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precious-little-scoundrel · 5 months

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Masters of the Air Fanfic

As requested by sweet @arianatheangel-girl and the subsequent poll for a “Buck Cleven Fic before the series comes out” -and I, being a madwoman with no impulse control and a faint recollection of the book, have delivered…this…whatever this is

Song Challenge: i was challenged by dear @the-ugly-swan for a twenty favored songs challenge and I’m gonna go ahead and make this part of it. August by Taylor Swift informed some of the bittersweet timeline here, with infidelity not being the enemy but rather the lack of possessing oneself fully during wartime to give to another

Spoilers: historical accuracy and inaccuracy abound here so, beware there are some biographical facts about Cleven in here that might count as spoilers to those who wish to watch the series with a blank slate. While to the history purists I must beg for a substantial amount of artistic license to be granted me, and obviously I’ve not seen the show yet and I crunched the timeline to my own will

Reader insert but without the use of “y/n” -I’m utterly fudging a bit on the likelihood of a WAAF lady being part of the American ground crew, however, I had in my minds eye the vision of a greasy mechanic and a glamorous flyboy and it wouldn’t budge, so shhh, go with the vibe

Warnings: mature, 18+. Fluffy smut was requested and while it is very brief and mild in here, not very explicit in phrasing, it’s quite present and a plot point so beware. Also, Virgin!Gale has my heart so we went with that. No shade to dear Marjorie irl, I’ll probably end up writing fics about her once the show gives me Inspo. Some angst due to war, POW’s, etc, mild language

Word count: a monstrous 12k

They came in like locusts at the height of summer, long prayed for, oft cursed in moments of perilous isolation, those ever so intriguingly shiny Americans.

Swarming with a metal buzz over the flatlands of East Anglia, big hulking beasts touched down on fresh tarmacs with more grace than anything that size ought to have, flashing the most bizarre and suggestive paintings on their gleaming fuselages. Flying Fortresses, they were called, and deserved the name. Nothing but the biggest, the loudest, the most alarming machinery would do for the American war effort, and now all this mighty strength was Britain’s too, no longer alone, no longer enduring.

Now the fight could be taken to the enemy in earnest. Out of their flying ships poured the most alarmingly young looking faces, jaunty hats and leather jackets, they looked every bit the sort of fellows war was advertised to.

Farmers in their tractors, mothers with daughters still under their command and RAF veterans all looked askance at such pristine warriors. Had their fertile fields been paved into airfields just for this? Were these gum chewing boys the long expected aid? It wasn’t anti-climactic, nothing American could ever be, it was all just alarmingly fresh. It was understandable then, the initial tentativeness the locals felt towards their new occupants, the way the boys took up such space in the rural villages, made such a racket in the pubs, chased every skirt that swished in the rainy summer breeze, stuck hands out for a shake no matter the introduction. They were a warm, boisterous and confident lot, all much needed attributes in wartime Britain, and soon, the initial distrust of the citizenry thawed, hands were shaken in return and invitations made. An amiable amalgamation eventually occurred, Norfolk never to recover or return to whatever placidity had been her’s before the arrival of the 100th.

Personally, you couldn’t wait to get your hands on them. The planes, that is.

Amalgamation was less a choice for yourself and your service members than a duty. It was abnormal, having a mixed ground crew, British and American servicemen too often clashing in hierarchy disputes for it to be standard, but with deployment rates so high and casualties mounting, ground crew became a case of whichever skilled individuals could be called upon to keep the operation running, the pilots up and the enemy bombed.

You were just glad to be near home, first time back since ‘39 when you’d signed up in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force -even if your rural hometown was now overrun with Americans. They weren’t a bad lot at all, at least not the ones you’d encountered so far on base. Amiable and unexpectedly eager, undeterred by veterans’ grim looks and tales of the woodchipper across the channel, that line of anti-aircraft that shredded anything trying to penetrate the continent.

“Better get crackin’ then.” Was the common response followed by a grin.

Your crew chief sergeant, Ken Lemmons, an American with a forelock of sandy ringlets and the patience of a saint, made the job easier even as every ounce of expertise was exacted from each man -or woman- under him. Feeding a fiery chain of bullets into the turret gun under a hot July sun, you thought your papa may have had the right of it when he tried to dissuade you from choosing the harsher duties of the Auxiliary Force. You could’ve been pouring over a map in the cool of the boardroom right now, or passing on radio messages, even shuttling planes would’ve been more relaxing, but no, you’d spent your life passing him tools in his garage, your papa had been building flying machines when most for these boys were still in diapers, and that path called to you, too. So for you it was grueling maintenance work and the ever present grime of grease on your hands and the awkward reach of twisted metal repairs. Gratefully, after their first mission, there were plenty of them back safe, however riddled their fortresses might’ve been.

It was interesting, the way certain of the flight crew treated the ships. Some were endeared but indifferent to their repairs while others hovered at each hole and tear, like over protective mothers, while you and your mates tried to do your jobs.

Why, one plane in the five assigned to your care was even named “Our Baby”. With such a moniker it made sense that its porcelain faced pilot would caress the shredded wing with a misty eyed frown at each wound, like it were a breathing thing, a race horse, a friend. You didn’t judge it, and he didn’t seem aware of his audience, he’d be back out there doing his own check up after debriefing. Never interrupting your work, always quick to step aside or duck out of the way of a ground crewman’s path, it wasn’t time to chatter or make introductions, although sometimes when the work took long and his reports longer, he’d be there to bid goodnight to you all, soft, American drawl saying “Goodnight, thank ya, goodnight, good work, thank ya” again and again to each.

You grew to recognize them, the ones each mission spared, there were so many and under hats and bundled in leather jackets they tended to blend together, but there were those who made their mark, if not on you then on Dorace in cartography and Eileen at the Red Cross. There was much tittering and speculation, after all, spread thin as their time was, there was also plenty of off time, made all the more charged and anxious as it came in the form of waiting for new orders. The men would be vibrating with nervous energy and generous in the flush of a recent victory and they took it out on the little villagers who in good British fashion took it on the chin and challenged them to a contest of good spirits.

Those were happy days, less anxious than the preceding ones and less heavy than those making up the year after. You dared be roped into the multiple pub crawls, often choosing the most sensible and quiet of the group as your victim and attaching yourself to their side for the evening. This tactic had its fallibility, sometimes those moderates were such a bore as to be unsupportable or hadn’t enough verve to make a full night of it and retired early like respectable, curfew-abiding saps. That’s how you found yourself one night ensconced in a beer pungent corner of Flaggen’s, green leather seats sticky under your palms, with Major Egan fanning out a wad of cash in front of you. It was a blatant attempt to bribe you to clear his aircraft sooner than the last inspection suggested.

“Suggestions” was Egan’s term for regulations.

If you were less tipsy you wouldn’t have giggled at the man’s idiocy, but his arm was heavy around your shoulders and this very cash had bought you one too many gin and tonics. “These regulations keep you alive!” You chided him, shaking your head and feeling the room tip as you did. Truly these Americans could hold their liquor, almost as well as the Polish Squadron when it came to a binge.

“A little flack isn’t gonna keep her down.” he scoffed, “I’ve been grounded for a week now-“

“-I don’t have the authority-“

“-and I’m not gonna sit here while Buck goes up and racks up his number!” Eagen was vehemently slurring and your drunken mind tried to process who Buck was, if not Egan himself.

“Aren’t you Bucky?” you asked, bewildered.

-Americans and their nicknames.

“Yeah.”

“So who’s Buck?” you concentrated very hard on the ancient coaster beneath your latest pint.

“It’s Buck! It’s Gale, Cleven, Major Gale Cleven!” Egan waxed louder and more dramatic with each addition. “You keep clearing his plane! But not mine! Why’s that, huh?”

“How do you know that?” you asked, dubious and only in the raucous of this little pub would his loud voice go unheeded. Compared to the ongoing dart game to the left behind the half wall, an elephant’s trumpeting would be considered bashful.

“ ‘Cause he tells me?” he replied, bewildered at your slowness, “Says you and your crew are little fairies, crawlin’ all over his plane and patching it up better than ever after each mission. And then you clear him. Simple as that.”

“I don’t have authority to clear anyone.” you repeated.

“Huh,” Egan grunted, “how’does he mean then?”

“I don’t know.” you replied firmly, “I doubt I’ve even got your plane, i don’t see you around.”

“I don’t stay around, that’s your job, patching up. I just fly the damn thing.”

“Oh, well.” you shrugged, “I’ve had five, it’s down to three after last mission.” Three years ago the mention of that ratio of losses would’ve sank your mood to the floorboards, by now it’s horrifically routine. “What’s yours called?”

“Mugwump.” he grinned proudly, a flash of white beneath his dark mustache, the man’s face positively shimmered with sweat.

“Serial?” you asked demurely, just to be difficult.

He squinted his eyes shut briefly, head tilted back as if to ask the heavens for help and the recited in a drill master’s staccato “42-30066, ma’am, yes ma’am.”

You giggled again and Egan’s arm jostled your shoulders, smushing you further into him. They were good fun, these boys, didn’t even mind your horrifyingly unflattering uniform with its bulging pockets adding bulk where your curves should take center stage and your stupid pleated cap making you look to be half baker, half doll. You preferred your plain navy coveralls but you’d hardly be let into an establishment in them. Egan’s warm arm didn’t seem to mind the excess poof of the material, he smashed it right down with his hand’s firm grip, he was fun, you decided, no harm in good fun. “Alas, not one of mine.” you sighed, focusing hard on the serial number.

“Damn.” he swore, playing at dejection.

“No,” you went on, “but I’ve got this one, a very spoiled one, maybe you know whose it is. They named it ‘Our Baby’!”

Poor manners and personnel etiquette though it was, you couldn’t say it without tittering.

Egan didn’t laugh, he just looked at you like you’d proved his point. “Yeah,” he replied vehemently, “That’s Buck Cleven’s!”

“Oooh.” -So it was him, the fighting cherub, the walking doughboy, toothpick, baby at wings: there were a dozen or more nicknames you and the ground crew gave the wing-petting Major behind his back. “He always says goodnight to us.” you said instead.

“Is that where he is when I wanna go for a drink?” Egan exclaimed, “Ha! You’d think he was married to the ole ship.”

“He handles her beautifully.” You feel oddly compelled to defend, he’s a master at flight and as someone who must repair each fault of his landings and his leavings and his missions, you feel some loyalty to his finesse. “He handles her so well.” you repeat in the tone of a woman who’s seen some aviation in her time, young though you may be.

“Well let me let you into a lil secret,” Egan smirks and you brace without knowing why, he is, after all, not the respectable and dull men you choose to go out with, he is the dangerous sort you bring those dullards along to deter, “shes the only ‘she’ that boy has ever ‘handled’ -if ya get my drift.”

The sleazy wag of his eyebrows leaves no room for ignorance, you feel your face heat up, wether in prudery for the topic or second hand embarrassment for his friend’s sake, you don’t know.

“Nothing wrong with that.” you reply coldy, only to distance yourself from the road his body language seemed to be hurtling you both down.

“Quite right. Nothin’ at all!” Egan agrees vehemently, his smile easy and his eyes clever “But I’d be a poor friend if I didn't try to remedy his predicament.”

“Telling me is somehow part of this remedy?” you were suspicious, rightfully so.

“Maybe.” Egan drawls it out, shifting in his seat to no longer corner you, his attention drawn to the nearby dart game. The man of the moment, the subject, the handler of planes and none else, was not here. He had such a luminous head of golden hair, it would be a beacon amongst the muddy haired crowd flinging darts. “The thing of it is, dear,” Egan confided, “I've had an absolutely marvelous time since I got here. And I think that’s rather essential, for sanity and for international relations, don’t you? I’ve gotten to know all sorts of wonderful people, lovely people like yourself-“

“-word is, you’ve known them a little too biblically, no wonder Cleven avoids your outings.” You could not help but temper him. “Half of Great Britain has had the privilege, if some are to be believed.”

“And so what if I have? I love dancin’!” he laughed quite happily at your barb and you didn’t have it in you to pull down any further a man who was sacrificing so much day in and out. “Getting to know Great Britain is a better occupation than pettin’ plane wings under the moonlight.”

You tittered again at his words and the oddly endearing memories you had of watching Major Ceven petting and whispering to his plane like she was his long-standing beloved, loitering ground crew unheeded. “He does do that.” you agreed.

“Hey, everyone’s got their method.” Egan insisted in his friend’s defense, “But I have told him, it’s good for the morale to mingle, even if he hates drinkin’.“

You pucker your face at that. “I know he mingles, Violet says he’s a doll when he goes to market.” you point out, small town chatter gets around and while you can’t say you know Cleven, you know he’s mild mannered and precious. And a terribly pretty face too, which isn’t fair, he oughta be an ass which a face that cute. “And he got a tan from somewhere last week.“

“Oh, so ya noticed!” Egan is triumphant, “A bunch of us used our day passes to go messin’ around in boats on the canals.”

“Good for you.” you didn’t know what else to say. “Why are we talking about him? What’s your point? I can ask for your plane to be transferred to my crew, but it won’t get you a sloppy clearance. And if your friend is so socially awkward he can’t even manage a pub night, you can hardly expect me to be flattered that you consider me prime material to throw at him.”

“He’s not awkward.” Egan cut to the chase quite serious, in mission mode, “Buck just had his hopes tangled up back home, and now he’s here he’s finding it hard to accept that hopes were all they were. She’s real moved on.” Well that had hurt, you winced in sympathy. “I warned him, everything during this war has got to be taken as a bit inpermanent. Don’t fall in love with Texas girls when you’re headed to England -via: Louisiana, Indiana, hell, by New York she’d stopped writing.”

“And now the texas girl has-“

“-found a Texan, I guess.” He shrugged and chugged the last of his pint. “She’s gettin’ married, it's really over. So, -“ he made a broad gesture as if to explain his reasoning for this entire segue. “-you like projects, you wouldn’t be in the line of work you’re in if ya didn’t, so whaddya say?”

You looked around the dimly lit pub in search of two things, sunny blonde hair and a clock to tell you how badly you were going to regret this night, come morning. “He’s not even here.” you balked.

“Well, no-“

“-what I say is,” you grinned at him disbelieving, “you owe me another gin and tonic for subjecting me to such inane chatter.”

His grin should have served as warning enough that he would neither drop the subject nor let you off free this evening. In fact, the ticking clock and its late curfew breaking hours became the least of your concerns come morning. The cool wash of bitter juniper blended into the pungent flow of beer, it blurred everything, soon there was a great swelling of pride for your native village, a pub crawl was on, all three visited and drank from, an army Jeep was requisitioned without authority, there was some incident regarding a policeman‘s helmet. The latter being the reason why you found yourself in “jail” the next morning, nursing a raging headache and questioning life decisions while glaring at John Egan’s polished boots.

There was very little talk about bail or Air Force hours being exceptioned, the more pressing concern to the Bobbies who had nabbed you was the coed holding cell. Thorpe Abbotts was a small place, after all, and you liked it that way. If this overly indulgent night could be kept away from the military police, all would be well.

You had one hope: Harry Crosby was sensibly absent from the holding cell, having a keen sense of when to depart from the raucous joyride at the precise moment to save himself a demerit. It was an extreme embarrassment to you that you’d not had the same sense. In fact, fond as you were of a bit of a knees up, you couldn’t quite credit the fact you had allowed yourself such free reign, or accomplished such foolishness. Glowering at Major Egan’s face now, animated with delighted chagrin at your shared plight as it was, you vowed to never again hook your fortunes to his, as it were.

Your resolve, and humiliation, was about to be compounded, exponentially.

There was a bustle of a visitor entering the precinct, easily heard in the small space, followed by the low hum of mild mannered conversation. It went on for sometime, and no amount of straining at the bars and cocking of ears would allow you, Egan or your fellow misfortunates to ascertain the gist of it. Violet’s husband was the main constable, and you were quite certain he’d be moderate in his sentence, he had his helmet back, after all. It was the Air Force penalty of not being on base in time this morning that you feared, a growing nausea that compounded the misery of your aching head. They’d not discharge Egan, they’d probably not even demote him, he was too crucial and he’d done this one too many times for it to be grace alone saving him. When he was needed, really needed, he was there. That’s what counted. The same could be said of you, but that hardly mattered given your low rank.

Violet’s husband, also known as constable Herbert, came in sight and with a jangle of keys and a tap to the side of his nose, swung open the bars of infamy and gestured for you and your fellow inmates to file out.

“All sorted.” He declared. His gaze lingered on you as it had many times in your life when you’d been caught jumping in puddles after church, “Let this be a lesson and a warning to you.”

You tried your best at both obeisance and penitence, both of which were rather natural feelings at the present time, while hurrying past as fast as was respectful, your approaching shift hours making your heart thump in panic.

On the steps outside, your savior was loitering against the wrought iron fence, thumbing at the petunias in the nearby window box. Gale Cleven was a mile long of lanky body in perfectly pressed and tailored Air Force greens, fresh faced as the good conscienced are, hair combed without his cap and a smile on his soft face that was composedly long suffering, rather than endeared, as he watched you miscreants pour out of the modest brick building.

You stumbled to a halt on the first step at the sight of him and allowed your instincts to take over, hands smoothing down hair and skirt with frantic self consciousness. You must’ve looked a rumple.

“I hope last night was worth it.” Cleven drawled in that voice of his, so oddly deep for so fresh a face, his placid smile growing into something more genuinely mirthful as Egan smooched at him in gratitude and swore that he knew his Buck wouldn’t abandon them, that his Buck would pull through for them. “I order a round of toothpaste for everyone and cold showers, you stink.” Gale shied away without any real effort, nodding in greeting to the boys he recognized.

Then, as if in the most painfully slow motion with all the strong string accompaniment of a silver screen scene, his eyes landed on you and an odd ache formed in your chest at the anticipation of his disapproval.

It made you tense and draw yourself up to your full height, looking about as regal as a drenched bantam in your disheveled dignity, but you weren’t about to be relegated to another tier than these boys he so amusedly indulged.

“Y’all know what time it is?” he asked mildy, those azure orbs with their batting dark fringe didn’t waver and you realized he indeed had more guts than you’d given him credit for.

There was a chorus of “no”s and various guesses based on the fast evaporating fog and the lightening sky.

“Zero five thirty.” he ended the suspense with the cock of an eyebrow at you.

“Shit!” Egan was suddenly animated, “Shit, shit-“

“Hey, you keep your swearin’ away from my sweet lil corporal.” Cleven chided, and it took you a brief moment to startle upon realizing he meant you. And he thought you sweet? “C’mon Miss,” he waved you down the steps and for some inexplicable reason you felt very compelled to obey and suddenly stood beneath his gaze like a dutiful child awaiting deliverance or censure, “I’ve only got this bike, petrol allotment ran out when we went to the canals last week. But it’ll get ya back faster than this lot. Reckon you can manage on the handlebar?”

“Wha-?“ you glanced sideways at the bike with its large, sweeping handlebars and second guessed his meaning until he himself was straddling it. His legs required the seat to be hiked up impossibly high and the narrow nip of his waist was accentuated by the posture. Those padded, fleece puffed jackets you had seen him in had done no credit to his form, a toothpick he may have been with how terribly lean he was, but he was firm in all the right places. He was also waiting on you to answer while you ogled him.

“Gosh yes, I can, if you’re sure? Awfully kind of you.” you blathered and moved in a hurry to make up for your stalling, keenly conscious of his eyes on your back as you shimmied your backside up onto his handlebars, feeling the warm press of his hand as he helped steady you from tipping all the way back. You wiggled on the thin metal bar, spreading your legs on either side of the front wheel and doing your best to ignore the raucous commentary of the still tipsy audience of your fellow inmates swaying on the precinct steps. “Y’all just be glad there’s no mission scheduled today.” he snarked to them instead and they chimed up that last night’s idiocy was calculated with that in mind.

“Huh.” Cleven uttered, unimpressed, behind you and it made you shiver, worse than if your father caught wind of this stunt. “Darlin’ put your hands over mine, s’gonna get wobbly takin’ off.” he directed next and you did as you were told, looking back over your shoulder at him with a grateful smile that you were relieved to see returned, pink lips stretching and a freckled nose bunching up sweetly when all of the sudden a rush caught you by surprise and the bike was in motion and you whipped your head back to view the street as it rushed up ahead of you. “See ya boys!” he hollered out as a mutinous babble rose from his friends at being left to jog back.

The young man could put some speed on a bike, uphill too. Or, as much of a hill as could be found this far East. You could hear him chuckle when you squeaked at the first jolt of a pothole, your thumbs hooking under his hands and curling into his palms. They were warm and calloused, dry from the cool breeze and you may have imagined the way he squeezed them in assaurance but you did not imagine the way his voice piped up again, smooth and conversational: “Harry told me if I was quick I could get you out in time, I think we’re gonna make it. S’dont worry, even if Sergeant Lemmons gives ya trouble, I’ll insist.”

“That’s really too kind of you.” The chill of windburn and a substantial amount of remorse made your cheeks glow scarlet. “All of it is. I’m rather ashamed.”

“I didn’t take you for an all nighter sort.” he agreed but followed it with a soothing compliment, “You’ve always been nothin’ but perfect. P-p-perfectly punctual, I mean, and there’s no reason to let Egan’s idea of fun ruin your record.”

“Wasn’t his fault. Not wholly.” you sighed, giving Violet a bashful wave as you passed her opening the shop, a wave which Cleven mirrored behind you and between the two of you letting go the bike, it nearly dumped you both. It was luck and sheer persistence that righted you and kept your balance. “I’m afraid it’s a bit of a bad habit, picked it up at Northolt.”

“Where’s that?” he asked.

“South, by the coast.” you said, unsure why you felt the need to explain your debauchery away, “I was working a ground crew down there for a bunch of Polish Pilots. Spitfires mainly. That squadron nabbed the most kills of any in the RAF back in ‘40. Why, even Churchill visited more times than I can count, he found them good fun. Too much fun, they never went to bed without downing half a barrel. There was dice built into the bottom of the pints at the Black Bull, rather addictive, rolling to see who would buy the next round. —There was always a next.” You added upon reflection.

That was also the year you had lost your brother. The correlation between the habit and the loss wasn’t to be dwelt on.

“Huh,” Cleven let out one of him contemplative hums, “and how do we compare?” he asked surprisingly.

“How?” you laughed, daring to crane your neck back to see him in the early morning sunshine, pretty and sweet and arch in his expression. Dusk had not done his mama’s work on his face any justice, it made you want to pant he was so pretty.

“I dunno, in any way,” he laughed in turn, not even breathless as he sped the bike over the cobblestones, the village barely awake and mostly quiet, “how do we compare?”

“To the Poles?”

“Or the French. Or your own, the RAF ain’t no joke.” he amended, “Whoever is our competition.”

“So it is a competition.” you smirked -how very American of him. “Depends,” you hedged playfully, “Our boys are so very nice, familiar, they never run out the right coinage during a date either. But the French are better flirts while the Dutch are better dancers. But the Poles, they know how to romance. Lots of hand kissing and flowers, so many flowers there had to be rules made for overstocking the billet.”

“Sounds like we gotta step up our game.” he decided.

“Is that what you meant? How you compare? First impressions?”

“I-I- guess, yeah.” he now sounded confused, “I mean, what else? You got scores for aircraft?”

“I do.” you replied, as it was true, “But that’s unfair, you’ve only just arrived. I thought maybe you wanted to know something more -salacious.”

“Like?” His tone behind you was guarded and you doubted if the alcohol of last night were not still buzzing and fortifying your brazenness, that you’d ever go through with what you said next.

“Other performances. For instance, in bed.”

You felt his fingers flutter around the bars beneath your own, you gripped them tighter, not just because the stretch of old road before the air base was ancient and pitted but because you were in an agony of suspense as to how he’d take your forwardness.

“There’s a record of that somewhere?” he asked at last, a beat too long, too delayed for casualness, too morose for flippancy.

“In fact there is.” you responded carefully. “A little diary of rankings, actually, there’s multiple and whenever there’s a grand assembly of the WAAF or the WACs, they’re passed about and tallied.”

“Sweet Jesus.” he swore behind you, “And here I’ve been chalkin’ up railways and munition dump targets like they’re some achievement.”

“Oh it’s all a bit of silliness.” You assured, not intending to make him glum.

“Do-“ he hesitated and you prayed for strength for him to spit it out as the airfield came in sight on the flat plain ahead. He didn’t.

“-Do I what?” you prodded softly.

“Are one of these little tallies yours?” he asked miserably.

You grinned to yourself and felt the sunshine seemed brighter and the air crisper than ever before as it rushed in your face with the slowing speed of his bike. “No, not in the least. I merely keep track of Sally’s ledger. It’s all a bit too -messy, for me.”

You dared peak behind you again and he looked relieved, then blushed furiously at your observance of him. “Well, who does Sally say is winning?” he dared.

“Romania.” you chortled and he did too, in shock if nothing else. “But Egan’s caught wind of it, he’s quite determined to save your country’s dominance, you don’t need to sweat it.”

His frown was back and you had to focus on not falling off as he slowed the bike to a halt, momentum precarious as his long legs kicked out and walked it the last yard to the segregated barracks, you felt his hand again on your waist to steady you. “Does that bother you?” he asked earnestly, sorrow in his blue eyes.

He offered a hand for you as you hopped down and it was you who held onto it long after it was needed. “Bother me?”

“Yeah, him -consortin’…with Sally?” he pressed, hands quite engulfing your one, “Does it hurt you? Bucky, see, he doesn’t mean to hurt, he’s just so-“

“-Blimey, you are a dear.” you marveled and then amended your interruption as your amusement only further creased that sweet face, “If I am ever again in Major Egan’s company, it will only be to escape it just as quickly. I’ve had quite enough of…consorting.”

“That so?” The lackadaisical confidence he exhibited outside of the precinct was back again, a not unattractive smirk plastered on his vulnerable face, a scheme in his guileless eyes. “Had enough of holding cells?”

“Quite.” you smirked back. “A quiet family dinner is more my style, the occasional picnic, even a zip round Oxford as one must show the foreigners about.” you paused and squeezed his hand once more, “And I do enjoy a bike ride.”

You did not know if he cataloged your preferences for an ideal date or not, life was busy, after all, and the momentary frolics in the July sunshine and banter on the tarmac and evenings in the pub were the exception. Time went on. Most of life was spent in the air, in his case, and in yours, beneath the belly of his beast, wrench in hand. But ever after his gallant rescue of you, there was more than the passing “goodnight” paid to you, there were cheerful smiles on his exhausted face when he returned from a mission, as if you were the one face he was coming back to. With an old familiar dread you noticed the way you begin to take each hole and dent and damage to his plane personally, as if it had been exacted on something precious to you. You have begun to care, for him and for his men, and your tired heart could barely do more than dread what that might lead to.

Good fun. That’s what these boys were supposed to be.

Gale Cleven hadn’t proven much fun. And somehow that was worse. It was worse and also unbearably honoring to be the last face he saw before taking it off, flags in your hands waving in front of his hulking bomber, giving the old familiar directions for a perfect takeoff, one he executed sublimely time and again. His sober, purposeful nods to you before he engaged and taxied out for a mission of death was more intense and intimate than any bouquet or even, your thought, a kiss. It was true the donut dollies on the sidelines were often the last faces of home that many of those boys would see. But in the his cockpit, looking down at your shrimp sized figure on the tarmac, both Major Cleven and you knew that for him, it was yours.

Once, there was a scare, in the first days of august. More than a scare if you were being honest, your heartbeat about stopped and didn’t pick back up for a few hours until word came in. The rest of the base wasn’t much better.

Ten planes had not come back. -Among them, Our Baby. And Mugwump. For two officers, so crucial, so senior, idolized and beloved as they were, to not return, was a blow like none other. You weren’t alone in hovering around the control shack, taking license of your friendship with Dorace to get a play by play of any news. When news came, such as it was, it was both relieving and exasperating.

It would seem there was some problem, a defect or too great of a hit. Orders to land in enemy territory were ignored, however, by Cleven no less. He had doggedly pushed on, safely landing them in allied Africa, of all places. It took almost a day for this information to finally be pasted together, by the end of it you were sad, haggard and half useless in your coveralls, stupendously relieved for a man you were supposed to feel professionally about.

Instead, that night, tucked in your own bed after a meal with your parents and little brother, you thanked God for keeping him -them, all of them- safe. And found yourself pondering the tan on him when he got back from his African foray. Some jealous part of you feared he might be kept there but a week later the thunderous hum of approaching bombers buzzed the air overhead of Thorpe Abbotts and the satisfying thwump of wheels touching down brought them back. There was a frenzy of greetings, flight and ground crew eager to welcome them back, the radio operators, too, and even the civilians who’d managed to get on base.

Your little brother among them. Donald wanted to see them back safe and it wasn’t dangerous, and it wasn’t dire, not returning from a mission the planes wouldn’t be in such poor shape. They’d been repaired in Africa, enough to fly them all the way back to England. So little Donald was nearby and when the crowd parted and a bee-line for Cleven became apparent, he took advantage and gave the young man a firm handshake in greeting.

“Hey buddy, thank ya, who do you belong to?” Buck laughed while returning the firm grip.

“I’m her brother.” Donald pointed you out proudly among the dispersing crowd and you rolled your eyes at his expectancy for Gale to know or care about you, more than your most pertinent work on base.

“Oh are ya now, hers, huh?” he grinned at you, “Been talkin’ about me?” he greeted, there was a still healing scrape on his left temple that your fingers itched to soothe. How badly had he hit his head?

“Of course I have.” you defended, happiness bubbling under your lips and threatening to make you smile more than was professional, you could see Sergeant Lemmons observing you from the side and tried to keep some decorum. “We thought you’d died.” You stated plainly, it wasn’t any secret to Donald, as soon as the plane had gone missing and before radio contact had been reestablished, you’d rushed home and made the family pray over supper.

“We’ve been praying for you.” Donald agreed, and you saw Cleven startle, a gasped intake of breath between those lush lips and his eyes seemed to water as he searched first your brother’s face and then your own.

“You have?” he choked out, raspy and touched.

“Yes.” you whispered, mouth twisting in a ugly grimace to hold back your own emotion. It was of little use, something beyond War Effort investment in his well being had been admitted. “We thought you might be dea-“

-you didn’t finish your reiteration of your dread. Your face, a greasy and mist spattered face, was suddenly smushed into the padded leather of his bomber jacket, nose tucked right into the fleece apex where his pale blue scarf always rested on his throat.

He was hugging you, you realized with delayed surprise.

“-even though it made the potatoes cold, Da insisted on prayin’ every night after she told us-“ Donald was waxing eloquent on his own sacrifices of having one added prayer request lengthening his mealtime but you were oblivious to more than the firm press of Cleven’s still gloved hand to the back of your scarf wrapped head, some strong emotion shuddering through his body against your own. A tremor of terror and pain, you suspected, emotions he’d been suppressing all week.

After all, the saved weren’t supposed to be shaken up. They’d been saved, what was there to be off about? You’d seen enough pilots after a close call to know it was every bit as bad or worse than actual disaster. They’d send him right back up again in days, and that was what was expected, demanded, required. He was tremoring against you and you gripped him tighter, sympathetic and aching to cure it somehow. Even for a moment.

“We’ll keep praying.” you assured, and you heard him clear his throat, snotty and rough. “Oh, blast, I��ve positively greased your jacket.” you mourned as he let you go, finally, and you caught sight of the mess your filthy hands and face had imprinted on it during the embrace.

He chuckled as he looked down at the imprint, “S’fine.”

After such an exchange of emotion the air felt charged between you two, without privacy or precedence, it felt unthinkable to linger in that mood. You turned to his plane and pet the fuselage with unstudied fondness, it had been horrid having the old bird absent. You were not above having favorites and the love he poured into his ship, somehow, like some old fairytale truism, made the hulking metal beast lovable, in turn. “How’s our baby, hmm?” you asked him, giving him a sly smile and he took your proffered out seamlessly, joining you in cataloging the damage that had not been deemed severe enough to hamper his return.

“Don’t crawl under here, sir!” you protested as you wiggled under the belly only to find him beside you in the plane’s shadow, “You’ll be a mess!”

“I’ve already got stains.” he brushed your worries off, and you knew it was true. Bloodstains in fact. He had lost a man, the report said, and apparently, judging by his trousers, Buck had held the poor fellow as he bled out. “And I wanna show you the spot I’m worried ‘bout.”

“Alright.” you conceded, allowing him to direct you to the nose. “Watch it Donald!” you had to reprimand your little brother who predictably followed after, “You’ll burn yourself if you touch that, this thing was just running.”

“Careful buddy.” Gale echoed gently beside you and pushed his little head down, more into a crawl. You refused to allow the gentle way he treated the brat to warm you, you refused. Or at least, you refused to let it show, the tingle and heat you felt being all too consuming to be denied.

He was lovely. But you already knew that. He was even more lovely when, upon crawling out from under Our Baby, he took his scarf from around his neck, silk decadently soft, flesh warmed and smelling strongly of his exertions, and swiped it across your greased cheek.

“You’ve got just a lil more…” he practically mumbled and wiped down to your chin, firm, gentle little rubs of the silk which required his other hand to grasp your chin to steady you. You weren’t sure when he’d taken off his gloves, but the feel of his skin on yours was heady.

“It’ll take a couple days.” You predicted regarding the repairs, “Which means you’ll have a few days free, if they don’t drown you in reports.”

“Oh they will.” he laughed, “But s’long as my days are free, means yours aren’t.” he pointed out.

“I guess that’s true.”

“We shoulda thought of that when we chose this line of work.” he joked and your cheeks flamed at the realization he wished to spend time with you. “But you’ll have your nights still, yeah?”

Coming from anyone else, the request for your nights to be reserved would strike you as suggestive indeed. But this was Buck, and when he mentioned nights you imagined nothing but taking him home for a tepid potato and rationed powdered milk supper and the warm reception of your family. His weary eyes suggested how badly he needed that. You could give it to him, and it made your heart glow.

“Yes, I’ll have my nights.” you agreed, “And you can have them, too.”

Sergeant Lemmons agreed with your estimation of Our Baby’s damage the following day and four long days after were spent patching up damage that suggested what a hellish ride that must’ve been. Someone else hosed the blood out of the bay but it turned the puddle on the concrete beside you sickly pink.

To and fro from office to barracks to observation tower, Cleven would stop by to see his ‘baby’ on these occasions. The heckling the ground crew gave you regarding this potential double meaning was agonizing and almost made his attentions not worth it. But then he’d be dropping to a squat to chat with you as you soldered metal, heedless of the sparks, or else bringing scones from the mess to refresh you and, again, wiping your face often with his fancy scarves despite your protests that it was futile.

And at night, on the second day, you made good on yours and Donald’s word and brought him to dinner. It was a quiet walk from the base to the end of the long main road, right to the outskirts of the village, where your family’s unassuming little thatched cottage nestled amongst mama’s victory garden, daddy’s aeroplane hanger and repair shop loomed ugly and dark behind.

The look on Buck’s face when you met him outside the base’s gate at seven in the evening in a dress and heels was worth capturing. But you hadn’t a camera with you and it wasn’t like you were liable to forget. His pure look of awe and appreciation for your cleaned up and girlish state was nearly comic if it weren’t so flattering.

“Darlin-“ he began in a rush but did not finish, only taking you lightly by the fingertips and spinning you slowly, his eyes wide like he was seeing a marvel, which, maybe he was, -your womanly form finally liberated from puffy uniforms and ugly coveralls. Wholesome as your intentions were for the evening, and indeed for him in general, it was some relief and delight to know he was capable of getting hot under the collar. His mama’s well drilled manners soon caught up to his unbridled appreciation and a deluge of charmingly proper compliments rained down on you next until you had to put a stop to his babble by tugging him down the road with the reminder of dinner as incentive.

“You’re sure they won’t mind?” he began his worries again, nervous to meet your parents.

If he’d been like the rest of the boys he’d know just how much mingling was already common. It wasn’t remotely odd to bring him home, not when you lived so near. “Don’t be silly, they’ve been begging to meet you and Donald has plans of torturing you with his plane models and Papa wants to show you his shop and mama thinks you're much too skinny, I’m sure she’s gone to the black market to grab something to fatten you-“

“-how’s she know that?” he interrupted in shock.

“Oh,” you flushed, realizing your misstep, “I’ve talked of you. And she recognized you, she and Violet are thick as thieves and -it’s not like you’re unremarkable. A physical description is rather easy to give when you, well, when you look like…you.”

“What do I look like?” he cried out but his cheeks were smiling despite his outrage, “Malnourished?”

“Like a lanky cherub.” you refuted and were pleased that the late summer sun was still bright enough at this long hour to show his pretty blush.

“A cherub.” he repeated in disbelief.

“Yes.” you were firm, both in tone and the press of your hand in the crook of his offered elbow, “And as we’ve been commended to entertain angels unaware, how much more when we are certain of one?”

“Oh shut up.” he begged you and you two staggered into each other as you laughed your hearts out. It felt good to laugh, for the both of you, and a little too foreign, as well. It left a hollow melancholy in its wake that was soothed by the near and swaying proximity of each other’s body.

“They’ll be glad to have you at the table.” you dared go on, feeling you should prepare him, should the subject arise, “I’ve a brother, you see, an older brother. Rafe, he was stationed in Burma. We’ve not heard of him in over two years. There’s an empty seat at our table, it takes a certain sort of soul to fill it without it feeling like a sacrilege. But you fit the bill nicely, I think.”

“Burma.” he repeated with all the gravity of a man who understood, who knew the ache of almost hoping a dear brother, a beloved son, was dead rather than enduring the slow hell of a Japanese internment camp. How awful to almost wish for a decisive end for one so loved. “No word at all?”

“None.”

“I’m terribly sorry.”

“Thank you.” you whispered, “And thanks for making it back, yourself.” you squeezed his arm jovially and felt his other hand fall atop yours there in the crook of his elbow and a sweetness filled you at the gesture, such as you’d never known before. It was peaceful and lovely and your little village suddenly looked as pretty and idyllic again as it was always supposed to, the routine route home was seen through his eyes, the eyes of a homesick boy with a soft girl on his arm, bound to meet her parents and inspect Donald’s plane models.

Your mother and father loved him, little surprise there, he was a darling and homesick and yours was a happy home, humble and wounded though it may be. Your mother was obnoxious in her delight the moment father took him out back to see where your expertise for welding first began, the little aerodrome, no longer fitted with pleasure craft but now fitted to scrap the more useless casualties. Mother pestered you as you helped clear the table, asking after him and whatever this thing was between you. When you assured her it was only dinner to fill that chair and some unfathomable knowledge that had grown each time you stood before his propeller and waved him off to death, she knew it for what it is.

War and the urgency of living that goes with it, shrinks long emotions into fast passion and steady hearts into foolish daring. Neither of you were the sort to tumble into the passing vogue passions that had seized hold of your friends and comrades. Yours was a quieter path. Even so, after the fourth evening of dinner rations and quiet fireside chatter and the patter of late summer rain on the roof, there was a kiss as he walked you back to base, his jacket over your shoulders, his shirt clinging to him and the sweetest intent etched on his misted features as his lips descended to yours.

“Thank you,” he had said so passionately yet so subdued, a wall of wisteria at your back and his honey blonde hair dripping into his eyes, “I’ve needed this bad.”

His words suggested the family dinners, his scorching lips suggested the molded flesh of your body in his large palms.

“So you’ve wanted this?” your breathed mixed, a hazy little cloud between you in the damp evening air, your little alcove of shelter from the rain under old Mosley’s shed was like another little world entirely, fauna filled and peaceful, even the ever present drone of machinery was drowned out by the downpour.

Your mother had been right, you should've waited longer till the clouds passed but you had both cited curfew -and maybe even subconsciously sought just such a predicament as the one that had you necking Gale Cleven in a wisteria claimed tool shed.

“I’ve wanted you.” he clarified, firm grip on the base of your neck punctuating his turmoil, his lips met yours again and whatever oath of abstinence he had chosen, it did not seem to include kissing. He was soft and persistent and all consuming, those restless hands migrating in an ever mapping caress, making every part of you thrum with butterflies. “Wanted you for a long while.” he spoke into your lips, “I think you’re just great.” And there was happiness then, untinged with anything temporal beyond the feel of warm flesh beneath cold, rain soaked cloth and lips that tasted of honeyed biscuits.

It was impossible to maintain the stoic propriety of behavior you’d once managed before, on base, after that. You knew now how he sounded when he moaned into your mouth and he his stare alone could make you blush, you had spoken to his mother on the phone and he had seen your childhood bedroom. He learned once, laying amongst sea grass on the beach during a cloudy Sunday, the silky moist feel of you beneath your swimsuit, his long, bashful fingers that were ever so fond of petting anything and everything, finally finding a place that responded to his swipes with jolts and gasps and sighs and pleasure. You peaked three times on that sand dune, Buck none the wiser as he had nothing to compare your little deaths to, you kept a firm grip on his forearm and told him he was doing marvelous and that’s all it took for him to be persistent. Persistent beyond what you imagined any other man could be due to cramp. He was getting freckles from so much sunshine, but it was well, the rains would be here soon come autumn.

These happy days had you risking your life to pause your work and watch his pretty form swagger across the asphalt to his next destination and he, ever so right and proper and by the book, became devil enough to lie in wait for you and catch you by the waist when you least suspected it and drag you into some abandoned corner.

Only to kiss you.

To kiss and to ask after your day, as if your evening was not to be spent sat beside him at table or the movies, lying on a picnic blanket with him near or in the back of a jeep on top of Mayberry Rise, the tallest point around where the stars ran into the sea on the horizon.

One of the first days of September, you made good on your promise to Harry and drove with him to muck about Oxford for a day and see the college, the library, too. It was a long ride and as you were at the wheel, Harry was gem enough to allow Gale along, too, and by the end of it, driving back late and in a rush before the headlights would be needed, you were quoting favorite literary passages to each other. As if you were all students, not misplaced youths in the business of killing.

You said as much and in the burgeoning gloom Gale’s rich voice asked if you knew any Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

“Not Wordsworth!” Harry clarified.

“No, I don’t.” You admitted, for all your chiding today of their not being cultured enough, you didn’t know your American writers as you should.

“He’s got a poem for that.” Gale said, “For what you said. Or at least, it makes me think of today -that verse, ‘member Crosby?- the one it goes:

-I remember the gleams and glooms that dart across the school-boy's brain; The song and the silence in the heart, That in part are prophecies, and in part, Are longings wild and vain. And the voice of that fitful song, Sings on, and is never still: "A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

The deafening silence for the rest of the car ride was filled with truth and your own heart was heavy when you bid them both goodnight that evening, headed to your seperate billets. You paused in you departure to turn back once more at the door and holler to Buck in the chilled September air, “That poem, is there more of it?”

“Lots more.” he’d spun round on his heel, pleasantly surprised at your inquiry.

“What’s it called?” you intended to search it out, though it was doubtful that a copy would be found near this remote place.

“How about I write it out for ya?” he suggested as if thinking the same.

“You’ve got a whole damn poem memorized?” you balked, incredulity warring with amusement that you should’ve guessed he’d be the sort.

“I-I-I might.” he stuttered before laughing.

“Then please do.” you grinned and threw him a kiss across the distance which he jumped up and caught from the air in a grand show of dedication. “Goodnight, cherub.” you wished him, “Sleep tight.” He had a mission in the morning, a daylight one.

“Goodnight old Bean.” He teased your accent and the door swung shut behind you blocking out the cold and the retreating sound of his footsteps.

If you’d have known that was the last time you’d hear them you’d have stayed an age out in the cold night listening to him go, memorizing the cadence of his gait, the sway of his shoulders disappearing into the twilight, the turn of his head as he’d throw a glance back at you, sweet and handsome and cheerful despite his ominous itinerary.

If you’d have only known.

It wasn’t like last time, like Africa. There had been no loss of contact. Dorace had heard every awful minute until the clock ran out. They’d been shredded, their precious ship turned into a raging inferno and Major Cleven’s gritted and garbled transmissions left only one hope that some at least had jumped out. Jumped out only to land in Nazi occupied Europe, it was a faint mercy to cling to.

The empty chair sat next to you again at the table and mocked you all. Mocked your hope and your resilience to dare love again. How foolish to bring home a man who belonged to a group they were calling “Bloody”, and not as a curse but an epithet.

The losses had been staggering all summer and now in September they hit close. You were confident that Crosby and Egan were every bit as dismal inside as you felt, Egan’s warm hand had clasped your shoulder like you were a fellow officer and told you he was sorry. You took the condolences and gave them back, a stupid little exchange that only highlighted how unspeakable some pain is.

Three weeks later, Egan’s plane didn’t come back either.

In your more fanciful moments you allowed yourself to imagine Egan and Cleven alive, somewhat whole and reunited. You could almost hear Cleven’s joking welcome, “What took you so long, Bucky?”

You’d indulged these fancies for Rafe, too, until years of silence suggested the worst.

However, this time, well into October and with an entirely new set of planes under your care, word came at last through the Red Cross, and the truth was exactly as you’d dreamed. There was only the paltriest letter back to command but it said they were well, they were alive, together indeed and being moved to the Polish border. Away from their own comrades' bombs. It was more than most ever got, and your family celebrated the news with the gratitude it deserved.

As October turned to November and your gloved fingertips froze as you worked, every sharp needle of chill reminded you of him, how much more awful it must be that far north, snow piled deep and muck everywhere and lice covered blankets and illness left untreated. As the holidays hurtled nearer, days of peace and goodwill you had planned to be spent with him, you were consumed by the dread of losing him to the elements since war had proven too clement. At night you lay abed and reread the one bit of handwriting you had from him, that damned poem he had written out, left under your door in the early dawn that had taken him from you.

My lost youth. That was the title of the thing. It cut like glass every time you read it, but Buck had touched that paper and looped those letters and dotted those i’s and it was precious to you. It became a prayer of sorts.

“There are things of which I may not speak;

There are dreams that cannot die;

There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,

And bring a pallor into the cheek,

And a mist before the eye.

And the words of that fatal song

Come over me like a chill:—

“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”

Strange to me now are the forms I meet

When I visit the dear old town;

But the native air is pure and sweet,

And the trees that o’ershadow each well-known street,

As they balance up and down,

Are singing the beautiful song,

Are sighing and whispering still:—

“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”

Then, in January, as if prayers got heard, the most unexpected happened.

Major Gale Cleven, what was left of him after cold, starvation, murder and a treck across Europe, had returned. Things like this, seeing your lost beloved ride up to your workplace in the shotgun seat of a jeep, was the stuff of movies, hopeful propaganda or a woman’s mind that had finally cracked. You just stood there, welding helmet in hand, frozen rain spitting down at you, watching him jump out, watching Harry tear down from the observation tower to embrace him.

Dully, you could hear behind you Segreant Lemmons kind cheer of “so it was true, he got away from the bastards!” and a congratulatory thump between your shoulder blades. It was a moment of truth, to realize how far your faith had dwindled when the very answer to your prayers stood steaming with life in the cold air and yet you still could not accept it as reality.

“Baby.” his hands were warm compared to your damp cheeks and the span of them, so familiar and large, cupping your jaw with the calloused thumbs swiping at your temples, that was reminiscent of August and of happier days. Yet still, you had dreamed of him doing this, dreamed of a million different embraces and each time you woke up. “Baby, I’m back, I came to ya.” his voice was wrecked, from disuse and illness and whatever misery that had subjected him to. That, that was real enough, the rattling cough more so, you’d imagined his suffering in your worst nightmares too, this was something you could believe.

Familiar flesh was gaunt under your touch, gray cheeks where once there’d been freckles and the sinful pout of his once ruby red mouth was a dull violet, as if the vitality had been leached out of him. “What’d they do to my cherub?” you mourned, worst nightmares and wildest hopes blending into this one moment.

“Don’t cry, don’t cry f’me, I’m back. I came back.” he cooed to you, rough and sad himself, and your face was buried again in the placard of his coat, a great woolen overcoat this time, no fleece or any vestige of the swanky finery that got the flyboys ribbed for being soft, fancy, spoiled.

Nothing soft about these men, nothing gentle about their lot, nothing glamorous about being hurled down from the skies in a ball of fire.

“We kept praying for you.” you realized, it seemed important to tell him that however hopeless you all had felt, you’d gone through the motions anyway.

That was faith, wasn’t it? The hope of things not seen?

“I felt ‘em.” he said. “How else you think I managed it?”

It. -had managed it, that tiny word represented a host of terrors and miseries and unforgettable incidents that ricocheted in his brain like the lead fired into his boys head’s when they couldn’t manage a forced march, barefoot and underfed, in the snow.

Christmas had passed but January was not so very advanced, that evening your family turned back the clock and it was a matter of guessing as to who was celebrated more, baby Jesus or Buck Cleven. The two seemed intertwined at this point and in the warm glow of gas lamps and rationed toddy, with Buck’s hollow cheeks beginning to bloom and his dull eyes starting to animate, some part of you finally understood why so many felt worshipful on the holiday. The shit war rations felt like a feast, mama’s canned vegetables being the freshest thing he’d eaten in ages and with him sat at table again, empty chair filled, his hand creeping into your lap to lace with your own, there was peace.

Even the airforce, hard driving and high demanding though it was, took one look at his battered condition and admitted a period of conveyance was due. It wouldn’t do to send up a shoddy pilot, lose another plane, yet another crew or a hero of the hundredth. It’s not every day one of your squadron leaders escapes a POW camp and marches over occupied Europe and fordes the Channel to get back home.

A month was set aside. And you took as many weekday passes as you could during that month, happier than anything that he had been permitted to stay in town, to lodge with one of the locals. Rafe’s room was now occupied by him and mama’s broth was poured down Gale’s throat twice daily and his days kept busy with paperwork and Donald’s math problems. The ticking clock, the passing days, like the evil crocodile gobbling up time, was politely and britishly ignored in favor of enjoying what was. You no longer slept with the tear stained and crumpled poem clasped to your throat but his head lay there often enough instead. The thump of your heart helping him sleep, because exhausted and sick as he was, sleep and solitude were not comforts.

He was wracked with guilt for leaving Egan and his men behind, it had been every man for himself during that brutal forced march, he knew that and yet he’d left a friend behind. Buck waited for news of Egan like you’d waited for news of him. Nameless and senseless guilt ruining much of his own success and peace.

“He’d have expected nothing less of you.” you had taken to reminding him, “He’d be angry if you hadn’t taken the opportunity like you did.”

“I know.” he agreed miserably.

You admitted to him then, the horrid guilt of feeling that somehow, some missed defect or some lousy flaw had been the reason he’d been downed. Your work somehow not sufficient to keep him in the skies. When you’d admitted as much, Sergeant Lemmons had looked at you with all the censure such moronic introspection deserved: “Cleven got bombed to hell. He expected it, daytime raid and all. Blame the Nazis.”

“Blame the Nazis.” you suggested now to Gale as he lay sprawled in your arms, sweaty and feverish but his color was back and he looked pretty as anything so alive and near.

He looked ready to dare something, his face hovering nearer yours and the heavy weight of his limbs suddenly feeling full of intent but then his sparkling eye caught sight of something in the doorway and his lips quirked and his body shifted away.

“Whatcha doin’ sulkin’ out there Donny?” he addressed your brother and sure enough the little scamp emerged from the shadow of the doorway and joined you two on the bed, comic book clutched in his hands. They had a routine, apparently, Papa was no longer the chosen one for bedtime stories. It made you want to wince in anticipation for when Buck would move back to base and things would become full of dread again.

That day came sooner than you’d counted on. A month is not so very long, after all, and it was filled with so much work and business, stolen moments at home hardly being the norm.

“It’s an easy mission.” he’d said at dinner, as if arguing the point to you all. You knew he was trying to convince himself more than anything and so you all let him specify just how easy, how routine, how utterly unworrying tomorrow's flight would -should- be.

If it’s hard to get back into the saddle after being bucked off, how much worse to climb back into a plane after being tossed from the skies.

That evening he lounged on your bed instead of Rafe’s, the house emptied as your mother and father took Donny to the movies, the appeal of a new film finally showing cited as being too alluring to resist. He was lost in his thoughts, watching you go about your little evening routines that you tried to maintain when at home. It was domestic and cozy, warm where the world outside was cold and then there was Buck, golden as anything in the low lamp light, utterly unaware of the figure he cut lying on his side.

“I’ve missed it.” he told you, “Flying, I’ve missed it.”

“Of course you have. You were born for it.” you murmured.

“Ya know,” he reflected, “I signed up for the Air Force before it all got hot, before Pearl Harbor. I was gonna fly no matter what. I remember grittin’ my teeth durin’ training and tellin’ myself it would all be worth it. Just hang in there and it would pay off. I just felt something important would need me. Hell, guess I got more than I ever bargained for, didn’t I?”

“I guess you did.” you agreed.

“I couldn’t do this if I didn’t believe in it.” He insisted and you knew he was talking to himself again, until his face turned towards yours and the softest look of fondness crossed features turning them almost pained when he said next, “I couldn’t do it, get back up there, if it weren’t for love. The rightness of it but -love, for my boys, my family. For you.”

“I know, and we’re terribly lucky to have your devotion. -And…and I love you, too.” you vowed earnestly, then giggled at the absurdity of this being the first time to admit it.

“I’d had my suspicions.” he grinned back, some of that old cockiness returning along with his vigor as he snagged your wrist and pulled you down beside him.

“Do you know why my parents have gone?” you asked him pointedly, turning on your side to face him.

“To see a movie.” His face was so innocently perplexed you almost lost control of yourself and ruined the game right then with something terribly forward.

“My parents aren’t in the habit of seeing movies.” you corrected him soberly.

“No?”

“No.”

“So where’d they go?” Buck asked.

“Oh they’re at the movies.” you smirked, “But they’ve gone for us.”

Gale’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, if not of you then of his own naïveté. “For us.” he repeated and his voice had dropped an octave in the interim.

“Yes. Something about wanting us to have a goodbye.” you quoted.

“I’m not dying tomorrow.” he pointed his finger firmly in your face and it made you smile to see him so fiesty again.

“No,” you agreed with his prophecy, “but I wanted to give you some incentive to hurry back.”

“Oh?” those lips of his puckered again in confusion before his smarts caught up with him and the pink corner tugged up in mischief, “Ooooh.” he repeated, suddenly very close, his energy, his body, his heart, inches from being one with you. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, oh yes.” you confirmed, slotting your lips against his gently only to be met with eager, desperate need in his own kisses.

Your childhood bed was narrow and the counterpane below you familiar and dear, stitched by your mother in colors you’d once wished to update upon entering maturity. Now, laid out in perfect security and familiarity, you watched Buck Cleven dangle a toe off the abyss before diving in, pausing to caress the blanket beside your hip, smiling to himself.

“What?” you were breathless to know every thought in that dear head.

“My mama made me one, looks lots like this.” his eyes were watery soft yet his smile was glad, his hips narrow and sharp in the cradle of your own, stark hipbones not yet padded by your mother’s cooking pressed you down into the bedding, grounded and right. “You’ve made me real at home here.” he whispered and it pleased you ever so much. “Do I dare take this last liberty?” he muttered as if to himself, even as those blue orbs bore into your own, his fingers fiddling with the hem of your skirt and you ached from need long deferred and the weight of remedy lying heavy between your thighs.

“It’s no liberty,” you whispered, catching his dog tags and bringing his face to yours, the size of the man so very apparent now he was hovering above you, “it’s yours.” you watched his pupils blow out at the statement, his ragged breath fanned minty across your face, even angels wield swords. “I’m yours.”

“And I’m yours.” he concluded.

With that exchange of truths something snapped between you, like a ribbon cut, gone was the hesitant cordiality and deference that had marked your courtship. Here now was fierce possession and the gloated satisfaction of those who possess something cherished and are no longer kept from partaking of it, buckles and garters snapped in the quiet room and the rustle of sheets and shirts wafting to the floor made your breaths hitch with anticipation. Precious flesh came into touch with every brush and it was enough for many minutes merely to cling and grasp, imprinting desire into the back and the arms and the throat of each other, like an armor of love against the decay of death.

“Yours, yours.” you swore as his finger played you once more, his breathing hard and rough in your ear, harsh commands for you to say it again and again, reminding you he was fearsome when he wanted to be.

“Don’t look,” he begged when you realized through a haze of joy what he was about, pressing in with all the finesse of a cricket bat knocking at the wicket, hoarse and doe eyed above you, there was only the whine, “please, darlin’ don’t look, just, my eyes, please.”

It was a fumbling entry but nature and pleasure prevailed, as it had since the first couple. And dear boy that he was, he knew you had indulged in a leg up, one or two at least, before he came along but still, he could not bear it for you to see more, not this time. He wanted it just to be the kisses and the sight of your precious face contorting at the fullness of your belly and the force of his hunger for you. All the rest were vulgar details left somewhere under your skirts, and, unbeknownst to him, reflected in your childhood mirror situated on the wall behind his plump arse.

“Oh god.” he had choked out, winded and in awe as his body shook at the feel of you accepting him deep, “You’re a slice of heaven, heaven that’s-that’s what you fee- oh god, oh god.”

He had giggled at the absurdity of this dance and then broke off with a moan that made you giggle in turn and back and forth it went as his body jerked into yours as if he’d no control over it, led quite literally by the part of himself buried inside you. He knew it was foal-like and a poor showing as a lover and he also knew you didn’t care a bit, your eyes wide at the size of the intrusion and captivated by the sight of his newly enlightened face.

“You alright?” he asked urgently, as a sudden and familiar feeling took over his body. The feeling of his brakes giving out, his flaps malfunctioning, the hydraulics failing -it took over him, his spine tingling and his vision beginning to blur and only your punched out gasps and sweet smile wavering on his horizon as the frantic, masculine, natural need to drive in deep enough to puncture your heart seized him and propelled him in you, against you, above you with such force you forgot to breath. For all Egan’s teasing of Buck’s hatred for athletics, the man wasn’t shabby when it came down to it, even after months of internment, or maybe due to that stolen time, his life force seemed to pour out in a torrent and your belly buzzed at the sweet abuse.

“I’m perfect.” you managed at some point, “You’re perfect, so perfect.”

He shuddered at the praise and as if terror struck him then, he was suddenly pulling away and moaning “I should- I shouldn’t -I’m gonna, darlin, I’m gonna lose it-“ and young and sweet and clumsy as anything he rutted against your slick frantically, mouth pressed to yours until the hot gush of his satisfaction spilled out and added to the mind fuzzing feel of him sliding against your little pearl.

You encouraged his shaky limbs to collapse on you, the lanky frame of him a sweet weight, sweaty cheek pressed to your breast, you could feel the dopey curve of his smile against your plump flesh. His hair curled at the nape from the sweat of his exertions, all winter chill forgotten in this bed. War and missions and bombs, too. You petted each other for a while before he raised his head and, gazing at you adoringly, he murmured “thank you.” his nose nudging yours and the steadiest of kisses lingering in the tingly aftermath.

“Darlin?” he broached the subject a while later, cheek again pressed to your chest and his fingers sliding in a hypnotic caress over your thigh.

“Yeah, Buck?”

“Later,” he prefaced, tentative and raw, “when -when the war’s over, and when, well, when I can make my own promises…”

Your heart hammered beneath his ear and you squeezed your legs around him, as if to shore him up enough to say what you wanted him to say so very badly. “Yes?”

“Would you marry me then?” he begged and somehow you knew this, what you had just indulged in, was never going to happen without that hope for him.

Perhaps that’s why it felt so strong, like a communion of souls more than anything else. “I’ve half a mind to make you wait and get my answer when you come back tomorrow.” you teased and his head reared up with a dangerous glint in his eye.

“Don’t you dare.” he warned, grin breaking out despite himself.

The sound of the front latch grating on the door startled you both but he pressed you down when you went to scamper and clothe yourself. “The door’s closed anyway,” he argued in a whisper but you knew he felt as nervous as you at being caught, if not more so, yet still he was a stubborn one. His hand was firm and large clasping your cheek, expression arch and expectant. “Promise you’ll be a good little girl and say yes when I do ask.”

You laughed at his gall, to make you wait, to make you promise when he wasn’t even proposing. But then again -you had said you were his, and he was yours. It had already been done. Sometimes life was as simple as Gale Cleven made it out to be.

“I promise.” you whispered happily, bringing him back down to your embrace and willing away thoughts of tomorrow and flagging him out to danger.

One day he’d come back for good. One you could make promises again. Until then, there was hope.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed. Feedback is a writers lifeblood, I’d adore hearing your thoughts. 💋

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plaguedocboi · 9 months

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Waterfalls! These gorgeous, powerful features of nature have been oddly lacking in my past lists, I think in part because their danger has always seemed more “obvious” to me. But doing the research for this list has reawakened my phobia of the water. Some of the later entries (numbers 9 and 10 especially) brought back anxieties that I thought I had gotten over long ago, but it was kind of thrilling. Like watching a particularly scary horror movie. Let’s get into it!

1. Underwater Waterfall, Mauritius

No, it’s not really a waterfall. It’s just an optical illusion caused by sand falling off the island’s slope down into the deeper water below. But it looks cool and scary, and the drop-off is 2.5 miles deep so that’s pretty impressive and I think it deserves at least a mention.

2. Blood Falls, Antarctica

There’s nothing particularly dangerous about this one, it just looks incredibly creepy. Obviously, it’s not actually blood, it’s just water that’s very rich in iron. But the really fascinating part of this waterfall is that its source seems to be a subglacial lake that contains a unique microbial ecosystem which has been isolated for two million years! These microbes are like nothing else we’ve ever observed in nature before. They live in an incredibly cold and extremely saline lake, and metabolize sulfur and iron ions with no oxygen present. They are being used as a model to study what life on ice-covered alien planets could be like.

3. Khone Falls, Laos

This waterfall is not nearly as famous as some of the others on this list, which is surprising because it’s the widest waterfall in the world, with an average width of six miles! Although not particularly tall, it is the second most powerful waterfall in the world, more than double the power of Niagara Falls! The Khone falls divide the Upper and Lower Mekong river, making travel by boat between the north and south impossible. What makes it kind of unsettling to me is that during the rainy seasons the falls are basically swallowed up by the river, turning them from a spectacular waterfall to a series of massive rapids.

4. Huntington Gorge, Vermont

When water levels are low, this river is a popular and scenic swimming spot, and the canyon has an almost otherworldly quality with its unique bends and overhangs. Unfortunately, these very features are what makes it so dangerous. Much like the infamous Strid, the gorge is full of holes, steep drop-offs, and powerful currents hidden beneath the water, which can suck people in and trap them against the cliff walls. Over fifty people have died here since the 1950s, and many more have been injured. With proper precautions, one can safely explore the gorge and swim in the river, but don’t forget that this water has swallowed up many people before you.

5. Victoria Falls, Zambia

I’m sure most of you already know about Mosi-oa-Tunya, more widely called Victoria Falls, as the largest waterfall in the world. Formed as the Zambezi river pours into a series of massive gorges, this curtain of water spans nearly a mile and falls 300 feet with such force that columns of rising spray can be seen for miles around. Despite this, the pools around the lip of the falls can be relatively tame, and locals have fished while balancing on the edge of the cliff for generations. The safest and most famous of these fishing holes is the Devils Pool, which allows you to literally swim right up to the edge of the world’s biggest waterfall. The pool is actually very safe when the correct precautions are taken, and I can only find one death attributed to the pool specifically, when a tour guide in 2009 fell while trying to help a man who had slipped and was dangling off the edge (and, honestly, I was expecting a lot more deaths given the amount of clickbait articles advertising it as the most deadly swimming hole in the world). Although that was the only death from the Devils Pool, there have been many other deaths at Victoria Falls, mostly tourists who underestimate the power of the river or get too close to the edge. So if you ever visit this spectacular waterfall, please observe it from a safe distance and follow all the rules.

6. Huka Falls, New Zealand

This is not a traditional waterfall, but rather a series of small waterfalls along a narrow stretch of the Waikato river, creating an incredibly turbulent chasm that ends in a whirlpool. The 300-foot wide river is funneled into a 50-foot wide stream, causing a torrent of water that flows at a rate of 58,000 gallons per second. Obviously, this is not an area that you should get in the water, but not everyone takes that advice. There have been multiple deaths at this waterfall, and a few narrow escapes, including two swimmers who, incredibly, survived after trying to raft down the falls on pool toys. Please, for the love of god, don’t do that.

7. Niagara Falls, US/Canada

These falls are the only place on this list that I’ve visited, and I can tell you they are certainly an incredible sight, but also rather intimidating due to their sheer size and power. These three massive waterfalls are fed by the Great Lakes and, combined, have nearly 700,000 gallons of water thundering down every second. There is also a permanent whirlpool in the river that has existed for over 4,000 years and reaches depths of 125 feet! Besides being huge and awe-inspiring, these waterfalls are known for their appeal to daredevils who have gone over the edge in barrels or, in one case, a giant rubber ball. But these famous success stories are punctuated with tragedy. Roughly 20-30 people die at Niagara Falls every year. Most of these, sadly, are suicides, but others are failed attempts to replicate the successful daredevils of the past, and others are accidental. An estimated 5,000 bodies were recovered at the bottom of the falls between 1850 and 2011.

8. Murchison Falls, Uganda

Also known as Kabalega Falls, this is the worlds most powerful waterfall. Formed as the Nile River flows from Lake Kyoga to Lake Albert, this waterfall is so strong it literally causes the ground to shake around it. Here, the Nile is constricted from a river nearly 400 ft wide to a passage only 20 ft wide, creating an incredibly turbulent and violent tunnel of water that tears its way into the pool below at 79,000 gallons per second. And this is no ordinary pool. Waiting below the falls is the highest concentration of large crocodiles observed anywhere in the world, waiting for any dead or stunned animals caught in the falls to wash into their lair. Although the waterfall and surrounding park are now a beautiful tourist attraction and wildlife refuge, the history of the falls includes tales of human and animal sacrifices, thrown in alive to appease the gods that some believed resided beneath the raging waters.

9. Bath Fountain, Jamaica

This is just a random little waterfall along a hiking trail, but the video triggered some intense bathophobia in me for the first time in a while. Like, I was scared to get in the shower after watching this. Proceed with caution:

youtube

10. Kipu Falls, Hawaii

This one scares me because, despite my research, I can’t actually figure out what the hell is happening here. Multiple people have died here; all tourists, all drownings, all of seemingly very unclear causes. Kipu Falls is a beautiful and popular swimming spot, and locals frequently dive off the top of the falls with seemingly no danger. However, five deaths over the course of five years from 2006-2011 challenged its reputation of being a safe swimming hole. All the articles I could find seem to repeat the same information; there is no current in the pool and the waterfalls are not especially powerful. Despite these established facts, all five deaths were the same. Someone jumped in, surfaced, and then were dragged back down to the bottom of the pool and held there until they died. This has resulted in a lot of speculation, including everything from a hidden whirlpool current to evil spirits. I’m just. Really unsettled by the lack of information on this one. Every article I found was published in 2011 and I couldn’t find any updates, which hopefully means people aren’t still dying here, but… what the fuck???? Was going on????? Sorry guys this one might not be as dangerous as some of the others but it freaks me out a lot so it’s getting a higher rating. I want to know what’s going on but I’m sure not going to investigate it myself.

#long post #water rating #bathophobia

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 months

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The antitrust case against Apple

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT (Mar 22) in TORONTO, then SUNDAY (Mar 24) with LAURA POITRAS in NYC, then Anaheim, and beyond!

The foundational tenet of "the Cult of Mac" is that buying products from a $3t company makes you a member of an oppressed ethnic minority and therefore every criticism of that corporation is an ethnic slur:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Call it "Apple exceptionalism" – the idea that Apple, alone among the Big Tech firms, is virtuous, and therefore its conduct should be interpreted through that lens of virtue. The wellspring of this virtue is conveniently nebulous, which allows for endless goal-post shifting by members of the Cult of Mac when Apple's sins are made manifest.

Take the claim that Apple is "privacy respecting," which is attributed to Apple's business model of financing its services though cash transactions, rather than by selling it customers to advertisers. This is the (widely misunderstood) crux of the "surveillance capitalism" hypothesis: that capitalism is just fine, but once surveillance is in the mix, capitalism fails.

Apple, then, is said to be a virtuous company because its behavior is disciplined by market forces, unlike its spying rivals, whose ability to "hack our dopamine loops" immobilizes the market's invisible hand with "behavior-shaping" shackles:

http://pluralistic.net/HowToDestroySurveillanceCapitalism

Apple makes a big deal out of its privacy-respecting ethos, and not without some justification. After all, Apple went to the mattresses to fight the FBI when they tried to force Apple to introduced defects into its encryption systems:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/04/fbi-could-have-gotten-san-bernardino-shooters-iphone-leadership-didnt-say

And Apple gave Ios users the power to opt out of Facebook spying with a single click; 96% of its customers took them up on this offer, costing Facebook $10b (one fifth of the pricetag of the metaverse boondoggle!) in a single year (you love to see it):

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/facebook-makes-the-case-for-activity-tracking-to-ios-14-users-in-new-pop-ups/

Bruce Schneier has a name for this practice: "feudal security." That's when you cede control over your device to a Big Tech warlord whose "walled garden" becomes a fortress that defends you against external threats:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/08/leona-helmsley-was-a-pioneer/#manorialism

The keyword here is external threats. When Apple itself threatens your privacy, the fortress becomes a prison. The fact that you can't install unapproved apps on your Ios device means that when Apple decides to harm you, you have nowhere to turn. The first Apple customers to discover this were in China. When the Chinese government ordered Apple to remove all working privacy tools from its App Store, the company obliged, rather than risk losing access to its ultra-cheap manufacturing base (Tim Cook's signal accomplishment, the one that vaulted him into the CEO's seat, was figuring out how to offshore Apple manufacturing to China) and hundreds of millions of middle-class consumers:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-vpn/apple-says-it-is-removing-vpn-services-from-china-app-store-idUSKBN1AE0BQ

Killing VPNs and other privacy tools was just for openers. After Apple caved to Beijing, the demands kept coming. Next, Apple willingly backdoored all its Chinese cloud services, so that the Chinese state could plunder its customers' data at will:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-censorship-data.html

This was the completely foreseeable consequence of Apple's "curated computing" model: once the company arrogated to itself the power to decide which software you could run on your own computer, it was inevitable that powerful actors – like the Chinese Communist Party – would lean on Apple to exercise that power in service to its goals.

Unsurprisingly, the Chinese state's appetite for deputizing Apple to help with its spying and oppression was not sated by backdooring iCloud and kicking VPNs out of the App Store. As recently as 2022, Apple continued to neuter its tools at the behest of the Chinese state, breaking Airdrop to make it useless for organizing protests in China:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/11/foreseeable-consequences/#airdropped

But the threat of Apple turning on its customers isn't limited to China. While the company has been unwilling to spy on its users on behalf of the US government, it's proven more than willing to compromise its worldwide users' privacy to pad its own profits. Remember when Apple let its users opt out of Facebook surveillance with one click? At the very same time, Apple was spinning up its own commercial surveillance program, spying on Ios customers, gathering the very same data as Facebook, and for the very same purpose: to target ads. When it came to its own surveillance, Apple completely ignored its customers' explicit refusal to consent to spying, spied on them anyway, and lied about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Here's the thing: even if you believe that Apple has a "corporate personality" that makes it want to do the right thing, that desire to be virtuous is dependent on the constraints Apple faces. The fact that Apple has complete legal and technical control over the hardware it sells – the power to decide who can make software that runs on that hardware, the power to decide who can fix that hardware, the power to decide who can sell parts for that hardware – represents an irresistible temptation to enshittify Apple products.

"Constraints" are the crux of the enshittification hypothesis. The contagion that spread enshittification to every corner of our technological world isn't a newfound sadism or indifference among tech bosses. Those bosses are the same people they've always been – the difference is that today, they are unconstrained.

Having bought, merged or formed a cartel with all their rivals, they don't fear competition (Apple buys 90+ companies per year, and Google pays it an annual $26.3b bribe for default search on its operating systems and programs).

Having captured their regulators, they don't fear fines or other penalties for cheating their customers, workers or suppliers (Apple led the coalition that defeated dozens of Right to Repair bills, year after year, in the late 2010s).

Having wrapped themselves in IP law, they don't fear rivals who make alternative clients, mods, privacy tools or other "adversarial interoperability" tools that disenshittify their products (Apple uses the DMCA, trademark, and other exotic rules to block third-party software, repair, and clients).

True virtue rests not merely in resisting temptation to be wicked, but in recognizing your own weakness and avoiding temptation. As I wrote when Apple embarked on its "curated computing" path, the company would eventually – inevitably – use its power to veto its customers' choices to harm those customers:

https://memex.craphound.com/2010/04/01/why-i-wont-buy-an-ipad-and-think-you-shouldnt-either/

Which is where we're at today. Apple – uniquely among electronics companies – shreds every device that is traded in by its customers, to block third parties from harvesting working components and using them for independent repair:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/yp73jw/apple-recycling-iphones-macbooks

Apple engraves microscopic Apple logos on those parts and uses these as the basis for trademark complaints to US customs, to block the re-importation of parts that escape its shredders:

https://repair.eu/news/apple-uses-trademark-law-to-strengthen-its-monopoly-on-repair/

Apple entered into an illegal price-fixing conspiracy with Amazon to prevent used and refurbished devices from being sold in the "world's biggest marketplace":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/10/you-had-one-job/#thats-just-the-as

Why is Apple so opposed to independent repair? Well, they say it's to keep users safe from unscrupulous or incompetent repair technicians (feudal security). But when Tim Cook speaks to his investors, he tells a different story, warning them that the company's profits are threatened by customers who choose to repair (rather than replace) their slippery, fragile glass $1,000 pocket computers (the fortress becomes a prison):

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/01/letter-from-tim-cook-to-apple-investors/

All this adds up to a growing mountain of immortal e-waste, festooned with miniature Apple logos, that our descendants will be dealing with for the next 1,000 years. In the face of this unspeakable crime, Apple engaged in a string of dishonest maneuvers, claiming that it would support independent repair. In 2022, Apple announced a home repair program that turned out to be a laughably absurd con:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/22/apples-cement-overshoes/

Then in 2023, Apple announced a fresh "pro-repair" initiative that, once again, actually blocked repair:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

Let's pause here a moment and remember that Apple once stood for independent repair, and celebrated the independent repair technicians that kept its customers' beloved Macs running:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/29/norwegian-potato-flour-enchiladas/#r2r

Whatever virtue lurks in Apple's corporate personhood, it is no match for the temptation that comes from running a locked-down platform designed to capture IP rights so that it can prevent normal competitive activities, like fixing phones, processing payments, or offering apps.

When Apple rolled out the App Store, Steve Jobs promised that it would save journalism and other forms of "content creation" by finally giving users a way to pay rightsholders. A decade later, that promise has been shattered by the app tax – a 30% rake on every in-app transaction that can't be avoided because Apple will kick your app out of the App Store if you even mention that your customers can pay you via the web in order to avoid giving a third of their content dollars to a hardware manufacturer that contributed nothing to the production of that material:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-must-open-app-stores

Among the apps that Apple also refuses to allow on Ios is third-party browsers. Every Iphone browser is just a reskinned version of Apple's Safari, running on the same antiquated, insecure Webkit browser engine. The fact that Webkit is incomplete and outdated is a feature, not a bug, because it lets Apple block web apps – apps delivered via browsers, rather than app stores:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/13/kitbashed/#app-store-tax

Last month, the EU took aim at Apple's veto over its users' and software vendors' ability to transact with one another. The newly in-effect Digital Markets Act requires Apple to open up both third-party payment processing and third-party app stores. Apple's response to this is the very definition of malicious compliance, a snake's nest of junk-fees, onerous terms of service, and petty punitive measures that all add up to a great, big "Go fuck yourself":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/06/spoil-the-bunch/#dma

But Apple's bullying, privacy invasion, price-gouging and environmental crimes are global, and the EU isn't the only government seeking to end them. They're in the firing line in Japan:

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Japan-to-crack-down-on-Apple-and-Google-app-store-monopolies

And in the UK:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-wins-appeal-in-apple-case

And now, famously, the US Department of Justice is coming for Apple, with a bold antitrust complaint that strikes at the heart of Apple exceptionalism, the idea that monopoly is safer for users than technological self-determination:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1344546/dl?inline

There's passages in the complaint that read like I wrote them:

Apple wraps itself in a cloak of privacy, security, and consumer preferences to justify its anticompetitive conduct. Indeed, it spends billions on marketing and branding to promote the self-serving premise that only Apple can safeguard consumers’ privacy and security interests. Apple selectively compromises privacy and security interests when doing so is in Apple’s own financial interest—such as degrading the security of text messages, offering governments and certain companies the chance to access more private and secure versions of app stores, or accepting billions of dollars each year for choosing Google as its default search engine when more private options are available. In the end, Apple deploys privacy and security justifications as an elastic shield that can stretch or contract to serve Apple’s financial and business interests.

After all, Apple punishes its customers for communicating with Android users by forcing them to do so without any encryption. When Beeper Mini rolled out an Imessage-compatible Android app that fixed this, giving Iphone owners the privacy Apple says they deserve but denies to them, Apple destroyed Beeper Mini:

https://blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-moving-forward

Tim Cook is on record about this: if you want to securely communicate with an Android user, you must "buy them an Iphone":

https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/7/23342243/tim-cook-apple-rcs-imessage-android-iphone-compatibility

If your friend, family member or customer declines to change mobile operating systems, Tim Cook insists that you must communicate without any privacy or security.

Even where Apple tries for security, it sometimes fails ("security is a process, not a product" -B. Schneier). To be secure in a benevolent dictatorship, it must also be an infallible dictatorship. Apple's far from infallible: Eight generations of Iphones have unpatchable hardware defects:

https://checkm8.info/

And Apple's latest custom chips have secret-leaking, unpatchable vulnerabilities:

https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/03/hackers-can-extract-secret-encryption-keys-from-apples-mac-chips/

Apple's far from infallible – but they're also far from benevolent. Despite Apple's claims, its hardware, operating system and apps are riddled with deliberate privacy defects, introduce to protect Apple's shareholders at the expense of its customers:

https://proton.me/blog/iphone-privacy

Now, antitrust suits are notoriously hard to make, especially after 40 years of bad-precedent-setting, monopoly-friendly antitrust malpractice. Much of the time, these suits fail because they can't prove that tech bosses intentionally built their monopolies. However, tech is a written culture, one that leaves abundant, indelible records of corporate deliberations. What's more, tech bosses are notoriously prone to bragging about their nefarious intentions, committing them to writing:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/

Apple is no exception – there's an abundance of written records that establish that Apple deliberately, illegally set out to create and maintain a monopoly:

https://www.wired.com/story/4-internal-apple-emails-helped-doj-build-antitrust-case/

Apple claims that its monopoly is beneficent, used to protect its users, making its products more "elegant" and safe. But when Apple's interests conflict with its customers' safety and privacy – and pocketbooks – Apple always puts itself first, just like every other corporation. In other words: Apple is unexceptional.

The Cult of Mac denies this. They say that no one wants to use a third-party app store, no one wants third-party payments, no one wants third-party repair. This is obviously wrong and trivially disproved: if no Apple customer wanted these things, Apple wouldn't have to go to enormous lengths to prevent them. The only phones that an independent Iphone repair shop fixes are Iphones: which means Iphone owners want independent repair.

The rejoinder from the Cult of Mac is that those Iphone owners shouldn't own Iphones: if they wanted to exercise property rights over their phones, they shouldn't have bought a phone from Apple. This is the "No True Scotsman" fallacy for distraction-rectangles, and moreover, it's impossible to square with Tim Cook's insistence that if you want private communications, you must buy an Iphone.

Apple is unexceptional. It's just another Big Tech monopolist. Rounded corners don't preserve virtue any better than square ones. Any company that is freed from constraints – of competition, regulation and interoperability – will always enshittify. Apple – being unexceptional – is no exception.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/22/reality-distortion-field/#three-trillion-here-three-trillion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

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greyyson-but-no · 2 months

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hey guys heres a couple reasons I don't like taylor swift and maybe yous should consider your own opinions on her, no enforcement, just a suggestion

Being a billionaire will never not be bad for the economy (The Eras Tour is expected to make around $2 billion by the end of it so there is no denying her being a billionaire now).

She brands herself as someone that completely build her own fame from nothing - this is not true both her parents were extremely wealthy which meant that she had the ability to fly weekly to NYC to get singing and acting lessons and was working with a talent manager at the age of fourteen. She could not be at the level of fame she is at today if it were not for that but she brands herself as if that is the case. The issue is not with her actually coming from money but that she brands herself as someone that isn't — it creates a fake sense of security for her young fans that believe they can do the same.

She takes the worship she recieves from her fans and (for lake of hetter word) uses it against other artists and communities to attack them through the way she advertises her new music and speaks about them in other songs. This is not me saying that those other artists are perfect either (eg the kanye situation), but instead that this sentiment creates further uneccessary drama which she uses to boost her fame and popularity.

Taylor Swift only speaks up about certainly world issues when it benefits her. She hasn't spoken up about the genocide in Palestine at the moment, it took her 21 years into her career to collaberate with a woman of colour and she is clearly the poster girl for White Feminism. Not only this, but dating Matty Healy of 1975 is proof of that. He is an extremely racist, xenophobic and generally controversial person, and since Taylor once stated "i want to be know by what i love", those same attributes can automatically be associated with her.

The Eras Tour that has been completed so far is only a small amount of her carbon emissions (the first leg of the tour ended with 139 tons of CO2) and that isn't including the equipment being transported and her individual trips to run errands and see her boyfriend three times a week. Her buying carbon credits does nothing, carbon credits will not rid the world of the CO2 she has emitted and in fact only pay governments to 'support the reduce, reuse, recycle' project which we all know is not where that money actually goes. Recently, she flew 30 miles and don't give me the 'its easier and quicker' argument, thats equivalent to a 20 minute drive.

Calling her a lesbian/queer icon is just completely wrong and doesn't work in any circumstance with her. She is openly straight and has never even been open to questioning her sexuality or gender at all. Just because she released 'you need to calm down' during a time of queer peril, doesn't make her a queer icon. In fact, there are many other lesbian artists that are either growing in popularity or have the potential to, and giving that title to her brings down actual queer artists and their opportunities.

"Tortured Poets Department"? Are we even serious at this point? Who exactly here is tortured because its certainly not the white straight billionaire, that's for sure. Having a song that basically says it was okay you dated a racist because you were 'heartbroken' is not okay. To have little digs at Joe and him being depressed using the excuse that he broke your heart is not okay. Using metaphors that link to you being in an insane asylum is not okay. Insane asylums were extremely torturous places to be and there is no moral decision in comparing the music industry to a place with that much terror and injustice.

here I have only spoken about two of her partners in a passing mention, there is much more that I could add to on these subjects but I've decided not to because I don't think they hold the same weight the points I've already made have. this will probably be edited and added to in the future.

I'd like to emphasise this is not me forcing swifties to completely turn on her and hate her and everything she does. all I am doing by posting this information is allowing people to make their own educated decisions on how they go about interacting with taylor swift and her community however they deem fit. personally I have her removed on spotify because that is a decision I have made. my decision.

it wasn't easy for my either. a lot of songs of hers I associated with my grandad who recently passed, which meant having stop listening to her music lead to a big part of mine and his bond was erased, but that is again, a decision that I have made. her negative impact on the world, the music industry at the media is just too much for me to defend. again, I will reiterate that is my opinion and my decision, what you guys decides to do effects me just as little as what I decide effects you.

#anti taylor swift #taylor swift

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cacoetheswriting · 10 months

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celebrity skin. (part six)

pairing: rockstar!eddie munson x popstar!fem!reader word count: 6.2k summary: moving on is not as easy as it may seem. unless, of course, revenge is in the mix.

a/n: this chapter also features steve harrington x popstar!fem!reader

content warnings: 18+, minors dni: suggestive & mature themes, adult language, post-breakup emotional hurt / very little comfort, minor use of pet names, mentions of recreational alcohol & drug consumption — if i missed anything in this chapter, pls let me know!

& psa: images used in the header don’t depict readers physical attributes! these are also described vaguely in the story, only that she’s a little shorter than eddie.

celebrity skin. masterlist

Falling in love was not nearly as magical as you grew up to believe.

Turns out, not everyone is as lucky as your parents. Not everyone gets to find the person they want to be with and just live out the rest of their time together, just like that. No muss, no fuss… no pain.

And recently, all you’ve felt was pain.

Heartbreak caused by the man that’s done it before. You should’ve been smarter than to let him do it a second time, but lost in the chocolate of his eyes and the softness of his skin, you believed in the love you so desperately craved since you were a kid. You believed in his love. Believed he wouldn’t hurt you again, simply because he promised he wouldn’t. Hushed mantras in between the kisses he trailed along your jawline. “You make me the happiest I’ve ever been,” he’d repeat like a prayer. In reality, a fool is what he made you.

For the whole world to see at that.

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST

EVEN HONESTY COULDN’T KEEP THEM TOGETHER

WHY HEAVEN AND HELL DON’T MIX

The list of borderline patronising, and also rather sexist, articles on the downfall of your short-lived relationship with the Corroded Coffin frontman haunted you for months. It didn’t help that they were all lies. Figments of journalistic imagination that only had one thing in common: you were nothing but a lovesick girl, and Eddie ever the conqueror of Hollywood’s elite. Gone was the title of America’s favourite popstar. Replaced instead by “Oh, you’re Eddie Munsons ex, right?”.

Your management team was scrambling to get out of this PR nightmare as quickly and effortlessly as humanly possible, because they didn’t grow your career to the superstardom level it was at, only for you to be regarded as an ex-girlfriend of someone far less popular than you. The team did everything, from pushing brand advertising campaigns forward, releasing a previously stashed single with no promotion, and even faking sightings of you with New York’s most eligible bachelors — (it was actually Val in disguise, more than willing to help).

While all of this was going on, you resigned to rotting away in bed.

The New York apartment you called home yet again, was cold in comparison to Eddie’s mansion. Every item of furniture, every decorative piece, all carefully picked out by you back when you first bought the place, seemed out of place. No longer bringing you the intended joy. You missed the blank walls of Eddie’s living room, the feel of the hardwood floors underneath your bare feet, the once unused kitchen, his display of vintage guitars. You missed his California King. Missed the way it would form perfectly around your frame every time your head hit the pillows. Most of all, despite desperately trying not to, you fucking missed him.

Eddie Munson was your downfall, yet every fibre of your being ached to be close to him once more.

Memories of your time with the metalhead flashed before your eyes every minute of every day that’s passed since he stomped all over your heart, making it bleed. What made matters worse, you were convinced Eddie didn’t miss you, didn’t think about you nearly as much as you thought about him, if even at all.

The reality couldn’t have been more different, but you didn’t know that because the morning Eddie broke you for a second time, his actions were accompanied by a conscious decision to stay out of your life for good. It wasn’t what he wanted. He just didn’t see an alternative, your grandmother’s threat ringing in his ears as the look on your face visibly changed in front of his very eyes from awe to despair.

In the months that followed the split, Eddie also thought about you all the damn time.

Everywhere he went, there you were. Or rather the ghost of you. A memory so vivid, he instantly felt nauseous. He screwed everything up for a second time and even if he wanted to somehow fix it, he knew the only way to do that would be by telling the truth, but even Eddie Munson wasn't an asshole enough to come between a girl and her Nana — no matter how evil the old hag was.

Instead, Eddie focused on his music.

The resounding success that was Honesty, a song about you, performed with you, made the pretext of spending day and night at the studio a little more realistic ‘cause “the band needs a few more songs to complete the album”, he’d say to Marianne. She knew the real reason behind the hours Eddie spent locked inside the recording booth was the sudden, and by all accounts, unexplained breakdown of his relationship with you. She also knew not to say anything.

By all accounts, things were going quite smoothly for Eddie. Sure he felt like a fucking prick for hurting you the way he did — yet again — and on most days, the guilt was eating Eddie alive, but his actions, and their unfortunate consequences, fueled an endless supply of songs he couldn’t deny were about you. Songs that would undoubtedly make the album the best thing Corroded Coffin have ever released. Shit. Did that also make him selfish? He wondered if it was fair that his creativity blossomed while you were hurting. He wondered if profiting off this heartache was the right thing to do. Would it make you more mad? Would it break you even more?

Then he saw it.

MISS AMERICANA MOVES ON

What the fuck.

“Did you forget that you promised to come help me shop for dresses?”

You groan at Val’s question, pulling the blankets over your head until your face is entirely hidden and a faint darkness envelops around you. This is your safe space now. This is where you wish you could stay for all eternity, but alas, the universe always seems to have other plans.

“Val,” you mumble under your breath, “I say this with all sincerity, please fuck off. I’m clearly in no shape to hold up to my promise, so just take my credit card and ask a friend to go with you instead. Please.”

She huffs, and even though you can’t see her, you know she’s rolling her eyes. Then, without skipping a beat, she does the exact opposite to what you asked her to do, opting to yank the covers off you entirely with a wicked grin.

“I am done letting you wither away, okay?” She states, “It’s been months of self-pity and I’m fucking sick of it. Everyone is sick of it. Jesus, he broke your heart, big deal. People get their heart broken all the damn time and you don’t see them wasting away in bed.”

“Because they don’t have the privilege to.”

It was the wrong thing to say.

“Nana calls you an ungrateful brat all the time, behind your back of course. I think you just proved her point.”

The sting of Val’s words causes you to visibly grimace, but you can’t say you didn’t deserve her hostile push back. You were acting like a brat. Saying the wrong things in the heat of the moment, you knew better than that. You were taught better than that. Just like you were also taught to uphold your promises, keep your word and do the things you said you would do.

With an exaggerated sigh, you stand, and for the first time in months, you go get dressed in something that’s not an overpriced pyjama set. Val cheers you on, proud of herself for being the person that could convince you to leave the confines of your apartment, even if it was only for one afternoon.

Fifth Avenue is a Manhattan staple. Stretching from Greenwich Village, where you grew up, all the way to Harlem, a secret favourite, if anyone ever asked. Personally, you opted to steer clear of Fifth Avenue as much as you could, though, being one of the most expensive shopping streets in the world, it made sense this is where Val asked Hank to escort you two. Especially, since after hours of browsing stores your little sister normally couldn’t afford on her own, your journey’s end is Saks.

“Tell me again why we’re dress shopping? You hate dresses.”

“Because, since you’ve pretty much turned yourself into a recluse, Nana asked me to join her at the upcoming charity function she’s throwing. Her one demand was that I need a dress.” Val explains, browsing through a carefully crafted selection of garments. “Preferably expensive.”

“She didn’t say anything to me,” you say, furrowing your brows.

“Like I said, recluse.”

You sigh. Nails, overdue a manicure, now at the brim of your lips, threatening to push through at any given moment. It was a bad habit. Something you’ve recently done a lot because speaking your mind clearly wasn’t good enough and only led to misfortune. This was the only way you could ease the anxiety surrounding the mess you’ve made of your life, as gross as it was.

“Well, I didn’t want Nana, or anyone else for that matter, saying I told you so, or thinking I had it coming since apparently I was the only person that had blinders on when it came to…”

His name got stuck in your throat like a bad apple. A choking hazard that brought tears to your eyes and caused your chest to heave suddenly with bated breaths. Clearly, you hadn’t gotten over him, otherwise you wouldn’t spend your days locked up in your apartment. What you didn’t realise though, was that you hadn’t said his name out loud since that fateful morning in his kitchen.

“Fuck you, Eddie.”

The vile tone behind those three words rings in your ears. Of course he deserved it then, there’s no denying that. He still deserves it today. If you were ever to see him at any Hollywood function, you’d either ignore his presence entirely or greet him the same exact way you said your goodbye: “Fuck you, Eddie.”. But for a split second, you feel sad that this is the way you remember his name on your tongue.

“We wouldn’t have made you feel worse, sis.” Val says, oblivious to your inner turmoil. “What do you think of this one?” She proceeds to steer you further away from your deprecating thoughts by holding up a simple red dress. Single strap, maxi length. Exactly the opposite of her usual style, primarily because it was a dress and Val always said she’d rather be caught dead than wearing something designed to limit her movements.

“It’s gorgeous,” you compliment, “Exactly your style.”

If she detected your tiny, white lie, she didn’t say anything. Although, judging by the elated look on her face, no one's opinion really mattered anyway. Not even the one she asked for. The one from her famous older sister.

“It really is, isn’t it? I’m gonna try it on.”

Wanting to see your genuine reaction to her wearing the garment, Val asks you to momentarily join Hank, and wait outside the private dressing suite. You giggle at her, missing the fact that this was the first genuine laugh you let out since Los Angeles, and step outside the heavy door without protest.

Hank greets you with a tight lipped smile, but doesn’t say anything. He never does. You liked that about him, especially considering everyone else in your life always had too much to say. Hank’s silence was like a breath of fresh air. However, unknown to you yet, this time, Hank should have been talking, saying literally anything, repeating any old story, ‘cause then, his deep voice would mask what unfortunately catches your attention next.

It’s not really a squeal, not really a groan either. It’s honestly not really any distinct sound, just something that echoes down the hall, reaching your ears and causing Hank to stop the tune he was quietly humming. Both your heads snap in the direction of the noise, just in case it is something you should worry about, like a paparazzo that somehow snuck in, despite the heavy Saks security. Unfortunately for you, the person that comes rushing around the corner is a lot worse than any ol’ shutterbug.

Suddenly, at the end of the hallway, in all her redheaded glory, appears Max Mayfield.

Recognition feigns across her features as her movements come to a halt the second she sees you perched up against the corridor wall. Her mouth parts in shock, proving that she’s clearly just as surprised to see you here.

Having never officially met, Max still knew exactly who you were. And not because of your fame, the articles about you and her brother. No. Judging by the look in her piercing eyes, Max knew you more intimately. She knew you from the stories that fell directly from Eddie’s lips. She knew details of your relationship that were kept secret from the public. Hell, she might’ve even known more than you.

You don’t get to ask her though. You don’t even get to say ‘hello’ because she glances behind her shoulder, your gaze following just as quickly. Holy shit, you think, knees now wobbling underneath you. If Eddie walks around that corner you might… Well, frankly, you don’t know how you’d react. You also didn’t really want to find out. Not now. Not here. Not like this.

So your fingers reach for the door handle and you’re just about to push it open, retreat back inside, when the person that’s with Max comes into view.

The disappointment that briefly rushes through you is unmatched. Even if you didn’t really want to see the rockstar, you still wished he was actually here. Instead, you’re now face to face with another brunette with hair just as wild as Eddie’s. Only his attire is different. The suit that’s perfectly tailored to his slender frame is also undoubtedly expensive. Armani, you notice.

“Jesus, when will you learn not to—”

He sees you then. The same exact look that Max is currently sporting spreads across his sharp features, so he must know you too. Difference being, you don’t know him.

“Oh shit. Sorry. We, eh, we were told no one was here.” He apologises, glancing between you and Hank, who’s posture is proper. Intimidating.

You step out in front of your bodyguard. An unspoken signal that says he doesn’t need to tell these people to get lost just yet.

“That’s okay,” you reply to the stranger, quickly weighing your options in terms of what the next words to spill from your lips should be. One more glance in Max’s direction solidifies your decision. If her brother is going to repeatedly break your heart and get away with it, you’re going to play dumb and pretend he didn’t really matter to you.

With a polite smile and a swift extension of your hand, you introduce yourself. First to the mystery man, then to Max. The redhead is slightly more apprehensive about the hand shake, but she takes your extended fingers in hers regardless before saying her own name, as if you didn’t already know it.

The guy you now know as Steve clears his throat.

“We’ll come back.” It’s simple. Meant to ease the awkwardness since the three of you clearly knew what — or rather, who — you had in common, but none of you seems willing to say the name aloud first.

“That’s okay,” you repeat, “Stay. We’re nearly finished anyway.”

And right on queue, Val calls your name from inside the private dressing room. You excuse yourself, leaving the two to exchange a knowing glance, and a whisper, undoubtedly about what they should do next.

Val, of course, looks breathtaking in the dress she picked out. Hand on your heart, you stare at your little sister in awe, wondering, probably for the first time ever, when the hell did she grow up so fast. And it’s an odd feeling that spreads through you. Pushing down the heartbreak momentarily, is melancholy for all the time you lost with your siblings because you were too busy being a star. It brings tears to your eyes, but you push them down quickly since you’ve been called dramatic enough for one day, and right now, it was all about Valentine.

“I think I understand why you’re always wearing skirts and dresses,” she says, spinning in front of the large mirror with the biggest smile on her face.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I feel like a fucking princess.”

A soft giggle escapes your lips. You agree with her sentiment, then add, “You look like mom.” Meaning it as the highest of compliments and her eyes twinkle at your words.

“She’s going to love this dress.”

You nod. “She’s going to love you in this dress.”

It’s decided, just like that. The dress is being bought and Val thanks you ten times over for offering to pay for it, along with a pair of Louboutins to compliment it. You tell her it’s the least you can do for finally getting you out of bed, then you tell her that you’re glad you did this together — biting your tongue when it came to the apology for missing so many key moments in her life, because again, this moment was about her, not about the guilt you suddenly felt for focusing too much on your career and too little on your family.

Using the phone inside the private dressing room, Val calls for one of the Sales Assistants to come up, and while you two wait, you leave her again to get redressed in her normal clothes.

Max and Steve are gone.

That’s the first thing you notice when stepping back into the corridor. Hank doesn’t say anything as to their departure, unsurprisingly. He does, however, hand you a receipt from a nearby coffee shop. There’s scribbles on the back of it: ‘MEET ME’, along with an address in Brooklyn.

“From the redheaded girl,” Hank admits.

Max Mayfield has tolerated a lot of shitty behaviour in her lifetime.

The list of people that hurt her, and the people closest to her, was quite long, especially for a twenty-something year old. But her upbringing had a lot more downs than ups, and because of that, for the longest time, Max considered herself to be the most unlucky person on the planet. So she blamed the people around her for it, because how else is a kid supposed to judge universal injustice?

To this day, she remembers every single individual that has wronged her in any way, along with the associated place, and most importantly, the how. Max was never entirely sure what she’d do with that information, but she stored it at the back of her mind regardless — hence her thick skin and inability to tolerate any sort of bullshit.

Which is why it sucks ten times more when it is the people close to her doing the hurting, with no rhyme nor reason.

If Eddie asked, that’s why she left you her address. If Eddie asked, that’s why she wanted to talk to you. He did the hurting. Then he spewed bullshit as to why he ended things with you. Max didn’t believe any of it. Anyone with half a brain wouldn’t believe it.

“I think she’s the love of my life,” Eddie announced one day, out of the blue.

He called Max every Tuesday, when it hit four in the afternoon for him. Usually, the two of them talked about Max’s adventures in New York. How she’s doing with her studies, what she’s been up to with her friends (old and new), and if Sinclair has been driving her crazy, which he usually is. The odd time, Eddie would drop in some details about his whirlwind of a life, though he never talked about dating.

That is, until her older brother met you.

Then he wouldn’t fucking shut up.

Max liked this side of Eddie. A truly happy Eddie. And the redhead knows, better than anyone, the rockstar hasn’t been truly happy in all the years he’s been in a set presence in her life.

So to say she was surprised when the news broke, NO MORE SWEETHEART FOR EDDIE MUNSON, would be a vast understatement.

“Dude, what the fuck?” Max questioned her brother.

“Nothing,” Eddie answered plainly, as if it was the simplest thing in the world, “turns out she wasn’t anything special.”

“Eddie,” Max breathed, “you’re acting like a prick.”

She heard a sigh on the other line. Defeated. A little annoyed. Maybe even… sad?

“Whatever,” he brushed the comment off. “Listen, Red, I really don’t wanna talk about this, ‘cause if I did, I would’ve told you it ended myself.”

“That’s another problem I have—”

“Let’s not, okay?” Eddie snapped. “I really don’t wanna deal with shit from you, on top of everyone else, okay? We were never a real item, so it’s not a big deal.”

Max dropped it then and she swore she’d never bring it up again, but then, she bumped into you. She imagined meeting you many times over. The girl that made her brother happy. She wanted to know that girl. She wanted to thank her.

When it all went to hell, Max thought she’d never get the chance. Especially since, seemingly, you seemed okay with the downfall of your relationship with Eddie, spotted out on dates all over New York City. For a brief moment, Max let herself hate you. Clearly, you weren’t upset, which means, clearly, you didn’t care about Eddie nearly as much as he would have believed.

But then she saw you.

Max noticed how your face twitched with recognition the second your eyes locked together, how your hands shook slightly when Max looked behind her shoulder, the brief disappointment when it wasn’t Eddie who came around the corner, and how you tried to plaster on a pristine smile when you introduced yourself.

And now that she saw you, one thing was clear. Eddie hurt your feelings. He may have even broken your heart. That sort of behaviour, Max couldn’t stand for.

“Thank you for coming.”

“Thank you for inviting me,” you say with a delicate smile.

Your moves are apprehensive when Max further pushes her apartment door open, allowing you into her home. She leads you down the long hallway and offers up the couch for you to sit, while she steps towards the kitchen cabinets to grab a couple of wine glasses.

In the time that Max opens up a bottle of Cabernet, you allow yourself to glance around the space. The furniture is all mismatched, definitely vintage, probably thrifted. There’s a fireplace, but you think it must be disconnected since instead it houses cream-coloured candles, all of different burn degrees. Otherwise, the decor is minimal, and it makes you think of Eddie and the empty walls of his Los Angeles mansion.

Though there is one prime feature. A framed Corroded Coffin poster, signed by all the members.

A faint smile circles your lips as you trail the details of the image. Though you haven’t been a fan before, having dated Eddie for a couple of months, you now knew the poster was from their first headline tour. The poor scribbles on an old photo, something that could one day be worth thousands. You’re sure though, that to Max, the value of this is priceless.

So your nerves bubble to the surface. Your leg starts to bounce, thumb back at your lips as you stare at the poster in front of you. The question of why exactly Max asked you to meet has been circling your mind ever since Hank handed you the address. It’s only intensified now that you are here. Now that you are looking at an A3 print of the brunette rockstar in his sister’s apartment. The guy that, despite your best efforts, you still cared for quite deeply.

“Here you go,” Max hails you back to reality by handing you a glass of wine. “It’s nothing fancy though, I eh, don’t usually host celebrities,” she tries to joke.

“Don’t worry about it,” you say and take the drink out of her grasp. “I-I actually prefer the cheaper stuff. Keeps me rich,” you try to joke.

Max seems to like your efforts ‘cause she huffs out a laugh while making herself comfortable on the armchair to your right.

“If only my idiotic brother carried the same principles as you,” she says. And just like that, the air is tense again. Your attempt at a joke is turned into an uncomfortable reminder of what the two of you have in common, and the reason for why you’re here tonight.

There’s a brief moment of slightly awkward silence. Then Max sighs softly.

“You’re probably wondering why I asked you to come.”

“The thought did cross my mind, yes.”

Max smiles, it’s small, yet genuine.

“Look, Eddie has never been one for chatting about feelings. That’s one of the things we actually have in common, which is probably why we’ve always gotten along so well.” She pauses.

“Full transparency, I don’t know what went down between the two of you. All I know is one day, he’s telling me how he’s crazy about you, and the next, I’m reading in the tabloids how it’s over and Eddie’s not willing to give up any reasons why.”

Your face falls momentarily. Something Max picks up on instantly.

“You thought I knew more.”

“That obvious, huh?” You smirk.

“Just a little.”

There’s another moment of silence.

“I’ll be the first to say that Eddie can be a bit of a dickhead sometimes. Especially recently, when the money started rolling in and apparently no one in Hollywood understands setting boundaries, his ego has grown for sure. But I also know what he’s been through. Hawkins wasn’t the kindest to him.”

“Why are you telling me this?” It comes out as a whisper.

“He hurt you,” she’s blunt.

You don’t mean to, but you scoff. “No offence to you, or your brother, but I’m sure I wasn’t the first person he’s hurt, and I certainly won’t be the last, so do you sit down with all his ex-flings?”

Max sucks her bottom lip between her teeth, chewing down momentarily, as she drops her gaze to the wine glass in her grasp. For a moment, you think you came off too bitchy and a little dismissive, after all, she hasn’t made her intentions known yet. Your instinct is to apologise, but then she clears her throat and looks back up at you.

“You’re the only one he’s ever talked about.”

“Do you wanna hurt him back?” — Max's question dings in your ears like the alarm bells you should have heard when she first asked it.

Not now. Not the next night, after you had already agreed to her plan. After the plan was already in motion, you were simply just waiting for the other person to arrive.

Waiting for Steve Harrington.

This was all honestly a little too crazy, but again, you thought so a little too late. You should have been second guessing the idea the second Max presented it to you, like a pretty little gift, wrapped in a big bow known to most as ‘revenge’. Though last night, two bottles of wine in, you would have agreed to anything the redhead said. You did agree to everything ‘cause you realised that she just needed someone to vent her own feelings to, same as you.

She said Eddie didn’t want to talk about it, and she wanted to be sympathetic towards his feelings, but seeing you reminded her, he wasn’t the only person involved in this situation. She needed to talk to you. And honestly, you were glad for the opportunity, hence why you showed up at the scribbled address. Since all you got from your close circle was judgement, it couldn’t hurt to spend time with someone who’d refrain from commenting on how foolish you were.

As the night progressed, so did the topic of conversation.

The two of you had moved on from small talk relating to the person you both knew, and to the real reason Max asked you to come over: “Do you wanna hurt him back?”.

“I-I…” Clearly, the redhead caught you off guard, “Well, I-I haven’t really—”

“If you tell me you haven’t thought about it over the last few months, then I will say you’re full of shit, because no girl of your status gets her heartbroken so publicly, only to let the other person scot free.”

She moved from the armchair and sat back down next to you, then continued, “And I’m not saying this is about your career. It’s about principle. Taking away the fact that Eddie’s my brother, he’s an entitled rockstar who thinks other people’s feelings aren’t as important! Which personally, is just so baffling considering what he went through with Chrissy—”

“Who’s Chrissy?”

Max didn’t really answer your question, though the look in her eyes gave some of it away. Chrissy was, at one point in time, someone very important to Eddie. The name slipped out, you weren’t supposed to know it, that much was definitely clear. And you were smart enough to deduct that Max wasn’t going to tell you much else about this mystery girl, but maybe, whatever she had planned, would allow you to learn it from someone else. Maybe even Eddie himself.

“Okay,” you agreed, “What do you have in mind?”

That’s how you found yourself at Minetta Tavern, fifteen minutes early than agreed with Max ‘cause you knew you’d need a glass of wine before Steve arrived. There was a pit in your stomach. This whole situation was honestly so twisted, even for your standards. But you kept repeating to yourself how it was too late to back out now. Too late to call off this whole thing since the paparazzi you asked Holly to arrange were already lurking outside.

Steve shows up about ten minutes before the agreed time.

The hostess walks him over to your table and you immediately notice how nervous he seems. He still offers you a charming smile and bends slightly to your level, greeting you with a half-hug. When he sits across from you, he’s quick to order a Jameson on ice, and only when the waiter is out of sight, Steve looks at you.

“Even if this is a fake date, I do have to say, you look really beautiful tonight.”

A timid smile circles your lips at the unexpected compliment. “Thank you, Steve. You look rather handsome too.”

“Nah,” he brushes you off with a smirk, “Not to be overly forward, but I’m all sweaty after a whole day’s work. Wanted to change shirts. Ended up running late this morning, so I didn’t take a second one with me. Then I tried to bribe one of my colleagues to give me his spare shirt, so he told me he’d bet me for it with a game of pool, which I clearly lost. It was a whole thing.” Steve dramatises, the smirk ever present.

“Bet you’re regretting calling me handsome now, huh?”

“Not at all,” you reply honestly, “Actually, surprisingly, quite the opposite.”

He raises a brow. “Oh yeah?”

And you nod. “Not to be overly forward,” you repeat his earlier sentiment, “But I’ve never been on a date with someone that had a real job.”

Steve laughs. “I just told you I played a game of pool at work to win a clean shirt. That’s a real job to you?”

It’s rather effortless how he makes you laugh too.

“Well, I’m assuming that didn’t take the whole day, so for at least six hours today, you worked, no?”

Still smiling, he bops his head in agreement. “You got me there.”

Celebrating your mini victory, you take a sip of your wine.

“So, what do you do, Steve?” You ask after the waiter brings over his drink and takes your food orders.

“Wall Street,” he answers plainly.

“Shit,” you reply with a grin, “You’re so right. That’s not a real job.”

When Steve laughs again, you forget why you’re both really here. When he laughs again, the slight shake of his head causing his hair to bounce in compliment, you forget the circumstances surrounding your date. As the night continued, with every spoken word, every little joke and giggle, you end up forgetting a lot of things actually.

You forget to ask Steve why he agreed to do this with you. Forget to ask about Eddie and what their friendship meant to him, since he’s here, acting out a revenge plot. Most importantly, you forget to ask about Chrissy, who she was, and what she really meant to the rockstar.

This fake date with Steve turned into one of the best dates of your young-adult life.

Apparently, you two had a lot in common, more than you could have ever imagined. You both came from families that always lived above the norm, which in itself was a challenge only people from similar backgrounds could understand. Steve had said how the weight of the world was always on his shoulders whenever he was around his parents, and that’s how you felt with your Nana. Nothing was ever good enough, yet you kept trying to impress them regardless. He shared the privilege you’ve always felt, so you bonded. Without ever meaning to.

It wasn’t until after dinner, which Steve paid for, by the way, you remembered the circumstances that brought you here together. He seemed to understand the apprehensive look in your eyes ‘cause he was quick to offer to leave first, before you, and not with you — just in case you had second thoughts — but you just shook your head, Max’s question humming in your ears once again: “Do you wanna hurt him back?”.

“He really hurt me, Steve.”

The brunette nods. “Let’s go then.”

The next morning, Page Six features a spread about you on a date with “a mystery brunette”. In the picture, Steve’s got his arm around you, hugging you close, as the two of you push through the paparazzi to get into his vintage car.

When Steve calls your apartment a few days later, you ask him if he regrets being put on blast like that.

“No,” he answers quickly, “Real or not, I had a really good night with you. Which honestly made me think about all the possible reasons Munson might’ve had to do what he did.”

“What did you come up with?”

“That he’s a fucking idiot. You’re incredible.”

You damn well know he can picture the smile you’re sporting right now as you wrap the cord around your wrist, like a little school girl talking to her crush. If your Nana saw, she’d tell you to snap out of it. Although, unlike Eddie, Steve was exactly the type of guy she’d want you to end up with.

Intelligent, charming, kind — and those were just the qualities you learned in a single night. The more you thought about your not-so-fake date, the more you found yourself wanting to learn even more about the handsome brunette.

There were just a couple of other questions you needed to get out of the way before you asked Steve out on a real date. Things you should’ve asked the first time around, instead of getting caught up in the moment.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“If Eddie’s your friend, why did you agree to Max’s plan?”

There’s a brief moment of silence. Albeit, very brief.

“I guess the same reason Red even put this in motion in the first place.”

“Chrissy?”

You can hear him sigh into the receiver, but you don’t get to actually hear him confirm it, or ask any of the follow ups you should have actually asked him during your date, because there’s a knock on your door. Then again, only louder, more intense.

“Steve, I gotta call you back,” you say, attention now focused on whoever it was that’s on the other side of your front door and the eagerness behind their knocks.

“Sure thing, darling. Everything okay?”

“Yeah, someone’s just at my door. I’ll call you in a couple minutes, okay?”

“Okay,” Steve agrees, “Speak in a few.”

The next thing you hear are three beeps, so you hurry to put the phone back before approaching your front door. You don’t really think to check who it might be through the peephole, since there’s only a limited number of people that would get past your doorman with no prior notice. That was a mistake.

On the other side of your apartment door, drenched from the September rain, stood none other than Corroded Coffin frontman himself, Mr Eddie Munson.

Your mouth parts slightly in shock as Eddie slides his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, meeting your wide gaze. He tries to smile, though the corners of his lips don’t really move that far upward.

And you’re not sure how long the two of you stand there, just looking at one another. It’s only when one of your neighbours comes out of their apartment, into the shared corridor, that you snap out of whatever spell you had found yourself under.

The panic sets in.

He’s actually here. Eddie is standing in front of you. Now, Mrs McAllister has seen him, and she’s got a big mouth, yapping to the ladies at bingo about all your activities, gossip that somehow always travels back to your Nana — the last person you needed on your case, again.

So without really thinking, you slam the door shut.

Right in Eddie’s face.

thank you for reading! really appreciate the endless & continuous support!

celebrity skin. masterlist

& tagging some cool ppl that expressed interest: @eviethetheatrefreak , @thirddeadlysin , @haylaansmi , @nope-thanks , @tlclick73 , @vintagehellfire , @ashlynnkennedy , @avalon-wolf , @sidthedollface2 , @astheni-a , @bebe07011 , @aysheashea , @papillonoirsworld , @vol2eddie

#eddie munson #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson fic #eddie munson story #eddie munson angst #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x fem!reader #celebrity skin.

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octuscle · 3 months

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I know you 'produce' a lot of athletes in soccer, football and so on but I'd like to become an ice hockey star - maybe I can replace an actual player and you find another solution for him? I'm open for your suggestions but nice abs are a must 😉

Monday morning. 08:30. Start of duty at the call center. The phones are ringing off the hook. It's going to be another great week, you can feel it. There's still slush on the streets of Berlin outside. Somehow spring is not coming at all this year. After the third caller who berates you for things you can't do anything about, you're already fed up. You greet the fourth caller with a friendly "Grützi". Shit, where does your Swiss accent come from… You're actually from northern Germany… Nonsense! Bern is not in northern Germany. You are proudly Swiss. The other colleagues here have always made fun of your accent…

Thank God you survived this morning. During your lunch break, you go for a run through the park. Your body needs exercise, otherwise you'll get cranky. This morning it was still bloody cold outside in Nashville. But the temperature is rising rapidly. In the early afternoon, it should finally be well over 20 degrees Celsius again. Eh, you mean 68 degrees Fahrenheit, of course. You just can't get used to the strange units of measurement here in the USA. But you'll learn that too.

The afternoon shift at the gym is always relaxed. There are hardly any people working out. Plenty of free space to do a bit of training yourself. You love to confuse new customers. With your roots in the Balkans, most people here think you're an Arab. And when you speak English with your Swiss accent, nobody knows what to believe. After 4 p.m. you have more to do. That's when some of the ice hockey team come to train. They're professionals, they're fun to talk to. Better than overweight pensioners who want to get in shape. Hehehe, but they usually tip better…

The Predators have a public practice tonight. You saw they're looking for a new fitness trainer. Ice hockey was already your passion back home in Switzerland. Now to be under contract with one of the best clubs in the world... That would be a hot deal! And you know a few of the guys quite well by now, maybe someone will put in a good word for you. A few of the less experienced fans ask you if you're an injured professional. Because you're not on the ice. Yes, you really don't look like the typical fan in your jersey….

The alarm clock rings at 05:30. You're awake two seconds earlier. Even though your family's roots are in the Balkans, you were born and raised in Bern. You are a Swiss precision instrument. Always on time. And your shots almost always hit the mark. Training on the ice starts at 09:00. Before that, you want to do your eight-mile lap and spend an hour on the weights. Last season you weren't fit enough, you missed a lot of time due to injury. That shouldn't happen to you again this season. Hard and controlled training. That's the only way to stay at the top!

Dude, you're a machine! Captain of the team. The first Swiss player to be awarded the James Norris Memorial Trophy as the NHL's best defenseman. You're one of the players with the highest advertising revenue. Some attribute it to your eight-pack. Others attribute it to your discipline and reliability. But you still have a little quirk. You call your helmet Roman. You haven't told anyone why…

#male tf #muscle tf #reality change #chronivac #race change #ice hockey #ai image

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hymemena · 8 months

Text

Trials in Tainted Space Transformative Items Magic Anons

Feel free to change pronouns as necessary, and remember to specify muse for multimuse blogs. These are taken from the game Trials In Tainted Space. Inspired by this meme by @sunbun-memes.

CW: General NSFW, Heats, Ruts, Transformation

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Amazona Iced Tea - Increases breast size, height, and/or muscle tone in female-identifying individuals.

Amber Seed - Grants the consumer avian attributes. If consumer is feline, the amber seed will change them into a griffin. If consumer is equine, the amber seed will turn them into a hippogriff. If consumer is a naga or similar snake-like being, the amber seed will change them into a quetzalcoatl.

Bovinium - A small bottle labeled "Bovinium" that contains a small, cow-shaped gummy candy. Grants the consumer cowgirl attributes. If consumer has a penis, their penis will shrink. If the consumer has breasts, their breasts will go and begin to lactate if not already lactating.

Breeder's Bliss - Induces heat or rut in the consumer.

Cackler - A chocolate bar filled with crisped rice. The front of the wrapper has the name spelled out in big, blocky letters. Grants the consumer hyena attributes.

Canine Popper - Grants the consumer canine attributes. If consumer does not already have a tail, the canine popper will cause one to grow. If consumer has a penis, it will become a knotted canine penis. If consumer has a vagina, it will become a canine vagina.

Capraphorm - A small, disposable inhaler full of something called “Capraphorm.” It is blank white in appearance with a black silhouette of what appears to be a goat above the mouthpiece. Grants the consumer caprine attributes. If consumer does not have hooves, they will gain hooves. If consumer does not have horns, they will grow horns.

Catnip - Grants the consumer feline attributes. If consumer has a penis, it will be transformed into a barbed feline penis. If consumer has a vagina, it will become a feline vagina. Accidental or intentional overdose will cause the consumer to become a cattaur.

Chocolac - Causes the consumer to lactate chocolate milk upon consumption.

Dicksprout - Causes user's penis to grow larger. In some cases, causes user to grow an additional penis.

Dose of Soak - Effective only on those who possess a vagina. Will dramatically enhance lubrication and sensitivity of the consumer's vagina.

Dumbfuck Pill - Causes the consumer to become a himbo or a bimbo, depending on gender identity.

Goblinola Snack Bar - A snack bar that is gaudily advertised on its plastic wrap as a tasty, healthy treat. Grants the consumer goblin attributes. Will cause taller folk to become as short as three feet six inches.

Horse Pill - Grants the consumer equine attributes. If consumer has a penis, it will be transformed into an equine penis. If consumer has a vagina, it will be transformed into an equine vagina. May cause the consumer to become a centaur.

Illumorpheme - Grants the user moth attributes. If user does not have wings or antennae, illumorpheme will cause them to manifest. Lemon

Loftcake - A lemon cake roll designed to dramatically increase the consumer's height to a maximum of 120 inches.

Lion-Os - Grants the user lion attributes. If user is female-aligned, can cause the growth of a second row of breasts.

Lip Tease - Allows the user to shrink or enlarge their lips, as well as change their lips' natural color.

Mousearella Cheese - A cheesy snack covered in a thin plastic wrapper with the image of a cartoon mouse nibbling on an oversized wedge of Swiss cheese. Grants the consumer mouse attributes. Will shrink taller individuals down to a maximum of 60 inches tall, and cause the growth of mouse ears and tail.

New Ewe - Grants the consumer sheep attributes. This includes a thick layer of fluffy wool, and the growth of ram horns in male-identifying consumers.

Ovilium - Causes the consumer to become pregnant with eggs.

Pandaneen Pill - Grants the consumer panda attributes.

Pussyblossom Pill - Causes the consumer to grow a vagina. Maxes out at three.

Shark Bites - This is a simple white pack containing three brown coloured jerky-esque bits. Grants the consumer shark attributes. Consumers will gain scales and shark markings, as well as gills.

Strawberry Shortcake - A strawberry cake roll that dramatically reduces the consumer's height to a minimum of 48 inches.

Swineapple - Grants the consumer swine attributes. If consumer has a penis, it will be transformed into a swine penis. If consumer has a vagina, it will be transformed into a swine vagina. Will also cause consumer to grow a corkscrew tail.

Tittyblossom - Grants user enlarged breasts. Has also been known to reduce muscle tone and increase femininity.

Virection - Causes the consumer's penis to grow larger, with a maximum size of thirty inches long. May also result in the consumer growing another penis, up to a maximum of ten.

Zil Ration - These are dried rations appear to be made from local fruits and plant nectars. Grants the consumer bee attributes. Often results in lactation of honey in female-identifying consumers, and honey cum in all consumers.

#roleplay memes #rp memes #rp starters #roleplay starters #writing prompts #nsft meme #nsft rp meme #nsft roleplay meme

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thewillofdeez · 1 year

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Dracule Mihawk - NSFW Alphabet

Minors DNI. Reader can mostly be read as G/N, though there are some female-specific references. Mihawk is bi/pan.

I'm struggling with some of my ongoing fics so decided to do some of these as an exercise. SFW and other characters to follow (Shanks, Smoker, Law, and possibly Marco and Beckman).

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

Depends on the partner. If it’s a one-night stand, he’ll let them take the lead. If they want to cuddle? Sure, even if it’s not his favorite thing with someone who’s essentially a stranger, he feels like it’s the appropriate thing to do. If they wanna kick him out immediately, he also won’t take offense to that. But in a relationship? He wants nothing more than to hold his person close, kiss them softly, and relish in the feeling of their bodies together. Long-term, he’ll learn enough about what his partner likes that he’ll give them what they need without them even needing to say a word. Cuddling? Talking? A bath? A glass of wine? Straight to sleep? Whatever they need, he’s more than happy to provide.

B = Body part (Their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Mihawk doesn’t think of himself that way much. Yes, he knows he’s attractive, but to say favorite? Well, that’s odd for him. If forced to choose, he’d say his eyes. While there was a time in his youth that he absolutely hated them, over time he’s grown to appreciate them. He knows how much power they hold, and he can certainly give them a certain amount of attribution to the position in society he holds today. He sort of likes that he can silence just about anyone with a look. But there’s the striking-fear side of his eyes, and the loving, kind part that only his partner sees. He also likes that you like his eyes. On his partner, he’s very much a neck and shoulders guy. He loves biting that junction between your neck and shoulders that makes your knees collapse. And if you want a massage, he’s more than happy to give it.

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person)

On the one hand, Mihawk has met enough pirates in his time that are careless with their sexual health, and it grosses him out. He enjoys sex as much as the next guy, and so he acts appropriately to avoid any long-term consequences. That being said, he absolutely loves nothing more than finishing deep in his partner. Wherever they want him to, he will. In a fling, he’ll always ensure that he’s at least wrapped it up, but in a relationship, assuming his partner (if female) is on birth control and he trusts them, he wants nothing more than to go bare and cum deep inside them.

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

He wouldn’t call it “dirty” at all, but he’s had a few experiences with men. Not as many, and he doesn’t exactly advertise anything about his sex life, being a rather private person, but he knows not everyone is as discreet as he is and that rumors go around. He’ll open up about his sexual escapades with a long-term partner if they want to know. And if they’re into it, he might even be down for a threesome with another partner of any gender. Also, once he was in an orgy. It was fun, but almost too chaotic for him.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

Mihawk has been sexually active since he was a teenager. Especially in his younger days, he saw sex as not just a pleasurable experience, but a learning one. He’s the kind of guy who likes to be skilled at anything he does, and sex is no exception. He sees every experience as an opportunity to learn a new trick, a new way to make someone fall apart. And if you’re the one he sees as the end-all of his romantic life? You’re reaping the fruits of years of labor.

F = Favorite Position (This goes without saying.)

In some ways, Mihawk is an old-fashioned kind of guy. Missionary is absolutely his favorite, including any variations thereof. He loves being on top and thrusting into you. Is it a dominance thing? Maybe, sort of. But there’s something about him being in such control of your pleasure that drives him wild. That being said, he’s always okay to switch it up. He can’t deny that he likes the view with you on top.

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

Mihawk has a certain reverence for sex. He’ll never try to make you laugh. But if it happens, it happens. And if he gives you an orgasm that’s so intense you can’t help but laugh as you come down, well, he’ll certainly laugh too.

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

The man takes care of himself, but he’s not a super hairy guy to begin with. He keeps it decently trimmed as a standard practice, but if he forgets he doesn’t worry about it. On a partner, that’s also up to them, he’s just happy to be there, though he won’t deny he’s partial to a full Brazilian on a female partner.

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

This guy is all about his partner. You have his full attention, and get to see a side of him that no one else does. He likes to praise his partner. Sometimes he’ll do the whole candles and rose petals thing, but he keeps it as a rare treat, otherwise it loses its thrill.

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

Mihawk is a disciplined guy. He prides himself in his self-control. He’d rather have a partner to satisfy his needs when they pop up, but when that isn’t possible he’ll try to avoid it until he can’t anymore. He’s as human as the rest of us, and sometimes he’s gotta do what he’s gotta do, even if he sees it as a biological need more than something to really enjoy. He knows he’s reached the point where he either has to find a partner fast or take himself in hand when he finds it difficult to concentrate on his work.

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

Mihawk really likes shibari. He’s got a small collection of ropes just for that purpose. While he prefers to be the one doing the tying, he’s also allowed himself to be tied up a few times, and he enjoyed that too, though the idea of not being in control can make him really anxious. He’ll only allow himself to be tied up by someone he trusts completely. He’ll also occasionally bust out the whips and paddles, but he’s very aware of how strong he is and sometimes gets nervous about hitting his partner a bit too hard. If you want it harder, you’ll have to tell him a few times before he'll really let you have it.

L = Location (Favorite places to do the do)

Home is where the heart is. And also where the boning is. He loves to do it in bed, but in the privacy of his castle, he’ll take you just about anywhere. Against a wall, on the dining room table, bent over the kitchen counter while you’re trying to make dinner, in front of the fireplace…if you lived with Mihawk at Kuraigana there would hardly be a surface that hadn’t been fucked on. But outside of the privacy of his home, he prefers a bed or nothing. He really doesn’t like having sex outdoors.

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

For a fling, nothing out of the usual. Are they attractive and attracted to him? Then yeah, sure, that’s about it. With flings, sex is about practicality and achieving a need - to please someone else and be pleasured. But in a relationship, it goes deeper. He finds strength sexy - if you know how to fight, he could sit and watch (or spar with) you for hours before taking you. Going back to being a neck and shoulders guy, any outfit that shows those off will get him going. And if you’re a woman and your bra strap just happens to slip down your arm? His mouth will be on you in seconds.

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Mihawk doesn’t like degradation or anything that falls under that umbrella. He might have a reputation for cruelty, but he believes in treating the people who are willing to share their bodies with him with the utmost respect. He’ll only do knife-play with a long-term partner who wants it, otherwise, it’s a no-go, and it will never involve blood-play.

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

He’s an exceptional giver, and frankly not much makes him happier than using his mouth and hands to please his partner. He could, and would, go down on you for hours if you let him. If you’re into edging, he also enjoys that, but he’d only do it after making sure it’s something you’re okay with. As for receiving, well he likes it as much as the next guy. If you’re also into it, he likes to stand with you on your knees in front of him as he holds your hair and fucks your face gently. He’ll never go too rough at this as he doesn’t want to hurt you and he knows he’s a pretty big guy, but having that control, being allowed to use you that way….he really, really likes that.

P = Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

Mihawk can go both ways. He can be a bit of a tease, so he likes to start out slow and shallow, then go faster and deeper when it’s time. Some people like to be jackhammered, and while it’s not his favorite, he’s certainly capable of providing it if it's what his partner needs, and he does find he enjoys that more in doggy or a similar position. With a long-term partner, especially when they’re in bed, he wants that slow, deep movement so that they feel every inch of him. He doesn’t want to go too fast at first, but he will go rough and deep with every thrust.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

He’d prefer not. He has enough self-control that he can usually wait until he’s able to have a partner fully, the way he wants. But he’ll do it occasionally if needed, or if it’s what his partner wants. If anything, the knowledge that his partner actually can’t wait is kind of a turn on.

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

With a fling, he’s always cautious. He doesn’t really know the person, he doesn’t know what they’re going to do or how they’ll react, and so unless the partner is willing to communicate a plan and boundaries carefully, he’ll usually pass on anything out of the ordinary. With a committed relationship or someone he’s been with multiple times, he’s more open to trying things, especially if he’s had the chance to do his own research on it first.

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

This guy can go all night if you want him to. His refractory period is like five minutes, it’s actually pretty impressive. He cannot count the number of times he’s told his still-panting new partner he’s ready for the next round if they are and they’ve gone “Already? Seriously?!” He finds it amusing.

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

Mihawk tends to keep his toys to himself unless a long-term partner is interested in using them. He has a few pegging instruments to take care of himself during a dry spell, and as he tends to have more female partners than male, they help scratch an itch his female partners aren’t always willing to help with.

U = Unfair (How much they like to tease)

Mihawk loves to tease, but knows there’s a time and a place for it. Sometimes he wants his partner to be a writhing, begging mess before he gives them what they want. He does like edging, as mentioned above, and if you’re willing he will make all the waiting worth it. If you live with or visit him at Kuraigana, he’ll let you know how much he wants you through subtle touches, looks, and comments all day (especially if Zoro and Perona are around and he can’t be as overt with his affections as he might like), then make sure to give you what you’ve waited all day for at night. But there’s a time for teasing and there’s also times where he just needs to bend you over and unceremoniously rail you.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

Mihawk has been told by more than one partner that he’s too quiet. He’ll show his pleasure on his face, but he sometimes has trouble vocalizing it. He’s gotten better over the years though, and a long-term partner who is able to take the time to find out what exactly makes him hiss, moan, or let out a quiet “fuck…” will be able to bring more sounds out of him in no time. Also, if you can get a few drinks in him, he’ll automatically be less inhibited with his volume. On the other hand, he desperately wants to make you scream for him and just isn’t satisfied until the whole building can hear you.

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

He tends to have really detailed sex dreams, especially if it’s been a while for him. If he thinks about it when he wakes up in the morning, he’ll try to write down what he remembers. He’s got half a notebook full of just bits and pieces of sex dreams and has strongly considered writing and publishing smut under a pseudonym. He thinks he’d be pretty good at it.

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants)

Nothing Mihawk owns or does is ever less than the best. He’s not a man who has ever been just adequate at anything. And that includes his cock. It’s long, but not uncomfortably so, and has an ever-so-slight curve.

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

Being as attractive as he is, his sex drive is usually in response to what he feels he can get and not the other way around. If he sees someone eyeing him across the room, his horniness level will go from 0 to 100.

Z = ZZZ (How quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Mihawk finds sex to be energizing, like a good workout. It usually takes some time for him to get to sleep afterwards, so if you want that bath or some pillow talk afterwards, he’s happy to provide. If you need to go right to sleep, he’ll probably just enjoy laying with you for a while, or maybe light a candle and read a book until he gets tired.

Up next: Mihawk SFW Alphabet

#dracule mihawk #dracule mihawk x reader #hawkeye mihawk smut #mihawk x reader #takanome mihawk #one piece smut

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 10 days

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Donald Trump on Sunday called for President Joe Biden to take down an attack ad featuring a series of quotes attributed to the Republican in which he mocks dead soldiers.

The former president’s demand came on the same day that Biden honored fallen troops in a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France, the burial ground that Trump chose not to visit in 2018 and was later reported to have done so while describing the site as “filled with losers.” Trump has denied making the remark—and another in which he allegedly called more than 1,800 Marines “suckers” for being killed—ever since The Atlantic first published his purported words in 2020.

Those denials continued Sunday, first at a rally in Las Vegas. “He said I stood over graves of soldiers and I said: ‘These people are suckers and losers, the dead soldiers from World War I,’’ Trump said, referring to Biden. He went on to claim the whole episode was “made up” and, despite the Biden campaign knowing it’s “phony,” they still “took an ad using it—these are sick people.”

Trump appeared to be referring to an attack ad launched by the Biden campaign on Friday during the president’s visit to Normandy for ceremonies commemorating the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings. The video featured the reported “suckers” and “losers” quotes, along with audio of Trump mocking the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) as being thought of as a “war hero” because he was captured during the Vietnam War. “I like people that weren’t captured,” Trump added.

“Donald Trump doesn’t know a damn thing about service to his country,” read a post on Biden’s X account featuring the clip.

At the rally in Vegas, Trump accused his political opponents of fabricating stories about him in order to get elected. “Unless you’re a psycho or a crazy person or a very stupid person, who would say that, anyway?” Trump said, referring to the “suckers” and “losers” comments.

He also took a swipe at the “geniuses” who advised him simply not to mention the allegation. “It just never goes away, I gotta mention it,” Trump told his supporters. “I don’t like mentioning it. But for me to say ‘suckers and losers’ about people that died in World War I in front of military people? It’s not a possibility you could say a thing like that.”

Trump’s fury about the matter continued in a pair of Truth Social posts Sunday. He dismissed the “losers and suckers” claim as “another Democrat Disinformation ‘hit job’” and said only “a sicko with an axe to grind would suggest that anyone would make such a statement.”

“They even made these horrific words into an advertisement, which shows how desperate they are,” the post continued. “No President, especially ‘dumb as a rock’ Joe Biden, has done more for our Military than DONALD J. TRUMP. The Military hates Crooked Joe, and all of the failure he represents. Take down the Fake Ad, Joe, and stop the unprecedented Weaponization of ‘Justice’ against your Political Opponent.”

In another post, he again claimed to have “never said that dead Soldiers are ‘losers and suckers.’”

“Anytime you see that despicable FAKE statement used, remember that it comes from the FASCIST SCUM that is destroying our Country,” he wrote.

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vague-humanoid · 8 months

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@midians-world @dirhwangdaseul

Missing pronouns and double-entendres

Historians have traced the roots of country music at least to the 17th century, but the “big bang” moment for the industry didn’t happen until the 1920s.

In 1927, record producer Ralph Peer traveled from New York City to Bristol, Tennessee to hold recording sessions with “hillbilly” artists from the surrounding areas. The Bristol Sessions, as they came to be known, introduced the world to artists like Jimmie Rodgers and The Carter Family, foundational figures in what we now call country music.

That same year, in New York, an artist named Ewen Hail recorded “Lavender Cowboy,” a story-song about a boyish figure “with only two hairs on his chest” who takes on a group of outlaws and dies a hero’s death. Adapted from a 1923 poem by pulp writer Harold Hersey, “Lavender Cowboy” appeared in the 1930 film Oklahoma Cyclone and has since been covered many times, most notably by Vernon Dalhart in 1939.

A couple years later, the Prairie Ramblers recorded “I Love My Fruit,” a Western swing-style novelty song so ripe with double-entendres that the group recorded it using a pseudonym. Attributed to the Sweet Violet Boys, “I Love My Fruit” is gloriously homoerotic, with lyrics that extol the virtues of (among other things) chewing on banana skin.

youtube

The 1960s saw the emergence of Wilma Burgess, a mainstream star who wasn’t able to be out but also never hid her identity. A protege of prolific producer Owen Bradley — who saw her as a potential successor to Patsy Cline — Burgess insisted on recording songs where the love interest was not referred to by gendered pronouns. When she did occasionally record songs addressed to male lovers, she did so under the agreement with Bradley that her next recording would be a song of her choice. Her songs “Baby” and “Misty Blue” both cracked the top 10, and she still holds the record for the most charted singles by a gay country artist.'

youtube

Burgess left the country music industry in the late 70s, but she remained active in Nashville’s queer scene, opening one of the city’s first lesbian bars in the early 80s.

Queer country music’s “lost pioneer”

No queer country history would be complete without the story of Patrick Haggerty, the man responsible for what’s widely considered the first openly gay country album, Lavender Country.

Haggerty grew up on a dairy farm in rural Washington, the sixth of ten children born to hard-working parents. Despite growing up in the repressive climate of the 50s, Haggerty has said his father was accepting of his sexuality, which was evident from a young age.

After getting kicked out of the Peace Corps for being gay in 1966, Haggerty decided to devote his life to activism, becoming involved with the Gay Liberation Front. His anger over the injustices of the era became the basis for Lavender Country, the 1973 album that would define his legacy.

The album, which Haggerty recorded with his band of the same name, is scathing and often funny, featuring would-be classics like “Back in the Closet Again” and “Cryin’ These C**ksucking Tears” delivered in a loose, folky style.

youtube

With the support of the Gay Community Services of Seattle, 1000 copies of Lavender Country were created, advertised in gay periodicals, and sold at gay bookstores. Despite the limited number of copies, the album attracted a fair amount of attention in the gay underground. “Lavender Country” played at Seattle Pride and other gay events in the region.

The band disbanded in 1976, and Haggerty thought his music career was behind him. A self-described “screaming Marxist b***h,” he became further involved in activist circles, later co-founding the Seattle chapter of ACT UP and running for Seattle City Council and the state House of Representatives as an independent.

the article goes into more, like Lang's Shadowland

youtube

#Youtube

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hogwartslegacypics · 9 months

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The Mystery of Ominis Gaunt’s Wand

I was going to make a post analyzing his wand just like I did for Sebastian, but I’m having difficulties because I have no idea which wand is actually his.

The 1st wand it could be is the black one. When you Google search “Ominis Gaunt wand” a black one will show up. It’s so accepted as fact that there are even independent sellers selling the wand and advertising it as Ominis’s wand. But I don’t know if it is because it’s also Rookwood’s wand, which is very strange because no other wand in the game is assigned to two different people (there are some similar ones, but the developers at least changed the colors), and after multiple playthroughs I’ve never seen Ominis with this wand even once. Rookwood however is seen with this wand in cutscenes. Is this wand Rookwood’s alone and somehow has been attributed to Ominis as well?

I’ve followed Ominis around and tried a few quests he’s in to see if he’d get this wand out but he never did. He only carries a dark brown wand around. There’s also only one single cutscene in the entire game (unless I’m missing something) where Ominis has a wand out, and it’s not the black one. It’s not even the dark brown wand he carries around. It’s a light brown one. He does seem to be holding this wand in merch, but Sebastian doesn’t even have his right wand in his merch so I don’t know how much stake we should be putting into it. I feel like the merch might be early renders (like they use for pictures of them in game), and maybe this was gonna be his wand but they changed it to Rookwood’s because they didn’t want to make a new one for him and realized Ominis isn’t even in any cutscenes with his wand (besides that one in Potions class we barely see it in). I have no idea, just speculating.

The second wand it could be is the light brown one I just mentioned that we see him holding in the cutscene. I think this one is the most likely it due to the fact it’s the only time we see him holding a wand in a cutscene. None of the characters carry their actual wands around the castle (I like to call it in “NPC mode”), they carry default wands. Same thing for combat. Characters only have their customized wands during cutscenes, so wouldn’t this one technically be his? Strangely enough though, Ominis does have his own “NPC mode” wand, whereas the other NPCs all have one of two (a black one or a light brown one). I’m guessing this is because Ominis’ walking animation is unique to his NPC. So when they were designing his animations they gave him a different NPC wand, like that specific wand is coded specifically for his “NPC mode” animations.

The third wand it could be is the one I mentioned in the previous paragraph, his “NPC mode” one. I don’t think this is the case though since, even though it’s only used once, he does have a wand assigned to him for cutscenes. If he didn’t have his wand out for any cutscenes though, then he’d be like the other NPCs who either don’t get their wand out in cutscenes or who aren’t in cutscenes at all, because he wouldn’t have an actual personal wand assigned to him, only the default “NPC mode” wand. But anyways even if this was the case, his “NPC mode” wand is still unique to him.

In conclusion, this is a clusterfuck. Ominis has multiple wands? Which wand do I analyze? I know the black one is most popularly accepted as his, but can someone tell me how I can get him to hold it in game? Why is that one so broadly considered his wand if he never even holds it? Am I missing something? Y’all please help me out lmfao

I guess I’ll just base my post off of how I interpret his character in regard to wand information, and not based on the actual wand itself since I don’t know which one to use.

#i already wrote the whole post up based off of the black wand and then when i went in game to take pics of his wand i was sooo confused #i figured he wouldn’t carry it around since none of the characters carry around their custom wand #but i thought i’d at least be able to find it during a specific quest or something #but nope #i have so many save files and i tried so many of them #i did see one screenshot of him holding the black wand but i think it might be a mod that person used?#THIS IS A SCOOBY MYSTERY #hogwarts legacy #ominis gaunt

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armoredtitanmistress · 10 months

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𝙖 𝙨𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙡𝙤𝙦𝙪𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚 𝙬𝙚 𝙣𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙖𝙙 | Toji Fushiguro| fruitions of life

characters: toji fushiguro x gojo!reader, toji zenin x gojo!reader

summary: you can’t expect to enter a garden and come out without getting messy…figuratively.

tags: toji x gojo!reader, gojo’s older sister, pre-star plasma vessel arc/star plasma vessel arc, suggestive language (thanks to Toji, of course), explicit language, symbolism (?), NO SMUT (bare with me y'all you will get it eventually) strangers to friends to ?, fluff, love their dynamic, 2nd person point of view, the first person point of view switches are intentional!

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The stars would have laughed at your relationship. You are close enough to be friends and hold enough attraction for one another to be lovers, but distant enough to be considered strangers. Toji was not far off when he talked to the stars to say that you were in denial about your relationship. This is not to say that Toji understood your relationship any better. Though he was aware that an attraction between the two of you was mutual, he understood his feelings to be simply that, attraction. Very hypocritical of him, if you asked me.

The persona that Toji had created when he entered your garden was a paradox to the life he lived outside of it. You knew only what he would allow you to know. Yes, he was swindling women for money. Yes, he liked to partake in gambling of all forms. Yes, he was a mercenary by trade. None of these “hobbies'' of his were ever explained thoroughly, just a lot of in-between kind of talks. He joked about how different you were from your reputation when you first met. He was an open book, a paperback that if you bent the page to read and didn’t have something to secure in place they’ll just snap closed. If it were put into proper use the years would reveal themselves before you even got to the title page.

I’d describe you to be a hardcover. You were a popular read that any literary aficionado wanted to unravel. Abiding by the rules of commerce, hardcovers cost more than paperbacks. Hardcovers are for appearances while paperbacks are for a proper read. In stark contrast to a paperback, hardcovers don’t advertise their use with their exterior. No, you’d have to flip through and give it the same amount of attention as a paperback. No one would want to do that.

The Toji Zenin who currently was helping you plant some pink camellia in your garden and the stone-cold mercenary that would remain a topic of discussion during debriefings were two distinguishable people in your eyes. I allow myself to believe that the reasoning behind this is that you both presented different personas to one another. Whether they were founded based on your true personas or the fantasy of what could’ve been. To this day, even as the narrator, I do not know.

You watched with your tote bag of gardening supplies perched on your shoulder as the man worked. He had shown up in a black compression t-shirt that did what it was told as you could see his muscles fighting against the shirt's fabric. Any movement he made you would be able to see his muscles contract and pronounce themselves against the shirt. It was a short-sleeve so regardless if it was a compression shirt or not you would be able to see them. He wore these kinds of shirts every time he entered the garden. You didn’t know if this was his everyday attire or if it was a coincidence. Unfortunately, you didn’t mind either reasoning.

“You gonna just stand there and check me out or help me plant this shit?” He asked midway through digging an unnecessarily enormous hole. Though he had been gifted with many physical attributes through this Heavenly Restriction, a green thumb was not one of them; He overwaters the plants, he doesn’t understand the reasoning behind removing weeds, and always accidentally stomps on flowers because of how comically big he is. Yet, you still allowed him to help and still paid him.

Call it charity work.

“I was judging how badly you planted those seeds.” You squatted down beside him, placing your tote bag on the ground before snatching the shovel from him and shoving him away to take over. You inspected his work and huffed, “With that poor eyesight of yours, I should reconsider your qualifications on letting you help me out with the garden. Seriously, how could you possibly think a seed this tiny needs that big of a hole.”

“Speaking from prior experiences?” He quipped, somehow not at all offended by you scrutinizing his work. You were trying to wrap your head around him having the body of a full-fledged adult with the accompaniment of the mind and libido of a pubescent boy. “When you say shit like that you make me think that you’re asking for me to say something out of pocket. I mean you kind of walk right into them, doll.”

Unknowingly is what you wanted to add to his statement. You unknowingly walked into his linguistic traps. You scoff, “How about I do you one better? What if you had something other than sex on your mind, pervert?”

He furrowed his eyebrows and poked a finger into your cheek furrowing your eyebrows but not letting it sway your attention on the flowers.

“Now where’s the fun in that? Life gets boring after a while. You gotta start switching things up before you get to that point.” He asserts, pulling another small shovel from your tote bag to continue tormenting your garden. “Ah, but I guess you’re already there.”

He knocks several decades off your lifespan with his words alone. You shook your head, “This is why I refused to exchange numbers with you. I’d rather keep my dosage of your stupidity to a low.”

“You’ll come around to it.”

He had immoderate confidence.

“You have to be gentle with them. Using that much aggression only leads to unpleasant results. The flowers feel the energy you put out.” You explain as you minimize the hole he made and gently tuck the seed inside of it. It was a philosophy of yours and wasn’t backed by any science. It’s just an observation you’ve made over the years of tending the garden and a philosophy that you’ve integrated into your life.

He wasn’t buying it.

“Bullshit. Flowers are flowers. They are meant to look good no matter how you plant ‘em.” He shifted his eyes to the flowers he planted versus the ones you planted and saw no difference between them. “I wouldn’t even be able to tell who planted what because they look the same.”

You saw where his eyes were and you scoffed at how wrong his statement was. What you were looking at were two very distinct patches of roses. One patch was weed-filled with roses toppling over one another. I don’t think I need to describe it any further for you to understand whose handiwork it was.

“It’s like childbirth. A child made out of love will prosper and continue to flourish on that love. On the other hand, a child who wasn’t won’t stand a chance and wither if it doesn’t have any love to live off of.” Though it was simply an analogy, it held truth in your lives. You and Toji weren’t made out of love. You were made to be exploited. Time and Decay struck a deal with each other and postponed you from withering. Perhaps, a sick twisted bet to see if you’d be salvageable. In your eyes, Love wanted nothing to do with the bet and wanted to let Time run its course. You morbidly bet against yourself; Time will tire itself out eventually and allow Decay to win.

Though the argument on the preservation of flowers would continue to be a disagreement, you had a feeling if you had vocalized that wager between Time and Decay you both would’ve seen eye-to-eye.

“Guess I’ll be seeing you in hell then.” He said as patched the holes you made along the way. You allowed him to help in doing that seeing it’s his expertise when it comes to gardening. You nodded your head in agreement, “Satan would make you your own little island just to get away from you.”

“That so? And what about you, doll? Gonna join me in my solitude. I’m bound to get lonely.” He couldn’t go through one conversation without making it flirtatious.

You’d abide by the routine of it all: he flirts and you deflect. “Obviously I’m going to marry Satan and be the one to give him that plan. I’ll send you sucubus to keep you company.”

“So much for being a friend.”

It had been a few moments of silence and you both didn’t mind it. It was comfortable. However, something had been omnipresent in Toji’s mind, children. Children were a brand new topic. He had known of your stance on marriage. Specifically arranged marriage. It was the reigning topic whenever you’d complain about the meetings between you and the elders. It piqued his curiosity enough to ask, “That little children monologue you did is making me think you want kids. Hate to remind you but that kid of yours would be a Zenin or a Kamo.”

“Out of duty, I have to bear children. Like you said with one of them but…” You stared at the seed packets and the flowers that surrounded you before continuing. “Selfishly, if life were different I think maybe I would still want to have my own.”

“Why even bother with kids? They just come in and ruin shit. Don’t understand what’s so great about them.” He stated, as he furrowed his eyebrows and sported his signature disgusted face.

You enjoyed being around children. They were the purest form of humanity that someone could be. It was the adults around them that corrupted the purity that they were born with. You wanted to preserve as much as you could of it but you weren’t a superhuman. You were just a sorcerer.

“If they are anything like Satoru, I don’t think I’d mind.” I would hope not.

“Yeah?” He asked as he handed you a seed packet that you graciously took offering him a head nod in acknowledgment. “Must mean you got some names thought up.”

“Hmm.” You weren’t paying much attention to him as you were trying to fix the mess he had made. Even though that’s what you were doing, he knew you heard him. You were just dodging the question.

To spite you, he grabbed another small hand shovel and dug up the hole you had just patched. That didn’t do much in stopping as you just patched it up again. Of course, this man was persistent. You both continued the ongoing dig-patch-dig-patch game until you got fed up and snatched the shovel away from him. You turned to reprimand him but his eyes had a Medusa-esque curse for turning you stiff. Knowing he had your attention he asked again, “You’ve thought about having kids enough. You have to have some names picked out.”

You saw his expectant gaze and sighed. You continued what you were doing but replied with your answer nonetheless. “It’s embarrassing to say but I only have one name in mind.”

He shrugged, “That’s one more than I have. Spit it out.”

“Megumi.”

It’s a common name. You can’t live in Japan without knowing at least one Megumi in your life. The absence of originality never hindered its appeal as a name for you. The name itself wasn’t what made it a contender for you but the meaning of it felt the most suitable for a baby. “I think it’s a fitting name. Children are supposed to be considered blessings.”

“Even for a guy?” You nod your head as you finish planting the seed, wiping your hands off with a hand towel you brought with you, “I don’t think it matters as much. The meaning wouldn’t change.”

You handed the towel over to him and he reciprocated your actions before racking a hand threw his hair, “I don’t know if your future kid will think the same way. He’s probably going to plot your death in your sleep.” This is one of the few times I would agree with the man.

“They’ll be more concerned about the life they were born into than their name.” Indeed they would be.

“What about you? Never thought about having a miniature you before?” You prompted as you got up to get the watering can that was nearby. “I’m hoping the answer is no.”

“Fuck no.” He barked out a laugh. Children were the last thing on his mind. He watched as you leaned down to grab and turn on the hose, “I’m barely surviving on my own. A kid would only add to the expenses and the shit I have to worry about. I use condoms and never go to the same place twice for that reason.”

“Ever thought of just practicing celibacy? Feel like it is a far less risky option than whatever you just said” You suggest as you shrug your shoulders and begin filling the can with water. Your suggestion was supposed to be rhetorical. In all honesty, you hoped he would just change the topic afterward but to your dismay, he hadn’t.

He planted his hands behind him and used them to position himself, “Once you experience what it’s like to be inside a pussy for the first time, you don’t go back.” You were convinced he didn’t have any words other than those that could be considered raunchy. “You’ll understand once some small dicked Kamo knocks you up on your Wedding day.”

You had half the mind to redirect the hose to splash that smirk off his face. The topic of first times came up once and you had told him that you were a virgin. You told him to never bring it up again but this was Toji we were talking about.

He noticed the grip you had on the hose and you didn’t know how he could extend his lips to curve to the extent they did as he continued his debauched tangent, “Sex is something people use to get rid of stress. You could benefit from that. Wouldn’t want my dear friend to get a full head of gray hair by the age of 21.” His head tilted towards your head, “Guess you already kind of have that going for ya don‘tcha? With the white hair and all.”

“I could just drown you with this water and I wouldn’t feel a damn thing.” You pointed out, letting the gesture of you shaking the water from the hose against the ground.

He suited mercenary work not only for his physical prowess and instincts. His audacity was a core component of his trade. It became obvious the level of audacity he had as he permitted his green eyes to stay fixed on your legs, “I would prefer you’d let me suffocate in between your thighs. I’d get you so wet I wouldn’t even try to come back for air.”

The half of the mind became all the mind. It was all a blur in the moment. One second the water is being directed to the water can and the next you are pointing it directly to Toji. When you realized what you had done, all you saw was a drenched Toji making his way toward you. “I can’t be the only one that's wet, baby.” He didn’t allow for any room for you to register the new nickname before he wrapped his arms around your torso and you were lifted off of the ground.

“Toji! Let go of me, you big oaf!” You pleaded with the man to let you down but he remained indifferent. He was treating your body like a rag doll —- twisting you left and right, up and down, and making sure that you are fully accosted to the same wet fate that you had graciously gifted him.

You were slamming your fists into his chest and it felt like punching a concrete wall. You, a user of the Limitless Technique with the ability to repel this man away but you momentarily forgot. You were too caught up in the idea that your clothes had molded to your figure due to the water in the same way it had for Toji.

Contrary to how careful you had been to not get any dirt on you, Toji treated the dirt that spread throughout his clothes in the same manner as the blood that would occasionally stain his clothes. He didn’t bother with it. Resulting in not only naturally tailored form-fitting clothing but also mud stains.

You were wearing a kimono, a staple piece for you. It lacked many potent colors like pink or red. Your mother preserved her looks as much as she did yours. She instilled into you that cool tones emphasized your physical features. Whenever you’d explore outside of that color spectrum a slew of passive-aggressive comments from her end.

Her comments on cool tones applied to your entire intermediate family. Remembering that you sobered up.

“Put me down! I can’t go looking like this!” Of course, you were referring to another event. You felt his hands sink further into your waist and hoisted you further up causing you to brace yourself with his shoulders. “Live a little. Just skip it.”

With how he had you positioned, you would need to look down to see him, which you did when you looked at him as if he had committed blasphemy and retorted, “Have you lost your mind?! I can’t just do that!”

Toji hated a lot of things; losing bets, women who kept in contact, employers who gave him half-ass pay, and jujutsu society. Though he didn’t hate anything about you, he did bear a hard distaste for how obedient you were when it came to the Elders. He scoffed at your words, “Says who? The elders? They could kiss my ass for all I care. It’s gonna be another event where you’re just there to look pretty. Have some fun, doll. I wasn’t lying about the gray hair.”

His words held merit and if he had used more persuasive language the possibility of you missing the event would have been higher. However, it wasn’t enough.

“Fine, I’ll let you go but only if you give me your number.” He proposed, halting the man made rollercoaster he had created.

You thought about it. There were plenty of cons to giving him your number that outweighed the pros. You were too fed up to care for it.

“Fine.”

He did as told and put you down but made quick with pulling out a grey Nokia flip phone that has seen its share of fights based on its condition. He handed it to you with the Create New Contact page open. You weren’t one to agree to things without following through so you held up your end of the deal. You were typing in your number when a text came through on his phone. He wouldn’t be able to know since the phone was on silent but you saw the text.

Sui Kong:

New job in Miyagi. Meet me at the usual spot. 10 million on this one.

Once you were done you handed it back. He hadn’t seen the message and you didn’t want to comment on seeing it. He was more focused on trying to get you to pull out your phone.

You shook your head and crossed your arms over your chest, “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

Another thing he doesn’t like about you. He groaned, “Do you always have to be so square?”

It wouldn’t kill you to be, you thought to yourself before you caved and searched for your phone before begrudgingly giving it to him. He inputted his phone number and said, “Well you’ve got shit to do, so I say let’s just call it a day.”

“Right.” Nothing compared to what he would have to do. You gathered all your things into your tote bag and were going to leave in silence as you usually do but you didn’t.

“Treat me to a nice dinner afterward.”

He would leave confused but understand what you’re referring to when he sees the message. You would have already been at the event socializing with the guests when you’d receive the message.

Unknown Number:

It’s a date.

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let me know in the replies if you guys want to be tagged in future chapters!

#anime #toji x reader #toji x y/n #toji zenin #jjk toji #jjk gojo #jujutsu kaisen #toji fushiguro #jujutsu kaisen toji #toji x you #fushiguro toji #shiu kong #jjk fluff #jjk anime

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