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quirkswriting · 5 years ago

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iida tenya’s guide to physical intimacy for the socially awkward

Overview: Your boyfriend’s been acting a little strange lately... not that you’re jealous or anything, but what’s gotten into your socially conscious (and easily embarrassed) favourite boy and why is he holding Midoriya’s hand instead of your own? Pairing: Iida Tenya x Reader (Aged up Uni/College AU!) Word Count: 4.7k Warning(s): Swearing, a small hint of jealousy? But not gross jealousy Author’s Notes: This has taken me a ridiculous amount of time to finish but it’s here! Part 3 of the soft cuddle series featuring the lovable dork Iida <3

***

Iida was annoyed. More than annoyed, really, and starting to verge on frustrated. Not quite upset, but heading in that direction. Which is why he was currently pacing back and forth in the living room of his shared apartment with Midoriya and Todoroki. He’d asked them for advice, calling a roommate meeting in their living room to see if they could help him with his problem.

“You’re wearing a hole in the carpet,” Todoroki said, though he didn’t look up from the book he was reading—something for his Conspiracy Theories class, which had Todoroki the most animated Iida had ever seen him when they’d been discussing the chapter on the Mothman at lunch the day before. So either Todoroki didn’t actually care about the rug or he was too into his reading to push it any further (or possibly a combination of both, seeing as they’d used Todoroki’s father’s credit card to furnish their apartment when they’d moved in and he’d just bought whatever item was the most expensive if Iida or Midoriya didn’t step in with a different opinion). Iida kept pacing anyway, while Midoriya came back from the kitchen with his arms full of snacks and drinks.

“So what’s bugging you, Iida?” He asked, sitting next to Todoroki on the couch. He handed the quiet boy beside him a drink before depositing the rest on the coffee table and taking a drink for himself. Iida finally stopped pacing. He sat down on the plush chair opposite the couch, keeping his back straight as he sank down into the cushion as he looked at his friends. Todoroki was still reading his book, now holding a can of pop in one hand and balancing his book in the other, while Midoriya also had his own can of pop and had popped the tab open and was taking a drink. Iida figured that he may as well tell them.

“I’ve failed as a boyfriend,” he said. Midoriya almost immediately started coughing, choking on his drink. Todoroki dropped his book on his lap and began to pound the smaller man on the back to try and help clear his airway. It took almost a minute before Midoriya stopped coughing and gently pushed Todoroki away.

“What do you mean, ‘failed as a boyfriend’?” Midoriya asked, red starting to fade from his face. Iida sighed, slumping his shoulders and resting his hands on his knees.

“I… want to take the next step in my relationship with (Y/N) and I just haven’t been able to do it,” he told his friends, looking down at his sock feet. “I’ve been researching the best methods for physical intimacy. I’ve read all of the books I could find in the library and I’ve tried looking up information online and I’ve learned quite a lot but every time I try and put it into practice it doesn’t work.”

“You’ve been reading books on physical intimacy?” Midoriya asked, and Iida could hear the crack in his voice. Iida felt his own cheeks grow warm as he looked up from his feet to his friends. Midoriya was trying very hard to keep a smile off his face, while Todoroki was clearing his throat—and sounding suspiciously like he was snorting into his hand. It took an embarrassingly long thirty seconds for Iida to realize what they were thinking, and when he did his eyes widened and he shook his head.

“Not that kind of physical intimacy!” Iida said, waving his hands in front of him. That just seemed to amuse his friends even more and he really hoped they never told you that this conversation happened (but given how close you were with Midoriya he really wasn’t going to hold his breath). “I want to, you know, I’d like to initiate… you know, when you see couples? And they’re not being inappropriate but they’re showing more affection than I’m comfortable doing in public, do you know what I mean?” He was gesturing vaguely and his voice was trailing off towards the end of his sentence, but judging by the way Midoriya’s face lit up, Iida knew he’d made some semblance of sense.

“Oh, Iida, you want to be cuddly with (Y/N)! Oh thank goodness, when you said you’d failed as a boyfriend I thought you’d cheated on them,” Midoriya said, scratching the back of his head. Iida started sputtering, but Midoriya held his hands up in front of his face before his glasses wearing friend could say anything. “I know you wouldn’t though! It’s okay! But it’s that kind of physical intimacy. That’s… that’s a really weird way of putting it. You can just call it PDA, you know? Normal people usually do.”

Iida must have looked as confused as he felt, because Todoroki followed up with, “Public displays of affection,” before draping his arm over the back of the couch and just over Midoriya’s shoulders so that his fingertips were ever so slightly brushing the fabric of Midoriya’s shirt. Now it was the green haired young man’s turn to blush a soft pink. Iida couldn’t help raising an eyebrow and Todoroki cleared his throat. “This… is an example. Of that. I’m giving you an example.”

Well, at least now Iida had something to tell you later. That would hopefully cancel out whatever Midoriya was going to tell you had happened at his apartment today.

“Wait, hold on, if you’re not comfortable doing that in public why are you researching it?” Midoriya asked, his face still pink while he made no move to shy away from his roommate. Iida fidgeted slightly in the chair, relaxing his posture just a bit. He’d been raised with certain expectations in place; to be a proper young man, he had to treat his partners with respect and dignity and treasure them where they are meant to be treasured. He was taught to keep private things private, at home, where it was safe and sacred and just that much more intimate because it was shared between the two of them. That’s how his parents had been, a very ‘behind closed doors’ sort of couple. Hell, Iida could count the number of times he’d seen his own parents kiss on one hand! But he knew you’d been raised differently; that for you, casual intimacy was ingrained into who you were—and he wanted to be part of that too. Even if it was slightly unnerving for him.

Thinking about you brought a smile to Iida’s face, and he looked back down at his hands as they sat folded in his lap. “Because… I know (Y/N) would like it. And I want them to be happy.” He could imagine how you’d look, how happy you’d be in his arms at the movies, or with your hands wrapped around his arm while you were walking in the park, or any other scenario from the multitudes of books he’s read and movies he’s watched over the last few weeks. And while the images were perfect in his head... “But every time I try I always manage to mess it up. And then I try harder and I end up making it worse!” Iida dropped his head low and brought his hands up to cover his face.

“I don’t know, maybe… just kinda go with the flow?” Midoriya suggested, and then Iida felt a hand resting on his shoulder. He took a deep breath and looked up into the freckled face of his best friend, who had moved from his spot beside Todoroki to come and sit cross legged on the floor in front of Iida with a smile on his face. “Just do what feels natural. Or, you know, don’t try so hard with (Y/N). Literally everyone knows how much you guys like each other.”

“To quote Bakugou, the two of you are, ‘Absolutely disgusting with all that lovey-dovey bullshit’,” Todoroki piped up, doing a very deadpan impersonation of the hot-tempered blond. Midoriya snorted, and Iida felt himself crack a small smile. Todoroki then continued, “And if Bakugou can tell how much the two of you like each other, then it’s probably a good idea to listen to Midoriya about this. (Y/N) picked you, after all, knowing who you are and how you handle situations. Even after what happened in the dorms on—”

“Todoroki! Do not finish that sentence,” Iida said, waving his hands again. He had absolutely no desire to talk about the reason the three of them were currently required to live in an off campus apartment together. He’d much rather focus on the problem at hand. Midoriya snorted louder this time, and Todoroki went back to his book. “It’s not that I’m doubting my feelings for (Y/N) or their feelings for me, it’s about… it’s about me having no idea how I’m supposed to ‘Go with the flow’ because every time I try I just get so flustered it ends in disaster and I don’t know how I’m supposed to get better!”

Todoroki dogeared his page and closed his book once more, letting it rest on his lap. “Practice makes perfect,” he said. “You just have to keep working at it. Eventually you’ll get better. Less stiff. Like when you oil your joints to keep yourself in prime condition.” Midoriya coughed to cover what Iida knew was a laugh, and the blue haired man rolled his eyes.

“Practice with who? There are only so many times I can knock over a table when I go out with (Y/N). We’re running out of restaurants we can go to,” he said. It was starting to become a problem, honestly. He thought for a moment, studying his friends, before an idea started to take shape in his mind. These were his roommates, he trusted them, and they were some of the people who he was most comfortable with aside from you… Maybe this could work. “Unless… I practiced with the two of you?”

“With us? No way!” Midoriya’s eyes were wider than what seemed to be humanly possible, and Todoroki was shaking his head. Iida moved from his chair to come and kneel in front of his friends and place his hands on their shoulders.

Iida looked between his friends, his lips set in a firm line. “Think of (Y/N)! Do it for them!” He encouraged them. “Please? You’re the only ones who can help me now.” There was a tense silence for a moment as Midoriya and Todoroki looked to each other and communicated silently. Todoroki broke eye contact first, and his brows were furrowed as he turned to stare Iida down.

“No one tells anyone that we’re doing this,” Todoroki said, and Iida knew he’d won.

Now all he had to do was put his research into practice. And hopefully not cover his friends in their food when he tried.

——

You walked into one of the coffee shops on campus, the cozy one beside the library (not the overpriced one next to the dorms or the super busy one in the community centre) on your way to get some studying done. Your afternoon class was cancelled (Professor Nemuri had emailed the class halfway through your last lecture and you almost cried out of pure relief) and with two tests and a paper due next week you were going to make the most of the time you had. Or, well, you’d try and that was the best you could really do. But you had your headphones in as you got in line to order, you thought of one way you could try and keep yourself on track; invite your boyfriend to come and study with you. You knew his class schedule and he didn’t have anything this afternoon so he might be willing to help you get more done than you would on your own. So you took your phone out of your pocket, moving forward as the person in front of you got closer to the counter, and typed out a message.

‘Hey, my afternoon class got cancelled, wanna come study with me in the library? Study snacks are on me this time!’ you sent, and just like usual you had a response almost right away.

‘Ah, I’m sorry to hear about that (Y/N)! I would be more than happy to study with you this weekend, but I’m afraid I have plans today.’ You frowned, but you knew it was a little last minute anyway. And only your boyfriend would be sad to hear that class was cancelled. You sent off a few sad faces but told him that it was okay, and put your phone back in your pocket. The line moved forward again, and you couldn’t help but look around the coffee shop while you waited. There wasn’t anything too interesting happening at the occupied tables and you almost sighed out loud before you noticed a familiar mop of red and white hair in the back on the side opposite you.

There he was, Tenya Iida, your socially conservative boyfriend, practically cuddled up with his roommates (and your friends) Midoriya and Todoroki in a small booth on the other side of the coffee shop. If any of them looked up and over they would definitely see you, but they seemed to be pretty engrossed in whatever they were talking about so you doubted they’d notice unless you caught their attention. You wished you were a little closer so you could hear what they were saying.

You saw Tenya, the pink flush on his cheeks visible even though he was on the other side of the coffee shop, hesitantly reach over and place his hand on top of Midoriya’s own. You could swear your own jaw dropped and your mouth hung open while you watched. You felt a small pang in your chest watching him hold Midoriya’s hand, and you bit your bottom lip. Tenya was allowed to do whatever he wanted, he was his own person and you trusted him, but seeing him openly affectionate with Midoriya? In public? When you knew how private your boyfriend was and how uncomfortable PDA made him? Your mind was swirling with questions that you absolutely wanted answers to and as much as you were going to deny it, you were just a tiny bit jealous. But you definitely didn’t take any pleasure when, not even a moment later, something Todoroki said caused Tenya to jump and his drink to spill down his front. Nope, no pleasure at all (But you’d remember to give him some stain remover next time you saw him).

You heard someone clear their throat, and you turned from the sight capturing your attention to see the cashier looking expectantly at you. You moved forward, scratching at the side of your neck as you placed your order and paid for it. You moved off to the side and waited patiently for the barista to finish preparing your drink for you—they were as quick as usual, and you couldn’t help but look back to where your boyfriend and his roommates were sitting as you were leaving. They looked completely normal now, no evidence anything had happened except for a small pile of napkins you could see at the edge of the table. You pursed your lips as you left and headed to the library.

But even after you’d secured a table and laid everything out to attempt to have a productive afternoon (before falling victim to Netflix) you couldn’t get the image out of your head and the more you thought about it, the less sense it made. You’d long given up on your test prep and had been staring at a blank laptop screen for the last half hour. Or, well, it felt like half an hour (but had only been about seven minutes). This was going to be a long afternoon and it had only just begun.

Just what the hell had happened?

——

You caught Tenya with Midoriya and Todoroki once again, a few days later, when you were picking up dinner in the dining hall for you and Tsuyu. The two of you were going to binge a new anime together and it was your turn to grab food while she was getting everything set up for your hangout session tonight.

It was the same kind of thing this time, except instead of holding Midoriya’s hand Tenya was attempting to put his arm around Todoroki’a shoulders. It looked so awkward and yet so endearing, but that didn’t stop you frowning. You felt your stomach twist and turn as you wrapped your arms around yourself as you watched your boyfriend talk and laugh and look so much more comfortable and relaxed than you’d ever seen him in public. You couldn’t write this off as a one time thing (which is what you’d done with the coffee shop incident, and was how you justified not talking to him about it before now) because he just looked so natural sitting there.

Part of you really wanted to walk up to them and find out what the hell was going on, but you didn’t. Tsuyu was waiting, after all, and the rational part of you argued that there had to be a good explanation for all of this. Plus, even if it wasn’t with you, seeing your normally stiff boyfriend so relaxed was something that made you the tiniest bit happy. So, with the knots still stretching and twisting your stomach, you went and grabbed the requested food and spent your night with your roommate. There had to be some kind of logical explanation… right?

——

Things finally came to head about a week later when you and Tenya were spending a Saturday night in your apartment. Tsuyu was out with her girlfriend so you had the place to yourself, and you’d invited Tenya over for dinner to spend time together. And, if you could figure out the right way to word it, to find out why he’d been acting so strange with his roommates.

The two of you made dinner together—or, well, you threw whatever leftovers were in your fridge together to make a semi-decent meal so you wouldn’t have to order in again while the two of you decided on something to watch on Netflix. You’d kept yourself busy from the moment you’d buzzed him up, pouring drinks and getting food ready and only speaking to ask him to hand you something or answer something he asked. Tenya kept moving closer to you, but you kept finding reasons to move away from him; until you figured out how you were going to ask him why he was suddenly cuddle buddies with his roommate, you didn’t want to risk letting him see any kind of physical indicator that you were jealous… er, not jealous, but curious. That’s what you were telling yourself.

You managed to get dinner cooked (and the parts you made were actually pretty tasty this time) and the two of you sunk down into the living room couch to watch a movie (because Tenya refused to let you eat in bed so you had to make do until your food was finished) with Tenya occupying the middle and you claiming your favourite side of the couch and the best mismatched pillows to curl up with. The two of you had finally settled on Whisper of the Heart with a promise of watching Avatar later on (“I must find out what happens at the Boiling Rock, (Y/N)!”) after you’d finished eating. But you didn’t even make it ten minutes into the movie before Tenya was placing his plate on the coffee table in front of you both.

“I can tell something is bothering you,” Tenya said. You pursed your lips but didn’t say anything, and he sighed. “Please tell me what’s going on. Is it your paper? I meant it when I said your conclusion was beautifully written, and I’m sure Professor Yamada is going to agree with me.”

Well, you couldn’t have asked for a better way to broach the subject if you tried. You put your own plate down on the coffee table as well (balancing it on your lap was probably not a good idea this time) and turned to face your boyfriend before you opened your mouth and words started rumbling out. “Look, I know that it’s none of my business and I have no idea what was going on but I saw what you were doing with Midoriya and Todoroki,” you said. You began twisting your hands in your lap. Tenya brought his own hand up to cover his mouth as he stared at you. “In the coffee shop, Tenya. And then again in the dining hall in the community centre. I saw you guys… you know. Being a lot closer in public than I’ve ever seen you before with anyone and it’s just been bugging me, Tenya, because you told me you don’t like that stuff.”

“...it was for you,” he admitted. His voice was quiet, and he’d moved his hand down to rest on his chin. His body slumped forward, and you watched your boyfriend’s shoulders sag even further than they already were. You shifted closer to him, scooting a little farther down the couch.

“I don’t get it.” You were a little unclear as to what you had to do with him holding someone else’s hand in public. Especially because it was someone else’s hand, not yours. Tenya sighed.

“Look, what I mean to say is… they were helping me practice. For you,” he told you, taking his glasses off and pinching the bridge of his nose. You knew your eyebrows were up near your hairline, and his slowly reddening cheeks exposed just how embarrassed he was. “I wanted to be more comfortable showing you affection in public and Midoriya and Todoroki were helping me do that. So I could be a better boyfriend for you and show you the affection I know you want and deserve. And so I can stop knocking tables over when we go out.” That got a small laugh out of you, and you saw some of the tension slip out of Tenya’s shoulders as he sat up and relaxed against the back of the couch.

“You’re already the best boyfriend I could ask for,” you told him, and you held your hand out towards him with your palm up. He placed his own on top of it and threaded your fingers together before giving it a light squeeze. “Just because you’d rather be cuddly in private doesn’t mean I think you’re a bad boyfriend. I want to respect your boundaries too. But it’s really sweet that you want to do that for me, even if you did use Midoriya and Todoroki to help you do that. In public. Where I saw you.”

Tenya tilted his head to the side, his eyes studying your expression carefully, before a smile started turning the corners of his lips up. “Were you jealous, love?” he asked, and you avoided his eyes. He squeezed your hand again and brought it up to his lips. That got you to look at him, and he pressed a soft kiss to each of your knuckles. “Midoriya’s hand wasn’t even close to being as nice as yours. His were a little chapped, I’m worried about them. Maybe you should get him some of that lotion you use for his birthday.”

This was the Tenya you knew in private, who did enjoy showing you love and care and affection (you know, once you’d both passed the whole awkward first stage of dating and he realized that you were in it for the long term with him, even after the Spider Incident™ and the boys in his year being asked to move into private residences) and you couldn’t help but lean closer to him and curl up next to his side. It was ridiculously sweet that he’d done that for you.

And, of course, now that you’d both talked it out you decided it was time to have a little fun with him. “So that was why you’ve been so weird lately? I thought midterms had caused your wires to get crossed,” you said. You smiled at him while he rolled his eyes. “Or maybe the coffee you spilled on yourself fried your motherboard.”

“Oh you’re very original, (Y/N), so funny,” he said. “I’ll have you know I got that stain out, thank you. And it was tea, you know I don’t drink coffee.” Which, as someone who enjoyed 8am lectures, you had literally no idea how he survived on tea and water. Your boyfriend was definitely some kind of robot. You had yet to prove it, but no one could function as well as he did and not be at least part machine (not that you minded, exactly).

“We really should get you a waterproof case. Maybe an otterbox? They come in all sorts of cute colours,” you told him, reaching forward to grab your plate. Dinner was probably lukewarm at best at this point, but you’d eat it either way with minimal complaining. Tenya did the same with his plate, a smile on his face as he stayed close to you—but still made sure there was enough room so you didn’t elbow each other.

You both ate in comfortable silence for a moment, before another thought occurred to you. “You know, I only saw you and the boys twice… just how long did this go on for?” you asked, and Tenya cleared his throat and grabbed the remote to play the movie. You tried to grab it, but he moved it out of reach and, not wanting to risk dropping your dinner, you elbowed him in the side before he played the movie and turned the volume up loud enough to ensure silence, at least for a little while.

You got an answer out of him later, when the two of you were laying in bed watching some life changing field trips with Zuko, and you couldn’t help but feel a rush of love for the man with his arms wrapped around you and whispering a million and one questions about how the Fire Nation prison and law enforcement systems must work because all he wanted was for you to be happy. You’d never want to ask for anything more.

——

Bonus! Epilogue:

You and Tenya were out for lunch on campus with Midoriya and Todoroki a few days later, your boyfriend proudly holding your hand above the table as you talked about funny stories from Midoriya’s EMR course (“Professor Shuzenji asked us what we would do when we respond to a call and find someone with a stab wound and someone seriously shouted ‘Call 911!’ and she actually yelled back ‘YOU ARE 911!’”) and you couldn’t help but smile and be thankful for your boyfriend and your friends and how lucky you are. But as the conversation dwindled, you also knew some words were in order with the two men across from you and Tenya.

“So Tenya told me what you guys were doing. You know, how you were canoodling my boyfriend,” you told the two of them, and you couldn’t help snorting just a little when Midoriya started sputtering and Todoroki dropped his chopsticks.

“We agreed we wouldn’t tell anyone!” Midoriya said, looking at Tenya with his brows furrowed and his mouth pulled down into a frown. You could feel Tenya’s shoulders shake next to you, and it made the smile on your face get even bigger.

“Hey, we were doing it to help you,” Todoroki said. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Iida asked us, if I remember correctly, and we were trying to be good friends.” Tenya shrugged, putting his free hand in the air.

“Yeah he did, but you still agreed to it. And I know you guys and I know you had to be making fun of him too. So if I’m gonna poke fun at him for it then it’s only fair you guys get some of that too,” you said. You leaned forward in your seat, smiling at the green haired male, and then at the two-toned Todoroki in front of you. “So who are we going to start with first? Clammy hands Todoroki, or Midoriya ‘I don’t know how to take care of my skin’ Izuku?” And then you started cackling loudly as they started to protest and draw the attention of everyone else at nearby tables.

Oh, this was going to entertain you for a long time and you were going to love every minute of it.

#iida x reader #tenya x reader #tenya iida x reader #iida tenya x reader #bnha x reader #bnha fic #bnha #bnha scenarios #bnha imagines #reader insert #x reader #university au #college au #let me know what you think!

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starvonnie · 5 years ago

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Do You Remember?

Day 1 of Megarod week! Prompt: Faction Rating: Explicit Fandoms: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types Relationship: Megatron/Rodimus | Rodimus Prime Characters: Megatron (Transformers),Hot Rod (Transformers),Rodimus | Rodimus Prime,Impactor (Transformers) Additional Tags: Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Drinking, Shower Sex, Size Difference, Stomach Bulge, One Night Stands, kind of Also on AO3

“You’ve got an admirer,” Impactor said with a smile, gesturing with his helm over Megatron’s shoulder.

He turned, curiously, to meet bright blue optics for just a moment before the fiery little mech whipped his helm around. He tried to look fascinated with a stain on the wall. He wasn’t a very good actor. Good thing he was cute.

Impactor chuckled. “Go buy him a drink. He’s totally your type.”

“I don’t have a type.”

“Then all the more reason to go buy him a drink.”

“You’re not gonna drop this are you?”

“Nope.”

Megatron sighed.

“C’mon, mech, when was the last time you got some action?”

Megatron rolled his optics. “I don’t care about that.”

“So you’re telling me if that hot piece of aft came over here and said ‘take me home and frag me’ you’d say ‘no?’”

Megatron sighed again. “He’s not going to do that, though.”

“Well, no, probably not. You’ve gotta pretend to be interested in their personality for a while and subtly ask them to frag you. Either way, if you don’t go buy him a drink I will.”

Megatron looked back his way again, and again the mech quickly turned his helm the other way. If only so Impactor wouldn’t get to him… “Alright. Wish me luck.”

His spark was in his throat as he made his way across the bar. His usually steady hands shook. He felt like at any second, he might keel over from nervousness alone. He was worried that his voicebox wouldn’t work when he tried it, but when Matrix-blue optics found him once more, holding his gaze this time, he felt his fears melting away.

“Can I buy you a drink?” Megatron asked.

The flame-coloured mech smirked. “Only if you let me buy you one, too.”

Megatron found himself smiling. “I suppose I could allow that.”

He patted the stool next to him, and when Megatron sat, he offered him his hand to shake. “Hot Rod.”

“Megatron.” He shook his hand—and his dwarfed Hot Rod’s. He was so tiny.

“It suits you.”

Megatron glanced down at the flame decal on Hot Rod’s chest. “As does yours.”

Hot Rod waved the bartender over, and they each put their orders in on the others’ tab. The bartender looked a little confused at that, but smiled at them and got to making their drinks.

“You like sweet things then?” Megatron asked, gesturing to the fizzy, hot pink drink presented to Hot Rod in a flourish.

“Listen, I’m not here to taste the engex.” He made a face. “This,” he lifted the drink, “is just an excuse to make bad decisions.”

“Am I the first one of those bad decisions?” Megatron asked with a mischievous glint in his optic. He took a sip while Hot Rod laughed. He had a laugh that made Megatron want to make a fool of himself if it meant he could hear it again.

Hot Rod shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. I suppose whether or not it’s good or bad is up to you. Seems like a pretty good idea so far.” He smiled, cocksure, but beneath that there was an endearing shyness. “So… you come here often?”

Megatron chuckled. “Maybe not ‘often,’ but whenever Impactor and I have some time off together this is usually where we go.”

“I’m guessing Impactor is the one currently making out with a minibot?” He gestured amusedly back to their booth, and sure enough, Impactor had a lapful of a little purple bot. They seemed oblivious to the rest of the world.

Megatron sighed. “Yeah, that would be him. I think he told me to come over here just to get rid of me. He said there was a little speedster over here staring at me.”

Hot Rod scoffed. “Hey, I’m not small you’re huge!”

“But you were staring at me.”

Hot Rod’s face turned nearly the same colour as his drink. “Sorry, you just… have a really pretty smile.”

It was Megatron’s turn to blush.

“Sorry, I… don’t really do this much,” Hot Rod admitted. “Well… more like ever. It’s not really my scene.”

“Nor do I. Like I said, Impactor was the one to get me to come over.”

Hot Rod’s spoiler dipped a little.

“Not that I wouldn’t have, I just don’t really flirt much, but you are cute so I, I probably would have come over. If I were. Like that.”

Hot Rod giggled. “Don’t blow a gasket. I get it.” He smirked. “You think I’m cute, though, hm?” He scooted a little closer on his barstool, leaning in, “Because I think you’re—” Hot Rod flailed as he slipped off his stool, spilling his drink and falling forward onto Megatron. His whole face and the tips of his spoiler turned a bright red. “Sorry!’

“Careful.” Megatron helped right him. “I think that’s the fastest anyone’s ever fallen for me.”

“I think I’m going to go crawl into a hole and die now.”

Megatron laughed. “That’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

“I’m a bit dramatic.” He managed a shy smile, but it fell when he glanced around him, seeing other bots looking at him.

“Everyone’s too drunk to care,” Megatron said quietly, trying to reassure him. “Half of them probably can’t remember the last five seconds.”

Hot Rod laughed, still ducking his helm in embarrassment. “Maybe we… get a booth? Something not so open?”

“If privacy is what you want… we could take this back to my place.”

“Oh! I, uh, I…”

“Or not. No pressure.”

“No, I, I want to. Yeah, let’s… let’s do it!”

Hot Rod paid his tab and apologized for the spill, and in his excitement Megatron nearly forgot to pay his own tab. Once they were both settled up, they made their way outside. The cool air quickly chilled their frames and Hot Rod started to shiver.

“Cold?”

Hot Rod nodded, denta chattering.

“May I?” Megatron held his arm out, hovering, until Hot Rod snuggled up to him and he wrapped his arm around his shoulders. “It’s not a long walk.”

Hot Rod put his arm around Megatron’s waist. “Good. I think I’m gonna need a real workout to warm up.”

Despite the chill in the air, Megatron’s cooling fans came roaring on. Hot Rod giggled and gave him a half-amused, half-sultry look.

A few blocks of mild embarrassment and comfortable silence later, and they were at his building and riding up the elevator.

“It’s nothing fancy,” Megatron said.

Hot Rod shrugged. “You got a berth?”

Megatron nodded.

“Then I think it’ll do just fine.”

In every movie Megatron had ever seen, when they brought someone home, it was a fast, steamy frag. But once inside, he just held Hot Rod’s hand while the little speedster gave him a soft look.

“We don’t have to interface if you don’t want to,” Megatron said. “I just wanted to be alone with you.”

Hot Rod blushed. “I mean… I want to, if you’re down.”

“I wouldn’t be opposed.”

“Geez, don’t sound so excited,” Hot Rod teased. He beckoned Megatron down. Megatron obliged him, turning his helm slightly since he assumed he wanted to whisper something to him, but he had assumed wrong. Happily, mind you, since he’d pressed soft lips to his.

Once they’d touched, he understood. He wanted to pull Hot Rod close. He wanted their heated plating flush. He wanted to hear Hot Rod moan his name and beg him for more. And his new friend got right to it. His hand slid right down over Megatron’s modesty panel, revving his engine.

Megatron deepened their kiss, focusing on how Hot Rod’s glossa slid against his own. But all the focus in the world couldn’t have kept his spike from springing out into the waiting hands of Hot Rod.

Hot Rod smiled as he pulled away slightly. “Look at you. Hard for me already?” His hand was almost comically small, stroking his shaft.

“Who wouldn’t be?” Megatron kissed him again. He caressed down Hot Rod’s frame, pausing just above his heated panels. He stifled a chuckle when Hot Rod made a quiet, impatient noise. He teased the edge just a little longer, before sliding two fingers between legs spreading for him. He’d barely felt the steaming metal before his finger was sliding through wet folds.

Hot Rod gasped and then ground against his hand. He mouthed at Megatron in an almost-kiss, but it was clear his processor had dropped to his array.

Megatron just barely pressed in, hearing Hot Rod hold his ventilations, then right back out. He circled his anterior node a few times and whispered right in his audial. “The berth awaits us.”

“Tease,” Hot Rod said. But he smiled and took hold of Megatron’s hand—the one that wasn’t wet with his lubricants—and pulled him along. He backed himself up against the berth, letting himself fall back onto it as Megatron came up over him.

Hot Rod stopped him, and when Megatron looked at his face there was a little fear in his optics. “Um… I’m gonna need you to, uh… work me up to… that.” He nodded towards his twitching spike.

“Of course,” Megatron said, his voice deep and rumbling.

“Not that I can’t take that size, because I can.”

Megatron chuckled. “Even if you could take me right away, it’s much more fun to tease you until you beg me for it.”

“Do your worst, Megatron.” Hot Rod smirked up at him; a challenge. “Well, maybe not your worst. Your restrained worst. Just to start. After that you can get as rough with me as you want.”

In an act that was anything but rough, Megatron kissed up his jawline. “I’m not so sure I want to be rough with you.”

Hot Rod shrugged. “I’m down for literally anything. I’ve agreed to a lot of stuff tonight that I’ve never done before, and so far, it’s been amazing.”

Megatron smiled. “It has.”

He kissed him before he finally pushed a finger into that warm, welcoming valve. He captured Hot Rod’s first moan in their kiss, and then the second as he pushed deeper. The third he let escape, as his fingertip brushed his ceiling nodes. It was surprisingly quiet. Given the flames blazing across his chest, he assumed everything he did was quick, brash, and loud. Just like fire.

In one way, he was fire. Every sound, movement, and every glazed-over glance he gave Megatron had crackling heat racing through his veins. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find soot coating his plating. And he wouldn’t have cared one bit.

Hot Rod moaned and clawed at Megatron’s back. He crooked his finger and pulled more of those sweet sounds from his small frame. He was dripping everywhere and it took a great deal of restraint to not slip his spike in that wet heat and rut into him.

“I can take more,” Hot Rod whispered.

“You’re sure?”

He nodded emphatically. “I’m not as breakable as I look.”

Megatron couldn’t help the rev of his engine as he pushed a second finger in. It was a snug fit, but Hot Rod shuddered with pleasure and rocked his hips forward. Each press in made a wet sound as his fingertips met with ceiling nodes and a gasp from Hot Rod.

All the while, he kissed and nipped at his neck. Each bite would have Hot Rod holding his ventilations, until fanged denta released him, relatively unscathed. Tomorrow it would be easy to guess what Hot Rod had been up to the night before. Same with Megatron, if you looked at his back. His bright hands left golden trails where his fingers dug in.

Megatron scissored his fingers, testing his valve. It opened easily. Hot Rod groaned and his optics rolled back into his helm. His biolights pulsed with his arousal, and their position made it seem like they were pointing down to where Megatron’s hand was splitting him open.

“You’re sure you don’t do this often?” Megatron kept his voice sultry as he asked this. He quirked up a brow and kept kissing at his neck, jaw, and collarbone.

“Well, I… it’s not like I haven’t with y’know… big bots but—ah…” He took a few deep, shuddering ventilations. “On my own, I like to—nhh!... push myself.” He smiled and bit his lip.

“Is that so?” Megatron didn’t wait for an answer before capturing his lips in a kiss and biting his lower lips himself. He got bitten back as he pulled away.

Hot Rod smiled up at him mischievously. He easily stole that expression with the crook of his fingers. He gave him a little pout and then said, “I’m ready. Get on your back.”

“Oh?”

Hot Rod guided him to where he wanted him, straddling him with lubricant-soaked thighs. The red biolights ringing his valve were a pretty invitation for his spike. He was a little jealous, but only a little. If he couldn’t have his own, he’d enjoy Hot Rod’s as that light swallowed him.

“Think you can handle me?” Hot Rod taunted when he caught Megatron staring.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

He smirked. “Oh, I know I can take this. But I dunno about you.” He ran his wet folds along the underside of Megatron’s spike. It twitched involuntarily.

“Then let’s find out, shall we?”

Hot Rod let just the tip slip in. “Oh… we shall.” He sank down on Megatron’s spike with a soft moan. He took a few deep ventilations with a hand on his abdomen. He stroked the bulge Megatron’s spike made. “Primus, you’re huge.”

“Am I hurting you?”

Hot Rod shook his helm, smiling wide. “Quite the opposite.”

He lifted up a bit then sunk back down a few times, watching his armour flex. His field flared with lust as he picked up the pace, smiling clumsily at Megatron all the while.

Megatron gripped his calves and gave little thrusts up to meet him. He let his helm come to rest and shut his optics, sighing with pleasure. He had to focus a bit on not overloading too soon because, well… it had been a while. It didn’t help that every erotic noise Hot Rod made just added to his arousal.

Hot Rod bit his lip and picked up the pace a bit, leaning forward. Every time he took Megatron’s spike to the hilt, he would grind his anterior node against Megatron’s plating. It arced and had Hot Rod chasing that feeling. Faster, harder. His warm, snug valve swallowed his spike again and again until Hot Rod could do nothing but pant and hold on. Megatron kept pace with him, feeling his overload building all too-quickly, when Hot Rod suddenly cried out and threw his helm back. His optics flashed white and his cooling fans roared as he slumped forward.

Ventilating deeply, Hot Rod said, “Frag… I needed that.” With shaking arms, he lifted himself just enough to see Megatron’s face. “Sorry. It’s, uh… been a while.”

Megatron chuckled. “It’s fine. I was getting close, myself.”

“Don’t worry.” Hot Rod smiled sloppily. “I’ll getcha there, too. Just need a minute to rest.”

“Take your time. I have nowhere to be.” He stroked up Hot Rod’s waist, delighting in the shiver of his frame. He even got a few gasps as he kept his lust alive, but it turned into a flinch when his fingertips brushed his spoiler.

“Not there right now,” Hot Rod said. “Normally I like having my spoiler touched. It feels real good. But right after an overload its really sensitive.”

Megatron let his hands slide back down to his waist and then he hugged him. “Remind me of that in a few minutes.”

“Heh. Will do.” Hot Rod nuzzled against his chest.

Megatron twitched his spike, getting a deserved glare from Hot Rod.

He smiled. “Sorry, honest mistake.”

“Uh huh.” Hot Rod rolled his optics. “You’re just mad that you’re still horny.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Hot Rod blew a raspberry. “If you wanna go again so badly you gotta take over.”

Megatron shrugged. “Alright. Hold on, then.”

With a smile and a bite to his lower lip, Hot Rod wrapped his arms around him. As soon as he was secure, Megatron flipped them. He took a moment to admire the pretty package beneath him. Staring up at him with eager, lustful optics. That sight alone would be enough to make him overload.

“You’re beautiful,” Megatron said a little too honestly.

Somehow, Hot Rod’s face managed to turn a deeper shade of red. He hid behind his hands, but Megatron could still see his beaming smile.

“Shut up.”

Megatron chuckled. “But you are. And right now, you’re being adorable.”

Hot Rod peeked out from his hiding place, and that only served to make him look cuter. In a meek voice, he said, “You’re beautiful, too.”

Megatron rolled his optics and shook his helm with a small smile. “You don’t need to lie to me, Hot Rod. I don’t expect a compliment back.

“But you are,” Hot Rod insisted. “Your smile, your optics… not to mention you’re just… rugged. Like, in a really hot way.” His spoiler flapped against the berth, trying to dispel heat. “I’m not good with words.”

Megatron kissed him to spare him further embarrassment. But also because he just wanted to kiss him. There was something about this little speedster. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he knew that he wanted to be close to him.

The smell of ozone and wafting steam surrounded them. He tasted the remnants of Hot Rod’s overly sweet drink on his lips, and what would have been too much to drink himself, made him kiss him deeper. Really savouring it. He savoured the feel of Hot Rod’s hands, too. All over him. They dragged electricity along his plating and coaxed him into a gentle rhythm that had Hot Rod sighing happily.

His ventilations a little laboured, Megatron said, “It’s been a while for me, too.”

Hot Rod laughed. “You gonna blow your load already?”

Megatron chuckled. “Not right away, but soon, yes.”

“Take it slow, then.” Hot Rod pulled him down for a kiss. “You feel really good… I wanna savour it.”

“Says the mech who came after two minutes.”

“It was like four.”

Megatron laughed and kissed him one more time. “I’m fine with taking my time. The night’s still young.”

Hot Rod relaxed into his berth with a sigh. He looked up at Megatron with big, round, sparkling optics, his arms splayed out on either side. Open, and vulnerable. There was this air of trust in his field that made him glad he’d been the one to pick him up from that seedy bar. Most of them would have taken him in and then tossed him out, but Megatron, well… he really hoped this wouldn’t be the last time he got to see him.

It had been a long time since he’d interfaced at all, but even longer since he’d done something so… slow. Gentle. Watching Hot Rod’s face, soft and languid with pleasure, he wanted to call it love.

It wasn’t, obviously. Love at first sight, or even first frag, didn’t exist. Lust? Infatuation? Of course. But this felt like more. He saw what could easily become love. Like a new, exciting path had opened up in his life. And he knew it was foolish to even dream of anything beyond this night, but hope so rarely found his spark.

So, he enjoyed the moment. He slowly fragged him, drawing out all these soft sounds. He wanted to kiss him, but then he wouldn’t hear them. Or see his optics flutter closed. Or see him shift just a little bit closer.

And there was his spoiler.

This time, when his hands met the sensitive metal, Hot Rod moaned and squirmed. He gripped the sheets and arched off of the berth, moaning Megatron’s name.

“Good?” Megatron checked in, just in case.

“So good.” Hot Rod met his gaze briefly before another caress of his spoiler had his optics closing with a long, low moan.

Megatron quickened his pace just a little. He leaned down to use his mouth, instead, and when his glossa swirled around the pointed tip of his spoiler, Hot Rod rolled his hips to match Megatron’s rhythm. He left more scratches on Megatron’s back as another overload suddenly hit him, arching further and gasping.

His calipers cycled down on Megatron’s girth. He moaned and thrust erratically. Hot Rod’s calipers rippled around his spike, pulling him deeper and deeper until he bottomed out, transfluid gushing out around his spike. He thrust a few more times until Hot Rod had milked him of all that he had.

Being careful not to crush Hot Rod, Megatron rolled off of him.

Hot Rod was left gaping and dripping. Out of breath, he said, “I think you’re gonna make me walk funny tomorrow.” He gave Megatron a wobbly smile. “Not complaining.”

Megatron chuckled. He rubbed Hot Rod’s belly, still marvelling how he’d managed to take his spike without that much difficulty.

“I didn’t hurt you, right?”

Hot Rod shook his helm. “That was one of the best frags of my life.”

Megatron couldn’t help but smirk. “I try.”

“Can we try again?”

Megatron chuckled again. “How about we get cleaned up, instead? It’s a small shower, so you can use it first.”

“What? After fragging me into the berth you’re too shy to share a shower with me?” Hot Rod shook his helm. “Nah. We’re showering together. Because I wouldn’t mind getting a little dirtier before we get clean.”

“In that case…” Megatron got out of berth and swept a surprised Hot Rod up into his arms. He let out an endearing little squeak, and he hoped he didn’t mind when he nuzzled against him. He assumed not, since he nuzzled him back.

Why did this all feel so right?

The shower really was cramped. Even when Megatron was alone he found himself hitting his elbows against the wall. But with Hot Rod there, wanting to be close to him, it felt like the perfect amount of space.

Unfortunately, with the difference in their height, it made kissing next to impossible, but they found a way. Though after a few, Megatron had to be the responsible one and actually clean the fluids from their frames. It didn’t help that Hot Rod curved his frame in just the right way to get his hands where he wanted them. And that he stuck his aft out so it rubbed up against his array. All that paired with the sultry looks over his shoulder, and it took all of Megatron’s willpower not to succumb to him.

The willpower that was cracking away.

“Insatiable, aren’t you?” Megatron purred in his audial.

“Just another quick frag,” Hot Rod temped him. His aft swayed in a figure eight. “You know you want to.”

When his valve cover snapped open and newer, warmer lubricants dripped down his panels, all his resolve vanished. Megatron easily picked Hot Rod up and impaled him on his length. He thrust into him, pressed Hot Rod into the tiled wall. His moans echoed around them and spurred him on.

He felt the bulge his spike made beneath his fingers, tight around Hot Rod’s waist. Nearly too much spike for his little frame. And yet, Hot Rod kept begging for more, more. Harder. Faster.

Oral lubricants dripped from Hot Rod’s open mouth. He tried to speak, but it was incoherent. Megatron couldn’t find the words either. He just pounded away at that welcoming valve.

The water made everything that much more slippery. The only secure hold he could find was wrapping his arms around Hot Rod’s waist, giving him everything he had. It was the complete opposite of their first time, but just as pleasurable. It wasn’t long before Megatron was spilling more fluids into Hot Rod’s tank, and hearing him moan his name.

A satiated Hot Rod was much easier to clean. He seemed too tired to do much of anything, so Megatron gently lathered and rinsed him, giving him a few pecks here and there.

Hot Rod’s smile was wobbly as he leaned much of his weight onto Megatron. He attempted to return the favour, but after a few clumsy tries Megatron kissed him and whispered, “Just relax. I’ll finish up soon and then we’ll settle down into berth. That is, if you wanted to stay the night?”

Hot Rod nodded. “If that’s alright with you.”

“As long as you’re alright with some cuddling.”

“I’m always down to cuddle.”

Megatron kissed him on his forehelm and got himself mostly clean. It was enough to be able to cuddle without grossing Hot Rod out, anyways. Though it seemed like he wouldn’t care either way. But he wanted to impress him. Or at least not be gross.

What a strange night.

Finishing up, Megatron shut the water off and dried the both of them off. Hot Rod once again made it a challenge by stopping him to kiss and just generally being quite handsy. It was hard to get annoyed, though. Hot Rod’s interruptions were hardly a nuisance. He’d let him distract him all day if that distraction was a hand stroking up his chest or a kiss to his chin when he stooped down.

Eventually, he managed to dry them both off, and then he picked Hot Rod up once more, laying him down in berth. He was barely in before Hot Rod was snuggled up to him. He cutely nuzzled against him, resting his helm on his chest.

They stayed like that for a while, just enjoying the silence and closeness. Megatron thought Hot Rod had fallen asleep when he spoke up.

“Do you believe in fate?” Hot Rod asked quietly.

Megatron sighed thoughtfully. “Well… I’m not one to believe that everything happens for a reason. I think, most of the time, what we think of as fate is just one of an infinite number of possibilities. Coincidences are bound to happen.”

“Oh…”

“Oh?”

Hot Rod shrugged. “I dunno if I believe-believe in fate, but something drew me to you. Beyond just your smile.”

Megatron gently stroked his spoiler.

“I think…” Hot Rod traced a crack in Megatron’s chest plating. “Some sparks are just drawn too each other and we don’t know why. I dunno. I’ve heard some bots say that maybe it’s because our atoms or whatever were close to each other when the universe was created.” When shy blue optics rose to meet steady red, he flushed pink. “Uh… not that I’m like saying we’re soulmates or anything like that—I barely know you—but… and maybe it’s just me, but something about you feels… special. Like I’m supposed to be here.”

“I don’t know about all that,” Megatron said, “but I can say that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed your company. And I want to see you again. Perhaps for an actual date?”

“Oh, well, I… I’m not gonna be in Tarn for long,” he admitted meekly.

The room felt noticeably heavier when both of their fields turned somber.

“Sorry, I… I live in Nyon. I just came here for a visit.”

That new path he’d imagined faded into shadows. He saw Hot Rod walk off without him, and it hurt more than it should.

Pushing past these new, dumb emotions that he shouldn’t even be having, he said “In that case… if you’re ever in Tarn, you know where to find me.”

Hot Rod gave him a bittersweet smile. “You can call me if you’re ever around Nyon, too. I wouldn’t exactly call it a great vacation spot, but I could show you around.”

“It’s not like I get much vacation.”

“Oh. Right. Is it? As bad as they say it is down there?”

Megatron’s optics dimmed.

“Sorry. You don’t have to answer that, it was rude of me to ask.”

“Let’s just say that I greatly prefer being above ground, here, with you.”

Hot Rod smiled. “Me, too.”

These two sparks would meet again, millions of years later. One hidden behind red and one behind violet. There was no rosy glow. No easy conversation. Not even a pleasantry passed between them. There was only a fusion cannon, levelled at the red that protected Hot Rod’s spark.

Should he say something? Did he even remember him? Had everything he said been a lie?

Hot Rod wasn’t given much time to think before a photon round ripped through his frame and left him floating, near-death, in the void of space. The Megatron he had met had long since died. That sweet smile was gone.

And Hot Rod was going to die. "You remember that night, don't you?"

Megatron sighed. He figured this would happen, eventually, but it had been so long he’d assumed Rodimus wanted to forget all about it. "That was a long time ago, Rodimus."

"But you remember it. Which means you've thought about it."

“We’re around each other enough. It’s hard not to think about it.”

“Okay, then, what are your thoughts on it?”

“I think it happened millions of years ago.”

“And? A ton of shit happened millions of years ago that I still remember clearly. That night is one of them. I had a good time and I thought you did, too. I would’ve gone for you if we lived in the same city, and now we’re here together, so…” Rodimus fidgeted.

“… So?”

“So… I dunno. It felt like fate that night and now that you’re here it really feels like fate. I just want to know where your head’s at on all of this. I’m kinda confused and feelings are stupid but they’re there.”

Megatron sighed. “How I feel doesn’t matter. I can’t give you what you want.”

“What do you think I want?”

“I can only assume you want what we both wanted back then, if you’re bringing it up.”

Rodimus didn’t say anything for a long time. When he did speak again, it was a question.

"Where do you think we'd be? If I stayed in Tarn?"

"Was that even an option for you?"

Rodimus shrugged. "If there were streets, I could live on them."

Megatron gave him a sympathetic look.

"I can't say your apartment wasn't... tempting. But I figured you wouldn’t want someone you just met trying to crash at your place every night." Rodimus chuckled awkwardly. “Plus, I… I didn’t want you looking down on me or taking pity on me.”

“You thought I’d look down upon you? I was a miner.”

“Yeah, but at least you had a job. At least you were useful.”

“Your existence is not defined by your usefulness.”

“I know. I do. But that’s what I thought at the time.”

An uncomfortable silence befell them. Eventually it proved to be too awkward for Rodimus.

"And, y’know, the fragging was pretty good, too." The smirk he gave Megatron was cocksure, but his reddening face betrayed him.

"You remember how good it was all these millions of years later?" Megatron teased.

"You don’t?"

Megatron looked wistful for a moment. “No. I remember. I don’t think I could ever forget.”

"I felt something special that night," Rodimus confessed. "If I'm honest, I've spent a lot of nights wondering how things might have been if I’d stayed. If I would have been a Decepticon, if the war would have even happened…” After a glance Megatron’s way, finding him staring, he chuckled nervously. “Uh, but, y’know, it’s nothing. We didn’t know each other.”

“I wanted to know you,” Megatron said.

“Well… you can now, if you want.” Rodimus took a half step towards him.

Megatron stifled every urge. To kiss him or hug him or do any number of things that required closeness. He couldn’t just take what he wanted, anymore. “Tell me what you want, Rodimus. If I’m on this ship I need you to be perfectly clear with me.”

Rodimus bit his lip. Then, in a rush, he said, “I want you to kiss me.”

“You’re sure?”

“Just do it.”

Megatron still hesitated, but his blue optics were his weakness. He couldn’t deny him. Not with him looking at him so softly. It was that same not-love look. Of almost-love. Of maybe-love. It was a look so full of potential and all Megatron had to do to unlock that potential was to take that step and kiss him.

Everything would change. That path opened up again, but it was harder to see far down it. It was still there, but obscured. A dangerous path. He couldn’t plan ahead for what lay beyond.

Megatron took that step, but it felt more like a leap.

Rodimus hadn’t expected much from the kiss, but sparks flew. His knees went weak when Megatron’s hand came up to cup his cheek. He could have so easily lost himself in everything this kiss was and let his frame lead the way, but their second meeting came rushing back with all of their baggage.

He pulled away.

Rodimus looked down, but didn’t step out of Megatron’s reach. “Sorry, I… just, after everything, it’s… it’s not as simple, now.”

“I know.” Megatron reluctantly released him. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no, it’s okay. Really.” Rodimus smiled at him and took a hold of both of his hands. “For us, or me, I guess, it’s easy. It’s ��yes.’ It’s ‘I want to try this.’ But for everyone else, it’s…”

“None of their business.”

“I know, but, it kind of is. ‘Cause you’re… you.”

“Mm…”

“But… if you want to try being together, I think it’s worth the scrutiny.”

“Are you okay with this?” Megatron rested a hand over Rodimus’ racing spark.

Rodimus kept that hand there. “Who hasn’t tried to kill their partner, right?” He bit his lip. “It’s… we were at war.”

“It was still wrong.”

“Yeah…”

Rodimus shook his helm, as if he was shaking those thoughts from his processor. “Okay. Since you’re trying to get a new start here or whatever, let’s just… start fresh. You and me. Like I’d stayed in Tarn and we got to see where this was going. Okay?”

“Alright.”

“I know it can’t be exactly like that, but… I just don’t want us carrying all this scrap around with us. We’re just two mechs in a relationship. ‘Mkay?”

“If that’s what you want, Rodimus.”

“I just wanna be with you. Because it really does just… feel right. I dunno why.”

Megatron lifted one of Rodimus’s hands to his mouth and left a gentle kiss. “Some sparks are just drawn to each other,” he whispered, “and we don’t know why.”

Rodimus smiled. “Poetic bastard.”

After sharing an amused and quiet moment, Megatron asked, “Are you still as insatiable as Hot Rod was?”

Rodimus grinned and pressed himself to Megatron. “Wanna find out?”

#megarod #rodimegs #megatron #rodimus #mtmte #valveplug #hannah dont look at this #starvonnie writes #megarodweek

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canumoveurseatup-no · 5 years ago

Text

dark room

summary: grow through what you go through.

(please read warnings and author’s note before continuing to read)

wc: 10.5k

pairings: dad!sam x black!reader

warnings: this gets real okay... it contains drug use, alcohol abuse, mental illness, parental abuse, mentions of suicide- it’s dark, it’s raw, it’s real so please read with caution. reader has fluid sexuality, light smut

a/n: my 20th birthday passed months ago (this was supposed to be out on my birthday, back in august) and i know that doesn’t seem like a big deal to other people but it’s a big deal to me, especially coming from someone who has tried to end their lives multiple times, someone who had battled mental illness for years, someone who used substances to numb any sort of pain. It’s been a long time coming. And I’m still fighting every single day but I am here so this is mainly for me but also for anyone who is struggling with anything in their lives. Keep. Pushing.

———————

You wanted to feel like you were dancing on the ceiling. You wanted to do your own little lonely dance like no one was watching. The room was hot, the smell stale, hair sticking to your forehead, nothing was real. You were a mere atom prancing across a screen of color. You didn’t notice the phones out recording you while you experienced one of the best trips of your life. They weren’t making fun of you, they were cheering you on but their cheers fell on deaf ears as it felt like you had cotton stuffed in your own.

You fell in a chair, seeing various pills splayed out on the table. So many to choose from, they were so pretty but then the sight of little white lines caught your attention, you weighed your options. You had enough nose candy before you even got here. You pre-gamed so hard you came to the party two hours late from falling out.

You wanted to touch the ends of the universe so you snatched another tab off the table and pressed it on your tongue like a fruit roll up with tongue tattoos on it. The dancing bodies in front of you distorted as you grabbed a heavy liquor bottle and stumbled from standing up too fast... or maybe it was the drugs? You felt your face smile and your body go numb as you fell back on a bunch of clouds.

You found a guy eyeing you from the other side of the room or at least it seemed like it, his face was an absolute blur. But soon he was right in front of you and you could see specs of yellow in his brown irises. They were almost like sunflowers.

“Wanna have a good time?,” he opens the palm of his hands and you see a pretty blue pill.

“What’s it do?,” you don’t notice the slurring, you don’t notice the left side of your body going numb... you stopped breathing for a minute and as fearsome as it sounds... you welcomed it. It’s all you’ve been craving since you were nine years old... to just. stop. breathing. But your chest opened up again, hugging the air tight in its lungs to keep your body alive.

“However you’re feeling now? Multiply that times ten... it makes you feel like your third eye is opening. You can taste colors, see tastes... it’s unreal,”

“How much for it?,” the words flew past your lips faster than your mind could understand.

“It’s on me,”

—————

You don’t remember how you made it home, maybe you walked again- maybe you made the right choice and called an Uber.

You only remember mumbling a “bye, daddy” to the guy who gave you the blue pill, sending you off with more for the future. You felt like God was holding you in his hands and blessing you with the best life right now.

You weren’t aware of your little brother’s door being cracked open and him waiting up for you as you tried to quietly get to the bathroom.

“Oops,” you laughed to yourself. It was a sight your little brother saw often- you didn’t know that, your dad didn’t know that. Keith never knew how to tell anyone he was worried for his sister. He was 12- he didn’t know what was wrong with you. But he didn’t hesitate to scream when he found you in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet with throw up all over yourself.

“Y/N!!,” he tried to shake you awake but your eyes were dull and half lidded, “Y/N stop! Wake up, wake up, wake up!!,” he even slapped you. Nothing worked.

“Dad!! Daaaaddd!,” Keith ran down the hallway to your dad’s room. Sam woke in a frenzy and looked at Keith with worry

“Something’s wrong with Y/N! She won’t wake up!,” the 12 year old sobbed and Sam booked it out of his room to find your body limp on the toilet. Underwear mid thigh, as if you passed out while trying to pull them down to pee. Throw up all in your lap, body dripping with cold sweat.

“Keith, Call 911!”

—————

He always watched you now... he always had appointments set up at the doctors to test your urine but it didn’t stop you from using. There were always ways around passing drug tests. Often times you’d ask a friend to pee in a cup then pour it in a ziploc baggie and hide it in your sports bra to keep it warmed up. You knew how to beat the system.

Pour a little in the toilet so it makes it look like you peed, they always check afterwards. Then pour it in the cup to the line they mark. You ‘pass’ each time.

“You’re coming on the trip,”

“I’ve earned your trust,” your mouth felt dry, the edible you took before 6th period still hasn’t worn off yet and you were trying to keep calm- there’s no way he was going to ruin your high.

“You’ve earned yourself suicide watch and consistent drug tests. My trust for you disappeared when I found you damn near dead and had to watch them hook you up to machines and put you on temporary dialysis amongst other things to save your life,”

He was still bitter. It happened a month ago. He should be over it, you were.

“Fuck you, Dad,” you stormed off to your room and slammed the door

“Don’t you talk to me like that in my house!,” he yelled from the other side of your door. He should have taken it off the hinges like he planned.

You didn’t want to go on some stupid resort. Something about channeling your inner peace and looking at the bigger picture. Everyone was going, even his old team members, a family you didn’t feel a part of, he thought it’d be a good idea to surround yourself with good company.

You scream out and begin throwing clothes into a bag knowing he wasn’t letting up.

You see the glimmer of a small plastic baggy under your mattress and pull it out, seeing an array of candy. Maybe you could survive this trip?

You stuff the baggy in a pair of socks and smile, hoping to get a sense of familiarity.

You were gonna survive this trip.

—————

You shouldn’t have worn shorts today. That stupid health class intern saw the marks on your thigh and told the school nurse and now your found yourself in the car with your dad yelling at you.

“What the hell is wrong with you?! Do you not realize you have a main artery in your thigh! Had you gone deep enough you would have been gone, Y/N! What the fuck is wrong with you,”

You figured if a parent found their 11 year old was cutting themselves they’d do something other than yell... they’d do something other than tell the entire family and have them call at you just to yell at you as well.

“Nothing in life is that bad for you to do that to yourself!!,”

“That’s stupid, Y/N! Who in their right mind would do that to themselves?!,”

You heard it all. You cried when you got home, and hugged your little brother, not knowing if you’d ever get the chance to again because you were on the verge of ending it all. 11 years old... wanting to end it... you weren’t sure what was wrong with you. You just woke up every day hating yourself, woke up everyday wondering what life would be like for your family had you not been born.

Your older sister didn’t know how to help.. and your little brother was sure he was going to lose his sister.

You believed you were a by-product of a bad relationship. So your self-hatred started young. Watching your parents argue everyday- watching your mom cry because your dad kicked all of you out on Christmas Eve and you had to stay with your grandparents... watching the ugly divorce and how he became an alcoholic and she became emotionally unavailable.. even having to talk to the cops because your dad left bruises on your legs, from beating you because you were calling out for him due to being afraid to sleep in your own room when you usually sleep in his...

But he had a lady friend over that night....

The meds the psychiatrist put you on gave you chest pains... you went from using a pair scissors to hurt yourself to watching YouTube videos on how to get a blade out of a shaving razor. You skipped meals just to be a little skinnier like everyone else in your family.

You wrote notes.. you wore black sweatshirts, even in the prime of summer, to cover your arms when you ran out of space on your thighs and ankles and hips. You were a mess and no one came close to understanding. You don’t know how or why you turned out this way.

You felt like your mom hated you, you felt like your dad wasn’t your dad, like he was just there... you were stuck in a place where you felt like you didn’t belong and it made your heart skip beats. It had you crying almost every night.

And everyday you struggled. Waiting for the day that you snap and off yourself.

————-

“Y/N! Y/N!,” you felt your sister, Savannah, nudge you in your rib cage, “Uncle Buck was talking to you, snap out of it,”

You felt everyone hug you and it felt unfamiliar. You felt out of place. All these bright green trees looked fake- the air was too clean- the water in the cups too pure.

You craved to be surrounded by drugged, dancing bodies, feeling the beat of the music vibrating every single nerve in your body. You wanted to feel like you were on the edge of death just to feel alive. You wanted to be surrounded by guys and girls who gave you the slightest bit of attention and took you home. You wanted to feel loved even if it were for a few hours out of the night.

You didn’t want to be here- you wanted to feel the burn of alcohol run down your throat. You wanted to see auras around everyone as you blinked. You wanted to hide in the bathroom and stumble against the walls, laughing as you struggled to get your pants down to pee. You wanted to numb every single thought, you wanted to get so blacked out you couldn’t remember anything that ha-

“Y/N, lets go unpack,” Natasha’s hand grasped around yours and you let her drag you to one of the resort rooms. Your bag tight around your shoulder, you looked around the room and hated to be in it. It was too bright, too colorful... you wanted to be in a dark room under a guy as he choked you out and you felt him deep in your stomach. You wanted to be in a dark room, feeling a someone’s lips on you, replicating what you expect love to be like.

Everything was too fucking bright... too bright compared to the dark rooms you’d be in at night, intoxicated, crying, while getting your brains fucked out because you just wanted to feel affection... even if it was fake.

“How have you been feeling?” She sits on the bed as you stand at the door, frowning at everything in the room, “You can be honest with me- I won’t tell Sam. I know it’s hard not having anyone to talk to-,”

“Is there a town close by?,” you snap your eyes towards her. It might be a dumb question but you zoned out the whole three hour ride here.

“Ugh yeah, about 20 minutes out, why?”

“C-can you get me? S-something? I- I need to... I just need to ebb the feelings away,”

“I want to help you, b-but I can’t do that for you,” she knew what you meant but no way in hell would she advocate for you continuing to tear yourself down.

“So why lie and say I can be honest if you can’t give me the one thing I need?!,” you felt the walls closing in. You focused too much on one thing and you found yourself stumbling.

“Y/N, it’s okay, I’m here, calm down, calm down,”

“Get out!!,” you felt your hands shaking, you had no control over anything, “I want to be alone! Get the fuck out!,”

“I can’t leave you alone like this!,”

You take your bag and storm off to the bathroom to lock the door. You wasted no time in digging in the bag for the sock with the little baggy of pills, popping three in your mouth and swallowing them dry. You don’t remember what kind of drug it was... you were just hoping it made you feel good.

—————

You were on autopilot. You forgot how to walk but your muscle memory helped propel you to the dining hall and there they had a sermon about trusting life’s forces and welcoming traumas to push through triggering times. You felt like it was a bunch of bull crap but you were interested because you were high off your ass.

“I’m gonna go to the bathroom,”

Your dad eyed you closely but worried less when he actually saw you head to the bathroom.

You paced the bathroom until a girl walked in and eyed you closely.

“Your family drag you here too?,” she eyed you up and down. She knew your behavior all too well. You were on the verge of a withdrawal break down.

“You from around here?,” you wanted to get out of here. You wanted to have fun, you wanted to get hammered.

“Yeah why?,”

“Know any parties? Like- with tons of alcohol a-and stuff? I can’t sit around here and listen to this circle of life bullshit! I. Need. Sweat and hookups and to not remember anything,” you rambled and rambled until the girl calmed you down.

“Dude, chill out,” she placed her hands on your shoulder and shook you to calm you down, “Meet me by the ugly ass evergreen tree by the entrance- midnight. I’m about to lose my cool in this place too,”

She could really be a murderer, you don’t know this girl, nor a name, nothing. But it was worth a try. Not like you’d end up being best friends.

—————

It was easy. Savannah was out cold after the dinner- she loved to eat but, it never stuck. You wish you were like that but no... it stuck everywhere, it always did.

Your dad did his last check on you at 10 so it was easy to leave. The girl waited for you in her little Prius and you went about your way.

“I’m Eve by the way,”

“Y/N,”

You didn’t want to converse. You wanted chemicals coursing through your veins to shut off every single thought, every voice, every vision in your head.

“So what’s your story? You know this resort- It’s supposed to be some pseudoscience rehab,”

“Listen, Eve,” you sighed, “I’m not one for talking, now, get some alcohol in me and then you can get in my head, hell maybe even my pants, but until then, I don’t like to talk,”

“My parents found me with a needle in my arm,” she admitted, you cursed under your breath and realized she was gonna ramble anyway. But maybe this was good for her, someone her age, someone she could relate to, “It was laced but... God it was something great and I... I never wanted it to end,” she talked as if it was a dream.

“They told me I flatlined a couple times- I couldn’t tell though but... maybe I did because I felt like I was in heaven,”

She kept talking about her experiences until you pulled up to a house with a bunch of cars out front, you didn’t even wait for her to fully stop the car before jumping out and running inside.

You saw a bunch of tangled, kissing bodies, slumped, passed out bodies, people candy flipping, people snorting lines. You weren’t sure which poison to pick.

You walked up to a girl passing small baggies around, “What’s this?,”

“Its a new street drug called angel wings, wanna try it?,”

“Will it make me feel better than lsd?,”

“Way better, dude,”

“How much can 50 bucks buy?,”

“2 baggies. Five pills come in each,”

You slapped the fifty in her hands and snatched two from her, damn near ripping one of the baggies open, to pop a single periwinkle pill in your mouth and snatching someone’s cup to swallow it down. You spotted Eve looking around for you and rushed over to her, grabbing her hand.

“Wanna dance?,”

“Did you take something already?,”

“Yeah man, you wanted to talk? I’m drugged up enough to talk,”

————

Not much talking happened. You felt yourself crying until she held your face to wipe the tears away and you found yourself in her lap, kissing her with all your might.

“Y/N you don’t want to slow down? We don’t have to do this,”

You took almost a whole baggy of angel wings and felt like you were flying, every single touch she placed on your body made the hairs on your skin stand up.

“Wanna forget, everything,” you slurred, “y-you don’t have to because... someone else will but... I trust you- to take care of me,”

Eve felt her heart swell at your words. She squeezed your thighs in her hands. Your skin was soft just like her ex’s. The one Eve lost due to her addiction driving her away. You gave her a sense of familiarity, so she kissed you back with just as much urgency. Eve had her own drug of choice running through her own bloodstream and every time you touched her had her body vibrating with tingles. She flipped you over and removed any piece of clothing that got in her way.

“Love me...,” you pleaded, your eyes found hers in the dark room. The dark room you’ve been craving just so no one could see you, they can feel you and maybe see your silhouette but the can’t see... you. You felt tears come to your eyes and you were thankful she couldn’t really see them.

“Even though it’s fake.. just... just love me how you would love someone else,”

Teeth clashed, toes curled, muscles tensed, backs arched, it was invigorating. It might have been the drugs, it might have been the fact that Eve seemed to know you like her favorite song. The both of your fingers were soaked and sticky. Skin bruised with love bites and dented with nail impressions. Throats raw from moaning and begging.

You were close and once you hit the big O, you understood the meaning behind the drug name. You heard the beating of wings and saw the bright light. You were an angel ascending and the gates of heaven opened for you just as you let out that final scream of Eve’s name. Eve... first of God’s creation.

You felt her lips on your cheek as she came with you, she held you tight and you stared up at the ceiling, letting your body tremors calm as your mind shut down with the rest of you.

—————

Eve sobered up but you made sure to drink half a bottle of cheap scotch before heading back to face the wrath of your dad.

You saw the big ugly evergreen and grumbled to yourself. Eve held your hand the whole drive and you cringed at any contact. You felt bad that you felt repulsed by her touch but you were too sober for any interaction of the sort.

She parked the car and kissed your cheek, you let her, before getting out and mumbling a thank you and goodbye and heading back in the direction of your room. You slightly stumbled and didn’t notice everyone waiting for you outside. You sniffled and felt your nose hurt, you don’t even remember snorting anything. Don’t remember what pill you popped, what drug you sniffed or what drink you took to the head and that’s how you liked it.

“Where the hell have you been?,”

Your dad’s voice was muffled and all you could do was flutter your eyes at him.

“You’re drugged up right now aren’t you?!”

You simply walked around him in what felt like slow motion, you ignored everyone eyeing you like a helpless puppy and went in the resort room to go to the bathroom.

“Don’t walk away from me, Y/N! What is it going to take for you to get better?! To stop this shit?! You’re killing yourself and don’t even realize it!,”

“Oh I realize it,” you crawl in the bathtub and just sit there. You don’t turn on any water, you just sit there

“I just don’t care enough”

——————

You woke up to a splitting headache, still lying in the tub. You groan as you pick yourself up and head out to the room to see Savannah sitting at the foot of the bed, waiting for you to sober up.

“Why can’t you be normal?,” her eyes were red like she’d been crying, Keith was out cold, he fell asleep waiting for you to wake up, “You’re putting dad through so much. You’re traumatizing Keith. Get a fucking grip and sober up!,” she gritted through her teeth.

“I didn’t ask to be this way. I didn’t ask to be born, Savannah. I’m sorry I’m not perfect and pretty and popular like you or a kid genius like Keith. I’m sorry I’m a junkie with no future. You were there when I was in therapy. You were there when they diagnosed me with an anxiety disorder a-and bipolar disorder and an addictive personality... you were there... I didn’t ask to be this way. Want me to be normal? Well rewire everything in my fucking head to do it,”

She wiped her face and shook her head, “Listen, I’m sorry. I’m just worried about you,”

“Well don’t. If I’m not worried you shouldn’t be,” you undress and wrap yourself in a towel for a shower, “I’m too far gone for worrying,”

—————

The next day there were multiple families at one of the sermon meeting thingies and it just so happened to be set up like a fucking AA meeting.

“I’m not doing this bullshit,” It was your turn to speak and you scoff, getting ready to get up and leave until Sav stopped you. You heard everyone else’s story and it didn’t inspire you to get better, it didn't move you. You didn’t give a shit about any of this.

“Do this for me... for Keith,”

You saw Keith practically pleading you and you sat back down to introduce yourself.

“I’m Y/N,”

“Welcome, Y/N,” everyone said around the room.

“I’m only here because I was forced to,” You laugh to yourself, “I don’t believe I can get better, I mean I haven’t been anyway. I’ve been faking my drug tests to pass, I’m still using, still drinking,”

You could feel Sam burning holes in the side of your head at your admission.

“Last night I snuck out and got so high I felt like I was flying,” you sighed happily, “I don’t remember when I started using but I uh- it might have been when I was trading my anxiety meds for stronger pills like ecstasy then I jumped to lsd just to run away from my fucked up reality,”

You catch Tony’s eyes, then Steve then Nat and Wanda and Bucky and so on and they all looked at you with fucking pity, it made you sick.

“I don’t believe in this shit okay? I don’t believe in praying away all these fucking chemical imbalances in my head!,” you felt your stomach churn and you felt your eyes sting, “I think I’m okay! I’m fine!,” you yelled, you were angry now, you hated being forced to talk about it.

“I’m doing a lot better with drugs and alcohol than I am without,” you were really trying to convince yourself, you weren’t fooling anyone, “When I’m high I experience the highest of highs! I- I can stay up for days and not need a wink of sleep,” You animated your gestures and looked around in hopes someone would understand.

“I can finally eat without throwing it back up because then I don’t hate myself so fucking much!,” You pound your thighs and felt the shakes come back, “I can finally eat- I can finally give myself the basic things a human needs without hating myself for it” you felt tears pool in your eyes and you hated yourself for crying but you blamed it on the 24 hours of sobriety.

“When I’m high, I don’t feel the extreme lows of my disorders. I finally break out of my shell and meet new people. I talk! I- I meet guys and they show me affection even if it’s for an hour or two and I finally feel loved in my life!,”

You felt Savannah rest her hand on your arm until you jerk away.

“When I’m high- I’m waaaay up and and... and I’m happy! I don’t feel depressed I don’t feel anxious. Being high or drunk shuts up that stupid voice in my head and no one gets it! I am better inebriated! Why can’t you see that!!,” you look to Sam for an answer and all you can see is tears in his eyes.

“And if I die? Hell! It’d be best for everyone! You wouldn’t have to worry anymore! You w-wouldn’t have to waste money on doctors visits just for me to pour someone else’s piss in a fucking cup! No suicide watch! No more not trusting me. No more me faking to be happy.. if this kills me?? Everyone would get what they wanted,”

“What do you think everyone wants, Y/N?,” the woman running the session finally speaks up. Everyone around the room seemed worried for you. You truly didn’t understand why.

You look to Savannah and shake your head.

“Peace,” you shrug and angrily wipe your eyes,

“A normal life”

—————

Once you got back to the room you scream, you screamed so loud and cried and pulled at your roots, you saw yourself in the mirror and threw it off the wall just so you wouldn’t have to look at yourself

“Be normal!,” you screamed at yourself. You felt like a noose was around your neck and the ground beneath you opened up leaving you hanging, feet kicking, desperate for air.

“Why can’t I b-be norm-mal?,” you choked on your words and clawed at your throat. Everything was upside down and spinning.

You didn’t hear the door open, you didn’t know anyone was in the room until your dad picked you up and dragged you outside.

The cool air rushed its way into your nasal passages and your chest opened up with a gasp. You couldn’t see your dad because of the tears, you could barely hear him.

“N-norm-mal... I wanna be normal,” You kept repeating over and over until your body gave out succumbed to your meltdown. Sam hugged your body and rocked you back and forth, despite people watching from their own rooms or passing by.

“We’re gonna get you help,”

“I don’t want he-help. I want it to end! I want black out from all the shit I take a-and not wake up!,”

Sam didn’t know what to do. He knows the trauma he caused you was a part of the reason you’re in this spot and mindset.

“I ruin everything I touch... I... I just..,” out of all the things you could have become- you had to become an addict. At first you didn’t want to acknowledge it because you were functioning just fine, that is until you couldn’t wake up and go about your day without it, you couldn’t do basic daily tasks without popping a perc here and there, until you couldn’t go to sleep without taking something, “I want it to stop but then- then again I don’t b-because I love it- it’s disgusting,”

“It’s going to be okay,”

“But it’s not. Nothing is okay a-and you need to get comfortable with the idea of this killing me because- because it’s going to happen,”

———

“I don’t think drinking is going to help, Sam”

Tony took the cup from Sam and he lost it, “I’m gonna lose my daughter and it’s all my fault,”

Tony didn’t know how to talk about this kind of thing- what can be said?

“It’s no one’s fault, Sam. Life doesn’t always hand us the best cards,”

Sam sniffled and shook his head, lost, frustrated, angry, upset, “What can I do? I’m losing hope,”

“I don’t think you’re going to like my answer but it seems to be her best option,”

Sam looked hopeful- anything will do as long as it gave you a chance to get clean and stay alive

“What is it?,”

———

“Inpatient rehab?!,”

He dropped the bombshell when you all got back home. Dropped it right in front of everyone- maybe he expected you to welcome the idea with open arms but you know what goes on behind those closed doors.

“You’re fucking kidding!,” you had dark circles under your eyes and your lips were dry- your dad had literally kept you on lock down the remainder of the trip, you didn’t even have in person contact with Eve but you did however end up with her number to hit her up whenever.

“You admitted you had a problem, honey. This could be good for you,” Bucky spoke up and you scoffed loudly.

“I’m not going!,” You tugged on the sleeves of your maroon sweater and paced the room, “They’re just going to lock me in a room to the point where I have cold sweats and screaming for more morphine to make the pain, itches and delusions stop!,”

Nat tried to take your hand in hers but you slapped her hand away.

“Y/N!,” Keith stomped his foot and you stared at his small stature. Tears glistening in his eyes, bottom lip quivering, “You need help!! Stop it!,”

You scowled and turned away from your baby brother. Your body trembled as you tried to keep the sobs in.

“When do I go?,”

You weren’t prepared for the answer, but you should have expected it yet your stomach still dropped.

“They’ll be here to pick you up in an hour,”

—————

“Nothing is real,” you mumbled to yourself as you stare at yourself in the mirror. Your face was dull, eyes boring and empty, hair thinning, appetite decreasing. You’d think being here for 60 days so far would do you some good but no...

You barely slept. The first 30 days you cried and screamed to be saved but now you barely even speak. You sat back on your bed just to turn to the wall.

“Wilson- you have visitors,” the nurse came into your room and saw you sitting facing the wall. You were now eligible to have visitors and spend time with family and friends.

“Don’t want visitors,” you cleared your throat and stared at the pale yellow paint on the wall, judging the job of the painters for leaving so many air bubbles in the paint.

“This could do you some good,” your nurse shuts the door behind her and sits with you on your bed, “Your family loves and misses you. Seeing them could motivate you to finish this strong,”

That made you laugh, genuinely. Your body shook with an animated belly laugh.

“They fucking locked me away in here,” you frowned, feeling sick to your stomach, “They let those people drag me away and lock me in here. Fuck their love, it’s not real!,”

She sighed and nodded knowing nothing she said would change how you feel. She’s seen it plenty of times before. She’s seen people recover completely yet still resent their families and loved ones for sending them here.

“I’m always able to contact them if you ever change your mind,”

“Fat chance,”

——

The nurse walked to the family area to see the hopeful faces of your family and loved ones. They hadn’t seen you in 60 something days.

“I’m sorry but Y/N isn’t feeling well enough to have visitors,” the nurse plays with her watch band and hates to see the way everyone’s faces drops.

“I want to see my sister!,” Keith tugged on Sam.

“What do you mean she’s not feeling well? She should be feeling at least a little fine in this stage right?,”

She sighs and shakes her head, “The stages in recovery are subjective. Chemical dependency is a hard thing to battle- some days she’s fine and some days like today she’s angry at everything and everyone. As much as I would like for her to see everyone, we can not force her,”

Steve stands up and sets a hand on Sam’s shoulder, “On a day, that she’s feeling better, will you call us?,”

“Of course,”

———

“I know she’s still angry,” Sam sent Savannah and Keith to their rooms while he stayed up with everyone else, “She’s my daughter, I know how she is. She holds grudges a-and she’s still upset,”

“Maybe, but she’ll see this was something she needed,” Bruce tried to make things better but nothing would be better until you were.

“How did things get this bad?,” he slammed his glass on the table and startled everyone.

“I know it’s hard right now but just- just calm down, Sam,” Bucky worried about his friend. He could only imagine how much he was losing his mind and hope on the inside.

“Calm down?,” Sam asked incredulously, “Calm the fuck down?! How can I calm down when I don’t even know if I’m going to see my daughter again, man?,” the legs of the chair screeched against the floor as he stood up in a rush.

Wanda rested a hand on his arm to try and soothe him but he wasn’t having it, “We get it, Sam. We know you’re hurting-,”

“But you don’t!,” he shouted, “You weren’t there when I got a phone call at work from her school nurse saying she had cuts all on the inside of her thigh! You didn’t see it! It looked like fucking grid paper and crosshatching! You weren’t there when I had to sit there in therapy and listen to the way she talks about herself and her life and me- my daughter hates herself and genuinely thinks I hate her and she believes everything that goes wrong is her fault- you didn’t hear the way she talked about herself!,”

For longest time Sam kept quiet about all of this, just wanting to push through it until it got better but it was time he faced the music.

“You weren’t there when she screamed at me, telling me she wished she was never born and I just stood there calling her ungrateful, selfish and dramatic! I didn’t listen to her, I only paid attention to Savannah and Keith and left her feeling unloved. You weren’t there when I caught her sneaking out and she was drunk, you weren’t there when I ignored everything the psychiatrist said about her having an addictive personality and excused all the signs she started to display until I fucking found her blacked out with throw up all over her!,”

He realized he couldn’t just pin it all on you. You were suffering and he hated himself for not realizing it until he was.

No one knew what to say- they were only outsiders, sure they were family but they didn’t get an inside scoop until a few months ago when they got a phone call from Sam saying you were in the hospital. They still didn’t know how to handle it. They could fight bad guys and fucking aliens all day but addiction of a loved one? That was new and left them stumped.

“But damn you were there when she talked about being okay with it if this just killed her. No one wants to hear a loved one say that- especially their child!,” he ran a hand over his face to get rid of the tears, he felt like he didn’t have a right to cry, “I did a lot of wrong as her father and I didn’t even think how my shitty actions contributed to where she is now. Now my daughter could be dying while trying to recover,”

Tony stood up and pulled Sam in a hug, grateful that Sam was seeing everything from a different perspective than his own. He was grateful that Sam was a father trying to right his wrongs and do better.

“It’s not too late,”

————

Your nurse came a few times a week letting you know that you had visitors but you turned them away each time.

The cold sweats happened less, you ate more, your skin started to warm up again and you could finally sleep throughout the night but you still wouldn’t see them. It’d probably bring back a ton of memories that would trigger you to relapse.

You earned yourself time out of the facility but only with supervision. Your nurse, Brielle, accompanied you to trips to the park and lunches.

“Y/N?,”

You looked in the direction of the voice and saw Savannah smiling at seeing you but fear just filled you.

She looked different, she cut her hair and dyed it, her make up was softer and her style was more... indie?

“I’ve missed you so much,” she moved in for a hug but you moved away only to see her smile drop, “Y/N, don’t do that. I’m your sister,”

“I’m recovering from substance abuse not amnesia,” You scowled. You turned to Brielle and asked her to go.

“Why can’t you just be normal?,”

Savannah’s voice echoed in your head and you felt a band around your head tightening yet again, it was your body’s reaction to let you know that you need to get out of the situation or else you’d fall subject to a mental break.

“Brielle, we gotta go,” You scooted out of the booth, past Savannah and tugged Brielle out of the restaurant- forgetting that you were even ordering.

“Y/N please! Talk to me! Talk to Keith, Dad! We miss you,”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!!,” you covered your ears and dropped down against the car, feeling dizzy, feeling every swirl around you as you tried to grasp onto reality.

“Grow through what you go through, grow through what you go through, grow through what you go through,”

You repeated the mantra over and over again. It’s a mantra designed specifically for you. Every patient gets their own mantra for when they feel like they’re losing. Yours is to help you remind yourself that nothing is ever easy but that doesn’t mean give up... life and it’s struggles will always be there but that doesn’t mean stunt your growth and efforts. Grow through what you go through.

“That’s right, you’re doing great,” Brielle whispered, she looked at Savannah over her shoulder and shook her head, “I know it’s hard not seeing her but it’s in Y/N’s best interest that she be willing to see you or anyone else on her own terms,”

Savannah hated to see you crouched on the ground, shaking and mumbling to yourself. She mumbled a sorry before rushing over to her car and crying to herself as she drove home and bursting through the doors, clearly upset to everyone else.

“Dad what’s wrong with, Vanna?,”

Sam looked up to see Savannah cursing to herself, and crying. She wasn’t upset with anyone but herself.

“She looked so scared of me!,”

Sam’s stomach dropped, he didn’t even have to ask who ‘she’ was.

“You saw her?,” Sam didn’t trust his voice and there was a reason for it.

“She was out with her nurse. She looks so much better a-and she looks healthy, she’s eating again. She doesn’t look she’s dying!,”

Savannah was rambling and frustrated that she triggered you like that, “I saw her, I spoke to her but I scared her so bad she fell to the ground and covered her ears so she wouldn’t hear me talking, I- what if she relapses and it’s all my fault?,”

Sam pulled his sobbing daughter into his arms and calmed her down as best as he could, “She’s your sister, anyone in that situation would have done what you did, you miss her and that’s valid,”

It mad him feel good that you seemed to be getting better, that you looked healthy and lively. He just hoped you would be willing to see everyone soon.

------

“You have visitors today but I can send them aw-,”

“I’ll be out in a minute,” it’s been another 30 days and you figured it’s time to face the music, face everyone and maybe get the supposed closure everyone was saying you needed,

You missed her initial shock from your response but she nodded and waited for you anyway. You slipped on your cardigan and slippers, then let Brielle lead you to the visiting area.

Everyone expected to be turned away again but when they saw a second body behind Brielle, they all stood up ready to greet you but she held her hands up in caution

“It’s best to not overwhelm her and to let her initiate any contact,”

Sam just wanted to hug his daughter and let her know how sorry he was but he knew she was right.

You hated the way you felt their eyes burning into you, you couldn't bear to look at them, not yet, so your eyes focused on getting your foot directly in the center of each tile on floor. Brielle sat you down across from them and told you she’d be right outside if you needed anything.

Then there you all were. Face to face.

“It’s been so long,” Keith whimpered, “I missed you so much,”

You played with a stray string in your cardigan and sighed.

“It’s been a long four months, sweetie. I missed you so much,” Sam just wanted you to look at him. Your hair was getting thick again, you skin shone under the sun, your lips were moisturized with color instead of grey and chapped. He could see you were doing better

“Four months, 17 days, 3 hours, 44 minutes and” You cut your attention to the clock on the wall, “12 seconds,” your voice was hoarse and you cursed yourself for it, “That's how long it’s really been,” you wrapped your arms around yourself as a comforting gesture.

“I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to push you to that point, baby. I should have been better,”

“Life is too short to feel sorry for ourselves,” you looked up at the ceiling light and shrugged, “This place is all about being philosophical. Don’t be sorry, be better. That’s all they fucking say,” you grit through your teeth.

“Like oh, don't feel sorry for yourself- no one forced you to drink so much, no one told you to roll up that dollar bill, no one held a gun to your head and told you to take those pretty pills with cool names that look like candy,” you smiled and laughed at yourself, the nervous tick you’ve developed to keep from crying.

“No one told you to be ungrateful and hate the gift of life that was given to you, so don't feel sorry for yourself, be better,” you used a mocking voice and rolled your eyes, “There’s no need to blame yourself, the common variable is me, I have to be accountable for my actions,”

Everyone was worried about how scripted this sounded but they dubbed it down to you being a little upset about being forced here, still.

“I still should have been a better, dad,”

“We aaalll make mistakes, Sammy,” he didn’t miss that you didn’t call him dad. Everyone caught it, “But not every dad kicks their family out on Christmas eve with nowhere to go in the freezing cold,”

His heart stopped, he’s never forgiven himself for that drunken mistake. The marriage problems between him and your mom drove him to develop a drinking problem and due to his little problem, it caused him to mess up a lot of things up.

“Why was it me? Like why did Savannah and Keith get to move past all of this and I’m the one stuck? I’m the one suffering even while recovering?”

No one could answer that.

“Why did I have to be the one to talk to the cops because you sent me back to mom with bruises on my legs, huh? I didn’t want to- I didn’t want them to go after you because you were still my dad- I still loved you after yelling at me at dinner, I still loved you after sending me back to mom early when you couldn’t stand to be around me- I still loved you when you moved away and missed big chunks in my life but you kept Sav and Keith. What did I do? Tell me, please, maybe I can fix it, maybe I can be better. I just want my dad to love me,”

“I do love you Y/N! And I’ll never forgive myself for-,

“Don't be sorry! Be better!,” you shouted over him. Angry with yourself that you began crying.

No one knew what to say. Everyone else was here for support but this was clearly a father and daughter situation.

“Did you ever love me?,”

A question a child should never have to ask their parent.

“When I got the call that your mother was in labor with you on my birthday the world stopped,” Sam sat with his elbows on his knees, looking dead at you but you still wouldn’t look at him, “You were the best gift I could have ever asked for.. ever. After we had you, I can’t tell you what went wrong because I don’t know,”

“It’s my fault,” You sobbed, “Say it! It’s my fault. Had I not been born, everyone’s life would be better!,”

You finally looked at him and everyone could see the fire in your eyes, wild and couldn’t be tamed, your trauma being the fuel.

“It’s not your fault at all. I have failed you as a father and I... I let it go on for far too long without acknowledging it and apologizing for it before it got too late,”

“If I could go back in time to make things better I would. I never wanted you to feel unloved or that life would be better without you,”

He hated to be sitting across from you, your mind dead set on him hating you. He just screwed up a lot in his life.

“I let you down so much. I love you more than you could ever know. I just fucked up a lot as your dad,”

“Y/N, sweetie, I know this is hard,” Tony chimed, “But this could be a new beginning for you both. You’re recovering and he’s trying to right his wrongs before it’s too late. It’s not going to be easy and I know everything hurts and it’s going to take time but you know what they say.. grow through what you go through,”

You didn’t have time to ask how he knew your mantra, but it made sense eventually.

“I forgave you a long time ago, dad,” you pulled your cardigan sleeves down, and used them to wipe your eyes, “I didn’t think it’d matter if I became Falcon’s candy flipping daughter or not, I just wanted to make everything stop. I- I just wanted to be numb so I didn’t feel bad about any and everything,”

Sam didn’t take into account how much you were actually battling in day to day life. He didn’t believe anything the psychiatrist was saying when you were 10, if only he did, all of this could have been avoided.

“I’m still fighting my want to just relapse in anyway I can but... I can’t bring myself to do it because I know if I do, that might be it and I don’t want it to be that way dad,”

He reached out to grab your hands and could have sobbed when you didn’t move away

“It doesn't have to be,“

------

180 days is a long time, it might not seem like it, but it is a long ass time for someone to go without something that they believe made them better. Someone who took multiple substances at a time just to shut down their mind so they don’t remember things, so they don’t feel things.

“You gonna be ok watching Keith? We need Sav on this,”

“I got him, dad. Just be safe,”

Sam hated to admit it but he was still worried to leave you alone. He made Tony put away all of his alcohol and set up a security code so no one could get in it.

“I won’t have anyone over, I don’t know the code to the cellar. I’m not going to put Keith through that again, dad. Have a bit more trust in me,”

He watched the way your eyes twinkled and nodded before kissing your cheek and heading out with the team.

“Can we play mancala? No one else likes to play it with me,“

“Sure thing, bud. Let’s go,”

You two played mancala for multiple rounds, just for him to beat you almost every time. You two watched Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader for hours while eating shitty kraft mac and cheese before getting him ready for bed.

“Can you stay with me? So I know you’re safe,”

“Did dad put you up to that?,“

“I just miss my big sister, Y/N,” He sat up and played with his blanket, “I almost saw you dead... you wouldn’t talk to us for forever, I just missed my big sister,” you didn’t mean to make him cry.

“Hey, hey, I’m right here buddy, I’ll stay, okay?,”

You crawled under his blanket and held him tight and he held you even tighter, not wanting you to leave.

----

You don’t know what triggered the nightmare but you woke up in your own room, right on the floor, sweaty and panting. You never sleep walk. You felt something stick to your sweaty palm and look down to see a small plastic baggie with those pretty blue pills from the night you blacked out.

You threw it across the room and curled up against the side of your bed whimpering your mantra to yourself.

“Would you like me to call for help?,” Friday spoke overhead.

“I'm okay,” you clenched your eyes shut and did what you could to muster up the strength to just get up and flush them. It should have been a relief to do it but you felt a pang in your chest. You should have been proud of yourself for having the strength to not break sobriety.

“I thought you said you were gonna be okay?,” Keith’s voice scared the hell out of you, “If you were going to be okay then you wouldn’t look so upset as you flushed them,“

“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Keith. Go back to bed,“

“I’m telling dad,”

“Tell him what?,” you snapped your neck to him, eyes narrowing, “What? that I’m still fucking struggling? Yeah, I’ll tell him myself, bud,”

“He’s gonna send you back,” Keith didn’t mean to scare you, he was just worried and his words weren’t coming out right.

“I’d rather shit in my hands and clap,” you threw the baggie away and walked past him to sit on your bed to just try and calm down.

“Do I need to call him,”

“No,”

“Then what needs to happen?,”

“I need you to just be quiet!,” you hated raising your voice at him, but the rambling and patronizing was not helping.

“I’m calling dad,”

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

It was past midnight when they were all headed back and Sam got the phone call from Keith.

“Hey, son,”

“Y/N was walking while she was asleep and then woke up with a bag of pills in her hands,”

“What? she didn’t take any did she?,” Sam’s tone had everyone turning to him with expressions of worry.

“No but she looked sad when she flushed them,”

Sam sighed happily when he heard you’d flushed them. But for you to seem sad while doing so? that couldn’t be a good thing.

“She’s mad that I called you but you need to know, she locked herself in her room after yelling at me. I can hear her crying and talking to herself. I didn’t mean to make her mad, dad,”

Sam sighed and sat back down beside Savannah who was waiting for her dad to hang up so she could know what was happening.

“She’s going to be okay, bud. You have to understand that what she went through was not easy. She might be out of hat place but she’s fighting everyday to continue to get better and get her mind far away from that stuff as best as she can. We have to be patient, okay?,”

You had been pacing in your room. You knew all of this would put you so many steps back with your dad and his trust. You flinched at the sound of knocking at your door and his voice.

“Sweetie, open up,”

You didn’t want to face him right now. You didn’t want to talk about it, nothing. You didn’t need anyone scolding you as you were already scolding yourself. You hadn’t stopped beating yourself up about it.

Sam didn’t want to freak out when you didn’t reply. He didn’t want to admit that he thought the worst, “Honey, please,”

“Dad, I am fine. Get some rest,” another step back. You were doing good not shutting anyone out but the moment something goes down, you forget all your effort.

“Y/N, I am not here to be mad at you. I am here to make sure you’re okay and to let you know I am here. You just gotta let me in,”

You cursed to yourself before walking over to the door to unlock it and let him in. He didn’t hesitate to pull you into a tight hug.

“I didn’t take anything,”

“I know... even if you did- I wouldn’t be mad at you, disappointed yes, but mad? No. Relapse sometimes comes with recovery,”

You don’t know that Sam had been attending seminars for parents that have kids battling different things such as addiction. Multiple lessons were learned as well as communication pointers.

“I didn’t mean to do that while Keith was here. I understand if you don’t trust me anymore,”

“I still trust you, Y/N. You don’t need to be beating yourself up right now. You did the right thing in flushing whatever you had, even if it did make you a little sad and made you feel like you needed it in that moment. Be proud of yourself. You took a big step forward by doing that, be proud,”

“How can I be proud when I hate myself for flushing them?,” you had to be honest. You wouldn’t be feeling this if you weren’t presented with them. It made you feel weak. You should be able to look at these things and be able to say no with no guilt.

“Because you flushed them regardless. This takes time, Y/N. I’m being patient with you now, so you have to learn to be patient with yourself. Rome wasn’t built in a day,”

“Yeah well the people who built it up weren’t highed up on something now were they?,”

“Don’t be self-deprecating. You’re still going strong. Be proud even if you feel like there isn’t a reason to be,”

You knew he was right. Whether you were sad about flushing them, you still got the guts to do it and that’s commendable, you should be proud. You were kicking your ass when you should be happy and feel relief. You shouldn’t be feeling this weight, you shouldn’t be feeling guilty.

You’re growing through what you go through and that deserves a pat on the back.

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

You don’t know how you got here. You went back to school and shit came crumbling down. You were going strong but the weight of responsibility and insecurity became too much. Walking down the fucking halls everyday, comparing yourself to every girl that looked like barbie then going to the bathroom to stare at your reflection and pick yourself apart until the voices became too loud for you to handle so you went to the school plug and slapped money in his hand

“Anything will do,”

After school he came back and handed you a black plastic bag with cheap alcohol in it. You hid in an empty class room and barely drank a quarter of the bottle before you felt sick, like your body was rejecting what you were trying to force down into it.

Your fingers moved faster than your mind, grabbing for your phone and dialing away.

“Hello?,”

You sniffled and held the bottle close to your chest, “Uncle Tony? I- I...,” you hiccuped and hugged the bottle close to your chest, “Uncle Tony, I messed up,”

-----

He was there for you in no time. He knew you wouldn’t want to talk about it but he knew your dad would have to find out about this.

“I don’t wanna go back. I’m done growing through what I grow through, its a crock of shit,” you stared out the window, eyes heavy.

“I know the fight becomes annoying,” Tony sighed, “But from the looks of it, your body has already made a decision for you,”

He was right, a few sips and your body was angry with you. You should be thankful because it didn’t always work like that with other people who were fighting this like you. Others bodies often welcomed such a thing back easily, the bodies of some couldn’t even continue the fight without it before giving out.

“Plus you let someone know, as soon as it happened. Everyone can see your efforts. You may be tired of growing through it but it’s become natural for you and you don’t even realize it, though I can’t blame you. I was the same way,”

He sprinkled that last bit in there like it was a dash of parsley to complete a dish and it had your neck snapping to look at him. “Excuse me?,”

He chuckled and raised his eyebrows all while mumbling “well,” he pulled to a stop light and looked over at you, “I wasn’t always the polished hero I am now,”

He patted your leg in a hopeful manner, “In my days of college, getting drugs was as easy as buying cola from the corner store. Trying to run a company that my dad didn’t really want me to have in the first place to staying up all day everyday to make it through college was bound to get me in some trouble,” the light turned green and he lightly put his foot on the gas to continue the peaceful rid home, “I’d snort some coke to keep me away and focus long enough to study, I thought it was normal because the other students were doing it, until it wasn’t about trying to focus on school anymore. It was about how high I could get and how good I could feel to the point I couldn’t walk out my dorm in the morning for class without rubbing a little on my gums or cutting up a quick line,”

“How’d you kick it?,” You never would have thought he batted such a thing, he changed for the better and picked himself up.

“The nose bleeds. The doctor told me if I didn’t stop I wouldn’t see the day I graduated. Told me I’d never see the day where I became the man I deserved as a role model as a kid. I wanted to be better than him. In a moment of weakness, my recovery was fueled by spite,”

“I guess everyone’s come-to-Jesus meeting is a bit different,” you give a small smile and shrug, “Mine was when Keith practically slapped some sense into me. He’s a kid, who wants their little sibling walking around knowing their older sibling is a fucking fiend?,” you give a harsh scoff and roll your eyes as you feel tears coming, “He didn’t deserve to see me like that, that night- in and out of consciousness, watching them pump me full of coal and other shit to keep me alive, that screwed up his head and he’s barely hit puberty yet,”

Tony could almost hear the tears in your voice, you had your head turned to look out the window, he didn’t need to see your face to know.

“He’s your ticket out of the dark room,”

-----

Your dad didn’t put you back in the rehabilitation center because you owned up to knowing you messed up, because you called someone for help, knowing the slight possibility that you might have gotten a few people upset.

It was all trial and error, a constant fight, day and night even in your moments of shut eye.

It was a learning experience for Sam, it taught him how to be a better dad, taught him that although he can’t go back and change things, he still has now to break habits and form healthy ones and make them the foundation of a healthy relationship between father and child.

He was in your corner and that helped keep your head above water.

Addiction and mental illness were never cut and dry. There’d always be doubts and close calls of near relapse but it was a fight you’d be willing to put up with 24/7.

You never wanted to be back in that dark room of addiction. Driving yourself insane trying to find the next fix so you feel “normal”- but there was nothing normal about forcing yourself to be numb, there was nothing normal about denying you need help. Nothing normal whatsoever about forcing chemicals that could kill you into your body just to be happy.

This, this right here was normal. Feeling pain, fighting, crying, trials, everything that you’re feeling now. Feeling is normal, even if it hurts sometimes.

You’d never stop growing through what you go through, but the fight.. that effort you put in.. it’ll always be worth it.

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

this took so long to write because I was never satisfied with it. I kept editing and erasing and adding more. And here is the finished product. It doesn’t have to resonate with you but here it is. Thank you for the love and support you guys always gift me.

REBLOGS AND COMMENTS ARE ALWAYS ENCOURAGED AND APPRECIATED>

tags: @vozit @blackreaders-assemble @retroxvailles @champangebucky @sambucky8 @princess-toshii @sebbyslut @titty-teetee @ilovefanfic86 @valkyriesnymph @dumbchick @mbaku-babygirl @veryhellshdia @persephones24 @here-for-your-bullshit @mokacoconut @spideys-wife @xye-weirdo @chonisberonica @disaster-rose @micki-smiles @valentinevirgo @yournonlocalpoc @warmchick @hisxblackxqueen

#black!reader #black mcu imagines #sam wilson fanfiction #sam wilson imagine #sam wilson fic #sam wilson x reader #sam wilson x black!reader #sam wilson x you #Tony Stark fanfiction #tony stark fic #Marvel AU #mcu au #avengers au #AVENGERS ANGST #marvel angst #MCU angst #sam wilson angst #tony stark au #tony stark angst

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writingonjorvik · 5 years ago

Text

Can We Discuss Day Blockers?

With the Jorvik Divined deck release around the corner, I’m likely going to be absent for all of next month to organize that launch. With that said, I wanted to leave y’all with a head scratcher I’ve been thinking on since my post on SSO’s genre split and that’s the topic of day blockers.

I said in my previous post briefly that I don’t think day blockers should be fully removed, but that how they’re currently implemented hurts the feeling of the game. Now, I haven’t replayed the game on an account with membership since the team implemented the changes to day blockers, but the biggest issue I remember in the quests is in how they break up content and how paying for a reset only resets regular quests, not dailies.

The suggestion I made in my last post as a quick solution was the idea that SSO’s daily reset change to resetting every 4 hours. This is an amount of time that makes it still possible to get more than one current set of daily activities in in a day, but for most folks it’s not going to be the full six. That said, the reason I made this suggestion is largely because of the issues with “log-on content” that the Soul Riding gameplay is highlighting.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Soul Riding and I still think SSO should add daily rewards. But the reason most games add those is to add an incentive for logging on, because the goal is to get players on and to play for a while. This is a big problem that SSO has with retaining their players and keeping them online for a while, particularly to make the game world look lived in. Like I said before, even if the Soul Riding gets players on every day to do their quests, they aren’t interacting with anyone else online, even passively making the world look lived in, since training hides other players and missions are largely out of the way of populated regions. Not that missions should be in populated regions or that I want a hundred people on top of me while I do training, but it defeats the point of getting on every day.

An obvious solution to this is having multiplayer quests. I’m more and more disappointed as we get further into the missions that we never actually unlocked more types of missions, or a higher max to the ones we can do in a day. This has less to do with getting the Rune Runner faster and more to do with this task becoming incredibly grindy, taking a lot of the enjoyment out of what is legitimately a fun mechanic. Considering that there seem to be a lot of bugs with how the missions currently operate with horses that can run through trees and up cliffs, I’d like to believe there was a deadline to get this out and because of Covid some content had to be cut until later, potentially as people start getting the Rune Runner, to bring more people back into the system. But based on the fact that hovering over the missions tab says that you only will get a max of two missions now, I have my doubts.

However, if the game reset more often, some of that can be negated. I’ve talked about it a lot, but making reputation and horse exp feel uncapped I think is very important to people feeling like they don’t have to grind in the game. Right now, if you want to get the max experience or reputation in a day, you have to do absolutely every quest for that area, even if that quest is less than enjoyable. However, if the game resets more often, that feeling starts to go down. Sure, you could do every quest available OR you could do the ones you find easier and then wait one or two hours for the next reset and repeat.

I think it’s also important for this discussion to bring up the conversation about the pumpkins and the Yule goats because it highlights this exact problem. Yes, the issue of having to be online should be resolved, but people generally liked the pumpkins more because even if there was a limit to how many you could get in a day due to timers, people seemed to feel a lot more in control of that grind. Meanwhile, the long investment time and visible hard limit of the goats really got on people’s nerves because they felt like they had to get on everyday, and it ruined what was mechanically a very interesting mechanic. And while there’s no time cap on the Rune Runner, I can see a similar mentality applying here, and the frustration with training has been the same for a long time.

But the benefit too of the pumpkins was the “I might as well” argument. With the pumpkins, most folks I knew got on, found the first five and then ran a timer while they went and did other things like training or dailies. But usually if after they finished those chores they had a short-ish period of time left on the timer, they would stay on to get that one more pumpkin. That should be what log on rewards are for. I might as well stay on to play this new content or meet up with a friend or go on this adventure, etc. If there’s a reason for people to stay on a little longer for a reset, then they might as well keep playing. And when they do that, they’re at least visible to other players to make the world look alive if not going and doing something.

I understand that this would mean that training could potentially be done in a day, which makes horses have even less content, but considering SSO has been really willing to put lots and lots of horse experience into the game recently with Starshine Ranch, it has to be accepted that at some point that’s just going to be a reality even in this current system. Messing with levels too much isn’t something the team is leaning into based on the interview. So being able to get a horse and train it in a day will eventually happen and honestly should be something players can do if they have the time. If we’re dropping $30 USD on a horse, we should be able to get the max experience out of it mechanics/stats-wise as soon as we can to use that horse competitively. There should still be other content to continue supporting that content AFTER the horse becomes max level, like building prestige levels in a particular riding discipline or personality systems or bonding your horses on some Soul Rider mission, but that content needs those horses to have the mechanical benefit of maxed stats.

Also, I know a lot of people who, if training were faster and as it’s gotten faster, have gotten more horses. Which, with horses being the prime source of income for SSO, seems like maybe that’s something they should gather more data on.

There’s also the fact that, despite that SSO isn’t doing this narratively, I know a lot of people feel like the number of days in which it takes you to complete the story without skips is equal to the narrative length of the story. And I think that has a lot to do with how long it takes to actually get through the story. If people could get through the story faster for free like this, I think it would help with that discrepancy.

I also think a huge part of this has to do with the faction system, and I want to go really in depth with an overhaul to that as well, but having more frequent resets means a faction system could more easily be really intractable without long term consequences. I really like the idea of helping one faction hurting another, and the idea of working for the G.E.D. upsetting local factions is something a lot more manageable of an idea if you can wait four hours and then reset that work.

Well, now I want to ramble about factions, but I think that really covers all my points on day blockers. I think they should reset more often for a lot of reasons, but these are the big ones. And in doing so, I think it opens up the room for a lot more interesting dynamics between other mechanics. I also just think it’s a happy medium between letting kids just binge games without forcing adults with free time to have to be babied or payout. And there’s also the fact that I think SSO really needs to step up the idea of utilizing their player base and people playing as a resource on equal footing to outright paying in an MMO atmosphere without putting caps on that, because they should want people to be on a lot. That’s the draw of MMOs.

But that’s my bit for a month-ish. Unless I get around to that factions piece, I’ll see y’all after the deck’s release. In the mean time, what do y’all think?

#sso #star stable #starstable #star stable online #starstableonline #woj analysis

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adevotedappraisal · 5 years ago

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Short Story: Gershom, part two of two

The conclusion of Gershom, a memorable day in the life of the most famous anti-hero in Barbados, one Winston Hall. Enjoy.

Gershom part two (the night-duppies)

by Christopher White

Robert mekking good stew now. He should be cutting them carrots in the pot now. Sometimes I want to go by a rum shop and just talk. Don't know wha I would talk to dem about. Maybe cricket. Maybe pussy. Maybe I'll tell them that when it all comes down to it pussy doesn't matter. I'll wait until the sun goes down a little more till I set out for Robert. Wait until the sky turns that fuck up looking orange. Until it looks lazy. Until the birds get dark against it.

The invincibility or the infallible impression that people may or may not have had of the Prime Minister was of little thought to Winston. It was of little thought to Miriam as well. This was not a result of docility, but, perhaps cynicism. They both thought that businessmen ruled the country and the people in parliament were figure-heads. Such thoughts are ultimately too pat and are only useful in stopping you from going mad because the reality is that you have no idea how the country works, or, more horrifyingly, you have no idea how it should work. Miriam walked down the corridors of the hotel. The waves that dashed themselves against the outside mesmerised the tourists that were staying in the rooms far away from the things in their life, but to Miriam it was just noise on a radio: just something in the background, like when at the Holetown festival there is a man in the background playing conga drums, but you are too busy looking at the vendors and their twirlers and such, and not paying attention to the congas, but you know that it's still there. She thought about how her son would be when he grew up. He'd have strong legs from doing yardwork all the time. He would talk in a deep voice, no, a high pitched quick voice and talk about how fish prices went up and he can't stand it cuz he likes fish. Don't think about what you could have been Winston. Don't think about what you could have been. Don't think about what you could have been. Don't think about what you could have been. Stop thinking about what you could have been. Stop thinking about all of that. If you think about that one more time. Stop thinking about it, you went to rob a cunthole man with some johnnies that was older than you. Anyone would have looked up to them, or thought they knew what they were doing. Don't think about what could have been. It doesn't help. It never helps. You'll just keep pulling at it like when you took mummy's spool of thread and kept pulling it and pulling it until there was thin pink all over the bedroom and mummy beat you, like she should have. Do not think about what could have been. Just piss over there. Don't think about things while you are pissing. If you think about that mistake then you'll start thinking about the other mistakes. Then you'll start to cry again. You want to cry again like a buller? Then don't think about what could have been. Never do it. No one should do it.

The night was stark and everywhere, hiding the tufts of grass that came up everywhere in the village, and cooling the old roofs of the homes and dog houses. The night also turned things into other things by the theatre of its context. A cigarette lighter is paltry in the day-time, but during night, with all that black around, with all those things away from the eye, cigarette lighters become these magic, chain-less amulets, the clear plastic ones becoming savage, simple, flickering crystals of some sort. You hear more, and the hearing prompts your imagination. But ultimately, the night can only be arrogant, because it knows that regardless of all of our clawing advances in technology, of all of our theories for the explanation of things around us, no matter how much we know that eventually the sun will come around again, the night remains arrogant because it knows that you know that things will be hidden whether you like it or not, and who wouldn't be arrogant in that situation? Winston stomped his boots into the slope of the hill as he descended down to one of the paved roads in Suriname. He walked quickly and hid between houses when he saw someone on the road coming towards him. By the side of one house he looked into their window and saw the television, tall and looming. He forgot for a second that those things no longer had knobs to twist, or tabs to pull on. The show on was a garish display of Americana. The characters, a thin, lanky father and his precocious young daughter were talking. The father said "Well all I have to do is go to the video store and explain the whole mix-up to him. It should all straighten out." Then camera three showed the daughter taking a quick, meaningless sip from her brightly coloured cup while she said "Oh yeah, I'm real sure that'll work out smoothly," while the audience laughed. The couple in the house laughed as well, the woman saying "she too cute nuh." Winston didn't understand why that was a joke, and why the girl pronounced 'real' the way she did. Frankly, he thought the girl rude and in need of discipline. Winston darted his eyes around as he got on the road again. The houses were aglow as everyone sat to enjoy the night-time entertainment. One house had an action movie showing, the volume up to amazing levels, explosions rattling out of the surround sound speakers. Winston still had no idea where these people he grew up with were getting the money for this from. He walked up some cement steps to the side door of a house and tapped lightly. "Who it is?" went the voice inside. "De out-man." replied Winston. The door opened. Sergeant Douglass Sergeant stood up in the bathroom stall of the district police station squeezing the last bit of urine from his penis into the toilet with his finger-tips. He walked out the stall and looked at himself in the mirror. His face was round and a rich brown. His teeth had begun to yellow, from the coffee he had started drinking two years prior once he had signed on for this night-shift. He smiled just to see what he looked like when he smiled. He squinted his eyes at the mirror. He slapped his stomach that was becoming prominent now. "More sit-ups" he murmured. Then, he took out his night stick in the empty bathroom. He held it up to his face while still staring at the mirror. He walked left to right holding the stick to his mouth, and then danced, pivoting from one foot to the other, then sang-whispered some songs "Haiti I'm sorry, We misunderstood you, But one day we'll turn around, and look inside you." then "Jah ras-tafri parro-jammo creator of rhythm and tempo..." then he quickly stuffed his stick into his holster as Constable Henry Yarde pulled down the handle of the door to enter.

Robert's house was a small board house in a side path that you had to walk through light grass to get to. It smelled of a damp smoke, and the curtains were not changed regularly. Still, the floor was cleaned and the kitchen table was clear, except for a scale sitting by the corner. A radio was on in the bedroom, with an ad telling people about preventing a mosquito problem. The wind picked up a little bit causing the window curtains to rise and fall like when you put on bed sheets and you raise it up and it comes down on the flat bed slowly and cautiously. The wind made Winston look around in his chair. "Don't worry Winston." "I cahn help but worry. I ain't expect de wind to rise like dat usually it wouln't be suh dramatic at this time o' de year." "True." Robert said. Then, "you hungry?" "Yeah man." "I got de food in de oven. It was off for a while, you want me to heat it up?" "Nah jus' bring it here." Winston replied. Robert came back with a plate with more rice than anything else, vegetables, onions browning in the gravy. Robert looked at Winston as he ate. He moved his mouth quickly, but scooped up the rice slowly. He looked straight ahead at the wall as he ate. His hands were hardened, fingernails down to the skin and smooth. But his eyes. The eyes Robert saw up close were the same eyes that everyone saw staring up at them from the newspaper whenever Winston escaped from prison, or when he almost got caught again. Some may tell you that Winston became a folk hero because people didn't believe he did it, and they might be right, but only partially so. Because when you see those eyes that pleaded simply by staring ahead it sent out a secondary emotion of pity along with interest. It made one believe that this guy running for his life in God knows where, hopping on boats and stowing away in the hinterland of some island could be your son, or brother, or somebody. No one felt sympathy for hard featured Peter Bradshaw. Even the two youngsters Barry Jack and Sylvian Clarke got no care because they looked like the type of boys that stole your bicycle while you were in the rum shop. No matter how tattered Winston looked in those snapshots of him being carted off by police, his flopping over-bearing locks and all, it could never stop those eyes from peering through at you. Winston would probably kill you at this point if it came down to it, would definitely steal your computer to pay for passage out the island if he could, but for most people, he was just a boy that got turned into a criminal. A hare forced to scrap through the forest while the wolves descended a-growl. None of this has to be true, very little of it even has to make sense. The resultant was that Winston Hall became our folk-hero, our Billy the Kid, our Robin Hood (provided he just stole from the rich plantation fellow), our real life, living, breathing, crazy, exhausted Br'er Rabbit. "Ya got any plans cook up Winston?" Robert asked as he cleaned up his plate. Winston looked up and blinked at him, maybe thinking, maybe just looking. "I got a idea or two is all but most differently I...just gine try to keep moving." he said.

The two relaxed and talked about their day. Winston had little to talk about, while Robert talked lightly about world events that might mean something to Winston, or maybe, might be funny to him. He laughed a slight laugh at some moments, and at others remained silent and motionless. Sometimes he might make a random comment about wanting pussy, other moments he talked about his school days, stories Robert had heard already, but politely listened again.

"Sometimes I is envy you Winston."

"Why de hell you envy me?"

"Man people know bout you. Nobody ain't know 'bout me. You is de most famous man in Bim. More famous then de Prime Minister."

"Maybe," Winston began, "but wha dah mean for me? Is not like I could run fuh Prime Minister or, or open ah business down Swan Street wif my popularity. I was reading a book on criminals when I was in Trinidad. De term fuh criminals like me ain't 'famous', it is 'infamous' - I famous for being bad. People would smile with me, but call de police in a heartbeat as well. People ain't care 'bout me really."

"You really 'tink so Winston? People care 'bout you man. People still believe you ain't deserve nuh death sentence man. Most people woulda try to escape too. Dem wid you."

"I doan’ agree. People like rules too much. Dey want to believe that everyting would work out right if dey follow de rules. Until of course tings go bad and dey got to do tings to survive, then they realise. I mean it is just like, like...Robert you know how prison is man, they got people that deserve to be there, and they got people who jus' catch a bad break. A lot o' dem get sell out by they family and friends. A lot of Barbados like to rely on other people - de government, dey foolish husband, policemen, or somebody. I ain't nuh genius, but I feel that if a bunch o' people meet me, almost all o' dem would go and call de police cuz dey get tell so. Won't even tink as to why dey doing it."

"That is you fear talkin Winston. Barbadians care man. That is you fear," Robert said, while getting up and fishing in the fridge to refresh their beers. Winston stared ahead at the wall all that time, and when Robert returned to the table and opened the beers with his keychain he began again.

"Somebody is be talking in my head," Winston began, "I doan’ know who it is, it could be my fear telling me all these tings, or it could be my smarts. Whoever it is, it telling me hide from everyone. Last time I was comfortable was in Trinidad wid that woman."

"You did love that woman Winston?" Robert asked.

"Yeah, I did love she. De love turn me different. I guess love is do that. "

"If you hadn't get caught doin' foolishness..."

"It wasn't foolishness, it was my heart getting de best of me."

"Alright if you didn't get caught following you heart, you feel you woulda live there forever?" Robert asked. Winston thought and then looked down at the table.

"Maybe. I love this island, but I was comfortable there. Here my mind is mek me paranoid and nervous. I jus' cut off from this place. I might be de most famous man here, but I don't know much bout it Robert. Trinidad was where tings did at least seem normal. Cuz, for a lil' moment, there was love." Winston said.

Winston lightly clapped onto his shin the side of the collins that Robert gave him on his departure as a plastic bag with fruit lightly cheered by his thigh. Overhead the moon went through the trees with an unmistakable sharp glow, features on the face of it like birth-marks, and were one to walk under the leaves of the breadfruit and mango trees and look up, the way that Winston was at the time, the moon might seem to twinkle its pock-marked light to you. The houses were mostly silent at this point of the night, week-days it was this way. The insects called out into the darkness, creating an instinctual and perpetuating siren, as each insect, perched on their nocturnal pedestal, found a simple and eternal occupation.

Miriam found the insects creepy. When the night-noises reached her ear they were not received as a wafting tone poem of tones, but simply murky tension outside the car window on her ride home. Mr. Holford, who worked at the supermarket across the road from the hotel, and who would drop her home in the late night, and tell her smiling stories of the hopeless, irritable and easily confounded customers and employees of the supermarket, and who also would make fumbling compliments of her hair and necklace and would understand when Miriam declined his invites to concerts and exhibitions, and who would stare at Miriam’s rocking buttocks as she walked away from his car after smilingly thanking him, would then beep his car horn as he drove off softly.

What is that? A car horn. Get behind this house. Make sure that all the lights are off in this house you leaning against. Your knee is okay tonight don’t worry. Who is that there walking? It’s her. Her hair is frazzled a bit. Her hips are so gentle. How does she look so untouched up here in Suriname? Almost all these women look run-down, chipped at the edges, shaken about a bit. She’s different. She is like one of those dreams you have in de morning when ya almost wake up and ya coul’ swear it real but ya is wake up in de grass and ya look around and realise it is de same as yesterday, but ya is put ya hand together and thank God that you coul’ still dream, cuz if not you probably would’ve drowned youself a long time ago. Wait. Look at her eyes, all open wide in this night. Is she surprised? Is she looking for something? No. No, look. She’s scared. Shite you just slip. Hide! you just made a noise.

Winston hid behind the house steadying himself with his forearms while Miriam stopped walking and just stared at the direction of the stumble-sound. In the porous night where most things are hidden but some things escape stood the two, Winston peeping, Miriam listening.

“Who-w-who there?” she asked, amazingly evenly. Winston paused.

“Nobody. Just a man. I ain’t gine hurt you.” Winston finally said, secreted behind the side of the house.

“You was waiting for me right?” Miriam said into the night “I ain’t got no lotta money. I work hard t-this , um today. But tek it, tek d-de money, just don’t ra…”

“I ain’t wait for you . I was jus’ walking through.”

“Then why you was hiding?” she asked, not rudely, not accusatorily, but simply curiously. Silence. She then asked for his name but Winston stretched the silence, pressed rough against the side of the house. Miriam took a step forward on the road and then listened, and then looked around as Winston crouched low. He squinted his eyes at the woman taking tentative steps on the road and opened his mouth to say something, anything, to perhaps welcome her into his secret, or to tell her an outrageous and comforting lie while escorting her home, but instead he held firm and watched Miriam walk down the road quickly and determinedly into the shrouding night.

Through the grass Winston walked, mainly by memory, through the trees that cradled things to sleep and by the edge of a craggy pasture, pocking rocks and dirt with his boots and collins, and in this heavy chaos is where he crouched down and laid by his supplies and run-ragged possessions. Up into the air he looked, at the wavy and dreamy clouds, barely hiding the wide moon out tonight, and he thought of rushing things, and impoverished motionless things that loomed in his head as always, and then sometimes he would listen and listen as the night-time serenaded, or mocked him perhaps.

There he slept, back used to the flat earth, dreams sliding in and out of the thoughts. He dreamt of the children in Trinidad & Tobago, the woman’s children that he was around a lot. He dreamt about his stern lashes he gave them, and he dreamt of him teaching them how to make bow and arrows out of coconut leaves, sharpening the stem into an arrow-point using an old razor from a broken pencil sharpener. He then dreamt of a hot fire, and of him running, and running, and running, and then floating and flying through the trees away from the fire up and above Trinidad, looking down at the twinkling lights that families would leave on at times. He then thought of when he was captured there, and the children looked at him and asked “Tony, ya ‘un come back?” to which Winston looked at them softly with those doomed eyes of his, and shook his head no, his heavy locks floundering over and about his shoulders.

This is your life now. This is your life. Look at it. Look at the shadows of dem trees. Doan worry. We’ll get another plan together. Remember Robert had said there might be a guy that could get pay off to smuggle you on that boat? Something will always come up, you just have to hold on until then. The same thing day in and out until your ship comes in. You know you got what other people doan got. You got de discipline. What? Man you gine got to forget about that girl, about this whole fucking country in fact. Just stay down. Just stay out here, Robert gine set tings in motion. Man doan let you emotions get de better of you. Look I know she look good. I know she comforting. I know you could use some of that comfort. But let it go. This is your life now. This is your life now. Look at the dark grass over there. You could stash some things there. You got to go over to get those carrots from that plot of land. That is what you think of. You get as close as you could. This is your life. Winston sit down. Winston-

Winston got up and looked at the slow clouds, then back towards the little line of houses down the grassy slope. He took up his new cutlass, and walked, shaky, unsure and for the first time in a long time, scared.

Sergeant Douglass Sergeant walked around the district police station. He was testy and bored. He thought about being on the front page of the newspapers quoting something about some murder case he thought up in his mind. At least a good burglary case involving a well-known minister or a beloved person in the media. He would tell the reporters, in the most pleasant of voices, about the dangerous circumstances of the whole ordeal. He thought joyfully of the microphones, of the notebooks scratched with details, of the television cameras with their dull shine on the lens. In fact, he was drawing a complex, Eiffel Tower looking antennae on his note-book when Orville Lowell came up to him to challenge him to a healthy round upon round of x and os.

Eagerly Sergeant would scrawl his x in the corner to begin his winning play he had read of in a book dedicated to these puzzles called ‘Tic-Tac-Toe for Winners!’ that he had picked up in a store adjacent to a hotel on the south coast of the island. He grinned playfully at Lowell, and then at the page as the younger Lowell tried uselessly to circumvent the inevitable.

The grass slid against the boots of Winston as he walked down the hill. The rocks, loose on the dirt moved with a murmuring tumble as Winston kicked them or stepped on them on his way down. He would arch his head, to see through trees and branches, calculating his path towards a house he had never been to, had never scouted out in advance, had never thought of going to until the recent wanderings of his mind. Overhead the clouds were soft in their movements and the wind was cool against his old shirt and his face, run ragged by years, decades in fact, of worrying in a harsh, coarse manner, and decades of regret.

Stop this. Stop this. Stop this I say!

Miriam opened the door to her son’s room and watched the young boy curled into the edge of his bed, but a calm curl. He did not claw the bed-sheets like when she would look in on him after the arguments. This was a motionless slumber, a reprieve from the day at school where he was beaten for trying to cheat on his times-table test, and where Janice Peters, the girl he had pleasing thoughts about, laughed at him when he fell down darting between the trees. He looked up at her as she laughed and then she walked over to him, helping him up as he dusted off his short pants, saying to him “doan cry, you gine get better”, and then she walked away. Miriam closed the door slowly, the shadow of the door looming slowly over the bed until it darkened the entire room. She pulled off her shoes and clothes and just laid in the bed, churning her mind as to who that could have been hiding behind the house, desperate not to be seen, and from whence did he come from. She felt helpless, but also, for no reason, wondered if that man was helpless as well, adrift with no one to answer to, or to answer for.

She didn’t exactly want to help him, but rather, to understand him, where he came from, what had him out there at that hour, and what had him so scared, like her. She thought that perhaps he was hiding from the same dark permutations that she supposed existed in those bushy trees and grass up the hill. Perhaps the world had ravaged him to such a degree that even the plaintive claps of a woman’s shoe-heel on the dirty ground scared him. She surmised that his mind saw something horrible in people, and that sight drove him to cower noisily, with mouth agast, like in the movie she saw once where the man saw which people were holy, and which were demons of the devil. If only he stared long enough she thought, then maybe he would see that she was no clawed harlot, but that she was as scared as he was, distrustful of the very nature of people as he was, that she acknowledged the way that love spoiled into vengeful control after a long enough time, disappointing her as she was sure it did him, that poor man clawed and scared behind some wooden house, with the taunting night and the duppies all around him.

Winston stood behind the bare tamarind tree and solidified his approach: he would climb the low pailing surrounding the neighbouring mini-mart and then squeeze through the space he saw on that hill into her premises, and then softly, patiently, meekly tap the windows of the woman’s house until she awoke and then calm her with his eyes and tell her all that was in his foolish heart about her beauty, her unassuming grace, her glad-eyed son, and his own drifting life, polluted with his frenzied volition and shame.

He arrived at the galvanized pailing, creeping unsure like he had by the Plantation House where this whole legend began twenty or so years ago. He jumped up to grab the top, but at that moment, his knee shifted around itself, causing him to fall and hit the outside base with a small thump.

Miriam then heard a thump, small but real. She startled up and looked out the window at the night. She surveyed her little back-yard and saw nothing. She looked at the next door neighbour and saw the stillness she expected. She supposed it was a dog or cat bumping against the pailing, but she kneeled there on the bed, looking out at the trees that waved in the slight wind. And then she gasped, her body tensing up uniformly as if expecting a blow at primary school, as if she caught the Holy Spirit at church, as if she was giving birth at the hospital, as she saw a dark man crawling on top of the neighbour’s pailing.

The District Police Station’s phone rang twice. The officer listened, grumbled his questions to the caller while scribbling notes, and then he looked at the two men playing and arguing about the 1987 Calypso Finals results.

I understand you have a fancy towards her but this is no reason to do this. Think about your knee. Think about this pulsating, devious pain that moves from your knee towards the rest of your body. I can’t stop you can I? I want to. I want you to walk up that slope and disappear into those trees like you have since you came back to this part of the island. Stop thinking of her…you can’t can you? Your beautiful sin. A booming voice tells you not to eat of the tree, don’t eat that fruit, but you have to, because that woman tells you to right? Right there, is when love, the way we know it, was created. He looked towards the sky, looking the way that the sky looked now, a combination of tribulation and creation, the way four o’ clock has always looked, and Adam looked at the sky and chose love over unknowable punishment the way poor you from Suriname will choose it.

Winston jumped and swung his leg over the tall pailing and fell to the ground. He looked around the new surroundings and squinted his eyes to see where the path to Miriam’s house would be. He walked but then fell wordlessly in the soft darkness, soft because of the approaching morning that would shed light to the physicality of this all but never to the motivation, never to the chirping collaborators of the late night, and never to the love that occurred here.

Sergeant Douglass Sergeant turned the car onto the street where Miriam lived in a careful arc. Two others were with him – Lowell, the defeated tic-tac-toe player, and Constable Henry Yarde, a young man new to the police force who swore to his dying grandmother that he would do something useful with his life, and as she felt the dying in her along with the heat, the young man pressed his face into her scratchy, paper hands and thanked her for reforming him. Sergeant knocked softly on Miriam’s door and the door opened silently creating a tension. “I-I was just looking out my window when Jesus Christ I see a man jump over de pailing of’ de mini mart.”

“Okay yes this we know.” Sergeant whispered, “but in the time it tek for we to get here, you inform de owners o’ de mini mart?”

“Yeah, I call up Jackie and tell she. She is de daughter. I call she up cuz I know that she cell phone don’t got a loud ring. It does mostly buzz.”

“Good. Good thinking.” Sergeant said. The young policeman looked at her while her gaze was towards Sergeant. The woman was terrified. To Yarde, her eyes were a-blaze with fear, unblinking and beautiful. The wind would pick up for a couple seconds and he would look at her old T-shirt against her widening waist. He wanted to comfort her and to tell her lies to calm her and after he kissed her, look at her in the morning sun and tell her truth after truth. Meanwhile Sergeant looked at the woman he briefly consoled at Kevin’s funeral and took down the information, caring little for her fear, taking it only to mean that the criminal was a large man. Perhaps he committed more crimes throughout the countryside he theorised. Perhaps he could come up with a name of the man for the reporters to put on the front page - “countryside killer”, “de slasher”, and then “de jungle demon”.

The banana tree in the back flopped as Winston leaned against it, slowly putting and then taking weight off of his knee. He looked around again, and saw that the space leading to the woman’s house was wider than he thought. He swept his heavy locks back and wiped his brow with his old shirt, and then held his cutlass like you would an eccentric cane and said out to the abdicating night “Hello. My name is Winston. People say I do some tings – some o’ dem I do, but some o’ dem I didn’t. I tink I love you, but I ain’t sure, so, what is you name?”, then he shifted again in the craggy dirt and said “Good night, my name is Winston and I tink I love you. But wha so is you name?” Then he scraped the ground with his cutlass/ bejewelled cane and said “Even if you scared of me I want you to know that I love you. My name is Winston Hall. Yes, my name is Winston Hall and I am not ashamed.”

Yarde walked into Miriam’s house, squinted his eyes and looked back, asking “Ma’am, is there a way we could get from where you live to de mini-mart owner house?”

“Yes. They got a lil’ path that is connect we.”

“Do we just get out into your back-yard and just turn right?”

“Yes, yes, yes ya is just turn right.” She whispered. Yarde looked at Sergeant Sergeant, who then slid his right hand between his waist and the leather of his pistol. “Yeah, we gine go in she yard and surprise he, cuz he think he hard, but we gine light up he ass.” And with that he walked through the length of Miriam’s house, walking as if he owned it with no heeding to any decorum, because whatever decorum that was expected usually – whether you took your shoes off or letting the lady walk in front – would mean nothing once police were in your house, partly because of all the urgency in this and partly because of your status in the country. If it were a rich mover and shaker like a Goddard or a Williams, they would’ve at least asked if they could be shown the way through the house by the head of the house. Miriam noticed this, but pursed her lips because of this expected acquiescence that policemen’s widows exhibited always.

The sky was still dark, but still becoming lighter on the upper edges of the sky. Between Winston and the gate to Miriam’s house was a small, easily hop-able fence that separated the small garden that Winston stood upon, and the concrete that led to the back of the mini-mart. He leaned against the soft banana trees and looked up as the leaves crowded the round and glowing moon, its shining glow fading as the sun began to make its approach upon the island.

It combs the light of the moon. Look at the moon being obstructed by the light slice of the banana leaves, the distant craters and darkness of the moon that suggest another place for us humans to go to and make simple at first with our enviable industry, then only to advertise to the people about the advantages of such a place, and then imagine escaping to a place where the best went to the roughest, just like in the westerns you like so much. Feel that wind. Understand it. Believe that it holds a great new thing for you to encounter. Feel the wind, pregnant with the exhalations of generations of Barbadians and tourists. Tell yourself you love it. The people inside of you. Imagine that they tell stories to their children about you. Believe that someone is printing out protest banners for you. Hail the goodness that has gotten you this far, that has made you believe in the gospel of survival through the mere occurrence of actions. Worship the…

“Freeze, ya rassole cunt.”

“Doan come close.”

“I gine got ta come close. Cuz see I is de big bad woodsman coming to capture all o’ wunna wolves. Ya fucking wolves.”

“You sound like you been thinking a lot about what you gine say before you capture somebody.”

“Hush you fuckin’ mouth!” Sergeant Sergeant barked.

“You even know why I here?” Winston asked. “I ain’t here to steal. I here for love. I here to say something to a woman. Something that I should have said a long time ago. Let me through so I could tell her.”

“Put down de cutlass son. I doan know if you got a crush or you in love but come along and we could sort this out.” Sergeant Sergeant said, his hand out-stretched, on the concrete away from the man.

“I tink I love she.”

Okay run into the trees and then use the trunk of the trees to jump up to the pailing. You could leap over and be gone before these policemen come. We could get de dog and be gone from this parish by noon. Just run and jump! Your knee will be okay. You can’t wrestle the policemen to the ground. You have to retreat. Run off. Run off into de wild. Just do a lil’ jump an’ run. Jus’ do it calm.

Winston shifted back and looked at the imposing height of the pailing that he could jump over, he supposed. He saw the three policemen, and he saw them spread out to be of proper use. Winston gripped his cutlass stronger, his arms tensing and straight.

Then he saw her. She peeped through the passageway, furtively of course, but he saw her, her great, rounded eyes, her dense, brown skin, filled with a swirling system of emotions by now, brown with the approaching sun. She was pitied more than admired in her neighbourhood, and the tourists at the hotel were too caught up in the cocaine and flowers of the island to sit and study the beauty of this woman pushing past their rooms. This perky Barbadiana, full of egregious glee, of blind fear and hate, who went undetected by the visitors, but always constant to this visitor Winston. He knew no other recourse, could surmise nothing else but the accomplishment of these heated ideas that singed him in the dark.

He ran towards the policemen. The shot rang out with a sharp and ranging flight, like the flight of crows. Winston slumped back, and then lunged forward towards Miriam while the young policeman Yarde shot again. Winston fell back, squirming at first and then laying still, letting his shoulder-blades touch the ground, and listening to the arched sobbing of the mini-mart owner and Miriam go over the country-side, which was now becoming lighter with this new Age, supplanting the previous Age that began as the Union Jack went down and our flag went up, and ended as the man, arched and crackling on the ground, began to cough his last coughs about love, heard only by the mini-mart owners, the policemen, Miriam, and the curious primary school boy, who stood with his arms folded, staring through the open glass window of his room, with its colour coming alive again in the morning light.

THE END

#winston hall #barbados #black fiction #short story #Long Reads #black lit #fiction #island fiction

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migleefulmoments · 6 years ago

Text

Reality Check on TSG and Darren: Dissecting the Lies the ccers repeat.

The obsession with Mia and TSG returned as soon as Elsie was over- just as predicted. I find it so odd that a handful of women with NO intention of ever stepping foot in TSG have such an obsession with keeping tabs on negative Yelp reviews. How often they must check Yelp in order to catch every one. hot of the press so they can blast it and rage over the problems. But even more curious is that they never actually vet the reviewers themselves for their validity. Several of the negative reviews the fandom delighted over were clearly written by people who have never been to the bar and were influenced by Abby’s theories including the one who complained about the vaginas dripping on the bar and the one who complained about Open Dyke Night and then admitted she was underage and half a world away.

Here is TSG overall score:

With 118 review they are at 4.5 stars so these 1-star reviews are not the norm. Most review look something like this

or this

Now let’s look at this recent lot that Cassie decided to bring to ccers’ attention.

cassie1022

(Well Megan, it depends on what night you were there. They close at 1 am on Tuesday and Wednesday).

(If the door people are turning people away an hour before closing, Mia needs to know and the Yelp review will be helpful But since the vast majority of the 118 reviews are very positive, this clearly isn’t a problem that occurs often).

(This is the one that gets Abby’s fired up about. I have no clue it it is true or if it this policy is posted anywhere. I will give them this one because I can’t check anywhere. 20% does seem a bit high for a bartender tip since they aren’t waiting on a table...anyone?)

(Melinda, Melinda Melinda...I’m going to guess that by her comment that she is not 21. She gave the place 1-star because the bartender carded her. Basically that is it. She gave them a horrible review and ranted because there were frumpy old lady tourists in the bar, she insulted the drink taste and the price even thought it sounds like she wasn’t served and the bartender thought she looked young. I’m sorry but this smells wrong. But even more telling is the comment “If I am willing to buy your mediocre $20 glasses of urine then you bet I am old enough”. Notice she never says she is 21, she simply spits that she is willing to pay the price for the horrible drink and that qualifies her.

Check out her Yelp page- she went to LONO after TSG and complained about TSG on that LONO’s review. “BEST BAR OF THE EVENING! I came here after fleeing the depressing depths of Tramp Stamp Granny's in search of refuge. The bartender with the long red beard was incredibly nice! He was kind, considerate, and extremely welcoming. The drinks were superbly delicious!!!!! Everyone should come here” I get the vibe she didn’t get served at TSG (Keep reading, there is another hint about her age at the bottom of this section)

Back home in NY she gave Trader Joe 1-Star claiming she found a worm in her smoked salmon. That seems suspect since the salmon was smoked. She gave her local ice cream place 1-star and this charming review “There was a long, black hair rolled up into my ice cream, the plate that my "sweet treat" was made on was covered in ice and the remnants of previous orders, and the employees appeared to be quite overworked. When I want ice cream, I don't want an accompanying side of pity for the workers and disdain for the tedious, migraine-inducing procedure to make a mediocre ice cream. Also, the store was sweltering and I broke out into a beading sweat while waiting in the purgatory-like line.” The only places Melinda likes are a hot dog place and a pizza joint. The pizza joint got 5-stars “By far the best pizzeria ever; my existence would be trash without Emilio's. Oozy, gooey goodness that tastes like ambrosia regardless of the toppings. While the employees are lacking in the common customer service charm that we are force fed as a society, they have a higher level of pizza IQ than the rest of us average mortals. I guess that's what happens when you spend your days cultivating the food of the gods.”. But my favorite review of all is for 5-star review for her favorite hot dog place “Very delicious, savory hot dogs. The location is prime with it being directly behind the high school, however, the large line every single day can get a bit tedious. If only they would expand and open an extra window.” Now why would an adult care that it is located near the high school? It would seem that the person who calls the location “prime with it being directly behind the high school” but also notes that it the line is large every single day is a high school student. Of course she could be a teacher who eats hot dogs everyday and is between the ages of 22 and 30 (any older and she would not be that upset that the bartender thought she looked young) but her comments reek of teenager.)

(I have no clue what David’s issue is. Is this a viable complaint to leave on Yelp? It sounds like David has a personal issue with the guy working the door.)

Now the ccers chime in:

ajw720 While all of these are bad, how are they getting away with unitemized bills that include gratuity with no policy plainly in site? I totally understand charging gratuity and have absolutely no issue with it, but it needs to be clearly stated, because if it is not, that is tricking customers into tipping twice. Disgusting.

Can we please separate d from this horrific establishment? Not only is it utterly misogynist and offensive in nature, with theme nights where the name is considered hate speech, it is repeatedly cited as poorly run. First a 5% upcharge on ice and now we learn they charge gratuity automatically on bills of $80 or more without clearly stating the policy. That should be written on the bill handed to the customer. Unacceptable.

(Can we please separate d from this horrific establishment? No, Darren is married to the owner and considers himself an owner. What did he say the other day? “It’s my bar too because we are a unit” or something like that.

Not only is it utterly misogynist: TSG is NOT misogynistic. You dont understand the word .

and offensive in nature: TSG is NOT “offensive in nature” to most grown adults. You can find it offensive but you do not get to dictate what the rest of the world finds offensive. Your attitude is no different from the Christians who claim they won’t serve LGBTQ customers because it is against their religious beliefs in that you are both putting your morals, values and beliefs on someone else and declaring that it is offensive to all of us. If you find it offensives then don’t give them your business. Period

with theme nights where the name is considered hate speech: The theme-night names that you find so offensive and are labeling “hate speech”, are in fact words the LGBTQ is using to empower their community. “Open Dyke Night” was named- and is hosted by- a lesbian who uses the word to empower lesbians. These theme nights you find so offensive are NOT for you. They are nights for the LGBTQ community to come to a space that is safe and enjoy the company of others in the community just like them hence Open Dyke Night is for lesbian women to come together with other lesbian women and enjoy a night of singing and celebration.

it is repeatedly cited as poorly run.. : It is NOT “repeatedly cited as poorly run” by anyone who isn't named Abby, Cassie, Leka, and Flowers. The bar has 4.5 stars overall and a lot of 5-star reviews. This is exactly what NadiaCreek was talking about when she said “You are denying a reality that is obvious and that gets more and more evidence with every passing day. You are tricking yourself into seeing patterns that are not there, by obsessing over small details and ignoring a mound of evidence for the opposite, true conclusion. That kind of thing can and will pour over into areas of your life that do matter. Denying reality in any area of the world is a dangerous game that can and will impact the rest of your life”. THIS is so important.

First a 5% upcharge on ice and now we learn they charge gratuity automatically on bills of $80 or more without clearly stating the policy. That should be written on the bill handed to the customer: A 5% up-charge on ice was mentioned by one person. I wouldn't be referencing that based on one person’s random comment. The 20% gratuity is again only one person complaining so I wouldn’t sink my teeth in to this one until you know a lot more)

klaineownsmysoul

When you have a “venue operator” masquerading as an owner who knows nothing about how a business should be run and obviously couldn’t care less, what do you expect? They couldn’t be bothered fixing the air conditioning last summer and laughed it off as a joke. Pretty sure at this point its obvious this wasn’t some sort of “life long dream” of hers to own a bar like they’ve pushed; more like a dream to have a place where she can drink for free and have her pic taken while people kiss her ass and call her wonderful. There is not an ounce of D in that place. His shoelaces have more integrity than this place.

(You have no clue what the business end of TSG is and comments like how she is “masquerading as owner” are so obtuse and stupid they defy logic. She is the owner and the bar is busy. But it doesn’t matter if it is failing and barely hanging on- it isn’t any of your business-that’ss between Mia, Darren and Danny and their landlord and vendors. It’s really sad and disgusting that you want Darren’s bar to fail. CCers want to be taken seriously -Abby constantly complains that the stans won’t listen to the various cc tropes -and yet you make nonsense statements like this...this is one big reason why you aren’t taken seriously. You WANT Mia to fail and you WANT TSG to go away but that is not the same thing as it actually failing or Mia being a clueless boss. In fact, her employees have said very nice complimentary things about her being a fabulous boss and they are far more credible evaluators than the cc fans who have never been to the bar and simply believe Abby’s fantasy tropes about the bar and Mia failing. You have no idea if she cares or doesn’t care and again, it isn’t any of your business. It’s her business to drive into the ground or make it a roaring success. Darren’s fans don’t get a say in the matter other than to either be a customer and pay for drinks or don’t give them your business.

Patrons continue to go to the bar and I have not seen complaints about the lack of A/C except on opening night. It is just as much Darren’s bar as Mia’s- so you believe Darren didn’t care about the A/C and laughed it off as a joke? When? Or is it that A/C was out a few days over a year ago and you are still using that as fuel for your rage about a bar that you have nothing to do with?

“Pretty sure at this point its obvious this wasn’t some sort of “life long dream” of hers to own a bar like they’ve pushed; more like a dream to have a place where she can drink for free and have her pic taken while people kiss her ass and call her wonderful” Again comments like these are why you aren’t taken seriously. Mia owns the bar. Whether you like it or not, she owns the bar. You simply don’t like that she isn’t the bar manager-she pays people to do that. The owner is the one who hires and trains staff, makes decisions about the menu and what alcohol will be offered, writes the policies and procedures, plans the calendar and makes payroll. She pays other people to run the bar day-to-day and that pisses you all off because you can’t see her at the bar and criticize every moment that is uploaded to social media. What she does is all behind the scenes and not Instagramable. But it doesn’t mean she isn’t working. There is a thing now called the internet and it makes doing a lot of the work of running a bar doable from a wide varsity of locals. .

Your comment that “there is not an ounce of D in that place” leaves me shaking my head. When you guys say things like this it just proves that you don’t know anything about Darren. You spend your time looking for Blaine and you're right- the bar has nothing to do with Blaine but it has Darren written all over it. The cc fandom spends all of their time and effort looking for the Darren they want to see and it’s a lot of work. You have to reject a lot of what you see and blame it on his team for making him be the bro’ dude that you can’t stand. You have to find videos and look at them frame by frame to find the moments you believe are the ‘real’ Darren aka the one you want to see. You have to cut out those precious few seconds, slow them down, and turn them into gifs and THERE...THERE IS the Darren you know and love. But while you are doing all that work you are missing the real Darren. The one who is right there in front of your face but you don’t like because he isn’t Blaine. Darren’s footprint is all over the bar- from the elegant debauchery of the decor to the sexual puns on the signs and the drink names that IS Darren Criss. The piano at the center of the room-Darren’s piano- that he uses to connect with people through music and the fact that it is a piano bar that plays covers is all Darren. Mia plays very different music when she performs and yet the bar is literally based on what Darren does best- play the piano and sing covers while those around him join in. The place is ALL Darren-you just don’t like the real Darren.)

flowersintheattic254

You know so many things were attempted to try to make M look like a career woman, with a viable business, shared interests with D and not a beard without taste or work ethic.

I think the bar will likely last as long as the fake marriage as M isn’t interested in it when D isn’t there to hang off and when you consider when it opened and how the encage went down.

M hung around bands when she was younger due to her fathers businesses. She likes being around famous, talented people. The bar gives her the opportunity and venue to continue her groupie inclinations.

I’m absolutely glad that D has been too busy recently to be there.

The most influence he may of had was with the whiskey choice.

(I don’t know why it’s so hard for you all to understand that Mia had several jobs and now she is owns a bar. The fact that you feel entitled to criticize her for her career decisions and make comments about her taste level is pure misogyny. Darren has also had lots of jobs and you don’t criticize him and the punny sex jokes are all Darren and yet you attribute them to Mia- that’s misogyny. Mia didn’t write Me and My Dick, Darren did, he loves the puns. As for shared interests...he married her. Their shared interest is the family and the life they are building together.

How long the bar is open is yet to be determined but given that your record for predictions regarding Darren and Mia is abysmal, I’m not going to sweat it. The idea that Mia “hung out with bands” as a kid and the piano bar gives her the opportunity to hang out with famous people-I just can’t. She hangs out with far more “famous people” and musicians just going to events with her husband then she ever will at Darren’s piano bar.

Her “groupie inclinations” WTF is a “groupie inclination”? I don’t even know what to say to that because I have no clue what a groupie inclination is. It’s really sad that you are so happy that Darren isn’t connecting to people though music since that means so much to him. He recently was asked if he had a need to be on stage and he said no, he has never had that need but what he does "NEED” is to connect to people though music and he also has said that playing the piano while people sing along gives him that connection. I shouldn’t be surprised that you are gleeful that Darren hasn’t had time to spend at the bar he created in honor of his beloved Marie’s Crisis, your fan-girling over Darren has never been about Darren, it’s always been about you).

leka-1998 Too bad you can’t actually call forgetting about that place most of the time and drinking the money they force people to spend a career. She’d be truly successful. It’s really her bar and D’s just the piano man, right? So if that could stop too, that would be nice.

(You really need to stop slandering Mia, she doesn’t drink anymore than Darren. You never call out Darren’s drinking but then again, it’s just your misogyny speaking-it always comes. The bar is Mia and Darren’s. When he says he’s just the piano man, he is just taking the attention from himself and giving it to her. Darren does this a lot with people he cares about. But he has been very clear that the bar is his and Mia’s. I know words are hard for you guys, you get so caught up in the meaning of the word that you fail to hear the message. Anyone paying even a little attention t Tramp Stamp Granny’s would realize that is Darren’s bar through and through. Someday maybe you can all stop looking for the Darren you like, stop obsessing about what this word means or that word, stop slowing down videos and clipping the out the 3 seconds you like and instead you can just listen to the Darren that is right there in front of you and HEAR what he has to say. It will be revolutionary. Listening to other people without assumptions is the very least you can do..literally it is the least).

#cc #ccer #cc fandom #crisscolfer #darren criss #cc nonsense #cc lies #so many lies

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alkhale · 6 years ago

Note

Regarding your message on chapter 34 of Enigma, I don’t think you have to rewrite the entire alma torran arc unless you really want to go in depth into the history of Kali’s mother and people. The Alma torran arc is one of my personal least favorite throughout the whole series primarily because it introduces a whole new set of characters and gives me no reason to care about them. I would be fine if you scraped the whole thing, but it's up to you, and it looks as if you already did a lot of -

thinking into Kali’s backstory and existence, and that would be a pain to delete; however, I am fine with Kali’s existence and nearly everything about her being a mystery. Personally the reticence behind it makes it very compelling to me, and the story’s title is enigma, lol. Anyways, totally up to you, just some thoughts because I totally would hate to re-read the alma torran arc in the manga too. Next, I wanted to explore Kali’s personality because I wholeheartedly agree with you; there are -

parts where it doesn’t flow, or make sense after everything she’s been through. One chapter that I couldn’t even bring myself to read was chapter 8 when she became so upset with Ahbmad. I once read somewhere, that if a person were to live forever, they would be the most understanding and kindest person in the world. I don’t completely agree with this, as I still think it depends on the person, however as Kali has lived thousands of different timelines in horrible worlds, and witnessed repulsive

actions I imagine her very accurately as a prime example of someone who follows stoicism, or someone who can be the most understanding because more than nearly anyone (perhaps minus people from alma torran?) she understands what it’s like to make mistakes, to be a bad person, to be a good person, to travel, to live, to be desperate or hopeless and in pain. I also believe she is for the most part written like this in the story. For example, she liberates slaves and uses her money to help people -

the slums. In, I think the first chapter she says she the most selfish person Sinbad knows, however, I think this is just guilt that she doesn’t do more. And I don’t think she should do more. Because she can’t completely give herself to other people without becoming miserable, but as she is - just helping when she can- is accurate to real, sustaining, kindness. Therefore, I felt like she wouldn’t have wanted to murder Ahbmad. When I watched it I just felt annoyed with him. I’m not saying she

should be totally forgiving to his whole slave plan, but I believe she would just think he’s an idiot who doesn’t really know what he’s doing or what consequences will arise from him turning all his citizens into slaves. The ending of magi for me was not terribly disappointing. It ended very open ended which gives a lot of room for you to explore and rewrite it to your preference. I do think it was rushed, but at the same time I really can’t imagine Sinbad losing. The Kou brothers all being sent

The Kou brothers all being sent to an island was also a bit disappointing even though it didn’t happen at the end. i thought Kouen would have a showdown with Sinbad, lol. Omg, and your Au made me cry. Haha, that was so sad. And Kali was pregnant too. Personally I don’t think she would have children, I mean, I just can’t really imagine it until she’way older like 28 or something even then… I don’t know just rubs my skin the wrong way. Regardless, I love all your extras on Enigma, and I can’t

wait for Sinbad’s adventures. I loved that series so much. I’m also curious to when she originally met him. I know you already wrote it, but was it before he met Ja’far and the rest? Couldn’t have been before Drogon, lol. Anyways, sorry for the really long ask! I’m just really curious to the changes you’ll be incorporating, and how much you’re changing the story. Like will there be au earlier? Or extra scenes? Scenes taken out? I really love this story and you <3 I love a lot of your stories,

but Enigma is definitely my favorite, and I Kali might be my favorite Oc of yours cause I ship her with Sinbad a lot, lol. I hope this message doesn’t come off demanding or irritate you. Best of luck with creating it to your liking, and take your time, I don’t want Enigma to end ಥ_ಥ Legit, I would read 40 more chapters of it if you wrote it. Haha, sorry for the long ask :’) and I hope it all got through.

(End of asks!)

@koilome This has been extremely insightful and honestly so, so helpful while I’ve been going back and rereading and rereading and trying to figure out the bits and pieces of places that I can make a change that will impact the story more/make it flow better the way I want to. The changes are mostly just small bits and pieces of rewriting because I’m not going through to change the whole story, but sometimes it’s when you replace the smaller things that it ends up taking so much time ;-; I’ve felt almost stagnant I think with Kali’s character because I know where I wanted her to be at the end of everything and where she is now, but the bit inbetween to getting there got a bit lost to me as I went about it and I wanted to make things more consistent with her choices.

The Ahbmad thing was something I was thinking about too! The anger I have to admit is mostly from lashing out and being particularly dramatic because she wanted to make a point. But the main issue lies with the fact that in the chapter where we learn Kali is traveling worlds, one world she did kill Ahbmad because she succumbed to the easy thought that kill this and it ends here and followed this vice throughout many different worlds, honestly, changing and making her realize how wrong and sickening the whole thing was and that not her world or not, it was a world and it was a life.

Thank you so, so, so much for taking the time out to send these. Enigma’s a tab I keep opened up to do bits and pieces while I work on the others and I’m hoping to finally have something solid out soon, thank you for loving it enough to send these and to be patient and everything else. I can’t thank you enough <3

#Enigma #Kali #pt 1001 of why i dont deserve u guys #magi fanfiction

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hollandroos · 7 years ago

Text

Blow a Kiss, Fire a Gun | Pt.1

Tom Holland Mob!AU

Teaser

Summary: You’re arranged to marry Tom Holland, Londons most feared mobster, but it’s never easy. He doesn’t seem to want you and you don’t want anything to do with him.

Words: 3k

“Now I told you last time you were here Marcus, You had one last chance to finish the deal or there’d be punishments” Tom stepped circles around the guy, excitement filling his chest when he noticed the blood dripping down his nose, electric red highlighted his lips, purple and blue formed beneath his eyes. “I may have given you a second chance, but I don’t give out third chances.”

“Please, I-I can do it-, I can finish the deal for you” The man could barely speak. Blood sputtering between his teeth, almost making Tom grin wickedly. It was sick really, Tom’s fascination, but he couldn’t help it when this was who he had been raised to be. Ever since he was a child he’d been exposed to gore and violence and taught to do whatever he had to, to stay at the top.

“I don’t give a damn. Do you know how I got to the top, Marcus?” Tom practically spat out the man's name, rolling up his jacket sleeves though it was a little too late now considering he’d already beaten the man half to death. “By being fucking ruthless”

He swung his fist back, connecting it with the man's face and watching it fall to the side. Not even wincing when the already there ache in his knuckles only became more intense.

He felt euphoric every time his fist connected with the man's face, it was twisted though, it wasn’t like he was beating this man up purely for his own enjoyment, no this man had screwed Tom around.

A knock at the door made him groan and with one last punch, Tom mustered up a quick. “Come in”

He didn’t like to be pulled away from business, especially when he was in his prime, but still Tom grabbed the white rag that sat on the chair beside him and wiped the blood off of his knuckles watching the white turn a deep crimson and feeling a sense of pride when he noticed the deep bruises forming on each knuckle.

Harrison stepped in, “Gee you really fucked him up, mate” He snickered, watching as the man squirmed in his seat.

“Yeah? Well we’re not even close to being done yet”

“Your dad's here to see you, said it’s important, he’s in the office.” Tom groaned, chucking the bloody cloth at Harrison and gained the attention of one of his men that stood at the door, muttering a small “See to him.” before following Harrison.

The walk to the office was long, up several flights of stairs and Tom would admit that it was a bit much, a big house for only a few people It was usually just Tom and his house workers as well as Harrison who stayed over most nights. He was a young man with too much money, what else was he to do with it?

When he reached his office, he walked in, taking a seat in his leather chair and leaning back. Tom’s office was almost always dark, the stained, wooden walls and curtain that were always kept drawn shut kept it that way.

“Father! It's been a while, what brings you by?” Tom picked up a cigarette, lighting it between his fingers and taking a puff. “I was in the middle of dealing with someone”

“I have news that concerns not only the mob but you.” Dom was on edge and Tom noticed easily, he was good at reading people’s emotions. “You know that eventually, you’d have to… marry someone” Dom began. “A girl” he watched the way his son tensed up, his face hardening and the smile he wore only seconds ago, disappeared. Tom took another puff of his cigarette.

“I remember. We got her family's men and in exchange, I’d keep her alive.” Though Tom didn’t want to remember, in fact, the thought of marrying had terrified him ever since he’d been told only at the age of seventeen, it infuriated him. But he understood that without that deal he wouldn’t have made it to the top. His parents did what was best for the mob even if that meant binding their son to a girl for the rest of his life and yours did what was best for their daughter, even if that meant conjoining her to London's most feared mobster.

When he first found out, he was livid. Tom flipped tables and ragged at his parents for signing away his freedom. That was before he understood the gains he’d get out of this arrangement. Tom didn’t have to accept the fact that this was done without his consent, no still go this day he hated it but he had accepted where the deal had gotten him.

Over the years he’d done whatever he could to ignore the deal, sleeping around, messing up his clients, getting harsher as the date only seemed to loom closer. Tom hadn’t even tried to look up the girl, not wanting to know what she looked like or even pretend that she existed. Because that would make the deal all too real. He didn’t want this, but he needed it.

“It’s her birthday today, she’s eighteen and that means that it’s time” When Tom didn’t say anything, just put his cigarette out, Dom spoke up again, “Look, you know this was hard for us to do, you’re my son and I wanted you to marry for love but it was what’s best for the mob. All you have to do is keep her alive.”

“When do I meet the girl?” Tom stood up, gripping the side of his desk just enough for the dull pain to become sharper.

“You’ll meet Y/N today. The ceremony won’t be formal or anything, just a simple piece of paper that you both have to sign. I don’t even think she knows yet so I don’t know how her father will get her to sign it, but it has to be done”

Tom was currently trying to come up with any way he could get out of it. He’d gone years ignoring this girl, hoping that his family would forget or it’d fall through but now it was all too real. “Can’t we just rip the paper in half? We have the men, they can’t exactly just take them back. They’d be dead in seconds if they even tried.”

“You know we can’t do that, if word gets out it’ll look bad for our family. We could lose future deals. Tom, you’re the youngest Mobster in London and also the strongest, we can’t risk doing anything to mess that up just yet”

“She’s a nice girl, innocent, won’t try anything, we’ve been keeping tabs on her. You don’t’ even need to talk to the girl, though since you’re going to be bound together by law then you may as well get along.”

Tom sighed, sitting back down and kicking his feet up on the large desk. His life was about to change, despite all of his other responsibilities he’d not have a girl- wife to watch over. Joy.

“When’s she popping by?”

The last thing you expected to happen on your eighteenth birthday, was to sit through a three-hour car ride with nothing but utter silence and an indescribable tension. You swore you fell asleep at one point and maybe just zoned out for the most part, but that was all you remembered because the next thing you knew the car came to a sudden halt and your dad had opened the passenger door for you to climb out.

Growing up you didn’t get to go away much, or at all. Your parents were very secretive, if your father was in his office then the door would stay locked and if you so much as stepped foot into the room, there’d be trouble. There were locks on every one of his draws and bottles of cheap whiskey stacked so high they loomed over your ten-year-old self. That’s what you remembered from the one time you managed to sneak in any way.

Where you going on a holiday? Was it a getaway?

“Where are we? Why are we here?” You were confused, thinking that this was a secret birthday surprise but as people who you’d never seen before began unloading multiple suitcases out of the boot and your father's hard face remained, your excitement could only be replaced with nerves. “Dad, is everything okay?”

“You’re moving in” He was blunt, managing to conceal the nerves in his voice. Your father had decided that the best way to go about this was to be harsh, blunt. “Don’t ask any more questions.”

Eighteen, the birthday your father and mother-, before she was brutally murdered, had been trying to push to the back of their minds but now it was here. They could run, but they wouldn’t get far, they could try and break the contract, but the Hollands didn’t work that way. Tom was known to be brutal, unforgiving. So he accepted it, packing all of your belongings in suitcases and chucking them in the back seat.

It hurt them to sign that paper, it hurt them more to keep the secret from you year after year and it hurt your father to bring you here. Knowing that he’d probably have limited contact but he’d convinced himself that it was for the best. But when was giving your child up for a marriage they didn’t want nor where they aware of, the best?

“What? But-, are you moving in to?”

You had always been the curious type. He turned to you suddenly, so sudden that you almost walked right into his chest. “You need to trust me, don’t ask questions and just do what they say. This is for your own good”

You stopped walking, “What’s happening? I refuse to go anywhere until you tell me. Is this a birthday surprise?”

The place was huge to say least. It wasn’t just a house-, it was a compound with large, white steel frames and probably the fanciest windows and doors you’d seen in your life. The place would have cost millions upon millions and you could only imagine who lived there.

He gripped your upper arm, finding it harder and harder to tell you what you were only moments away from finding out. “We have to go inside, we’re already late enough.”

Huffing, you followed, wondering when he’d finally stop treating you like a child. You walked to the door only to be greeted by men, much taller, scarier men that looked like they could snap your neck in seconds. “Mr Y/L/N?” one simply asked, your father nodded and he leads you inside. “Mr Holland has been waiting”

For some reason, the name ‘Holland’ made something click, but you weren’t sure yet. The two of you followed the same man inside and up the stairs, but you couldn't help but marvel at the place. There seemed to be at least three stories to the place and everything was white. White was the colour of purity if only you’d known then and there that the things that went down in this place was the complete opposite of that.

The man knocked on a door at the very end of only one out of god knows how many hallways. It was a double door, neat and pristine. A small ‘Come in’ was muttered and your dad stepped in, you stayed behind him.

“Mr Y/L/N, you made it” A man stood up and your dad stepped aside to shake his hand, suddenly you felt exposed in front of the two men you’d never met. “You must be Y/N, lovely to meet my soon to be daughter in law”

You froze, those three words “D-daughter in law?” You looked from your dad to the other man, to the boy that looked just a bit older than you that was still sitting in his seat, an arrogant look on his face as he stared you up and down.

Your dad stood beside you, a sigh leaving his lips as Dom instructed the three of you to sit down. But you refused, standing your ground. “I don’t-, what’s going on?”

Before anyone else could speak up, the young boy cut in making the other man glare. “we’re getting married, sweetheart, today in fact”

You laughed bitterly. “This is a joke, you’re all pranking me. This isn’t funny, dad, it’s my birthday.”

“I suggest you watch your tone, young lady” You didn’t like the way the other man spoke to you, as if he was above you in some way, which he was. “You are about to sit down and discuss business with a mob that could have you killed in an instant”

Mob. You remembered some of the stories your mother would tell you about the mobs and how those people could kill ruthlessly and get away with anything. They often had money, a lot of it. But now you were sitting at a table with Tom Holland and you felt nothing, not even when you noticed the purple and blue that painted his knuckles.

If this was the last time your father was going to comfort his little girl, then he may as well make the most of it. He grabbed your hand guiding you to the seat beside him, but that did nothing. You still tugged your arm away, turning to leave the room but you didn’t get very far because the second you did you came face to face with the same man from before.

“Sit down, sweetie” You listened this time, slowly backing away from the larger man and taking a seat. “The Hollands have been very good to us.”

Tom flicked you a look, he wasn’t smirking this time, instead, his face held what looked like anger. It was obvious that he didn’t want this as much as you did, but both of you were stuck in a deal made between parents.

“Now, let’s start shall we?”

Your dad hovered over you, intense eyes burning into the paper.

Tom had signed, his hand had gripped the pen so hard his bruised knuckles turned a Pale white. When it was your turn though, the whole world seemed to spin and if it hadn’t of been for Dom explaining the situation briefly, you would’ve tried another escape. Tom had merely said five words to you but kept his gaze on you intimidatingly.

Since a young age, you’d only dreamed what your wedding would be like. To be pronounced husband and wife in front of a crowd of people, family and friends would cheer and you’d stare lovingly at your husband. You’d imagined a field of Daisy's, or was it rows of rose bushes? But as you sat at the desk, paper beneath you, all you wanted to do was throw up.

“I don’t want to” You turned around, looking up at your dad. “Please don’t make me” Your hand shook and it brought your father back to the day he initially signed the contract, his heart practically beating out of his chest. But he had faith that this was the right thing to do. Looking over at Tom he knew you’d be safe, or at least as safe as you could get.

“You will do this, Y/N, or I swear to god-”

“You’ll do what? You’re already marrying me off to him” you snapped, the pen falling out of your hand and rolling over to Tom who picked it up, tapping it against the desk.

Tom leaned back in his seat, watching you intently and smirking when you spoke back. You were feisty, he liked that already. He let out a small laugh, running a hand through his locks and you looked at him, uncertainty written on every aspect of your face. “C’mon, poppet, this is for your safety” He chuckled bitterly. “I’ve done my part, now it’s your turn”

It was dead silent as your dad, Tom and Dom stared at you, each of them with different thoughts in mind. Your dad was staring Tom up and down, wondering if in fact, he did do the right thing. Dom was close to smirking, looking overjoyed at the fact that he was about to complete a deal that had been long in the making and strengthen his son's title while Tom, well he wished he was anywhere else. He was trying to hold his anger in, thinking about which client would feel his rage when the meeting was done.

“Daddy…”

“Sign it.” He couldn’t even look at you.

Tom slid the pen back over to you Slowly you lowered your hand, messily adding your signature beside Tom’s. There were words and other signatures that you didn’t even bother to read, too scared to even think about what else your parents had signed away. This was your life now, at the age of eighteen you were married to the strongest and most feared mobster.

The second that paper was signed, Tom got up, pushing his chair back with a force he was unaware he was holding back and headed straight back to Marcus. He was livid and ready to finish some incomplete business.

“Thank you, Mr Y/L/N. I assure you, this was for the best” Your dad nodded at Dom's words, trying not to notice the way you shook like a damn dog in the seat. “Y/N will be okay, now if you’ll excuse us.”

Part 2!

Feedback/comments are appreciated + Ideas for the next part

BAK: @aussie-mantle @highladyjel @revivalbenito @spider-mendes @iris1697 @theamuz @zseonlydavinci @bridiereads @sophie2003003 @parkeret @baby-baker @marvelgladers @dreamsofbeingsomeoneelse @sighaislin @marvel-zip @oreosrockover18 @whystopkeepon@barnsism @trashqueenbitch @gab-spidey @lafayettes-baguettes-1 @peterparkerdeservesbetter @ambrosmar @calmdownyall @xxxxdelenaxxxx @deadlyaffairs @stop-wonder-think @thollandtrash @butcanyoujustimagine @leni-lion-luke-larb-logic @highladyjel @study-at-the-disco @r-i-d-g-e-s @giuliavxox @dreams-in-different-colours @spideynblackcat @vividcelestia @okayypotato @unknxwn-intrxvert @highkeymood @trashqueenbitch @imahuricane @thefanbasewhore @lyssilinn @thebittygirl @spn-worm

@draqcnheartstrinq @hollanderheart @peters-vlogs @no-aaaahhhh @underoosie @cosmetologynerd @holland-ish @kaciidubs @spidey-pal @call-me-wisegirl @khai-day-the-13th @leni-lion-luke-larb-logic @panicatttckiss @marriedtopeterparker @stormyparker @mysticsthinking @elyshugh @spider-mendes @girl-in-the-chair @sort-of-pretty-in-pink @bloom003-blog @nextkaratekid @saracastickid @prof-scribbles @holyrose96 @riverdalemami @strangerthantheflash @sams-hollands @tiau-man @tiny-friggin-human @thollandtrash @amidblogger @tiau-man @zseonlydavinci @therealme13posts @zseonlydavinci @httpmcrvel @acciorinn @shakespeare-and-shenanigans @satellitesweetpea @maddie-leighhh @spideymanss @stephie-senpai @sherizaraiyah @tomsh0lland @spidey-pal @casualprincess77 @starlightfound @fandom-feathers @spidergirlwanab @smileyhollander @notthepersonyouwerelookingfor @tomhollandsworld @necromancer-inwell @doloreatroce @hottrashformarvel @fragcc @woosh-pear @spider-mendes @softhollandhoe @ill-be-your-temporary-fix @thegirlwiththestories @elyshugh @stilinski-parker @misscookie-monster16

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rodgerusher47-blog · 6 years ago

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New Deep Home Mp3

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ivycorp · 2 years ago

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Fowler keeps track of the preferences too, so he can, if needed, influence the mood Optimus is in:

he would see Prime is getting really short-tempered (well, his version of it) and open his extensive folder with tabs like:

'in the event of death (of his ex)'/'in the event of death (his own team)'/'in the event of death (his own) <he will get better, just wait>'/'Ratchet forced entire base to undergo annual maintenance check'

and just go to 'OP needs to chill a bit' tab and pick up another one on the list to make sure to mention as an off-hand comment or leave at the base general files

(mislabelled and misfiled, so Optimus would be drawn to fix that error sooner than later)

he would scratch that title off the list later and, if necessary, do this long enough until he meets his goal

Because as much as Fowler knows he can argue quite well, it's way easier to convince OP to do something when he has just had a fantastic read and is all small-smiles/excited-optics/barely-restrained-need-to-talk-about-it

and, since he signed Optimus on the literature forum under a pseudonym, he no longer needs to sit through those insights on base - though Fowler also has his own profile (also under a pseudonym) on that forum and sometimes leaves encouraging notes for OP when he gets little response (quite rare)

in the base they don't even realise what is going on until they hit an anniversary of the Schism and Optimus is actually humming to himself, because a book he found and read right before kept him quite happy

(Fowler noted the mood shifts occur around this time and doubled down on the good content and positive forum messages)

Autobots collectively decide to keep their mouths shut because whatever Fowler is doing seems to be working and they prefer this over the brooding they experienced for so long

No yeah I cannot forget the "Optimus Prime read fifty shades of gray and regretted it" post

Imagine the kids are over at the base and just hear a distant sharp "thunk" and Ratchet is quietly trying not to laugh because he knows it's Optimus throwing the book against the wall because Oppy is that exasperated

"I thought we were supposed to treat books with great respect?"

"That old friend is not a book; Ṭ̶̀h̴͙̪̾́a̶̟͕̔t̶͓͐ ̴̘͉̌͑i̵̫̕s̵͇̍ ̴̠̞̓s̵͚̃̂ǐ̵̜̃x̴̟̒̾ͅ ̷̫̽ẖ̷̏u̴̯͂͑ň̸̹d̵̨͕͗͛r̸̜̯̀e̶͎̠͊ḏ̵͛̉ ̵̳̪̃ã̶̖̅n̴̠̓ͅd̸̦̋͊ ̵̨̿o̴̙͒͛ͅń̷͓e̵̘̅ ̴̨̐p̸̱̔̋ȧ̴͙̰g̴̘̑͝ë̷̩͈͝ş̶͎̔ ̷͚͕͊ò̴̺f̵̡̅ ̶͇͔́á̵̢̻̀g̸͚̼̽o̴̡̱̅̈́n̴͖̿̅y̷̘̼̓.̶̼͕̀̇ I am greatly disappointed in you for recommending this to me."

#transformers #maccadam #they dont know megs is also on this forum #soundwave made him a profile #but he keeps on butting heads with one user and thus keeps on getting suspended for profanities

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botonbots · 8 years ago

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Combiner Wars: Ultra Magnus

Hey wait, Combiner Wars was the previous Generations line! Yeah, I do what I want, leave me alone. I found him on Amazon for $50 and that seemed reasonable. There are other Combiner Wars Ultra Magnuses (Magni?) that were $80+. This is the official product so I don’t know why it was $30 cheaper, but I won’t complain!

First off, that face on the box is great, look at that D:< face, it’s beautiful.

On the back of the box it says

The legend of ULTRA MAGNUS is exceeded only by the legend of OPTIMUS PRIME. When ULTRA MAGNUS was lost, the forces of justice would not let a warrior of his caliber fall. MINIMUS AMBUS, using the power of his rare loadbearer spark, enables ULTRA MAGNUS to fight on.

Which is... mostly correct I suppose.

He has the same basic plastic staples holding him in place as every other Hasbro transformer. The only difference was the paper tie across his chest that secured him to the cardboard insert in the box. Overall, he was easy to get out and nothing had rustled during shipping.

Magnus comes with two (2) guns, a card with no information on it, and Minimus Ambus!

Just a card. No stats. What am I supposed to do if I don’t know how much gun he has?!?!?!

A thing I found funny is that he’s packaged with only one shoulder rocket launcher thing on. Which, like, would drive him crazy. So that’s fun.

His arms seem too long, but I don’t think it’s too bad.

I get the reasons for the hollow plastic, but boy do I not like the look.

It’s a good Magnus face. Though he could afford to frown a little more. Don’t look so happy, Mags!

You can push down on Magnus’ shoulder stacks and force him to look like Prime!Soundwave.

Magnus has hands that open and close, which is nice! But, because of this, he doesn’t have an especially strong grip on his guns.

It’s a secure fit, but not solid.

Did I mention that this guy is big and was a little bit bigger than what my shadow box would have liked?

I thought that his guns and rockets combined to make a really stupid looking gun that he couldn’t actually hold because of the gun not slotting into his hand.

Nope! They combine to make a hammer with a gun. Which is... better than the gun anyway.

His arm guards have a slot to let the hammer comfortably fit into his hand. His wrists don’t rotate, so his hand and slot will always be lined up.

He has six sets of plugs where you could put his guns and rockets. All of them are good.

Got a stride like thunder.

This is actually a good picture for me to talk about his arms. They NEED more articulation. He can bend his elbow, swing his arms, rotate his arm before the elbow, and... do whatever he’s doing with his upper arms, but that’s it. I can’t twist his elbow or his wrist. It’s very stiff. I wouldn’t complain about this on a smaller toy, but he’s so big! There was plenty of room to stick a swivel joint in somewhere!

Anyway, the biggest draw of Magnus, for me at least, was Minimus.

Look at this Pringles man! He’s adorable! Could use more paint, but he’s tiny so I’m not complaining.

Really could use more paint.

He has a teeny spoiler on his back and that’s great.

The main gimmick with Magnus and Minimus is that you can open up Magnus’ chest and find a pilot seat for Minimus. This is another thing where I wish there was more paint just to help define all the sculpted detail in there. It’s really cool.

Minimus sits in snuggly. He wasn’t hard to place or remove, so yay for that. If the cockpit or Minimus had more paint, he would pop out more and that would be cool. Sad about that lost opportunity.

His chest can close completely while Minimus is in there, which is a cool detail.

And you can lift up Magnus’ head so Minimus can peak out!

Or, if you don’t want to hide Minimus, you can always have him stand on Magnus’ shoulders. (He likes to feel tall)

Alt mode! Transforming him was more challenging than I expected.There was a lot of folding things up and stretching things and figuring out where tabs were. But, in the end, he does look very solid. I’ve always liked that his trailer was part of him and not separate like it is with Optimus. And because the cab and the trailer are one thing, he felt solid to drive around. No fear of the trailer unhitching while dragging the cab.

Sadly, Minimus can’t go in the cab while in vehicle mode. That’s where Magnus hides his head.

The back opens into a ramp so minibots can drive up.

Here’s Swerve using the ramp.

His bed can hold two minibots...

Two minibots and Minimus Ambus.

This is all fine but, we know the real question. Can Ultra Magnus smooch Swerve?

No. Not even close.

But can Minimus smooch Swerve?

ALMOST!!!

Also, pretty sure the heights are off. Swerve should be up to Magnus’ hip and Minimus should be up to Swerve’s shoulders I believe. Oh well

Don’t talk to me or my husband or my me ever again.

Conclusion: I really like Magnus. I am very upset by the limited arm articulation, but I do think he’s overall a good addition to my collection and I’m happy to have him. And REALLY happy to have Minimus. I do think they’re worth $50 easily, but I’m less sure about $80+.

#transformers #ultra magnus #minimus ambus #swagnus #combiner wars #toy review #toys

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bisummers · 8 years ago

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buffy/faith 2k fic: just like on tv

fuffy day ❤ UC Sunnydale college roommate AU @buffylovesfaith

“I am done with men!”

Buffy announced dramatically, as she swung her room’s door wide open. She chucked her keys towards the desk, but wildly misjudged her aim. They ricocheted off her closet’s back wall and got lost somewhere between all her shoes.

“What happened?”

Faith asked, not bothering to look up from her computer. In the four and a half months they had been roommates, this was not the first time she had heard Buffy make such declarations.

She felt her plop onto bed before saying, “I didn’t even get fake Tahiti.”

“… The what?” Faith is looking at Buffy now, her interest slightly piqued.

“You know,” she started, “in TV or in movies when a character breaks a promise they made to someone, they show they care by making a grand gesture. Something that takes a lot of effort, to prove you didn’t really mean to flake.” Buffy sat up on her bed. “Like, for example, a guy promises his girlfriend a trip to Tahiti, but then he has to cancel. So he decorates his apartment like an island and invites her over to have a date in–“

“Fake Tahiti.” Faith finished Buffy’s sentence, nodding understandingly.

“Let me guess, Riley didn’t do anything to make up for missing your last two dates?”

“Three dates,” Buffy clarified, as she took off her boots. “He showed 20 minutes late today just to tell me he had to reschedule. Again. …As if! He was covered in soot, or black paint or something, wearing camouflage like he’d been playing paintball with his buddies.” Buffy stopped to groan as she finished pulling off her last sock.

“He probably forgot about our date and would rather finish his paintball championship than kiss me goodnight. I’m repulsive!”

Buffy was sporting her signature pout now, which Faith had learned meant Buffy was genuinely feeling insecure.

“Well, I say screw him. Screw them all.” Faith walked towards Buffy and sat next to her on the bed. She placed a tentative hand above Buffy’s knee. Her heart skipped a beat at the warmth of her naked thigh.

“Captain Cardboard doesn’t deserve you, and you should know better than to let a guy stand you up more than once anyways.”

Buffy didn’t appear to be listening; her eyes seemed fixated on Faith’s fingers. ‘Or,’ Faith thought, ‘I managed to make her even more insecure by pointing out her mistake and she can’t bear to look at me.’ After a few seconds of silence Faith took a gulp, raised her hand to Buffy’s chin, and softly pulled her face up to make eye contact.

“It’s not about you. I can’t see how any straight man could purposely ignore a catch like you.”

Faith smirked to try and lighten the mood, and she noticed Buffy was faintly blushing. Her eyes had softened; she kept staring at her as if waiting for more of her pep talk. Faith’s brain became muddled with all the thoughts she wanted to express, her lack of clarity made even worse by the proximity of their faces.

“So,” she said, getting up from Buffy’s bed and walking to her side of the room, “dance marathon at the Bronze tonight, B? Take the edge off?”

“Yeah,” Buffy answered with a small smile.

Before Faith turned around, she could’ve sworn she saw Buffy bite her bottom lip.

‘You are head over heels in love with Buffy Summers.’

Faith thought, as she gazed at her reflection on the blurry bathroom mirror. She had wiped the steam off the glass to better see her face, but a slight fogginess endured. Her feelings, however, remained embarrassingly clear. She had reasoned that by admitting her affections for her roommate – even if just to herself – she would have a better chance to get over said feelings. ‘Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery and whatnot.’

Faith thought she had been doing fairly well with getting over Buffy. Then she went and did something as ill advised as touching her thigh and lifting her chin. She kept replaying the way Buffy’s pouty lips looked when she reached for her face. Every time, Faith’s heart would swell uncomfortably. She stopped fantasizing and started lining her upper eyelids, using her elbows like a clasp to keep her towel in place. Just because she was comfortable with her body did not mean she wanted the dorm’s bathroom to get a show. She heard the clink of something fall from her beauty bag into the sink, but paid no mind. She was psyching herself up, resolved to put her misstep behind her. Tonight at the Bronze she would focus on Buffy’s feelings and drown her own with a few drinks and some overeager guys. She would make sure Buffy got the good time she deserved and Riley couldn’t give her.

Suddenly, an idea hatched in Faith’s mind. She capped her liner and grabbed her phone, texting her friend Tara before she could lose her nerve.

Buffy was waiting for Faith in their room, using her desk as a vanity to retouch her makeup. Most of her primping and priming had been done for her fruitless date with Riley, so she was pretty much ready for their night out. She was also pretty much fuming about how that had turned out. She was still trying to understand how she had sunk so low and allowed some… man-child to play her for the third time. He was probably running around the woods still, not giving her a single, guilty thought. ‘I should just date women,’ she thought, and a wave of shame came over her.

She was reminded of the first time she had kissed a girl. She had been 15 years old and new to Sunnydale. Her only friend was a nerdy redhead called Willow, who was now far away in Harvard preparing to rule the world. Their decision to kiss had been reached after a lot of careful deliberation. She convinced her this would not count as their first kiss; that would be reserved for whatever boy they chose in the future. This was simply practice, so that they would be ready for such an important accomplishment. Ironically, Willow was now living with an admittedly gorgeous girl called Kennedy and Buffy… well, Buffy couldn’t get a date. Turned out their pondering over kissing purity had been in vain.

She remembered the “practice” fondly and a little embarrassedly. She reasoned just because she had puckered up with a lesbian did not mean she was one. If anything made her gay, it was the shiver that went up her spine when Faith cupped her face. ‘I mean, what was that about?’ Buffy thought, feeling a little ridiculous.

So far, the night out at the Bronze had turned into Faith’s own personal nightmare. She had forgotten her wallet, giving Buffy no choice but to cover both of their tabs. However, Buffy didn’t have enough for both of them, so Faith decided she could live the next few hours without liquor.

“Don’t worry about me,” she told Buffy with misleading confidence. “You drown your sorrows to your heart’s content.”

Boy had that been a mistake.

Faith had spent the night too aware of clammy hands and sweaty shirts. Too aware of Buffy’s every sip and increasing regard for guys. With every passing minute it became clearer to her she couldn’t continue the night pretending to be interested in men. Pretending she wasn’t jealous of the way Buffy laughed at their bad jokes. Pretending she wasn’t mesmerized by the sway of her hips and the way the light hit her jaw line when she flipped her head back. She was overwhelmed by an irrational need to punch the surrounding vultures and take Buffy safe into her arms.

Faith excused herself from the dance floor, stole someone’s shot from the bar, and headed out of the Bronze before the tequila’s rightful owner could protest. The shock of cold midnight air hit her hard enough to calm a bit of the fury going on in her head. She could still feel the burn of liquor down her throat; it made her feel in control. With that came a pang of guilt.

“Let’s leave the questioning of my alcoholic tendencies for another night, okay brain?” she muttered while wrapping her arms around herself.

‘Just get through the next hour,’ she thought, giving herself a while before going back inside.

It was an hour later now, and the girls were on the way back to their dorm. Faith had received a text message from Tara 20 minutes ago, confirming the plan had been set in motion and everything was successfully completed. Faith’s hope that tonight wouldn’t be a total disaster was all hanging on her ability to pull off this absurd idea.

“You should be really proud me,” Buffy said, “When I said I was done with men, I meant it. I didn’t give my number to a single one of those boys, not-a-one.”

Buffy was slurring her words just a little bit, but the fresh air from the walk back home had helped to diminish some of the influence. She was still tipsy, but not drunk.

“Yes, B, your act of selfless bravery will not be forgotten,” she teased, trying to juggle a leaning Buffy in one arm while opening the door with the other.

“There we go,” Faith announced as she heard the familiar click of the lock and swung the door ajar.

“Oh my god… Faith.”

Tara’s twinkle lights were hanging from their windows and the cabinets above their desks. There were strings lined full of cardboard shells, fishes, and palm trees hanging from their headboards and the doorframe. Faith’s radio was playing soft luau music while Buffy’s radio played the sound of waves crashing. To Faith’s surprise, Tara had even purchased a bottle of rum and placed it on the nightstand… next to her now empty wallet. Tara had truly gone all out. When Faith had confided in her about her feelings for Buffy she hadn’t exactly expected dissent, but she had not considered she would have received such fervent support either.

Buffy, she realized, was no longer holding on to her arm, but was twirling dazedly in the middle of the room, taking everything in.

“Is this–“

“Fake Tahiti,” Faith confirmed. “Or what I assume is a wildly inaccurate yet very loving rendition of it.”

Buffy’s rising smile could have lit up a stadium.

“How did you do this?” Buffy asked, breathless, turning towards Faith.

“Tara did most of it. I gave her my keys before I came back from the shower so she could use her last birthday decorations to spruce up the place.”

Buffy was laughing now; she had just noticed her stuffed pig Mr. Gordo was wearing a fake lei. Faith questioned how it was possible to like someone so much so damn fast.

“Why?” Buffy questioned, inching closer, making eye contact. Her face was full of innocent curiosity. Faith had not expected that question.

“Because… I just like to see you smile.”

The words stumbled out of her mouth, truer and more candidly that she had ever spoken. Her entire body was on edge, the uncertainty of how Buffy would react lingered in between them like a fog.

Buffy looked to the floor as if deliberating, nodded her head, and kissed Faith straight on the mouth.

Both her hands rose gently but firmly to the sides of Faith’s neck as she put more pressure on the kiss. Buffy stopped after a moment, nothing but electrons between their lips. Faith stood there – eyes still closed – for what felt like an eternity, praying to whatever god would listen that she had not just hallucinated. When she realized it was real, Faith held onto Buffy’s back, pushed her forwards, and returned the kiss with unrestrained enthusiasm.

As they kissed, they both felt a weight being lifted – as if they had finally reached the finish line of a marathon they had been running for weeks.

#fuffy day #btvs fanfiction #fuffy #faith lehane #buffy summers #mine #here it is! the majestically ooc fuffy fic i promised #with a tiny bit of buffy/willow for good measure #i hope it's alright #this is my first fic ever if that so be gentle #i havent written in 5 years

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