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csykora · 3 years

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A thought about meaningful change

I don’t want to distract from the most recent thing Benn did. I’m going to be talking about several different things, and some might seem smaller than others: I know. I’m not saying that the newest thing isn’t important enough on its own or that everything’s on the same level. But I think patterns can be useful.

(I have also made myself sick with nerves a couple times so I’m posting this as is: sorry for typos, and while I’ll stand behind my ideas there may be some sentences that are a little long or awkwardly worded).

Back in 2015, Jame Benn and Tyler Seguin were doing a radio interview.

Some of you might be thinking, “You want to talk about THIS, AGAIN?” Yes. More of you are probably thinking, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Yeah, that’s what I want to talk about.

cw for discussions of sexual harassment, incest, homophobia, bullying, misogyny and transmisogyny, transphobia

So during this interview, one of the radio hosts asked Benn if he and his brother were ever road roommates. Benn said no, and the host commented that Henrik and Daniel Sedin probably roomed together.

“Well yeah…that’s the Sedins,” Seguin said.

“Who knows what else they do together?" Benn said. Everyone laughed.

“Seriously,” Seguin said.

"Dude, it's creepy," the radio hosts said, "In fact, it's a good example to future brothers in the NHL on how not to do things." Then they reassured Benn, “In no way am I implying that you have a Sedin-type vibe going about you.”

Benn and Seguin laughed. The conversation continued, calling the Sedins creepy for wearing similar facial hair, leaving nearby and spending too much time together.

When asked pointblank, “Are the Sedins weird?” Benn answered, “I don’t know. I can’t say.”

To finish the sentence he didn’t: he was implying that the Sedin brothers fuck each other.

Now, these were shock jockeys. They were almost certainly hoping Benn and Seguin would say something homophobic. That said, even shock jockeys pre-screen an interview. They’re not going to invite just anyone on the air and try this with them, because all it takes is someone saying, “I don’t know what you mean,” or “No, I actually respect Dan and Henke a lot as my colleagues” to ruin that set up. If a shock jockey thinks you’re a mark, you’ve probably said something off-air that made them think you’re a mark. And if they dug a pit in front of him, Benn is still the one who decided to stick his dick in it and make things overtly sexual.

After, the Stars stated that Benn had “reached out” the Sedins to apologize. Seguin did not reach out but was “included” in whatever Benn wrote or said. Neither of them gave a public explanation or apology. As far as I can tell the Sedins never commented on whether they received that message, what sort of apology it was, or whether they accepted it. Henrik Sedin’s only comment was, “I think it says more about them than it does about us.”

Ways that homophobia is working here:

-the idea that two men having any degree of physical or emotional closeness, even family members, is suspicious.

-Benn roomed with his brother. Course he did. The hosts spell out what he was afraid of: that the other men in the room might think he had the wrong vibe. He was so afraid of them thinking he had unmanly vulnerabilities like liking his own brother that he misrepresented the situation and pushed someone else forward.

-the idea that a man having any relationship to another man’s physical body or appearance, is suspicious.

Dressing or looking too similar to another man—which means you’ve paid attention to how another man’s body looks in order to copy him, like you’re trying to take ownership of his body, which = fucking him—is a really common accusation. Gay men are seen as lusting after and trying to copy other men’s real masculinity for themselves (but of course never quite succeeding). A man thinking that another man who he knows or suspects to be gay looks too similar to him, and so must have been watching and ‘copying’ him, is a common spark for homophobic attacks.

-the idea that any of this could have been a joke depends on the idea that two men having sex is wacky and unrealistic. Imagine if that happened, wouldn’t that be weird.

Now, someone might say, “It’s not that gay sex is wacky, it’s that the incest that is!” First, incest accounts for a lot of childhood sexual abuse, so I wouldn’t say it’s wacky either. And while it’s true that people can say awful things to different gender twins as well out of a combination of gender prejudices, in this case there were also homophobic ideas about men and masculinity at play.

Ways that power is working here:

-People forgot this fast. It was treated as settled because the Stars said it was settled. People gave “kudos” to Benn “doing the right thing” afterward, or for seeming to realize what was happening and not saying yes to the final question.

I would argue that “I don’t know, I can’t say” is somehow a worse answer to a yes-or-no question, because it means that either you want to say yes but you’re scared of the consequences, or you sincerely don’t know what to say. All he had to do was say “No.” After he said “I don’t know,” Seguin continued and said, “They are weird.” If Benn had said, “No, actually they’ve been professional when I’ve worked with them and I won’t comment any more on their personal life,” Sequin might have noticed, and Benn might have encouraged him to change his behavior. Not saying “no” was a direct, demonstrable failure to show any kind of leadership.

-This counts as workplace sexual harassment. I’m not saying a case should have been pursued: that should have been at least partly up to the Sedins (although there should also be workplace rules about what is and isn’t acceptable without the victims having to ask for it). But that’s a word we can use for this, this could have been counted as that. Sexual harassment are actions based on a person’s gender, assigned sex, sexual activity, or other qualities related to sex, not just sexual attraction. I worry that often, conflicted feelings about putting people into the category of “Sexual Harasser” lead people to think that actions “aren’t bad enough” to be sexual harassment when they definitionally can be. In other lines of work, if you talk about your coworkers fucking their twins in the office, there are rules about that: at the very least, you’ll be getting a bunch of trainings and be moved to a part of the office where you won’t see them again.

In the NHL, it seems frighteningly clear that people don’t have recourse for sexual harassment. This was discussed and handled as a “childish insult”, not harassment against two coworkers/employees. Often, there’s a logic that something is just an insult, not a ‘real’ threat, because the person who did it couldn’t possibly be sexually attracted to the person they did it to.

-In 2015 Eric and Jordan Staal were living in identical houses outside Raleigh and ‘playing’ together every night. Seems super suspicious. Unless beefy Canadian boys’ behavior is normal, and European masculinity always has to be questioned as being softer-spoken, slimmer, more intellectual, scared of heavy hitting. There are a lot of reasons you might not call Eric Staal gay—maybe you know he’s bigger than you, more successful on Team Canada than you, more popular with the other Team Canada guys than you. Or maybe you just don’t look at him and think he could be gay. Or both. Eric is positioned so you’d have to punch up at him: Benn tried to position himself closer to that kind of social standing, by pushing someone else who already doesn’t quite fit in further out. This isn’t directly in the words, so I’m not all-out accusing them of xenophobia: what I mean is that it’s always worth asking if and how and why feminization is applied to Those Other People.

There’s the eating out thing. Which he sent to teammate Jason Demers, commenting “I feel like your (sic) the kind of guy who would”.

How misogyny is working here:

-the idea that this could have been funny or interesting or worth saying at all depends on the idea that vulvas are weird. Imagine if someone willing touched a cis woman with anything but their dick. Gosh.

-There’s no good explanation for what ‘the kind of guy who would’ was meant to mean. No one says, ‘Hey, do you do this widely mocked sex act? I don’t, but I think you would, and that’s cool and doesn’t affect your masculinity at all, bro, life is a rich tapestry.’

How power is working here:

-This counts as sexual harassment again. Even if asking a coworker (or really more like someone you shift-manage or who reports to you) ‘how do you fuck your partner?’ wasn’t, saying ‘you seem like you would do ___’ is. Again, I’m not saying that Demers has to feel that way about it, but he should have had options.

-Demers was also in a new relationship at the time, so this could be harassment to both him and his partner, who had no recourse when someone her partner has to work with/for comments on her body.

-I don’t think it was intended as sexual harassment. But there’s not really a nice explanation of what he meant to say. It seems like it was intended as an insult or a ‘warning’: ‘this is the way men are allowed and no allowed to be in our group, do you know your place?’

Around that time, the Stars shared a video of Benn, Seguin, and Valeri Nichushkin. Each were supposed to say a couple lines, including their name. Valeri pronounced his nickname ‘Vall’, with a native Russian accent, more like “Wall” in English. Each time Benn and Seguin laughed and questions him and the producer cut. After a couple takes Benn said, “I thought your name was ‘Val.’”

Sequin physically turned away from Nichushkin and laughed. Nichushkin, not understanding the comment, and not laughing, turned to Benn for an explanation, but Benn only turned toward Seguin, both continuing to laugh.

It was part of a pattern of comments from observers: “If Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn are having a laugh in the locker room, Nichushkin can only guess what’s so funny.” They themselves commented on how “His English is really not good at all…A lot of times we find him just sitting there.” “(In) normal conversations, he doesn’t really know what’s going on.”

I’ll give them credit—they said they felt pity and “try to help” too. I just can’t find any examples of them doing it, compared to teammates like Sharp or Spezza who can more concretely describe spending time with him.

Nichushkin chose to burn contract time in the KHL rather than Dallas before being bought out, expressing that he no longer felt like he “belonged in the NHL.” He felt that the Stars didn’t “trust” in him, was “nervous” in the locker room, and said his family worried for his mental health because of the culture.

“There is a bit of it because I want to be part of the conversation when someone says something,” Nichushkin said. “But I don’t have enough words I know so I can join in.”

-Is it the worst xenophobia in the world? Nah. It’s not free from xenophobia, when the only joke is that someone speaks differently than you. It’s not Benn joking about his own misunderstanding to invite Nichushkin in. I often point to Tripp Tracy, who asks players to teach him words in their language and then sets up jokes about his accent so they can deliver the punchline and laugh with him.

-Is it bullying? It kind of came off like it, to make a joke about someone you know can’t understand. At least it was unnecessary, and unkind. It’s just reminding someone they don’t belong.

-It’s unimpressive. It’s deflecting. Oh, he doesn’t know what’s going on? What did you do to tell to him? My family communicate through a mix of finger-signing, Scrabble tiles, and interpretive dance: I guarantee you, if you can’t communicate concepts like “we’re going to get dinner now, you’re welcome here, we’re having fun!”, you’re not trying. Which is fine, I guess, you don’t have to talk to people, unless it’s like, your job to work with your teammates.

Wanting to ban trans*feminine athletes from competition is based on a complete misunderstanding of math, medicine, and athletics; it’s unnecessary, unethical, and unkind.

It’s an unsurprising continuation of the ideas that there’s a line between men and women and transgressing it is suspicious, that women are gross, that people who are different are shocking and funny, that social pressure can and should be used to remind people who are different that they don’t belong.

It’s a fascist use of power, which I don’t say to mean that “He is A Fascist in every sense,” but that those beliesf express a desire and a comfort with using power to control other people’s bodies, and which bodies have access to certain spaces, to maintain “purity”.

I’m not saying that anyone should have looked at any of these things and easily decided in that moment, “That’s it, he’s shouldn’t have a platform or power over other players, he’s irredeemable.” You might look at a couple of them and think, “That’s not even a problem at all.” I’ll agree to disagree on some of them, but my point is about a pattern of how this dude uses the power he’s given.

I have a phrase, or more a series of words I sometimes yell when I’m talking about subjects like this—“STRUCK A TIM HORTONS.” I shout this in commemoration of the time that Ryan O’Reilly got drunk and drove his pickup into the wall of a small town Ontario Timmies.

“Struck a Tim Hortons” is a very good phrase to read in a police report. And, also, I’m an ACoA. I’ve experienced impaired driving, I’m terrified to shaking of it, and I know that other people have experienced much worse consequences. This isn’t a perfect metaphor (it’s not an example of prejudice or violence against a class of people, etc) but my point is that I try to hold it in my heart because that’s one case where I know what it’s like to really, really want something to just be NBD. Where part of me wants to just think it was a funny mistake so I don’t have to really think about the serious implications of it, and part of me super doesn’t. I have an instinct to resolve those feelings, to come down and decide that it’s either insignificant enough that I don’t have to think about it, or significant enough that I can hate him and then also stop thinking about it, and then I can have the relief of feeling just one feeling at a time.

I don’t think it’s bad to feel conflicted learning something about someone. I think it’s important.

But the problem is that if one thing isn’t significant enough, and we decide to keep thinking someone is fundamentally Good, we often toss that thing out. So when another thing happens, we only look at the new thing, trying to decide: is this enough? And that next thing might not be enough either. So we can go on and on, until you add up to a lot of things that have each done some harm, but none of them have been enough to change how we see and talk about someone.

Now I, personally, decided that the Timmies wasn’t so bad that ROR couldn’t ever make it up to me. But I didn’t decide to feel fine about it: I tried to just put a pin in how conflicted I felt. It’s been years, and over the years I think his actions have showed meaningful change. He hasn’t struck a Starbucks, a Dunkin, or even a Caribou. There’s a pattern.

I think a lot of people who don’t really like the things Benn says or does or believes have given him a lot of chances to make up for them, because they don’t want him to really mean those things. By which I really mean that I know there are a lot of women and queer fans who liked the guy. I get it (I don’t actually get it get it, but I mean I can try to understand people coming from a very different place than I do about him).

I’ve read a lot of ways that people who are themselves vulnerable in our society try to empathize with him by imagining him as vulnerable too--he’s also experienced fatphobia, homophobia, he wasn’t expected to succeed, etc! I think that’s a wonderfully human instinct. But often I think people have more empathy for those experiences than he expresses for himself--he agrees that it was Bad to be fat and he’s Worked Hard to fit into the masculine norm, he agrees that it’s Bad to be close with another man and works to avoid it--and certainly more than he has showed in his actions toward others. If you’re going to say I hate him for saying that, I don’t--I want him and everyone in our society not to feel and do this shit!

I see a lot of people starting from the idea he is a good leader trying really hard to spin his choices as a smart strategy when he plays dumb with media, when he doesn’t give specific action plans or give public statements or apologies. (I actually agree with the first one, I think it is a strategy for him to avoid transparency and not do a part of his job that he doesn’t want to do.) It just…it seems like a lot of work to reach a pre-determined goal. It’s okay to like someone and for them to still not be good at their jobs! When I say I think a guy’s not a good leader, that’s not always the same as saying he’s a bad person. And if we keep on promoting a guy as a good leader because we like them regardless of their demonstrated leadership skills…that’s how we end up with a lot of shitty policies in the NHL.

Over the years he has consistently avoided stepping up to his captaincy and using his personal power to say things like, “No,” “Tyler, cut it out,” “This is what I’m going to do to fix a problem,” or “I believe in…” anything, really.

I really, really want to ask people to be mad as hell and advocate for the NHL to improve its code of conduct and harassment processes. I do. But I’m also tired. I don’t think, if I did ask you that, it would work. I don’t have an argument for why you should be mad at someone who’s mad at my existence. I’m not trying. I just want to encourage you, if you’re feeling the tug of feelings and just want to be able to simplify someone’s behavior and love them in simple terms, to put a pin in the more complicated parts, and remember them the next time, and look for patterns.

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raleighcarrera · 3 years

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falling

platinum | raleigh carrera x mc (cadence dorian)

a little while ago i posted about the idea of a soulmate au where the first words raleigh & cadence say to each other are tattooed on them their whole lives, and this... is that. (for @platinumweekend ❤️)

tags: @choicesarehard ; @empressazura; @emomoustache ; @natesewell ; @zigtheeortega ; @pixeljazzy ; @brycemaloliver ; @grigori-girl ; @dulceghernandez ; @bitchloveskcbaseball ; @withbeautyandrage

~10.5k words | T

the words appear in looping script on his thirteenth birthday, right on time. they curve along the inside of his bicep, innocently punctuated. what’s your name?

“you got lucky,” one of his older cousins tells him, later, when everyone in his family comes by for cake and to ooh and aah over his new tattoo, “you’ll be able to hide that with a shirt or a jacket easily.”

but raleigh sleeps shirtless every night for the next two years, even when it’s cold, so that the words are the last thing he sees with his head pillowed on his arm before he falls asleep, dreaming of the nameless, faceless person who will one day say them, wondering what their voice might sound like when they do.

ii.

she has a more difficult go of it.

being a thirteen year old girl would be miserable enough without the added pressure of the words that practically feel broadcast across her forehead, most of the time. everyone at school teases her constantly and ruthlessly: say something funny, cadence. go on. tell us a joke!

so it’s difficult not to resent the two words scrawled lazily across her collarbone and the person attached to them, especially in the mornings before school when she’s angrily rearranging her neckline and jewelry in the mirror while the bus idles outside.

very funny. she isn’t, really. she’s plenty of things -- determined and passionate and sensitive, definitely, but... no one’s ever found her particularly funny, before.

and no one seems to understand just how much the expectation of having to be funny, one day, is weighing on her, not even her parents, when she finally works up the courage to squeak out, “but how am i supposed to know what i should say?”

her mom laughs indulgently, like she’s already said something funny. her stomach sinks further.

“oh, sweetheart,” she tells her, “don’t worry, it won’t matter. you just will.”

iii.

people ask him about it. a lot.

it gets difficult to keep it a secret as things change around him, but raleigh’s careful to avoid slip-ups and paparazzi photos and he doesn’t say a word about it in interviews, even when he’s asked directly. he’s never seen without short sleeves on, at the very least, and he doesn’t even tell blair and cameron about it.

he sort of wishes he had, though, because as his life turns upside down and he adapts to a new country with a new set of rules and an industry that makes his head spin most of the time it starts to feel more and more confusing, those three words -- what’s your name?

everywhere he goes, thousands of girls blocking the street scream it at him. so how is it possible that whoever’s waiting to meet him doesn’t already know it?

and what does that mean for how the rest of his life is going to turn out?

what if all of this -- the fame and the money and the notoriety -- is fleeting, and he’s only a few short years from being completely washed up and irrelevant? what if the day he’s meant to meet his person is so far away that he’ll be completely out of the spotlight, by then, with sunset skatepark playing reunion tours and him having spent most of his life alone?

it’s a lot of pressure, for someone who’s already working their way through such a serious adjustment, and most of the time it’s dizzying, thinking about the fact that there’s someone out there who’s supposed to be perfect for him, when everyone he meets seems determined to forget every word they know other than yes, so they can suck up to him as much as possible.

his teenage years fly by in a whirlwind of mistakes and regrets. there’s things he would’ve never dreamed would come his way, like world tours and more money than he can count and so many girls who know everything about him before they even sit down to dinner, but there’s more than that, too.

there’s all the ways the industry weakens his trust until it’s gone, all the people who try to use him for what he can do for them, all the times he stumbles until he finally learns to distance himself by cultivating a persona, by leaning into all the expectations of raleigh carrera and creating something so outlandish it doesn’t hurt as much when disaster follows him around because it’s supposed to.

he watches everything that surrounds him turn fake and plastic and puts his energy only into his music, coasting on the rest. the days are less exciting than when he first joined the band at fifteen; he’s a solo artist, now, and most of the time, he’s just trying to get through.

but chaos continues to follow him and eventually his notoriety is inescapable. his first solo album is self-titled and he somehow manages to get a trademark on the word raleigh, as if the name is now more his than anything that ever belonged to the state of north carolina, and part of him sort of expects the words stamped on his arm to change, once he hits one-hundred million followers on his social channels.

they never do, though, and when he’s alone, and the veneer he’s built up for everyone else fades away, he can’t help but to be fascinated by this person who just wants an answer to the question no one else would ever dare ask him.

iv.

college isn’t exactly the fresh start she was hoping it’d be.

she was a loser in high school and things don’t get much better for her even now that she’s with ‘her people’ at a performing arts university she can barely afford, even with two part-time jobs.

shane is across the country at a proper state school with parties and a social life and lots of friends who aren’t her, and she’s failing her improv class, proving that she isn’t actually very funny at all.

boys continue to not notice her and patrons in bars continue to turn away from her one-woman performance, her old acoustic guitar the only constant in a life that feels utterly, unbelievably pointless, most of the time.

it’s like she’s drifting through the days, putting her time in at college in the hopes that it’ll fortify her for what’s next -- her big break, the discovery that’ll get her out of that shitty small town she’s been trying to escape her entire life. she writes hundreds of songs about how lost she feels and hates every single one, dreaming of a time when things might be different and she doesn’t have to second-guess every single one of her decisions.

she doesn’t have much of a love life and tries not to think about that, either.

the person on the other side of those two words stuck on her collarbone is probably looking for someone self-confident, who knows who they are and is comfortable with that. they’re probably expecting to meet someone who has their life together, who, at the very least, has a plan.

they’re probably not expecting a talentless nobody screwup like her, someone who tries as hard as she can yet never seems to make anything work.

things don’t turn around after graduation, either. sure, she manages to find an apartment in a building that’s nice enough and uses the last of her savings on the deposit and trying to furnish it, but it’s only a few weeks of trying and failing to secure a regular paying gig performing before she’s back at smoothie star again, begging for her old job back.

and there’s nothing that makes her feel more like a failure than working the same shifts she had in high school.

as she hums along to the radio on a random tuesday afternoon when the store is dead and there’s nothing to blend, she wonders what mr.-or-mrs. very funny would think if they walked in and saw her here -- twenty-three years old and flat broke, with a dead-end job and a one-bedroom apartment all she has to show for her very expensive and very useless bachelor’s degree.

that, and a notebook full of half-finished songs about relationships she could only ever dream about and an escape from the miserable small town she lives in that feels farther away with every day that passes.

she can’t imagine they’d be very impressed.

raleigh’s life gets monotonous very quickly. the music takes a backseat to the scandals and for a while there’s a predictable pattern of cause trouble, clean up image, rinse and repeat.

there are girls in between the cycles to help him pass the time. some he likes well enough and some he despises, but for the most part his management gives their recommendations and he agrees and makes awkward conversation for an hour or two over brunch until it’s time to go trash something again.

things get particularly bad after one minor cruise ship hijacking incident.

but in his defense, no one ever told him that breaking into the harbor and joy riding was a first-degree felony, worsened by the fact that he’d just so happened to crash the boat into the pier while he was trying to dock it.

at least he’d been sober.

though a monumental fuck up like this felt sort of inevitable; everyone who knew him probably figured it was only a matter of time before he went too far. how could he not when he was always chasing the next high?

still, the image rehab tour that follows is far from what he’d call enjoyable. he has to cut off all his hair and play nice at industry parties and waste time standing around being seen at charity events he winds up just cutting checks for instead of helping out at.

on top of the miserable community service comes the pr bullshit his team so loves -- dozens of tv appearances back-to-back where he’s herded around all day like cattle, in and out of green rooms with crappy coffee and bad catering.

he has no idea that showing up to be a judge on one in a million is going to change his life. hungover and running late, he barely even makes it to the taping of the semi-finals, slinking inside the concert hall in middle-of-nowhere, usa with a headache and some choice words for whoever thought this was the best way to clean up his image.

fortunately, raleigh manages to make his way inside virtually unnoticed. his phone is buzzing angrily in his pocket -- undoubtedly his manager trying to encourage him to hair and makeup or some other absurdity -- but he ignores it in favor of ducking back behind the line near the auditorium doors, only barely catching the last few words of some catty confrontation between two contestants as he goes.

as one of the girls stomps away, he sees the other’s shoulders slump from behind. “guess i’m not making any friends,” she mutters.

it’s clearly said to no one -- not even to herself, really -- yet for some reason, he can’t stop himself from responding. “where i come from, that’s a good thing.”

the girl’s shoulders straighten, but she still doesn’t turn around. “i’m not trying to succeed at the cost of others.”

raleigh smirks, leaning back against the wall beside his guitar case. “you do realize you’re at a competition show, right?”

“of course, but...” her hair ruffles with what sounds like a huff. she’s still not facing him, staring off at where the other girl she’d been talking to had run away. “that doesn’t mean i’m not rooting for everyone here to share their music with the world.”

“what a sweet sentiment,” raleigh drawls sarcastically, almost feeling a little bad for her and her naivety. this poor girl is going to be eaten alive. “it won’t last.”

her body tenses, her shoulders tightening again. he can almost see smoke start to pour from her ears before she spins suddenly on her heel to face him.

whatever sharp retort had been on the tip of her tongue gets swallowed with a blink as soon as their eyes meet. something like electricity crackles in the space between them, strengthening the invisible pull he’d felt when he first stopped behind her. instead, she only asks, “what’s your name?”

vi.

the man in front of her snorts. “very funny.”

a smile tugs at her lips. “very funny, that’s a weird name.” this is unlike her -- the quick comeback, the flirting. usually being face-to-face with a guy as good looking as the one talking to her now made her want to wither away and die, but something about the stranger standing before her sets her instantly at ease. “so, are you gonna tell me, or not?”

now it’s his turn to blink at her. a hand lifts to rub at his jaw. “huh. you really don’t know who i am, do you?”

cadence’s eyes narrow as she assess him. there is something vaguely familiar about that crooked grin, she’s sure of it.

at the very least, it’s an excuse to stare at him, and she does, moving her eyes slowly over the tattoos poking out over his jacket collar, the line of stubble on his sharp jaw, the glint of mischief in his eyes.

her helpless gaping is interrupted by a sudden shrill scream. “oh. my. god! is that raleigh carrera?!”

everything clicks at once. as a wild group of girls corner him, she realizes where she’s seen that smile before -- on just about every tabloid cover known to man, plastered all over convenience stores and the internet with headlines about his latest bender. in fact, she’s pretty sure he was just in the news for something similar -- crashing a yacht or something else ridiculous like that, something that only someone as rich as raleigh carrera could have accomplished.

then she realizes what he’d said to her, as soon as she’d turned to look him in the eyes. very funny.

her heart stops. all she can do is stare wide-eyed at him as he dispels the girls clamoring for a selfie, snapping back to the present when he waves one large hand in front of her face.

“sorry -- what?”

“i said, what’s your name? it only seems fair, now that you know mine, and all.”

“cadence,” she answers numbly, “i’m -- um, i’m used to your hair being longer.”

“cadence,” raleigh repeats, smiling at her, “so you do know who i am.”

“what do the magazines call you again? r&b’s time bomb? puerto rico’s hottest export? you’re kind of notorious.” she blinks at him, then admits, “i’ve heard your songs.”

“seen the tabloid covers too, eh?” the expression on his face suggests he’s almost proud of them.

this is surreal.

“didn’t you crash a yacht or something?” she asks, brain whirring into overdrive as she tries to process what’s happening. he doesn’t seem to have realized it yet, which gives her a moment to gather her thoughts, something that feels impossible when she can’t push the way he’d scoffed very funny out of her mind.

“or something. insurance paid out a couple million in property damage, but...” raleigh trails off, brow suddenly furrowing. he stares at her silently for a beat too long, then slowly turns a dull red. “hey, what’d you say earlier, again?”

cadence wets her dry lips, trying not to panic. stay calm, she silently coaches herself. raleigh carrera is not your long-awaited soulmate and you are not doing this in line to audition for one in a million. “i said -- what’s your name? and then you said...”

oh god, this is happening. her teeth dig into her bottom lip as she fidgets with the neckline of her top, tugging it to the side so raleigh can see the two words on her collarbone.

“very funny,” he mutters, “oh, jesus fucking christ. you can’t be serious.”

“me?” she demands, “you’re the one who --”

“next up,” calls a voice suddenly, cutting sharply through their argument, “contestant #9,276.”

her blood runs cold as she realizes that’s the number she’s wearing pinned to her shirt. she can feel herself start to sweat; how the fuck is she supposed to perform like this? she wants to throw up. why did this have to happen to her now? this was her shot -- her one fucking chance --

“hey, easy.” there’s suddenly two strong hands on either side of her shoulders, and she startles as raleigh stares at her from up close, closer than he was just a moment ago. “relax, okay? you’re gonna be fine. you’ve got this.”

“but --” she starts, then realizes her mind is racing too quickly to even articulate what she wants to say. she settles for shaking her head, eyes wide and panicked. “i can’t just -- oh my god, i’m going to throw up.”

“here,” raleigh directs, “take my guitar. prince gave it to me as a birthday present.”

prince?! she mouths hysterically to herself, as he flips the latch on his case open and pulls out the instrument. “how is this supposed to help me?”

“just trust me,” he says, giving her a gentle nudge towards the auditorium, “now go.”

she does, stumbling forward with the most expensive piece of equipment she’s ever held in her hands in her life alongside her, drawing in a deep breath as she makes her way onto the stage.

she can do this.

everything else will have to come after.

vii.

the thing is -- she’s talented. exceptionally so.

he can tell she’s a little nervous, but maybe that’s just because he’s used to looking out for that sort of thing; he could probably recognize it more easily than the average person would. it probably has nothing to do with who they are, how he notices the nuances in her body language...

her belt is impressive. her voice is stunning, clear and uniquely melodic. his guitar looks spectacular in her hands, and cadence plays it like she’s been practicing on it her entire life.

he tries his best to look nonchalant, feet kicked up onto the seat in front of him, but when she locks eyes with him from the stage he knows he hasn’t succeeded. raleigh’s breath catches, and he stares back at her, transfixed by the way her dainty hands cradle the neck of the guitar and strum the strings, how her lips purse around the long, emotional high note at the end of the song’s chorus.

she’s really very pretty.

he’d probably be lying to himself if he said it doesn’t make him a little bit jealous and uncomfortable, watching how she and avery fawn over each other when she’s finished. he’s probably a much better suited match for her, clean cut and pristine as he is.

he wonders if she’s disappointed that it’s him -- that it’s now, when she’s clearly on the cusp of something great all on her own.

it’s a lot to think about, and so he dips out of the auditorium before she finishes up, rushing outside with his heart pounding. it’s not until he’s halfway through the crumpled pack of cigarettes in his jacket pocket that raleigh starts to relax even an iota, and of course that’s when the stage door he’d left propped swings open wide and cadence’s sneakers hit the asphalt beside his boots.

“uh, you can’t just leave me with this thing,” she says, apropos of nothing, and as he stares at her he realizes she’s talking about his guitar, which she’s holding in one hand like it’s a dead fish. “this costs more than everything in my apartment combined, i’m sure.”

he shakes his head at her, laughing as his fingers flick ash from the cigarette he’s holding. “no way -- you should keep it. you two looked perfect together.”

she hesitates, looking down at the instrument again. he can see in her eyes that she’s torn; it’s obvious she knows the right thing to do is to refuse a generous gift from a stranger, but she wants to keep it, and already his mind is racing as he considers what else he could give her that would excite her like that -- a private flight, a tour of his penthouse, a million dollars.

“are you sure?” cadence asks, without looking at him, and the hesitancy in her voice makes him realize how unsure she really is. she’s the one who’s wondering if he’s disappointed in her.

he licks his suddenly dry lips and drops what’s left of his cigarette to the ground, finding he doesn’t actually need the rest of it, anymore. “positive.”

viii.

they don’t actually get to spend a lot of time together, while she’s filming. she has to focus and it seems like she’s always busy, somehow -- not that she sees raleigh very often in the first place.

the days are spent rehearsing with avery and cramming in as much mentoring as possible, and when she can pull herself away from fiona’s lessons on image to get home at a reasonable hour she collapses into bed pretty much immediately, out like a light from the whirlwind of the day and hardly even aware enough to dream.

but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t think about him. she does, especially on the rare occasions she manages to catch a glimpse of raleigh walking around in the studio, or on one memorable evening she stays late in the auditorium to bang on the piano keys of the beautiful, enviable baby grand on set and startles to find him leaning in the doorway, watching her play.

it’s all a blur and wildly difficult to process; just when she thinks she has a grip on things she remembers the private moments she’s had with raleigh and her emotions tumble to pieces again as she lets the weight of the implications of what’s going on between them crush her completely.

one moment sticks out on her as being particularly worrisome, insofar as how it bodes for the rest of her life.

it feels like something significant from the moment raleigh offers to help her warm up; they’ve hardly had a moment alone together in days and she still has absolutely no idea how she’s supposed to talk to him or what she should say, but for some reason the conversation flows easily and she hardly has to think about the (no doubt incredibly stupid-sounding) words coming out of her mouth.

“you’re going to kill it,” raleigh says finally, once they’ve worked through all the exercises in his arsenal, “you really don’t need my help.”

never in her wildest dreams did she ever imagine someone like him would say something like that to her. “you think?”

“i know it,” he answers confidently, shrugging his shoulders like it’s that simple. “and you should, too.”

there’s a moment of silence where they just stand there staring at each other, ignoring the restless murmuring of the crowd outside that’s waiting for him to slip into his seat at the judge’s table. she’s effortlessly lost in raleigh’s eyes, so fixated on the intensity of his gaze that she doesn’t realize he’s leaning in closer until it’s too late.

“insurance policy,” he mutters, before he kisses her, hands cupping her face gently.

for a split second, she stands frozen, shocked totally still. then, her brain reboots enough to propel her into motion, and cadence gets with the program enough to wind her arms around raleigh’s waist and pull him closer and kiss him back, until her heart’s lurched up into the throat she’d just been warming up, pounding relentlessly.

they make out until the roar of the crowd is deafening -- until it’s impossible not to acknowledge it any longer.

of course raleigh’s a life-ruiningly good kisser. why wouldn’t he be? why should any of this be easy?

it’s only a few simple touches, but raleigh’s mouth leaves her dizzy and lightheaded when she’s supposed to be concentrating on performing, and, independently of the way she’s blinking at him in stupid shock, cadence already knows she’ll never be able to kiss anyone else ever again without thinking about him.

“i have to get out there,” she gasps between desperate presses of their lips against each other, grasping ineffectively at his clothes while his fingers tug her hair out of shape.

“be late,” he suggests, “it always works for me.”

but she’s not him. she’s not like him -- they have nothing in common. they come from different worlds; they’re two completely opposite people.

and yet every minute with raleigh is like coming up for air after being underwater for years, like the knots of guilt and shame and awkward embarrassment she’s carried around for her entire life without understanding why she has them are slowly starting to undo themselves, unlaced by his careful fingers.

they make it out there. eventually.

before she knows it, confetti’s raining down from the ceiling and falling all over her, and she locks eyes with raleigh from across the room to find his lips pulled into a genuinely affectionate grin -- lips that she’d just kissed for the first time a fucking hour ago and, seriously, what is her life now -- his eyes bright and excited.

things just keep getting weirder and weirder, but the way they’re beaming at each other like idiots in a room full of thousands, broadcast on national television, too, makes her think things might be pretty great, too.

ix.

it sort of takes them a long time to getting around to talking about it -- the soulmate thing.

it’s not that he doesn’t try. he does, but she’s got a lot going on, these days: a big move and a new record deal and days filled with songwriting and nights out being seen. he’s still on his image cleanup tour, while she’s at it, so his fake smile stays fixed on his face throughout another boring week of restaurant openings and charity events and talkshow appearances before he finally gets the chance to spend some time with her again.

they text here and there, but nothing pans out until the stars align and they manage to slip out of the back door of a nightclub unnoticed together after a night of dancing too close for the comfort of her publicist while avery and the others cause a commotion at the front entrance to distract the press.

she goes back to his penthouse with him. he can’t remember the last time he brought a girl back to his apartment just to talk, and especially not one who spent the better part of the evening in a sparkly minidress grinding against him.

but here they are.

“so -- how’s the city treating you?” raleigh asks, pouring them both a drink he doesn’t want from the bar cart in the corner of the room for something to do with his hands.

cadence shrugs from where she’s perched on the edge of his sofa, tugging at the hem of her dress. “good, i guess. it’s honestly all kind of overwhelming.”

“yeah,” he nods, passing her one of the glasses in his hands and taking a seat on the ottoman in front of her, close enough to see her face in perfect clarity but still maintaining a distance that he hopes is respectful. “i know what you mean. when i first came here after joining sunset skatepark everything felt so... huge.”

“totally,” cadence answers quickly, nodding in a way that’s almost aggressive. “i mean, there’s so much pressure to deliver an album right away, but i want it to be perfect, and the studio is so different from, like, writing songs in my room at home, and i... i guess i feel kind of homesick, but -- not for my hometown. i hated that place.” there’s hesitancy in her gaze when she asks, “do you know what i mean?”

“yeah,” raleigh says again stupidly, because the truth is -- he knows exactly what she means. cadence has just articulated something he could never quite put into words better than he’d even thought the sentiments to himself. “it’s like... nostalgia for something you don’t even want.”

“exactly,” she breathes emphatically, and then they’re kissing again, and she’s in his lap on the ottoman and he definitely brought her here to talk, for sure, but is it really so terrible if they get a little sidetracked on the way to their destination?

well -- they wind up making out for hours. so, there’s that.

it’s not part of the plan but it’s a hell of a side quest, memorizing the shape and feel of her with his hands while her lips pull every last bit of breath from his lungs, until he’s lightheaded and dizzy in a way no other girl has ever made him, before. it’s to the point where when he finally finds it within himself to push her away, he’s uncharacteristically nervous -- something that’s never happened to him before, not even on the night he lost his virginity.

“i really did ask you over to talk,” he says, voice hoarse.

cadence licks her lips and then beams at him, eyes sparkling. “i know.” she shuffles delicately back onto the couch, lingering in his lap for only a moment before pulling away entirely. he stuffs his hands under his thighs to stop himself from reaching out for her again. “sorry i haven’t been around more.”

“you don’t have to apologize.” raleigh shakes his head. “i should be apologizing to you, i feel like... i should be the one who’s around, to help you with all of this. or at least -- i want to be. i don’t know if i’ll be any good at it.”

he blinks, surprised by his own honesty. he hadn’t meant to say all of that, but the words came up before he was cognizant of them and now they’re out there, and there’s no taking them back -- especially with the way she’s looking at him, all soft and sweet and happy.

“well, you don’t have to be good at it,” cadence murmurs, reaching out for his wrists and tugging his hands free so she can interlock their fingers effortlessly. they fit together like puzzle pieces. “you just have to be you.”

her budding relationship with one of the biggest names in r&b doesn’t have much time to bud at all before it’s rudely plucked from the plant and stepped on.

she finds herself blinking at fiona in confusion as the words take some time to process. “you want me to do what?”

xi.

raleigh balks at his manager, shaking his head emphatically. “no,” he spits out, “absolutely not.”

xii.

“cadence, it’s not a big deal,” fiona tells her, very nearly rolling her eyes. “everyone does it. you go on a few dates, play up the relationship for some photos, social media eats it up -- boom, you’re a star.”

“i don’t know,” she answers hesitantly, mind drifting back to the photographers that have already been following her around, screaming about avery when she ducks into the car with him. things with raleigh are... new, and complicated, and do they really need to add public scrutiny into the mix as well? “i just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“it’s a great idea,” fiona sighs, shaking her head. “all our focus groups agree. the label thinks it’s best, what with your single taking so long to put out.” she opens her mouth to protest -- it’s not like she’s dragging her feet on purpose -- but barely has a second to get a word out before fiona continues, “besides, raleigh does this all the time.”

her teeth bite at her bottom lip uncertainly. “he does?”

“of course. chantal clearwater? she was a pictagram model when they met, and now she’s opening shows at paris fashion week. it’s just business.”

it’s not, though. it could never be just anything, for reasons no one else knows about except the two of them, for reasons she’ll never tell. “well... what did raleigh say about it?”

xiii.

“i said no, frank.” he’s annoyed, now, and his manager knows it, raleigh’s arms folded across his chest and his eyes set into a glare. “n. o. no.”

“and i hear you, but is it really the end of the world? she’s exactly what we’re going for, and i know you already get along --”

“which is exactly why i don’t want to do this. so pick someone else. anyone else.” he’s not going to let his label turn her into one of the girls he has to be seen with for fake photos and mutually beneficial positive press.

for so many years, he’s watched people fake feelings and use each other -- willingly participated in the using himself, too, more times than he can count. he never cared about any of it before.

but being with cadence doesn’t feel fake, and he doesn’t ever want it to. and he knows that if he agrees to this, everything he enjoys about spending time with her will disappear in favor of the ugly, plastic decay that’s eaten away at so many of his personal and professional relationships before. organic, genuine time with her will become strolls near celebrity hotspots, angling just right to help the cameras get the perfect shot. he’ll show up to support her at shows because her publicist called him, and their time together will become some manufactured narrative meant to push their labels’ agenda, until six months down the line they don’t even recognize themselves or what might’ve been if they’d done things a different way.

“look, there isn’t anyone else. her team’s already agreed to it, and i’ve got brunch set up for sunday. all you have to do is play nice for two fucking months, raleigh. is that so impossible for you?”

yes. already he feels a deep-seated desire to go somewhere and break something, to tear through the flower beds in central park with his motorcycle and wink at the cameras when they catch up to him.

instead, he storms out of the office he’s in, and into the sunlight, tugging the hood on his jacket up and melting into the crowd on the corner so he can be as anonymous as possible when he picks up his phone and calls cadence.

“hey raleigh,” she chirps as soon as she picks up, sounding far too cheerful for someone who’s likely had an equally as miserable early morning meeting on a friday. “guessing you heard the news?”

“can’t i just call you to say hi?” he grumbles, ducking his head as he strolls through the intersection with the mob of people crowded along fifth ave, turning down the next side street so he’s alone again, with no one following, just like that.

“well, you can,” she teases, and some of the anger he’s carrying around with him fades, dissipating into nothing and evaporating like smoke. “but you’re not.”

“no, i’m not,” he agrees with a sigh, shaking his head. “you sound surprisingly cool with it, though.”

“should i not be?” cadence laughs, but he can detect a thread of nervousness in her tone. “i already want to hang out with you. we have the same friends and work in the same industry. we’re... probably going to go on dates anyway, so... how hard can this be?”

god. she has absolutely no idea. part of him thinks it’d be cruel to burst her bubble, but he should warn her, shouldn’t he?

she sounds so optimistic about it, though. it’s hard to feel anything but hopeful when her voice turns up like that at the end. in the back of his mind, there’s a voice that’s not his suggesting maybe this time, things will be different.

surely he knows better than to think something as ridiculous as that, though, right?

“well, i guess it’ll be interesting, at least,” he muses, slowing his steps by the entrance to the subway.

he’s going to lose his signal just as soon as he heads underground, and he’s not quite ready for that, yet.

xiv.

time with raleigh flies by.

it doesn’t feel like they’re fake-dating -- they do everything she hopes he’d want to do with her anyway, like go out to eat at fancy restaurants and take walks through the park and bounce melodies for songs off of each other, facetiming late at night from their apartments or on the days he visits her and micah in the studio.

he’s by her side for the release of her first single, and her first music video, and through it all, raleigh plays the role of the doting partner perfectly, holding her purse on the red carpet and feeding her paella at a strategically-placed outdoor table and fetching her coffee order when she’s too busy to stop writing for even just five minutes.

in the blink of an eye, it’s time to put out her album -- just like that.

raleigh’s perfectly charming through that process, too. he shows up on time, says all the right things, and keeps a drink in her hand all evening long, so that when she’s finally done making the rounds and can enjoy herself after the entertainment and the networking and the schmoozing she’s giggly and touchy, doing her best to steal him away from the crowd.

“what were your other relationships like?” she asks, half expecting him to brush her off, though he’s always indulged her before. they’ve never really gotten this personal. “fake or... otherwise.”

“they’ve all been fake,” he shrugs, “and i can say with confidence that you’re the best one i’ve ever had.”

“really?” cadence smiles, chin propped up on her hand as she leans over the bar. “be honest. what did you really think, when you realized it was me?”

“what?” he asks, pushing the empty rocks glass in his hands around on the bar top, “you mean this thing?” he gestures at his arm, covered in expensive, custom tom ford, and the tattoo laying innocently beneath it.

“uh huh,” she confirms, “‘cause i was totally like oh shit.”

raleigh laughs, loud and wild, the sound swallowed up by the noise of the party around them. no one nearby is paying them even an ounce of attention, and it’s fun, to be anonymous at her own party, invisible to everyone in the room except for him. “i can imagine. i wouldn’t want to be stuck with me either.”

cadence shakes her head -- that’s not what she’d meant. but before she can protest, he rolls his glass between his palms and thoughtfully continues, “i guess i was a little surprised. it felt like i’d been waiting forever to meet you, so part of me was like, fuck, we’re doing this now? and i never thought it’d be someone so...”

“boring?” she suggests, eyebrows arching when raleigh’s expression immediately twists into one of disagreement, his nose scrunching up with distaste.

“no,” he huffs, “so... good, i guess.” she stares at him as he reaches for one of the waiting tequila shots on the bar, pulling it away from the line he’d set up for the crowd he’d been with before she’d tugged him to the side to talk, leaving the drinks untouched. raleigh knocks the shot back -- no salt, no lime. he’s had twice as many drinks as she has, and she’s definitely feeling them -- she has no idea how he’s even still upright, no worse for wear other than a few slurred words here and there. “but you just are. it’s like every song i’ve ever written was about you, and i just didn’t know it yet.”

the noise of the party fades in favor of the pounding of her heart, loud like a kick drum in her ears. she bites her lip and stares at him, watching as raleigh shakes his head at himself, dazed. “you okay?” she asks quietly, leaning in a little across the bar.

raleigh’s quiet for so long she has to wonder whether or not he actually heard her. just as she clears her throat and opens her mouth to repeat herself even louder, he nods, reaching across the bar and squeezing her hand before dragging her back over to the line of tequila shots waiting for them to enjoy.

the night is a blur after that, and there’s patches of the evening that are fuzzy in her memory the next morning, but she knows she’ll never forget the gentle kiss goodnight raleigh gives her when he helps her stumble into the car back to her apartment at dawn.

xv.

things go really well, until they don’t.

they have a blissful six months together with more fun than he’s ever had with anyone. slowly, he learns every single thing about cadence and returns her openness with honesty of his own -- honesty that feels strange and unfamiliar but weirdly thrilling, in a way, made easier every time one of his stories pulls a laugh or smile from her.

it seems unnatural, having a honeymoon period that goes on for so long. in the entire time they’re dating, he doesn’t destroy a single thing -- doesn’t even want to, which is the weirdest part of it all.

there are some moments that catch him completely off guard. more than a few times, he hardly even recognizes himself, she turns him into such a different person.

he doesn’t hate it, though -- just the opposite, in fact. raleigh realizes he’s really starting to like the carefree, far from jaded person he is when he’s with her, though it only hits him for real when he’s watching her storm away from him on liberty island, eyes fixed on the angry sway of her hips.

he stews on it on the long ride back to his penthouse; the game had, admittedly, been starting to wear on him. but he’d gone along with it because it was supposed to benefit her -- he’d agreed to the stupid public breakup and following the rules and not seeing cadence in public for the foreseeable future because it was what she wanted, and -- frankly, it felt like a stupid fucking decision.

not that it lasts long. he starts texting her just as soon as he’s done washing electralite out of his hair and doesn’t make it more than twenty minutes when they first see each other again at the moda gala before he’s sneaking off with her, ducking under the velvet rope that demarcates the planetarium as ‘off limits’ with her hand tucked neatly in his.

“maybe this is better,” cadence muses between sips of her drink, her eyes on one of the stupid glass exhibits he couldn’t possibly care less about. “now we can just be together -- no pressure. our relationship is ours again.”

their relationship. is that what this is? they’ve spent a lot of time talking about who they are and what they like and don’t like, kissing and touching and holding hands. throughout it all, he’s done his best not to buy into the ‘soulmate’ bullshit too heavily, but over the last few months it’s been hard to deny that there’s a reason he was meant to meet her, that she’s been changing him from the inside out.

“what’s on your mind?” she asks, turning towards him with an open look of genuine curiosity on her face, like she really wants to know.

“it’s nothing,” raleigh answers at first, reflexively, like he has so many times before. no one has ever really wanted to know. but cadence’s eyebrows arch, and she waits, patiently silent, and then the words tumble out of him. “it’s just that -- my whole life, i’ve watched other people use each other. so many people are just interested in the concept of celebrity status. so i played the game. never trusting anyone.”

he shrugs. a hand lifts to rub his jaw, and he looks back to meet her gaze just in time to see the little smile playing at her lips, like she already knows what he’s about to say. “but it’s different, with you. you make me not want to be that person anymore. when i’m with you, it’s the only time i feel anything real.”

“raleigh,” she murmurs, her expression flickering before her face does something that cracks his chest wide open. her eyes go all shiny and sparkly and her cheeks crease with a grin, and the way she laughs is so ridiculously joyful the hand he has stuffed in his pocket curls into a fist to stop him from doing something stupid. “i feel the same way. i just... this whole thing, i know it doesn’t always -- work out, but... with you i really want it to. i’ve never felt this way before about anyone, and i think...”

there’s a pause as her lips purse thoughtfully, and then she says the words that make it impossible for him to do anything but close the distance between them and kiss her over and over again: “i think even without this tattoo it’d be you, anytime, anywhere.”

xvi.

being raleigh carrera’s (real, confirmed, 100%-authentic) girlfriend feels almost too good to be true.

raleigh is... everything she never knew she wanted in a boyfriend, wrapped up into one tall, dark and handsome package, with a loud, goofy laugh and a deep, sexy voice that sends a shiver down her spine whenever his mouth so much as lingers near her ear for too long.

it turns out that, despite their differing status in the industry and her initial assumptions that they came from two completely different worlds, they’re actually on the same page about pretty much everything. she finds that the pressure of the word she’d held in such high regard for so long -- soulmate -- disappears entirely where he’s concerned because being with raleigh is just fun.

there’s motorcycle rides and boat trips and hours up late talking about everything and nothing; facetime calls with his mom and shopping trips where the stores are kept open late for them so they can shop alone, in an empty boutique, like every teen movie she’d ever watched growing up.

there’s late nights in the studio and either of their apartments where they both noodle around on their guitars and improvise half-hearted duets, content to just work in the same orbit as each other for as long as possible.

raleigh’s texting one night on the couch in her living room when she plucks out the melody to who i’ll be on her old acoustic, sitting on the floor in front of the tv.

he looks up before the first verse is over. “what’s that one? it sounds good.”

“oh -- just a song i wrote in college,” cadence hums, already downplaying it as she lifts her shoulder in a shrug. “i got stuck, never finished it. ellis made me sell the progress for some other writer to finish.”

he frowns, pushing up onto his elbow. his phone is tossed carelessly somewhere among the couch cushions. “why?”

“because i was taking too long with the odyssey,” she sighs. “it was kind of my only option. it’s weird, though -- thinking about someone singing something that was so personal to me.”

“play me what you had so far,” he says, and so she does, hesitating for only a second before strumming the chords, singing the lines she had slowly.

when she’s done, she looks up to find that raleigh’s slid to the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees as he leans in as close as he can get with the coffee table in his way. “okay -- that was beautiful. you should finish it.”

she shakes her head, setting her guitar down. “i can’t. they already sold it. and even if i wanted to... i don’t know how it ends.”

raleigh’s legs spread in invitation and she stands to walk around to the couch, slipping into his lap and leaning back against his chest. his hands are tender as he rubs them across her shoulders, sliding up her back before one lifts to brush a lock of hair back behind her ear, his pointer finger pushing her glasses up her nose affectionately. “maybe one day you can write something else with the same theme,” he suggests, and she tries her best to smile even though it feels like a dream lost, somehow -- a ridiculous thought, given that she pretty much has everything she ever wanted, but the way she feels all the same.

“maybe,” she sighs, the kiss he drops to her forehead a bandaid on a wound that’s been doing its best to heal for what feels like her entire life.

xvii.

he’s never brought a date to the vinyls before.

there’s been plenty of after parties he’s stumbled out of with a girl on his arm, sure, but cadence is the first person to sit by his side during the ceremony, and he’s surprised by how much he likes having her next to him.

then again, he’s self aware enough to realize he’d like being pretty much anywhere, with her.

still -- the awards are a lot less boring with her around to kiss and stroke his hair and make snide commentary about the rest of the attendees with, and when she squeezes his hand goodbye to rush backstage and get ready for her performance he misses her instantly.

what happens next makes him endlessly regretful of the fact that he’s not backstage with her.

he rushes around just as soon as he can, pushing his way through security and frantically scrambling technical assistants to find her exactly where he thought he might, between ellis knight and fiona, looking lost with her head in her hands.

she seems equal parts broken and pissed in a way that tugs at his heartstrings and makes him a little bit proud. raleigh shoves through the crowd to get to her and slips an arm around her waist. he’s only caught the tail end of the conversation they’re all having, but he knows enough to know that “you can’t bench her. that’s bull.”

ultimately, though, it doesn’t matter how much they stomp their feet. she’s under contract, their hands are tied, and he walks away seething at the unfairness of it all, this shitty industry that’s turned on her when all she ever wanted to do was make music.

she cries in the car back to her apartment to pack her things. there’s no way he’s letting her go home to iowa or idaho or indiana without him, and he barks at his team over the phone until they agree to move his appearances around so he can make that happen, his free hand clasped tightly in hers until he physically has to let her go so she can unlock her front door with trembling fingers.

cadence tosses clothes haphazardly onto the bed and he silently and precisely moves to folds each piece for her, until she gives up and sinks down onto the edge of the mattress, defeated.

wide eyes filled with tears lock onto his, and he watches her bottom lip wobble before she says, “you really don’t have to do this. come with me, i mean. i know i messed up, and -- you have so much else going on. i don’t expect you to --”

“i’m coming,” he states firmly, setting the sweatpants in his hand down and stepping closer to her, sitting beside cadence on her bed. “what happened tonight was fucked up, cadence -- it shouldn’t have happened at all. i’m not going to let you go through this alone.”

“but --”

“but nothing,” he says, and before the words have even left his mouth she’s falling into his arms with a soft sound of gratitude, mashing her face into his chest as she sniffles.

“thank you,” cadence mumbles, sounding so unsure of herself it makes him wonder if she’s ever had anyone show up for her when it mattered most before, or if that’s yet another thing they unfortunately have in common.

xviii.

raleigh tries his best to cheer her up, but it’s still hard, feeling like she’s let the entire world down. her fans. herself.

there’s something embarrassing about showing raleigh her apartment back home and the person she was before she met him -- all the places she felt most uncertain and where she experienced some her worst self-doubt, the room that still has the smoothie star apron hung up in the closet.

but there’s also something exciting, about being totally off the grid with him. no one knows they’re here and there’s no paparazzi waiting to snap photos of them -- especially given the fact that they don’t leave her building for the first three days she spends moping around while raleigh orders all the takeout he can get his hands on.

it sort of reminds her of when they first met, and there was nothing to do but learn about each other, though now there’s a familiarity to him she relies on, a unique raleigh-ness that feels more like home than this shitty apartment ever did.

still, she struggles, and the weight of the world doesn’t let up until zadie shows up with her fanmail and avery does his best to make her smile with a beach trip and some fancy new toys and a day in the sun with a drink in her hand.

eventually it’s just her and raleigh again, out by the fire after everyone else has gone to bed. her stomach is full of s’mores and her cheeks hurt from smiling for the first time in weeks, and it’s a shock when she realizes she feels content, even after everything that’s happened -- almost as though things will all work out for the better no matter what happens next.

“oh my god,” she gasps suddenly, cutting off what raleigh had been saying as her eyes light up and she hastens to stand. “i’ve gotta -- i need to -- oh my god.”

just like that, she knows how her song ends.

recording it is a process, but raleigh calls in some favors and gets them studio time and agrees to be featured on the song even though she knows he’s still working through a sound change that he feels unsure about.

but it means a lot to her, having him crammed in the booth at her side, singing into the same mic. they sound almost unbelievably good together, too, raleigh’s harmonies on the words that finally resolve that lost feeling she’s been harboring her entire life making something deep within her wriggle up happily, wagging its proverbial tail.

the fact that raleigh remains by her side throughout the entire fight with her label, the long nights of despair agonizing over what her next move is going to be and even the moment where they decide to break into indio, of all places, means more to her than she can ever say. she feels markedly less nervous about the entire thing every time she turns her head to the side and sees him, right there next to her -- right where he’s been this entire time -- smiling encouragingly and squeezing her hand hard in his.

though it’s not until they’re up at the top of the ferris wheel that she realizes how precious what she has really is. it’s not until he looks her dead in the eye and says, with that same soft earnestness he’s awarded her since they first met at the one in a million auditions that feel quite literally like a hundred years ago, “cadence, everything you want is on the other side of fear. and i want you to have everything you want,” that she truly understands that’s what between them is special and rare.

not because of any tattoos, or any preconceived destiny. not because of who they are and their status and the fact that people take pictures of them when they’re out in public together.

but because of this -- all these real moments of genuine connection they’ve been fortunate enough to share since fate threw them into each other’s paths.

“raleigh, i love you.” the words are said easily, not a moment’s hesitation behind them.

just before she crosses over in the cart to kiss him until they’re both breathless, raleigh gifts her the brightest smile he has and says, “i love you, too.”

xix.

the night is a blur from the moment he first takes the stage with his old bandmates to when he finally finds himself alone with cadence in a rundown old motel a few miles out from the festival in the desert.

he can’t recall ever being so happy, so of course he doesn’t remember every agonizing detail of the evening, though he does know he doesn’t feel the need to have a single beer with cadence around, twirling barefoot in the grass and giggling when she leads him up to the room they’ve borrowed.

afterwards, when they’re sitting on the roof together in the blanket they dragged off the bed, he reflects on the wild year they’ve had with her in his arms, fingertips tracing the delicate very funny scrawled across cadence’s collarbone.

he feels... free. completely liberated. like there’s absolutely nothing and no one that can get to him, now, like he’s untouchable, like he doesn’t care about a single thing that happens after today and how perfect things have been.

“i think i’m actually freer than i’ve ever been,” he muses, where his lips are pressed into her hair, “i can take my sound in any direction i want.”

“i’m so happy for you, raleigh,” cadence returns genuinely, tilting her head back so he can see her upside-down smile.

his arms tighten around her. “i’m so excited for what you’re gonna be doing, too. i’m excited for us.”

“yeah,” she sighs, “who knows what’s next, right? now that ellis let me out of my deal...”

he can hear the thread of worry undercutting the words. he shakes his head, hands rubbing up and down her arms. “you can worry about that tomorrow. for tonight, just enjoy the comeback. what you did out there was amazing.”

“what we did,” she corrects, and he blinks up the stars as he realizes she’s right -- they’re a we now. he’s part of a we again, after being on his own for so long.

the phrases bounce around in his head, unfamiliar and foreign. me and my girlfriend, he thinks to himself, cadence and i. we’re going to be late. we’ll be away that weekend. we just started watching that show. we, we, we.

“what we did was amazing,” raleigh amends, the words slow to come out but feeling right all the same. “whatever we do next will be amazing.”

“absolutely,” cadence confirms, with conviction, like it’s something she believes wholeheartedly.

and though he has no idea what to expect or what it might be, a large part of him is inclined to agree with her -- she’s been right about everything else so far.

xx.

one year later, she’s finishing a set in berlin, the last stop on a sprawling european tour that had taken she, avery, micah and raleigh across the continent for dozens of performances to sold-out crowds of thousands screaming her lyrics back to her.

if her contract with overknight had been a dream come true, signing to wilshere records is heaven incarnate. cadence’s trip through the u.k. with her new label is proof enough, and the chance to meet new fans with new stories to share that she could connect with is one she’s taken to with enthusiasm, the experience made all the sweeter by the fact that her favorite people get to be by her side throughout it all.

berlin’s crowd is one of the best, and she fully expects to end the tour on a high note, head banging to the last few notes of ‘knockout’ before raleigh’s planned entrance for the last song of the night, so they can sing the duet that’s closed out every show they’ve had on the tour together.

when he struts out with his guitar, waving and grinning at the crowd, she can’t stop herself from smiling stupidly at him, just like she does every time she sees him join her on stage, every time she realizes that this is their life, that this is something they do every night, now.

though her grin falters when raleigh pauses in front of his microphone and asks, “berlin, do you mind if i talk a little bit before i start the song? no? cool, because i’ve got an important question to ask.”

her eyes widen. cadence’s mouth drops open and doesn’t close throughout the entire speech raleigh gives her, even though thousands of people in the crowd are filming every moment of her gaping like an idiot, snapping close-ups of her shocked face.

the arena practically vibrates with screams when he drops to his knee, popping the box in his hand open so she can see the giant diamond ring nestled inside of it.

“so?” raleigh asks, and cadence can just barely hear him in her in-ears with the way her heart is beating frantically up into her throat, as wild as the crowd’s raging around them and then some. “whaddya say, babe? will you marry me?”

as if the answer could ever be anything but yes. she nods, laughing as she launches herself into his arm for a kiss that’s too grand to be given on stage, though that’s hardly going to stop her -- not tonight, at least. tonight, she’s okay with the whole world watching their every move, just one more time.

“oh, i don’t know if it’s going to fit,” raleigh jokes as the ring slides easily onto her left hand, amping up the theatrics for the fans still watching them avidly, even up in the cheap seats.

cadence rolls her eyes playfully at him. “very funny,” she praises, and the grin he offers her in return is so loving -- so knowing, with the secret that only the two of them share and every weird piece of their history included in it -- that it takes everything she has to shove him away so they can perform instead of dragging him down to the floor to kiss him over and over again.

clumsily, she flubs a few notes of love who i’ll be on her guitar. from across the stage, between the bridge and the chorus, raleigh jeers, “someone hasn’t learned to play with the extra weight on their left hand, yet, i see,” and when she flips him off while belting out the last lines of the verse, his raucous laughter is all the harmony the final few bars of the song needs.

#platinumweekend #platinum #raleigh carrera #raleigh carrera x mc #cadence dorian #raleigh x mc #raleigh x cadence #myfic #long post #well. this sure took me a long time DFJGHDFJHGDFJKGH so i hope you guys like it !! it was kind of a new style for me 😳

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inspector-montoya-fox · 4 years

Text

here’s why Thieves in Time is a bad game

before y’all try it, i just want to say that i’ll be as unapologetically petty and sarcastic as i want and fucking rip this game to shreds. yes, this is how i’ve spent my days since Thieves in Time came out. sitting alone in my room, staring at the wall, crying and complaining. because it has since been my life’s aim and dream to think about it every day, state the negative things about it, and become an evil essay witch on this half-dead website. *evil laugh*

Story:

References: i want to start with the smallest problem, but one that annoys me to this day. in the original trilogy, there weren’t a lot of references but the ones that were included were meticulously researched and well thought-out (i’m specifically referring to that Neil Diamond Carmelita vinyl gag, but can’t find the original post). the references in Thieves in Time however, were obviously just the creators’ interests. Turning Japanese, Clan of the Cave Bear and Bentley’s “hacksona” presented as Rambo just scream 1980s (which i’m assuming is the decade the creators grew up in), and Of Mice and Men is classic literature about the Great Depression, which subsequently started being taught in school in the US during the 1980s. it feels like the creators just went ‘let’s discuss what our lives had in common during our teen years and put that in’ instead of researching it first. and, here’s the thing: when you’re adding references, in order to make them funny or interesting, they have to fit in with the property or the character that’s connected to them in some way. Don Octavio was an opera aficionado so his episode’s title card pays homage to the Phantom of the Opera, young Muggshot was influenced by the movie “The Dogfather” because he’s a gangster, etc. these were funny because they were so spot-on with these characters. if every character in the Sly Cooper universe references the same type of stuff (from the 1980s) and shares the same interests, it’s just claustrophobic and uninteresting. i’m pretty sure i’m not the only one who had to look up these ultra-hetero, scrotum references when the game came out. that’s because they were specifically tailored to be funny to them, and not their target demographic which were kids in 2013.

Narrative: now that we got that out of the way, let’s look at the narrative. at the end of Sly 3, Bentley says he’s building a time machine. Sanzaru took that joke and decided to run with it as the premise for their game. ok, not the best idea, but i get it - you’re literally picking up where the last game left off. since all the storylines were wrapped up, they could’ve done something different like Sly’s kids or Bentley and Murray’s families, but this isn’t an essay about suggestions so...... time travel (i want to say that it’s, again, an 80s reference but whatever) was pretty ‘out there’ in 2013. i mean, even Plants vs Zombies 2, which was released that year, had to do with time travel (yes, i’m referencing an app). but Sanzaru had the advantage of applying this premise onto already established mythos and lore. the story had definite potential: someone is threatening Sly’s lineage so he has to travel back in time to save the day. the player would get to explore new locations and iconic eras in history, and, of course, the main selling point: playable ancestors. how could you screw that up? welp.... let’s think about the plot holes here for a sec. Bentley’s device would take the gang back in time when given an item from the specific era. stop. this right here is called ‘over-complicating’. how did they know the items would take them directly to the point where the specific ancestor was in danger? the Feudal Japan period lasted for 700 years: how did the machine know when and where to drop them off? and if the gang could return to the present at any time, why didn’t they do so when they were in trouble? oh right, the machine was broken. so how did they return the baddies to the present after they defeated them? i mean, why did they use the Grizz’s crown to travel to Medieval England if they went back to the present to drop him off to Interpol first? and on that note, how did they drop the baddies off to jail without getting caught and without Carmelita being around? i can already hear you thinking but these are total details that aren’t important, you jerk! well, yea, they truly are details and i truly am overthinking it. and yes, i truly am a jerk. but let me tell you something: when Sanzaru chose to make a new Sly game, did they not think ‘oh we’ll have to follow up Sly 2 and Sly 3′s stories’ which were well thought-out narratives with depth and various themes and didn’t have huge plot holes (as seen by my analysis through the episode project) ???? and did they also not think that their game would come out eight years after the last one, having expectations at an all-time high???? yea, that’s what i thought.

Characters: i’ll make a different section for Sucker Punch’s characters, so this is for Sanzaru’s original ones. name one iconic original character from Thieves in Time. i’ll wait... nope. not one. that’s because all of them were absolute shit. and here’s where i want to touch upon Sanzaru’s over-reliance on the trilogy. Ms Decibel (perhaps the most obvious copy) is a mix between Don Octavio, Miz Ruby, and the Contessa. El Jefe is Rajan if he went to the gym. Toothpick has Sir Raleigh’s temper and tendency to grow in size. and the Grizz is... whatever the fuck he is. (don’t worry i didn’t forget Le Paradox and Bob). there’s a difference between studying & creating similar characters and blatantly plagiarizing older characters because you lack the creativity. oh, boo-hoo this evil jerk’s telling it how it is. this set of villains is so lacklustre, i don’t even know where to begin. El Jefe is a tiger, even though we’ve already had two major tiger villains and one tiger flashlight guard. ok. Rajan could summon lightning because of the Clockwerk heart but El Jefe can do the same, how exactly? Toothpick is an armadillo (good) from Russia (better) with an obsession with the West (excellent) who can also grow huge (very bad). it’s never explained how or why. why?????? just tell me why. i want to know. i really want to know. Ms Decibel is an elephant who got into a tragic accident which left her with the power of hypnosis. music and hypnosis have already been done, but ok, i’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. so how do we use this character? spend the entirety of her screen time making jokes about... wait for it... her weight !!! this is top-notch comedy... really? like... really? the creators’ humor is a crime, at best. fart jokes and fat jokes all around. oh, and then there’s the Grizz. what the fuck where they thinking? just, what the fuck. i guess the guys at Sanzaru thought black people speak in rap? is that it? apart from it being extremely offensive, it’s also a blatant copy of Dimitri’s backstory. like, his introductory cutscene even has his paintings thrown at him and into the trash, like the intro cutscene for The Black Chateau. honestly, all of these villains caused me several types of pain, but not as much as...

Bob & Le Paradox: the absolute worst. i can just imagine the meeting going something like this: Sly’s ancestors are awesome! i wish we could fit them all in the game... here’s an amazing idea! what if we use one of the game’s few levels to introduce a brand new ancestor! yea! let’s make him dumb as fuck, strip him of any athletic prowess, and retcon the entire lineage by having him be the first Cooper ever! the kids will love a prehistoric level! ..... could you kindly point out where and when did ANYONE ask for this? i remember @ironicsnap saying something like the game is good until Bob. no, it was already bad - Bob just lowered the standard. like, a lot. people love Murray and his gameplay is neat, but no one ever thought ‘oh i wish we had a Cooper character with Murray’s game style’. why would they waste the opportunity to bring in Henriette, Thaddeus, Otto, literally any ancestor? why??? but they went ahead and created their own Cooper, and that wasn’t even the end of it. they had to make him dumb. they had to make him unbearable. they had to ruin the Cooper ancestry by adding this mess to the lineage. Sucker Punch made sure that all the ancestors were unique, but at the same time made all of them suave and funny and slick and you wish you could be them! well, fuck that. also, his name is Bob. Bob Cooper. it’s been 7 fucking years and i still can’t wrap my head around it.... so now, let’s talk about Le Paradox. i don’t have to mention the previous main villains, but i will. Clockwerk killed Sly’s ancestors and father, and was seemingly an eternal threat. Neyla was a psychopath who fooled everyone on her journey to becoming immortal by resurrecting Clockwerk. Dr M opened up the possibility for Sly’s dad to be a jerk instead of a hero, and died trying to unlock the Coopers’ legacy. how does Le Paradox compare? well, he’s a sleazebag skunk who was mad because of his dad’s downfall to the Coopers. that’s it. no twist, no depth, no clever dialogue. nothing. there’s nothing there. this is a new character, unfamiliar to everyone, who was hyped up for 5 levels and defeated in the conclusion. why was he a match for Sly? i don’t know. how did he fight for his life and ultimately tricked Sly into helping him? i don’t know. how the hell did he kidnap Carmelita? i don’t know. was it the power of persuasion? no, he’s revolting. so i literally don’t know. there’s no backstory, no fleshing-out the character, nothing. all we’re given to work with is a brief info-dump about his dad and how he escaped prison. i don’t know what else to say apart from how big a humiliation this was for Sanzaru and their team of writers. you had 8 years to work on something and this is what you came up with? anything would be better. anything would best this utter cliché of a villain, a distasteful misogynist, crybaby, idiot with an accent. literally anything.

Arcs & Themes: let’s take a look at the formulaic subplots for the gang’s members. apart from dealing with Le Paradox, everyone had a small arc. Sly had to deal with his break-up with Carmelita. Bentley had to deal with his break-up with Penelope. Murray had to deal with playing second fiddle to Bob. Carmelita was a damsel in distress and sex bait for the ancestors. the ancestors had their own mini storylines along with reacting to Sly’s presence. there you have it. i summarised it all for you, nice and neatly. are there any themes like in the previous games? nope. i promise you i’m not lying when i say that i tried hard to come up with something, even some speck of a detail i could use to over-analyse the story and come up with some ideas on themes. nothing. there are no themes. the subplots are character-driven and the player gives it 0 emotional investment. there is nothing to analyse, nothing to talk about. maybe even a theme for each level, like a spooky level or something? nope. the levels are dependent on eras and historical periods. the variation here is ok. Feudal Japan, Wild West, Prehistoric Australia, Medieval England and Ancient Arabia - pretty good selection. i’ll give them credit for it. but that’s it. due to the absence of themes, the hubs feel empty. there’s no replayability factor. after you collect the bottles and masks and treasures, there’s nothing. i would spend hours revisiting the trilogy’s hubs, just roaming around. the hubs here are huge and empty. there’s nothing to reminisce about. nothing to recall. oh that’s where this mission went down. no, nothing like that. the aforementioned subplots are resolved during mission cutscenes and then they’re gone. you don’t have to explore spooky Prague alone as Bentley to have him overcome his fears, you don’t have to find out miners abducted Murray’s beloved Guru and search the Australian outback for him, you don’t have to hold back your tears when you’ve reached the end of the Cooper Vault and Sly asks his dad for help. nothing.

Gameplay:

Controls: as soon as i laid my hands on the controller the first time i played the game, that fateful afternoon, i knew something was up. Sly would respond 1 second late after you pushed something on the controller. it felt clunky, is what i’m trying to say or, as my sister put it, it felt heavy. and she was right. the controls were clunky and heavy and didn’t feel light, like playing as a thief should feel. i don’t know shit about game mechanics but this definitely didn’t feel right. the hubs are also chunky in design, the cliffs are huge and so cyclical or hexagonal, that when you parachute your way to them and are just an inch close, Sly will automatically just drop because he can’t grab onto them. running as Sly doesn’t feel fast, silently obliterating guards from behind feels slow, and swinging, grabbing, pickpocketting, and hanging aren’t fun anymore. presentation-wise, @designraccoon goes into detail here, in an absolute gem of a post. in short, the gameplay animations make Sly look less sneaky. Sanzaru didn’t even consider a thief’s movements.

Missions: why the fuck would you remove the player’s option to choose between which mission to do first? why would you do that? the game lays out what goes first, sometimes having only one mission available in the hub. and the missions aren’t even enjoyable. firstly, the loading screens take up to 5 minutes, maybe even 7-8. secondly, there’s hacking every 2 missions. the missions don’t have any dialogue to make them fun, lack in interesting puzzles, what more can i say? they’re overly easy and lack any challenge whatsoever. at least there’s variation in gameplay (hacking, RC car, fishing, costumes, ancestors, turret etc.) but because of the controls, even these get tiresome. the missions are solely there to progress the story and that’s why the operations are merely ‘storm the main baddie’. the trilogy had some pretty interesting missions which made sure to complete jobs required to take down the big bad. e.g. kidnap General Clawfoot to take down the security, hack Contessa’s computer to make sure Carmelita will be freed, steal voices to tempt Neyla, and then take down the Contessa. the missions in Thieves in Time lack substance and variety. and the hacking (all three styles) sucks.

Collectibles: here’s another fantastic idea: have players collect costumes in order to collect bottles in order to collect treasures in order to collect masks in order to unlock funky Sanzaru logo-themed merch! what was the reason for the collectibles? in previous games, collecting all bottles would unlock special abilities. that was it. it’s the same thing here too, but there’s less incentive? i mean when you have to collect 1000 things, what’s the point? the treasures are random and very few are references to the trilogy, so whatever. and the masks unlock... superhero costumes for what reason exactly? oh, and then there’s also the achievements for your Playstation account, like ‘open the map in every single location you visit’. what fun! if the reason for collecting the treasures is to play godawful hacking minigames in order to get masks, what’s the point? decorate your paraglider with the Sanzaru logo? or have Bentley dress up as discount Robocop? i mean including masks in the interior locations was cool, but the bottles were always supposed to be something you could do whenever your soul desired. sometimes i left them last before the operation, sometimes i collected them before the first mission. so i was pissed when i found out that, in some cases, you had to unlock the episode’s costume in order to get the all the bottles. so, fuck off.

Animation: i’ll keep this short. the animation was terrible. do you remember that tumblr blog from a while back, where she dedicated the posts to pointing out the mistakes in the animated cutscenes? yeah. point is, there were lots of them. the animation style was bad, the character design was ugly, the characters’ movements were unnatural. everything about it was shit. looking past the bad decision to drop the trilogy’s comicbook-style animated cutscenes, couldn’t they have hired someone better? someone with more experience? their concept art was awesome. couldn’t they hire that guy and have it be comicbook style if he wasn’t trained in animation?

Legacy:

The Players: let me ask a genuine question: who was this game made for? kids growing up in 2013? maybe so. because it feels like Sanzaru didn’t even consider the fans of the trilogy. actually, it felt like a huge fuck you. Sucker Punch made their trilogy for whoever. there were great stuff for kids, but adults would pick up and appreciate the references, the real-life setting (e.g. tobacco use, existence of nightclubs, spice instead of drugs, etc.). that’s why all three games are timeless classics. judging by Thieves in Time’s humor, the game wasn’t targeted for adults. so, it doesn’t make sense to use an already established property, beloved by its fans, to attract a new audience consisting of nine year-olds who’d laugh at Murray dressing up as a woman. if they really wanted to appeal to the fans of the original, why retcon everything? why change who the first Cooper was? when the gang’s stranded in Saudi Arabia, why have Sly say ‘i couldn't remember a time since we've teamed up that we felt so defeated’? the gang’s been in way deeper shit before. why the ‘Sly’s dad vs Le Paradox’s dad’ deus ex machina? Sly’s dad wasn’t famous because of stealing the world’s largest diamond, what the fuck are you even talking about? do the guys at Sanzaru have such big egos and bravado that they needed to change the original games’ lore? were they so preoccupied with leaving their signature on a property which was never their own? i don’t know who needs to read this, but i’m stating FACTS.

Characters: now let’s talk about Sanzaru’s treatment of the Cooper gang and the ancestors (female characters will get their own section). why would you change the characters like that? if it wasn’t for the voice acting, i’d say this is a completely different Cooper gang. there’s no wise-cracking band of best friends, going on heists and being proud of their brotherhood and bond. all that is replaced with the formulaic story arcs for each member. the trilogy’s cutscenes and dialogues made sure to establish how Sly, Bentley and Murray have lived together since they met at the orphanage, play videogames all day and order chinese food and pizza and whatever. through missions and their adventures, they face obstacles they have to overcome as a gang, and when Sly 3 came around, their friendship was put to the ultimate test when they almost disbanded. Thieves in Time was too lazy to add to this. Sanzaru thought ‘oh the trilogy showed how they’re best friends so we might as well have them focus on their own stories separately’ and if this is truly the case then i ask again: who was this game made for? because new fans would never know how tight the gang was just by playing Thieves in Time. there’s a lack of genuine friendship moments. like, what happened when Sly came back after faking his amnesia? that’s completely ignored. where’s the witty banter? the ‘wizard & sitting duck’ type of jokes? nothing of the sort. what we get is fart jokes and Murray wanting to dress up as a woman. on that note, what was that all about? ok, have him dress up as a geisha to get in. fine. have El Jefe slap his ass, have him perform in a painfully lengthy dance sequence, have him dress like that during the rest of the episode, and then have him be persistent about getting the belly-dancing gig? the hell? Murray was always kinda goofy but this just feels kinda homophobic? it feels dragged out and unfunny. and then there’s the ancestors. i said it once before and i’ll say it again, Sanzaru deprived me of a buff Arab daddy Salim Al Kupar and gave us that elderly shit instead. all jokes aside, the redesigns were uninteresting. why take away Tennessee Kid’s facial hair and give it to Galleth? i legitimately think all the ancestors were boring. i mean, their gameplay was cool, especially Tennessee Kid’s guns, but in terms of character, they were just some dudes. did they believe that Sly was their descendant from the future? maybe. did they care? nope. they all had the same storyline of dealing with Sly’s arrival, flirting with Carmelita and getting their canes stolen. that was it. the fans waited for so long to get even a glimpse of the ancestors in action, and Sanzaru downplayed all of them. they reduced them to useless idiots too occupied with women and food, incapable of getting their canes back from stupid Le Paradox. and they didn’t even stick to the lore. no ma’am. let’s make Rioichi the inventor of sushi !! because that makes total sense and would defo fit in with the character and the property! why. just, why. you were handed the lore !!! you were given all this rich backstory and you threw it all away to replace it with trash !!! complete trash.

Changes & Inconsistency: i want to briefly mention some changes that pissed me off. where’s the laser glide move? it was an important turning point at the end of Sly 3, so why did they get rid of it? Sly is a master thief who’s traveling back in time, so you’d think they’d actually make him a master thief. also, the changes in the binocucom and Bentley’s slideshows in order to modernise them. if Sucker Punch managed to place the mission starting points at locations where the binocucom would show the objective clearly, so could Sanzaru. instead, they chose to have it be a moving camera, floating around the hub. and Bentley’s slideshows were absolute classics, opportunities to include gags and have Bentley show off in his own way. you just had to change it into a tablet, didn’t you. omg you’re still looking at small details like these? yes sweetie, i consider the details because i think they shape the game more than anything. if i didn’t consider the details, then my opinion on the game would be incomplete. when i praise the trilogy i don’t only look at story and gameplay. because i’m unbiased like that. here, i’d also like the mention Dimitri. what a fucking waste. you either include him in the game or you don’t. but don’t give me some half-baked shit on how he’s working for the gang back in present day. Dimitri staying home, waiting on the gang to call him in order for him to give them details on the villains. how does that even slightly resemble anything about Dimitri’s character? they didn’t even include his voice, some greasy sweet Raccoonus Doodus dialogue.

Female Characters: you know it’s all been leading up to this. this is the crux of the Thieves in Time hate. i don’t want to say the game is misogynistic so i’ll call it anti-feminist. why? just answer me. why? why did you have to disrespect Carmelita like that? right off the bat, they swapped the pants for the skirt. in what world does an active inspector who’s always on the scene wear a skirt? Carmelita now wears a skirt because her only role in the game is to be the love interest. Carmelita now wears bright red lipstick and has a new hairstyle, which would be ok if only it wasn’t Carmelita. Carmelita now plays up her inner sassy Latina because she’s pigeonholed into the ‘angry ex girlfriend’ role. they compartmentalised her, tried to sexualise her because she couldn’t possibly be one of the boys. nope. let’s take a respected woman, high in rank and as physically able as Sly, and turn her into a cliché, an angry ex girlfriend for comedic relief, strip her of her abilities and have her be kidnapped twice, have every exchange with her be about how attractive she is, have almost every male character in the game flirt with her, have her boyfriend be jealous of his own ancestors because they’re flirting with her in order to create purposeless love triangles, and then, after all that, dress her up as a belly dancer and distract some guards while the rest of the gang do the heavy lifting. that last one was really the nail on the coffin. did Bentley have other ways to enter that door? absolutely. so, what the fuck? why did i come back for a good Sly game 8 years later and receive a game where you have to shake your controller to have Carmelita shake her ass? why did they have the guards’ eyes pop like that? why did no one stop them? and it isn’t just Carmelita. it’s Penelope too. god forbid we have a female character who doesn’t have a waist smaller than my finger, and a voluptuous physique. why was the redesign so drastic? the story stuff is also nonsensical. why did she leave? wasn’t she happy with Bentley? i watched her speech about turning on the gang about a thousand times and it still doesn’t make any sense. like, i literally don’t understand. what was her motive? and why reverse her story of overcoming the Black Baron persona and the connotations of a meek woman hiding behind a man’s disguise? why repeat it, shamelessly? do the guys at Sanzaru only know women who have recently broken up? why does Carmelita, Penelope and Ms Decibel all go through break-ups during the game? why does Penelope go against Bentley before they even break up? why waste the opportunity to introduce a new, well-written villain and use it to repeat something already done? why???? no woman is safe from Sanzaru because Ms Decibel... boy, did i feel bad for her. apart from continuously reminding us that she’s haha fat!! she’s also presented as a blind lovefool. love? what a silly concept only women believe in! Ms Decibel had a crush on Le Paradox (for some reason i can’t even fathom) and for that she must pay by being utterly humiliated. and what do ALL women do when a guy breaks up with them? they get so angry! yikes, stay clear guys! ....why does Sanzaru hate female characters? i’m genuinely curious. i mean, what forced them to depict women like this? i’m sorry, i can’t take much more of this.

Ending: and how do you end a disappointment that came 8 years late and didn’t even have a sequel guaranteed? yeap, you guessed it! a cliffhanger. but not just any cliffhanger - a total fuck you to anyone and everyone. with a single move Sanzaru instantly screwed over the franchise. the fans, the creators, the characters, anyone looking to continue the series. everyone. WHY would you trap the protagonist in the past? WHY? did you feel defensive about something that wasn’t even yours and went ‘well you can continue the series but the sequel will have to do with time travel’. why did you think it was a good idea? how does it even slightly resemble a good ending? someone fill me in please. because i don’t think i’m being unreasonable, i’m just telling it how it is.

Conclusion:

i did it. i fucking wrote it in all its motherfucking glory. the idiots at Sanzaru could’ve given us an amazing game but instead of working on how to make it better or including extra levels, they wasted their time on deciding what killable baby animal to include in each hub or what the backstory for each treasure should be. how fucking distasteful. and to think i’m an idiot myself for trying to force myself to like it because i was so in denial about how bad it was. i’ve just outlined everything wrong with that cursed game. i’m exhausted.

#yOu'Re rEaLLy pEttY ! sOrRy hAd tO UnFoLLoW #i think i covered everything #THIS IS AN AMAZING ESSAY #this is the crown jewel of my time on tumblr #i love myself so much #sly cooper #anyone who even remotely comes for me because of this WILL get blocked #the birds really think i care about my rep on this fucking hellsite #HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA

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oliveiraveiro · 4 years

Text

what we keep inside

part 1 of 3 of The Weekend

Open Heart, Rafael x F!MC

series summary: Casey and Rafael try to face their respective feelings and be honest about them to each other. With Sora in the picture, what can happen in short three days? What will happen after?

chapter summary: Not everyone will have fun at the Edenbrook gala.

tags/warning: pining, eventual happy ending, rafael x sora, suggestive thought, mention of alcohol, verbal fight

word count: 2005 / ao3 link / part 2

Friday night.

Casey is spending it like how she always did; drinks and karaoke with her friends.

Friday nights are always good nights. It marks the end of her week at work. It is when she can truly relax and decompress from her cases, aside from spending quality time with her friends who are as busy as she is.

So as usual, she was giddy, a half-drunk cocktail in her hand as she watched and cheered Elijah as he belted out the lyrics to Sunflower by Post Malone and Swae Lee.

Casey had a blush on her cheeks that she has been feeling for about an hour now, and she had been smiling more than usual.

She keeps on telling herself it was just the drinks, but she knows deep inside that it had something to do with the brown-eyed man sitting in front of her who decided to join karaoke night tonight.

They were broken up, sure, and he is seeing someone else. But the times they hang out together, even just as friends, still made her happy. He still made her happy.

She steals a glance in his direction, only to find him already looking at her. They both smile at each other, and Casey blushes even more. She can only hope it was not too obvious.

“We’re friends with such singers, aren’t we?” she says with a smile.

“I certainly am. You really did good with your rendition of Famous. Always a Raleigh Carrera fan.” Rafael answers with a teasing grin.

Before she can flush even more, thankfully, Jackie interrupts. “Casey, you gonna buy a new dress for the gala tomorrow?”

Oh, right. The gala. She almost forgot about it already. She quickly noted her wardrobe in her head before answering no.

“I think I have a few that should work for the attire,” she smiles at her, glad for the needed distraction. “Are you? You should definitely check out my closet first, I have a gold formal dress that you’d absolutely love.”

Jackie smiles gratefully at Casey. “I will, thank you.” She turns her attention to Rafael. “How about you, Superman? It’d be nice to see you in a tux.”

“Oh, no, I’m not going.” Rafael says, shyly.

“What? Why not?” Casey was quick to ask him. “You always attend Edenbrook events. This has to be the biggest one yet!”

“Yeah, Raf. The fanciest, too. And the fact that the hospital won’t spend a dime on it is a plus in my book.” Jackie adds.

As soon as the word ‘fancy’ was said, Casey understood. She looks at Rafael with a small frown but does not try to speak again.

“Not the ones that require me to wear a tuxedo. Sorry, Jackie.”

“Aw, man, come on. I was hoping you’d join me to find one to rent tomorrow.” Elijah pipes in, now off the makeshift stage and back to join them.

“I can accompany you, sure, but I still won’t go. You guys know that’s just not my thing. But I do hope you have fun for me.” Rafael gives them a genuine smile.

Jackie is about to speak again, but Casey catches her attention and gives her a look to drop it, and she nods just a little.

“Well, if you change your mind…” Elijah says simply.

“Sure. I’ll…try to think about it more.” Rafael agrees. He ends up meeting Casey’s eyes, and he immediately gives her a sheepish look.

His mind is most likely not going to change, and they both know that Casey knew that. Reassuring him, she smiles and gives him a small wink.

She is just about to speak again to try and change the topic, but Sienna decides to join them again then, inviting her for a dance.

Casey agrees, letting Sienna take her hand, and before she can pull her into the dance floor, she gives Rafael a knowing look.

He smiles up at her again, his eyes lighting up at the familiar gesture, but Casey was pulled away by Sienna before she could see the also obvious elation in his eyes.

Saturday night.

To say that Casey looked beautiful is an understatement.

She is wearing an emerald green dress, matched with some black high heels that Rafael thinks can definitely be wielded as a weapon if needed. It only added to how sexy she looked. Her red hair is more wavy than her usual do, but is still swept to the side. She is wearing quite some makeup, but it suits her well, and all that is on Rafael’s mind as soon as he saw Casey tonight was how stunning she is.

Sure, attending this gala was far from how he planned to spend the night. But what happened already happened, and he is here now. He is more than thankful to be graced by Casey’s appearance.

He continued watching her rub elbows with some big-names, long enough for he himself to feel uncomfortable. Only then he realizes that he has been alone with his drink for quite a while now. With how much Sora tried convincing him that it will be such a great idea to attend tonight’s event, that it will be such a terrific date, he naturally expected her to be by his side. But only god knows which important person she is schmoozing with right now.

For maybe the twentieth time tonight, he lets out a sigh, finishing up his drink. Elijah! Yeah, he can probably try to find him.

Just as he is about to take another look around the room, Casey takes up his view. She gives him a friendly smile.

“Hey, stranger,” she greets. “Something wrong with your drink?”

Realizing that he is frowning, Rafael quickly schools his features, and for the first time tonight he grins.

“Something like that. I probably need something stronger, or-- actually I think beer is better.”

Casey laughs softly. “Not sure if we can find a pint, but we can probably help ourselves to a glass of whiskey. Or five.”

“Getting cozy with the rich and powerful exhausting you?” He asks her, seeing through her smiles and laugh, eyebrows furrowing again in concern.

“Barely starting and I am already very exhausted.” She sighs, easing off on the charm. “And you? You don’t look like you’re having a blast either.”

Rafael is grateful that she did not directly ask him what made him change his mind on going. But well, that is who Casey was. She hated confrontation as much as he did, which is why they were still friends, despite recently going through a breakup.

“Yeah, you know I’d rather be staying at home.” He sighed softly, looking down at his drink for a moment as he debated whether to tell her more or not. “Sora insisted that we attend. It was supposed to be a date, but…”

Casey nods as Rafael trails off, seeing how he is unhappy tonight, even more with talking about why he was. Still, she is unable to bite back a comment. “A date, huh?” she repeats.

Rafael chuckles, quick to realize what she means by that. On their first official date, he is the one who told her that he and the word fancy just do not fit together nicely.

Now he was here in this fancy gala, in a fancy tuxedo although rented, drinking a fancy drink. Casey can sense his discomfort, but although him being here tonight is not ideal for him, she thanks the stars in the night sky. He looks so dashing and handsome.

If he looked good in his casual clothes, he is mighty fine in black tie. It takes all of Casey’s concentration to meet his eyes the whole time and not check out his body and think about getting rid of his jacket, his bow tie, his vest, then proceed to unbutton his dress shirt slowly, all the while running her hands along…shit.

“I know,” he sighs. “At least I got to see you and spend time with you. And…the others…later.”

She grins at that, making sure she focuses on his face this time, nodding a little. “Come on, I know where they are. Elijah’s hell-bent on making everyone try playing poker tonight.”

Rafael gives her a surprised look, although he already starts following her.

“There’s a table labeled broke players only, I promise.” She clarifies and they laugh together as they head towards the rest of the gang.

“This was supposed to be a date night, Rafael! Surely you can’t possibly be mad at me that I’m upset to find you hanging out with your friends and ex-girlfriend.” About an hour later, Sora almost shouts as she follows Rafael out of the hospital.

Are you serious? Rafael thinks to himself, but he bites back his tongue. “I’m not mad, Sora, I just don’t think that was necessary or appropriate--”

“Why? Because you still like her? You don’t want me kissing you when she’s around?”

“You call that kissing? You could’ve sucked the lips out of my mouth! In public!” Rafael tries his hardest not to raise his voice but getting through her right now is just impossible.

Sora usually keeps her resolve. But when she gets drunk or tipsy, this foreign version of her, the one who loves fights, just comes out not to play but to yell at Rafael.

Actually, even without the influence of alcohol, he has been well-acquainted with her lately. Things between them have been less than perfect, obviously so, because this relationship, them, should be easy and comfortable, but for a few weeks now it has been anything but. They should really talk about it because their relationship turned out to be the opposite of both their expectations, Rafael notes in his head.

He will definitely not be putting it off anymore. He knows he already said that the last time they had a misunderstanding, but it will happen. Totally. He is not sure when, but surely, someday. Hopefully-- no, certainly, before she ends up deciding to break up with him.

“Look, I really don’t want to fight. All I want right now is to go home, so please get in the car and I’ll drive you to your apartment.” Rafael says in a calm voice.

“Let me guess, now you’re gonna tell me that you never wanted to go here in the first place? That you’re right about not wanting to go? And it’s all my fault that you’re flirting with your ex--”

“Sora, please, I swear to you I wasn’t flirting with--”

“Maybe I basically forced you to go with me tonight, Raf. That’s on me. But you were, and anyone with eyes would see all the sparks flying between the two of you. This is the reason why you didn’t even tell me you dated, right? This is why I had to ask specifically if you two had history.” She is finally calmed down, but somehow there is more bite to her words.

Dropping the hammer, Sora continues. “You still have feelings for her.”

Rafael inhales sharply, feeling the rising panic in his chest. “What- I- No…”

“I’d say you’re convincing me and not yourself, but I know better.” Sora chuckles humorlessly. “God.” she sighs deeply, rubbing her forehead with both hands in frustration. “I should’ve known better. Your heart is big, Raf, I’ve always known that. But not too big for me to be sharing your love with someone else, no matter how much you try to deny it.”

“Sora, please, let me just--” he tries to grab her hand, and she lets him, but he notices she looks past his shoulder.

“Talk to her, really talk to her. It’s about time you do.” Sora says, taking his keys. “I’m still buzzed so I’ll wait for you in the car. Take as long as you need.”

Rafael was confused for a moment, but he soon feels the eyes boring on the back of her head. He turns around, freezing upon seeing her.

“Casey…”

#choices open heart #open heart #open heart fanfiction #rafael aveiro #rafael aveiro x mc #rafael x mc #playchoices #choices stories you play #choices

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bloemenbed · 4 years

Text

~•Replayed Scenes•~

This has been in my drafts for too long, hope it's not too bad. Also big thanks to @raleiighcarrera for helping me!

Warnings: none, just fluff

Tags: @masquerade-reimagined @raleiighcarrera @emomoustache @keviriass @tyrils-star @sad-forest @lxdy-starfury

“Thank you all for coming tonight!”, you just finished your concert and fans are going wild. You get off stage and see Hank waving to you “Hey Hank! What’s going on?” Hank looks a bit… uncomfortable? That’s odd for him “Are…you okay?”you ask worryingly, Hank answers “Well, I can’t bring you to your appartement tonight. Someone else will bring you there.” For once Hank wont bring you to your appartement, you wonder why but don’t ask any questions “So, who is this person?”, you ask full of cuiriosity. Hank doesn’t answer directly “It’s…Raleigh” you sound shocked “Raleigh? Him, really?” It’s not that you mind, you really like hanging out with him. But he’s just a guy that can’t concentrate on one thing at a time. He’s even distracting to himself! “Well, where is Raleigh?” Hank looks around the backstage “There.”, you look to where he’s pointing but still don’t see him “What do you mean the-" before finishing your sentence you squint your eyes and see a figure sitting on a crate “Well that looks like a person, but it may be a staff member resting!” Hank shouts to the other side: “Raleigh! Would you please come out, you need to acompany her home.” you want to say something but the ‘figure’ stands up, and as Hanks said, that is indeed Raleigh. “Oh- well hello Raleigh!” Raleigh smiles at the sound of your suprisment and turns to Hank “Why do you look so worried Hank? I’ve always been the best at sneaking out, this is no different. This is just doing it with permission, wich is less fun, but still!” Raleigh expected some sort of remark but just gets to see Hank's glare, wich he can’t exactly see because of his glasses. “Well I feel like we should go, right Raleigh?”, Before Raleigh can make one of his ‘smart’ remarks you pull him out of the building wich is a bit harder then you thought.

When you’re outside you look at Raleigh with your eyebrow raised. “Hey, that’s my move!”, you roll your eyes at him. “Never was that ‘your’ move" You expectantly wait for him too say something wich he only just notices. “Okay, yes. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that I sneak you out sometimes, but atleast I wasn’t lying!” You sigh. “Really Raleigh?”, Raleigh looks at you for a second before turning his gaze back to the sidewalk. “C'mon i’m sorry, it’s not my fault i get excited when i get to spend time with you”, you can’t help but smile. “Oh stop it! No need to flirt all the time Mr. Carrera”, Raleigh lets out a chuckle before putting his hands in his pockets. You follow by looping your arms around his, a few minutes pass before you find Raleigh’s motorcycle that you still remember from the last time you rode it. “So, ready to do this again?”, Raleigh sais that with a teasing tone but at the same time a concerned one, the fact that you din’t die the last time makes you feel pretty confident. “I sure am!”, you’d want to ask if there are any helmets but you already know the answer to that question, it’s not like it’s the first time you've done this.

After a few angry drivers shouting at Raleigh for passing them you arrive at your appartment. It wasn’t a long ride but you couldn’t wait to finally flop onto your bed, well you were first gonna eat something of course. You walk your way to the doorstep, you reach for your keys in your pockets but you can’t seem to find them, you start freaking out. Where did my keys go? Did I lose them while I was talking with Hank? Maybe they were in bag, but I left my bag at home, that means I can’t get in! As Raleigh clearly notices you panicking he exaggerates a cough and shows you your keys. “Oh thank God you found my- wait, you took my keys?” Raleigh seemingly offended starts acting like the victim “I stole your keys? I would never do such a thing, my hands just were able to coincidentally take your keys when you weren’t looking!” Raleigh sais voice dripping with sarcasm. “Ha ha, very funny. Can you please give me back my keys?” you knew that Raleigh wouldn’t just give you the keys without making you struggle first. So you sighed still trying to get the keys back that Raleigh was dangling above your head before asking, “Hey, not even a goodbye kiss?” being pretty tired and also wanting to thank Raleigh for the ride home you pull his leather jacket making him duck and give him a short and sweet kiss on the lips, Raleigh giggles softly before whispering something about love. You having not heard him well you ask, “Hmm, what did you say?” Raleigh tries to say it again. “I said i… never mind. Don’t try to wake up to early and feeling the need to text me alright?” Raleigh said obviously dodging to answer the question, he quickly gets back on his motorcycle and rides off. You step inside your appartment and sit on your couch, realizing that you may have replayed that kiss in your head a few more times than you’d like to.

#raleigh x mc #platinum raleigh #raleigh carrera #platinum mc #choices fanfiction #platinum choices #choices platinum #fluff #choices

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carolinahurricanesstan · 4 years

Text

Dougie Hamilton x reader

It had been three months since you graduated from college. Unsure if it was because of that or because you were quickly approaching your 25th birthday, but you were spiraling. Not gonna lie, college was freaking hard and honestly, you were unsure of what you wanted to do but if something didn’t get you out of the house soon, you were going to go insane.

You had applied to a few different marketing positions, but nothing had materialized yet and you were frustrated.

You decided to go and grab lunch with your best friend, (y/bf/n) one HOT September Friday and as you sat down at your favorite downtown Raleigh restaurant, your phone rang, but the number was not one that you recognized. It was a local number so you decided to answer it, hoping that it was one of the many jobs you had applied to.

“Hi! Is this (y/n)?”

“Yes, it is!”

“Hi, (y/n)! I hope you’re doing well today! This is Shannon, head of marketing here for the Carolina Hurricanes. I’m calling in regards to your extremely impressive resume. We would absolutely love to set up an interview with you to see if you would be a good fit for our team. Are you free this week sometime to come in and chat?”

You were speechless. This was finally your opportunity. Quickly, you regained your composure and were able to choke out,

“Absolutely! I’m free first thing Monday morning! What time works best for you?”

“Let’s say 9 am? You can meet me at the North entrance of PNC.”

“That sounds fantastic. I will see you Monday morning at 9 am, Shannon! Thank you so much!”

“See you then, (y/n)! Have a great weekend!”

You smile at your friend across the table and she looks back at you with a confused look on her face.

“Who was that?” she asks.

“Head of marketing for the Canes. I have an interview for a position on their marketing team on Monday!” You were beaming.

“Holy SHIT, dude! That’s awesome! You’ve been waiting for something like this!”

\\\

Monday snuck up on you. You decided to go out on Saturday night for drinks with your closest friends to celebrate your pending job interview and spent Sunday recovering from that. You were excited for sure, but now the nerves began to set in. You slept like shit, tossing and turning all night. You woke up around 7 am, groggy as all. You knew that you were really great at interviews, but looking in the mirror, you knew that you needed some work to feel as confident outside as you were inside. You drug yourself to the shower, turning on the almost-scalding water. After getting out, feeling a lot less groggy, you take extra time getting ready, being very meticulous with each step. You curl your hair into loose waves and apply your normal, natural makeup: a little eyebrow, a little mascara, and that’s it.

You step back into your room, putting on the outfit that you picked out a few days before. A super flattering pair of slim fit, black ankle pants, a more casual shirt, layered with a modern blazer. You slide on a pair of ankle boots and stop at the full length mirror propped up in the corner of your bedroom.

Pleased with how you looked, you grab your keys and head out the door. You lived 10 minutes away from the arena, so you jump in your car and turn some music on to hype you up before pulling out of your driveway and eventually onto 40.

You pull into PNC arena, familiar because of the many events you’ve attended, you go directly towards the north entrance. You quickly park and begin heading towards to door, only to be greeted by one of the friendliest faces you’ve ever seen.

“Hey! You must you (y/n)!! I’m Shannon!! So nice to put a face with the name!”

You quickly walked towards her, shaking her hand. “Likewise! So nice to finally meet you!”

You two begin walking inside of the building, she starts: “So, nothing to be nervous about! We loved your resume and just wanted to familiarize you with our organization before we officially offered you the job.”

You two arrived in what appeared to be the offices for the staff and you were mesmerized. Hockey in Raleigh hadn’t been much of a thing to write home about until two years prior, when they qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time in a while. You’d been to a few games, but to be honest, you didn’t know a whole lot about the team. You knew about hockey because your college had a team, but you never really cared about who the players were.

Shannon continued to talk and fill you in on the history of the team, who the leadership was, and chat about the upcoming season. You were engrossed in every word she said. She asked a few questions about you, seeming to really like your answers. The atmosphere here was incredible, everyone was buzzing with excitement, which in turn, made you excited. While invigorating, everyone was extremely friendly and laid back, including Shannon.

Finally, your tour came to a stop as Shannon led you into a conference room. She had some paperwork laid out on the table as she took a seat and gestured for you to sit across from her. As you sat, she began talking.

“I have been given pretty open freedom to do whatever I need to do to make this marketing team the best in the NHL. I do not beat around the bush at all and so, I’d like to formally offer you this position on our marketing team. I think that you could really bring a lot of incredible energy and ideas to our team and to Carolina in general and we would love to have you.”

Your smile took up your entire face.

“You guys seem like an amazing group of people to work with and I would be totally honored to accept.”

She smiled back at me, “Awesome!! Welcome to the team, (y/n)! Let’s go meet the boys and then, we’ll come back and fill out this paperwork!”

///

Shannon leads you down a hallway, chatting you up the entire way. You’re halfway present, nodding along and smiling at what she’s telling you about the team, but your excitement is making it hard to focus on anything at all.

Finally, you walk out of the hallway into one of the openings leading to the rink. You recognize that you’re now beside the bench. She informs you that the guys are doing their morning skate. She motions a man over and introduces you to him. His name is Rod, the head coach. He shakes your hand, firmly, and welcomes you to the team. He seems friendly and warm, just like everyone else you’ve met, but you can also sense that he does not handle nonsense, at all.

Shannon asks him to bring the boys over for them to meet you as well. This terrified you a little, because as you’re scanning, you realize that these are not busted up hockey jocks, missing teeth, but these are young looking guys that are intimidatingly handsome. As she introduces you to the guys, you become a little self-conscious as a lot of them come to shake your hand, each giving you his name as he does.

“(y/n) will be working specifically with creating our social media content and maintaining it. She’ll be doing an array of things in regards to working with you, including photographing and helping with video work. Her accomplishments are super impressive and we are so excited she’s decided to be apart of our organization.”

The guys all clap, a few even cheer and yell, for you as Shannon finishes up her announcement regarding you. You don’t typically blush, but as you’re standing there, talking to Shannon, you can feel it beginning to rise up your neck as you realize some of the guys are studying you as they skate back out.

Shannon sits on the empty bench and motions for you to join her as she begins telling you how she got started with the Hurricanes a few years back. You’re listening along, scanning over each guy on the ice. One in particular catches your eye and you realize it’s one of the same ones you caught looking at you earlier when Shannon was introducing you to everyone.

He was tall. Like, really tall. You were only 5′3, so it didn’t take a lot for someone to be taller than you, but he was probably the tallest on the ice. You realize that you hadn’t been introduced to him when you met a majority of the other guys,

Shannon’s phone began to ring and she excused herself, leaving you alone for a minute to continue watching from the bench.

You continued to watch this tall man. He took his helmet off momentarily to expose his blonde hair. You also noticed his beard was gingery and he had probably the most beautiful smile you’d ever seen. Definitely your type. He skated over towards the bench to retrieve a gatorade and you felt your body stiffen a little when you realized he had caught you studying him.

As he got closer to the bench, he plopped down on it, breathing heavily from the drills he had just run and drinking from one of the bottles. You knew that you were blushing now. How could you not? He was freaking handsome. You avoided looking at him by pulling out your phone, but you could feel his gaze.

He swiftly put himself back over the wall, but not before stopping on the ice directly in front of you, causing you to look up at him. He smiled and stuck his hand out. He cleared his throat and said, “Hey, (y/n). I just wanted to introduce myself after you got bombarded by the rest of the guys. I’m Dougie.”

His voice startled you a little. It was deep, with a slight rasp, and smooth as butter. Trying to pull yourself together, you shook his hand and smiled back at him. God, he was handsome. “It’s so nice to meet you,” you managed to get out.

He held onto your hand a bit longer than a normal person would, holding eye contact with you, causing you to giggle and divert your eyes. He finally let go and added, “I should probably get back to morning skate before Roddy gets me. I’m looking forward to seeing you around, (y/n).” He smiles at you again before skating off to rejoin his teammates.

You finally release the breath it feels like you’ve been holding onto for an hour and look out at the ice one more time, catching eye contact with Dougie again, finding him smiling at you before running the drill he was apart of.

Shannon finally ends her call and comes back to where you are, smiling at you. “You ready to go fill out your paperwork?”

///

Your first official day was a few days after you’d been hired. You knew that the season didn’t start for a few weeks and Shannon informed you that this was a big time for the marketing team to push out a lot of content to get the fans excited about the coming season. Fan attendance was up the last two years, but they really wanted to continue pushing out content that helped them get to know the players and feel connected with all of the boys.

You guys had brainstormed a ton of new video ideas for the youtube channel, a few new promo shoots to get done, photo and video, and now the ideas just needed to be executed.

In the weeks leading up to the beginning of the season, you had been trusted to take the lead on a few of the different video projects and you were hooked. You loved being around the guys. They were freaking hilarious and so fun to be around. The repertoire they had with each other was dynamic and there was no denying that they all cared about each other.

There had been a few moments during filming videos and photoshoots that you and Dougie had exchanged. Glances, short, friendly conversations. You were trying to remain professional and keep work and private life separate, but it was hard to do here. This was one of the most laid back environments you’d ever been in and you loved being able to open up and be yourself.

On the way to your car after work that day, you felt your phone buzz in your hand. You waited until you sat down in your car to unlock it and see a text from an unfamiliar number.

“You have been brilliant the last few days. It’s incredible to see you do what you’re so passionate about. Can’t wait to see you at the game this week. - DH”

Ah, Dougie. You smiled down at your phone for a minute before responding. He was so damn good looking and you admit, you’d caught yourself staring a little too long or scanning him up and down, longing to just reach out and touch him.

“You’re too kind. See you then. ;)”

You debated leaving the winky face off, but decided to leave it. You were feeling a little more adventurous than usual.

Before you knew it, the season was starting. You were buzzing because you got to photograph the game from beside the bench. The arena filled up quickly and you got to witness your first game as a staff member. The crowd was insanely loud. You spent the first two periods in awe, snapping photos during play, letting yourself get sucked in. There were a few times that you felt a few eyes on you from the bench, but you assumed you were being ridiculous. Once, you happened to glance over to catch a particular blondie watching you before he looked away.

You grinned at the thought of Dougie being embarrassed that you caught him watching you, especially since you’d been watching him for most of the game.

Towards the end of the third, the Canes were up two points with 2 minutes left in the period. Dougie came off of a shift and sat at the end of the bench, right beside where you were. He tapped your leg with his stick and smiled over at you. You smiled back at him. God, you hadn’t looked at him that close in person in a while. You guys had been so busy prepping everything for this night that you had been running around like a mad woman.

You both turned your attention back to the game as the clock wound down to zero. Dougie flashed a smiled at you as he and the other guys went out onto the ice to celebrate their first win of the season. You followed out onto the ice to grab photos of the storm surge, as you knew that was tradition that was so important to everyone.

You were in your office, packing up your equipment as you imported the images and videos onto your computer. You sat back in your chair, waiting for the import to finish, as your scrolled through your phone. You heard a knock at your door and you look up to see a freshly-showered Dougie in his pre-game suit that he had shown up in earlier today.

“Hey, get any good shots tonight?”

You chuckled, knowing that this was a joke you had made with each other before, during the countless video and photo shoots you’d done with the team that last few weeks.

You held eye contact with him, still chuckling, “You know I did. Did you”

This caused him to laugh as well, “Man, I could have sworn you watched me score that goal. I’m hurt that you didn’t.”

You both giggled before he came and sat at the chair in front of your desk. As he sat down, he looked slightly nervous, maybe uncomfortable?

“So, I’ve been trying to push this off because you work for the team, but the more I think about it, the more I realize how unfair it is for me to not do this and always wonder what if.”

You raised an eyebrow at him, unsure of where this was going. Yeah, you guys had been friendly with each other, but a lot of the guys had been friendly. You were super attracted to Dougie, but you didn’t think anything different of the way he’d treated you vs the rest of the guys.

“If you are not interested, feel free to say no and we will forget this whole thing ever happened. But, I was wondering if you wanted to go grab a post game meal with me, (y/n)?”

You were slightly stunned. You wanted this, so you finally mustered up the confidence to respond. “Uhm, absolutely. I would love that!”

///

DOUGIE’S POV

I was nervous, but good nervous. I hadn’t wanted to date anyone since I came to Carolina, but she was different. She was this presence that really lit up any room she was in. She was brilliant, thoughtful, hilarious, and always made anyone she talked to feel like the only person in the room. It was no secret that she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. A lot of the boys on the team shared that opinion with me, how could they not?

I sat there, after putting myself on the line to ask her to hang out, nervous as fuck, hoping and praying she’d say yes.

She looked up at me with those beautiful eyes and that killer smile and accepted my invitation.

Thank God.

She closed her laptop on her desk and stood up, putting it in her bag.

“Ready to go?”

She looked up at me and flashed that heart stopping smile. “Yes, please.”

The whole way out to the parking lot, I wanted to hold her hand so bad. Ever since meeting her, I have had this desire to make her feel secure and safe, and walking with her now was no different. I didn’t understand the effect that she had on me, but I didn’t feel the need to fight it at all.

I knew which car was hers and had made a point when I got to the arena today to park near her.

“So, I thought that we could run through a drive-thru since it’s so late and then I have a secret spot that I want to take you to.”

She smiled at me as we approached the cars. “That sounds perfect.”

Every time she smiled at me, my stomach did a backflip.

///

(Y/N) POV

He offered to drive or gave you the option to drive separately, but you just wanted to be around him. In this moment, his presence was intoxicating.

He held his car door open for you, carefully closing the door before he retreated to the driver’s side. He smiled at you before starting the car and driving out of the arena. He asked what your drive thru guilty pleasure was and happily obliged, heading in the direction of it.

You both asked a few questions back and forth, easily filling your time with quality conversation on the way to whatever he had planned for you.

After pulling away from the drive thru, he drove for a few minutes, before turning down a road you were unfamiliar with. He parked and walked around to open your door. He opened his trunk and pulled out a blanket and you followed him as he began walking. Finally, you stopped in an opening and he gestured for you to look out into the field. You could see the entire city lit up in the distance. It was beautiful. He watched you sheepishly for your reaction.

“I figured we could sit out here, eat, talk, and look at the city or the stars.”

You were stunned, but in the best way. You looked up at him, with the biggest grin on your face. “Dougie, this is gorgeous.”

///

It had been probably close to two hours that you two had been sitting in front of the city, under the stars. To be honest, it felt like a fairytale to you. You were convinced that you could do the most mundane task with Dougie and it would feel like the lottery.

The more you talked to him, you realized how incredible he was. He was arguably the most handsome guy you’d ever seen. He was intelligent. He always seemed to be hinged on every word you said. He made you feel like you were all that mattered in the world.

You felt your adrenaline coming down and decided to lay back on the blanket and look up at the stars. Dougie did the same. You two continued your conversation, taking turns talking about anything and everything.

Before you knew it, it was 4 am. Dougie offered to take you back to your car at the arena but you knew that you lived close to his apartment from the last time you filmed a video with him and the boys, so you asked if he could just drop you off at your apartment. He obliged. After he opened your door for you and got into the driver’s seat, you said, “thank you again for dropping me off. I’ll just catch an Uber in the morning for work.”

“That’s nonsense. I’ll just swing by and pick you up.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to make you get up any earlier than you have to.”

“Nonsense. It’s not an imposition at all.”

You smiled out towards the window. The feelings that you were developing for Dougie were intense. You guys had spent the night talking about things that made it feel like you’d known him your entire life. Something about him made you want to open up and share everything you’ve ever said or done with him.

Part of you felt like he knew the effect he had on you. He glanced over, catching you smiling, trying to hide it. He contemplated for a second but decided to slowly reach over, resting his hand on your knee. He didn’t want to be too forward, but you had the same effect on him as he did you. He knew it was risky because this was the first time you’d hung out.

You smiled over at him before resting your hand on top of his. He was so warm and his hand almost engulfed your entire knee. He was perfect.

He finally pulled up to your apartment building. He parked on the street and got out to come and open your door. He grabbed your bag from you and offered to walk you up to your door.

As you got to your apartment door, you turned to face him. He held your bag out for you to take. You smiled, thanking him for such a lovely night. He smiled back at you. You loved that smile.

He debated kissing you. He had wanted to since he met you on your first day. He decided against It and pulled you in for a hug instead, opting for a kiss on the forehead instead.

Without breaking the hug, he said, “(y/n), thank you for spending tonight with me. You are incredible, truly. Can we do this again sometime? I would love to take you out for a nice dinner or maybe I can cook you dinner?”

You smiled into his chest, before slightly pulling away to look up at him. “I would love that. I’m free Thursday night?”

“Thursday night is perfect.” He smiled down at you, kissing your forehead one more time before pulling away. “Goodnight, (y/n)”

“Goodnight, Dougie” you said before unlocking your door and going inside of your apartment. You rested your back against the door, not wanting to move as you recounted the night, trying to remember every little detail about him. The way he smelled when he hugged you, how safe you felt with him.

You heard your phone ping with a text message. You took it out of your bag, wondering who would be texting you at this hour. It was a text from Dougie:

“Thank you again for tonight. You’re an incredible woman. I can’t wait to see you in the morning. x Dougie”

His message made you smile so big that your cheeks hurt. You were smitten.

///

Thankfully, you weren’t due in to the office until 10 the morning after weekday games, because you felt like you slept for maybe an hour. As you were almost done getting ready for the day, your phone pinged with a text from none other than Dougie.

“Hi gorgeous. Stopping for coffee. What can I bring you? :)”

You couldn’t stop smiling. God, he was perfect. You sent him your coffee order, along with a thank you, and continued getting ready. You had just slid your shoes on when you heard a knock at your door. You opened it and there he stood with that heart stopping smile, holding out your coffee for you to take.

As you took it, he bent down and kissed your cheek. “How did you sleep, (y/n)?” You almost didn’t answer, caught up in his smile and the way he says your name. “I hardly slept at all, if we’re being honest.” Saying this, you threw a cheeky little smile in his direction. “But, I’m not mad about it at all,” you added, winking at him.

You start to see a blush rise up on his cheeks and he looks down towards his feet, smiling he entire time, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. You’d never seen him like this before. He was almost bashful. This caused you to smile softy before saying, “we should probably get going.”

///

The car ride to the arena was anything but quiet. You loved talking to Dougie and the feeling was mutual. You brought out a side in him you’d never seen being around him at work. Halfway through the ride, he reached over and grabbed your hand. A warmth washed over here. You loved being around him. There was such a security with him, knowing that if you were his, he’d take care of you always.

///

You had spent the whole week thinking about your upcoming date with Dougie. You could not stop thinking about him. Every second of every hour. You caught yourself sending him quick little texts throughout the day. He came to your office and ate lunch everyday. You couldn’t wait to spend more time with him, away from work.

Thursday finally came. As your workday was coming to a close, your phone buzzed with a text.

Dougie: “Hey beautiful. Roddy let us out early today, so I’m running to get things for dinner tonight. Meet me at my apartment when you’re off?”

You: “I’ll be there. :)”

///

You didn’t even want to go home and change before heading over to Dougie’s. You just wanted to spend as much time with him as possible. There was an away game Sunday, so both of you were off the next day.

You parked outside of his apartment building, shooting him a text before heading up. You were greeted by him at his door. He pulled you in for a tight hug, pulling you into his apartment in the process. With your face against his chest, you breathed it. His scent never got old. You pull away to look back at him. He’s wearing a black t-shirt and slim fit jeans that fit him in the best possible way. God, he’s fit. You were so lost in your thoughts of him that you didn’t realize that he was watching you sum him up. He laughed and closed the gap between you, wrapping you into his arms again.

He brought one of his hands up from you waist to the side of your face, brushing your hair away and tucking it behind your ear. His eyes were intense, like he was deep in thought. After rubbing your cheek with his thumb, he was tired of waiting. He couldn’t handle his desire to be closer to you anymore. He brought your face closer to his, closing the gap between your lips, kissing you with the most intense passion you’d ever felt. He pulled away, that sheepish Dougie grin taking over.

“I’ve been waiting to do that for a while now,” he smiles, forehead still resting on yours.

“Me too,” you chuckle.

///

Watching Dougie in the kitchen was the most attractive thing you’d ever seen. While he was working, you just imagined your life after this moment, with him. Seeing this all of the time.

After making you the most incredible dinner, you guys ended up on his balcony, with a bottle of champagne, giggling like school children, sharing the occasional kiss, him sitting in a chair, you sitting on his lap, one arm around your back, the other resting on your thigh. You were so infatuated with him.

///

You felt yourself begin to get more and more tired. Unable to fight it anymore, you laid your head down on Dougie’s chest, feeling yourself floating between being asleep and being awake, still conscious of where you could feel his skin touching yours.

“I should probably head home,” you say, into his neck, where you’ve nuzzled into him.

“No, no,” you hear him mumble into your hair. “Just stay here. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“I’m not going to kick you out of your bed,” you mumbled, still pressed into his neck, sleepily.

He is getting ready to object when you say, “I’ll stay, but under one condition: you have to stay with me.”

He contemplates for a minute, unsure of if it’s the champagne or the sleep talking, but he just wants to be close to you. Without saying anything, he scoops you up, bridal style, and carries you into his room. Setting you down so that you’re standing in front of his dresser, he pulls out some sweats and a canes t-shirt, handing it to you and kissing you quickly before he leaves the room for you to change. After you’ve changed and thrown your hair into a messy bun, you walk into the kitchen, finding him cleaning up from the dinner you two shared.

You smile to yourself. Eventually, you walked up behind him and wrapped your arms around his waist. You heard him chuckle a bit before turning around and engulfing you into a hug. He ran his hands up and down your back.

“You look nice in my clothes,” he said, examining you, up and down.

You giggled, looking up at him, getting lost in those eyes.

“You ready for bed, gorgeous?”

You nod at him. He takes your hand and you walk with him back into his room. You stand behind him as he pulls the blankets back for the two of you. He gestures for you to lay down and as you do, he covers you up before removing his shirt and walking to the opposite side of the bed.

You turn to face him, finding his bright eyes already studying you. You grin slightly, soaking in all of his features one by one. You reach out and run your hand through his beard, seeing a smile play on his lips as you felt the stubble on your fingertips. Holding eye contact, you could see that his eyes were intense, studying your face more intently than you’d ever seen before.

Seemingly all in one motion, he wrapped his arm around your waist and pulled you into his body, face face only inches from yours. He smiled big before pulling you in for another kiss. Since your first earlier, this was all you had craved. His lips were soft and tender. You felt his hand move to your cheek, pushing your hair back. You deepened the kiss, running your hands into his hair, down his bicep, before stopping at his forearm.

You felt his kiss throughout your entire body. He was electric. All too soon, you pull away to catch your breath. Foreheads still pressed together, you hear him, barely above a whisper, “You are all I’ve thought about for days now, (y/n). You drive me wild in the best way possible. Everything that you are...” he pauses and begins stroking your hair, “is everything that I’ve looked for for so long. You make me want to be the best version of myself. For you. For us.”

His words cascaded over you like velvet. You let them soak into you, hanging onto every word he said. You’re lost looking for words to have the same effect on him that he’s had on you. You decide to kiss him in response to what he’s said.

Things become more heated the longer you two kiss. Hands begin to wander. You feel his large hands run down your back, down to your bottom. After giving you a little squeeze, he runs his hand down to the back of your knee, swiftly pulling you up, so that you were straddling him. You smirked into the kiss before kissing him harder.

///

You woke up to sunlight beaming in on your face with strong arms wrapped around you tight. You felt him brush your neck with his lips.

“Good morning. You are so incredibly beautiful first thing in the morning.”

His raspy, morning voice paired with him mumbling into your neck, made him more attractive, not knowing that that was possible. Being here with him, you knew that you never wanted to do this with anyone else...like ever.

///

You laid there with him for the longest time, listening to the two of you breathe, exchanging secrets in the form of glances. Unknown to you, he was feeling the same way you were. You had never felt this way before and he hadn’t either.

///

You two decided to spend the day together, starting with brunch after a lazy morning spent between the sheets together. You ventured downtown after stopping by your apartment to change out of Dougie’s clothes that you had slept in. You offered them back to him, but he smiled and sheepishly told you to keep them.

Dougie drove you downtown to his favorite brunch spot. As you parked and were walking, he reach for your hand.

“I hope this is okay. Y’know, doing this in public. We really haven’t done that yet.”

You just smiled at him, giving his hand a squeeze to let him know that you didn’t mind.

“It’s great. Really.”

///

You two had the best conversation over brunch, delving deep into topics that you hadn’t yet talked about. After you were done eating, he reached across the table to take your hand, as he’d done before your food arrived, and held eye contact with you, before saying:

“(y/n), I have something to say to you, just because I always want to be upfront with you. I actually don’t know if I could keep anything from you if I tried,” he said with a chuckle.

“Of course you can tell me anything. What’s up?”

“These days with you, since the moment you walked into the arena, I have felt so connected with you. I am so honored that you said yes to spending time with me. You have made me feel like the luckiest man in the world. The way that you look at me is the most incredible feeling, bar none. I’ve never felt this way about anyone, ever, especially in only a few weeks. I think I am falling in love with you, (y/n), and I know that that seems insane but I just want to be open and honest with you.”

You could feel your heart turning flips in your chest. Again, he’d left you speechless. You could feel tears pricking your eyes, but you finally managed to speak.

“Walking into that arena full of men, a large amount being bachelors, my eyes have always been drawn to you. Now that I know you, my heart, my soul, and my body literally crave your presence. Being around you makes me feel alive, makes me feel like a new person. I feel the exact same way about you, Dougie.”

You had avoided his gaze until the last sentence came out of your mouth, but finally connecting your eyes with his, he looked at you like you hung the stars in the sky. There were truly no words that either of you could say to describe your connection with each other.

You felt him squeeze your hand, pulling you from your thoughts about him.

“You ready to get out of here?” he smiles over at you.

///

You two decide to hang out at your apartment for the rest of the day. You’re sitting on the couch, snuggled into his side. It felt safe. You were safe. Dougie was rubbing circles on your hand with his thumb, humming sweet nothings to you. You always thought that your job would be what made you feel the most fulfilled. But, this, this was it. This was what you’d been searching for this whole time.

______________________________

Thank you so much for reading!!! Do you guys want a part 2???

#dougie hamilton #dougie #canes #hurricanes #carolina hurricanes #dougie hamilton x reader #dougie hamilton fic #dougie hamilton imagine #dougie hamilton fanfiction

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carreraleigh · 5 years

Text

The New Girl

Pairing: Raleigh (M) x Hannah (MC)

Words: +3.0K

Rating: G (General)

Summary: Raleigh and MC in chapter 2 (Raleigh's POV)

A/N: Well, this is my first fanfiction of Raleigh and MC! I'm so in love with this new character aka Raleigh so expect to see more fanfics soon! 💗

Tags: @vienroose @nazariortega @queenkaneko @drethanramsey @isabella-choices @lilyofchoices @adricnraines @sinclairemckenzie @attuneless

I'm going to create a special tag list for the fics of this couple, so if you want to continue or be added please tell me!

I'm not a native english speaker so I apologize for advanced errors.

——

Raleigh wanted to be anywhere, except for that place. He had been there since early in the morning, seeing how during the course of the day the lobby, that had been empty, was now filling up with people faster and faster. He didn't understand why he had gone, it was the audition day and he had nothing to do there, of course, apart from standing up and smiling as if he were having fun. His PR team planned everything, according to them, his presence would be "good" for his image and it would show interest in the program, he cursed the day when the yacht news came to light. He was trapped there, waiting for an audition with more than 8,000 people to start and not a chance to escape it. Well, at least he had his guitar next to him to keep him company.

Boredom was about to take hold of him completely when he saw a girl running into the lobby, followed closely by another black-haired girl. The two stopped very close to him, close enough for him to hear their conversation. The black-haired girl was accusing the other one of spying on her during her presentation, but he knew there was no way she could have gotten in on her own, someone had to have put her in. His theory was quickly confirmed when he heard the girl's voice saying that Avery invited her in. Admitting that was a bad idea, he thought. Now, she had become a target for anyone who is obsessed enough with joining the competition, and from the girl's behavior, he was sure that was her first audition. The girl with the black hair said a few last words, furious, and walked out in quick steps towards the exit. The other one stood there, thinking out loud.

“Guess I’m not making any friends.”

Oh no, she was so wrong.

“Where I come from, that’s a good thing.”

The girl turned around and looked at him. Wow, she was more beautiful than he thought she would be. He smiled to her.

“If you aren’t making everyone around you jealous, it means you aren’t worth being jealous of. So in my book, it’s a good sign that girl found you so threatening.”

The girl looked at him for a moment, frowning, still saying nothing. Oh, yes, now he was sure, typical girl who was just starting in the music world, with a heart too pure to know how to swim in a sea full of sharks. For a moment he worried that at some point she would start behaving like a crazy fan and would jump up and yell at him to take a picture with him, but she didn't do it, on the contrary, she just stood there, looking at him, there was no way of knowing exactly what was going through her mind that moment. The more she looked at him, the more he realized how beautiful her eyes were. The girl smiled mischievously and raised an eyebrow.

“Do you find me threatening?” she asked.

It certainly wasn't the answer he expected, she didn't seem like the kind of girl who went on the offensive, but he couldn't say it bothered him, she seemed to have some hope of survival after all.

"Me?" he said almost laughing, looking at her up and down, there was nothing intimidating, not at least not for him, but he knew that under that mask there was a great potential, he could see when someone was exactly like him "Not yet. Maybe I should keep an eye out though.”

The girl smiled for the first time, and Raleigh could swear that it was one of the warmest smiles he had ever seen, she made him smile too. He was more curious than ever, he wanted to know who was the stranger who caught his attention among so many people, and it was the only conversation he had enjoyed since he came to this nightmare, which slowly ceased to look like a punishment with her presence.

"So, what's your name?" he dared to ask.

"I'm Hannah, what's yours?" she replied, he couldn't help but laugh.

"Like Hannah Montana?" he said mockingly, she rolled her eyes.

"I have definitely never heard that joke." she said in a sarcastic tone and looked at him again, as if she was waiting for him to say something else "You didn't answer my question, what's your name?"

Was she serious?

"Very funny." he smiled.

"Very funny. That's a weird name. So are you gonna tell me or not?"

Funny but demanding at the same time. This girl was full of surprises.

"Huh. You really don't know who I am, do you?" he was starting to like this game.

She saw Hannah open her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by voices that were heard all over the lobby.

"OH. MY. GOD. IS THAT RALEIGH CARRERA?"

Several girls approached him quickly, he sighed and grabbed his head in his hands. It was the first time after so many tours and concerts that he had the chance to talk to someone who wouldn't jump at his feet or scream when they saw him, he liked the idea of being able to have a quiet conversation with someone, many times more than wanting, he needed it, it made him feel more connected to the earth. After all, he was just a human like everyone else. Hannah looked at him with a confused face, as if trying to figure out exactly what the girls who were now surrounding him everywhere were referring to. She took a step to the side before the fans surrounded him completely, he followed her footsteps with his eyes, expecting for her to leave, but she didn’t.

"RALEIGH. I LOVE YOU. LOOK! LOOK AT MY ANKLE!"

He put on the best smile his face allowed and looked at the girl's ankle, which had his face embodied in her skin. Raleigh had seen a lot of crazy things that fans did, but he didn't know exactly how to react to the fact that a person has his face tattooed on their ankle.

"Wow. That, uh..." he tried to articulate the words "That sure is a tattoo of my face." he didn't know whether to feel flattered or terrified "Kid, I hope that's temporary."

"NO! IT'S PERMANENT! IT TOOK TWELVE HOURS, AND IT HURT SO BAD!" the girl was still screaming, excited. Before she could say anything, another girl started talking.

"CAN I GET A SELFIE? OR AN AUTOGRAPH? OR-"

As much as he liked spending time with fans, he thought that wasn't the proper way to approach him. Besides, she still had Hannah in mind, who was still watching the scene without saying a word, and Raleigh was surprised that she hadn't left yet.

"Nah. I'm good.” he said.

"N-no? What do you mean-"

"Means, I'm busy having a conversation with Hannah here..." he fixed his gaze on her and saw how a shy smile formed on her lips "Y'all have a good one."

The fans looked at each other and then began to move towards the exit, clearly disappointed. Hannah approached him again, her face changed to an angry expression, and he knew exactly what she was thinking.

"Whoa, that was harsh!”

A girl who wasn't afraid to say what she thought even though she knew who he was. He liked that.

"Why did you blow them off?" her face fell "They just wanted one picture.”

Raleigh thought well of the next words he was going to say. It was obvious that he had behaved like a total idiot and that she had been uncomfortable with his reaction, but he didn’t regret it.

"Everyone always wants something.”

"Well, you certainly live up to your reputation as a jerk.”

He didn't take it as an offense, he liked it that she told him. He had forgotten the last time someone said something they thought directly to his face. Honesty was a value that hardly existed in that industry, he was tired of people licking his boots and telling him how good he was when he was really behaving like an idiot.

“Oh, so you do know who I am?”

“I’ve heard your songs,” she admitted “and now that I put your face to the name, I know I’ve seen the tabloid covers too.” low blow, he thought “You’re kind of notorious, Raleigh Carrera.”

Every word that came out of her mouth was like discovering something new about her, perhaps he had judged her too soon. He didn't know what her ability for music was, but the attitude she had was one of the reasons he would choose her if he was on the jury that day. He wondered what it would be like to see her sing on stage, would she be shy and sweet?, would she be dominant and badass?, or would she break under the pressure?, her voice took him out of his thoughts again.

“What’d that magazine call you again? R&B’s timebomb? Puerto Rico’s hottest export?” she was laughing, it was obvious that she was teasing him “I’m used to your hair being longer.”

“My crisis PR team made me get a cut. Going for a more responsible image.” he smiled mischievously “You like it?”

Raleigh knew that he had barely met her, but he couldn't help but feel a certain spark between the two of them, he hadn't spoken so freely to anyone in a long time and it was noticeable that he enjoyed her company because suddenly his head wasn't full of idiotic comments that could make her angry and leave.

“Why did you hire a crisis…” he noticed how she deflected the question “Oh. Right. Didn’t you crash a yacht or something?”

“Or something.” it was obvious that his reputation was something that followed him everywhere “Insurance paid out a couple million in property damage, but it’s all good.” he took one hand to his hair and smiled “I go off with community service. The judge was a fan.”

"Just community service?" she seemed to question her answer "That's so cool." her brow frowned automatically “Every day I read about rich, famous people breaking the law and getting off scot-free.” her eyes had a fire he hadn't seen before “The justice system in this country is broken.”

"You're kidding? It's total bull." he leave aside the jokes for a moment and was honest "Just go to show how fake everyone is.” he wondered if she was that kind of person, and begged with all his strength that she might not be "My team's got me on this PR tour to clean up my image Volunteering, kissing babies, TV appearances- "

“That’s why you’re here?” she interrupted him “You’re one of the mentors?”

“I wouldn’t make much of a mentor.” the truth was that he thought it would be a disaster “But I’m judging for the finals next week.” Raleigh waited her answer with a smile.

"Well..." she began "It's good that you're giving back."

"Sure, but does count if I'm faking it?" he laughed, she shook her head and laughed too, for some reason she felt he could be transparent with her.

“If you act like the best, kindest possible version of yourself… that’s what you’ll become, right?”

“So you’re a singer and a philosopher?”

She chuckled “I think all the best songs have a philosophy behind them, don’t you?”

Raleigh felt like his whole body was pushing him directly towards her. He started noticing every detail of her face, her hair, her gestures, the way she stood up, he tried to read her but couldn't, she was totally unpredictable and that made his head spin trying to figure out what she would say next. It was strange for him, he had not felt that kind of attraction to someone for a long time and found it in the least expected place, now more than ever he wanted her to stay, he knew that if she didn’t get the spot he would never see her again, and at this point she already had his attention too much to let her go.

"Next up… contestant #9276!"

He looked at the number Hannah had on her clothes.

"Sounds like you're up."

"Oh my god!" she began to panic "Just let me get my-"

Hannah began to turn her head around looking for the one thing she lacked for her performance, her guitar. Raleigh followed her movements with his eyes and watched as she quickly approached a seat, where a totally damaged guitar lay.

"I'm guessing a half-strung guitar isn't your gimmick" he said mockingly, but he regretted it as soon as the words came out of his mouth. Looking at her face, it was obvious that she wasn’t planning to play it.

"This is my nightmare." she said, he could see how her eyes began to water.

It was obvious that someone sabotaged her, perhaps the black-haired girl who had previously been arguing with her. A few tears began to fall from her cheek and he felt the urgent need to stop them, he might be an idiot, but she didn't deserve what was happening to her. Her personality captivated him and he was curious to find out if her talent would have the same effect on him. He looked at the guitar he brought with him, it was the first time he felt like he really wanted to do something good without expecting anything in return.

“Come on, Hannah. All you gotta do is ask.”

"Ask what?" she wiped the few tears that had fallen, her expression was now serious, you could say even confused.

"To use mine." he said, grasping the guitar next to him and extending his arms for her to grasp.

Her panicked face returned "This costs more than my life!”

"Cost? No clue about that. Prince gave it to me as a birthday present years ago.”

“Prince gave you this guitar?" Hannah opened her mouth completely, she looked cute when she made those facial expressions "Raleigh, I can't. What if I break it?"

"Nah, you're not gonna break it. It's sturdy. Here. Try.”

He extended the hand holding the guitar towards her again, he could see the doubt in her eyes. After a moment she smiled and took the guitar, and he felt her fingers touching his, the two looked at each other with a smile. Hannah tried the guitar and by the way she grabbed it and played, Raleigh realized she was really good.

“Oh, wow. This sounds phenomenal, and it’s not even plugged in.” her smile vanished again “Still, I couldn’t live with myself if I accidentally wrecked your guitar.”

“Look, just take it.” he said without giving it any importance “Besides, I wouldn’t mind an excuse to run into you again.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she said excitedly “I won’t let you down. Or destroy your guitar.��

“Relax.” he said, feeling as if his cheeks had warmed up a little “Get in there.”

Hannah gave him one last smile and entered the auditorium. He entered through the next door leading to the seats, could see Hannah getting on stage, clearly more nervous than before. Her eyes fell on him as she walked to the center of the stage, and he indicated that everything was fine by raising his thumbs up. He could see how her body relaxed a little more after that gesture. She began to speak in the microphone, but he felt his cell phone vibrating inside his pockets, so he took advantage of that time to check the messages that had come to him all day.

It wasn't long before a soft melody flooded the room. Raleigh raised his head quickly, almost in shock, and saw her behind the microphone. Hannah was smiling confidently as she sang and played the guitar with ease, moving her body back and forth slowly to the rhythm of the song. He felt all his senses were now focused on her, and his heart began to beat a little faster. Her voice was undoubtedly one of the best he had ever heard, the notes were in place and the lights in the auditorium made her look even more beautiful from where he was, almost like an angel signing a song for them. Their eyes met in the middle of the song and he could see the intensity with which she looked at him, as if through the music could say millions of things that couldn’t be said out loud. Raleigh knew that music could arouse all kinds of emotions, but that was the first time he had felt that way, it was as if he could sit and listen to her singing for hours. Everything about her attracted him, she had a unique personality, she was unpredictable, she was not afraid to say what she thought, or to take what she wanted. She was sweet but at the same time demanding, and she had a talent that would embarrass even the greatest musicians who at that moment were outside earning money by singing with auto-tune and repeating the same words a thousand times.

When the song ended, she couldn't stop smiling. He knew one of the mentors was going to choose her, there was no possibility of her being left out after such performance. If it was him, he would have chosen her the moment she started the first sentence of the song without hesitating or thinking twice. And it wasn't just because he was attracted to her, but because really, with all the things he had seen, she had everything she needed to become a star. The inspiration he had found in her was undeniable, and without a doubt he would have written for her a few paragraphs of a song if he had a pencil and a piece of paper at the time. She came down on stage and he followed her behind the curtains. Her smile was big and her eyes were filled with tears of happiness. He approached her with a smile.

"You looked pretty good up there. You just might be the real deal."

"Sure hope so. Thanks for letting me use your guitar.”

He remembered how beautiful that guitar looked on her in stage. There was no way he could get his guitar back without thinking about her every time he looked at it.

"You know what, I think you two belong together. Keep it.”

"You're giving me this guitar? But it was a gift! From Prince!” her eyes opening wildly.

"Yeah, when I was an up-and-comer. And now I'm paying it forward to a new one..." he lied, he had not intended to give her his guitar, at least not until that moment. Also, he liked the idea of her having something to remember him by.

"O- OKay," she said unsure.

"See you later." Raleigh said.

"Yeah," she said with a sweet smile "See you later.”

By the time Raleigh arrived again, he could see Hannah smiling happily next to Avery on the stage, a sense of pride and relief invading every part of his body. He had not erred in believing in her talent, and he was sure that she was destined for great things. But best of all, from now, the two of them would be able to share more moments together, or at least that was what he expected. After a speech he obviously didn't pay attention to because his eyes were still focused on the new girl who had awakened something in him, he saw everyone leaving the auditorium. He began to move with the people and for a moment found himself back with her, who was still on stage.

"Congrats. Hope you can handle the spotlight." he said with a satisfied smile, and closed the doors behind him.

Raleigh couldn't stop smiling, and if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that she was going to be trouble for him for the rest of the competition.

#raleigh carrera #raleigh x mc #platinum #choices platinum #choices pt #poeticscolt fanfic

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raleigh-ocean · 4 years

Text

the originals & valentine’s day | headcanons

Dara Ann Lynch

Billie couldn’t get her eyes off Dara, not today at least, but she had the feeling that she wouldn’t be able even if she was forced to. Her lover was searching for something in the wardrobe, clad in that flowery silk robe she had always owned and only that; her tattoos on display, thighs as well and even her scar was nothing compared to the beauty of the rest of her body; sporting again her hair short, disheveled from spending a day in bed with Billie; and then she singsang happily a ‘gotcha!’ and turned around with a tiny envelop in her hands.

“Close your eyes, honey,” and Billie looked at her like ‘do I really have to’ while sitting up in bed, which gained her a smirk and then the cutest pout ever, making her comply but open her arms so Dara could get in them, sitting in her lap. Which it was what the woman did automatically, having Billie’s arms circling her. “Was it that difficult, mhm? Okay, in the count of three. Three, two, one...”

When Billie opened her eyes, chin resting in Dara’s shoulder and caressing with her thumbs her belly over the robe, the tiny envelop was in reality a tiny velvet box. Open now, there was a metal pendant with a black stone - a black tourmaline - in between strings to hold it in place in the middle of it. “I know you don’t do the ‘stupid crystal stuff’ but...I have a friend that do handmade things with them, pulling a favor they owed me I got them to teach me and tada!” Billie lifted her hand so she could take it from the box by the silver chain attached to it. “Do you like it...?”

And Billie can only kiss Dara because she doesn’t even have words to say how much she likes it, loves it; she doesn’t know what to do to surpass this gift and, on top of all, she doesn’t want her lover to see how she actually teared up. Her chest is roaring, so loud that her heart hurts a bit, and when they finally broke the kiss the only thing Billie did was to press her forehead softly against’s Dara’s.

“Will you help me with the clasp, my Valentine?” she whisper softly, afraid to give away she’s really moved with the gesture.

She doesn’t need to say another word, because as soon Dara’s done, she can catch how full of love her lover’s eyes are filled with. And maybe Billie’s mind made up and making love to her once more was the best option, that sweet ol’ good love making.

At least it would give her time to rethink what to get her, because her now ‘lame’ plan of buying her a rose and inviting her for dinner sounded too little, too little for someone that deserved all the red roses Billie could buy in California and all the stars in the universe.

She was very much afraid of saying those three words Dara wanted to hear but let her take her time with, eight years already since they were together, but upon seeing how Dara’s eyes lit up in that way that made her younger later in the night when she gave her a whole bucket of roses...maybe, maybe, it made her feel that oh so awaited day was about to arrive.

Adriana Girardi

Sally has a hard time around these dates, who could blame her? But what she did not expect was for someone to get it worse than her.

When she had come downstairs, she couldn’t find an explanation of why Elizabeth had come down from her own room to the bar. But then she looked a bit better just to see how Adriana was all dressed up, days without actually doing so and just wearing sweatpants, with what it looked some really fancy clothes out of the 30s, her hair styled the same way and making Sally to picture her right there.

She was drinking from a tall champagne glass, as did Elizabeth, and then is when Sally managed to see that Adri was holding a dark blue velvet box in her free hand, dancing softly to the rhythm of the jukebox she managed to save in an auction.

“Every twenty years, she does that,” Elizabeth spoke up, hearing the silent question of her fellow ghost. “It’s a tradition already. She gets drunk on champagne and dance on her own for as long as she’s standing up, holding to the box she never gave her,” and her voice is not full of snark, there’s only a softness Sally’s sure she never heard in her. “My girl got it bad, Valentine makes her miserable...yet she manage to hold up to see another twenty years.”

Sally knew mere bits of Adriana’s life, but through the years together in the Cortez, she managed to catch as much as knowing her friend had lost someone so important that totally wrecked her. They stood there until Elizabeth had to pull her friend to sit in a couch nearby and Sally decided to sit by her side, full knowing Adriana wasn’t remotely sober enough to talk probably. But she stick to her, letting Elizabeth know she got her even when she was watching over from a corner of the bar. Adriana didn’t even muttered a word, she just sat there in silence and moving her arm just to keep the champagne getting in her system.

Worrisome? Of course, but rare? Not at all. She had watched the afflicted drink two whole bottles of vodka without blinking an eye, so this wasn’t weird at all. However, Sally was sad and needy and the question popped out of her when she saw how Adri managed to focus her eyes in something else that wasn’t her glass.

“Do you think someone will gift you something again?” it was a rude mumble, but it got the reaction of having her blink and look at her. “Today, I mean...I don’t think I’ll ever will anymore.”

And Adriana seemed to restart her whole being, like she really saw how from behind the drunk haze, something moved. And then her voice came out as steady as you can be after like ten champagne glasses.

“You wait here, okay? Don’t move, don’t you even dare, I’ll know,” her voice was so fucked up, but Sally stayed where she was. “Promise? Pinky promise.”

The only thing for Sally to do to let Adriana go was to accept her pinky. Then she set off somewhere, making Elizabeth to get in panic because she couldn’t be able to follow her, taking in count Adri was pretty much alive and could leave the Hotel as she pleased...which was what she always did, getting everyone worried.

However when she came back, a big box in her arms and a paper pocking out of her back pocket, Sally was too focused in her phone to notice her. Elizabeth’s features relaxed visibly but also she lifted an eyebrow in confusion. Under the surprised gaze of Elizabeth and Liz, Adri managed to stand up on a chair behind Sally and then...

...she started to shake the now open box to make a petal shower start to fall lightly over Sally. The woman looked up to her, between the tears and the petals, to see the dorkiest smirk in the other woman’s lips and when she ran out of petals, she jumped off the chair to look directly at her before handing Sally the paper.

“What’s this...?” Sally mumbled, finding out it was a card. In the front there was something very bad drawn, maybe could be a cat or a skateboard or a tree or maybe a Picasso, who knows, but when Sally opened the card...well, she couldn’t help but laugh out loud, more tears running down her cheeks. “You’re such a dork, smarty pants.”

“If someone deserves to have a good Valentine is you,” Adriana put her hands in her own hips. “So I’m genie for you, girl, what do we do today?”

Sally couldn’t help but stand up and hug tightly her best friend. From that year onwards, every Valentine’s Day Adri would gift her a card with the corniest pick up line, styled with Adriana’s illegally beautiful handwriting inside and illegally awful draw on the front, but Sally would always put the one she gifted her that year (the one with ‘Well, here I am. What are your other two wishes?’) as her favourite of them all.

Adriana could hate Valentine’s Day with her all, think that she didn’t deserve anything, but seeing Sally enjoying...maybe that was enough for her. And Sally didn’t waste her last wish, because deep in her she knew one day she will need it to save her best friend...save her from herself.

Raleigh Ocean

“Did you really used our son as your Cupid?”

Wilhemina tapped the floor softly with her cane, drawing Raleigh’s attention from her laptop. Her wife was all cuddled in bed, glasses perched in her nose, and tired expression in her features. For sure that year didn’t start well, Raleigh still recovering from her breakdown in early January, but that day proved that there was a minimal chance that she was getting better. Raleigh quirked her lips ever so briefly, putting a hand to her lips and faking feeling offended.

“What are you implying, miss Venable? I would totally never do something so atrocious,” her voice was a bit monotonous, as usual these days, but Wilhemina heard the joking tint laced. “What’s a God to a non believer? If Cupid wanted to show up and do their thing, I have nothing to do with it.”

She closed the door behind her softly, shaking her head a bit. Eric, their nine years old son, had spent the day delivering tiny boxes with chocolates to those who were his family. Queenie, Zoe and Mallory, Madison, an scandalized Coco, Rhiannon and Victoria, and a delighted Misty (even a confused Kyle) had received the tiny gifts from the kid gladly. But when he had showed up to Cordelia and Wilhemina’s office, delivering the final part to both women, she had known her wife was behind everything.

Who used chili powder with homemade chocolate if it wasn’t Raleigh?

Cordelia, the old sap, had hugged Eric and thanked him right away, Wilhemina was sure she even teared up because she was like that. But she had seen how her kid didn’t get close to her afterwards, indulging in how his godmother was loving him, and she could see how he was hiding something in his hoodie. Oh how surprised Eric was when Mina asked him with a soft smirk if he was sent by his mother, which made Cordelia to look scandalized for a second but then Eric had put that lost puppy face that gave every lie away and she just knows. Eric quickly makes his way to her, kissing her cheek before she can catch him, and leaving her chocolates and something that looked very much like a book.

“Also that would mean you are Venus and I Mars,” Wilhemina reach for the bed and seats on the edge of it close to her wife. “Or maybe the other way around? Oh, that would be so romantic of you, but you forget that I’m a simple mortal upon your magnificence and not a God, as much as you repeat every so often.”

“Nerd,” it’s the only thing she can say before leaning to capture Ray’s lips with her own, getting a big kiss in return and a delighted hum.

“Not as big as you, mi reina,” and Ray looks at her directly in the eyes after pushing her glasses up in her head to rest, her tone ever so soft overwhelming the automatic one she has these days. “Did you liked your gift?”

And Mina couldn’t help but chuckle, looking at the copy of ‘The Merchant of Venice’ that she has in her lap right now. Pocking from the pages there’s a bookmark and she takes it so they both can look at it. Written in Raleigh’s hurried handwriting, there’s a date and a ‘would you like to take a walk with me?’, and before taking the bookmark out it was marking a bit of the sixth scene in the second act. Wilhemina memorized it, taking to her heart all that.

‘Beshrew me but I love her heartily, For she is wise, if I can judge of her, And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true, And true she is, as she hath proved herself. And therefore, like herself, wise, fair, and true, Shall she be placèd in my constant soul.’

“I hope this means we are taking a walk to the French quarter,” and Ray placed her laptop in the free side of the bed to be more comfortable, sitting with her back to the headboard and lacing her fingers with Mina’s. “And not actually flying to Italy.”

“If that’s what I wanted to mean, don’t you think I would have gifted you ‘All's Well That Ends Well’ or ‘King Lear’?” they both end up chuckling to that, because every surprise with Raleigh has a meaning in her perfect way. “I thought we deserved this, only us...but mostly you.”

“Little Cupid isn’t coming?” there’s a hint of worry in Mina’s voice but she’s now climbing to the bed, hearing the door getting magically locked.

“I got an A plus babysitter for that,” Raleigh was welcoming her wife with open arms, holding her close to her body and kissing slowly from her shoulder through her neck and her lips again. “This means we have a date?”

“Let me give you an answer later, I’m not really sure about it yet,” and the teasing tone in Wilhemina’s already means a big yes, but they know how to drag everything just for the sake of it.

“Oh, definitely you are Venus, how whipped you have Mars.”

That’s the last thing Raleigh says, because now both are too busy to think or say anything more. Having a bit of intimacy after weeks feels great, the thought of spending time away from their daily lives even better, but what makes Wilhemina feel that everything is finally moving forward again.

And overall, that her wife still had that soul that drew her in eigthteen years ago in a pub in Los Angeles, strong enough to make her move across the country barely a few days after they said ‘hello’.

Karina Sväre

Lana felt herself wanting to laugh, because this was truly something else. Well, she actually didn’t expect anything to begin with, but she couldn’t really picture Karina to do that.

Again, they’ve been off for a few years, but a couple months ago Lana had broken up with the girl she had been seeing for a couple years. It didn’t pain her that much, not this time at least, but after a few days of recovery she had showed up in Karina’s doorsteps with an invitation to get coffee and a couple new books she was sure her dearest friend didn’t have in her bookshelves.

Karina had welcomed her to her new home...and also her work space. She couldn’t say she was surprised when she had told Lana about what she wanted to do, to help all those girls and kids in need of a home, but what surprised her was that today the living room of Karina’s home had been decorated with some stuff to make it look thematic.

“Sorry,” a little voice came from behind her and when Lana turned around, a girl barely twelve was waiting with a cat in her arms to walk in the living room. “Aunt is in the kitchen, if you are looking for her.”

“Oh, thank you very much,” she didn’t even took off her coat, just walking towards where Karina was, in words of that little girl.

And when she arrived there, Karina was hand in hand with an older girl mixing something in a big bowl. Something twitched in her brain for a second, taking a better look to her lover and then...

“I can’t believe you cut your hair...that short, oh my.”

Karina turned her face enough to catch the surprise in Lana’s face, feeling how her ears were getting red and warm really fast. She was sporting an garçon haircut, her ever so black hair barely having white hairs here and there, which was a truly surprise because she had spent ten years growing her hair along the hippie movement. Lana couldn’t say she wasn’t a bit sad, mostly because she loved brushing with her fingers Karina’s hair, enjoying how soft was...but this new change suited her.

“Oh shut it,” was the first response she got from the woman, who was now gesturing the girl to leave it to her. The girl chuckled but complied, closing the door after her and leaving the two women alone. “Are you gonna give me a hand or should I kneel and ask, princess?”

That earned her a soft push to her shoulder before Lana took off her coat, leaving it in a chair from the tiny kitchen along her bag. And when Lana took the spoon from her hand, Karina kissed her shoulder with love.

“So this is what are we doing this year?” Lana smiled at the gesture, starting to mix the chocolate batter. “Spending Valentine’s at home instead of going to our favourite restaurant?”

“I thought it would help Carla and Vivien to adjust, being together with people,” Karina whispered, rubbing her ear a bit and getting the freckled skin there red. “I don’t know, maybe with this we make Georgie to come out of her room...” Karina sighed and looked at Lana with the shadow of a smile in her lips. “And I’m baking your favourite chocolate cake, so don’t complain.”

Oh, Lana won’t ever do that, as much as she liked to tease her lover here and there. Honestly, she kinda loved staying at home for once, being able to spend time in a space where they were safe. And, well, she had to admit that ever since Karina started her home for youth, it was more difficult to see where to make time to spend it together idly. That and Lana’s show getting that famous.

“Aw, you only bake my favourite cake when you...” then she realized that Karina was looking away, her hand in her pocket. “When you want me to stay for more than one night.”

“I’ve been having nightmares again and I thought...that maybe you could stay for a few days, if it’s okay with-”

And Lana didn’t let her finish the sentence, because she would say ‘yes’ a thousand times and more, without a doubt. She leant to capture Karina’s lips with her own, having missed her all that time they were apart, and then pressed her forehead to Karina’s so she could look at her eyes better. It always amazed Lana how green could be her eyes, but at the same time have gold and hazel around to bring it out.

“Of course it is, but you’ll have to lend me some clothes for the day, Nina,” was the only thing she said before going back to the task Karina asigned her.

“Yeah...” Karina was now beet red, fumbling with whatever she had in her pocket, and then her hand was in front of Lana’s view. “I got you this, by the way...I know it’s not much, but, well...”

When Lana opened her eyes, with the sweet memory fading as the make-up girl finished the last touches for the interview, her eyes went first to Marion and then to the ring in her left middle finger, an old golden band with a tiny green agate in the middle.

How could nothing meant so much?

That’s what she thought, taking in count the tiny chaos that was her old mind in that moment. A new Valentine and she was going to spend it giving an interview,..the interview in which she would tell the whole truth finally. How much she wished to not even be there, but the only thing she promised herself was to get through it and maybe, after dinner, she would indulge in calling Karina.

Telling her what she did during the day and maybe remind her about that Valentine’s day around mid eighties in which Karina almost made her stay forever by her side.

Danna Bishop

“And now, we will need a volunteer for the next trick, would someone in the crowd give us a hand?”

Ally couldn’t help but laugh at her fianceé’s antics, watching Danna faking to doubt who to pick out of none int the living room. Ozzy was with her, clad in a tuxedo almost identic as Danna’s, doing the same crowd searching until Ally raised her hand innocently. They both faked a surprised gasp and then Danna offered Ally her hand.

“The pretty lady in the front, please, come here,” Danna winked at Ally, making her giggle once again and they laced fingers almost immediately, matching rings meeting with a soft clink. “Now! I need my assistant to bring the deck, because we’ll get this lovely woman’s card!”

When Oz was off the retrieve the deck, somewhere in the kitchen, Danna took advantage to kiss the ‘volunteer’ all big and eager.

This was the first time in three weeks they had been able to relax, taking in count Ally’s new campaign was starting, so at least having a moment to breath was good. But Danna had differently ideas of what a ‘moment to breath’ meant, which went along the line of what they were doing now instead of the old ‘let’s have wine after dinner and maybe we can cuddle and then not cuddle?’. She always thought of the bigger picture, the bigger and unexpected picture that kept Ally’s life to get a boring turn.

And she loved that...and the way the tuxedo fit her in the right places, but that was another story.

When Ozzy finally made his way back, Roberto was following him with a tiny bow tie in his collar. The too tiny and maybe a bit ugly old chihuahua quickly made his way towards his humans, making Ally pick him up as soon as he was by her side and kiss his head lovingly. Danna smiled widely when Ozzy went to her with this big card deck, too big even for doing tricks, and Ally looked at them with somewhat of curiosity peaking out from her eyes.

“I’ll need you to pull a card and I’ll try to guess it,” she offered the deck and as soon as Ally touched one card, she knew it was handmade because of the paper. “C’mon hurry, hurry, magic waits for none.”

“Okay, love, just,” she laughed, supporting Roberto in her shoulder a bit while flipping the card to read whatever was there or see whatever drawing it had. But what she encountered wasn’t hearts, clovers, spades or diamonds; it was something completely different. “Wait, what’s this?”

“I don’t know, what is it?” oh, when Danna played dumb she got this softer look in her eyes and the goofiest grin on ever.

The ‘card’ displayed a few plant details here and there and in the middle, with elegant font, there was a tiny message. An invitation, well, it looked more like a reservation for a few days in a spa...in Los Angeles. It started to raise too many doubts in Ally the second she read it all, but then Danna put her hands in her face to make her look directly at her eyes.

“Danielle’s gonna watch over Oz so we can have some time alone, and she even agreed to take in Bobito too,” Danna smiled at Roberto, which had his tiny head all cuddled in Ally’s neck. “I got the flights, have the money aside for it, schedules, everything so you don’t have to worry about anything but enjoy.”

“But what about...”

“Mom, let mama take you in vacation, it’s a surprise! You always wanted to do that!” Ozzy took Roberto from Ally’s arms easily before stepping back a bit so he could watch them with a huge grin on. “And Damien told me they will show me a really cool comic store, so please let’s go!”

And when Ally only nodded with the softest ‘okay, we’ll go’, words stuck in her throat, Ozzy cheered and ran to his room leaving both Ally and Danna in the living room, speechless. Every second in silence passed with a heaviness and then a sob broke it. Ally got startled because it didn’t come from her, which was a surprise, and her eyes went to Danna. She was trying to press the heels of her hands in her eyes, trying to stop the fat tears running down her cheeks somehow.

“Ally, he called me mama,” something inside Ally vibrated with new strenght, enough to feel like she was able to fly in that moment, when Danna managed to say something without looking at her. “Fuck, he called me...fuck...”

It was supposed to be Valentine’s day, but right after Ozzy did that, that day was one of the most important for both Ally and Danna and not because of something any of them did for each other. They would go to the spa, for sure, they would have a blast there and Ozzy would enjoy his stay with Danielle, Damien and Audrey as much as if he was with them...

...but for the day, Ally was trying to not cry herself to death because her son gifted them two the prove that this was working out really well.

Dahlia Deen

Her body felt like she was going to break in a million pieces.

Dahlia had a while without feeling like that, but it was a good feeling this time. Well, good feeling, more like this time she was grateful of feeling like that instead of wanting to pull her hair out in a maniac tired rage. She barely managed to fall backwards in the bed, letting go a ‘ufhg’ when her column relocated after the whole day.

She wasn’t the best at building furniture, okay? Indeed, she had to check too many times the manuals to build it correctly, but she managed to do it with patience and a phone call to her dad when Shelby had went out to buy some sandwiches. But there was some kind of relief knowing that she managed to do something like that, taking in count they didn’t have much time before they arrived.

“You should take a shower, Li,” Dahlia had her eyes closed and hummed in response upon hearing Shelby’s voice. “You’ll feel better.”

“I don’t think I can get there By,” a soft laugh got out of her chest more than her throat, making her feel her joints hurt with the slight movement. “Do I even have bones and muscles?”

“Of course you do! Turn around and take off your shirt,” and Dahlia complied, because Shelby could tell her she wanted her to jump in the ocean and she would do right away. She didn’t mind at all, she indeed loved that part of them as a couple because Dahlia trusted in her wife with all she got.

Dahlia couldn’t see Shelby because her face was pressed to their pillow, not caring a single bit about her glasses getting a bit smashed by doing that, but she did feel her climbing in the bed and then straddling her like that. Groaning softly because of that, loving how Shelby’s weight pressed her body against the bed, and then giggled when the wet ends of her hair dropped some water droplets in her bare back. Shelby’s hands, sweetly cold, started to work and her fingers pressed in those spots her wife always had trouble with, doing wonders.

“The fact that you have healing hands is distracting me of the fact you are just in bathrobe sitting on my ass, you know?” Dahlia mumbled, turning her head enough to rest better in the pillow and Shelby laughed, leaning to press soft kisses down her spine. “Miss Deen, you’re such a tease.”

“Ah, am I, miss Deen?” they both laughed at that and Shelby pressed her fingers right in the base of Dahlia’s head to ease the knot there, earning a soft moan. “And having you strip like the easiest thing what makes you?”

A fool in love with an angel. Dahlia thought, keeping it for herself and just chuckling as a response. Things like this reminded her why they were together, why they decided to fight for each other and keep going, now with new rules, new feelings and new old heart.

Shelby kept massaging Dahlia with care, touching here and there as she knew. It was the least she could do, after being all day working around the house. It was easy to love Dahlia, she was caring and soft and too good for anyone in this world. Sometimes she wondered how Dahlia kept on loving her, many of them she wanted to ask her, but she knew it was something that her wife kept close to her heart. Focused on the task, Shelby barelly noticed how Dahlia had relaxed enough to start breathing deep and slow, falling asleep deeply.

“Happy Valentine’s day, dearie,” Shelby always felt calm when they were together, Dahlia always making her feel at ease and not on the verge of a violent outburst of unspoken feelings. She leant with care, leaving a kiss in the back of her head and then behind her ear, whispering her next words while taking off her glasses. “I love you more than words can say.”

At that, however, something unexpected happened. Shelby didn’t have time to climb down from the bed nor from her wife, because Dahlia turned around to place herself between her legs and over her, making her circle her waist with them thanks to that. Then she took advantage of the new position to kiss her fully on the lips, deep and calm as the ocean Dahlia was so afraid of.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get you anything, or cook you something nice for dinner,” Dahlia managed to sound small and shy in such position, kissing Shelby’s neck slowly in between words. “It’s no excuse, I know, but...”

“It’s okay Li, I prefer you loving me all year long than showing me one only day that,” Shelby chuckled breathlessly at that, getting turned on as the seconds and kisses went by, her hands finding their right places at Dahlia’s nape while her wife loosened her bathrobe. “Also, you already gave me the greatest gift...”

And when Dahlia looked up at Shelby, which was a bit blurry because without glasses she was blind as a mole, she could discern the soft redness in her blue eyes. Something in her chest swelled up, all warm, sweet and maybe a bit scary...but the good one of scary, that type which made you be more excited and make your tummy churn for it.

That’s why they’ve spent the day reforming their shared office, building bunk beds and accomodating everything so the new lives they were gonna receive would be comfortable. It took a lot of hard work, a lot of thinking, a lot of everything so they finally were ready to be foster parents.

If there was one thing Shelby still wanted was to be a mom, but the only thought of getting pregnant again scared her to death and Dahlia didn’t want her to go through that again, and also she wasn’t sure she was ready to give birth now...or never. So adoption was the next thing they thought and then, well, there they were.

“You’re gonna be an amazing mother, By,” it was time for Dahlia to be breathless, pressing a new kiss to Shelby’s forehead. “I saw you with my nephews and nieces, you truly...glow. Even with the oldest, and you know how is Eva with her things.”

Shelby wanted to say something else, but she was moved by Dahlia’s words. It was going to be hard, that for sure, but she believed they were meant for this. They had overcome too many bumps in the road, they were in a place where they had been able to heal...and it was about time to take a new step in their lives.

Leah and Johnny were in their way, and Dahlia and Shelby were going to give them the home they deserved.

But for now, still childless, Shelby let herself drown in Dahlia’s presence and warm arms. She would have to shower again, that was for sure, but as soon as her wife had her hands on her, fingers caressing in the right places...well, let’s say Shelby knew her ocean arrived to swallow her whole.

Gabrielle Summers

Winter looked up to the doorframe once again, encountering another little bundle of mistletoe of all things tied up there. Annoyingly, she looked around to see if her girlfriend was somewhere to be seen and then jumped to take it off, not wanting the glue to ruin the wood and having their landlord make them pay for reparation.

Seriously, it was the seventh mistletoe she took off around the apartment and the place wasn’t that big! They weren’t even in Christmas, why was there mistletoe to begin with!?

And when she got to the kitchen, there were fake spiders with candies attached from Halloween here and there, making Winter to rub her forehead and sigh deeply before going to get all those things off...and maybe eat the candies while she was at it.

At times Winter didn’t know why Gabrielle was that way, but as she was cleaning the corridor from more spiders, mistletoe and...were those petals? she thanked to be with her in that tiny apartment in Queens. Indeed, she was very thankful of having such lovely idiot loving her every day, without a fail, because at the end of the day Gabrielle was her idiotic heroine, and that wouldn’t change for the rest of their lives.

Getting used to live without fear was...an experience, to be completely honest. But Winter still got nervous when things around her started to happen all of a sudden, per example, how their stupid apartment was decorated in all those things from different festivities.

However, when she opened the bathroom door, she felt herself loosen the grip she had over all the things she had been picking up to drop it in the tile floor. Feeling how her mouth opened a bit, speechless, Winter tried to wrap her head around the fact that her too tall girlfriend was barely fitting in the small bathtub they had, legs handling from one edge and over the other near the wall. There were more petals here and there and Gabrielle smiled widely at her, as if she wasn’t being so effortlessly sexy doing such stupid thing.

For some reason, Winter loved every weird stupid thing Gabrielle did.

“About time, Winnie,” she laughed, hazel eyes shining with happiness. “Wanna join me in this so special Valentine’s day?” Gabrielle was...charming to say the least, black short wet hair all back and strong arms waiting to hold her. “Oh, you found all the clues to find me, did you like them? I couldn’t buy like...dozens and dozens of petals, we don’t make that much money, so I had to get creative.”

Sexy, charming and all...but she was just the dorkiest of them all...and all hers.

Winter laughed from the deepest part of her soul, using her feet to kick the stuff she dropped and soon she was out of her clothes, trying to fit with Gabrielle in such tiny space. It was difficult for sure, but they managed to make it, Winter basically sitting over Gabrielle and having half her body out of the water though.

“You’re unbelievable,” Winter traced with her fingers the curve of Gabrielle’s biceps, taking her time and making the other girl to close her eyes in pleasure. “I thought I was going crazy with all those mistletoes.”

“Why do you freak out with harmless plant but not with murderous spiders,” Gabrielle chuckled at that, taking in count she hated spiders so much.

“Because spiders doesn’t bite and if you get under the mistletoe...that’s what you get,” she replied, giving a knowing look to her girlfriend, who only laughed because last Christmas their making out went overboard. “They are quite nice.”

“You are quite nice,” Gabrielle’s hand moved to caress Winter’s belly, slow, tracing her thumb over the skin there and getting Winter to roll her eyes back and bite her lip. “I took the night off from work, so...we have all day for us, honeybun,” there was a soft tint of sweetness in Gabi’s voice and that only made Winter to move her hips. “So...what my queen wants to do? Aside of the obvious.”

How could Gabrielle be like that? That was a question Winter always asked herself since the day they met. But also...how Gabrielle could look at her in the eye, knowing all what she did. She never replied, because Winter was the one asking always everything and nothing, but sometimes she got the feeling that the only thing Gabrielle wanted was to rebuild and forget about Michigan.

And that was something Winter was wishing too, to forget all the pain, all the trauma, all the nightmares that plagued her every night since they left.

“Having pizza on bed and watching ‘Grey’s Anatomy’,” she mumbled in response, leaning in to kiss Gabrielle as her life depended on ti, making at the same time that the water threaten to overflow. “Buying that videogame in discount you liked and playing until I want to fuck you again, what does my knight in not that shiny armour thinks?”

They were weird, that’s for sure, but they loved each other very deeply and in a way they both feel like they belonged somewhere.

Joking between the walls of their tiny apartment in Queens, waking up every morning to go to uni hand in hand, eating lunch while talking about the day, bidding farewell when Gabrielle had to go to work and welcoming her home every night.

Gabrielle knew Winter hated many festivities, even Valentine’s day, but having her indulge was one of her biggest achievements. She knew her girlfriend indulged many times for her, but those times were she was just doing it because she actually wanted...well, those were trully a blessing.

“Knight in shiny armour is all in.”

Rowan Ramírez

Oh shit, his hands were sweating so bad.

Rowan was trying to calm himself down, rubbing the back of her neck and then trying to swipe his hands in the back of his thighs. In his head, all he could think about was all those tiny advices his sister gave him, going through them with the outmost care because he didn’t want to fuck this up.

After a while of trying to take a faith leap, Rowan finally did it after finding himself thinking all day and all night about Coco. He knew that it was going to be hard, taking in count they lived as far as each other in the other side of the country, but he wasn’t remotely scared of from trying to start the relationship. And that was almost more than a half year ago, time making him bolder and more like Raleigh than any of them expected...at least in the being stubborn and spontaneous in times of need.

However, he couldn’t figure out how all of that had brought him to New Orleans in secret just to surprise his girlfriend for Valentine’s day.

Maybe it was that he was head over heels in love with the blonde witch, that he wanted to make her as happy as he could, that he was trying to picture himself by her side as long as his mind could...and in between all of that, Rowan found himself finally knocking on the front door of the Academy.

Raleigh had let him in from the other house, so he didn’t have to go through the ‘the Academy’s barrier would want to eat you if you touch it’ part of the plan. After letting Sidonia know he wasn’t going to play fetch with her, kissing his baby nephew’s head and saying ‘hi’ to his sister-in-law, which was reading in the kitchen in that fine Sunday morning; he had armed himself with the bouquet of roses he bought in his way here and went to retrieve his girlfriend in the other house.

The waiting was so painful? He thought to himself, putting a lock of his hair behind his ear, trying to not go and start jumping to relieve some of his stress. But it was then when the front door opened, just to show Misty’s concerned face...that eased into a funny one as soon as Rowan came into view.

“Ahm...uhm, I-I’m here to...well, oh God,” fuck, fuck, fuck him and his shit ass nerves. Now words didn’t make sense in his head. But Misty took pity on him, putting a reassuring hand in his shoulder before throwing her head back enough to yell.

“Coco, there’s an Amazon guy in the door askin’ for you!!” and that only made Rowan to go beet red, because the white lie kept rolling in order to let him surprise his oblivious girlfriend. Girlfriend that was frying his phone, in her back pocket, with messages at that point of the day.

The new waiting time was even harder than before, but as soon as Rowan overheard the quick click click of Coco’s heels along feeling her magic approaching, he started to relax. He felt how her lips quirked in a goofy yet shy grin and when Coco realized it wasn’t an Amazon guy but Rowan who was waiting for her in the front door, her hands went directly to cover her mouth and her eyes visibly watered.

“Don’t cry pretty, please,” was the first thing Rowan said, because his inner panicker jumped in action. Then he handed the bouquet to her, still goofy grin on. “So...I hope you don’t have date for Valentine’s, because I’m asking you for one now,” he chuckled to let the last bits of nervousness go away and Coco hugged the bouquet to her chest with care before reaching for him. “Would you like to go on an ice cream hunt to the French quarter with this poor warlock in love?”

“Of course I do!” Coco let out the cutest yelp as response, Rowan finally taking her hand and pulling her close to lean and kiss her lips, a peck that started the biggest bonfire in his whole body. “Just let me take my purse and put the flowers...”

“No, no purses, I’m inviting you today,” Rowan knew Coco was happy to always pay for everything, but he had been working hard all year to earn money and spend it on his loved one for once. Maybe it was because of the way his mother raised him, that his aunt Abigail raised him, but he usually didn’t like to be treated to things (and Rowan only let his big sister to treat him because a) Raleigh was a bit scary; and b) ‘Twenty years apart gave me the right to treat you for another twenty, so shut up.’)

“And I’m taking the flowers, so!” Mallory appeared behind Coco, giving Rowan the biggest smile ever because of how happy it made her know her cousin was being happy and in love with her best friend. “Take her before she start her yearly rant about red velvet cake, Roro!”

Rowan complied, laughing at that because he knew how his girlfriend was with food. But having Coco by his side again, after months of chatting and videocalling through their phones and laptops...well, for him it didn’t matter if she went a bit overboard with her powers...and with her chatter, for that matter. He was always more like a listener than a ‘talker’, which was good for how many stuff Coco had to say, and Rowan tried to kiss Coco’s cheek from time to time to see her trail in whatever she was saying.

Overall seeing how happy was Coco, made all the sleepless night planning this trip worth it, but what made Rowan the happiest was that he was able to find someone who loved him for who he was.

Danielle Bishop

Audrey could tell Danielle was feeling on top of the world right now.

It obvious by the way she was talking more confident, her face glowing up without any trace of the usual tiredness she carried, and drinking red wine like it was water. Maybe that last bit was because she was a bit nervous, making Audrey to chuckle when a new anecdote fell from her lips because seeing her girlfriend nervous was truly a thing, taking in count it was more a thing of Danna than Danielle’s.

For Audrey, it was cute and heartwarming. Mostly because she didn’t expect to come home to having the kitchen all ready and set to have what it looked like a romantic dinner. Of course they’ve been exchanging messages, kisses and Audrey had woken Danielle up with a nice surprise just because. It was the third Valentine they spent together, being the first one and the second one spent having a little date to a coffee nearby to Danielle’s office because she was working on a case for several days and didn’t have much time, and Audrey was thankful that her girlfriend gave her such big private thing.

Damien wasn’t there, mostly because her father had come to visit her and he was spending as much time as he could with her, so they didn’t have to worry about her much aside of waiting for Dara’s call that she arrived to Billie and hers’ house safely since they wanted to have a bit of privacy for the day. The fact that Danielle’s ex husband was around, also, had them both worried and this was truly a shot of fresh air from thinking.

Cliché as it was, they shared their classic dinner in between laughs and kisses. As far as Audrey knew, Danna had helped Danielle to cook everything through videocall, which knowing both probably was full of yelling, reassuring words, two times almost giving up and Danna cheering the loudest when something turned out what it was supposed to be. But Audrey loved every bit of the cliché situation because her life wasn’t full of those at all, taking it with her whole heart because after moving in with Danielle, each day it passed it made her see that she was feeling at home finally.

It was a good sensation, it made her want to go back to Danielle’s arms all the time they were apart, to provide with the same love she was being pampered with. And after all those years, it was the only thing she wanted, being completely honest. Any doubt she had was reassured and kissed away, any problem that might rise was taken care diligently so it wasn’t a bigger problem...and having some control over the chaos that her life was, made Audrey to go and thank her partner endlessly...even more.

“Okay, are you ready for my amazing strawberry cake?” Dani announced, after downing her third glass of wine with, food finally gone and Audrey wanting to leave her seat and go reclaim her rightful spot in Danielle’s lap. “It’s ugly and maybe a bit too sugary? but I did it all by myself.”

“I’m sure it’s amazing, my darling,” Audrey was looking at Danielle dreamly, detailing how she chose the burgundy shirt Audrey loved and those dressing black pants that fit her too damn well, long black hair pulled back by her nervous hand and wide smile clinging to her lips and making her want to kiss it for the rest of the night. “You know I like sweet stuff.”

Audrey winked at that last thing, getting a big hearty laugh from Danielle and a kiss that knocked the air out of her lungs before she went to retrieve the cake from the fridge. She took advantage of that to check her phone, sending a picture to Billie of the whole table and brag about it, because why not? Audrey checked her texts while Billie replied and soon she got a picture of Dara, sleeping over Billie with the cutest pout in her lips and ‘I’ve tired out my Valentine :(’ under.

She giggled to that, typing a fast ‘you two are truly unbelievable’ before she overheard Danielle’s steps coming back. Putting down her phone, she waited for Danielle to put the cake in the middle of the table but her girlfriend had another plan it seemed. So she walked towards her, leaving the whole plate in front of her and then kissed her temple with love.

“Are you expecting me to eat all of this by mys-” Audrey started to say, but was cut mid sentence when Danielle didn’t go back to her seat, kneeling by her side so that way Audrey had to look down to make eye contact with her. “What are you doing there, silly?”

“Well, it’s kinda obvious...I think?” Danielle laughed softly at that, one of her hands resting in Audrey’s thigh while the other was out of view because she was getting something from inside her shirt. Like, Audrey saw her do that many times before, hiding stuff like money or her phone in her bra, so she was over that already...however she didn’t expect Danielle to pull out a tiny velvety box.

It was then when Audrey’s heart stop beating for a second.

“Look, all this time I tried to be sincere with you, and sometimes I wished to do things...in a better way, but it didn’t matter because we got through it and you never left me, even when I thought the worst of me, even when things weren’t as pretty as we both wanted,” Danielle was trying to keep looking at her and Audrey was feeling how her body re-started with the sudden speech. “I...well, after my divorce I didn’t think I would be able to love someone this...deep, but you didn’t give up on me, you showed me that not only me but both deserved another chance, and what the hell, we make a good Uno couple...and Damien loves you,” that drew a choked chuckle from Audrey, in the verge of the sob. Damien truly liked her, and that was one of the biggest goals she accomplished. “I thought we could step up our game...because you are the only one I see myself getting married with and I want to keep on make you happy till the end of our days and beyond. So, Audrey...would you marry me?”

And then Danielle opened the box with trembling fingers to show her girlfriend the gold ring with the tiny jewel in the middle of it.

Three years had passed and Audrey still couldn’t believe Danielle, of all people, had trouble to do long speeches taking in count her line of work. But she got why she couldn’t, because for years she didn’t show she had feelings at all and talking about something you so worked so hard to hide was difficult...and that’s when Audrey entered the picture, being emotional, being vocal about everything, showing her that it was okay to show what was inside without fear of judgement.

“Dani...” Audrey closed her eyes late, her tears spilling in a very dramatic turn of the events, but one that entered the million possibilities Danielle had planned in her head. “Of c-course I do, damn it, yes, yes and ten million times yes!”

it was time for Danielle to laugh, to let out the breathe she was holding in a ragged way because all the nervousness melted the moment she slipped the ring in Audrey’s finger. She didn’t take in count, however, that Audrey would take her to the ground, hugging her like no tomorrow and kissing her as if she needed her to keep being alive.

In between kisses, laughs and trying to make it to the couch, forgetting about the cake over the table, Audrey thought that Danielle, in the end, was what she was looking for all those years. She didn’t need someone that complied to everything she said, she only needed this someone to feel she was enough for her, that she was loved and cherished by her...

...and, as her fingers found every button from her favourite Danielle’s shirt, that someone finally had a face, and a body for that matter, to die for. Which wasn’t necessary but oh good Lord help her that it was a good plus.

Cold-hearted Severa

Mr. Mumbles cooed in her shoulder as they moved through the camp, feeling how a little happy tune was bubbling in her chest and getting through her as a little hum. Selene wasn’t much of a happy-go-lucky person, always worried about everything and nothing, but today she felt lucky enough to get things right through the day.

She was one of the few that were lucky enough not to get many looks when she went to town, so that morning she had rolled down along Jimmy to get some groceries there and also the bouquet of daisies and dandelions that she was now holding tightly in her grip. There was this giant field in the way from camp to town and she only trust in Jimmy to not spill the beans, so she had asked him to take her with him to pay a little visit.

Taking a few breathings to calm herself down, Selene used her nose to give a cuddle to her companion, her face taken hostage by the monkey like always. She chuckled and poked him in the belly, his weak spot, and then she was free to keep walking towards the siameses’ tent.

It was her main goal and the reason she was taking this big ass step, all the courage she had tied in a knot so it didn’t fly away. She had fixed the handmade bouquet specially for Bette, but since they both would see it, Selene had fixed it with two different flowers so that way both had something pretty to look at for a while.

Her heart was hammering its way in her chest, reminding her sweetly that she was very much alive. She was taking advantge that she saw them in the main tent to do this, because she wasn’t as courageous to actually look them in the eye to give them the gift. Selene didn’t want to impose in them, she much preferred to look from the distance and watch them being happy, knowing she wasn’t enough for any.

Bette and Dot had made it very clear that their feelings weren’t the same, and Selene took that to her heart, her love for both still there but also growing when Bette confessed later that she was confused about what to feel. That was enough for her, to be honest, she thought while leaving the tiny bouquet over their desk and starting to run back to Eve’s ban.

It didn’t matter they didn’t love her, she was pretty much content with being their friend at least, and as a friend she had left those pretty flowers to make this Valentine’s day better for them.

When she arrived with Eve, she looked at her with a lifted perfect eyebrow, asking silently why such hurry...only to see that Selene was handing her something. She loved the twins, that for sure, but Selene wouldn’t forget about her best friend and how much she also loved her.

“Is that for me?” Eve blinked confused upon seeing the tiny present, the one that Selene spent her savings in, and took it in her hands with care before unwrapping it. “Oh dear, it wasn’t necessary.”

But Selene smiled widely, in silence like always, waiting for Eve to see what was inside. She had taken note of how pretty her friend found those earrings she was now pulling out of the box, once they went to take a walk in town and passed by a jewelry shop. Selene was always taken little notes about what other people needed, it was common for her at this point.

“I can’t believe you went back and bought them,” Eve shrieked in delight, standing up fast to wrap her best friend into a tight hug before planting the biggest kiss on her lips, like she always did. “You’re a blessing for sure, sweetheart, thank you very much.”

Maybe Bette and Dot didn’t love Selene back, but when Eve looked at her with that shine in her eyes, it made Selene think about the possibilities of staying with her best friend for the rest of their lives.

She didn’t know what the future would hold for them, but as long as she kept at least Eve by her side, she was quite content to keep living her life as it was. She could learn to love better, she could learn to be more brave, maybe a bit more unspoken at times? And maybe someday she would be able to feel at ease in a place.

Because, yeah, the show was all she got but she couldn’t call it a home.

And when Eve asked her to get dinner only the three of them, because she always included Mr. Mumbles, Selene thought that maybe one day her true home would become a place in which none felt left out.

#the originals #dara ann lynch #dahlia deen #danielle bishop #danna bishop #raleigh ocean #cold-hearted severa #adriana girardi #karina sväre #gabrielle summers #rowan ramírez

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allsoulstriogymusings · 5 years

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Diana and Matthew Meet Two “Fathers” in the Past

[Note: This post has book spoilers from Shadow of Night.]

Philippe de Clermont Was a Formidable Presence

A lot of emphasis in the All Souls Trilogy novels has been placed on Philippe de Clermont’s pivotal role as Matthew’s father and his centuries old position as head of the de Clermont vampire family as well as the Knights of Lazarus. Consequently, when Diana and Matthew went back in time to 1590 and met Philippe that was an important event for both of them. In fact, at that time Philippe also “adopted” Diana as his “blood-sworn daughter.” This act showed that Philippe fully approved of Diana and it also served as a powerful protection for her both in the 16th century as well as the 21st. After all, there are many perks in the All Souls universe to being a de Clermont.

As a result of the adoption ritual, the “threads” of time made “a soft keen of protest” because Diana had “another family” in “another time” (2012, pp. 152-153). However, Diana’s parents had died when she was a child, so she had been an orphan for 26 years.

Still, that didn’t mean that Diana would not have at least one more adult interaction with her long-dead father.

Stephen Proctor: Timewalker

We learned in the first book in the All Souls series that Diana’s father, Stephen Proctor had been a timewalker. Diana had inherited this ability from him.

In the first episode of A Discovery of Witches TV show, it is 2009 and we see Diana bump into what she assumes is Stephen’s “ghost” as she exits the Bodleian Library. (This scene never happened in the book but in the show it served as foreshadowing of what is to come.)

I remember thinking when I watched this scene for the first time that Stephen was rather solid for a “ghost.” Perhaps he wasn’t a ghost but had been timewalking, and exited 2009 quickly when he realized his adult daughter had recognized him.

This might have been the show’s way of foreshadowing a number of things, including the fact that Diana would meet her father again but this time in 1591 in Elizabethan London.

Below the cut I am going to briefly discuss what I enjoyed about Stephen’s meeting with Diana and Matthew in 1591 and I will also share one of my favorite Shadow of Night passages describing how Stephen helped Diana more fully embrace her magic--and to have fun doing so!

Stephen Proctor: Protective and self-sacrificing father

Initially I didn’t have that much of a sense of who Stephen Proctor was from either the book or the show’s version of A Discovery of Witches.

We learn in the first book and season of the show that Stephan was a scholar and a good man who decided along with his wife Rebecca Bishop to spellbind their daughter Diana in order to protect her.

Consequently, they let Knox and the Congregation think that Diana had no real power and that Stephen and Rebecca might be the powerful witches they were looking for. Therefore, Stephen and Rebecca sacrificed their lives in order to keep Diana safe.

And although that sacrifice was very noble of Stephen, I still had no sense of him as a person until Shadow of Night.

And then I fell in love with him.

Stephen Proctor: Anthropologist, Red Sox fan, and hail-fellow-well-met

Stephen arrived in Elizabethan England with a makeshift 16th century outfit consisting of a modified brown “Nehru jacket” and “too long” britches. And yet somehow he fit right in. A fan of “hanging out,” Stephen was quickly on a “first name basis” with William Shakespeare, Thomas Harriot and Sir Walter Raleigh. He also fit in nicely with the witches who were teaching Diana how to be a weaver. He was even able to get along with Father Hubbard! And he accomplished all of this within a two week visit.

Despite being a scholar, Stephen was also a rabid Red Sox fan and thought Bob Dylan was a “genius.”

But Stephan was also capable of being quite serious. After all he was a timewalking anthropologist who happened to be a concerned father. He took on the mantle of authority as he read the riot act to both Matthew and Diana about the way they were having an impact on he past by staying way too long. Typically Stephen would only stay in the past for two weeks at the most, largely as an anthropological observer--not for 8 months as inhabitants of the era who were interacting with royalty (and in Matthew’s case trying to save witches who had perished in the past). He reminded Diana that the ability to timewalk comes with a great responsibility to leave the past untouched.

Yet Stephen was if anything a man who balanced work and play. He also encouraged both Diana and Matthew to have fun and actually celebrate Midsummer Eve along with the rest of London. This resulted in Diana and Matthew having an exceptionally rare and fantastic “date.”

Stephen Proctor: A weaver who knew that magic could be “fun”

Stephen not only helped Diana to have more fun in her life with Matthew, he helped her to have more fun with magic. Below, are some of my favorite passages from Shadow of Night. These passages occur during the episode in which Stephen meets the coven who has been training Diana to be a weaver, and shares some of his own ideas about weaving as well. But most importantly, he shows his daughter how to have fun with magic.

--Deborah Harkness (2012, pp. 527-528, Kindle Edition)

Diana learned to play with her magic that day--the one lesson she had never learned before. In addition, because her father let his familiar the heron Bennu loose to play with Goody Alsop’s fetch, Diana ended up also letting her firedrake familiar fly free--and finally learned that her name was Cora.

With Stephen’s death an important part of Diana’s magical education had been missing. Fortunately, Stephen’s timewalking ability allowed him to visit his adult daughter and teach her the lesson he had not been around to teach her when growing up. He taught her to fully embrace her heritage as a weaver and to have some fun with her abilities.

What a magical mentor! What a Dad! I’m glad that Diana had a chance to know Stephen briefly as an adult--and I’m glad I got to know him too.

Sources for Elizabethan room: Firefly lights manipulated into an Elizabethan country house interior. Gifs made directly from ADoW episodes 1 and 7 on Sundancenow.com. Thanks to Springfield! Springfield! for dialogue transcripts from the show.

[NOTE: This post was updated on 03.14.21 and the title image was changed--but that change is not reflected in earlier reblogs; are the sources for the original title images: heron; bubble; manipulated photo of Stephen Proctor (David Newman) in an Elizabethan costume from Boston Costume.]

#adow #stephen proctor #diana bishop #the shadow of night #stephen's visit to elizabethan england #diana and matthew #my gifs #my manips #my commentary #my posts

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justanotherdumpingground · 5 years

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Chapter Reviews: May 28-June 1, 2019

Wishful Thinking Chapter 8:

Emus! I'm so glad they finally appear! And the entire scene with them is simply funny and worth it. Pete's an uttee nutcase, though an entertaining one as well. The premium scene with Emi is so adorable that I want to see the emus again in future chapters.

Glad I get to show Alec who's boss. This guy should just stop treating his employees like crap. If only I could have him replaced by someone better (not Ellen, though), that would be better.

I'm glad I finally get to hang out with Anna outside of work. Most of her appearances have her and the MC doing their jobs, so a casual chat about the emu incident feels refreshing. And Charlie's office getting trashed means something fishy is going on, probably someone opposed to him like Ellen, though I could be wrong. Since the summary for Chapter 10 sounds like Anna has some secrets to share, it seems that something is up with Charlie. He's really fishy.

A Courtesan of Rome Chapter 19:

Another exciting chapter that kept me hooked like the previous one. I was worried what Cingerix might do to the MC, so I picked the premium option to talk him out of serving Caesar. I think doing so results in the MC and Victus having a positive opinion on Cingerix, who helped his sister escape as a result.

It was fun to watch MC train under her dad and Euthymios in preparation for the gladiator match, and Cingerix developing feelings for Euthymios. If only I can get my hands on Flavius for killing Locusta and poisoning the MC, my life would've been complete. At least there was Delphinia to pray for her daughter's safety, though the MC should really be more defiant towards Flavius.

Anyway, with my anger gone from me, it was satisfying to watch my MC deliver a speech gearing public opinion against Caesar. Even more so with Sabina chanting with the crows.

Man, I can't wait for the final chapters. Especially now that the MC has told the news about Cingerix's change of heart to Delphinia.

Passport to Romance Chapter 12:

I'm just sick of Elliot and William bickering that I want to shove them inside a room to sort out their own messes. On to the regatta.

As expected, the folks there are so snotty that I can just roll my eyes. I get that Sumire has to develop as an artist, and taking criticism is an important part of it (hence me telling her that it's a learning experience), but the impression Bronwyn gave did nothing to endear me to her. Same goes to Carlisle, whom I dislike more for talking like money's the only thing that matters. Either way, who cares about these two? I didn't spend diamonds to steal Carlisle's champagne, though. :P

So Elliot just got his entire friends in trouble by placing a huge bet on a losing boat? Well, thanks a lot, loser! I swear, Elliot keeps blowing his chances to make meaningful contributions to the group that it pisses me off to no end. The only times he did that were to provide the group a place to stay in Lucerne and a private plane to fly them to Monaco. However, their stay in Lucerne doesn't make sense when they could directly go to Germany from France, and Elliot just waited until they missed the second flight to reveal that his family owns the airline of the missed flights. I seriously question his usefulness. As for Marisa, she better not lose all that money from betting Carlisle.

Nightbound Chapter 7:

Why are there options to be mean to Vera for no reason while ignoring the fact that she saved MC from a zombie? I get that her power is deadly, but she used it for good, and had no intention to harm others. Let's hope others will warm up to her.

Heh, no surprise Lady Smoke is Vera's mom. I stumbled upon a theory @a-whore-of-rome came up with, though much of the information involves Vera's first premium scene, followed by the mention of Lady Smoke as a mobster. And wow! Vera and her mom are complete opposites. I think Lady Smoke kinda has a point that they shouldn't live in fear because of their powers. After all, their power to kill others with their bare hands isn't necessarily a curse, but can come in handy depending on the user and their intents. I think Lady Smoke lets this power get in her head that she largely uses it for her benefit. A pity I didn't get her monster tear, but I certainly have plans to get it.

A premium scene to talk to Priya Lacroix. Pass, at least for now. I make no secret why I hate Priya, even though spending time with a love interest sounds like something I'd do once I know who my LI will be. For the time being, none of the love interests capture my attention.

Platinum Chapters 1-2:

First impressions-wise, the story seems OK. I don't like the clichéd bits (small town girl gets picked up by a star), but there's still hope for something else. Super glad that my MC gets to wear glasses as a regular accessory, rather than as part of another outfit. After all, I also wear glasses. And not to mention that the fanbase meter and that certain actions can cause the MC to lose fans looks like a good mechanism that prevents an immediate rise to fame cliché.

Interesting that both Avery and Raleigh can be either male or female, depending on player choices. For Avery, I picked the female one because she's so pretty. The male one's eyes look dopey, but that's just personal impression. Raleigh's harder because both choices look good, though I ended up picking the female one. It's probably not final, though.

Heh, I know Ryder from AME would make a cameo appearance in this story, and it seems that he's in his element. Also, Shane is a good friend to have so far. It's a blessing.

What is it with PB and its affinity with the rival girl cliché? I get that Jaylen isn't a saint, but this cliché discourages players to view characters with proper nuance and understand their roles in the story. After all, an important part of evaluating characters is to not let biases on certain "types" hinder one's thinking.

Anyway, let's see how this story developes.

Open Heart Chapter 16:

Honestly, I really don't like the fact that the MC acts friendly towards Landry even though the way he sabotaged the MC involved disrupting patient care. Because of this, I continued picking options that don't give him credit. Not once did he feel remorse over sabotaging the MC and putting patients at risk. It's like the situation with Sebastian in The Sophomore all over again. Forced to forgive someone who not only expressed no remorse for their wrongdoing but also forgetting that what he did are illegal, dangerous, and degrading. It doesn't help that his sabotage of the boiler is enough to erase sympathy for him.

That aside, I finally get to work with Ethan on Naveen, and it seems that Ethan is more open on his respect for MC. That seems reassuring, especially since I giggled at him saying that his middle name's Jonah after the MC saying Ethan "Freaking" Ramsey.

Seeing Aurora wish the MC luck was nice and calming. I'm proud of her taking the initiative of being nice towards the person who consoled her. It doesn't erase her flaws, such as her overconfidence when she downplayed a case as "not interesting", but I'm ready to see her slowly warming up to others and learn that all patients are interesting in their own way.

Man, I can't believe the next chapter is the finale. I won't be surprised the MC will win and keep their medical license, followed by a little celebration that involves premium options to spend time with a love interest.

Bloodbound Chapter 3:

Too bad that it costs diamonds to actually have fun in Vegas in order to blow off some steam in preparation for meeting with Landgon. Well, I'm not super tempted to buy them because my LI is neither Adrian nor Lily, though I like them both.

Anyway, on to meeting Langdon. I knew this guy's shady, but to see him keeping various supernatural beings alive sickens me. Even more so when he planned to keep MC and co. as part of his collection.

So the cameo comes from Cal. Well, not surprising, and I'm just scared at what might happen to him.

And Lily saying "to defeat the Huns" is what I need to cheer me up and lighten my mood. Despite being a vampire, she always stays true to herself and helps in any way she can. I have great confidence she'll be a great assistant to Jax.

Regarding the second flashback, I feel bad at Adrian killing the Confederate soldiers, though I wonder if that scene has changes depending on his appearance. And Gaius just reminds me how ruthless and creepy he is despite having another side to him in the previous chapter. He's shaping up to be a villain I like.

#choices stories you play #chapter reviews

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neverreallythoughtaboutthefuture · 6 years

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Still not sure what just happened...

So, coming back from watching the movie, I am…

So, so confused…

Why do pilots seem to constantly look through windows to see what’s happening outside their Jaeger? Aren’t they supposed to be making one with their Jaeger, and thus directly have access to the big robot’s visual data while engaged in that neural bridge?

How do the new Conn-pods work? I know they didn’t explain much in the original, either, but at least they looked strapped into something! And the robots weren’t moving as fast and effortlessly, either…

Like, I just want to know how those pilots can be hanging sideways and upside-down in their Jaegers without some kind of actual harness and still have the impression the ground they are standing on is bellow them… Even if it’s some pseudo-theory about physics that’s total bullshit, I’ll take it! Just please help me with the whole suspension of disbelief thingie, because I think it’s just been stretched so much it snapped halfway through the movie!

Is the gunner still drifting with her co-pilots, and being one with the robot while moving to another section of the Jaeger to operate that big gun? Is that gun some auxiliary system on the Jaeger disconnected from the rest of its nervous system that its “brain” (i.e. the pilots engaged in the neural bridge) is unable to access and operate normally and remotely?

I don’t understand how piloting Jaegers work anymore! I thought I did, and the damn movie is making me question everything I thought I knew!

So… Now all you need to test Drift compatibility, is for two random people to pick up a pair of helmets, put it on their heads, and see if it holds? And you can just spontaneously try it without checking first with your actual co-pilot if they’re fine with an additional set of memories in their brain and presence pulling at the back of their minds?

What’s with that… was it a human brain in a jar used to allow cadets to practice their ability to Drift?

If you’re going to introduce new intriguing training techniques, could you PLEASE expand a bit on them to explain how they work? At least just the basics?

Speaking of training, you had a golden opportunity to explore how the cadets actually train and have us witness them bonding through that process together!

You could have removed at least 2/3 of the crazy redundant and hard to keep up with fight scenes, to explore the training those post-war kids go through to become Rangers, something that was missing from the first movie since they’d all completed their training and graduated from the Academy.

Actually, about half the dialogue/banter felt totally unnecessary, and didn’t offer any insight into who these kids are and what motivates them. I’m trying to avoid making too much comparison between the styles of the directors, but GDT managed to have his characters convey more information about themselves through moments of silence shared between them than the whole new movie achieves through dialogue. You don’t need to fill every moment of a movie with noise.

Talking about noise, it’s a bad sign when you let out a sigh of much needed relief when FINALLY hearing the familiar notes of a theme before the big climatic battle. And you know what, it got me really excited for it until the theme stopped playing, the battle began, and I totally disconnected because I could barely keep up who was doing what and where.

A) I wish the cadets had been given some time beforehand to bond with their Jaegers and interact together as co-pilots…. Because I was going crazy trying to figure out who was piloting with whom and why?

B) If you’re not going to let us associate this character as being specifically drift-compatible with this other character, and have them becoming the embodiment of a specific Jaeger… Then could you please make sure their Conn-pods and drivesuits look different?

Seriously, so much was happening with Newt and the CEO of Shao industry and the buildings being destroyed and the Jaegers doing a bunch of stunts and the kaiju being kaiju, and Hermann, etc.; that I constantly had to try to look at the actors’ faces and pay attention to the type of holographic weapons they were using, while trying to remember the differences in each Jaeger’s design to associate the holograms with this or that Jaeger in the hopes of quickly remembering who was piloting which robot and what they were doing a moment before the camera went to LOCCENT, and…

… you know what? I lost track and interest in it so utterly that I have very little to no memory of the fight in Hong Kong (was it Hong Kong? Fuck, where were they even?), except for Newt having a blast and those probes from the Matrix bringing kaiju together…. Literally.

Wait. No. I also remember that my favorite cadet didn’t make it. And somehow, although they went ahead and killed a single one of them, the reveal that he didn’t make it was so unceremoniously done and gross that it felt borderline distasteful.

All you see is that outstretched sizzling hand burnt to a crisp when his co-pilot looks over to see if he's alright, but JFC! Talk about brutal and nightmare inducing! You don’t want to kill too many of those kids apparently, given the cadets’ high survival rate, but when you do dispatch them, you’re not fucking around!

But yeah, I just.. I’ll be reading this in the morning tomorrow when more clearheaded and having assimilated it and maybe it’ll make more sense…

But right now don’t even ask me what I just watched… I just know that Jake finds Nate sexy and I want to adopt Gottlieb and Mako took that whole “Mako, all you have to do is fall. Anyone can fall” way too literally.

Also, I actually didn’t even see Chuck in the Hall (don’t know why I kept saying “Wall” before) of Heroes because a few pictures were hard to see despite the fact I was specifically looking for him…

And I’m guessing they froze Raleigh until they find some cure to his Anteverse radiation sickness or something to prevent him from dying like in the novelization..

Because that’s the only thing making sense regarding why he’d be missing and not there supporting Mako and her efforts at a time like this!

I mean, if they plan on taking the fight to the Anteverse, it makes sense!

First, they have to find a way to sustain those alien radiations, and they’ve got a test subject in Raleigh who’s already been there and got sick / was dying from it.

Still think they made a huge insensitive mistake with Mako, who was literally established as the beating heart and soul of the first movie (and should have remained such in the series)…

Maybe I’ll be able to sort out what I’ve just watched after reading the books and familiarizing myself with the new characters, but right now, I can’t say the movie was awful… Just that it felt all over the place, and things were both moving too fast (couldn’t keep up with the narrative and when it came with most Jaegers and cadet pilots) and too slow (couldn't wait for those battle scenes to end in favor of hopefully more storytelling that never quite felt like it really came) for my taste.

I wasn’t given the chance to get attached to the Jaegers and sense each carried their own personalities all inspired by the distinct characteristics of their given pilots. And, in a world where those I already loved from the first movie are no longer available, it leaves a huge void the movie failed to fill with new exciting connections…

#Pacific Rim #Pacific Rim Uprising #Spoilers #Jaegers #Kaiju #My thoughts #My posts #Confused mun is confused #What is a Jaeger even?!#Raleigh Becket theory #Though I'm afraid to be right because poor puppy doesn't deserve this...

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sinceileftyoublog · 4 years

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Boulevards Interview: Funky Gut Punches

Photo by Jordan Rickard

BY JORDAN MAINZER

“I wish I could Men In Black erase my shit so I could listen to it with fresh ears,” Jamil Rashad tells me over the phone from Raleigh, North Carolina. The garage funk artist who records as Boulevards is about to release Brother!, a four-track EP (with an accompanying 2-track single) via Normaltown Records, an imprint of New West. But the restless singer-songwriter’s coming back from recording even newer music, for a potential LP, and has to get in the mindset that in a couple weeks, he’s dropping something he recorded a while back, especially because it’s his most assured (recorded) music to date, all the while exploring new aesthetic and thematic territory.

Rashad finished writing the songs on Brother! early on during the pandemic and messaged various artists he admired to see whether they’d produce the record. Blake Rhein, of Durand Jones & The Indications, bit. Rashad had long admired them. “Durand Jones & The Indications was one of the first soul revival groups in the game,” he said. “They kind of paved the way for Black Pumas and the other cats on Colemine [Records].” It turned out to be the perfect fit for what Rashad was trying to do. “I wanted to do some soul shit but still stay focused to the garage-funk element of Boulevards,” he said, something immediately apparent from the warbling psychedelia of the guitars and strut of the drums from the opening and title track. “I’ve always been chasing my predecessors,” he continued, referring to not only the contemporaries that paved the way for him but classics he grew up listening to with his father, a radio DJ: George Clinton & Parliament-Funkadelic, Curtis Mayfield, and Rick James. Rashad’s always been an avid indie rock and punk listener too, citing The Strokes’ Is This It and early Black Keys albums as just as formative.

You can hear Boulevards’ journey to this genre-averse point from listening to his discography. He released his debut LP on Brooklyn post-punk label Captured Tracks, bouncing around different labels and different styles (earlier this year, he released a collaborative track with “Bulletproof” synth popper La Roux) before finding a home on Normaltown. “I had to make those records in the past to make it to this point,” he said, citing New West’s increasing levels of genre diversity, from Caroline Rose’s pop-rock jamfest LONER to their recent Pylon box set, as a reason why he kept asking them to release his EP. When they said yes, he felt like they got it. “If you’re friends with [Normaltown co-founder] George [Fontaine, Jr.] on Facebook or Instagram, you’ll see how eclectic his tastes are. If anybody could get what I was trying to do, George gets it. It’s not like the Thundercats, the Leon Bridges, the Gary Clark Jr.s of the world,” he said. “This is Carolina soul shit.” As a bonus, Rashad was already friends with a couple New West signees: singer-songwriter Jaime Wyatt and American Aquarium’s BJ Barham, the latter of whom helped Rashad get sober from alcohol.

It’s certainly not lost on Rashad that, in his music community, he’s a Black singer-songwriter surrounded by many white ones, many of whom are his friends but don’t have to face the differences inherent in being Black in America. Some of these differences, he sings about, like on “Shook”, a song about being afraid of the police in Raleigh. But it’s the disparities in the music world that he hopes to directly reduce with Brother! “You have indie rock and the soul revival stuff and the psychedelic stuff, but you don’t have the straight garage funk records unless you see an old record on a Spotify playlist,” he laments, citing the dearth of existence and/or influence of old school, “Black small rare funk bands” as a reason for wanting to bring funk to the forefront. In a post-George Floyd protest world of white American racial reckoning, influencing everything from opinions on law enforcement to music listening habits, Rashad wants to tell his story, share his thoughts on the world, and dance while doing it.

Read the rest of my interview with Rashad below, and check out his live stream from the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro via NPR tomorrow night at 7 PM CST.

Since I Left You: It’s hard to point to a short EP as a turning point for many artists like this is for you. Why did you want to do just these four songs as opposed to a bigger project?

Jamil Rashad: I mean, I wanted to do a bigger project. That’s why we’re writing an LP right now. But for me, the writing never stops. I’m always writing. At first, I wasn’t even gonna do an EP here. I was gonna do singles and see how my fan base reacted. I wasn’t even gonna have a label. Every record, I always feel like it’s gonna be a turning point. You never know. I was thinking about this the other day. It’s almost like I’m starting fresh. These are songs I’ve been wanting to write--it’s just taken me time as an artist to get to this point to be able to zone in on the sound that I wanted. A 4-song EP is a little bit of the past and what’s to come with Boulevards, which I’m really stoked about.

SILY: You can tell that immediately from the title track, the first track on the EP. It’s got that psychedelic, garage element to the guitars, but it’s also really funky.

JR: I was tested a lot on this record, learning how the voice interacts with the microphone. Blake was pushing me to do it, which no producer has never done before. It’s turned out really dope. The goal was always to be the face of garage funk. Back in the day, my parents and your parents had the George Clinton records, Isaac Hayes, [Curtis Mayfield], they had all these different artists that were bringing the wave of funk. James Brown. You don’t really have that now. You have soul acts, R&B acts, indie rock acts, country acts, Americana acts, but you don’t have anyone that [brings] the funk shit. That’s what Boulevards is all about.

SILY: More than ever for you, these songs are political. Did you want the EP to be both a thematic and aesthetic turning point, or was that just a coincidence?

JR: It was both. Being 36 at this age, and looking at what’s going on in America, there are things you can’t ignore. I’m not a political expert, but maybe I should post what I’m feeling, what I’m seeing from white friends and Black friends and what’s going on with my community, and put it into these songs. I don’t think if a lot of this stuff didn’t happen with George Floyd, the pandemic, small businesses struggling, and people struggling, I would have been able to write these songs. I’m still gonna stay true to love and heartbreak, and self-growth, and trying to overcome obstacles and things of that nature. Those things I’m always gonna write about. But what was going on in the world definitely inspired and influenced those lines and crafting those songs. I’m not one to preach--you have a lot of these artists who have political records and preach. I wanted to make something about what I’ve experienced that people can still vibe and groove too.

SILY: Only “Shook” seems to be outwardly political. The rest of the songs are about Black life, but they’re really about your Black life.

JR: Of course. Me being a Black man and my struggles and things I’ve been through and seen other people go through. “Shook” is a song about being afraid of police. Being a Black man, every time I leave my house, I have to calculate every move that I make. It’s not like that for a lot of my white friends. That’s fine--that’s what America is. Well, actually, it’s not fine, it’s where America’s at. If I see Raleigh PD and am walking in a predominantly white neighborhood, are they gonna stop me? I live in this neighborhood I worked my ass off to be in. Are they gonna stop me because I don’t look the part and look like I’m up to something? So that’s what inspired “Shook”. Elijah McClain, just doing his thing, cops killing the brother. I didn’t want to do it in an overly preachy way, but at the same time, as America, we have to have uncomfortable conversations with each other. White on white America needs to show awareness with each other for things to actually change.

“Brother!” is mostly about working. Working your ass off for somebody and nothing changes. [laughs] You’re putting in the hours and the time, you’re making money for somebody else who doesn’t give a shit about you. You’re trying to get the promotions, you’re putting on a face. I worked at Best Buy, you can imagine being a touring artist and then having to put on a blue shirt and dealing with customers over some TV or kitchen appliance shit. I’m obviously doing my job, but I’m not gonna get a promotion there or get an advancement there. It’s about being a Black man in the work force and making somebody else money. At the time, I wasn’t sober, too, so the bar was my only release. It was the only way I could cope with that. [At the same time,] being in the Black community and being in Raleigh, and seeing my father interact with other Black men and even white men, saying, “Brother so and so” [inspired the song.] That’s how we greet each other sometimes. It’s also talking to myself talking to a man out there.

SILY: Whether these songs are about your personal experiences growing up or problems you’re facing now, as serious as they are, you can dance to them.

JR: Curtis Mayfield was good for that. Funkadelic, even Marvin Gaye. That’s what I wanted to be able to accomplish. Funk hits people in the gut. You can still politically come from a serious perspective.

SILY: Tell me about the video for “Luv n Pain”.

JR: It’s a simple, fun video. [Director] Patrick [Lincoln] pitched the idea. He wanted to have a day of Boulevards alone in his home, reflecting on being alone, reflecting on the things that have caused me personal heartbreak, without a partner. Getting ready in the morning, drinking coffee, wanting to share it with somebody but not having anybody to share it with.

Every video I’ve done up till this point, I’m always dancing. He wanted to slow things down, but still have it be Boulevards, stay true to me, have me dance in certain scenes but also have me reflecting, looking at the fire, up at the ceiling, things we do in our own homes. We [also] wanted to make something visually appealing and fun with bright colors. We didn’t really try to overthink it. Something simple that reflected Boulevards. When I’m at home, I’m always dancing.

SILY: You reference Gil Scott-Heron on “Shook” (“The revolution is now being televised.”) When was the first time you were aware of him?

JR: When I was a kid. My dad used to pick me and my sister up from track practice, and he worked at the radio station and was always getting these records. Gil Scott-Heron, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, “Whitey on the Moon”, all these songs. He’s a poet. I started out as a poet before I became a rapper, MC, or funk artist. Every time I do spoken word on a record, it’s never written. The verses and hooks are, but here, I said to the engineer, play these couple bars and just let me talk. It just came out. It also came from watching peoples’ stories and thinking, “The revolution is being televised now.” We’re seeing the anger, the pain, people expressing their frustration with the system of racial inequality in America. Not just Black people, but white people and Latino too. [Before,] they didn’t want people to see what was going on in America. Now, people are seeing it and are looking and are more aware of it now.

SILY: What’s the story behind the album art?

JR: Sly Stone and Funkadelic, predecessors I grew up loving. That was influenced by a Sly Stone record. 60′s/70′s swag. I worked with a photographer in Raleigh named Jordan [Rickard]. I wanted to do something simple. I did it in my crib at my front porch. When I’m working on a record, I always have these vision boards. I always think about the colors, being a Black man, what’s gonna look good. I reached out to a stylist in L.A. who’s a good friend. I’ve always wanted to do a burnt orange background, and the sky blue represents Carolina blue because I’m a big Tar Heels fan. That color coordination blue and orange looks good together.

SILY: Why are you also putting out a two-track single in addition to the 4-track EP?

JR: That was more the label, how we wanted to go about the campaign. Initially, “Luv n Pain” was the first single I wanted to release regardless. “Shook” would be too predictable. There were so many artists releasing protest songs. “Luv n Pain” is more the past and present of Boulevards. When we finished it in the studio, [I knew.]

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gutterballgt · 7 years

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Ask meme

From the prompt list earlier, @susan-25 asked for the ER/A&E AU meet-up. As always, her wish is my command!

"This is all your fault."

Raleigh, pained and having no interest in hiding that fact, adjusted the ice pack on his face. It was too cold to press directly against his swollen eye, but it felt both achy and wonderful on the surrounding socket. And his likely broken nose. Which had thankfully stopped bleeding but probably needed to be set.

"You're the one who didn't strap in right."

"Oi, fuck that!" The large, mouthy Australian -- the cause of all his current sorrows -- adjusted his own ice pack to more adequately attend the goose egg growing on the back of his stupid ginger head. "The ride attendant checked the harness before we took off. Not my fault the fucking thing released going into the loop."

For one terrifying, tunnel-vision moment on the ill-fated rollercoaster ride, Raleigh had envisioned the worst case scenario: the gape-mouthed stranger seated in front of him missing him entirely and free-falling the fifty or so feet all the way to the ground, likely careening off the brutally skeletal support struts as he went. He would have died. Of that, Raleigh had no doubt.

Instead, that shock of red hair came straight for Raleigh's face and slammed home, and in his confusion and fear, he'd locked his arms around the huge body slamming into him and held on for dear life, praying his own harness didn't slip free as easily as the stranger's had.

That Yancy's wouldn't. Because Yancy was behind him where Raleigh couldn't reach.

Thankfully, the loop had been near the end of the ride, and between Raleigh's death grip -- arms and legs; he was taking no chances -- and the stranger's punishing grasp on the outsides of Raleigh's thighs as he held on for dear life while they were briefly upside down, they somehow made it without said stranger falling to an untimely death from a shoddy theme park rollercoaster in the middle of nowhere.

Unfortunately, the second the ride stopped and the danger had passed, the stranger started talking.

"My old man'll sort 'em out, though. I could've fucking died. They'll be paying for the rest of my university, the fucking lot of 'em."

Or, more accurately, bitching. Yancy had found it hilarious at first, but a ten-minute ambulance ride filled with nothing but angry Australian curses and threats changed his mind enough that he'd volunteered -- volunteered! -- to wait out in the overflowing E.R. lobby, just to get away from it. Yancy Becket, who always got his flu shot and hesitated to touch public bathroom doorknobs because people didn't wash their goddamn hands, volunteered to sit arm and arm with snot-nosed toddlers and coughing teens and groaning, babbling elderly folk and people who were bleeding but not hemorrhaging and, thus, could wait.

Just to not have to listen to this guy bitch anymore.

Impressive, really.

If Raleigh's head didn't feel as if his eye socket was broken to match his nose -- which it might well be; they still hadn't been taken back for x-rays yet -- he might better appreciate it. As it was, he really wished the guy would just shut up already. They'd been sitting on their respective hospital gurneys for damn near an hour already, mostly enclosed by stupid E.R. curtains that did nothing to mute the noisy bustle of an over-packed emergency ward, and Raleigh really just wanted his face to stop hurting.

And then... it happened.

"What's your name, then?"

He blinked with his one good eye and shot the guy -- a kid, really, if he was still in college, but big and broad and salty as fuck for his apparent age -- a surprised look. "Raleigh?"

"Right." It wasn't quite a sneer, but there was definitely a hint of judgment in the big jerk's tone. "Anyway... reckon I ought to thank you, yeah?"

He could not have been more surprised. He wasn't sure he'd been as surprised as when the guy's head slammed into his eye.

"Not everyone would've grabbed on, yeah? Let alone held on through the loop."

Was... was the kid blushing? Jesus, and was that a bonafide smile? Oh, shit on a biscuit and call it a sandwich, but were those dimples??

"So... yeah. Thanks. For saving my life." A shrug that looked about as casual as a seizure. "You're all right, Ray."

Aaaaannnnd there was the salty jerk again.

"The name's Raleigh."

Definitely judging. "If you say so."

Sighing, he adjusted the melting ice pack for the tenth, the twentieth, thirtieth time. "Are you always like this?"

Without missing a beat, the kid shrugged. "Yeah. You?"

He couldn't help it. He snorted. The balls on this brat. Raleigh couldn't tell if he knew exactly how obnoxious he was and didn't care or had no idea how abrasive and snarky he came across.

"What's so funny?"

Oh, God help him if the jerk got started again. So, restraining himself to another, smaller snort, he shook his head. "Nothing. What's your name, kid?"

"Chuck. And don't call me kid."

His one functioning eyebrow rose. "Then don't call me Ray."

Rolling his eyes, the kid squirmed irritably on the gurney. "The fuck is taking so long? I fucking hate American healthcare. Costs a bloody fortune and they aren't even doing anything."

Patriotism wanted him to argue. Pragmatism had him nodding ruefully instead. "I can't even disagree. Healthcare here sucks. They have universal in Australia, right?"

"Yeah, I reckon so. Haven't been there since I was a sprog, though. Haven't kept in touch."

One eyebrow rose again. With that accent...?

Weirdly enough, the kid -- Chuck -- eyed him for a long moment, stiffening. Then, jaw tight, he went on with visible reluctance. "My mum died when I was ten, so Dad moved us to London to stay with an old military chum of his." Weirdly light-colored eyes, not quite blue and not quite green, skittered away. "Haven't been back since."

"Ah." There were so many landmines in all the holes in that story that Raleigh had no intention of stepping into it. "But England has good universal healthcare, right?"

Another awkward, jerky shrug.

Amazing. He'd managed to shut the kid up. He hadn't even had to do anything, really.

Unfortunately, the silence between them now sounded -- and felt -- thunderous.

He tried. He really tried to wait it out, madly hoping a nurse would stop by to make sure neither of them had bled to death or passed out from concussion or even just to take their goddamn temperatures.

This time, it was his shoulders tensing, his jaw clenching as he tried to speak. "My mom died when I was fifteen. Lung cancer."

He felt those light eyes on him, curious but still angry, still ready to take offense. All of a sudden, he wished Yancy had come back with them, after all.

"You know, she smoked all the way up to that last ambulance ride. I was so mad about that." The strained muscle in his neck twitched. "Still am, really. It wouldn't have saved her life to quit by then, but...."

What the ever-loving fuck are you doing, Rals?

It wasn't quite Yancy's voice, but he could definitely picture Yancy's incredulous expression. Telling all of that to a prickly stranger he wasn't even sure he much liked? Talking about stuff neither he nor his brother could talk about to this day without one or the other of them getting choked up and needing to stop?

"There... was an accident. On base."

Gathering all his will, he looked at the kid he'd somehow miraculously caught mid-air. The kid he'd saved.

Chuck looked right back at him, eyes hard and defiant but... pleading, too. Maybe.

"It was an air show. A fluke thing, some kind of wiring malfunction, and the pilot had to bail out. They cleared the entire landing area and everyone took shelter... but we were already on the way to the lot. Missed the alarms. I wanted to go home early, though Mum wanted to stay. Threw one fuck of a fuss, and she gave in."

Oh, sweet mercy, but he had the worst intuition--

"My fault, yeah? We wouldn't have been in the lot when that fucking jet took out the whole center section, but I wanted to go home because it was too loud. Too many people. Too hot. Too boring when they weren't doing tricks up there."

Jesus. Suddenly, he wanted to reach over and hug the poor kid, prickly asshole or no. How the hell did someone live through something like that?

"Dad dug me out from the rubble, but Mum was already gone. She...." Chuck's throat clenched, the Adam's apple bobbing. "She tried to shield me."

He had no fucking clue what to say. What on earth could he say? Ten years old, and the entire rest of his life tainted by something he'd really had no control over. No wonder the big jerk was... well, a big jerk.

Survivor's guilt would do that to you.

"Chuck?"

There was way too much expression in those eyes. Raleigh couldn't even begin to sort through the mess. Didn't even try.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but you might be the luckiest son of a bitch I've ever met."

Gobsmacked, the kid rocked back, eyes wide, and stared at him.

Oops.

"I just mean... you survive something like that as a kid, and now your fucking harness lets go at the worst possible time, only for some random guy to snatch you out of the air?" Shrugging helplessly, he smiled a little. "You are one lucky fuck."

The moment stretched out like warm taffy, ready to pull apart at any second, Raleigh's nerves stretching with them until he wondered which would break first -- the silence or his nerve. What the hell had he been thinking? The poor bastard was having maybe the second worst day of his life, and Raleigh tells him he's lucky?

Finally, the big guy scooted off the gurney and stood tall, and... oh, shit. Bright eyes narrowed, and Raleigh was suddenly sure he'd get punched on top of the shellacking he'd already taken. He did not want to get in a fight in an E.R.

Then again, this might be the most practical place for one. And maybe they'd finally get some goddamn medical attention. Or arrested. Either way--

Chuck stopped directly in front of him, looming just at his knees, one hand fisted around the ice pack dangling at his side and the other hand just fisted. This would be very, very bad.

Then... the kid leaned. No, he leaned.

Wide-eyed -- even the swollen eye under the ice pack -- Raleigh leaned away, reaching back to brace himself against the thin gurney mattress. "Chuck? What are you doing?"

Those not-blue-not-green eyes weren't narrow now. No, from a bare blink away, they were half-lidded, not narrow.

"Trying my luck."

What the--

Oh. Oh.

It was a weirdly confident kiss, for all that it was from a stranger who'd looked ready for battle a second before. It wasn't domineering or pushy or arrogant in any way. Just... confident. As if Chuck knew Raleigh wouldn't pull away.

He would, though. Soon.

In a minute.

Because it was a very nice kiss, despite being unexpected. And Chuck's big body put out a very nice warmth as he crowded closer between Raleigh's knees, one hand going to the uninjured side of Raleigh's face to trace a gentle thumb along his jaw.

In fact, if it hadn't been for the ice pack still radiating both ache and chill against his eye and nose, he would've forgotten the situation entirely and full-on made out with this stranger that had literally landed in his lap out of nowhere. For all that he was a mouthy jerk, Chuck was one hell of a kisser.

"Oh, my God, seriously??"

He didn't jerk away, guilty and embarrassed. He did sigh, though, and pull just far enough back to end the kiss and look around Chuck's slightly flushed face to where his brother stood just at the edge of the curtain, radiating disapproval.

"Goddammit, Rals. I can't leave you alone for one second."

He opened his mouth to protest, but Chuck beat him to it. Without pulling away, the kid snorted and shot Yancy a withering glance.

"It's been like an hour, ya wanker, and you can leave us alone any time now. We're busy."

He should probably be offended on Yancy's behalf. But he wasn't. Not even a little bit.

So he smirked instead. "You heard him."

After all, Yancy had done worse. And had just as terrible taste in men as Raleigh.

"Seriously, Rals, this guy is--"

"Mr. Becket? Mr. Hansen? The radiologist is ready for-- oh." And now a nurse was staring at them from Yancy's side, her face losing its professional calm for only a moment before confusion set in. "Wait. I thought you two didn't know each other...?"

Yancy glared as if to underscore this reasonable point. The nurse raised both eyebrows. Chuck stood solid and steady between Raleigh's thighs, refusing to be embarrassed away.

So Raleigh just shrugged.

"What can I say?" Smirking, he reached down and smacked the kid on the ass, earning a surprised grunt and an incredulous look. "He's one helluva catch."

Groaning, Yancy smacked his hand to his forehead. The nurse snickered and tried to hide it.

And Chuck? Chuck just glared.

But he didn't move away.

"I'll get you for that."

Deciding that this had been a pretty damn good day, after all, Raleigh just grinned and went all-in. He waggled his eyebrows. Even though it hurt.

"Looking forward to it."

Best. Day. Ever.

THE END

#ask meme #chaleigh #these guys kill me #I meant to write them some silly fluff #but they always have to get so SERIOUS #sheesh guys #just skip right to the kissing for once will ya??#pacific rim #raleigh becket #chuck hansen #yancy becket

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