#50 linked posts

[ekat-fandom-blog]

Masterpost thingy 3

Unless stated otherwise, all of these are prompts and sometimes they're still prompts even when stated otherwise. First masterpost here. Second masterpost here. (also some of them explicitly say "prompt" because adding a description seemed pointless or I was being lazy)

Thought Experiment - Billy shares his powers with the Avengers.

And All Hell Breaks Loose - Harley runs into Valerie while a nearby cult summons a hellhound.

Parental Mentor Figure - Batman tries to be a mentor figure to Dani.

Vlad annoys Sinestro - prompt

Pirates - Wondergirl and Johnny 13 get stuck in the PotC dimension

The Wish - Tim makes a wish.

De-Aged - Dick, Jason, and Tim get de-aged.

Titans Tower - Dani crashes in Titans Tower and finds Jason beating Tim.

Insults - Zatanna insulted Dairy King.

All-Blades Torture - my thought process on how you could use the all-blades to torture someone. also a link to a fic.

Time Loop Soulmate - Jason loops the day he planned on beating up Tim in Titans Tower.

Shared Custody - Clark and Lois adopt Dani and Dan, Bruce adopts Danny and Jazz. Suddenly, the three have 13 kids.

Don't Mix - Ectoplasm and Lazarus Pits don't mix.

Ring - Technus overshadows a lantern ring.

Star City - Star visits her aunt, Dinah.

Reverse Batfam AU - my take on reverse batfam. it's kinda a prompt.

Silent room - just wondering how the silent room would affect the supers with super hearing.

Pandora's Box - Ends up in Dr. Sivana's hands.

Maddie and Jack meet Mr. Freeze - prompt

Shifty - Dani finds a shifter group.

Accidental Dimension Travel - The trio wind up in DC universe.

Reflection - JazzxSelena soulmate au where your reflection looks like your soulmate.

Obedience - Dani gets cursed.

Puppet King - Danny's part of the Teen Titans

Important things - BillyxDanny soulmate au where an important event that happens during your soulmate's day is written on your arm.

Normal Day - FlashFam and Danny's timestream shenanigans prompt.

Halloween Cat - Danny turns into a cat.

Flower Scars - SamxValeriexStephxCass soulmate au where your soulmate gets little flower "tattoos" where you got hurt.

Family Reunion - Danny is adopted by Clockwork, Diana gets an invite to a family reunion.

Worst Enemy, Greatest Ally - dpxdc soulmate au

Color Stripe - DanixDick soulmate au where there's a stripe of color on everyone's wrist in the color of their soulmate's hair.

Secret Payment - The batfam sneakily pay their civilian informants without anyone's knowledge.

Run into you - DannyxBart soulmate au where you die on your 18th birthday if you don't find your soulmate.

Time's Ticking - DanixBilly soulmate au where there's a timer on your wrist that counts down to when they meet their soulmate.

No Dick Grayson AU - dick grayson never exists/never joins the bats and how the fam changed

Words - Danny goes to Gotham. soulmate au where everyone has a set number of words they can say unless they're with their soulmate.

Pit Madness - Dan gets stuck in the back of (insert dc character who's been dunked in the pit here)'s head.

Flower Scars - all scars appear as flowers

The Giggle - Dick's nightmare giggle followed him into adulthood

Hiding an Injury - Dick finds Dani in his apartment after patrol

Switch - Danny and Jason switch bodies cuz they resurrected at the same time

Symbiote - Constantine gets stuck with symbiote!Amorpho

Letters - Soulmate au w/ TuckerxTim

Mythical au & Part 2 - Alfred's a guardian angel, Bruce adopts Danny and Dani

Tarot - i chose who i thought works best for major arcana for a dc tarot deck

Obsession - Dani made a game out of trying to figure out other ghosts' and halfas' obsession. Bruce is a halfa.

Thrown under the Bus - Tim gets hit by cuddle pollen and chances upon Danny.

Soulmate AU - dpxdc. soulmates teleport to each other on their 16th birthday.

Eye Color - soulmate au where everything's black and white except for things that are similar in color to their soulmate's eyes. TimxDanny

Important PSA

[aurorangen]

The Mini Vinnys

[emry-stars-art]

👑 ROYAL AU TUMBLR LORE MASTERPOST 👑

Linked in order of when they were posted to tumblr.

Find the writing masterpost here 💕

The first sketch dump

A first meeting pt1 / pt2 A misunderstanding the king and queen overview/plot post pt1 / pt 2 confident Nathaniel how Abram got his scars no one will ever know where the prince's favor lies early possible twinyards backstory hurt/comfort of post-Evermore Abram's lashing scars caring for Abram's scars Abram doesn't realize Andrew is courting him A different kind of therapy (royal au inspiration pinterest board) Abram feeling guilty Lyndis's courting realization idea Another 'Abram realizes he's being courted' One of Abram's favorite courting gifts more sketches don't call Abram pretty Lady Allison's new head of staff Twinyard backstory second Tuesday of the month is Market Date day now Maserati is a courting gift from Abram sketches from that scene ^ Abram's experience with nobility and royalty blacksmith Jean (and more Jean) the cats Abram and gloves and touch Andrew's Darcy-hand-flex fencing High Prince Riko's court Abram's scars ache in the cold Andrew and Abram dancing The Spear family and Drake Abram and Katelyn Andrew and Renee Abram's brands pt1 / pt2 Andrew and Abram's hair care

Andrew’s casual behavior

Washing Abram's hair

Pet names

Kateaaron’s wedding

Andreil first kiss

whumptober 1: drugging

whumptober 6: forced to hurt others

Day and Abram; Abram’s recovery

whumptober 9: scar reveal

whumptober 10: branding

whumptober 15: muzzle

whumptober 20: dehumanization

whumptober 22: whipping

comfort (wip): getting Abram to relax

whumptober 27: locked away

comfort: forehead kiss for Abram

royal twinyards

Jean thoughts

nanowrimo update 1

Kissing Abram's scars

Clothing designs?

[saltyloafy]

im. so proud. of what ive done today.

[genericpuff]

UM EXCUSE ME-

y'all I am NOT making this up and neither is OP, literally go to the Canvas section on WT and click on a genre, esp romance, comedy, or fantasy, they're getting BOMBARDED by p0rn bots right now, it literally looks worse than Tumblr Live, THERE ARE MULTIPLE PAGES OF THIS SHIT

congrats Webtoons, you've now officially become "that" unsettling backdoor back alley app that promotes shovelware content and gets exploited constantly by bad actors with zero moderation, huh?

[robo-dino-puppy]

varl + flowers (again) (prev. post)

[nikatyler]

So, cc sims up for download. You don't include the cc and just link it for people to grab it themselves, people go fuck you, I'm not downloading all that, keep your sim. You include it, you're evil because you don't respect creators' TOU.

So genuinely, what would you rather see me do with my downloads, include the cc or not?

[pokimoko]

I have had it with these motherfucking spam bots on this motherfucking site.

[maddy-ferguson]

women will literally accuse women and esp lesbian circles of "not unpacking ""man-hating""" alleged ""misandry" sweetie xo" getting offended ppl aren't appropriately uplifting how "men are amazing and awesome and attractive and i won't be shamed for thinking so" as if appreciating men is a real counter opinion than blame whatever gave women of every sexuality instance to be jaded weary cautious and tired and who'll complain every now and then and continue on with her life until she dies putting up with patriarchy. just welcome to the "woke" internet where misogyny's over and "man-hate" "shamed for not hating men" is worth springing to defences for

yeah i've only seen people talk like men's rights activists and think they're being unbelievably progressive on tumblr it's kind of fascinating. like i can see how seeing people hate on men could mess with people and stuff but you can't demand men appreciation posts that's literally the whole world outside of idk your tumblr dash (or even on your tumblr dash because fandom misogyny from people who think they're not misogynistic at all is really something). men get praised for "babysitting" their own kids like be serious? it's very let men be masculine

i don't think being like men are soooo gross and we hate them is actually constructive and it can definitely veer into transphobia (you'll always be a man/"a male" and thus a danger to women/why would you ever want to become a man they're the enemy and the bane of society etc) and homophobia relatively quickly?

but the way people ON TUMBLR ""combat that"" is often so off to me like if the most basic feminist principles offend you then i'm not really sure where to go from here. i remember seeing a post that was like "men aren't your enemy. they're your friend/brother/father/colleague/neighbor" with a lot of notes and like i don't know how to tell you this but that's literally who's most likely to harm a woman, the men she knows?😭 and obviously not every system of oppression is exactly the same but would you say the same thing to someone criticizing white people like...just very weird

i think women who are attracted to men and dating them making jokes about how they only tolerate being attracted to men because they have no choice and especially the whole i'm bi so i love every woman and only find 1 in a 1000 men attractive (very often said while in a relationship with a man) thing is obnoxious and annoying for like everyone who has to hear it lmao but also when women who date men make jokes about it (not about them being ugly or unattractive or whatever but about them being bad partners in general) it's like. what else are they going to do like you said they're gonna endure patriarchy for the rest of their lives and as girlfriends/wives/mothers they go through the most it's very bleak? idk. it's not like you can date a better man yourself out of patriarchy

of course men aren't a all as bad as the worst guy you can imagine and they're not all out to get you or whatever but saying things like "men don't all benefit from the patriarchy rich men benefit from the patriarchy but jake, 23, is not oppressing you" is like. kind of insane. jake, 14, was oppressing me like have you never interacted with boys in school😭 and it's not like it was entirely their fault we all have to outgrow misogyny it's just you know society etc but some of them never outgrow it lmao and just...the takes you see on feminism on tumblr are astounding i hate it here

[ekat-fandom-blog]

Masterpost thingy

Unless stated otherwise these are prompts. Not all are explained.

Welcome Celebration - Jason becomes a Lord/Knight of the Infinite Realms because of the All Blades.

Cass's Secret - Dragon au w/Cass & Dora

Haunted House - DannyxDamian go on a date. It ends poorly.

Best Memory, Worst Memory - Soulmate au w/ Barry and Danny

Soulmate Song - DanxDick

Meets me, Meets me not - Soulmate au w/ JazzxBruce

Fairy Tale Curse - 6 characters from DP and 6 characters from DC get cursed and have to complete 13 fairy tales.

Halfa Jason meets Jack Fenton

Whoopsie - Dick becomes a halfa.

Ghost Forms - My theory on how ghost forms work (at least for halfas)

Peter Pan AU - Danny becomes Peter Pan. JL become pirates.

Disappearing act - Justice League and Young Justice disappear. The Teen Titans (& Team Phantom) are left behind.

Electrical Trauma Fic - Nightwing triggers a trauma response in Danny.

Alternate Ric Incident - Dick becomes a halfa and meets Danny.

Date Week - Bruce and Selina go to Amity Park for a nice week off from the batkids. It doesn't go as planned.

Vlad Finds a Baby - Vlad finds a baby batkid.

Jason's Weird Day - Jason has a weird day. Dani's day is fine until she meets Jason and makes it weird.

Prompt - Danny guards some mythical beings in the watchtower

Shifter AU - Tim and Jason are cat shifters.

Immortal Enemies - Danny causes Vandal Savage's and Immortal Man's immortality.

Creepy sentence prompt

Part 1 Part 2 - Fic where sleep deprived Danny and Dani catch Klarion. Has the prompt attached.

Hogwarts Escape Room - The entire extended Justice League gets transported to a Hogwarts themed escape room and the Shazamily are the only ones that remember that fact. Edit: Might re-write this so I'm not using terf content. I haven't kept up with the Harry Potter bs and didn't realize it was that problematic until a few hours after it posted. The reason I'm leaving it as-is is because where this prompt takes place isn't too integral to the plot, but I haven't found a suitable replacement yet as it (preferably) still needs magic school ties. If anyone has suggestions, please let me know.

Batboys Boyband

Bounty Hunter DCxDP - Danny's a bounty hunter and he and his bounties run into DC heroes and villains.

Fear Toxin - Fear toxin gets an unexpected side effect.

Batfam Mythical Au Part 1 - Bruce is a dragon.

IDK What to call this one - Dani gets adopted. The Wayne's get curious. The Fenton's visit Gotham.

Bounty Hunter AU - Danny's a bounty hunter and the ghosts are his bounties.

Medieval Royal AU - Vlad is king of Wisconsin and Amity Park. This leads to Danny becoming a prince after some shenanigans.

Gods & Goddesses AU - What if the ghosts were gods instead.

Sleep Deprived Gala - Danny , Tim, and Jason go to a gala.

Adult - Captain Marvel needs an adult.

Flash meets a ghost - Flash runs into Cujo then Danny.

Proxy - Danny becomes Pariah's proxy and has to deal with anything that Pariah normally would if he was sane and awake.

Half Sibling - Prompt created by the prompt wheel. Tim is Jazz and Danny's half sibling.

Sleepy Time - Jazz, Sam, and Tucker force Danny to go to sleep. The Justice League freak out.

Dragons and Ghost - Batman's a dragon. Danny is a (half) ghost. The two are surprisingly similar.

How Monarchs are Chosen - Ghost King Danny. Dani's next in line. (I might add more in the future)

Supernatural Au - Dean!Danny and Sam!Jazz. I wouldn't say it's a crossover but I've been wrong before.

Angy Baby! - Dani finds Match and brings him to Amity Park.

Memory Loss Billy Batson - Captain Marvel forgets everything about Billy.

Stuck in the Ghost Zone - One of the DC heroes gets stuck in the Ghost Zone.

Constantine Bingo - Short fic I wrote based off the prompt. (prompt included)

Milk Blood - Based on the writing prompt of everyone being born with milk white blood and every time you break a law your blood gets darker.

Balance Au and (my and @wildcardjoey's) Additions - Danny is Lord(or embodiment, the additions focus on 'lord' tho) of Balance.

Memory Loss Danny - Danny loses his memory and joins YJ.

Uncanny Valley - Danny moves to Gotham. He looks like the Batboys. All of them.

Unholy amount of Holidays - Headcanon about how the batfam celebrates every holiday in December.

Luthor Adopts Conner - Luthor fights Superman for custody of Conner.

[luigra]

Pidgeon, why can you scare me? Am I not part of your life anymore? Am I not welcome anymore?

well I was too lazy to finish The Rift statue and got bored with it but have The Entity that I finished maybe a month ago

[mariemariemaria]

Does anybody else feel like mental health awareness has done very little to help them in material reality

[rookie98writes]

i am nothing if not dedicated to my delusions

[elibean]

IT'S THE SAME FUCKING EYE

[jakegardiner]

Great Comet Atlanta 🍑

audio in the reblogs!

[madelinetess]

Wouldn't it be nice?

“There are only ten minutes remaining till the end of this match and Richmond players seem to be in quite the pickle.”

“You are right Arlo, it does appear to be a dangerous situation for the greyhounds. As of now the score is 1:1 but Chelsea’s in possession and it looks like they may score the winning goal after all.”

“A beautiful pass from number 11, getting through Richmond’s defence, the only thing between the Chelsea Striker and leaving the match victorious is Richmond’s goalie, Zoreaux, who seems to be having a tough day today.”

“The greyhounds are relying quite heavily on their defence players today… What’s this? A beautiful kick by the Chelsea attacker! It’s soaring through the air and… By God, Arlo, did you see that?”

“If you are referring to the brilliant dive by Richmond’s number 13, then yes, I most definitely saw it. We simply have to look at it again, the way he got in there just in time to kick the ball right back into the stands, simply marvellous.”

A slow motion replay of Jan’s desperate save displayed on the screen accompanied by the cheers of the fans in the stands and the live commentary by both Chris Powell and Arlo White.

“The Dutchman did it again. He has definitely been the backbone of today's defence, foiling most of the scoring attempts. But back to the game, it is now time for Nelson Road residents to either try and keep the ball for the remaining four minutes, or to shock us with some clever closing play.”

“You never know what to expect from them, and they’ve been continually pulling all kinds of tricks from their sleeves. Chris, what do you think is going to happen?”

“It remains to be seen, Arlo, we’ll just have to wait.”

“Bumbercatch passes to Montlaur, Montlaur goes in to score, but no! It was a feint and it’s Jamie Tartt now with the ball. Tartt passes to Rojas who gets through Chelsea’s defence and gets the ball straight to number 12 and it’s a goal! A beautiful play by the Greyhounds mere seconds before the final whistle! Richmond winds up victorious with two goals from Tartt and Hughes respectively.”

“A beautiful display of teamwork indeed. It’s games like this one that truly highlight the unity of the Nelson Road Team, the famous ‘Richmond Way’ a term coined by Trent Crimm in his best selling book…”

The commentary was now fading away as the team exited the pitch, still euphoric after the win. Jan walked feeling exhausted but hyped up and was now heading to the locker room to celebrate along with the entirety of the team. The coaches were already there, waiting for them. 

Everyone got seated and the room fell into silence, awaiting Roy’s words. 

“Allright, I’ll make it quick. Good job Jamie, Colin,” He nodded at each respective player but then turned towards Jan “Jan Maas. You are the main reason we didn’t fuckin’ lose today!” Excitement in their manager’s voice crystal clear. 

Dani was the first one to cheer, but soon everyone joined in and the whole locker room was once again filled with excited footballers. Shoulder pats and bear hugs were exchanged once again before Roy had to shout to get them to settle down and listen to the announcements.

“Oi! You have fifteen minutes to celebrate here, and after that I expect to see you all on the bus, ready to head to the hotel.”

With that Roy left to support Rebecca handling the interviews, and both Beard and Nate followed him out of the room, probably to settle some other matters.

The team changed quickly and it wasn’t even twenty minutes later that Jan sat next to Richard on the way to the hotel. The Dutchman pulled out a well loved book that was given to him for his birthday by the man sitting right next to him out of his bag. Richard himself could never read while in a moving vehicle, so as usual he opted for listening to music and looking out the window, completely zoned out. 

The ride itself was short, and soon enough they all stood in the hotel lobby waiting to get their keys.

“Listen up people!” Coach Beard could be heard over the general ruckus “You get settled and then at 8PM sharp we meet in conference room 3 for our movie night! Jan Maas, today you get the honours of drawing the movie from our box of suggestions.” 

A collective choir of whoops and whistles filled the foyer.

The movie night tradition became a thing when Ted was still their manager and it was one of the many things that stuck around even after he didn’t. Of course pillow fights also kept on happening, but the clean-up after a movie night is undoubtedly easier, and watching a silly movie is definitely a great way of winding down after a difficult match. 

The box of suggestions though, was Phoebe’s idea that Roy decided to implement. At the beginning of the season each player got to write down one movie name on a post-it and put it in a purple glittery shoebox. Then, every movie night someone from the team would draw a piece of paper from said box and whatever it said, that was the movie they were going to watch. 

The suggestions were obviously restricted, to the disappointment of both Moe and Richard. Richard’s, because almost everyone voted no, on classic French cinema, and Bumbercatch’s for reasons unspecified. The only other rule was no one was supposed to know who suggested what.

So obviously Jan and Richard turned into a game to see if they could guess who wrote down which movie. So far they were pretty sure that Dani suggested Night at the Museum and Sam was definitely the one who pitched Ratatouille, as for the other ones they were based purely on speculation. Both of them were pretty positive that Thierry picked How to lose a guy in 10 days. Richard kept disagreeing with him about who suggested Baby Driver, it was a tie between Jamie and Isaac, but for some reason the same disagreement also occurred while debating who picked Ocean’s Eleven.

Some other movies they watched included classics such as Jojo Rabbit, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Legally Blonde, The Greatest Showman, and Knives Out. The jury was still out on all of these. 

They agreed not to disclose what movie they themselves suggested, to keep the game more interesting. 

Jan however knew exactly what Richard picked. He remembers the first practice of the season, he remembers the weather outside, and the exact button up shirt that Richard wore that day. 

Why does he remember that? Well, because he spent the entire after-practice meeting staring at the four undone upper buttons, and not thinking about what movie he should put down as his suggestion. That in turn meant he caught a glimpse of Richard’s post-it and the two titles written in neat handwriting. Duplex and 50 First Dates sat right there being deeply analysed by the Frenchman struggling to pick one. That’s when Jan decided, whichever one his friend doesn’t pick, he was going to write down.

The jangle of the room keys brought the Dutchman back to Earth. Richard has already gone and picked them up from coach Beard and was now motioning for Jan to follow him to their accommodations. 

Most of the team roomed on the same floor, but the coaches made sure to get themselves settled the furthest away from the rest of the team. The rooms were nice enough, with a small balcony, two beds, wardrobe, a table with some chairs and an adjacent bathroom. Enough for a one night stay. 

Richard immediately threw his things onto the bed by the window and sat down on it. After dozens of times sharing a room at away games Jan already knew that the Frenchman loved being woken up by the sun. 

The Dutchman took the other bed and unpacked some of their bathroom things. There was no use taking two tubes of toothpaste, so they both agreed beforehand who was going to take one, same with soap and shampoo. Neither of them trusted the ones provided by the hotels.

After they were done unpacking they headed down to the dining room to grab some dinner before coming back up to their room to get changed into some sweatpants and comfy t-shirts and whatnot. Then the only thing left was to locate conference room number 3. 

On the stairway they were joined by Colin, Isaac, Moe and a couple of the reserves. They already went up a flight before Reynolds stopped them to ask a question.

“Hold up, does anyone know where we are supposed to go?” 

“Conference room 3, duh” Colin answered.

“Yeah, but do any of you actually know where that is?”

Everyone stopped in the middle of the stairway and shook their heads.

“Then where the hell are we going?” Goodman piped up.

“O'Brien, didn't you say that your roommate stayed back to ask the receptionist about it?”

“Yeah, he did.” Tom turned around as if to locate said roommate and didn’t seem to find him. Then he turned around again, hoping for a different result. That clearly didn’t seem to help. “I forgot Bhargava!” he yelled out and dashed down the stairs back to the rooms.

“Do you guys think he just locked him inside their room?” Colin asked, looking after the goalkeeper.

“Maybe he just forgot to tell him we were going already..?” Isaac supplied. 

“Nah, he totally locked him in,” Richard laughed heartily and looked at Jan smiling which he reciprocated.

“Isn’t there a floorplan somewhere maybe?” Jan asked no one in particular. The Dutchman looked around trying to find something that would tell them where to go. While they were still standing around on the stairs they all heard O’Brien shouting.

“Lads! We got to go downstairs, not up!” A chorus of groans lasted a good ten seconds it took them to get downstairs and back to the lobby.

Once they finally reached the conference room Roy looked at them, then at his watch, and then back at them. 

“What took you so long, you got fuckin’ lost, or something?” 

“Well, what matters is that we are all here now.” Reynolds said after a beat of silence.

“That is the bare minimum, we said at 8, it’s 8:20”

“Actually, it’s only 8:17 so it’s closer to…” Goodman started but one look from their former captain turned manager shut him up.

"We need to learn how to appreciate the little things, like finding our way, or Richard…" Jan said, throwing an arm around his friend, who was standing right next to him.

The Frenchman was not amused, and rolled his eyes pointedly exaggerating the movement.

"Laugh all you want, I'm not the one that had to ask the hotel desk to get another duvet, because I didn't fit under the one that comes with the room."

“Fuckin’ hell… Enough of that, get inside, sit down and get ready to watch the movie.” Roy stopped them before they could drag the conversation out even longer. “Jan, come with me to pick the movie.”

Inside the conference room a projector was set up, along with a few rows of nice cushioned chairs to sit on. Roy stood in front of the chairs waiting for the footballers to settle down on their seats. 

“Today's match was hard,”Roy began his speech. “but we pulled through. And we fuckin’ won!” Here Roy paused, waiting for the cheers to die down. “And we owe it not only to the ones scoring the goals, but to our defence as well, especially to Jan Maas over here, so Nate,” Here Roy turned to the shorter man, “Bring in the Box!”

Nate approached with the glittery shoebox and dramatically opened the lid before turning to Jan waiting for the Dutchman to pick out a post-it note with the title of today’s movie.

Jan covered his eyes and reached into the box pulling out a piece of paper folded twice, handing it to Roy and walking off to sit down on an empty chair next to Richard that the shorter man saved for him.

“And the movie of the evening is… 50 First Dates!”

Some people whooped, some looked around confused. Richard turned to look at Jan grinning. Jan returned the gesture for the second time today and turned to the screen waiting for the movie to start. He has never seen it before, but since Richard enjoyed it, then it must be nice. 

The snack bowls were passed around, the light turned off, and the movie put on. Jan held onto the popcorn he was handed. For the next hour and a half every now and then the Frenchman would nudge him to get the bowl within his reach.

From time to time someone would snicker at some joke, Jamie definitely winced at the scene where Lucy beat Henry up, Thierry pointed out the fact that the dolphins were named Mary Kate and Ashley and Dani shot up during the diary burning scene to exclaim that it’s almost like that time when they were getting rid of the ghosts from the treatment room. 

They all bawled their eyes out at the break up scene, and tissues had to be passed around during the final one. Jan ended up liking the movie and judging by the fact that by the end most of the players were trying to hold back tears, so did they. 

Once the light came back on the coaches gave them ten minutes to tidy up, and get back to their rooms. Isaac and Sam stayed the longest to make sure everything was back to how it was beforehand, which meant Colin was stuck outside the doors waiting for his room key that his best friend held on to, Jan and Richard decided to keep him company. 

“How’d you like the movie?” the Welshman asked, noticing how the two of them decided to wait around with him.

“I liked it” Jan simply answered “And you, Richard, you’ve seen it before, right?”

“Yeah, but I still find it enjoyable.” 

“Yeah? Is it because Henry reminds you of… well, you?” Colin laughed

“Why? Because Dickie here is a shameless flirt, or actually a softie that cares a lot about penguins?” Colin joked as Isaac joined their group while Sam was locking up the conference room.

“I’ll have you know, penguins are actually great animals.”

“Yeah, and they are also the best secret agents in the world” the Nigerian finally joined their tiny circle, and they were able to start moving towards their rooms. 

They all stopped in front of Sam and Dani’s room to talk a bit more before retiring for the night. Jan couldn’t help but notice how short Richard looked standing next to them all, well, maybe not next to Colin, but the rest of them towered over the Frenchman a little. 

After about ten minutes of idle lounging around Colin yawned loudly prompting their discussion to halt.

“Need your beauty sleep?” Isaac asked.

“Better not, because he would need a lot of it.” Richard quipped.

“And remember, we have to be up early tomorrow.” Jan replied without missing a beat.

Colin flipped them both off as they bid the group farewell and took off in the direction of their room. 

Back in their room they got ready to sleep taking turns in the bathroom. Richard went in first so when Jan exited after his own shower he was surprised to see his friend still up clearly waiting for him. As soon as the Frenchman noticed Jan was done in the bathroom he motioned for him to join him on the bed, so Jan did.

“So, who do you think picked the movie? I’m pretty sure both Dixon and Goodman recognised it but I’m not sure any of them would have picked it as their one choice.”

“How about Tommy Winchester?” Jan suggested trying to seem oblivious.

“Nah, that’s also not it…Maybe Reynolds?” the shorter man continued to speculate.

“How do I know it wasn’t you?” It might have been a bit of a risky move there, but it wasn’t unsound to assume that. “After all you did know the movie and I remember you mentioning something about liking Drew Barrymore romantic comedies…”

“It does make sense, but let me tell you a secret. I wanted to put that one down, but ended up picking a different movie.” Richard winked at him and it took all the self control Jan had to not reveal to him that he knows. “Also, you remembered that comment about Drew Barrymore? I didn’t even remember it until you mentioned it.”

“We are friends, I remember things about you. Things like your favourite actress… Maybe not the French cinema ones, because most of them I’ve never heard of, but you know… other ones…”

“Give French cinematography a try, you may end up liking it. We could put a film on during our next charcuterie night?”

“How did you end up liking it? I didn’t think goat farms had access to a lot of fancy French cinemas.”

“Well, my maman had a big city soul and I got it from her. She never did get out of the farm, but I did and have been living with splendour for the two of us ever since. Never looked back…”

“You never talked about her before… She sounds like a lovely woman.”

“She was… She was the only one who would get my father to dance with her. He was the most stern man you’ve ever met, but when she put on an old record and asked him to dance he would, just like that… Bought them an Adele record for their 20th wedding anniversary with the money I earned in my first job because that was the only new release at the local store. Père and I listen to it every time I visit him back home.”

They were now both lying down, propped up on the big pillow and looking at the ceiling, Richard leaning on him.

“What is your family like? I don’t think I ever heard you talking about them either…”

“Well, I have a brother and a sister, both older than me, and my parents own a small corner shop…”

Jan woke up in the middle of the night disoriented. He looked around and noticed someone lying on top of him. 

Richard’s rhythmic breaths and the rise and fall of his chest calmly brought Jan back to Earth and stopped him from panicking lest he wake up the smaller man. They must have fallen asleep whilst talking.

The Dutchman looked back at his friend and smiled softly at how the other man curled up into him. He made a move to reach for the blanket at the foot of the bed without stirring the Frenchman but was unsuccessful in his attempt as the other man stirred awake.

“Morning… Well, not morning, but there isn’t really a greeting for the middle of the night…”

“Hello to you too… Can we go back to sleep, or are you gonna move some more?”

“I… Well, uh… Sure, let’s, let’s get back to sleeping.” Before lying back down Jan draped the blanket over the both of them and spared one last look at his best friend. He waited before Richard’s breathing slowed down again before speaking.

“I was the one who put down that movie… Because I saw you struggling to pick one, and I decided to pick the one you wrote off.” He was now absentmindedly tracing patterns on Richard’s right shoulder and arm while spilling some stuff he’d be too scared to admit in the daylight. “I couldn’t stop looking at you that day… And many days before and after that. It’s been a thing for quite some time. And now I’m thinking that I’d like to buy a gramophone so that we could get a vinyl of some Adele album and dance to it, and maybe visit your dad on the farm… You could show me the goats. I've never touched a goat before… And maybe we could grow older together, but not as friends… As something…”

“Just so you know, I’m not asleep yet…”Richard whispered softly as Jan's face dropped. “And I think I would like that too, but maybe we could talk about it more in the morning?” Jan’s face went from horrified to touched to happy as he hugged the man lying next to him.

He pressed a soft kiss to the top of Richard’s head and burrowed his face in his hair. Richard in turn kissed his neck before turning to find a comfortable position and go back to sleep.

“Goodnight Richard”

“Goodnight Jan”