#Finally got some exercise in as the weather's been terrible

[masquenoire]

Thinking back on Roman’s upbringing, it’s never not wildly funny to me how his parents thought he wouldn’t be interested in girls as he was growing up. His father’s company was famous for working with glamorous models in order to promote their cosmetics and other luxurious products, hiring only the best from America and even other countries. Mrs. Sionis: Oh, you’re finally interested in all the things a young lady your age should be interested in! That’s better than all those creepy masks you insist on collecting... Roman, blatantly ogling at all the models in their company brochures: Mmm. 👀

[angelizs]

[Valentine's first winter - Riddle Rosehearts]

Summary: Through the haziness of his sickness, your light shines through. You stay by his side and Riddle's heart blossoms for you.

Notes: gn!reader, sickfic, fluff, could be read as a continuation of my other Riddle oneshot but it's not necessary to understand, super self indulgent, established relationship, Riddle's mother is it's own warning

Spring is the time for warmth, the time to watch the flowers bloom and appreciate the calming breeze. Winter is the contrary, it's the time for the chill, the time for the skies to open and cry onto the earth. 

Riddle usually was prepared for such times, of course. He'd check the weather cast everyday to make sure to bring an umbrella or a coat with him and text you to do the same. The thing is, he was also very busy, what with the finals weeks and winter vacation coming, as the Housewarden he had to deal with more paperwork than usual and keep an eye on the Heartslabyul's students to make sure they were keeping up with their studies. Since Trey wasn't the vice housewarden anymore, having moved on to the next grade and doing his reasearch somewhere at the Queendom of Roses, Riddle had more work than he was used to.

You made sure to check on him, reminding him to take breaks periodically. You even went to his room yourself, a tray of hand made sweets and tea in your hands. Riddle could feel the warmth of spring through his entire being as he looked at your gentle smile. He'd stop everything he was doing to spend some time with you, talking about your days in a way that brought peace for his soul for a moment, no thoughts spared for the mountains of paperwork left to do.

Still, it was due to having such a stressful schedule that he got too caught up with his work and forgot to check the weather cast one day. It was only one day, a little slip, but it cost him. On that day, Lady Luck turned her head away from him and the heavens poured onto the campus of NRC. What's worst, Riddle had been on the botanical garden when it happened, tending to his alchemy experiment. He only noticed the downpour once it was too late to run back safely, getting caught in the middle of it.

And that's how Riddle Rosehearts found himself on the nurse's office, body burning up and cursing his unattentiveness.

Riddle remembers when he got sick once, as a child. He felt terrible, hot all over, sweating and dizzy. What's worse, he couldn't concentrate on his books at all, his eyes felt heavy and kept closing on their own. He just wanted to sleep, but he still had to finish one exercise. His hands trembled as he tried to write some gibberish, he'd never felt so bad before. His eyes watered and his vision was blurry, words getting mixed with the others, although there was one thing he could see clear as day. His mother disappointed face as she came to check on him. 

She put the back of her hand against his forehead and the cold felt so good against his burning skin, he couldn't help but lean into it, closing his eyes in relief and letting out a whimper. The sensation was gone sooner than it appeared, leaving Riddle to almost topple over with the weight of his own head. She said something about him not listening when she warned him about the climate change, as winter approaching tended to bring such colds. He couldn't listen properly, his head was full of mush, he could barely keep his eyes open. She tutted and grabbed him by the arm, getting him up so fast he felt like throwing up, his vision blacking out for a second and losing his footing, only that firm brusing hand on his arm keeping him up. 

She took him to his bed and gave him some bitter medicine, telling him to stay put for the rest of the day. He obliged, as always, what else could he do? His mother was a doctor, she knew what she was talking about. He knew she had better, more important things to do than look for her disobedient son that went and got himself sick. She's a busy woman, so busy that outside of lessons he almost never saw her. He understood, she had to work hard to keep herself at the top, and that meant she didn't have much free time to spare him. Still, he felt very lonely in such a vulnerable state. Alone in his room, the aching in his chest felt worse than the cold. The red of the wall burnt his eyes, so he burried himself on the covers, still sweating, hugged his pillow on his chest and wished, desperately hoped, for it to go away soon.

The sensations from back then come to haunt him again. There's shivers breaking out on his body but his skin burns, he can't decide if he's running too cold or too hot or too much. His muscles weight a ton, holding him back on the bed, making his movements sluggish. He wants to rip out his vocal cords and weave new ones, ones that won't grant on his ears and won't rasp his throat with every syllable.

He can hear the door opening. It's not the nurse, but you. Through the haziness of his sickness, your light shines through. You stay by his side and Riddle's heart blossoms for you.

You have a worried look in your eyes as you pull a chair to sit next to his bed, eyeing him with concern. He hates that he's a bother, that he caused you distress over something so easily avoidable. Even so, your presence washes over him as if cleansing his soul. He's glad to see you, he realizes. He's glad to not be left alone.

There's a cup of water in your hands, and he gladly takes it, greedily downing it. The liquid freezes all the way down his throat, his flaring insides lapping it up, he wants to drink more and more. Your hand takes his and makes him slow down, least he chokes. It's a little thing, but this simple gesture makes his insides flutter. You take the glass from his hands once he's done, putting it on the bedside table and focusing your whole attention on him. He wants to drink up the sight of you.

The way Riddle looks at you leaves you breathless, fever ridden lidded eyes glancing through his lashes as if you were everything he could ever need. You hung up the stars on the sky, you painted every color of the sunset, you were the sun and the moon, the cosmos itself. He looked with so much adoration, as if he couldn't believe that you were still there, with him of all people. Him. You choose him and you stayed with him and he was so, so grateful for it.

You call out his name softly, oh so softly, and give him a kiss on the forehead, your lips leaving a tingling sensation. He wanted to berate you, to tell you to not that, since you could get sick too, but no word left his sore throat, he couldn't gather the strenght to protest against something that felt so good. Instead, he lets the words that run through his mind leave his tongue, unfiltered.

"You shouldn't be worrying about me, you have more important things to care about."

You smile, a bittersweet thing, eyes contemplating, as if asking youself 'doesn't he get it?' He's not in the best state to read your expression, though. You tenderly put your hand on his forehead, moving some hair sticking there and feeling his warmth. He leans into the touch, a satisfied sigh leaving his lips.

"Oh, Riddle, I'm taking care of something important. In fact, I can't think of a single thing that could be more important than you. The rest can wait, I want to make sure you're ok first and foremost."

Riddle's eyes widen and he opens his mouth to say something, anything, but nothing comes out. What could he say to that? His vision blurries, but he isn't sure if it's because of the fever or something else. Maybe it has something to do with the way your eyes gaze at him, so full of unfiltered love that Riddle could never doubt a word that falls from your lips, doesn't matter if they seem too good to be true.

You giggle at his cute dumbfounded expression, teasing him a little. "Cat got your tongue?"

He pouts, cheeks puffing up a bit and turns his head away. It's extremely endearing, you can't help but let out a laugh. Your hand run through his bangs, taking them off his sweaty skin, massaging his temples. He closes his eyes, pure relief flowing through him.

It felt nice to be taken care of like this, the simple comfort of your steady presence by his side made him feel like he was safe, like it would be alright, that he could let go and trust you'd take care of him. He wanted to grip onto this feelings and not let go, let them fill him up and chase the disease out of his system. One of his hands lifted to cover yours that was still in his forehead, a childish impulse to make sure you'd stay. You let out another soft laugh, the sound being enough to make him breath better, lifting a weight from his chest. You'd stay, he was sure of it. You always do.

Still, Riddle felt disgusting, runny nose and sticky skin, face as red as his hair. He wanted to get out of his dermis, rinse his bones until they shined and stopped feeling like that, unbearably dirty. But you didn't move away from him, your expression was always that of worry and fondness, never of disgust. "I'd never be disgusted of you, Riddle." You murmur, and he must have let his thoughts slip through his loose tongue. "It's a normal reaction, you can't control it. There's no reason to feel ashamed." It's so easy to fall for your words, so easy to let himself fully believe in them, so easy to accept the reassurance.

Riddle can take care of himself. He doesn't need to be babied and he doesn't need anyone's pity. He wants to do things his way, he doesn't want to depend on anyone, doesn't want to look weak. But your gentle voice echoes in his head, saying that's ok to ask for help. He doesn't need to do everything alone, he can count on you. And he trusts you so much, with his entire soul, so he lets you stay by his side. He knows that once he wakes up, you'll still be there. You always stay. 

"Rest up, dear." Your voice hypnotizes him, there's no way to not listen when you hold so much fondness in a single word, a single word that makes his heartbeat run faster and a his lips curl upwards.

He lets himself fall freely in the feeling of your love. Your breathing lulling him to sleep, his fingers gripping your hand and not letting go. His eyes close softly, naturally, and the tension seeps away from his body. You'll take good care of him, he's sure. You'll hold his worries in your hands, taking them out of his mind to let him rest.

There's no doubt in his mind that what he feels is love. Outside, the harsh winds of winter cut through the sky. Inside, the soft warmth of spring envelops his sleep.

Masterlist

[naamahdarling]

I need to walk for health because I'm not loving how I feel, but I over-exercised as part of my ED so exercise triggers my ED thoughts (including suicidal ideation) and the risk of relapsing is Real. Searching for a solution that won't push me into relapsing OR turbo-charge my dysphoria OR enrage me has been upsetting in a way I don't know if anyone who has not had an ED can understand. If you know, you know.

So I finally thought about the zoo, and it was such a great idea. It's perfect. So I went and got a zoo membership two days ago so I can just go whenever and I probably should not have spent the money but boyfriend made really good tips this week and offered to cover it, and it occurred to me this one thing does ALL of the following for one (1) entire year:

I can access a very walkable space.

Place to go when I am restless but can't afford to go back home for a while.

Not a gym.

My hearing-impaired ass will be safe from car traffic.

No dogs.

No people on bikes that I can't hear.

Not jostling for space with joggers/bikers/etc. on those overly narrow public park trails and sidewalks, which makes me hate my body even more.

It's very very safe. No harassment, no crime.

Very few other people visibly exercising.

Less people Looking At Me (they are mostly busy Looking At animals).

Lots of bugs.

Many plants.

Things to touch.

People-watching.

Place to draw many things! <- Main appeal.

Non-zookeeper staff there is mostly queer! And when they learn you are queer they tell you which animals are gay.

It's the penguins. They have gay penguins.

Sneps.

Stared at by tigers -- all the intensity of being about to die with none of the fear!

Smells smells smells! Stinky smells, good smells, food smells, flower smells, lots of animal smells.

Lots of personal space. Hand sanitizer everywhere.

No music outdoors.

Train?! Train!

Petting zoo.

Will acclimate me to weather and sun over time.

Free! Ish.

I can go and just take short trips if I want.

Picnic area.

Access to attached huge nature park and educational/rec center.

Can bring a friend.

Cheap admission to many other zoos and aquariums.

I have raging ADHD and don't have the dopamine to spare on exercise for exercise's sake. Some of you will know what I mean, will understand that this is. Just. A terrible hurdle.

Downsides:

Sunscreen. Blech! (Lotion is heavy and hurts to apply and remove but spray works.)

Long drive, I live across town. (Can't change that but I can get up earlier.)

Lots of glass and I hate reflective surfaces. (A Challenge, but I can hopefully cope.)

It is hot outside a lot (but that's true of anywhere not indoors, and there's tons of shade and benches and indoor areas).

That's it. Those are the downsides.

Our zoo is good. It used to be really bad when I was little but over the last 20 years it has been revamping everything, the new enclosures are gorgeous and enriching. It isn't depressing to be there. It's nice.

We went today and had a great time. It felt way better not trying to see everything in one go, and I'm not tired or sore. I just feel good.

I just...wanted to talk about this. How hopeful I am today, to have not just solved a problem but maybe snatched a little happiness for myself for a while. To potentially make any further headway on an ED at this point, 15 years or so out, is pretty remarkable. There's pitfalls to watch for but this is so much better than anything else I've considered.

Maybe I will get bored of the zoo. I don't know! But I think that will take a while.

Look at this bad picture of three snep siblings lolling like housecats:

Not gonna get bored of those mighty beans.

[bevioletskies]

dream a little dream of me

summary: Ryunosuke had never been one for gloomy, rainy weather, had always preferred the comforting warmth of a clear, sunny day. When a particularly heavy rainstorm keeps him and Kazuma in bed for hours on end, he finds himself slowly starting to think otherwise.

word count: 2.4k | read on ao3

a/n: For @asoryuu-week, day four of seven (prompt: "domestic"). This fic takes place post-Resolve; mild spoiler warning for Adventures and Resolve, where events may be alluded to but not described in detail. All names and honorifics are taken from the official localization, with the exception of Sherlock and Iris.

Fic title is from the song Dream A Little Dream Of Me by The Mamas & The Papas.

“Remind me, Ryunosuke, what is it they say about a heavy head? Because yours is certainly making it harder for me to breathe.”

Ryunosuke sighed, lifting his supposedly heavy head from his partner’s chest to level him with a sleepy glare. “Good morning to you, too. Must you demean me before we’ve even gotten out of bed?”

Kazuma’s warm, slightly raspy laughter soothed Ryunosuke somewhat, though he still couldn’t help but feel slightly irritated. “Well, it’s hardly my fault you’re so fun to tease. No one else reacts quite like you do.” Then, Kazuma cupped Ryunosuke’s jaw in one hand, running his thumb across Ryunosuke’s mouth. “And I mean that in all manner of things, if you get my meaning.”

“You’re terrible,” Ryunosuke informed him, though he allowed Kazuma to kiss him anyway, grunting slightly when Kazuma rolled over to straddle him, sinking his entire body into Ryunosuke’s, fingers digging into his sides. “Mm...Kazuma, th-they’re waiting for us downstairs - ”

“Let them wait,” Kazuma murmured, playfully nibbling Ryunosuke’s bottom lip. One of his hands had now moved to Ryunosuke’s thigh, caressing him teasingly. “It’s been too long since we’ve had some time to ourselves.”

“You were only here two nights ago,” Ryunosuke said breathlessly; Kazuma’s mouth had quickly made its way from his neck to his collarbone, leaving a heated trail of kisses down the length of his throat. “Remember? That’s when I finally agreed to - ”

“Ry-u! Kazz-y! Won’t you be joining us for breakfast?”

“Damn,” Kazuma muttered, reluctantly climbing off so he could smooth out the front of his jinbei. Despite Ryunosuke’s continued annoyance at Kazuma’s insatiable nature, if he wanted to put it kindly, he also couldn’t help but admire how flushed Kazuma’s ears, neck, and chest had become in the last few minutes alone. “We’ll be right there, Iris, sorry for keeping you!”

“That’s okay!” Iris called back, her footsteps already beginning to fade away. “Just as long as you’re both properly dressed, alright?”

Ryunosuke groaned, dropping his head into his hands. “This is all your fault, you know that?” Kazuma merely scoffed, rifling through his bag so he could find the fresh set of clothes he’d packed for his overnight stay. “Though I suppose nothing will ever be as bad as the time you pulled me aside in the middle of an investigation and - ”

“I thought we both found that to be a thrilling and memorable experience, but fine,” Kazuma said with a dramatic sigh. “I’ll see to it that we won't try anything that adventurous ever again.”

“We almost got caught!” Ryunosuke exclaimed, agitatedly flapping his shirt in Kazuma’s face. “Don’t you realize how much trouble we would’ve been in?”

Kazuma stared at Ryunosuke in complete and utter disbelief. “...Ryunosuke, you’ve committed treason. You’ve implicated so many government officials, exposed so many government secrets - ”

“...all the more reason not to take a chance?” Ryunosuke offered sheepishly. “Anyway, let’s get dressed before they come looking for us again. I swear I can hear Susato-san’s footsteps coming up the stairs.”

A little over an hour later, Ryunosuke, Kazuma, and Susato returned to the attic, pleasantly sleepy from the generous meal that Iris had prepared for everyone. The rain was still thumping against the windowpane, an erratic tap-tap-tap that filled the entire room, rendering the three of them barely able to hear themselves or each other.

“I know you were planning on returning to your own flat, Kazuma-sama, but I would advise against it in a storm like this,” Susato mused, momentarily brushing the curtains aside so she could look out over the soggy, sorry state of London’s streets. “And I’m sure Naruhodo-san wouldn’t complain if you stayed.”

“I’m sure as well, though Ryunosuke is clearly in no position to answer either way,” Kazuma said dryly, gesturing in Ryunosuke’s direction, where he was currently curled up on the floor by Susato’s tea set, half-asleep and hugging his daruma to his chest. Susato watched, giggling, as Kazuma walked over to gently prod Ryunosuke in the shoulder with his foot. “Come now, Ryu, don’t make me carry you back to bed.”

“We both know you’d like that,” Ryunosuke mumbled. Susato only just managed to refrain from rolling her eyes at them - she’d been privy to far too many of their supposedly private conversations for her liking - instead electing to pat Kazuma on the arm.

“I think this is the perfect weather for a nap, personally,” she said, looking at him meaningfully. “If you plan on returning to bed as well, I can let Iris and Mr Holmes know not to disturb any of us until dinner.”

“That would be great, Susato-san, thank you,” Kazuma said sincerely, though he secretly suspected she just wanted to leave them be. Once she disappeared back down the stairs, he looked down at Ryunosuke with an irrevocably fond sigh. “Ryunosuke…”

“Yeah, yeah, ‘m getting up,” Ryunosuke yawned, reluctantly pulling himself to his feet. “Bed?” Grinning, Kazuma wordlessly took Ryunosuke by the hand and led him towards his bedroom - their bedroom, really, given how often he stayed over these days. Moments later, they clumsily tumbled back into bed, having changed into their sleepclothes once more.

“You’ve still got a bit of egg on your face,” Kazuma observed, wiping Ryunosuke’s cheek. “How does this keep happening to you?”

“Eat too fast,” Ryunosuke murmured, turning to kiss the palm of Kazuma’s hand. “Food...good.”

“Your grasp of both the Japanese and the English language is incredible,” Kazuma drawled, carding his fingers through Ryunosuke’s hair. He then pulled him closer, burying his face into Ryunosuke’s neck. “I thought you went back home to finish school, did you not? Surely you can do better than ‘food good’.”

“You’re so mean to me,” Ryunosuke said, sighing, letting out an exaggerated exhale directly in Kazuma’s face. Still, he turned over so he could wrap his arms around Kazuma’s waist, snuggling contentedly into his chest. “I really should just kick you out and make you go home.” Laughing, Kazuma kissed the top of his head.

“Not in this weather, you wouldn’t,” Kazuma replied. As if to illustrate his point, there was a loud, thunderous crack that practically shook the entire room. “If this storm keeps up, I might have to live here indefinitely.” Ryunosuke merely grunted in response. “Well, you don’t have to sound so pleased about it.”

“Oh - no, it’s not that,” Ryunosuke reassured him, sitting up somewhat so he could look Kazuma in the eye. Despite Kazuma’s typical brusque, yet affectionate nature, he could tell that Kazuma was slightly hurt. “I was just thinking about how much I dislike storms. Rain is fine on occasion, but...it seems as if London is in a permanent state of misery sometimes, you know? And it makes us miserable all the while.”

Kazuma’s clouded expression cleared up instantly. “It’s been ages since we’ve had sunshine,” he agreed, now dropping his head to rest on Ryunosuke’s shoulder. “It would’ve been nice to go for a walk together before I leave...whenever that is.”

“Like we used to do before class,” Ryunosuke said quietly, nodding. “You could never convince me to join you during your morning exercises, though.”

“Forget morning exercise, I had to literally drag you out of bed sometimes,” Kazuma snorted, tangling their fingers together. “I hear Susato-san hasn’t had any luck with getting you to exercise more, either.”

“I exercise enough,” Ryunosuke huffed, pinching Kazuma’s side; much to his dismay, Kazuma merely laughed in response. “I do plenty of pacing up and down during trials, you see.”

“I do see,” Kazuma teased. “I should look for permanent scuff marks behind the defense bench and the witness stand the next time we’re in court. You have a tendency to drag your feet, after all.”

Rolling his eyes, Ryunosuke made a show of yanking his hand out of Kazuma’s grasp and turning over with his back to him, pulling his side of the blankets over his head. “...I’m really starting to think you have nothing nice to say about me at all.”

Even when he wasn’t looking at him, he could tell Kazuma was smirking. “Oh, I think I praise you plenty. But in case you were wanting to hear it…” In one quick motion, Kazuma swept the bundled-up Ryunosuke into his arms, Ryunosuke’s back pressed against his chest, his breath ghosting the shell of Ryunosuke’s ear. “...I love you, Ryunosuke. And I’ll say it as many times as you’d like; all you need to do is ask.”

“Wonderful, now I just sound needy,” Ryunosuke said, sighing yet again, though he craned his neck to kiss Kazuma anyway, tossing the blanket around his shoulders so they were both enveloped in its warmth. Kazuma slowly lowered him onto his back, onto the mattress, knees braced on either side of Ryunosuke’s hips, fingers digging into Ryunosuke’s waist.

“You can insult me back, I don’t mind,” Kazuma murmured, sucking a bruising kiss along the crook of Ryunosuke’s jaw. Though they’d crawled back into bed for a nap, Ryunosuke was starting to feel more and more alert by the second. “Do your worst.”

Ryunosuke hummed, thinking. “...sometimes, you try too hard. You need to relax more, Kazuma. There have been some jurors and witnesses who’ve been intimidated by you, even though you aren’t trying to be malicious.”

“Fair enough.” Kazuma’s voice was low, raspy, sending shivers up Ryunosuke’s spine. “Anything else?”

“You have a bad habit of interrupting people,” Ryunosuke continued, prodding Kazuma in the chest with an accusatory finger. “Even Iris seemed annoyed with you last night, when she was asking us about our latest trial. I know you think you were helping, but I can speak for myself just fine. We’re not in school anymore.”

“...ah.” Kazuma looked humbled, almost remorseful. “I...I’m sorry, Ryu, I didn’t realize. I honestly thought we were just telling them about what happened together.”

“And you need to stop biting me like I’m a piece of meat - ”

“No one can see them!”

“Kazuma, you're doing it again - ”

“Doing wh - oh.” Kazuma burrowed his face into Ryunosuke’s chest, cheeks burning hot with shame. Ryunosuke couldn’t help but laugh; it wasn’t often that he got to embarrass Kazuma and render him speechless. “I...see that I’m not quite the partner I’d thought or, or hoped I was.”

“Last, but definitely not least - ” Ryunosuke abruptly took Kazuma’s face in one hand, squeezing his cheeks until his lips puckered “ - you don’t need to be quite so dramatic, either. I still love you all the same, Kazuma.” He smirked. “And I’ll say it as many times as you’d like; all you need to do is ask.”

Kazuma stared down at him with wide, imploring eyes. Then, he cocked his head to one side, his frown melting into a warm, radiant smile. “...again.”

“I love you.” Ryunosuke kissed Kazuma’s cheek, then the tip of his nose, then finally, his lips. Beaming, Kazuma kissed him back, a little sweeter this time, a little less sensual. “Especially because you’re a little needy, too.”

They fell silent for a few minutes, save for the steady sounds of the rain and thunder and wind whistling past their window, exchanging slow, languorous kisses and simply enjoying one other’s company. Though Kazuma spent more nights at Baker Street than not, in a way, it still felt as if they had months, even years, of lost time to make up for, even though they hadn’t been apart - or a part of each other’s lives, for that matter - for that long. It was times like these that Ryunosuke found himself reminiscing about their university days, the early days of their companionship, when they’d have spirited debates that ended in spirited laughter and meandering conversations about nothing in particular.

“I can hear you thinking, partner,” Kazuma murmured, brushing Ryunosuke’s hair out of his eyes. “Something wrong?”

“No, not at all,” Ryunosuke said, pulling away momentarily to yawn. “Only that we were supposed to be taking a nap, and instead, we spent the last ten minutes poking fun at each other. Though I suppose that’s just an extension of the way we speak to each other in court at times.”

“Susato-san has been scolding you about that as well, has she? Perhaps we do need to - I need to be more careful,” Kazuma corrected hastily when Ryunosuke leveled him with an impressively Kazuma-like glare. “Though we’d be in even more trouble if I were to, say, openly comment on how handsome you looked in court just last week, when your hair was a little bit longer in the back. I thought it suited you.”

“Why do we need to be in trouble at all?” Ryunosuke retorted, elbowing him a little harder than necessary. “I’d rather we do our jobs like the proper lawyers that we are - ”

“Well-behaved schoolboys, you mean,” Kazuma teased.

“ - and come home at the end of the day, where we can do as we please,” Ryunosuke finished.

Kazuma looked at him consideringly, his gaze impossibly soft. “Ryunosuke Naruhodo, are you implying you’d like me to move in someday?”

“What? I - ” Ryunosuke stared at him, momentarily stunned. Then, he relaxed, his head dropping back to his pillow, where Kazuma followed him down, their eyes still locked. “I, er...I thought that was a given. Though I worry that...that people might talk, as they’re wont to do.”

“Professor Mikotoba lived here with Mr Holmes for some time, did he not?” Kazuma pointed out. “Besides, even if people talk, why listen? All that matters is what we think of ourselves, as trite as that might sound.” He leaned in close, pressing a lingering kiss to Ryunosuke’s forehead. “So, just know that whenever you decide to ask, you already have my answer.”

“Then I think I’ll make you wait for just a little bit longer before I do...if only to get back at you for two nights ago,” Ryunosuke added with a smug smile, laughing when Kazuma glared daggers at him in response.

“And you think I’m the cruel one,” Kazuma muttered, pulling Ryunosuke into his arms once more so he could hold him rather possessively, their legs loosely intertwined beneath their mess of blankets. “You told me you enjoyed yourself.”

“I did, believe me,” Ryunosuke grinned, blushing faintly at the sudden vivid memory that had come to mind. “But just this once, I’d like to have the upper hand.” He then leaned in to kiss Kazuma’s exaggerated pout. “Anyway, we really should be getting to sleep now, or it’ll be time for dinner before we know it. I can barely keep my eyes open at this rate.”

“Agreed,” Kazuma said, yawning. He shuffled closer, dropping his forehead down to rest against Ruynosuke’s. “Good...morning, Ryunosuke.”

Ryunosuke shot him one last sleepy, fond smile before letting his eyes drift shut. “Good morning to you, too, Kazuma.”

_____

a/n: Welcome to my fourth entry for Asoryuu Week 2021! We've moved on from sad Kazuma hours to semi-horny Kazuma hours, I guess? Blame it on Kazuma talking about getting Ryunosuke off and holding his hand over a hot plate and finding ways to shut him up; you can't tell me he's not doing this at least a little bit on purpose. Anyway, I always love writing plotless cuddling fics where they basically talk about nothing. I could've made this way, way longer, easy, but we've still got three more days to go!

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! Likes and reblogs would be much appreciated, and I hope you're all safe and healthy and doing well ❤️

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

No Plan

Warnings: noncon sexual acts (sexual intercourse); unplanned pregnancy; cheating.

This is dark!Bucky and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

(Fair warning, this is very depressing and rough)

Summary: You and Bucky had the perfect marriage until you didn’t.

Based on this prompt:

‘Shadow of what I once was.’ -Chance the Rapper 

for @honeyhan-123​‘s One Year Anniversary Challenge

Supplemental Lyrics: 

Where did you go? Why would you stay? You must have lost your marbles You always were so forgetful In a hurry, don't wait up I was too late, I was too late

Note: So this was kinda impromptu and out of nowhere. I haven’t done a legit one shot if forever so here ya go!

Hope you enjoy it. Thank you. Love you guys!

Please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

Your feet ached. Even in the low heels, you felt as if you’d been standing on nails all night. Your round stomach made it hard to balance without the added challenge of your shoes. The dainty lilac silk was taut across your middle and your swollen breasts were barely contained by the off the shoulder bodice. You were told you were glowing but you felt anything but.

Your husband had wandered off as you were too tired to make the journey across the room. You found a random chair among the tables and lowered yourself heavily. An uncleared plate remained beside a champagne flute with a mouthful left in the crystal. You rubbed your stomach and sighed as you looked around.

Tony’s extravaganza’s always wore on but these days, time felt even more excruciating. The endless anxiety of the child within you, the urge to make it all go faster yet bask in what you had. 

It hadn’t been planned. You and Bucky had always agreed that children would only complicate your perfect simplicity. Neither of you had a deep yearning for a baby but you didn’t always get what you wanted. There were alternatives, you had talked about them. Those weren’t good enough for him. 

So there you were, bloated and nauseous. A different woman than you were. And he’d changed too. You could tell. Temperamental. One moment doting and delicate; the next impatient and hostile. 

Was it the stress of the unexpected? Or was it more?

You’d loved each other so entirely, you didn’t think he could have anything other than love for a child. At first, it seemed to be so but then as the months passed, his delight turned to resent. He didn’t say so but he didn’t need to. You couldn’t blame him. You felt the same and it made you sick. This child within you didn’t deserve that. So you cried alone at night; hidden in the bathroom as he snored, indifferent and ignorant.

You watched him with Steve and Sam; laughing. He didn’t do that much anymore. Neither did you. Maybe if you just talked about it, you’d realise that you were both trapped in the same dreadful limbo. The interminable wait. The fear and confusion of it all.

Maybe if he knew you were disappointed in yourself. Your career was on hold, if not over. You couldn’t be on active duty anymore, not with another life attached to you. His own was unaffected and perhaps your envy kept you from telling him of your woes. 

Is this how it would be? You alone with the child as he saved the world?

You huffed again and dropped your hand from your stomach. You looked down at the stretched silk. You couldn’t even weather a party without taking a breather. And now that you thought of standing up, you realised that might be a task on its own. Only six months and you felt ready to burst.

“How do you feel?” Wanda surprised you as she appeared from behind your chair. “You must be so excited.”

“Excited,” You smiled weakly. “In a way.”

“Oh, but it will be a miracle,” She chimed. “A little baby Bucky.”

“Well, we don’t know,” You rubbed a circle over your stomach with your fingertip. “He didn’t want to know.”

“Better, a surprise!” She sang.

You grumbled and shifted in the chair.

“Sorry, but could you…” You held out your hand. “Thank you.” You let her help you to your feet. “Is that the dress you were telling me about?”

She looked down at the dress with it’s peacock feather fringe and grinned. Her blue eyes sparkled and her golden hair shimmered down her back.

“It is,” She confirmed. “I found it at a rack sale… a bit tight but I managed.”

You chuckled softly. Wanda checked in more often than any of your other co-workers. Most only did when they were with Bucky or with a casual text. Wanda invited you to lunches and offered to baby shop with you when Bucky was too busy. You still had much to do and time seemed so trivial.

“The shower!” She clapped her hands. “I didn’t show you the invitations.”

“I told you, we don’t need one,” You insisted. “Bucky’s not much for that stuff and well, I don’t have much of a family to invite.”

“You have us,” She insisted. “We are your family.”

You could barely keep from frowning. You weren’t even sure you’d count your husband and the unborn child as family at that point. It didn’t feel like a family. It felt like a terrible obligation.

“Thank you, Wanda,” You reached over and squeezed her hand. “Excuse me, I’m not feeling very well.”

“You okay?” She clung to you.

“Fine, I think…” You fanned yourself. “I think it’s time to head out for me.”

“Okay,” She let you go, “Go rest, momma.”

You nodded with a sheepish smile and turned to waddle across the room. You were almost out of breath by the time you reached Bucky. Steve saw you and smiled. He welcomed you closer with an arm around your shoulders.

“And look at your wife,” Steve announced. “Each day, brighter than the last, I’m sure.”

Bucky turned and his cheek twitched. His veneer almost cracked. Sam nudged him playfully.

“Uh huh,” Bucky gave a crooked, half-hearted smile. 

“Now, do you think the arm is genetic?” Sam kidded and Bucky shot him a look. “Well, that definitely will be.” Sam pointed at Bucky’s scowl.

“Um, hon,” You wiggled away from Steve and touched Bucky’s cuff. “I think we should go. I’m tired.”

There was a pause. His tongue poked out just slightly and then he nodded.

“Well, guess that’s my cue,” He finally said to Steve and Sam. 

“I should be headed out soon,” Sam checked his watch. “Jet’ll be here nice and early.”

“Shit, yeah,” Bucky shook his head. “Why does Tony do that?”

You stayed quiet throughout their farewells, suppressed your misgivings. Finally he hooked his arm through yours and guided you to the door. When you passed into the hallway and approached the coat check, you finally found your courage. And your voice.

“You didn’t tell me you were leaving tomorrow,” You said softly as you handed in your ticket.

“Didn’t I?” He wondered as he grabbed your coat and handed it to you, then took his own. “Must have slipped my mind.”

You said nothing as you pulled on your coat.

“Tired,” He scoffed as he swept past you. You followed him to the door, unable to keep up more than a step behind him. 

“Bucky,” You pleaded from behind him, barely catching the door as he marched through it. “Don’t do this.”

“It’s funny how whenever I’m having fun, I have to stop because you’re not,” He huffed as he continued down the sidewalk. “That kid can’t be an excuse for you to be a bitch.”

“Excuse me?” You were startled by the venom in his tone. These mood swings had grown more frequent but no less tolerable. “Well if it was such a big deal, I’m a big girl, I can hail a cab.”

He rolled his eyes and unlocked the car as he rounded it.

“Then why didn’t you?” He got in and slammed his door. 

You opened the passenger side and lowered yourself into the seat. You closed the door but didn’t have the chance to buckle your belt before he pulled sharply out of his spot.

“I’m sorry,” You said. “I didn’t--”

“You didn’t think? Or you don’t care about me?” He gripped the wheel tightly and the leather groaned.

You were quiet. You picked at the button on your coat.

“You said you wanted to keep it,” You uttered.

“Don’t make me the bad guy,” He snarled. “Don’t. That’s what you always do. Hmm? What if I had said get rid of it? Then I’d be a monster.”

You were hurt but the anger constricted your throat and you glanced over at him.

“I told you to wear a condom,” You crossed your arms. 

“You said you were on the pill,” He growled. 

“I was!” You shouted. “You counted the pills yourself, you fucking--”

“I don’t want to do this again,” He raised his voice. “I can’t.”

“Then why do you do it?” You hissed.

“Because…” He sighed. “Because you make me.”

You lowered your chin and fought to hold back the tears. You shouldn’t have ever told him. You should have just made the decision yourself. You’d still be happy then. Him, too. He’d still love you.

“I can’t wait to fucking leave tomorrow,” He muttered. 

You lifted your head and blinked at him, stunned.

“Good,” You swallowed the acid in your throat, “Good. I can’t wait either.”

💔

Bucky slept on the couch that night. He didn’t say goodbye in the morning though you heard him leave. You were still angry but it wasn’t enough to blot out the hurt. The anger was nothing, but the stab in your heart was torturous.

You woke up slowly. Getting out of bed was awkward and descending the stairs was more than enough exercise for the morning. You mourned your specialty coffee beans and had juice instead. You buttered two pieces of toast alongside a soft-boiled egg and sat at the kitchen table with your laptop.

You could distract yourself with shopping. You still needed to paint the nursery. Hell, you still needed to do anything. Your procrastination was quickly growing overwhelming and you couldn’t wait until month nine to get your ass in gear.

You mulled between an emerald green and a canary yellow. Then a crib and a change table and a rocker… everything. Too much.

You wiped your hands and began to scroll more intently. The speakers binged and a small notification popped up in the corner. You ignored it as you mused at the koala sleeper. Cute. For a moment, you almost felt happy. Then you felt lost again.

Would it always be like this? Would you always be so alone? Bucky should’ve just left you. If this wasn’t what he wanted, if you weren’t what he wanted, he needed to just say so. Was this even what you wanted?

The same notification beeped and you clicked the small x without reading. A third time and you huffed. You rubbed your eyes and hovered over the small rectangle.

From: Marina; Rendezvous tonight? ;)

Marina. You squinted and sat back. You knew that name. You knew her quite well. You’d trained her only a year ago. The last you’d heard, she’d only just been cleared for field duty. You clicked the alert before it could flick away.

Bucky had left himself signed in. He didn’t have his own laptop, he rarely used yours; only to type up his reports and often you ended up doing it for him. You tapped your fingers above the touch pad and clicked the small bubble icon. The page loaded his messages and you felt nauseous. You gulped the last of your juice and braced yourself.

You dragged your finger along the pad and glossed over the conversation. He had been up all night, talking to her. You froze as you saw the first image; your husband’s hand around his dick. The one above was Marina; her toned stomach and perky tits, a pretty little v. You slammed the laptop shut and shoved it away.

You were mortified. Disgusted. You don’t know what to do but you know you have to do something. You look around at the life you’ve built with Bucky then at your growing stomach. You stood with a groan and left the kitchen. 

You climb the stairs slowly. You felt numb. You should have been angry, or sad, but the humiliation had seeped to nothing. Complacency. What you were used to.

You dressed and grabbed your phone. You sat on the bed and dialed. You waited for the other end to pick up.

“Hey,” Wanda sang from the speaker.

“Hey,” Your voice was steady. Emotionless. “Are you free to help me grab a crib? I saw this one online and I’d like to go check it out.”

“Of course!” She exclaimed. “Can Nat come? We were just finishing up our session.”

“The more the merrier.” You said and hung up without awaiting a response. 

You had to get out of the house. Away from the walls that only reminded you of him.

💔

In the days that Bucky was gone, you spent your days busy. Wanda helped paint the nursery a goldenrod yellow and assembled the crib. You hung up the little framed pictures of Winnie the Pooh and his friends along the walls and ordered a changing table with built-in drawers; then a rocker with a cushioned footrest, a mobile, a baby monitor… Just a little at a time. Distraction with a dollar sign.

And there were several times when your heart got the best of you. You looked at Bucky’s messages once more before you signed out of his account. Your eyes burned. They had, indeed, rendezvoused and you wondered if he was even working at all. You sniffed back your tears and carried on.

You didn’t need to worry about Bucky anymore, he didn’t worry about you. What you needed to worry about was the child. You would give it the life you couldn’t have. You would make it feel wanted because you could never wish such a horrid feeling on anyone else. Your love wasn’t his anymore, it was your own and it would be your first gift to your baby.

On the fifth night without him, you fell asleep on the couch. You were too lazy to drag yourself up the stairs and so you drifted off watching an episode of reality drivel. You woke with a start. Your legs were warm and a smooth thumb rubbed your ankle as your bottom half was draped over Bucky’s lap.

You sat up and tried to pull away. He kept hold of you as you propped yourself up on shaky arms. His touch was gentle but it stung so much. It was false affection; not affection at all.

“You didn’t tell me you were coming home.” You gulped.

“You didn’t answer any of my other texts,” His hand tickled past your knee and crawled back down. You wore a loose nightshirt, made shorter by your bump, and nothing else.

“Let me go,” You tried to wrench your legs away but your stomach made it awkward and painful. He released you reluctantly. “You didn’t even say goodbye to me and you expect me to answer.”

You grabbed the arm of the couch and tried to stand. He reached over to help as his hand grasped your hip. You stepped away and turned to cross your arms. He tilted his head as he watched you. He remained on the couch, leaning back against it with a shrug.

“Am I crashing your party?” He asked.

“Only your own,” You hissed. “You don’t have to stay. I’m sure Marina would love another rendezvous.”

He nodded and looked at his lap as his tongue slid across his lip. He didn’t look guilty, merely amused. He lifted his eyes to you and smirked.

“Is that what this is about?” He raised a brow. “You’re my wife.”

“You’re fucking her. Don’t think I’m stupid.” You snarled.

“Fucking her but I didn’t marry her,” He stood.

“I’m keeping the house, it’s the least you can do for our child,” You huffed. “Since you won’t do anything else.”

“I’m not going anywhere, babe,” He neared and you tore your arms apart. You held your stomach as you backed away from him. “I made a vow.”

“You’re cheating on me,” You snipped. “Fuck your vow.”

“She’s nothing. She’s stress relief. You are… everything,” He kept on as you walked backwards. Your back met the wall and he grasped the doorway right beside you, keeping you from slipping away. “I won’t make an excuse. I’ve been fucking her and it gets the job done but… I’ll only ever love you.”

“Bullshit,” You snapped. “You know you’re full of it.”

His hand startled you as he touched your stomach. You looked down at the metal as it stretched over the cotton. You were shaking.

“You want me to stop, I can stop. I don’t need her. I need you.” He grabbed your arm with his other hand. “I only ever think of you. Even with her.”

“Bucky--” Your feet scuffed over the hardwood and nearly caught under the edge of the rug. He shoved you ahead of him and you stumbled just in front of the couch. “Stop!”

“That’s my baby. You’re my wife.” He growled as he caught your shoulders and pushed you forward. Your knees met the sofa. “So be a good wife and serve your husband.”

“Get--off!” You struggled with him but you were off-balance. You lifted your legs onto the couch and he bent you until your head was on the back of it.

“Lonely? Is that the problem?” He dragged his hands down your back. “Mmm, look at you.” He lifted your nightshirt until your ass was bare. “Pregnancy looks well on you.” He kneaded the flesh with his metal hand as you heard his fly. You pushed back and he grasped your neck. “You don’t want to hurt the baby, do you?”

You froze and your eyes widened. You let out a murmur but could manage nothing else.

He pushed his knees between yours, you felt the rough denim of his jeans just below his cock as he rubbed against you. He was hard already. You squirmed and grabbed the back of the couch as you tried to lift yourself.

He poked at your entrance and your back ached as he pulled you against him. He pushed inside of you and sighed. He forced himself to his limit and you whimpered. He leaned against your back and his hot breath circled your neck. His metal hand came down next to yours and his other reached around to cradle your stomach.

He began to thrust, slowly. He purred in your ear and caressed it with his lips. Your legs shook. You were shocked; at his roughness, at the way your body reacted, at the suddenness of it all.

He sped up and you mewled. You quivered as you pushed back into him. Embarrassed as you couldn’t decide if you wanted him off of you or if you wanted more. His zipper bit into your ass as he panted into your neck, his hips never wavered. His fingers curled and uncurled across your stomach and he bit into your neck.

“Don’t you ever think of leaving me,” He snarled as he jolted your body. “Ever. Because I will always find you and I will always have you.”

He grabbed your neck and drew you back. You scrambled and kicked out as he turned you swiftly. He sat with you on his lap, his other hand still on your stomach as his other slipped to your hip.

“Keep going.” He ordered. 

You whined. Your lower back was on fire and your leg muscles thrummed. He guided you, rubbing your stomach as you began to rock atop him. Your arms shook as you used his thighs to keep moving.

“Ugh, yeah, yeah,” He groaned and planted his feet. He hammered into you from below and you bounced helplessly in his lap. “Fuck, fuck, here it comes.”

You felt him cum. His body spasmed as you were filled with his heat. He pulled you back against him, your legs splayed around his as he caught his breath. He held your stomach with both hands and slipped his metal fingers down to your thigh. His cock slipped just a little and he played with his cum as it leaked from you down his shaft.

“You don’t want me fucking her,” He sneered, “Then you do your duty as my wife.”

You tried to get off of him but he forced you back down until your walls were straining around him. He held you there until you stopped moving. Until you hung your head in surrender.

“I’m not done,” He snaked his hands further up beneath your nightshirt and cupped your tits and tweaked his hips. You winced and began to move once rock. “Mmm, these are even nicer than I remember.”

[i-am-a-whimsy-boy]

Five. Straight. Miles. With. No. Breaks.

Nobody asked for more of me ranting about Murdoch's lack of health and safety awareness (part one here), but we're doing it anyway because I thought about this way too much and posting this gives me the illusion of that being productive. (There's a TL;DR at the end for anyone who doesn't want to read an essay today.)

Let's talk about season 1 episode 6, "Let Loose the Dogs" and how Murdoch put George in a situation where he could have very easily injured or even killed himself and Murdoch did not consider the danger here at all.

In this episode, Murdoch needs to figure out if it's possible to run from a pub to the scene of the murder in nine minutes, and, in order to do this, he gets George to make the run five times in a row and averages the time. We know it's an eighteen minute walk to the crime scene from the pub, meaning it's roughly a mile, and George runs this five times. What I'm saying is, Murdoch essentially made George run five miles straight all in one go.

In fairness, this might not be crazy intense for an in-shape person, but I have the athletic ability of a doorknob, so this seems absolutely terrible to me in the most ideal of circumstances, which, I don't believe George was running in. Regardless, if we assume his average time is around nine minutes, then he was running for somewhere around 45-50 minutes straight, likely pushing himself to run faster in order to get a faster time or to impress Murdoch. If his endurance isn't above par, that's quite a lot of prolonged physical activity, even if he was drinking water and taking breaks, which he probably wasn't.

This is a bit of speculation on my part, but since we don't see a water jug anywhere with Murdoch, I'm willing to bet that George wasn't drinking water at all during his runs. Without water, your body can't make sweat to cool you down and release some of the heat produced when you exercise. I'm sure we all know this, but it's vital to stay hydrated, especially when you're going to be exerting yourself. More speculation, but Murdoch definitely values efficiency, so I'm assuming he made George run from the pub to the bridge and back and counted that round trip as two separate runs, thereby cutting out the time needed to walk back and start again. We only see the tail end of George's final run, ending at the bridge, so we don't know if Murdoch gave him any breaks, but knowing Murdoch, he probably kept break time to a minimum, if he thought about getting George to take breaks at all.

Resting when you're exercising or otherwise exerting yourself is important to avoid injury and to allow your body to cool down, especially in hot weather. Season 1 of Murdoch Mysteries takes place during 1895, and judging by the weather in the episode, it's during early to mid summer. I'm going to say early July. The Government of Canada has historical weather data available going back to the 1840s, and in July of 1895, the average temperature in Toronto was around 19° C, with a high average of 24° C and an extreme high of 32° C (source). Temperatures also averaged in the higher range in the first week of the month (the 4th through to the 8th had highs of around 30° C with almost no rain, and that extreme monthly high of 32° C happened during this week). Caution is recommended in 25° C weather to avoid heat exhaustion and heatstroke. 30° C and above is considered dangerous. George was sprinting five straight miles with no water and no breaks: definitely not exercising caution. In heat like that, especially with no breaks or water, it wouldn't be very hard to contract heat exhaustion or exertional heat stroke, both of which can be very dangerous, and the latter can even be fatal. Exertional heat stroke happens when your body produces more heat than it can lose because of overexertion or high temperatures, and the high core body temperatures it causes can very quickly start damaging organs, including the brain and the heart. It's a medical emergency. Since George is constantly moving and producing heat and he has no water for his body to make sweat with, he's practically begging for heat stroke.

This whole thing seems incredibly dangerous to me and I'm honestly surprised the poor guy didn't collapse.

I really want to know what Murdoch would have done if he was sitting there on the bridge waiting for George to finish his run and George just didn't come because he passed out somewhere over the course of the run. Murdoch didn't have anything with him other than a pocket watch, a notepad and a pencil. Best case scenario, he could have submerged George in the creek that the bridge went over in order to cool him off, but if he had collapsed earlier in the route, he wouldn't have any realistic cooling methods available other than, like, fanning with his hands or that notebook he had, which would have been much less effective than water. A person can survive with a core temperature of around 40° C for about thirty minutes before serious organ damage starts setting in. I'm not convinced Murdoch could have cooled George down fast enough to avoid that. If George had gotten heat stroke, I'm willing to bet that he'd probably have died.

Even if George didn't get heat stroke, he still could have gotten really painful muscle cramps or gotten hurt in other ways. I was in a lifeguard training once and I wasn't super well hydrated and I got a leg cramp bad enough that I couldn't walk, let alone swim. I was having problems with my leg for days afterward. George could have gotten a similar cramp, and, if one had struck while he was running, the resulting fall could have injured him further, especially since he was running through the woods. Who knows what he might have hit his head on had he fallen?

I realize that, if George had said to Murdoch, "sir, I need a break," Murdoch would definitely have let him take one, but George isn't very good at advocating for himself. He tends to do what he's told and not question it or ask for anything different. George just takes things in his stride, even when he gets the short end of the stick, and I don't think he would have asked for a break if he needed one. Regardless, George shouldn't have had to have asked because Murdoch should have planned for breaks. It shouldn't be a surprise to Murdoch that people need breaks when they're exerting themselves.

The most annoying thing is that Murdoch compensated George's running times for exhaustion, meaning that he knew George would get tired and he knew he had to tweak the calculations in order to get an even average. You know what would have made Murdoch's averaging even better, and would have eliminated the need to compensate at all? Having a larger goshdarn sample size. If Murdoch had gotten multiple constables to make the run and averaged all of theirs, he'd have gotten a more even and realistic average and he wouldn't have had to take exhaustion into account. There's a reason most scientific studies are based on a sample of the population and not case studies of single individuals: because it's better and it represents the population as a whole better. I bet Murdoch could have rounded up five constables and made them run a mile with no trouble at all. Some of them would probably have enjoyed it! But no, for some reason, he has to torture George instead.

It's like Murdoch is unaware there are literally dozens of other constables at Station House Four at his disposal.

TL;DR: Murdoch made George run five straight miles with no breaks in hot, summer weather when he could have gotten better results with more constables; George could have gotten seriously ill, hurt or killed; and I am questioning my sanity.

[poedameronloverx]

A New Way Of Life

Life In Lockdown Series Masterlist

Poe Dameron x F!Reader

Summary - As the reality of working from home sets in, you and your friends have to learn to work around one another, whilst also finding things to relax you to make evenings with your friends a lot of fun.

Warnings - Mentions of covid

Word Count - 2090

Week 1 – March 2020

The first few days of lockdown were a challenge. Trying to get in touch with people from work was proving more difficult than you’d first thought. You were getting easily distracted as well. BeeBee spent his time going between Poe in the dining room and you in the living room, the open plan nature basically making it a massive room for him to wander around in. Anytime he came near you, you couldn’t resist picking him up for snuggles. Poe was a distraction too, he liked to sing to himself as he worked and the sound of his voice was distracting you from whatever work you were doing. After reading the same line of an email 4 times you decided to take a break, you headed to the kitchen and started up the coffee machine. BeeBee followed you, deciding to have his own drink break with his bowl of water. Rose appeared in the kitchen whilst you were waiting for your coffee to be done.

“How’s it going?” she asked

“It’s a lot more challenging than I thought. Everything is distracting me!”

“Me too” she replied “And most people aren’t picking up calls today because they’ve all obviously had to close their offices as well”

“I can’t get hold of management” you replied “And BeeBee keeps wanting attention and he’s so cute I always give in! We should put a smart watch on him. He’s probably done 10000 steps walking between Poe and I”

“How’s Poe as a colleague?”

“Distracting, he keeps singing”

“He’s a good singer, could be worse” Rose chuckled

“Yeah he’s great but my mind just hears singing and thinks it’s done with work” you replied “Have you heard anything from Finn?”

“No, the doors been closed all morning. I don’t think he even came out for a break”

“Hopefully it’s going alright for him”

“Why don’t we do something tonight” Rose said “We’re all having weird days so maybe we could plan fun things in the evenings”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Movie night tonight” she replied “We can make dinner then watch a bunch of movies. We can plan other things for other evenings”

“I’m in” you replied “It’ll be nice to have something to look forward to”

“What are we looking forward to?” Poe asked as he joined you in the kitchen

“Oh, Rose was just saying we should plan fun things to do in the evenings, starting with movie night tonight”

“Sounds great. This working remotely thing is really not fun”

“BeeBee likes it” you smiled “He’s enjoying going between us”

“Well as long as the best boy is happy then we all are” Poe chuckled, leaning down to scoop the dog into his arms “You’re the best little buddy aren’t you”

“So cute!” Rose whispered

Rose’s idea for a movie night was just what everyone needed after the first day of the strange new reality the world found itself in. The 4 of you picked a movie each, the genres ranged from musicals, to Disney, to action and finally horror. You didn’t hate horror movies but they would never be your first choice. BeeBee who had taken residence in your lap for movie night suddenly found himself being hugged a lot tighter than previously. Rose and Finn were sat on one sofa all cuddled up, Rose had a blanket over her head and Finn was chuckling at her anytime she jumped at the scares from the movie. Poe and you were sat on the opposite side of the room. A blanket covered your legs, which were crossed underneath you. Poe was stretched out, his feet hanging off the end of the sofa and his head rested on a pillow a few inches away from you. He sat up when you jumped at one particularly bad jump scare.

“Hey, you alright?” he whispered

“Just not really my kind of movie” you replied

“Me neither, but Finn loves them so I’ve got used to them! I can hold your hand if you want”

“Thank you, but I’ll be fine. It’s just a stupid movie right?”

“Right” Poe smiled, he sat up and moved closer to you “Just incase anyone tries to grab you, I’ll not let them”

The sun decided to make an appearance on the 3rd and 4th days of lockdown. It wasn't tropical temperatures or anything but you could get away with being in the garden as long as you had a hoodie on. Rose was completely snowed under at work and you rarely saw Finn apart from lunch. Poe’s boss had taken pity on them all after a stressful few days and given them the Friday as a day off. You could see him sat in the garden with BeeBee whilst you worked. It was approaching 12.00 and you were slowly losing the will to live. You managed to push through until 1pm when you were ready for lunch. Your boss emailed to give everyone the afternoon off so you made your lunch, pulled a hoodie on and headed out to the garden to join Poe. As soon as the sun hit your skin, you instantly felt relaxed. It had been a strange week and you were grateful to be able to start your weekend a few hours early. You grabbed one of the garden chairs and moved it over next to Poe.

“Happy weekend” he said as you sat down

“It’s been the weirdest week in the entire world. I’m so glad we made it to the weekend”

“Me too, and I’m really glad you got an early finish. Bee isn’t the best conversation holder” he winked

“He’s cute though, he gets points for that at least!”

“That goes without saying”

The dog must’ve known he was being spoken about. He got up from his place in the shade to come and get some attention.

“Wanna take him a walk with me later?” Poe asked “The ice cream kiosk in the park is open, we could get something there, and it would be nice to have some company”

“Yeah, that sounds good”

Finn and Rose were still upstairs working when it came time for BeeBee’s walk. You texted Rose to tell her you’d gone with Poe. The park was beautiful in the sun, you couldn’t remember the last time you’d actually visited it. It was only a 10 minute walk away from the house but you didn't really have a reason to go to it. There were families out on walks, people on their own, people with dogs. Everyone was out enjoying the weather and taking their one form of daily outdoor exercise. You chuckled as BeeBee tried to make friends with every other dog and human he came across, his little tail wagging the entire time. Poe led you over to the ice cream kiosk he had mentioned; there was a long socially distanced queue.

“You keep an eye on Bee and I’ll get us some ice cream” he smiled “There’s a bench just round the back of this kiosk, nobody ever sits at it but it’s at a really good bit for Bee to run around. I’ll come and get you once I get the ice cream”

You nodded and made your way round to the bench Poe had mentioned. Like he said, the area was quiet; there was one woman with a dog that you’d seen earlier on, BeeBee and her dog had sniffed one another when you'd walked passed her just after walking into the park. You took the ball you’d lifted before leaving the house out of your pocket and threw it for the little dog. He happily chased after it, always bringing it back. He set it down for a second to talk to the woman who was stood at the other side of the grass, her dog spotted it’s opportunity and grabbed it. The woman chased after her dog and eventually got the ball back. She walked over to the bench and stood far enough away from where you were, but close enough to lay the ball down.

“Sorry about that, he’s terrible for stealing from other dogs”

You chuckled “It’s not a problem, it’s this ones fault for trying to be too sociable”

She smiled “Your dog is so cute!”

“He is cute, but sadly he’s not mine. I have to give him back”

“Ah, he’s your boyfriends. The guy you were walking with earlier”

You could feel yourself blushing “Em, yeah he belongs to him, but he’s not my boyfriend. Just a friend and lockdown house mate”

“Oh, I’m sorry I just assumed” she replied “You guys looked liked a super cute couple  when I spotted you earlier”

“It’s fine” you replied with a shrug.

You wished he was your boyfriend, you’d had a crush on the man since the first day you met him. The two of you had clicked right away when Ben had introduced you. Him and Poe had been classmates that didn’t keep in touch, you vaguely remembered seeing Poe at your brothers birthday parties when you were kids but nobody paid you much attention back then because they were all older and you were the annoying little sister of their friend. Poe and Ben had met back up again when Ben became a client of Poe’s work. You were introduced to Poe when Ben and Rey got engaged and had a party. You’d later found out you had a mutual friend in Finn and the 3 of you started to hang out. You’d known Finn since high school, you never went to the same school but you both had a part time job at a local café. Finding out Poe was Finn’s best friend and roommate made you re-connect with Finn. You’d kept in touch on social media for years but didn’t really spend a lot of time together so through Poe that all changed. When you’d introduced Finn and Rose it had been love at first sight. The 4 of you could be found hanging out on a regular basis; everyone always assumed it was a double date because of how close you and Poe were. He was a touchy, feely guy. He would often be found with his arm round your shoulders, his hand on your back when you were walking anywhere with him. You loved it but also hated it because you always wanted more. The reason you had never mentioned anything was because you were scared he wouldn’t feel the same and you didn’t want such a good friendship to fall apart if you told him and made things awkward. Rose knew, but she promised she wouldn't tell Poe.

BeeBee and the other dog went back to playing together and the woman wandered back to where she had originally been stood. You took a few photos on your phone and uploaded them to social media. Everyone needed a boost during the weird times you were in and you thought there was no better way to cheer people up than photos of cute dogs. After what felt like hours, Poe finally came to join you. He handed you a small tub of ice cream and a slushie.

“Man are they busy” he said, flopping down next to you on the bench “Did Bee behave?”

“He did, that dog he’s playing with stole his ball but they’re on friendly terms now”

“That’s good news” Poe chuckled

The two of you sat and enjoyed your ice creams, the weather and one another’s company. When you were ready to head back home Poe phoned Finn, the local takeaways were open for delivery and Poe decided it was too nice a night for anyone to be cooking. The evening was spent eating as much pizza as you could and watching videos on YouTube. Finn was really into the ones exploring abandoned places and you all fell down a rabbit hole of watching video after video. Rose fell asleep first, and you soon followed. Eventually leaning over and falling onto Poe’s shoulder. Poe and Finn smiled at one another. You had all survived a crazy week, you’d had to adapt to an all new way of life and there had been some hiccups but overall you’d all coped. You were thankfully all healthy, and you had good company and were surrounded by your best friends. Life was far from perfect but both of them knew that things could be a lot worse, and that worldwide things would get worse before they improved.

So once again please let me know what you thought, I want to get better as a writer and I can only do that with your help. Thank you for all of the kind comments one the last part, they really made me smile! <3

[utilitycaster]

Speaking of Halas, it was briefly brought up in the most recent episode that he might've been digging around in the ruins of Aeor some time before he got stuck in the gem, and to me it seems pretty likely: the first thing they found of his other than the Happy Fun Ball itself was some winter weather gear stashed separately (I think) from the rest of the pocket-dimension-thing, which may not have been an intentional hint to Aeor but is interesting nonetheless; what do you think?

In episode 125 he said he hadn’t gone; granted he’s not exactly a trustworthy guy but I don’t see a good reason to lie about this and he did provide what information he knew. I do think there’s a chance he had considered it and may have been preparing, but I don’t think he necessarily went himself. It’s not totally clear how long after Aeor’s fall Halas lived, since he was living in the midst of the calamity, the timeline of which is vague.

I have two separate alternate possible answers:

1. The boring and practical one: he lived on a flying city that at least spent some time floating over what is modern-day Zemni Fields, ie, high altitude and in a cooler region of the world.

2. I think there’s sometimes a hesitancy to incorporate fourth-wall/meta information in theories, but in actual play I think the best theories often at least take it under consideration (and the worst often deliberately do not). We know that Matt did not initially intend the Folding Halls of Halas to stay with the party, but Twiggy gave it to them. We know Matt incorporated the permaheart into the build when the party was frustrated during the Angel of Irons arc and had indicated they were going to see Yussa, and additionally included the notes that became Widogast’s Transmogrification, but had Twiggy kept the ball, those would not be closed-off avenues - they would just be in different places. The fundamental secret of DM-ing is that the DM is frantically shifting the set pieces around from time to time based on what the players want or need while making it seem like consistent, real scenery, and Matt is very good at doing this in game but he’s pretty honest out-of-game that he does it.

So the cold-weather gear in episode 45 very well might have been meant, at the time, as a hint for when the Aeor shoe dropped that Halas could be a resource,. But in episode 45, I’m sure that while Matt had outlined the character of Essek Thelyss he couldn’t have predicted the Mighty Nein could reliably count on him, or the Dynasty at all, when they finally got to Aeor. He didn’t know how exactly the Aeor arc would happen nor precisely when. So any theories I have need to incorporate the simple fact that sometimes, Chekhov’s Gun shows up in episode 45 and actually doesn’t really mean anything, because the first act was assuming a very different second act and the use of the Chekhov’s Gun metaphor when discussing actual play is a very tricky thing. Which is to all say: the cold weather clothes were just a *Tim Curry voice* Red. Herring.

I already got pretty off topic above (something something Clue The Movie jokes something something “too late”) but I wanted to add one more thing which is that Halas interests me less as any sort of plot hook or resource, even though he could indeed become one if someone gets possessed, or if Yussa is rescued and decides to go 0 for 3 on resisting wizardly temptation, and more so as worldbuilding. I can only explain this by bringing up the Neal Stephenson book The Diamond Age, a post-cyberpunk classic I love very very much. It famously opens with a chapter describing an almost ridiculously stereotypical tough guy loner fringes of society archetypal character of the cyberpunk genre, follows him as one of a few early viewpoint characters, and then (minor spoilers, but not really) he gets killed within the first 50 pages. The point of that exercise is to indicate that this is post-cyberpunk instead and the story isn’t about him.

To me, Halas is in a way, playing a similar role. He’s a powerful mage involved in politics, some form of immoral or amoral, doing all kinds of necromancy and pursuing immortality...and he’s literally crystalized and stagnant. I mean, it’s not terribly subtle - the previous campaign ended with the defeat of Vecna, god of being a wizard who does immortality shenanigans.

I don’t, to be fair, know if this is deliberate, but we’re currently in a story where elements of the Age of Arcanum may come back depending on what goes down in Aeor (Devexian being merely one of many potential hooks/causes) and the impact it might have on the arcane is fascinating, and Halas helps set that stage.

[thedefinitionofendgame]

two under two

Amelia X Link multi-chapter | Rated T | Canon-divergent after 7x11

A/N: Just some Amelink (and others) fluff for y’all! After all the potential wedding talk in 17x11, I decided I just had to work on my Amelink short multi-chap fic. I’m just so glad Amelia’s found someone who is absolutely crazy about her. I am so happy for her and the little family she’s made. *SPOILERS FOR SEASON 17*

•

You can read this work on ao3 and fanfiction.net as well

Written & cover by @thedefinitionofendgame (aka me)

chapter 1 - big news calls for bigger reactions

It was now or never, and even though never sounded fine to Amelia, she knew now was the best time to say whatever she wanted to say. Clearing her throat, she felt Link’s fingers intertwine with hers under the table, which kept her calm. There’s no time like the present, Amelia thought to herself. Rip off the bandaid and get on with it! So by opening her mouth, she did just that. “We, Link and I, have something to tell you guys,” Amelia said, shifting her gaze to everyone seated around the outdoor dining room table. They were outside because the weather was finally nice enough to enjoy a meal in the outdoors, without fear of being rained on.

Everyone stopped chattering and turned to look at Amelia. There was a big crowd tonight in the backyard, as get-togethers were allowed now that all the adults had their COVID vaccines. Besides Meredith and the kids, Winston, Jo, Teddy, Owen, Leo and Allison had come over as well. Oh and of course, Jo’s adopted daughter, Luna Ashton who had been renamed Luna Ashton Brooke Wilson, to honour her birth name and her forever mom. It was definitely a full house, which made for the perfect time to announce Amelia and Link’s news; the news that they had been dreading to announce for the past couple months. Not dreading the actuality of the news so much as the reactions it would bring. Just like the time before, Amelia braced herself for the responses of her friends and sisters that telling this news would bring.

Amelia paused a heartbeat too long. While Zola, Bailey and Ellis were quiet at their kids table next to the main one, Meredith was the impatient one. “Well, out with it!” She said, raising an eyebrow at Amelia. Despite Meredith’s terrible health scares earlier in the year, the blonde had bounced right back and was as high spirited as ever. She still had to take it easy, especially when it came to heavy-breathing exercises, but for the most part Meredith Grey was back to normal.

Amelia looked at Link, who nodded encouragingly. He hadn’t forced her to announce their news in front of everyone today, and had actually suggested only telling Meredith and Maggie to start. However Amelia said she wanted to tell everyone at once, to avoid any questioning or whispering that might happen at the hospital. “Link and I are pregnant again. Tada, that’s the surprise.”

The entire table fell silent, while everyone processed the news. Maggie was the first to recover and jumped up out of her seat to give Amelia a hug. “Oh my gosh!” She squealed, engulfing Amelia into her embrace.

“That’s awesome news! I’m so happy I get to be Auntie Mer again,” Meredith said. It only made her a little sad to know that last time Link and Amelia had announced they were pregnant, Andrew had been with her and heard the news firsthand. She quickly shook her head to clear her mind of those thoughts. This was not the time nor place to think about Andrew DeLuca.

Next to Amelia, Link was receiving a fist bump from Winston and Jo smiled happily at her best friend. “I’m really happy for you, you’re gonna make a great dad times two.” Jo bounced Luna in her lap. “Are you excited to have another baby friend? Maybe it will be a girl this time.”

Link opened his mouth to reply, when Zola popped up between the new parents’ two chairs. “I can’t wait for another cousin! Can I say hi to the baby?” Nodding, Amelia pushed back her chair so that Zola could place her hands on her Auntie’s belly. Amelia was a bit overwhelmed by the well-wishes; she hadn’t expected so much attention. When she had started telling people about Scout’s coming, it was only Maggie then Link then Meredith and Andrew. People found out gradually. Oh god, Link was right! Cursing herself about her baby daddy being right about waiting, Amelia tried to drag herself out of her own thoughts.

The squeezing of her hand in Link’s brought her back. Zola had moved on, and was now happily talking about the new cousin on the way to Bailey and Ellis. Scout was napping just inside, which at least dialled back the noise. If one baby was loud, Amelia was scared to find out what two would be like.

Although she was excited. Goodness, she was over the damn moon about it. The first time Link had gotten her pregnant, she had been just scared, until Mr. Atticus Lincoln had turned her whole though process upside down. He had told her he would support her no matter what she decided; would love their baby unconditionally or drive her to the clinic if she chose to have an abortion. Amelia hadn’t ever felt that type of love before, the type that didn’t matter what she chose. It only grew with the pregnancy, at least after the whole “who’s the daddy” fiasco got cleared up. At least this time Amelia was one-hundred percent sure this baby was Link’s. She loved the baby they had made together the first time, and would love their second baby just as much.

While most of the people around the table seemed surprised, Link was very much not. When Amelia had told him she was pregnant, he had raised an eyebrow at her and laughed, before telling her he loved her and that he was the happiest man alive. With all the “athletic and aerobic” sex they had despite having four kids in the same house as them, it was no wonder he managed to get Amelia knocked up a second time in less than two years. It was more like one and a bit years, because what everyone else didn’t know was that Amelia was already five months along. They’d gotten pregnant around Scout’s half birthday. Good timing on their part...not. Both Link and Amelia weren’t against having more kids but had not wanted to discuss or try for a second for a while longer. Baby Amelink #2 was a bit of a surprise just like their older brother had been.

Owen and Teddy were the last to offer their congratulations. "Well I’m pleased for you both," Owen said, speaking for the first time since the bombshell was dropped. He didn't look at Teddy, because he knew what her face would convey. They had been wanting to add to their growing brood for the past couple months, but nothing had happened. Owen didn't think of himself as infertile, all previous mishaps had proven that, so he wasn't quite sure why he and Teddy hadn't gotten pregnant yet. Although he wasn't going to complain, especially when Amelia and Link seemed to just come to terms and that's why they chose to wait so long to announce it. He had been waiting for them to come out with their secret for a while now, after accidentally overhearing a conversation between them both in the pit post-consult. Like the good ex-husband-more like friend and fellow doctor-Owen was, he kept quiet and didn’t even tell Teddy. Now that their news was out in the open, at least he wouldn’t have to worry about slipping up ever.

Chatter continued amongst the friends, and Amelia relaxed now that the focus was off of her. She leaned back in her chair and placed a hand on her growing tummy. “You’re already a hit,” she whispered to the baby inside of her.

“Damn right she is,” Link leaned over and whispered in Amelia’s ear, sending shivers down her spine. Why did that voice always make her think dirty thoughts? Probably the hormones, and also the fact he used that exact tone in the bedroom. God Amelia, get your head out of the gutter, she thought to herself.

Amelia glanced at Link. “Are you calling girl on me?”

Link shrugged, not totally willing to admit it, but he was definitely thinking it was a girl. “Maybe. Jo said it first.”

“Oh sure, that’s what sparked it.” Amelia rolled her eyes but internally, she was smiling really big. “We already have a name regardless of their gender though.”

“We do.” Link smiled and pressed a kiss to Amelia’s temple. “Best name ever.”

“Even better than Scout?” She smiled back at the man she loved more than anything else in the world, maybe even more than Scout. Amelia loved her son very much, but it was his daddy that made everything in her life good. Every single moment, no matter how upsetting, Link somehow made it worth it. Made it worth all the hard nights and the crying sessions and the struggles to stay sober. He was her everything, and always would be. Together, they would be there for Scout and the new baby. It was always going to be them, until the very end.

Link thought for a moment. “Nope, but tied though.”

Laughing, Amelia nodded. “Alright, I can live with that.” They were quiet for a moment, then Link nudged Amelia with his elbow. She turned and saw Ellis standing beside her chair. “Hey Ellie-Belle, what’s up?”

“I wanna sit with you and the new baby. Where is it?” Ellis looked around, as though she magically expected a baby to appear outside in the backyard.

Meredith raised an eyebrow at her sister, as the youngest Shepherd pulled her niece into her lap with only minor difficulty. “If you have a girl, all I gotta say is that they’re clingy and ask a lot of questions. Such as,” she turned to Zola who was standing beside her patiently waiting to ask a question. “Yes, Zo-Zo?”

“When are we going to have dinner? Bailey’s hungry and we ate lunch over five hours ago.” Zola stated matter-of-factly.

“And with boys, you get the always hungry factor,” Meredith sighed.

“Know all about that,” Amelia said, with a pointed look at the baby monitor on the table. “I swear this kid never stops eating. He’s almost getting more action than Link is,” Amelia blurts out, forgetting there was a child in her lap and four others nearby. Well, more like 3 because Allison was inside napping with Scout.

No one really paid close attention, except Link who let out a chuckle. “Always telling like it is,” he said with a smirk. Link waited until Meredith had gotten up and headed inside with the rest of the adults and the other kids, minus the one in Amelia’s embrace, before he said anything else. “I love you,” he whispered, leaning over and pressing a soft kiss to her lips.

Amelia melted and wrapped her arms tighter around Ellis. For a minute she pretended that the small body in her lap was her own daughter, the girl’s older brother chasing after the food Bailey sought as well. “I love you too. Everyone took our surprise a lot better than I thought.”

“Of course they did. Because they love you, they love Scout and I guess they love me too,” Link added.

“They love you probably more than me. I’m the former drug addict, remember?”

“Hey, you’re still keeping your promise about not getting high. That’s all that matters.” Link placed one of his hands on Amelia’s belly, right where their baby was growing. Ellis twisted in Amelia’s lap and did the same, amazed by whatever her Uncle Link was doing. With a smile to both the girls present, he messed Ellis’ hair and then looked over at the woman he loved. The woman he had unashamedly surrendered his heart to, the woman who he would fight forever for. He had almost let her and their beautiful son slip through his fingers, but thank god his best friend told him to not mess what he had with Amelia up. She was his ever after, and it was true that before Amelia, he didn’t tell people he was in love with them often. Hookups were a thing of his past, after the gorgeous brown haired-blue eyed girl walked into his life. She had walked in, stolen his heart and stayed because they were going to be each other’s forever. They were each other’s forever.

A forever as a family of four. Because they already had Scout and a baby on the way which made them a family of four. Four was a number Link could work with, a number he sort of wanted to increase but only if Amelia wanted. He would do anything for her and vice versa. His girl was strong and brave and worked miracles everyday. If it was anything Atticus Lincoln was proud to do, it was call Amelia, his.

posting chapter 2 & 3 soon!

[frankiefellinlove]

THE STEVIE FILES PROUDLY PRESENTS - THE AMAZING ROCK & ROLL ODYSSEY OF STEVEN VAN ZANDT

From The Source to Soulfire via Springsteen and Sam & Dave

Recorded, transcribed, edited, written, produced, mixed and mastered by MIKE SAUNDERS

SIDE TWO (1975-1983)

Track 6: Miami Steve, The Asbury Jukes, Tenth Avenue and Hammersmith

In early 1975, Steven returned to New Jersey from Florida, inappropriately dressed for the winter weather. “I came back with the flowered shirts and the Sam Snead hat and continued wearing them in the snow.” For the next seven years, he was known as Miami Steve. He joined Southside in the Blackberry Booze Band and within weeks they’d altered and expanded its line-up (adding keyboard player Kevin Kavanaugh from Middletown and bass player Alan Berger from The Dovells’ backing band), transformed its musical direction, changed its name to Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes (referencing their mutual hero Little Walter’s band and first single release) and established a successful three-nights-a-week, five-sets-a-night residency at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park.

“Just before that, me, Southside, Bruce and Garry went to see Sam & Dave. A life-changing moment. So me and Southside basically decided we were gonna be the white Sam & Dave, with rock guitar. So the horns came in and although we didn’t know it, we would change the entire concept of what a bar band sounded like and the respect a bar band would get by making it creative, soul meets rock. ‘Bar band’ was an insult. ‘You’re a bar band,’ which means you can’t make it in the real music world. After the Jukes, they started using ‘bar band’ in reviews and they meant it as a compliment, with Graham Parker and Elvis Costello and Mink DeVille. We changed the way people thought about these things.”

The Miami Horns were a vital component of the new band. Steven composed the horn arrangements, but although he’s always possessed a natural ability to imagine horn parts, he doesn’t read or write music (“never have”) and has always required a little help from his friends to transcribe them. “I have people write ‘em down, to this day. I like that actually. You have to do a lotta things yourself so any excuse I find to collaborate I do it. I find other people will bring something to the party usually. That’s why [I’ve] used Eddie Manion for I don’t know how many years. He knows how I like to voice things. Once I think of something and create the parts, I get bored if I have to voice every part, exactly right. If I hear a voicing I don’t like, I will change it, but I get bored by the mechanics of everything.”

While the Jukes were building their reputation and growing their audience, Bruce invited Steven to hang out at the Born To Run sessions in New York, where he was working on “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.” David Sanborn and The Brecker Brothers had been hired to play the horn parts, but Steven created a spontaneous new arrangement. He’s told this anecdote countless times, but I ask him to repeat it because it provides perfect examples of his innate musical talents in action (“I can hear the parts, who knows why?”), the nature of his friendship with Bruce (“I still am the only human being not afraid of him”), and his no-bullshit attitude (“I didn’t know anything about diplomacy”).

“So he says, ‘Whaddya think?’ I said, ‘It sucks, that’s what I think!’ I didn’t know how uptight everybody was. I didn’t give a fuck either. The managers and producers were all afraid of him already. He asked me a question, I’m gonna be honest. I’m trying to help my friend here, not make points with some fucking record company guy. Moment of silence. ‘He just said it sucks, which means we all suck.’ Bruce [says] ‘Alright then, go in and fucking fix it.’ So I did. I went in and sang the [new] parts. I didn’t know they were the most famous [session] guys in New York. It wasn’t insulting them, the chart was ridiculous. That was my thing, just from the Jukes being around maybe six months.”

“I wasn’t really feeling the pressure that Bruce was at the time. I didn’t realise his life depended on this album. His first two records hadn’t done very well. They wanted to drop him. I don’t know how aware I was of any of that. He invited me into the session and I’m laying on the floor. All I can think is, we’ve been hoping to get into recording our whole lives, I’m listening to this and it sounds fucking terrible. Not just the horn charts, everything. It was the worst period of recording in history. Virtually every record from the 50s and 60s sounded great, virtually every record from the early 70s sounded terrible. Because engineers took over, started close miking, padding the walls. Separation, separation, separation, all the things that make rock ‘n’ roll suck. The idea was, you isolate everything and make it sound exciting in the mix. Which they managed to do, miraculously, with the Born To Run album. Because it was pieced together in a bizarre way. Bruce made that record 100% out of willpower, he willed that into existence!”

Soon after making his instinctive artistic contribution (and singing backing vocals on “Thunder Road”), Steven was invited to join the E Street Band. It was a chance to complete the circle, play with his old friend again and settle any unfinished business from three summers earlier, when he’d been sent packing at the Greetings sessions. He made his live debut on the opening night of the Born To Run tour, which ran until New Year’s Eve. His input and influence over the next decade, onstage and off, would prove invaluable. (Bruce even began playing The Dovells’ “You Can’t Sit Down” as an occasional encore). In the fall, the tour took everyone to Europe for the first time, where the culture shock was off the charts. “There was no hamburgers, no peanut butter. The only place you could get a hamburger in the whole of Europe was the newly-opened first Hard Rock Café. There was a line around the block even then.”

Culinary deficiencies aside, Bruce also had to endure the overblown hype surrounding his first UK gigs at London’s Hammersmith Odeon, where Columbia had displayed the legend “Finally London Is Ready For Bruce Springsteen” on every available surface prior to his arrival. “[It was] completely obnoxious,” says Steven. “[Bruce] spent half the time ripping down posters. It was an embarrassing time for him, between that and Time and Newsweek. He didn’t like that stuff. You wanna be in charge of your life, that’s why we get into rock ‘n’ roll. Suddenly it was slipping out of his control. We made the mistake of playing a place with seats. It just made the show that much harder. But by the end, we got ‘em outta the seats. We went to Amsterdam, Stockholm, and back to London. The second one was a bit easier.” The experience had a prolonged effect on Bruce. “He was uptight in those days and would remain so through Darkness into The River, until he asked me to produce the record and we found a way to have some fun.”

Track 7: Epic Records, Steve Popovich and The Stone Pony

Back on the shore, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes continued the Stone Pony residency throughout 1975, gradually consolidating their line-up. For the next three years, between Springsteen commitments, Steven worked as their producer, arranger, manager, part-time guitarist and principal songwriter. In early 1976, after circulating a demo tape, they signed a recording deal with Epic, with assistance from Steve Popovich, the label’s Vice-President of A&R. “I Don’t Want To Go Home,” the song that Steven had kept in his back pocket since his days on the oldies circuit, became the title track of their debut album and their first single. Ben E King’s loss was Southside’s gain.

“I produced [the song] in a way which was appropriate for the Jukes. They didn’t have a big background vocal thing going on,” explains Steven. “I was very conscious of being able to try and do most of it live, although I put strings on it, on my very first production! There was no synthesiser in those days that could play strings. That’s why I re-cut it [on Soulfire] the original way I pictured it, with the singer and background vocals answering. That idea of writing for someone else is extremely important, critical and essential. It changes the way you write completely, from when you think of writing for yourself, which is extraordinarily complicated and confusing. It’s not easy, but easier, to write for someone else. There’s their identity in your mind at least. I’m writing them a song. That’s a wonderful exercise for songwriters.” I Don’t Want To Go Home was released in the summer of 1976 (“I’ve never received one penny of royalties, but whatever!”). The Jukes later began their first national tour and made their European debut in 1977.

Recommended by Bruce, Steve Popovich was one of a kind. “The last of the real music guys in the business. The only other person I can compare him to would be Lance Freed on the publishing side, who’s unique. He’s actually into music and songwriting and the things you’re supposed to be into when you have a job description like that. And Frank Barsalona, the only agent who really did his job and would set the standard for everybody to follow. Those three guys, really quite historic. [It was] Popovich’s idea to launch the record with a broadcast from the Stone Pony. Never been done before. Popovich loved the local scene idea and he largely made it happen. It never would have been recognised nationally, I don’t think, if it hadn’t been for Popovich, who had the vision to say it’s cool if you’re not from New York. Rather than being embarrassed if you’re not from New York, LA or Nashville, it’s actually cool.”

Track 8: Production Credits and Political Awakening

Steven developed his talents as a producer and songwriter with the Jukes in the late 70s, following I Don’t Want To Go Home with This Time It’s For Real and Hearts Of Stone. Successive releases featured greater quantities of his original material, which included “I Played The Fool,” “This Time Baby’s Gone For Good,” “Take It Inside” and “Some Things Just Don’t Change,” apparently written for another of his heroes, David Ruffin of The Temptations. During this period, he also produced the “Say Goodbye To Hollywood” single for Ronnie Spector and the E Street Band and provided production assistance on Darkness On The Edge Of Town. His relationship with the Jukes ended when they left Epic for Mercury in 1979 and he went on to co-produce The River and two comeback albums for Gary US Bonds, Dedication and On The Line. It was an impressive fast-track apprenticeship. Steven had no production experience when he began. He acquired the skills and learned from his mistakes in the studio. “That’s why all three Jukes albums are different,” he says. “By the time we did The River, I knew what I wanted to do. I got it all down by then. That’s how I tend to do things. I can picture what I want. Jump in, do it, let’s see what happens.”

Steven also kept his promise to himself to bring his musical heroes out of obscurity, initially as guests on the first two Jukes albums. “I did what I could, but I wanted to do so much more,” he admits. “First time I get in a studio, got Lee Dorsey out from under a car, where he’s a mechanic. Got Ronnie Spector out of retirement. Second album, we reunited The Coasters, Drifters and Five Satins. Me and Bruce worked with Gary Bonds. We got Ben E King and Chuck Jackson on that record. Those artists had a talent level noticeably above everybody that followed. I wish I’d been insistent on doing more of them. In those [early] days, you actually had to have talent to make records. You had to be able to sing a song, beginning to end, perfectly in tune, perfectly the right melody, and if you fuck up one word, you gotta do the whole thing again. Couldn’t do enough for those people, they were so much fun to produce.”

In addition to his studio accomplishments, Steven played more than 300 shows with Bruce and the E Street Band between 1976 and 1981, primarily on the Darkness On The Edge Of Town and River tours. The majority took place in North America, but the River tour included a European leg that took the band away from home and out of their comfort zone for nine weeks. Much longer than their previous visit in 1975, it was their first significant experience of foreign countries, languages, cultures and political perspectives. They received rave reviews wherever they played, but Steven gradually became aware that not all Europeans viewed the United States in a favourable light.

One particular encounter was pivotal in dramatically reshaping Steven’s worldview. “A kid asked me, ‘Why are you putting missiles in my country?’ I said, ‘I’m not, I’m a guitar player.’ I realised, for the first time in my life, at the age of 30 I’m embarrassed to say, that I’m an American. What the fuck does that mean? I managed to grow up in the middle of civil rights, the Vietnam War, demonstrations about every fucking thing and had no interest in any of it. Amazing when you think about it. Redefining tunnel vision. Suddenly, the tunnel is gone. We’re now successful. Who would have ever figured that would happen, right? Now it’s like, uh-oh, what did I miss, the last 20 years?”

Track 9: Men Without Women, Motown and Mixing In Mono

This revelation accelerated Steven’s growing political awareness, one of two important developments in 1981 that would change the course of his life forever. The second came when he returned from Europe and was approached by EMI America about making a solo album. Having spent six years producing and writing for others, he welcomed the opportunity to have his own creative outlet, which soon expanded into a separate career. In the fall, he enlisted musicians from the E Street Band and the Asbury Jukes to record most of the material for his debut album, Men Without Women, using his established rock-meets-soul sonic blueprint. Including “Lyin’ In A Bed Of Fire,” “Princess Of Little Italy,” “Angel Eyes” and “Until The Good Is Gone,” it remains an undisputed career highlight for Van Zandt devotees, but Steven feels that an outside producer might have helped him make a more commercial record.

“Conventional wisdom is you never should produce yourself and I have to say that’s correct. The only exception I can think of in the history of the business was Prince, who was an extraordinary genius, but other than him, I don’t know anybody who successfully produces themselves.” Describing himself as “extremely schizophrenic, I’m twelve different people, never mind two,” Steven explains how his inner producer failed to control the whims of his inner artist. “Without knowing it, the artist takes over. I was into this extreme naturalism, no logical reason why. I did the whole album live in one day. Came back the second day, did it again, beginning to end. Couple overdubs, that was it. There’s one guitar. The horns aren’t doubled. Nothing’s doubled. Bruce did all the harmony on that record but we couldn’t use his name. We [did] a similar thing with Born In The USA, where we just recorded live in the studio.”

“I made Bob Clearmountain mix ‘Forever’ in mono, to try and achieve the perfect Motown record. It’s never gonna be exact and it shouldn’t be exact, why should it be, but I wanted to capture a Smokey Robinson Motown record. The only way I could do that in my mind was to make it completely mono. He was so good in those days. I mean Bob’s still the best, but in those days he was beyond the best. He was something else when it came down to that Neve board that wasn’t automated, and he’s feelin’ those faders. I made him do something he’d never done before, which requires a whole different way of thinking. You’re now thinking depth-wise and vertically, not horizontally.”

“That’s where my head was at. Can I achieve the emotional communication that my heroes had provided me? My heroes being Motown in general, 10 acts there. Or my heroes at Chess, another 10 acts. Sam Phillips did ‘Rocket 88’ for Ike Turner (Jackie Brenston) and ‘How Many More Years’ for Howlin’ Wolf, three years before Elvis Presley. Unbelievable genius. [I’m] trying to achieve that level of quality in my own world, in my own little bubble, which has these ridiculously high standards. I’m absorbing the 50s and 60s and then trying to integrate them in my head and reproduce them in my own way, not the least bit interested in what’s going on in the 70s or 80s certainly, because it was shit to me, comparatively. An interesting moment here and there. Punk was certainly interesting. But mostly it’s all coming from what I call the renaissance period, ‘51 to ‘71, where it all was created. And that’s true to this day. That’s all I was interested in and that was enough for 10 lifetimes. I didn’t need another bit of input after 1972.”

Track 10: Little Steven, Little Richard and Bob Dylan

In 1982, after recording with Bruce and Gary US Bonds, Steven completed his album, formed the Disciples of Soul (which included Dino Danelli from The Rascals on drums, Jean Beauvoir on bass and Eddie Manion, Mark Pender, Stan Harrison and La Bamba on horns) and played a debut concert at New York’s Peppermint Lounge. Released in October, a month after Nebraska, Men Without Women preceded his first national tour and was credited to his new professional name of Little Steven, which would be used for all future solo activities. “I just wanted separation [from] being the sideman,” he explains. “Each of my personalities required a different name, in order to keep it straight in people’s heads and my own head.” The name referenced his early heroes Little Walter, Little Anthony and Little Richard. In his role as an ordained minister, the latter officiated at Steven’s wedding to Maureen Santoro in New York on New Year’s Eve. Percy Sledge sang “When A Man Loves A Woman” as they walked down the aisle and the reception included performances from Gary US Bonds, Little Milton, The Chambers Brothers and the wedding band from The Godfather. “Little Anthony was doing a cruise at the time or he would have been there.”

“All I can think is, we’ve been hoping to get into recording our whole lives, I’m listening to this and it sounds fucking terrible. Not just the horn charts, everything. It was the worst period of recording in history. Virtually every record from the 50s and 60s sounded great, virtually every record from the early 70s sounded terrible. Because engineers took over, started close miking, padding the walls. Separation, separation, separation, all the things that make rock ‘n’ roll suck. The idea was, you isolate everything and make it sound exciting in the mix. Which they managed to do, miraculously, with the Born To Run album. Because it was pieced together in a bizarre way. Bruce made that record 100% out of willpower, he willed that into existence!”

Steven toured internationally in 1983, then dropped the horns, adopted a more contemporary rock sound and made his second album, Voice Of America. It was an explicitly political record that featured “Solidarity,” “I Am A Patriot,” “Out Of The Darkness,” “Los Desaparecidos” and “Undefeated.” Triggered by his River tour experiences in Europe, this radical transformation was completed with a long period of self-education. “I read every book about post World War Two [US] foreign policy. [It was] shocking how often we were on the wrong side. All of these bad things were happening behind the scenes and nobody was talking about them. No political consciousness whatsoever in the country. I decided I have an obligation to say something about this stuff that we’re all paying for with our taxes.”

“Being conscious of the fact that everybody needs their own identity, I figured who the hell needs another love song from a fucking sideman? I’ll be the political guy. Nobody else is doing it. There were people demonstrating of course. Jackson Browne, John Hall, Bonnie Raitt, Graham Nash, those guys. The Grateful Dead were doing a benefit every week, but rarely did it end up in the work. In general, people weren’t putting much politics into the lyrics of their songs.” For artists with commercial aspirations, he concedes, that’s a smart move. “Jefferson Airplane being an exception with ‘Volunteers.’ Big exception, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, with Neil Young’s ‘Ohio.’”

Steven contends that Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” introduced the idea of political consciousness in rock ‘n’ roll. “His first electric song. It’s not given enough credit. The first sentence from Bob Dylan’s electric period, ‘Johnny’s in the basement mixing up the medicine, I’m on the pavement thinking about the government.’ What? You’re doing what? You’re thinking about the government? Excuse me? Who does that? Whoever did that before, in a song, no less? There in that one sentence, Bob Dylan communicated what his entire career was gonna be about, which was having fun with language, with inference, symbolism, metaphor and nonsense lyrics that rhymed. ‘Johnny’s in the basement mixing up the medicine,’ what does that mean? It means whatever you want it to mean, right? Then ‘I’m on the pavement thinking about the government.’ Holy shit! You mean we’re supposed to figure out the government? That, to me, is the most important sentence in all the history of rock ‘n’ roll, right there.”

All photos below by Mike Saunders

[septiembrre]

30 for the kiss prompts!!!!

Prompt: Weak, sweaty kisses because it’s unbearably hot.

@sothischickshe, I made a concerted effort to keep this silly and short. And I gave myself frown lines as I watched it grow longer and longer and… angsty. D: 

Featuring:

A magical reappearance of Beth’s furniture

A broken air conditioner

A heatwave

Lots of summer clothing

Sweat (but like the typical annoying kind. This is not a euphemism for sex)

Beth and her anxiety

Rio, a certified Goth™

A relationship not yet ended

Pain

And a Mick cameo, of course!

On AO3, too!

---------

I’VE GOT TO LOSE MY COOL

Beth’s first mistake was not calling the HVAC technician first thing in the morning. She had called on the way out the door, left a voicemail. 

It shouldn’t have been a big deal. Wednesdays were usually slow. She would be able to sneak away at almost any point to take a call back. In the message she left, Beth made sure to mention that her only conflict was at three (the weekly drop of bills from Mick). Otherwise, there was plenty of time to schedule the service visit with perfect timing for the impending heatwave. 

But, of course, her life was no longer neat.   

On this random mid-day shift, there had been a flurry of customers at the store -- multiple special orders for invitations, a desperate maid of honor running in for last minute bridal shower details. And, naturally, it was in this hubbub that the tech had returned her call. There was another subsequent round of phone tag. Beth left a new message. 

On her phone, there was also a text from Mick. He was held up -- and that never happened. The texts hinted at some mysterious, more-important errand for their boss and she was a little curious. He had quashed her follow-up questions (only a couple!), with a gruff, “I’ll get there when I get there.” 

And he indeed eventually arrived to Paper Porcupine -- a whole hour late and in a terrible mood. He barreled in the backdoor, sans his typical flannel and sans-leather jacket. Instead, he was in a t-shirt and sweaty as all get out in the late afternoon heat. Beth had stared at him aghast as her phone chimed with another call. It had been a perky soundtrack to Mick’s string of colorful swears when he realized he had left behind half the one-dollar bills needed for the next print run.

Well, at least that mess wasn’t on her. 

When Beth finally caught the technician on her drive home, she confirmed what Beth had begun to suspect in her gut: they were all booked up with service calls until next Monday. 

“It’s the heatwave, Mrs. Boland,” the tech explained over the car’s speaker phone. “Half of Detroit is calling in about faulty units. We can get you in first thing next week.” 

Beth had nodded unseen and despairing. She had the AC blasting in the car, but she was still sticky with sweat. It was going to be precisely eleven degrees hotter by tomorrow. Then, it would chart 105 the day after that.  

Good Lord. 

Her second mistake was not immediately driving to the store to purchase a pool.

This is how Beth finds herself in the middle of the brutal once-a-year Michigan heatwave, reflecting on how truly her life no longer plays out in the tidy, pre-ordained trajectories it used to. And some days this is thrilling but other days, today, it’s... 

Terrible. 

Beth tries to do what she can. 

She digs out her most breathable pair of exercise shorts, short short and purchased two children ago. She dons her comfiest, lift bra and throws on a frayed pink tank top. She no longer wore these articles of clothing in the presence of her husband (especially after that comment now etched into her soul about “a great ass and perfectly shaped boobs”) but kept them tucked into her dresser for such hellishly hot, solitary occasions such as today. 

She pulls her hair messily into a lofty bun leaving no opportunity for it to cling to her neck. She also temporarily appropriates three of the flagging household fans and angles all of them carefully at her, meticulously layering the currents. Finally, she sprawls on her bed, starfishing her limbs for maximum air-to-skin contact. 

All of it helps a little, but she’s still hot. Beth can’t fathom anything outside of her misery, wants to shed her skin. 

She momentarily considers taking her third cold shower of the day. 

Then, without realizing it is happening, Beth finds herself an hour deep into a frenzy of online shopping, precariously balancing her laptop so it doesn’t touch her skin. 

Her focus: sandals. 

Beth knows she shouldn’t go through with the purchase. Rationally, she can admit it is a feverish spiral, fixating on one fraction of why this week is awful. But, it is all she can think about: she does not have any appropriate footwear for this heat. 

How will she survive?

From there comes a whole whorl of scenarios. If she could get away with not leaving the house, she could stay barefoot, stick to the shadowy corners of her house, shower any hour of the day. In fact, this was (part of) the reason why she had chosen to stay home as Dean took the kids to the community pool a few blocks over. Her old pair of ratty flip flops had finally given out and the mid-morning heat already had Beth at her wit’s end. God, she just needed some quiet and some sense of distance from Dean. So, she suggested the idea, urged him to go and leave her in peace.

Perhaps, she could send him out for all the kids’ needs and assorted errands? 

...But, could he be trusted? 

Well, if Beth refused to leave the house, that meant she was also choosing not to go with the kids to the movies or the library, places with functioning air conditioners where she could cool off. And what else could they do tomorrow? Maybe she could dig out the old sprinkler from the garage… But, then she’d have to go into the garage, and the temperature in there-- 

Anxiously, Beth meanders the tabs on the DSW website and adds two new pairs of flip flops to her cart. One’s a little more casual, definitely good for pool-side and backyard time. The other pair is a little more dignified. They didn’t look like they would clack. 

Well, she doesn’t need two pairs...

She’ll narrow it down later. 

In the back of her mind, Beth can acknowledge she doesn’t really need to buy anything at all, and that these sandals will not make her current discomfort any more bearable. But, it doesn’t hurt to look. 

Oh, goodness -- what about when she has to go back to Paper Porcupine for her next shift? The thought of putting on any of her flats seems like too much to bear, claustrophobic as they were in the heat. Pumps were out of the question. Which brings her to her last job-appropriate footwear option -- her ankle boots. Weirdly, that seemed to be a fashion trend that was happening now, but nope, absolutely not. 

It is in this fever pitch, that Beth makes her third and perhaps most egregious mistake: when Rio knocks on the French doors, she lets him in. 

In her defense, she’s a little dazed. As mentioned before, the current state of Michigan is literally hell and Rio’s appearance… takes her by surprise. She was not expecting him to show up today with a duffle of the rest of the small bills. He hadn’t texted and to top it off, he is wearing... an outfit she has never seen before.

A sleeveless shirt.

A sleeveless shirt and joggers, fancy athletic ones that look a price point (or three) above the ones she usually buys for Dean. However, despite this new foray into athleisure-wear, Rio remains head to toe in his favorite color with black on black Chucks rounding out the look. 

What a goth, Beth thinks, shaking her head to herself. This outfit in over-100 degree heat? 

She feels hotter just looking at him.

Like Mick the other day, Rio is sans-jacket, sans-button-up, and sans-beanie and there’s just… miles and miles of uncovered brown, freshly sun-kissed skin. 

Maybe, it’s her deep-seated jealousy of people who can tan. All her skin is good for is glowing in the dark and flash burning at the slightest interest from the sun. And mind you, she’s currently safe inside her dim bedroom, but it’s the strangest thing...  She’s burning now as her eyes trace the smooth skin exposed at the base of his neck, burning as she follows along the neat, sharp line of his collarbone where she had bit--

Stop, Beth. Why did she still want-- 

Had he purposefully shown up with a work excuse on the hottest day of the year to pester her? Was this a latent extension of his punishment? Beth thought they were past this. 

But, you know what? Whatever. Let him try.

She’s cool. She might be sweaty as hell, and wanting to crawl out of her skin, but she is cool as a cucumber, cold as ice, profoundly unbothered. 

She’s so cool that she doesn’t say a word. 

Not to greet him, or remark upon the mistake with the drop or… his atypical clothing choice. 

She doesn’t comment either on the state of their business or ask after whatever it was he had assigned Mick to do this week and had seemingly gone awry. 

She doesn’t comment as his mouth drops open with surprise as he takes in her appearance, his eyes widening with something as intolerably warm as the air around them. The bag slips from his grip just inside her doorway.

Nor does she say anything when Rio follows her back to bed, tethered to her through a tenuous spell of heat (weather or otherwise). She’s cool, indifferent, breezy actually as she repositions herself in the crosshairs of the fans. If she pretends he doesn’t matter, she doesn’t have to share the breeze right? So she doesn’t pay much mind as Rio slips off his sneakers and settles next to her. Instead, she re-balances the laptop and resumes pursuing the online DSW store. 

She doesn’t say anything as he eventually shuffles closer, presumably to watch as she adds strappy sandals to her cart (or more probably to peek down her shirt). And god-- this stupid tank top. Maybe her boobs look better from over there in Rio-world, but over here she is sticky with underboob sweat and crossing her fingers that none of it shows through her bra. 

His shoulder leans against hers.

And she has every reason to push him away, but… his skin is cool and smooth and not the most intolerable part of this weekend. So, she lets him stay there. 

And she continues to ignore him, cool-like, or cool-aspiring.

Until he no longer lets her. 

Concentrated as she is on her shopping, she notes idly as Rio’s foot reaches out to nudge one of her fans to aim more directly at him.

Beth can’t help the snarl that comes out of her mouth, “Don’t.” 

He always brings out the worst in her.

There’s a low snicker. Her gaze drops down to take in Rio’s arm as it presses up fully against hers. His fingers reach over to pinch her thigh. 

“Damn, ma.” 

There’s that heat again, the one from inside. God, she hates him. 

Beth shuffles away, frowning at her screen. Rio shuffles too, sidling up next to her again. She adds another pair of sandals to her order and then considers her cart. 

“Elizabeth…” In the corner of her eye, she catches the movement of Rio shaking his head with reprove. “Think about where you live.”

Beth flails on the bed in a display that admittedly reminds her of her own children in a fussy mood and it only annoys her more. Her bedspread sticks to her arms, the backs of her legs, and the exposed sliver of her midriff where her top is creeping up. Beth shifts, trying to dislodge the cover from her skin, mindful to protect the laptop. It’s only happenstance that she manages not to shift a single inch of where the length of her arm touches Rio’s. 

As she tries to calm down, a brief vision comes to Beth -- an alternate universe where the laptop is safely tucked away and the HVAC blessedly functions. The Rio and Beth of this fantasy are them but also not… maybe she’ll call them Christopher and Elizabeth. That Beth -- Elizabeth -- is only mildly inconvenienced by the heat raging outside. She can rest her dampened forehead against the cool arch of his-- Christopher’s neck. She can lean in to press a weak kiss at his collar bone. In fact, she can kiss it anytime she wants, invited to touch him anywhere she like. In this dream, Elizabeth’s ministrations don’t have to be surer or bolder or cool -- because she has him. 

All the time. 

She can afford to be soft. 

In turn, Christopher nuzzles his face into her hair fondly, and that Elizabeth receives a soft kiss at the crown of her head. There’s an undercurrent of sex between them, the suggestion of it, but overall the scene is sluggish in the zenith of summer and content. Elizabeth can curl her body around his and let him hold her-- 

How silly. 

Beth shakes herself out of it and realizes that Rio has shifted on his side, watching her as she’s zoned out staring at the cart full of sandals for too long. His lips twitch and almost pull into a smile. Then, he quells them into mock seriousness. 

It feels too intimate, him with her on this bed, her bed, the bed. It feels like Before. 

God, why is he here anyway? If she was alone, she could peel off all her clothes and… take an ice bath probably. 

Not think of him at least. 

Not think about that wild, feverish idea of curling up, fitting her body into his and surrendering to the heat. Not think about how desperately and pettily she wants to pinch him back. She wants to kiss that stupid look off of his face or... Maybe she could purchase all six pairs of sandals and start browsing for pools on Cloud 9 just to spite him-- 

 “I am thinking about where I live and actually, it’s the middle of summer here--” Beth bites out. “--and it’s outrageously hot.”

“Just buy yourself a pair of sturdy white lady shoes. You mean to tell me you don’t already own some Birks?”

“Excuse me--” Beth splutters, incensed. She had considered them first but had been discouraged again by the price tag for a single pair.  “White people aren’t only ones who wear Birkenstocks.”

Without missing a beat, Rio volleys back, “Baby girl, what are you going to do with so many pairs of sandals in Michigan the rest of the year?” 

“Says you.”  

“Oh?” 

“You literally have a million pairs of shoes. Your closet is insane.”

It dawns on her, what she just said. 

Oh. 

Not good. 

It’s the fucking heat. At least, the discomfort can’t blotch her cheeks any more than they already are. 

She knows that if she looked at him now, she would see Rio doing something... obnoxious with his face. He’s probably smirking in that terrible, gloating, dumb, sexy way that he does, but too bad. 

Beth refuses to look at him.

She’s indifferent and unbothered. She’s cool. She’s the kind of Beth that would never ever even think about his closet or daydream about them folding clothes together or fucking on-- 

So, instead, she snaps her laptop close with a final click. The sandals were a half-brained idea anyway and that was a conclusion she already came to on her own. Thank you very much, boss. 

She starts to get up but then Rio’s hand reaches out to curl around her thigh, pinning her to the bed. He squeezes her leg gently, as he has the audacity to shush her. 

It’s enough impetus for Beth to rear her head back to meet his gaze again and level him with her most withering glare. 

And, what do you know? She was correct. He appears to be very entertained. 

This time she feels the heat surge on her face and knows without a doubt that it shows on top of the heat rash.  

“Yeah, so… are you ever gonna tell me what you were doin’ at my house?”

“No.” She snipes, prim. 

“No?”

“I wasn’t doing anything.” It's outright untruth.

Rio’s amused disbelief and her defensiveness meet in a standoff. Beth knows from experience he’ll try to wait her out and she gnashes her teeth. 

Then, there’s a twitch of movement at her thigh, the flex of fingers she realizes are still there and Beth registers the warm span of his hand a few inches above her knee. Her gaze darts down to look at where he’s touching her. He glances down, too. Together they watch as his thumb slowly strokes her skin. Then, again. 

They both observe as the muscles in her thighs just perceptively clench.

God, him and her, in this bed. 

His voice softens to that ridiculous mumble, both low and rich. “Aw, c’mon, darlin’. You can tell me.” 

The tone raises her hackles -- as if she wasn’t already too familiar with this trap! She tries to affect nonchalance -- she’s cool -- and shrugs, “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

Rio grins. It’s sharp like a knife and charming. She hates that he’s the most attractive person she’s ever met. “You liked my closet?” 

Then, an idea comes to her-- how she can best him at his own little game.

Beth curls on her side towards him. Her cleavage deepens and god, she can instantly feel more sweat bloom but she knows what he likes. The line of their bodies is parallel, only separated by an inch or two. They’re sharing the breeze from the fans now and wisps of her hair have gotten loose from her bun and are blowing into her face. Rio’s hand shifts to resettle and it drifts up to stroke her hair back behind her ear. Then it drops to curl at her waist. And you know -- nice move -- but she can do him one better.

“Yes,” Beth says simply. She brings her hands up to trace along the neck of his shirt, across his pecs, and the expanse of skin she hasn’t seen since that afternoon of Before. “I didn’t see this though.” 

Then, in a moment of haughty malice, her fingers find the notch of his clavicle. She watches his throat bob as he swallows hard and she counts the success. She ignores the tell-tale temptation to gift him more bruises, to kiss him… 

The thought occurs to her, distantly, slowly emerging through the fog of heat, that if she tugged the fabric to the side a bit, she’d find one of the scars she gave him. Her hands become clammy and they retreat. 

“You like it?” Rio’s voice comes out a smidge hoarse. But, perhaps only someone who knows him like her would notice. 

Beth shrugs a shoulder. 

His eyes are bright as he looks back at her. His gaze shifts crass, laden with the suggestion of sex, and there’s a tinge there that's not quite sour per se. But, it’s heavy with the particular weight of who they are now. His line of sight deliberately drops to her cleavage with old, salacious purpose. 

It’s not the way he looked at her that day, that one time (or two).  

Self-rebuffed, Beth tries not to think too much about how she hates that Rio caught her dressed like this. She itches to pull her top up to her neck or scramble off the bed to find something else to throw on. She itches to disappear entirely or to retreat into her bathroom (and see if this time he’ll follow her there too). 

Slowly, in performance, Rio moves the fingers at her waist and dips them under the edge of her tank top. He traces teasingly underneath along her sweaty skin. 

“I like this.” Rio says, biting his lower lip lewdly, tugging along the hem of her shirt. 

And Beth feels-- she feels--

Too hot. 

Too objectified. 

Her stomach drops and she wants to crawl out of her skin. This wasn’t, this isn’t-- This isn’t what it was. 

No matter who they are this minute, whatever mess continues to unfold, this isn’t what that day was.  

She won’t let him ruin it. 

“You know I did really like your closet. I liked your shoe racks--” she scrambles, trying to dangle a little of what he wants and to remind him. “Your pictures. Nice touch.” 

The comment serves its purpose. It makes him pause, sufficiently rebuked by all the ways that she knows him. 

Rio extricates his hand, pulls away from her skin, as she tries again to calm herself. She needs to be cool, cool, cool. 

But, it’s unbearable -- who they are now.  

She feels frazzled and depleted as she watches Rio roll onto his back. He looks up at her ceiling, not at her. “Why can’t you be honest with me for once?” He says it tiredly, without artifice. 

She can’t stand it. 

“You’re one to talk.”  

Beth watches as Rio is now the one gritting his teeth. 

“Y’know--” There’s a poignant, festering beat and then he says, “When I fucked you in this bed, I had wanted…” 

More. 

That want goes unsaid, suspended in the air around them with the heat. 

“But, you just wanted me to fuck you,” he finishes quietly, leveling her. 

Her stomach bottoms out newly pained and she wonders if that day, those two times, are already ruined for him. Certainly, she can understand if it’s because of the bullets. But, if he still has any doubt-- 

She makes a last-ditch attempt at levity. 

“You’d probably say this is really… basic bitch of me.” The phrase fits awkwardly, and the call back immediately has Rio’s attention. She knows in her race to pull something together, to make it better, something bearable, whatever she’s going to say is going to be too candid.

“Yeah?”

“But, the times that I’ve been the most… attracted to you--” Oh god, this isn’t coming out light and casual at all. Oh no. 

Rio shakes his head at her, “Don’t stop now, Elizabeth.”

“Oh my god, shut up,” Beth huffs. Then, she tries again. “One is definitely when you were bashing in that butt-ugly car.” 

Rio’s eyebrows raise comically high. 

“You know with the crowbar,” She gestures, swinging her hand gratuitously. He absolutely already knows what she’s talking about. 

“And two..”  Beth shuts her eyes and takes a steadying breath. She hopes for the best and tries not to rush the next bit. “--was when I saw your closet was color-coordinated.” 

She sneaks a glance at him, and her stomach twists again.

He has absolutely no business looking so fondly at her. 

She strives to clarify. “But, that was before.” 

“Not anymore?”

“No.” 

Rio nods, presumably in acceptance of her refusal. 

But, then he tugs her to him, across him. Beth settles on top of him, too hot, too sweaty. Her forehead comes to rest, pressed against the soft hollow of his neck.  

[dearfuturehusbandblog]

Am I A Joke To You???

Dear Future Husband,

For the first time in probably a year, I went for a hike.

Well, technically two hikes.

There's a local state park I enjoy walking/hiking in (though it's been over a year since I've done so*) and after weeks of awful weather and terrible air quality, I was finally able to go on Monday about an hour before the park closed. I thought it was going to rain on Tuesday, but it didn't and so I got a chance to go again.

Two hikes in two days.

Two migraines in two days.

Oh, did I not mention my brain is so sensitive to life that I get migraines? Yeah, add that to the list of everything wrong with me.

I grew up in a horribly dysfunctional family and started getting migraines at a really young age (6, maybe?) that was pretty much chocked up to stress, but I also had weird food allergies and the sensitivities to these foods also sometimes causes migraines.

But I've just learned something new: Apparently, exercise-induced migraines are a thing.

And you know what else is super convenient? The time in my life when I used to get the most migraines as a kid were the times when I was actually active.

I broke my leg around age 11 and exercise has been incredibly difficult for me since then, so I rarely do it. And you know what, I rarely get migraines. And you know what? I weigh a ton and a half.

So of course, I decide to do something for my physical and mental health and it brings back the frickin' migraines.

WHAT EVEN IS MY LIFE!?!?!!?!?!?

I'm at a complete loss here.

I'm trying to better my life and it's ruining my life!!!!!!

And on top of that, I have messed up feet (literally since birth - I had to wear special shoes as a baby) so even though my sneakers are relatively new, my feet are absolutely killing me from the hikes, I have a big blister in a weird part of my left foot, and I can barely walk from the couch to my bedroom. But also, I need to shower.

I really feel like God just created me as a joke.

Every single part of my body is problematic.

Even if my brain worked right, I'm physically not a desirable entity.

I mean, I hate me.

How on earth can I expect anyone else to love me?

I'm sorry I'm not worthy of your love.

-LivelyHeart

*It's been over a year since I've walked/hiked at that state park, but from like 2017-2019 I was able to do some consistent hiking there a couple of months a year and every single time ended up with a migraine. You'd think I'd have figured out the pattern then, but I assumed it was dehydration. I took advil, downed a ton of water and didn't think about it again. Until now. Because two migraines in two days after cutting out pretty much every food that gives me migraines seemed unusual. And the only difference was the hikes.

FML

[hellflame-for-a-reason]

Vampires don't have blood quirks

Part two

Tw for blood and loss of control

Training, it was the last lesson before lunch so they were all a little antsy. Mr Aizawa led them all to a large building and told them they were going to play a little game; everyone was given a little marble, and they could store it anywhere on them, the object of the game was to steal as many marbles as possible and the moment you lost your marble, you were out. There were to be three rounds, or at least as many as they could manage before lunch. So they took their marbles and hid them somewhere in their gym outfit, this task would be unfair if they were to use their hero costumes. Tenya certainly knew that it would be easy to hide a marble in his suit- he was half tempted to put it down an exhaust pipe but he knew that was too risky so he simply slid it into his shoe.

The whistle was blown and they all rushed into the building, Tenya knew that fights would break out as soon as the whistle was blown so he ran as deep into the building as he could get- it would be too risky to pick up stray marbles. He was wondering how he should play this while kind of wishing he’d brought a small snack, he’d only had a small juice box for breakfast after all. He simply ignored that and did his best to head around the corridors, sticking to the shadows. It was a good strategy as most other students were running about hunting each other… oh he shouldn’t use that word, it made him think about how much he couldn’t wait for lunch.

His way of doing things paid off, he managed to get second place in the first round, and now in the second round, he already had 4 marbles clasped in his fist. He turned a corner at full speed, suddenly finding himself on his back as a weight landed on his chest. For some reason he couldn’t see who it was… oh wait, “Hagakure?”

She giggled, “yep! Sorry Iida, can I have your marble?”

“Of course you can, you’ve earned it.” he pulled the marble out from its hiding place, holding it out for her, she took it. “This is certainly your kind of exercise isn’t it?”

Hagakure laughed at that, “it is, it's very fun! How about you?”

“It’s definitely fun,” he agreed, pausing when a very familiar smell filled his nose, “are you hurt at all?”

“Hm? Oh I did cut myself slightly earlier but it’s fine, I put a bandaid on it.”

“The bandaid’s come off.”

“Oh? Oh! It has! Thank you Iida!” She finally got off of him, he did his best to hold his breath as he stood up, slowly leaving the building, where he allowed himself to breathe deeply. Great; now he was even more hungry, and they still had a round to go.

The third round, Iida didn’t want to get too close to anyone, he was kicking himself for not getting more breakfast. He could smell Bakugo’s brand new nosebleed from three rooms away, and it was making him dizzy. He resolved himself to just sit in the window of one of the rooms, staring out and trying to breath without smelling anything. It wasn’t like he was trying to make himself hungry, this was just a terrible situation. He prayed no one would come into the room he was hiding in, he didn’t care about his marble but he couldn’t exactly trust himself like this.

He could see the people who were knocked out of the game leaving the building from here, it was a nice distraction but there was a small part of his brain that was begging him to jump down there and hunt. So the footsteps that came too close weren't entirely unwelcome of a distraction, he still froze in place, not wanting to move a muscle for fear he’d lose it. He knew it was Midoriya, from the bouncing footsteps to the scent of fresh cut grass and residue blood. Midoriya was the last person Tenya ever wanted to hurt.

“Iida?”

Oh the hand on his shoulder was a mistake and within seconds Midoriya was pinned against the floor with Tenya perched on top of him. The green haired boy had turned red, staring up at him as Tenya leaned too close, way too close. Tenya knew it was wrong, he knew that, but Midoriya just smelt so good, and he simply couldn’t take it. He inhaled the scent deeply, feeling his heart rate jump up to almost that of a human’s. His mouth had filled with saliva and he felt incredibly warm and adrenaline-filled.

“...I-...Iida..?”

“You’d make a much better damsel than Uraraka…” he was unable to think of anything but how his friend might taste, his engine warming up on its own, the adrenaline kicking it into gear.

“...what?”

“Huh?” Midoriya’s confusion gave Tenya the moment of clarity he needed, “oh! Yes, the marble, where’s the marble?”

“My pocket… are you okay?”

“Mhm!” he nodded, taking the marble from Midoriya’ pocket, “ah you’re out it seems, best get down and tell Mr Aizawa,”

“I can’t, you’re still on top of me.”

“Oh, I’ll just get off of you then…” he stood up, struggling to keep his thoughts coherent.

"Yeah…" Midoriya got up, brushing himself off as he stared at Tenya in confusion, "are you alright Iida? You're…"

"Fine, I'm fine," Tenya waved his hand dismissively, "you should go wait out the rest of the round."

Midoriya hurried off and Tenya was alone with his thoughts, kicking himself for losing his cool the way he did. He couldn't believe he was seriously considering biting him, he would never hurt his friends, he loved his friends. He's never even bitten a human in his entire life, that's not something a hero does! Tenya couldn't shake the feeling that Midoriya's smell had given him though, it had been so incredibly intoxicating, in more than one sense. For a split second he wondered if Midoriya would taste as good as he smelt, he instantly killed that thought the moment he had it- that was something he should never be thinking about, he wasn't a monster!

When the round ended, Tenya stumbled out of the building and stood there silently, trying to ignore the small cuts and bloody noses of his classmates though it drove him crazy. Mr Aizawa had asked them all how many marbles they had, and out of the students still left in the building by the end, Tenya had the least amount of marbles, only having taken one. Bakugo, who had gotten the most, seemed to find this funny. Laughing at Tenya, he leered, "what were you even doing this whole time? Sitting on your ass?"

Tenya just sighed in response, not feeling like retorting, but as class president, he had a duty to take no shit and be an example to his fellow students. "For your information, Bakugo, this isn't really my forte; my quirk and skillset are built for speed and power, not for ambushing and hunting." He was right, although the part about not being built for hunting was incorrect, his entire species was built for that sort of thing.

"You have a point Iida," Mr Aizawa spoke up, "however you were quite good in the first round, and if it wasn't for Hagakure you definitely would have gotten a good score there too. So did something happen this round? Is there a reason for your sudden lapse in performance?"

"Sir?" Midoriya raised his hand quietly, "not to overstep but it was my marble he took and when I found him, he seemed a little… dazed? I don't really know how to describe it…"

Tenya couldn't look at Midoriya, he didn't want to feel the way he'd felt then again. He hadn't meant to freak poor Midoriya out like that, he couldn't imagine a worse thing to happen. Mr Aizawa turned to him, clearly waiting for an explanation of this behaviour, but there was no way Tenya could tell the truth. Instead he just sighed, trying not to meet his eyes, "I am feeling a little… dizzy, sir. I apologize for not doing anything about it."

"Ah, I see. If you're feeling under the weather then you shouldn't push yourself to train, you should have just told me you felt ill."

He bowed his head in shame, "yes sir, my apologies."

"Stop apologizing and go get some rest, class is dismissed, I'll go over my observations with you tomorrow."

The class filed out of the room, most of them heading to the changing rooms or the cafeteria, but Tenya found himself rushing across the campus to get to the dorms. He could feel his mind clouding again as he got through the door, the entire dorms smelled of his friends, it smelt so unbearably human. Quickly making his way up the stairs, Tenya could only pray his friends weren't kind enough to try and check up on him. The moment he got into his room, he slammed the door shut, he was unable to lock it so he did the next best thing and slid a chair under the handle. Hopefully that would keep any would-be-victims out of the room. With the last of his control fading, Tenya let out a groan that quickly turned to a hiss, good gosh he was hungry.

He got to the floor, opening the minifridge that he kept under his bed. Unfortunately he opened it so quickly he tore the door off, but in this state, he really didn't care. All he cared about was feeding. He grabbed the biggest bag he could, not even bothering to use a straw as he tore into it, ignoring how it got on his face; all he could focus on was the taste and how much he needed this.

It was only animal blood; he'd heard that human blood was better but he would never consider trying it, animal blood was all he'd ever done and it should be enough to quell his frenzy. That was what it was, a feeding frenzy; something that happened when a vampire got particularly overwhelmed with thirst. Any control or logic went out the window in favour of doing anything and everything in his power to feed, that was why he'd put the chair under his door handle, he didn't want to get out and during a frenzy he likely wouldn't be able to figure out how to escape. Luckily the blood bags seemed enough for him, and he was happy to just sit there and tear open bag after bag of the red nectar.

After around ten minutes of feeding, Tenya found himself a lot calmer, allowing himself to slow down with the feeding. His floor was littered with empty blood bags now, so he'd probably have to clean up before the next lesson. For now, though, he could just relax and enjoy his lunch, this particular bag was beef blood- his favourite. He was just vibing, he wasn't expecting a knock at his dorm room door. Naturally, he panicked, grabbing all the bags and shoving them into the fridge, not caring if one popped. "One minute!" He hoped they wouldn't be suspicious by how long it took him to get to the door, he didn't have a mop so he had to go at his floor with a tissue.

When he finally opened the door, he saw that it was Midoriya and Todoroki standing there. Midoriya smiled up at him, "are you feeling any better now Iida?"

Tenya smiled, appreciating that his friends were so caring, "of course, I'm perfectly fine now. Not to worry Midoriya, I'm feeling better now."

"That's good!" Midoriya smiled, walking into the room, followed by Todoroki, who frowned the moment he'd stepped through the doorway.

"Wh-" Iida closed the door behind them, "did you need anything more?"

"No, Midoriya suggested we come and check on you to make sure you were doing alright. Have you eaten yet?"

[sadsentinel]

i had to really throw down with my writer’s block to get this done but here it is (i hope it isn’t terrible!) ice skating with vergil! :’)

I’d never been ice skating before. Truth be told, I wasn’t nervous. I was excited.

A light dusting of snow had coated the ground, and the clouds overhead looked ready to burst any second now. With any luck, by the time we headed home, there would be plenty of snowfall to watch through the window, with a mug of hot cocoa in hand.

I smiled, eager to get started. Vergil didn’t seem quite as happy to be here as I was. He hadn’t cared much to go with me, but I’d insisted. I can’t go by myself, I’d said. That would just be weird.

He hadn’t understood why, but he knew it was important to me, so he’d relented. In his heavy, navy blue coat, he strode beside me, casting a hard glance over the ice rink. His icy stare was even colder than the air around us; the commanding look in his eyes sent a rush of adrenaline through my system each time we looked at each other.

He took my hand in his, giving it a tight squeeze. He didn’t show it on the outside, but he didn’t like crowds, and the rink was packed today. It looked like the last day of good skating weather before the holidays. I offered him a reassuring smile. His gaze softened for a moment, but as soon as he looked back towards the ice, that harsh veneer was back in place. He looked as stone cold as ever. But that was only a façade; at least to me. He was distant and impersonal to the rest of the world, but for me, he was less reserved. To me, he was kind.

“I can’t say I understand why you wanted to do this.” We crunched through the snow until we found an unoccupied bench. We sat down, luckily away from the bulk of the crowd, and began to lace our skates. I gave him a playful nudge.

“Because it’s fun. Don’t you ever want to get in the spirit of the season?” As soon as I said the words, I knew his answer.

“I don’t particularly care much for the holidays.” He tied his laces in a tight knot, then with grace, stood and held out a hand for me. “But you enjoy it. So here I am.” The gravel of his voice, along with the tenuous sentiment he’d offered, warmed my heart. These moments with him were rare, but they were becoming more common. It had been hard for him to admit he cared about me, and even harder to admit it to himself. But once he had, everything had fallen into place.

I smiled in thanks and accepted his gloved hand, getting to my feet uncertainly. I stumbled, but quick as a flash, his other hand was around my arm to steady me. He searched my wide eyes for some sign that I was alright. He might’ve been stoic towards everyone else, but there was a subtle science to the way we communicated. It was wordless, innate. I gave his hand a reassuring squeeze.

He led me onto the ice, where I lost my balance and nearly fell immediately. In an instant, his hands were wrapped around my waist to steady me. He held us both perfectly, with unnatural grace and ease.

“Are you sure you’ve never been skating before?” I leaned into his chest and held on tight. I was not interested in slipping and crashing into the ice. He kept his arm firmly around my waist and began leading me around the edge of the rink.

“Never.”

“How are you so good at it?” The dexterity with which he glided was inhuman. I held on for dear life, knowing I’d fall without him.

“Suppose I’m naturally talented.” The faint hint of a smile appeared on his lips, but was gone as soon as it had appeared. I’d learned to pay close attention to him, otherwise I would miss those rare expressions of happiness.

Out of nowhere, Vergil spun me into an elegant twirl. Despite my lack of skill, the maneuver felt effortless on my part. As he pulled me close again, his hands found their place around my waist, steadying me.

He had a habit of making things feel uncomplicated, easy. Like I was walking on air, while he did the burdensome parts with a stalwart deftness. And it was so easy for him. He was strong, and had been since I’d met him. Everything he did had an unwavering resoluteness to it. I was positive there was nothing he couldn’t do.

He glided across the ice, holding me close against him. Even now, he did all the work. I was simply along for the ride. Grateful to be this close, overjoyed that fate had led the two of us together this way.

I leaned my head into his chest and shut my eyes. This was perfect; exactly what I’d wanted. Every moment with him had been just like this. Quiet, but a soothing kind of quiet. It was… tranquil.

“I’m happy you decided to come with me,” I whispered.

“The honor is mine,” he responded, his voice as soft as velvet. It wasn’t often he showed this side of himself, even to me. The gentle, compassionate side. More often than not, I got the I’d-go-to-hell-and-back-for-you side. For him, that was an average day. But the sentiment still counted in my eyes.

We swayed together along the ice until I finally began to grow tired. He could do this all day, I was sure; it was barely an exercise for him. But after several near tumbles, my legs felt like jelly and I wanted to go home.

I looked up at the thick grey clouds overhead. They’d grown even darker, and nearly blocked all the sun’s rays. A light flurry of snow had begun to fall. That thinned the crowd considerably; anyone with any sense would be going home to drink hot chocolate and put their PJs on. And right about now, that sounded excellent.

“Maybe we should—” I lost my balance and collided with the ground that time. Vergil had managed to catch me every other time, but I’d finally smacked into the ice. Really, it had been inevitable, and I knew that.

But I didn’t expect it to hurt this much.

“Are you hurt?” He was kneeling beside me in an instant, concern glazing over his eyes. I’d never seen him look afraid before, but as he searched my eyes, I saw a brief terror in his.

“I’m okay… I think.” He helped me to my feet and held me steady while I regained my balance. The moment he let go, I stumbled again. His arms were around me with blistering speed. “Okay, maybe not. Ow.” I glanced down at my ankle. It looked fine, but it didn’t feel fine. I leaned into him for support and he led me to the edge of the ice as carefully as he could manage. He helped me onto a bench and kneeled to inspect my ankle.

I grimaced as he gently unlaced my skate and pulled it off. His hands were nimble, his fingers tender against my skin. Despite my pain, I felt better at his touch.

“It’s sprained,” he said simply. He met my eyes, his icy gaze gone. Instead, he gazed up at me with soft, pale eyes.

“Great.” I sighed. He tilted his head slightly and took my hand in his.

“I’ll care for you.” I knew he would, but the clemency in his face when he looked at me…

He helped me put my boots back on before scooping me into his arms. I let loose a yelp of surprise, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“I can still walk, you know. A little. Maybe.”

“You shouldn’t.” His eyes were trained straight ahead as he walked, his lithe, muscular arms tight around my body.

I shut my eyes, for just a moment, and then we were home. He led me to our bedroom and helped me change into more comfortable clothing—his eyes lingering a moment longer than necessary—before helping me back to the couch, where he spread a thick blanket over me.

He spared the barest hint of a smile and walked over to the small fireplace across the room. After a moment, a blazing fire filled the hearth, heating the room quickly. The prickling cold melted away from my bones and I pulled the blanket over my shoulders.

“I’ll… leave you to rest.” Vergil glanced at me and began to turn, but I stopped him.

“Wait.” I reached one hand out for him and he was by my side in an instant, kneeling next to me with my hand wrapped firmly in both of his. “Stay with me,” I whispered. He hesitated for a moment before removing his heavy coat and tossing it aside. I moved over to allow him some room and he climbed underneath the blanket with me. Right away, I felt ten degrees warmer.

I laid my head on his chest and threw my arm over his side.

“I love you,” I whispered. He ran his fingers through my hair, then down along my back.

“I love you too.”

[ericsonclan]

Never Again

Summary: Mitch and Violet process their guilt in the aftermath of the fight with the Delta where Violet and Clementine were permanently injured.

Word Count: 2645

Read on AO3:

“Shit, looks like it’ll rain soon,” Mitch’s expression was sour as he led Violet onto the upper decks then his eyes widened in apology. “Fuck, I didn’t mean to-”

“Remind me you can see? Chill, Mitch,” Violet waved her free hand dismissively, the other clinging tightly to her friend’s arm. “Stuff like that doesn’t bug me. It’s the actual blindness that fucking sucks,”

“Ruby said you were seeing some things thought, right? That’s a good sign,”

Violet shrugged. “There’s some light, vague colors, blurry shapes. She told me I’d pretty much have to re-memorize where everything was. I just hope it’s not too long till I can actually find the head on my own. I’m sick of being escorted to the bathroom, especially by Prisha. It’s fucking embarrassing,”

“Prisha doesn’t mind. Hell, she probably enjoys helping you find the bathroom,”

“That’s fucking weird, Mitch,”

“Shut up,” Mitch’s brow furrowed as he looked out on the sea once more. It was a sickly green. There would definitely be a storm tonight, probably a rough one too. But for now the upper decks were empty, the ship anchored in place. Louis had arranged for the rest of the crew to be occupied with other tasks so that Violet could get in her exercise without being overwhelmed by the sounds of others at work around her. Ever since the injury, Violet had been especially sensitive to noise. Giving her space to relearn the ship wasn’t much, but it was all most of them could do for now.

Cautiously, Mitch stepped over toward the center of the ship. “We’re approaching the main mast if you want to touch it and shit. Heard that helps,”

“Yeah,” Violet’s voice was soft. It had always been that way but now it seemed as though she rarely spoke above a whisper. She reached out hesitantly, her fingers tracing the wood that was smooth from years of being weathered by the winds and waves. “It feels like it always did: like a mast,” Her hand moved upward, tracing one of the ropes that dangled alongside the mast. Mitch wondered if she was remembering all the times she used to climb the mast with ease and head along the main boom, sitting amongst the sails in her own private world. Someday she would get that back. She had to. Violet wouldn’t be Violet without somewhere to hide all by herself.

“You’re doing it again,”

“Doing what?”

“Pitying me. I know I make it easy, but you could at least do a better job of hiding it,” Violet’s hand dropped, and she waited silently for Mitch to take her arm and guide her once more. Mitch acquiesced, guiding her step by step toward the fore mast. Violet’s grip on his arm was tense. Gently he placed his hand on top of hers on his arm, hoping the gesture would help center her. He glanced over at her face, still covered in bandages. It had been a few weeks since the explosion. Hopefully with time her eyes would grow strong enough to handle sunlight once more but who knew when that would be.

“For what it’s worth, I wasn’t pitying you,”

“Mhm,”

“I’m serious! I wasn’t thinking of you at all! Well I was, but I was mainly thinking about what an idiot I was for staying on the ship that day. I should have jumped over to help you and Clem,”

“That’s fucking stupid. You were busy protecting Willy and helping Brody. Everybody was swamped. Besides, it’s not like having you on the Delta ship would have changed anything. A fucking cannon exploded. Nobody could have stopped that,”

She was right. Still, it did little to ease the guilt. Violet had been blinded, perhaps for the rest of her life, and Clementine had lost a leg because of that Delta attack. Meanwhile Mitch had escaped relatively unscathed. That wasn’t right. No matter how much logic there was in Violet’s words, Mitch had found his thoughts trapped in an unending loop these past weeks, caught in a replay of the day’s events again and again, wondering what he could have done differently. Perhaps if he’d coordinated better with the others, they would have been able to spare him on Ol’ Kickass and he could have jumped over onto the Delta pirates’ ship. Thoughts of spotting the faulty cannon and pushing it out of the way were fantastical at best but still if he had been over there then perhaps he could have shielded Violet from that blast, covered her and Prisha and taken the brunt against his own back. For his back to be covered in scars was nothing compared to what had happened to Violet’s eyes.

“We’ve taken fifty steps, right?” Violet’s words cut through the haze of his thoughts.

“Uh, yes?”

Violet sighed in annoyance. “You’re supposed to be counting with me, dumbass! How am I gonna remember where everything is if I can’t get my steps right!”

“Let’s take a break,” Mitch muttered, pulling Violet toward the bannister of the ship.

“I don’t need one!”

“Well I do!” Mitch immediately regretted his tone. “Shit, Vi-”

“No, I get it,” Violet’s tone was bitter, cold. “It’s a lot of work being with somebody who can’t fucking see,”

“That’s not what I-”

“I want to go back to the room now,” Violet was trying to hide it, but Mitch caught the tremor in her voice.

“Vi, if we go in there, we’ll wake up Prisha from her nap. We barely got her to take one in the first place. You know as well as I do if we head in there before we said we would, Prisha will never let herself take a break again,”

“…I know,” Violet’s voice was quieter than ever as her head bowed.

Shit. All he had done was make her feel like even more of a burden. “Vi, you know what I meant by that. Prisha loves you. So much that she doesn’t rest like she should sometimes. That’s why I said that. It’s not your fault,”

“If me telling you it wasn’t your fault doesn’t work on you, what makes you think turning it the other way around will work on me?”

Mitch looked over at his lifelong friend. Her body looked so frail now, thin as a pile of kindling and battleworn with cuts and burns littered all over her neck and arms. A tear had slipped from below her bandages and was slowly making its way down her chin. Yet she stood as resolute as ever, the same fire still burning within her that he’d seen each day she fought to keep them alive on the streets. Violet was battered and bruised, but as low as her spirit had fallen it was not yet broken. He would make sure it never did. Taking her hand again, he led her back towards the main mast. “Come with me,”

“Where are we going?”

“Where you want to be. And since nobody else is on deck they can’t fucking stop us,”

“And where is that?”

“Just… stay here, OK? Wait a minute,” With that Mitch began climbing up the mast, stopping only once he had reached the boom. Violet was standing below looking lost but still waiting to see what he could do. Reaching for the nearest rope, Mitch pulled it up, looped it with a stopper knot to close the loop then threw it over the boom and lowered it toward Violet. The wind that had picked up slightly made the rope swing back and forth, hitting Violet’s cheek as it drifted down.

“What the fuck?” Violet exclaimed, backstepping in shock.

“It’s just a rope!” Mitch called down. “Find the loop and step through it! I’m gonna use it to hoist you up!”

Violet seemed unsure of the plan. Her hands ran across the rope cautiously and when she found the knot she tugged it, testing its strength. Of course it held. Mitch’s knots always did. She stepped through it one foot at a time, positioning the loop snugly before nodding. “Ready,”

Slowly, placing one hand over the other, Mitch pulled on the rope. Violet lifted a few inches off the ground. Inch by inch he pulled her up, taking his time to make sure that the ride up was as steady as possible. As soon as Violet was within reach, he tied off the rope and took her hand, pulling her up the rest of the way. “Careful. We don’t want you stepping anywhere you shouldn’t,”

“This is fucking insane,” Violet’s voice was tight; clearly she was worried to be up so high.

“C’mon,” Mitch cajoled, trying to ease her fears. “You know the walkways of this ship better than anybody,”

“That was when I could fucking see, Mitch! Shit… take me down,”

“Are you sure?” Mitch’s hands held Violet’s, feeling the tension that froze her in place. “If you’re sure, I will. But I promise I won’t let you fall,”

The tears on Violet’s face had dried in the wind, now faint traces upon her cheeks. Her face turned into the wind, the rough locks of hers blew waving this way and that with the gusts. She was considering her choice. Finally, she spoke. “I want to be sitting. My back against the mast,”

“We can do that,” Mitch shifted to position Violet at the point where the boom was thickest, angling her so her back rested against the security of the mast. Helping guide her to sit, Mitch took his seat beside her, his hand in hers. “The rope’s still around your waist. Nothing’s gonna knock you over that I can’t stop,”

“There’s a storm coming,”

“We’ve still got a few minutes before we need to head inside,”

They were quiet as they sat up there together, their feet gently dangling beneath them off the edge of the boom, kicking the air as they took in the salty sea breeze and the calm, steadfast presence that was the sea. Violet remained silent, but Mitch could tell that she had relaxed a bit, her form no longer as tense as it had been not long before. Instead her shoulders slouched forward by her neck, her back curving with the same terrible posture that Ruby always scolded her on ever since they’d met.  

“What color is it today? The sea,”

Mitch looked over, rather surprised Violet had spoken. He cleared his throat. “It’s that gross green color that it gets before a storm, like snot,”

“And the clouds?”

“Really dark, grey. I bet you can picture the shade they are from how the thunder has started rumbling,”

Violet nodded. “That’s what I guessed. I just hope I can remember it later on, once…”

“Once what?”

“Once I’ve had these bandages for years,”

“Violet. That’s not gonna fucking happen. Ruby said it herself: the fact you’re seeing colors and shit means you’re not gonna need those bandages forever. You’re gonna see again,”

Violet shook her head. “It’ll never be the same. My eyes will be shit for the rest of my life and the longer they’re like that…” her voice broke. “The more I’ll forget,”

The tears were coming faster now. Mitch was unsure what to do. He didn’t want to shift much for fear of putting Violet in danger. Swapping the hand that held hers, he used his free one to take her shoulder and guide her head to rest against his shoulder. Her tears dampened his shirt as the rain began to fall in a light drizzle. Mitch remained silent. All those years on the streets when they were starving and beaten and cold he’d never seen Violet cry. Perhaps that was because she was never alone; Tenn and Willy were always around, needing guidance and protection. Needing her to be strong. But now they weren’t here to see her cry and for the first time in his life Mitch saw Violet cry. All he could do was stay beside her and let it come out.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, his eyes downcast. “I know it’s not worth shit, but I am. We were always there for each other, no matter what. Finding food, looking out for danger - we had each other’s backs. That didn’t change when we became pirates. It’s still my job to look out for you, to protect all of you. I failed that day. But it won’t happen again, not ever,”

“You’re not the only one,” Violet murmured. “Our family’s grown since the days on the streets. We all look out for each other. And Clem got hurt on my watch. I was right there, on the same fucking ship, and I couldn’t do anything to stop Minnie. Clem lost her leg; it’s gone. Maybe if I’d been able to get Minnie to listen…”

“That’s what you’re blaming yourself for? Vi, whatever happened to Minnie all those years she was gone changed her. Changed her in a way there’s no coming back from. She wouldn’t listen, not to any of us,”

“I could have tried harder,”

“You gave it your fucking all, Vi. We all saw that. Nothing was gonna get through to Minnie. Her head’s too fucked up for that now,” Mitch looked to Violet, seeing the uncertainty in the uncovered portion of her face. “Vi, you can’t see what happened to Clem as your fault. That was all Minnie,”

“And my wrecked face is a cannon’s fault, not yours,” Violet turned to Mitch as if hoping to get some confirmation her words had touched him even through his silence. “Guess it’s not that easy to accept, huh?”

“Not easy at all,” Mitch kicked out his leg, the toe of his boot scuffing the mast.

“Then what do we do?”

“Make sure nothing like this ever happens again,”

“And if we can’t do that?” The fear in the question was palpable.

Mitch squeezed her hand, gripping it all the firmer. “We get stronger. We give it everything we’ve fucking got. Just like we’ve always done,”

A small smile crossed Violet’s lips. “Should’ve known you’d give an answer like that,”

Mitch shrugged. “It’s all I’m good for. Put me in front of an enemy, I won’t stop till I obliterate them,”

Nah,” Violet shook her head, “You’re worth more than that. You’re the only one to have the guts to get me up here again. That’s worth something,”

A rueful smile tugged at Mitch’s face. “It made you feel a bit better?”

Violet nodded. “A bit more like myself. We should probably get down though. Rain’s getting harder,”

“Right. You OK up here on your own for a minute?”

“I can manage,”

Climbing down from the mast, Mitch kept a careful eye on Violet, ready to catch her if need be. Once his feet touched the deck he grabbed the rope, giving it a tug to signal he was about to start before slowly letting Violet down inch by inch. Her feet had scarcely reached the deck when the rain truly began to pour. They both ran hand in hand toward the steps to the lower decks.

“I’ll tell the others we gotta get ready for the storm!” Mitch called over the sound of the rain. “You think you can get back to the sleeping quarters on your own?”

“I’ve got this!” Violet called back. Letting go, she traced a hand along the wall of the corridor leading toward the rooms. “Go get the others!”

Giving Violet one final glance, Mitch turned toward the kitchen where he knew Omar had most of the crew busy at work peeling this week’s potatoes. Violet was gonna be alright. Not all the way better, but she wasn’t giving up. She’d continue her own internal fight and he’d do his best to keep her safe. He’d keep all of them safe. It was time to weather a storm.

[alex-ruins-everything]

Turning Pages - Chapter 3

Intrulogical bookshop au! Read the whole thing on ao3 here

Logan admittedly was shocked with himself for turning down the offer of coffee with Roman’s brother. He had been equally shocked that the other had actually purchased a book when he crashed the reading of the children’s book. Sure the man with the white streak of hair had crossed his mind a few times in the past few days, mostly when he saw Roman enter the shop to bother Virgil. Would Remus be barging in again? He had convinced himself the thought only crossed his mind because of how destructive the man was. He messed up the stands and shouted in the shop...he was like a tornado or a car crash. Terrible but impossible to look away from. Hence why he had been a little taken aback when he spotted that same white streak sitting with the kids in a circle while Patton went through his Saturday reading circle.

“Who was that guy?” Patton asked during a lull in the customers. “He came and listened to the reading.” “That would be Remus. Roman’s twin brother. You were on break the first time he came in,” Logan responded, smoothing down the front of the apron. “Perhaps word of Patton’s Reading Circle has begun to reach a broader audience.”

That got a laugh from Patton which told Logan he was gonna drop the questions about Remus. Good. There were much more important things to think about than rowdy men with eyes that were so green they looked like toxic waste. Logan wondered if he wore contacts because Roman’s were hazel at best, but Remus’ seemed to glow. No- he shut that line of thinking down, relieved when a customer came in and asked to be shown to the biography section. Work was a great distraction when one’s mind began to be plagued by things he’d rather not think about. After the man was helped the customer’s started to thin, the busy morning turning into a dead zone evening. That was the way it worked around here. Nobody really came into the shop unless there was an event, which is what made Patton and his children’s books so imperative.

Logan didn’t mind being at the shop all day. Patton had opened, but Logan had shown up thirty minutes early just to ensure it was going smoothly. By the time it was closing he was hardly tired, having chosen two new books to read over the course of the day, blatantly ignoring the marine biology section despite his interest having been piqued by a certain encyclopedia. The shop was closed on Sundays so he had no work tomorrow, and Monday was his day off, an unnecessary requirement that Mr. Sanders had put into place for every employee. Something about not working oneself into the ground. Still, his day of absence meant he had to get everything spic and span for Monday. He was out by 6:15, his shift technically ended at 6 since the shop closed at 5. He had said goodbye to Patton around 3 so it was just him alone with the books, something that might seem eerie to some, but it was when he felt most comfortable.

The sun was still out when he left, locking the door behind him. The summer air was warm, but today luckily wasn’t humid. Leaving the air conditioned store into humid weather always made his glasses fog up with condensation. Instead today the warmth just settled pleasantly into his skin. The town they lived in was small, the bookshop nestled among other family owned businesses, any chain store off in the shopping mall fifteen miles away. It was quiet and that was what Logan liked. He took the long way home, walking through the park instead of the direct route. As he passed the pond with the geese sitting around it he couldn’t help but wonder if these were the poor birds that had fallen prey to Remus Kingsley’s antics.

“Perhaps we have something in common, my fowl feathered friends,” he said as a line of them crossed the pathway.

Logan waited for the geese to finish crossing before continuing on, the sunlight bouncing off the leaves of the trees and illuminating the people sitting on the benches. A mother and her young children, two younger boys with skateboards, and couples. Lots and lots of couples. Holding hands, gazing into each other's eyes. Logan noted it was the type of stuff Roman always romanticized. It was the kind of stuff he had always found personally trivial and unnecessary. He gave a content sigh once he finally reached his apartment, taking the steps up to the fourth floor since the elevator was nearly always out of order. He didn’t mind, though. The stairs were an excellent form of exercise which was a vital part to living a healthy life.

His evening was calm, pleasant even. He cooked himself dinner just as he always did, enjoying his meal at the table with soft music playing in the background. For dessert he was even fortunate enough to have some cookies Patton had given him which he snuck some of his favorite jam onto. Logan had no work to catch up on so he settled onto his sofa with a book, flipping through the pages happily until a character description caught his attention. Green eyes. He wondered if they were a muted green or bright and exciting like Remus’-- and then he promptly banished that thought from his mind.

It was highly unreasonable to entertain these continuous thoughts about Remus Kingsley. Firstly he seemed to be a bringer of chaos, a concept that Logan did not appreciate. Logan appreciated order and routine, he doubted Remus had either of those things. Secondly, Remus is Roman’s brother. Logan is not great at having friends, but he considers Roman an acquaintance of his. After all, on occasion he has been invited out with Patton and Virgil and Roman seemed to usually be there. That was his social group, and he was fairly certain there was some sort of unspoken rule about dating family members of your acquaintances. Thirdly, and most importantly, Logan was not looking for a relationship. He was far too busy to dedicate time to another person when his life was divided up perfectly into work, pursuit of knowledge, and the occasional social activity to upkeep connections with others. There was no space for Remus Kingsley in his life. His continued thoughts seemed to suggest otherwise, however.

“I need to make a list,” Logan spoke aloud to an empty apartment, setting his book aside and grabbing the notepad from the coffee table.

He set up two columns, dedicated to rationalizing these daydreams away so he could return to his reality. The first column was labeled Thoughts About Remus and the second was labeled Why That Is Irrational. Logan let the thoughts flow freely now, writing down the things his mind had brought up about the near stranger since their first encounter. Remus’ eyes made the list. So did the fact that he’s tall. Logan wasn’t blind despite what his glasses would suggest, and he could admit that Remus was attractive, sort of in a dangerous way. He then went through and rationalized each of those away. Approximately 2% of the population has green eyes, so it isn’t completely impossible he could find someone else attractive with the eye color. It was unlikely, and it was even more unlikely that they would hold that same sort of glint that Remus’ did.

“You’re missing the point of the assignment,” he spoke to himself, continuing on the list.

Lots of people were tall, and even then it wasn’t a requirement to be attractive. Speaking of attractive, Remus wasn’t the first person Logan had thought of as such, so there was strong evidence to suggest he wouldn’t be the last. When Logan did feel he was ready for a relationship he was sure he could find someone else who checked off the required categories who didn’t mess up the bookshop displays. That last thought was more helpful than any of the others. Logan was satisfied with his list, setting the notebook back on the table and picking up his book once more, content now to continue his night of reading where his only concerns were based in the historical fiction he was reading at the moment.

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@theiwatobiicepic