctantly releases you. His hands staying close just in case you start to plummet to the floor again.

“Are you okay?” Wanda asks as she moves in front of you and her eyes assess your whole form, as if to see if you’re hurt. “How do you feel?”

You think it over for a moment, then respond truthfully, “I feel fine. A little hazy, but normal.”

“Oh thank the Gods,” Pietro sighs deeply, as he engulfs you in a hug, causing you to chuckle softly. He pulls back after a moment, “you had us really worried there for a moment, Y/N.”

You glance around at the others, “what happened?”

“You just passed out. We have no idea why,” Wanda tells you.

“You touched the glass coffin and just dropped,” Sam adds, worry still prominent in his voice.

You nod, your eyes now scanning the room, “I remember being brought here.” You look to Wanda and Pietro, “I made a promise to someone. One I fully intend to keep, now that I can actually remember it.”

They both nod slowly, glancing at each other before turning back to you. And you can’t miss the confused looks on both their faces now.

You take a few shaky steps, Sam directly behind you, his hands out as if to catch you should you fall. Your eyes continue to search the dark space, glancing to Natasha as you reach a hand out to her, “may I borrow that?”

She furrows her brows as she looks down to the torch in her hand, then passes it to you. “Thanks,” you smile and begin to move around the space. Checking the small dark crevasses thoroughly as you do.

“What exactly are you looking for?” Natasha asks as the four of them follow closely behind you.

You don’t turn to them, keeping your eyes focus on searching. “The ring.”

“The ring?” Wanda asks slowly, sounding utterly confused.

“Yes, it is the key to all of this,” you nod.

“Should we be searching for this ring as well?” Sam asks.

“If you could,” you finally glance back, smiling at him. “It is vital that we find it. It will unlock everything.” Then your eyes return to scouring the dark areas, “you can’t miss it, it will have a large moonstone in it.”

He furrows his brows, but nods. Him and Natasha then move to the other side of the space, and begin searching. Thankfully they both have exceptional night vision, meaning you can keep the torch for your own search efforts. Wanda and Pietro then join you, searching the areas along with you. As the light hits new spots, the three of you thoroughly check them for anything that stands out, that resembles a ring.

A few moments later, a small twinkle catches your eye. You quickly make your way towards it, lowering yourself down and holding the light up to the area. The light hits something and causes it to glimmer and shine. You reach your hand into a small crevice, your fingers grazing something small and cold. Something not made from this place, a foreign material. One that feels very much like metal.

You stretch your fingers as far as you can, finally grasping the small object and pulling it out from it’s hiding place. The others are surrounding you now, having noticed you crouching down to retrieve something.

You hold it in your hand, staring down at it for a moment. It looks exactly as it had in your memory, only now more weathered and tarnished. The others stand around you, looking at the ring now sitting atop your open palm.

You hand Natasha the torch before you move to place the ring on your finger, but a gentle hand grasps yours and prevents you from continuing the action. You look up to see Wanda staring back at you. “Are you sure this is a good idea, Y/N?”

“What if this is all just some elaborate trick?” Sam asks.

“Or what if this causes you to fall into another deep sleep?” Pietro adds.

You turn to Natasha, who hasn’t spoken a word yet. She is looking intently at the ring, as if she recognizes it but yet doesn’t. Her eyes flick up to yours and you can see the confusion in them. The conflict. “Part of me wants to agree with the other. To think logically here,” she starts, her eyes dropping back to the ring in your hand. “But something else tells me that ring means so much more than any of us can even fathom. That it stands for so much more.” She shakes her head, as if trying to joggle a memory loose, “that it was made in the name of love, and that fact alone will never allow it to harm you, to deceive you, or to steer you wrong.” She locks eyes with you again, “I think you should put it on.”

“What?” Sam gasps, eyes wide as he spins to look at Natasha. “You’re just going to go along with this? You’ve never even seen this ring before in your life, how do you know it won’t harm her?!”

She shrugs, “I don’t, but my instincts tell me it won’t, and I always trust my gut.” She looks at the ring again, “But I do think I have seen it before, I just can’t remember it.” She sighs, shaking her head again, “it sounds ridiculous, I know. But I’m positive I’ve laid eyes on this ring before. It’s like I recognize it, yet I don’t.”

Her eyes meet yours and you smile, nodding that you understand what she means then you look between Wanda and Pietro. “She was right, you did end up finding me. You did end up rescuing me. And even though I had forgotten her words, I somehow managed to keep my promise to her.”

They both furrows their brows. “Who?” They ask in unison.

“Medea. Your mother,” you whisper, glancing up at the rocky roof just as she had. As if you could see her up there, looking down on you all and watching. “I made her a promise that I intend to keep.”

Wanda gasps, her hand releasing yours as it moves to cover her mouth. “How did you,” she begins to murmur but trails off as your eyes drop back down to meet hers.

“You knew her?” Pietro asks softly. “How is that even possible?”

You flick your eyes to his and give him a small, unsure smile, “I don’t know how it’s possible. But she was here,” you glance around, “in this cave. She came to me, and told me of the ring. She made me promise to watch out for you both, to love you both.” You nod once, “and that is why I need to do this,” you say determinedly as you quickly push the ring onto your finger, before anyone else can even attempt to stop you again.

And instantly your head pounds, you gasp as you clench your eyes shut and your hands move to your temples. The immense pain ripping through you is like nothing you’ve ever felt before. The throbbing causes you to cry out in agony as your legs buckle and you collapse to the floor. Landing heavily on your knees as you lean forward, your fingers digging into your skin in any attempt to rid your skull of the intense and immeasurable pain coursing through it. The feeling of millions of tiny knives slicing and cutting away at your brain, at your mind.

Memories begin to return to you at a rapid pace. Images, feelings, emotions and sounds all coming back to you in chunks and pieces. All slowly forming full stories, entire recounts of past moments in your life. It feels as if you are the sand, and your memories are the oceans unrelenting waves continuously crashing down upon you.

You grit your teeth, your lids scrunching together tighter as you attempt to endure this agony for as long as you can. You pray you can take this all, you hope you can survive this torture. That you can just hold on long enough for it to all be over. For it to be finished.

After what feels like an eternity, the pain finally subsides. It finally ends. And you take a few deep shaky breaths, your hands drop from your head and land on the cold ground, as you lean forward and allow yourself a moment of reprieve. A few seconds to just breath.

You finally open your eyes, pushing yourself back up to rest in your folded legs. The two Lycan’s both look even more concerned than they had before, they have this strange helpless look in their eyes and you instantly realize Wanda and Pietro are seating on the ground as well. Both on their folded knees just like you. Both have the same dazed, yet aware look on their faces that you are sure resembles your own features in this moment.

A silence falls over the cave as you just glance between the 2 siblings, taking them in, in an entirely new light now. As they both do the same, just staring right back at you.

Sam is the first to speak up, “okay, what the hell was that!?”

You chuckle as you look up at him, seeing his furrowed brows as he also glances between the three of you now seated on the floor. Before you can say a word, Wanda pipes up, “Do you remember everything too?”

You smile at her, nodding, “I do. I remember everything and more now.”

You go to try to stand, Wanda and Pietro noticing and quickly jumping up to help you. “Here, My Lady. Let us help you,” Pietro says politely as he gently grasps one of your arms, Wanda taking the other as they softly pull you up to stand.

“Just because we all have our memories back, doesn’t change anything,” you sweetly scold him. “I am, and always will be just Y/N to you both. Got it?”

They both nod, softly saying, “yes,” in unison.

“Good. So none of this ‘My Lady’ crap. I didn’t like it before I got my memories back, and I still don’t like it now,” you grin at them.

“Alright,” Sam starts, drawing all the attention back to him, “can somebody please explain what the hell is going on? What did you all just remember?!”

The fiery redhead across from you sighs loudly at Sam’s interruption. “You’re always so damned impatient,” she says as she rolls her eyes, and an involuntary smile breaks out upon your lips at the action. You can’t seem to tear your eyes away from her, giving her a full assessing once over. It had been too long.

He glares at her, playfully, “oh, and you aren’t even the least bit curious as to what we just witnessed?”

She crosses her arms and glares right back at him, though hers isn’t playful. You know that for a fact. “Of course I am, but I also know we will find out eventually. When the time is right. As I actually have this thing called patience.”

He scoffs, shaking his head then turns to you again with curious, questioning eyes.

You chuckle at him, “you’ll know soon enough, Sam. But right now, we all have to get back to the castle. There is something I urgently need to attend to. I promise I’ll explain everything once that is finished, but this can’t wait any longer.” You turn on your heel and begin to make your way out of the cave, hearing 4 sets of footsteps following behind you as you do.

You exit the hidden passageway and step back out into the dazzling light of the setting sun. The sky a beautiful array of blues, purples and pinks.

“Wait,” you feel a hand grip your upper arm, turning to see the feisty redhead now behind you, her eyes scanning the forest's edge.

“What is it?” You ask, turning to look in the same direction she is, and a gasp leaves your lips when you see what she does.

Men. So many men. All now emerging from the dense tree line, and coming to stand along it’s edge, with weapons in hand.

“Thank you for returning her to me,” a booming voice shouts and your eyes snap over to see Hepha, standing in the middle of the vast line of warriors and mercenaries. “If you leave her here and go, none of you will be harmed. You are severely outnumbered, so I’d recommend you don’t do anything foolhardy.”

Two deep, menacing growls rip from behind you as you are pulled back and pushed behind them both. Wanda and Pietro also tucked protectively behind the two larger bodies, along with you.

“Like hell we will leave her behind,” the redhead yells back, then side eyes Sam as she quickly whispers, “Sam, get them back to the castle. Now!”

“What, and leave all the fun to you?” He scoffs.

“Don’t argue with me right now, Samuel. I’ll hold them off for a bit, while you all get away, and then I will be right behind you,” she snaps back at him.

“You can’t be serious,” he gapes at her. “You can’t take all of them on by yourself!”

“I can,” she affirms. “Now get them out of here! I won’t be far behind you.”

He is about to argue with her, but you desperately need to get back to the castle. You can’t let Hepha get anywhere near you, nor prevent you from finishing all of this once and for all. You need to reach the King, you need to tell him the whole truth. You now know exactly where Alarick is hiding, where he is currently waiting for you, and now you just need to figure out how to reach him.

You grab Sam’s arm and forcefully turn him to face you. “Sam! We have to go. She will be fine, I promise you that. She is more than able to hold her own, trust me, I know exactly what she is capable of. Now you need to shift, you have to get us back to the castle. There is no time to argue.”

He stares at you for a second then nods, “okay, fine. But once I shift I won’t be able to talk to you, so I’ll lower down and then you all have to climb on and hold on tight to my fur. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt me. And whatever you do, don’t let go.”

“Shift?” Wanda asks quietly, to no one in particular. And you instantly realize that the siblings have no idea about the fact that the whole kingdom of Winterbourne consists entirely of Lycan’s. This is going to be a little intense for them both, but you don’t have time to explain everything in detail to them right now. They will just have to trust you.

You nod quickly at Sam, “okay, got it. You’ll need to send word to,” you hesitate for a second, “Steve that we are coming. Now shift!”

He nods then leaps into the air, handing gracefully on all fours, the shiny fur of his beautiful chocolate brown wolf glistening in the setting sunlight. You’ve never seen a more enchanting creature in your life—well, aside from the King’s golden wolf.

Wanda gasps loudly at the sight and you turn quickly to look at them. “I don’t have the time to explain any of this right now. But Sam won’t hurt either of you, and we will need to ride him back to the castle. I just need you both to trust me on this, I’ll explain more when this is all over.”

They both tear their eyes away from Sam’s giant wolf and look to you, taking a deep breath before they both nod shakily. You nod back then turn to focus on Sam, just as he lowers himself down. “Okay, hop on,” you instruct them, “and grab his fur tightly, it won’t hurt him.”

They both nod again and then the three of you quickly climb onto his back, adjusting and grabbing firm holds on his fur. You glance back at Wanda and Pietro, “ready?” They both nod one last time and then you quickly say, “alright, go Sam! We are good up here!”

And just like that, he takes off like a bat out of hell. The trees and shrubs zipping past you at an alarming rate, you didn’t realize until this exact moment just how fast Lycan’s could actually move. Sam expertly maneuvers between trees and bushes, over rocks and fallen trees, every step is calculated and precise. As if he can predict every upcoming obstacle and the exact movement it will take to get around it. Like he is watching it all in slow motion. It’s truly awe inspiring to witness first hand, and if you weren’t so preoccupied with reaching the safety of the castle, you may have put more interest into just watching how he moves so gracefully in his wolf form.

But right now, all you can think about is getting away from Hepha, reaching the King, and then finally locating and reuniting with your one true love, your husband, your world, your Ari.

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

@caps-lockdown @tfandtws @boxofteenageideas @wangdeasang @giggleberts @casuallydarktiger @theonelittleone @agentbadbitch @ratwrites @starrystellars @bandsandanimefreak @rockyroadthepastryarchy @lovvliies @cuffski @icesoccerer @alwaysright4 @lilsthethrills @steeeeverogers @zombiepotterfour @ledandan1244 @straightforwardly @denzmallows @xremember-me-notx @gwynethjodie @lollipopdomination @capstopavenger @jemimah-b99 @rcvenqers @justkending @alagalaska @silent-loucidity @sabertooth-potato @pies-wands-and-more @interstellarmess @gabriella69816 @phantom-soilder @wordlesscaptain @captain-hammer-of-asgard @starstucknature @viarogers @pixieferry @kaithezaftig @the-kinkiest-goblin @hysterically-original @heyiamthatbitch @zlixlle @capsicledoll @givemehopenfandoms @pretendingandpreposterous @frozen-phoenix17 @emotionallysalty @atomicsludgedonutbiscuit @saturngirlz @ivannagotthebeat @bohemian-barbie @marvelous-capsicle @ivoryhazlewood @steverogersxreader @cjhorseback @secondstar2disney @jessiedaeum @betsynodak @sister-of-stars @wiserebelpartypie @patzammit

[asgardianthot]

Flesh And Bones - Part 4

Soulmate AU

Series Masterlist

words: 2641

A/N: sliight warning for self-harm but like, the tiniest warning. Our dumb-dumbs are fine:)

Sam’s body healed faster than expected, but lacking the super-healing factor some of his teammates were blessed with, he was stuck at the tower for over a week. Bucky had chosen to ignore the common spaces at the tower as much as possible, since Sam spent way too much time over there and he didn’t want to run into the six feet of unspoken truth. His nervousness skyrocketed whenever he saw Sam, and the feeling of horror increased with the passing of every minute of the day. Eventually, he would have to come clean. Just not yet.

Laying on his bed and watching garbage television, he sensed a presence staring at him. When he turned to check his open door, Steve had planted himself right outside.

“I’m off to a meeting.” He told Bucky instead of a proper greeting, “Wanna come with me?”

He was all suited up in Captain American gear, which Bucky had grown sort of used to. However it never ceased to amuse him how he never put on a goddamn tux to go to the office like normal people. After scanning the serious blonde man, Barnes tuned back into whatever the TV was broadcasting, although not paying real attention to it.

“Maybe next time.” He said with a warm tone.

There was a hearable sigh, maybe a little too forced, and Barnes had to return his attention to his friend. He had a feeling he was about to get a good ol’ Mr. Righteous lecture.

“Listen, Buck…” Steve started, yet never stepping into the room in order to not invade his privacy, “I need to talk to you. About the other night.”

Bucky simply sat up straighter on his bed and gave Rogers a tiny grin.

“Are you reading too much into something again?” he teased, trying to sound convincing.

Steve had found him out of breath from the pain, on the kitchen floor, and somehow had foreseen that Sam was currently in danger. If it didn’t startle Steve in the slightest, he would have been a terrible agent. Yet when it came to his best friend from childhood, he held an invincible trust towards him; so he wanted to find an explanation, and he wanted to give Bucky the opportunity to give him one, because if there was one thing he was sure about was that something weird was going on.

Therefore, Bucky’s aloofness was met by the infamous Rogers face of disappointment.

“Can we talk?” he tilted his head. “On the way there?”

Bucky kept trying to keep his composure as he lied to his best friend.

He shrugged, “I don’t feel like talking about food intoxication on a way to a meeting I’m not needed at.”

“Well, now that you mention it…”

“I don’t work enough. Noted.” Bucky rolled his eyes, already knowing what would come next, and he certainly wasn’t in the mood for that lecture, “Goodbye, Steve.”

After a few seconds of silence, Rogers gave up. He pursed his lips and straightened his back, dropping most of his affection and letting seriousness take the wheel.

“Fine, don’t come.” He let out, mildly upset, “But can we talk? Later?”

Barnes didn’t reply, and that was enough of a reply. Met by silence, the Captain nodded and turned on his heels to walk away. He had places to be, but nothing could remove the cloud above his head telling him Bucky was keeping important information to himself. He knew when Buck wasn’t alright, which only raised his suspicions even more. Silence.

-

The former spy had set something short of a routine: he would avoid everyone during the day, barely socialize in order to get lunch or breakfast, and at night, he would stay up late, go to the training room and at some point he would eat. Stepping into the kitchen at a time when everyone else were probably asleep, he headed for the fridge to get his usual night snack.

As he grabbed a glass from the top shelf and filled it with water, his mind was all over the place; he thought about Sam and how perhaps he should have been more present towards his healing process. He thought about how his bones didn’t hurt anymore, so hopefully Sam’s didn’t either. He wondered if he could have been of use, but the idea of being near the man when he knew what he knew made his stomach churn.

Lost in his laments, he was less than careless and knocked over the glass of water, which shattered all over the floor. Thankfully, no one would hear the blaring sound from their rooms, but he feared he had another problem when he realized he had stepped on a piece of glass. There was an acute but small ache in his sole, which meant there was an acute but small ache in Sam’s foot as well.

“Shit, shit, shit.” He cursed under his breath as he frantically looked for something to clean it up.

Blood tainted the low puddle of water on the tiles. If someone linked the broken glass to Bucky, there was an even bigger chance of Sam linking all the dots together. He bent down to get all the pieces together and get rid of the evidence while his chest filled with panic. It was just a small cut, the tiniest glass stuck into his foot, how could something so insignificant mean so much?

Bucky’s throat stung with tears. He was unable to battle his own need to cry, but after a whole five seconds of gasping for air, he stopped himself. He pressed his lips together and cleaned the wet cheek and eyes, before resuming his task with a deep breath.

Sam wouldn’t find out about the glass; he had actually slept through the incident for the sting wasn’t bad enough to wake him. However Barnes didn’t know that. Which was the reason why his heavy feelings made him go extra hard training that night.

He punched the bag as hard as his worries fueled him, and he sweated, and he frowned, and he pushed himself to the limit without taking notice of it, and eventually, he pushed his flesh hand as far as he pushed his metal one.

And he cracked his wrist.

Sam jolted awake with a piercing pain on his right wrist and hand. He massaged it for a minute as the sleep left his eyes, and then he walked to his bathroom in order to run cold water over the injury. Hopefully, that would ease the pain. Or hopefully, his soulmate would stop doing whatever was putting them in pain’s way so often.

-

Sam wasn’t like Bucky when it came to the common room; the veteran showed up there very often, and he never avoided Barnes. Especially now that he had been prevented from going to missions and was discharged from meetings for a week, he looked forward to getting some company. Bucky was always at the tower.

But through Sam’s recovery, the soldier was nowhere to be seen. Now that he was mostly cured, Bucky was still very reserved, and if Sam had been able to admit it to himself, he would have said that it made him sad not to see him on schedule for their routine mockery.

The morning after his wrist woke him up, though, instead of cheerily entering the room, he stormed in. Natasha and Steve were sitting at the coffee table, drinking from colorful mugs when the scene broke down.

"Okay.” Sam said loudly, “I don't know who my soulmate is but-"

Natasha almost choked on her drink, "Sorry, your what?"

She opened her eyes wide, placing the mug down. She looked for answers in Steve’s face, who shrugged it off like she should have been aware of this new information.

“Yeah, we talked about this, catch up." Rogers made a gesture for Sam to continue.

Romanoff simply raised her eyebrow and accommodated to the conversation as Wilson took a deep breath and completed his sentence.

"-but I hate this!” he took out his anger on stern hand gestures and a ranting-appropriate tone, “They're dumb. They get hurt, like, all the time."

The redhead gave him a sympathetic look, but behind it, she was doing a true effort to hold back her laughter. On his part, Steve was actually happy for his friend, and after being informed of every small injury that Sam had felt, he could only smile and hear him protest.

"What was it now?" he asked, almost like a proud parent.

"My hand, they wrecked it!" Sam lifted the hand in question.

Natasha frowned, "Wait, so... are they close?"

"It hurt like hell, so I bet they gotta be!" Wilson placed his left hand on his hip and looked away in exasperation.

"How close?" Steve asked.

Sam shook his head, "I don't know..."

It was at that very exact and precious moment that a new arrival interrupted the scene.

Bucky walked in and didn’t make eye contact with any of them, even though all three’s eyes darted towards him. Especially, towards the white colored fabric on Bucky’s hand. It seemed like Steve, Natasha and Sam all squinted at the same time trying to decipher what their eyes couldn’t help but link: on Bucky’s wrist was a set of bandages.

Suddenly, the room went impossibly quieter. Not even a hitch of breath was heard, which made Bucky a little uncomfortable, and realize he was being observed. He stopped on his tracks and tried to non-suspiciously hide the bandages, but it was of no use. Concealing it wasn’t an option anymore.

Sam’s eyes went wide as the thought hit him. Meanwhile, the other two spectators were already running full equations in their heads, for they did not believing their eyes. Bucky’s eyes met Sam’s, and the feeling of being judged and exposed by Sam’s dilated pupils caused him to slide his hands inside the pockets of his hoodie.

"Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me." Sam finally let out.

All that Barnes did was swallow hard.

"You?" Sam practically barked.

He seemed so bothered at the idea of being Bucky’s soulmate that the latter had to try and deny it. The brunette blinked fast.

"I don't-" he stopped and cleared his throat, "The hell you talking about?"

Wilson pointed a finger to the pocket where the bandaged hand was hiding, "That, I felt it."

After receiving no reply nor reaction whatsoever, Sam began getting a picture of the situation; he stood there frozen and found himself even a little offended.

"You knew?"

Bucky shook his head, then stepped back, "I-"

"Bucky." Steve’s voice broke the interaction, trying to get him to not be a dick and offer Sam an explanation.

The ex-assassin rejected the possibility. If he could convince them that it wasn’t happening, perhaps he could pretend that it wasn’t happening for a few more days. He took a breath and put on a straight face.

"I don't know what you're talking about." He simply stated.

It came to Wilson’s attention that the man in front of him was employing the same kind of uninterested, and therefore condescending tone he used when they had discussed the topic of soulmates. It felt like he was being played.

"What? You're saying you didn't break your hand last night?” Sam began attacking Barnes more firmly, now fully angry at the situation, “’Cause I've been feeling your hands."

He meant both the torn wrist and the aching knuckles. Now it made sense. Now he figured out that Bucky trained at night, which is why he never joined him or Steve at their workouts.

"Wilson.” Bucky lowered his chin as if attempting to be convincing. “Stop it, you're wrong."

"Am I, now?"

Barnes took a look around and found every stare burning a hole on his head. He was beginning to think there was no escaping the truth.

"Yeah, man, leave me alone.” He insisted, “It's all in your head."

Sam raised his eyebrows, far beyond the question if he was feeling offended or not.

"Now I'm crazy."

"Yeah, I know you're obsessed with soulmates or whatever.” As soon as the harsh defense came out of Bucky’s mouth, he reflected on taking it back, but he reckoned he was in too deep now, “But I ain't it." He assured the man.

That was the bottom line of Samuel Wilson’s patience. It was bad enough that he felt stupid for not knowing his soulmate was right there all along, but to top it with the fact he hadn’t told him and had kept the secret for God know how long, and now he was denying it to his face, that had Sam feeling more than upset. He felt betrayed. He felt like he hadn’t received his opportunity of processing it, nor the option of denial. Instead, he had to deal with the realization and with the idiot in front of him.

Snapping, the veteran walked to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of beer from the inside. Everyone in the room watched as they thought he would leave and drink his anger away, but instead he held the bottle, held a defiant eye contact with his recently-found soulmate, and broke glass item against the counter.

The shattering sound was even rougher than the one Bucky’s glass of water had made last night, and it provoked all three spectators to jump in shock.

“What-?” Natasha let out in concern.

Before they knew it, Wilson was holding a piece of broken glass on top of his extended palm, threatening to cut his own flesh. He had seen a desperate soul at the park where he jogged pull a stunt like that one before, hoping to find their true love that way. Sam had thought that stranger was impulsive and deranged, and now he was doing the exact same thing. he was staring right into the face of his soulmate, and still, he was a desperate soul.

"Sam-" Bucky started as he feared for Sam’s next step.

"You're telling me you won't feel this?” Wilson tried to get under his skin, make him react, “I do this, you won't feel it?"

Before he could even think about slicing his palm open with the sharp item, Steve rushed and took it away from his friend.

"Sam, calm down." He begged him, dropping the glass to the floor.

Yet Sam didn’t pay attention to Steve, "No, tell me!" He stretched his neck to still see Bucky past Steve’s intercepting body.

"Shut up." Bucky mumbled, looking away.

There was no way for him to process the petrifying event taking place outside the kitchen area. He couldn’t say it out loud, he couldn’t say he was sorry for lying, he couldn’t even deny their reality anymore.

"How long have you known?" Wilson continued, less frantic this time, but Rogers still stood in front of him and stopped him from doing anything stupid.

Bucky clenched his jaw, “Stop it.” He said just as low as his last line.

“How long, Barnes?”

"Shut up!" He finally shouted, coated in such despair that his voice came out with every bit of emotion he had been holding back.

The room went absolutely quiet after that. Steve moved out of the way in order to face Bucky, but also since Sam had frozen his body after that scream, and there was no use of a bodyguard anymore. With everyone expecting to hear Bucky’s next words, including himself, he cleared his mind and spoke from the heart.

"I know since your mission." He confessed before walking away and disappearing into the hallway.

Somehow, the most appalled person in the room was Natasha; while the two men stared at the floor in defeat, Romanoff looked like she had just witnessed an episode of a television drama in real life.

[unfolded73]

No One’s Father (knightrook ff, 1/1)

Rated G, 2200 words, canon compliant through 7x16

The familiar voice carried over the din of conversation at the bar. “Another scotch, please, Roni. And also a club soda with lime.”

She glanced over at Rumpelstiltskin as she finished filling a beer from one of the taps and nodded. Thunking the beer down on the bar in front of a customer, Regina set about preparing the requested drinks. It hadn’t escaped her notice when the two detectives had come into the bar with two uniformed police officers, seemingly for no other reason than an after-work drink. She couldn’t decide which was more unusual, the fact that they were there at all together, or the fact that Detective Rogers was currently laughing at something one of the officers had said, a huge grin lighting up his face.

Setting the drinks on the bar, she indicated Hook with a subtle tilt of her head. “He seems happy.”

Rumple turned and glanced at his partner before looking back at Regina. “He’s got Tilly off the street and staying at his place.”

Regina raised her eyebrows at that. “Wait, he’s not…”

Rumple shook his head. “Sound asleep as ever. If it’s occurred to him how much happier he is since he took her in, he has no idea of the real reason why.”

“So how?”

His lips quirked up in a half-smile. “You of all people know that curses can’t stop those who truly love each other from finding their way back together.” He glanced at Hook again. “But I have to admit, it’s rather inspiring to watch.”

“Has it melted even your cold, dark heart?”

With a chuckle, he picked up the glasses from the bar. “Impossible.”

Regina lowered her voice. “And the pills?”

“All the more important for Tilly to remain asleep, don’t you think?” he said softly, almost too low for her to hear. “Unless you’ve found a cure?”

With a frustrated shake of her head, Regina held a finger up to another customer trying to get her attention. “Believe me, you’ll be among the first to hear if we can find a cure for a poisoned heart.”

As if on cue, the door to the bar opened and Henry came in. He spotted Regina and smiled, his hand popping up in a wave.

“See?” Rumple said as he started to turn back to his table. “Love finds a way. It’s why those who employ dark curses will ultimately never prevail.”

“Detective Weaver, are you giving me a hope speech?” Regina said.

His perpetual smirk made another appearance. “Doesn’t sound like me, does it?”

~*~

Rogers reached for his jacket. “I’d best be getting home.”

Sergeant Jenkins looked up from his beer. “So soon, Eagle Scout? Is it time to alphabetize your soup cans already?”

The other cop who’d accompanied them on this little outing -- Liang, his name was -- gave Jenkins a sneer. “Come on, Jenkins, that’s not even a good burn.” He turned to Rogers. “Thanks for taking us out for a beer, man; I appreciate it.”

“Well, it was the least we could do given the help you gave us today,” Rogers said, surprised by this small kindness from a coworker. He finished pulling his coat on and reached for his wallet, intent on leaving some cash on the table, even though his club soda had no doubt been free.

“I’ve got it, Rogers,” Weaver said, waving away his attempt to pay. “Have a good night.”

Nodding his thanks, Rogers smiled and raised his hand to the group. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He caught Roni’s eye on his way past the bar, and she gave him a warm smile. It felt good, having friends; friends were something he’d had too little of in his life. It made him feel like a colorblind man suddenly granted the ability to discern vibrant colors, this recent discovery of what it felt like to have people around him who cared.

Rogers had lost his mother so young that he barely remembered her, and his father had been a drunk and a petty thief, leaving him and his brother to fend for themselves when they were young boys. After his father disappeared, Rogers bounced from one foster home to another, but his memory of that time was hazy. Even losing his brother was difficult for him to remember. He supposed grief could do that, burying trauma deep so that it wasn’t keenly felt.

He did remember enrolling in the police academy, though, and how he’d hoped that by becoming a police officer, he could begin to honor his brother’s memory. Every late night or early morning on the job, every appointment with his physical therapist after his accident, when he felt like giving up on learning to use his prosthetic hand, it was only the thought of his brother that pulled him through. At least, until the Eloise Gardener case hit his desk.

It used to awaken him at all hours of the night, this nagging sense that there was a girl out there, lost and alone, that only he could rescue. He even formed a mental image of her, and now that he’d faced down the real Eloise Gardener, it shamed him to remember that image. A blonde girl with shining eyes, dressed in a pale blue dress and a white pinafore, like something out of a storybook. In truth, Eloise Gardener couldn’t have been farther from that idealized fantasy his brain had cooked up. It was no wonder that finding her hadn’t stopped the sleepless nights, and that nagging feeling that there was a girl he needed to save.

Rogers approached his apartment door, reaching for his key ring from the pocket of his jeans. He could hear the thump of the bass-line of some kind of music coming from inside, and he smiled.

Opening the door revealed the music, if it could be called that, to be some kind of odd rap style, the likes of which he’d never heard before. Tilly looked up from the sofa where she’d been reading a book, and rushed to grab her new phone and shut the music off.

“What on earth was that?” he asked as he closed the door and took off his jacket.

“Swedish hip-hop,” she said. “Sorry.”

“No need to apologize,” he said. “Just keep it down to a dull roar so that the neighbors don’t complain. Have you eaten?”

Tilly nodded. “I had some beignets at work, and then I had a bowl of cereal for dinner.”

“Not exactly a balanced diet,” he commented, looking over toward the kitchen. Tilly’s cereal bowl and spoon were in evidence, as was most of a half-gallon on milk sitting out on the table.

“You left the milk out again,” he said, picking the container up and whisking it into the refrigerator. He’d have to start buying milk by the gallon, the way she was going through it. He mentally added it to the list of things he needed to pick up at the market the next day.

He expected at most a distracted apology from the girl, same as he received the last time she left a milk jug sitting out on the table. What he got instead was a sort of high pitched keening sound, and it made Rogers look around in alarm.

Tilly had dropped her book on the floor, and as he watched with no small amount of horror, she knocked her fist against her forehead a few times. “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she muttered.

“Tilly, stop,” Rogers said, rushing over to the sofa and gently pulling on her arm to stop her from hitting herself in the head. “It’s not a big deal, I promise. Please don’t do that.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” she said mournfully. “I forgot about the milk.”

“Tilly, I promise, I’m not angry with you.” He started to put his arm around her in what he intended to be a comforting gesture, but he held himself in check. The last thing he wanted was to make her feel unsafe in his home, and he knew the burden was on him to make certain she never thought for a moment that he had any lascivious intentions toward her. In truth, even the thought made his stomach turn over in revulsion.  

“You’re too nice to me, Detective. I don’t deserve anyone being this nice to me.”

“Nonsense, everyone deserves kindness.” He nudged her shoulder gently with his own. “Most especially you.”

She met his gaze, seeming to be searching for something in his eyes. “Why are you letting me stay here?” she asked.

“Because you needed a safe place to sleep,” he answered automatically, but he knew as soon as he said it that he needed to go a step further if he was going to reassure her. “Because helping you makes me feel more at peace that I have in…” He chuckled softly. “I don’t know, maybe ever. I know that sounds odd, but it’s true.”

“It doesn’t sound odd.” She leaned back against the sofa cushions, staring up at the ceiling. Rogers watched her, waiting for her to speak again.

“Back when I was in school, I used to try so hard to be a good student. The kind of student that teachers would smile at, you know? I would tell myself, ‘pay attention, Tilly, pay attention.’ But then I’d realize that the whole class period had gone by and I hadn’t heard a single word. And then I’d get up to go to change classes and leave my backpack sitting next to my chair. I’d walk into the next class with no book, no papers, no pencil. The other kids would laugh at me for being so stupid. Or they’d laugh at my dirty clothes. Or at the fact that I didn’t have money for lunch.”

“You were an orphan?” he asked. He’d never asked about her parents, and she easily could have been a runaway, or one of the many kids who get kicked out of their house because of their sexual orientation, but somehow he knew neither of those things were true.

Tilly nodded. “Never knew my parents.” Then she smiled sheepishly. “Well, I never knew my mum. My papa used to come to me in dreams.” She shrugged. “I know how that sounds, but I don’t know. I think maybe… maybe he died when I was little? And maybe his spirit used to watch over me.”

Rogers smiled sadly, thinking of his brother. “Maybe.”

“Anyway, the point is, my brain has always been a little funny. It floats around and decides to go places without my permission, and so I forget things. And I think the pills make it worse.”

With a glance over at the counter where Tilly’s pill bottle sat, Rogers struggled for what to say. He knew Detective Weaver had been ensuring that Tilly stayed on her medication long before he got involved, but now that she was living with him, it was falling to Rogers to remind the girl to take a pill every night before she went to bed. He wasn’t entirely clear on what kind of mental health issues the medication was treating, but the last time she’d gone off her medication, she’d shot Weaver, so he didn’t doubt their importance.

“I know the side effects may be troublesome, but it’s still important that you take your pills.”

Tilly’s face crumpled. “I hate that I need them.”

“There’s no shame in needing medication. You wouldn’t fault a diabetic for needing insulin, would you?”

“Yeah, that’s what people always say,” she grumbled.

“Perhaps because it’s true.”

With a watery giggle, Tilly wiped at the tears that were threatening to leak out of her eyes.

“Have you seen Margot-with-a-T again?” he asked, hoping to move her to a happier topic of conversation, but Tilly shook her head sadly.

“I thought she might come by the food truck since she knows that’s where I work, but she hasn’t.” She sniffled. “I guess maybe she’s not interested, you know… that way.”

“So you aren’t interested in the fact that I learned where you can find her?” he asked.

Tilly grabbed his arm hard enough to hurt, her blue eyes wide as saucers. “What do you mean? Where can I find her?”

He grinned at her excitement. “I just so happened to learn that Margot’s mother Kelly works with Roni at the bar. And Margot has been helping out there too.”

Squealing, Tilly leaped to her feet. “So maybe if I go down there now I can catch her?”

“Maybe.” She was already halfway out the door. “Put on a jacket,” he admonished, barely resisting the urge to add, and be home at a reasonable hour! He shook his head at his own foolishness, treating this girl like he was her father. Rogers was no one’s father, and likely never would be.

Tilly dutifully pulled her jacket on when he handed it to her. “See you later!” she called as she ran down the hall of the apartment building, not even bothering to pull the door closed behind her.

With a rueful smile, Rogers watched her go, a pang in his chest that he couldn’t quite explain. No more than he could explain the fact that he waited up for her that night, making certain she was safe in her room before he went to bed. No more than he could explain how this lost girl’s happiness seemed so inexorably tied to his own. No more than he could explain why the nightmares that had plagued him since those first days on the Eloise Gardener case were finally and mercifully gone.

[mostfacinorous]

stoki, arranged marriage/secret relationship au

“No.” 

“You can’t just say no and figure that’s the end of it, Rogers. We need this, and you’re the only one who fits the bill.” 

“This is America, isn’t it? We don’t have arranged marriages. And even if we did– isn’t this the job of a prince or a dignitary of some sort? I was raised in Brooklyn, flat broke. I’m not–”

“What you are is the leader of the Avengers, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. And as such, the only ‘warrior’ we have that’s a fitting match for the prince of Asgard.” 

“Woah. Hold up– Prince?”  Steve felt his heart rate tick upwards, and he wondered if Fury knew, or guessed, or who else might have realized he wasn’t wholly straight. 

“The Prince apparently isn’t always a guy, but I leave that between the two of you to figure out. Asgard requested a man, our greatest warrior, and that’s you. We have an interstellar threat coming the likes of which we are laughably unprepared to match, and the best way for us to team up with the big guns out in space is for you to marry the king’s kid. Look at it as a marriage of necessity, if you must. Negotiate it so that it’s a mariage in name only– I don’t care. But for god’s sake, Rogers, please, just marry the damn prince.”

Steve had to suppress a shudder when Nick referred to the prince as a kid– they knew next to nothing about him, but apparently he was a thousand years old, give or take. And what that meant, developmentally, for an Asgardian remained to be seen. 

“Look, you and I both know that America is better than it was when I was growing up, but it sure as hell isn’t ready for a gay Captain America. And I’m not–” not ready to even talk about his orientation, let alone his sex life. There was speculation– he couldn’t help that, but he’d never done anything to engage with it. What they were talking about here…

“We just say you married into the Asgardian royal family. Like I said, the prince isn’t always a man, get him to be a her for photos, problem solved.” 

Steve shook his head. 

“I don’t want news of an arranged marriage for me getting out. I’m still used as a symbol. I don’t want to give anyone an excuse to pressure their kids.” 

“Fine. We’ll figure that part out. Maybe we just won’t publicize the marriage– you move there, we call you an emissary. He moves here, we say he’s a new Avenger. It will work out. But you’ll do it?” 

“I’ll go. I’ll meet him. I’m not marrying a child, or anything, alright, I’m not– this is really messed up, Nick.” 

Fury at least had the good grace to nod somberly. “It is. But it’s worth it, or you know I wouldn’t ask.” 

Steve sighed. “I’ll go pack. Tell the scientists to get their bridge ready.” 

“I’ll have Nat drop off the intel we do have. Study up; you want to make a good impression.” 

Steve’s stomach did a little flip. All this hiding, all this working to stay away from any sort of romantic entanglement, all this waiting for the right person, and there was every chance he was about to marry someone he didn’t even know. Someone who wasn’t even human. 

He couldn’t claim to be pleased.

—

“So you have bargained me away, and for what?” Loki asked, pacing back and forth before Hlidskjalf and its occupant, his anger and fear translating into a raised voice and nervous energy. 

“Loki, please.” Frigga spoke, standing beside his father, clearly trying to disarm the argument. 

Loki had done his best, silently acquiescing to his father’s decision when it was presented to the court and waiting until they were alone to address this decision, made without so much as a ‘by-your-leave’. He stopped his pacing, fury spiking as he leveled a glare from one parent to the other.

“It is a ridiculous backwater planet and the creatures who live on it share a lifespan with some of our insects. What could they possibly have that you would be willing to throw me away for?” 

“You speak truth, my son. But it is not abandonment, nor are you being banished.” Odin said, reacting at last. “Their lives are short, and once your husband dies, you need have no further ties to their people. But they have developed, since last you were there. Even now, their great minds are readying a device to send the man here, to meet you. That they are capable of such travel after so short a time is worrisome. I wish you to go, as our eyes. Gather intelligence, that we may know of their abilities. Learn what they are capable of. And in the meantime– I have arranged for you the best of their species to wed. Any child you may bear would be well positioned for kingship. And then it would be natural for Midgard to fall back under the rule of Asgard.”

Loki felt his mouth open in shock and tried not to heave. 

Odin’s disdain for mortals was well marked, well recorded. And now he was being thrown away, not only as a wasted union, but to serve as some sort of broodmare for a halfblooded line, all to earn back a realm which they had never truly lost in the first place.

And no doubt this was why a better match had not been found for him, nor even searched for: he’d been branded argr, his seidhr marking him as unworthy of taking a wife. And so he was to take a Midgardian husband, and expected to lay down for him. Bear his children. This was punishment. For who he was– what he could do. He did not look to his mother again. He could not stomach it.

“My father– my king, please– I can be worthy of a much greater post. I am capable, wise, my abilities in bargaining and diplomacy have no equal. And in strategy– could we not merely take Midgard back by force? Show them the might of Asgard, as they once knew?” 

Odin stood, leaning some of his weight on Gungnir, his great spear, and seeming no less commanding for it. Huginn and Muninn flew through the window, settling themselves on either side of the seat he had just left.

“I am your king, and I have spoken. Asgard demands this of you, and you will do as you are bid. Heimdall welcomes your betrothed as we speak. Go, greet him, and remember: all that you do is in service of your realm. Go and make us proud. Go, and prove that you are all that I have trained you to be. And when you return, when your ties on Midgard are severed, you will be rewarded for your loyalty. I have in mind to name you Advisor when your brother is King. But it will be some time before either of you are ready. And I believe there is much you can learn, not only for Asgard, but for yourself, while you are on Midgard. And of course, you may visit. We’d encourage it, in fact.” Odin reached for Frigga’s hand and received it– she stood by him. And his decision. 

Suddenly, Loki could not stand to be in the same room, to be sharing air with them. His stomach felt cold, frozen through by this betrayal. He should have expected it. He hadn’t. 

He bowed. “I will go to receive him.” He said stiffly. He kept his eyes averted as he bowed again. “Your majesties.” 

He turned his back on them and fled the throne room, as he hadn’t done since he was a child, first taken to task for his gifts with words, and lies, and magic.

—

Steve looked around the golden dome of the bifrost, everything clamoring for attention all at once. 

He was on another planet. The architecture pulled at his eyes, the great interlocking circles above his head that led gracefully down to a dark polished stone flooring, which led in turn to a golden pedestal, and beyond it, a bridge that looked like it was made of crystal, shot through with every color he’d ever seen, and some he hadn’t. 

The rainbow bridge, the books had called it. He felt a smile pulling at his mouth, stricken by the impossibility of all of this, when a voice sounded from behind him. 

“So you are Captain Steven Grant Rogers of Midgard.” 

The voice was low and pitched so that it echoed. 

Natasha had come by the night before and given him the rundown on how to act, how to introduce himself. He dropped to one knee. 

“I am. Pleased to meet you, You Majesty.” 

From the pictures they had on file of Thor, he’d expected someone who looked like an older version of him, but then again, they knew so little about the people here. Maybe he was adopted. 

His thoughts were interrupted by a chuckle from the man, and he looked up, surprised by that reaction. 

“Rise, Steven. It has been some time since I was mistaken for the King of Asgard. I am Heimdall the Gatekeeper– and you would not wish to be on your knees when your betrothed arrives.” 

He nodded over Steve’s shoulder and he stood, turning to look. 

Racing down the crystal and rainbow bridge was a horse and rider, green cape whipping out behind them, a second horse trailing off to the side and a little behind, and even from here, he could see the white circles that rippled outwards from each hoof fall.

“He is not an easy man, your intended. But he is obedient, and will do as his King asks. You would be wise to consider his willingness, when you speak to him.” 

The Gatekeeper’s voice was hushed, as though he feared Loki would hear, and Steve took a deep breath, eyes picking out details as he got closer. 

He could see the helmet he wore, the horns coming off of it that made him worry about whether or not there would be horns there when he took it off. He had a pale, narrow face with a mouth set into a straight line, and Steve found himself standing straighter in response. 

It was… comforting, somehow, knowing that Loki probably didn’t want this, or like the arrangement any more than Steve did. But they both had their roles to play and their reasons to do it. 

Loki stopped a few feet back and dismounted, letting go of the reins. His horse was apparently well trained enough not to run off without him. 

When he pulled his helmet off and stopped just outside of the doorway, he looked exactly like the cover of a pulpy novel, and Steve found himself swallowing. 

Long black hair and cape shifted in the slight breeze, his gold helmet tucked under his arm, leather and metal arranged over his front– he could be riding off into war, instead of coming to pick Steve up from some sort of interplanetary train station. 

He didn’t say anything at first, and Steve got the feeling he was being judged, measured. He also got the feeling that Loki wasn’t impressed. 

He’d come in his dress uniform from World War II, and he supposed next to all the grandeur of Asgard, he must look pretty drab. Plain. He hadn’t thought about that. But it was too late now. 

“Captain Steven Rogers.” Loki said, inclining his head. “Welcome to Asgard.” 

It wasn’t exactly the warmest of greetings. Steve pulled on a smile. 

“It’s good to be here. And good to meet you– Prince Loki.” 

Loki nodded, apparently satisfied, and looked to the Gatekeeper. 

“Thank you, Heimdall. I will take him from here.”

The Gatekeeper nodded and returned to his pedestal, and Steve watched him for maybe a moment longer than he normally would have, nervous about being left alone with the Prince. 

“You can ride a horse, can you not?” Loki asked, and it came off a little sharp, making Steve turn toward him in surprise. 

“I’ve done it a few times. I think I should be able to manage alright.” He wished he’d though to bring a backpack, though, instead of a duffle bag. 

“If you are uncertain, you could ride with me on mine.” Loki offered, and Steve saw the way his brows rose, the almost drawl that was only half buried under the words. 

It made him square his jaw and shake his head. 

“I’m good. Give me just a minute to get used to it, but…” He shuffled the bag into one hand, then the other, debating how best to mount the horse, while Loki vaulted into his saddle easily, gracefully– Steve tried not to stare. 

“Allow me to take that for you. At least until you have gained your seat.” Loki spoke the way he moved, smooth and graceful, but Steve still felt like he was being judged. 

At least Loki was trying to be nice though, he figured, so he passed the bag off.“Alright. Thanks.” 

He then promptly embarrassed himself further, nearly tugging the horse over on top of him with his efforts. Finally he stepped back and just jumped, managing to make it, that time. 

Loki’s face was frozen, trying to remain bland, but he clearly could not keep the amusement hidden all the way– his mouth turned up at the edges. 

“Oh, father is going to love you.” He murmured, and Steve felt his ears reddening. 

“Why? Is he fond of clowns?” He asked, and Loki snorted. 

“No. And he is equally unfond of Midgardians, and their lack of decorum. As much as possible, allow me to speak for us. And if in doubt, be polite. It should not be difficult.” 

Steve nearly groaned. The Gatekeeper warned him about the prince. The Prince warned him about the king. All that was missing was the shotgun, and this marriage arrangement would feel about as awkward as possible. 

Loki nudged his horse into a walk, and waited for Steve to follow suit. 

“So.” Steve said, finally, trying to break the ice. “I guess… we’re going to get married. Do you have any… thoughts, on the subject? Do you want this?”It felt like a stupid question, but he didn’t want to… to tear apart true love or force the guy into it, or something. He knew so little– next to nothing about him.

Loki glanced sharply at him, holding his face still and calm. “It’s my duty. I cannot say I am pleased with the idea of living on Midgard, among the mortals, nor am I certain I understand why my King has chosen this course, but I am bound to obey, and I will fill my role properly, as I have been ordered.”

Steve didn’t miss the way it went from ‘father’ to ‘my king’, and he found himself frowning. He understood the idea of duty and orders. He just wasn’t sure how similar the concepts– and the weights of them– were, here.

“And if you refused? What would happen to you?” He asked. 

Loki might have laughed– or at least, that might have been what that noise was. “Likely I would be exiled to Midgard, my powers stripped away, my strength taken from me… much the state Thor was left in, when father wished to teach him some humility. Your people cannot fully appreciate the depths of that punishment, but. I would go to your realm just the same, only alone and unable to help myself. This is better.” 

Steve saw the way Loki’s eyes skated over his face. 

“And if you refused?” He asked at last. 

Steve shrugged. “Nothing, probably. Extra paperwork, if Nick was feeling petty. They’d have to find someone else.”He watched Loki’s face, trying to guess if that was preferable. 

Loki was silent a long moment. 

“So then why did you agree?” he asked, finally, and Steve realized he didn’t have a great answer, other than the truth. 

“Earth needs your help– your peoples’ help. And if the duty of being bound to your people has to be carried out by someone, I’d rather it be me than someone who…” He paused. “On Earth, it’s still not– a union between two guys isn’t fully accepted, yet. So when you come back with me, it could be ugly. Or we could pretend not to be married. In fact, I think it’s probably better if we did. We can be married to satisfy all the customs but... keep it a secret.” 

Loki shut his eyes. “Do not let the King or Queen hear you say that. They would consider it breaking the oath of marriage that we have not yet made. But we may discuss this matter- it may well be the easiest way of it. Assuming, of course, that you should remain close enough to at least guide me through establishing myself on your world. Or assign someone else to. I need only remain until you die; those are the terms of my settling on Midgard.” 

“Of course,” Steve agreed quickly. “Yeah, I’ll make sure you’re well taken care of, personally, even. I figure we could live in the same building, just... maybe different rooms?”

“Good. And when we visit my parents, you will be capable of the pretense that we are happily married, and enjoying all that such a bond offers?” The relief in his voice was so palpable that Steve decided not to tell him about how bad of a liar he was. And how little he knew about what ‘such a bond offered’. 

“That will work. Sounds like we're pretty much on the same page, here.” He commented. 

Loki gave him the first genuine smile he’d seen on his face. “Perhaps this will not be so difficult, nor so painful, as I feared.”

Steve returned his grin, and didn’t object as Loki urged his horse to go a little faster. 

One step at a time. First things first, meeting the in-laws. Then marriage. Then they could figure out faking a life together. 

Piece of cake.

[tonystarktogo]

would you write anon-romantic fic where when tony is extremely and unusually nervous he starts to stutter? he always did it, since he was a child, but he rarely gets /so/ nervous that the stammer comes back. but then there's some kind of public thing and he gets incredibly nervous and starts to stutter, which only makes him more nervous. the avengers, who were in the audience as well, come to his rescue when they realize what's happening.

Of course I don’t mind! I decided to use an outside perspective for this one because I was in a bitchy mood and Clint demanded to be written. His solution to the problem is a /bit/ unconventional as well. Nevertheless, enjoy!

“This is gonna be a disaster!” Clint loudly proclaims as their driver opens the door of the limousine, a wide grin on his lips that says he plans to bullshit lots of important people and enjoy every second of it. 

Later Natasha will punch him twice. Once for jinxing them and once for grossly underestimating the situation.

As far as fundraisers go this one starts out surprisingly uneventful—especially considering the amount of trouble each of the guests of honour tends to attract individually, never mind as a group. Pepper Potts welcomes everyone without getting interrupted by an impromptu villainous attack even once—a pity, if Steve’s facial expression is anything to go by.

Out of all of them, Steve Rogers is definitely the one who appreciates these public outings the least. Too much of a soldier, too little of a politician, as Natasha tends to say, albeit lacking most of her usual air of frostiness. Clint can’t help but agree.

It’s a shame really because Steve has a way of speaking that reaches people’s hearts, makes them stand taller, makes them stand proud. It’s an ability that many a man would kill for, not that Clint would ever admit to being one of them. It’s also the sole reason Steve is the one doing the we’re-doing-our-best-to-save-the-world-please-don’t-be-too-pissed-if-we-obliterate-your-front-yard-in-the-process part of their official speech. Not only is Steve the only one capable of saying the entire thing with a straight face, he’s also the only one capable of making other people believe it.

And hey, Clint even manages to restrain himself from making an inappropriate dick joke for the sake of watching Steve blush on national TV. Not that anyone appreciates the sacrifices he makes, just to avoid getting on Pepper Pott’s bad side. Personally, Clint prefers Natasha’s wrath, at least with her he knows exactly what kind of violent end he’ll get.

It’s when it’s Stark’s turn to dazzle the crowd into giving him whatever he so desires that things start to fall apart.

Which is in itself unexpected because if there is one thing Stark can do whilst half-asleep and with a severe head-wound it’s playing a crowd. The man wields words like they are his sharpest weapons and dances verbal circles around opponents many years his senior. Stark is as much of a manipulator as Natasha, and it says a lot about Clint’s life that he considers that to be a compliment. Watching the man work a crowd is a thing of beauty.

Perhaps that’s the reason it takes them so long to realise something is wrong.

It’s a cheap excuse as far as explanations go because the truth is, when Clint really thinks about it, Stark’s been off for weeks now. Some of it is nobody’s fault, simply more stress and longer hours at Stark Industries because their stock value isn’t increasing the way it should. Then there’s been some tension in the team as well, thanks to the sporadic sightings of Steve’s way-ward BFF. Apparently the Captain is incapable of being rational where a certain Bucky Barnes is concerned, which really doesn’t help anyone at all. And finally they’ve had three bad missions in a row now, all of them involving too many civilian causalities, one of them nineteen dead children.

So yes, when Clint thinks about it, the pallor of Stark’s cheeks isn’t so surprising after all, nor is the faint tremor in his hands. The problem is, Clint doesn’t think. Not until Stark starts talking, his voice devoid of the energy and cutting edge that usually draws people in and keeps them on their toes simultaneously.

Clint’s head snaps up at the uncharacteristic lack of vibrancy from his friend, instinctively scanning the room for threats and coming up empty. He’s not called Hawkeye for nothing though, and it takes Clint but an additional second to spot the dark shadows under Stark’s eyes that even the professionally applied make-up doesn’t fully hide or the slight flittering of his eyes from one side to the other, a nervous habit he’s never seen Stark indulging in before. Especially not in such a public setting.

“Stark Industries will- will-,” Stark stocks, which finally draws the attention of the other team members as well because Tony Stark doesn’t stock. Clint watches his friend blink down at the stand before him, up at the crowd and down again. His eyes are empty in a way that deeply unsettles Clint, mirroring a confusion that goes deeper than simply having lost the point Stark’s been trying to make.

Stark clears his throat, visibly rattled as his eyes flick back and forth between indiscernible faces in the crowd. He looks increasingly like a mouse being cornered by a vicious predator. Clint’s gut clenches uncomfortably at the analogy.

“With the… the…” Stark’s voice, even enhanced through the microphone, is barely audible by now. Out of the corner of his eye, Clint sees Natasha expertly weaving through the crowd, focused in a way Clint usually associates with life-threatening missions that just got out of hand.

The guests are getting restless, clearly thrown-off by Stark’s unusual behaviour, and their rising murmurs aren’t helping Stark regain his self-control. If anything Clint notices the tremor in his hands worsening.

“W-we’re p-pl-planing to-“ Stark stutters, impossible wide eyes tracking his surroundings like they’ll swallow him up any second now. He looks less like a mouse and more like frightened rabbit now and Clint doesn’t know why, but somehow this is worse.

Clint is still more than twenty steps away but he can clearly see the panic in Stark’s eyes and knows with grim certainty that the man is so far passed calming down it’s not even funny. Clint also knows what he’s going to do next will either drive Stark into a full-blown panic attack or snap him the fuck out of whatever it is. He catches Natasha’s eyes over the heads of people too important to loose their trust in the Avengers, nods once.

Then Clint pulls a small handgun from its hiding place in his obnoxiously pink boots and fires. One bullet shatters the window furthest away from the mass of people, one destroys a lamp that probably costs more than Clint’s yearly salary and one just misses the tip of Stark’s left ear and hits the wall behind him instead.

Seven people get hurt in the resulting chaos, Clint’s headache from the screams not included, but with the worst injury being a fractured ankle Clint isn’t too bothered. Natasha has managed to smuggle a near catatonic Tony Stark out of the building unseen and Steve and Thor kept the mass panic from escalating, so all in all the impromptu rescue mission can be called successful.

Which means the two hour lecture from Fury is entirely undeserved, as far as Clint is concerned. But no, he’s been reckless. He’s knowingly risked the lives of important people that are currently running down Fury’s door, wanting answers the director can’t give because there is no super villain to take the fall for the mess.

“So make one up,” Clint shrugs unrepentant, predictably causing Fury to yell some more.

“It was necessary to protect the credibility of the team,” Clint says.

Stark catches me every single time I jump of a crumbling building and argues over Britney Spears’ greatest hits at four in the morning, is what he doesn’t say.

Barring a world-wide emergency, Clint is pulled off missions for five months, stuck on the most mind-numbing paperwork jobs Fury is capable of digging up. But when Clint finally arrives back at the tower it’s to find Stark on the couch, covered by a truly ridiculous amount of fluffy blankets Steve seems to keep on hand at all times, Natasha curled up around his feet, a deadly predator watching over him attentively, the smell of Bruce’s infamous hot chocolate heavy in the air, Clint can’t bring himself to regret a single thing.

He bodily throws himself over Stark instead, and ignores the sharp satisfaction that flares up when Stark, after a reflexive flinch, promptly melts into his half-hug, half-tackle. Natasha huffs but drapes one arm loosely around Clint’s calves and it says a lot about the team that Bruce doesn’t even blink when he enters the room, just asks Clint whether he prefers herbal tea or hot chocolate.

Stark doesn’t say a word for the rest of the night but when Clint insists on watching Tangled again, there’s a tiny smile on his lips and that’s a decent enough start.

I hope you enjoyed the team feels as much as I did! Thank you for this sweet prompt!

[milaleah]

Untold Stories Of Election Day 2016

BELOW IS A RECAP OF ELECTION DAY/NIGHT FROM ESQUIRE MAGAZINE featuring ROGER STONE. 

**** Roger Stone, longtime Trump ally: She was just dead in the water. ****

On November 8, 2016, America’s chief storytellers—those within the bubbles of media and politics—lost the narrative they had controlled for decades. In a space of 24 hours, the concept of “conventional wisdom” seemed to vanish for good. How did this happen? What follows are over 40 brand new interviews and behind-the-scenes stories from deep inside The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, and more—plus first-hand accounts from the campaigns, themselves. We’ve spent a year hearing the spin. Now it’s time for the truth.

THE RUN-UP

Steve Bannon, Trump campaign CEO: When I first came on the campaign, I said, “You have a hundred-percent chance of winning.” We just got to stick to that plan. Even with Billy Bush, I never wavered for a second.

Jim Margolis, Clinton campaign senior adviser: I am normally a glass-half-empty guy when it comes to expectations on election days. This was the first big election where I was absolutely certain we were going to win.

Dave Weigel, The Washington Post: I called Jeff Flake the Sunday before the election. I said, “I have one round of questions if Hillary wins, and one if Trump wins.” And he just started laughing, saying, “Why would you bother asking the second one?”

Rebecca Traister, New York magazine: We got up around 7 a.m., and there was an electric current running through my body.

Ana Marie Cox, Crooked Media, formerly of MTV: I was staying at my in-laws’ place in New York. They’re Trump supporters. They weren’t in town, but my father-in-law made a joking bet with me. He said, “The next time we see each other, there will be a President Trump.” I remember laughing at him.

Neal Brennan, comedian/writer: I was at SNL. Chappelle was like, “Dude, I feel like Trump’s gonna win.” I was like, “Dude, I’ll bet you a hundred thousand dollars he won’t win.” He did not take the bet, thankfully.

Sen. Tim Kaine, Democratic vice presidential candidate: I thought we would win, but I was more wary than many for the simple reason that the U.S. had never elected a woman president and still has a poor track record of electing women to federal office.

Ana Navarro, CNN commentator and Republican strategist: I schlepped my absentee ballot around with me for a month. It was getting pretty beat up inside my bag. I would open it up and look at it every now and then and say, “I’m not ready. I can’t bring myself to vote for Hillary Clinton. Please, God, let something happen that I don’t have to do this.”

Brian Fallon, Clinton campaign national press secretary: There had been a battleground tracking poll our team had done over the weekend that had us up 4 [points]. We were up in more than enough states to win, taking us over 270. The public polls all showed a similar outlook.

Zara Rahim, Clinton campaign national spokeswoman: We were waiting for the coronation. I was planning my Instagram caption.

Van Jones, CNN political commentator: The Democrats had this attitude, which I think is very unhealthy and unproductive, that any acknowledgement that Trump had a chance was somehow helping Trump, and that we all had to be on this one accord that it was impossible for him to win. I thought that was stupid. I’ve never seen that strategy work.

Matt Oczkowski, formerly of Cambridge Analytica (Trump campaign data firm): When you see outlets like the Huffington Post giving Trump a 1 percent probability of victory, which is not even physically possible, it’s just like, “Wow, people are going to miss this massively.”

Roger Stone, longtime Trump ally: She was just dead in the water.

Joel Benenson, Clinton campaign chief strategist: I go into the 10 o’clock call and we’re getting reports from the analytics people and the field people. And they finish, and whoever’s leading the call asks if there’s anything else. I said, “Well, yeah, I got a call 20 minutes ago from my daughter in Durham, North Carolina. People are standing on line and aren’t moving, and are now being told they need to vote with paper ballots.” To me, that was the first sign that something was amiss in our boiler room process. That’s essential information. We needed those reports so the legal team would activate. I was stunned, and actually quite nervous. I thought, “Do we even have what we need on the ground to manage election day?”

“I MEAN, IT LOOKED LIKE A LANDSLIDE”

5 p.m.

Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight: When I was coming in on the train at 5 p.m., according to our model, there was one-in-three chance of a Clinton landslide, a one-in-three chance of a close Clinton win, and a one-in-three chance of a Trump win. I was mentally preparing myself for each of those outcomes.

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker: I thought about, and actually wrote, an essay about “the first woman president,” and the historical background of it all. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the suffragettes, the relationship with Frederick Douglass…a historical essay, clearly written in a mood of “at long last” and, yes, celebration. The idea was to press “post” on that piece, along with many other pieces by my colleagues at The New Yorker, the instant Clinton’s victory was declared on TV.

Bret Baier, Fox News chief political anchor: We got the exit polls at 5 p.m. in a big office on the executive floor. Rupert Murdoch and all the staff were there. It looked like we were going to call the race for Hillary Clinton at 10:30 or 11 p.m.

Steve Bannon: The exit polls were horrific. It was brutal. I think we were close in Iowa and Ohio and everything else was just brutal. Losing everywhere. Florida, Pennsylvania. I mean, it looked like a landslide.

Ashley Parker, The Washington Post, formerly of The New York Times: The RNC thought they were going to lose. The Trump campaign supporters thought they were going to lose. They were rushing to get their side out of the blame game. I spent part of my day lining up interviews for later that night or the next morning to get their version of events.

Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, Trump’s religious adviser: I called Sean Hannity and said, “I really think he’s going to win tonight.” Sean said, “Well, I’m glad you do, because the exit polls don’t look good.” I found out later that Trump was very pessimistic, too.

Steve Bannon: Jared [Kushner] and I were out on this balcony in Trump Tower. We looked at it on Jared’s iPhone. And the numbers were so bad that we regrouped inside. We look at each other and we go, “This can’t be right. It just can’t.” And Jared goes, “I got an idea, let’s call Drudge.” And Drudge says, “The corporate media—they’ve always been wrong the entire time—these numbers are wrong.”

Brian Fallon: I was hearing from my high school principal, people I hadn’t spoken to since college. Everybody is conveying thanks for taking on Trump. It was going to be a cathartic experience of him getting his comeuppance after months of representing something that was so egregious in the eyes of so many people.

Rebecca Traister: They were serving, like, $12 pulled pork sandwiches [at the Javits Center]. It was nuts, people were bouncing off the walls. Everyone genuinely believed she was going to win. I don’t know if it made me feel more confident or not.

Evan McMullin, Independent candidate: Our election night event was in Salt Lake City. I was drinking Diet Coke and eating hummus and olives.

Ana Marie Cox: At the MTV watch party, we had dancers and graffiti artists. There were people giving temporary tattoos. I remember my colleague Jamil Smith and I both bringing up at a meeting, “Hey guys, what if something goes wrong? What if this doesn’t go how we think it’s going to go?” And the answer from some MTV exec was, “We’ll pivot.”

Steve Bannon: Drudge snapped us out of it, saying, “You guys are a couple of jamokes. Wait until the second exit polls come out, or later.” We called the candidate and told him what the numbers were and what Drudge had said. And then we said, “Hey, ya know, we left it all on the field. Did everything we can do. Let’s just see how it turns out.”

Sen. Tim Kaine: Based on the returns from one bellwether Virginia county I know well, I realized that we would win Virginia by a significantly larger margin than President Obama four years earlier. This was a huge feeling given all the work that Anne and I have done for 30-plus years to help make Virginia more progressive. It struck me for the first time, “I will probably be vice president.” That feeling lasted about 90 minutes.

Ashley Parker: I walked over to the Hilton for election night. At some point they rolled in a cake that was like…a life-sized, very impressive rendering of Trump’s head.

Melissa Alt, cake artist: I got an order for a Hillary Clinton cake. So, I was like, “Okay, I’m going to make Donald Trump as well.” Just because that would generate a lot of interest. My manager, who has a friend who works for Donald Trump Jr., said, “Let’s contact them and see if they’re interested in having cake.” And obviously they said yes.

The Kid Mero, Desus & Mero: I’m surprised a stripper didn’t jump out of the cake.

Melissa Alt: I start getting phone calls of people saying, “This is TMZ, or Boston Globe, or People magazine. Do you know that your cake is trending all over the whole internet?”

Ashley Parker: I don’t know if I was ever allowed to eat it. It seemed fairly decorative.

Melissa Alt: Obviously, I wanted everyone to see it first and then eat it. That cake could probably feed about a hundred.

Gary Johnson, Libertarian candidate: I was taken aback by the fact that, at least at the start of the evening, all the networks were showing three names on the screen for the first time, meaning mine and Clinton and Trump. But no, I don’t remember the cake.

“I THINK I’M GONNA THROW UP”

8 p.m. – 1 a.m.

Maggie Haberman, The New York Times: When I went downstairs at 8:15, Hillary was up in Florida. When I came back upstairs, it had flipped. I got a sense the second I set foot in the newsroom that something was going on.

Van Jones: You got smoke coming out of every gear trying to figure out what the heck is happening out there. And you’ve got John King who had said, over and over, that there is no pathway for a Trump victory. Suddenly, that whole thing starts to come apart.

Roger Stone: I was committed to be an on-air anchor for InfoWars. I think I was on the air for seven hours straight.

Steve Bannon: We had taken over the fifth floor of Trump Tower, which had been Corey [Lewandowski]’s original headquarters. It was a concrete floor with no carpeting. They didn’t heat it. It had computers everywhere, guys are tracking everything, we had a chain of command. We called the fifth floor “the crack den.” It looked like a crack den. We put all the maps up and we started getting raw feeds from both our local guys and also the secretary of state of Florida. They were putting up their total vote counts. And [national field director] Bill Stepien was sitting there with all of our modeling. They were really focused on Florida—particularly the Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Also North Carolina was coming in. And obviously Ohio and those states were starting to come in. But the big one we were focused on was Florida. Because if we didn’t win Florida, it was not going to happen.

Omarosa Manigault, Trump campaign: If we believed what was on the television, we would have thought we lost. But looking at the numbers that were in front of us in the key battleground states, we were up…or we were neck and neck, with expectations of higher turnout and more enthusiasm. We were going off of our own internal data. What was being shown on CNN and MSNBC and some of these other networks was showing a stark contrast to what was in front of us.

Reza Aslan, author and religious scholar: I thought, “Oh my God, how terrible are we that it’s even this close?”

Brian Fallon: As I was walking off the risers [at Javits], Jen Epstein, a Bloomberg reporter, grabbed my arm and said, “Are you guys nervous about Florida?” I gave her some sort of verbal shrug. Right after that I called into the boiler room and asked for a gut check.

Van Jones: My phone was literally warm from the text messages coming in.

Zara Rahim: I had been going back and forth between the venue and backstage. My face was really tense. All of these reporters can read your energy and your face. You never want a reporter to tweet like, “Clinton campaign members are nervous.”

Jim Margolis: I finally called Steve Schale, who ran Florida for us in the Obama campaign. I said, “Steve, what’s going on here? Is this just a lack of information?” He said, “I think you’ve got a problem.”

Bret Baier: At 8:30 I turned to Chris Wallace, who was sitting next to us on the set, and said, “This does not look like it’s lining up.” We came back from commercial break and Chris said, “Donald Trump could be the next president of the United States.”

Jerry Falwell Jr.: My 17-year-old daughter, Caroline, had been following the election. It’s the first time she’s ever followed politics. And she was so nervous about the result that her stomach got upset. She told her brother, “I think I’m gonna throw up.” So he took off his Trump hat and she threw up in it, right next to Laura Ingraham.

Felix Biederman, Chapo Trap House: At that point the blue wall hadn’t come in yet, and that’s when the air in the room started to tighten. It was like, “Oh, fuck.” She can still do it, but everything that needs to happen for Trump is happening. What if what’s always happened with Hillary—they did all the work, they know everything, they’re super qualified—what if they didn’t do it? What if they fucked it up?

Ana Marie Cox: I did a couple of on-camera news hits where I was told, “What you need to do here is tell people not to panic.” Meanwhile, I was panicking.

David Remnick: Not only did I not have anything else ready, I don’t think our site had anything, or much of anything, ready in case Trump won. The mood in the offices, I would say, was frenetic.

Dave Weigel: I’m in the parking lot of the Scalise party. There are Republicans drinking, some celebrating, some not paying attention. My editor was calling to see when I would hand in my story. One, I’m on a minor story that’s falling apart, and two, I’m probably in the wrong place. Three, I need to reorder the story, and four, how much did I tell people confidently about the election that I was wrong about?

Ashley Parker: We started running up to one another like, “He’s gonna win, he’s gonna win. We know it now, it’s gonna happen.”

Desus Nice, Desus & Mero: It’s one thing to find out Donald Trump is president, but another to be on TV with people watching you watch Donald Trump become president.

Michael Barbaro, The New York Times: Carolyn Ryan, who was the politics editor, pulled me aside and said, “I need you to be involved in a ‘Trump Wins’ story.”

Matt Flegenheimer, The New York Times: Michael and I build this thing out together into a fully sweeping and historical news story. Maybe 1,500 words. We lock ourselves in this little glass office in the Times building and try to tune out the unstoppable din of the newsroom.

Steve Bannon: Jared came down and the candidate was upstairs. Then when word got out that Florida was competitive, that it was gonna be real, he came down to the 14th floor, the headquarters, where we had what we called the war room, which had multiple TVs running. And so what we did is we moved the data analysis thing that we had up to the 14th floor. And I went over with Stepien and the others and just stood next to the candidate and walked him through what was going on. And he finally took a seat. And we sat there and watched everything come in.

Jacob Soboroff, MSNBC correspondent: I went from this feeling of, “Oh my god, wow. I can’t believe it,” to, in a matter of seconds, “Oh, whoa, I can totally believe it.”

Steve Bannon: Stepien looked at it and said, “Our spread is too big, they can’t recover from this.” Miami-Dade and Broward were coming back really slow. They were clearly holding votes back, right? And then Stepien looked at me and said, “We have such a big lead now. They can’t steal it from us.

“I FELT SO ALONE, I KNEW IT WAS DONE”

Ashley Parker: I received a frantic call from Mike Barbaro, so I was racing around the ballroom getting quotes and feeding them back to the story.

Joshua Green, Bloomberg Businessweek correspondent and Devil’s Bargain author: At 9:05 p.m. I sent Bannon an email and said, “Holy shit, you guys are gonna win, aren’t you?” He sent a one word reply: “Yes.”

Dave Weigel: I had told my parents, who are Clinton supporters—my dad actually knew Clinton growing up as he’s from the same town in Illinois she is. I texted him early in the night saying, “These Florida counties seem to be going the way they usually go.” But once I realized there was no way for Clinton to win, I called them saying, “I’m sorry, this is what I do for a living and I was wrong.” My dad said, “Well, I’m still holding out hope.” And I said, “Don’t bother. Process this, and figure out what you’re going to do next, because it’s not going to happen.”

Trae Crowder, comedian and author: I felt very mad at liberals, you know, like my team. I was very upset with all of us for a lot of reasons.

Rebecca Traister: I felt so alone, I knew it was done. I was by myself on the floor. I started to cry.

David Remnick: That night I went to a friend’s election-night party. As Clinton’s numbers started to sour, I took my laptop out, got a chair, found a corner of that noisy room, and started thinking and writing. That was what turned out to be “An American Tragedy.”

Steve Bannon: As soon as we got Florida, I knew we were gonna win. Because Florida was such a massive lift for us, right? We were so outstaffed. But then we won Florida. Just made me know that the rest of the night was going to go well.

Maggie Haberman: I started texting some of the Trump people and one of them wrote back, “Say it with me: ‘President Trump. President Trump.’”

“CAN WE STAY IN THE U.S.?”

Zara Rahim: A member of senior leadership came, and I’ll never forget him looking at us and saying, essentially, “If she doesn’t win Michigan and Wisconsin, Donald Trump will be president-elect.” That was the first time I heard those words.

Jim Margolis: The tenor had changed completely. People were very nervous in the room, we’re all talking to each other. I’m going back and forth with [Clinton campaign manager] Robby Mook, who is over at the hotel. We’re on the phone with some of the states that are still out there, trying to understand what is taking place in Wisconsin and Michigan, because those numbers are softer than they ought to be. That’s beginning to weigh very heavily.

Rebecca Traister: I was thinking everything from, “I’m gonna have to rewrite my piece” to, “Can we stay in the U.S.?” I texted my husband, “Tell Rosie to go to bed. I don’t want her to watch.”

Roger Stone: The staff at InfoWars is largely people in their late 20s, early 30s, all of whom are interested in politics, but none of whom would consider themselves an expert. So they would look to me and say, “Well, are we going to win or not?” And I said, “Yes, we’re going to win.”

Matt Flegenheimer: Michael Grynbaum—who covers media—we had been following the Upshot percentages on the race. We were trying to get our heads around it. If it’s 75 percent, two coin flips, Donald Trump’s president. You had dynamic, shifting odds on the meter. Maybe it’s one coin flip. Maybe it’s half a coin flip. At some point, when I was in that little room with Michael Barbaro, Grynbaum comes in, takes a quarter, slams it down on the middle of the desk. Doesn’t say a word. Just walks out. I still have that quarter in my wallet.

David Remnick: Obviously, we were not going to press “post” until a result had been announced. So I made some revisions, came across a quotation from George Orwell, played around with various sentences, but all in a kind of strange state of focus that happens only once in a while.

Steve Bannon: We stayed there until I want to say about 11 o’clock, 11:30, after Florida got called. It looked like others were coming our way, that we were obviously gonna win. That’s when we went upstairs to the residence, to the penthouse. In hindsight, we still had two and a half hours to go, because they didn’t call it ‘til like 2:30 in the morning.

Symone Sanders, Strategist for Priorities USA: Omarosa called [into MTV] saying, “It’s a good night over here at Trump Tower.” She’s like, “I knew Donald Trump would be the president. I told everyone months ago. And the day is here!” I was just dumbfounded.

Neal Brennan: Slowly but surely it dawns on us. And I had said things like, “You know, I’ve heard that technically Republicans can never win another presidential election.” I’m just saying dumb shit, all things I’d read on Politico or fuckin’ The Atlantic or whatever. And then slowly but surely it happens. It’s like we…it…fucking Hillary lost.

Van Jones: I picked up my pen and I wrote down two words: “parents” and “whitelash.”

Jeffrey Lord, former CNN political commentator: People get so obsessed with the race thing.

Ana Marie Cox: I happen to be in recovery. I had a moment of, like, “Why the fuck not?” I went on Twitter and said, “To those of us ‘in the room’ together, he’s not worth it. Don’t drink over this.” And the response I got was amazing. I said, “I’m going to a meeting tomorrow. Everyone get through this 24 hours, get to a meeting, we’re not alone.”

Evan McMullin: I looked at my staffers. In my mind’s eye, they were all seated up against this wall. They were disappointed, they were afraid, all of that. I told them that I didn’t want to see any long faces. I told them to buck up. And it had no effect.

Van Jones: I literally said, “This was many things. This was a rebellion against elites, it was a complete reinvention of politics and polls. And it was also about race.” But the “whitelash” comment became this big, big thing. What’s interesting about it is, I’m black, my wife is not. She and I were talking about what was happening in Europe. And I said, “The backlash is coming here.” She said, “Yeah, it’ll be a whitelash here.” That was in the back of my mind. People think I made that term up on the spot. It’s very rare you can put two syllables together and make the entire case.

Jeffrey Lord: I thought he was wrong. While Van and I disagree, he’s a curious and sensible soul. I thought at some point he would come to a different conclusion.

“WHAT’S OBAMA THINKING?”

1 a.m. – 3 a.m.

Melissa Alt: People were texting me the whole night, just congratulations on the cake. That was funny because the night turned out so different than I expected. Who knew cake could generate so much hype?

Bret Baier: The futures markets had taken a nosedive, so we were covering that aspect of things. Fortunately, we had Maria Bartiromo on the set, who looked at the numbers and said, “Well, I would think this is a buying opportunity, because if you look at policy, tax cuts, regulation roll back, and everything else, that’s probably going to mean the market turning around when businesses weigh in.” That turned out to be pretty prescient.

Ana Marie Cox: A Muslim colleague of mine called his mother. She was worried he was going to be the victim of violence at any moment. A colleague who is gay and married was on the phone with her wife saying, “They’re not going to take this damn ring away from me.”

Van Jones: I had Muslim friends who came from countries like Somalia asking, “Should we leave the country tonight?” Because in their countries of origin, if a president that hostile takes power, they might start rounding up people in the morning.

David Remnick: Jelani [Cobb] and I spoke around midnight. We were both, let’s put it this way, in the New Yorker mode of radical understatement, disappointed. Jelani’s disappointment extended to his wondering whether he should actually leave the country. He wasn’t kidding around. I could tell that from his voice.

Gary Johnson: Well, I was really disappointed at the results. But what I came to very quickly was, as I’ve said many, many, many, times, if I wasn’t elected president, I was going to ski a hundred-plus days and I was also going to ride the Continental Divide bike race.

Jill Stein, Green Party candidate: Did I have remorse about running? Absolutely not. I have remorse about the misery people are experiencing under Democrats and Republicans both.

Neal Brennan: That’s sketch-writing night at SNL. So all the writers are crestfallen, and it was up to us to write comedy for that Saturday. Me and [Colin] Jost wrote the sketch where Dave [Chappelle] is watching the election, and Chris Rock shows up and everyone’s bawling. It was based on the experience of being in Jost’s office and me saying incredibly stupid shit as reality crumbled.

Ashley Nicole Black, writer/correspondent, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee: We all went into a room and sat in silence for at least five minutes. The conversation wasn’t like, “What is it going to be in the country?” It was like, okay, “We’re at work. We have a show tomorrow. What are we going to do?” And Sam goes, “I think this is my fault.” It’s Sam’s first time voting in an American election, and she told us how the first time she was on Law & Order, Law & Order got canceled the next day. And she got interviewed by Playboy, and the next day they announced they were no longer doing nudity. And now she voted for the first time and broke America. We all laughed, it broke the tension in the room. Then we started writing Act 1 with that idea in mind.

Rep. Adam Schiff, congressman, 28th District of California: I was at a victory party for my campaign at the Burbank Bar and Grill. And it was the most somber and depressing victory party I’d ever had.

Brian Fallon: Eventually there were conversations around the awkwardness. There started to be this pressure to concede even before AP called the race.

Nate Silver: I felt like if the roles had been reversed, and if Clinton had been winning all of these states, that they wouldn’t have been so slow to call it. In some ways, the slowness to call it reflected the stubbornness the media had the whole time about realizing that, actually, it was a pretty competitive election.

Jerry Falwell Jr.: The crowd at the Trump party was really aggravated because Megyn Kelly didn’t want to call it. She was so hopeful that Trump would lose. She let hours go by. Finally, the crowd started chanting, “Call it! Call it! Call it!”

Bret Baier: There was a growing group of people who had gathered outside Fox News who obviously were Trump supporters. They were going crazy.

Zara Rahim: There was a massive garage behind the Javits center. John Podesta stood up on a box and told us, “We will have more information for you soon,” which is the most frustrating thing to hear in that moment. Everybody was in this big circle of sadness and nobody knew what to do. Leadership didn’t know what to do. We were all at a loss.

Jon Favreau, Crooked Media, former Obama speechwriter: We were in a constant text chain with our buddies in the White House, asking, “What’s going on? What’s the boss thinking? What’s Obama thinking?” And finally they told us, “Oh, he just talked to her and he thinks she should concede and she agrees. She’s just waiting for the right moment.”

Jerry Falwell Jr.: I called the president-elect. He said, “Well, why don’t you come over to Trump Tower, you and your family, and watch the returns with us?” And I said, “I don’t want to do that, because by the time I get over there, you’re going to be coming over here to do your victory speech.” And he said, “All right, whatever.”

Matt Paul, chief of staff to VP candidate Tim Kaine: Senator Kaine, when the news became very grim…the senator actually went to bed. Nothing was going to happen that night. He had to put together a different type of speech.

Brian Fallon: I was on the phone with the decision desk people at AP, trying to glean a sense of their confidence about the numbers in states like Wisconsin and Michigan. I knew that when those got called, it was ball game, so I was trying to impart to them what we were hearing about what precincts might still be outstanding. We were also trying to gauge if they were about to call it, if and when she should speak.

Michael Barbaro: We really labored over a few paragraphs and a few words, just capturing the enormity of a Trump victory. That it wasn’t expected. The messages the campaign had run on, what they would suddenly mean for the country. And it was a real challenge to convey all of the things he had said and done in the campaign, and all the controversies that he had sparked and put those into the context of a traditional, sweeping, “This person has just been elected president of the United States,” New York Times story.

Matt Flegenheimer: I think after 1 o’clock we had our final version and we were ready to press the button on “Trump Just Won.” It did make the last edition of the print paper.

Michael Barbaro: There was so much going on that night and so many last-minute changes and such a hectic schedule that the story was published with the wrong bylines. The historic front page, “Trump Triumphs,” ran in the paper with the wrong bylines.

Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker: I saw the New York Times headline and I was very discomforted by it. For one, I knew that I had a child on the way.

Maggie Haberman: I was supposed to go on a CNN panel at 2 a.m., they were doing a very early version of New Day. I got stuck because of a deadline anyway, so it worked out I couldn’t make it, which I felt bad about. In reality, I wasn’t prepared to talk about it. I couldn’t really understand what had happened. And I think images of gobsmacked reporters probably wouldn’t have helped.

Michael Barbaro: We’re all sitting around and we’re all doing what journalists do after a big story, which is talk about it endlessly. I don’t think any of us wanted to go home. I don’t think any of us wanted to go off into the private space of figuring out what this all means. This gravitational pull kept us there much later than we needed to be.

Reza Aslan: My wife stayed up and I went to sleep, then she woke me up around 1 or 2 in the morning bawling and told me that it was over. My poor, sweet wife. She wanted to hug and kiss me but I went into a panic attack and couldn’t breathe.

David Remnick: We agreed that night, and we agree today, that the Trump presidency is an emergency. And in an emergency, you’ve got a purpose, a job to do, and ours is to put pressure on power. That’s always the highest calling of journalism, but never more so than when power is a constant threat to the country and in radical opposition to its values and its highest sense of itself.

Brian Fallon: We had this issue where the Javits Center needed us out by 3 a.m. The decision was made that someone had to come out and address the crowd.

Zara Rahim: There were die-hard Hillary supporters that were like, “We’re not going.” Folks who were sobbing and literally couldn’t move because they were so distraught. I remember pieces of memorabilia on the floor, little Hillary pins and “I believe that she will win” placards.

Rebecca Traister: People were throwing up. People were on the floor crying.

Steve Bannon: We had an agreement with these guys. Robby Mook had sent this email saying, you know, “When AP calls it, we’ll call and congratulate you right away.” Because they were expecting Trump to keep saying, “It’s rigged, it’s rigged.” So Robby Mook sent a thing over which I’m sure he regrets. [Laughs]. He sent an email to us, he said, 15 minutes after AP calls it, they would expect to hear from us. If they hadn’t heard from us, she would get up to give a victory speech. I think AP called it right when we left.

Roger Stone: We figured they had her in a straitjacket by then. Or that she was throwing things and cursing.

“LET’S GO ONSTAGE AND GET THIS DONE”

Bret Baier: It was around 2:30 in the morning, and I said, “Donald Trump will be the 45th president of the United States.” This whiz-bang graphic with all of these firework animations flashed across the screen with the words Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States. Just seeing that, everybody on the set was silent for a little bit, as the whole thing was being digested.

Stephen L. Miller, conservative blogger: The Onion headline kept flashing through my head really heavy. During the primaries they had the Trump story, “You really want to see how far this goes, don’t you America?”

Jorge Ramos, Univision news anchor: When he won, I said it as if I was reporting a football score or a soccer match. “Donald Trump is going to be the next president of the United States.” No emotion. Just the facts. That’s what the audience demanded. That is a sign of respect. As a journalist you have to report reality as it is, not as you wish it would be. That’s exactly what I was doing.

Jeffrey Lord: It was an amazing moment. Anderson [Cooper] came over to me and, in his classy fashion, shook my hand and said, “Congratulations, you were right.”

Steve Bannon: When it was called, he was actually upstairs in the kitchen. He has a small kitchen with a television. When he heard it was being called by AP, I shook his hand and said, “Congratulations, Mr. President.” So we kinda laughed. There were no big hugs or anything. Nothing crazy. He’s not a guy who gets overly excited. He’s very controlled. People around him are very controlled. We were obviously very happy and ecstatic. But it’s not a bunch of jumping around, high-fiving, anything like that.

Matt Oczkowski: It almost felt like a videogame, like you were playing something and won. You’re like, “Wow, this is the presidency of the United States.”

Roger Stone: The champagne tasted great. This was the culmination of a dream that I’d had since 1988.

Jim Margolis: I was on with Robby [Mook], who was in the room with her when she did the concession call to Trump. It was surreal. It was beyond my imagination that we would be in this position with this person being elected president.

Steve Bannon: It only took us 10 minutes to get there, it was right down the street. When we got there, we were in this weird holding stage, kind of off to the side. Very crammed. She called the president on his phone. Or it might have been Huma Abedin called Kellyanne [Conway] and then she hands her phone off to the president, and then Secretary Clinton was on there, you know, “Hey, Donald, congratulations, hard-fought win.” Two or three minutes. Then we looked at each other and said, “Let’s go onstage and get this done.”

Roger Stone: He looked surprised at the fact that he’d won. Which is surprising only because he pretty consistently thought he would win. Not unhappy, but rather, shocked.

Neal Brennan: I thought it was so fucking weird that he was like, “Is Jim here? Come on up here.” Like he was emceeing a sports banquet. But it was good that he set the tone right there. So long, context. So long, history.

Joshua Green: I thought he had actually made at least a cursory effort to try to unite the country by reaching out to Hillary Clinton voters. That sentiment probably evaporated before the sun rose the next day. At least on election night he said something approximating what you would expect a normal presidential victor to say in a moment like that, to try and bring the country together.

Symone Sanders: I still couldn’t believe it was happening. When he talked about us coming together and healing for the country, I wanted to throw up in my mouth.

“YOU’RE FUCKED”

3 a.m. – 7 a.m.

Maggie Haberman: I was getting bewildered texts from my child who couldn’t sleep, asking me what happened. I think this election was really difficult for kids to process.

Matt Paul: It was fucking terrible. We had these hastily organized calls every 10 minutes to determine what was going to happen the next morning. There was no advanced plan. Where were we going to do this massive global television event? How were we going to get people in the room? Who was going to say what in what order? That happened between 4 in the morning and when she spoke.

Rebecca Traister: In the cab home, the cabbie had on the news, that’s when I heard his acceptance speech, and I said, “Can you turn it off?” I couldn’t hear his voice. I was like, “I can’t listen to his voice for the next four years.”

Desus Nice: I went home, and it was like when your team loses and you watch it on SportsCenter over and over and over. I turned on MSNBC, and Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow were asking, “How’d you get this wrong? How did Nate Silver get this wrong? What did Hillary do?” I kept turning to Fox News and seeing them gloat and the balloons falling. I think I stayed up until three in the morning just drinking and watching.

The Kid Mero: I went home and smoked myself to sleep. I was like, “This sucks.”

Ashley Nicole Black: I took a shower, and then as soon as water hit me, I started bawling. I didn’t really have any feelings until that moment.

Ashley Parker: Times Square felt like a zombie-apocalypse movie. There was no one there. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I walked from the ballroom to the newsroom. They were like, “Go home, get some sleep, you’ll need it.” I walked back to my hotel. I couldn’t sleep. I watched cable news and then fell asleep.

Van Jones: I was walking out the building. Your thumb just kind of automatically switches over to Twitter. I saw that my name was trending worldwide. And I was like, “Whoa, that’s weird.”

Brian Fallon: I stayed in Brooklyn throughout the campaign, but that night I got a hotel in Midtown, close to the Peninsula. I actually walked past his hotel. I saw all the red hats that were still milling about outside of his victory party. It was pretty surreal.

Ashley Nicole Black: I looked at myself—I’m going to cry even saying this right now—I looked at myself in the mirror, and in that moment, I looked like my grandmother. The first thought I had was that I was glad that she wasn’t alive to see that. Then I felt so guilty because of course nothing would ever make me glad my grandmother is not alive. I love her so much, and I wish she was here. But she died when Obama was president, with that hope that the world had moved forward, and black people had moved forward. And she didn’t see the huge backlash that came after. In that moment, I was very grateful, and then guilty, and then I went to bed.

Jorge Ramos: I’ve been to wars, I’ve covered the most difficult situations in Latin America. But I needed to digest and to understand what had happened. I came home very late. I turned on the news. I had comfort food—cookies and chocolate milk—the same thing I used to have as a kid in Mexico City. After that, I realized that I had been preparing all my life for this moment. Once I digested what had happened with Trump and had a plan, which was to resist and report and not be neutral, then I was able to go to bed.

Rebecca Traister: I got back to Park Slope, I went to check on the girls. When I went to say goodnight, I looked at Rosie, and I had this conscious thought that this is the day that will divide our experience of what is possible. This is the day where a limitation is reinforced for her.

Michael Barbaro: I went home and woke up my husband, I think it was 4 or 5 in the morning, and asked him what the next steps should be journalistically. Should I move to Washington? Should I change jobs? It was pretty disorienting.

Maggie Haberman: One Trump supporter sent me a message saying, “You’re fucked.” [Laughs] If you use that, please recall me laughing about it. It was really something.

Van Jones: I got to my apartment and put my head down. I woke up like three, four hours later. And in my mind I thought, it was a dream. Just for a split second. I was still fully clothed. I had makeup all over my pillow. And I was like, “Shit.”

“IT WAS ONE OF THE BEST SPEECHES SHE’S EVER GIVEN”

7 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Jon Favreau: It felt like when you wake up after someone close to you passes away. Not nearly as bad, obviously, but that same feeling where you think, for like five seconds, you’re okay, maybe it’s a normal morning, and then it hits you what happened.

Roger Stone: I mean, we were walkin’ on clouds. We were still in the halo of the whole thing. I was very pleased.

Jerry Falwell Jr.: The feeling afterward was relief. I had worked so hard to help him. I’d risked so much and went so far out on a limb. Everybody thought I was crazy. It was a renewed hope for the future of the country, and a little bit of fear that I was going to be chosen to serve in the administration, because I didn’t want to.

Steve Bannon: I had my whole family that had come up to the victory party and I hadn’t seen anybody, so I went home and grabbed a shower, just like the night before, got another hour of sleep, and I was with Jared. And I think we were with Trump at like 8 in the morning. So it was just like the exact same thing as the day before. The day before I felt we were gonna win the presidency, and the next day we had won the presidency. It was odd, there was never any big insurgent feeling or anything like that. It played out how I thought it would play out. I didn’t have much doubt the first day of the campaign, didn’t really have much doubt on Billy Bush weekend. He was connecting. He had a powerful message.

Reza Aslan: I remember thinking, as clear as day, this is who we are. This is what we deserve.

Shani O. Hilton, U.S. news editor, BuzzFeed News: You get on the train from Brooklyn. It’s silent. And not in the normal way of people not talking to each other. It felt like an observable silence. I saw at least three people sitting by themselves, just weeping silently.

Melissa Alt: The next day my manager took the cake back to Trump Tower because they didn’t cut it at election night. Donald Trump Jr. told my friend that it was delicious.

Matt Paul: I remember rolling up in the motorcade and seeing some of our staff and organizers couldn’t get in. A reporter or cameraperson who was familiar to me said, “Can I sneak in with you?” I looked at that person, sort of stunned, and said, “Fuck no.” Then I realized I shouldn’t have said that. It was just a visceral, gut reaction to seeing some of our staff that couldn’t get in who had killed themselves for two years.

Nate Silver: If you read FiveThirtyEight throughout the election and listened to our arguments with other journalists and reporters, then you would’ve been much better prepared and much less surprised by the outcome.

The Kid Mero: We very quickly became familiar with the term “economic anxiety.”

Reza Aslan: You take your kids to school, you go to the store, you go to the post office, you’re looking around, and you’re thinking, “These people hate me.”

Jelani Cobb: I went to the airport the next morning for a 7 a.m. flight. There’s an African-American gentleman, maybe in his 60s, working at the check-in counter. He starts talking about how disastrous and dangerous this moment’s going to be. And he’s seen history in the South and thinking that we might be headed back toward the things he thought were in the past.

Dave Weigel: I was connecting through the Atlanta airport. I looked around and thought, well, for eight years, I didn’t really think about who voted for who. But as a white dude with a mustache, fairly bloated by the campaign, most of the people who look like me voted for this guy who, as far as they know, is a bigot. I remember feeling that this divider had come down, this new intensity of feeling about everybody I saw.

Van Jones: The next day, my commentary had become this sort-of viral sensation. Fox News is mad at me for saying “whitelash.” Liberals are treating me as some kind of hero. And literally, for the next two weeks, I didn’t have to pay for anything in any establishment in D.C. or New York. Not one meal. Not one cab. Uber people would turn the thing off and just drive me around for free.

Joshua Green: Bannon called me. He said, “You recognize what happened?” I’m like, “What the fuck are you talking about?” He goes, “You guys,” meaning you on the left, “you fell into the same trap as conservatives in the ‘90s…you were so whipped up in your own self-righteousness about how Americans could never vote for Trump that you were blinded to what was happening.” He was right.

Matt Paul: There were five or six of us standing in a hold room. One of Hillary’s brothers was there with his wife. A couple of the president’s people. Myself. A couple of campaign photographers. President Clinton walked in. It was very tough. Secretary Clinton walked in and was strong and composed. I stood there in shock at how put together and strong she was.

Rebecca Traister: As someone who covered her in 2008 and watched her struggle with speechgiving, it was one of the best speeches she’s ever given.

Jim Margolis: Everybody was basically in tears. Huma was in front of me. Jake [Sullivan] was on one side. It was one of those incredible scenes. Nobody had had any sleep.

Steve Bannon: Never watched it. Couldn’t care less. Her, Podesta, all of it. I thought they were overrated. I thought they were—they’re a media creation. People say how genius they were, how brilliant they were. Look, I’d never been on a campaign in my life. But I can understand math. Just looking at where it was gonna come down to. Morning Joe tells me they’re so brilliant every day. Why are they not getting some pretty fundamental stuff here? But no, I had no interest in seeing her concession speech. I have no interest in a damn thing with their campaign because I don’t think they knew what they were doing. I only have interest in what we did. Which was just, focus, focus, focus.

Rep. Adam Schiff: My staff both in California and in D.C. were absolutely devastated. People would come up to me, constituents and others, with tears in their eyes. And the astounding thing is, here we are now. People continue to come up to me with tears in their eyes about what he’s doing. I’ve never seen people have a visceral reaction over an election and be so deeply alarmed at what’s happening to the country.

Charles P. Pierce, Esquire writer at large: On the Sunday before the election, I drove out from Philadelphia to Gettysburg. Once I got out of the sprawling Philadelphia exurbs, I started to see improvised signs. There were several of those small portable marquees that you see outside clam shacks and chili parlors. I saw a huge piece of plywood nailed to a tree outside a motorcycle repair shop. I saw an entire barn painted red, white, and blue. “Trump,” it said, on the side of the barn. “Make America Great Again.” And I could see that barn, out in the field, in my mind’s eye, as Hillary Rodham Clinton gave her belated concession speech. And when she talked about making the American Dream available to everyone, I thought, damn, somebody had to want it bad to paint a whole barn just to argue about that.

Roger Stone: Trump is a winner. He’s a very confident, upbeat guy. That’s just his style. He thought all along that he would win. There’s no doubt that the Billy Bush thing shook him a little bit, but it ended up not being determinative.

Jerry Falwell Jr.: We had traveled on the plane with him during the campaign. He went and got the Wendy’s cheeseburgers and the fries, put them out on the table for us. I just think he’s a people’s president. I think that’s something we’ve not had in a real long time.

Gary Johnson: Well for me, just speaking personally, I do not aspire to be president of the United States anymore. Why would anybody want to be president of the United States now that Donald Trump’s been president of the United States?

##########

from Roger Stone – Stone Cold Truth https://stonecoldtruth.com/untold-stories-of-election-day-2016/ from Roger Stone https://rogerstone12.tumblr.com/post/167439001643

[rogerstone12]

Untold Stories Of Election Day 2016

BELOW IS A RECAP OF ELECTION DAY/NIGHT FROM ESQUIRE MAGAZINE featuring ROGER STONE. 

**** Roger Stone, longtime Trump ally: She was just dead in the water. ****

  On November 8, 2016, America’s chief storytellers—those within the bubbles of media and politics—lost the narrative they had controlled for decades. In a space of 24 hours, the concept of “conventional wisdom” seemed to vanish for good. How did this happen? What follows are over 40 brand new interviews and behind-the-scenes stories from deep inside The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, and more—plus first-hand accounts from the campaigns, themselves. We’ve spent a year hearing the spin. Now it’s time for the truth.

THE RUN-UP

Steve Bannon, Trump campaign CEO: When I first came on the campaign, I said, “You have a hundred-percent chance of winning.” We just got to stick to that plan. Even with Billy Bush, I never wavered for a second.

Jim Margolis, Clinton campaign senior adviser: I am normally a glass-half-empty guy when it comes to expectations on election days. This was the first big election where I was absolutely certain we were going to win.

Dave Weigel, The Washington Post: I called Jeff Flake the Sunday before the election. I said, “I have one round of questions if Hillary wins, and one if Trump wins.” And he just started laughing, saying, “Why would you bother asking the second one?”

Rebecca Traister, New York magazine: We got up around 7 a.m., and there was an electric current running through my body.

Ana Marie Cox, Crooked Media, formerly of MTV: I was staying at my in-laws’ place in New York. They’re Trump supporters. They weren’t in town, but my father-in-law made a joking bet with me. He said, “The next time we see each other, there will be a President Trump.” I remember laughing at him.

Neal Brennan, comedian/writer: I was at SNL. Chappelle was like, “Dude, I feel like Trump’s gonna win.” I was like, “Dude, I’ll bet you a hundred thousand dollars he won’t win.” He did not take the bet, thankfully.

Sen. Tim Kaine, Democratic vice presidential candidate: I thought we would win, but I was more wary than many for the simple reason that the U.S. had never elected a woman president and still has a poor track record of electing women to federal office.

Ana Navarro, CNN commentator and Republican strategist: I schlepped my absentee ballot around with me for a month. It was getting pretty beat up inside my bag. I would open it up and look at it every now and then and say, “I’m not ready. I can’t bring myself to vote for Hillary Clinton. Please, God, let something happen that I don’t have to do this.”

Brian Fallon, Clinton campaign national press secretary: There had been a battleground tracking poll our team had done over the weekend that had us up 4 [points]. We were up in more than enough states to win, taking us over 270. The public polls all showed a similar outlook.

Zara Rahim, Clinton campaign national spokeswoman: We were waiting for the coronation. I was planning my Instagram caption.

Van Jones, CNN political commentator: The Democrats had this attitude, which I think is very unhealthy and unproductive, that any acknowledgement that Trump had a chance was somehow helping Trump, and that we all had to be on this one accord that it was impossible for him to win. I thought that was stupid. I’ve never seen that strategy work.

Matt Oczkowski, formerly of Cambridge Analytica (Trump campaign data firm): When you see outlets like the Huffington Post giving Trump a 1 percent probability of victory, which is not even physically possible, it’s just like, “Wow, people are going to miss this massively.”

Roger Stone, longtime Trump ally: She was just dead in the water.

Joel Benenson, Clinton campaign chief strategist: I go into the 10 o’clock call and we’re getting reports from the analytics people and the field people. And they finish, and whoever’s leading the call asks if there’s anything else. I said, “Well, yeah, I got a call 20 minutes ago from my daughter in Durham, North Carolina. People are standing on line and aren’t moving, and are now being told they need to vote with paper ballots.” To me, that was the first sign that something was amiss in our boiler room process. That’s essential information. We needed those reports so the legal team would activate. I was stunned, and actually quite nervous. I thought, “Do we even have what we need on the ground to manage election day?”

“I MEAN, IT LOOKED LIKE A LANDSLIDE”

5 p.m.

Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight: When I was coming in on the train at 5 p.m., according to our model, there was one-in-three chance of a Clinton landslide, a one-in-three chance of a close Clinton win, and a one-in-three chance of a Trump win. I was mentally preparing myself for each of those outcomes.

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker: I thought about, and actually wrote, an essay about “the first woman president,” and the historical background of it all. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the suffragettes, the relationship with Frederick Douglass…a historical essay, clearly written in a mood of “at long last” and, yes, celebration. The idea was to press “post” on that piece, along with many other pieces by my colleagues at The New Yorker, the instant Clinton’s victory was declared on TV.

Bret Baier, Fox News chief political anchor: We got the exit polls at 5 p.m. in a big office on the executive floor. Rupert Murdoch and all the staff were there. It looked like we were going to call the race for Hillary Clinton at 10:30 or 11 p.m.

Steve Bannon: The exit polls were horrific. It was brutal. I think we were close in Iowa and Ohio and everything else was just brutal. Losing everywhere. Florida, Pennsylvania. I mean, it looked like a landslide.

Ashley Parker, The Washington Post, formerly of The New York Times: The RNC thought they were going to lose. The Trump campaign supporters thought they were going to lose. They were rushing to get their side out of the blame game. I spent part of my day lining up interviews for later that night or the next morning to get their version of events.

Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, Trump’s religious adviser: I called Sean Hannity and said, “I really think he’s going to win tonight.” Sean said, “Well, I’m glad you do, because the exit polls don’t look good.” I found out later that Trump was very pessimistic, too.

Steve Bannon: Jared [Kushner] and I were out on this balcony in Trump Tower. We looked at it on Jared’s iPhone. And the numbers were so bad that we regrouped inside. We look at each other and we go, “This can’t be right. It just can’t.” And Jared goes, “I got an idea, let’s call Drudge.” And Drudge says, “The corporate media—they’ve always been wrong the entire time—these numbers are wrong.”

Brian Fallon: I was hearing from my high school principal, people I hadn’t spoken to since college. Everybody is conveying thanks for taking on Trump. It was going to be a cathartic experience of him getting his comeuppance after months of representing something that was so egregious in the eyes of so many people.

Rebecca Traister: They were serving, like, $12 pulled pork sandwiches [at the Javits Center]. It was nuts, people were bouncing off the walls. Everyone genuinely believed she was going to win. I don’t know if it made me feel more confident or not.

Evan McMullin, Independent candidate: Our election night event was in Salt Lake City. I was drinking Diet Coke and eating hummus and olives.

Ana Marie Cox: At the MTV watch party, we had dancers and graffiti artists. There were people giving temporary tattoos. I remember my colleague Jamil Smith and I both bringing up at a meeting, “Hey guys, what if something goes wrong? What if this doesn’t go how we think it’s going to go?” And the answer from some MTV exec was, “We’ll pivot.”

Steve Bannon: Drudge snapped us out of it, saying, “You guys are a couple of jamokes. Wait until the second exit polls come out, or later.” We called the candidate and told him what the numbers were and what Drudge had said. And then we said, “Hey, ya know, we left it all on the field. Did everything we can do. Let’s just see how it turns out.”

Sen. Tim Kaine: Based on the returns from one bellwether Virginia county I know well, I realized that we would win Virginia by a significantly larger margin than President Obama four years earlier. This was a huge feeling given all the work that Anne and I have done for 30-plus years to help make Virginia more progressive. It struck me for the first time, “I will probably be vice president.” That feeling lasted about 90 minutes.

Ashley Parker: I walked over to the Hilton for election night. At some point they rolled in a cake that was like…a life-sized, very impressive rendering of Trump’s head.

Melissa Alt, cake artist: I got an order for a Hillary Clinton cake. So, I was like, “Okay, I’m going to make Donald Trump as well.” Just because that would generate a lot of interest. My manager, who has a friend who works for Donald Trump Jr., said, “Let’s contact them and see if they’re interested in having cake.” And obviously they said yes.

The Kid Mero, Desus & Mero: I’m surprised a stripper didn’t jump out of the cake.

Melissa Alt: I start getting phone calls of people saying, “This is TMZ, or Boston Globe, or People magazine. Do you know that your cake is trending all over the whole internet?”

Ashley Parker: I don’t know if I was ever allowed to eat it. It seemed fairly decorative.

Melissa Alt: Obviously, I wanted everyone to see it first and then eat it. That cake could probably feed about a hundred.

Gary Johnson, Libertarian candidate: I was taken aback by the fact that, at least at the start of the evening, all the networks were showing three names on the screen for the first time, meaning mine and Clinton and Trump. But no, I don’t remember the cake.

“I THINK I’M GONNA THROW UP”

8 p.m. – 1 a.m.

Maggie Haberman, The New York Times: When I went downstairs at 8:15, Hillary was up in Florida. When I came back upstairs, it had flipped. I got a sense the second I set foot in the newsroom that something was going on.

Van Jones: You got smoke coming out of every gear trying to figure out what the heck is happening out there. And you’ve got John King who had said, over and over, that there is no pathway for a Trump victory. Suddenly, that whole thing starts to come apart.

Roger Stone: I was committed to be an on-air anchor for InfoWars. I think I was on the air for seven hours straight.

Steve Bannon: We had taken over the fifth floor of Trump Tower, which had been Corey [Lewandowski]’s original headquarters. It was a concrete floor with no carpeting. They didn’t heat it. It had computers everywhere, guys are tracking everything, we had a chain of command. We called the fifth floor “the crack den.” It looked like a crack den. We put all the maps up and we started getting raw feeds from both our local guys and also the secretary of state of Florida. They were putting up their total vote counts. And [national field director] Bill Stepien was sitting there with all of our modeling. They were really focused on Florida—particularly the Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Also North Carolina was coming in. And obviously Ohio and those states were starting to come in. But the big one we were focused on was Florida. Because if we didn’t win Florida, it was not going to happen.

Omarosa Manigault, Trump campaign: If we believed what was on the television, we would have thought we lost. But looking at the numbers that were in front of us in the key battleground states, we were up…or we were neck and neck, with expectations of higher turnout and more enthusiasm. We were going off of our own internal data. What was being shown on CNN and MSNBC and some of these other networks was showing a stark contrast to what was in front of us.

Reza Aslan, author and religious scholar: I thought, “Oh my God, how terrible are we that it’s even this close?”

Brian Fallon: As I was walking off the risers [at Javits], Jen Epstein, a Bloomberg reporter, grabbed my arm and said, “Are you guys nervous about Florida?” I gave her some sort of verbal shrug. Right after that I called into the boiler room and asked for a gut check.

Van Jones: My phone was literally warm from the text messages coming in.

Zara Rahim: I had been going back and forth between the venue and backstage. My face was really tense. All of these reporters can read your energy and your face. You never want a reporter to tweet like, “Clinton campaign members are nervous.”

Jim Margolis: I finally called Steve Schale, who ran Florida for us in the Obama campaign. I said, “Steve, what’s going on here? Is this just a lack of information?” He said, “I think you’ve got a problem.”

Bret Baier: At 8:30 I turned to Chris Wallace, who was sitting next to us on the set, and said, “This does not look like it’s lining up.” We came back from commercial break and Chris said, “Donald Trump could be the next president of the United States.”

Jerry Falwell Jr.: My 17-year-old daughter, Caroline, had been following the election. It’s the first time she’s ever followed politics. And she was so nervous about the result that her stomach got upset. She told her brother, “I think I’m gonna throw up.” So he took off his Trump hat and she threw up in it, right next to Laura Ingraham.

Felix Biederman, Chapo Trap House: At that point the blue wall hadn’t come in yet, and that’s when the air in the room started to tighten. It was like, “Oh, fuck.” She can still do it, but everything that needs to happen for Trump is happening. What if what’s always happened with Hillary—they did all the work, they know everything, they’re super qualified—what if they didn’t do it? What if they fucked it up?

Ana Marie Cox: I did a couple of on-camera news hits where I was told, “What you need to do here is tell people not to panic.” Meanwhile, I was panicking.

David Remnick: Not only did I not have anything else ready, I don’t think our site had anything, or much of anything, ready in case Trump won. The mood in the offices, I would say, was frenetic.

Dave Weigel: I’m in the parking lot of the Scalise party. There are Republicans drinking, some celebrating, some not paying attention. My editor was calling to see when I would hand in my story. One, I’m on a minor story that’s falling apart, and two, I’m probably in the wrong place. Three, I need to reorder the story, and four, how much did I tell people confidently about the election that I was wrong about?

Ashley Parker: We started running up to one another like, “He’s gonna win, he’s gonna win. We know it now, it’s gonna happen.”

Desus Nice, Desus & Mero: It’s one thing to find out Donald Trump is president, but another to be on TV with people watching you watch Donald Trump become president.

Michael Barbaro, The New York Times: Carolyn Ryan, who was the politics editor, pulled me aside and said, “I need you to be involved in a ‘Trump Wins’ story.”

Matt Flegenheimer, The New York Times: Michael and I build this thing out together into a fully sweeping and historical news story. Maybe 1,500 words. We lock ourselves in this little glass office in the Times building and try to tune out the unstoppable din of the newsroom.

Steve Bannon: Jared came down and the candidate was upstairs. Then when word got out that Florida was competitive, that it was gonna be real, he came down to the 14th floor, the headquarters, where we had what we called the war room, which had multiple TVs running. And so what we did is we moved the data analysis thing that we had up to the 14th floor. And I went over with Stepien and the others and just stood next to the candidate and walked him through what was going on. And he finally took a seat. And we sat there and watched everything come in.

Jacob Soboroff, MSNBC correspondent: I went from this feeling of, “Oh my god, wow. I can’t believe it,” to, in a matter of seconds, “Oh, whoa, I can totally believe it.”

Steve Bannon: Stepien looked at it and said, “Our spread is too big, they can’t recover from this.” Miami-Dade and Broward were coming back really slow. They were clearly holding votes back, right? And then Stepien looked at me and said, “We have such a big lead now. They can’t steal it from us.

“I FELT SO ALONE, I KNEW IT WAS DONE”

Ashley Parker: I received a frantic call from Mike Barbaro, so I was racing around the ballroom getting quotes and feeding them back to the story.

Joshua Green, Bloomberg Businessweek correspondent and Devil’s Bargain author: At 9:05 p.m. I sent Bannon an email and said, “Holy shit, you guys are gonna win, aren’t you?” He sent a one word reply: “Yes.”

Dave Weigel: I had told my parents, who are Clinton supporters—my dad actually knew Clinton growing up as he’s from the same town in Illinois she is. I texted him early in the night saying, “These Florida counties seem to be going the way they usually go.” But once I realized there was no way for Clinton to win, I called them saying, “I’m sorry, this is what I do for a living and I was wrong.” My dad said, “Well, I’m still holding out hope.” And I said, “Don’t bother. Process this, and figure out what you’re going to do next, because it’s not going to happen.”

Trae Crowder, comedian and author: I felt very mad at liberals, you know, like my team. I was very upset with all of us for a lot of reasons.

Rebecca Traister: I felt so alone, I knew it was done. I was by myself on the floor. I started to cry.

David Remnick: That night I went to a friend’s election-night party. As Clinton’s numbers started to sour, I took my laptop out, got a chair, found a corner of that noisy room, and started thinking and writing. That was what turned out to be “An American Tragedy.”

Steve Bannon: As soon as we got Florida, I knew we were gonna win. Because Florida was such a massive lift for us, right? We were so outstaffed. But then we won Florida. Just made me know that the rest of the night was going to go well.

Maggie Haberman: I started texting some of the Trump people and one of them wrote back, “Say it with me: ‘President Trump. President Trump.’”

“CAN WE STAY IN THE U.S.?”

Zara Rahim: A member of senior leadership came, and I’ll never forget him looking at us and saying, essentially, “If she doesn’t win Michigan and Wisconsin, Donald Trump will be president-elect.” That was the first time I heard those words.

Jim Margolis: The tenor had changed completely. People were very nervous in the room, we’re all talking to each other. I’m going back and forth with [Clinton campaign manager] Robby Mook, who is over at the hotel. We’re on the phone with some of the states that are still out there, trying to understand what is taking place in Wisconsin and Michigan, because those numbers are softer than they ought to be. That’s beginning to weigh very heavily.

Rebecca Traister: I was thinking everything from, “I’m gonna have to rewrite my piece” to, “Can we stay in the U.S.?” I texted my husband, “Tell Rosie to go to bed. I don’t want her to watch.”

Roger Stone: The staff at InfoWars is largely people in their late 20s, early 30s, all of whom are interested in politics, but none of whom would consider themselves an expert. So they would look to me and say, “Well, are we going to win or not?” And I said, “Yes, we’re going to win.”

Matt Flegenheimer: Michael Grynbaum—who covers media—we had been following the Upshot percentages on the race. We were trying to get our heads around it. If it’s 75 percent, two coin flips, Donald Trump’s president. You had dynamic, shifting odds on the meter. Maybe it’s one coin flip. Maybe it’s half a coin flip. At some point, when I was in that little room with Michael Barbaro, Grynbaum comes in, takes a quarter, slams it down on the middle of the desk. Doesn’t say a word. Just walks out. I still have that quarter in my wallet.

David Remnick: Obviously, we were not going to press “post” until a result had been announced. So I made some revisions, came across a quotation from George Orwell, played around with various sentences, but all in a kind of strange state of focus that happens only once in a while.

Steve Bannon: We stayed there until I want to say about 11 o’clock, 11:30, after Florida got called. It looked like others were coming our way, that we were obviously gonna win. That’s when we went upstairs to the residence, to the penthouse. In hindsight, we still had two and a half hours to go, because they didn’t call it ‘til like 2:30 in the morning.

Symone Sanders, Strategist for Priorities USA: Omarosa called [into MTV] saying, “It’s a good night over here at Trump Tower.” She’s like, “I knew Donald Trump would be the president. I told everyone months ago. And the day is here!” I was just dumbfounded.

Neal Brennan: Slowly but surely it dawns on us. And I had said things like, “You know, I’ve heard that technically Republicans can never win another presidential election.” I’m just saying dumb shit, all things I’d read on Politico or fuckin’ The Atlantic or whatever. And then slowly but surely it happens. It’s like we…it…fucking Hillary lost.

Van Jones: I picked up my pen and I wrote down two words: “parents” and “whitelash.”

Jeffrey Lord, former CNN political commentator: People get so obsessed with the race thing.

Ana Marie Cox: I happen to be in recovery. I had a moment of, like, “Why the fuck not?” I went on Twitter and said, “To those of us ‘in the room’ together, he’s not worth it. Don’t drink over this.” And the response I got was amazing. I said, “I’m going to a meeting tomorrow. Everyone get through this 24 hours, get to a meeting, we’re not alone.”

Evan McMullin: I looked at my staffers. In my mind’s eye, they were all seated up against this wall. They were disappointed, they were afraid, all of that. I told them that I didn’t want to see any long faces. I told them to buck up. And it had no effect.

Van Jones: I literally said, “This was many things. This was a rebellion against elites, it was a complete reinvention of politics and polls. And it was also about race.” But the “whitelash” comment became this big, big thing. What’s interesting about it is, I’m black, my wife is not. She and I were talking about what was happening in Europe. And I said, “The backlash is coming here.” She said, “Yeah, it’ll be a whitelash here.” That was in the back of my mind. People think I made that term up on the spot. It’s very rare you can put two syllables together and make the entire case.

Jeffrey Lord: I thought he was wrong. While Van and I disagree, he’s a curious and sensible soul. I thought at some point he would come to a different conclusion.

“WHAT’S OBAMA THINKING?”

1 a.m. – 3 a.m.

Melissa Alt: People were texting me the whole night, just congratulations on the cake. That was funny because the night turned out so different than I expected. Who knew cake could generate so much hype?

Bret Baier: The futures markets had taken a nosedive, so we were covering that aspect of things. Fortunately, we had Maria Bartiromo on the set, who looked at the numbers and said, “Well, I would think this is a buying opportunity, because if you look at policy, tax cuts, regulation roll back, and everything else, that’s probably going to mean the market turning around when businesses weigh in.” That turned out to be pretty prescient.

Ana Marie Cox: A Muslim colleague of mine called his mother. She was worried he was going to be the victim of violence at any moment. A colleague who is gay and married was on the phone with her wife saying, “They’re not going to take this damn ring away from me.”

Van Jones: I had Muslim friends who came from countries like Somalia asking, “Should we leave the country tonight?” Because in their countries of origin, if a president that hostile takes power, they might start rounding up people in the morning.

David Remnick: Jelani [Cobb] and I spoke around midnight. We were both, let’s put it this way, in the New Yorker mode of radical understatement, disappointed. Jelani’s disappointment extended to his wondering whether he should actually leave the country. He wasn’t kidding around. I could tell that from his voice.

Gary Johnson: Well, I was really disappointed at the results. But what I came to very quickly was, as I’ve said many, many, many, times, if I wasn’t elected president, I was going to ski a hundred-plus days and I was also going to ride the Continental Divide bike race.

Jill Stein, Green Party candidate: Did I have remorse about running? Absolutely not. I have remorse about the misery people are experiencing under Democrats and Republicans both.

Neal Brennan: That’s sketch-writing night at SNL. So all the writers are crestfallen, and it was up to us to write comedy for that Saturday. Me and [Colin] Jost wrote the sketch where Dave [Chappelle] is watching the election, and Chris Rock shows up and everyone’s bawling. It was based on the experience of being in Jost’s office and me saying incredibly stupid shit as reality crumbled.

Ashley Nicole Black, writer/correspondent, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee: We all went into a room and sat in silence for at least five minutes. The conversation wasn’t like, “What is it going to be in the country?” It was like, okay, “We’re at work. We have a show tomorrow. What are we going to do?” And Sam goes, “I think this is my fault.” It’s Sam’s first time voting in an American election, and she told us how the first time she was on Law & Order, Law & Order got canceled the next day. And she got interviewed by Playboy, and the next day they announced they were no longer doing nudity. And now she voted for the first time and broke America. We all laughed, it broke the tension in the room. Then we started writing Act 1 with that idea in mind.

Rep. Adam Schiff, congressman, 28th District of California: I was at a victory party for my campaign at the Burbank Bar and Grill. And it was the most somber and depressing victory party I’d ever had.

Brian Fallon: Eventually there were conversations around the awkwardness. There started to be this pressure to concede even before AP called the race.

Nate Silver: I felt like if the roles had been reversed, and if Clinton had been winning all of these states, that they wouldn’t have been so slow to call it. In some ways, the slowness to call it reflected the stubbornness the media had the whole time about realizing that, actually, it was a pretty competitive election.

Jerry Falwell Jr.: The crowd at the Trump party was really aggravated because Megyn Kelly didn’t want to call it. She was so hopeful that Trump would lose. She let hours go by. Finally, the crowd started chanting, “Call it! Call it! Call it!”

Bret Baier: There was a growing group of people who had gathered outside Fox News who obviously were Trump supporters. They were going crazy.

Zara Rahim: There was a massive garage behind the Javits center. John Podesta stood up on a box and told us, “We will have more information for you soon,” which is the most frustrating thing to hear in that moment. Everybody was in this big circle of sadness and nobody knew what to do. Leadership didn’t know what to do. We were all at a loss.

Jon Favreau, Crooked Media, former Obama speechwriter: We were in a constant text chain with our buddies in the White House, asking, “What’s going on? What’s the boss thinking? What’s Obama thinking?” And finally they told us, “Oh, he just talked to her and he thinks she should concede and she agrees. She’s just waiting for the right moment.”

Jerry Falwell Jr.: I called the president-elect. He said, “Well, why don’t you come over to Trump Tower, you and your family, and watch the returns with us?” And I said, “I don’t want to do that, because by the time I get over there, you’re going to be coming over here to do your victory speech.” And he said, “All right, whatever.”

Matt Paul, chief of staff to VP candidate Tim Kaine: Senator Kaine, when the news became very grim…the senator actually went to bed. Nothing was going to happen that night. He had to put together a different type of speech.

Brian Fallon: I was on the phone with the decision desk people at AP, trying to glean a sense of their confidence about the numbers in states like Wisconsin and Michigan. I knew that when those got called, it was ball game, so I was trying to impart to them what we were hearing about what precincts might still be outstanding. We were also trying to gauge if they were about to call it, if and when she should speak.

Michael Barbaro: We really labored over a few paragraphs and a few words, just capturing the enormity of a Trump victory. That it wasn’t expected. The messages the campaign had run on, what they would suddenly mean for the country. And it was a real challenge to convey all of the things he had said and done in the campaign, and all the controversies that he had sparked and put those into the context of a traditional, sweeping, “This person has just been elected president of the United States,” New York Times story.

Matt Flegenheimer: I think after 1 o’clock we had our final version and we were ready to press the button on “Trump Just Won.” It did make the last edition of the print paper.

Michael Barbaro: There was so much going on that night and so many last-minute changes and such a hectic schedule that the story was published with the wrong bylines. The historic front page, “Trump Triumphs,” ran in the paper with the wrong bylines.

Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker: I saw the New York Times headline and I was very discomforted by it. For one, I knew that I had a child on the way.

Maggie Haberman: I was supposed to go on a CNN panel at 2 a.m., they were doing a very early version of New Day. I got stuck because of a deadline anyway, so it worked out I couldn’t make it, which I felt bad about. In reality, I wasn’t prepared to talk about it. I couldn’t really understand what had happened. And I think images of gobsmacked reporters probably wouldn’t have helped.

Michael Barbaro: We’re all sitting around and we’re all doing what journalists do after a big story, which is talk about it endlessly. I don’t think any of us wanted to go home. I don’t think any of us wanted to go off into the private space of figuring out what this all means. This gravitational pull kept us there much later than we needed to be.

Reza Aslan: My wife stayed up and I went to sleep, then she woke me up around 1 or 2 in the morning bawling and told me that it was over. My poor, sweet wife. She wanted to hug and kiss me but I went into a panic attack and couldn’t breathe.

David Remnick: We agreed that night, and we agree today, that the Trump presidency is an emergency. And in an emergency, you’ve got a purpose, a job to do, and ours is to put pressure on power. That’s always the highest calling of journalism, but never more so than when power is a constant threat to the country and in radical opposition to its values and its highest sense of itself.

Brian Fallon: We had this issue where the Javits Center needed us out by 3 a.m. The decision was made that someone had to come out and address the crowd.

Zara Rahim: There were die-hard Hillary supporters that were like, “We’re not going.” Folks who were sobbing and literally couldn’t move because they were so distraught. I remember pieces of memorabilia on the floor, little Hillary pins and “I believe that she will win” placards.

Rebecca Traister: People were throwing up. People were on the floor crying.

Steve Bannon: We had an agreement with these guys. Robby Mook had sent this email saying, you know, “When AP calls it, we’ll call and congratulate you right away.” Because they were expecting Trump to keep saying, “It’s rigged, it’s rigged.” So Robby Mook sent a thing over which I’m sure he regrets. [Laughs]. He sent an email to us, he said, 15 minutes after AP calls it, they would expect to hear from us. If they hadn’t heard from us, she would get up to give a victory speech. I think AP called it right when we left.

Roger Stone: We figured they had her in a straitjacket by then. Or that she was throwing things and cursing.

“LET’S GO ONSTAGE AND GET THIS DONE”

Bret Baier: It was around 2:30 in the morning, and I said, “Donald Trump will be the 45th president of the United States.” This whiz-bang graphic with all of these firework animations flashed across the screen with the words Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States. Just seeing that, everybody on the set was silent for a little bit, as the whole thing was being digested.

Stephen L. Miller, conservative blogger: The Onion headline kept flashing through my head really heavy. During the primaries they had the Trump story, “You really want to see how far this goes, don’t you America?”

Jorge Ramos, Univision news anchor: When he won, I said it as if I was reporting a football score or a soccer match. “Donald Trump is going to be the next president of the United States.” No emotion. Just the facts. That’s what the audience demanded. That is a sign of respect. As a journalist you have to report reality as it is, not as you wish it would be. That’s exactly what I was doing.

Jeffrey Lord: It was an amazing moment. Anderson [Cooper] came over to me and, in his classy fashion, shook my hand and said, “Congratulations, you were right.”

Steve Bannon: When it was called, he was actually upstairs in the kitchen. He has a small kitchen with a television. When he heard it was being called by AP, I shook his hand and said, “Congratulations, Mr. President.” So we kinda laughed. There were no big hugs or anything. Nothing crazy. He’s not a guy who gets overly excited. He’s very controlled. People around him are very controlled. We were obviously very happy and ecstatic. But it’s not a bunch of jumping around, high-fiving, anything like that.

Matt Oczkowski: It almost felt like a videogame, like you were playing something and won. You’re like, “Wow, this is the presidency of the United States.”

Roger Stone: The champagne tasted great. This was the culmination of a dream that I’d had since 1988.

Jim Margolis: I was on with Robby [Mook], who was in the room with her when she did the concession call to Trump. It was surreal. It was beyond my imagination that we would be in this position with this person being elected president.

Steve Bannon: It only took us 10 minutes to get there, it was right down the street. When we got there, we were in this weird holding stage, kind of off to the side. Very crammed. She called the president on his phone. Or it might have been Huma Abedin called Kellyanne [Conway] and then she hands her phone off to the president, and then Secretary Clinton was on there, you know, “Hey, Donald, congratulations, hard-fought win.” Two or three minutes. Then we looked at each other and said, “Let’s go onstage and get this done.”

Roger Stone: He looked surprised at the fact that he’d won. Which is surprising only because he pretty consistently thought he would win. Not unhappy, but rather, shocked.

Neal Brennan: I thought it was so fucking weird that he was like, “Is Jim here? Come on up here.” Like he was emceeing a sports banquet. But it was good that he set the tone right there. So long, context. So long, history.

Joshua Green: I thought he had actually made at least a cursory effort to try to unite the country by reaching out to Hillary Clinton voters. That sentiment probably evaporated before the sun rose the next day. At least on election night he said something approximating what you would expect a normal presidential victor to say in a moment like that, to try and bring the country together.

Symone Sanders: I still couldn’t believe it was happening. When he talked about us coming together and healing for the country, I wanted to throw up in my mouth.

“YOU’RE FUCKED”

3 a.m. – 7 a.m.

Maggie Haberman: I was getting bewildered texts from my child who couldn’t sleep, asking me what happened. I think this election was really difficult for kids to process.

Matt Paul: It was fucking terrible. We had these hastily organized calls every 10 minutes to determine what was going to happen the next morning. There was no advanced plan. Where were we going to do this massive global television event? How were we going to get people in the room? Who was going to say what in what order? That happened between 4 in the morning and when she spoke.

Rebecca Traister: In the cab home, the cabbie had on the news, that’s when I heard his acceptance speech, and I said, “Can you turn it off?” I couldn’t hear his voice. I was like, “I can’t listen to his voice for the next four years.”

Desus Nice: I went home, and it was like when your team loses and you watch it on SportsCenter over and over and over. I turned on MSNBC, and Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow were asking, “How’d you get this wrong? How did Nate Silver get this wrong? What did Hillary do?” I kept turning to Fox News and seeing them gloat and the balloons falling. I think I stayed up until three in the morning just drinking and watching.

The Kid Mero: I went home and smoked myself to sleep. I was like, “This sucks.”

Ashley Nicole Black: I took a shower, and then as soon as water hit me, I started bawling. I didn’t really have any feelings until that moment.

Ashley Parker: Times Square felt like a zombie-apocalypse movie. There was no one there. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I walked from the ballroom to the newsroom. They were like, “Go home, get some sleep, you’ll need it.” I walked back to my hotel. I couldn’t sleep. I watched cable news and then fell asleep.

Van Jones: I was walking out the building. Your thumb just kind of automatically switches over to Twitter. I saw that my name was trending worldwide. And I was like, “Whoa, that’s weird.”

Brian Fallon: I stayed in Brooklyn throughout the campaign, but that night I got a hotel in Midtown, close to the Peninsula. I actually walked past his hotel. I saw all the red hats that were still milling about outside of his victory party. It was pretty surreal.

Ashley Nicole Black: I looked at myself—I’m going to cry even saying this right now—I looked at myself in the mirror, and in that moment, I looked like my grandmother. The first thought I had was that I was glad that she wasn’t alive to see that. Then I felt so guilty because of course nothing would ever make me glad my grandmother is not alive. I love her so much, and I wish she was here. But she died when Obama was president, with that hope that the world had moved forward, and black people had moved forward. And she didn’t see the huge backlash that came after. In that moment, I was very grateful, and then guilty, and then I went to bed.

Jorge Ramos: I’ve been to wars, I’ve covered the most difficult situations in Latin America. But I needed to digest and to understand what had happened. I came home very late. I turned on the news. I had comfort food—cookies and chocolate milk—the same thing I used to have as a kid in Mexico City. After that, I realized that I had been preparing all my life for this moment. Once I digested what had happened with Trump and had a plan, which was to resist and report and not be neutral, then I was able to go to bed.

Rebecca Traister: I got back to Park Slope, I went to check on the girls. When I went to say goodnight, I looked at Rosie, and I had this conscious thought that this is the day that will divide our experience of what is possible. This is the day where a limitation is reinforced for her.

Michael Barbaro: I went home and woke up my husband, I think it was 4 or 5 in the morning, and asked him what the next steps should be journalistically. Should I move to Washington? Should I change jobs? It was pretty disorienting.

Maggie Haberman: One Trump supporter sent me a message saying, “You’re fucked.” [Laughs] If you use that, please recall me laughing about it. It was really something.

Van Jones: I got to my apartment and put my head down. I woke up like three, four hours later. And in my mind I thought, it was a dream. Just for a split second. I was still fully clothed. I had makeup all over my pillow. And I was like, “Shit.”

“IT WAS ONE OF THE BEST SPEECHES SHE’S EVER GIVEN”

7 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Jon Favreau: It felt like when you wake up after someone close to you passes away. Not nearly as bad, obviously, but that same feeling where you think, for like five seconds, you’re okay, maybe it’s a normal morning, and then it hits you what happened.

Roger Stone: I mean, we were walkin’ on clouds. We were still in the halo of the whole thing. I was very pleased.

Jerry Falwell Jr.: The feeling afterward was relief. I had worked so hard to help him. I’d risked so much and went so far out on a limb. Everybody thought I was crazy. It was a renewed hope for the future of the country, and a little bit of fear that I was going to be chosen to serve in the administration, because I didn’t want to.

Steve Bannon: I had my whole family that had come up to the victory party and I hadn’t seen anybody, so I went home and grabbed a shower, just like the night before, got another hour of sleep, and I was with Jared. And I think we were with Trump at like 8 in the morning. So it was just like the exact same thing as the day before. The day before I felt we were gonna win the presidency, and the next day we had won the presidency. It was odd, there was never any big insurgent feeling or anything like that. It played out how I thought it would play out. I didn’t have much doubt the first day of the campaign, didn’t really have much doubt on Billy Bush weekend. He was connecting. He had a powerful message.

Reza Aslan: I remember thinking, as clear as day, this is who we are. This is what we deserve.

Shani O. Hilton, U.S. news editor, BuzzFeed News: You get on the train from Brooklyn. It’s silent. And not in the normal way of people not talking to each other. It felt like an observable silence. I saw at least three people sitting by themselves, just weeping silently.

Melissa Alt: The next day my manager took the cake back to Trump Tower because they didn’t cut it at election night. Donald Trump Jr. told my friend that it was delicious.

Matt Paul: I remember rolling up in the motorcade and seeing some of our staff and organizers couldn’t get in. A reporter or cameraperson who was familiar to me said, “Can I sneak in with you?” I looked at that person, sort of stunned, and said, “Fuck no.” Then I realized I shouldn’t have said that. It was just a visceral, gut reaction to seeing some of our staff that couldn’t get in who had killed themselves for two years.

Nate Silver: If you read FiveThirtyEight throughout the election and listened to our arguments with other journalists and reporters, then you would’ve been much better prepared and much less surprised by the outcome.

The Kid Mero: We very quickly became familiar with the term “economic anxiety.”

Reza Aslan: You take your kids to school, you go to the store, you go to the post office, you’re looking around, and you’re thinking, “These people hate me.”

Jelani Cobb: I went to the airport the next morning for a 7 a.m. flight. There’s an African-American gentleman, maybe in his 60s, working at the check-in counter. He starts talking about how disastrous and dangerous this moment’s going to be. And he’s seen history in the South and thinking that we might be headed back toward the things he thought were in the past.

Dave Weigel: I was connecting through the Atlanta airport. I looked around and thought, well, for eight years, I didn’t really think about who voted for who. But as a white dude with a mustache, fairly bloated by the campaign, most of the people who look like me voted for this guy who, as far as they know, is a bigot. I remember feeling that this divider had come down, this new intensity of feeling about everybody I saw.

Van Jones: The next day, my commentary had become this sort-of viral sensation. Fox News is mad at me for saying “whitelash.” Liberals are treating me as some kind of hero. And literally, for the next two weeks, I didn’t have to pay for anything in any establishment in D.C. or New York. Not one meal. Not one cab. Uber people would turn the thing off and just drive me around for free.

Joshua Green: Bannon called me. He said, “You recognize what happened?” I’m like, “What the fuck are you talking about?” He goes, “You guys,” meaning you on the left, “you fell into the same trap as conservatives in the ‘90s…you were so whipped up in your own self-righteousness about how Americans could never vote for Trump that you were blinded to what was happening.” He was right.

Matt Paul: There were five or six of us standing in a hold room. One of Hillary’s brothers was there with his wife. A couple of the president’s people. Myself. A couple of campaign photographers. President Clinton walked in. It was very tough. Secretary Clinton walked in and was strong and composed. I stood there in shock at how put together and strong she was.

Rebecca Traister: As someone who covered her in 2008 and watched her struggle with speechgiving, it was one of the best speeches she’s ever given.

Jim Margolis: Everybody was basically in tears. Huma was in front of me. Jake [Sullivan] was on one side. It was one of those incredible scenes. Nobody had had any sleep.

Steve Bannon: Never watched it. Couldn’t care less. Her, Podesta, all of it. I thought they were overrated. I thought they were—they’re a media creation. People say how genius they were, how brilliant they were. Look, I’d never been on a campaign in my life. But I can understand math. Just looking at where it was gonna come down to. Morning Joe tells me they’re so brilliant every day. Why are they not getting some pretty fundamental stuff here? But no, I had no interest in seeing her concession speech. I have no interest in a damn thing with their campaign because I don’t think they knew what they were doing. I only have interest in what we did. Which was just, focus, focus, focus.

Rep. Adam Schiff: My staff both in California and in D.C. were absolutely devastated. People would come up to me, constituents and others, with tears in their eyes. And the astounding thing is, here we are now. People continue to come up to me with tears in their eyes about what he’s doing. I’ve never seen people have a visceral reaction over an election and be so deeply alarmed at what’s happening to the country.

Charles P. Pierce, Esquire writer at large: On the Sunday before the election, I drove out from Philadelphia to Gettysburg. Once I got out of the sprawling Philadelphia exurbs, I started to see improvised signs. There were several of those small portable marquees that you see outside clam shacks and chili parlors. I saw a huge piece of plywood nailed to a tree outside a motorcycle repair shop. I saw an entire barn painted red, white, and blue. “Trump,” it said, on the side of the barn. “Make America Great Again.” And I could see that barn, out in the field, in my mind’s eye, as Hillary Rodham Clinton gave her belated concession speech. And when she talked about making the American Dream available to everyone, I thought, damn, somebody had to want it bad to paint a whole barn just to argue about that.

Roger Stone: Trump is a winner. He’s a very confident, upbeat guy. That’s just his style. He thought all along that he would win. There’s no doubt that the Billy Bush thing shook him a little bit, but it ended up not being determinative.

Jerry Falwell Jr.: We had traveled on the plane with him during the campaign. He went and got the Wendy’s cheeseburgers and the fries, put them out on the table for us. I just think he’s a people’s president. I think that’s something we’ve not had in a real long time.

Gary Johnson: Well for me, just speaking personally, I do not aspire to be president of the United States anymore. Why would anybody want to be president of the United States now that Donald Trump’s been president of the United States?

  ##########

from Roger Stone – Stone Cold Truth https://stonecoldtruth.com/untold-stories-of-election-day-2016/

[averyella]

Untold Stories Of Election Day 2016

BELOW IS A RECAP OF ELECTION DAY/NIGHT FROM ESQUIRE MAGAZINE featuring ROGER STONE. 

**** Roger Stone, longtime Trump ally: She was just dead in the water. ****

 On November 8, 2016, America’s chief storytellers—those within the bubbles of media and politics—lost the narrative they had controlled for decades. In a space of 24 hours, the concept of “conventional wisdom” seemed to vanish for good. How did this happen? What follows are over 40 brand new interviews and behind-the-scenes stories from deep inside The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, and more—plus first-hand accounts from the campaigns, themselves. We’ve spent a year hearing the spin. Now it’s time for the truth.

THE RUN-UP

Steve Bannon, Trump campaign CEO: When I first came on the campaign, I said, “You have a hundred-percent chance of winning.” We just got to stick to that plan. Even with Billy Bush, I never wavered for a second.

Jim Margolis, Clinton campaign senior adviser: I am normally a glass-half-empty guy when it comes to expectations on election days. This was the first big election where I was absolutely certain we were going to win.

Dave Weigel, The Washington Post: I called Jeff Flake the Sunday before the election. I said, “I have one round of questions if Hillary wins, and one if Trump wins.” And he just started laughing, saying, “Why would you bother asking the second one?”

Rebecca Traister, New York magazine: We got up around 7 a.m., and there was an electric current running through my body.

Ana Marie Cox, Crooked Media, formerly of MTV: I was staying at my in-laws’ place in New York. They’re Trump supporters. They weren’t in town, but my father-in-law made a joking bet with me. He said, “The next time we see each other, there will be a President Trump.” I remember laughing at him.

Neal Brennan, comedian/writer: I was at SNL. Chappelle was like, “Dude, I feel like Trump’s gonna win.” I was like, “Dude, I’ll bet you a hundred thousand dollars he won’t win.” He did not take the bet, thankfully.

Sen. Tim Kaine, Democratic vice presidential candidate: I thought we would win, but I was more wary than many for the simple reason that the U.S. had never elected a woman president and still has a poor track record of electing women to federal office.

Ana Navarro, CNN commentator and Republican strategist: I schlepped my absentee ballot around with me for a month. It was getting pretty beat up inside my bag. I would open it up and look at it every now and then and say, “I’m not ready. I can’t bring myself to vote for Hillary Clinton. Please, God, let something happen that I don’t have to do this.”

Brian Fallon, Clinton campaign national press secretary: There had been a battleground tracking poll our team had done over the weekend that had us up 4 [points]. We were up in more than enough states to win, taking us over 270. The public polls all showed a similar outlook.

Zara Rahim, Clinton campaign national spokeswoman: We were waiting for the coronation. I was planning my Instagram caption.

Van Jones, CNN political commentator: The Democrats had this attitude, which I think is very unhealthy and unproductive, that any acknowledgement that Trump had a chance was somehow helping Trump, and that we all had to be on this one accord that it was impossible for him to win. I thought that was stupid. I’ve never seen that strategy work.

Matt Oczkowski, formerly of Cambridge Analytica (Trump campaign data firm): When you see outlets like the Huffington Post giving Trump a 1 percent probability of victory, which is not even physically possible, it’s just like, “Wow, people are going to miss this massively.”

Roger Stone, longtime Trump ally: She was just dead in the water.

Joel Benenson, Clinton campaign chief strategist: I go into the 10 o’clock call and we’re getting reports from the analytics people and the field people. And they finish, and whoever’s leading the call asks if there’s anything else. I said, “Well, yeah, I got a call 20 minutes ago from my daughter in Durham, North Carolina. People are standing on line and aren’t moving, and are now being told they need to vote with paper ballots.” To me, that was the first sign that something was amiss in our boiler room process. That’s essential information. We needed those reports so the legal team would activate. I was stunned, and actually quite nervous. I thought, “Do we even have what we need on the ground to manage election day?”

“I MEAN, IT LOOKED LIKE A LANDSLIDE”

5 p.m.

Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight: When I was coming in on the train at 5 p.m., according to our model, there was one-in-three chance of a Clinton landslide, a one-in-three chance of a close Clinton win, and a one-in-three chance of a Trump win. I was mentally preparing myself for each of those outcomes.

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker: I thought about, and actually wrote, an essay about “the first woman president,” and the historical background of it all. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the suffragettes, the relationship with Frederick Douglass…a historical essay, clearly written in a mood of “at long last” and, yes, celebration. The idea was to press “post” on that piece, along with many other pieces by my colleagues at The New Yorker, the instant Clinton’s victory was declared on TV.

Bret Baier, Fox News chief political anchor: We got the exit polls at 5 p.m. in a big office on the executive floor. Rupert Murdoch and all the staff were there. It looked like we were going to call the race for Hillary Clinton at 10:30 or 11 p.m.

Steve Bannon: The exit polls were horrific. It was brutal. I think we were close in Iowa and Ohio and everything else was just brutal. Losing everywhere. Florida, Pennsylvania. I mean, it looked like a landslide.

Ashley Parker, The Washington Post, formerly of The New York Times: The RNC thought they were going to lose. The Trump campaign supporters thought they were going to lose. They were rushing to get their side out of the blame game. I spent part of my day lining up interviews for later that night or the next morning to get their version of events.

Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, Trump’s religious adviser: I called Sean Hannity and said, “I really think he’s going to win tonight.” Sean said, “Well, I’m glad you do, because the exit polls don’t look good.” I found out later that Trump was very pessimistic, too.

Steve Bannon: Jared [Kushner] and I were out on this balcony in Trump Tower. We looked at it on Jared’s iPhone. And the numbers were so bad that we regrouped inside. We look at each other and we go, “This can’t be right. It just can’t.” And Jared goes, “I got an idea, let’s call Drudge.” And Drudge says, “The corporate media—they’ve always been wrong the entire time—these numbers are wrong.”

Brian Fallon: I was hearing from my high school principal, people I hadn’t spoken to since college. Everybody is conveying thanks for taking on Trump. It was going to be a cathartic experience of him getting his comeuppance after months of representing something that was so egregious in the eyes of so many people.

Rebecca Traister: They were serving, like, $12 pulled pork sandwiches [at the Javits Center]. It was nuts, people were bouncing off the walls. Everyone genuinely believed she was going to win. I don’t know if it made me feel more confident or not.

Evan McMullin, Independent candidate: Our election night event was in Salt Lake City. I was drinking Diet Coke and eating hummus and olives.

Ana Marie Cox: At the MTV watch party, we had dancers and graffiti artists. There were people giving temporary tattoos. I remember my colleague Jamil Smith and I both bringing up at a meeting, “Hey guys, what if something goes wrong? What if this doesn’t go how we think it’s going to go?” And the answer from some MTV exec was, “We’ll pivot.”

Steve Bannon: Drudge snapped us out of it, saying, “You guys are a couple of jamokes. Wait until the second exit polls come out, or later.” We called the candidate and told him what the numbers were and what Drudge had said. And then we said, “Hey, ya know, we left it all on the field. Did everything we can do. Let’s just see how it turns out.”

Sen. Tim Kaine: Based on the returns from one bellwether Virginia county I know well, I realized that we would win Virginia by a significantly larger margin than President Obama four years earlier. This was a huge feeling given all the work that Anne and I have done for 30-plus years to help make Virginia more progressive. It struck me for the first time, “I will probably be vice president.” That feeling lasted about 90 minutes.

Ashley Parker: I walked over to the Hilton for election night. At some point they rolled in a cake that was like…a life-sized, very impressive rendering of Trump’s head.

Melissa Alt, cake artist: I got an order for a Hillary Clinton cake. So, I was like, “Okay, I’m going to make Donald Trump as well.” Just because that would generate a lot of interest. My manager, who has a friend who works for Donald Trump Jr., said, “Let’s contact them and see if they’re interested in having cake.” And obviously they said yes.

The Kid Mero, Desus & Mero: I’m surprised a stripper didn’t jump out of the cake.

Melissa Alt: I start getting phone calls of people saying, “This is TMZ, or Boston Globe, or People magazine. Do you know that your cake is trending all over the whole internet?”

Ashley Parker: I don’t know if I was ever allowed to eat it. It seemed fairly decorative.

Melissa Alt: Obviously, I wanted everyone to see it first and then eat it. That cake could probably feed about a hundred.

Gary Johnson, Libertarian candidate: I was taken aback by the fact that, at least at the start of the evening, all the networks were showing three names on the screen for the first time, meaning mine and Clinton and Trump. But no, I don’t remember the cake.

“I THINK I’M GONNA THROW UP”

8 p.m. – 1 a.m.

Maggie Haberman, The New York Times: When I went downstairs at 8:15, Hillary was up in Florida. When I came back upstairs, it had flipped. I got a sense the second I set foot in the newsroom that something was going on.

Van Jones: You got smoke coming out of every gear trying to figure out what the heck is happening out there. And you’ve got John King who had said, over and over, that there is no pathway for a Trump victory. Suddenly, that whole thing starts to come apart.

Roger Stone: I was committed to be an on-air anchor for InfoWars. I think I was on the air for seven hours straight.

Steve Bannon: We had taken over the fifth floor of Trump Tower, which had been Corey [Lewandowski]’s original headquarters. It was a concrete floor with no carpeting. They didn’t heat it. It had computers everywhere, guys are tracking everything, we had a chain of command. We called the fifth floor “the crack den.” It looked like a crack den. We put all the maps up and we started getting raw feeds from both our local guys and also the secretary of state of Florida. They were putting up their total vote counts. And [national field director] Bill Stepien was sitting there with all of our modeling. They were really focused on Florida—particularly the Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Also North Carolina was coming in. And obviously Ohio and those states were starting to come in. But the big one we were focused on was Florida. Because if we didn’t win Florida, it was not going to happen.

Omarosa Manigault, Trump campaign: If we believed what was on the television, we would have thought we lost. But looking at the numbers that were in front of us in the key battleground states, we were up…or we were neck and neck, with expectations of higher turnout and more enthusiasm. We were going off of our own internal data. What was being shown on CNN and MSNBC and some of these other networks was showing a stark contrast to what was in front of us.

Reza Aslan, author and religious scholar: I thought, “Oh my God, how terrible are we that it’s even this close?”

Brian Fallon: As I was walking off the risers [at Javits], Jen Epstein, a Bloomberg reporter, grabbed my arm and said, “Are you guys nervous about Florida?” I gave her some sort of verbal shrug. Right after that I called into the boiler room and asked for a gut check.

Van Jones: My phone was literally warm from the text messages coming in.

Zara Rahim: I had been going back and forth between the venue and backstage. My face was really tense. All of these reporters can read your energy and your face. You never want a reporter to tweet like, “Clinton campaign members are nervous.”

Jim Margolis: I finally called Steve Schale, who ran Florida for us in the Obama campaign. I said, “Steve, what’s going on here? Is this just a lack of information?” He said, “I think you’ve got a problem.”

Bret Baier: At 8:30 I turned to Chris Wallace, who was sitting next to us on the set, and said, “This does not look like it’s lining up.” We came back from commercial break and Chris said, “Donald Trump could be the next president of the United States.”

Jerry Falwell Jr.: My 17-year-old daughter, Caroline, had been following the election. It’s the first time she’s ever followed politics. And she was so nervous about the result that her stomach got upset. She told her brother, “I think I’m gonna throw up.” So he took off his Trump hat and she threw up in it, right next to Laura Ingraham.

Felix Biederman, Chapo Trap House: At that point the blue wall hadn’t come in yet, and that’s when the air in the room started to tighten. It was like, “Oh, fuck.” She can still do it, but everything that needs to happen for Trump is happening. What if what’s always happened with Hillary—they did all the work, they know everything, they’re super qualified—what if they didn’t do it? What if they fucked it up?

Ana Marie Cox: I did a couple of on-camera news hits where I was told, “What you need to do here is tell people not to panic.” Meanwhile, I was panicking.

David Remnick: Not only did I not have anything else ready, I don’t think our site had anything, or much of anything, ready in case Trump won. The mood in the offices, I would say, was frenetic.

Dave Weigel: I’m in the parking lot of the Scalise party. There are Republicans drinking, some celebrating, some not paying attention. My editor was calling to see when I would hand in my story. One, I’m on a minor story that’s falling apart, and two, I’m probably in the wrong place. Three, I need to reorder the story, and four, how much did I tell people confidently about the election that I was wrong about?

Ashley Parker: We started running up to one another like, “He’s gonna win, he’s gonna win. We know it now, it’s gonna happen.”

Desus Nice, Desus & Mero: It’s one thing to find out Donald Trump is president, but another to be on TV with people watching you watch Donald Trump become president.

Michael Barbaro, The New York Times: Carolyn Ryan, who was the politics editor, pulled me aside and said, “I need you to be involved in a ‘Trump Wins’ story.”

Matt Flegenheimer, The New York Times: Michael and I build this thing out together into a fully sweeping and historical news story. Maybe 1,500 words. We lock ourselves in this little glass office in the Times building and try to tune out the unstoppable din of the newsroom.

Steve Bannon: Jared came down and the candidate was upstairs. Then when word got out that Florida was competitive, that it was gonna be real, he came down to the 14th floor, the headquarters, where we had what we called the war room, which had multiple TVs running. And so what we did is we moved the data analysis thing that we had up to the 14th floor. And I went over with Stepien and the others and just stood next to the candidate and walked him through what was going on. And he finally took a seat. And we sat there and watched everything come in.

Jacob Soboroff, MSNBC correspondent: I went from this feeling of, “Oh my god, wow. I can’t believe it,” to, in a matter of seconds, “Oh, whoa, I can totally believe it.”

Steve Bannon: Stepien looked at it and said, “Our spread is too big, they can’t recover from this.” Miami-Dade and Broward were coming back really slow. They were clearly holding votes back, right? And then Stepien looked at me and said, “We have such a big lead now. They can’t steal it from us.

“I FELT SO ALONE, I KNEW IT WAS DONE”

Ashley Parker: I received a frantic call from Mike Barbaro, so I was racing around the ballroom getting quotes and feeding them back to the story.

Joshua Green, Bloomberg Businessweek correspondent and Devil’s Bargain author: At 9:05 p.m. I sent Bannon an email and said, “Holy shit, you guys are gonna win, aren’t you?” He sent a one word reply: “Yes.”

Dave Weigel: I had told my parents, who are Clinton supporters—my dad actually knew Clinton growing up as he’s from the same town in Illinois she is. I texted him early in the night saying, “These Florida counties seem to be going the way they usually go.” But once I realized there was no way for Clinton to win, I called them saying, “I’m sorry, this is what I do for a living and I was wrong.” My dad said, “Well, I’m still holding out hope.” And I said, “Don’t bother. Process this, and figure out what you’re going to do next, because it’s not going to happen.”

Trae Crowder, comedian and author: I felt very mad at liberals, you know, like my team. I was very upset with all of us for a lot of reasons.

Rebecca Traister: I felt so alone, I knew it was done. I was by myself on the floor. I started to cry.

David Remnick: That night I went to a friend’s election-night party. As Clinton’s numbers started to sour, I took my laptop out, got a chair, found a corner of that noisy room, and started thinking and writing. That was what turned out to be “An American Tragedy.”

Steve Bannon: As soon as we got Florida, I knew we were gonna win. Because Florida was such a massive lift for us, right? We were so outstaffed. But then we won Florida. Just made me know that the rest of the night was going to go well.

Maggie Haberman: I started texting some of the Trump people and one of them wrote back, “Say it with me: ‘President Trump. President Trump.’”

“CAN WE STAY IN THE U.S.?”

Zara Rahim: A member of senior leadership came, and I’ll never forget him looking at us and saying, essentially, “If she doesn’t win Michigan and Wisconsin, Donald Trump will be president-elect.” That was the first time I heard those words.

Jim Margolis: The tenor had changed completely. People were very nervous in the room, we’re all talking to each other. I’m going back and forth with [Clinton campaign manager] Robby Mook, who is over at the hotel. We’re on the phone with some of the states that are still out there, trying to understand what is taking place in Wisconsin and Michigan, because those numbers are softer than they ought to be. That’s beginning to weigh very heavily.

Rebecca Traister: I was thinking everything from, “I’m gonna have to rewrite my piece” to, “Can we stay in the U.S.?” I texted my husband, “Tell Rosie to go to bed. I don’t want her to watch.”

Roger Stone: The staff at InfoWars is largely people in their late 20s, early 30s, all of whom are interested in politics, but none of whom would consider themselves an expert. So they would look to me and say, “Well, are we going to win or not?” And I said, “Yes, we’re going to win.”

Matt Flegenheimer: Michael Grynbaum—who covers media—we had been following the Upshot percentages on the race. We were trying to get our heads around it. If it’s 75 percent, two coin flips, Donald Trump’s president. You had dynamic, shifting odds on the meter. Maybe it’s one coin flip. Maybe it’s half a coin flip. At some point, when I was in that little room with Michael Barbaro, Grynbaum comes in, takes a quarter, slams it down on the middle of the desk. Doesn’t say a word. Just walks out. I still have that quarter in my wallet.

David Remnick: Obviously, we were not going to press “post” until a result had been announced. So I made some revisions, came across a quotation from George Orwell, played around with various sentences, but all in a kind of strange state of focus that happens only once in a while.

Steve Bannon: We stayed there until I want to say about 11 o’clock, 11:30, after Florida got called. It looked like others were coming our way, that we were obviously gonna win. That’s when we went upstairs to the residence, to the penthouse. In hindsight, we still had two and a half hours to go, because they didn’t call it ‘til like 2:30 in the morning.

Symone Sanders, Strategist for Priorities USA: Omarosa called [into MTV] saying, “It’s a good night over here at Trump Tower.” She’s like, “I knew Donald Trump would be the president. I told everyone months ago. And the day is here!” I was just dumbfounded.

Neal Brennan: Slowly but surely it dawns on us. And I had said things like, “You know, I’ve heard that technically Republicans can never win another presidential election.” I’m just saying dumb shit, all things I’d read on Politico or fuckin’ The Atlantic or whatever. And then slowly but surely it happens. It’s like we…it…fucking Hillary lost.

Van Jones: I picked up my pen and I wrote down two words: “parents” and “whitelash.”

Jeffrey Lord, former CNN political commentator: People get so obsessed with the race thing.

Ana Marie Cox: I happen to be in recovery. I had a moment of, like, “Why the fuck not?” I went on Twitter and said, “To those of us ‘in the room’ together, he’s not worth it. Don’t drink over this.” And the response I got was amazing. I said, “I’m going to a meeting tomorrow. Everyone get through this 24 hours, get to a meeting, we’re not alone.”

Evan McMullin: I looked at my staffers. In my mind’s eye, they were all seated up against this wall. They were disappointed, they were afraid, all of that. I told them that I didn’t want to see any long faces. I told them to buck up. And it had no effect.

Van Jones: I literally said, “This was many things. This was a rebellion against elites, it was a complete reinvention of politics and polls. And it was also about race.” But the “whitelash” comment became this big, big thing. What’s interesting about it is, I’m black, my wife is not. She and I were talking about what was happening in Europe. And I said, “The backlash is coming here.” She said, “Yeah, it’ll be a whitelash here.” That was in the back of my mind. People think I made that term up on the spot. It’s very rare you can put two syllables together and make the entire case.

Jeffrey Lord: I thought he was wrong. While Van and I disagree, he’s a curious and sensible soul. I thought at some point he would come to a different conclusion.

“WHAT’S OBAMA THINKING?”

1 a.m. – 3 a.m.

Melissa Alt: People were texting me the whole night, just congratulations on the cake. That was funny because the night turned out so different than I expected. Who knew cake could generate so much hype?

Bret Baier: The futures markets had taken a nosedive, so we were covering that aspect of things. Fortunately, we had Maria Bartiromo on the set, who looked at the numbers and said, “Well, I would think this is a buying opportunity, because if you look at policy, tax cuts, regulation roll back, and everything else, that’s probably going to mean the market turning around when businesses weigh in.” That turned out to be pretty prescient.

Ana Marie Cox: A Muslim colleague of mine called his mother. She was worried he was going to be the victim of violence at any moment. A colleague who is gay and married was on the phone with her wife saying, “They’re not going to take this damn ring away from me.”

Van Jones: I had Muslim friends who came from countries like Somalia asking, “Should we leave the country tonight?” Because in their countries of origin, if a president that hostile takes power, they might start rounding up people in the morning.

David Remnick: Jelani [Cobb] and I spoke around midnight. We were both, let’s put it this way, in the New Yorker mode of radical understatement, disappointed. Jelani’s disappointment extended to his wondering whether he should actually leave the country. He wasn’t kidding around. I could tell that from his voice.

Gary Johnson: Well, I was really disappointed at the results. But what I came to very quickly was, as I’ve said many, many, many, times, if I wasn’t elected president, I was going to ski a hundred-plus days and I was also going to ride the Continental Divide bike race.

Jill Stein, Green Party candidate: Did I have remorse about running? Absolutely not. I have remorse about the misery people are experiencing under Democrats and Republicans both.

Neal Brennan: That’s sketch-writing night at SNL. So all the writers are crestfallen, and it was up to us to write comedy for that Saturday. Me and [Colin] Jost wrote the sketch where Dave [Chappelle] is watching the election, and Chris Rock shows up and everyone’s bawling. It was based on the experience of being in Jost’s office and me saying incredibly stupid shit as reality crumbled.

Ashley Nicole Black, writer/correspondent, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee: We all went into a room and sat in silence for at least five minutes. The conversation wasn’t like, “What is it going to be in the country?” It was like, okay, “We’re at work. We have a show tomorrow. What are we going to do?” And Sam goes, “I think this is my fault.” It’s Sam’s first time voting in an American election, and she told us how the first time she was on Law & Order, Law & Order got canceled the next day. And she got interviewed by Playboy, and the next day they announced they were no longer doing nudity. And now she voted for the first time and broke America. We all laughed, it broke the tension in the room. Then we started writing Act 1 with that idea in mind.

Rep. Adam Schiff, congressman, 28th District of California: I was at a victory party for my campaign at the Burbank Bar and Grill. And it was the most somber and depressing victory party I’d ever had.

Brian Fallon: Eventually there were conversations around the awkwardness. There started to be this pressure to concede even before AP called the race.

Nate Silver: I felt like if the roles had been reversed, and if Clinton had been winning all of these states, that they wouldn’t have been so slow to call it. In some ways, the slowness to call it reflected the stubbornness the media had the whole time about realizing that, actually, it was a pretty competitive election.

Jerry Falwell Jr.: The crowd at the Trump party was really aggravated because Megyn Kelly didn’t want to call it. She was so hopeful that Trump would lose. She let hours go by. Finally, the crowd started chanting, “Call it! Call it! Call it!”

Bret Baier: There was a growing group of people who had gathered outside Fox News who obviously were Trump supporters. They were going crazy.

Zara Rahim: There was a massive garage behind the Javits center. John Podesta stood up on a box and told us, “We will have more information for you soon,” which is the most frustrating thing to hear in that moment. Everybody was in this big circle of sadness and nobody knew what to do. Leadership didn’t know what to do. We were all at a loss.

Jon Favreau, Crooked Media, former Obama speechwriter: We were in a constant text chain with our buddies in the White House, asking, “What’s going on? What’s the boss thinking? What’s Obama thinking?” And finally they told us, “Oh, he just talked to her and he thinks she should concede and she agrees. She’s just waiting for the right moment.”

Jerry Falwell Jr.: I called the president-elect. He said, “Well, why don’t you come over to Trump Tower, you and your family, and watch the returns with us?” And I said, “I don’t want to do that, because by the time I get over there, you’re going to be coming over here to do your victory speech.” And he said, “All right, whatever.”

Matt Paul, chief of staff to VP candidate Tim Kaine: Senator Kaine, when the news became very grim…the senator actually went to bed. Nothing was going to happen that night. He had to put together a different type of speech.

Brian Fallon: I was on the phone with the decision desk people at AP, trying to glean a sense of their confidence about the numbers in states like Wisconsin and Michigan. I knew that when those got called, it was ball game, so I was trying to impart to them what we were hearing about what precincts might still be outstanding. We were also trying to gauge if they were about to call it, if and when she should speak.

Michael Barbaro: We really labored over a few paragraphs and a few words, just capturing the enormity of a Trump victory. That it wasn’t expected. The messages the campaign had run on, what they would suddenly mean for the country. And it was a real challenge to convey all of the things he had said and done in the campaign, and all the controversies that he had sparked and put those into the context of a traditional, sweeping, “This person has just been elected president of the United States,” New York Times story.

Matt Flegenheimer: I think after 1 o’clock we had our final version and we were ready to press the button on “Trump Just Won.” It did make the last edition of the print paper.

Michael Barbaro: There was so much going on that night and so many last-minute changes and such a hectic schedule that the story was published with the wrong bylines. The historic front page, “Trump Triumphs,” ran in the paper with the wrong bylines.

Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker: I saw the New York Times headline and I was very discomforted by it. For one, I knew that I had a child on the way.

Maggie Haberman: I was supposed to go on a CNN panel at 2 a.m., they were doing a very early version of New Day. I got stuck because of a deadline anyway, so it worked out I couldn’t make it, which I felt bad about. In reality, I wasn’t prepared to talk about it. I couldn’t really understand what had happened. And I think images of gobsmacked reporters probably wouldn’t have helped.

Michael Barbaro: We’re all sitting around and we’re all doing what journalists do after a big story, which is talk about it endlessly. I don’t think any of us wanted to go home. I don’t think any of us wanted to go off into the private space of figuring out what this all means. This gravitational pull kept us there much later than we needed to be.

Reza Aslan: My wife stayed up and I went to sleep, then she woke me up around 1 or 2 in the morning bawling and told me that it was over. My poor, sweet wife. She wanted to hug and kiss me but I went into a panic attack and couldn’t breathe.

David Remnick: We agreed that night, and we agree today, that the Trump presidency is an emergency. And in an emergency, you’ve got a purpose, a job to do, and ours is to put pressure on power. That’s always the highest calling of journalism, but never more so than when power is a constant threat to the country and in radical opposition to its values and its highest sense of itself.

Brian Fallon: We had this issue where the Javits Center needed us out by 3 a.m. The decision was made that someone had to come out and address the crowd.

Zara Rahim: There were die-hard Hillary supporters that were like, “We’re not going.” Folks who were sobbing and literally couldn’t move because they were so distraught. I remember pieces of memorabilia on the floor, little Hillary pins and “I believe that she will win” placards.

Rebecca Traister: People were throwing up. People were on the floor crying.

Steve Bannon: We had an agreement with these guys. Robby Mook had sent this email saying, you know, “When AP calls it, we’ll call and congratulate you right away.” Because they were expecting Trump to keep saying, “It’s rigged, it’s rigged.” So Robby Mook sent a thing over which I’m sure he regrets. [Laughs]. He sent an email to us, he said, 15 minutes after AP calls it, they would expect to hear from us. If they hadn’t heard from us, she would get up to give a victory speech. I think AP called it right when we left.

Roger Stone: We figured they had her in a straitjacket by then. Or that she was throwing things and cursing.

“LET’S GO ONSTAGE AND GET THIS DONE”

Bret Baier: It was around 2:30 in the morning, and I said, “Donald Trump will be the 45th president of the United States.” This whiz-bang graphic with all of these firework animations flashed across the screen with the words Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States. Just seeing that, everybody on the set was silent for a little bit, as the whole thing was being digested.

Stephen L. Miller, conservative blogger: The Onion headline kept flashing through my head really heavy. During the primaries they had the Trump story, “You really want to see how far this goes, don’t you America?”

Jorge Ramos, Univision news anchor: When he won, I said it as if I was reporting a football score or a soccer match. “Donald Trump is going to be the next president of the United States.” No emotion. Just the facts. That’s what the audience demanded. That is a sign of respect. As a journalist you have to report reality as it is, not as you wish it would be. That’s exactly what I was doing.

Jeffrey Lord: It was an amazing moment. Anderson [Cooper] came over to me and, in his classy fashion, shook my hand and said, “Congratulations, you were right.”

Steve Bannon: When it was called, he was actually upstairs in the kitchen. He has a small kitchen with a television. When he heard it was being called by AP, I shook his hand and said, “Congratulations, Mr. President.” So we kinda laughed. There were no big hugs or anything. Nothing crazy. He’s not a guy who gets overly excited. He’s very controlled. People around him are very controlled. We were obviously very happy and ecstatic. But it’s not a bunch of jumping around, high-fiving, anything like that.

Matt Oczkowski: It almost felt like a videogame, like you were playing something and won. You’re like, “Wow, this is the presidency of the United States.”

Roger Stone: The champagne tasted great. This was the culmination of a dream that I’d had since 1988.

Jim Margolis: I was on with Robby [Mook], who was in the room with her when she did the concession call to Trump. It was surreal. It was beyond my imagination that we would be in this position with this person being elected president.

Steve Bannon: It only took us 10 minutes to get there, it was right down the street. When we got there, we were in this weird holding stage, kind of off to the side. Very crammed. She called the president on his phone. Or it might have been Huma Abedin called Kellyanne [Conway] and then she hands her phone off to the president, and then Secretary Clinton was on there, you know, “Hey, Donald, congratulations, hard-fought win.” Two or three minutes. Then we looked at each other and said, “Let’s go onstage and get this done.”

Roger Stone: He looked surprised at the fact that he’d won. Which is surprising only because he pretty consistently thought he would win. Not unhappy, but rather, shocked.

Neal Brennan: I thought it was so fucking weird that he was like, “Is Jim here? Come on up here.” Like he was emceeing a sports banquet. But it was good that he set the tone right there. So long, context. So long, history.

Joshua Green: I thought he had actually made at least a cursory effort to try to unite the country by reaching out to Hillary Clinton voters. That sentiment probably evaporated before the sun rose the next day. At least on election night he said something approximating what you would expect a normal presidential victor to say in a moment like that, to try and bring the country together.

Symone Sanders: I still couldn’t believe it was happening. When he talked about us coming together and healing for the country, I wanted to throw up in my mouth.

“YOU’RE FUCKED”

3 a.m. – 7 a.m.

Maggie Haberman: I was getting bewildered texts from my child who couldn’t sleep, asking me what happened. I think this election was really difficult for kids to process.

Matt Paul: It was fucking terrible. We had these hastily organized calls every 10 minutes to determine what was going to happen the next morning. There was no advanced plan. Where were we going to do this massive global television event? How were we going to get people in the room? Who was going to say what in what order? That happened between 4 in the morning and when she spoke.

Rebecca Traister: In the cab home, the cabbie had on the news, that’s when I heard his acceptance speech, and I said, “Can you turn it off?” I couldn’t hear his voice. I was like, “I can’t listen to his voice for the next four years.”

Desus Nice: I went home, and it was like when your team loses and you watch it on SportsCenter over and over and over. I turned on MSNBC, and Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow were asking, “How’d you get this wrong? How did Nate Silver get this wrong? What did Hillary do?” I kept turning to Fox News and seeing them gloat and the balloons falling. I think I stayed up until three in the morning just drinking and watching.

The Kid Mero: I went home and smoked myself to sleep. I was like, “This sucks.”

Ashley Nicole Black: I took a shower, and then as soon as water hit me, I started bawling. I didn’t really have any feelings until that moment.

Ashley Parker: Times Square felt like a zombie-apocalypse movie. There was no one there. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I walked from the ballroom to the newsroom. They were like, “Go home, get some sleep, you’ll need it.” I walked back to my hotel. I couldn’t sleep. I watched cable news and then fell asleep.

Van Jones: I was walking out the building. Your thumb just kind of automatically switches over to Twitter. I saw that my name was trending worldwide. And I was like, “Whoa, that’s weird.”

Brian Fallon: I stayed in Brooklyn throughout the campaign, but that night I got a hotel in Midtown, close to the Peninsula. I actually walked past his hotel. I saw all the red hats that were still milling about outside of his victory party. It was pretty surreal.

Ashley Nicole Black: I looked at myself—I’m going to cry even saying this right now—I looked at myself in the mirror, and in that moment, I looked like my grandmother. The first thought I had was that I was glad that she wasn’t alive to see that. Then I felt so guilty because of course nothing would ever make me glad my grandmother is not alive. I love her so much, and I wish she was here. But she died when Obama was president, with that hope that the world had moved forward, and black people had moved forward. And she didn’t see the huge backlash that came after. In that moment, I was very grateful, and then guilty, and then I went to bed.

Jorge Ramos: I’ve been to wars, I’ve covered the most difficult situations in Latin America. But I needed to digest and to understand what had happened. I came home very late. I turned on the news. I had comfort food—cookies and chocolate milk—the same thing I used to have as a kid in Mexico City. After that, I realized that I had been preparing all my life for this moment. Once I digested what had happened with Trump and had a plan, which was to resist and report and not be neutral, then I was able to go to bed.

Rebecca Traister: I got back to Park Slope, I went to check on the girls. When I went to say goodnight, I looked at Rosie, and I had this conscious thought that this is the day that will divide our experience of what is possible. This is the day where a limitation is reinforced for her.

Michael Barbaro: I went home and woke up my husband, I think it was 4 or 5 in the morning, and asked him what the next steps should be journalistically. Should I move to Washington? Should I change jobs? It was pretty disorienting.

Maggie Haberman: One Trump supporter sent me a message saying, “You’re fucked.” [Laughs] If you use that, please recall me laughing about it. It was really something.

Van Jones: I got to my apartment and put my head down. I woke up like three, four hours later. And in my mind I thought, it was a dream. Just for a split second. I was still fully clothed. I had makeup all over my pillow. And I was like, “Shit.”

“IT WAS ONE OF THE BEST SPEECHES SHE’S EVER GIVEN”

7 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Jon Favreau: It felt like when you wake up after someone close to you passes away. Not nearly as bad, obviously, but that same feeling where you think, for like five seconds, you’re okay, maybe it’s a normal morning, and then it hits you what happened.

Roger Stone: I mean, we were walkin’ on clouds. We were still in the halo of the whole thing. I was very pleased.

Jerry Falwell Jr.: The feeling afterward was relief. I had worked so hard to help him. I’d risked so much and went so far out on a limb. Everybody thought I was crazy. It was a renewed hope for the future of the country, and a little bit of fear that I was going to be chosen to serve in the administration, because I didn’t want to.

Steve Bannon: I had my whole family that had come up to the victory party and I hadn’t seen anybody, so I went home and grabbed a shower, just like the night before, got another hour of sleep, and I was with Jared. And I think we were with Trump at like 8 in the morning. So it was just like the exact same thing as the day before. The day before I felt we were gonna win the presidency, and the next day we had won the presidency. It was odd, there was never any big insurgent feeling or anything like that. It played out how I thought it would play out. I didn’t have much doubt the first day of the campaign, didn’t really have much doubt on Billy Bush weekend. He was connecting. He had a powerful message.

Reza Aslan: I remember thinking, as clear as day, this is who we are. This is what we deserve.

Shani O. Hilton, U.S. news editor, BuzzFeed News: You get on the train from Brooklyn. It’s silent. And not in the normal way of people not talking to each other. It felt like an observable silence. I saw at least three people sitting by themselves, just weeping silently.

Melissa Alt: The next day my manager took the cake back to Trump Tower because they didn’t cut it at election night. Donald Trump Jr. told my friend that it was delicious.

Matt Paul: I remember rolling up in the motorcade and seeing some of our staff and organizers couldn’t get in. A reporter or cameraperson who was familiar to me said, “Can I sneak in with you?” I looked at that person, sort of stunned, and said, “Fuck no.” Then I realized I shouldn’t have said that. It was just a visceral, gut reaction to seeing some of our staff that couldn’t get in who had killed themselves for two years.

Nate Silver: If you read FiveThirtyEight throughout the election and listened to our arguments with other journalists and reporters, then you would’ve been much better prepared and much less surprised by the outcome.

The Kid Mero: We very quickly became familiar with the term “economic anxiety.”

Reza Aslan: You take your kids to school, you go to the store, you go to the post office, you’re looking around, and you’re thinking, “These people hate me.”

Jelani Cobb: I went to the airport the next morning for a 7 a.m. flight. There’s an African-American gentleman, maybe in his 60s, working at the check-in counter. He starts talking about how disastrous and dangerous this moment’s going to be. And he’s seen history in the South and thinking that we might be headed back toward the things he thought were in the past.

Dave Weigel: I was connecting through the Atlanta airport. I looked around and thought, well, for eight years, I didn’t really think about who voted for who. But as a white dude with a mustache, fairly bloated by the campaign, most of the people who look like me voted for this guy who, as far as they know, is a bigot. I remember feeling that this divider had come down, this new intensity of feeling about everybody I saw.

Van Jones: The next day, my commentary had become this sort-of viral sensation. Fox News is mad at me for saying “whitelash.” Liberals are treating me as some kind of hero. And literally, for the next two weeks, I didn’t have to pay for anything in any establishment in D.C. or New York. Not one meal. Not one cab. Uber people would turn the thing off and just drive me around for free.

Joshua Green: Bannon called me. He said, “You recognize what happened?” I’m like, “What the fuck are you talking about?” He goes, “You guys,” meaning you on the left, “you fell into the same trap as conservatives in the ‘90s…you were so whipped up in your own self-righteousness about how Americans could never vote for Trump that you were blinded to what was happening.” He was right.

Matt Paul: There were five or six of us standing in a hold room. One of Hillary’s brothers was there with his wife. A couple of the president’s people. Myself. A couple of campaign photographers. President Clinton walked in. It was very tough. Secretary Clinton walked in and was strong and composed. I stood there in shock at how put together and strong she was.

Rebecca Traister: As someone who covered her in 2008 and watched her struggle with speechgiving, it was one of the best speeches she’s ever given.

Jim Margolis: Everybody was basically in tears. Huma was in front of me. Jake [Sullivan] was on one side. It was one of those incredible scenes. Nobody had had any sleep.

Steve Bannon: Never watched it. Couldn’t care less. Her, Podesta, all of it. I thought they were overrated. I thought they were—they’re a media creation. People say how genius they were, how brilliant they were. Look, I’d never been on a campaign in my life. But I can understand math. Just looking at where it was gonna come down to. Morning Joe tells me they’re so brilliant every day. Why are they not getting some pretty fundamental stuff here? But no, I had no interest in seeing her concession speech. I have no interest in a damn thing with their campaign because I don’t think they knew what they were doing. I only have interest in what we did. Which was just, focus, focus, focus.

Rep. Adam Schiff: My staff both in California and in D.C. were absolutely devastated. People would come up to me, constituents and others, with tears in their eyes. And the astounding thing is, here we are now. People continue to come up to me with tears in their eyes about what he’s doing. I’ve never seen people have a visceral reaction over an election and be so deeply alarmed at what’s happening to the country.

Charles P. Pierce, Esquire writer at large: On the Sunday before the election, I drove out from Philadelphia to Gettysburg. Once I got out of the sprawling Philadelphia exurbs, I started to see improvised signs. There were several of those small portable marquees that you see outside clam shacks and chili parlors. I saw a huge piece of plywood nailed to a tree outside a motorcycle repair shop. I saw an entire barn painted red, white, and blue. “Trump,” it said, on the side of the barn. “Make America Great Again.” And I could see that barn, out in the field, in my mind’s eye, as Hillary Rodham Clinton gave her belated concession speech. And when she talked about making the American Dream available to everyone, I thought, damn, somebody had to want it bad to paint a whole barn just to argue about that.

Roger Stone: Trump is a winner. He’s a very confident, upbeat guy. That’s just his style. He thought all along that he would win. There’s no doubt that the Billy Bush thing shook him a little bit, but it ended up not being determinative.

Jerry Falwell Jr.: We had traveled on the plane with him during the campaign. He went and got the Wendy’s cheeseburgers and the fries, put them out on the table for us. I just think he’s a people’s president. I think that’s something we’ve not had in a real long time.

Gary Johnson: Well for me, just speaking personally, I do not aspire to be president of the United States anymore. Why would anybody want to be president of the United States now that Donald Trump’s been president of the United States?

 ##########

from https://stonecoldtruth.com/untold-stories-of-election-day-2016/ from Roger Stone http://rogerstone1.blogspot.com/2017/11/untold-stories-of-election-day-2016.html

[ariaanna27]

Untold Stories Of Election Day 2016

BELOW IS A RECAP OF ELECTION DAY/NIGHT FROM ESQUIRE MAGAZINE featuring ROGER STONE. 

**** Roger Stone, longtime Trump ally: She was just dead in the water. ****

  On November 8, 2016, America’s chief storytellers—those within the bubbles of media and politics—lost the narrative they had controlled for decades. In a space of 24 hours, the concept of “conventional wisdom” seemed to vanish for good. How did this happen? What follows are over 40 brand new interviews and behind-the-scenes stories from deep inside The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, and more—plus first-hand accounts from the campaigns, themselves. We’ve spent a year hearing the spin. Now it’s time for the truth.

THE RUN-UP

Steve Bannon, Trump campaign CEO: When I first came on the campaign, I said, “You have a hundred-percent chance of winning.” We just got to stick to that plan. Even with Billy Bush, I never wavered for a second.

Jim Margolis, Clinton campaign senior adviser: I am normally a glass-half-empty guy when it comes to expectations on election days. This was the first big election where I was absolutely certain we were going to win.

Dave Weigel, The Washington Post: I called Jeff Flake the Sunday before the election. I said, “I have one round of questions if Hillary wins, and one if Trump wins.” And he just started laughing, saying, “Why would you bother asking the second one?”

Rebecca Traister, New York magazine: We got up around 7 a.m., and there was an electric current running through my body.

Ana Marie Cox, Crooked Media, formerly of MTV: I was staying at my in-laws’ place in New York. They’re Trump supporters. They weren’t in town, but my father-in-law made a joking bet with me. He said, “The next time we see each other, there will be a President Trump.” I remember laughing at him.

Neal Brennan, comedian/writer: I was at SNL. Chappelle was like, “Dude, I feel like Trump’s gonna win.” I was like, “Dude, I’ll bet you a hundred thousand dollars he won’t win.” He did not take the bet, thankfully.

Sen. Tim Kaine, Democratic vice presidential candidate: I thought we would win, but I was more wary than many for the simple reason that the U.S. had never elected a woman president and still has a poor track record of electing women to federal office.

Ana Navarro, CNN commentator and Republican strategist: I schlepped my absentee ballot around with me for a month. It was getting pretty beat up inside my bag. I would open it up and look at it every now and then and say, “I’m not ready. I can’t bring myself to vote for Hillary Clinton. Please, God, let something happen that I don’t have to do this.”

Brian Fallon, Clinton campaign national press secretary: There had been a battleground tracking poll our team had done over the weekend that had us up 4 [points]. We were up in more than enough states to win, taking us over 270. The public polls all showed a similar outlook.

Zara Rahim, Clinton campaign national spokeswoman: We were waiting for the coronation. I was planning my Instagram caption.

Van Jones, CNN political commentator: The Democrats had this attitude, which I think is very unhealthy and unproductive, that any acknowledgement that Trump had a chance was somehow helping Trump, and that we all had to be on this one accord that it was impossible for him to win. I thought that was stupid. I’ve never seen that strategy work.

Matt Oczkowski, formerly of Cambridge Analytica (Trump campaign data firm): When you see outlets like the Huffington Post giving Trump a 1 percent probability of victory, which is not even physically possible, it’s just like, “Wow, people are going to miss this massively.”

Roger Stone, longtime Trump ally: She was just dead in the water.

Joel Benenson, Clinton campaign chief strategist: I go into the 10 o’clock call and we’re getting reports from the analytics people and the field people. And they finish, and whoever’s leading the call asks if there’s anything else. I said, “Well, yeah, I got a call 20 minutes ago from my daughter in Durham, North Carolina. People are standing on line and aren’t moving, and are now being told they need to vote with paper ballots.” To me, that was the first sign that something was amiss in our boiler room process. That’s essential information. We needed those reports so the legal team would activate. I was stunned, and actually quite nervous. I thought, “Do we even have what we need on the ground to manage election day?”

“I MEAN, IT LOOKED LIKE A LANDSLIDE”

5 p.m.

Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight: When I was coming in on the train at 5 p.m., according to our model, there was one-in-three chance of a Clinton landslide, a one-in-three chance of a close Clinton win, and a one-in-three chance of a Trump win. I was mentally preparing myself for each of those outcomes.

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker: I thought about, and actually wrote, an essay about “the first woman president,” and the historical background of it all. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the suffragettes, the relationship with Frederick Douglass…a historical essay, clearly written in a mood of “at long last” and, yes, celebration. The idea was to press “post” on that piece, along with many other pieces by my colleagues at The New Yorker, the instant Clinton’s victory was declared on TV.

Bret Baier, Fox News chief political anchor: We got the exit polls at 5 p.m. in a big office on the executive floor. Rupert Murdoch and all the staff were there. It looked like we were going to call the race for Hillary Clinton at 10:30 or 11 p.m.

Steve Bannon: The exit polls were horrific. It was brutal. I think we were close in Iowa and Ohio and everything else was just brutal. Losing everywhere. Florida, Pennsylvania. I mean, it looked like a landslide.

Ashley Parker, The Washington Post, formerly of The New York Times: The RNC thought they were going to lose. The Trump campaign supporters thought they were going to lose. They were rushing to get their side out of the blame game. I spent part of my day lining up interviews for later that night or the next morning to get their version of events.

Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, Trump’s religious adviser: I called Sean Hannity and said, “I really think he’s going to win tonight.” Sean said, “Well, I’m glad you do, because the exit polls don’t look good.” I found out later that Trump was very pessimistic, too.

Steve Bannon: Jared [Kushner] and I were out on this balcony in Trump Tower. We looked at it on Jared’s iPhone. And the numbers were so bad that we regrouped inside. We look at each other and we go, “This can’t be right. It just can’t.” And Jared goes, “I got an idea, let’s call Drudge.” And Drudge says, “The corporate media—they’ve always been wrong the entire time—these numbers are wrong.”

Brian Fallon: I was hearing from my high school principal, people I hadn’t spoken to since college. Everybody is conveying thanks for taking on Trump. It was going to be a cathartic experience of him getting his comeuppance after months of representing something that was so egregious in the eyes of so many people.

Rebecca Traister: They were serving, like, $12 pulled pork sandwiches [at the Javits Center]. It was nuts, people were bouncing off the walls. Everyone genuinely believed she was going to win. I don’t know if it made me feel more confident or not.

Evan McMullin, Independent candidate: Our election night event was in Salt Lake City. I was drinking Diet Coke and eating hummus and olives.

Ana Marie Cox: At the MTV watch party, we had dancers and graffiti artists. There were people giving temporary tattoos. I remember my colleague Jamil Smith and I both bringing up at a meeting, “Hey guys, what if something goes wrong? What if this doesn’t go how we think it’s going to go?” And the answer from some MTV exec was, “We’ll pivot.”

Steve Bannon: Drudge snapped us out of it, saying, “You guys are a couple of jamokes. Wait until the second exit polls come out, or later.” We called the candidate and told him what the numbers were and what Drudge had said. And then we said, “Hey, ya know, we left it all on the field. Did everything we can do. Let’s just see how it turns out.”

Sen. Tim Kaine: Based on the returns from one bellwether Virginia county I know well, I realized that we would win Virginia by a significantly larger margin than President Obama four years earlier. This was a huge feeling given all the work that Anne and I have done for 30-plus years to help make Virginia more progressive. It struck me for the first time, “I will probably be vice president.” That feeling lasted about 90 minutes.

Ashley Parker: I walked over to the Hilton for election night. At some point they rolled in a cake that was like…a life-sized, very impressive rendering of Trump’s head.

Melissa Alt, cake artist: I got an order for a Hillary Clinton cake. So, I was like, “Okay, I’m going to make Donald Trump as well.” Just because that would generate a lot of interest. My manager, who has a friend who works for Donald Trump Jr., said, “Let’s contact them and see if they’re interested in having cake.” And obviously they said yes.

The Kid Mero, Desus & Mero: I’m surprised a stripper didn’t jump out of the cake.

Melissa Alt: I start getting phone calls of people saying, “This is TMZ, or Boston Globe, or People magazine. Do you know that your cake is trending all over the whole internet?”

Ashley Parker: I don’t know if I was ever allowed to eat it. It seemed fairly decorative.

Melissa Alt: Obviously, I wanted everyone to see it first and then eat it. That cake could probably feed about a hundred.

Gary Johnson, Libertarian candidate: I was taken aback by the fact that, at least at the start of the evening, all the networks were showing three names on the screen for the first time, meaning mine and Clinton and Trump. But no, I don’t remember the cake.

“I THINK I’M GONNA THROW UP”

8 p.m. – 1 a.m.

Maggie Haberman, The New York Times: When I went downstairs at 8:15, Hillary was up in Florida. When I came back upstairs, it had flipped. I got a sense the second I set foot in the newsroom that something was going on.

Van Jones: You got smoke coming out of every gear trying to figure out what the heck is happening out there. And you’ve got John King who had said, over and over, that there is no pathway for a Trump victory. Suddenly, that whole thing starts to come apart.

Roger Stone: I was committed to be an on-air anchor for InfoWars. I think I was on the air for seven hours straight.

Steve Bannon: We had taken over the fifth floor of Trump Tower, which had been Corey [Lewandowski]’s original headquarters. It was a concrete floor with no carpeting. They didn’t heat it. It had computers everywhere, guys are tracking everything, we had a chain of command. We called the fifth floor “the crack den.” It looked like a crack den. We put all the maps up and we started getting raw feeds from both our local guys and also the secretary of state of Florida. They were putting up their total vote counts. And [national field director] Bill Stepien was sitting there with all of our modeling. They were really focused on Florida—particularly the Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Also North Carolina was coming in. And obviously Ohio and those states were starting to come in. But the big one we were focused on was Florida. Because if we didn’t win Florida, it was not going to happen.

Omarosa Manigault, Trump campaign: If we believed what was on the television, we would have thought we lost. But looking at the numbers that were in front of us in the key battleground states, we were up…or we were neck and neck, with expectations of higher turnout and more enthusiasm. We were going off of our own internal data. What was being shown on CNN and MSNBC and some of these other networks was showing a stark contrast to what was in front of us.

Reza Aslan, author and religious scholar: I thought, “Oh my God, how terrible are we that it’s even this close?”

Brian Fallon: As I was walking off the risers [at Javits], Jen Epstein, a Bloomberg reporter, grabbed my arm and said, “Are you guys nervous about Florida?” I gave her some sort of verbal shrug. Right after that I called into the boiler room and asked for a gut check.

Van Jones: My phone was literally warm from the text messages coming in.

Zara Rahim: I had been going back and forth between the venue and backstage. My face was really tense. All of these reporters can read your energy and your face. You never want a reporter to tweet like, “Clinton campaign members are nervous.”

Jim Margolis: I finally called Steve Schale, who ran Florida for us in the Obama campaign. I said, “Steve, what’s going on here? Is this just a lack of information?” He said, “I think you’ve got a problem.”

Bret Baier: At 8:30 I turned to Chris Wallace, who was sitting next to us on the set, and said, “This does not look like it’s lining up.” We came back from commercial break and Chris said, “Donald Trump could be the next president of the United States.”

Jerry Falwell Jr.: My 17-year-old daughter, Caroline, had been following the election. It’s the first time she’s ever followed politics. And she was so nervous about the result that her stomach got upset. She told her brother, “I think I’m gonna throw up.” So he took off his Trump hat and she threw up in it, right next to Laura Ingraham.

Felix Biederman, Chapo Trap House: At that point the blue wall hadn’t come in yet, and that’s when the air in the room started to tighten. It was like, “Oh, fuck.” She can still do it, but everything that needs to happen for Trump is happening. What if what’s always happened with Hillary—they did all the work, they know everything, they’re super qualified—what if they didn’t do it? What if they fucked it up?

Ana Marie Cox: I did a couple of on-camera news hits where I was told, “What you need to do here is tell people not to panic.” Meanwhile, I was panicking.

David Remnick: Not only did I not have anything else ready, I don’t think our site had anything, or much of anything, ready in case Trump won. The mood in the offices, I would say, was frenetic.

Dave Weigel: I’m in the parking lot of the Scalise party. There are Republicans drinking, some celebrating, some not paying attention. My editor was calling to see when I would hand in my story. One, I’m on a minor story that’s falling apart, and two, I’m probably in the wrong place. Three, I need to reorder the story, and four, how much did I tell people confidently about the election that I was wrong about?

Ashley Parker: We started running up to one another like, “He’s gonna win, he’s gonna win. We know it now, it’s gonna happen.”

Desus Nice, Desus & Mero: It’s one thing to find out Donald Trump is president, but another to be on TV with people watching you watch Donald Trump become president.

Michael Barbaro, The New York Times: Carolyn Ryan, who was the politics editor, pulled me aside and said, “I need you to be involved in a ‘Trump Wins’ story.”

Matt Flegenheimer, The New York Times: Michael and I build this thing out together into a fully sweeping and historical news story. Maybe 1,500 words. We lock ourselves in this little glass office in the Times building and try to tune out the unstoppable din of the newsroom.

Steve Bannon: Jared came down and the candidate was upstairs. Then when word got out that Florida was competitive, that it was gonna be real, he came down to the 14th floor, the headquarters, where we had what we called the war room, which had multiple TVs running. And so what we did is we moved the data analysis thing that we had up to the 14th floor. And I went over with Stepien and the others and just stood next to the candidate and walked him through what was going on. And he finally took a seat. And we sat there and watched everything come in.

Jacob Soboroff, MSNBC correspondent: I went from this feeling of, “Oh my god, wow. I can’t believe it,” to, in a matter of seconds, “Oh, whoa, I can totally believe it.”

Steve Bannon: Stepien looked at it and said, “Our spread is too big, they can’t recover from this.” Miami-Dade and Broward were coming back really slow. They were clearly holding votes back, right? And then Stepien looked at me and said, “We have such a big lead now. They can’t steal it from us.

“I FELT SO ALONE, I KNEW IT WAS DONE”

Ashley Parker: I received a frantic call from Mike Barbaro, so I was racing around the ballroom getting quotes and feeding them back to the story.

Joshua Green, Bloomberg Businessweek correspondent and Devil’s Bargain author: At 9:05 p.m. I sent Bannon an email and said, “Holy shit, you guys are gonna win, aren’t you?” He sent a one word reply: “Yes.”

Dave Weigel: I had told my parents, who are Clinton supporters—my dad actually knew Clinton growing up as he’s from the same town in Illinois she is. I texted him early in the night saying, “These Florida counties seem to be going the way they usually go.” But once I realized there was no way for Clinton to win, I called them saying, “I’m sorry, this is what I do for a living and I was wrong.” My dad said, “Well, I’m still holding out hope.” And I said, “Don’t bother. Process this, and figure out what you’re going to do next, because it’s not going to happen.”

Trae Crowder, comedian and author: I felt very mad at liberals, you know, like my team. I was very upset with all of us for a lot of reasons.

Rebecca Traister: I felt so alone, I knew it was done. I was by myself on the floor. I started to cry.

David Remnick: That night I went to a friend’s election-night party. As Clinton’s numbers started to sour, I took my laptop out, got a chair, found a corner of that noisy room, and started thinking and writing. That was what turned out to be “An American Tragedy.”

Steve Bannon: As soon as we got Florida, I knew we were gonna win. Because Florida was such a massive lift for us, right? We were so outstaffed. But then we won Florida. Just made me know that the rest of the night was going to go well.

Maggie Haberman: I started texting some of the Trump people and one of them wrote back, “Say it with me: ‘President Trump. President Trump.’”

“CAN WE STAY IN THE U.S.?”

Zara Rahim: A member of senior leadership came, and I’ll never forget him looking at us and saying, essentially, “If she doesn’t win Michigan and Wisconsin, Donald Trump will be president-elect.” That was the first time I heard those words.

Jim Margolis: The tenor had changed completely. People were very nervous in the room, we’re all talking to each other. I’m going back and forth with [Clinton campaign manager] Robby Mook, who is over at the hotel. We’re on the phone with some of the states that are still out there, trying to understand what is taking place in Wisconsin and Michigan, because those numbers are softer than they ought to be. That’s beginning to weigh very heavily.

Rebecca Traister: I was thinking everything from, “I’m gonna have to rewrite my piece” to, “Can we stay in the U.S.?” I texted my husband, “Tell Rosie to go to bed. I don’t want her to watch.”

Roger Stone: The staff at InfoWars is largely people in their late 20s, early 30s, all of whom are interested in politics, but none of whom would consider themselves an expert. So they would look to me and say, “Well, are we going to win or not?” And I said, “Yes, we’re going to win.”

Matt Flegenheimer: Michael Grynbaum—who covers media—we had been following the Upshot percentages on the race. We were trying to get our heads around it. If it’s 75 percent, two coin flips, Donald Trump’s president. You had dynamic, shifting odds on the meter. Maybe it’s one coin flip. Maybe it’s half a coin flip. At some point, when I was in that little room with Michael Barbaro, Grynbaum comes in, takes a quarter, slams it down on the middle of the desk. Doesn’t say a word. Just walks out. I still have that quarter in my wallet.

David Remnick: Obviously, we were not going to press “post” until a result had been announced. So I made some revisions, came across a quotation from George Orwell, played around with various sentences, but all in a kind of strange state of focus that happens only once in a while.

Steve Bannon: We stayed there until I want to say about 11 o’clock, 11:30, after Florida got called. It looked like others were coming our way, that we were obviously gonna win. That’s when we went upstairs to the residence, to the penthouse. In hindsight, we still had two and a half hours to go, because they didn’t call it ‘til like 2:30 in the morning.

Symone Sanders, Strategist for Priorities USA: Omarosa called [into MTV] saying, “It’s a good night over here at Trump Tower.” She’s like, “I knew Donald Trump would be the president. I told everyone months ago. And the day is here!” I was just dumbfounded.

Neal Brennan: Slowly but surely it dawns on us. And I had said things like, “You know, I’ve heard that technically Republicans can never win another presidential election.” I’m just saying dumb shit, all things I’d read on Politico or fuckin’ The Atlantic or whatever. And then slowly but surely it happens. It’s like we…it…fucking Hillary lost.

Van Jones: I picked up my pen and I wrote down two words: “parents” and “whitelash.”

Jeffrey Lord, former CNN political commentator: People get so obsessed with the race thing.

Ana Marie Cox: I happen to be in recovery. I had a moment of, like, “Why the fuck not?” I went on Twitter and said, “To those of us ‘in the room’ together, he’s not worth it. Don’t drink over this.” And the response I got was amazing. I said, “I’m going to a meeting tomorrow. Everyone get through this 24 hours, get to a meeting, we’re not alone.”

Evan McMullin: I looked at my staffers. In my mind’s eye, they were all seated up against this wall. They were disappointed, they were afraid, all of that. I told them that I didn’t want to see any long faces. I told them to buck up. And it had no effect.

Van Jones: I literally said, “This was many things. This was a rebellion against elites, it was a complete reinvention of politics and polls. And it was also about race.” But the “whitelash” comment became this big, big thing. What’s interesting about it is, I’m black, my wife is not. She and I were talking about what was happening in Europe. And I said, “The backlash is coming here.” She said, “Yeah, it’ll be a whitelash here.” That was in the back of my mind. People think I made that term up on the spot. It’s very rare you can put two syllables together and make the entire case.

Jeffrey Lord: I thought he was wrong. While Van and I disagree, he’s a curious and sensible soul. I thought at some point he would come to a different conclusion.

“WHAT’S OBAMA THINKING?”

1 a.m. – 3 a.m.

Melissa Alt: People were texting me the whole night, just congratulations on the cake. That was funny because the night turned out so different than I expected. Who knew cake could generate so much hype?

Bret Baier: The futures markets had taken a nosedive, so we were covering that aspect of things. Fortunately, we had Maria Bartiromo on the set, who looked at the numbers and said, “Well, I would think this is a buying opportunity, because if you look at policy, tax cuts, regulation roll back, and everything else, that’s probably going to mean the market turning around when businesses weigh in.” That turned out to be pretty prescient.

Ana Marie Cox: A Muslim colleague of mine called his mother. She was worried he was going to be the victim of violence at any moment. A colleague who is gay and married was on the phone with her wife saying, “They’re not going to take this damn ring away from me.”

Van Jones: I had Muslim friends who came from countries like Somalia asking, “Should we leave the country tonight?” Because in their countries of origin, if a president that hostile takes power, they might start rounding up people in the morning.

David Remnick: Jelani [Cobb] and I spoke around midnight. We were both, let’s put it this way, in the New Yorker mode of radical understatement, disappointed. Jelani’s disappointment extended to his wondering whether he should actually leave the country. He wasn’t kidding around. I could tell that from his voice.

Gary Johnson: Well, I was really disappointed at the results. But what I came to very quickly was, as I’ve said many, many, many, times, if I wasn’t elected president, I was going to ski a hundred-plus days and I was also going to ride the Continental Divide bike race.

Jill Stein, Green Party candidate: Did I have remorse about running? Absolutely not. I have remorse about the misery people are experiencing under Democrats and Republicans both.

Neal Brennan: That’s sketch-writing night at SNL. So all the writers are crestfallen, and it was up to us to write comedy for that Saturday. Me and [Colin] Jost wrote the sketch where Dave [Chappelle] is watching the election, and Chris Rock shows up and everyone’s bawling. It was based on the experience of being in Jost’s office and me saying incredibly stupid shit as reality crumbled.

Ashley Nicole Black, writer/correspondent, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee: We all went into a room and sat in silence for at least five minutes. The conversation wasn’t like, “What is it going to be in the country?” It was like, okay, “We’re at work. We have a show tomorrow. What are we going to do?” And Sam goes, “I think this is my fault.” It’s Sam’s first time voting in an American election, and she told us how the first time she was on Law & Order, Law & Order got canceled the next day. And she got interviewed by Playboy, and the next day they announced they were no longer doing nudity. And now she voted for the first time and broke America. We all laughed, it broke the tension in the room. Then we started writing Act 1 with that idea in mind.

Rep. Adam Schiff, congressman, 28th District of California: I was at a victory party for my campaign at the Burbank Bar and Grill. And it was the most somber and depressing victory party I’d ever had.

Brian Fallon: Eventually there were conversations around the awkwardness. There started to be this pressure to concede even before AP called the race.

Nate Silver: I felt like if the roles had been reversed, and if Clinton had been winning all of these states, that they wouldn’t have been so slow to call it. In some ways, the slowness to call it reflected the stubbornness the media had the whole time about realizing that, actually, it was a pretty competitive election.

Jerry Falwell Jr.: The crowd at the Trump party was really aggravated because Megyn Kelly didn’t want to call it. She was so hopeful that Trump would lose. She let hours go by. Finally, the crowd started chanting, “Call it! Call it! Call it!”

Bret Baier: There was a growing group of people who had gathered outside Fox News who obviously were Trump supporters. They were going crazy.

Zara Rahim: There was a massive garage behind the Javits center. John Podesta stood up on a box and told us, “We will have more information for you soon,” which is the most frustrating thing to hear in that moment. Everybody was in this big circle of sadness and nobody knew what to do. Leadership didn’t know what to do. We were all at a loss.

Jon Favreau, Crooked Media, former Obama speechwriter: We were in a constant text chain with our buddies in the White House, asking, “What’s going on? What’s the boss thinking? What’s Obama thinking?” And finally they told us, “Oh, he just talked to her and he thinks she should concede and she agrees. She’s just waiting for the right moment.”

Jerry Falwell Jr.: I called the president-elect. He said, “Well, why don’t you come over to Trump Tower, you and your family, and watch the returns with us?” And I said, “I don’t want to do that, because by the time I get over there, you’re going to be coming over here to do your victory speech.” And he said, “All right, whatever.”

Matt Paul, chief of staff to VP candidate Tim Kaine: Senator Kaine, when the news became very grim…the senator actually went to bed. Nothing was going to happen that night. He had to put together a different type of speech.

Brian Fallon: I was on the phone with the decision desk people at AP, trying to glean a sense of their confidence about the numbers in states like Wisconsin and Michigan. I knew that when those got called, it was ball game, so I was trying to impart to them what we were hearing about what precincts might still be outstanding. We were also trying to gauge if they were about to call it, if and when she should speak.

Michael Barbaro: We really labored over a few paragraphs and a few words, just capturing the enormity of a Trump victory. That it wasn’t expected. The messages the campaign had run on, what they would suddenly mean for the country. And it was a real challenge to convey all of the things he had said and done in the campaign, and all the controversies that he had sparked and put those into the context of a traditional, sweeping, “This person has just been elected president of the United States,” New York Times story.

Matt Flegenheimer: I think after 1 o’clock we had our final version and we were ready to press the button on “Trump Just Won.” It did make the last edition of the print paper.

Michael Barbaro: There was so much going on that night and so many last-minute changes and such a hectic schedule that the story was published with the wrong bylines. The historic front page, “Trump Triumphs,” ran in the paper with the wrong bylines.

Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker: I saw the New York Times headline and I was very discomforted by it. For one, I knew that I had a child on the way.

Maggie Haberman: I was supposed to go on a CNN panel at 2 a.m., they were doing a very early version of New Day. I got stuck because of a deadline anyway, so it worked out I couldn’t make it, which I felt bad about. In reality, I wasn’t prepared to talk about it. I couldn’t really understand what had happened. And I think images of gobsmacked reporters probably wouldn’t have helped.

Michael Barbaro: We’re all sitting around and we’re all doing what journalists do after a big story, which is talk about it endlessly. I don’t think any of us wanted to go home. I don’t think any of us wanted to go off into the private space of figuring out what this all means. This gravitational pull kept us there much later than we needed to be.

Reza Aslan: My wife stayed up and I went to sleep, then she woke me up around 1 or 2 in the morning bawling and told me that it was over. My poor, sweet wife. She wanted to hug and kiss me but I went into a panic attack and couldn’t breathe.

David Remnick: We agreed that night, and we agree today, that the Trump presidency is an emergency. And in an emergency, you’ve got a purpose, a job to do, and ours is to put pressure on power. That’s always the highest calling of journalism, but never more so than when power is a constant threat to the country and in radical opposition to its values and its highest sense of itself.

Brian Fallon: We had this issue where the Javits Center needed us out by 3 a.m. The decision was made that someone had to come out and address the crowd.

Zara Rahim: There were die-hard Hillary supporters that were like, “We’re not going.” Folks who were sobbing and literally couldn’t move because they were so distraught. I remember pieces of memorabilia on the floor, little Hillary pins and “I believe that she will win” placards.

Rebecca Traister: People were throwing up. People were on the floor crying.

Steve Bannon: We had an agreement with these guys. Robby Mook had sent this email saying, you know, “When AP calls it, we’ll call and congratulate you right away.” Because they were expecting Trump to keep saying, “It’s rigged, it’s rigged.” So Robby Mook sent a thing over which I’m sure he regrets. [Laughs]. He sent an email to us, he said, 15 minutes after AP calls it, they would expect to hear from us. If they hadn’t heard from us, she would get up to give a victory speech. I think AP called it right when we left.

Roger Stone: We figured they had her in a straitjacket by then. Or that she was throwing things and cursing.

“LET’S GO ONSTAGE AND GET THIS DONE”

Bret Baier: It was around 2:30 in the morning, and I said, “Donald Trump will be the 45th president of the United States.” This whiz-bang graphic with all of these firework animations flashed across the screen with the words Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States. Just seeing that, everybody on the set was silent for a little bit, as the whole thing was being digested.

Stephen L. Miller, conservative blogger: The Onion headline kept flashing through my head really heavy. During the primaries they had the Trump story, “You really want to see how far this goes, don’t you America?”

Jorge Ramos, Univision news anchor: When he won, I said it as if I was reporting a football score or a soccer match. “Donald Trump is going to be the next president of the United States.” No emotion. Just the facts. That’s what the audience demanded. That is a sign of respect. As a journalist you have to report reality as it is, not as you wish it would be. That’s exactly what I was doing.

Jeffrey Lord: It was an amazing moment. Anderson [Cooper] came over to me and, in his classy fashion, shook my hand and said, “Congratulations, you were right.”

Steve Bannon: When it was called, he was actually upstairs in the kitchen. He has a small kitchen with a television. When he heard it was being called by AP, I shook his hand and said, “Congratulations, Mr. President.” So we kinda laughed. There were no big hugs or anything. Nothing crazy. He’s not a guy who gets overly excited. He’s very controlled. People around him are very controlled. We were obviously very happy and ecstatic. But it’s not a bunch of jumping around, high-fiving, anything like that.

Matt Oczkowski: It almost felt like a videogame, like you were playing something and won. You’re like, “Wow, this is the presidency of the United States.”

Roger Stone: The champagne tasted great. This was the culmination of a dream that I’d had since 1988.

Jim Margolis: I was on with Robby [Mook], who was in the room with her when she did the concession call to Trump. It was surreal. It was beyond my imagination that we would be in this position with this person being elected president.

Steve Bannon: It only took us 10 minutes to get there, it was right down the street. When we got there, we were in this weird holding stage, kind of off to the side. Very crammed. She called the president on his phone. Or it might have been Huma Abedin called Kellyanne [Conway] and then she hands her phone off to the president, and then Secretary Clinton was on there, you know, “Hey, Donald, congratulations, hard-fought win.” Two or three minutes. Then we looked at each other and said, “Let’s go onstage and get this done.”

Roger Stone: He looked surprised at the fact that he’d won. Which is surprising only because he pretty consistently thought he would win. Not unhappy, but rather, shocked.

Neal Brennan: I thought it was so fucking weird that he was like, “Is Jim here? Come on up here.” Like he was emceeing a sports banquet. But it was good that he set the tone right there. So long, context. So long, history.

Joshua Green: I thought he had actually made at least a cursory effort to try to unite the country by reaching out to Hillary Clinton voters. That sentiment probably evaporated before the sun rose the next day. At least on election night he said something approximating what you would expect a normal presidential victor to say in a moment like that, to try and bring the country together.

Symone Sanders: I still couldn’t believe it was happening. When he talked about us coming together and healing for the country, I wanted to throw up in my mouth.

“YOU’RE FUCKED”

3 a.m. – 7 a.m.

Maggie Haberman: I was getting bewildered texts from my child who couldn’t sleep, asking me what happened. I think this election was really difficult for kids to process.

Matt Paul: It was fucking terrible. We had these hastily organized calls every 10 minutes to determine what was going to happen the next morning. There was no advanced plan. Where were we going to do this massive global television event? How were we going to get people in the room? Who was going to say what in what order? That happened between 4 in the morning and when she spoke.

Rebecca Traister: In the cab home, the cabbie had on the news, that’s when I heard his acceptance speech, and I said, “Can you turn it off?” I couldn’t hear his voice. I was like, “I can’t listen to his voice for the next four years.”

Desus Nice: I went home, and it was like when your team loses and you watch it on SportsCenter over and over and over. I turned on MSNBC, and Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow were asking, “How’d you get this wrong? How did Nate Silver get this wrong? What did Hillary do?” I kept turning to Fox News and seeing them gloat and the balloons falling. I think I stayed up until three in the morning just drinking and watching.

The Kid Mero: I went home and smoked myself to sleep. I was like, “This sucks.”

Ashley Nicole Black: I took a shower, and then as soon as water hit me, I started bawling. I didn’t really have any feelings until that moment.

Ashley Parker: Times Square felt like a zombie-apocalypse movie. There was no one there. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I walked from the ballroom to the newsroom. They were like, “Go home, get some sleep, you’ll need it.” I walked back to my hotel. I couldn’t sleep. I watched cable news and then fell asleep.

Van Jones: I was walking out the building. Your thumb just kind of automatically switches over to Twitter. I saw that my name was trending worldwide. And I was like, “Whoa, that’s weird.”

Brian Fallon: I stayed in Brooklyn throughout the campaign, but that night I got a hotel in Midtown, close to the Peninsula. I actually walked past his hotel. I saw all the red hats that were still milling about outside of his victory party. It was pretty surreal.

Ashley Nicole Black: I looked at myself—I’m going to cry even saying this right now—I looked at myself in the mirror, and in that moment, I looked like my grandmother. The first thought I had was that I was glad that she wasn’t alive to see that. Then I felt so guilty because of course nothing would ever make me glad my grandmother is not alive. I love her so much, and I wish she was here. But she died when Obama was president, with that hope that the world had moved forward, and black people had moved forward. And she didn’t see the huge backlash that came after. In that moment, I was very grateful, and then guilty, and then I went to bed.

Jorge Ramos: I’ve been to wars, I’ve covered the most difficult situations in Latin America. But I needed to digest and to understand what had happened. I came home very late. I turned on the news. I had comfort food—cookies and chocolate milk—the same thing I used to have as a kid in Mexico City. After that, I realized that I had been preparing all my life for this moment. Once I digested what had happened with Trump and had a plan, which was to resist and report and not be neutral, then I was able to go to bed.

Rebecca Traister: I got back to Park Slope, I went to check on the girls. When I went to say goodnight, I looked at Rosie, and I had this conscious thought that this is the day that will divide our experience of what is possible. This is the day where a limitation is reinforced for her.

Michael Barbaro: I went home and woke up my husband, I think it was 4 or 5 in the morning, and asked him what the next steps should be journalistically. Should I move to Washington? Should I change jobs? It was pretty disorienting.

Maggie Haberman: One Trump supporter sent me a message saying, “You’re fucked.” [Laughs] If you use that, please recall me laughing about it. It was really something.

Van Jones: I got to my apartment and put my head down. I woke up like three, four hours later. And in my mind I thought, it was a dream. Just for a split second. I was still fully clothed. I had makeup all over my pillow. And I was like, “Shit.”

“IT WAS ONE OF THE BEST SPEECHES SHE’S EVER GIVEN”

7 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Jon Favreau: It felt like when you wake up after someone close to you passes away. Not nearly as bad, obviously, but that same feeling where you think, for like five seconds, you’re okay, maybe it’s a normal morning, and then it hits you what happened.

Roger Stone: I mean, we were walkin’ on clouds. We were still in the halo of the whole thing. I was very pleased.

Jerry Falwell Jr.: The feeling afterward was relief. I had worked so hard to help him. I’d risked so much and went so far out on a limb. Everybody thought I was crazy. It was a renewed hope for the future of the country, and a little bit of fear that I was going to be chosen to serve in the administration, because I didn’t want to.

Steve Bannon: I had my whole family that had come up to the victory party and I hadn’t seen anybody, so I went home and grabbed a shower, just like the night before, got another hour of sleep, and I was with Jared. And I think we were with Trump at like 8 in the morning. So it was just like the exact same thing as the day before. The day before I felt we were gonna win the presidency, and the next day we had won the presidency. It was odd, there was never any big insurgent feeling or anything like that. It played out how I thought it would play out. I didn’t have much doubt the first day of the campaign, didn’t really have much doubt on Billy Bush weekend. He was connecting. He had a powerful message.

Reza Aslan: I remember thinking, as clear as day, this is who we are. This is what we deserve.

Shani O. Hilton, U.S. news editor, BuzzFeed News: You get on the train from Brooklyn. It’s silent. And not in the normal way of people not talking to each other. It felt like an observable silence. I saw at least three people sitting by themselves, just weeping silently.

Melissa Alt: The next day my manager took the cake back to Trump Tower because they didn’t cut it at election night. Donald Trump Jr. told my friend that it was delicious.

Matt Paul: I remember rolling up in the motorcade and seeing some of our staff and organizers couldn’t get in. A reporter or cameraperson who was familiar to me said, “Can I sneak in with you?” I looked at that person, sort of stunned, and said, “Fuck no.” Then I realized I shouldn’t have said that. It was just a visceral, gut reaction to seeing some of our staff that couldn’t get in who had killed themselves for two years.

Nate Silver: If you read FiveThirtyEight throughout the election and listened to our arguments with other journalists and reporters, then you would’ve been much better prepared and much less surprised by the outcome.

The Kid Mero: We very quickly became familiar with the term “economic anxiety.”

Reza Aslan: You take your kids to school, you go to the store, you go to the post office, you’re looking around, and you’re thinking, “These people hate me.”

Jelani Cobb: I went to the airport the next morning for a 7 a.m. flight. There’s an African-American gentleman, maybe in his 60s, working at the check-in counter. He starts talking about how disastrous and dangerous this moment’s going to be. And he’s seen history in the South and thinking that we might be headed back toward the things he thought were in the past.

Dave Weigel: I was connecting through the Atlanta airport. I looked around and thought, well, for eight years, I didn’t really think about who voted for who. But as a white dude with a mustache, fairly bloated by the campaign, most of the people who look like me voted for this guy who, as far as they know, is a bigot. I remember feeling that this divider had come down, this new intensity of feeling about everybody I saw.

Van Jones: The next day, my commentary had become this sort-of viral sensation. Fox News is mad at me for saying “whitelash.” Liberals are treating me as some kind of hero. And literally, for the next two weeks, I didn’t have to pay for anything in any establishment in D.C. or New York. Not one meal. Not one cab. Uber people would turn the thing off and just drive me around for free.

Joshua Green: Bannon called me. He said, “You recognize what happened?” I’m like, “What the fuck are you talking about?” He goes, “You guys,” meaning you on the left, “you fell into the same trap as conservatives in the ‘90s…you were so whipped up in your own self-righteousness about how Americans could never vote for Trump that you were blinded to what was happening.” He was right.

Matt Paul: There were five or six of us standing in a hold room. One of Hillary’s brothers was there with his wife. A couple of the president’s people. Myself. A couple of campaign photographers. President Clinton walked in. It was very tough. Secretary Clinton walked in and was strong and composed. I stood there in shock at how put together and strong she was.

Rebecca Traister: As someone who covered her in 2008 and watched her struggle with speechgiving, it was one of the best speeches she’s ever given.

Jim Margolis: Everybody was basically in tears. Huma was in front of me. Jake [Sullivan] was on one side. It was one of those incredible scenes. Nobody had had any sleep.

Steve Bannon: Never watched it. Couldn’t care less. Her, Podesta, all of it. I thought they were overrated. I thought they were—they’re a media creation. People say how genius they were, how brilliant they were. Look, I’d never been on a campaign in my life. But I can understand math. Just looking at where it was gonna come down to. Morning Joe tells me they’re so brilliant every day. Why are they not getting some pretty fundamental stuff here? But no, I had no interest in seeing her concession speech. I have no interest in a damn thing with their campaign because I don’t think they knew what they were doing. I only have interest in what we did. Which was just, focus, focus, focus.

Rep. Adam Schiff: My staff both in California and in D.C. were absolutely devastated. People would come up to me, constituents and others, with tears in their eyes. And the astounding thing is, here we are now. People continue to come up to me with tears in their eyes about what he’s doing. I’ve never seen people have a visceral reaction over an election and be so deeply alarmed at what’s happening to the country.

Charles P. Pierce, Esquire writer at large: On the Sunday before the election, I drove out from Philadelphia to Gettysburg. Once I got out of the sprawling Philadelphia exurbs, I started to see improvised signs. There were several of those small portable marquees that you see outside clam shacks and chili parlors. I saw a huge piece of plywood nailed to a tree outside a motorcycle repair shop. I saw an entire barn painted red, white, and blue. “Trump,” it said, on the side of the barn. “Make America Great Again.” And I could see that barn, out in the field, in my mind’s eye, as Hillary Rodham Clinton gave her belated concession speech. And when she talked about making the American Dream available to everyone, I thought, damn, somebody had to want it bad to paint a whole barn just to argue about that.

Roger Stone: Trump is a winner. He’s a very confident, upbeat guy. That’s just his style. He thought all along that he would win. There’s no doubt that the Billy Bush thing shook him a little bit, but it ended up not being determinative.

Jerry Falwell Jr.: We had traveled on the plane with him during the campaign. He went and got the Wendy’s cheeseburgers and the fries, put them out on the table for us. I just think he’s a people’s president. I think that’s something we’ve not had in a real long time.

Gary Johnson: Well for me, just speaking personally, I do not aspire to be president of the United States anymore. Why would anybody want to be president of the United States now that Donald Trump’s been president of the United States?

  ##########

from Roger Stone – Stone Cold Truth https://stonecoldtruth.com/untold-stories-of-election-day-2016/

from Roger Stone https://rogerstone1.wordpress.com/2017/11/13/untold-stories-of-election-day-2016/

[erica-palgon]

- Erica Palgon. Speaking My Truth blog “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” In 2014 professional tennis player Stan Wawrinka got a tattoo of this quote by poet Samuel Beckett. In a June 2014 Guardian article he said: “I only did the tattoo last year, but I first saw the quote a long time ago. It always stayed in my mind. It’s how I see life and tennis. The meaning of the quote doesn’t change no matter how well you do. There is always disappointment, heartache. You are losing almost every tournament. You need to just accept it and be positive because you are going to lose and fail. We’re not all Nadal or Djokovic, who can win most tournaments.” I absolutely love tennis. I’ve been taking lessons, playing and going to the US Open every year, since I was a little girl. But as I’ve gotten older and more self aware, it has taken on different meaning to me. I watch the players play with such intensity, with ups and downs, some containing their emotions and others just letting it all hang out there. And it’s incredible to me..their focus and strength not only physically on the court but mentally too. It’s like they are learning how to deal with it all as they go, and we are all witness to it, their fears, vulnerabilities, their struggles as well as their successes. What they have to do to psych themselves into believing, sometimes seems like the impossible especially when facing adversity in their personal lives. When I watch, I almost feel like I’m getting a free life coach, telling me to get off my ass and step it up, push myself past the impossible and believe. Sports commentators usually say, when a tennis player has won a match, that they made it “through” to the next round (ie: quarterfinals, semifinals, finals, etc..). It’s a great image, that idea of pushing through, past defeat, and it’s not necessarily just the person on the other side of the net they are trying to beat. The sports commentators always talk about the mental toughness of the players and how important that is. That couldn’t be more true of so many of the players at this years Australian Open. Venus Williams, as her sister Serena says, a champion not a comeback, fighting through Sjögren’s syndrome and seeing her grateful for each moment. Her energy made me smile after every win. She was child-like, spinning around the court, like she was in a dream or on a cloud. After she lost the final to her sister, Venus spoke from her heart. She would be back. This was to be continued. Mirjana Lucic-Baroni’s story has everyone in tears. 19 years ago she fled Croatia from her abusive father. She had been at the top of her career but then fell in the rankings as a result of this personal battle. She cried a bit during her on court interview, after beating Karolina Pliskova and moving onto the semifinals. Her vulnerability was beautiful, putting it all out there. Powerful. After her earlier match against Jennifer Brady she said “I will tell it to anyone struggling out there. F everything and everybody, whoever tells you you can’t do it. Just show up and do it with your heart.” In the New York Times, Lucic-Baroni was quoted as saying: “I had a choice to cave or to grow and blossom from it. I took the latter choice, and I’m very proud of myself and my family, that we got away from that. I didn’t let it destroy me. It was difficult, sure, but I believe you really have a choice in everything. You either pick yourself up by the bootstraps and you move on and become stronger from your experiences. Or you falter. It was really difficult in the beginning when I started again, because I felt like I belonged somewhere at the top, and I wasn’t there. I was fighting really hard, clawing my way back. This also taught me a lot, all these years coming back. Now, I’m really at peace with where I am in my life, where I am in my career. I think it probably does show a little bit on the court as well.” I keep reading this over and over. It’s so easy to just give up and “falter.” But “showing up.” Yes! And with heart. Resounding yes! And while I still love cheering on Federer and Nadal, both of who I’ve watched over many years, the last year or two I kept my eye on Stan Wawrinka. I watched him at the US Open last year, battle through matches, in the most unlikely of circumstances, always coming back with his mental toughness. I love his honesty and vulnerability, when he speaks to the press and sports commentators. I recall him saying after last years US Open final against Djokovic, which he won, that he was shaking in the locker room and crying, right before the match. He revealed what he was feeling and how he dealt with it during the match. “I think this Grand Slam was the most painful, physically and mentally, that I ever played,” Wawrinka said. “I was feeling tired already at the beginning of the match. I was feeling the cramp coming in the third set.” He was determined “not to show anything” but just to “give everything and keep fighting and go try to win it”. “There is no secret,” Wawrinka said. “If you want to beat the number one player in the world you have to give everything. You have to accept to suffer and you have almost to enjoy to suffer.” Enjoying suffering and powering through it to get the reward or goal. I like that. A little dark in nature, yes. Almost going towards the uncomfortable, with an unknown result. I know I have pretty much dared myself into doing things out of my comfort zone, forcing myself to rise to the occasion. Truly dedicated and passionate about his sport, Wawrinka said about how he approaches his career, “I never start anything (saying) I want to be number one, I want to win a Grand Slam. For me, it’s always step by step. The only thing I want to do is push the limit.” The other night I found myself routing, from my bed in my NYC apartment, for Stan Wawrinka as he fought through his semifinal match against Roger Federer at the Australian Open. The odds were against him, the crowd was all for Federer, and Stan (aka the Stanimal) also was feeling some pain in his knee, though the way he played you wouldn’t know it. Basically, he was alone out there, with his coach Magnus Norman, and Wawrinka’s parents looking on. After losing the tie break, set point, in the first set, you could see he was upset. Some articles say he was crying under his towel at the change over. I’d never seen that side to him, or any player that I can recall. He was just at a loss. I kept thinking mentally and emotionally, how he would get control, relax and focus. Somehow, he dug deep, took a breathe and pulled himself together to turn things around, winning the 3rd and 4th set. I was furiously clapping my hands, getting more and more energized, even at 4am! So much weighing on him and he hung in there! Confidence building. He was still in it fighting, in the 5th set, though making more errors, which unfortunately lost him the match. It was a disappointment for him but an incredibly exciting match to watch. I even noticed Johnny Mac commenting on how impressed he was by Stan. In the end as Stan the Man gathered his tennis bags, he clapped in thanks to the crowd…the crowd that was already overjoyed for Federer. (and side note, I am very happy for Fed and the upcoming final with Nadal. In fact I’m an hour away from the 3am mark, to cheer them both on!:) ) Moments later at the press conference, which I watched in the late morning, you could see Stan was overcome with sadness, to the point it was difficult to talk. I’m sure all he wanted to do was curl up in a ball and be left alone. I can’t imagine how that felt, so much emotion and fight, not only in that match but throughout the ones leading up to it, only to be disappointed. Now people are tweeting things to point out the good in the situation, to try make him feel better, in response to his own tweet of a photo of himself with his hands over his face. A different type of suffering. This sounds so familiar (and likely to most people on different levels). I work so hard to get to certain points and struggle and can taste the success, big or small, but it is not to be…at least for that moment. And no matter what others say at the time, who have the best of intentions, it’s hard to bounce back and see the positives. We have all been there. I’ve been there many times. In my own time, I find the strength to find new solutions and learn from defeats. To improve and make it through to the next round. It’s a struggle, a battle within myself mentally, emotionally and physically. And maybe the next round won’t be won or figured out right away. What am I learning from all this? It’s all about strong belief in yourself. I love reading and hearing these sound bites from my “life coaches,” that reminds me of that. Easy to forget. I think we need people like this. They are there out in the open (no pun intended) for a reason.