#the way he was standing and talking was totally dave haha

[personinthepalace]

Dave Hearn in Bridgerton Season 4 Sneak Peek - Mischief Theatre // Hell or High Rollers

shoutout to @stoptherevolve for noticing him in the video way before Dave confirmed it :)

[weirdmageddon]

i love these tags this person is so right

actually, can you imagine if dave was raised by B1 roxy?

i wanna get into this actually

(ok i had to spend a few hours rewriting this because IT DIDNT FUCKING SAVE AFTER FIVE HOURS OF WRITING WHEN MY COMPUTER UPDATED WHILE I WAS AFK so it would mean a lot to show this post some appreciation. i LOVEEE hearing what other people have to say)

even though these things mom does are presented in an extravagant, kitsch, jokey way, her intentions always came from a place of sincerity. she is simply Funnie

but rose reads too far into it and assumes things that aren't there, that her mother is passive-aggressively feigning interest in rose's interests simply because the things she does are so extra. "why do all of this if not to mock me"

im telling you right now if dave lived in this household he wouldn't assume antagonism, he'd go,

don’t forget who LITERALLY patented tangible jpeg artifacts as their post-scratch adult self and scattered shitty scummed up statue of liberties all over the planet. theres no way some of that overboard artful shit wasnt post-ironic / circling back around to genuine funny sincerity

dave's natural state is funny sincerity like roxy. he's had the natural capacity for this type of humor from the start and this is the direction he goes towards when he grows out of his brother's shadow by the end of the comic. dave and roxy share an earnest “so bad its good” type of humor

(lots more under the cut; the length of this meta analysis just got unwieldly with all the pictures and whatnot)

despite the alcoholism, roxy is a supportive mother. she's not the ideal guardian but hells of a lot more supportive of her kid than bro is. if she knew dave's interests she would totally indulge in them with some over the top silly goofy haha shit as a genuine gesture simply because she loves him

rose isn't too keen on it though. but she is more similar to dirk in her natural state of thinking of overthinking shit and assuming the worst, like the tags said

and yes dave got the sweet cuddly yet sometimes backhanded ouppy gene from roxy, probably even moreso lol

roxy's even said rose "sounds like girl dirk"

side tangent here, but this is something i wanna talk about.

i dont think bro should ever be in custody of children ever but if theres anyone who would be up to the task it's rose probably. i know she'd be able to keep up with him. not only does she have a defined personality (dave is more malleable and absorbs his environment like a sponge), if anyone can pick apart B1 dirk's batshit brain and probably be right on the money it's her. lil cal has been pumping patriarchal nonsense into bro's head and rose would be able to bring the fucking facts to the table without losing her own and being a living example of a badass little girl. i also don't think bro would try to force masculine roles onto rose like he did with dave, seeing as she is a girl, so she would actually have more of a leg up and get some passes that dave was never afforded. and rose wouldn't stand idly and accept any bullshit; she is no doormat. and i think this would earn bro's respect

but anyway, from this, couldn't we conclude roxy "sounds like girl dave"?

yeah okay. we havent even gotten into their penchant for funny typos or misspeaks, deliberate or otherwise

so, dave's environment

the sentiment "god you hope you can be as good as your bro at this some day" might have been genuine at the time when he idolized bro but of course he's not able to express that in any sort of sincere fashion because he's in dirk's fucking household. and this level 10 irony shit isnt doing dave any favors

his role models were the Internet and a vague idea of what Bro was like. So he built up his facade based on irony–not the literary definition of irony, as Rose might be quick to point out, but a popular concept of irony based on the idea that things that didn’t make sense actually made sense in some roundabout way. As a master of irony, Dave probably reasoned, he could see in a way other people couldn’t why a world that was scary and didn’t make sense really did make sense, and could therefore convince those people that he was superior to them. And he would wield his knowledge to maintain the appearance of superiority by calling everything ironic and pretending he didn’t care about things that didn’t make sense, and he would use walls of vaguely rhyming words to keep everyone at arm’s length so they wouldn’t discover his insecurities (source)

roxy's style is the embodiment of post-irony. being raised by mom lalonde would be like being raised by joel vinesauce ok

what can i say ….. (getting meta about this actually, hussie got these jpeg wizard wallpapers from a spyware website. link takes some time to load because internet archive)

rose is quick to read post-irony as actually being a joke/insincere, which in bro's case would be true. but i believe dave's natural instinct, outside of the influence of bro, is to read post-irony as genuine, which is exactly how mom serves it. we see this as early as act 3 from him; he understands her motives better than rose does herself:

and in act 6 intermission 2 i think it's pretty clear

but the thing is, it's always genuine from her. dave wouldn't have to second guess it because he's not one to naturally second guess someone's sincerity; that was learned due to his bro being virtually unassailable

there two types of ironies at play here:

seems like a joke, is actually genuine (roxy)

doesnt seem like a joke, is actually a joke (dirk)

you can make the argument that the second is is more psychologically destructive because it makes you question the reality of what is genuine sentiment and what isn't. dave never knew what was genuine and what was irony so he just sort of existed in this sincerity-ironic limbo and always did the opposite of what he genuinely felt on principle even if it always did originate from a genuine place.

"it just a joke bro i was just being ironic i dont actually x" is so much more trust-breaking and psychologically damaging than "wait are you being serious" / "i am being so fucking fr rn davy gravy" / "ok thats actually pretty fucking awesome. giant ass wizard statue" / "RIGHT"

how much about dave would change do you think? his character arc would be completely different for one thing, i think he'd have it good aside from mom's alcohol issues. he'd be left with the sweet and funny parts of him that we see at the end of the comic. the fake coolguy stuff is out, but this remains. this is dave in his element and we see it as early as act 1

he'd probably have no shades growing up in the lalonde residence* either cause those were given to him by bro straight out of the crater as an extension of his own cool image. and john gave dave ben stiller’s aviators for his 13th birthday to replace them so he could “spread his wings”

dave said he was wearing them for the ironies but i kind of doubt it. maybe post-irony but there was some reacharound to it being genuine because dave never put those pointy anime shades on his face again.

*though... it’s kind of hard to imagine him without his shades at all? B2 dave still got stiller’s shades from stiller himself so maybe getting them is a universal constant. i can imagine mom getting him them as a birthday gift cause shes pretty wealthy and probably could buy it out in an auction. but also itd be cool if john still gave him it as a gift

dave is actually a lot more genuine and easy to read than he lets on even when grappling with his upbringing with B1 dirk (again, see this post). this can be seen all throughout he comic but a good example is the evolution of thoughts about his interest in the preserved dead things in his room:

if B1 roxy was dave's guardian he probably WOULD have pursued paleontology because she wouldve indulged him in it and probably find it cool and worthwhile to pursue, instead of allowing dave to flounder under ironic detachment, being poisoned by irony to the point of gaslighting himself into believing he doesnt actually believe he thinks this shit is cool. even if it was indulged in this such a way; a superficially kitsch and ironic appearing presentation, it comes from a genuine place and inspires genuine interest. just read the comments.

basically, i think if B1 roxy raised dave, their relationship would have a surface level appearance of being bizarre or over-the-top but they’d have an unsaid mutual understanding that it’s completely in earnest and just build on each other's funny and absurd gestures of affection. rather than seeing it as one-upping each other, it'd more like collaboration of some silly bullshit that you take a step back and look at full and just say, "fucking incredible"

speaking of paleontology, mom had the proto-ectobiology lab. maybe they'd be able to use the equipment to appearify paradox ghost imprints of the dead shit to create paradox clones of things from the cambrian era??? sounds like a fun mother son bonding activity. and theyd actually put the sciencey shit in the household to use

oh god i know exactly the kinds of music shed listen too also growing up as a teen in the 80s. she on that (post)-punk/art rock/new wave/new romantic mtv stuff. XTC shit fr. this is a B-52S HOUSEHOLD. maybe the associates for the campy melodramatic flair. so he gets to keep the record on his shirt cause he is an enjoyer of the shit in her vinyl collection. dave would still gravitate towards musical expression and music itself but of more variety outside of just rap, with an 80s-90s, even 70s flavor due to mom’s influence. see this for perhaps a glimpse. ​she probably visited new york city a lot for business trips and because the music scene was cool as hell around that time, imports came straight from jfk airport, she probably got in on that a bit and have remnants in the form of vinyls and cassettes. in this way she could be distributing void to dave (influencing him with forgotten / presently irrelevant music). now he can REALLY rave about bands none of his friends have heard of. “hey davy grvay watcha listenin to” (he holds up vinyl cover) “omg snakefinger”

btw dave lalonde would look like this to me

[browniefox]

Alright, more Crisis Core, let's go! This one ended up being REALLY long (we got through two chapters), so I'm putting a read more some ways down so it doesn't kill people's dashes.

The boy said the line!

Yay, Cloud is finally here! He still clearly has the basic infantry model other than the head, but it does mean he stands in the casual almost sassy way they all do haha. In general, it's so weird but cute to see him smiling and laughing. Aw, he's not traumatized yet!

I knew what was coming, but my friend I'm playing with didn't, so it was fun to see her reaction (tho i totally still got so excited anyway haha).

This is just here bc I love them so <3 And then Tseng is also here being a third wheel. The sneaking portion that is right after this I sucked ass at. I couldn't make it five feet without being seen and tossed out, and I just had to wait until the game took pity on me and took the guards away.

Genesis, please I'm begging you just kill Hollander. I do love seeing his hair, once so bright red, getting grayer and darker, how his nice leather jacket is getting all broken, giving a sense that he's not taking care of himself and his things as much as he should be.

My sister has tried to stay more-or-less blind to what happens in Crisis Core (she knows some stuff, I know a little more) but all fics tend to use the same Loveless lines (which makes sense, of course) but I did end up reciting this quote with him bc it's one of my favorites, much to the shock of my sister.

I can't believe Zack really thinks Genesis died tho. Like, the guy has a wing, he can fly, falling is not gonna kill him. I'm still not totally clear what Genesis is trying to achieve, but I've been watching some of ButterBuns CCR videos and she's kind of given me a better sense of Genesis. He's just flailing around, trying to get something, anything, to work. He's a dying man who is desperate and doesn't even know himself exactly what he wants.

HELL YEAH! If the creators weren't cowards they would have let your models touch. Our new thing while playing is being proud of Zack for having two boyfriends and one girlfriend. The boy can get it.

As per usual, my biggest problem with this game is the writing - especially with Angeal, tbh. I guess Angeal is just like Genesis in that he's desperately trying to figure out who he is, monster or man. But every time he talks about being a monster I kind of roll my eyes. He's like an emo teenager. Last chapter I felt like it was getting a better grip and liking for him, but I'm kind of back to just being like 'what's your deal man'.

That being said, I kind of dig his weird monster form! It's a mishmash but super cool, and I love how his arms are folded in front of him. My friend and sister I don't think liked it as much and mostly made fun of it which, fair.

Mostly unrelated, but i really got myself into a big of predicament in that I'm super overpowered, which means I get through battles so quick, which also means I don't get to show off all the limit breaks and summons and such when we're playing ;-; but then I turn it to hard mode and die instantly.

I'm always a sucker for sad sunsets. I might not get Angeal or his deal, but I do at least buy that Zack cares about Angeal. It's kind of like Angeal was too set in his ways of monster vs heroes, and that a monster needs to be killed by a hero. That Zack is the only hero left to kill a monster like him, or that by doing so Zack proves he's a hero. But really all it's done is given Zack trauma and made him more uncertain than ever who he is and what he stands for.

(It kind of reminds me of near the end of Homestuck, when Dave and Dirk are talking, and Dave admits it's possible that Bro was trying to train him, but all it did was make him scared.)

I wish we got to spend more time in the game with Aerith, but at least you get the sense that they do spend more time with each other, especially with Aerith being there for Zack after this.

MY BEAUTIFUL BEAUTIFUL BOY! I wish your limit break looked cooler tho :P

Wait, so are Angeal and Genesis brothers then?? I knew they were connected through Gillian, but I guess how connected never hit me. I mean, Angeal defo has her hair while Genesis has her face, but also I've been imagining and seeing them as boyfriends this whole time???

So many mixed feelings about Zack right now. The first thing is yay, new hair cut! My sister absolutely hated his bangs, so big win for her. I do like that you get to see that, as one of the last remaining Firsts, Zack has started to take on more of a leadership and mentor role for the other SOLDIERs. However, him telling them to protect their SOLDIER honor is weird when Zack doesn't know what that is either. I've felt it, but I am glad Zack himself has acknowledged that he doesn't know what that honor is or what it means. I hope we get to see Zack figure it out. I also like that Zack is kind of unmoored and uncertain now. Puts him in an interesting place for whatever's next.

Beach episode! It is FUCKING INSANE to me that Cissnei just... tells Zack that Aerith is an Ancient. Why? What was the point of that? Cissnei, you can't just say that! I guess it could be seen as her trusting Zack and demonstrating she wants to help him, but it's still so weird. It's nice Zack has been said to be hanging with the turks more, but I wish we could have gotten more of that in game. I don't think he even knows Reno and Rude's names.

BOOO TSENG SHOULD BE IN A SWIMSUIT TOO BOO!

So I know Genesis is still alive, but interesting that this is beign considered since it's Sephiroth's whole deal. Tbh, tho, I'm not sure how I feel about Tseng openly acknowledging that Mako is life. How much is that recognized in general, actually? I mean, people do fade into mako when they die... hm, much to think about.

The chase through the city was so dumb, I've had it with Hollander, how hard can it be to catch and/or kill one guy for real. That being said, I do like how cool the buster sword is, and at the end is Sephiroth :D I'm glad that Zack seems a little bitter towards Sephiroth; they're both mourning in different ways, and it's driven a rift between both of them. But at the same time, they're the closest thing they both have to someone who can understand what they're going through.

Shoutout to Zack's little fidgets :D He's still a restless little puppy, despite it all. Sephiroth and Zack's relationship is just so good and interesting, I need them to hang out more so I can see more of it.

God Genesis is so pretty. Both him and Angeal have fucked up looking wings - which adds to what they're going through - but I actually love it for Genesis. Again, what is this dude's goal? He'll probably tell you once he figured it out himself. I love the reveal that he was also at Junon this whole time. Interesting parallel to how the Firsts fought 'at Junon' altogether and now they can't be further apart.

I need to pet that dog! Is Angeal still alive?? I totally thought he died, he has to be dead, right? Just living on in his copies? Anyway, the dog should be a character who manages to live forever because I love him. Also, laughed so hard when the little Shinra robots came into the church oh my god, it's not supposed to be funny I think but it's hilarious how non-threatening they look.

Wow Kunsel, jealous much?? Also, a little creepy? Is my boyfriend stalking me? If I trusted Kunsel, at this point I'd think he was going to betray me at some point, but I trust him too much for that. It seems more like Kunsel just doesn't know how to say 'I'm worried about you and you should talk to me about what you're going through'. I love Kunsel <3

As usual, this game feels like it goes too fucking fast. It's always one thing after another, nobody's talking or explaining things. Maybe it's because you're expected to do side missions every so often? That would probably break things up a bit more. God, there's such an interesting story here! I just wish it was told better.

Also I've been playing so much of this game and only just learned you can sprint :P

[withcolebrock]

Caught Simping

Corpse Husband x fem!Reader

Requested: yes :)

Summary: Corpse gets upset when he thinks Colby is flirting with Y/N

Warnings: swearing and cringe stuff

Word Count: 2,351

Author’s Note: I was going to wait to post this tomorrow but why not now lol haha. honestly this could’ve been better but ummm yeahhh, anyways the person had asked for Mr. Brock to be here so yay my two favorite men in one fic love it lol. also I literally could not figure out anything to title this so this is what ya get lol haha anyways I hope you guys enjoy it!!

~~~

It had been an hour since they all started playing, a few people were getting tired. While others were willing to play for several more hours. “Be right back, gamer bladder,” Corpse and herself said around the same time, she stood up from her chair, placing her headphones on the desk. She left her gaming room, and shut the door behind her. She walked into the living room to see Corpse walking towards the bathroom. He stopped short as he looked towards her. His eyes looked her body up and down.

“Are you playing much longer?” he asked while he began to walk towards her. She shrugged slightly as she dropped the hoodie covering her head.

“I’ve got a few more games in me, are you almost done?” she asked while he slowly wrapped his arm around her waist. She wrapped her arms around his neck.

“I’ll be done when you’re done,” he smirked as he leaned down and pressed his lips against hers. She smiled against his lips as she slowly began to kiss him back. They pulled away, smiling towards each other as they walked towards their gaming rooms. She entered her room again, she couldn’t hide the smile she had to her lips, as she sat down in front of her face cam.

She put her headphones on as she heard Sykkuno say, “Anyone got a fill?” A few people had said that they didn’t have anyone, Y/N began to text a friend of hers from the Vine days. Before she started doing gaming, she was pretty popular on Vine, she had over two million followers and she hung out with Sam and Colby all of the time during that time.

“Dave? Boyinaband? I know he has proximity chat already,” Corpse asked, Y/N smiled to herself as she heard his voice.

“Oh yeah, of course!” Poki cheered.

“Awesome,” he said into the mic, “We still need one more, right?” Corpse continued, muting his mic shortly after.

“I think I got someone, one second,” she said into her mic as she continued to text Colby. She muted herself briefly as she focused on what she wanted to say to him. Explaining that the group was playing the proximity version, asking if he had that version or if he could download it quickly.

“Who is it?” Toast asked.

She unmuted her mic and explained, “His name is Colby, We’ve been friends for years, if that’s cool with you guys,” she chuckled. They waited for a few of the people to join, they began to discuss some things going on in their lives, while talking to their chats. She muted herself in discord while she talked to her chat. “A few of you guys might know him, he has a channel with Sam Golbach, like creepy paranormal stuff. It’s pretty cool. We did vines together all the time, I’m sure they are on YouTube somewhere.” her eyes widened at the memory, the vines were overwhelmingly cringey as most of her vines were.

She unmuted herself in discord and told the group,“He’s coming and he already has the proximity chat,” she explained as she added his information into their discord call. She sent him the invite over discord.

“Sweet,” Sykkuno said, Y/N smiled to herself as she listened to Sykkuno. Shortly after, Dave joined the call. Everyone started asking Dave how he was doing, since they all haven’t played with him in a while.

“Uh, hello,” Colby spoke, everyone in the call immediately started greeting Colby. Poki had asked how Y/N and him had met, Colby laughed slightly, “We met at Vidcon like four years ago, when Viners were invited that year.”

Shortly after everyone introduced themselves to the new people, the game was started. She was a crewmate. “Oh my god, oh my god,” Y/N giggled as her character moved towards the lab. Colby’s pink character was following him, “No, Colby no get away from me, I don’t trust you,” she joked. He chuckled.

“Hey, come on, I promise I’m not an imposter, please stay with me and keep me safe,” Colby begged. Corpse’s character ran past them, he ran towards one of the nodes. “You have med scan? Let’s scan together,” he offered while making his character dance. Y/N rolled her eyes as she followed Colby’s character to the med scan.

“I do have med scan,” she giggled. She clicked off her med scan, seeing that she had to wait for Colby, she officially cleared him. “Okay, you’re cleared,” she explained as she started heading towards decontamination.

“See, I would never lie to you,” he said teasingly. They entered the small room and Y/N went to do wires.

“I gotchu,” she giggled. Shortly after a body was found near admin. Everyone began to ask each other where everyone was at, “I was with Colby the entire time,” she said as she hovered over the skip vote button.

“I wouldn’t let her out of my sight, she’s med scanned,” Colby explained, everyone laughed as they quickly began to ask everyone else where they were at.

“I was by O2 tree,” Corpse said, with no further explaination. He was never straight forward with his responses. Instead of further investigating, the group decides to skip vote. Except there was a rogue anonymous vote to Colby. Everyone gasped slightly at the sight.

“What? I hard cleared him,” Y/N laughed, as the screen faded into the game.

“Y/N please stay with me, I need your help,” Colby whined as they walked towards the admin table together. She quickly clicked onto the table checking to see where everyone was at. There were a few in the lab and a few near electrical. They both walked into decontamination. “Everyone else is so scary, you make me feel safe,” he drew out his words as they walked through the long hallway together. They entered the bigger room together to see Corpse doing simon says.

“Corpse!” Y/N whined as she motioned her character towards him, she danced near his character. Colby walked away briefly to do another task. He finished his task and as his screen lit up, he saw her character. He chuckled as he began to dance with her. “What are you doing down here alone, it’s not safe,” she muttered as she continued to dance her character with Corpse.

He giggled as he said, “I’ll join you guys,” himself, Y/N, and Colby’s character headed up towards the decontamination that led towards the admin table. They all stumbled upon Poki’s body.

~~~

The next round she was imposter with Poki, she was doing amazing. The proximity chat made it even harder to be imposter. She always screamed after she killed someone, but she had to stop for this type of game play. One of Poki’s kills was called, “Where’s the body?” Corpse asked.

“By the button,” Colby responded, “Where were you, Y/N?” he asked. Corpse let out a huff of air, while leaning back into his chair.

“I was on the left side of the map the entire time, Sykkuno can vouch for me, I was with him for most of that round,” Y/N explained, her heart racing. She raced her eyebrows and forced a smile.

“Yeah, there’s no way she could’ve done this kill,” Sykkuno responded.

“I don’t believe it, Y/N’s acting weird,” Colby said.

“How am I acting weird?” she asked through laughter. Corpse smiled to himself as he heard her laugh.

“I dunno, you’re just being all different, it’s weird,”

“I’m not being different,”

“Maybe a little bit you are,” Colby teased, everyone laughed as they all skipped at the same time.

“Definetly not,” she rolled her eyes playfully. The next round began and Y/N ran off with Corpse. “Bub, what tasks do you have?” she asked as she chased after his character, contemplating on killing him or not.

“Wires,” he said shortly. Her head shot back slightly at his response, he was never short with her. Suddenly coming from the other direction was Colby.

“Y/N, thank god! I missed you!” Colby shouted jokingly, he danced his character around Y/N’s as they walked towards decontamination together.

“Missed you too! What tasks do you have?” she asked to try and switch the conversation. Corpse didn’t say anything, he just stood and began to do his wires. They continued to walk down the long hallway. Once they were in the big room Corpse and Colby began to do tasks. Y/N stood awkwardly in the middle of the room as she saw Poki come running down one of the hallways. They moved their characters towards each other as they ran up and killed both Corpse and Colby.

“Oh my god!” Colby yelled.

“Uh, fuck I knew it,” Corpse commented. With the double kill, they won the game. “Good game,” he commented as he leaned back into his chair.

“I’m totally going to get you back for that,” Colby teased. It wasn’t much, but the more he spoke Corpse was getting annoyed. He wasn’t even sure if he was flirting with Y/N, but it sure felt like it. He knew Colby would never intentionally flirt with her, but he needed to do something.

“I’ll be right back,” he spoke into his mic. Corpse muted his mic in both discord and his YouTube stream. He stood up from his desk and left his gaming room. He walked towards hers across their apartment. He knocked on the door several times.

“One second,” she whispered into her mic, muting herself on both platforms. She stood up and pulled open the door seeing Corpse standing at the door fuming. “What’s going on?” she asked, noticing the small frown to his lips. Without saying anything he takes a small step towards her. He rested his hand on her lower back, he lifted her shirt slightly as he rested his hand on her skin. The sudden cold feeling sent chills all over her body.

“Why is Colby flirting with you?” he asked as he looked her features up and down, he looked back into her soft concerned eyes. Her mouth fell open as she shook her head slightly. She stood silently as she looked into his squinted eyes. His fingertips grazed over her skin as they spoke.

“He isn’t, that’s just how he is,” she explained, he raised his eyebrows slightly as he took a long breath. “I promise he’s just messing around,” she reassured as she rested her hand onto his cheek. He pulled her body towards his, he pouted his lips. “It’s nothing more than just jokes, I promise,”

“He’s not very funny,” he let out. She chuckled as she shook her head slightly. She moved her hand slightly as she ran her finger across his bottom pouted lip. His lips curled upward slightly, at the touch. “I don’t like it when another guy jokes around with you like that,” he whispered as she slowly pulled her finger away from his lips. She slowly moved her hand from his cheek to the nape of his neck. “I’m the only guy that can do that.” She rolled her eyes playfully as she moved closer to him.

“I’m sorry,” she let out, he looked her body up and down slowly before he slowly dropped his hand away from her skin.

“It’s okay, I’m just-whatever,” he shook his head as he bit his bottom lip, she raised her eyebrows as her eyes widened.

“Were you just going to admit to-”

“No,”

“I think you were,” she teased as she watched him walk away from her gaming room.

“No,” he sing-songed as he walked into his room. She giggled as she shut the door and headed back to the game. She put on her headphones and unmuted herself in the discord call.

~~~

She ran her fingers through her wet hair as she walked towards her bedroom. She pushed open the door to see Corpse laying on the bed scrolling through Twitter. She walked towards her side of the bed and picked up her phone from the side table. She read a text from Colby, thanking her for allowing him to play with her. She quickly responded as she sat down on top of the comforter. She rested her phone down onto the side table again, while plugging it into the character.

She inched closer to Corpse, he lifted his gaze towards her, a wide smile forming to his lips. “Hey,” he muttered barely above a whisper. She slowly laid down beside him, while adjusting the pillow beneath her head.

“Did you make something trend on Twitter or something again?” She questioned, he rarely sat on his phone scrolling through his social media unless he was messing with his fans or reposting his fans art or people who share his music. He chuckled while shaking his head.

“Not intentionally,” he motioned the phone towards her, she took a hold of it and saw that #SimpCorpse was trending. She furrowed her eyebrows as she clicked on the first video that showed up. It was a slowmo of Corpse taking a hold of her waist earlier in her stream. She gasped, covering her mouth. He nodded slightly. She lifted her head to meet his gaze, she thought he would be mad but he wasn’t. “I think that’s funny,” he chuckled as he rested his phone on his side table.

“I didn’t think to turn off my face cam, oh fuck,” she laughed nervously.

“It’s fine, Baby, I promise,” he tilted his head to look towards her. “I mean, I am always a simp for you,” he teased, her features scrunched together as the words left his lips.

“That was really cring-” she tried to say but he shook his head as he leaned down slowly to press his lips against hers. She kissed his back softly as she giggled slightly, “You were definitely a jealous simp today, then,” she played along. He pressed his lips together while shaking his head. He slowly fell back onto his back.

“I wasn’t jealous,”

[lifewithdavefarts]

DaveFarts - Episode 9 “Trapped In The Closet” [Episode List] Following the most blatant sit-com tropes you can think of, Dave decides to spy on his girlfriend, Dana, because he thinks she’s hiding something. Tim reluctantly decides to join his friend, but the two end up stuck in the girl’s closet, which will eventually turn into a gas chamber.

Trapped In The Closet

“Yeah Dana. Sure. No problem.”

Tim was working on some college tasks, but couldn’t help but to eavesdrop Dave’s conversation with his girlfriend, Dana, on the phone. He could only hear his friend’s replies, which being only the 50% of what they were talking about, it didn’t make a lot of sense. Not that he was interested: Dave was simply hanging out in his room because he had nothing better to do during that warm Summer evening, apparently, and so he simply showed up to Tim’s place with a couple of beers and a remarkable amount of procrastination powers.

Despite being relatively hot outside, Dave was wearing a t-shirt and a pair of long, grey levi jeans, kinda loose as usual. Something that Tim hated about his kink is how quickly he checked his friend’s outfit, something that he always did since Dave is now basically his “fart bud”, against all odds.

“Yeah… yeah… I love you. No… I love you more!”

Kinda funny how Dave, 24, would revert back to an awkward teenager at times whenever he and his girlfriend were on the phone. They probably even acted like that on purpose, because love is doing stupid things together after all.

“Tim. Car. Now!”

Dave hung up and turned weirdly serious, got up and walked downstairs, saying something about getting in the car.

“Wait, what?” Tim asked, questioning whether his friend was being serious or not, but he did follow him to wherever he was going.

“We don’t have much time, Tim. Dana will come back soon. She’s out with her own friends and we have… like… 15 minutes.”

The two walked outside and headed towards the girls’ house, actually only a few blocks away from Tim’s. Tim himself reluctantly followed his bro into this, knowing that, at best, it may turn into a funny mishap to tell to their other pals while being drunk and laugh about it.

“I’ll just pretend your words make any sense, like I usually do…” Tim chuckled, sarcastically, but still following his friend.

“I think she’s hiding something.” Dave explained, walking at a fast pace, Tim right behind him. “She’s been strangely elusive lately and I want to check her room for clues.”

Tim just chuckled in response. “Dave, you do realize that this is not a 90s sit-com, right? Her room? Really? What are you hoping to find out, exactly, anyway? That she’s having some kind of affair behind your back?” he asked, trying to reason with him.

“An affair? You think I’m that kind of guy?” Dave answered, looking surprisingly offended by Tim’s question.   “I just want to make sure she’s fine. She seemed worried about something and she’s like this organized haf-woman/half-machine hybrid who keeps sticky notes in her room to keep an eye on her busy life.”

“Oh…” Tim replied, rather sarcastically.   “Now that makes a lot of sense.”

“Leave your sassiness for later, dork. Can we take your car?” Dave asked.

“Why? We’re already right in front of her house…”

Dave realized that he was so worried that they did, in fact, walked for a couple of blocks and found themselves stepping in Dana’s backyard without even noticing. He just laughed a bit about it.

“Sorry. Love makes me blind.” he joked, knowing that it was a rather silly thing to say anyway.

“Not the words I would have used, but ok.” Tim answered.

“Come on, let’s get inside.” his bro said, with a smirk.  

“Alright… but please, let’s keep a low profile and no awkwa-”

But as they approached to the girl’s house, Dave awkwardly started muttering some kind of theme song that was oddly reminiscent of the Mission Impossibile’s most iconic soundtrack. This guy has a girlfriend, everyone.

“So much for keeping a low profile, Ethan Hunt…” Tim joked.

Dana’s room, following the usual   “average american house tropes” that the writer of this story grew up with in the 90s, was on the second floor. Luckily, the house was empty, so both Tim and Dave could easily climb it without fearing of someone noticing their totally legal actions.

“Look at Tim, such a rebel! Such a fast climber!” Dave whispered, noticing how good Tim was at climbing the girl’s house.

“Thanks. I learned it when I visited your mom.” he joked.

“I thought you’d prefer my dad, you know.” Dave played along, with a rather noticeable reference to Tim’s homosexuality.

“Just… just let’s get done with this.”  

After some awkward climbing, the two found themselves in front of a window leading to Dana’s room. The duo was sitting on a small portion of slanted roof, wondering how to get inside.

“Alright. I could just punch through the window and open it. But you know I don’t like violence against windows.” Dave said, somewhat joking, but really trying to come up with a way to get through this final obstacle.

“Never mind, it’s open.” Tim said, as his hand passed right through the window.   “Or, you know, I got ghost powers all of the sudden, but I doubt it.”

“You’re so funny I forgot to laugh.” Dave commented, as he got inside his girlfriend’s room, making sure no one was there, immediately followed by his sassy friend.

The room was fairly big and messy, books and magazines scattered all around the floor and the bed. Dana was a busy woman: she got a degree in economics but, given the tough times, she had troubles finding a decent job lately. Dave actually suspected that this was the reason she was being nervous about, well, everything, understandably.

“Why don’t you just ask her instead of acting like the perfect boyfriend material that you are?” Tim stated, in his usual snarky tone, noticing Dave basically rummaging through Dana’s more personal stuff.

“Just… let me do my thing ok?” he was serious again, trying to find something that could be clue, deep down knowing that all of that was quite non-sense and even ridiculous, but his stubbornness was showing.   “Wait…”

Something drew his attention. A red (therefore important, according to Dana’s code) sticky note on the nightstand. Something was written on it.

“Oh… I guess I was right…” Dave whispered, eyes glued on the note.

“Something about her job?”  

But Tim didn’t get an answer, as they heard someone coming from downstairs. They probably were so focused on their mission that didn’t even notice how someone got inside the house minutes after them. They went silent and tried to listen to the person’s footsteps.

“Yeah. I’ll keep you posted.”

They heard a muffled female voice getting closer, probably talking on her phone. A voice that was very familiar.

“Fuck! It’s Dana!” Dave whispered.

The two looked around, looking for a quick solution or a place to hide, blatantly ignoring the window they used to get inside in the first place.

“The closet!” Dave said.

Without even questioning whether this was a good idea or not, the duo sneaked inside Dana’s closet and closed themselves inside just as the girl came into her room, still talking on the phone about something.

Tim and Dave managed to mess things up however, as they ended up in a very small section of that apparently big, spacious closet, so they had to arrange themselves in a weird position. Dave was standing up, towering over Tim, who found himself sitting on the floor instead, right behind his friend… with his face perfectly aligned with his loose jeans butt. As his eyes got adjusted to the dark, Tim started to distinguish the seams and texture’s on Dave’s jeans ass, and the tiny red Levi tag on the right back pocket. He couldn’t help but take a look, which he felt really unnecessary, given the context.

“So… this is where you lived for most of your life…” Dave joked, looking around, as if the closet was some kind of fancy mansion.

“Haha! Another gay joke! Great timing, Dave!” Tim muttered instead. The last thing they had to do was talk.

The two waited for a couple of minutes, hoping that Dana would just leave again or even just go downstairs, so they’d have enough time to get out of there in the hopes that Dave didn’t leave any clue of his presence.

“As long a we remain silent…” Tim whispered.   “We have nothing to worry about.”

Only moments after saying that, he felt a very familiar sound greeting his face. It was a long, rumbling sound coming from Dave’s denim ass. It was one of his usual, well-known loud farts, a fart that he was desperately trying to keep as silent as possible. Luckily, Dana was too busy with her phone to even notice the weird noise coming from inside of her closet.

“Dave! What the fuck?!” Tim hissed.

The gassy friend tried not to laugh, realizing how idiotic the whole situation was.   “I’m sorry dude.” he murmured.   “You know what happens when I’m nervous!”  

The smell was unbearable already. Being in a such small space didn’t certainly help. Those were probably some of the smelliest farts Dave ever managed to rip in Tim’s face, although this time was, against all odds, more like an accident.

“Tim…” Dave whispered, carefully placing his butt closer to his friend’s face.

Another fart erupted, sounding dangerously louder than the previous one. The rough surface of Dave’s denim gently caressed Tim’s nose. The blast of gas then turned into something much more subtle, but still otherwise bubbly. Tim felt his nose burn, as really he had no choice but to breath all of that in.

“Dave I swear. If you don’t stop, Dana’s gonna–”

But another   “slow-paced” rumbly fart cut him off. Dave was seriously trying to contain his well-known farting abilities. Tim, instead, was trying to remain calm, feeling like the Universe was somehow messing with him. That was an insane situation: he certainly wasn’t new to Dave’s farts, but in that context, it felt almost like one of his weird dreams about his fart fetish.

“Tim I’m sorry, at least I know you don’t mind… I hope”

Funnily enough, despite the slightly amused tone in his whispering voice, Dave sounded genuinely sorry. Yet he was right: Tim was insanely enjoying it, but knowing that Dana was out there made the whole thing almost surreal. And, once again, as much as Dave always proved so chill about this stuff, he couldn’t help but feel somehow awkward about having his friend face-farting him so non-chalantly.

And yet another   “ninja” fart was ripped all over his face.   Being nervous really turned Dave’s stomach into a messy cloud of gas, and Tim’s nose was there to vacuum it all up, completely defenseless, standing before the sheer power of the gassy friend’s powerful denim-covered anus.

Even though the situation was absurd, Dave couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. After all, the smell hit him too, and it was getting insane even for the farter himself, whose gas just didn’t stop building up.

“Sorry bro… I have to do this.” he whispered.

Tim felt Dave’s hands gently grabbing the back of his head, holding it still, as he pulled him in the clutches of his denim butt. The warm fabric of the jeans was soaking in that unbearable smell. The sniffer then felt the weight of his gassy friend almost crushing his skull. Despite being dark, Tim realized that Dave was basically sitting on him, using his head as some kind of human stool.

The fart was directly ripped in Tim’s mouth at that point, that rumbly sound once again renewing the already destructive stench. It was supposed to be loud, so loud, that Dave had to basically use his friend’s face to deadpan its impressive thunderous noise. The gassy bro was trying to rip it in the form of a long series, hoping that Dana would fail to hear (or even recognize) his well-known gross, but rather impressive talent.

Tim heard his friend’s sighs of relief after each, rumbling fart, but Dave was also trying not to burst into a laughter that could blow their cover. Fart fetish or not, he couldn’t help but to find it more hilarious than gross.

As much as the lack of space in that closet wouldn’t really allow it, Dave even lifted his right leg a bit, while still   “sitting” on his stool-friend, as a way to facilitate the impressive amount of gas gushing out from his anus. It’s not like he had to worry about Tim passing out or finding it too gross, anyway.

That fart itself was lasting longer than both of them anticipated. They lost count of how much time passed, probably a full minute. Tim’s face was warm and sweaty now, still trapped in the clutches of his gassy bro’s denim butt, directly living in person that thin line between Fart Heaven and Fart Hell.

A final sigh of relief, followed by a louder toot and a chuckle.   “Sorry, bud.” Dave muttered, hoping that his plan worked.

Indeed, Dana didn’t hear a thing. She hung up and left the room, her footsteps slowly turning into a far, muffled sound, until silence announced that the duo was now free to get the heck out of there, especially considering how they were almost both choking on farts.

Tim forgot what fresh, non-fart air felt like in his nostrils and so took a deep, refreshing breath the moment he stepped out of that gas closet. Ironically, Dave did the same, maybe even wondering how would Tim even endure something as overwhelming as his farts, but he didn’t really mind anyway. Despite everything, that was oddly hilarious, as the two stared at each other and then bursted into a laughter.

“Now let’s get out of here…” the farter suggested.

But before the two could even walk towards the window, Dana showed up again in her own room. She didn’t even startle.

“What are you two doing here?” she asked, sounding more like an inquisitive mom than an angry girlfriend. She was fairly mature, after all. “I don’t know what you Dumb and Dumber are up to, but I swear if you–”

“I heard the news, Dana. We were just outside your window…” Dave explained, slightly tweaking the truth. “We wanted to play a stupid scary prank but then I heard it, while you were on the phone you know…”

Dana shook her head and laughed a bit. She hugged her boyfriend and kissed him.

“Yes! I got the job!” she giggled. “Sorry I’ve been so cold lately. The job interview made me so nervous…”

“It’s fine, Dana. You’ve always been stone-cold anyway!” Dave joked, earning a playful slap on his chest by his girlfriend.

“Yes, that’s a very import–wait what’s that smell?” the girl asked, sniffling loudly the air around him.

Tim’s heart almost stopped while Dave did his best to not just laugh like an immature prankster. His hair, clothes, skin, were completely “soaked” in his gassy bro’s gas, so naturally he’d himself smell like flatulence.

“Never mind. It must be you, Dave. He farts like crazy when he’s nervous, Tim, I swear.” she said, disgusted but slightly amused as well.

“Ow… it’s part of my charm, babe.” Dave replied, using what he would have considered an irresistible flirty tone of voice, which was super awkward instead.

“And yeah. Tim’s very aware of my skills, right?” he joked, winking at him, like the big teasing bastard he’s always been since he found out about his fart kink.

Tim just shrugged, faking a disgusted look, his heart racing fast, knowing that all he had to do after that was take the biggest shower in the hope that such unbearable stench didn’t fuse with the atoms in his body.

“Well, it’s gonna be a wild ride!” Dana exulted, happy about her new job offer.

“How about a round of beers to celebrate?” Tim suggested. “It’s on me, no worries.”

“Great idea, but I’m paying. I got the job, you dumb-dumbs get to drink!” Dana replied. She was in a very good mood.

“It’s fine, Dana! It’s the least we can do after-“ but Dave interrupted him.

“Come on Tim, stop living in outdated gender roles and let the pretty girl buy you a drink.” he said, faking a serious tone.

The girlfriend simply rolled her eyes and left the room “Just… meet me downstairs when you’re done saving the world, ok?”

As Dana was nowhere in sight, Dave simply turned to Tim and let another huge, long one rip.

“Shhh. Just tying up some loose ends here.” he said, shushing the gay friend, blasting what was left of his gas out.

“Are you finish-“ “Not yet” he simply said, as if he was making sure no particle of gas was left behind.

With one high pitched final note that was met with some immature laughter, Dave sighed in relief.

“With that said” he chuckled “You might want to take a shower.”

Tim simply nodded with an unamused expression.

“Oh, and you might want to leave the other closet you’ve been hiding.”

That was out of nowhere.

“No pressure bro, just know that we’re all always more than happy to have a beer with you.”

“Thanks Da-“

“Despite your bigoted views on gender roles of course.”

“I’m going to punch you now.”

The duo then headed downstairs and no one got punched luckily.

Tim thought about his friend’s words and how it was probably time to leave that metaphorical stuffy closet soon or later, not that he felt forced or anything.

Dana’s closet, however, that’s probably the only one he enjoyed being trapped into…

End of Episode 9

[daveeddiggsit]

No Return

Note: so this is not a new fic. i actually posted it back in 2017 (but deleted all my smut from this blog about a year afterwards haha we love being impulsive). but i’m over myself now, so i’m reposting! a lot of you have been asking about it, so... here you go. posted for all of y’all to enjoy again.

Word Count: 4.7k

Pairing: Daveed Diggs x Reader

Warnings: smut. cursing.

Summary: Diggs loses a bet which results in him owing you a lap dance.

Parties at Rafa’s place were always the best; the drinks were great, the music was amazing, the atmosphere was never dull, but the best part about them were the incredible people that made up each one; you were never bored. There was always something to do whether you were talking to people, dancing, playing drinking games, or just drinking in general. And that’s why whenever you were told that there was going to be a party at Rafael Casal’s apartment, you never turned it down...even if you ended up showing up late.

“Well, look at who finally decided to show up.” You heard a familiar voice say as you walked through the door to Rafa’s place. Daveed grinned widely at you before he slid an arm around your shoulders, pulling you close to him as you walked deeper into the apartment. “My favorite!”

Daveed was one of your closest friends and if you were being honest, it would have been a lie if you said you didn’t want him to become something more than that. The two of you often flirted and were constantly together (these occurrences happened so often that there were many times people believed you were dating), but neither of you had made a real move. You knew how you felt toward him, and he was giving you signs that he felt the same way, but no true actions were made by either party. So that’s why it stayed the way it was between you two: just close friends who often flirted with each other.

“Aw, I’m your favorite?” You asked, raising your voice so he could hear you over the loud music that was pumping through Rafa’s speakers.

“Uh, yeah,” he stated as if it was obvious, “but don’t tell anyone else. It’s a secret between you and me.” He whispered in your ear as you entered the kitchen.

Yeah, he had definitely downed a few drinks before you got here.

“Diggs, I’m pretty sure everyone heard you when you shouted it.” You laughed as you plucked the cup half-full of alcohol from his grasp, draining it of its contents. He pouted at you once you handed him back an empty cup.

“Y/N, hey! It’s been forever since I’ve seen you!” Adrienne said from beside Rafa who was pouring out a few drinks.

“Hey!” You pulled away from Daveed’s grasp to give her a hug. She’d been away in Canada for the last few weeks shooting for a new project she was working on. “I’ve missed you! Why’d you have to leave me alone to deal with these boys for so long?”

Adrienne laughed while Rafael furrowed his eyebrows.

“Oh, so you didn’t miss me? I see how it is, Y/N, I see how it is.” He feigned hurt, before pushing a couple of newly filled cups towards you and Daveed.

You rolled your eyes at him. “We had lunch a few days ago, Cash, it hasn’t been that long since I’ve seen you.”

“But so much has changed since then.”

You chuckled before taking a sip. “Like what? Did you finally finish that song you’ve been working on?”

“No.” Rafael replied before he smiled at Adrienne beside him. “Unlike Diggs, I am no longer a single and lonely Bay Boy.”

Daveed’s eyebrows furrowed as he cocked his head. “Yo, who said I was lone—?”

“You guys are finally together? Oh my god, congrats!” You cut in with widened eyes.

They both grinned at each other before Rafa leaned down to kiss her forehead.

“Aww,” you gushed, “you two are couple goals already.”

A few seconds passed before you felt Daveed’s arm drape around your shoulders again.

“You know, we could be couple goals too.” He said, looking down at you with a smirk.

You rolled your eyes, pushing him away. “Ha, you wish, Diggs.”

You laughed it off because you knew he was too tipsy to be serious. He always flirted with you like this, but why did this time feel so different?

A few drinks later, you were beginning to feel the familiar light-hearted, buzzing feeling course throughout your body, giving you a boost of energy. You had drifted away from Daveed and Rafa to roam through the house and catch up with people you hadn’t seen since your Hamilton days. You were talking with Adrienne and Ari when you heard your name being called from behind you.

“Aye, Y/L/N!”

You turned your head to see Daveed standing next to a table a few feet away. 

“Diggs!” You responded in the same playful tone.

He grinned at you before waving you over. “Come play Flip Cup with me.”

“Really?” You quirked an eyebrow. “You lose every time you play against me, D.”

“I’m feeling confident today. I’ve been practicing.”

You tried not to laugh as you rose from your seat and approached him. “Practicing?”

“Bruh,” Rafa snickered at his friend from the other end of the table. “You played a few games before this and won two in a row. That ain’t practicing.”

You let a smug grin show up on your face as you glanced back up at your best friend. “Daveed, I am the queen of Flip Cup, okay? You can’t beat me. Nobody ever has, and nobody ever will. That’s a fact.”

“I’m pretty sure I can beat you today, Y/N.” He said bluntly. Wow, he was forward when he was drunk. “I have a good feeling about this.”

“Ha,” you huffed out a laugh, “wanna bet?"

“What do you propose, oh mighty Queen of Flip Cup?”

You thought for a second. What was something you knew would make him think twice about challenging you? Something that would make him step down from this newfound cockiness he embodied.

When the idea formed in your head, you sent him a sly grin. “Winner gets a lap dance from the loser.”

You distinctly remembered an earlier conversation with him where he stated that he couldn’t dance. You knew it was untrue due to the times you’d seen him dance at the club or during some of the numbers in Hamilton, but you also knew that the wager wasn’t something he’d necessarily jump on (despite the confidence boost the alcohol had supplied him).

Rafa led the mini crowd that had formed around you in a chorus of “ooo”s.

“Deal.”

You looked up at Daveed in surprise. You hadn’t expected him to agree to the terms so easily.

“Diggs, that means if you lose— sorry, when you lose, you have to give me a lap dance.”

“I know.” He said seriously.

“And you’re good with that?”

“If it happens, which it won’t because I’m gonna win, then yes.” He stated, his mouth forming into a confident smile. “I’m good with that.”

Fine, he wanted a challenge? You were going to give him one.

“Alright, then.” You said, narrowing your eyes at him. “Game on."

⋆﹥━━━━━━━   ♛   ━━━━━━━﹤⋆

Daveed lost. Badly.

So badly, in fact, that you actually felt bad for him. So you tweaked it so it was the best out of five games...and even then, he still lost.

Oh well, it’s not like you didn’t warn him.

When the third game ended and Daveed realized his defeat, he threw his head back and groaned.

“Aww, don’t be such a sore loser. You lost fair and square, Diggs. ” You teased with a smile, wrapping your arms around his torso to hug him from behind. “I warned you. I told you I was the queen of Flip Cup, but you didn’t listen.”

“Those cups were rigged, Y/N.” He stated, turning around in your grasp so he could hug you back.

You laughed, rolling your eyes. “Say whatever you want to make yourself feel better. Nothing’s gonna change the fact that you owe me a lap dance.”

He was quiet for a moment before he murmured something. “You know I can’t dance, right?”

“First of all, yes you can. And secondly, lap dances are different, Diggs.”

“No, they’re not.”

“Yes they are. And if you don’t think they’re different, you dance at parties all the fucking time. You should be able to handle an easy lap dance.”

He lifted his head back up from your shoulder to look down at you. “But Y/N...”

You let out a laugh before you patted his cheek lightly. “You dug yourself into this hole, loser. Guess you’re just gonna have to figure it out because you’re not getting out of this one.”

⋆﹥━━━━━━━   ♛   ━━━━━━━﹤⋆

The next day you woke up to someone knocking on your door. In sweats and an old t-shirt, you made your way over to unlock it, squinting your eyes to adjust to the bright light. The slight hangover you had wasn’t really helping you get out of your groggy state.

“Daveed?” You asked, realizing who your visitor was once your vision adjusted. “What are you doing here so early?”

He was dressed in a yellow Oaklandish tank top that showed off his toned arms/shoulders and dark blue jeans with a brown belt buckled just enough to let them sit loosely on his hips. You also noticed that he decided to rock his glasses today.

You snapped your eyes up to his and away from his figure that left you breathless. You totally had not just checked him out.

“If your definition of early is 2 o’clock in the afternoon, I think you may need to reevaluate some things and consider fixing that sleep schedule of yours.” He replied with his lips turning up into an amused grin.

“Shut up, I had a late night last night.” You mumbled, turning around to walk away, leaving the door open so he could let himself into your apartment. “And you did too. I’m surprised you’re not asleep right now.” You glanced back at him to see him shrug.

“I had to meet Bill and Jon at the studio at 10. I’ve been up since, like, 9:30.”

“Damn, Diggs, you’re gonna have to teach me your ways.”

“Caffeine.” He chuckled, putting on his signature grin. “It works miracles.”

You returned the smile, before sending him a curious look. “So, why are you here? Not that I mind or anything, it’s good to see you, but you haven’t been over in like a month and a half.”

“Exactly! It’s been awhile since we’ve hung out alone, so I thought it’d be dope if we chilled and watched movies or something.” He replied before he went to ramble on. “I mean— only if you want to. If you’re really tired, I can leave so you can get some more sl—”

“No, no, it’s fine! That sounds great.” You cut him off and placed a hand on one of his toned arms to reassure him. 

“You sure?”

“Yeah!” You responded. “Just let me take a quick shower and we can start in like 20ish minutes.”

“A 20 minute shower counts as a quick shower?” He questioned with a teasing look.

“Yes,” you said, “or would you rather it be 45ish minutes?”

“20ish minutes is good. Have fun with your quick shower. Though, I think it would be more fun if I joined.” A tiny but noticeable smirk made its way onto Daveed’s face.

You laughed when he sent you a playful wink, dropping your hand from his arm to walk towards your room. “You wish, Daveed Diggs.”

“You have no idea.” He mumbled under his breath (inaudible to your ears) before he let his eyes follow your retreating figure.

“Maybe you could set up the movie in the meantime? It’s your turn to choose. The remote’s on the coffee table and you know where the popcorn and shit is in the kitchen. I’ll be out soon. If you need anything, yell.” You said before closing the door to your room.

Daveed sent a thumbs up in your direction even though he knew you couldn’t see it before he made his way to your living room.

Little did you know, Daveed had something else planned.

⋆﹥━━━━━━━   ♛   ━━━━━━━﹤⋆

When you emerged from your shower, you quickly dried yourself and combed through your now damp hair. After that, you exited your room and entered your living room to see that it was completely dark. Confused, you surveyed the room to look for your best friend, but there was no sign of him at all.

Did he leave? If he did, he didn’t text you or anything to let you know.

“D?” You called out, walking further into the room.

With each step you took, the more you realized how this seemed like a scene from a horror film. You weren’t a fan of them, but a few months back Daveed and Rafael had pretty much forced you to have a scary movie marathon with them.

“Daveed Diggs, I swear to God. If you’re trying to scare me right now, I will—”

You squeaked when a pair of arms snaked their way around your waist from behind. Daveed’s voice had come seemingly from out of nowhere. “You’ll what?”

“Kick your ass.” You glared at him, quickly turning around to push him away. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”

He laughed, smiling brightly. “I’m sorry, Y/N.”

“No, you’re not.” You grumbled, moving to sit on your couch. Daveed followed you.

“You right. It was so worth it.” He grinned at you, causing you to roll your eyes at him. You tried to stay mad at him, but it was damn near impossible when he was looking at you like that.

“We’re not friends anymore.” You stated, crossing your arms.

“What, why?” He asked, his grin dropping into a pout.

“You were mean to me, Diggs! How dare you scare me in my own home!” You were laughing internally.

“Okay, fine. I’m sorry for real this time. What can I do to make it up to you?”

When he asked, you contemplated it for a few moments before you looked up at him with a smirk.

“What?” He asked.

“Well, you still owe me that lap dance…”

He groaned, closing his eyes and letting his head fall back on the couch. “I thought you forgot about that.”

“Nope.” You said, your smirk forming into a smug grin. You had the upper hand now. “How could I forget you losing a bet against me, resulting in a lap dance from the great Daveed Diggs himself?”

After a couple of seconds, he sighed, opening his eyes and tilting his face towards you. “If I do this now, will I win back your friendship?”

“I’ll think about it.” You said, causing him to give you a deadpanned look. You laughed before you spoke again. “Yeah, I guess we could be friends again. But it has to be good.”

Daveed sighed again before he straightened himself up. “I don’t even know how to give a good lap dance, Y/N.”

“Improvise. C’mon, D, you’re great at improv. Treat it like you treat a freestyle. Just go with the flow.” You smiled widely at him.

“Fine.” He said, getting up from his spot next to you. “But I’m only pulling through with this because I like you.”

“Aww, you like me?” You asked teasingly to mask the actual feeling that was coursing through you. You continued to grin at him as he pulled out his phone to scroll through his music library. When he finally settled on a song by The Weeknd, he turned to you once he pressed play.

“Do I start now?”

“Yes,” you laughed. “C’mon, you know how a lap dance works. You’re not a novice when it comes to these things, stop fucking around.”

You could see him smile and rub his arm before he looked away for a second. When he started to slowly sway to the beat of the song, it was extremely hard for you to stifle your laugh. Your best friend was about to give you a lap dance and you could not take him seriously.

He continued to dance to the beat for a bit as he stared you down with a smirk. He was doing this shit on purpose. He was joking around until you couldn’t contain your laughter any longer.

“Diggs, I can’t take you seriously like this. I can—” You wheezed. “I just can’t.”

Your laughter and the slow, sexy beats of the music were the only audible things in your apartment until Daveed spoke again. 

“Are you ready for me, Y/N?” His smooth, low voice washed over you.

You let out yet another giggle. “Don’t make it sound so sexual.”

“It's supposed to sound sexual, Y/N, it’s a fucking lap dance.” He chuckled, now standing directly in front of you.

“Alright, show me what you got, Bay Boy.”

You continued to laugh at him as you watched him, but the moment he straddled your lap, you stopped. His arms were on each side of your head, using the couch to steady himself over you as his hips began to slowly grind against you. That’s when the atmosphere in the room completely changed.

Your eyes widened slightly when you saw him bite his bottom lip in concentration. When you envisioned Daveed giving you a lap dance the night prior, you didn’t think it would be like this...it was flustering you more than you thought it would. Before you knew it, you were struggling to control your movements. Your fists were clenching and unclenching as you so desperately tried to keep them anchored to your sides.

As if he had read your mind, Daveed murmured, “You can touch me, Y/N. Don’t be afraid.”

If you weren’t turned on before, you definitely were now. His gravelly voice paired with his hot breath right next to your ear caused you to shiver, making goosebumps appear across your entire body.

Then, you finally let your hands wander. They traveled up his chest to rest on his shoulders, then back down again to move under the hem of his tank top so you could feel his bare and strong torso. Sure it was a bold move, but the more and more Daveed grinded on you, the less and less you cared. When his tank top rode up to the point where you could see all of his abs, he paused to stand up and quickly get rid of the article of clothing before he came back to straddle you again. 

Your heart was beating wildly in your chest as you looked up at your best friend. He looked undeniably attractive when he was on top of you shirtless and with his glasses on. Every feeling you had ever felt for him came crashing down on you at that moment and that’s when you just about lost your self-control. Part of your brain was screaming at you, saying that you were about to cross a line that you could never cross again...but at the same time, all of your cares had disappeared.

You used your newfound courage to cup Daveed’s face in both of your hands and pull him into a deep kiss. He gasped softly, surprised at the sudden contact, but quickly eased into it. 

You had just passed the point of no return.

You didn’t know what to expect when you decided to kiss him, but it was better than you could have imagined. When you pulled back, his mouth was slightly dropped in awe and one of the sides slowly twitched up into a soft smile. (It was kind of adorable.)

“Daveed, I like you.” You blurted, short of breath.

His face broke out into a full grin. “I like you too, Y/N.” 

“No,” you shook your head, moving your hands from his cheeks down to his shoulders. “I mean like— like like you.”

“I know,” he chuckled. “I mean, I figured given what just happened a few seconds ago. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

You shrugged, breaking eye contact with him. You subconsciously traced one of your thumbs across his collarbone. “I was afraid of rejection, I guess.”

“Are you serious?”

“What?” You asked, sounding offended.

Daveed caught your gaze again, pushing a strand of your hair behind your ear. “Y/N, I’ve had like the biggest fuckin’ crush on you since Ari introduced us.”

“Wait, really?”

“Mhm,” he hummed. “I’m actually really surprised you didn’t notice.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about your crush earlier, Diggs?” You voiced, giving him a pointed look.

He gave you a shy smile when he moved off of you to sit beside you, still facing you. “Same reason as you.”

“You know what? I’m not even mad about not knowing sooner.” You said. “I’m glad we found out like this.”

“You’re just happy I gave you a lap dance with my amazing skills.” He teased with a laugh of his own.

You laughed again, and pushed at his chest so he could lay on his back and let you crawl on top of him to straddle his waist. “Not gonna lie, I didn’t think you had it in you, Diggs.”

His jaw dropped completely as he looked up at you. “But you said that I could do a lap dance when even I said I couldn’t!”

“That’s true, but to be fair, I never said you couldn’t do a lap dance. I just didn’t think you’d do as well as you did.”

Your response brought yet another smile to his face as you leaned closer to him. “I’mma take that as a compliment.” He said softly.

At this point, the song Daveed had chosen had ended a while ago and the lap dance was long over.

“Good.” You responded before you kissed him again.

This one was different from the first. It started off soft, but quickly turned passionate and heated. As your mouths moved against each other, Daveed’s hands moved from your hips up to the hem of your shirt, his fingertips grazing your bare sides, leaving goosebumps in their wake. The only word you could use to describe this feeling was just complete bliss.

When you reached down to Daveed’s belt buckle, he shivered, causing you to smile against his lips.

Then he pulled away, panting. “Y/N…” he breathed. “Are you sure about this? You don’t have to— fuck.” He cursed as you pulled back completely to unbuckle his pants. “I don’t wanna push y—” 

“Daveed,” You said, before pausing quickly to put a hand on his scruff, tenderly moving your thumb to caress his cheek. “I’m absolutely sure about this. Now please, shut the hell up so I can blow you.”

You smirked when you saw his eyes widen and when you crawled off of him to go in between his legs, you heard a quiet, “Okay.”

Wasting no more time, you removed his jeans and boxers to free his erection. You could see Daveed’s chest begin to rise and fall quicker when you took his length into your hand and pressed a kiss to the tip of it.

“Oh, shiiit.” He drawled softly when your mouth wrapped around him, slowly sucking your way down as far as you could. As you began to bob your head up and down, Daveed’s breathing increased with each suck and occasional flick of your tongue.

Now, he was fully panting. He lifted his head up to look down at you, causing him to groan. After a minute or two, he brought a hand down to move some strands of hair out of your face.

“Fuck, Y/N,” he babbled, “I...I shouldn’t...oh God, I shouldn’t be this fucking close.”

You slowly pulled off of him and he brought you back up to kiss him again.

“You,” Daveed breathed against your lips, “are way too fucking good at that.”

You grinned.

“And,” he continued, “this clothing situation is a bit unbalanced, don’t you think?” 

His thumbs grazed the waistband of your sweatpants. When you nodded, you pulled them down along with your underwear. You moved off of him to take them off completely and remove your shirt and bra, leaving you just as bare as he was.

You climbed back on top of him, straddling his washboard abs, when he ushered you to move up. You obeyed, moving forward an inch or two, but Daveed shook his head and grabbed your thighs, moving you himself.

“Daveed, what are you doing?”

“Returning the favor.” He said simply, bringing you over to his face.

“Oh,” you breathed when you felt his tongue lightly touch your clit.

The man’s mouth worked miracles from between your thighs. Daveed kept you still above his skilled tongue, occasionally giving your ass a squeeze.

“D-Daveed,” you gasped, your mouth forming a perfect ‘O’ as his tongue lightly circled your clit before he brought fully into his mouth to suck gently.

This was the best head you’d gotten...well ever, actually. He wanted you to feel the best you’d ever felt and he definitely achieved that.

Before you knew it, you were reaching your high, climaxing as you shouted Daveed’s name, not caring how loud it echoed throughout your apartment. When you crawled back down Daveed’s body, the two of you shared a sloppy kiss as you both breathed heavily.

Although you just came, you weren’t completely satisfied. You still wanted him... needed to feel him inside you.

You moved to position yourself above his cock, but he made you pause before you could do so.

“Y/N, stop,” Daveed panted. “Condom.”

“Don’t need it.” You replied quickly. “I’m on the pill.”

“Oh, fuck yes.” He replied, releasing you so you could resume what you were about to do.

You breathed out a laugh before you slowly sank down onto his length, making both you and him release a groan. 

“You are so fucking gorgeous,” he gasped. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this.”

Your fingers ghosted along his stubble-ridden jaw. “I think I have an idea.”

When you adjusted to his size, you began to bounce and he helped you, meeting each of your thrusts as he guided your hips onto him.

Your lips met Daveed’s yet again and you captured every moan that fell from his mouth, he did the same for you. As your pace quickened, so did each grunt, pant, and moan. You felt your pussy begin to clench again like it had when you came before.

“I’m gonna come,” Daveed said quickly against your mouth.

“Fuck.” You groaned. “Me too, D.”

“Come for me, sweetheart.” He breathed, bringing a hand up from your hip to cup your cheek. “You can do it.”

And you did.

Your walls clenched around him and you gasped, letting your orgasm wash over you in waves. Daveed came shortly after you, and continued to thrust, riding the both of you through your highs.

As you came down and pulled yourself off him, you collapsed, exhausted, halfway leaning on him and halfway laying on your couch. You moved a hand up to rest on his chest again, closing your eyes in bliss as you relaxed against him.

After a minute or two of silence, Daveed broke it.

“Wait, so...does this mean we’re friends again?” 

You looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. He was still on that? Wow, what a dork. “After this? Everything that just happened?” You asked bewildered. “God, I hope not.”

“Fine,” he said letting his signature bright smile show up on his face, still breathing heavily. “More than friends?”

Your heart fluttered in your chest and you grinned widely back at him. You leaned up to softly kiss his jaw before you gave him your answer.

“Way more than just friends, D.”

[shippin2electricbindu]

started getting into DS.AF so I was like “ yo. Kinda wanna make a sona for this shit post game because holy fuck: I love the lore in it too, because me me looooooove lore suihefuisfuisefhus. So I’ll probably keep them as a general fnaf sona but this would just be the DS.AF ver :)). In this cause they go by “ Cappy “ since that’s what all their co-workers have dubbed them by, Their real name is actually Monroe. More info on my sona under the cut cause muhehehehe. Kinda incomplete but I’ll add more when I’ve not got a bad head cold haha. I’ll probably add friends to my f/o list because I wanna go to vegas w/ the boys™  

Dave kinda just often refers to them as “ Buddy boy “ similar to how he calls Jack “ old sport “. Probably talks to Jack about his weird nicknames and kinda how they want to be left alone. 

A lot more skittish, reserved and shy compared to other employees which is why they probably work as the janitor. Probably takes a bit to earn their trust in order to complete different things but I’m guessing if you keep some stuff cleaned: They’d be pretty happy with you. 

I’m going to say the qoute “ Alright Brainiac. Sounds good Einstein. Potato working overtime? “ is in a sarcastic manner probably to poke fun at Jack after he suggests a way to get blood out the suits: When in fact, it’s so obvious they’ve tried that method before or something. Idk I just thought it was funny and sounded like it belonged in the game

I’ve not brainstormed much since I just wanted to make a cool looking pixel dude. Probably mostly found in the janitor’s closet in the first game [ not actively on the map but... I’m just inserting it as a location. ] or sometimes around pirates cove since they’re nicknamed / alias “ Cappy “ sounds pirate-y. That’s what Nathan demanded anyways and they can’t afford to be fired.

Appears in the second game and has a whole ass rivalry w/ Mopson over who can keep the place cleaner and over every little thing ( totally isn’t like “ aww noo.... he died in that suit.... ohhh noooo... /s...” after he’s dead on stage and usually trying to clean away the trash pile because it’s a MESS and messes will not be tolerated ( and they’re trying to keep what remains of their life together so they don’t end up a sobbing mess ). 

Design wise: Elements that make them stand out is the others because they have marginally longer legs than the others. They’re also always grinning w/ a full teeth smile ( since apparently that’s good customer service and they REALLY can’t afford to get fired ) w/ a tooth gap and their signature backwards cap which is where they got the name “ Cappy “ and they WOULD correct their bosses but... Again, they need the job.... 

That’s all I can really process rn thanks to my dumb dumb head cold grrrr afhsuiefh but I had a tone of fun designing this ngl. :)

[fiction-fun]

Lost and Found Soulmates

@braidedchallah @alexanderdamnhethin @rthoney @creedtheconquer @andpeggy21 @theconfusedleo @friedrich-the-gay @haha-gunsgoburrr @hamiltimes 

Fandom: Hamilton? in a way? otherwise...Music?

Pairing: Daveed/OC

Words: 9598

I groaned and dropped onto the couch in sitting room of the dorm apartment I shared with a few of my friends.

“Girl! Just go! I will loan you the 20$!” Logan said sitting down by me.

I shook my head.

“I’m barely going to be able to cover next semester’s tuition. I couldn’t pay you back, Lo'. It was sweet of you to offer but I think I’ll just have to let this one slide by.” I said looking over to her.

She grabbed my shoulders and I looked up seeing Roxanne and Arianna behind her looking at me the same way she was. Logan shook my shoulders.

“Girl! You have talent, you know all the songs and choreography already! You can do this!” She said determination in her eyes.

I shook my head and stood up carefully.

“No, Lo' that’s final.” I said before walking into my room and locking the door.

I laid down and fell asleep quickly. But found myself woke up way to early in the morning the next day.

“Roxie, Ari I said no.” I grumbled as they forcefully dressed me and brushed my hair.

Yeah, they did this often. Usually when I was late to class. We all kind of took care of each other it’s why we decided to all room together.

“And we said yes. Now go have a good audition.” Ari said patting my head.

Roxie gave me a shove and Lo' pressed a 20$ into my hands, I groaned again and stomped off out of the dorm with them all cheering after me. I slid into my car and started it, putting the Hamilton soundtrack on in the car, I started the long drive.

“Might as well get some practice in.” I muttered just as the first song started.

I sang along as I drove and it felt like no time had really passed since I started before, I was pulling up outside the theater. I sighed softly and climbed from my car closing and shutting the door, I leaned on the car so I was looking over the roof.

“Come on, you can do this! It’s not like this is the first musical you’ve auditioned for! Yeah, but it’s also not the first Lin Manuel Miranda musical I’ve auditioned for and I’ll surprised if I get this one.” I sighed and shoved off my car, tucking my keys into my pocket. I paused for a second looking at the thin red string attached to my finger before stuffing my hand in my pocket.

'Not today.’ I sighed walking into the theater.

There were only a few there and some of them I recognized from the last time I had auditioned for a musical. I put a smile on my face and walked up to the sign in table. Quickly writing my name and grabbing one of the provided lyric packets I moved to lean against a wall. I always felt better when I was standing, at least, when it came to pre-audition jitters.

“Alright we’ll start calling them in, in five minutes and you just come in when you get here. No Daveed it’s no problem, traffic happens! It’s New York, really, I’m not surprised. Alright, I’ll see you in a few, bye!” I looked up at the familiar voice and smiled softly.

All the others here for the interview gasped and crowded around him the best they could I just stood back as he looked around smiling at everyone. I waved from the wall and his eyes went wide.

“Kaley! I didn’t expect to see you!” he said stepping over to me.

He gave me a small hug and stepped back hands still on my shoulders.

“Lin, how are you? You wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for my roommates.” I said smiling softly at the excitable man in front of me.

Lin wrapped his arm around my shoulder and walked towards a door with me.

“Oh, I’m alright. So why did they have to shove you out now?” He asked smiling.

I laughed and nodded.

“Oh, you know how I am at this point. Broke with no confidence! They literally dragged me out of bed this time, I didn’t even get coffee and I was to worried about being late to stop for some.” I said laughing as we paused outside of the door.

Lin nodded and turned the knob after letting go of me.

“Well just breath, you’ll be fine. I would have hired you last time, but circumstances.” Lin said apologetically

I laughed again and shook my head.

“No, it’s totally fine. I get it, I just hope I’m better than last time. I could really use the boost and the reassurance I’m on the right path.” I said softly towards the end.

Lin smiled and hugged me again.

“You’ll do amazing, I know you will! Oooh I’m getting that look, I have to go. I’ll see you out there.” He said before hurrying though the door.

I laughed and waved as the closed. I turned back to the room and saw the glares, I slowly put my hands up.

“He gets to know people who have auditioned for multiple of the shows he’s involved with. Chill.” I said muttering the last bit to myself.

I walked back over to the wall and leaned against it, flipping through the packet. This was a different style audition and the style was partly why I had decided not to come. Lin was choosing the songs we auditioned with. And due to an audition years ago, he knew I could rap.

‘Knowing my luck? I’m going to get Guns and Ships because he knows I know the words for it.’ I thought leaning back and closing my eyes.

Lin and I had met at an audition about 6 years ago, and we had instantly hit it off. Both of us kept checking the string just to make sure, that’s how close we were. But we ended up trading phone numbers and being good friends. I was one of the first he sent the demo for Hamilton, he had already called and raved to me about his idea. Which although it worried me that it wouldn’t be a hit, I was fully behind him, even more so after hearing the demos. The reason he was so surprised to see me? He had offered me a roll back when Hamilton was in its 'please take a ticket, come see our show!’ stage, I had been too busy with school to properly honor the commitment. I had also told him that I would want a fair audition, not to just be given the role because we were friends. I sighed as people started getting called back.

‘I hope the others do good. Even though I’m sure they hope I do badly. I’m getting coffee after this no matter what.’ I thought as I read through the packet again.

A few minutes later I heard my name and shoved off the wall, walking onto the stage I stopped and took the mic they handed me, handing them my packet. I walked to the front of the stage and leaned down a bit, glad my friends had picked a regular button up instead of something low cut.

“Kaley, firstly, good luck. Secondly your song, I’ve selected Guns and Ships for you.” Lin said a smile on his face.

The others at the table looked at him like he was insane. I smiled and turned to the stage pausing, and spinning back.

“I need the table.” I said my hands on my hips.

Lin sat back and laughed waving crew members in from the wings.

“I told you that would be her only comment!” Lin said laughing.

The others were still looking at him like he was crazy, even as I stepped up onto the table and nodded to Lin. The music started and I closed my eyes letting the intro wash over me. Without a second’s hesitation I jumped right into the song, singing and rapping it the best I could, my eyes snapping open as I jumped from the table, landing and bouncing around the stage a bit. A crew member, who wasn’t Christopher Jackson came out and did Washington’s part. I had just turned towards were the audience using my hands to my advantage.

“Sir, he knows what to do in a trench, ingenuitive and fluent in French, I mean!” I said bobbing to the music.

“Hamilton!” the Washington stand in said.

“Sir, you’re going to have to use him eventually what is he going to do on the bench? I mean!” I said bobbing.

“Hamilton!” came the call.

“No one has more resilience or matches my practical tactical brilliance!” I shouted.

“Hamilton!” was called.

“You wanna fight for your land back?” I called as I moved around the stage.

“I gotta get my right-hand man back!” the Washington stand in said sitting at the table so I could dance around him.

I went through the next few lines, really feeling myself. I grabbed the fake letter and just as I turned to run over to the stairs on the side of the stage, I heard the door open and glanced up, Daveed had just entered. I kept in motion, my legs knowing this part by muscle memory. I had just turned to hand the letter off when my string caught my eye. I swallowed as I realized, it was connected, and who it was connected to. The feeling hit me in a second and I stumbled hitting my knees, letting my head drop. Letting the wave of dizziness run over me.

“Alright that’s enough!” Lin called and I heard him jump onto the stage.

He kneeled beside me and placed a hand on my back.

“Kaley, what happened? You were killing it!” he asked softly, having already turned off both of our mics.

I just shook my head and looked over at him, not seeing Daveed there anymore. I closed my eyes, before slowly getting to my feet.

“That’s your only warning, breath when rapping!” I said trying to act casual.

Lin gave me a look, and followed me to the wing.

“Kaley! I’ve never seen you take a fall like that. And you've rapped faster than that before. So, I know that’s not it. What happened?” He asked concern radiating from his whole being.

I sighed and wiped my face.

“Just text me when you get done, I’ll explain after class ok?” I asked softly.

I didn’t think I could talk right now. I saw Lin nod and I turned running from the building. I climbed into my car and dropped my head to the steering wheel.

'It's one thing to not want me. Another to cause me to screw up. But now I just feel terrible. I thought as the tears slid down my face.

I turned my car on finally and started the drive back to campus. I sighed as I pulled into my parking spot. I wiped my face again before climbing from my car, walking slowly into the building. I still had another hour until my class, and I wanted coffee.

'And maybe ice cream' I thought sadly.

I opened the door to see all three of the girls waiting for me.

“Well? You killed it! You totally killed it!” Lo' said excitedly.

I smiled faintly and shrugged.

“No, I probably didn’t get the part.” I said as I walked to the kitchen.

I heard them walk behind me.

“But who else, besides the actual cast knows the musical as well as you do?” Roxie asked looking offended for me.

I shrugged and looked over at them.

“it doesn’t matter, let me just make my coffee and go read over the chapter for my class.” I muttered softly.

Ari walked over to me then and looked at me.

“What happened?” she asked.

I slammed my hands on the counter and spun around.

“What happened? I fucking fell, that’s what happened. Now I’m going to go read my damn chapter while my coffee cooks, just leave me alone!” I shouted running into my room and slamming the door shut.

I quickly crawled into my bed with my book in my hands, reading over it. About twenty minutes later Roxie walked in and looked at me.

“Lo' and Ari already left for class. I’m headed out shorty, but you should think about apologizing.” She said her hands on her hips.

I looked up and nodded.

“I will.” I whispered I didn’t think I could talk any louder than that.

Roxie looked at me, and sighed sitting next to me. She reached over and hugged me rubbing my back.

“Whatever happened really messed you up, huh?” she asked softly.

I snuggled into her hold and sniffled nodding.

“Yeah…I don’t want to talk about it.” I said softly after a few minutes.

Roxie nodded and sat back brushing my hair out of my face and giving me a soft smile.

“It’ll be ok. I have to get to class. Don’t forget to go to yours!” She called as she walked out of the room.

I sighed and set an alarm for twenty minutes from now. I went back to reading my book, drinking my coffee as I did. I heard a ding on my phone and initially ignored before sighing softly and grabbing it.

‘I shouldn’t just ignore everyone. I thought swiping open my phone.

I looked and saw a text from Lin.

“Hey what happened? I found Daveed in a similar position in the hallway.” His text read.

I sighed softly, and looked at the clock. I swore softly and jumped off my bed cramming my books into my bag I chugged the rest of my coffee before jamming my feet into my sneakers. I grabbed my Phone and Keys before running from the apartment, barley stopping to lock the door.

“I'm running late. I’ll text you after class, but seriously? Take a guess. I hope he’s ok. I gotta go.” I sent the text and ran into my class, sliding into my seat just as the bell rang.

“Close one.” A snide voice from the seat behind me came.

I sighed.

“Hello, Rachel I see we have classes together again. Why don’t we try to be mature and leave the childish actions for years passed.” I said, trying to be the bigger person.

She laughed and sat back.

“So, I heard you fell at the Hamilton auditions today!” she said loud enough for the whole class to hear.

I clenched my fists on my desk and took a deep breath.

“It happens, doesn’t help I had been rapping Guns and Ships while bouncing all over the stage. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you miss park and bark?” I said slipping in the last comment.

I tried to ignore her and listen to the professor it was difficult, but doable. At least it was until I heard her muttering about Daveed.

‘Oh hell no.’ I thought as I heard her utter a few choice slurs.

I spun around and grabbed her head slamming her face into her desk. Within seconds, we were rolling on the ground arms swinging. It took a couple of the football players to pull us apart and walk us to the headmaster’s office. A nurse was waiting in the office and I ignored her, but took the offered ice pack.

“Alright, girls what happened?” the headmaster asked when he called us in a few minutes later.

Rachel immediately started with the water works.

“She just attacked me!” she cried out over dramatically.

I sat back and raised an eyebrow, ice pack pressed to my eye. The headmaster turned to me.

“Is that true?” He asked his tone firm.

I shrugged and sat forward, pulling the ice pack off my face.

“Nope, I only slammed her face into her desk after she ran her mouth about me for a solid ten minutes and then started saying racist shit against a man I look up to, who we should all look up to. You do what you have to do, but I’m not apologizing to her, no, no way. I refuse, she brought this on herself.” I said firmly and the headmaster nodded.

He turned back to Rachel.

“Is that true?” he asked her.

Rachel looked smug, she should even if he tried to expel her, her dad would just donate money until she was let back in. It’s happened twice already.

“Why should she care what I have to say about some…” Rachel started before I turned to her.

“Do you want to go again?” I asked my voice cold.

The headmaster raised his hand and shook his head.

“Both of you will be out of school for a week, you can stay on campus but won’t be permitted to go to classes. You can get classmates to get your work for you.” The headmaster said with a tone of finality.

I nodded and rose to my feet waving as I walked away.

“But sir!” I heard Rachel about as I was walking away.

I walked slowly back to the dorm debating with myself weather or not to text the girls about what happened, before shrugging and deciding it had been long enough it would be all over school. I stepped inside the building and paused for a second under the heater, it was a cool New York day and this was nice, especially with the icepack. I walked up the stairs and slotted my key in the lock twisted and walked inside, turning and locking the door again. I walked into my room and dropped my bag on my chair before kicking off my shoes and falling into my bed. I sighed and grabbed my phone.

“Hey if you’re free and wanna chat, call me.” I sent Lin quickly.

Within seconds a video call was ringing on my phone and I sighed softly, answering it. Trying to hide the fact I was injured.

“Hey Lin.” I said trying to put cheer into my tone.

“Hey! So, what happened? And turn the camera I can’t see you.” he asked and I heard he still sounded worried.

I sighed and spun the phone a bit, letting him actually see me. I saw his eyes widen.

“What happened? When during the audition or after?” I asked loosing the false cheer.

“I was asking about the audition; we can talk about after afterword’s.” He said, giving me a look.

I sighed and laid back holding the phone over my face. That was the only 'down' side to being close friends with Lin, he worried and treated me like his little sister.

“My string.” I said softly looking to the side.

Lin’s eyes went wide before he tilted his head in confusion.

“But you two have met before, haven’t you?” he asked.

I shook my head adjusting the icepack.

“No, he’s the only one I hadn’t met yet.” I said softly, tired from the events of the day.

Lin nodded and glanced to the side before focusing on the phone again.

“So, what happened?” Lin asked and I shifted knowing he was asking about my face now.

I sighed and scooted up in my bed, my back hurt.

“I’ve had this girl trying to do better than me since I got here. We always have classes together, and she always says some crap to get me mad. Today I wasn’t really in my right mind, focused on everything else. So, I didn’t take her bait, which she didn’t like. She had heard about the fall I took and knew when it happened.” I took a second to stop talking reaching over and grabbing my water to get a drink.

Lin nodded and waited for me to continue. I sighed and closed my eyes, for a second before opening them again.

“Well she started spewing vitriol and I got mad.” I said looking away for a second.

Lin hummed.

“That doesn’t exactly tell me how you got so injured.” He said, he could always tell when I was trying to down play things.

I sighed softly.

“She was spewing racist garbage, so I grabbed her by her hair and slammed her face into her desk. A few seconds after we were rolling in the ground trading punches. Took two of the football players to pull us apart and get us to the headmaster’s office. I’m out of classes for the next week. That’s what happened.” I said finally looking back at Lin having looked away.

Lin’s eyes were wide at what I had said.

“And what happened to her?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“Technically? She got a week out of classes too. In reality? Probably next to nothing. Her dad’s a top donor so he has a lot of sway.” I said rolling my eyes.

Lin nodded and looked up again.

“I have to go but text me your room number and building, I’m sending you your favorite take out.” Lin said quickly.

I shook my head.

“Lin no! It’s fine!” I said quickly.

He looked back to me.

“No, I want to. Please?” he asked giving me his damnable puppy eyes.

I sighed and nodded.

“Alright, go do what you have to do.” I said with a small smile.

He smiled back and waved, ending the call. I sighed and texted my building and number to Lin. I set an alarm, and sat my phone on my bedside table and pulled the blankets over my head, I dozed off and quickly fell into a deep sleep. The alarm went off and I let out a groan. I sat up and turned my alarm off, moving out of bed and changing out of my jeans.

'How did that happen? I never fall asleep in my jeans.’ I thought as I grabbed my phone and walked out to the living room.

I looked at my phone seeing that the girls weren’t going to be back tonight. I sighed and made some coffee letting out a yawn.

“Looks like it’s just me tonight, well at least I don’t have to worry about dinner.” I muttered softly as I moved over to the couch.

I picked up the remote and flipped on some stupid mindless show as I sipped my coffee. I sat back and watched the show, just waiting for a ding of my phone with Lin letting me know the details or a knock. Around 7:30 I heard a ding and looked at my phone. Seeing a text from. Lin.

“Kaley, hey! Sorry I completely lost track of time. You know how I am with new shows. Foods on its way though, be nice to the delivery guy, I was kind of frantic on the phone!” I laughed softly and shook my head.

This was exactly like Lin.

“Don’t worry about it Lin! I know how you are, when you get working! I’m also always nice to delivery drivers. Have a good evening Lin, I’ll message you in the morning.” I sent quickly, already knowing he’d ask me too.

I turned back to my show for a little while longer before a knock on the door pulled me out of the show. I stood up and sat my cup on the table, walking over to the door. I looked through the peephole and saw a paper bag in front of it, I could just make out the logo of my favorite take out place. I undid the lock and pulled the door open.

“Hey! Thanks!” I said smiling at the other person.

That’s when he lowered the bag and I swallowed thickly.

“Hey, can we talk?” He asked.

I nodded mutely and opened the door wider, stepping back and letting him in. I closed the door and waved him over to the couch.

“Do you want a cup of coffee?” I asked more so I had a second to gather myself.

“Yeah that’d be nice.” He said.

I nodded and walked into the kitchen after grabbing my cup. I heard footsteps behind me and leaned up to grab another cup. Pouring the coffee and turning, freezing.

“We should probably start with introductions, even though I’m sure we both know who the other is.” He said.

I nodded and sat the cups on the counter, where he unloaded the food spreading it out. I grabbed a pair of plates and the milk from the fridge. Walking over to him and setting them down, I sat in a chair.

“I'm Kaley Sinclair. Although, in theater I’m mostly called Hyper rush.” I said smiling slightly.

He sat down across from me and reached to grab the milk after I had used it.

“I’m Daveed Diggs, and except for characters, that’s all I’m known as.” He said smiling softly.

I laughed a bit and reached over grabbing some food.

“So, how did you end up delivering dinner? Not that I’m complaining.” I asked before quickly amending.

Daveed laughed and shook his head.

“No, it’s ok. Lin asked me too, plus I have prior delivery experience.” He said laughing down more.

I laughed and winced slightly when my twitched, he instantly noticed and gave me a worried look.

“Are you ok?” he asked softly.

I nodded and waved at my general self.

“I’m fine, just a bit banged up is all.” I said waving it off.

He placed his non string hand over my non string hand and rubbed his thumb over it gently, I smiled at his thoughtfulness.

“I heard a bit of what happened.” He said quietly a minute later.

I looked up at him and shrugged lightly swallowing what I had in my mouth.

“I'd do it again.” I said simply.

His eyes went wide at that, before a soft smile slid across his face.

“That’s….” he just smiled; I flipped my hand.

“It’s what humans should do and how we all should act. She should have kept her mouth shut.” I said firm in my beliefs and already knowing his thoughts on it.

Daveed smiled again at my words and I let out a soft sigh, smiling gently right after. We ate in silence for a little while, finishing eating and slowly packing away the food. Daveed stood looking awkward in the living. I sighed softly and stepped in front of him.

“Relax. We can sit and talk.” I said gently nodding to the couch.

Daveed nodded and we walked over to the couch both of us sitting. We sat silently for a few seconds before Daveed let out a breath.

“I'm sorry.” He said softly.

I looked at him and raised a confused eyebrow.

“Sorry for what? You didn’t do anything wrong.” I said softly with confusion lacing my tone.

He smiled softly and shook his head.

“The audition, Lin told me you were killing it. But you fell.” He said softly.

I nodded understanding on my face, I let out a small laugh, which caused him to look up at me.

“Yeah, they always say the rush will knock you off your feet. I just didn’t expect it to literally knock me off my feet. But don’t worry it’s ok, not your fault.” I said reassuringly.

Daveed lifted his hand the red string still connected to us both, with a small smile.

“I mean it kind of is.” He said softly.

I shook my head.

“No, it’s not. It would have happened eventually. And actually, I’m glad it happened now.” I said with a small smile.

Daveed looked up at me with a confused look on his face.

“Oh? Why?” he asked looking as me.

I laughed and stood, waving for him to stay there I walked into my room and grabbed a small envelope from my top desk drawer walking back out and sitting next to him again, handing to him. Daveed opened it and looked back at me.

“Because it would have happened with you on stage otherwise. And I wouldn’t want that.” I said gently.

He looked up from the tickets in his hand to me with a small smile.

“How are you so…. calm?” he asked finally, after a few seconds.

I couldn’t help but laugh as he passed the ticket back to me.

“I’m not.” I said simply as I stood up and quickly stashed the tickets before sitting back down.

He gave me a confused look, and I smiled a bit.

“To be honest? I’m still waiting to wake up, because this feels like a dream. I didn’t expect you to show up at my door, especially not after …” I broke off and shook my head a small smile on my face.

Daveed gave me another, unreadable look.

“After?” he asked softly.

I looked down and away from him, fiddling with the class ring on my hand. I took a breath and let out a small sigh.

“Especially not after I looked up and saw you were gone.” I said softly, I didn’t know if I could have actually spoken up right then, at least not without my voice cracking.

Daveed reached over and took my hand again, letting his thumb stroke over the back of it.

“I’m sorry, it washed over me so quickly and I didn’t want the others to see me, and realize what happened until we could get a chance to talk. I tried to catch you but you left so quickly. And Lin still figured it out, how I’m not sure.” He said looking into my eyes.

I bit my lip and nodded.

“Lin probably figured it out because if me.” I said softly.

That caught his attention, and he gave me another curious look.

“How, did he figure it out from you?” Daveed asked curiosity clear.

I shrugged lightly and smiled softly.

“Lin and I have known each other for six years. We text, and he texted asking what happened and mentioned finding you on the same position. Without thinking, because I was rushing to class, I basically told him 'I’m late to class what do you think happened?’ and then went to class.” I explained.

Daveed nodded a smile on his face.

“And of course, he figured it out, and decided that setting us up like this was the best idea.” Daveed finished my thought.

That cause a big smile to cross my face as I nodded and laughed a bit.

“I mean that’s how Lin is!” I giggled out.

We sat like that laughing and laughing getting to know each other for a while before I yawned softly. Daveed smiled gently down at me from where I had ended up tucked up to his side his arm wrapped around me.

“Maybe I should let you get some sleep.” He said softly and I snuggled more into his side.

“I don’t want you to go.” I said softly.

He laughed softly and gently nuzzled his nose into my hair.

“But you need to sleep.” He said and I felt the smile he pressed into the top of my head.

I sighed and nodded tilting my head a bit to look up at the clock and frowned slightly.

“You can’t leave now.” I said definitely.

Daveed laughed again and shook his head.

“I’m not going to keep you up all night, besides we can always plan to meet up tomorrow.” He said softly.

I shook my head and unwrapped one arm from around him, pointing at the clock he looked up and his eyes went wide.

“It's already two in the morning. You won’t get back into the city for another hour then who knows how long it’ll take you to get home or where you’re staying. By the time you get home you’ll have to almost turn around and leave for rehearsals in the morning, won’t you?” I asked softly looking up at him.

Daveed rubbed a hand over his face and sighed nodding.

“It’s worth it though.” He said softly a smile taking over his face.

I giggled softly and snuggled into his side.

“You can always stay here and leave in the morning after a couple hours of rest.” I suggested lightly.

Daveed looked down at me a smaller smile crossing his face.

“And your roommates?” he asked softly.

I shrugged.

“They’ll be curious but I’ll keep them away from you for now.” I said quietly.

Daveed laughed a bit and squeezed me gently.

“Alright.” He said finally.

I smiled up at him before slowly uncurling from him and standing up holding out my hand to take his and lead him to my room. We walked in and I ducked into the closet looking through what I had.

“What are you doing?” he asked a small laugh in his tone.

I hummed light before finally finding what I was looking for.

“Ah-hah! I ordered a pair of sleep pants but they sent me a pair about four sizes too big. But I kept them, because I figured they’d come in handy. And they did!” I said spinning to face him.

Daveed smiled at me and took the offered pants and headed to the bathroom to change. He came back smiled gently at me.

“Alright, we should sleep, and thank you.” He said softly.

I smiled gently and walked over to him, he had pulled his shirt off as well and I couldn’t help wrapping my arms around him taking a deep breath. He laughed softly and wrapped his arms around me rocking us gently. I smiled and snuggled into him.

“We have one more thing we have to do first.” I said softly as I pulled back and pulled my hoodie and t-shirt off, leaving me in just a tank top.

He raised an eyebrow as I tossed them into the corner.

“What’s that?” He asked me softly.

I smiled a bit and lifted my left hand wiggling the finger with the red string attached to it.

“I mean, if you want to.” I said softly second guessing myself when he didn’t answer after a few seconds.

He quickly wrapped his arms around me again and pressed his face into the top of my head.

“Of course, I do.” He whispered softly.

I let out a soft sigh, having let my fears get the best of me for a second. There were multiple ways what we were talking about could be done. Daveed uncoiled his arms from around me and stepped back a step, a smile on his face. He used his right hand to lift my face and leaned down, pressing his forehead to mine.

“Are you sure?” he asked softly his voice barely a breath over my face.

I swallowed and nodded my eyes locked with his.

“Absolutely.” I whispered.

Daveed smiled gently and leaned in, connecting our lips. I sighed softly into the gentle kiss, completely relaxing into it. He let his right slide up the side of my head resting on the side of my face, as I let mine drift up and press against his chest. I felt his left-hand land on my shoulder and slide down my arm slowly. I felt butterflies fluttering in my stomach the closer his hand slide to mine. I felt his hand hit my wrist and then he twisted both of our hands so they we’re palm together. I gasped into the electric feeling, hearing an equally sharp gasp. Daveed laced our fingers and let the electricity race through us, as we continued to kiss. The feeling started to lessen and we sighed softly, after a few minutes we pulled back and pressed our foreheads against each other. The feeling had lessened but the tingle was still there.

“Woah.” I whispered softly.

The kiss had incited fireworks to flash and the bond forming had cause electricity to course up and down our spines.

“Woah.” Daveed agreed just as softy.

We smiled at each other sharing another sweet soft kiss before climbing into the bed. He laid behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. I sighed softly and relaxed into his hold, reaching over and setting an alarm.

“When do you have to be up?” I asked softly.

Daveed hummed for a few seconds.

“Probably around seven, so I can be there by nine.” He said nuzzling into the back of my neck.

I giggled softly as I set the alarm.

“Your beard tickled me.” I murmured softly, relaxing back into him after setting my phone down.

Daveed laughed softly and rubbed his face against my neck again, making me giggle again. I fell asleep with him rubbing soft soothing patterns into my side. Hours later I groaned hearing my alarm going off, I reached over and swiped it off with a sigh snuggling back into the warmth behind me and froze for a second as the memories of last night came back. I sighed and rolled over laying my head on Daveed’s chest smiling softly when he wrapped his arms tighter around me. He pressed a kiss to the top of my head and I sighed softly in response.

“Mmm good morning.” He murmured; voice heavy with sleep.

I felt a small shiver run through me at the gravelly tone his voice had and pressed a small kiss to his chest in response.

“Good morning.” I said just as softly.

Just as I tilted my head up to get a proper good morning kiss, my door swung open and I lunged out of bed grabbing it and slamming it back shut.

“Roxie or Ari or Lo' NOW is NOT the time!” I shouted leaning against the door and breathing heavily eyes wide.

I heard a sigh from the other side of the door.

“You’re going to be late for first class come on!” Roxie called, beating on my door.

I laughed and shook my head, sending a look and small apologetic smile to Daveed, I turned and slipped out of the door closing it behind me to lean against it again.

“Roxie, I got into a fight yesterday. I’m out of class for a week.” I said slowly reminding her and waving at my face which was by now no doubt sporting a black eye.

Roxie sighed and tilted her head back.

“Right, forgot sorry. So, who’s the guy?” Roxie asked a smirk on her face.

That’s when I realized Ari and Lo' were right behind her wearing the same look. Logan held Daveed’s jacket in her hands with a smug smirk. I growled and held my hand out.

“He’s mine, and that’s all you need to know currently. Look go to class or go in your rooms. He has to leave soon and you three aren’t going to hound him.” I said firmly as Logan handed me his jacket.

Roxie tossed her hands up and grabbed her backpack turning to the door.

“I took some of the take out for lunch!” she called as she walked out.

Logan following with a similar call. And Ari just waved before going back into her room. I sighed and turned back walking back into my room. I smiled at Daveed who was now sitting up on the edge of my bed.

“I'm sorry about that.” I said softly sitting down beside him.

He smiled and leaned over tilting my head and pressing a kiss to my lips.

“It’s ok, they’re curious.” He said softly.

I nodded and watched as he stood up. And moved to get his clothes I stood up and wrapped my arms around him, splaying my hands over his abs. I hummed lightly and he laughed, turning and wrapping his arms around me.

“I have to get ready.” He said softly.

I sighed and nodded nuzzling my nose into his chest.

“I know but I find myself not wanting to let you.” I whispered.

He smiled and pressed his face into my hair, before pulling back and uncoiling one arm from around me. He tilted my head up and pressed a kiss to my lips, I sighed softly and leaned into the kiss, using this time to really memories how his lips feel against mine. When oxygen became a necessity, we pulled back pressing our foreheads together and he brushed his nose against mine, drawing a small giggle from me.

“Now it’s a good morning.” He said with a warm smile on his face.

I nodded a warm smile over taking my face as well.

“It is.” I agreed softly.

We pulled back and he moved to the bathroom, turning at the door he sent me a smile.

“Why don’t you come with me? I’m sure Lin won’t mind.” He said softly with a smile playing on his lips.

I smiled back and nodded.

“Ok, sounds good.” I said softly.

He smiled back and turned to the bathroom. I moved to the closet and quickly got dressed stepping out I saw the bathroom door open so I looked in, seeing him stood in front of the mirror, messing with his hair. I giggled softly as I stepped inside.

“There you are.” He said dropping his arms to wrap around me.

I smiled and leaned up pressing a kiss to the underside of his chin. Delighting in the light shiver that I felt travel through him. I reached up into the cabinet and pulled out a pair of toothbrushes and toothpaste smiling and handing one to Daveed.

“I always have extra.” I said in explanation when he looked at me.

He laughed and shook his head, before we quickly began brushing our teeth, he kept one arm wrapped around me. I sighed softly and leaned back against him, smiling gently at him in the mirror. We finished our teeth and looked up in the mirror, I reached over and grabbed my brush and ran it through my hair. I smiled softly as I pulled hair up into a ponytail. Daveed took my hand and lead me from the bathroom and out of my room. I paused for a second smiling up at him.

“Later Ari!” I shouted grabbing my bag and keys.

Daveed and I walked from the room and down the stairs, leaving the building. He led me over to his car and we climbed inside, retaking each other’s hands almost on autopilot as Daveed started the car and put it in drive. We got on the road and Daveed lifted our joined hands to turn the radio on, turning the volume down with a small smile.

“Hope you don’t mind. I usually listen on the way in.” he said softly.

I shook my head with a smile and leaned over, and kissed his cheek.

“I enjoy your music.” I said simply.

Daveed turned and sent me a smile before quickly turning back to the road. The ride didn’t seem to take as long as it actually did and before long, we had pulled into a hotel parking lot.

“I have to run up and change, otherwise neither one of us will ever hear the end of it.” He said smiling gently.

I nodded, a smile playing on my lips.

“Alright.” I said softly.

He lifted our hands and kissed the back of mine.

“I’ll be right back, maybe ten minutes.” He said smiling.

I nodded and watched as Daveed climbed from the car, still holding my hand until he had to let go. He closed the door and sent me a smile before running into the hotel. I sighed and leaned back against the comfortable seat in the car. Grabbing my phone and opening it to look at any messages I might have. My eyebrows furrowed together when I saw frantic messages in the group chat with Roxie, Ari and Logan.

“Girl! You have to see this! Rachel has gone too far!” Roxie sent, alongside a photo.

I raised an eyebrow, in a chat where we sent basically porn pics often enough, we didn’t usually use the 'cover image’s feature on the app. I tapped the picture and my eyes went wide a gasp slipping from my lips. There on screen was a horrible flyer, with the nastiest words imaginable printed on it. I felt the tears well in my eyes as I read all of the words. From disparaging and hateful words about me to hateful and nasty things about Daveed. I backed out of the photo quickly, my thumbs flying across the screen.

“Take then all down! Now! Get rid of them all! I’m not on campus please, Roxie, Lo' Ari! Please you have to do this, it can’t get out, I can’t let him be drawn into my feud with that hateful witch! Please this could really hurt his career! Burn them if you have to but make sure nobody else sees them!” I sent frantically.

Just as I hit send, I heard the backdoor open and close a second before the front door opened, I looked up at Daveed who was dressed in new clothes.

“Hey, what’s up?” he asked having seen the look on my face.

I heard my phone ding and looked down quickly.

“I’ll explain in a second.” I whispered, my voice shaking.

“Girl, already done. Just focus on you and him we got you covered here!” Roxie sent along with another image.

This one showed Ari and Lo' holding boxes of the flyers and a shredder between them working away at a stack of them already.

“Thanks girls I owe you one, we both do. Keep it up.”  I sent before sighing and turning.

I looked over at Daveed who was watching me with concern. I sighed and closed my eyes opening the app on instinct and swiping up a bit.

“I'm so sorry to drag you into this. We’re already doing damage control so it shouldn’t get out, there shouldn’t be rumors or anything.” I whispered softly.

“Kaley, what happened?” he asked reaching over and taking my hands.

I sighed and freed the one holding my phone sending him a small, worried smile.

“The girl who did this, posted hateful posters all over campus. They’re horrible but Roxie and Lo' saw them got Ari and got them all down and are now destroying them.” I whispered softly.

Daveed lifted his free hand and placed it on the side of my face, his thumb rubbing gently over my cheek. I sighed and closed my eyes, leaning into his hand.

“Ok, it’ll be ok.” He said reassuringly.

I sighed and opened my eyes looking into his, I leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to his lips.

“Remember, they’re all down. And getting destroyed currently.” I said softly.

Daveed looked at me confused for a second before I clicked the picture and turned my phone to face him, he took the phone and held it in his free hand. I saw his eyes scanning over the flyer, his eyes widening each time he saw something new. I knew he finished when his head dropped back against the car seat. I watched him as he worked through his thoughts, he turned his head to me and slipped my phone into the cup holder raising his hand he placed it onto the side of my face, drawing me forward he pressed a kiss to my lips. I kissed back just as fiercely as he kissed me but after a minute we pulled back, and he rubbed his thumb over my cheek.

“None of that is true.” He said firmly as if trying to make me believe.

I smiled softly and nodded.

“I know it’s not; I wasn’t worried for myself. I was worried for you.” I said gently.

Daveed gave me a sweet smile and shook his head.

“I’m ok, I was more worried with how you reacted than anything else.” He said softly.

I laughed a bit.

“I reacted like that because I didn’t want my stupid school yard feud to get this far, to involve you. I know if your label sees that shit, they’ll call and talk to you but they won’t like that it’s out there. I won’t let anything interfere with your career. That’s the only worry I had.” I said just as softly.

He huffed out a small laugh and kissed me again. Leaning back, he started the car again pulling out of the parking lot.

“It’s ok, they know me. And your friends seem to have it under control. Let’s just try and enjoy our day together ok?” he asked softly.

I nodded and smiled gently at him.

“Yeah, sounds good to me.” I agreed easily.

With that the short ride back to the theater was quiet besides the soft music playing in the car. Daveed pulled into a spot and he turned the car off turning and smiling at me.

“Lin is never going to let us hear the end of this.” He said softly lifting our joined hands and pressing a kiss to the back of mine.

I laughed softly.

“Like he’d even try! He’ll just be giddy and giggly and bouncy all happy because of this. And knowing him….” I said laughing softly and trailing off, shaking my head.

Daveed laughed, nodding.

“He’s going to be singing the kissing song as soon as he sees us.” He finished my thought.

I laughed at the thought and Daveed joined me laughing loudly. We laughed for a long time, both unable to stop. We finally managed to stop and climbed from the car. Daveed reaching into the back to grab his bag as I checked the message that just came in on my phone.

“It’s done! We’ll handle the rest of damage control have fun!” Logan sent into the group chat.

I smiled softly sending a quick message back.

“Thanks girls! You’re amazing!” I slipped my phone away.

Daveed took my hand as soon as it was free giving me a gentle look, I smile and lean up pressing a kiss to his cheek.

“The girls just finished destroying the posters and wanted to let us know.” I said smiling softly.

Daveed nodded and kissed my forehead before leading me inside. We stopped at the office so Daveed could say hi to some of the people there and I waved politely when they looked at me. Daveed had wrapped an arm around me at this point and led me down the stairs towards his dressing room.

“Daveed! There you are! I thought you were going to text me when you got home?” Lin’s voice came sailing about a mile a minute from behind us.

Daveed looked down at me at the same time as I looked up at him.

“Yeah, I only got home this morning.” Daveed said turning us carefully.

Lin’s eyes went wide and he giggled running up to us, wrapping us both in hugs.

“Yes! I knew it!” he said cheering.

I couldn’t help but to laugh at the man.

“Yes, you did. And I thank you. But I have to go get dressed for practice.” Daveed said grinning at him.

Lin nodded enthusiastically.

“Right! Oh! Kaley! Good news! Come here!” Lin said grabbing my hand.

I tried to snuggle closer to Daveed.

“I don’t wanna!” I whined petulantly.

Daveed laughed softly and leaned down kissing my lips softly.

“I’ll be right here when you get back. Well not here, but my dressing room.” He said softly reassuringly.

I sighed softly and nodded.

“Oh alright.” I said softly pulling myself out of Daveed’s warm hold slowly.

As soon as I was clear of Daveed’s hold Lin took off down the hall quickly.

“Lin! I can’t keep up with your coffee fueled steps!” I shouted almost running after him.

I heard Daveed's laugh echoing off the halls and sighed softly. Lin slowed as we reach a split in the hallway, stopping completely.

“Ok, ok. Trust me!” he said putting his hands over my eyes.

I sighed and walked forward when he nudged me.

“I trust you, but Lin, I swear I will beat you if I fall down stairs!” I exclaimed softly.

Lin laughed and I felt him shake his head.

“No steps don’t worry, we’re almost there.” Lin said and I heard the smile.

We walked for another minute or so.

“Ok, stop!” Lin called turning me slightly.

I smiled softly at his obvious excitement.

“Close your eyes!” He said and I felt him bounce slightly.

I laughed and shut my eyes.

“They’re closed.” I assured.

I felt him move and I assume he stopped in front of me making sure my eyes were closed. I felt him shuffle me a bit and laughed as he did.

“Hmm ok. Ok! Open your eyes!” He said and I heard the physical restraint in his voice.

I laughed as I opened my eyes only to stop short.

“Lin? What the hell?” I asked softly, my eyes wide.

Lin laughed and reached over twisting the knob.

“You were still our best audition. So, welcome to the crew if you still want it. Please tell me you still want it?” Lin said smiling a bit nervously.

I laughed and started jumping around in place.

“If I want it? OF COURSE, I want it! Ahh thank you Lin!” I exclaimed hugging him quickly.

He laughed and hugged me back, we pulled apart and I walked into the room behind the door that held my name. Looking around the dressing room.

“it’s just the first act who’s rehearsing today, second act is tomorrow. So, you can go and head back to Daveed I just wanted to show you.” Lin said as he leaned against the doorway.

I giggled and spun around the room.

“Lin, seriously thank you.” I said turning back to him with a smile.

He laughed and shook his head.

“You earned it!” He said smiling.

After that he gave me the room key and I head back towards Daveeds dressing room a smile on my face. I knocked lightly on the closed door hearing a few voices from Inside before the door swung open.

“There you are, thought you got lost for a minute.” Daveed said smiling at me.

I blinked quickly and shook my head.

“No, thankfully I didn’t haha.” I said as he let me in.

I smiled up at him and he leaned down kissing me softly.

“AWWW!” shouted both Anthony and Oak as they saw it.

Daveed turned but I saw he couldn't get the smile off his face.

“Oh, shut up! So, what did Lin want?” He asked turning back to me.

I pulled out my key and held it up to him.

“He didn’t tell you?” Anthony called at the same moment.

I rolled my eyes when Daveeds widened seeing the key. He grabbed me up in a hug and swung me around, I giggled wrapping my arms around him.

“I knew you could do it.” He said softly, as our foreheads pressed together.

I smiled softly.

“Well that makes one of us.” I whispered and he pressed a kiss to my lips again.

Which of course caused the other two to call out again. Daveed sat me on my feet and brushed my hair behind me ear with a soft smile.

“Why don’t you two go finish getting ready.” Daveed suggested softly.

“Yeah, we’ll see you out there. Just don’t get distracted.” Oak said slipping out the door quickly, Anthony right behind him.

I giggled a bit.

“You’re happy.” He said turning to me as he finished fixing his neck poof thing.

I nodded.

“I am, I’m glad I got this.” I said sitting on the couch.

Daveed smiled and turned back to the mirror making sure his outfit looked good. A few minutes later I sat up ramrod straight and groaned.

“Fuck!” I exclaimed.

Daveed whipped around looking for a problem, and I laughed softly at his face.

“What happened?” He asked eyes wide.

I smiled softly before it faded and I leaned back.

“Nothing, technically is wrong. I just fucking realized the downside to this.” I sighed softly.

Daveed shrugged into his jacket as he walked over to sit beside me.

“And what’s that?” he asked taking my hand in his.

I sighed softly smiling at the small action.

“Well the role I got was Maria, right?” I started softly.

Daveed nodded staying silent and letting me continue.

“Lin is basically my brother.” I said sounding grossed out.

Daveed laughed a bit and kissed me gently.

“Ok, so what’s the problem?” he asked smiling.

I smiled and shook my head.

“It means that I have to both kiss and basically give a lap dance on stage to my brother.” I said pulling a face.

Daveed also pulled a face.

“That’s gross, my only suggestion is, get into the character?” Daveed suggested lightly.

I laughed and nodded wrapping my arms up around his neck carefully not to disturb the poof his hair had been pulled back into. I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his lips, his hands instantly finding my hips before sliding back around my back. I sighed softly into the kiss only to groan a few seconds later when the door opened.

“Oh! I…uhm…I’m sorry! But it’s just about time to head up.” Leslie said turning quickly so his back was to the room.

I laughed as Daveed and I pulled away from each other. He stood up and took my hand, pulling me up. We walked over to Leslie and Daveed tapped his shoulder.

“Let’s go.” Daveed said and I giggled lightly as he pulled out the Lafayette voice.

[raysofcrosby]

LITTLE DO YOU KNOW PT. 12

"𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘮𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘬𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘯𝘭𝘪𝘵 𝘴𝘬𝘺, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩 𝘶𝘱𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺." ━ 𝐉.𝐑.𝐑. 𝐓𝐨𝐥𝐤𝐢𝐞𝐧, 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐊𝐢𝐧𝐠

gif credit (x)

series masterlist

requested: yes | no

warnings: nope.

word count: 6,844 [once again, unedited lol]

authors note: THIS IS IT!! the finale of my tyler seguin series– ‘little do you know!’ this series honestly started out as a little fic idea i wrote down in my notes app on a road trip this time last year. i didn’t think much would come of it and when i decided to post it on here, i figured it’d flame away. but yall literally took it to a whole ‘nother level and i love yall for that so so much. you’ve sent messages, reblogged, liked and it’s still mind-blowing to me. i’m so happy that you guys enjoyed this series as much as i’ve loved writing it– and while it saddens me that it’s over, i can’t wait to bring you guys more material. okok enough of my rambling, here’s the finale!

Don't trip, don't trip, don't trip

That was all that echoed through your mind the moment your name was called for you to receive your diploma. You hadn't even thought about that being a possibility until last night, at yours and Kennedy's joint graduation dinner, when your brothers brought up how funny it would be if the two of you face-planted in front of the huge crowd.

And when you crossed the stage with grace, taking in the cheers that followed your name as you stood beside the University President with your diploma in hand– you swore that this was the happiest moment of your life. When you got back to your seat and the rest of the names continued to get called, you couldn't help but spend that time, looking at your folder and thinking back on your last few months.

You rang in the new year at a team party hosted by the Stars organization that was attended by the team, the staff, and their friends and family. It was nice, coming off of an amazing Christmas spent with your family and being down in Dallas. You had left the city, days earlier in the worst amount of pain and dreaded having to come back to it once school started again. Yet being there, waiting for the ball to drop, surrounded by your parents, your friends and the Dallas Stars, was enough to make you forget all about that pain. And with Tyler on your arm, kissing you into the new year, you truly couldn't wait to see just what 2020 could bring into your life.

And if the Stars 4-2 Winter Classic win over Nashville wasn't a sign of the good that the Universe planned to come your way– well, you didn't want to think about that. You didn't believe it when everyone said that the months would fly by as soon as the spring semester started– but they truly had. Your classes had kept you busy during the day while working the Stars games kept you busy at night. You had kept true to your word, and both you and Kennedy had befriended Paisley– the three of you becoming close in just a short amount of time. When the All-Star break came and your many, many votes for Jamie to be one of the 'last men in' were ignored, Tyler offered you a spot on the trip.

It was one thing, knowing that he'd rather have spent that entire week with you somewhere, doing anything and everything but thinking about hockey. And being in St. Louis in the middle of winter didn't really scream 'yes, please!' But taking the weekend off away from school and supporting him and watching him do what he loves while inspiring all of hockey's next generation of players...was enough to make you want to go.

As the weeks went on, Dave and Craig let you take on more and more responsibility as you could, and ones that didn't require you needing the board certification that you were already planning to take. They gave you advice on applying to Masters programs and Craig, sometimes even let you take his place on the bench during games. It wasn't a frequent thing, maybe once or twice every two to three weeks– but it was still cool as hell.

When spring break rolled around, you and Kennedy rubbed it into the faces of your Stars friends, when you announced your spring break plans with Paisley. While most of them had been to Cabo once or twice before, it was a getaway most of them desired for since the toll of the season was starting to weigh them down. Before you knew it, finals week was here and then boom...graduation.

In the last five months, your entire senior year flashed right before your eyes– and the moments that stood out the most always had the most important people in your life.

Your friends.

Your brothers and er- adopted brothers.

And Tyler...and the puppers.

The sound of cheering knocked you out of your thoughts and you saw all of your classmates standing up around you. You followed suit, holding onto the diploma tightly as you looked around you. You couldn't wrap your mind around how four years had come to an end so quickly. All of the weekends, the study nights, the parties off campus– everything, your entire college experience had wrapped up in four hours. As the crowd began to disperse and everyone went in search of their families, you looked around for Kennedy and Paisley, heading towards the meeting spot that the three of you had designated beforehand.

The Texas heat practically slapped you in the face as you used your diploma as a way to block the sun. Leaning out by a pillar just outside the auditorium, your two friends swarmed you from either side, the three of you hugging and trying not to cry. Even though Paisley had come into your friend group so late, it was like she was a missing piece of your friendship puzzle that well, you never knew you needed. When the three of you pulled away from one another, it only took one passing look before you burst into laughter.

"Ugh, why are we like this?" Kennedy laughed, sniffling and wiping her cheeks.

"I'm just happy that I'm no longer in that arena. You'd think with as expensive as the tuition is, they'd have decent air conditioning." Paisley added on, taking off her cap and wiping at her forehead. She turned off to the side and nodded her head. "I see my family, but we're all still on for lunch, right?"

Kennedy and you nodded as she waved and walked off, disappearing into the crowd. You relaxed more against the pillar, looking at your surroundings once more. "I can't believe it's over."

"Oh God, don't you start that," Kennedy came up next to you and plopped back against the pillar. "Get out of your emotions, Y/N. This isn't the time, especially today!"

And she was right, today was not the best day to get all in your feelings and be sad about your college experience coming to an end. Today...or rather, tonight, was so much more important.

"THERE'S MY FAVORITE GRADUATE!"

You and Kennedy looked up to see Big Rig towering over the crowd of people as his frame practically parted the crowd. Kennedy's parents were drifting behind him, all smiles as Big Rig carried flowers in his hands. "Hi, favorite boyfriend."

You rolled your eyes as he picked her up and spun her around carefully, kissing her before placing her back down onto the ground. "Favorite boyfriend? Are you telling me you have more than one?"

"Eh, I forgot about what's his name for the weekends," she joked, standing on her tippy toes and kissing him again. "You're my number one, though."

He smiled and handed her his flowers before turning to you, "ah, my second favorite graduate and first favorite Benn!" He wrapped you up in a hug and lifted you off the ground. "Don't worry, I got you flowers as well." He put you back down and handed you the other bouquet he was carrying.

"Hey, the only one who brings her flowers is me!" You turned to see Tyler standing there all dressed up with a smile on his face. When you looked past him, you saw the rest of your group stopped and talking to Kennedy's parents.

"Hey now, I'm more than okay with receiving gifts," you smiled, as Tyler made his way over to you and wrapped his arms around your waist. "But your flowers are my favorite."

He leaned in and kissed you, pulling away and tapping your graduation cap before bringing the bouquet in between the two of you. "There's a little gift in there too, from the puppers and I."

You looked down in the bouquet to see a black box with a small, red bow sitting in the middle of it. You picked it up and then looked back at Tyler with a raised eyebrow. "But Tyler, I just graduated college...I'm too young to get married."

The way his eyes bulged out of his head was enough to make you want to double over in laughter. When he registered the sarcasm in his voice, he rolled his eyes and nodded. "Haha, very funny, Y/N," he tucked the bouquet in the crook of his arm and nodded down at the box. "But just so you know, my proposal would be 100x better than this."

Your heart fluttered at the thought of Tyler proposing to you. Sure, you were nowhere near ready for marriage and neither was Tyler. And when you said it, it was a total joke. But the thought of it...was still a nice one. You looked back down at the box and lifted up the lid, revealing a stunning gold, heart-shaped locket. "Oh, Tyler..."

"Go ahead, open it." He smiled, nodding his head down at the locket before looking back at you. You pulled the necklace out of the box and opened the locket, revealing two pictures tucked on the inside. "Cassidy and Candace helped me cut out the pictures, I guess my first-grade arts and crafts projects proved that scissors and I don't go together well."

You smiled down at the locket, taking in the pictures Tyler had chosen. On the left, was a picture of the three goodest Seguin boys sitting at attention, all smiles and tongues. On the right, was probably your favorite picture you and Tyler had ever taken. It was at the family skate for the winter classic, the two of you had been skating around and having fun, and after beating Tyler in the first of many races, he had wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you into him– preventing you from skating away. You were laughing, trying to wrestle out of his grip as he buried his face into the crook of your neck, blowing raspberries and only making you squirm more. Kennedy had snapped the candid, right at the moment, you had turned to look at him with a smile on his face and seconds before he leaned in to kiss you.

Literally a picture-perfect moment.

"I got it engraved on the back too," he reached out and flipped the locket over, revealing the small engraving on the backside. "They're coordinates."

"Coordinates? But to where?" you smiled, running your finger over the numbers.

"Dallas," he nodded, pointing at the engraving just below that.

My favorite memories and more. I love you.

You looked down at the locket, continuously running your thumb over the small engraving as you tried to hold back the tears. It was incredibly sweet of him to do this. At most, you expected flowers– but not something as sentimental as this. Yet as always, Tyler was always giving you more than you expected or felt like you deserved.

"I love you." You smiled, finally looking up at him before handing him the necklace and turning around, holding your hair up. "Can you?"

He handed the flowers off to Big Rig before placing the locket around your neck. The moment he clasped it off and you felt the weight of the necklace rest right at your chest, you turned around and wrapped your arms around his neck, kissing him. "I'm proud of you and I love you, Y/N. I hope you know that."

You nudged his nose with your own and smiled, "I know."

He hugged you closer to him, kissing you again until someone cleared their throat, interrupting the moment. "This is nice and all, but let me hug my sister, Seggy."

Tyler stepped away, taking the flowers back from Big Rig as Jamie, Jordie, and Jenn huddled behind him. Tyler and Jamie were back to normal, what happened over Christmas playing a huge part in it. Jamie, of course, had a few understandable ground rules: no extensive PDA in front of him and no discussing bedroom activities in the locker room, both of which you understood completely.

You were swarmed by your three older siblings, all three wrapping you up into a big hug and refusing to give you any air to breathe– but you were okay with it. You experienced a time where you knew that one of them had wanted nothing to do with you at one point, and you never wanted to experience that again. So this, lung crushing hug– was perfect.

"Okay, okay, give her some air you three," your mom said, swatting them away as yours and Kennedy's families group together. "Gosh, look at the two of you...college graduates."

"Yeah, honestly we never thought you'd make it here– OW!" Jordie said, glaring at your mom. "What? It's the truth? Don't you remember how homesick they were freshman year?"

"Oh yeah!" Jamie laughed, pointing at you and Kennedy. "Family weekend, you guys had an intervention with the two of them, telling them that they couldn't camp out in Kennedy's living room anymore on the weekends."

"And look how much gas money we saved on that," Kennedy's dad chimed in, wrapping his arm around her mom. "You girls sure have grown up these last few years...it makes us proud."

"Now about this Hawaii trip..." you smiled, looking at your two older brothers.

Jamie and Jordie looked at one another and Jamie shook his head. "I told you it wouldn't take her long to bring it up."

"Well, you're the one who ruined the surprise."

"Okay, but how was I supposed to know–"

"Boys, boys, boys," Kennedy said, walking over to the two older Benn boys. "Why argue, when you can give us the details on our extravagant, Hawaiian vacation?"

"Girls, we'll discuss it over lunch when we're with Paisley too, can the two of you wait that long?" Your mom asked, shaking her head.

"The lunch that four said big hockey players won't be at because they have to take a pre-game nap?" You smiled, standing up straighter. "Sounds great to me."

"Speaking of the game tonight, we're excited to see you guys play!" Kennedy's mom said, nodding at Big Rig. "Finally get to see the four boys we've heard so much about, in action."

"Please Mrs. Stewart, don't boost their egos any more than they already are." You teased, bumping into Tyler.

"Okay, okay enough talk! If we want to make our reservations we'll need to get some pictures done! Boys– er, boyfriends, you guys with the two girls first." Your dad directed, ushering the conversation forward.

Everyone cleared out in the circle as Big Rig and Tyler came to take a picture with Kennedy and you. Tyler stood on your right as Big Rig stood in between you and Kennedy, all four of you standing close and looking at the cameras, ready for the picture. "I'm kind of jealous of their hats," Tyler said, smiling through his words.

"I know, it's kind of depressing to know that our girlfriends are hotter and smarter than us, now."

"And you better not forget it," You added in, scrunching your nose as Tyler.

"Yeah, but after tonight, we'll be able to say that our boyfriends are the 2020 Western Conference Champions, so which is better?"

Tyler and Big Rig looked at each other and nodded their heads. "Hot girlfriends."

You and Kennedy nudged them both in the ribs before your parents made you take another picture.

❒❒❒❒

Your post-grad lunch surrounded by family and friends was exactly what you needed to take your mind off of the end of your undergrad years and especially, tonight. Jamie, Big Rig, Jordie, and Tyler weren't originally supposed to tag along, but never like to be left out, they opted to join your already huge lunch party. More than once, you often caught yourself slipping out of conversations and just looking around at the table, wondering just how you ended up in your current spot. You had two amazing girlfriends, their families, your own family, your siblings and of course, Tyler.

After the lunch had ended, your four hockey boys went their separate ways to prepare themselves for tonight's game. Jamie had offered up his place for everyone to relax before the game with the one rule that nobody bothered him the moment he went upstairs to take his nap. It was comical, watching him try to lecture the three pairs of parents on how important a pre-game nap was. So, all three families went to Jamie's place and settled down in the living room, mingling and talking about how excited they were to watch the game from the suite that Jamie, Tyler and Big Rig had gotten for the big group. You had chosen to let Tyler have his rest back at his place, deciding to tag along with your parents back to Jamie's house.

And that's when it happened. No sooner than you guys stepped foot into his front door, your mom practically spazzed out, "Oh shoot, I almost forgot!" She rushed into the kitchen, bringing back two envelopes for you. "These came in for you just before we left home. I meant to give them to you at lunch, but I forgot them here this morning."

"What are they?"

"Ooh, maybe it's cash. A million dollars perhaps, Mrs. B?" Kennedy joked, plopping down next to Katie on Jamie's couch.

"Oh no, that'd be a gift from her two loving brothers," your mom laughed, handing over the envelopes to you. "Go ahead, open them."

You took the envelopes from her and flipped them over, seeing two familiar emblems and names written in the top left corner of each. You looked at your parents with wide eyes and they both just smiled. "Do you think...?"

"Only one way to find out."

You took a deep, calming breath before opening the first envelope. You closed your eyes, unfolding the letter before opening it again and letting your eyes dwindle down the paper. "Oh my God...I got in," you let the letter fall from your face as you looked at your parents. "I got in!!"

"Where, where? Which one?" Kennedy cheered, springing off the couch as everyone maneuvered into the living room.

"Houston," you shook your head in shock. "I got into their Masters Athletic Training program."

"Oh God, please stop getting degrees," Jamie groaned, coming in from the kitchen with a water bottle. "It's bad enough you've already got a jump on us, but one more?"

"You can go to school too, Jamie," Katie replied, rolling her eyes. "Open the second one!"

"I bet you got into there too," Jennie smiled, taking a seat on the couch armrest.

"I doubt it," you sighed, looking at the second envelope. "It's USF. They're one of the top programs in the country."

"Well, you'll never know if you don't open it," Jamie replied, coming up by your mom. "And please do it soon, I need my nap."

You stared at the USF logo in the left corner, trying to feel the envelope as if you'd be able to tell it was a rejection letter without opening it. You had only applied to two programs– U of Houston and USF, with USF being your number one choice. Turning the envelope over, you ripped the seal and pulled the folded letter out. You stared at the back of the paper, trying to build the nerve to unfold the letter when you looked up and immediately made eye contact with Jamie.

He sighed and came over, holding out his hand for you to hand the letter over. You placed it in his hand and without hesitation, he unfolded it and brought it up to his face. You watched as his eyes skimmed over the letter, his face showing no sign of emotion. "Well shit," he sighed, sounding defeated.

"No? It's no isn't it?"

"No, it looks like I'll be seeing you in Tampa instead of Houston," he turned the paper around and smiled. "You got in."

Your eyes widened as you read the first word of the letter over and over again. 'Congratulations!' You looked up at Jamie and jumped into his arms. "I got in!"

He hugged you tight and spun you around a little as the rest of the group was all smiles and cheers. "I'm proud of you, kid. I know you've worked hard for this," he put you back onto the ground and handed over your letter. "And you've earned every bit of it."

You were in disbelief, you had actually gotten into both Masters programs. As you stared at your two letters, you couldn't help but feel incredibly proud of the work you'd put in your last four years of undergrad. And as soon as the cheers and voices of everyone around you faded out, the thought that had been lingering in the back of your mind since you applied for the programs, came forward.

If you went to USF...then what about Tyler?

❒❒❒❒

The atmosphere in the arena was insane, and why wouldn't it be? Tonight was the potential final game of the Western Conference Championship. Both of your brothers were playing tonight and the Stars were leading the series 3-0.

Needless to say, tonight was a very, very important night.

So important, that you hadn't even thought to tell anyone besides those who were at the house when you found out about your acceptance into the two masters programs. You figured that after the game was the best time to tell Big Rig and Tyler, not before they had one of the biggest games of their career. That, and it gave you a little more time to really consider what to do about choosing a program. USF was your number one choice and you only applied to U of Houston as a backup. But now that you've gotten into both, what the hell were you supposed to do?

You spent all of that quality pre-game relaxation time asking Kennedy and Paisley what they thought you should do. You and Tyler had just started officially dating only months ago and now there was a huge potential that you would be moving 15 hours away? How the hell would that affect your relationship? You didn't even want to think about that, because you had already almost lost Tyler once...you didn't want to risk it again.

But you wanted to go to USF, so badly. It was as if your brain and your heart were tugging you in two different directions. One being, that if you choose to go to USF for the next two years, your relationship with Tyler would be up in the air and fall apart as quickly as it had come together the first time. The other being, that you couldn't let a relationship dictate over what would be the best for you and your education. The battle inside of you was at such a high, but the moment that you walked into the training room and heard the chatter and laughter of the boys waiting to be helped, it was as if that was washed away and the real worry at hand took over.

As serious of a game, this was going to be, you'd never know it by the way the boys were in the training room or even down the corridors doing their pre-game stuff. You were immediately greeted with cheers and congratulations, followed by the 'smarty-pants' and 'nerd' chirps. But you loved every moment of it because it was coming from them and you knew that they meant it in a heartfelt way.

You were already finished with helping Big Rig and his stretches when Tyler had come in and requested you to tape his ankles, of course. You were already done with one when the door opened and Dave walked in with Craig behind him, both coming back from helping some of the guys out in the hallway.

"Y/N! We just heard!" Craig smiled, walking past as Jamie followed in behind home.

"You got into USF? Great job, kid! Their program is one of the best in the country," Dave added, coming to a stop by you and patting you on the shoulder. "And as a graduation present from Craig and I, you get to be with us on the bench today. Get a taste of the real playoff run stuff." He walked by and went to his desk, plopping down into his chair. "Also, if you have to do some more internship stuff down there, Tom Mulligan is a good friend of mine. I can see if I can get you one there if you'd like?"

"That'd be cool, thanks, Dave." You smiled, turning your attention back to Tyler's ankle as the guys around you cheered even more for you.

"What? You got into USF? That's awesome!" Tyler asked, bending his foot to get you to look up at him. "Wait, what's that? I've never heard of that school here..."

"That's because it's not in Texas," you took a deep breath, looking back down at his foot and mentally cursing Jamie for telling Dave and Craig. This is not how you wanted Tyler to find out, ideally...he'd find out eh...weeks from now. "It's in Tampa."

"But–"

"You're all done." Before he could say anything else, you finish wrapping his ankle and tap the tape, signaling that he's done. You went to stand up when Pavs called you over, asking if you could tape him too.

Tyler sat there on the table for a moment, watching you and still looking confused before finally hopping off, returning his heating pad and walking out of the training room. You could still feel the tension in your shoulders as you went on and helped Pavs and then a few more of the guys, and though Tyler wasn't in the room with you, it was as if you could still feel his gaze on you. When the training room cleared out the closer it got to warm-ups, you leaned back against a table and took a deep breath, letting it out seconds later and feeling yourself relax.

You weren't even playing in the game tonight and you were nervous. It felt a little weird, having both brothers having to play each other. Sure, they'd done it before during the regular season...but this was different. This was to get to the Stanley Cup Finals– and one brother would go, while the other one wouldn't. It made you anxious. You check your watch to see you have some time to grab a water bottle from the lounge before the game started and you left the training room.

No sooner than you stepped out of the room and started to make your way down to the lounge, were you then pulled away by your wrist and cornered by Tyler. "Jesus, Tyler," you sighed. "You scared me."

"Sorry, I just wanted to talk," he said, an arm extended out towards the wall and holding himself up. "So what's up? I can tell something's up with you."

"Really? Oh no, uh," you coughed, shaking your head. "It must be the nerves of being on the bench tonight."

He rolled his eyes, "nice try, but you've been on the bench before." He let his arm down and rested his shoulder against the wall, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow. "Care to try again?"

"So, like...I applied to two schools, one here in Houston and the other...USF." You sighed, your shoulders collapsing as you caught sight of the locket resting just below the open collar of your polo. "USF is one of the top programs in the country and U of Houston was my backup...and I– I'm just trying to figure out where to go."

"Do you want to go to USF?" Tyler asked nonchalantly.

"Eh."

"Eh?" He laughed, standing up straight. "You just said it was your top choice, so obviously you want to go there. Why aren't you more excited?"

You huffed and crossed your arms, biting the inside of your cheek before looking at him. "Because it's in Florida, it's a two-year program, we just started dating and I–"

He tilted his head to the side, raising an eyebrow again. "And you?"

Defeated, you slumped back against the wall, staring back down at your shoes. "I don't want to leave us...you. I just–" you turned to him, uncrossing your arms and raising them halfway, only to let them drop back down at your sides. "This is new and I don't want to ruin it."

He opened his mouth to say something when Jamie's voice erupted from the hall. "Seggy come on, let's go!"

"Hey, Y/N, can you help me unpack this tape really quick?" Craig called out, moments later.

You sighed, looking back down at the floor when Tyler reached for your hand and squeezed it, causing you to look up at him. "We'll have to talk about this after the game, okay?" You nodded and he leaned in, kissed your cheek, whispered "congratulations," and then disappeared down the hall with your brother.

Okay, okay that didn't go as bad as you thought it would. Now it's just time to survive the game and maybe you'd end up surviving the 'talk' you and Tyler were going to have afterward....maybe.

❒❒❒❒

Never has there been a time where you wanted to throw a water bottle as a ref or a linesman's face, yet in this game, it was a constant need almost ever five minutes. You were agitated for both sides, really. Calls were being missed, penalties being blatantly ignored– God, it led you wondering how people even managed to survive playoff hockey. Even though you could feel your blood pressure rise with every play, there was no better feeling than being there on the bench and watching it all unfold in front of you.

Yeah, this is definitely what you wanted to do for the rest of your life.

You've been around hockey your entire life. Whether it was watching your older brothers play or even taking a shot at it yourself– hockey was a constant thing in your family. You've watched enough games in your 22 years of life that could fill an average person's full desire for hockey. But this, being there on the bench, knowing that you're the person that helps the players keep up with their performance and take care of their bodies– was a whole ‘nother thing.

It was a never-ending rush of adrenaline and you had Dave and Craig to thank for this entire experience. Why Craig decided to hang back in the training room and let you take his place on the bench, you had absolutely no idea. But you weren't going to complain, one bit.

Your eyes drifted up towards the jumbotron and saw the time remaining in the second period. there was only a minute left and the Stars still had a 2-1 lead. Dobby was a brick wall, you hadn't seen him play like this and his regular season stats were already fire. As time dwindled down and the shifts were changing you heard a whistle blow and play stopped. Dave looked at you and nodded his head. "You go to Jamie, and I'll go help, Klinger."

"Me?!" You squealed, holding onto the fanny pack rested around your waist.

"Yes, you– it's okay. Jamie's tough, probably nothing too serious." He replied, stepping out onto the ice as Rads helped him over.

You felt your heart begin to race as Bishop opened the door for you and you stepped out onto the ice. Big Rig was right there to help you over to Jamie and Tyler skated over soon after, making it a faster trip over to your brother. The adrenaline was surely pumping through you now as you quickly looked out into the crowd and saw the thousands of people surrounding you. "Oh wow," you gulped, holding onto the towel in your hand.

"Pretty cool, huh?" Big Rig laughed as they brought you to a stop in front of Jamie, who was pushing himself up onto his knees.

"What's up big boy?" You asked, looking down at your brother before crouching down on to the ice. He was bleeding on his forehead, just beneath his helmet. "Holy fuck you're bleeding!"

"Well yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what the red stuff is, Y/N." Big Rig chuckled, resting against his stick.

"I think the fucking puck nailed Klinger and ricocheted and hit me," he sucked in air through his teeth as he checked in on Klinger. When his eyes settled back on you he chuckled. "Wow, I guess they just send anyone out on the ice these days, huh?"

"Dave said it wasn't this serious, though!" You panicked slightly, bending down more to get a glimpse at his cut as you reached for the helmet. "This is why mom got the two of you visors for Christmas, you bonehead."

You examined the cut to make sure his helmet hadn't chipped and gone into the wound. You pressed the towel against his head as he laughed. "Shut up or I'll ask Craig to let me stitch you up too– that should be fun."

His eyes went wide at your suggestion, just as Jordie came to a stop by your group. "How's he doing doc? Is he going to lose a few brain cells?"

Oh, how the announcers for the game must be losing their minds– three Benn's on the ice in a Western Conference Championship game. Talk about social media gold.

"It wouldn't matter if he did," you said, nodding back down at Jamie. "I'd still be the smartest in the family."

Jamie groaned and started to stand up without you, but you kept the pressure on his forehead until he was fully standing and took over the pressure on his own. "Yeah, yeah, shut up the both of you."

You walked alongside him as Tyler and Big Rig followed you back, Jordie trailing not too far behind. When you reached the bench, Jamie walked back to the training room and you stepped back into the bench. "Looking good out here, Y/N. I guess the degree hasn't gone to waste, huh?" Jordie joked.

"Oh yeah," you laughed, tugging on our fanny pack and motioning towards the tunnel. "Putting good use to it all seven hours I've had it."

Jordie just winked as he skated off back towards his own bench, just as Dave and Klinger came off of the ice. Klinger looked fine, but since the period was ending soon, he was probably going back to get ahead of the crowd and get checked on. "Everything okay?" Dave asked, nodding his head down the tunnel.

"Oh yeah, just a cut. It doesn't need any stitches or anything, it can just be cleaned, if at most glued. But don't tell Jamie I said that, I already said Craig would let me stitch him up."

Dave threw his head back and laughed as the two of you turned towards the ice as play resumed. He crossed his arms, staring out at the ice before nodding ahead. "I meant what I said, Y/N. I can give you a recommendation to Tom. You've got the heart for this, the skills and you're a hard worker."

You bit the inside of your cheek, still unsure if you were even going to be in that area, though the offer was nice. "Can I get back to you on that?"

Dave nodded as the period came to an end and the players made their way down the tunnel. "Sure thing, kid. But I can tell you one thing, even just based on seeing you in the training room and then just now, you're a natural for this."

You stood there for a few moments longer, taking in the empty ice and the full arena. You took a deep breath and sighed as his words replayed in your mind.

'You're a natural.'

'You've got the heart for this.’

'The skills...'

You tapped your hand against the wall and smiled, before turning away from the ice and walking back down the tunnel.

❒❒❒❒

This couldn't be real.

You had to be fucking dreaming right now.

The Stars were headed to the Stanley Cup Finals and Tyler had scored the game-winning goal in the last shootout round, to send them there. The moment that the puck flew past Markstrom and the team erupted on of the bench, you felt like running onto the ice with them. Instead, you were attacked with a hug from Big Rig before he followed his teammates off of the bench and on to the ice. It was surreal, hearing the cheers erupt all around you.

It was almost deafening.

You couldn't stop shaking even as you watched the ceremony of the boys receiving their hats from the NHL and then the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl from the NHL commissioner. You wanted to cry when you saw Jamie lead the team over to get their picture behind it. Even by the time that everything had calmed down and the families were allowed to come on to the ice to congratulate their players, it still felt like it was a dream.

When you finally got onto the ice with your family, the whole thing was a big blur. It was like you hopped from picture to picture, congratulations leaving your lips time after time as your heart swelled with pride at what your team had accomplished. You were standing back, watching your parents snap pictures of your brother and Katie and relaxing, taking in the scene of the fans still cheering on the boys.

"Y/N! Y/N!" You looked to your left to see Candace and Cassidy both headed your way with big smiles on their faces. The three of you hugged as you looked around for Tyler, knowing that he was probably done taking pictures with his family.

"Can you believe it?" Cassidy smiled, holding onto your arm. "They're going to the Stanley Cup finals!"

"Who would've thought that our average player of a brother would be the won to score the game-winning goal that sends them to the finals, huh?" Candace joked, her eyebrows raising as she looked past you.

You turned to see Tyler making his way over to you and you felt your cheeks redden and your heart race. "I think that's our cue to leave, but come find us afterward! We want pictures." Cassidy smiled, squeezing your arm before pulling Candace away.

You laughed as they walked away just as Tyler had reached you. He was hearing his hat proudly on his head and had the grin you loved so much plastered on his face. "Well hey, there champio–"

Before you could even say anything, he sweeps you up into his arms and kisses you. You wrap your arms around his neck, pouring every bit of love you had for him into the kiss before he pulled away, still holding you in his arms. "I want you to go," he huffed, out of breath.

"Huh?" You asked, tilting your head to the side.

"To USF. I want you to go."

"But–"

"No, no buts." He placed you back down onto the ice and kept his arms around your waist, looking down at you. "This is your dream. That's the best program in the country and don't try to tell me different because I even heard Dave say it."

Your jaw dropped, still stunned at what he was saying. "But–" He looked at you with a raised eyebrow and you sighed. "But I don't want to leave you..."

"We can hang out when we come to play Tampa. I can visit, you can visit and we have our summers." He took the hat off of his head and placed it down onto yours, adjusting it with a smile. "Besides, I'd be able to brag about how my smoking hot, and genius girlfriend got into one of the top athletic training programs in the country."

You felt your eyes brim with tears once again before you brought him back down and kissed him again. When you pulled away, you kept your eyes closed and your forehead pressed to his. "I love you."

"And I love you," he replied, kissing your forehead before pulling away from you and intertwining his fingers with yours. "Now come on, I need a picture with my lucky charm of a girlfriend and the Clarence S. Campbell bowl so I can post it on Instagram and brag about the both of you."

You threw your head back and laughed, as you tucked yourself further into his side, not even caring that you guys were surrounded by the press and the fans. "You're such a dweeb."

"Yeah, but I'm your–"

"Don't even say it, Seguin," you chuckled, looking up at him. He just tapped the brim of the hat on your head, knocking it partially over your eyes before giving you a wink and that childlike grin that was enough to bring the butterflies in your stomach alive.

[literature-islit]

David Foster Wallace - Mr Squishy (2000)

Yes, this is a post about another short story. Sorry, I guess I just read a lot of them or something. I guess I retract what I said in a previous post, that they are unsexy and unappealing to read. They’re totally okay. You should read more. And, as usual, there’s a bit of a back story as to how I got to this one... 

So, I’ve considered Dave Eggers to be a great writer ever since I read his 2013 novel The Circle (now a major motion picture starring Emma Watson) which portrays the dystopian perils of a Facebook-like company urging everyone towards maximum disclosure. 

what’s on ur mind? Everyone would love to know haha. Keep refreshing the page for more likes and shares and dopamine hits! Don't be left out! Tell everyone what you are thinking - all the time! Help us help you! We just want you to connect....

The Circle is a great book. I was like - man, I’ve got to read more writing by this man. But, the rest of his writing? 

I’ll let everyone battle it out on GoodReads. Some quotes:

it's *so cool* to be post-dave-eggers, and talk about how you didn't really like this book all that much, and it's even cooler to totally hate this book.

I was reading this book and around page 237 (or was it 327?), I figured it out- he's talking to ME. He wrote this book for me. Dave Eggers looked into the future and saw that I would want to read a self-referential, self-satisfying memoir.

I disliked so very much about this book. 

The reviews above are talking about his debut novel, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which I... don’t have much to say about. There were good bits. There were incredibly tedious bits. 

I would rate it a solid 3/5

It being pitched as a non-fiction memoir, then using lots of narrative elements that are mostly associated with fiction kind of confused me. I was like - ok, there’s no way this guy actually used his inheritance money to launch a real life street press magazine, and then convinced an actor to fake his own death just for the publicity. 

But he did. 

things u cannot do with social media

And anyway, long story short, kind of fascinated by the idea that in the 90s, at a time before media conglomerates had acquired almost all small press and advertising revenue was at all time lows, and even getting people interested in actually paying money to hold a magazine in their hands and read it was probably the most major barrier to entry to the market; the idea that in the 90s it was fair game and a bunch of college kids could just make a magazine and print it and kind of guerrilla their way into that market, as some kind of genuinely authentic counterculture... wow. I knew I had to try to find out a little more about these types of magazines that Dave Eggers curated and published. 

The 90s

Which brings me to The Best of McSweeney’s, a compilation of some of the best content to be published during the run of McSweeney’s which was yet another magazine thing published and curated and etc by Dave Eggers. 

The whole book is worth a read.

And the stand-out story, Mr Squishy by David Foster Wallace. 

I’m conflicted on how I approach David Foster Wallace’s legacy because he does have  a history of abusive treatment towards women, yet on the whole I feel like his writing is revolutionary and unique, and acts to undermine the dominant paradigm instead of reinforce its ideology. My ambivalence is shared by Electric Lit’s 20 Authors I Don’t Have to Read Because I’ve Dated Men for 16 Years: (”A list like this wouldn’t be complete without DFW, but at the same time his inclusion feels disingenuous, because when it comes to Wallace, I am the literary bro cornering you at a party to ask if you’ve read him and why not. I love DFW’s work in the same over-personal obsessive way this list is meant to mock. Wallace is also an author whose body of work defies the kind of easy summary that can be gleaned from listening to a dude talk at a party about his favorite writer, or applied independent of actual engagement with the writing...”)

BBC Culture considers his magnum opus Infinite Jest to be a cult book that has lost its cool. 

But, if that’s the case, how do you explain Mira Gonzales (in a defiant act of anarchy that would appall even the least-conservative librarian) constructing a pipe out of the book to smoke weed from, BBC? How do you explain that?

Removed from the context of this preceding discussion, however, I regard Mr Squishy as a work of art. 63 pages of DFW’s signature dense prose (the kind of prose that catches you slipping; this is a story to read with your morning coffee, not just before you hit the hay at night) about a marketing focus group for a new Mr Squishy snack, a story that highlights the manipulations of advertising, marketing groups’ ultimate impotence in the face of a brand that knows the kinds of conclusions it wants to have proved, and the way world wide web technology loomed, casting its great shadow over the particular slice of history Wallace is writing in, threatening to rupture the security of the jobs around which people like marketing facilitator Schmidt have based their entire lives. 

This is a story of many layers. 

Many people have already written much better on this story than I could ever dream of. 

Amazing blog interpretation highlighting the multi-layered nature of the narrative (did I mention the narrative has layers?)

570 word sentence highlighted and dissected for its brilliance (don’t let something so ominous as a 570 word sentence deter you, pls)

How are you gonna get yourself a copy of this story to absorb its brilliance, to appreciate the way it delves deeper inside a fake character’s head than other writers make it seem possible to go? I don’t know. I’m sure there’s a PDF flying about on the internet somewhere. You can borrow The Best of McSweeney’s from any library in South Australia. The story also, I believe, can be read in DFW’s short story collection Oblivion. However you find it is not important. What’s important is that you read it. This man does things with words you never knew were possible!

And, yes, I bragged on Instagram about having started to read DFW’s epic Infinite Jest. (Having re-read this blog post I feel the need to clarify that the picture above is not me, nor my hand; I found it on the internet). That was two years ago, and I am still about halfway through the 1079 page tome. It takes time, okay. Time and patience. I am in the (elongated) process of reading it, and anticipate I will finish it soon... 

[quicksiluers]

I had some free time today at work and thought I’d jot down the changes/streamlined things from the doctor sleep book to movie. Cause I obviously have nothing better to do! This probably isn’t all of them but I mean...there is a lot in the book haha. This came out so much longer then I thought so I apologize!

Obviously, spoilers ahead for the book and movie! If you have any things I missed, feel free to add on :)

From the start, Dick Hallorann is obviously dead in the movie. He pops up a few times through the movie, helping Dan at the start, again at the hotel in NJ, and then later in NH when he needs a bit of a push to help Abra. In the book, Dick is alive! For the most part, he doesn’t die like in the 1980 Shining movie. He does the same with Dan at the start, helping him with the boxes, but then we don’t see him again. We hear his voice through a patient at the hospice, urging Dan to get the baseball glove I believe. But he does die at some point in the book, I think the late 90s?

The movie cuts out allll the stuff about the True Knot just...just chilling around NYC after 9/11 happens. They also cut out Abra knowing about it, as a baby, and crying until I believe the second plane crashes? Which I mean...I’m good with that, that’s a lot to deal with.

They cut out Momo entirely. There isn’t too much focus on Abra’s family here, maybe her father most of all, but the movie’s main focus is Dan, Abra, and Rose. With no Momo, that means there isn’t the whole scenario at the end with Dan unleashing...I think it’s Momo, her soul? I wasn’t entirely clear the first time I heard it, I believe it was her cause it basically killed the True Knot. 

Speaking of the True Knot, there’s only about...7 of them I believe in the movie. There’s about 40ish at the beginning of the book, which I mean is a lot. It makes sense for them to get cut down, and again the focus in that group is mostly Rose, Crow Daddy, and Andi. Speaking of Andi, she’s aged down from the book. She’s 15 in the movie, late 20’s I think in the book? Maybe 30.

They only show Abra once or twice as a child, wherein the book we check back in with her from time to time as she’s growing up. They keep the main bit of her as a kid when at her 5th birthday party she does the spoon trick. 

When Dan gets to Frazier, he doesn’t see Tony. In the movie versions, we never see Tony as described in The Shining or Doctor Sleep. I think Tony gets two namedrop’s in the movie. 

Billy Freeman has been aged down, good ol Cliff Curtis! Love that dude. But he’s also become Dan’s main friend, wherein the book there was John Dalton (who is also in the movie for 2 scenes) and Casey (who is nowhere to be seeennn) They streamline these characters into Billy, which makes sense. There is only so much time the movie has and it’s already about...2 ½ hours long haha

John Dalton is in the movie, but he’s only in 3 scenes. The most crucial ones are when Dan tells him about the watch and when John offers him an orderly job at the hospice. He never has any scenes with Abra’s family and the movie doesn’t indicate that they know each other, wherein the book the Stone’s interact with John multiple times.  

Small thing, but the “steam” that comes from the patients of the hospice in the movie is white whereas in the movie it’s described as red. 

The time jumps are different. In the movie, these’s two. There’s one from 1980 (the year the movie The Shining came out) to 2011 when we first see Dan living….a really shitty life. And then there’s the time jump from 2011 to 2019. In the book, there’s a few since we are able to linger with these characters more. You have the one a few months after the events of the Shining book, and then early 2000s then two or three years after that and so on. That way it allows the reader to kinda see how Abra grows up and see how long Dan has been sober. 

The baseball boy scene in the book takes place when Abra is...between 8 to 10 if I remember correctly? But it isn’t until a few years later when Abra sees the boys face in one of those “missing kids” things from the papers that she starts to act on it. Where in the movie, the scene takes place when Abra is a teen and within the next few day to a week (I think...I may be wrong but it’s quick!) she’s able to find something online about him going missing and finding out who Rose is and what not. Also when Dan learns about this in the movie, he sees it saying REDRUM in the mirror when it actually says MURDER on the wall. In the book, Abra does send a message but it’s just “They are killing the baseball boy” 

When Abra and Dan meet up in the movie, Abra surprised him at tiny town and that’s the first time he figures out her name. He had left a message for her on the board and I assume that was how she kinda tracked him down. In the book, they had emailed once or twice and decided on a place to meet. Dan had known Abra’s name since she was basically unknowingly reaching out to him. 

I may be remembering this incorrectly, so correct me if I’m wrong, but Dan in the movie seemed very definitive in that he wanted Abra to keep her head down from the True Knot. For good reason of course, he reiterates if you mess with people or things like this they would never leave you “they come back.” Like the ghosts of the Overlook kept coming back for him. He doesn’t want that to happen to Abra and says to keep her head down. Now I believe in the book, he’s not as much “keep your head down” but he tells her to set up an alarm in case Rose tries to come back. But I also believe he tells her to keep it on the down-low with that group, which I mean of course Abra wouldn’t lol. But I could be wrong on that, I’ve gotta go re-listen to that part. 

In the book, we don’t see Dick Hallorann again but we hear his voice through a patient. In the movie, he actually pops back up at the hospice Dan works at! Dan almost locks him in a box, thinking he’s from the Overlook before realizing it’s Dick. It’s one of my favorite scenes because you get to see how at ease Dan is with Dick. He’s got this big smile on his face, talking about how Doris Herwin (or w/e his name is, that’s totally wrong) came back and he locked him in a box. And Dick also mentions to Dan, cause Dan is asking why he has to help Abra, that why did Dick have to help Dan and get killed for it (like in the Kubrick movie). Not in a malicious way of course, but he’s basically telling Dan he can’t run away from Abra. She needs him. 

In the book, when Rose goes into Abra’s mind, Abra turns into Daenerys from Game of Thrones. In the movie she becomes...Emerald from RWBY. When I told my brother that he got super hyped, but he’s more into that show then I am hahaha

There is nothing with the measles that Brad Trevor’s steam had in the movie. Just punted that idea right outta there. In the book, they are all slowly being effected and dying from it. In the movie, Grandpa Flick dies because they just haven’t been getting enough steam and disappears. And creepily the rest of the True Knot jump on his steam like no one’s business. 

Since Billy is taking over the John Dalton role, he’s the one who goes with Dan to Iowa to get the baseball glove from Brad Trevor. They drive, wherein the book I believe they flew. 

In the book, Rose doesn’t insist on coming along with the group of the True Knot going to get Abra. She stays back with the rest of the pack to make sure everyone is all good (or something along those lines). But with the True Knot being smaller in the movie, they are all going but Crow Daddy insists that Rose stays since Abra “tagged her”. Rose isn’t pleased with it but she allows it. 

The ambush scene is generally the same, but Dave (Abra’s father) isn’t there. It’s just Billy and Dan. And Dan goes to fire his gun but it’s empty and as he tries to reload, Andi (after a few times) makes him fall asleep for a moment. Abra wakes him up but Andi is standing over Dan, ready to kill him, when Billy shoots her twice. Before Andi dies, she tells Billy to kill himself and before Dan can stop him, Billy does just that. Abra’s father is also killed when Crow Daddy comes to get Abra. In the movie Abra didn’t go to a friend’s house, she stayed at home with her father. 

There isn’t a scene like this in the book (but they deal with it when Dan just realllly wants to drink when he’s having inner monologue) but Dan goes back to his apartment in Frazier, tries to call out for Abra and it doesn’t work. He asks for Tony’s help, but there is no answer. He’s holding a bottle of whiskey and he puts it to his lips multiple times before throwing it away. 

The scene when Abra and Dan switch places is a little different. In the book, Dan is in the back of a car that John Dalton is driving (with Dave) and they can hear Abra through Dave. In the movie, Dan (in this really awesome effect) slides across his floor as the world tilts and hits the wall and he finds Abra. They switch when they hold up their hands to each other. Dan/Abra crashes the car they are in, causing Crow Daddy to fly out and die. I believe Crow Daddy dies from a gunshot in the book?

One thing that is referenced in the movie but not elaborated on in the movie is that Dan and Abra are actually related! In the book, Lucy (Abra’s mother) is Dan’s half-sister. Lucy’s mother, at some point in time, was together with Jack Torrance for a night or so. Lucy’s mother died and never told her about her father and Momo didn’t know too much about him either. Dan is able to figure it out with some clues...and some other things, it happened a little fast for me in the book if I’m honest. But in the movie, they reference this by having Abra call Dan “Uncle Dan” even tho they aren’t related. 

This is the biggest detour from the Doctor Sleep movie and book. Because Kubrick’s The Shining didn’t burn down the Overlook Hotel, it is still standing. Whereas King’s The Shining had the hotel burn down after Jack had forgotten to dump the boiler. The final showdown between Rose, Dan, and Abra happens at the Overlook (in a sense) but in a different fashion. 

In the movie, Dan walks around the Overlook and “wakes it up” after being boarded up and left alone for almost 40 years. One of the most crucial scenes (for me anyway) in the movie happens in the Gold Room where Dan meets up with his father, Jack, but he is calling himself “Lloyd” the bartender. Mike Flanagan has said that this was the scene Stephen King wanted when allowing this portion of the movie to take place. In this scene, Dan tries to talk to his father. His “father” insists on Dan to “take his medicine” which is a glass of whiskey that has been poured for him. This is a call back to the King The Shining. By the end of this scene, Jack slaps away the glass once Dan refuses to take the drink (which Jack had done and lost himself to the hotel)

Abra and Dan face Rose on the steps of the Colorado lodge, Dan holding an ax. In the book, Abra isn’t really at this location. She is back at her home in NH and is projecting herself there. In the movie, Dan and Abra attempt to fool Rose by trapping her in one of Dan’s boxes. She is able to see through this, throws Abra from Dan’s mind, and Dan tells her to run. In the book, Dan makes a point to Abra multiple times that if things started to get rough, she had to leave. 

Rose and Dan talk, which they did in the book but it was more in Dan’s mind that Rose was messing with, and Rose follows Dan up the stairs like how Jack followed Wendy up the stairs in Kubrick Shining. Dan goes to attack Rose, hits her but she is able to take the ax, hit him in the head, lodge the ax’s blade into his thigh (hitting his femoral artery) and throws him down the steps (like the movie). In the book, Rose tries to get Dan to choke himself and she almost gets him to do it but the ghost of Jack stops her and allows time for Abra to come back. 

In the book, Abra and Dan are able to force Rose off the cliffside (is it a cliff side, I was trying to get that too...it’s a big ol ledge and a big ol fall) and she dies. In the movie, Rose is over Dan and, lodging her thumb in the wound she gave him with the ax, begins to take his steam as he cries out. She then realizes that he has boxes in his mind and Dan unleashes them on her. The ghosts of the Overlook come out and kill Rose, standing over her like the True knot had done with Brad Trevor. 

To me, because Dan is wounded badly and some of his shine has been taken, the ghosts of the Overlook com after him and take him over. He attempted to close them back in but was unable to do so (because, to me, he was vulnerable)

This is where Mike takes the ending of the Shining book, that didn’t make it into the Shining movie, and uses it. Dan is possessed by the hotel and chases after Abra, who runs around and bumps into a few ghosts before going into 237. In here, Abra confronts “Dan” and calls him a false face. “Masks off then” another reference The Shining. Abra tells “Dan” that the real Dan went to the boiler room before all of this, which would essentially blow up the hotel. “Dan” tries to attack Abra but she stops him and is able to bring the real Dan back. They talk, Abra not wanting to leave him but Dan says “he’s exactly where he’s supposed to be” and jokes that he “has to close the door behind us” The Overlook begins to take him over again and Abra runs away, leaving the hotel behind. “Dan” runs down to the boiler room and tries to turn off the boiler (like the ghosts thought they could in The Shining) but Dan is able to fight them off and take back control. With his leg bleeding out, the boiler begins to blow up and fire builds in the room. There, Dan sees Wendy (the last time he saw her he couldn’t see her at all because of the death flies) and then a younger version of Dan appears and they smile at one another. Dan dies in the hotel and Abra speaks to him in her room sometime after. She says she “knew he would be ok” and Dan apologized for putting her in danger. They talk and Dan tells her to not hide like he had told her once before. “Shine on Abra Stone. You shine on” Abra’s mother comes in at this time and we see that Dan was not there, but a ghost-like Dick Hallorann had been. Abra tells her mother that Dan and her father are ok. The last shot is Abra walking towards the bathroom where Mrs. Massey is and closes the door, mirroring what Dave had done when he locked her away at the beginning of the story. 

In the book, as many know, Dan lives! After the big battle with Rose, Dan is able to see from afar his father Jack from where Rose had fallen. They blow each other a kiss, which was something they used to do. The book then skips a few years into the future and Dan is celebrating 15 years of being sober. He tells the group of his hidden truth through the whole book, where he left a young mother and her son without money after a one night stand. It’s a heavyweight he lifts off his shoulders and he shocked to see the people of the AA group don’t become disgusted with him. Sometime later, he goes to the Stone’s home (Dave is still alive too!) and had a talk with Abra, who is having a bit of teenage drama. They talk about their family past and other things before Dan has to leave. The book ends with Dan going back to the hospice and sliding back into his role as “Doctor Sleep”

This is way too long and I put in too much detail but hey there we go! There are probably more things but the book just has SO MUCH going on (tho I do love it) and I feel like a lot had to be streamlined into 2 ½ hours, which is still a long movie! There are many things that are the same, things that are different, but I love both the same way. Mike Flanagan had a huge task and I think he succeeded. And while I know many people don’t like that the book and movie ending are different, I like that we can have both options. And hey, that’s what fanfic is for haha

[blaperile]

Homestuck Candy Epilogue - Reactions Pages 24 - 27

You know, there's always been crazy Homestuck theories that it would turn out to all be John's dream.

And that's always seemed so far-fetched. But funnily enough, that's now exactly what John's feeling like, like it might all turn out to be a dream. Hehe, that's a pretty cool acknowledgement of that.

Page 24:

Oh MAN, this is definitely building up to something.

The way it was switching between both perspectives... does it mean Alternate Calliope was observing John and Terezi's interaction?

But just what did she mean with "the timelines are interacting again"? Because Terezi is not considered to be from the Candy timeline perhaps (if there's really no separate Meat and Candy version of her)?

It's interesting how Aradia, and by extension Sollux, are hanging out with her. And for once, even Aradia has no idea what's going on!

Hehe, and there we are again with Sollux considering everyone to be doomed.

It's fascinating how Alternate Calliope is considering them the lucky ones, and not the Meat people. I mean, eventually he also did leave Earth and the narration behind, didn't he?

And she does mention she's going to confront him. The question is, does she mean in THIS Jade's body, or Meat Jade's body?

Just, what does this mean? Again, is everyone from the Meat timeline headed over here, or not?

I like how things always circle back to this very meteor. And now there are some more implications that Calliope and Caliborn will result from this Candy timeline and this particular meteor!

D'aww, poor Terezi. She's starving, and like abundantChewtoys pointed out to me, in a similar state to where Meat John found her in. Is she chronologically just about to bump into Meat John now?

It's really only now that I realize just how similar John and Terezi are. It seems neither of them can really live without a true purpose in life, something to chase after that still might not make them feel whole...

And is this truly the last thing Candy John will hear from Terezi (except if she later joins the Meat people into coming to the Candy timeline)?

Page 25:

HOPY SHIT IT'S MEENAH.

Another one crossing over from what we saw in the Meat path! :O

I gotta say, uptil the very point where her name was said out loud, I was convinced it would be Vriska, haha!

But I'm still just wondering what she was up to, when she stole John's ring it was kind of like she had a hidden agenda?

Anyway, oh HELL yes, this is like a continuation of when Karkat wanted to join Meenah's ghost army. And now it's the reverse!

Which is ironic, because Jane has kind of become like The Condesce, a different version of Meenah. xD

And ghosts keep falling from the sky. Looks like they're going to build a ghost army 3.0 here to stand up against Jane! :D

And yeah, it's only a matter of time before Vriska will presumably show up... But I'm just wondering... what about Davepetasprite^2 and Lord English??? They also went straight into the black hole! So are they also going to pop out over here?

It's making me wonder just WHICH threat Alternate Calliope wants to protect this world from. Is it Meat Dirk or is it Lord English? :O

And hey, return of Swifer Eggmop! I just love how much of a dork she is.

Talking about returns, Karkat still has the speaker crab after all this time! :D

I wonder if it would be technically possible for Dave to still call him on that.

It's great to see that Kanaya and Rose are totally in on this rebellion. I totally approve.

Also, maybe the triple threat of Jane, Lord English and Meat Dirk is exactly the motivation that Candy John will need?

Page 26:

Oh god, the car!!! THE car where Meat John and Terezi sat in!

So, looks like they left the car behind when they went back to Meat Earth, and it drifted into the Black Hole then.

Man, this must be so confusing for John. Poor him...

I wonder what he was going to send to Terezi? A voice recording perhaps, so that she had his voice (seeing as she said she couldn't remember any voice but her own)?

Just like with Karkat, for a second I thought he was gonna find Vriska. :P

So yeah, looks like EVERYTHING that fell into the Black Hole is going to end up here on Earth, at some point at least. Not chronologically (hehe, not unlike the meteors from SBURB), but they're coming.

And I bet Lord English and Davepetasprite^2 are going to be the last ones to arrive, give or take Vriska. :O

Page 27:

Oh GOD. These time skips keep sneaking up on me, and they keep getting bigger and bigger...

Everything is such a mess. But... it's heartwarming that, for now at least, John, Rose, Dave and Jade are all together again.

So, looks like Dave and Jade also came to their senses and left Jane, to join the rebellion.

And John's still in touch with all of them, despite not joining the rebellion himself.

As for Karkat, I hope for him he's still in contact with at least Rose and Kanaya then, like he was 10 years before?

Ah... "HI AGAIN IDIOT". Felt so good to read that, reference secured!

So uh... Karkat and Meenah are together now? I mean, yeah, the shipping was always there, but who'd have guessed after all this time it would still actually become a thing!

Just... how much more time is it going to take for, I guess, Meat Dirk to arrive? Is it going to be... even more decades?

I hope we're not going to a point where Karkat has already died from old age. :(

Anyway, first dialog from Vriska Lalonde!!! And oh my god, she's perfect. Just like the old Vriska, and at the same time, I love how she's got a bit of Kanaya in her too! Capitalizing some words for emphasis! :D

Hehe, so she's in love with Harry Anderson Egbert. Looks like Egberts keep being naturally attracted by Vriskas. :P

And she's also still in touch with Tavros! I wonder how he's holding up... I guess he's probably still in the awful home situation? :(

I like that Harry Anderson is kind of like the second coming of Jake's Grandma or Nanna. Being raised in close proximity to the Batterwitch, but planning acts of rebellion against her.

Are things going to come to a climax at the 16th birthdays of Harry Anderson, Vriska and Tavros? Just thinking out loud here, considering what happened on the 16th birthdays of our other heroes... At least, I kind of hope that’s what happens and we don’t skip another X years. xD

Roxy though... Seriously... :(

And Calliope's also still by their side... just what is going on with those two? You'd honestly think Roxy would know better than to go along with these things. I mean, for fuck's sake, she grew up in Sea Hitler's Water Apocalypse and was always the one trying to open Jane's eyes...

And how could Calliope not see through it?

Yes they were Jane's closest friends in childhood, but they'd not continue actively supporting her if she acts like this, right?

Just what is going on with them?

And so John's actually lost contact with Terezi then, after that moment. :(

I really hope it will turn out that Terezi is the one who met Meat John in person, and that she's headed this way to Candy Earth.

[myheartissetinmotion]

all my thoughts watching 1992 Newsies for the first time in 4 years

Buckle your seatbelts this is a lot longer than I intended

- this music still means so much to me

- YAAAAAS SLAY PATRICK’S MOM why wasn’t this in the stage musical

- Elmer is so frikkin adorable

- look at them goooooooo

- ugh I love these bois

- C R U T C H Y

- I just can’t get over the feather in Oscar’s hat

- ENTER THE JACOBSES WOOOOOOOOOOOO

- loving these instrumentals and harmonies

- LES WITH A TINY SWORD okay I love him

- I feel like I’ve seen Wiesel in something before

- “not like last time” “uh-huh” RACE WHAT AN ICON HAHAHA

- “must be from brooklyn” SPOKE TOO SOON ABOUT RACE BEING AN ABSOLUTE ICON

- Davey I love you

- LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

- that look in Crutchy’s eyes when he says “ya learn from the best” is Priceless

- okay one glimpse of someone who may or may not look sorta like Katherine

- Where. Is. Hannah.

- “now, when I created the World-” *eye roll* haha love this guy

- *dramatic disney villain music*

- sTILL NO SIGN OF HANNAH

- 57 rounds of boxing oof

- is that Snyder? that’s probably Snyder

- yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyep

- JACK WHAT DID YOU DO oh wait nope false alarm he’s fine

- “WAIT TILL I GET YOU BACK TO THE REFUUUUUUGE” good to know Snyder hasn’t lost his flair for drama

- “well you have a way of improving the truth” okay I see what all you Javid people mean now

- THAT’S MEDDA?!?!?!?!

- Larkson? wonder why they changed it

- Les I love you

- “oh, you’re good” okay she’s okay

- MEDDA SWEETIE I KNOW IT’S THE ORIGINAL BUT WHAT DID THEY DO TO YOU??!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!

- WHAT EVEN IS THIS SONG I’m very uncomfortable

- OH HIS PARENTS ARE OUT WEST IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW that’s really cool wonder why they cut that

- ooh we actually get to meet the whole Jacobs family!!!!!

- SARAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- those Knowing Looks TM between the Jacobs parents

- Les...sweetie...

- why is my head blaring “tonight” from west side story...the scenes looks so similar

- oh wow Santa Fe comes a lot earlier and THE FAMILY ASPECT UGH so good

- “ain’t you glad nobody’s waitin up for you” Jack sweetie aaaaaaaa!!!

- so this guy is totally cool with the fact that a random boy is singing on his wagon

- oh okay there’s a hat now?

- y e e t

- I’m not sure if we know enough about Jack to feel enough sympathy for him at this point, but it’s a short movie so

- so THIS is the dance break y’all have been talking about

- HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

- P R I C E L E S S

- he just. steals a horse

- and it all comes back to the family aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!

- the instrumentals, lovely as usual

- that was a Ride

- still no Hannah.

- “dghdghdghdghdghdghdghdghdghdhgdgh” -the distinguished Joseph Pulitzer

- so they’re just giving Hannah’s lines to this guy. I like this guy but still bitter about The Severe Lack Of Hannah

- We Are All Love Mush

- “s w e l l” in case you didn’t know, I. LOVE. CRUTCHY.

- Les being the first one to agree with the strike and holding up his lil wooden sword- AAAAAAAAAAAAA

- oh boy here we go

- from what I’m seeing Boots is important WHERE IS HE BROADWAY I WANT ANSWERS

- this singing. wow. okay. cool.

- Davey just walking around them like “okay is this what we’re doing? musical numbers every day? right here in the street?”

- yas get those turns

- is this Denton? I feel like this might be Denton

- Jack honey that’s not how you pronounce it (I. Love. This. Movie.)

- okay Javids I can see where you’re coming from this is Really Something

- CALLED IT THAT’S DENTON

- “he has to!” *thrown out of door* That’s movies for ya

- okay lET LES HAVE THE LINE

- “so...is the newsie strike important? it all depends on you.” I like him. Give him a Watch What Happens come on disney I want a Denton song

- wow nice zoom-out this is so 90s I love it

- SPOT CONLON THERE HE IS WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

- @ disney on broadway: Where. Is. Boots.

- that slingshot tho

- WHY DID THEY CUT THIS SCEEEEEEEEEEEEENE

- Davey you’re doing amazing sweetie

- okay he’s wearing The Hat again

- OPE IT’S THE SEIZE THE DAY INTRO HERE WE GOOOOOOOO

- Davey getting into the Dramatics TM

- jumpy bois

- HE DID THE LEG THING

- okay we’ve still got a few backflips and jump splits

- RACE HAS A HARMONICA?!?!?!?! love that for him

- Denton just kind of taking notes about their revolutionary dance number

- ooh here come the scabs I’m so ready for the monologue-wait where’s the monologue

- WHERE’S THE MONOLOGUE

- ok so it just breaks into a fight? what happened to “we’re all in this together”?

- yas tip that wagon just like in actual history! rip those papers! woooooo!

- oh no here come the bulls

- I’M NOT READY

- CRUTCHY NO

- NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

- NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

- WHY ARE YOU STILL WEARING THE HAT

- HOW ARE YOU EMOTIONALLY STABLE THIS IS YOUR BEST FRIEND

- ominous musiiiiiiiiiic

- wow this is...quite a plan

- OMG WE ACTUALLY GET TO SEE THE REFUGE

- “Heya Dave, how ya doin?” I LOVE HIM.

- look at his faaaaaaaaaaaaaace

- he doesn’t want anyone carrying him? tell that to livesies Albert

- CRUTCHY SAVING THE DAY AGAIN

- well yeah of course they’re not going to “just go away”

- “done with once and for all” heh heh

- THOSE H A R M O N I E S I love a capella

- yas you go drum kid

- oh boy it’s dance break time

- *t w i r l*

- I love them

- oh boy it’s the scabs

- Davey...honey...you tried

- uh oh someone has chains this can’t be good

- OSCAR STILL HAS THE FEATHER

- IS THAT BROOKLYN

- LOOK AT THEM POPPING UP

- HAHAHAHAHA ICONIC SO ICONIC

- slingshots!!!!!!

- Spot you’re doing amazing sweetie

- y e e t

- Those fake punch sounds tho

- YES JACK TEAR THAT NEWSPAPER YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL

- I love the picture this is so ugh I just love it

- oooooh I can feel it coming, KONY is coming

- “you’re famous you get anything you want! that’s what’s so great about NY!” HAHA RACE I’ve said it before I’ll say it again WHAT AN ICON

- so Jack is here for KONY, this is new (well for me at least)

- DENTON APPRECIATION LET’S GO

- “and payin’ for lunch” R A C E

- the “dead or dreamin’” bit is still just so awesome

- TAP DANCING WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

- this is just so filled with joy I’m in love with this movie

- CEILING FAN TWIRL=ICONIC

- this guy just “okay kids lovely musical number please leave”

- CRUTCHY SWEETIE WHAT ARE YOU DOING

- “how was your supper” AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

- “hey, that’s Jack” Crutchy...sweetie...no....wait no wAIT NO WAIT NO

- SWEETHEART NO THAT VOICE CRACK ON “goodbye” I HAVE SO MANY EMOTIONS UGH

- Race steppin up to save the day

- what. an. icon.

- THE REACTION TO “is he dangerous” UGH I LOVE HIM

- ooh nice fire escape shot

- SARAH HAS RETURNED

- WE STAN A QUEEN

- okay romantic subplot time I can see where this is going

- the way he leans against the window awwww

- wow these are...very typical gender roles

- she’s so pretty I can’t

- “there’s nothing for me to stay for is there” She. Is. Standing. Right. There. Whatareyoudoing

- “I’m not sayin it should matter to you" are you though “I’m just sayin...does it? matter?” okay AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWW 

- this pulitzer isn’t half as dramatic, he’s not quite showing the Actual Scary Capitalist, he’s more Typical Disney Villain

- MEDDA WHAT DID THEY DO TO YOU

- oh there’s the don’t come a knockin melody

- they’re all dressed the same like a little gang of evil capitalists

- Davey looks so done I love him

- “what are we supposed to do, kiss em?” RACE IS SUCH AN ICON UGH

- wow they really shuffled the plot around

- hERE’S the monologue!

- Medda what’s happening

- WHAT IS HAPPENING

- I love their fan freak-outs in the audience

- is Sarah the only person that doesn’t know the song

- wHERE DID THE SWING COME FROM

- so extra

- Denton are you planning something

- YES HE IS

- “as in SNIDE? smile, sir” Denton is the greatest

- RACE NO

- Medda come on you’re a dancer you’ve got to be stronger than that

- uh oh

- just y e e t up to the box seats

- STOP HURTING THEM

- that was the fakest of fake punches I’ve ever seen

- Dramatic Slo-Mo TM

-I’LL NEVER LET GO JACK

- “the grounds of Brooklyn” SPOT OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU

- HEY JUDGE YOU NEED TO STOP THEY WERE PEACEFULLY ASSEMBLING SO UH SHUT UP

- Denton to the rescue once again

- I actually don’t know how this is going to go

- wait his parents aren’t actually in Santa Fe????

- davey’s face aaaa

- this is heartbreaking

- “a useful and productive life” NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

- SNYDER YOU JERK

- LEMME AT HIM

- Denton why are you smiling what are you doing

- you don’t tell a huge group of kids that their story isn’t important you just don’t

- come on Denton we trusted you I mean I get it but still

- poor Davey

- omg he crumpled it up right in front of Denton? ooooof

- LES HONEY

- JACK?!?!?! WHAT’S HAPPENING

- is this where the bribe and everything comes in?

- that screen swipe tho

- so I’m guessing this is Pulitzer’s mansion or something?

- DAVEY YES

- Pulitzer what are you wearing

- the way the statue is positioned to be shooting at him-nice touch

- it’s villain monologue time

- okay uh he wasn’t talking that time

- he’s not actually looking Jack in the eye?

- yes Jack

- ooooooooooooooooh the suspense

- Dramatic Villain Look

- it’s not a disney movie without a banister slide

- so THIS is the alleyway scene

- OH WOW YEAH I GET IT

- even the music wow

- oh Sad Reprise time

- “you’re the only light that’s guidin me today” *crutchy appears* yeah that was intentional

- Crutchy’s face....

- this is Heartbreaking

- NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

- Wiesel’s face makes this 8000 times worse

- BLINK’S ANGER

- WIESEL YOU NEED TO STOP

- I CAN’T BEAR THIS

- oh no...dAVEY OH NO NO NO NO NO

- I CAN’T BEAR IT

- DAVEY’S SPEECH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

- I AM NOT OKAY

- JACK NO DON’T SAY THAT THEY GAVE YOU EVERYTHING

- YOU REALLY DON’T KNOW WHAT FAMILY IS DO YOU

- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

- “we don’t need you!” this is Real Pain

- “never!” DAVEY I LOVE YOU

- Les sweetie you’re so trusting and they’re still trying to protect your feelings ugh I love

- Jacobs Family Antics for the win

- so he just leaves

- I WISH WE HAD SEEN MORE OF HOW IT AFFECTED HIM IN THE MUSICAL

- WHICHEVER DELANCY THAT IS STOP NO STOP

- at least the other stopped him

- DELANCYS YOU NEED TO STOP NO STOP STOP STOP

- STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP

- yes Sarah punch him

- NO NO NO NO NO NO

- oh god here come the brass knuckles

- Jack finally coming to his senses

- it’s about freakin time

- “remember Crutchy?” *bash* ICONIC

- “no, smart.” Jack I love you but you really don’t see how important your newsie family is do you

- Denton spilling the tea

- he shushes Sarah but they’re gonna have a musical number soon yep makes total sense

- wait the whole song is in their heads? MUSICAL TELEKINESIS

- once and for all will always be a bop

- “just hope I get to thank him for it someday” LOVE

- YAS THROW THOSE PAPES

- Y      E       E      T

- yes boys hold that long note as you dramatically pan across a brick wall

- so this is Roosevelt

- so this is where Blush comes from

- it’s just. really good music

- LES HONEY I LOVE THE REPRISE

- RACE I LOVE YOU

- what’s up with these bike people

- everyone knows the words now apparently

- beautiful chord

- what an epic, triumphant feeling this must have been

- THERE’S SO MANY OF THEM

- “and such awful language” glad that’s in there

- but you didn’t break him now didja

- so THERE’S WHERE THE LAMP THING CAME FROM HAHAHAHAHAHA

- so you really think yelling “go home” is going to change everything

- shouting match ftw

- “we only use the best, Joe, so I just wanted to say: thanks again” AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA LOVE

- what’s he whispering to Les-wait AWWWWWWWWW

- WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

- WE WON YALL

- this is such a Disney movie I love it

- WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

- wait now what

- is this what I think it is

- “you don’t have to run. not anymore” I officially love Denton

- okay the “blessed children” melody playing while kids are freed is Poetic Cinema

- IT IS WHAT I THINK IT IS

- HE’S BACK YALL

- CRUTCHYYYYYYYYYYYYY

- still not used to that spelling btw

- “share what you got in common” CRUTCHY I LOVE YOU MORE THAN LIFE ITSELF

- almost makes you feel bad for snyder. key word: ALMOST. hahaha

- “wait who comes walkin in” OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HERE WE GO

- JACK’S FACE HAHA I LOVE IT

- “that’s roosevelt?” Race I love you

- “so, uh..could he...drop me at the trainyards?” Jack. Old buddy. Old pal. What

- his face shaking teddy’s hand and the music slkdfjlshgoeibnclfboeifvl

- what’s happening he’s just riding away?!?!?!

- THE JACOBSES

- THEIR FACES AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

- im heartbreak

- and jack smiling so big okay Big Sad

- LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

- LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

- love how they’re playing like it’s the end of the movie and by love I mean endless angst

- You know that part in the sound of music when they’re trying to sing but it’s just Not The Same without Maria? Yeah that’s this

- Davey’s lil smile ugh I love him

- the music is building Jack is coming back I can Feel It

- Les reacting! aaaa! this has become a Les Appreciation Post

- Denton’s reaction!

- “besides, I got family here” HIS FACE AND DAVEY’S FACE

- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

- okay Javids I DEFINITELY UNDERSTAND

- Les just beaming up at him AAAAAAAAA

- THAT LITTLE SMILE. THAT ICONIC LINE. DAVEY YOU’RE DOING AMAZING SWEETIE

- THE SPITSHAKE

- CHARACTER. DEVELOPMENT.

- SARAH

- okay gotta admit this is REALLY FREAKIN CUTE

- LES HUGGING THEM

- of cOURSE SPOT IS IN THE CARRIAGE HAHA KING OF BROOKLYN INDEED

- look at them go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- Y E E T

- I LOVE THEM

- did someone in the crowd just say “it’s crazy”

- YES ICONIC HEEL CLICK KID

- well, guys and gals and nonbinary pals, this was A Ride

- thank you for joining me on this journey

[aboysbestfriendishismum]

Chapter 52 - Deer, dog tags and microwaves

In the previous chapter: Angie agrees to go out with Dave. Eddie keeps calling to talk to her and she has to spill the beans and tell Meg what happened in San Diego, she also tries to explain her point of view on the matter and why she's avoiding him. Grace and Meg planned to spend the evening together at Meg's place. Eventually Grace remains alone in the apartment for a few minutes and that's when Stone calls. Gossard is tender as always with her and she almost seems intimidated by his behaviour. Grace speaks to Eddie too and since she doesn't know about the kiss between Angie and him, she decides to shake things up a little and make him jealous by telling him about Angie going out with Dave that night. Eddie takes it really bad. Grace thinks her plan worked until she tells Meg and finds out where Angie and Eddie are really at. Once Angie comes back home  the girls finally have her call Eddie and tell him the truth. Angie confronts Eddie and reveals Dave has just started dating Jennifer, L7's bassplayer, and she simply went to one of their concerts with him so he wouldn't go alone and feel awkward. Eddie apologizes to Angie and confesses what he feels for her in a way he never managed to do before. Angie's friends hear it all since they forced her to put him on speakerphone.

***

Strong fragrance used in perfumery. Four letters. Starts with an M. Magnolia! No, it's eight. Mango... Mandarine... Ugh what the fuck? I strangely managed to put my hands on the copy of the Seattle Times that sometimes we happen to buy before Angie, so she hasn't done the crossword yet. But now I guess I'll have to ask my friend for help because I don't know how to go on.

“So, what was I saying? Oh yeah, I turn up at the table, usual protocol greeting with smile incuded, I ask the woman what she's having and she asks, literal words, a cheeseburger without chees and some fries” the door of her bedroom is open, I cautiously look inside and see her on the phone. Of course I already know who she's talking to. Since that night when Grace and I managed to convince her to call poor Eddie, there have been lots more calls, every day. Unfortunately not on speakerphone. Fuck, when he was there spilling his heart all out to Angie, Grace and I melted in sighs and aaaaaws and Vedder almost caught us. Am I nosey? Yes. I meddle in other people's love life to avoid thinking of the disaster which is mine? Yes, I do. Am I also genuinely happy things are going great for my friend as she deserves though? I am!

“Wait. I'm just standing there, kind of confused for how she spoke, then I reply: great, I'll take you the Go-go meal with hamburger + fries + medium drink for $ 4,99. Well, basically she doesn't even let me finish talking and says: No, no, I don't want a hamburger. I want a cheeseburger with no cheese” Angie rocks left and right on the swivel chair as she listens her sweetheart's answer with a big smile on her face.

“Exactly! Hahaha same thing I told her: So... you mean... a hamburger, madam? NO! She says, very bitterly. I said I don't want any hamburger, I asked for a simple cheeseburger with no cheese! I swear she was yelling, I was so ashamed for me but for her too” Angie rotates a little more on her chair, sees me and nods at me.

“I didn't bat an eyelid and said: So you wanna pay one dollar more for a cheeseburger but you want it without the cheese?” Angie and I burst our laughing together as I enter her room, then she goes on “Yes, that's the point, 'cause the Cheeseburger menu costs more, that's the most absurd thing! If I take an order as cheeseburger, even if I tell the guys in the kitchen not to put cheese in it, it'll still be considered as a cheeseburger. Well, you know what, this bitch widens her eyes to me and goes like: Yes, exactly! Was it so difficult for you to understand? Ahahah yeah, I told you, she was a bitch!”

“The customer's always right!” I state as I sit on her bed.

“Hey, you and Meg said the same thing almost at the same time! Anyway, since the customer's always right and this woman had just basically told me I was an idiot, whereas she was the real idiot, I cheerfully replied: Not at all, madam. There goes a Marilyn meal with cheesburger with no cheese + fries + medium drink for €5,99 for you, ok? And the bitch: Yes, that's it, now you're talking. Thank you. Oh fuck you! Hehe... wait a second, ok?” Angie laughs with Eddie, then takes the phone off her ear slightly and addresses me “Did you need anything?”

“Strong fragrnce used in perfumerie, starts with an M, four letters” I ask her, showing the newspaper.

“Musk” she answers in a couple of seconds. Yes! That was it! Why didn't I think about it. I hate her.

“Yeah, it can be actually”

“It cannot be, it actually is!” she gloats then puts the receiver back against her ear “What? Did you know it too? He knew it too”

“Well thank you both but there's no need to brag!” I throw a pillow at Angie, who manages to dodge it, then takes it up from the floor.

“Sadly used in perfumerie I'd add... What do you mean why? Musk is extremely harmful, both the synthetic and the natural one... Well, in doubt, I'd rather not have to choose between either the total extinction of an animal species or pollution and maybe choose other kinds of perfumes, don't you think? What? What animal? What do you mean? You know where does musk come from, right?” a debate starts between Angie and Eddie and I can only hear one side of it, which I think it's the most consistent part anyway “Plant? What plant? Musk is not a plant! I mean, yeah, there's also some plant but that's not what's used to make perfumes. No! It's an animal secretion, from a deer, the musk deer. No, I'm not kidding, Eddie, I swear! There deer have a gland, like a small sack under their belly, that emits this substance and they spread it around to mark their territory, especially during mating season... Hahahaha no, Eddie, it's not deer's sperm!”

Not the typical conversation between lovers, right?

“Anyway now it's basically all synthetic” I remark once I write the correct word in the puzzle.

“That's even worse because it's extremely polluting and ends up in the food chain.” Angie answers both to me and Eddie “What? Hahaha no, don't buy me musk perfume, thank you. And don't buy me any presents in general... you already did too many... yes you did... yes you did... Eddie? Please... Come on...” now we're back to more couple stuff, Angie holds the pillow tighter and tighter and I think it's time to get out of here and go back to my room. Well, or to keep eavesdropping from outside without being seen.

“Wait, Meg! Yes, I'm gonna ask her now.” I stand up and am about to leave, walking backwards and waving bye, but Angie stops me “Will you go and see the guys tomorrow in Portland?”

“Yeah, that's the plan. Grace and Laura are coming too”

“Did you hear that? Meg, Grace and Laura, the perfect trio ready to cheer and throw bras at you”

“Haha I've got very little to throw!”

“No, Eddie, I told you, I can't... Roxy will kill me, it's even a Thursday, the night school nurses finish earlier... I can't take another day off”

I see our little Romeo is impatient. His dreams started to break when he found out Kelly had planned a series of radio promos and interviews right during the two days break between the two Oregon shows and that he'd have to wait before coming back to Settle. Eddie tried to avoid it by explaining that he doesn't really count in Stone and Jeff's band and that they could do the job but apparently it didn't work.

“Come on, I'll see you the day after tomorrow, no big change... Oh shut up, it doesn't change anything... Hahaha no!” I'm still here standing in the middle of Angie's room while she plays arond with that pillow and I'd really want to know what was that last no about but I know my friend will never tell me.

“Say hi to him, ok?” this time I leave for real, yet stopping in the hallway 'cause, as I said, I haven't learned how to mind my own business yet.

“Meg says hi! Anyway I was thinking of something. Hahaha no, not that! I was thinking, if the girl come to see you tomorrow... well, for someone it'll be like losing that famous bet once again... don't you think? Hehehe I have no idea, I don't know Portland, I don't know if there are any 70s discos in town, you should ask Stone. No no, ask him, I'm sure he'd be willing to set one up by himself so he could make fun of the losers! Haha yeah, that'd be a can't-miss event. Oh yeah? Why? Uh sure, my presence would definitely make the difference”

The lovebirds' phone call goes on for a little while, with Eddie probably telling her something sweet and Angie joking about it, maybe because of her natural embarrassment or because she knows exactly I'm right her listening to them. After she ends the call, she dispels my uncertainty.

“Meg!”

I keep my mouth shut.

“Meg? Come on, I know you're there!”

“Uhm? I was going to the bathroom” I magically show up back on the doorway, right in time to be the target of a weak pillow throw.

“Sure...”

“So?” I sit back on her bed, waiting for Angie to finally share something without me trying to forcefully extort information from her.

“Grace is coming with you tommorrow then?” Angie immediately kills all my hopes.

“Yeah, she is”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I called her in the morning and she told me she's in. Why?”

“I don't know, it's just... she doesn't really look like she can't wait to see Stone... does she? Am I wrong? I mean, it sounds strange but...”

“Wait a minute. Angela Pacifico... gossiping?!!”

“Hahaha fuck you, Meg!”

“Who are you? What did you do to my roommate?” I stand up straight, pointing at her with a trembling hand.

“I'm not gossiping, I'm just worrying about a couple of friends”

“Worrying huh?” I pull my arm down and snicker at her.

“Two dear friends I care about. And look cute together. And Grace seemed really into it at the beginning but now... meh... I mean, do you think there's something we don't know?” the new gossip queen is beating around the bush and I decide to play along. Also because one more conversation about Grace is one less about me and my non existent love life.

“Nah, I think it's normal. Grace had a crush and Stone played it cool. Now he doesn't act all cool anymore and she's confused, that's it”

“Stone looks pretty straight forward to me”

“Oh yeah, actually... He reminds me of someone else we know” this time I can't help picking on her but she rolls her eyes and goes on.

“He basically thinks they're a couple already, whereas she kind of shut him off” sure, a kind of behaviour you're really familiar with, right Angie? I don't say it loud this time.

“She will open up tomorrow, trust me”

“I don't want them to suffer, that's all” my friend shrugs and plays with the phone still in her hands. Are you saying this to yourself maybe?

“So... no musk perfume?” I aske her after a while and Angie starts rocking on her chair again.

“Haha no, please!”

“I have to remind Eddie to take one that's fruit scented” I wink at her while she puffs and takes a 360 degrees spin.

“Please...”

“Banana would be perfect”

“MEG!”

“What? What did I say?!”

****************************************************************************************************************************

Beer pong. Twenty six years old and I still play beer pong? Well, Kim's thirty and he organizes tournaments of these fucking games. It should console me. Twenty six, a steady relationship, a serious music project, a bank account that allows me to pay my bills without struggling at the end of the month... and I wake up at six in the morning in my bassplayer's bathtub. Fucking back pain! And why the fuck am I still in this shitty condo? I curse as I insist pressing the button to call for the elevator tht will never come. Then I give up to climb up four flights of stairs.

I drag my tired bones up to the door of my apartment but when I put my hand in my pocket looking for the keys the cold metal feeling is replace by total void. I can't fucking believe it. Did Matt have to find himself a girlfriend right now? I quickly feel up all the pockets in my jacket and in my pants, can't find shit and punch the door.

“Fuck” as throw the punch I clearly hear the clink sound of keys and I try and search better but I can't find anything. I punch the door once more and there's the sound again. I start jumping in place like a moron in front of the door and at every jump there's a jingle. I take off my jacket, shake it, same sound. I inspect each and every pocket more attentively and I find something: not the keys but a big hole in the left pocket. Mistery solved! Now I only have to use that little lucidity I've got left to determine the exact position of the keys inside the lining of my jacket and take them out. As I try to take them, I can hear another sound, not metallic but “human”, that catches my attention. A voice, like someone hummig very quietly without words. At first I think maybe it's someone singing while shaving or dressing up, after all it's morning for the rest of the world. But I can clearly hear this voice, although it's faint, and has a little echo that makes me thing the person's already left home. So why am I not seeing anyone passing? I walk through the hallway and I'm still feeling my jacket for the keys when I turn the corner and see him: Vedder, sitting on the floor, well on the mat just outside the girls' apartment, writing on a notebook, with a paperbag on his legs.

“Eddie?” I call him 'cause he doesn't seem to notice me.

“Oh, hey, hi Chris” Eddie stops writing and says hi, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

“What are you doing here? Aren't you on tour?”

“It's over! I mean, technically it ends on 3rd March but since the last three shows are here in Seattle we're basically done. I mean, we're done touring. Away” Eddie calmly explains, clicking his pen and putting it inside the notebook, then putting it all in the inside pocket of his jacket. As he does this, I can see his t-shirt: a white one with Air love bone written on it and the silhouette of a long haired basket player looking more like Jeff rather than Jordan. I've got one of those t-shirts too but mine is dark blue.

“Aren't you supposed to play in Oregon?”

“We were, we played in Portland last night. Small crowd but good atmosphere, great show” Eddie nods at himself and doesn't get up.

“Did you play yesterday? And when did you get back?”

“What time is it now? Uh half past seven. Well, a few hours ago”

“Hehe so you guys jumped on the van and dashed back home right after the show, right? You couldn't wait huh?” I guess he was especially looking forward to it. It's not like Eddie has ever told me anything about this stuff, I'm neither his confidant nor Jeff. But maybe I'm one of those, together with Ament and a few other people, who knows him a little better. Anyway it doesn't take a genius to figure out that if you're here outside a girl's door instead of at home in your bed to sleep the tour off, well, there's something big going on.

“Well, ehm, I don't know about this... I mean, don't know what the others did, I... I came back by myself” for a second Eddie loses his apparent composure.

“By yourself?”

“Yeah”

“How?”

“Hitchhiking” he replies raising his thumb.

“Hitchhiking?”

“Yes”

“You mean, you dropped everything and said I'm out of here, bye and hitchhiked to Seattle?”

“Village People inspired me”

“Uh?”

“Do you want to spend the night? Do you know the song?”

“Are you fucking high, Ed?”

At that point he explains it's about one of the infamous bets of Stone and Jeff and that part of our friends performed in the Melody Ballroom's parking lot. I know the place. I played that venue and I even saw Fugazi there. It's always made me smile thinking that they also do wedding and high school dances in that place. Well, congrats to the owner's versatility and open mindness.

“And at some point I thought: what the fuck am I doing here? And I asked some guys I already saw at some of our shows here if they could give me a ride” the reason he had this sudden realisation is right on the other side of that door, we both know, but none of us feels the need to point it out.

“And why did it take you so long?”

“Well, not that long...”

“How long have you been sitting on that fucking mat?” I ask when I finally find my fucking keys and try to fish them out.

“No, well, I've been here for an hour. Maybe two”

“And why?”

“Because it was too early”

“So fans dropped you here and then you noticed it was too early?”

“No, they didn't drop me here”

“And where?”

“At Pike Place” he answers like it's obvious and I'm stupid for asking.

“Pike Place” I nod and repeat, going along with him as you do with crazy people.

“I had to buy something” he adds grabbing the paper bag and putting it aside on the floor on his left side.

“But isn't it closed?” I ask skeptical.

“Bakeries open early”

“Ah” playing along, yeah, that's the best strategy.

“I had a coffee, something to eat, bought something for Angie, then came here”

“Hitchhiking?”

“Hahaha what? No, by street car!” once again he replies as if I'm the dork and maybe he's not entirely wrong.

“I came here and when I was about to ring the doorbell I realised it was like five o' clock in the morning”

“As another Village People's song says”

“Uhm, yeah... but what's that got to do with this?” he asks serious all of a sudden with a straight face and I basically burst out laughing at his face. With Eddie you never know if he's being serious or he's making fun of you and that's something I like in people. He surely must have understood I'm not exactly sane either, I think he learnt that the first time I took him out for a drink. Or when I showed up at the mini market and took him away after his shift ended, telling him I'd show him how local rockstars spend their friday nights. And we spent the night drinking beer and chasing my dogs, well Susan's dogs actually, in the woods.

“Hahaha nothing! So you parked your butt on that mat, right?”

“Yeah...” he answers, still confused “waiting for a more decent timing”

“Well, come on, half past seven seems acceptable” I walk up to him and try to ring the doorbell but Eddie stops me grabbing my wrist.

“No!”

“Why not?”

“I haven't heard any sounds, she hasn't waken up yet. I'll wait until she gets up” I back up and picture Eddie putting his ear against the door waiting for the sound of the microwave blip or the toilet flush and I laugh my ass off, internally. Don't wanna hurt the guy”

“What about your stuff?”

“What stuff?”

“Your things, your bags”

“Oh I only had a backpack, it's on the van. Jeff will bring it to me, I think”

“You think?”

“Well, I think so”

“But... did you tell your bandmates you were going back home?”

“Mmm... wait... oh yes, I told Mike” oh well, in that case, you really got nothing to worry about.

“Was he sober when you told him?”

“It looked like...” while Eddie begins describing Mike's state during last night's aftershow, the door he was leaning his back against abruptly opens and he falls dead weight backwards. I figure out he's still alive when he finishes the sentence from Angie's apartment's floor “... he was... yes!”

“What the fu... Eddie? Chris?” the girl gives each one of us a confused look, as she ties the belt of her pink robe.

“Hi sweetie! I found this on your doormat. No name tag but he looks well fed” I joke while Eddie's still lying on the floor.

“Hi Angie!” he exclaims enthusiastically as he looks her up in all her... sugarcandyness? Does it exist? D'uh...

“Eddie! What are you doing on the floor, get up” Angie offers him her hand and he gladly accepts, he takes her hand and grabs the doorknob and gets up.

“I fell” haha yeah, it's pretty evident you fell for that chick, you jerk.

“Did you get hurt?” she asks perplexed.

“Nah”

“He didn't hit his head, that's just his natual self, trust me. Hey Eddie, be careful” I warn him pointing at the paper bag he's almost trampling on.

“Oh fuck, thanks Chris” he takes the bag and holds it like it was a newborn baby to cradle.

“What's that?” she asks, more and more puzzled, also because she must have just got up and as first activity of the day she has to deal with two assholes.

“Breakfast!” Vedder replies, all smug and pleased with himself.

“Oh... thank you... well, let's have breakfast” Angie points back to the inside of her apartment and I guess it's time to get out of here now, considering I also found my fucking keys.

“See ya then, ok?”

“Aren't you having breakfast with us?” she asks so innocently. Eddie's look is enough for me to find the right answer.

“No, thank you sweetie, I'm too tired. And just the idea of eating or drinking something right now makes my stomach cry”

“Mmh, ok, see you later then”

“Bye Chris!” Eddie disappears into her apartment.

“Good night guys... I mean, good morning... well, you got the idea”

“Night Chris”

****************************************************************************************************************************

“What the hell were you doing out here chatting? I heard noises and-” I close the door after I make sure Chris can walk straight enough to get to his apartment and as soon as I turn around I'm swept away by Eddie who engulfs me in a hug and corners me against the door.

“Sorry if we woke you up”

“N-no, but no! I... was already awake”

“I missed you”

“Oh, ehm, I missed you too” I reply and I really hope the mouthwash I used last night really has prolonged action as the label claims because Eddie's basically breathing against my lips, rubbing his nose against mine.

“So fuckin' much...” he's getting closer and I don't know where to look, if I should look, if I should close my eyes, kiss him, wait for him to kiss me, if I should just keep my mouth shut and enjoy the moment.

But I am keeping my mouth shut...

Well, you should shut up in your mind too, you idiot!

But not thinking... it's impossible. Even thinking about not thinking... it's a thought after all, isn't it?

But why are you coming up with this shit while Eddie's torturing you so sweetly? And your hands? Where the fuck did you put your hands?

Wait, I've got them... just... hanging, mid air, I'm basically hugging him with my elbows.

With your elbows? What the fuck, are you a mechanic? Not touching people with your hands dirty with grease?! You look like the young sheperd in nonna's presepe, the marvelled one, with his hands thrown up in the air.

I manage to interrupt the inner quarrel with myself for a moment and place my hands on Eddie's shoulders. He must perceive it as a green lights signal and kisses me.

Dave Gahan is nowhere to be seen or heard and the same goes for his bandmates, uncle Tome Jones doesn't show up, no Sonny, no Cher, nobody. For a minute there I almost feel like an adult, at least until I hear castanets clanking and Phil Spector literally throws the Crystals trio on stage unceremoniously.

He kissed me in a way that I've never been kissed before

He kissed me in a way that I wanna be kissed forever more

The concert doesn't end when Eddie pulls away for a second and looks at me in the eyes, as if he was searching for something. Maybe he's trying to understand if I'm on this planet or not and he already knows there'll be no point asking me directly. I don't know what kind of answer he finds but he must like it because he smiles, perfectly showing his fucking dimples... as if I needed other stimulation! And he kisses me again. This time it's small kisses slowly going from my lips to my cheek, then down towards the neck. One of his hands moves up along my hips, it may or may not, maybe I dreamt it, brush against my left boob. He tickles my arms even through a pretty thick layer of fleece, caresses my face and buries his hand into my hair, while his neck kisses turn into bites.

I gotta do something.

But I don't want to!

But you have to, can't you see you're panicking? Do you wanna wait until your head starts spinning, you see white dots and then you pass out like a loser?

It's so delightful though.

And what if he wants to do something more delightful?

I wish...

God, Angie, pull yourself together!

“What's in the bag?” I manage to snap out of it.

“Uhm?” he mumbles still nibbling on my neck and nape.

“In the bag you brought...”

“I told you... earlier... breakfast” he replies following the same trail as before but backwards, between kisses.

“That is?”

“Croissants” he reveals before planting a kiss on my nose.

“Custard cream?” I ask, suddenly very interested and for real, not just as an excuse to break this pleasurable moment.

“And chocolate” he nods deliciously, almost in a childish way “I took them very early this morning, for you, as soon as I arrived”

“By the way, when did you arrive?”

“Early” and he tells me about his hitchhiking and the different stops and everything that led him here to my place. And I'm still one with the door, crushed against it. And against Eddie, who doesn't show any intentions to let go of me. He did all that... for me? To see me a few hours earlier than we planned?

Well he must have problems if he hitchhikes with strangers at night only to see you with sleep in your eyes, still unshowered, your teeth unbrushed and your hair pinned up messily.

“Need to be warmed up then...”

“What?”

“Croissants, they must be cold now”

“Uh! Hehe well, yeah...” why is he blushing? But most of all, how many hands does he have? Theoretically he has one still in my half up half down hair and the other one on my left hip, but I feel his touch everywhere.

“Have breakfast now? I have to be in class in like one hour” I try and come back to my senses.

“Oh... do you really have to?” and do you really have to look at me like that?

“Huh... yeah, the monographic course about Renoir's waiting for me. And today the professor is gonna explain the passage from silent to sound movies, that is a very important part, which is gonna be in the exam too, so...”

“Ok” he lets go of me but takes me by the hand and leads me into the kitchen, where I spot the paper bag on the table. I was just wondering where he put it.

No, not true, you weren't wondering, you werent' thinking about the fucking bag at all.

Ok, can we just stop! Can we just shut up and stop quarrelling here? I'm trying to remain conscious and not to miss a second of this thing. And it's breakfast time now.

Eddie's hands are on my shoulders as I take the envelope out of the bag, I quickly open it and soon find out he bought like a ton of inviting croissants.

“Is this breakfast for the whole neighborhood?” I giggle.

“No, just for us” the grip on my shoulders gets tighter and a quick scorching kiss is planted on my cheek.

“I'm gonna warm four of them, ok?”

Eddie doesn't say anything, he just kisses me on the other cheek and I don't know if I'll make it to see La Chienne.

“Are you microwaving them?” he demands as I put the plate into the small oven.

“Yeah, but for a very short time or they... ehm, or they'll get too hard... like unedible rocks” just like me, stiffening all up like a board for kisses, caresses and hugs. Like this one, the tight hug from behind, with Eddie's curls tickling my neck.

“I trust you” he whispers into my ear.

I don't, I don't trust you at all, because you clearly want me dead.

When the croissants are ready I take the steamy plate our of the microwave and basically storm out of the kitchen and reach for the couch in the living room, placing our breakfast on the coffee table, thinking I'll be safe now. Safe from what? No idea. But it's just like jumping from the frying pan into the fire because Eddie walks up, leans on me and kisses me again, with resolution, before even touching the couch sitting beside me. His determination is put into practice as he literally throws himself on me and, as expected, I think I've just got into rigid corpse mode because Eddie pulls away almost immediately.

“Are you alright?”

“Huh? Yeah”

“Is there something wrong?”

“No, why?”

“Are you sure? You look... strange” he goes on with his inquiring ocean blue eyes that I'm looking up to and that look even deeper from such a close priviledged position.

“No, it's just... well, it's late and-”

“Too much?”

“Well, not too late but...”

“No, I mean... me... what I'm doing... Too much? Too fast?”

“NO!” I basically yell at his face so loud that I almost mess his hair. A devilish grin appears on his face and at this point I'm sure he totally knows the effect he has on me “Ehm no, it's not that, it's just... I really have class and I can't...”

“You're perfectly right, I'm sorry.” Eddie gives me a tiny little kiss on the lips that leaves me wanting ten thousand more just now and sits back down “And croissants are getting cold, that'd be a pity” he adds with a dimpled smile as he takes one with custard cream.

What about me? No, I definitely don't run the croissants' risk.

[spacedimentio]

Save the Light Impressions

I recently became interested in what Hessonite’s deal was and since it’ll be a long time before I’ll be able to get the game, I decided to just watch a cutscene compilation (this one, if it matters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy5tOb3gzLY). Dunno why I’m taking down all my reactions, just cause it’s fun I guess. Enjoy

RIP Car Wash

What even is the prism? It's not a gem, right? But it's clearly got conscious thought, even Hessonite talks to it like a person

haha Greg called her a glittery space lady, accurate

it's a little OOC that Greg wanted to come along. at least he's having fun tho. aww, steven's so proud of him :D

actually, what's Hessonite even doing. Why didn't she fuck off back to space once she found the prism

yeah that's totally not a triforce with six arms or anything. it's not the diamond authority symbol either i don't think, the triangles in that all meet in the middle

Mayor of Bummertown

I would have named the boss Dave, zero hesitation

"Our prism is in another castle!" i love you steb

oh no, bad memory time at Bismuth's forge :( I hope she'll be playable in the next one (i would scream forever if there was a playable diamond)

did Steven really just answer the phone with Myello? Oh IT'S PERI. Aaaand we're learning about RPG mechanics. Meta.

frozen donuts are a thing?! :o

it's her. the square. she seems to be almost identical to how our peridot used to be, so i wonder what the difference in personality is. Aside from her favorite insult being pebble instead of clod

ah yes, ye old tennis match

man i love that you can form fusions in this game

oh lord, i don't wanna imagine what chaos would happen with two peridots. also Greg is taking ice damage during the cutscene, help him

oh no, they're meeting. of course the first thing Squaridot says is "WHY ARE YOU NAKED" (and they obvs flipped her sprite cause the gem's her other eye now)

hey look, new insults for my list of gem related curse words

weird, angry mirror indeed. imagine what they could do if they were friends!

oh RIP. why do you get to choose who murders Squaridot. I hope for more multi-peridot action in the future

wait, what machine did you rip that off of and when

i already knew Peri was playable but it's still cool. i love how she flutters her feet when she jumps! i wonder who the DLC character is going to be (lapis, probably. Bismuth would be metal, though)

"Clod-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named" oh my god i love you

"Whatchu talkin' bout Peri" the best, they're the best

Oh so wow, Hessonite is THE Hessonite, huh. Real famous. If she came out as a Crystal Gem, it would sure cause a stir

Yeah I was also wondering why she's sticking around instead of just leaving? and she is kind of leaving her troops scattered all over the place with no rhyme or reason

these are great names. The Great and Terrible Spikey McSpikeball! of course the guy playing picked the most boring one

i love how Peridot just fucking yeets her tablet to attack

sugilite tiny!

you know, i was gonna get this game anyway at some point, but it's nice to know that it's the kind of rpg i like, one where you can participate in the attacking and blocking process.

how dare you switch out peridot for pearl. you know what, next game i hope you can be everyone all the time cause there's too many good characters to pick from

whatchu doing up here pizza lady

yeah they just...all ran right in front of her directly in her line of vision and she didn't see them somehow

oh the prism is resisting. it really took Steven's words to heart last game

Hess my dear, is this prism your only friend (oh my god that's totally it isn't it)

is the wiki sure she can't teleport cause holy fuck is she fast

"Gugh, Peridot, this is just like when we tried to hunt you down. But worse...cause, y'know, she's actually threatening." rude

huh. i don't remember the pyramid temple blowing up and leaving debris, i thought the whole thing disintegrated cause it was a construct of the gem it was housing. looking at screenshots of Serious Steven it definitely did explode

are they really trying to tell me there was a pyramid under the pyramid and no one noticed

call it the Spooky Basement! call it the Spooky Basement! you disappoint me, player, although Secret Temple of Secrets isn't so bad

*steven rolls cheerfully through a skeleton and then everyone jumps down a big hole* um

yo there's a mural of Rose fighting some light warriors! that's rad as shit!

*gets to the hallway with the torches that turn on as you go by* gee i sure wish i could watch this with sound, but alas i am recovering from ear fatigue and it would be a bad idea.

oh my god he reset her preferences no wonder she's pissed XD

HOLY FUCKING CHRIST RIP AMETHYST AND PERIDOT GODDAMN AND GARNET TOO PIZZA LADY STRONK

wow she really is a genuine threat, she forced Rose and Pearl to give ground back in the day

oh no you did not just say that Pearl should come with you. fuck her up, P!

also i just realized that she is really tall. like 10 feet tall at least

aw no fair you can't just flashbang them all you dink

oh it's sapphire. wait has connie even met ruby and sapphire in the show? did we not get to see it?!

where the fuck even are you guys, i could swear that connie and greg fell off the platform into the abyss

wait, they don't have new forms, did they even regenerate? i don't think connie was out cold for that long. did they even poof? i saw colored clouds of dust but no gemstones. i mean, i know this is a game and all but it's also canon so ???

and peridot is breaking the fourth wall by commenting how you can't force her to sit at home at the moment

ancient thingamajig. wow is thingamajig a real word, my spellcheck is not yelling at me about it

yeah connie! kick her ass for me!

since when are gems into riddles. i wonder if anyone has made much headway into translating the written gem language yet, last i heard they hadn't made much progress. apparently only Steven Sugar knows what all the symbols mean

wait steven was watching connie and greg's parties running around that whole time? i guess even the game never leaves steven's POV. where even is he, in the prism realm? oh, the place was turning pink for a minute until he went towards the sparkly thing

steven is always accessing memories isn't he. at least these aren't his mom's this time

you might be getting sick of her steve but i'm sure not!

from far away it really looks like she's chillin' with a martini glass and i was about to scream

corruption beam :(

was he just like passed out on the floor somewhere hallucinating

aww, he picks up the light steven exp by hugging it :o

"Just feeling a little...light headed." i...puns?

the Light Warrior is the final boss of the first game right? ...i should have probably watched a video about that one first

oh i just had a thought! if they make a third one then we get to have Rainbow 2.0 and Sunstone and Obsidian in it! :D

woah, trippy. tbh steven's connection to the prism is kind of strange. i wanna know exactly where that thing came from and why it's so deeply connected to him now. did Hessonite have visions like this when it was hers?

yeah that's... if a place is connected by warp pad, wouldn't it be easy to find by just warping randomly? unless separate warp networks are a thing but still, you'd just have to sneak onto a CG warp pad and go. ....how do warps even work, they can go through roofs and stuff and there's like this whole other dimension with all the warps like stars in the background and ???

how does the forge even do an upgrade with no Bismuth. maybe i should stop trying to fit this into canon details

what makes you think Hessonite could see you? is this some Voldemort Harry Potter connection shit. is that actually how she found the forge, this game ain't explain much

oh that's...that's a big oof. bismuth was working on a huge-ass statue of Rose before they got into their argument

"i saw her again" what no you didn't, that was just a white screen with a text box

"Beats me how any of this whacky prism stuff works!" ...i feel called out

why does that bigger spaceship look like a funky piece of headwear to me

well, at least it's closer than the moon

oh what, Lion didn't come with you? didn't you need multiple roar warps to get to space last time, just above the earth still seems kind of far, also how did he know the coordinates of the ship, he could have easily sent them all into the void

?! and then he's there?!? already asleep? how???????

aww what you're going to tease me with a citrine guard but not let me see her?

freaky. strangely organic looking technology is nothing new but i don't think i've seen stuff oozing through it before

"Look at you, acting as though you have the moral high ground!" *shakes fist angrily* She's like Emerald, but better! I can't

i guess he did kind of steal it, but it was more like finders keepers really

whuh has the prism always been able to talk?

"a Prism" oh no are there more? probably

woah that's a big boy. What the heck does Spectral Conclusion mean. and the prism is inside it instead of it being a separate creation, interesting

aww, it's looking at itself in confusion. Steven reaches out to it with his words, as he does

the prism isn't really...doing a lot of attacking (cause the player is picking the right choices probably). oh nevermind, it has a hugely damaging rainbow cannon

/r/murderedbywords, except in a good way

"Destroy Steven!" huh since when does she know his name? she could have gotten it from several places, really

oh oh oh! it's pizza time! standing in the middle of them is probably not the best idea, but look at her, she's exuding confidence!

wait wait wait, when the player used a healing move, did i just see an option to heal the prism? or at least, it's health bar showed up. is it gonna help later?

can i have like, a full sprite sheet for Hessonite please and thanks

if this was in the show, steven would be dead from that hit

aaand Steven did two points of damage with his shield bash, she ain't even flinch

pearl what are you doing

wow, she also only did a few points of damage

is Hess like, super tough. i love how much of a threat she is, cause most Homeworld gems we've seen aren't all that scary

oh! oh! you can heal the prism! that's probably how you damage her cause you'd be here forever chipping away otherwise

HOLY FUCK, SHE JUST DID 270 POINTS OF DAMAGE, THAT'S LITERALLY ALL OF SUGILITE'S HEALTH. I know the wiki says that attack does massive damage but jeezus!

so far the prism hasn't done anything, they're just chipping away at her slowly

oh, so gems do poof in this game. i guess we're just ignoring new forms because it wouldn't make sense in the timeline if we didn't

huh, does pearl inflict burns in this game? oh and she shoots fireballs, guess that answers my question.

it's kind of sad that the status is doing more damage than everyone else combined

whuh, she just attacked the prism! RUDE.

stop beating up the prism you degenerate! i guess i shouldn't be shocked

hey, Garnet and Amethyst are alive again. ah finally, some damage now that Garnet's lowered her defense

A-Amethyst, you're facing the wrong way. i wish Hess had targeted her with her big attack, then i could have made an "oh no she has airpods in" joke

oh, but the player formed Smoky, so she's not even aiming at anyone in particular anymore lol. she went for Pearl tho, fuckin' eviscerated

is this battle normally this long, it's been almost 10 minutes

this battle would probably be much harder if she didn't waste her turn being a bitch and attacking the prism. gee, and you wonder why it doesn't want to listen to you after encountering steven's kindness. i wonder...what would happen if you let the prism's HP get to zero? it would take a long ass time but...now i really wanna know but i doubt there’s any videos about it!

garnet's rocket fist did damage to the prism cause Hess is standing next to it. c-can you attack the prism, is that how you get the bad ending??

man, they haven't even had to heal because she's just beaten up on that poor thing for the past 10 turns. i mean, really, she could easily murder all of them in a heartbeat if she wanted

ok finally, she is defeato. I'd feel more sad for you if you didn't abuse your subordinates (definitely has detracted from my liking of her, i won't be too hard on her for it though because Homeworld is bad like that and she doesn't know better). at least you’re good at eating your humble pie without complaint

oh, i guess you get to choose your ending? it's kind of weird that it's not like, influenced by your game choices. cause technically like this it's your choice, not the prism's choice. so what was with the prism having health then. was it just to show how awful Hessonite is to it?

also, i can't look at light Steven without thinking of Pink!Steven and hhhhh

"You're a wise creature, aren't you?" Yes, yes he is *nods sagely* I hope you come back someday to learn more from him

You're pretty adaptive, huh Hess? of course, if you've been having these thoughts and feelings for thousands of years you're probably not too shaken up by the realization that they're true. That’s actually pretty great of you to want to figure yourself out.

ha, so Garnet didn't let her leave like the wiki made it sound like, she just yeeted away, and good luck catching anyone who can move at 5 million miles per hour

the gems are running in place in the next scene and Amethyst is backwards again. connie is also facing the wrong way. ...this game's a bit jank, isn't it :P not that i mind, a little jank is fun!

Peridot breaking the fourth wall with her Are Pee Gee again. I wonder which one it is. Golf Quest Mini?

do you get anything for 100 percenting this? oh, i guess there's achievements. no bonus content tho?

Lapis: I think I could use a break.

i for one would like to know what book the prism was reading. also, it's back to not talking again.

AWW YIS! We goin' out for pizza tonight bois!

The gems finally get to stop running in place in the corner

aaww, it's a beach scene reminiscent of the opening. kind of weird that greg is the only one animated but still cute

also someone's last name is Gooch and i feel bad for them

alright now to google Hessonite's VO... Christine Baranski. Are-Are we just hiring broadway singers for everyone now? not only would I die if Hessonite made an appearance in season 6, my soul would reach the farthest realms of space if she sang a song on top of that.

well, that's a wrap! time to jot down all of Hess's dialogue for later reference! It’s a crime that there’s so few fanfics about her, she actually has a lot of potential!

[killian-whump]

OUAT 3x05: Rewatch Liveblog

Hello, my friends! It is I, Killian-Whump, here with another Rewatch Liveblog.

This one's for episode 3x05, "Good Form" - and let me tell you right now, it might be awhile before you see another one, because it will probably take me 15 years to GIF all of the whump, angst and sexy faces that appear in this episode.

BUT BEFORE THAT HAPPENS!!!

I gotta watch the episode. So let's settle in, click the link below... and do just that.

Looks like we’re starting off this episode with Neal getting thrown in a cage, for all of you who are into that kind of thing.

Normally, I would be one of those people, but I'm not really into Neal... and what the hell is up with these camera angles? Meh. Could be better.

OH GUYS! GUYS! This is the Lost Boy whose face annoys me. I thought he was in S6, but here he is here. Is he maybe in both seasons? I'll have to keep an eye out for him when I get to S6 in my rewatch and spontaneously combust.

Aww, my baby’s having some unexpected feels over there while Emma's talking about her days in the foster system.

Aww, look at him trying to share his feels and connect with another human being on more than a superficial level. Bless him.

Look at him getting shot down because Emma assumes it's just an attempt to get in her pants.

Aaaaaand look at Dave telling him he's nothing but a pirate.

Like I said, I'll be GIFing this shit until sometime in the 2030s.

Oh, look! It's Navy men! What kind of flashback could this be?

Why, that looks like a Naval Officer, someone of good standing, with a jaunty little ponytail and a spry bounce in his step. Who could it-

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS, IT'S HOOK

"Perhaps you mean younger brother." 'I MEANT WHAT I SAID, BITCH'

Ummm.... So... 'Only YOU can navigate us on this hero's journey!' 'Where are we going?' 'BITCH, I CAN'T TELL YOU'

OH GOD, GUYS, THAT BRIGHT SHINING SMILE FULL OF HOPE AND PROMISE T_T It kills me every time I see it. Colin could literally light up a city block in a blackout with that smile of his. We rarely get to see Colin's smile on Hook's face, but he uses it to such great effect right here. Bless.

...and here we are back to angsty, lusty, almost downright creepy staring at Emma XD

WHY IS HE FUCKING LIKE THIS (that’s what she said)

Hahahahaha, Snow. "Thanks for the advice." Like, she literally could not sound less dismissive if she tried. She gives so few fucks about Hook's thoughts, she might as well have walked over there and taken all of his OWN fucks away, as well. 'Nope, sorry, now NO ONE has any fucks for you. Not even you.'

My fucks... Now I have none T_T

I wish someone at the camp had answered WHY Hook had to go with David for more rope with, "You're freaking us all out, actually." XD

"What would you like to yell at me about now, Dave?" I love it when Hook calls him Dave, haha :D

Dave: "But if I do die-" Hook: "WHEN" Hahahahaha, you little shit <3

Aaaaaaaaand a swing and a miss. Dave, that was the absolute lamest attempt at whumping Hook that I have ever seen, AND I HAVE SEEN THEM ALL. Multiple times.

"Mate? Mate!" Umm, try his name? We know you know it. You used it thirty seconds ago.

LOL, I like to think Hook was, like, pouring Rum on Dave's mouth like a five year old trying to feed a sleeping parent or something.

Aww, he plays David so well. Hook: "No, it's too dangerous." Dave: 'Well, now I HAVE to do it.'

Liam, you ass. "Haha! That was close!"

Liam: "Employ the Pegasus!" And all the sailors, who obviously know what the Pegasus is, all spring into action, repeating the order and following it. So they all KNOW what the Pegasus Sail is and how to use it, while Killian, the LIEUTENANT and second in command here, has no fucking clue what's going on, what the Pegasus is, that the ship can fly, or where they’re going.

Regina: "How do we know you're not lying?" Hook: "Oh, you don't." Aaaaaaaaand he is. Hook: "But I'm not." Yes, he is.

Dave's TOTALLY OBVIOUS "goodbye forever beloved family" goodbyes XD

Ah, Liam, you stubborn arse. Listen to the strange demon child. Listen to your brother. Spoiler Alert: He never listens.

Oh, look. It's time for "Conversations with Pan That Are Somehow the Most Homoerotic Thing Ever Put on Television That Aren't Overtly Gay OR Sexual at All."  FYI: If sexual innuendos about Captain Pan bother you, you’re gonna want to skip to the next line break. I’m just saying.

Creepy silhouettes. Darkness. Pan: "Come back and work for me." Work? Is that what we're calling it now? Pan: "Like the old days." TELL US MORE ABOUT THE OLD DAYS. Hook: "I don't miss the old days." Great, but TELL US ABOUT THEM ANYWAY.

BLIP! Sudden Closeness Alert.

"We've known each other a very long time, Killian. We've done business before." TELL US ABOUT IT IN GREAT DETAIL OR ISTG

Pan: "You know me." Pan: *whoooosh* Pan: *appears directly behind Killian* Pan: "I like action." Hook: *closes his eyes* Hook: *licks his lips* Hook: *hangs his head* HE LIKES ACTION BACK THERE. BEHIND YOU. BUTT ACTION. I FUCKING SAID IT. I ain’t taking it back.

Hook: *turns to face Pan* Pan: *moves around to be behind him again* That's... I mean... I don't even have to make the innuendos myself here, do I? IT'S BUTT STUFF. I'M THINKING ABOUT BUTT STUFF.

Pan: "I want to see your hook inside his body." WHY DOES HE FUCKING SAY IT LIKE THAT?!?! Like he's a fucking expert at things he wants to see inside people's bodies.

Get a little closer there, Pan. If you even can.

Oh, sorry. There is literally no way you could possibly get any closer to him without putting your SELF inside his BODY.

AND THEY'RE ALONE. THIS ISN'T NECESSARY. THIS CLOSE TALKING ISN'T NEEDED. NO ONE NEEDS TO WHISPER. IT DOESN'T NEED TO BE HUSH HUSH.

THIS DOESN'T NEED TO BE WHATEVER THE FUCK IT IS.

BUT IT IS.

JFC even though I've seen this scene a frankly very embarrassing number of times, EVERY time Pan grabs Killian's flask, I always think he's grabbing something else with that sudden jerking motion. And then he pulls the flask up into the shot and I'm like. "Oh. Oh, that's right."

Pan: "Have a drink." Hook's reaction. GODS ABOVE... Pan: "You know it always helps you think."

AHHHHHHHH and then we see why Pan was whispering, and why he put the flask in Killian's hand just then, because Pan knew Dave was approaching and he wanted Hook to look bad in front of him.

...and for butt reasons. FIGHT ME, BITCHES. You know I’m right.

Yeah.

Yeah, sure.

That fucking plant dripping black shit ominously looks like medicine.

Suuuuuuuuuuuure.

EVEN KILLIAN SAYS IT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE MEDICINE.

"You choose to believe that boy over our King?" Well, to be fair, that boy fucking LIVES there.

Oh, Liam. Liam, listen to your brother. Liam, don't. Liam...

*siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh*

Every. Fucking. Time. I. Watch. This. Episode. He never listens.

Annoying face time again. I wish Regina would just rip his fucking hear-

Oh, there we go. Thanks, boo.

Snow: "The cost can't be this family." Emma: "It won't be." As long as you stop being a judgmental stick in the mud, MOM.

Aww... My baby, giving as wide a berth to the Dreamshade as he can. I love how afraid of it he is. He's so precious.

Ooooh... Swordpoint. This is a much better attempt at whumping our pirate, Dave. I commend you for not giving up after the first try went so poorly.

AHHHHHH and Dave backs him up against the Dreamshade he's so afraid of. LOVE IT.

Oooh, suckerpunch. And Dave's out for the count.

Pan: "Maybe you shouldn't have goaded him into it." LISTEN, YOU JUMPED UP LITTLE SHIT... And Killian just falls right into the trap, just accepting that he's to blame and trying to explain why he did such an awful thing... Oh, my pretty pirate baby T_T

Pan: "Don't leave the island unless you're willing to pay it." Ahhhh, you tricky little devil. You TOLD him, but you didn’t tell him.

Also, remember how Pan said to Baelfire last episode that all the pieces were where he wanted them... I wonder what his purpose was for bringing Killian to the island and setting all this up. He likely knew the resulting cascade of dominoes would bring Killian back... and back again. But why?

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

(Hint: It's butt stuff.)

Awwww!!! They got the message to Henry!!! :D Yay!!! Success!!!

And they only had to rip a young annoying-faced kid's heart out to do it :)

And now the show would like to rip all of OUR hearts out with a touching scene of brotherly love and agonizing death and beautiful crying faces.

"I will follow you... to the ends of the earth, brother." T_T STOP IT

T_T

T_T

T_T

Damn show.

AWWWWWWWW. He's so cute, suiting up and "bloody hell"ing and pulling a bandana over his face for the task ahead.

Sweet peanut, facing his fears and hacking away at the Dreamshade.

Awww, the way he looks himself over afterwards, and looks soooo relieved that he's emerged unscathed. Such a fraidy cat. I fucking love it <3

"I didn't do it for you, mate." <3

Regina's so sorry she turned to see what was going on back there, lol.

Snow: "I'm not complaining, but what was that-" Snowing: *more kissing* Emma: "Okay, I'M complaining." :D Regina: "What I wouldn't give for another sleeping curse." HAHAHAHA <3

Awwww, Dave giving his future bro and maybe kinda sorta mate some credit. ...and Hook looking so shy and embarrassed by the attention. Bless <3

Oh. Ohhh. Ohoh!!

CS Kiss Time. As kisses go, this is a damn good one, because it has Colin O'Donoghue in it and Hook in it and Killian Jones in it and... it also has Emma grabbing him by his lapels and yanking him to her forcefully and keeping him there until she's damn good and ready to let him go and that speaks to me on a deep, primal level and did I mention that Colin's in this scene?

...and the way he looks so fucking BLOWN AWAY afterwards. Like, that boy's brain is SAUCE right now and I love every second of it. THAT... That is a man who has been kissed within an inch of his life and that is how a man should always look when a Domme lady is done with him :)

"A one-handed pirate with a drinking problem." LISTEN, YOU WALKING COAT HANGER...

By the way, this "Neal's alive and in Neverland!" cliff hanger here goes down in history as one of the lamest ones ever, seeing as Hook ends up telling the secret, like, literally 30 seconds later in show-time.

More Neal in a cage.

Pan: "Hang him up, over there. Next to the other one." Oh, how ominous...

WHO COULD BE IN THE OTHER CAGE?!??! We'll have to wait to find out!!!

Although, thankfully, you all already know... considering it'll be over a decade before I finish GIFing this episode and actually watch the next one... T_T

Pew Pew Pew Peeeeeeeeeeeew