#Keanu reeves is one of the very few famous people I know but I still don’t know very mcuh

[keanureevesisbae]

Mister Cavill, your dog is kinda fat - Chapter 5

Summary: Veterinarian Olivia Tran has zero time for bullshit. After becoming a mom at age twenty three, the one thing she wants is a good life for her daughter Vanessa. Her ex didn’t want anything to do with her nor the baby and she decided that man are officially banned out of her life. But then she meets Henry Cavill at her clinic and her ban slowly starts to crumble apart. Henry on the other hand is looking for one thing: a family. And when he meets Olivia Tran, he finds just that.

Henry Cavill x Olivia Tran (ofc)

Warnings: Mentions of an ear infection and vomit (doesn’t know if that needs a warning though)

Wordcount: 4k

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Henry made reservations at a place where I’ve never been to. It’s fancy, yet cosy and probably insanely expensive. He told me not to worry about it for a single second, but that’s easier said than done. Every sip I take of my wine and every bite I take of the pasta, I can almost hear coins clattering somewhere in the background.

‘I never knew you had tattoos,’ Henry says eventually.

I stare down at my arm, after I rolled up my sleeve, since it’s pretty hot in here. ‘Yeah, I usually cover them up. My boss doesn’t think it’s professional.’ I hold out my arm, to show him the inside of my arm. ‘Vanessa likes to color them,’ I say, point to some where you can see a faint hint of colors, in the outline of a few flowers.

Henry gently holds my wrist. He hand nearly engulfs my wrist, only adding fuel to the  fact that Henry is a lot bigger than me fact. ‘I like this one,’ he says, his thumb caressing the tattoo of Vanessa’s name and date of birth. ‘I always thought that if I ever had kids, I’d tattoo their names somewhere.’

Of course he would do that. That seems like the biggest dad move and it would fit him perfectly. He doesn’t have tattoos, but knowing that the name of his kid would be the first, is something that makes my heart flutter.

‘Do these tattoos have any sort of meaning?’ he asks, after he let go of my wrist.

I shrug. ‘Not really. My ex was really into having tons of tattoos and I kind of went with it. I also did it to piss off my mom.’

‘Did you succeed?’

‘Of course I did,’ I laugh. ‘She hated them with a passion, but since I was already in college, she couldn’t really say anything about it. Besides, it wasn’t like I started smoking weed again, so she was kind of grateful in the end.’

‘You used to smoke?’ he asks, his eyes nearly rolling out of their sockets in disbelieve.

I chuckle. ‘I did, when I was around sixteen. I did it for like a year.’

‘Damn, doctor Olivia Tran is a total bad ass,’ Henry laughs, his eyes smiling as well.

‘You never smoked weed?’ I ask in disbelieve. ‘Mister Cavill, I’m deeply disappointed in you.’

‘I’m very sorry.’ Henry takes a sip of his wine. ‘Why did you want to become a vet?’

‘I was always obsessed with animals,’ I confess. ‘At home we never had pets. My mom thought dogs were disgusting, because they lick themselves and my dad is allergic to cats. My brother Jesse once had a fish, but he died within twenty four hours after he bought him, so he was traumatized and my other brother Levi hated animals in general, so yeah… No pets in the Tran household. My friends all had animals and I would love them when I visited. I even became a dog walker for awhile and professional animal sitter when our neighbors went on a holiday.’

‘Impressive,’ he notes. ‘How old are your brothers?’

‘Right now they are thirty seven and thirty four,’ I try to remember.

‘You have any idea how they are right now?’

I shake my head, all of the sudden feeling a bit of an emptiness in my heart. Growing up my brothers and I were so close. I was their little sister, their princess. It’s still beyond me that something like that could change within a heartbeat. ‘No idea,’ I admit. ‘My brothers aren’t the biggest fans of social media and I’m not going to cave and talk to them first. Not after what they did.’

Henry sits up a bit more straight and leans a bit forward, placing his hand on mine. His thumb caresses my fingers. Normally I’m not too keen on people touching me, but this feels so familiar, so safe. ‘I understand,’ he says. ‘I can’t believe your family ditched you just like that.’

‘Would your family have done that?’ I quietly ask.

He shakes his head. ‘Absolutely not,’ he says. ‘They would’ve loved the kid.’

‘Must be nice to have a family like that.’

He shrugs, probably not wanting to hurt my feelings.

‘Sometimes I wished I could’ve give Vanessa that type of family,’ I admit, without even thinking about it. I turn my hand around, so our palms touch each other. It feels even more intimate. ‘She wonders why she doesn’t have a dad or grandparents or uncles.’

‘What do you say to her?’ he wonders.

‘That her father doesn’t want her and that my side of the family didn’t like it, when I got pregnant with her.’

‘That must be pretty hard for her, right?’

I nod. ‘Belle told me that she didn’t think it was right for me to say it as bluntly as I did, but I don’t want to lie to her. Besides, what do I have to tell Vanessa? I don’t know who your dad is? I don’t have a family?’

‘Right,’ Henry says, frowning a bit in the process.

I don’t want to talk about this anymore, because my family is one of the biggest disappointments in my life. ‘Vanessa was really happy when I told her you asked me out,’ I say, seeing his face light up when I mentioned it. ‘I picked her up from school today and when I told her, she insisted on helping me pick out an outfit.’

‘She picked this out?’ he asks.

‘Only the shoes.’

‘I should thank her, then.’

I stick out my tongue, before I burst out in laughter.

‘Have you dated since you had Vanessa?’ he asks.

‘I haven’t,’ I confess. ‘I actually swore to myself that I’d ban men all together out of my life, unless Keanu Reeves came knocking at my door.’

Henry brings a hand to his lips, to suppress some laughter, but he fails miserably. ‘And yet you agreed on going on a date with me.’

‘Guess I have a thing for handsome men with chubby dogs.’

He lets out a chuckle. ‘Good thing I have a thing for veterinarians who drag me across the examination room after I passed out.’

I snicker. ‘I do have to ask you something,’ I say, before taking a sip of his wine. It would be a lot more practical if I could use the other hand as well, but I want to touch his hand so badly, that this is a discomfort I’ll endure. ‘Why me?’

His frown shows me that he doesn’t understand.

‘Why did you ask me out?’

Henry smiles. ‘I would be an idiot if I let you slip through my fingers, wouldn’t I?’

‘How romantic,’ I chuckle.

‘It’s true,’ he simply states. ‘I admire you in such a way… You are an amazing vet, an extraordinary mother and just a wonderful woman in general. I have never met someone quite like you, Olivia. You are truly one of a kind.’

When was the last time someone said something like that to me? I dated Wesley for five years, but not once was anything he said to me, this kind of romantic. He always mentioned my looks, how my body looked, but never about my qualities.

I clear my throat. ‘So, the whole I have a kid thing doesn’t bother you?’

‘Why would that bother me?’

Does he need to be this perfect? I cock an eyebrow, before I say: ‘Because guys are usually scared off when there is a child in the mix.’

Henry shrugs, also taking a sip of his wine. ‘Guess I’m not like other guys then. It really doesn’t matter to me,’ he says. ‘I like you, with or without a kid. Besides, Vanessa is a wonderful girl. You are doing such an excellent job with her,’ he continues. ‘You are raising her so well. She is polite, smart and is such a unique girl in general. I don’t think I’ve ever met a kid that age like her.’

‘Shut up, Henry,’ I say, dapping the corners of my eye dry, hoping to prevent myself from bursting out in tears.

‘I mean it, though,’ he whispers.

During dinner, he finds out a lot about me. He was impressed when I told him I used to be pretty active in gymnastics, but had to quit due to a nasty knee injury when I was thirteen. About the fact that I was forced to play piano as a kid, but somehow ended up playing a bit of guitar and how I still want to pick that up again, but barely have time.

I find out that he is really close to his brothers and his parents, something that is lovely for him, but makes me a bit jealous. I wish I had that. But also, that he has difficulties picking up acting again.

‘Why?’ I ask.

‘That last movie I did, was the biggest flop in Hollywood.’

I bet he is exaggerating, but I keep my mouth shut.

‘And I just kind of lost some drive to pick up the whole acting again and…’

It’s impossible for me to keep my mouth shut now. ‘And you want to start a family of your own, right?’

His eyes widen. ‘How do you know about that?’

‘You’re famous, Henry and I’m curious. Go figure.’

He blushes, as if he got caught. ‘Well, it is something that crosses my mind, yeah.’

I smile. ‘That’s only normal,’ I say to him.

‘Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I want to start one right now, it’s just that—’

‘You need to find someone compatible,’ I interrupt him, taking notice of his discomfort. ‘I understand. You want someone that is not in it for the money, for the fame or for the sex, you want someone serious.’

‘Right,’ he says, clearly relieved that I understand.

‘Good thing I want something serious too,’ I admit. ‘I’m really not in the mood, ever, for bullshit, Henry. I passed that station a long time ago. The fact that you are willing for something serious, it’s a big relief for me.’

He opens his mouth to say something, but he is interrupted by someones phone. My phone to be exact. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, pulling my hand back, to grab my phone. ‘It’s Belle.’

‘Please take it,’ he says.

‘Hi Belle,’ I say when I pick up.

‘I’m so sorry, Olivia,’ I hear my best friend say from the other end of the line. ‘But Vanessa is not feeling well.’

I can even hear her crying in the background. ‘Is she okay?’ I ask.

‘I don’t know what’s with her,’ Belle confesses. ‘She has been crying for the last fifteen minutes and nothing works. I checked her forehead, but she’s not really hot or anything and I don’t want to bother you, because this is the first time in forever that you’re on a date, but I don’t know what to do anymore.’

‘Don’t feel sorry, Belle, you did your best. I’m coming home and you tell Vanessa that…’

I can barely finish my sentence, when I hear a sobbing Vanessa on the phone. ‘Mommy, I’m in pain and I want you home.’

This isn’t the moment for me to start panicking. ‘Angel, don’t you worry. I’m coming home, sweetheart and I’ll try to see what I can do for the pain. You go hug Kal and auntie Belle and I’ll be on my way.’

‘Is Superman coming with you?’ she asks in between sobs.

I smile. ‘Yes, sweetheart, I’m bringing Superman with me. I love you so much and I’ll be home before you know it.’

‘I love you too, mommy.’

I bet she hands Belle the phone and she says: ‘To make things even worse, I’m on call and someone just called for a sick beagle.’

‘We’ll be there shortly, okay?’

‘I’m so sorry, Olivia,’ Belle continues to apologize, but I simply dismiss it and eventually hang up the phone.

‘Is everything okay?’ Henry asks.

‘Vanessa isn’t feeling too well and Belle has to go to the clinic and I need to go home to them. I’m so sorry, Henry.’

He simply shakes his head. ‘We both knew that this was a possibility,’ he says, ‘and besides: Vanessa is and should be your number one priority. No need to feel sorry, I totally understand. I’ll go pay and we’ll go back to your place.’

≫≫≪≪

Vanessa hasn’t stopped crying ever since we came back. Belle had to rush to the clinic for the beagle, after she apologized for over five minutes. Vanessa buried her face in the crook of my neck and I can feel her burning up with a fever.

After prying for about ten minutes, I finally figured out what’s up with my little girl: she has a nasty ear infection, but that is nothing we can’t handle. My mother used to chop up some onions, to place it on the infected ear. I never really understood why that worked, but somehow the pain subdued in a matter of two days and while I was still groggy afterwards, the pain in my ear always went away shortly.

I walk back to the kitchen when the cries have turned a bit softer, to see Henry chopping up onions into tiny pieces.

‘How is she?’ Henry asks, blinking his eyes fast, because of the onions.

‘Really feverish.’ I sit on a stool and give Vanessa a kiss on her head.

‘I’m almost done,’ Henry says. ‘Though I have no idea what to do with the onions.’

‘If you hold her when you’re finished, I’ll take care of it.’

He washes his hands and I stand up, before I whisper in Vanessa’s ear: ‘Henry is going to hold you for a minute, okay?’

Vanessa nods and places her head on his broad shoulder when he holds her. I know that this isn’t the moment, but this really warms my heart, seeing Henry like a true dad. When he drove back to my place, he nearly broke all the speed limits, because he desperately wanted to be with Vanessa, not wanting her to be without her mother any longer.

‘Can you make me feel better?’ Vanessa asks in a tiny voice, when I prepare the gauze so I can fill it with the chopped onions. ‘You are Superman.’

‘What can I do to make you feel better?’ Henry asks.

‘Sing something for me,’ she mumbles.

He doesn’t say anything at all, making me think he stiffened up and is finding a way out of this, but then he asks: ‘What do you want me to sing for you, sunshine?’

‘You’re Welcome,’ she whispers. ‘That song Maui sings in Moana.’

I want to ask if he knows that song, but all of the sudden I hear his soft and deep voice, singing the lyrics.

‘What can I say except “you’re welcome”? For the tides, the sun, the sky.’

The gauze is ready and I turn around, a smile evident on my face, since I can’t help but melt at this sight. He is singing for her. I never pecked Henry for a guy that would sing, but my daughter has him wrapped around her finger.

He sits on a chair, so I can reach Vanessa’s ear a bit better. ‘Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay, you’re welcome. I’m just an ordinary demi-guy.’

I place the gauze with onions on her ear, wrap some bandages around her head and all that while Henry is singing. By the time I’m done, Vanessa has fallen asleep. The loud crying must’ve exhausted her. ‘We should place her on the couch for now,’ I whisper. ‘If I’m not with her in bed, she’ll notice right away.’

Henry stands up and carefully places Vanessa on the couch once he’s in the living room. He places a hand on her forehead and says: ‘Maybe we should open a window.’

I open the window till it’s ajar and I watch as Kal places his head against her thigh, a sweet reminder that he is there for her.

Henry and I take place at the table, so I can look at Vanessa and Kal. Henry sits right next to me and for some reason, it makes me feel really safe and comforted. ‘I’m sorry, Henry,’ I finally say. ‘This is probably not at all what you had in mind when you were asking me out.’

He simply shrugs. ‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘I’m just sad that Vanessa isn’t feeling well.’

‘She told me she felt a bit snotty and sick earlier today, but I didn’t expect a full blown ear infection.’

Henry simply nods, before placing his large hand on my leg. Do not faint, Olivia Tran, I swear do not faint! ‘You have to go to work tomorrow?’

‘I do,’ I admit. ‘And I don’t know how I’m going to handle this. I can’t call in sick, again, because my boss will kill me if I do so, but I’m not taking a sick kid with me to work and—’

‘I can look after her,’ he says.

Excuse me, what? ‘Excuse me, what?’ I say out loud.

‘I can look after her,’ he repeats. ‘I have nothing to do, so you can go to sleep and then tomorrow, you’ll go to work.’

I blink away some tears in my eyes, that start to collect there at an admirably fast speed. ‘Henry, I can’t ask that from you.’

‘Good thing I’m offering,’ he says with a soft smile. ‘Really, I don’t want you to get in trouble and besides, I don’t want to leave Vanessa when she’s feeling like this.’

≫≫≪≪

I don’t know what I did in life to deserve a man like Henry Cavill. After we talked for a bit (and him promising that he really hasn’t anything to do tomorrow), I went to bed with Vanessa and Henry placed a mattress in the room, falling asleep there with Kal.

But during the night, every time I was awake, he was too, forcing himself to stay awake. He even opened a window, so Vanessa could continue to cool off. He placed a thin blanket over her, creating the illusion that she was covered, while he covered me with a thicker blanket, so I wouldn’t grow cold.

I made him promise to call me if anything happened, but nothing happened. He send me three pictures: one of Kal guarding a sleeping Vanessa who lays sprawled out on the couch, one of Vanessa with freshly cut onions on her ear and one of her and Henry and I need to fight the urge to change that my wallpaper into that picture.

Vanessa is seated on his lap, her thumb in her mouth (something she only does when she’s sick) and her head placed against his chest. Though Henry looks tired from not sleeping at all, he is still smiling and I can’t help but envision a future with those two.

During the day, all sorts of scenario’s jump through my mind. Me coming home from work, to find Vanessa and him waiting for me. Henry and I in our bed and due to a thunderstorm, Vanessa barges into to the room, so she can lay with us. Henry picking her up from school. Henry going with me to the parent teacher meetings, so I don’t have to face miss Sue or some other bitch by myself.

Henry being the father figure that Vanessa so desperately needs.

After a day where it seemed like every second passed by at least three times, I’m on my way back home. I open the front door and I hear soft giggles from the living room. I close the door behind me, slip out of my shoes, all while I hear Henry say: ‘You’re doing a great job, sunshine.’

‘You’re very pretty, superman.’

I walk into the living room, to see Vanessa sitting on his lap, using her children’s make-up kit, coloring in Henry’s face. He looks ridiculous, with his bright blue forehead and green cheeks.

‘Mommy, you’re back!’ Vanessa says. She dismisses her make-up kit and walks up to me. I meet her halfway and pepper her cheek with kisses. ‘I missed you.’

‘I missed you too, how are you feeling?’ I place my hand on her forehead and feel she isn’t as hot as she was when I left, but seeing her teary eyes, I know she is still sick, but feeling a lot better from the looks of it.

‘Tired,’ she admits. ‘And body ache.’

‘Understandably so. Have you been sweet to Henry and Kal?’

She nods. ‘I puked. though,’ she admits.

‘Oh no, sweetie, where?’

‘Over Kal.’

Then I notice indeed that Kal is a bit wet, while he is placed on a few towels. ‘Oh.’

‘Yeah,’ Henry says, ‘I used your bath tub for a little clean up session.’

‘That’s totally fine,’ I say with a smile. ‘What is that smell?’

‘I made some pasta,’ he answers, while it’s really hard to take him seriously with those weird colors on his face.

‘How about you wash your face and I’m going to see what this sweetheart wants for dinner?’

‘I want a fruit smoothie,’ Vanessa says and that is really typical for her when she’s sick to order fruit smoothies. ‘And maybe a bite of your pasta.’

Henry cleans up his face and by the time I have finished the fruit smoothie with oranges and bananas, Vanessa has already fallen asleep on the couch again. Not wanting to wake her up, I decide to put the smoothie away, for when she wakes up again. I sit across from Henry at the table. ‘How was it today?’

‘It went okay,’ he says, ‘minus the puking accident of course, but other than that, it went good. We watched some movies mostly.’

I don’t know why this happens, but I feel some tears burning up in my eyes.

‘Why are you crying, Olivia?’ Henry asks, while changing seats, so he can sit next to me. He places his hand on the back of the chair.

‘It’s just that I don’t know what I would’ve done, if you didn’t offer to watch her today,’ I admit.

He smiles. ‘Come here,’ he whispers, pulling me against his broad chest and when I feel his massive arms engulfing me in a hug, tension in my body that has been building up there for God knows how long, slowly seems to fade away. I wrap my arms around his waist and he places his chin on top of my head.

Was a hug something I needed for all those years? Is that it?

For all these years, I have been pulling myself together, even when my worries nearly ate me up alive. But to share it with someone, who is already being such a great influence in not only Vanessa’s life, but also in mine, is something I never knew I needed.

‘Thank you, Henry,’ I whisper when I carefully pull back.

His large hands are placed on my shoulders and he smiles at me. ‘My pleasure, Olivia.’

I bite my lip and admit: ‘I think I’m falling for you.’

He nods. ‘Good thing I’m falling for you too.’

Just do it. He probably won’t mind. I know for a fact that he won’t mind. Look at what he said to me. He is falling for me too. I lean in and give him a short peck on his cheek, the five ‘o clock shadow already scratching against my lips. I don’t pull back immediately. My breath against his skin. I have to swallow hard to maintain some composure, but I’m ready to turn into a large puddle.

Henry turns his face, to give me a kiss on my lips. When was the last time I kissed a man? Right, it was when Wesley came home from his work. He gave me a short kiss on my lips, ten minutes before I told him about the pregnancy.

His lips brush against mine, even after the kiss. ‘Olivia,’ he says, his voice deep and nearly giving me the need to change my underwear, ‘this is the greatest way to end our prolonged date.’

I can’t help but chuckle. ‘It is,’ I whisper. And I don’t want it to end.

Ever.

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[labelleofbelfastcity]

fig and gorgug’s excellent adventure

word count: 1.7k

read on ao3 here!

“Bill, my most esteemed colleague…”

Fig looks over at a quietly snoring Gorgug, his face softly lit by the shadows of Bill and Ted on her crystal. Even after a year of knowing each other, a few months of which were spent in a cramped cell together, she hadn’t known he snores. It had never been quiet enough, she had never been quiet enough, to notice that about him.

If Fig focuses, she can feel the rumble of the tour bus against her back, and, if she leans her head against the metal wall by her shoulder, the vibrations of tires over asphalt rattle around in her skull. They’ve only been on the road for a week, with just two concerts under their belts, and Fig is already kind of exhausted.

It’s a lot. The managers and the calls home and the makeup assignments for missed schoolwork. She probably wouldn’t even be doing the latter, but Gorgug spends his allotted midmorning time sitting at their extremely tiny table, with papers of Barbarian Theory and Engineering 1 scattered around him, and she’d feel like an asshole to just watch.

Fig hasn’t been sleeping well, either. The little bunk seems to press in around her, shoving her into an even smaller version of herself. Which feels stupid to complain about, because Gorgug is over a foot taller than her, since his growth spurt over the summer, and he’s sleeping just fine.

As if to prove her point, Gorgug shifts in his sleep, curling closer into Fig’s side. It’s just past one in the morning, and they have a gig tomorrow so Fig should really be sleeping too, but she’d felt like crying, for some reason, alone in her bunk. She’d crawled into Gorgug’s, instead, and pulled up Bill and Ted while he blinked blearily at her. It didn’t take him much longer to fall back asleep—now with his arm tucked around Fig’s shoulders—and Fig continues to hide from her emotions by watching Ted philosophize.

“Hey, Gorgug,” Fig hisses, burrowing her head into his chest in a way she knows will stick him with her horns. “Gorgug.”

“Hrmgh,” he grumbles, shifting more so that Fig can’t really poke him anymore. “Go to sleep.”

“No. Gorgug, hey. Come on, dude, I have an idea.” She doesn’t, really, more the idea of an idea, just like how Bill and Ted only operate on negative brian power and a pretty homoerotic bromance.

Homoerotic. She must’ve texted Kristen too much yesterday.

“Sleep is my idea,” Gorgug says, but it’s more of a sigh and a yawn wrapped up together and stretched like a yawning cat.

Fig’s brain unhelpfully supplies an image of sleepy Riz—ears cocked all funny and pupils absolutely giant. She shoves it back into the little chest lovingly marked “Bad Kids” that she’d constructed the second they drove away from Elmville because Fig is great at compartmentalizing and hiding her feelings. Totally.

“I’m bored, I want to do my idea.”

“You’re watching Bill and Ted.”

“No, I’m not. I’m talking to you.”

“Then stop talking to me and go to sleep.”

Fig huffs, about to say something just into the realm of mean, but then she feels Gorgug smile against the top of her head, and she relaxes a little.

“What’s your idea?” He asks, still sleepy, but also endearing in that goofy and sweet Gorgug way.

There’s a pause, while Fig tries to come up with her idea. The bus trundles along and Bill and Ted continue to kidnap historical figures. Finally, she says, much quieter than is warranted, like it’s some big secret she’s been holding close to her heart, “I’m gonna find a chronomancer so we can go back in time.”

“Like Augefort?” Gorgug yawns again.

“Absolutely not, Augefort doesn’t have Rufus energy.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“Maybe not a chronomancer, then, but like, someone who’s fucked with time, ya know. It would be cool to hang out with someone who’s fucked with time.”

“Like Augefort?” Gorgug says, before amending, “No. Wait. Rufus.”

“Yeah, Rufus,” Fig agrees. “Except if Rufus were hot, I think it would be more fun if our Rufus was hot.”

“Rufus is already hot. He’s got… sunglasses.”

Fig giggles and Gorgug snorts too. “You need your eyes checked, dude.”

“We watched the,” he yawns, “the Matrix last month. That’s what you said about Neo.”

“Uh. Neo is Keanu Reeves so just, automatically hot. Which. Speaking of. Bill and Ted are right there, dude.”

Gorgug laughs, quietly, voice still gummy with sleep, as he pokes her gently in the side, “I thought you liked older men.”

Fig makes a face that is very scandalized and very affronted. “That doesn’t mean I like Rufus.”

Gorgug shrugs, as best he can while in cuddle-mode. “I don’t know…”

Fig huffs and whacks him on the arm. “Maybe we should go to sleep.”

“Works for me,” he says, and settles back down.

“Hey. Hey! Don’t go back to bed, Gorgug. I’m still talking.”

He grumbles and turns his head even further into hers, trying to shield his eyes from the crystal’s light. “Watch your movie.”

“This is our movie, Gorgug. It’s ours.”

“It’s too late for it to be ‘our’ anything.”

“You’re no fun, you know that? No fun.”

“I’m sorry,” Gorgug says, way too sincerely for her to continue down that line of teasing.

“Hey, no, it’s fine. You’re tired, I should let you rest.”

Gorgug’s hand moves where it’s on her shoulder, rubbing over her sleep shirt, and then pausing, “Hey, is this mine?”

“Um,” Fig says, because it is, in fact, his. He’d left one of his Owlbears t-shirts on a chair, right after they unpacked all their stuff onto the tour bus, and she’d thought about it for approximately three seconds before snatching it and chucking it at her pile of clothes.

That first night, neither her nor Gorgug had gotten any sleep, sitting on the floor of the bus between their bunks, anxiously going over lyric and style choices for the next night’s show. So the shirt had waited until after their first concert, when both of them had been too tired to do much more than change out of sweaty, smoke-filled clothes and fall into their respective beds. It had smelled comfortingly of the Thistlesprings’ homemade fabric softener, but Fig’s varying states of cleanliness have not helped the smell stick around.

Now, though, cuddled up against Gorgug’s chest, she doesn’t miss the shirt’s smell. It’s nothing compared to the real thing.

“It’s okay if you took it,” Gorgug says, cracking a small smile. “It looks better on you anyway.”

“Since when do you have an eye for fashion, Mr. Hoodies-In-Summer?”

He reaches around and pokes her on the cheek, “Hey, my hoodies are a catch for women ages thirteen to twenty-eight.”

“We did sell, like, a literal ton last night,” Fig says, snorting.

There’s a lull in the conversation. Bill and Ted shred some sick air guitar.

“...It’s a little weird,” Gorgug says, eventually, in that introspective tone of his that promises paternal questioning.

“What is?”

“That we’re sophomores in high school and have so many people, like, caring about us. Or, I mean, watching us. Like, I guess we’re famous, or something? That’s weird.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“I guess I never thought about it like that.” Fig’s been too caught up in the whole being famous thing to think about what it means for her, a fifteen year old, to be famous. She isn’t a fan of thinking about it, actually, and decides to put it off even further. This is why Gorgug’s the thoughtful, considerate one.

“That’s probably why you’re better at songwriting than I am,” Gorgug muses. “You just do what feels right.”

Fig shifts a little, so she can look at him better, his features cast in the shifting colors of the crystal. “Dude, that’s like all drumming is. Like, just playing your emotions and not overthinking it. And you’re literally the world’s best drummer.”

“Oh,” Gorgug laughs, “I wouldn’t say that.”

“You are. What other teenager gets to go on a tour while they’re still in high school?”

“Um. The Jonas Brothers?”

“I mean this in the nicest way possible, but if you compare our music to the Jonas Brothers again I will stab you with my horns.”

“I really don't think they’re poky enough to do that—”

“Stab, Gorgug. With force. You wouldn’t like it.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll take your word for it.”

“Wo-ah,” Ted says, on the crystal.

“Wicked,” Bill chimes in.

“What if we talked like them at our next concert?” Fig asks, “Just come out with full Bill and Ted voices and keep them up the whole show.”

“That sounds… hard.”

“No, it would be fun! Like, um,” Fig switches into the voice, drawing out her vowels and smiling dumbly, “we’ll totally get babes like this, dude.”

“You can get princess babes,” Gorgug says. “I’ve got Zelda. That’s basically the same thing.”

“Oh my god, you’re too cute,” Fig burrows closer to him, back in her usual voice.

She can tell Gorgug’s blushing by the bashful tone of his silence. “Um, thanks. I should probably call her tomorrow.”

“Do you mind if I join too? I really like her, she’s nice. And sick as hell.”

“Yeah, that would be fun! We can show her our set, maybe.”

“Totally! If school wasn’t on right now we could’ve brought her along.”

“I don’t know, wouldn’t that, like, Beatles us?”

“Did you seriously just mention another boy band? Also, beyond that, did you use the Beatles as a verb?”

“Er.”

“Sometimes, I wonder how you ever made it into the punk-rock scene. And then I remember that I invited you.”

“Thanks for doing that,” Gorgug says, wrapping his other arm around Fig’s shoulders. “I never really said it before, but, thank you. This has, um, it’s meant a lot to me.”

“Oh, it’s nothing, dude.”

“It’s, like, kind of everything right now, Fig.”

“Oh.”

“So, I guess, um, thank you. For inviting me to join a band with you and taking me on tour.”

“I, uh… Of course. Thanks for being my drummer, Gorgug. I’ll always take you on my adventures.”

“And I’ll always go with you.”

Bill says, “Excellent,” on the crystal screen, smiling at Ted with big eyes.

Yeah, Fig thinks, as Gorgug sighs and smiles into the top of her head. Excellent.

[imagines-by-a-typical-fangirl]

Not Over You

A/N: This gif isn't mine, so if you're the owner, let me know so I can give you the credits.

Pairing: Keanu Reeves X Reader

Word count: 2.8K

Summary: Months after Keanu puts an end to your relationship and disappears, you bump into him, reawakening intense feelings.

×

You never expected to be the only human being on Earth who would go through life without an episode of a heart break. It would happen sooner or later, and you, like everyone else, would get over it. Eventually.

But you could never guess the one to give you such a painful experience would be Keanu Reeves, the one and only.

You met Keanu by mistake. An accident. In a day where your whole life was coming undone, two years ago. You had just lost your job, your parents were giving you a hell of a hard time about it, and you, seeking comfort in your boyfriend, found him half-naked with another girl. That made you drive insanely fast, through busy streets, only to stop on this bridge outside of the town. You had no intention of jumping, you just needed time to think and the wind was strong and heavenly. Maybe it could wash it all away.

It didn't. But a man decided to stop, assuming the worst, and asked you not to do anything reckless. You assured him you wouldn't, and a small, heart to heart conversation started. It took several minutes for you to finally turn and look at the man, and that almost gave you a heart attack. You couldn't believe your eyes. And you couldn't believe him, of all men, would pause his whole life just because of some random girl by the bridge.

But that was only the first day. He invited you for a coffee, and it took only a few days for you to get to the man behind the worldwide famous actor. And you fell in love with him. For a while, you thought he had fallen for you too.

But the media was restless. People soon found out about the age difference and that made them go crazy. News channel, tabloids, magazines, internet blogs, everything, they were all about Keanu's younger girlfriend. It didn't bother you though. You couldn't care less about what people think or say. But one day, it got to him.

One day, he decided to have an honest conversation with you about it. Keanu told you he felt old, so out of your league. Him. Out of your league. You remember laughing at this statement. But he didn't. He was dead serious as he pointed out all the things you couldn't share. How you belonged to different generations and never seemed to get each other's references. How you were into different things. It soon became a fight when you realized what he was doing. The yelling started and soon the crying. Keanu apologized and ended things. He wished you the best. He wished you to find someone your age, someone better than him.

That happened six months ago. It feels like years though. Since that day, you can only see him on TV. No texts, no calls. Nothing. Like he hasn't been in your life at all.

“(Y/N).” Your friend calls you, dragging you away from your thoughts. That's when you realize what made you remember him. Two men on your left, a few tables away, are talking about motorcycles. “You ok?”

“Yeah.” Nodding, you look down at your cup of coffee, still untouched. Your friend made you come to this new coffee shop early in the morning, and you wish you could enjoy it. But now that Keanu is once again in your mind... You find it difficult to take in the beautiful vintage decoration. The pastel colors and all the happy people around you, chatting and smiling.

“Please tell me your not–”

“I'm not.” You cut her off, taking a deep breath. “I was just... Thinking about this office party next week. I can bring someone. Wanna come?” Lying is not your thing, but if you tell Laura you're thinking about Keanu again, she won't let it go easily.

“Sorry. Next week will be hectic, I don't think I can.” Feeling her eyes on you, you sigh. “But on the weekend we can do something nice like going to the–” She stops talking suddenly, eyes wide, staring at something behind you.

“Laura?” Raising your eyebrows, you wonder which one of her many ex-boyfriends is here. “Do you need me to go so you can talk to him?”

“No, no.” Running a hand through your hair, you notice this person approaching by how she moves in her seat. Still, you don't turn to check who it is. The only boyfriend she had that you liked had to move to someplace in Europe. The others are all idiots, so why bother to look?

“Just tell me what you want to do.” Muttering, you finally take a sip of your coffee before putting the cup down again. Too bitter for your taste. Or is it just you?

“(Y/N).” The mention of your name isn't what startles you. Or what makes your heart, ripped in half, skip a beat. It's the voice. You haven't heard it in a very long time, but you recognize it immediately. You crave for it. “Hi.”

“I'll leave you two.” Laura stands up, taking her bag, and giving you a stare. You don't know what it means though.

She doesn't even give you time to think. Perhaps you should leave as well. But you're frozen, not able to even look at him.

It takes a few seconds until he takes a seat before you, where Laura was. Seeing Keanu now is... What? Torture, certainly. Because you just realized you want to jump in his arms again, hug him, kiss him. Is painful because you know you can't do any of those things. And you shouldn't want to.

But there he is, looking as good as the day you first saw him. Dark hair hiding one of his eyes, the stubble that always looks so rough, but you know how soft it really is. He's right there, and you could just stretch your arm and touch him.

There are a lot of things you want to say, and the words fight for a chance to be spoken.

'What the hell do you want?'

'Where have you been all this time?'

'I still love you.'

'Why did you came to talk to me?'

'Do you still love me?'

“Hi.” It's stupid how this is what wins in the end.

“How are you? It's been a while.” He hesitates a little, those dark eyes never leaving you, burning. How much you missed those eyes looking at you...

“Normal.”

“Just normal?”

“Just normal.” You should lie. Tell him you're absolutely fine. Happy as hell. Maybe you should even tell him you're going out with someone. But you just can't. You love him too much, and the time you had together was good. The very best. The way it ended doesn't change how amazing it was. So you just can't bring yourself to lie to him. But you don't tell the truth either. Keanu doesn't have to know how devastated you still are after he left. “You?”

“Guess I can say I'm normal too.” There are things left unsaid. From both of you. “Is it too bitter?”

“What?” You mumble, and he gestures at your coffee. He knows you. Too well perhaps. “Yeah. Why-why are you here, Ke?” When you notice how you just called him, it's too late. Cursing yourself, you bite your tongue. “Keanu.” Or should you say, Mr. Reeves? You don't know where you stand now. Friends? It can't be since he disappeared.

“I heard of this new coffee shop and decided to come and... When I saw you, I just had to come and talk.” He nods, maybe to himself. “But I can go if that's what you want.”

“No.” How could you want him to leave? “It's... It's good to see you again.” A smile finds its way to your lips. “After what? Three, four months?” You dissimulate, not wanting to just let it show how much you missed him.

“Seven months next week, I believe.” Is he counting? Why would he do that? “Too long.”

“Too long.” You're still speaking when a young couple stops by your table, excitedly talking to Keanu. You smile to see how he excuses himself, with an apologetic look, to give his fans attention. He's always kind to them, never being rude. When he stands up for a picture, you take the chance to leave, your heart sinking a little. After leaving the money on the table, you take your bag and walk away, doing your best to hold back the tears threatening to roll down.

You had imagined this moment a million times. Seeing him again. You thought you'd yell, curse him and bravely walk away. But this? You're walking away out of fear. You're running away from the feelings, too strong for you to handle. How is it possible to love someone so intensely after all this time?

“(Y/N)!” His voice comes with the familiar noise of his motorcycle. So you stop, breathing deeply, hoping the soft shadow of the three above you will hide your teary eyes. “I'm sorry about that, I–”

“You know I don't mind, Ke... Keanu.” Damn it.

“I... I want to talk to you. So maybe somewhere more private where we won't be interrupted?”

No. You don't want to talk to him. You don't want to pour salt on the wound. “Alright.” If only you were stronger.

Keanu gives you his helmet, and you put it on before climbing on the bike behind him. There's no choice but to hug his waist, so that's what you do, trying not to enjoy it so much. It's probably nothing. He probably just wants to apologize.

You can't help but notice he still keeps the same speed as before. Not as fast as he usually goes when he's alone. As much as this gesture warms your heart, you try to keep it distant. Try to keep it cold. Cold people don't get hurt.

You're not impressed when you stop at his place. Well, his house. One of them. He moved after breaking up with you. Keanu waits patiently for you to move to the ground. The bike is too high for you, so it's always a little complicated. Taking off the helmet, you hand it over to him, making your way to the front door. But halfway there you change your mind. Being inside his house is too much. It's too familiar, too... Too much. So you walk around it, straight to the backyard.

Sitting on the wooden table, you take in the view. The morning sun turns everything into a dream. You remember that the best pictures you have with Keanu were taken here after you either decided to crash here or passed out on his couch.

Memories. The damn memories never leave you alone.

“I forgive you.” You burst out when he comes to sit before you. “If you want to apologize for... I don't know, for anything. I forgive you.”

“I wasn't planning on this.” He starts hands together above the table. “But I saw you there and... I just had to.”

You don't know what to say, so you look down, unable to sustain eye contact anymore. What are you doing? What is he doing? “You disappeared.” It just comes out, suddenly, full of... Anger? Desperation? You don't know, but it's overflowing. “After everything we've been through, you broke up with and disappeared. Not a single call. Not even a text. Nothing!”

“I had to.”

“You had to?” A humorless laugh escapes your lips and you stand up, determined to leave. On foot, if that's what it takes.

“I had to because if not I'd come back to you.” He raises his voice a little, just enough to make you stop in your tracks, hands shaking a little. “I did what I did because of you.”

“No, you did it for yourself.” Turning around again, you sustain his stare. “I didn't want to end things. I love you!” It came out wrong. Didn't it? It was supposed to be in the past. “I loved you.” You correct yourself, a hand on your forehead. “I... I'm sorry. You think I'm too young for you and that's ok. You have the right to think that but don't put words in my mouth. I never cared about age.”

“Everything I wanted was you to have the chance of making a better choice. Someone your age who could keep up with all the pop culture things you're into.” He speaks slow, his voice soft and low again. Keanu never raises his voice at you. Well, he only does it get your attention when you're too mad to listen, but he never enjoys it.

“If I wanted someone my freaking age I'd be looking for him.” Stepping forward, you slam both your hands on the table. “When I fell for you, I wasn't paying attention to the numbers. I fell for you. You. Why can't you accept that?”

“The tabloids were saying that I was–”

“Taking advantage?” You finish it for him. “Yeah, they said a lot of mean stuff but I didn't give a damn. Our relationship was between you and me. The rest of the world didn't get a say in it.”

Keanu looks down, breathing deeply. You just stand there, waiting. Begging... Begging this means something. Something good.

“Say something, please.”

“I still love you.” The words hit you like a train, and you stand up straight, not strong enough to look away from him.

“Don't say that if you don't mean it.” You beg, your voice barely a whisper.

“I mean it.”

“Don't say that if you still think we can't be together because of this or that!” You gesture at nothing in particular, tears rolling down now, all the walls you put around yourself falling to the ground. “You broke my heart once, don't do that again.”

“I can't stop thinking about you.” Keanu stands up, walking around the table and stopping before you. “Every single day I had to fight the urge to call you. Visit you. To... Have you back, but I couldn't. That's why I moved away. And I only came back because I thought I got over you but... Clearly, I didn't.” When he takes your hand, you swear you feel the world slowing down. You have been dreaming of his touch for so long now that you just don't have to strength to push him away. You want him. And... If he wants you too...

“Ke, please don't–”

“When I saw you, it came back. Everything since that day on the bridge.” Pulling up your hand, he places a soft kiss on your knuckles. “Every hug, every kiss, every date. It reminded me of how much I missed you.”

It's useless to fight it. It's useless to put any effort into trying to step away now. Your arms move from his chest up to be around his neck as you end the small distance between your bodies. Keanu is quick to hug your waist and it feels like both your bodies move out of instinct. Like you missed each other in levels you can't even understand.

“What do you mean, Ke?” Your voice is weak, barely a whisper. Involuntary, you stand on your toes, needing, wanting to kiss him again.

“I don't care what they say. Tabloids, magazines, to hell with them. All I need, all I want is you and if you really don't mind having such an old man–”

“Everything about you draws me in. Inside and out.” Cutting him short, you caress his cheek, wondering if you should allow yourself to be happy. If this is really happening.

“I know, darling.” He takes a deep breath. “I know what I did hurt you very much but... If you're willing to try again...”

“If you ever break up with me again over this whole age shit or for anything someone who doesn't even know us says... I'll be the one to disappear this time.” You mutter with your eyes closed, using whatever is left of your strength to keep from kissing him. “Promise me.”

“The plans we had... About getting married, having kids... I want it all back. I want to get things where we left them.”

Biting back a smile, you nod, finally allowing your thirsty lips to meet his. And it feels like heaven, like getting a chance to breathe after being underwear for too long. He tastes just the same, like home. Some tears roll down, giving the kiss a salty taste, but you don't mind. They're tears of joy now.

When you pull away to breathe, he lifts you up, and you quickly wrap your legs around his waist. “You didn't get a chance to drink your coffee so let me make you breakfast.”

“Like before?”

“Yes. And if it's up to me, it'll be like that forever. For the rest of our lives or for as long as you want me.”

“Forever, then, Ke.” Smiling, you place a soft kiss on his lips. Yours now, once again. “Forever and always, babe.”

[keanuvibe]

Professor Reeves (Keanu Reeves x Reader)

A/N: Okay, here it is. The full continuation of the teaser i posted earlier this week :) I'm v excited about this okee. Thank u @keanusreefs for inspiring me, ily<3

Words: 7.0K

Warnings: Swears, Age-gap, SMUT ;), teacher/student (does that need a tag?)

Disclaimer: all characters, places, and people are of my own imagination save for Keanu :) thank you for reading <3

The bell ringing overhead signaled the end of class and the shuffle of students erupted throughout the quiet room. The mild anxiety that came with first day nerves began infecting your veins again, and you took a deep breath standing up. You gave the teacher a nod on the way out, beginning the trek to your final class of the day.

You are a freshman in college, a newbie. However, the catch is: you’re twenty-eight. You started late, leaving highschool with big aspirations didn't turn out like you’d hoped. Being into movies and film since you were a young child, you decided a career in acting was your best option to maybe, eventually, move up in the ranks and get famous. Shortly after high school graduation, you moved to New York and began starring in small plays. Each night you hoped a scout would enter the audience and give you the break you were looking for, but over the years nothing happened. During the day you worked as a bank teller, having started after running out of money. The job was great, and you ended up staying at that location for six years before it got robbed. 

You ended up moving back to your home state and with your parents at twenty-six. You were kind of a deadbeat for two years before your parents urged you to take a couple ‘fun’ classes at the local community college; mentioning how the school had a wonderful drama program. Having nothing better to do, you took out a small student loan, got a part-time job as a waitress, and enrolled at Tulip Ridge Community College focusing on Theater and Acting. You chose a few small art classes to fill the first few hours of the day, and a required English course as well, leaving your last class of the day to be Drama.

Luckily, the theater department wasn’t far from English, being that it is the class prior. You made it to the Drama room placed in a large room just off the hallway from the auditorium, greeting a hustle of students. The ages ranged, but for the most part it looked to be teens fresh from highschool. You scanned the room, greeting the over decorated space. Props from previous shows, you assumed at least, littered the painted white brick walls leaving barely any white to show. Long tables with cheap plastic school chairs sat in the middle of the room, parallel to a large prop presidential stand. On the wall behind the stand was the whiteboards with a projector screen pulled down covering the center.  You assumed that was where the teacher stood. You didn’t even know their name.

In the back of the room stood a mock carpeted stage. It was most likely the place they either used to practice plays when the auditorium was occupied or sat an audience in when they did more intimate shows with a smaller crowd, like a dine-in show. You did plenty of those with your theater company in New York. 

Picking a table that was empty, you quickly hustled to it before anyone else could and sat down in a corner seat. As a couple minutes passed, more rowdy theater kids had filled the room; greeting the others from their summer breaks. Most of the crowd seemed young, however the wonderful thing about community college is there's always going to be older people. 

“Hi, I’m June.” A high-pitched tone spoke, catching your attention. Turning your head, you noticed a lady had taken the seat next to your own. She looked older, maybe early thirties. She donned long brunette hair and was dressed as though it was the year 1984.

“Oh, uh, Hi.” You smiled back, holding your hand out to shake instinctively, “I’m (Y/N).”

“Nice to meet you, (Y/N).” She smiled wide. “Not to pry, but, I haven’t seen you at Tulip Ridge before, are you new?” June seemed like a preppy type, but very vintage.

“Oh, yeah. I’m a freshman.” You responded with a slight chuckle.

“Oh, well, welcome!” The woman responded, cheer evident in her tone. You were about to respond and ask her a few questions, however you were interrupted before you began. 

“Good afternoon class, I’m Professor Reeves.” The humble, deep voice of the teacher startled you and you quickly glanced in his direction. Eyes widening, you greeted the sight of the delicious man. He was tall, towering over the presidential podium prop he stood behind. His hair was long and disheveled framing his face perfectly. He donned a dark brown tweed jacket with a soft green button up underneath, however, and unfortunately, you couldn’t see the bottom half. 

“Welcome back, how were your breaks?” He asked, looking around the room. Students that seemed to know the man chimed back with colorful answers, prompting the man to laugh. You looked over to June who seemed engaged and intrigued by whatever the man was doing. So, is Professor Reeves the hot teacher of Tulip Ridge? What makes it even worse is he’s the Drama teacher. You’ve always had a weakness for theater boys; probably just the inner thespian in you. You had a few boyfriends back in New York, however their ego’s always tended to get the best of them and you’d have to break things off. 

“I see a few new faces in the crowd this year, let’s see,” Professor Reeves’ dark eyes scanned the class once again; eyes connecting with your own. You felt a chill run down your spine as the swarm of dormant butterflies in your tummy rushed to life. 

“What’s your name, breaktaking?” You felt your stomach drop as the teacher gestured towards you. A nervous snort escaped your throat and you felt your cheeks gain heat like a house on fire. You could perform in front of hundreds of people; yet the single attention of this one man was eating you alive.

“it’s- it’s (Y/N).” You nervously chuckled in response. The eyes of your classmates didn’t help the heat retaining in your cheeks. June gently patting your back snapped you back to reality and you looked in her direction. She gave you a reassuring nod, humoring the teacher still. 

“And what compelled you to pursue acting, (Y/N).” Your name rolling off of Professor Reeves’ tongue made the butterflies excite even more and you cleared your throat in an attempt to brush off some embarrassment. 

 “Um, well, I’m not exactly new to acting and drama. I’ve been doing this medium since I was seven. After highschool I even performed in New York for a bit, but um, just small shows.” You answered with a shrug, keeping focused on the teacher. The stares from the other students were burning into your skull, but you ignored them.

“So, what’re you doing at Tulip Ridge then?” The teacher pushed, his dark eyes gleaming into your own. He leaned forwards on the podium a little, his attention still burning at you. You sat up in your seat slightly, not really wanting to admit to a room full of strangers that you feel like a loser and deadbeat and are only here because your parents convinced you.

“Well, I-” You paused, “I want to further my education, that’s reason enough. Plus, there’s no better place to start than community college.” Typical answer, but it hides the truth enough, you guess. Professor Reeves’ stare indicated he knew you were hiding something. You kept eye contact long enough before another student spoke up breaking the stare.

--

The abrupt bell ringing interrupted the movie that was playing on the projector screen. The class erupted as everyone began to gather their things and shuffle out for the day. Shortly after all the new and old students had been introduced, the Professor had quickly jumped into the curriculum for the semester. He went over the syllabus as well as the first project you’d be doing in the class; which is to perform a quick, no longer than three minute, scene from your movie of choice. It has to consist of at least two characters and be school appropriate, obviously. Of course you and your new table mate decided to partner up for the project with high hopes of good scores.  

Speaking of the enthusiastic woman, you and June had talked throughout class slowly learning about the other. You discovered that she is thirty-one, works part-time in a bakery and has a four year old son. She isn’t married, but her and her son’s father are on good co-parenting terms. She’s been going to Tulip Ridge for one year now, making this her final year before she moves on to a four year college. She decided to go back to school after her and her son’s father split, leaving her with half an income but a full child to feed.

“Where are you headed after this?” June asked, tossing her long hair over her shoulder and grabbing her backpack.

“Back home, I’m sure my mom will want me to do some chores for her. I’ll research a scene for us and send you a link, as well. How about you?” You smiled at the woman. Being only a couple years younger than June felt nice, as most of your class as previously mentioned is overenthusiastic teenagers.

“You have got to move out, Sugar.” June laughed with a shake of her head. “I’m going to pick up my kid from daycare and spend a few hours with him before work tonight.” You could tell the woman loved her child a lot. Her voice and demeanor always softened at the mention of him. It almost made you feel the rush to be a mother; but you’re still young.

“Trust me, I know.” You responded with a chuckle. Shortly after, June said her goodbyes and excused herself. As she exited with the main crowd, only a few stragglers remained including you. You scanned the room, greeting the sight of Professor Reeves standing by the door saying his goodbyes to the students. You scanned him up and down now, actually being able to see his bottom half.

He was attractive, there was no doubt about that. The man was goofy too, as you’d expect a Drama teacher to act. During class you asked June if she knew anything about him and she actually gave you a quick rundown. Apparently he used to be a famous Hollywood star back in the mid-eighties to nineties. He did quite a few indie films, and one or two blockbusters. He fell off the radar in the year two-thousand after his wife died; resurfacing as a teacher in your rinky-dink hometown seven years later. The catch is, nobody knows his real name; at least locally. He keeps it hidden, only going by as Professor Reeves or Mr. Reeves. The fact you’d never heard of him kind of shocked you, but it really seemed like the fame world had moved on from your teacher. Students somewhat reacted to him, if they were film buffs, but otherwise he seemed like he lived a quiet life.

Your teacher's eyesight meeting your own caused you to stop staring finally. As a hot blush covered your cheeks once again, you quickly focused back down onto your backpack acting as though you were doing things. The room now sounded mostly quiet, and the pad of the Professors shoes echoed louder to your person.

“Miss (Y/N).” The deepness of his voice gave your spine a chill. You shyly looked up, greeting your teacher. Up close he was stunning. Gorgeous dark hair framed his face and dark full eyebrows covered his fierce brown eyes. You, however, were loving his salt and pepper speckled beard. 

“Professor Reeves.” You greeted back, swallowing the intimidation. The man towered over your smaller frame, you couldn’t help but want to climb him like a tree (it’s been seven months since you last got laid. Things have gotten heated).  

“It’s always refreshing to see new students.” He gave you a small grin. “You said you’ve done shows in New York? What’re you doing back here, superstar?” The man joked. The familiar hot feeling flooded your cheeks and you released a nervous chuckle, quickly casting your eyes to your shoes.

“Well- Like I said earlier: to further my education.” You managed, gathering the courage to make eye contact again. “I could ask you the same. You were a blockbuster star.” When your eyes met, butterflies erupt in your stomach again. What was it about this man that made you so horny and shy at the same time. His eyes narrowed slightly, as though he was saying touche. 

“Well, I’d love to see your work some time.” The deep tone in his voice gave you another shiver down your spine as you kept the eye contact.

“I’d love to see yours. And, uh, then I’ll see if I have a copy somewhere. I did Phantom back in New York. Well, I was ensemble, but…” You trailed off, chuckling to cover the nervous feeling. 

“Ensemble is the backbone of theater, darling.” Professor Reeves’ hand gently tapped your arm after his comment. You felt the shock of his touch and immediately made eye contact as you did so. The man must’ve felt the same, as his eyes shot to yours as well. 

“I-I’d better get going.” You spoke so quietly, quickly shuffling past your teacher. However, you felt his hand linger as you pulled away. You felt as each individual finger dragged against your body before you were out of reach. That’s definitely going to help some tension releasing activities tonight. 

--

It’s been three weeks since the first day and college isn’t too bad, you’ve come to discover. Befriending June was a good option, as you two easily got along being similar in age. You even met her son the other day after school. Plus, your classes are simple too; only taking Art and English credits was a smart decision. Drama had quickly taken place as your favorite class, however. Acting was fun, but your Professor also had taken part in your sway on the choice.

“Alright, we’re going to be doing the quick-minute scenes today, I hope you all came prepared.” The drama teacher's voice settled the rowdy crowd of students as he walked into the room. June slunk back into the chair next to you and you glanced towards the woman. She didn’t have as much performance history as you, she’d mentioned at one of your practices that she was nervous for today. You leaned over and gave her a gentle pat on her shoulder.

“Run over the lines again, it’s gonna be great.” You smiled gently. The woman pulled out the sheet you’d been using to run lines and you saw as she began to mouth the words.

Looking back towards the front of the room, you caught your teacher's eyes. He stood up by the podium, a student clearly trying to converse with him although his eyes seemed fixated towards you. Realizing you were staring in return, he quickly turned his attention back towards the student, consciously adjusting the way he was standing. You bit the inside of your cheek, suppressing the smile that dared to take over and quickly cast your eyes towards the desk again.

The professor quickly got the class into order, quieting everybody down. He stood behind the stand, now facing everybody as they adjusted into their seats. The man shuffled a few papers around before looking back up and tucking some hair behind his ear. You sighed quietly, slinking further into your chair and crossing your legs. Your crush was only getting worse. 

“So, before I start calling names, who’d like to present first.” Professor Reeves made a point to look directly at you. You raised your brow, shaking your head ‘No’ slowly. June would die if you two went first anyways. His eyes then moved on, looking at the other groups of students before he clicked his teeth and shrugged, choosing one of the fresh-from-highschool kids. 

The kid sighed loudly, tapping his partner on the shoulder and standing up. Professor Reeves pushed the podium out of the way and to the side so the students could stand front and center.The two of them introduced themselves as Travis and Mike before jumping into it. As they started, you easily recognized the scene to be from the third Lord of The Rings installment, when Gandalf gives Pippin the speech about death. 

June’s phone sitting on your table vibrated and she quickly picked it up to avoid any more distraction. You glanced over to her, watching her read the text and her expression turn more sour with each word. Furrowing your brow, you scooted your chair closer and quietly whispered.

“What’s wrong?”

The woman didn’t answer right away, instead you could see as her eyes reread the text before she finally seemed to snap to reality.

“M-My son got into trouble at daycare- I need to go. I can’t perform our presentation today.” She seemed annoyed by this but started to collect her things. I guess it was the last class of the day anyways, and you’re sure you can convince Professor Reeves to extend your scene to tomorrow. 

“That’s okay. We’ll figure it out, go.” You gave her a reassuring nod and she smiled back. After gathering her things and waiting for the current group to finish, she stood up and quietly made her way to your teacher, asking to be excused. The man seemed to comply as she thanked him and quickly turned to leave, giving you a small wave and smile on the way out the door. You let your smile linger before a quiet sigh escaped.

Class proceeded normally. A few groups went before the Professor ended up calling your name. He clearly saw your partner leave, so what is he planning?

“(Y/N), why don’t you give your presentation?” His deep voice always had some sway over you. But you resisted, biting the inside of your cheek.

“Uh, my partner had an emergency and left.” You spoke, furrowing your brow. Your teacher nodded, acting as though it was new information in front of the class before he looked back at you.

“Well, maybe I can be your partner today. What were you going to perform?” The coy expression that covered his face said all it needed to. You felt the mock anger that covered the romantic feelings you felt made itself present and you let out a sigh before answering.

“Alright, well, we were going to perform an excerpt from ‘Moulin Rouge’, um, right before they burst into ‘Silly Love Songs’. I have a copy of our lines if you want.” As you spoke, you’d already gathered your copy of the sheet and made your way to the front. Ignoring the stares of your classmates was the best way to deal with your nerves, even though their eyes were burning into you like you were a demon and they were holy water. You were about to perform with your teacher, and that needed all of your focus currently. Handing over the sheet, your fingers brushed and an electric feeling coursed through your body starting from your fingertips. It gave a jolt to your heart, stuttering your breath for a moment. 

“Um, June was a bit scared to do the minor singing part, so I’ll be playing Christian and you’ll be Satine.” You spoke, first looking towards the Profesor then glancing across the class. A few muttered laughs came from the immature minds humoring at the gender switch. The man let out a low chuckle himself but nodded, holding up the sheet so he could read the lines. 

“Christian, I’m a courtesan. I’m paid to make men believe what they want to believe.” Your teacher began, his eyes cast between your reaction and the paper. You quickly got into character, prepared to react.

“Yes. Silly of me, to think y-you could fall in love with someone like me.” You spoke with a sigh, feigning to be sad. 

“I can’t fall in love with anyone.” The man responded with a sad chuckle, stepping closer towards your figure. You felt your heartbeat raise slightly. 

“Can’t fall in love? But a life without love… That’s terrible!” You lightly exclaimed, leaning into the character more. You and June chose the movie having seen it as young girls and loving the romance of it all. Of course you ended up doing a romantic scene with Professor Reeves.

“No!” The man reacted, “Being on the street, that’s terrible.” His tone suggested he was getting defensive just as Nicole Kidman did playing the line.

“No, love is like oxygen!” You reacted again, stepping towards the man. As you got further into the scene, your nerves began melting away. The second hand feeling that came when you did act was starting to kick in. It's been a while since you last did a show, since you left New York two years ago. 

“What?” He spoke, furrowing his brow. You started pacing towards him more.

“Love is a many-splendored thing, love lifts us up where we belong, all you need is love!” By now, you were in his face, arms spread with determination; just like you’d practiced with June. 

“Please, don’t start that again.” Professor Reeves sighed, his hand placing itself on your shoulder and lightly pushing away.

“All you need is love,” You began singing softly, leaning closer to him. 

“A girl has got to eat!” He exclaimed, taking a step away.

“All you need is love,” You sang again, a smile overtaking your face. Your teacher stepped back, turning away from you, really leaning into the character. You assumed he’s seen this move before by how well he was acting. 

“She’ll end up on the street!” He spoke again, turning to face you again. You got up close again, capturing his hand into your own, your faces positioning closer than they should be.

“All you need is love…” You sang softly to finish off your lines, eyes connecting with your teachers. You hadn't noticed the slight wrinkle around them until now, and couldn't help the endearment that rushed your body. 

“Love is just a game.” The professor didn’t sing the part like in the movie; instead he spoke it, but the emotion that line carried still was present. You were getting swept away in the intensity of the scene. His dark brown eyes stared back into your own, hinting his own feelings of lust and want. The sound of someone's chair scraping brought you back to reality and you quickly stepped away to a normal distance. Clearing your throat, you turned towards your classmates and took a quick bow before making your way back towards your table. The burning stare of your teacher's eyes into your back definitely didn’t help. 

“Good job (Y/N). I’ll go ahead and give June the credit too.” Professor Reeves spoke as soon as you sat down after the class had finished clapping. You nodded towards him, trying to catch your breath from the whole situation. You wish June were here to witness that, though. She wouldn’t believe it, and to be honest, you could barely believe it either. 

--

The library was surprisingly empty for prime studying hours, then again, it is a Friday afternoon. Most students are probably drunk right now, pregaming for the weekend, anyways. You, however, decided to study for some test in English at the library instead of going home. You didn’t really want to deal with your parents anyways. Ever since you started school, they’ve been more helicopter-y and won’t leave you alone when you’re home. They want to know everything and it’s exhausting. You honestly miss living alone. Your parents are treating you like you’re in high school again, over eleven years ago. No matter, it was nice to escape the insanity with the quiet, always warm because of the broken heater, library. 

Plus, the escapism helps with distracting your brain from a certain someone. Ever since your presentation in Drama with Professor Reeves about three and a half weeks ago, you’ve been kind of avoiding him. That happening did nothing to help your crush, in fact it only made it worse. He is so handsome and you just can’t help it. His dark, lengthy hair that he often tucked behind his ear; His dark, fierce and sultry eyes that lured you in every time you caught stares. You, without a doubt, are smitten for a man whose not only an authority-ish figure in your life, but twice your age.

The acting exercises you did in class were not helpful either. You noticed he’d minorly started favoring you to play roles. Of course the students hadn’t caught on yet because he hid his favoritism so well, but you just went along with it. Secretly, you kind of wanted to see how this would play out. It’s been nearly two months since the semester started, and the spark you seemed to have acquired hasn’t fizzled. 

“Miss (Y/N)? Not partying?” Professor Reeves spoke behind you. Jumping slightly, you sat up and turned around to look at the man. You already saw him in class today, well, avoided him in class today. This is like a waking nightmare to see him in a safe space. Hiding your feelings, you swallowed before answering. The look on his face was innocent, but you never know what feelings he could be hiding too.

“You scared me,” You commented before continuing, “And, uh, no. It’s not really my scene anymore.” You muttered with a chuckle, turning back towards the table. The echoed footsteps from your teacher indicated he was going to take a seat at the table you currently occupied. Sitting up, you glanced around the library as he did so, but came across nobody.

“Anymore? You look quite young.” He spoke, setting a few books down that he’d had in his grasp. You didn’t notice them before. 

“I’m almost thirty, I’m not young.” You commented with a dry chuckle, finally gathering the courage to look at your teacher. He gave you a laugh, prompting you to let a smile break.

“Well, I’m in my mid-fifties so what does that say about how old I am?” He rebuttaled with humor lacing his tone. You finally broke the resistant act and chuckled, looking towards him. He gave you a soft smile in return, enjoying seeing you filled with humor. The man didn’t want to admit that he also had developed some type of emotion for you as well. Since the moment you introduced yourself he knew you were going to be an issue. Not necessarily a bad thing, just a hindrance. He’s seen a lot of students come and go over the years he’s been teaching, but you’re the first one that’s captivated his eye, ever.

“Right, sorry.” You laughed, looking back towards the notes you’d been writing on. The two of you fell into a silence before your teacher spoke up.

“Hey, are you okay? It seems as though you’ve been avoiding me... If I’m overstepping as your teacher let me know-” The deep voice of your teacher has gone quiet, you knew he wanted to keep this private. 

“No- No… You’re right.” You cut him off, sighing and rubbing your temple quietly. “I, uh, I have been.” The silence of your teacher caused you to look up at him. It was kind of strange to be having such a candid conversation with this man, though he’s just like any other human on earth. 

“Well, may I ask why?” He asked quietly, almost sounding hurt from your choices. You nodded hesitantly before proceeding. Were you about to admit your feelings? Can you even do that? Is it even legal for faculty and students to date? Well, that is if you even date. 

“Ever since our... well my presentation… There's been this weird energy between us and I honestly don't know how to react.” Your voice remained quiet as you spoke and your eyes kept pointed towards the table. Though, you could feel Professor Reeves’ eyes boring into the side of your face. 

“(Y/N)...” The voice of your teacher caught your attention and you looked up. His eyes glanced around the room before he stood up in one quick motion. The towering height of the man was slightly intimidating, however he leaned over swiftly, capturing your face with both of his hands and connecting your lips. 

Fireworks. Explosions. Electricity.

These were all the words you could use to describe the way his lips melded perfectly with your own. His stubble scratched your chin and upper lip so wonderfully and his hands help your face gently. 

The man was the first to break the kiss, as you could've stayed there forever. He parted and stayed only an inch or two away from your face, however. 

“Wow,” You softly breathed, feeling your body physically relax. A slight giggle escaped your throat as you did so. The man smiled back, gleeful from the event that just occurred. 

“I've been wanting to do that since the first day.” He spoke hushedly. You captured his lips once again before quickly shoving your things into your backpack. If things were going to escalate, there was no better time. You cast your eyes up to his, staring through your lashes hinting at the lust you were feeling. 

“The drama room, now.” You rushed, standing up and slinging your bag over your shoulder. You felt your teacher's body heat behind your figure as the two of you quickly, but trying their best to remain inconspicuous, made your way across campus to the Arts building. 

Your teacher shoved open the door, his hand hooking onto your backpack and pulling you in. He swiftly shoved the door closed and locked it shut, making sure it was actually locked. You quickly rushed towards an old prop couch in the back corner of the room, tossing your bag and jacket off. You heard your teacher's footsteps quickly follow and the heat of his hands as he grabbed your arm, flipping you around and shoving you back onto the couch. You grabbed his jacket, pulling him down on top of your figure as you fell. Your bodies felt electric causing your heart to beat faster. 

His eyes glanced down at your chest gazing delightfully at your cleavage. It only gave you confidence as you tangled your fingers into his dark locks, pulling your lips together. His hands then moved and melded firm on your ass, as he didn’t want you to get away. The scratch of his beard only added pain to the pleasure, enhancing the overall experience. Your hands found their way to Professor Reeves’ jeans; slyly unbuckling his belt and with one motion undoing his button as well.  Your hand began to explore, finding his member semi hard and still tucked away behind his underwear. You gently began to rub over the cloth, prompting the man to moan quietly into your kiss.

In the meantime, the man's hands found their way to the zipper of your pants, he’d managed to unzip it entirely and then shifted his hands to unclip your bra through your top. You broke the kiss while he sat up slightly and pulled the apparel off, freeing your legs and top, leaving you in panties and a bra. 

“Jesus, you are… breathtaking.” He muttered, eyes scanning your figure up and down. You felt the self-conscious feelings start to fill your brain and subconsciously hid your figure. Professor Reeves’ large hands grasped your arm, however, and kept you from hiding your gorgeous body.

The man’s mouth was swift to latch onto the swell of your breast, intending to mark the flesh. His fingers gently latched onto your bra, exposing your breast more. He gently kissed down the skin before his tongue swirled your nipple, occasionally flicking it with the muscle. The sensation only fueled your fire down south, and you quickly gathered the courage to gently slide your hands underneath his underwear. Your hand first met the feeling of pubes as you wrapped your hand around the base of his cock, beginning to pump slowly. 

Professor Reeves carefully maneuvered his shirt off his body, tossing it somewhere in the classroom. You admired his body; he was slightly toned on his chest, however his shoulders and arms were more defined. He donned a small patch of chest hair, and a dark happy trail that led to a nice patch of dark pubic hair. His hair was messy, and he combed his fingers through, desperate to remove the strands from his eyes. 

The man now stood up on his knees, quickly shucking off his pants and underwear leaving him completely nude. After that, You took the moment to ogle him and come to the reality that you're about to sleep with your teacher. This is a good idea, yeah? 

Professor Reeves linked his fingers into the sides of your panties, gliding them down and off your legs all while staring at you through his lashes and fallen hair. Afterwards, his fingers gently made their way to your heat, fingers toying and exploring, eyes gazing you up and down. He bit his lip, as a single digit ran up your slit, hitting your clit at the end of it’s journey. You squirmed and gasped at the sudden sensation, earning a whisper of praise from your teacher. He redid the motion, this time with two fingers. You reacted the same, a squeal and squirm, gripping your hand onto his thigh. 

“Darling, so wet for me already.” He commented, voice heavy. “How would you feel I…” He trailed off, slinking down and scooting back until his head came level with your stomach. With the last word escaping his lips, he kissed around your navel, working his way further and further down until a light kiss peppered your clit. Your hands flew to the man's head immediately tangling themselves within his long hair. He took this as an eager invitation, and began to suck your clit with excitement. One of his free hands worked its way up and began to twist your nipple gently. The sensitivity of your body caused you to moan and tighten your grip on the man's hair. His free hand left your nipple and moved down to your vagina. He continued to lick and flick your clit with his tongue as he slowly inserted a single digit. You tightened around his finger, enjoying the feeling of it all as he began to finger you carefully. 

“Oh, Professor,” A breathy moan left your lips. The man’s reaction was to finger you faster while he sucked your clit harder. His beard rubbing against your inner thigh felt so wonderful, and you nearly suffocated the man between your legs. The teacher began to move his fingers skillfully. He kept tapping your g-spot as he did so, earning even louder cries of pleasure from you. He could tell you were getting close, as you kept tightening around his fingers and were basically giving him a head massage. He gently pulled them out, and gave one last sweet kiss to your clit before sitting up on his knees again. His dick was now fully hard and he nonchalantly touched himself, scooting closer to your position. 

You sat up a little, reaching out to grab his member. Your hand replaced his and you switched positions once again, landing you on top. You moved your hair from your face and leaned your head down so your lips were just above his cock. You gently licked the tip, earning a shudder from the teacher. One of your hands gently rubbed your clit while the other held you up as you sucked the bass player off. Your tongue swirled around his member and you bobbed your head, making sure to keep your mouth as airtight as possible. He kept releasing delightful moans, occasionally letting his hand hold your head or fix your hair. He even used it to guide your bobs, keeping you on beat.

“Oh, love,” The man breathed. You cast your gaze up to his face, making sure to stay within rhythm. His  eyes were turned dark from lust as he watched your pretty mouth circle his cock. You then stopped playing with yourself and used that hand to rub him while sucking. His moans only increased and became more frequent with each nod. You finally popped off, finishing with a few kisses around his navel. You wiped the corners of your mouth with a slight grin, sitting back on your knees. The man was only harder now, periodically causing his member to twitch from need. You lazily jerked him with one of your hands as you straddled his lap again, placing you into the cowgirl position. You lined yourself up with him, your entrance just barely touching his tip. 

Professor Reeves gently placed his hands onto your hips, guiding you down onto his cock. You instantly moaned; his hard member filled you so perfectly as you sat down on him, giving you the warm feeling deep in your stomach. The man’s hand stayed firm on your hips as he began to help you bounce up and down on his dick. He even began to thrust up, only resulting in his member going deeper and harder in you.

Each ram seemed to make his hard cock find your g-spot perfectly. Your stomach kept twisting with every thrust, getting closer and closer to your orgasm. The teacher kept averting his gaze between your face and breasts while you fucked, enjoying the bounce of your figure. When you were able to, you would look into his eyes showing you how much you were enjoying him. 

Professor Reeves surprised you by wrapping his arms tightly around your bum, trapping his cock in your pussy as he lifted and laid you on your back again. He then began to thrust more rapid than you'd ever been handled before. Slaps of sweaty skin echoed around the room but you didn’t care at all in the throes of pleasure. You moaned loudly, the Professor as well, only fueling both of your satisfaction. One of his hands found its way to your clit and he began to rub with his thumb. Swirling sensations began to fill your tummy, prompting louder moans. The deep warm feeling before orgasm began to fill each of your limbs.

“Oh, baby, I’m going to cum.” You moaned, opening your eyes long enough to see your teacher's reaction. 

“Darling, cum for me.” He raised his eyebrows in bliss, immediately rubbing your clit faster and harder. In response you tightened around his cock as he thrust, causing the man to close his eyes in pleasure. The pressure was building fast and before you knew it, an orgasm overtook your entire body. You wrapped your legs around the man's back, trapping him deep within you. He let out a pleasure filled gasp as his thrusts became staggard. You could feel his cock throbbing in you as he collapsed and lay with his head snug in your neck. You both lay still, but breathed heavily trying to recover from the incredible orgasm you both just experienced.

Professor Reeves slowly sat up and pulled himself out of you, wincing from how sensitive he was. You felt his hot cum slowly drip out of your pussy, but you didn’t care. The man groaned as he laid down next to you, now both of you laying on the couch, you tucked into his side.

“That was everything I imagined it to be.” The Professor commented after a few moments of silence. You couldn’t help but let a giggle escape as you turned on your side to face the dark haired man.

“I don't even know your name, Professor. You’d think I would've figured it out by now…” You trailed off, studying the man’s face. His eyes caught yours and he let out a short chuckle. 

“I keep it hidden… for reasons.” He trailed off, mindlessly playing with a section of your hair. 

“June told me you used to be a Hollywood actor. I never did a google deep dive to respect your past and, well, you. I wanted to ask you about it instead.” You cast your eyes towards his chest and mindlessly drew shapes with your fingers. 

“It’s Keanu.” His voice was quiet, scanning your face for a reaction. You gave him a soft grin, looking up to meet his gaze.

“That’s a beautiful name.” You spoke in a whisper. He kissed the top of your head as a response, holding your figure tighter. It felt nice to be held by someone again. Keanu was the perfect man for that. Ever since the first day of class he’s made you feel safe. Most encounters with men haven't been pleasant, especially as a female actress. 

“So, when are you going to show me the tapes of your shows?” Your teacher's deep voice gave you goosebumps, and you let out a short chuckle, sitting up and reaching for your bra. In the odd chance anyone was the show up, you wanted to be dressed. 

“When you show me your movies.” You responded cheekily, eyes turning to give the man a wink. He let out a laugh as his large hand landed on your still exposed back, rubbing gently and avoiding your bra straps.

“I remember a certain lady telling me she started in and has a copy of Phantom, and it was mine.” He smirked, sitting up as well and pulling his clothing back on. You shook your head, laughter leaving your lips. 

“How about this, over the course of the semester we…” You paused, eyeing the tall man up and down, “Keep whatever this is going on.” You paused for effect, “And once in a while we’ll watch one of our shows. Deal?” It appeared as though Keanu was thinking for a few moments before he answered.

“Deal.”

[iworshipkeanureeves]

There Are No Rules (3/3)

Keanu Reeves x Reader (The Devil Wears Prada AU)

A/N: The series has come to an end and I’m a little sad about it because I had too much fun exploring this universe, but I hope you’ll enjoy this as much as I did. Thanks @toomanystoriessolittletime​ for this opportunity to participate in your writing challenge, and I can’t wait to wish you a happy birthday!

Summary: Reader applies for a job in a fashion magazine where Keanu is editor-in-chief.

Warnings: none

Words: 3.5K

-Part 2-

The morning they had to leave, Keanu sent a car to Y/N’s home. Opening the  door, she was relieved to find out he wasn’t sitting inside, and she was informed that he would be meeting her at the airport. Y/N was still a little embarrassed from the previous night, thinking it would have been wiser not staying for that drink, and it was easing to know they wouldn’t be sharing an awkward car ride.

Y/N had no idea what to expect but she was definitely amazed to learn that Vogue owned a private jet. Sadly, it was only reminding her how much out of place she felt. Y/N had never been on one before, and no matter how excited she was, there was a feeling of anxiety accumulating in her core. This lifestyle wasn’t hers, she did not know how to behave, especially at all the shows she was going to attend with Reeves. She was afraid to be a disappointment.

Y/N was greeted by Nigel rushing her to get on board, while the driver was taking care of her luggage. Stepping inside, Y/N acted like she was looking around for a place to sit but her eyes were actually scanning the place and searching for Reeves.

He was already asleep with his ears plugged and a black satiny sleeping mask covering his eyes. It didn’t come as a surprise after the sleepless night that Keanu and Y/N had shared, still unsettling thoughts were running in her head, thinking that maybe Keanu was pretending, just to avoid interacting with her.

Y/N, on the other hand, was unable to rest. She was nauseous, worried that things were going to be weird between Keanu and her, and to make the matters worse, they would be stuck together for a whole week. Y/N was also disgusted by her own actions, knowing it was Emily, who should have been on this jet, flying to Fashion Week she had been dreaming about for so long. Instead, Y/N selfishly took her place, and she hadn’t even had the guts to apologize yet.

Nigel seemed like he had a sleepless night too. He had probably spent the bigger part of it making a wardrobe switch, throwing away outfits he had spent a lot of time putting together. Not only Y/N’s and Emily’s sizes differed, but their styles too, so Nigel had only a few hours to come up with something completely new. It was another reason for him to hate the fact that Y/N was coming instead of Emily, and he wasn’t afraid to openly express it with his sulking look.

Spending long hours on that jet, Y/N couldn’t help but think, how a simple refusal could have solved most of these problems, and how she would be enjoying a calm day at the office now.

---

Surprisingly, the Fashion Week was going way better than Y/N thought it would. It opened up a whole new world for her, and Keanu was there to guide her. Indeed, he was being very nice and patient with her, Y/N really enjoyed having her boss this way. Sometimes Y/N even felt like he was the one assisting her, as Keanu would help with where to go, what to do, what to say, and she was thankful, because otherwise she would have been completely lost.

Keanu was also good with dissipating any remaining awkwardness between them, and a couple of days in, Y/N had almost forgotten that uncomfortable exchange at his place. They were back at ‘friendly professional‘, and even if Y/N had been craving the kiss, she liked having their relationship this way. It was less stressful, and she could properly enjoy the events of the Fashion Week.

Y/N didn't feel excluded at all, Reeves was taking her everywhere, and he was even encouraging Y/N to converse with people. Not that she often dared to, but still, it was nice to know that she wasn't just someone far in the background.

And the outfits were fantastic of course, even if Nigel didn't like Y/N too much, he did a perfect job. He was even considerate enough to search for comfortable shoes and Y/N appreciated that. Keanu seemed like he enjoyed her outfits as well, since Y/N would catch him occasionally checking her out. She was certain that Keanu was more interested in her fashion rather than Y/N herself, but she savored his attention.

Keanu was definitely leading socially but it was Y/N, who kept everything in order, and Keanu knew he could trust her. “Can you check if our car is close? I don’t want to be late for Saint Laurent,” he asked, ready to leave Dior.

Praising technology, Y/N opened a GPS app connected to their car, hoping it was not too far away. “It’s just around the corner, our driver is probably waiting for us already,” she turned her phone around showing Keanu the screen. In that second, Y/N felt her phone vibrating, unknown number popping up on the screen.

Y/N knew she was still technically working, and maybe it was not the right time to answer calls from her personal phone. She was about to stick her mobile back into her purse, when Keanu interrupted. “You’re not going to take this?” He asked.

“May I?” She was a little surprised, thinking how this would never happen back in the office. Keanu would often remind her that working hours were not for personal matters, but she guessed the rules didn’t apply in Paris.

“Sure, I’ll meet you outside,” Keanu let her go with a little wink, and she found her way outside to return the call. It was really hard to find a quiet corner. Luckily, Y/N wasn’t famous and people were completely ignoring her when Keanu wasn’t by her side.

“Good morning, Y/N, I’m calling from The Bronx Daily, I’m happy to inform…” it was all Y/N heard before her brain went clouded. Words were mixing up inside her head, and her brain could only put together little snippets coming from the other end of the line.

“… we would like you to start as soon as possible…” Y/N immediately remembered having that interview, but they hadn’t responded in so long that Y/N thought it was over. She didn’t even know what to say. Of course, she was happy, but everything seemed so quick and unexpected that she was having hard time gathering her thoughts.

“Thank you so much, could you email me all the information?” She had only managed to say, before she saw Keanu waving at the driver. Once the call was over, she ran closer joining him for the ride.

“All good?” He handed Y/N a snickers, something to keep her through another show.

“What? Oh, yes yes, I’m good.”

“You’re sure? You seem a little off.” He was watching Y/N playing with her chocolate bar, nervously twirling the wrapper in her hands.

“I’m fine, it was just my friend, she got engaged” Y/N lied, she wanted to think more before announcing her decision.

Truthfully, there wasn’t much to think about, she had just been offered a job as a journalist, which meant she would finally be writing. It was something she had been dreaming of for so long, and it didn’t matter that it wouldn’t be as glamorous as Vogue, she had to start somewhere.

It was a pity they called her in the midst of the Fashion Week, when Y/N was enjoying her job like never before. She had to constantly remind herself that her fairytale was going to end next week, and she would be back to her horrid office job fulfilling absurd Reeves’ wishes.

Speaking about Reeves, it made everything much harder, since Y/N felt herself slowly falling for him. Y/N was sure as ever, she wasn’t going to waste a great opportunity for another man, especially the one completely out of her league, who also didn’t even seem to be interested in her any longer.

Y/N felt that if Keanu truly wanted to kiss her, he would have done it back at his place before leaving to Paris. But he didn’t, and maybe Y/N was overestimating how much he actually liked her. Still, it broke her heart knowing she might not be seeing him again.

Their car was slowing down next to a venue, and Y/N kept on staring through the window with a slight concern. She still couldn’t get used to those huge crowds surrounding the entrance, people shouting and press cameras flashing in front of her eyes. “Do you enjoy this chaos?” She inquired, keeping her eyes set on the pavement.

“No, of course not,” Keanu chuckled. “But I love my job and I love fashion, it’s something I have never doubted. So I guess, when you’re determined about the things you love, it’s easier to turn a blind eye sometimes, and I’m pretty sure you’re aware there are much worse things in the industry than that.”

“Yeah…” Y/N sighed and gave him a shy smile.

“This chaos will be over soon, and no matter how much you hate it now, I guarantee, you’re going to miss it someday.”

---

It was Y/N’s final night in Paris, she was hanging out in her hotel room, getting ready for the gala event as Reeves’ plus one. He had sent a professional glam team to her room for her hair and make up, and Nigel had stopped by earlier leaving a beautiful evening gown for Y/N to wear.

It was a dark burgundy chiffon dress having a corset embedded with bright tiny jewels. Y/N could only wonder how much it was worth, but in the same time, she had other things to worry about too. That tight corset being one of them.

It had too many little clasps in the back, and Y/N was sweating, desperately trying to work behind her. Her arms were burning and her neck was doing almost a 180 degree turn to the mirror, trying to keep track of every little metal piece sliding between her fingers. It was impossible, and she had been aware from the very beginning that in no way she was going to do it herself.

Y/N knew she should have asked her make up team to help her, if only she had thought about it earlier… But it was too late now. Time was not on her side, and Y/N had to think fast. It was either Nigel or Keanu to help her, and the choice was obvious here.

Y/N dialed Nigel as quickly as she could praying for him to answer. It took a few calls for her to realize that Nigel was not available to help. Her only hope was Keanu now, and Y/N didn’t think much before dialing his number. Gladly, he was quick to pick up.

“Can you come help me?” She asked, breathing her frustration to the phone.

“What did you do?” He was always quick to think that Y/N had messed something up.

“What? Nothing, it’s about the dress” She had neither time nor energy to argue, so she just waited for Keanu to confirm that he could come.

In a minute, Y/N heard a knock on her door and rushed to let Keanu in. He was already wearing his white dress shirt with a black tie, but the suit jacket was probably still in his room. For a second, Y/N lost herself admiring his built, his shirt nicely tucked in, accentuating his hefty core. Her hands even shook a little willing to wrap around his sturdy waist.

“If you don’t like it, I’m sorry, but trust me, Nigel knows better,” Keanu spoke closing the door behind him and coming closer into the room.

“It’s not that, I love it. I just can’t deal with the corset, and Nigel won’t answer.”

“Fine, show me.” He crossed his arms waiting for Y/N to bring the dress.

She slowly handed him the gown, and they both stood confused. “Do you want to wear this on top of your robe?” Keanu asked with a cheeky smile, making Y/N blush and shift her eyes to the ground. She was wearing nothing but her panties underneath, and she only had stickers covering her nipples, so naturally, Y/N didn’t feel easy taking the robe off in front of Reeves.

“What? Oh no, I-I’m,” she was stuttering, feeling the burn in her cheeks.

“It’s okay, I won’t look,” Keanu giggled turning around. He was so used to working around unabashed models, that he didn’t even realize at first this could be making Y/N feel uncomfortable.

She looked beautiful as ever, making it hard for Keanu to focus on her corset. In fact, he was stalling, slowly working his way up her spine, wishing this moment lasted forever. With every clasp done, Keanu could see her breasts lifting higher, every little push up was making his breathing increasingly erratic. He tried to look away, but his eyes would wander back to Y/N’s décolleté, perfectly framed by luxurious fabric.

More than anything, Keanu wanted to undo the corset ripping it apart, he was barely holding himself together. But he had to. Y/N was his assistant, a good one in fact, and he had almost ruined it once, so he knew better to stay away this time.

Meanwhile, Y/N was sensing Keanu close, his breath against her radiating skin. She was imagining him kissing her exposed neck, trailing sultry kisses down her bare back. Y/N could feel his fingertips occasionally brushing against her soft skin, waking up little tingles in various places all over her body. She got carried away by various scenarios playing in her head, all of which involved Keanu tearing the dress away.

“You’re all done.” His words snapped Y/N back into reality, and they both shared longing looks reflecting in the mirror. Both of them felt it, neither one dared to do something. “No wait, not yet.” He stepped aside to take a white gold diamond necklace out of the velvet box and came back closer brushing Y/N’s hair over her shoulder. “You look beautiful,” he said, admiring Y/N through the mirror, his eyes following the necklace as it sank down closer to the valley of her breasts.

In that minute, sadness washed over Y/N’s eyes, as she remembered it was her final day in Paris. Her Cinderella story was coming to an end, and Y/N felt like she would never even see Keanu again after telling him she wanted to leave Vogue.

“I’ll meet you at the lobby,” he nodded stepping through the door. “We’re leaving through the front door, so don’t get too overwhelmed.”

She knew she had to tell him. Eventually.

---

The gala was overwhelming to say the least. Y/N felt like every event she had participated in during the week was to prepare her for this. Some of the people she could remember from the fashion shows she had seen, and surprisingly, some of them remembered her too.

Of course, she didn’t magically turn into a social butterfly, but her time spent in Paris definitely helped to open up her shell. Y/N was amazed how she only needed one person to believe in her in order to become a confident woman, or at least she was getting closer to it. Unfortunately, the realization only made it harder to leave Vogue.

Y/N kept calling it Vogue in her head, but truly, it was Keanu she didn’t want to part with.

“Y/N?!” She heard him whispering in a strict tone. “What is wrong with you today? You’re all in your head.” He complained, but he also seemed a little concerned for Y/N.

“I’m sorry, it’s nothing. You wanted something?” She smiled, persuading him there was nothing to worry about.

“You have to choose from the menu, I’ve asked you like three times already.” Y/N only gave him an apologetic look, taking the menu from his hands.

During the dinner Y/N tried to constantly be aware, she was afraid to look like a fool drifting away in her mind again. She kept observing the environment, noticing how most of the girls were barely touching their food, and it made her wonder whether she should follow this social protocol too.

It took Y/N two minutes of playing with her food to realize how actually hungry she was. She wasn’t even going to be a part of this world soon, so why bother, she thought. The steak was so juicy, Y/N could almost hear it calling her name, inviting her to indulge.  Ant it was definitely worth it.

As they were waiting for the dessert, the chatty crowd around the table was becoming too much for Y/N, so she excused herself to get some fresh air. Also, she wanted to prepare her words for telling Keanu she was out, something quick and painless.

Keanu was expecting for Y/N to come back soon, but as he noticed she was gone for a great matter of time, he decided to go look for her.

He found Y/N in the balcony, admiring the sun setting over the Parisian rooftops. Her dress was flowing in the wind as she was leaning over the balcony railing, looking stunning from behind. Keanu even had to stop for a moment to marvel the view.

“You’re okay?” He inquired coming nearer to Y/N and resting his hands on the rail, close to where hers was.

“Yes, just needed some air,” her eyes were set on the Eifel Tower; she had never been to Paris before.

“Did something happen? Because I feel like something’s wrong.” He turned his core towards Y/N, trying to read her face. The only thing he saw was how pretty she was.

“The Bronx Daily reached out, they want me to write for them.” Y/N bit her lip trying to swallow her tears.

“Are you going to?” Keanu was soft, almost compassionate.

“Well yes, I know it’s not Vogue, but at least I’d be writing.”

“So, that’s great news, right?” He raised his palms up, almost ready to hug Y/N. Keanu saw it wasn’t easy for her, so he tried to lighten the atmosphere with his smile. He was genuinely happy for her.

“Yeah, but… You don’t seem too upset,” she smirked, finally finding the courage to look Keanu in the eye. “Was I really that bad?”

“Oh come on, I think we both knew Vogue was only temporary for you.” Y/N raised her brow, thinking what the hell Keanu meant with his words. “You’ve always wanted to write, it’s your chance.”

“Then why did you even bother to take me in?”

“I saw a beautiful girl with so much potential just not enough vigor that I… I don’t know, I guess… I just wanted to show her what she’s capable of, to give her wings, you know.” For the first time Y/N saw Keanu like that. He was timid, even blushing, it was him now unable to keep his eyes up.  

“You know you turned me into a terrible person, right?” Y/N sighed. “I stabbed Emily in the back, I stole this opportunity from her, and I don’t think I deserved this at all. Is that what you’re calling giving me wings?”

“Well, Harpies have wings too,” Keanu smirked making her giggle.  

“And look at the bright side.” He raised his hand up to her shoulder coming to stand behind her. Y/N could feel his touch still being a little uncertain, so she sank backwards slightly, molding herself into his grip. “You won’t have to deal with Emily anymore, who I’m sure is mad as hell.” Keanu continued making them both chuckle, his hands were squeezing Y/N’s shoulders form behind, warming up her skin. The weather was getting chilly, but Y/N was feeling warmth from within, she wanted to be held like this forever.

“Besides, since you won’t be working for me anymore…” Keanu brushed his fingers through Y/N’s hair, fixing a couple of strands messed up by the wind. He slowly pushed one of her shoulders forward turning her around, then carefully drew his hand to cup her cheek, his thumb running just below her lower lip. Y/N’s eyes were glimmering with anticipation, and before she could do or say anything, Keanu’s lips came to join hers.

He was tender at first, slowly deepening the kiss, trying to test the waters before he was sure Y/N was in for this. He even pulled back a little, opening his eyes to check hers. “Is this..?” Y/N didn’t let Keanu finish, wrapping her hand around his nape, pulling him closer again. She felt the kiss with her whole body, excitement and arousal reaching every single cell of hers. It seemed like their hands had only one goal, which was to pull each other close, making them eager for even more. It was impossible to hold back with their lips fusing, dancing around one another, exploring the taste they had been craving for so long. It felt like the kissing was never going to end, but for the sake of their swollen lips, they had to slow down at least for now.

“Do you want to go back for dessert?” Keanu asked, pressing her gently to his chest.  

“I’ve already had mine,” they both chuckled, bringing their lips back closer for another little peck.

“Want me to show you around Paris then?” Keanu grinned, offering Y/N to take his hand. Nodding with enthusiasm, she left another kiss lingering on Keanu’s lips and locked their fingers together getting excited for what else this night had to offer.

-THE END-

Tag-list: @keandrews @rdjloverxxx @danceoftwowolves @greenmanalishi​ @lilywoood​

>Masterlist<

[omg-imagine]

⊱ Forget Me Not (7/15) ⊰

Pairing: Keanu Reeves x Reader

Summary: After you wake up from a coma and realize that your memories from the last five years have been erased, Keanu works to bring back what you have lost.

Words: 3.6k

Warnings: None

A/N: So sorry for the delay! I was super busy and wasn’t able to finish writing in time to post yesterday. Anyway, it’s sort of filler chapter this week but definitely one of my favorites to write so far. 

Also, we’ve reached the halfway point of the story and things will start picking up in the next few chapters! There may or may not be smut in an upcoming chapter and if I do end up writing it, I’ll give a heads up in the warnings. 

Again, thank you so much for the lovely feedback and I hope you enjoy!

Part 6

Staring up at the ticking clock on the wall, you silently counted the hours that have passed since Keanu had gone to the Arch office to take care of a few business matters. It was the first time he has left you home alone, and truth be told, he was a bit more worried than he should have been. You, however, were adamant that he went ahead, not wanting him to neglect his responsibilities in favor of babysitting you.

After finally convincing him that you can handle being by yourself, Keanu left, slightly reluctant but keeping his promise of not allowing circumstances to interfere with his life. Once he arrived, you had received occasional text messages from him, replying to each one sincerely just to give Keanu some peace of mind. He was sweet for checking on you, and you couldn't really blame him for his overprotectiveness. You knew that it would come to pass when everything goes back to normal.

Or, so you hoped.

Even though you were glad that Keanu was working again, you couldn't help but miss him. Despite only being away for nearly six hours, the silence in the house was getting to you. You've kept yourself occupied by doing a couple chores around the place. Every room was spotless by the time you finished cleaning, leaving you with nothing else to do for the rest of the day.

Frankly speaking, you were beginning to feel a bit stir crazy being stuck inside. Sure, you've done grocery runs with Keanu and go on long walks with him around the neighborhood every morning, but you had yet to explore what Los Angeles had to offer. You wanted to check out the popular tourist spots, see the famous Hollywood Sign with your own two eyes, and hit up the shops on Rodeo Drive. Maybe even hike a trail at Griffith Park or drive down Sunset Boulevard where towering palm trees flanked the street.

You were just about to text Keanu and ask what time he was coming home when you heard the deep, rumbling sound of his motorcycle outside as he parked on the driveway. Swiftly, you hopped off the couch, dashing out of the front door just in time to catch him swing a leg over the saddle before dismounting.

As you approached Keanu, you couldn't stop yourself from staring as he took off his helmet, running a free hand through the length of his dark, disheveled hair, unaware of your presence. Unzipping his black leather jacket, you watched as he pushed back his sunglasses onto his head, revealing his rich brown eyes. 

Obviously, you were very attracted to him. And to this day, you wondered how a man like Keanu chose you over anybody else.

"You okay there, Y/N?" Keanu asked after turning his head and meeting your widened gaze. He chuckled under his breath as the heat rose to your cheeks, realizing that he had caught you gaping at him.

"Uh, y-yeah. Yeah, of course," you stammered, covering up your embarrassment with a shy smile. "How was work today?"

"It was productive," he answered with a nod. "It's actually a good thing that I went today because there was an issue with getting parts to make a client's bike, but it all worked out in the end. Sorry for leaving you home alone. You must have been bored, or maybe grateful that you got a break from me."

You laughed at his attempt at adding a joke in there. "Honestly, I was extremely bored. I did some vacuuming and laundry around the house and a bit of light reading afterwards. But I'm happy you got work done today. Imagine what your client would say if he found out you weren't available because you were too busy watching over your girlfriend."

"Girlfriend?" Keanu repeated as if he couldn't believe what he had just heard.

"Isn't that what I am to you?" you inquired, slightly nervous. Not because of Keanu's reaction, but of the word that slipped out of your mouth. It was the first time you admitted out loud that you were Keanu's girlfriend, and it made it somehow feel a little more real.

"Yeah," he spoke, his eyes lingering over your features. "You're my girlfriend, but you're so much more."

You smiled sweetly at Keanu, silently exchanging affectionate glances with him until you found your voice again. "Can we go out and do something today?"

"Like what? Do you want to go to a park or see a movie?"

Suddenly, an idea sprouted in your mind. "I want you to take me to where we had our first date."

"Our first date?"

"Yes," you nodded eagerly. "I know you told me the story about it, but now I really want to go see the place for myself."

"It's Saturday, Y/N," Keanu pointed out. "It's going to be busy there. Are you sure?"

"I'm sure, Ke. It's gonna be fun," you giggled. "Be right back, I'll grab the car keys."

Quickly leaning up to kiss him on his cheek, you sprinted back inside the house, almost tripping over your feet from the excitement rushing through your veins. You missed the look of amusement on Keanu's face, however, as he watched your retreating figure, a smile tugging at his lips.

---

The traffic, although currently better than most days, was still horrendous. You had taken at least two naps in the car only to wake up and find out that Keanu had only driven five miles each time. Not even the calming sight of the blue Pacific waves on the right was enough to keep you distracted from the torturous wait.

"How much longer?" You asked him with a whine.

"According to the GPS, we still got 25 minutes to go," Keanu replied, briefly glancing at you. "Funny enough, you were also this impatient years ago. You hated traffic, and you were practically begging me to exit the highway and do this some other time."

"I'm not surprised," you shook your head as you cracked open the window, allowing the fresh ocean wind into the vehicle. "Why couldn't we just have dinner like a typical first date?"

"This was actually your idea back then," Keanu recalled with a small chuckle, making you roll your eyes. "But like you said before, it's going to be fun when we get there."

"If we get there," you sighed deeply.

"Hey, don't be like that. It's just traffic, you'll learn to tolerate it eventually."

Laughing, you glanced back at Keanu. "I sure hope so, or else I'm moving back to New York."

A few minutes went by, and you were too busy staring out of the window to notice Keanu suddenly switching to the right lane until he called out your name.

"What is it?" You said, watching him point at an upcoming mile marker.

"That's the exact place where we met for the first time."

As he said those words, the car slowly passed by the small green sign with a printed digit. Turning your head back to look at Keanu, you noticed that he was smiling adoringly, not at the spot he had mentioned, but instead, at you. Seeing it made your heart flutter, and you thought about how funny the universe worked. It had brought two strangers together nearly five years ago, resulting in a seemingly perfect love story.

Keanu's voice drew you out of your reverie. "What are you thinking?"

"Nothing serious," you told him. "I was just wondering again how life could have been different if I hadn't met you."

"And what do you think it would be like?"

You pondered for a moment, comparing the life you could remember with the one you had now. Even though you still felt a bit lost in this new world of yours, you couldn't recall the last time you were this happy, safe, and loved.

Facing forward, you gazed at the stretch of highway before you. "I think it would have been lonely."

---

You were twelve years old the last time you visited a boardwalk by the beach. Your parents had surprised you with a trip down the shore just before school started, and you stayed one night at a cheap motel that was only a block away from the water.

You remembered all the funnel cakes they bought you, the games they spent a lot of money on just so you could win a stuffed toy. You could still hear the clickity-clack of the wooden coaster, and how much you both enjoyed and feared the thrill of riding it. And at the end of the day was the firework show, which became the most memorable part of the trip.

As Keanu guided you up the wooden walkways, you felt a sense of nostalgia as you glanced around the Santa Monica Pier. It was a lot bigger than the one you've been to and had far more people exploring the boardwalk all throughout. Standing by the entrance, you could already see the ferris wheel and the rollercoaster just to the side of it. You felt like a little kid again as you looked around, not knowing exactly where to start.

"If we're doing this like our first date, we should have a round of water race," Keanu suggested, offering you his arm to which you happily took it.

"Lead the way, Reeves."

Arriving at the booth, you and Keanu took a seat at the two vacant spots before he handed the game operator $10 to play. You glanced at your side and realized that you were playing against three children who looked as though they had more experience than the both of you combined.

"Oh god, I don't want to lose to ten-year-olds," you whispered with a light-hearted laugh. "I suck at this game, are you at least any good?"

Keanu arched his brow with a slight grin. "Are you kidding me? I'm better than you."

Playfully punching his shoulder, Keanu then shot you a wink before the operator announced that the game was about to start. Gripping on the metal handlebars, you shut one of your eyes and aimed your gun at the target in front of you. At the sound of the bell, you pushed down the trigger, the stream of water hitting the target directly, and you quickly glanced up to see what place you stood.

"Gee, Ke," you chuckled after seeing how he compared to you and the other players. "I thought you were good? Those kids are beating you!"

"I didn't say I was good. I said I was better than you," Keanu smirked as the buzzer went off, signaling that someone had won, and it was neither you or Keanu that did.

"Well, you still got beat by a little kid. What's your excuse for that?"

Keanu got off the stool, pulling you up on your feet as well. "You were distracting."

"Distracting?" You scoffed playfully. "What did I do that got you all distracted?"

"You sitting there pretty was enough to make me lose focus," Keanu revealed.

"So, what do you want me to do? Stop being pretty just so you can win?"

Shaking his head, Keanu reached down and grasped your hands in his. "You can never stop being pretty, no matter how hard you try."

Walking further down the Pier, Keanu stopped when he reached a booth where a Shoot the Star game was set up. Convinced that he would be able to win you a prize by playing, Keanu slid a bill across the counter to start the game, picking up the BB gun before aiming it at the paper star.

"You sure you got this, Ke?" you questioned him.

"Of course, I do. Watch."

One by one, Keanu shot out every bit of the red star off with a high degree of precision, his skill coming as a shock to both you and the man tending the booth. Out of one hundred pellets, he only had to use about thirty of them to completely obliterate the target faster than you had seen anyone else do. His head turned slightly, a sly smile plastered on his face as his eyes met yours.

"Where the hell did you learn how to shoot like that?"

"John Wick boot camp," he simply responded. "What prize do you want?"

Picking out a brown, fluffy teddy bear hanging in one corner of the display, After it was handed to Keanu, he then presented the toy to you. Smiling, you accepted the prize, not even caring that the stuffed animal was poorly made, and some of the seams were unraveling. What mattered was that it came from him.

"You know, I haven't seen any of the John Wick sequels," you noted as you two began walking away, hand-in-hand. "We should watch those when we get home tonight."

"Anything you want, sweetheart," he said with a gentle squeeze of your hand. "Anything for you."

You and Keanu played a few more games together, learning how competitive he was when it came to versing you and others. He was stopped for a couple of occasions to take pictures with his fans. It warmed your heart, seeing the way he interacted with them, especially with the younger kids. He was so kind to them, so attentive and caring. You could understand why everyone fawned over him.

And it was for the same reasons why you were falling for Keanu.

Falling. Was it too soon to say that? You weren't sure, but all you could think about now was the way he held your hand and how he smiled so brightly at you, making you feel like you were the only person he could see. There were no other words to describe the feeling other than falling.

After a quick bite, you led Keanu towards the ferris wheel, something you had been looking forward to riding the second you arrived at the Pier. Once inside a passenger car, the wheel slowly began to turn, moving clockwise as the world below grew smaller the higher you rose above the ground.

The silence that fell between you was far from awkward. Instead, it was peaceful and comfortable. You were aware of how close you were sitting beside Keanu, feeling his heat as it radiated from him. He put one arm around you, drawing you even closer to his body. Leaning against him, you rest your head on his shoulder as you took in the beautiful scenery outside. At some point, the wheel stopped at the very top, your cart softly swaying to the gentle wind blowing against it.

"You okay?" He asked, shifting his eyes to look at your face. You didn't notice your grip around his arm had tightened.

"I am. Just a little scared of heights, that's all."

"Don't worry," he murmured as you tilt your gaze upwards. You saw how he was focused on your lips, and if you leaned in just enough, you could almost…

The wheel suddenly moved again, the sound of the hydraulics causing you to jump as the ride began its slow descent back to the loading dock. You were disappointed at missing your chance to kiss Keanu, wanting nothing more than to finally feel his lips on yours.

"Hey, you want to see something amazing?"

Smiling broadly, you then nodded. "Sure."

The sand between your bare toes was soft and warm to the touch. Each fine grain was colored with a golden hue, and it sparkled underneath the setting sun. Eventually, you and Keanu neared the edge of the ocean, the cool waters lapping at your feet with every languid wave washing up to the shore.

Carrying your shoes in one hand while Keanu held the other, you continued to walk down a quiet section of the beach. The breeze blowing from the tide tousled your hair as the briny smell of the air invaded your nose. 

You could almost taste the salt on your tongue.

"Let's stop here," Keanu halted his steps after picking out a spot close to the shoreline, but far away enough so that the water didn't reach you.

Carefully, he lowered himself onto the ground, pulling your hand down to have you do the same. You settled in between his legs, your back pressed against his firm chest as his arms wrapped around you. You felt Keanu rest his head against yours, his scruffy beard tickling your skin as you release a contented sigh.

The sun above began to dip behind the horizon. It cast an orange haze over the ocean and painted the skies majestic shades of red and pink. The last of its rays gave off a gentle warmth, bidding farewell to let the night take over. Craning your head up, you saw Keanu’s soft smile, his face aglow by the waning light as he appeared to be lost in his own thoughts.

You were able to get your phone out and take a quick snapshot of him, the small giggles that escaped your lips breaking his stare.

"What are you doing?"

Shrugging, you tossed your phone to the side, landing right next to where your shoes laid on the sand. "I took a picture of you."

Keanu chuckled as his head moved closer. "Why?"

"I want to relive this memory one day," you explained. "Thanks for the second-first date. I really had fun today."

"Do you remember…?" He trailed off, but you knew what he was asking.

"No," you sighed sadly. "It's okay, though. Because now I have this to look back on while waiting for the old ones to come back."

"Okay," Keanu added, his eyes boring into yours. "I had fun today, too."

"Good. I'm glad."

A beat passed, and once again, you found yourself staring at his lips, which were only mere inches away from yours.

"I love you, you know?" He blurted out, catching you by surprise. Of course, you knew that he loved you, but hearing him say it outright felt different. "You don't have to say it back now, but I want to remind you that I still do."

Strangely, those three words were right there at the tip of your tongue. You could say it, but something was holding you back. Was it fear? Uncertainty? Perhaps it was all too soon for you.

"Tell me about our first kiss," you murmured, your gaze unwavering.

"I told you that story already, remember? We were at the overlook and—"

"No," you interjected with a shake of your head. "Tell me how it felt."

Keanu darted out his tongue to lick his lips, his breath softly fanning your face. "When we kissed for the first time, it was like time stood still for those few seconds. I was nervous during the whole thing because it had been a while, but being with you, I realized that there's nothing to be scared of. It sounds cliche, but I felt sparks while kissing you. After that, I never wanted to let you go."

You stayed silent. Instead of speaking, you let yourself lean into Keanu. Your lips brushed against his tentatively before you pulled away, your eyes flickering up to see the pleading look on his face.

He wanted it as much as you did.

Your gaze lowered, and again, you placed your lips on his, although this time, they stayed there. Eyes fluttering close, you kissed Keanu gently and sweetly as he brought his hand up to tenderly cup the side of your face. It was everything you had imagined and more. 

But eventually, the two of you broke apart to breathe, severing the connection. Right away, you wondered when your next kiss would be, believing that if it was already this good, it could only get better from this point on.

"That was…" Keanu mumbled, nearly breathless.

"Amazing," you finished for him as he brushed a strand of hair away from your face and stroked your cheek. "I don't know what else to say."

Pressing his lips to your forehead, Keanu then sighed happily. "You don't have to say anything else. I already know."

With one last smile, your attention returned to the vast ocean and the disappearing sun, the taste of Keanu's lips lingering on yours.

For one, fleeting moment, you thought that you could stay this way forever.

---

Walking back to the car, Keanu couldn't help but grin with you by his side. He was on cloud nine after today's adventure. Even though you still couldn't remember anything, he loved how he was reliving these moments again. He never realized how long it truly has been since you had both enjoyed yourselves.

Opening the car door for you to climb inside, his cell started to ring, echoing throughout the parking garage.

"Who's calling?" You curiously asked as Keanu stood with one hand holding the door.

Fishing out his phone, he suddenly froze when he saw the caller ID. 

It was Molly. 

Keanu eventually knew that she would try reaching out to him after he had told her of what happened to you. It came as a shock to him that it took her longer than he had expected. But he didn’t want to deal with it right now. 

He still wasn’t sure when he’ll be able to.

"It's just spam," Keanu said, the lie smoothly rolling off his tongue. It was becoming too easy for him to do that, lying.

Without a second thought, he turned off the screen and placed the phone back inside his pocket. Jogging to the driver's side, he took one deep breath in and out before opening the door and sliding inside.

Just for tonight, Keanu wanted to hold onto something he hasn't felt in a long time. 

Happiness.

And he didn’t want her ruining it.

Part 8

Taglist: @penwieldingdreamer​ @fanficsrusz​ @toomanystoriessolittletime​ @awessomness​ @meetmeinthematinee​ @ringa-starr​ @ficsnroses​ @iworshipkeanureeves​ @keandrews​ @greenmanalishi​ @feminine-machinegun​ @lussdew​ @allie1804-fan @flaminasteroid 

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #475

Top Ten Films Named After the Protagonist

I’m afraid this is another of those weeks where the list is not only plucked-as-if-from-nowhere, but is also going to be relatively perfunctory. I’ve had quite a few mammoth lists recently, and the kids have been off for Easter so I’ve had less time to sit down and waffle with my keyboard. As such, we’re going off on a random tangent (the best kind of tangent, let’s be honest): films named after the protagonist.

I remember when Michael Clayton came out, and without knowing anything about the film, I was a bit confused; “Michael Clayton” seems such an ordinary name. Was it a true story? Was I supposed to know who this guy is? It seemed a strange, non-exciting, non-explanatory title for a film that’s actually relatively twisty-turny. And, of course, once you sit down and think about it, there are actually quite a few films where the whole hook is “here’s a movie about this guy you don’t know”. Furthermore, some of them are pretty darn great.

Obviously I had to establish some rules, because if you say “ooh, yeah, films where the title is the main character’s name,” then instantly you could say, well, that’s every superhero movie, right? So I instantly discounted that; if it’s a pseudonym or a codename or whatever, it’s out. Sorry, Batman. Sorry, Spider-Man. Also, by that same rationale, sorry, The Quiet American or The English Patient; technically, those are characters, but they’re not their names, so they’re out. I’m also discounting anything where there are other words in the title apart from a name; so, yes, that discounts Batman Begins and The Amazing Spider-Man, but also Get Carter. And it has to be one person, so no The Blues Brothers (or, I guess, Ghostbusters, Gremlins, or Goonies).

Where I have taken a moment is whether or not to consider one-word titles; WALL-E, for instance, or Dave. In the end, I have decided – and this feels even a little arbitrary even for me – that WALL-E would be excluded on the grounds that that’s not a real name. it’s not a codename, necessarily, but it’s more of a model number; it only becomes a name because WALL-E is, to all intents and purposes, a person. If you want you can slot WALL-E in at number one, because that’s where it would be if it were included. Dave, as it happens, wouldn’t have made the list (although it’d probably be in the Top Fifteen). But another one that I’ve decided – after much internal deliberation – to exclude is Amélie, because I feel like its real title is Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain. That’s words other than a name. Sorry, Amélie. But like WALL-E, that’s a masterpiece, so would have probably been about number three.

So there we go: utterly arbitrary rules established, we now present a Top Ten.

John Wick (2014): it’s a film very much about a bloke called John Wick, a name that’s simultaneously very ordinary and also a bit weird. And then it gets into its stride, and Keanu is just offing dudes like a cross between Batman and the Terminator. Excellent action, a great stoic performance by Reeves, but also a rich and deep mythology that slowly unfolds. The sequel is better, but it all started here.

Jackie Brown (1997): Tarantino’s forgotten film, a far more subtle and slower film than most of his others, lacking the histrionics and heightened alternate-reality stuff he’s getting more famous for. Despite QT being relatively young at the time, it’s actually a really sweet meditation on aging and chances passing you buy, anchored by a great, humane performance from Pam Grier. Despite the twisty plot and crime chaos, she’s the dead centre, cool but also realistically vulnerable. Also has Samuel L. Jackson being a badass.

Forrest Gump (1994): often criticised for its sentimentality (unfairly, I think) and its politics (yeah, I’m with you there) Gump is still great. Tom Hanks gives the character a ton of heart and pathos, walking a difficult line between a broad portrayal and nuanced characterisation. As a whirlwind tour of boomer history unfolds around him, he remains an engaging centre. The end of the film, when he struggles to ask if his son is smart, is a beautiful, heartbreaking moment.

Barton Fink (1991): a great exercise in stylised Coen weirdness. John Turturro’s Fink is a delightful arsehole, a writer full of his own self-importance, but as he is sucked further and further into this Hollywood hell, we still root for him and sympathise with him, even if he is in many ways the architect of his own downfall. Kudos, too, to John Goodman for his supremely demonic performance, which really should have bagged him an Oscar nom.

Jerry Maguire (1996): another film that could be criticised for its sentimentality, or maybe even its hypocrisy, criticising the commerciality of the sports industry whilst also cheering about one of the characters bagging a multi-million-dollar contract. But Cruise himself, as Jezza, gives one of his best performances as a man struggling to remain moral and ethical both at work and at home as he rushes into a hasty marriage. The oft-ridiculed “you complete me” scene is actually amazing and really emotional. And the kid is cute.

Donnie Darko (2001): a twisty oddity that came out of nowhere, starring a brother-and-sister team of actors we’d never heard of before, with famous people (her off E.T., him off ER) in supporting roles. But Jake G anchors the film with a great performance, genuinely making us wonder whether trippy supernatural stuff is going down, or if he’s just becoming unhinged. A really cool, interesting, unnerving film, that managed to successfully weaponise 80s nostalgia before that became annoying.

Napoleon Dynamite (2004): another one of those films that sort of came from nowhere, full of unknowns, but instantly built a huge cult following almost immediately. It’s delightfully weird, with its own internal logic, creating a world of weirdos and outcasts that we just completely root for right from the off, and it all hinges on Jon Heder’s central performance as the gangly, strange-looking, crazy-named Napoleon. Altogether now: “Yes, I love technology…”

Michael Clayton (2007): only this low because I don’t remember its twists and turns as well as I should. This is a taut and twisty thriller, with a man discovering a conscience and uncovering all kinds of nefarious corporate behaviour. Its great because the stakes aren’t world-altering, just big-scale bad behaviour and people earnestly opposing it. Full of tremendous performances but it’s got another heartfelt turn by Clooney at its centre.

Erin Brockovich (2000): another great person-investigates-corporate-bastardry, with Julia Roberts never-better as the earnest and earthy Erin who transcends her comparatively lowly status to throw her heart and soul behind the battle for justice. Her performance defines the film (and rightly won her an Oscar), which in terms of events and plot is relatively straightforward, but is shot through with a level of down-to-earth realism and a beautiful portrayal of friendship between Brockovich and lawyer Ed Masry (Albert Finney).

Ed Wood (1994): a film made at the peak of Burton’s powers, before his stylisation became a bit overbearing, and before his constant casting of Depp became annoying (and well, well before Depp himself became problematic). This is a love letter to the golden age of moviemaking and also to the schlocky B-movies Wood himself traded in, finding heroism in the example of one under-talented man making poor artistic choices. Depp is sweet and endearing with an earnest drive behind his good nature, making us root for him throughout. Arguably Depp’s best performance and Burton’s best film. But all due respect to Martin Landau, Sam Jackson should have won the Oscar that year.

[doomonfilm]

Memories : Top 15 Films of 2020

If 2020 taught movie fans anything, it was that we shouldn’t take things for granted.  On the dollars and cents side of things, movie theaters were already facing an uphill battle to stay sustainable, but the “shelter-in-place” practice of March and beyond decimated box office returns, with many theaters yet to reopen (if they will open at all).  In terms of famous names and faces, the list of those who passed away featured numerous icons : Kobe Bryant, Kirk Douglas, Max von Sydow, Honor Blackman, Carl Reiner, Ennio Morricone, John Saxon, Wilford Brimley, Chadwick Boseman, Sean Connery, Tiny Lister Jr., Adolfo ‘Shabba Doo’ Quinones and many more transitioned to the great beyond.  Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Shudder and a number of other streaming services saw themselves step into the forefront of the entertainment provider realm, with Warner Brothers and a handful of other studios making announcements that they will be following suit for at least 2021, if not for good.

With all of this uncertainty and chaos, however, the year 2020 was a surprisingly strong one, in my opinion, when it came to cinematic output... so much so, in fact, that aside from a number of Honorable Mentions, my list of top films was expanded to 15 in order to accommodate all of my choices.  For anyone who has checked out my lists from previous years, you will know that I did not see every film released this year, but I did make my best effort to cover as wide a range of films as possible.  Enjoy the list, and be sure to support film in whatever medium you are able to moving forward so that it can thrive.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

The 40-Year-Old Version (dir. Radha Blank) A nice little personal film that spoke to my hip-hop sensibility, as well as that ever-present awareness of the inevitability of age, and how it can skew our perspective in regards to our achievements.

Ava (dir. Tate Taylor) This isn’t the action film that’s going to reinvent the wheel, but if you look at action films like wheels, this is a quality wheel.  Outside of Common, I couldn’t really find much to shoot down... this will definitely be one I consider the next time I have company and we’re looking for something fun to check out.

Bill & Ted Face The Music (dir. Dean Parisot) I honestly would have been satisfied with just two films in this franchise, but surprisingly, a third entry was created that didn’t ruin my overall enjoyment of the previous two films.  Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter jumped in without missing a beat, a healthy dose of familiar faces popped back up, and the new cast additions weren’t too jarring... it’s nice to know that a pair of my favorite childhood films are officially now part of a trilogy.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (dir. Jason Woliner) This was possibly the most surprising release of 2020... outside of a couple of news blips that Sacha Baron Cohen made during production, not a lot about this film was leaked prior to its release.  For such a dated character and a seemingly outdated style of humor, Borat once again exposed the simplest parts of society in an incredibly insightful (albeit cringey as all get-out) manner.

Guns Akimbo (dir. Jason Lei Howden) One of the most fun films of 2020.  Somewhere, the creative minds behind Nerve are wishing that they’d made this film instead. 

Henrietta and Her Dismal Display of Affection (dir. Jeffrey Garcia) Jeffrey Garcia is the homie, and I’ve had the pleasure of being in a number of his short films, so when he announced his intentions to write and shoot a feature film in 2020, I was completely on-board.  Miraculously, he was able to film the movie while the world was being ravaged by COVID-19, and though I cannot publicly announce details yet, this film has definitely already met (and likely succeeded) his expectations.

The Midnight Sky (dir. George Clooney) With each film that George Clooney directs, I realize more and more than he is an old soul trapped in a body idolized by the new school of film.  That being said, it’s nice to know that there are directors out there willing to embrace patient, silent and contemplative moments while simultaneously withholding from force-feeding viewers exposition.  

Tenet (dir. Christopher Nolan) This was possibly the most anticipated release of the year, considering it was the king of the IMAX release crowd in its pre-release promotion.  After a small delay due to COVID-19, it was one of the first films released in hopes of testing the movie-going waters during what was sure to be a diminished period of time, which probably hurt its numbers.  Too many, the film was confusing, and the nit-picking was fierce from the criticism contingency, but in all honesty, this was pretty impressive Nolan fare... certainly a good second movie in a Nolan double feature.

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (dir. Aaron Sorkin) I cannot tell a lie... I was hugely impressed with how Sorkin managed to reel his personality and voice back in order to let this well-known, controversial moment in time present itself.  Sorkin has a tendency to be the star of his films, be it when he is in the writer or director role, but for this film, he managed to focus the best parts of his skillset into a highly respectful, educational and inspiring tale that fit the tumultuous summer we endured.

VHYes (dir. Jack Henry Robbins) I remember seeing this trailer as 2019 was coming to a close, and it was a film high on my list of desired viewing.  Then 2020 reared its ugly, stupid head and many releases disappeared into obscurity or found themselves delayed.  Luckily, this one slipped through the cracks and found a home in the streaming world, which in all honesty, suited its presentation very well.  One of the most delightfully weird films of the year, hands down. 

Vivarium (dir. Lorcan Finnegan) Of all the films cut from my Top 15 list, this was the toughest cut to make.  I went into the film totally blind (with Jesse Eisenberg and my respect for his acting chops being the sole selling point), but this film really hit a lot of my buttons... it’s trippy as can be, there is a character that is freakishly unique and wholly unnerving, and the production design leaves a lasting impression.  Don’t let the Honorable Mention designation fool you... this one is a winner.  

Wonder Woman 1984 (dir. Patty Jenkins) The Christmas gift that the masses collectively decided that they did not want.  Much like Ava, there is one glaring aspect of this film that I could have done without, but otherwise, I found this to be an enjoyable film.  Gal Gadot was made for this role, while Kristen Wiig and Pedro Pascal stepped up to the plate and impressed.  If you’re looking to be blown away, the Wonder Woman franchise isn’t the smartest place to go, but if you’re looking for entertainment, there’s plenty of it here.   

THE TOP 15 FILMS OF 2020

15. Mignonnes (dir. Maïmouna Doucouré) This one started off the year with plenty of controversy.  What was an award-winning tale about womanhood and the difficulties surrounding coming of age in an ever-changing and evolving world quickly devolved into a campaign to ban the film (and Netflix).  Many people overlooked the film as a cautionary tale about what access to the Internet and the sexually-charged nature in which women are portrayed can do to developing girls, instead choosing to accuse the film of being fodder for malicious types seeking to exploit the sexualizing of young women.  More than anything, in my opinion, Mignonnes served as an example of our outrage-fueled culture and the way it tends to skew our perspective and/or our ability to take art at face value.

14. His House (dir. Remi Weekes) As I’ve mentioned many times over the past week or so on this blog, horror films were one of the few genres that found a benefit from the film industry’s transition to streaming services for primary access to film.  While a number of traditional horror films received notice, His House took the opportunity to not only make a pure horror film, but one that spoke on racism and the conditions that asylum-seekers and refugees face.  The film is well-acted, the production value is high quality, and it’s paced beautifully... while not the highest film on this list, it is certainly one I will encourage others to see as time goes by.

13. All Day and a Night (dir. Joe Robert Cole) When human nature reared its ugly head during COVID-19 in the form of numerous race-related killings, multitudes of businesses quickly adopted the Black Lives Matter mantra, with film distributors and streaming services taking advantage of the moment to produce and release content relevant to cultural and social awareness.  Netflix was no different, and of the many films they released in the wake of the harrowing events, All Day and a Night is the one that feels the most sincere and honest in its approach and presentation.  The streets of Oakland are presented with a vast array of characters, each with complex backgrounds and states of mind, all of which helps the viewer understand the pressure many minorities live with and process on a daily basis.

12. She Dies Tomorrow (dir. Amy Seimetz) Execution is king, even when applied to the simplest of premises, and She Dies Tomorrow is a shining example of this.  In a very John Cassavetes move, director Amy Seimetz took her payment from her appearance in Pet Sematary and used it to fund a personal project that more than likely would have been ignored by studio heads.  The result is a hypnotic, entrancing and haunting film where stillness and anticipation play antagonist, while we as viewers feel the need to transpose ourselves into the protagonists we are presented due to their stilted but emotional performances.  Hopefully this one finds some notoriety in the cult classic realm as the years pass.

11. The Vast of Night (dir. Andrew Patterson) For a debut film, The Vast of Night handles itself with a surprising amount of confidence in its vision.  The immersion is nearly instant as we are first placed in the premise of a TV show, and then a 1950′s town, but once the actors and camera get going, it’s up to us as viewers to strap in for the ride.  The story is deeply intriguing, the performances are strong enough to carry a very dialogue heavy movie, and the final act is chilling in its reveals.  I will be surprised if this one finds its way to a Best Original Screenplay nomination due to it being a debut film from a relatively unknown writer/director, but if it manages to get the nomination it will certainly be a well-deserved one.

10. Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (dir. Cathy Yan) The movie that broke the list.  If someone would have told me in 2019 that a film directly connected to Suicide Squad would be anywhere on a Top Films list I curated, I would have laughed dead in their face, and yet, here we are.  It’s like every good idea that was poorly executed in Suicide Squad found new life in Birds of Prey, which makes the film not only an entertaining watch, but a satisfying one.  Not only is Margot Robbie perfect in this film (as well as given a break on the exploitative costuming), but Mary Elizabeth Winstead arguably takes a stab at stealing the show with her performance.  Don’t let the DCEU association fool you... Birds of Prey is the real deal.    

9. Never Rarely Sometimes Always (dir. Eliza Hittman) Probably the most contemplative film on the entire list, and impressive in its nature for sure.  To my knowledge, the cast is made up of mostly unknowns (unless I’m sleeping on actors and actresses, which has been known to happen), and as a result, a tough slice of life to swallow is presented in an extremely grounded nature.  Sidney Flanigan gives a powerful performance, hopefully the first of many.

8. Possessor [Uncut] (dir. Brandon Cronenberg) Easily the most “what the f-ck” film on this list, and certainly one worthy of the Cronenberg name.  Andrea Riseborough has been on my radar since Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) and Mandy, and seeing her in a lead role confirms her talent.  I’m a sucker for science-fiction films that don’t rely on digital effects and elaborate set pieces, and Possessor rings both of those bells with a vengeance.  I watched the uncut version, which has a couple of extremely brutal sequences that will unnerve even the most hardened viewer, but these sequences only serve to drive home the lost nature of Tasya, our protagonist.  This one isn’t for everyone, but for those who can stomach a bit off graphicness and process a narrative that doesn’t spoon-feed you answers, this one is a must see.

7. Da 5 Bloods (dir. Spike Lee) Spike Lee has always been a huge influence on me as both an aspiring filmmaker and a fan of the medium, but I’d be lying if I told you that his last decade was a memorable one.  Outside of BlacKkKlansman, Lee has found himself falling short of his vision more often than not, but Da 5 Bloods is a tonal and stylistic bullseye.  Fans of Lee will dig it, fans of Vietnam films will dig it, and anyone who had an inkling of respect or admiration for Chadwick Boseman will be moved.  If Lee continues to make films as good as this one, he may find an entirely new generation of fans as a result.

6. Soul (dir. Pete Docter) As mentioned at the top of this list, people love to try and sink films due to their own personal agendas, and Soul found itself in the crosshairs prior to its late 2020 release.  Many people were upset that a minority character would not only spend most of the movie as a blue blob, but would also seemingly serve as a tool for another character’s “salvation”.  That being said, once Soul dropped, anybody with common sense dropped those stances and realized that Pixar had not only made a stunningly beautiful film, but one that likely spoke to adults more than children.  Plain and simple, Soul is a bonafide instant classic.

5. Kajillionaire (dir. Miranda July) If Evan Rachel Wood doesn’t win an Oscar for her performance in Kajillionaire (or at least garner a nomination), Hollywood needs to collectively have their head checked.  Every year worth its salt has a weird, quirky but loveable film, and Miranda July more than succeeded in making one for 2020.  The humor, both physical and dialogue-based, is on point, and the bittersweet nature of the story is gut-wrenching as the film progresses.  This one was probably the biggest surprise for 2020 in terms of prior awareness versus post-watch admiration.

4. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (dir. George C. Wolfe) The final film of Chadwick Boseman’s short but prolific career is one that allowed him to exist in the wake of his reality, making his performance powerful and (seemingly) cathartic.  He is surrounded by supreme talent on all sides, as there are no weak performances in this film, and despite it essentially being a play shot for film, it feels far from limited, contained or constrained.  Not only does it speak on larger issues of the commodification of Black pain and talent, but it may serve as a vehicle for a posthumous Oscar for Boseman.

3. The Devil All The Time (dir. Antonio Campos) This was the first Netflix original that made me really and truly respect them as a film distributor.  The list of talent for The Devil All The Time is truly impressive, and Tom Holland knocked his lead role out of the park.  Robert Pattinson is great as always, and the way that the story winds back into itself keeps you locked in and connected until the credits roll.  For something that came out so many months ago, it’s respectable that it was able to hold such a high position on a list that was as fluid as any I’ve ever put together.

2. Mank (dir. David Fincher) For a time, this was the hands down film of the year on my list.  Gary Oldman has basically become a “can do no wrong” actor, and his performance was amplified by David Fincher’s ability to emulate the look, sound and feel of a bygone Hollywood era.  On top of this, the built in intrigue that comes with handling anything remotely connected to Orson Welles is present, making Mank almost feel like a companion piece to the prolific film that is Citizen Kane.  If The Devil All The Time was a victory for Netflix, then Mank was the win that put them into a true spot as contenders in the future of film distribution. 

1. I'm Thinking of Ending Things (dir. Charlie Kaufman) Where does one even begin with Charlie Kaufman?  Time and again, he proves to be one of the most truly unique voices to gain fame.  For I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Kaufman seemingly returns to his foundation of odd, offbeat love stories, only to take us on a journey of truly mind-bending and psyche-warping proportions.  Of all the movies on this list, this is the one that almost demands repeat viewings, as one must have an idea of the entire journey before they can understand the individual aspects laid out.  If dialogue isn’t your thing, then this one may not hold you, but that would be a shame, as this beautiful mystery stands head and shoulders above the rest of 2020′s stellar output.

[crue-sixx]

Parenthood (Keanu Reeves Imagine)

This was requested.

Summary: You and Keanu Reeves have just welcomed a baby boy into the world.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted an imagine so here we go! Hope you all enjoy!

You and your boyfriend, Keanu Reeves, were sat on the couch together, enjoying the bit of peacefulness that had settled over the home you shared. It was usually never so quiet so you were taking advantage of it.

“Do you think he will sleep long?” You asked Keanu, looking over at him.

“I don’t know,” he replied as he wrapped his arm around you and pulled you closer to him. “Never know with little man.”

You and Keanu had just welcomed a precious baby boy into the world. Your son, Leo, was only a couple of weeks old at this point. Leo was the light of your lives and you couldn’t be happier to be parents, but he could be quite the handful. He liked to be constantly held by you or Keanu, which neither of you minded too much, but you needed your rest too. Also, he wasn’t sleeping very well through the night so you and Keanu both were up through the night taking turns with him. You wouldn’t trade any of it for anything in the world though. Leo had also brought you and Keanu even closer.

“He’s pretty unpredictable like his father after all,” you joked with Keanu, which made him chuckle and shake his head. “He looks so much like you when you were a baby. It’s so cute.”

“He favors you a bit too,” he replied. “He has your eye color and the same cute little pout when he’s upset.”

You sent your boyfriend a playful glare, which only made him grin at you. He placed a kiss on your cheek and you smiled in return. You adored moments such as this one. You and Keanu just being playful and enjoying a few moments to yourselves. Not to say that you didn’t enjoy time when Leo was with the both of you too. He certainly made things so much more interesting.

“Do you miss work yet?” Keanu asked after a minute or so of silence.

You worked as a makeup artist on movie sets and enjoyed your job immensely, which is how you and Keanu met in the first place. You had been working on the set of John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum. You would see and speak to the handsome actor on almost a daily basis. There was chemistry between you both that just couldn’t be ignored so you began dating. There was a bit of an age difference between the two of you, only about fifteen years, which wasn’t a big deal. Other people had their own opinions about it though. That isn’t surprising when you’re dating a famous actor, however. You and Keanu had been brought up in several different gossip columns. Especially after the public learned about your pregnancy and how Keanu would be taking a break from his acting career to focus on his relationship along with fatherhood. You would be taking a little break as well of course.

You thought about his question for only a moment then shook your head. “Nah...I’m enjoying time with my two favorite boys much more. What about you?”

“Surprisingly, no,” he commented. “I’m so used to being on movie sets or working on something, but I’m enjoying all of this a lot more. I’ve never felt closer to you, Y/N. I think I’ve fallen even more in love with you after spending all of this time with you and watching you be such an amazing mother to our son.”

A wide smile appeared on your face as you looked over at Keanu. He was smiling back at you as he looked into your eyes. You leaned in and kissed him softly, pouring your love for him into the kiss so he would know you felt just as he did. He kissed you back just as soft cries from the baby monitor broke through the silence. You both pulled apart and couldn’t help but share a chuckle at Leo’s impeccable timing.

“I’ll go check on him,” Keanu volunteered and pat your thigh before standing up from the couch.

You nodded and sat back on the couch again, knowing that Keanu had it under control. You could still hear the cries from the baby monitor then the soft voice of Keanu when he had entered Leo’s room.

“Shh...what’s going on, little man?” you could hear Keanu ask. “What has you so upset?”

The baby’s cries turned into soft whimpers, prompting you to believe that Keanu had picked him up. You could picture him cradling Leo to his chest and bouncing him softly as he did so.

“Your diaper’s still fresh and I know you can’t be hungry again,” Keanu spoke in a soft voice, but you could still hear him clearly. “Just missed your old man didn’t you?”

You smiled at that as the whimpers seized. You could no longer hear a peep from Leo, only Keanu speaking to him. He was usually quiet when his father was speaking to him as if he were hanging on to every word Keanu was telling him.

“I’m going to tell you a little secret, okay?” Keanu told Leo and you heard the baby coo a bit, which made you smile even more. “You and your mom are the best things that ever happened to me and I love you both so much...I know that’s not much of a secret, but the fact that I plan on asking your mom to marry me soon is a secret so let’s keep that between us, yeah? I’m just very nervous about it, buddy.”

Your jaw dropped at that revelation as you sat up on the couch and quickly turned the baby monitor off so you wouldn’t be intruding on anymore of the one-sided conversation. You had not expected that. You hadn’t even been sure if Keanu was the marrying type before, but you were okay with that as long as you were together. You felt tears in your eyes, but tried to hold them in.

“Y/N, sweetheart, are you okay?”

You broke yourself out of your trance and found Keanu stood there with a squirming Leo in his arms. He was looking at you curiously so you quickly put a smile on your face and wiped at your eyes.

“Yeah, I’m more than okay,” you replied, honestly. “I’m just...really happy is all.”

Keanu smiled and nodded before he sat down beside you with Leo. Leo’s little eyes found you and stayed locked on you. You smiled and took one of his flailing hands, kissing it a few times before you just held it in your own, marveling at how tiny his hand was compared to your own.

“Keanu?” You finally spoke after a minute and looked at him.

“Yeah?” He asked and looked at you.

“We both love you too,” you told him, “and just know that my answer would be a resounding yes.”

Keanu looked at you, questioningly. You glanced over at the baby monitor and it dawned on him after a moment. He seemed to blush a bit before he smiled real wide. He leaned in to give you a kiss then rest his forehead against your own before you both looked down at Leo.

Parenthood was turning out to be wonderful with Keanu.

[pkg4mumtown]

Waiting for Love (request)

Summary: See photo

A/N: I’m low key in love with Keanu’s short hair and leather jacket combo from a few years back, so forgive me ahead of time. I left some room to continue this just in case because I kinda fell in love with it, even if it took me forever to get rolling. Might be boring but I’m taking it slow for once, okay? (lol)

Warning: Extreme adorable-ness from Keanu. Slow burn., female reader

I groaned as my alarm blared, telling me to get my ass up and ready for one of the biggest art shows I’ve ever done. It wasn’t big in terms of the quantity of work I was presenting, but big in the sense that this was a more ‘esteemed’ show. Not to mention, the other artists showing their work had been established longer than I have. I befriended one of the artists, Becca, while setting up for this show. She took me under her wing and helped me get over my fears of today, as she had done this show a few times before.

“Y/N, you can’t freak out too much. You deserve to be in this show. Some of the people attending this are just rich assholes who’ll be drunk and staring at pieces, so don’t be intimidated by them. You’ll know when a fellow creative mind shows up, I promise, some will show up.”

You can say I was overjoyed when I found out her exhibition would be next to mine but separated by dividers like everyone was. Something about having someone familiar around eased my nerves slightly.

I reluctantly got out of bed, showered, changed, and readied myself face today. I ate something small to hold me over until I could find food at the show, knowing my stomach wouldn’t enjoy being full while nervous. I leant down in front of my cat’s food bowl, shaking it so it filled up. The noise summoned him, the cat rubbing up against my pant leg and leaving a trail of gray fur. I brushed it off as best as I could before scratching his head.

“I’ll be back later, Sage,” I cooed at him, my nerves easing slightly as I watched him push his face into my hand.

I reluctantly got up, straightening the pantsuit I decided to wear. I was nervous enough about the show, I wasn’t going to make it worse by wearing a dress and fighting with it all day. I got an Uber to the show, slightly bummed that I couldn’t ride my motorcycle to the show because of my attire but I didn’t want to look like a hot mess when I got there.

I arrived extra early, like all the artists were supposed to so that we could make sure everything was in order. I killed time by sitting at the small table in my exhibit, where we had business cards and other takeaways set up. As I scrolled through my phone, I heard the soft click of heels as Becca rounded the divider and entered my exhibit. I stood up to greet her, smiling at her bubbly, excited expression.

“Very professional,” she greeted, admiring the pantsuit.

“I didn’t want to sweat through a dress and risk being uncomfortable,” I sighed.

“It wasn’t a knock, Y/N, you wear it well,” she smiled comfortingly. “Is there anyone you know coming to the show?”

“I invited a few family members, but I won’t hold my breath,” I shrugged.

“Well, I have a friend coming that I have to introduce you to. I think your work and his tastes align perfectly,” she stressed with a flash of her hands.

“He, huh?” I questioned, raising an eyebrow.

“Hey, he’s a great guy but I’m taken,” she brought her left hand up to point at her wedding ring. “You could definitely give it a shot, though,” she winked.

“I think I’ll pass,” I blushed.

“You won’t be thinking that when you see him, promise,” Becca laughed behind her hand.

“I’m already not looking forward to it,” I shook my head at her.

“Trust me, I know he’ll love your work. He’s coming by around one I think. If you need food or something, I’ll send my assistant out to get you whatever you need,” she offered, knowing we couldn’t really leave our exhibits and that I didn’t have an assistant.

An hour later, the event opened, and people poured in. I watched these well-dressed people as they passed me, some bouncing aimlessly between exhibits and some following a strict order. I placed myself near the entrance of my exhibit, greeting people as they entered and viewed my work, but the exchange never lasted for more than that. Becca was right, either a lot of these people stared and pretended to enjoy themselves or they simply came for the works more than the artists. I didn’t mind, since I didn’t have to talk much, and the show would still look good for my experience.

Two hours later, I was growing increasingly bored as I had only found one person interested enough in my work to strike up a conversation. While it only lasted about five minutes, it still gave me a bit of confidence that someone had enjoyed themselves. I checked my phone, sighing when I realized I still had six hours left here. I secretly hoped Becca’s friend would be as interested as she said he’d be. I heard low volume screeching from Becca’s exhibit, before realizing it was Becca, herself, making the noise.

“I’m so glad you could make it!” I heard Becca shout excitedly.

“Of course, how could I miss it?” a deep voice responded, which I assumed belonged to her friend.

I tuned out the rest of the conversation to ease my nervousness about meeting this mysterious friend of hers. Her voice pulled me back out of my head again as she increased volume.

“Dude, I have to introduce you to Y/N! You’re gonna love her work!” she told him.

“So, you keep saying, but I haven’t even seen yours yet, Becca,” the voice chuckled.

“Please, Charlie, you know what my art looks like,” she huffed, grabbing his arm and tugging him out of the exhibit.

“I honestly regret telling you that I had a friend who called me Charles,” he sighed.

I had turned around as I heard their footsteps rounding the divider, making myself look busy.

“Y/N!”

My head shot up as Becca shouted my name. My eyes flicked over her excited face before landing on the tall man next to her. I recognized him immediately. He was dressed simply unlike many people here, donning a well-worn leather jacket, a V-neck t-shirt, jeans, and brown boots. His dark hair was on the short side, but long enough to tell he hadn’t done anything to tame it after taking his helmet off, the one he currently held in his hand. His facial hair was grown enough to look as equally as scruffy as the hair on his head after a run in with the helmet. This was one of the biggest names in Hollywood showing up to a prestigious art show in plain clothes, and he couldn’t look any more endearing. I blushed as I realized I had been silently staring at the pair.

“Keanu,” his face broke out into a shy smile and stuck his hand out, “it’s nice to finally meet you. Becca has been talking about you non-stop for weeks.”

“Y/N,” I responded, shaking his hand. My blush deepened at his words, “It’s uh, it’s an honor to meet you Mr. Reeves.”

“Please, Keanu is perfectly fine,” he corrected.

Yes, he is.

“I’ve gotta get back to my side, so have fun you two,” Becca announced her exit and left.

I cleared my throat as she disappeared, “Um, so, Becca didn’t tell me her friend was famous.”

“Sometimes it’s better that way,” he smiled almost sadly. “Tell me about yourself,” he requested and stepped closer to the hung artwork.

“I think I can tell you that through the art, might make it more interesting,” I answered, motioning him over to the first artwork on the wall.

Keanu squinted as he took the painting in, his eyes flicking over the title, Freedom, and back to the painting. A smile formed on his face, as he deciphered the swift strokes and textured landscape. I nervously wrung my fingers together before speaking.

“The landscape is actually—” I started.

“PCH,” he finished, finally looking back at me. “You ride, don’t you?”

I nodded, “I do. It’s just so freeing and liberating, hence the title.”

“I completely agree,” he agreed, his eyes lighting up as he held his helmet up. “I ride on PCH often when I’m home.”

From there, conversation flowed easily as we made our way through the rest of the works. Keanu insisted on going through every work I displayed, the delight evident on his face. I knew, then, what Becca had meant about knowing when someone genuinely loved your work. After what felt like no time at all, but what was actually almost two hours, we approached the last work I had displayed.

“Ah, yes,” he sighed happily as he took the painting in. “This captures the true essence of our modern society. We are always so concerned with watching the bustling of others from behind all types of barriers. Meanwhile, we sit alone and in silence as our existence becomes meaningless,” he blurted out with his voice filled with mock amazement. A grin appearing on his face and his hand, naturally, came up to hide it from view.

I laughed along with him, “Oh, yea, totally. Exactly what I was going for, Keanu.”

“Or, you know, it’s just a cat staring out of a window,” he chuckled and brought his hands up to gesture to the painting.

“Your interpretation was way better than my intention,” I was smiling so widely that my cheeks burned in embarrassment.

“Nah, I was just joking,” he waved his hand, his smile never fading.

“Art is meant to be interpreted by the viewer, no?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

“I can’t argue with that,” he nodded, “So, what’s its name? I assume the cat is yours?”

I nodded, “His name is Sage, I rescued him from a kill shelter a few years ago.”

“That’s admirable.”

“It broke my heart to see that he was scheduled to be put down. I had to take him, and he’s been a blessing in my life,” I continued, staring fondly at the painting.

“Do you prefer cats?” he asked curiously.

“I love both cats and dogs, cats just happened to fit my lifestyle better,” I clarified. “You?”

“I think I’m more partial to dogs, but I love both, too,” he answered, his voice cracking slightly as we’d talked for so long.

“Would you like a water?” I offered and pointed to the small table I had been at earlier. I walked slowly over to it as I continued talking, seeing him follow me.

“I can grab us a couple drinks from…” he trailed off as he pointed into the walkways, where every other aisle of exhibits had its own bartender. Unlike a lot of characters he played, his voice and eyes contained hints of emotion.  

I understood what he meant but declined anyway, “These are free,” I nodded my head towards the water, biting back a smile. “Plus, I don’t think the artists are allowed to drink.”

“Right, of course,” he mumbled, his eyes dropping slightly out of embarrassment as I grabbed two water bottles. He didn’t let his body language show it, but his slightly crestfallen expression said enough.

“I’ll let you buy me one later, though,” I spoke cautiously as I handed a bottle to him, hoping I had read the situation correctly. His eyes snapped back up, meeting mine while taking the bottle from me. His fingers brushed mine, sending tingles up my hand and causing me to retract my hand quickly.

“I’d like that,” he answered softly, a blush creeping up to his cheeks but hidden partially by his beard. The corners of his mouth lifted as he brought the bottle to his lips, forcing me to tear my eyes away from the way his lips wrapped around the plastic. “We should ride some time,” he spoke again after pulling the bottle away from his mouth.

My throat hitched at his choice of words, making me cough as I drank my water. Luckily, I didn’t make a fool of myself and spray it everywhere, solving the problem with a simple clearing of my throat.

“Motorcycles. We should ride our motorcycles together, some time,” he clarified, the hint of a smirk from before more prominent now.

“Yea, yea that’d be awesome,” I nodded, flustered that he caught on to the reason I choked.

“Maybe after this?” he gestured to the art around him.

“Uh, it ends at seven, but I’d have to go home and change,” I waved my hand down across the pant suit and heels.

“That’s not a problem, I’ve got time,” he shrugged. “You don’t have to take your stuff down?”

“Nah, the show is on for the whole weekend,” I flapped my hand dismissively at the hung art.

“Well, I’d be happy to take you home afterwards,” he offered.

“No, no I can’t ask you to do that! I can take an Uber home,” I held my hands up, trying to quell any urge he had to help me.

“I mean, you’re not asking; I’m offering. Plus, unlike the Uber…I’m free,” he placed his hand on his chest, looking at me with raised eyebrows. His eyes were playful as he used my earlier excuse against me.

I took a deep breath through my nose, my mouth betraying me and curling into a smile as I released my breath, “Okay.” My voice was softer than intended, but I continued anyway, “I appreciate it, Keanu.”

He laughed, waving his hand at me, “I’m being selfish, honestly.”

“Yea, okay,” I snorted. “You should definitely check out the rest of the show, though. They have Rembrandts over there,” I directed, pointing to the other side of the building.

He feigned hurt, gasping dramatically, “Are you getting rid of me?”

“Yes, actually. There are a lot of great works here, too many to waste all of your time in my little exhibit,” I waved my hand out to the rest of the building.

“Oh, please,” he huffed, now understanding how other people feel when he deflects compliments onto other people. “The art isn’t what’s keeping me here, now.”

My face heated up fast under his gaze, but the blush quickly turned into a deep red out of embarrassment as my stomach growled loudly in the mild silence. My lips retracted into my mouth, hoping that he hadn’t heard it, or that he didn’t think it was something else.

“Hungry?” he questioned, trying to hold back a chuckle but failing.

“I’m fine, really.”

Keanu gave me the sassiest, most done look I’ve ever seen. He snatched my phone off the table, handing it to me, “Unlock it.” I hesitated. “Please,” he urged.

I did as he asked, then felt him slide the phone out of my fingers. I watched him type briefly, then bring the phone to his face and stick his tongue flat out of his mouth. He tapped on the phone again a few times before handing it back to me.

“I’ll go look at everything else, only if you promise to text me whatever you want me to pick up for you,” he stated smugly.

“Fine,” I half-groaned. This man and his kindness were going to be the death of me.

“Excellent,” he laughed, his adorable grin plastering his face again. This time, he didn’t hide his smile behind his hand and I was able to admire it, before he caught on and closed his lips while blushing at the appreciation. “Keep an eye on this for me, yea?” he asked, setting his helmet on the small table.

“Sure,” I nodded, placing my hand on top of the helmet in confirmation.

“Thanks,” he expressed as he moved to place his hand on the helmet, too, but stopped as he felt my hand under his. His hand lingered for a second, but it was withdrawn as he began stepping away, out of the exhibit. “You better text me,” he pointed my way, “or no drinks for you!”

Keanu disappeared around the divider and I heard him speak briefly to Becca. He must have told her about the potential drinks later because she gasped loudly and squealed at whatever he said. I bit my lip, smiling at the thought of what was to come. I hadn’t been out in a while, let alone on a date—if that’s what this even was. I just hoped that I wouldn’t do anything dumb or anything that would be unpleasant to him. I glanced down at my phone, unlocking it and seeing his contact as simply, Keanu, with the ridiculous picture he had taken. My fingers hovered over the screen before finally typing and sending an order.

“You got it,” was his only response before I made myself busy with the people around me.

I slid my phone in my pocket and waited patiently for him to come back, whenever he was done. These next four hours couldn’t go fast enough.

CHAPTER 2

Taglist:

@cuttlefishcatfish @anita-e-taylor @samanthagraceg @futuristic-imbecile @beyondantares

[fortheloveoffanfic]

Wonderwall Chapter 7

Keanu Reeves x Reader A/n- Sorry if this chapter feels like it goes on forever but I refuse to extend it yet again. 

“I don’t believe that anybody, feels the way I do about you now”- Oasis.

December 1st

The restaurant is buzzing with life. Also, it’s a little colder than I anticipated, making me rethink my decision to forgo sleeves. I’m wearing a black mini cocktail dress with designer heels and very dark make-up. Compared to most of the other patrons, I feel a little over dressed, I’m meeting my friend’s girlfriend.....sort of girlfriend....whatever she is, not dining with royalty.

I’ve been at the restaurant for a little over fifteen minutes, the thin heel of my shoe tapping impatiently against my shin. We agreed to eight, but here I am at seven forty five, already ready for my second glass of wine.

Thankfully though, I’m by myself, I would have hated for this to be a double date. Jacob has gone to Colorado to meet with his family and I’ll join them next week as we make last minute preparations for the wedding. For my wedding. It’s hard to believe that I’m actually getting married in two weeks. I always thought I’d be more excited, and these days, every time I think about meeting Jacob down the aisle, it feels like something is missing. Like I’ve forgotten something hugely important and that I’ll only realize it when it’s too late. I hope that’s not the case, the last thing I want is to feel regret on one of the most important days of my life.

“You look so cute with your hair tucked behind your ear,” Samantha giggles as she proceeds to do just that before settling back into the passenger seat. We’re on our way to a restaurant in Manhattan, she’s going to meet Y/n for the first time. She looks nice tonight, her hair is curled and she’s wearing this cute pink shift dress with white flowers. 

Comfortable silence continues for a while until, through the corner of my left eye, I notice Samantha fidgeting in her seat, wringing her fingers. Maintaining one hand on the wheel, I put the other on her bare knee, squeezing affectionately, “You okay over there?”

She looks over to me, smiling tightly, blue eyes wide with unspoken worry, “Yeah,” she huffs the quickly shakes her head, “No. Not really.” Before I can ask what’s wrong, she’s telling me. This is one of the things I like about her, she says what she’s thinking, uncomplicated. “It’s just, what if this doesn’t go well? I mean, she’s Y/n Y/l/n. Mega famous movie star with awards and millions of fans. And she’s gorgeous! Like Vogue magazine gorgeous. You know she’s been on the cover right? Twice!”

I do know that. I was there for the second shoot and I have copies of both at issues at my place in L.A. In a very non-weird, plutonic way of course. “I know,” Is that the right response? I don’t know. “But it’s going to be okay,” I rub her thigh in reassurance, “Don’t be intimidated by her, she’s actually really great.”

Samantha sighs, “Of course she’s great. But she’s your best friend Keanu. What if she hates me, or sees something that you’re don’t? What if she decides that I’m no good for you.”

As I pull into a parking spot, Samantha frowns and while I don’t respond, I understand her worry. In fact, admittedly, I’m a little nervous too, because deep down, as illogical as it is, I’ve managed to convince myself that even if I can’t have Y/n, having her approve of the person I’m dating might be the next best thing. I want her to like Samantha, I need her to like Samantha. “Y/n isn’t like that. Besides, you’re right, she is my best friend, that means we have a lot in common,” Not really though, what’s that thing they say about opposites attract? “So if I like you, she’ll like you.” Great, now I’m lying to her, there’s no way I can know that for sure. “Come on,” I gently encourage her, getting out of the car to open her door, “Let’s get inside.”

Just past eight, Keanu walks in with a tall, blonde woman on his arm. She looks a few years older than me, at minimum two heads taller and very beautiful. At least my jealousy isn’t misplaced.

They approach our table and I stand in greeting. Keanu pulls me into a hug before words are exchanged and at our side, I sense that Samantha is very nervous. Am I that intimidating? When we break, He keeps an arm on my shoulder, “Y/n, Samantha. Samantha, Y/n.” 

Holding my hand out for her to shake, I chuckle, rolling my eyes, “Wow Ke, A plus for introductions,” he laughs, gesturing for us to sit and I turn my attention to Samantha, “It’s so nice to meet you, I’ve heard good things.”

She seems to sigh quietly in relief, “It’s great to meet you too, Keanu talks about you, a lot,” Samantha huffs, laughing quietly and Keanu blushes. Growing out his beard has really served him well, it usually hides the pinkness in his cheeks, but I know him well enough to look for it around his eyes.

“Should I be worried that there’s so much to talk about?” 

“Oh, god no,” Samantha waves me off, “It’s all great things. I’m a huge fan by the way.”

I laugh off her comment and try to change the topic, eventually saved by the waiter who comes to take our order. 

Things seem to be going well. Y/n seems to like Samantha, Samantha seems to like her back. I should be relaxed. But I’m not, in fact, I’m far from it. I’m either waiting for conflict or I’m about to be conflict. I don’t even know what that means.

My foot keeps tapping the marble floor, though its inaudible, my hands are sweaty and I think I’m angry, annoyed, nervous? No clue, but I feel it in my chest and it’s deterring me from eating. 

And of course, Y/n notices. “Everything okay Ke?” Have I ever said that I love when she calls me that, because I do. Some people call me ‘KeKe’ or ‘Charlie’, but no one but Y/n calls me ‘Ke’. I like it, a lot. It just falls off her lips like she’s meant to say it. It makes me feel all warm inside, and from the minute it reaches my ears, she has my undivided attention, it’s like a siren song, and nothing can keep away from her.

Okay, maybe that was an over-exaggeration, but I swear, that’ s how it feels sometimes. Like she’s the life raft when I’m drowning.

“Keanu,” Y/n calls a little louder.

My head jerks up, my thoughts scattering like the birds do in Central Park, “Huh?”

“I asked if you’re okay,” a quick glance Samantha’s way proves that she’s intently watching our interaction, though, she looks confused, like she didn’t know something was wrong.

“I’m fine,” I assure Y/n more hurriedly than I should have. “Why?”

Y/n rolls her eyes and maybe if she didn’t look so concerned, she’d be smiling, or making a joke about how I’m never paying attention, “You’re doing that thing with you’re face,” she explains, frowning.

“What thing?” What thing? I don’t have a thing. 

“Like you’re staring but not seeing. That face you make when you’re uncomfortable, or annoyed. It goes either way really,” she shrugs, but looks at me expectantly, awaiting a response. 

Samantha is staring too and I feel oddly under pressure, as if I’m going to burst into to flames right this second. Without warning, I stand from the table, pushing my plate away a little. “I need a smoke,” I announce, walking off towards the side door.

The night air is colder than it is in Los Angeles and the ally way near the restaurant is heavy with moisture. As the door swings closed behind me, I fish a pack of cigarettes, and remove one, holding it between my lips as I search for a lighter.

There should be one in my right pocket, but because the world is somehow against me tonight, I can’t find it. I probably look like 5 kinds of idiot, grumbling to myself as I try to find a lighter that I clearly don’t have, “Fucking-”

“Need a light?” A familiar female voice interrupts. Y/n. When I turn, she’s standing near the door, holding out a little silver lighter. 

Huffing a laugh, I step nearer to her, bending a little so the tip of my cigarette can meet the open flame. “Why do you always have a lighter?” I take a long drag before blowing the smoke away from her, “You don’t smoke.”

“Do I have to smoke to own a lighter?” Her tone is light and teasing, and just for a minute, things feel as uncomplicated as they did a year and a half ago.

“You know what I mean,” despite my inner protests, I go to lean against the suspicious looking wall.

“Well,” Y/n begins, coming to stand next to me, leaving about half foot of space between us, “I always have a lighter, because my best friend is a smoker.”

I chuckle quietly and Y/n does too. I miss having moments like these. Not necessarily in a dark allies, but the ones where it’s just us, where the rest of the world doesn’t matter and we can just be. “Do you remember when you tried to get me to quit?”

Y/n laughs a little louder. It was after we had known each other for about a year and she was repulsed by the idea of cigarettes. “You’re filling your lungs with tar,” is what she had argued, yanking a pack from my hands. “Obviously,” Y/n giggles, “You went through a pack of nicotine gum in a day and drank so much coffee that we had to stay up all night watching reruns.” 

“Correction, I stayed up all night. You fell asleep at like, one am,” I point out, earning myself a louder laugh. She looks so good when she’s happy. Not that she doesn’t always look good, it’s just that when she smiles, everything seems brighter. 

“Well, I’m sorry if you can’t handle caffeine,“ Y/n accuses.

“So this is my fault now?” I turn to her and see that she’s having just as much fun as I am, “I’m not the one who tossed an entire pack of cigarettes down the garbage disposal.”

Scoffing, Y/n playfully punching my arm, “I was trying to help.”

“I lost an entire night of sleep, you broke your garbage disposal and I still smoke,” I nudge her back.

“Whatever,” she giggles. After a while Y/n rubs her hands over her arms, trying to suppress a shiver. 

“Come on, we should get you inside,” I toss the nub of the cigarette to the ground, dousing it with the toe of my boot. I reach for her hand when she doesn’t move, but Y/n doesn’t let me take it.

“No,” her changed expression is shrouded in the dimness but I can tell that it’s no longer fun and games, “We haven’t even talked about what was going on with you in there.”

Oh. Without thinking, I blurt out, “We haven’t talked about a lot of things.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Y/n folds her arms across of her chest, taking another step back.

“What happened in L.A. Why you’re marrying Jacob even though you don’t love him. Everything that’s happened this past year.” The fact that we slept together but pretend that it didn’t happen. Why she was so worried about my fist when her fiancé was bleeding on the floor.

God, that night....

I had driven us to the hospital in her car. She had sat in the back with Jacob but every time I checked the rear view mirror, I could see her staring at me. Confused, lost, deep in a pool of thought. She had even talked him into not pressing charges. 

“Of course I lo-” she can’t even finish the word, scoffing defensively, “This isn’t about me,” her voice firms, edging with anger and she shakes her head, running a hand through her hair. 

I sigh, mirroring her motions, “I don’t want to fight about this.”

“Neither do I,” I breathe quietly. He’s right, we haven’t talked about everything. But what’s there to say? He’s clearly happy with Samantha and I’m getting married in two weeks so it’s too late to back out now, “I just want to know what’s bothering you. Tell me so I can fix it, please.” I hate when he does this, when he wallows with his problems without telling me. All I’ve ever wanted since we met was for him to know that I’m here for him, that I’d listen even if all he ever talked about was the same thing. That if I could, I’d fix everything, he’d never feel alone or sad, that the world would always be in his favor. All I’ve ever wanted was for him to know that I’m- no, don’t say it. If you say it, you mean it. If you think it, you mean it, and I can’t mean it.

“Why does it matter?” He asks, kicking the ground, hitting his thigh with his fist.

“Because,” I huff, “You matter to me, because I told you I want to-”

“You can’t fix it, there’s nothing to fix,” Keanu sighs again then approaches me, placing his hands on my shoulders. Just for a minute, my mind flashes back to the night we spent together. His hands were as warm and as pleasantly rough as they are now. “You’re always so pragmatic,” he smiles sadly, though its hard to make it out in the darkness, “Trying to solve every problem, thinking with your head, not with your heart. What does your heart tell you?“

“I already told you-”

“Yeah,” Keanu breaths, stepping closer. He smells like tobacco, smoke, cologne and leather, my heart says that it’s my favorite scent. “You said it’s not about you. But for me, it’s about you.”

“I don’t understand,” his face seems closer and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t take much to just pull him into a kiss. But I can’t, if I do, it won’t stop there, and it shouldn’t even be here.

“Neither do I,” his lips quirk into the slightest hint of a smile. “Y/n,” he breaths my name, leaning down so our faces are inches apart.”

Our noses are a hair apart, “Ke,” I probably sound more frightened than anything else. I shouldn't be doing this, feeling like this. Not about my best friend. Not when my wedding is in two weeks. Not when his girlfriend is inside, waiting for us. “We should get back inside, Samantha is probably wondering what’s keeping us,” I shimmy out of his hold and Keanu seems stunned by my behavior.

“Yeah,” he nods, dropping his hands,  looking away from me, “You’re right. You go ahead and I’ll catch up.”

“Okay,” I force myself to smile, awkwardly moving around him to head back. Before I reenter though the open door, I spare Keanu one last glance, but he doesn’t reciprocate, his back is to me, head down and hands in his pockets. I want to call out to him an apologize, but I’ve already done enough damage.

December 14th

Two more days. Two more days until I watch Y/n stroll down the aisle on her father’s arm, but she won’t be walking to me. Two more days until I’ll put on a fake smile and pretend I’m happy for her. I should be, I know I should be. Everyone’s always saying that if you love someone, you’ll be happy even if their happiness isn’t you. Whoever said that has clearly never been love, because I am in no way happy. Jealous? Maybe. Sad? Definitely.

As if going to this wedding wasn’t going to be  bad enough, it had to be in the Colorado mountains. It’s cold and there’s snow everywhere for miles. The nights are much darker and the days aren’t significantly warmer. 

This morning, a guide from the resort took us skiing down the slopes near by. Contrary to my previous beliefs, skiing is not easier if you grew up playing hockey. The mechanics are completely different and now I have a bruise on my left knee from falling down so much. The best part about it was the time I had gotten to spend with Y/n. Jacob, despite growing up in this frozen over hell, does not like skiing and Samantha had stayed back at our room finishing up some paper work for her office.

The company was fun, but skiing is most definitely not something I plan on taking up as a hobby

“Hey,” I greet, strolling into our room, kicking off snow covered boots at the door and shrugging off my top coat.

Samantha turns to me, closing down her laptop, pushing her glasses up on her head, “Hi! How was the great, frozen, outdoors?”

“Very frozen and not that great,” she laughs musically and I plop down next to her. In a matter of seconds, she’s pressing herself to my side, and my arm goes around her. She might not be Y/n, but Samantha’s great. “I think it’s safe to say that this old dog is incapable of learning new tricks.”

“Aww,” Samantha coos, her slender arms going around me as she leans up to kiss my jaw, “You’re only as old as you feel babe,” she giggles.

“Well right now I’m feeling exactly fifty five,” I laugh and Samantha crawls into my lap, a mischievous glint in her baby blues, “Not that I’m complaining, but what are you doing?”

“Trying to make you feel younger,” she muses, letting one of her hands slide down to my crotch as she leans in to kiss me.

December 15th

Jacob sleeps peacefully on his side of the bed while I’m sitting on the balcony, wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket, on my third glass of wine. There’s a knot in my stomach and a tightness in my chest though I can’t tell if it’s just pre wedding jitters or pure fright. I’ve thought about waking my mother with the issue, but I don’t think she’ll be much help. This morning, at breakfast, when I told her that I was nervous, all she could sum up was, “I don’t know what to tell you hun, I still can’t believe you’re marrying an investment banker in the middle of snowy nowhere.” 

Sometimes I can’t believe it either. I always though I’d marry someone who did what I did, or just a man who could share my appreciation for film and arts. Someone who knew how to have fun without leaving the house, who didn’t jump at the next reason to yell. A man who didn’t make a relationship seem like so much work. If I’m being completely honest, I wish I was marrying someone like Keanu.

As the thought crosses my mind, and I finish the last draining of wine from the bottle, my phone vibrates on the little end table, the screen flashing with a calendar notification that simply reads, “Wedding day.” 

It’s officially the day of my wedding and I’m not even excited. Unlocking the phone, I somehow end up in my gallery, biting my lip as I flip through the pictures I’ve taken with him. There’s so much more with me and Keanu than there are with Jacob. I’m smiling in most of them and even as I reminisce, a smile threatens my lips.

Some are from the day Keanu and I went to Santa Monica Pier, in one of the pictures, he has a couple stuffed animals under his arm; at the end of the night he had insisted I keep them. I still have them. Another is from my birthday last year. I didn’t want to do anything but he had bought me a cake and VIP tickets to a concert. We had gone together and had stumbled back to a London hotel room drunk, waking up smelling like booze and adorned with merchandise. The earliest snap is from last Christmas, when we had gone shopping together and we had taken the picture during lunch at one of our favorite spots in New York. I’m not sure how I never noticed it, but I had been looking at the phone while Keanu had been looking at me.

“What are you doing?”�� I ask myself in a soft whisper. This isn’t what I want, it’s not even close. It’s....a breath stealing contrast. 

Clumsily, I stand from the chair, not even caring that the blanket has fallen to the floor. As I stand, my head feels lighter and it takes a minute before my vision steadies. In retrospect, an entire bottle of wine might not have been my best idea.

Still, though my mind is blurry, one thing is alarmingly clear. It should have been all along, and maybe it was, but I was so busy trying to do the most logical thing that I forgot about everything else. I said yes to Jacob because it made sense, he’s familiar, he stays despite my flaws and I stay in spite of his. We’ve been together for years, more on than off, marriage felt like the only thing left for us. But is that what I really want? Familiarity mistaken for love.

What does your heart tell you?

I know what it’s telling me, it’s been screaming the same thing for months, years. But every time I heard it, I stifled it. I’m in love with Keanu.

I stare up at the darkness while Samantha lies next to me, wearing only one of my shirts, wrapped up in the sheets. I’m flat on my back, trying to make out the dark veins on the oak ceiling, sifting through my thoughts. I feel like I’m always thinking, but getting no where.

Beside me, my phone vibrates and when I pick it up, it’s a text from Y/n. ‘You up? Can we talk?’

My fingers move quickly across the screen, typing a response, ‘Sure, meet you downstairs?’

‘Great.’ Her response is almost as immediate as me getting out of bed and getting dressed.

I hurry to get into a pair of jeans and a thick flannel with a jacket over it. This place is way too cold. What could she want to talk about this late? Nothing good can come from a conversation past midnight, edging into the morning of her wedding.

Pocketing my phone, I forgo waking Samantha to explain and decide to just creep out of the room before bounding down the stairs, my feet hitting the carpeted stairs in quick muffled thuds.

When I get to the lounge, which is deserted save for the both of us. Y/n’s hair is wind blown and for some reason I’m worried that she might have gone outside this late in nothing but a pair of yoga pants and a cable knit sweater. 

The pale yellow light coming from the little lamps along the walls is dim, but it’s enough to illuminate the calm, quiet distress renting her features, “Hey, what’s going on Y/n? Is everything okay?” I reach out to touch her shoulder and she wrings her hands in front of her.

It takes a while but when she finally speaks, Y/n’s voice is thick with emotion and her eyes are teary, “Ke,” she breathes, her voice breaking, “I think I’ve made a mistake.”

*****

Tagging- @avxgers​ @sgt-morgan​ @shanjedi​ @doodooloo700​ @a-really-bi-girl​ @coolbreezeinkeanureeves @i-cant-remember-my-old-login @baphometwolf666 @everything-is-awesomesauce​ @tuliptx​

[keanubot]

I Love You Like The Sun Came Out (Keanu Reeves/Reader) Chapter 1

so i’ve had this idea mulling around for about a year now and after A LOT of encouragement from @johnsbleu i decided to finally just make it happen. i know keanu/reader isn’t everyone’s thing and that’s ok! i just wanted to try my hand at it. i have a lot of ideas for this so hopefully you guys like it 💖

title is a lyric from ‘waking up slow’ by gabrielle aplin (and i made the gif from her lyric video for that song). if you wanna know the vibe for this fic, definitely go listen to it.

word count: around 4k

warnings: none for this chapter but YES...this fic will be very smutty

“You got the job!”

Anybody else would be more than happy to hear those words, overjoyed in fact. But hearing them does almost nothing for you, your lips pressed together in a tight line as you nod at nobody in particular with your cell phone against your ear. You inhale deeply through your nose, processing the words of the woman on the other end before saying quite calmly:

“Awesome, when do I start?”

Maybe you’re overexaggerating just a little bit; a job is good, it’s always good. A steady income, stability, a routine, all that jazz. It’s not that you hate working, it’s not like you didn’t apply for this job in the hopes that you’d get it, but still…it’s disappointing.

Because being a housekeeper for a celebrity is certainly not how you thought your life in Hollywood was gonna go.

“He’d like you to start tomorrow. He won’t be back for about a month or so but he wanted you to get acquainted with the house, figure out where everything is, water the plants, that sort of thing.”

You nod again, absentmindedly tapping your knee with your index finger, “Is there a schedule I should follow?”

“He sent me a basic list of things he needs done, but he’d like you to make your own hours. However, while he’s gone he will need you to come in to feed the fish.”

You raise an eyebrow, “The fish?”

“Yes, he has a koi pond with about a dozen of them; the gardener has been feeding them lately but it’s not in his job description to stop by every day. That’s the housekeeper’s job.” The woman laughs, “Your job, I should say.”

You laugh along with her, wondering if she can tell you’re faking it. Yep, that’s me: the housekeeper. That’s all I’ll ever be good for out here, apparently.

“I’ll meet you at the house tomorrow morning at eight o’clock to give you the keys and answer any other questions you might have,” the woman continues. You know her name, you even met her in a formal interview, but you can’t for the life of you remember it, “You still have reliable transportation, right?”

If you’d even call your beat-up car ‘reliable’. “Yep.”

“Then we’re all set, I’ll see you tomorrow!”

“See you then.” You bring the phone away from your ear and swipe your thumb across the screen to end the conversation, biting your lip and staring at your lock screen until it turns black. You catch a glimpse of your reflection in the small sheet of glass and cringe at the expression on your face; come on, is it really necessary to look that annoyed?

About six months ago, you’d come to Hollywood on a complete whim, barely enough money in your bank account to keep you afloat and nothing but the promise of an audition at a talent agency to keep you going. You’d sent in a tape all the way from New York, and about two weeks later you’d been flown out to California for an in-person audition. In a whirlwind, you’d become a client at the agency and quickly landed your first professional acting job ever, playing the younger sister of a grieving widow in a pretty low budget indie drama. You’d only been in two scenes, had about five lines, but still…it had been exhilarating. And you’d finally felt like this whole acting thing was really gonna happen for you.

It just went downhill from there.

From that gig came barely any offers whatsoever, aside from a pretty raunchy comedy that required a nude scene that you really didn’t feel comfortable doing. Instead, you did a couple commercials; dog food, fabric softener, and the most recent – tampons. Other than that, your schedule has been dry as hell, and your bank account has slowly been dwindling down. You barely have enough money left to cover rent for the next month and the only options that remain are to get a non-acting job while you wait for auditions or throw in the towel and head back to New York.

The former seems like the best way to go; you’re not the type to just give up. You’ve already promised yourself that you won’t go back until an entire year has passed.

Only halfway there, you think to yourself, anything could happen from now and then.

Like becoming a housekeeper for Keanu Reeves, apparently.

At first the idea had been absolutely absurd; a woman who works at the agency had told you that a few clients had managed to get these kinds of jobs, gaining access to celebrity houses and basically cleaning up after them. To some people it might be appealing, but it had made your stomach turn. You’re supposed to be gaining success, getting your name out there, not watering plants and feeding fish – and the thought of being under the watchful eye of an actor you admire makes things ten times worse. You want to be taken seriously.

But the alternatives – working as a barista, busting your ass as a waitress, nannying – are just not a good balance for what you’re trying to accomplish. You need time, time to study and rehearse and audition, time that those jobs simply won’t allow for. At least with the housekeeping you won’t be working eight hours a day, and according to the woman at the agency, there’s amazing pay in it. So how can you pass that up?

So you didn’t. You’d put your name in and before you knew it you’d been called in for an interview for Keanu Reeves. He hadn’t been there, his assistant had shown up instead, explaining that he was away shooting a movie and wouldn’t be back for another month. After a thorough background check and what you felt was a positive interview, you’d left feeling hopeful, albeit disappointed in yourself for allowing your career to get to this point.

So here you are. You got the job. And you want to feel thrilled…but it’s difficult.

Maybe, I’ll feel better when I see the house, you think to yourself, rising from your spot at the kitchen table to go make yourself a cup of tea to calm your nerves. You’re suddenly feeling a bit anxious about the whole thing, reality setting in.

“Did you get the job?” one of your roommates asks, coming into the kitchen in workout attire and putting an empty water bottle in the sink, “Sorry, I wasn’t eavesdropping, I promise. I just heard the end of it when I got back from my run.”

You give her a small smile, “Yep, got it.”

“Great!” she replies, then turns around and leaves, blonde ponytail swishing behind her.

Becca – one of your three roommates. She’s not your friend, none of them are; it’s not really possible to have friends in Hollywood when you’re all essentially competing for the same thing. You’re all signed to the same agency and usually audition for all the same roles, which has created a lot of tension more than once. Your two other roommates haven’t even spoken to each other in about a month after one of them won a role over the other.

Despite what seems like a lot of drama, you manage to stay out of it. You’re there because you need a place to stay, and you get along fine individually with all the girls so you don’t really have anything to complain about. But even with three roommates, rent is ridiculous, and this job is your saving grace.

“Wait, who’s it for again?” you hear behind you, and you turn to see Becca has returned, leaning against the door frame and still catching her breath from the exercise. “Sorry, I forget who you said.”

“Keanu Reeves,” you say, stirring some milk into your tea, “I start tomorrow.”

“Shit, yeah,” her voice is breathless, “He’s like…a big deal.”

You notice your heart begins to beat a bit faster, “I know, but he’s supposed to be really nice.” You look up from your cup and catch a glimpse of Becca’s shocked expression before she shakes it off and nods her head.

“Oh, of course,” she agrees, wiping sweat from her forehead, “Everyone says that. Should be an easy job.”

You shrug, “Hope so.”

“Okay, well,” she slowly backs up, clearly wanting to go change, “I’ll see you later.”

You throw her a thumbs up and she disappears once again; you wonder if she realizes how nervous she’s just made you. “A big deal.” Yeah, that’s the understatement of the year. He’s fucking Keanu Reeves. His reputation in Hollywood is one of the most well known, and while you’re not worried about him hating you or being rude or something, you’re definitely worried about being in the presence of such a famous actor. And the fact that it’s not for an audition or a role, but because you’re going to be cleaning his house? Yeah, pretty humiliating.

At least you’ll get a month to yourself before you have an audience. To be honest, you’re looking forward to seeing what the house where you’ll be spending a good amount of time actually looks like.

 ------

Keanu’s assistant meets you at eight sharp in front of the house. As you pull up, you feel a lump grow in your throat at the sheer size of it, the black pillars in front seeming quite ominous. His assistant is already there, standing in front of the house with a clipboard; she looks like a real estate agent and you laugh to yourself at the idea of ever having enough money to buy a house like this.

You come to a squeaky stop in the driveway, cringing at the dramatic difference between your shitty car and her not-so-shitty one. You know absolutely nothing about cars but you know expensive when you see it. She waves at you and you wave back, getting out of your car and walking over to her.

“Good morning,” she says, reaching out to shake your hand like she had in your interview, “Ready to start your first day?”

You nod, hoping you look enthusiastic, “Yep, looking forward to it,” you gesture toward the house, “It’s gorgeous.”

She makes an odd facial expression, shrugging, “Not really my taste. I hate the black.”

You’re not really sure how to respond – because you do like the black – but it doesn’t matter because she’s already turning around, putting a key in the lock and opening the front door. She heads inside and you follow close behind, your eyes widening when you’re greeted with essentially a giant hallway, so grand that you feel as if you’ve stepped into a museum.

“Wow,” is all you can say, taken aback by the unique layout, “Is it all one floor?”

“Yes, three bedrooms and five bathrooms.”

Only three bedrooms? You suppose everything being on the one floor means there’s not as much space, but the way the long hallway sweeps down the entire length of the house – disconnecting on either side into other rooms – makes you wonder how that could be. You can see a swimming pool through the glass door at the far end of the hallway, and the hint of a kitchen counter.

“So, this is the foyer.” Keanu’s assistant begins the tour immediately, waving her hand toward a small sitting area to the left. There’s art hanging everywhere, giant abstract paintings that you could probably sit and look at for hours, trying to figure out what’s hidden within them. There are splashes of bright color everywhere, not only in the art but in the pillows, throws, and rugs. You’re also very aware of the amount of plants peppered around the room, tall and fragile looking.

“Are all the plants real?” you ask, eyeing a particularly bright green fern to the right of you that looks too good to be true.

“Oh, yes, every single one,” she clicks her tongue, “That’ll probably be your main priority; he’s always forgetting to water them. And when he does he just ends up hurting himself. I think it got to be a bit too much for the last housekeeper.”

Well, that’s comforting.

“You’re young, you’ll be fine,” she continues, clearly noticing the worry on your face, “She was hitting her 60s, the watering was strenuous on her back. The gardener took over in her absence, but he already has an entire exterior to keep up. It’s not his job.”

Just like feeding the fish. You wonder what other tasks you’ll be taking off the gardener’s hands.

You walk around a wall to the right and find yourselves in a large living room, art and sculptures and plants scattered around the span of it. There’s a big television and a fireplace, as well as a large sectional couch that looks extremely comfortable, placed in a sunken square of floor that you have to walk down a few steps to get to. For such a large space, the house seems so cozy, and you feel the anxiousness melt away a little bit. Maybe you’ll like it here.

“That table is usually covered in books,” his assistant says, nodding toward the coffee table, “But just keep them there, no matter how messy it might look. He likes having what he’s reading close by.”

“Oh, me too,” you say with a laugh, “I always get so annoyed when my roommates put them back on the shelf.”

Keanu’s assistant snorts, shaking her head, “He’s gonna like you.”

You can’t help but feel a sense of pride at the compliment.

“I don’t really have time to show you everything,” she says, checking her phone quickly and then slipping it back in her purse, “I have a meeting I need to get to. But I’ll just show you where he keeps the cleaning supplies.”

God, assistants are probably the most impatient people you’ve ever encountered. You follow after her as she rushes out of the room and down the wide hallway. You gaze in awe at the long columns, trying to keep up with her but also wanting to get a good look at as much as you can. There are doors on either side, and another hallway to the right that must lead to another area of the house.

“Here’s the kitchen,” his assistant points to the glass door at the back, “There’s the pool.”

The pool is very long, taking up most of the back deck and looking out on what seems to be an incredible view. Your eyes move to the huge kitchen, widening at the beautiful marble countertops and shiny cookware. The fridge is huge, and you wonder if you’ll be allowed to eat his food or if you’ll have to bring your own.

On the opposite side of the kitchen is the dining room – a large table surrounded by multicolored chairs – as well as another sitting area and a bar. You love how bright everything is, the windows shining the morning sun onto every reflecting surface. Whoever designed this house knew what they were doing.

You pass through the kitchen and Keanu’s assistant pulls open a door, leading you into a storage room full of cleaning supplies.

“This is pretty much everything you’ll need, I don’t think you’ll be running out of anything anytime soon,” she looks at you with a reassuring half smile, “I know it looks like a lot but he’s not a very messy person, trust me. I wouldn’t worry too much. Everything probably only needs to be done once a week, except for the plants.”

You nod, “And are there plants in every room?”

“Oh, yes, they’re everywhere,” she gestures for you to follow her out of the room, leading you out of the kitchen and toward a pair of large double doors off the hallway, “Come on, I’ll show you the fish.”

You’re suddenly outside, in a small enclosed garden-like area with a large pond and another sitting area. You inch over to the water, peering down and feeling yourself genuinely smile for the first time all day.

“They’re beautiful.” you say quietly, looking down at the koi fish swimming gracefully back and forth underneath the surface. Their scales reflect against the sun and the water almost looks like it’s sparkling, rippling with their bodies. Without realizing you’re even doing it, you’re suddenly crouching on the edge of the water and dipping your fingers in to feel the fish brush against your skin, “What are their names?”

“Oh, uh, I don’t think they have names.”

You look up at his assistant, raising an eyebrow, “He didn’t name them?”

She shrugs, “Not as far as I know.”

Gazing back at the fish, you feel your face scrunch in confusion. Who the hell doesn’t name their fish? You can already think of at least ten names at the top of your head as you straighten back up and put your hands on your hips.

“So how often do they eat?”

“Four times a day,” she replies, gesturing toward a crate near the door, “All their food and treats are in there.”

Four times a day? You certainly hadn’t been expecting that. You know that when Keanu comes back it won’t be your responsibility anymore, but that’s not for another month. Does his assistant really expect you to drive here four times a day for a month? You want to ask, but a part of you is slightly worried that doing so might cost you the job, so you keep your mouth shut.

“Well, that’s all I really have time for,” Keanu’s assistant backs up from the pond and opens the doors again, waving you through, “I’ll give you the keys and you get can get acquainted with the rest of the house on your own.”

To be honest, you actually prefer it that way; it’ll be nice to look around without a watchful eye. You go back to the front door and she digs a ring of keys out of her purse, explaining each ones function and then pulling out a piece of paper with the same instructions.

“Oh, and here’s the list of duties,” she hands you the clipboard she’s been carrying this whole time, “He wrote that himself so hopefully there isn’t any confusion. But if you have any questions just give me a call,” she points to the bottom of the first page, “All the security info is right there, pretty straightforward.”

You have to admit, she could do a much better job at inducting you into this job, but she’s clearly in a rush and you’re sure you can figure everything out on your own. With a final, “Good luck!” as she heads outside, the door shuts behind her and you’re left standing in the very large house all by yourself.

“Okay,” you say to nobody, taking a deep breath, “Where do I even start?”

 -----

The house is gorgeous. You stay a few moments in every single room, taking in everything and letting reality slowly dawn on you. This certainly is going to be a lovely environment to work in; everything is so bright, so colorful, so unique. You can see personal touches in everything, and you know there are stories behind almost every object in the house.

Your favorite rooms by far are the kitchen, the library, the music room, the outside pond area – although you’re not sure if that would really be considered a room but you love those koi fish – and surprisingly, Keanu’s office. Despite being terribly unorganized and painfully messy, you love all the movie memorabilia he has from past roles, and the shelf of awards had drawn your attention for probably a little too long. You’d stared at them for much longer than necessary, resisting the urge to reach out and touch them.

Obviously those aren’t the only rooms in the house, as you find yourself in guest bedrooms, some beautiful bathrooms, an above ground wine cellar, a gym, and more. The only room that makes you slightly nervous is his bedroom; it feels strange to go in there when he’s not home, like you’re invading his privacy even though you’re literally being paid to be there. You stand outside the door for a few minutes, deliberating, before finally turning the knob and going inside.

Surprisingly, it’s not really anything special. You can tell he doesn’t spend much time in there other than to sleep. The bed looks incredibly comfortable though, covered in black and white bedding and some cozy looking pillows. You see the entrances to an en suite bathroom and what’s most likely a walk-in closet, but you already feel as if you’ve overstayed your welcome, so you leave after only about a minute of looking.

After a quick walk-around in the garage – where you find more expensive cars you don’t know the names of as well as a few motorcycles – you head back to the living room and walk down the few steps to settle on the couch, pulling out the list of duties Keanu’s assistant had given you. She’d said he’d written it himself, and you can tell. It’s the kind of handwriting only an actor would have, smooth and wide and sort of indecipherable; you have to squint to understand what it says:

Plants

Fish

Floors

Dust

Windows

Bathrooms

Well, he certainly gets right to the point. You spot a few codes at the bottom for security and alarms and then you turn the page over. To your surprise, you see a few short paragraphs of words:

Hi there,

Not exactly sure who you are yet because no one’s been hired as I’m writing this but I thought I should just say a quick thank you and welcome you to my home. Sorry I’m unable to do this in person but by the time you read this I’ll be out of the country for work.

My main priorities are the fish and plants – don’t worry too much about everything else. The floors only need to be cleaned once a month except for the kitchen and bathrooms. I wouldn’t worry too much about the windows either. It’d be great if you could dust maybe once a week.

The plants all have different needs and you can find everything about them on a list I’ll have my assistant give you. Sorry for how many there are. I think my last housekeeper wanted to murder me for having so many.

The fish are easy. Feed them in five minute intervals three or four times a day and you’re golden. Don’t worry about putting your fingers too close to the water, they’re harmless.

I think that’s about it. No room is off limits and you’re welcome to whatever food I have, although there probably won’t be much there until I’m back. I know this is a job but I want you to feel as comfortable as possible. Thanks for taking it on.

Cheers,

Keanu Reeves

The note is certainly the final nail in the coffin of reality. You stare at his name for a little too long, Becca’s voice suddenly echoing in your mind – He’s like…a big deal. It’s finally settling in that you’re really here, holding a handwritten note from a successful actor, and not only that, but it’s addressed to you. Well, he doesn’t exactly know who are yet, but still. It’s a lot to take in. This job, this house, this letter, you really hadn’t been expecting any of it when you moved here six months ago.

And suddenly, you can’t wait to start.

[the-desolated-quill]

‘But They’re Covered In Nipples’: The Story Of Destroy All Humans - Quill’s Scribbles

Another E3 has come and gone. There was some good announcements. Square Enix unveiled their Avengers game, Keanu Reeves came on stage to give us the release date of Cyberpunk 2077, Ubisoft are making another Watch Dogs set in London, and... um... what else happened?

Oh yeah!

DESTROY ALL HUMANS IS BACK!!!!!!

Yes, the cult classic Destroy All Humans is returning next year, developed by THQ Nordic and Black Forest Games. This was quite possibly the nicest surprise I’ve ever had. When the teaser trailer came up on my YouTube recommendations, I practically screamed the house down. It’s a level of excitement I felt when 20th Century Fox announced they were finally making a Deadpool movie. 

Yeah. That excited.

Destroy All Humans was my favourite video game series growing up. I played the first two games non-stop on my PS2 and I even bought a Nintendo Wii and PS3 just so I could play Big Willy Unleashed and Path Of The Furon (yeah, we’ll get to them). Unfortunately, while the series was reasonably successful, it never quite broke through into the mainstream, and it ended up having a very short lifespan, making it one of the most underrated franchises of all time.

So, to mark the return of Crypto and Pox, I thought I’d take a retrospective look at the series as a whole. Analysing each game in the franchise and talking about what made them so good, whilst also looking at how it faded into obscurity and how THQ Nordic and Black Forest Games can hopefully avoid this fate with their remake.

Radioactive, Exploding, Zombie Cows

The first Destroy All Humans was developed by THQ and Pandemic Studios (the latter probably most famous for making the original Star Wars Battlefront games. You know? The good ones that weren’t overloaded with loot boxes and microtransactions) and was released in 2005 on the PS2 and Xbox. You play as a Furon warrior called Cryptosporidium 137, or Crypto for short, who is tasked with harvesting the brains of humans in order to extract pure Furon DNA from them. His leader Orthopox 13, or Pox, explains that the Furons are at risk of cloning themselves into extinction as they are unable to reproduce naturally due to a lack of genitalia and the DNA in their cloning banks are starting to degrade. Fortunately the Furons visited prehistoric Earth on their way back from destroying the Martians and took the opportunity to ‘let off some steam’ with the natives. As a result, humans possess a strand of Furon DNA that can hopefully restore the Furons’ reproductive organs. Unfortunately a secret government organisation called Majestic (a sort of cross between Project Blue Book and the Men in Black) have caught wind of the Furon invasion due to Crypto 136 crash landing in Roswell 10 years earlier. So Crypto 137 will have to be extra cautious in his quest to take over Earth.

The game was released four years after Grand Theft Auto III, which had completely revolutionised gaming with its open world sandbox. As a result, other companies were attempting their own open worlds and putting their own spin on them. While Destroy All Humans didn’t quite have the same scale as GTA, it made up for it with quality over quantity. The game offered six small open world areas for players to have fun in and its central premise was utterly captivating. After countless games where you had to fight alien invaders, Destroy All Humans allowed you to play as the alien invader.

Pandemic Studios completely embraced the alien invasion premise, giving the player a vast number of weapons and abilities to wreak havoc on planet Earth. You had access to weapons like the Zap O Matic, Disintegrator Ray and Anal Probe (no, really, there’s actually a gun called the Anal Probe and it’s as funny as it sounds) as well as mental abilities such as Psychokinesis, Hypnotism and the Cortex Scan, which allowed you to read the thoughts of humans and was also used to help maintain your Holoblob disguise in stealth missions. And if that isn’t cool enough, you also get your own flying saucer, which you can use to destroy buildings and landmarks. The game gave you a lot of freedom, essentially dropping you in a small destructible playground and telling you to go and enjoy yourself.

But the thing I loved most about the first game was the writing. The plot itself is actually pretty good with plenty of twists and turns as the military and Majestic become more and more desperate to stop you. And the humour, my God the humour! Honestly Destroy All Humans remains to this day one of the funniest games I’ve ever played. It’s use of satirical humour and 50s pop culture references never failed to make me chuckle. There was one moment that I’ll always remember where I scanned the mind of a police officer and it revealed that he was thinking about forming the Village People. If only he could find a cowboy, an Indian and a construction worker. 

The game’s main source of comedy mostly came from poking fun at the culture and attitudes of the time period. 1950s America was of course gripped by ‘the Red Scare,’ which the game mocks frequently as we see Majestic and the US government try desperately to cover up alien activity by blaming the death and destruction on communists, to the point where it just gets more and more absurd. At the end of each mission, a newspaper headline is shown, often blaming recent events on freak weather or communist propaganda. Yes, that should explain perfectly why people’s heads are exploding and why the cows are glowing green. It’s all perfectly normal. No aliens here. What’s that? A little green man in a flying saucer is blowing up ice cream trucks? Damn you commies!

The game also pokes fun at 50s sci-fi B movies, often parodying and lampshading the tropes and gimmicks one would expect in a low budget sci-fi flick. For example, the game ends with you fighting a giant robot that houses the President’s brain. It’s fully aware of how ridiculous and stupid it all is and clearly revels in it. Killer robots, mind control, radioactive animals, mad scientists and secret government conspiracies galore. Destroy All Humans is very much a love letter to cheesy sci-fi.

But by far the biggest draw was the main characters. Crypto and Pox. They’re both such funny, wonderfully realised and likeable characters. Pox is voiced by Richard Steven Horvitz, who you may remember from Invader Zim, and he gives the character a maniacal glee. I honestly could listen to his rants all day. He’s the quintessential evil genius. Crypto meanwhile is voiced by J. Grant Albrecht, who gives the character a Jack Nicholson-esque voice. Unlike Pox, Crypto is crass, crude and craves destruction, which often puts him at odds with Pox, who favours more subtle styles of invasion such as mind control. The two characters often bicker and squabble, which never fails to be entertaining, and yet there is an underlying respect and fondness for each other that helps ground the relationship. It’s the perfect double act.

Destroy All Humans was a good game, but does it still hold up? Well there are a few issues. Controls can be a bit clunky at times and missions can often get repetitive. Destroy x number of farmers. Collect x amount of DNA. That kind of thing. Also, annoyingly, there’s no checkpoints, which means if you die or fail the mission, you’re automatically sent back to the Furon Mothership and you have to start the mission all over again. But the writing, humour and entertainment value more than make up for it.

Hot Monkey Love

While the first game wasn’t what you’d call a hit, it was successful enough for THQ to commission a sequel. Destroy All Humans 2 was released in 2006 on PS2 and Xbox, just one year after the first game, and this time Crypto was going international.

Set in the 1960s, ten years after the events of the first game, the KGB in Russia learn about the Furon’s takeover of America and plan a counterattack. They nuke the Furon Mothership, killing Pox, and try to assassinate Crypto 138, who is posing as the President of the United States. The assassination fails and Pox’s mind is able to survive in hologram form. The two then embark on a global adventure, seeking revenge against the KGB and uncovering a massive conspiracy that puts the entire Furon invasion at risk.

Destroy All Humans 2 is an ambitious sequel that increases its scope from the first game. No longer confined to America, we see Crypto terrorise San Francisco, London, Tokyo, Russia and even the Moon. Our arsenal of weapons are also expanded. The original weapons from the first game return as well as some all new ones such as the Disclocator, which fires a purple disc at a human or vehicle and sends them flying around the map, the Burrow Beast, which summons a Tremors-esque space worm to cause carnage, and Meteor Strike, which I think speaks for itself. We also get a few new mental abilities such as Transmogrify, which allows you to turn objects into ammo, and Free Love, which causes everyone in the general vicinity to start dancing, allowing you to make a quick getaway while they’re distracted. The saucer too has some extra features, including a cloaking device and the ability to drain vehicles of health using your Abducto Beam.

This sequel pretty much takes everything that worked from the first game whilst tweaking the things that didn’t. The GTA style Alert system got a complete overhaul. If you want to raise or lower the Alert level, all you have to do is bodysnatch a cop or a soldier and make a call using a police box (you can also make prank calls from them, which is good for a giggle). Holoblobbing has been replaced with Bodysnatching, which works so much better and it does away with the annoying Concentration meter, so you can PK cars and humans to your heart’s content. There’s also a lot more stuff to do now. There are numerous collectables such as Alien Artefacts, which unlocks the Burrow Beast weapon, and FuroTech Cells, which are your main currency that can be used to upgrade your health and weapons. Missions have greater variety than in the first game. There’s a lot more side missions, including Odd Jobs and my personal favourites the Cult of Arkvoodle missions, where Crypto brainwashes humans to worship the Furon God Arkvoodle of the Sacred Crotch.

As you can tell, the humour is still just as wacky and ridiculous as ever. Destroy All Humans 2 lampoons and ridicules the 60s mercilessly, taking aim at the Cold War and the hippie counterculture movement. It also pokes fun at 60s sci-fi films, spy films and Japanese movies like Godzilla. In fact there’s a boss fight that involves you fighting a Godzilla-esque monster and it’s honestly the best boss fight in the series. It regains health by destroying buildings, so you have to destroy them first before you can kill the monster. It’s a great premise.

Story-wise, Destroy All Humans 2 is a worthy successor, raising the stakes and expanding the lore. We’re introduced to the Blisk, the Martians that were presumed extinct by the Furons millions of years ago. It’s a brilliant conflict and ostensibly allows the developers to make commentaries on America and Russia at the time using the Furons and the Blisk respectively as stand-ins. Crypto and Pox are well written, funny and likeable as ever and we’re also introduced to an assortment of new characters, including the Russian spy Natalya and MI6 agent Ponsomby (voiced by none other than Anthony Head from Buffy). The game is engaging and rewarding, but it crucially never takes itself too seriously. For example there’s one instance in Tokyo where Crypto learns about the battle between the White and Black Ninjas and he guesses that the conflict started because of the cliche student betraying his master type origin, but it turns out that both groups of ninjas were originally Grey, but then they ran out of grey fabric and disagreed over which colour they should be instead. There’s so many great comedic moments like that and they pretty much hit bullseyes every time.

That being said, there was one aspect of the game I didn’t like and that was the crude sex jokes. Crypto 138 is the first clone to have pure Furon DNA, which means he now has genitalia. As a result, this new incarnation of Crypto is far more randy than 137 was in the first game.  This mostly takes the form of Crypto constantly trying to hit on Natalya, despite her showing no sexual interest, which I personally found pretty gross. Worse still, the game ends with Crypto cloning Natalya and ‘making a few adjustments’ so she will consent to have sex with him. The word ‘creepy’ doesn’t begin to cover how I felt about this. If THQ Nordic and Black Forest Games ever decide to remake the second game, I really hope they consider rethinking that ending because... Jesus!

On the whole, Destroy All Humans 2 was a brilliant sequel. It was also sadly the last Destroy All Humans game to be developed by Pandemic Studios before they were bought by EA and eventually shut down in 2009. Unfortunately this would have a severe impact on the future of the series going forward.

Limp Willy

The next game in the series was a spinoff for the Nintendo Wii, released in early 2008 and developed by Locomotive Games. A PS2 version was also planned, but was scrapped due to budget cuts (remember this. It’ll become relevant later).

Destroy All Humans: Big Willy Unleashed was... underwhelming, to say the least. Set in the 1970s, six years after the second game, Crypto and Pox have opened a fast food restaurant called Big Willy as a way of disposing of the corpses left behind during Crypto’s missions. However a rival fast food chain, run by Colonel Kluckin’, is stealing their business and socialite Patty Wurst is threatening to expose Big Willy (smirk). So it’s up to Crypto to protect Pox’s Big Willy (haha) and maintain their cover on Earth.

Now you’re probably thinking this sounds quite tame compared to the previous two games, and yeah, it is. But it’s a spinoff, so I can understand to a certain extent. However there are a few narrative discrepancies. The big one being Crypto has retired from being the President. No explanation given as to why and we have no idea what Crypto is doing instead. When we first see him, he’s watching TV. He doesn’t even know Big Willy exists until Pox brings it up. So what’s going on exactly? Are they still trying to invade Earth or have they gone native? Also, compared to the grand conspiracy stories of the previous games, Crypto protecting a fast food restaurant sounds a little beneath him.

Gameplay is virtually unchanged from the previous game. There’s some new guns such as Ball Lightning and the Zombie Gun, but nothing special. The biggest addition is Big Willy, the restaurant mascot that’s actually a Furon battle mech in disguise. It’s... fine. Not that much different from the Saucer really. We also get some new locations. Harbor City, Fairfield in Kentucky, Fantasy Atoll (a weak parody of Fantasy Island) and Vietmahl (a painfully obvious homage to Vietnam). None of these locations are particularly interesting however. There’s also a multiplayer mode, which... exists.

Honestly the game as a whole is just lacklustre. The story just isn’t as good as the first two games and the humour doesn’t have the same wit or intelligence. Most of the comedy surrounds the fact that Pox has called his restaurant Big Willy and isn’t entirely aware of the double entendre, which admittedly is funny for the first few missions, but by the time you’ve finished Harbor City and move on to Fairfield, the joke gets old real fast. There’s less of an effort to actually satirise the culture or films of the time, instead merely making 70s pop culture references without ever actually doing anything with it. It’s like the Family Guy school of comedy. Take Fantasy Atoll for instance. A pisstake of Fantasy Island, but instead of Mr. Roarke and Tatoo, we get Mr. Pork and Ratpoo. That’s the level of humour we’re talking about here.

What’s worse is that J. Grant Albrecht and Richard Steven Horwitz don’t return as Crypto and Pox. Sean Donnellan and Darryl Kurylo voice the characters instead and it’s just not the same. It doesn’t feel like Crypto and Pox. So from the very first cutscene, we’re already off on the wrong foot.

And then there’s a bunch of other stuff that I find really questionable. The most obvious being the revelation that Colonel Kluckin’ makes his chicken wings from the corpses of the Vietmahl (Vietnam) war, which just seems in very bad taste to me. If there is a satirical point being made here, I can’t find it for the life of me. There’s also some side missions where Crypto finds out that he and Natalya have a son, which goes absolutely nowhere and doesn’t feel like something that should be in a Destroy All Humans game.

Overall, Big Willy Unleashed was a massive dud meant to tide us over until Destroy All Humans 3 came out later in the year. Honestly the one aspect of it I thought had potential was the side missions involving Crypto and Pox being assessed by a Furon Efficiency Expert called Toxoplasma Gondii. Considering what happened in the second game, including the destruction of the Furon Mothership, the return of the Blisk and the Furon operation on Earth being jeoprodised, this could have been a great premise for a sequel.

Instead what we got was... 

Disco Inferno

Oh boy. Where do I begin?

Path Of The Furon was developed by THQ and Sandblast Games and released in December 2008 on the Xbox 360 in North America. The PS3 version was cancelled because Sandblast (and Locomotive Games) was closed down before development was finished due to THQ’s financial problems at the time. However the PS3 version was released in Europe and Australia, so either THQ got another studio to complete it or, more likely, they just released it in a broken, buggy state.

Fans really didn’t like this game, myself included, but before we go tearing it a new one, lets look at the few positives the game has. First off, J. Grant Albrecht and Richard Steven Horwitz return to voice Crypto and Pox, which is great. As a result, the original chemistry is back and they help salvage the game when the writing fails to deliver. There are a few cool new weapons, like the Black Hole Gun and the Venus Human Trap, which creates a giant man eating plant. The Saucer’s weapons have been tweaked, so now they affect the environment as well as destroy buildings. So if you fire your Death Ray at the ground, for example, you can create scorch marks. PK now has its own dedicated button, which means you can pick up and throw objects whilst using your guns simultaneously. There’s also the titular ‘Path Of Enlightenment,’ which upgrades your mental abilities significantly as well as allowing you to freeze time.

That’s the good stuff. The bad stuff is... pretty much everything else.

The humour is, again, quite poor. Rather than satirising 70s culture, the game continues to make references to 70s films like The Godfather and Star Wars, but not actually doing anything with them. Just making the reference. The writing as a whole is quite substandard as the plot pretty much recycles the plots of Destroy All Humans 2 and Big Willy Unleashed, except instead of the Big Willy restaurant, it’s the Space Dust casino and instead of the Blisk, it’s Nexosporidium warriors, who are basically Furon cyborgs. Things do threaten to get a bit interesting when Crypto and Pox discover someone has been manufacturing synthetic Furon DNA, but nothing ever really comes of it. Instead the game focuses mainly on the Master.

Ah yes. The Master.

In an attempt to recapture the magic of the second game, Path Of The Furon tries to spoof kung-fu movies just like how DAH 2 spoofed spy films. Unfortunately this leads us to a slew of unfunny gags, cultural appropriation and some of the worst racial stereotyping I think I’ve ever seen. The Master is a Furon who crashed on Earth a hundred years ago and embroiled himself in Eastern culture, enhancing his PK abilities. This is what he looks like:

YYYYeah.

Oh and if that’s not awkward enough, he also speaks in an over the top ‘ah so’ accent. It’s incredibly cringeworthy and made me want to crawl out of my body and hide in the darkest corner I could possibly find. How anyone involved in this game’s development could look at this deeply racist and downright embarrassing excuse for a character and think this was okay, I don’t know.

And before anyone tries to excuse it by saying that he has been living in China for a hundred years, so he’s bound to pick a few things up, please note that Nolan North is in this game playing the Furon Emperor Meningitis, who also has an over the top ‘ah so’ accent. Now I suppose some could argue that the game is satirising how Asian people were portrayed at the time, but if that’s what the game is going for, they’ve failed miserably. See, the problem with that argument is that replicating something doesn’t count as satire. By recreating over the top racist caricatures, you’re not making fun of them. If anything you’re just reinforcing them. The first game’s satire of the Red Scare worked so much better than this because there was an actual point behind it. It comments on how paranoid the people of the 50s were at the time by using Majestic to exploit the threat of communism in order to cover up alien activity, and everyone willingly buys into it because of that sheer paranoia. Now yes, admittedly the humour in Destroy All Humans isn’t the most sophisticated in the world, but it used to be a LOT better than this. Not only do I find the racial stereotyping in this game deeply offensive, it’s also frankly beneath this franchise. And it’s not just limited to the Chinese either. The final act takes us to the Furon homeworld (which was pretty underwhelming after four games worth of buildup) and we meet another Furon called Endometriosis whose only characteristics are that he has an Italian accent and wears a beret. It’s these broad strokes and general laziness that makes this game such a disappointing experience.

Path Of The Furon is subpar in every way imaginable. The writing, the humour, the gameplay and even the graphics. The first two games looked so much better than this and they were on older consoles from the previous generation. It’s shocking.

It’s hard to blame Sandblast Games for this considering they were shut down before development was finished. It was THQ’s mismanagement and financial woes that killed off this franchise and indeed themselves. The company went bankrupt in 2012 and their various IPs were sold off to other studios, with Nordic Games buying the lions’ share, including Destroy All Humans, which briefly reignited hopes that we might get another game, but that seemed unlikely considering the franchise has never exactly been a mainstream success. There was even talks of doing an animated sitcom based on the games for Fox, to be written by the same guy who did King Of The Hill, but that never went anywhere.

No. It seemed like Destroy All Humans was gone for good and fans reluctantly made peace with that. It was fun while it lasted, but perhaps it was time to move on.

Oh The Furonity!

I’m not going to lie. I was pretty sure we were never going to see Destroy All Humans return. Not just because of its lack of mainstream appeal, but also because game development studios and publishers in recent years have become more and more reluctant to make single player, mid-tier games. Instead pivoting toward massive triple A releases and ‘live services’. So it came as a rather pleasant surprise when Nordic Games, now named THQ Nordic, released Darksiders III in 2018, a sequel to a series of games that were also not very mainstream but still had a significant cult following. This briefly reignited a small flicker of hope within me that maybe, just maybe, we might see our favourite Furon return.

And as you already know, I got my wish. A new Destroy All Humans game will be released next year by THQ Nordic and Black Forest Games.

So what can this remake learn from the franchise’s past? Well thankfully the writing and voice acting is going to remain the same, so story, characterisation and humour won’t be an issue. They’re also incorporating elements from the sequels such as Transmogrify from Destroy All Humans 2 and giving PK its own button like in Path Of The Furon. There’s also a few new additions that I’m excited about such as the ability to dodge and strafe using the jetpack. That should make combat much more exciting and dynamic. I know a few people have a problem with the new cartoony designs of the humans and the world, but I honestly don’t mind. In fact I think it suits the tone and setting quite well. Hopefully people will eventually get used to it. The big question mark hovering over all this is whether they’re planning to remake the other games in the series. I for one would love to see a remake of the second game. As for Big Willy Unleashed and Path Of The Furon, I think it’s best to leave them firmly in the past. The big dream would be to see Crypto and Pox have further adventures together beyond the first two games. Hopefully even have enough sequels to get the characters to the present day. We’ll just have to wait and see what the future brings. My only word of advice for them would be to never forget what made the first two games so good and so beloved. Big Willy Unleashed and Path Of The Furon lost their way, as its writing and humour grew lazier and lazier. If we are fortunate enough to get more games, the developers will need to remember what it was about the first game that made it so special and build off of it.

This is a second chance. Not a lot of franchises get this. Don’t waste it. Here’s hoping the remake will provide the definitive Destroy All Humans experience and that it will gain the success it deserves.

[angelofberlin2000]

@HadleyFreeman

Sat 18 May 2019 09.00 BST

“Hey, I’m Keanu,” he introduces himself – unnecessarily, of course, and yet very Keanu-ishly. Despite being so famous his surname has long been superfluous, Keanu Reeves has always given the impression of being utterly unaffected by his own celebrity. He is regularly described by his co-stars as “kind” (Winona Ryder) and “humble” (Laurence Fishburne) and it is easier to imagine him walking on the moon than knocking back champagne with other celebrities on a yacht in St Barts. After all, the most famous paparazzi photo ever taken of Reeves was of him sitting alone on a bench, eating a sandwich out of a plastic bag. Hard to imagine Leonardo DiCaprio doing that.

“I’ll sit anywhere you want me to. This OK?” he says, taking a chair and offering me the sofa in the London hotel room where we meet. At just over 6ft, he is taller than I expected – also unusual for an actor – and dressed in a very Keanu outfit of dark shirt and trousers with sturdy boots. Despite being recently announced as the new face of the high fashion label Saint Laurent, Reeves has long been the patron saint of normcore, decades before it became a fashion statement. And I know this all too well because, from 1991–99, I had at least five posters of him on my bedroom walls modelling said look.

The 2010 photo of Reeves on a New York bench that sparked the Sad Keanu meme. Photograph: Splash News

Should one ever meet one’s teenage crush? Up until this week, I’d assumed I was long past the point of being starstruck – I’m a 40-year-old woman, for God’s sake! But now here I am, sitting opposite Reeves, now 54, the beard more grizzled than in my posters and the forehead suspiciously smooth, but still, most definitely Keanu. There’s that devastating smile he flashed at Sandra Bullock at the end of Speed, and there he is saying – and this is where I nearly lose all vestiges of professionalism – “Excellent!” while playing air guitar. Listening to the tape of our interview later is not an edifying experience, as I hear myself – Oh, dear God – flirt with Reeves (because, clearly, a heavily pregnant mother of two is the dream woman he’s been waiting for). Happily, my mortifying giggling soon abates, thanks to Reeves’ management of a situation he has presumably had to deal with every day of his life for the past four decades. And as he does, I get an insight into what it takes to be Keanu Reeves.

We are meeting today to discuss his latest film, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. It will unquestionably boost the more than $3bn Reeves’ movies have grossed over the years. When he made the first John Wick film in 2014 – directed, as all the Wick films are, by Chad Stahelski, Reeves’ stunt double on the Matrix films – few expected that a movie about a former assassin avenging the killing of his puppy would amount to much. Despite starring in some of the most successful and seminal movies of the past 30 years – from offbeat hits like Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and My Own Private Idaho, to blockbusters like Point Break, Speed and The Matrix – Reeves has been in at least as many damp squibs, including 2013’s 47 Ronin, one of the biggest box office flops of all time. Yet Wick, a stylish, brooding, ultraviolent revenge fantasy, was an unexpected hit with critics and audiences, and is now a mega-million dollar franchise, giving Reeves his first mainstream hits since the Matrix movies.

Part three – sorry, Chapter 3 – is larkier than its two predecessors, including one incredible scene in which Reeves offs some bad guys using an actual horse as a weapon (rest assured: the horse escaped unharmed). As a testament to the success of the franchise, there are more celebrity co-stars, including Halle Berry, and despite the naysayers when it comes to Reeves’ acting, he is terrific as a man still mourning the death of his wife. (She died at the beginning of the first John Wick film, from that terrible terminal disease, Convenient Plot Device.) “We certainly didn’t know when we started on John Wick that it would become like this,” says Reeves. “We’re only getting to tell these stories because of the audience. So thank you.” He salutes me in thanks, as representative of all the Wick audiences. (If you are imagining this is one of the times I giggled at him, you are correct.)

One of the canniest things about the Wick films is how they riff on Reeves’ public image. Once dismissed as an airhead by those who confused the Bill & Ted movies with reality, for the past two decades Reeves has been seen as a melancholic loner. The famous 2010 photo of him on a New York bench sparked what became known as the Sad Keanu meme, but it only struck a chord because the assumption already existed that Reeves – then in a career slump – was, well, a bit sad. Reeves, with polite firmness, denies that this echo is deliberate – “No, no, I don’t think about that” – although it is hard to believe it wasn’t in the film-makers’ minds as they shot endless scenes in John Wick 3 of Sad Keanu wandering alone through rainy New York streets, empty hotel corridors and a desert.

It quickly becomes clear that polite firmness is Reeves’ modus operandi when it comes to nosy questions: he will give the impression of being up for answering anything while, in fact, saying very little, or nothing at all. (Sample exchange. Me: “Was there ever a moment, maybe after Bill & Ted, when people started reacting differently to you and you realised your life had changed?” Him: “Um, no.” Me: “Really?” Him: “No.”) What this distancing tactic might lack in conversational intimacy, it makes up for in shutting down any embarrassing flirtations from women who should know better. You can’t kid yourself you are soulmates with someone who is building such protective walls against you.

So I’m surprised when he volunteers that Wick’s melancholy possibly has a connection to some of the most painful moments in his life. One other big reason the public perception of Reeves shifted from comedy stoner to faintly tragic figure was because, in 1999, his long-term girlfriend, Jennifer Syme, gave birth to their daughter Ava, who was stillborn. The couple broke up soon after, and two years later Syme was killed in a car accident. Reeves has never married, had any other children or even been reliably linked to other romantic partners since. He has also never spoken publicly about their deaths, and who can blame him? But given that the heart of the Wick films is about him mourning a lost love, the resonance is hard to ignore.

“With any character, the way I think about it is, you have the role on the page, you have the vision of the director and you have your life experience,” he says.

Did he bring his experience of bereavement to the role? “Oh yeah, I thought it was one of the foundations of the role for John Wick. I love his grief,” he says, visibly perking up at the subject.

What is it about grief that interests him? “Well, for the character and in life, it’s about the love of the person you’re grieving for, and any time you can keep company with that fire, it is warm. I absolutely relate to that, and I don’t think you ever work through it. Grief and loss, those are things that don’t ever go away. They stay with you.”

Has he been thinking more about the people he has lost as he’s grown older? “I don’t think it’s about getting older. It’s always with you, but like an ebb and flow,” he says.

Anyone in particular? “Lots of people,” he says, bricking those walls right back up.

***

Keanu Reeves was born in Beirut, Lebanon, the son of an English mother and Hawaiian-Chinese father. (His first name, as all Reeves-ologists know, is Hawaiian for “cool breeze over the mountains”.) With his sister Kim, the family moved around the world, from Australia to Manhattan, before finally settling in Toronto when Reeves was six. I reckon you can often spot an adult who moved around a lot as a kid, I tell him. “Oh yeah? How?” he says, intrigued.

They tend to have a sense of detachment, self-sufficiency, maybe loner tendencies and a strong sense of independence, I say. “Yeah, I clinically belong to that. I definitely have a bit of the gypsy in me,” he agrees.

Reeves’ father left the family when Keanu was three, and disappeared entirely from their lives when he was 13. He and his sister had multiple stepfathers.

That’s a pretty hard age for a parent to vanish off the scene, I say. “For sure, I think it’s definitely traumatising. But it’s hard to know how [it affected me] because I don’t know what the other life would have been, you know what I mean?” he says.

Did his father ever contact him again? “Yeah, in the mid-90s, but I didn’t reach back out,” he says.

This was after his father had been convicted for selling heroin? “Yeah, but that wasn’t why I didn’t get in touch!” he laughs.

So why not? “I just didn’t,” he replies, and that’s the end of that. But I can’t help but think of one of my favourite scenes of his, from Ron Howard’s 1989 ensemble comedy Parenthood, in which Reeves’ character muses about paternal figures: “You need a licence to buy a dog, or drive a car. Hell, you need a licence to catch a fish. But they’ll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father.”

Often the class clown at school, Reeves liked sport and loved acting, and got an agent as a teenager after being talent-spotted in a play. He dropped out of high school before graduation. “I feel really fortunate in a way, because I knew what I wanted to do, and a lot of kids that age don’t. But I had a creative ambition and I did it,” he says. After some early television work, Reeves started getting film roles, most notably in the cult 1986 teen drama River’s Edge, followed by Bill & Ted, and from there the work never stopped.

Back in the 1990s, he was the go-to pin-up for all teenagers who wanted a beautiful, gentle and safely asexual boyfriend (hi!). But his acting, if not his looks, has been a more debatable subject. “Is Keanu Reeves a Good Bad Actor or a Bad Good Actor?” a reader wrote in to ask the New York Times’ film critics in 2011 (the answer was, “Neither! A good actor, period”). Writing in the Guardian, self-professed superfan Joe Queenan put him in a small category of actors so beloved they are beyond criticism: “In most of [his best] movies, Keanu plays a character the audience views more with affection than with reverence or idolatry, like a kid brother who has bitten off more than he can chew and may need outside help to survive.”

Today Reeves has a good riposte to the criticism that he doesn’t, or can’t, act. “I certainly never got it from any of the directors I worked with,” he says, checking off some of the most respected in the business, including Bernardo Bertolucci (Little Buddha), Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break), Francis Ford Coppola (Bram Stoker’s Dracula), Stephen Frears (Dangerous Liaisons), Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho) and Richard Linklater (A Scanner Darkly). “It’s not like I went to meet Kenneth Branagh [who directed him in 1993’s Much Ado About Nothing] and he was like, ‘Excellent, dude!’ You know?” He chucks in a little air guitar to boot.

It would have been pretty funny if Branagh had said that, though. “Of course! But the pigeonholing just comes from journalists and, yeah, that happens a lot. I generally don’t read the press but when I do I’m like, ‘Oh, OK, you’re doing that again,’” he says with a shrug.

I’ve never really understood the criticism. OK, he might not have been perfectly cast in Much Ado and acting opposite John Malkovich and Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons when he was only 24 was never going to be a fair fight. But he has always been a far more varied actor than the snarkers allow. He proved his superlative comic timing and endearing charisma in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and, when it comes to drama and sci-fi, no one is better at maintaining an inscrutable blankness. That quality is precisely what has driven so many directors to cast him, often as a messiah-like figure in movies such as Little Buddha, 2005’s Constantine (one of Reeves’ favourites), 1995’s Johnny Mnemonic and, of course, The Matrix. And of all the improbable actors who became action stars in the 1990s – Alec Baldwin, Nicolas Cage – Reeves seemed the most at home in the genre, in the still deliciously enjoyable Point Break and Speed, which he made in between smaller indie fare. So did he do the big movies in order to fund the smaller projects?

“Honestly, I try not to do anything I don’t want to do. But I guess those movies were in reaction to each other. It wasn’t as thought out as, OK, I finished Point Break, so now I’d better play a street prostitute. It was more like, OK, I finished this, now I want to do that,” he says.

“That” refers to 1991’s My Own Private Idaho, in which he and River Phoenix play street hustlers. Reeves had already met Phoenix through the latter’s girlfriend Martha Plimpton, with whom he had worked in Parenthood. The two quickly became friends, and it’s not hard to see why: both were young actors on the rise with a love of music and a pronounced lack of interest in the glitzier, red carpet side of their job. They were the anti-Brat Pack, and Phoenix, along with Alex Winter from Bill & Ted, were, Reeves says, “definitely my closest friends from that era. We shared an artistic sensibility. River was just so down-to-earth, spiritual and a unique artist. Yeah, I miss him,” says Reeves quietly. When Phoenix suggested the two of them make My Own Private Idaho, “I was in right away,” he says.

They had something else in common, a shared experience suggested in the now almost unbearably moving scene where the two sit by a campfire and talk haltingly about their childhoods.

Mike (Phoenix): If I had a normal family, and a good upbringing, then I would have been a well-adjusted person.

Scott (Reeves): Depends on what you call normal.

Mike: Didn’t have a dog, or a normal dad. Anyway, that’s all right. I don’t feel sorry for myself, I feel like I’m, you know, well-adjusted.

Scott: What’s a normal dad?

Phoenix’s dysfunctional childhood, growing up in a rackety family who for a time belonged to the Children of God cult, has been well-documented. Reeves’ was different, but no slouch when it came to potential trauma. Was that another thing that drew them together?

He ponders the question a full 10 seconds. “Certainly our histories played a role in that movie and in that scene. So I’ll say yes to that, yeah,” he says.

Two years after My Own Private Idaho’s release, the actor who desperately wanted to avoid every Hollywood cliche died the most cliched death imaginable, of a drugs overdose on Sunset Boulevard in 1993. Plenty of his contemporaries were also caught out, either self-destructing or becoming victims of their own success. Reeves adamantly refused to do either. When I ask how he avoided falling victim to drug addiction as Phoenix did, he says, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world: “I just wasn’t into that scene.”

It’s hard to tell if he’s being blithe or defiant when he insists he still lives his life totally normally, unaffected by fans. But if Leonardo DiCaprio went into a supermarket, there would be hysteria, I say.

“Yeah, but Leonardo has fame and fans that I don’t have in that way. Definitely. I don’t know what his experiences are, but I think someone from the outside would think [going shopping] might not be easy for him. Whereas I can, which is good,” he says.

Come on, surely fans bother him all the time? But the worst he can come up with is someone quoting Point Break at him in the airport the other day and someone, once, quoting River’s Edge when he was queueing at an ice-cream van. “And that’s fun!” he says cheerfully.

In the 1980s and 1990s, he was offered every hot young part under the sun, including the lead in Platoon (which went to Charlie Sheen) and Val Kilmer’s role in Heat. But when I ask if he regrets turning any of them down, he smiles and instantly replies, “No.” He also turned down a $12m pay cheque to make Speed 2 because he, rightly, thought the plot was nonsense, which resulted in him being shut out of 20th Century Fox films for the next 11 years (and no, he doesn’t regret that, either). He is about to start shooting Bill & Ted Face The Music, in which the now fiftysomething duo have to write a song so good it will save the universe. “There has to be a reason for making a movie, and the writers have come up with a good ‘why’ for telling the story,” he says. When I ask what gives him an ego boost, given that he’s not driven by money or fame, he is so baffled by the idea of his ego needing a boost that he is silent for a full 28 seconds before finally answering, “The work.”

Maintaining his privacy has been a major factor in helping Reeves retain his sanity, yet away from the press he can be extraordinarily open and laid-back. By a weird fluke, I have two friends who, separately, spent time with him in the 90s and both still talk about his generosity: he took them for rides on his motorbike and stayed in touch (yes, I am furious with them for not including me in any of this). There are legions of stories about Reeves’ kindness: buying his stuntmen motorbikes, renegotiating his Matrix contract so that the crew got a better deal, at a personal cost of millions of dollars. Shortly before we meet, Reeves was on a flight between San Francisco and Los Angeles that was grounded due to a mechanical fault. Instead of pulling rank with some “Do you know who I am?” A-list entitlement, Reeves encouraged his fellow passengers to board a van with him so they could drive to LA, keeping the mood up by sharing fun local facts and playing music from his iPhone. (Needless to say, footage of this quickly went viral.) So his four decades-long reticence with the media might well be Reeves’ most brilliantly sustained performance.

  How we made Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure                                                                                                                                                         Read more                            

But he bristles when I mention these stories. “I’m pretty private, so when that stuff doesn’t stay private it is not great,” he says.

Because he worries it will look like he’s just doing it for show? “No. Because it’s private,” he says with emphasis.

Ah well. I have accepted by this point that we probably won’t ride off together into the sunset on his motorcycle. But if the price of Reeves still being so recognisably Keanu-ish is him retaining a firm grip on his privacy and at least a pretence of normality, that feels like a fair trade-off. I assume doing this interview has been a torturous experience for him, so as we get up to leave I ask how he’d have preferred to spend the afternoon, in a dream scenario.

“Oh, I don’t know. This dream ain’t so bad!” he says, and gives me that full end-of-Speed smile again. And reader, I giggled.

• John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum is in cinemas now.

If you would like a comment to be considered for inclusion on Weekend magazine’s letters page in print, please email weekend@theguardian.com, including your name and address (not for publication).

[homesoutofhuman]

Walking in the Wind- Keanu Reeves/Reader

Based on this interview where Alice Eve recounts how Keanu let her spill all her secrets to him on the set of Replicas. No sex, non-gender specific reader.

Warnings: depressed reader and angst. (nothing too heavy)

I know I'll be your anchor Just close your eyes and see I'll be by your side Any time you're needing me

- Walking in the Wind, One Direction

---------

When you took your job as a runner you were excited to be on a film set and to travel, but the reality is you’re far from home, surrounded by strangers and your role seems to be that of the dogsbody, given all the jobs that no one else wants to do. After a couple of weeks on set you’re exhausted by all the various demands of both the actors and crew.  This morning it is Tom, a Brit with very particular tastes who has asked you to remake his tea twice already, the first because it was too weak, the second because it didn’t have enough milk. You’re crossing the lot with the third, hopefully just right cup, rushing so much you crash straight into a tall, dark haired solid hunk of a man, who to your dismay, turns out to be the lead actor Keanu Reeves. The tea splashes over your hand and you cannot help give out a yelp. Keanu’s brown eyes take in your panicked state.

“That looks like it hurt.”

“No.” you lie, clenching your teeth, not wanting to bother him with your pain. “I’m fine.”

Keanu sighs and jerks his head back in the direction he came. “My trailer is just there, let’s run it under cold water.”

Something about his tone makes it hard to argue and before you know what is happening you’re following him. Keanu pushes open the door to his trailer, the largest on the lot and runs the kitchen tap. You thrust your hand under it and try not to think about the fact there is a very famous and handsome man close to you.

“I need to get Tom his tea or he’ll be upset…” you babble.

“Don’t you worry about him. I’ll speak to him.” Keanu reassures you, and, seeing you’re attempting to move your hand away he gently holds your wrist so the freezing water runs directly onto your scalded skin. You gasp a bit, both at his action and the shock of the temperature which is almost painful.

“Hold it.” he says, his voice a low somewhat amused rumble.  You nod and concentrate on trying to breathe. When your hand is numb Keanu seems satisfied and hands you a towel to dry off.

“Thank you.” you say, honestly grateful and touched by his attention. “I should go.”

“I’m due in hair and make up myself. I’ll walk with you.”

Keanu walks beside you, unassuming, almost as if he wasn’t the star the whole production was orienting around. You feel the stares when you appear with him, and even Tom hesitates to demand his tea from you. Before he leaves you Keanu takes your hand in his and inspects it, turning it over to see the slightly reddened burn.

“If it’s still like that later go see the medic okay?”

Speechless, you nod, watching him walk with rounded shoulders to take his place in the makeup chair. Hearing someone yell your name you go back to the reality of the daily grind, but you feel his touch like a ghost on your skin for the rest of the day.

--------------

A few days later you see Keanu leaning against his trailer and smoking. He waves you over and transfers his cigarette to the other hand so you won’t have to breathe in the smoke.

“How are you today?” he asks, so simply and genuinely you feel yourself opening up.

“Can I be honest? A little down.”

A small frown appears between Keanu’s dark eyebrows but he says nothing so you continue. “Do you get homesick?”

Keanu chuckles then, a little sadly you think and shakes his head. “My house in LA is just an empty building. I miss my family, but to be honest i feel more at home on a film set than in my actual house.”

“Oh. Well, it’s all very strange for me. Maybe I’m missing something that never existed anyway…” you muse, trying to put your strange sadness into words.

“That’s called nostalgia.” answers Keanu gently. “The wistful or sentimental yearning to return to some past period or irrecoverable condition.” He quotes the definition to you and you are startled until you remember he’s an actor and used to memorising things. “Sad really, because irrecoverable means it’s gone forever.”

You feel yourself leaning in to hear more of his soft voice, he just so present, not judging you, just listening and it makes you talk more than you probably should.

“I just feel so alone some days, so insignificant, like if I disappeared off the earth it would make very little difference. I worry I’m wasting my life.” you hear yourself straying into dark territory and attempt to lighten the mood. “It’s different for you, Mister Moviestar.”

Keanu is watching you with a deep expression in his beautiful eyes. “we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” He quotes and you smile with recognition - “Oscar Wilde.”

“Can I make a suggestion?” He asks so gently you cannot refuse. “Of course.”

“You need to stop focusing just on what is coming to you. Try helping other people, nothing major, just small acts of kindness you think might brighten people’s day. It honestly helps get you out of this depressed headspace and I’m speaking from experience.” He speaks quickly, earnestly, his cheeks flushing as if he is embarrassed and not wanting to seem like he’s lecturing you. He waves his cigarette in the air “but don’t feel you have to take my advice.”

Sceptical, you go back to work, Keanu’s words brewing in the back of your head. You ignore them at first, thinking you have enough on your plate without doing more for others, but as the days go on you find yourself almost unintentionally following his advice. You help another runner set up a tent to keep the camera crew out of the wind, and they’re so grateful they buy you morning coffee. On impulse you buy Tom a pack of digestive biscuits from a shop you found selling international food and his eyes light up, you realise you’re not the only one who is homesick. The set begins to feel more familiar, more friendly, and you can’t walk through it without someone stopping to talk to you. You’re so popular in fact that it’s a few days before you stop by Keanu’s trailer again. You’ve bought him a bottle of red wine and you want to give it to him as a thank you for letting you vent, for being your therapist of sorts.

Knocking on his trailer you hear music playing inside, thinking he might not hear you over the noise you gently push the door open, calling his name. He answers “Come in” but doesn’t come to greet you and you find him on his bed, propped up on pillows. He looks utterly exhausted and you think of all the early call times and late night shoots you’ve seen him at. He works without complaining, without stopping, and it's the first time you’ve seen him show any human sign of weakness. He gives you a weary smile.

“How are you?”

You shrug and smile, determined for once this won’t be about you. You show him the wine and his face breaks into a wider, genuine look of delight as he starts to tell you in a low rumbling voice about the grapes used in the bottle. You sit on the edge of the bed and listen vaguely, but your eyes run over his face with concern, taking in the lines around his eyes and mouth, the slump of his broad shoulders. He notices your gaze and blinks a few times.

“I had a rough scene in the rainforest - mud, ten feet of water, soaking, over and over again. I know I look like shit.” He rubs a hand over his face and your heart aches with sympathy.

“Can I do anything?”

He nods towards the wine. “Have a glass with me?”

“Sure.” You move to pour two glasses and Keanu shifts himself along the bed, meaning if you don’t sit next to him you appear rude, so you do, feeling your cheeks heating at the proximity. You clink for cheers, “¡Salud!” and sip slowly. You hear Keanu let out a deep sigh, and he turns towards you.

“It’s good, thank you.”

“I just wanted to...I mean...words cannot say how much I…”

“Shush..” he puts a finger to your lips and you look at him wide eyed. “You don’t need to say anything. It was my privilege to listen to you. Now though I gotta say I’m barely keeping my eyes open, could I ask you to do something for me?”

“Anything…” you breathe in a rush, then flush when you see Keanu’s eyes go stormy for a moment before settling back into coffee warm neutrality you’re used to.

“Would you just, stay, while I sleep?”

Your mouth falls open at his request, but he looks so vulnerable, so needy, you cannot think of a reason to deny it. “Sure...if you want me to.” you answer softly and hear him breathe a sigh of relief, turning to drop back down onto the mattress, he smiles at you shyly.

“Lay down with me?”

You move so your back is towards his chest, not touching. You can feel Keanu’s breath on the nape of your neck and hear the change in his breathing when he falls asleep. You turn over to watch him, his dark eyelashes fanning against his cheeks, his face relaxed in repose, huffing light snores from his nose. You bite your own lip to resist wanting to touch him, to kiss him and turn resolutely back onto your side.

You must have fallen asleep too as when you next gain consciousness you’ve either shifted back or Keanu has moved forward, so he’s now spooning you, his long fingers splayed on your hip. You know precise moment he wakes up as he tenses behind you. You go to sit up but he tightens his grip on your waist.

“Wait, just a few more minutes?”

You let out a breath of relief, the last thing you wanted to do was leave his warm embrace, so you settle back into him. Keanu moves his arm around your stomach and pulls you tighter. You stay like that. Eventually though reality seeps in and the beeping of his watch reminds you that you’re late for several tasks. He lets you go with some reluctance and you feel the same, your steps heavy as you linger at his trailer door. You know it is futile to wish things were different, life has taught you that over and over, that way lies only pain and disappointment, but this man is making you want to forget all your hard won wisdom and indulge in sweet hopefulness.

-----------------------

Your days are lighter, but there are still lurking doubts in the back of your mind. You should be doing something meaningful. You see Puerto Rico around you, the resilient life of the place despite the devastation the hurricane caused, and feel like you should be helping more. Restlessness creeps in and you sign up to volunteer at one of the supply centres, but you still feel the strange weight of a darkness pressing on you despite the brightness of the beautiful blue sky.

Keanu beckons you over. He’s sitting in the sun on his ‘porch’, if AstroTurf and two lawn chairs can be called a porch. You attempt to explain your feelings to him and he hums thoughtfully. He’s in a playful mood today, not unlike a puppy, and he plays the role of ‘Dr Reeves’, checking your pulse and pressing the back of his hand to your forehead. You scoff and move away, but secretly you enjoy his attention.

“I prescribe liquor. Strong. Probably tequila for you. And dancing.”

You’re surprised at his suggestion, thinking he’d lend you one of his many philosophical texts instead and you say so, but Keanu shakes his head. “You’re spending too much time alone thinking, besides, we are all due a good night out.” 

He rallies the crew easily of course, drawing people to him like moths to an irresistible flame. In a fit of self-improving minimalism you got rid of a lot of your clothes and realise you’ve not much to wear so you settle on light blue jeans that flatter your figure and a white t-shirt that is simple but sexy. You arrive at the San Juan bar which is already buzzing. Keanu is wearing a grey t-shirt that shows off his arms, muscles the size of your head, which should make him look intimidating but just make him more mouthwatering gorgeous than usual.

And boy Keanu can drink. You see him at the bar ordering whisky before you’ve even started, then he’s walking back with a tray of shots for everyone, generous as ever. You slide into the booth beside him. Keanu sprinkles salt on his wrist and offers it to you, his dark eyebrow quirked. He looks younger, roguish, dangerous. You lick his skin, tasting salt before gulping down your shot. Keanu brings the slice of lime to your lips and you suck at it eagerly.

Salsa music starts up and some of the crew rise to dance. Keanu chuckles beside you, his shoulder pressed against yours, warm and solid as you watch the bar pulsing with energy, full of people moving their hips and singing along to the music, letting loud cries loose into the air. You don’t glance at Keanu, but you can feel his eyes on you, concerned, as if checking you’re really enjoying yourself and not just pretending. Frustrated, you pull him aside.

“You gotta stop worrying about me.”

Keanu opens his mouth to respond but before he can Tom grabs your hand to dance, doing his Patrick Swayze impression and it’s terrible, his hips hit yours too hard and you wince. When you look up Keanu is watching you again but this time his eyes are dark and brooding. If you didn’t know better you’d say he looked jealous.

“I knew Patrick and he was much smoother than you.” he fires at Tom in a jokey but intense tone that makes the other man do a double take. Keanu grabs your wrist and pulls you back into the group. You feel too shy to dance with him, so you hide amongst the girls, catching Keanu’s eye and shaking your hips making him laugh with genuine enjoyment. You tip your head back and let the music set you free.

Later, filing out of the bar the crowd has thinned off to various late night locations and suddenly it’s just you and Keanu again.

“Man I wish I had my bike here, I’ve got so much energy I don’t know how to burn it off!” He lifts his arms to the sky, raising his shirt and exposing a line of dark hair and his infamous stomach scar to your gaze.

You only realise you’re staring when he curls a finger under your chin and lifts it. “My eyes are up here (Y/N)”

Stammering an apology he starts to laugh “I’m not offended, flattered if anything.”

“Keanu.” you say, deadpan. “You must be used to everyone looking that way at you…”

“Actually it happens less and less. My personal life is boring.”

“Yeah, yeah.” you scoff “I’m not the press here stop lying. I bet you have a harem…”

He bursts out into giggles, covering his mouth and your heart aches with fondness. “I really don’t. I actually...I like being alone but I do...miss some things…” His eyes drift to your mouth then back to your eyes. You feel like everything is moving in slow motion

“If you want sex just say it.” you fire at him, your defences coming up quickly when faced with something you want so much it could destroy you.

He frowns “You think I would be like that? I thought you knew me…”

Feeling agitated without knowing why you groan out a sigh, guilt flooding you. He’s been so lovely to you and you’re acting like a brat. “I’m sorry.”

Keanu moves a hand to squeeze your shoulder and you sigh, letting your whole body relax you turn towards him, falling into his arms. He hugs you on the sidewalk, in the middle of the bustling city, as if he wasn’t so famous that around every corner lurked paparazzi waiting to spoil his privacy. It’s easy to forget. Out here you do feel like you have your own little world with him, like you’re just two people and it doesn’t matter what you do in public.

The two of walk back to the lot together, his arm around your shoulders keeping you close. When the film wraps soon you know the day will come when you will have to say goodbye, then you will never see him again. Keanu takes you to the door of the crew apartments and cups your cheek with his hand.

“You’re going to do so much in life to make yourself happy, you’ll see. I’m not worried about you.”

You nod, feeling your heart ripping apart, a whole imaginary future with him speeding in front of your eyes before almost simultaneously fading like a dream. 

“Goodnight Keanu” you say, feeling tears prickling at your eyes and not wanting him to see you cry. 

He holds your face for a few more moments, eyes looking deep into yours. You can feel his calm, his wisdom, flowing from him into you, and you are suddenly filled with the most delicious peace. That risky hopefulness is back again, and this time, you decide to let it stay. 

---------------------

If you enjoyed reading this fic please consider donating to UNIDOS whose goal is to help the families and communities of Puerto Rico rebuild after Hurricane Maria. Thank you so much my dears and all my love x

[crue-sixx]

Unexpected (Keanu Reeves Imagine)

This was requested.

Summary: You’re working as a production assistant on the set of John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum, which is a dream come true for you. You’re a huge fan of the franchise and of Keanu Reeves’ work. You don’t expect to fall in love on the job, but love’s unpredictable.

Someone requested Keanu falling in love with a production assistant and someone else requested the reader’s first date with him so I’m just going to combine them into one. Hope you all enjoy!

You were walking quickly in the direction of Keanu Reeves’ trailer as you carried the suit that he was supposed to be wearing for his next scene. Production had been delayed a bit, but every second counted in the film industry. Time literally costed money. You were tasked with picking up the suit from the tailor’s. It had needed some minor alterations and you were told to not waste any time. You finally made it to his trailer and knocked on the door.

“Come in,” you heard Keanu say from inside.

You opened the door and stepped inside the trailer. It was cool and felt nice after the running you had just done. Keanu was in the kitchen area of his trailer, holding a cup of what you assumed was coffe since there was steam rolling out of the mug.

“Hey, I come bearing gifts,” you told him in a joking manner and held the suit up.

“Oh, thank you,” he said as he put the mug down on the counter and took the suit from you. “You’re always saving the day aren’t you?”

“Just call me Wonder Woman,” you said, jokingly, with a smile. “Should fit better now. Just throw it on and come out when you’re ready. They’re all ready to start shooting the scene.”

He nodded at you and sent you one of his signature grins that made you feel all weak in the knees. You made your exit after that and walked to where everyone else was gathered around for the scene.

You were working on the set of John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum and you couldn’t be happier. You were a huge fan of the franchise. Also, you were a fan of Keanu Reeves and Halle Berry, who were both starring in the film. This was the first major movie set you had ever worked on so it was a learning experience for you. You did a lot of different things ranging from helping to build things on set to running errands for the crew. It could be quite stressful and hectic, but you enjoyed it immensely. You felt like you were a part of the whole process.

Your favorite part of being on the set of John Wick: Chapter 3 would probably have to be working with Keanu Reeves himself. He was such a wonderful guy and very interesting. He was always so kind and polite with everyone. It didn’t matter who they were. He made everyone feel important. He was also a lot of fun. You spent quite a bit of time with the actor, helping him run lines and prepare for a scene. He also just liked to hang out with you on set to talk about anything and everything. It was no wonder you developed feelings for the handsome man.

It took you by surprise really. You went into this job thinking that you would do nothing more than help in the process of making a movie, but things changed. You found yourself falling for the star of the movie. You tried to ignore your feelings, but that was easier said than done. You though it was inappropriate to fall for an actor on the set of a movie you were working on. Not only that, but there was no way Keanu Reeves could feel the same about you, right? He was a bit older and famous. He might be down to earth, but there was no way he could fall for someone as ordinary as you. That’s what you thought anyways.

Keanu finally came out of his trailer and made his way over to the set. Filming began soon after and you stood by, watching the whole scene play out. There were a few mess ups and some retakes done to make it perfect, but it played out smoothly. Keanu was a pro and was quick to correct any mistakes he made.

When filming finally ended for the day, you stuck around to help fix things up on the set for the next day. You would be using the same location so there wasn’t much that had to be done, thankfully. You grabbed your bag and coat before making your way off the set.

“Y/N, wait!” You heard someone call out.

You stopped and turned, finding Keanu heading your way. He was out of the tailored suit and wearing something more casual. He was now wearing a black hoodie with a nice coat and a pair of jeans with his signature brown boots. It may sound like an odd combination, but Keanu pulled it off well.

“Hey, do you need something, Keanu?” You asked him when he made it to you.

“No, I was actually just wondering if you would like to go out to dinner with me tonight,” he said.

You were surprised by the question. Sure, you and Keanu hung out together a lot on set, but you’d never done anything together off set. You weren’t sure where this had come from.

“Yeah, sure,” you told him. “That would be great.”

“Good,” he replied. “Just let me go grab my stuff from my trailer real quick and I’ll be ready.”

“Wait, we’re going now?” You asked him. “I’m not sure that I’m dressed to go out for dinner.” You looked down at yourself. You were wearing a pair of skinny jeans with holes in the knees and some other minor rips throughout them. You’d paired it with a simple white v-neck, a black scarf, and a pair of black Vans. You weren’t sure if this was supposed to be a date or anything so it shouldn’t matter what you were wearing, but still.

“Nonsense,” Keanu replied. “You look great...as always. I’ll be right back.”

Keanu turned and walked back towards his trailer as you stood there, blushing at his compliment. Keanu Reeves just told you you looked great. No big deal, right? You smiled to yourself as you put your denim jacket on and threw your crossbody purse over your shoulder. True to his word, Keanu came back to you. He was carrying two motorcycle helmets.

“So I drove my motorcycle today,” he said when he came up to you. “Do you mind or would you rather take a car?”

“I prefer the motorcycle,” you told him as you took the helmet he held out for you. “They’re more fun. It’s been a while since I’ve been on one though.”

“I’ll be sure to take it slow then,” Keanu said and smiled before he led you to where his motorcycle was parked.

He helped you with your helmet and made sure it was secure. He then hopped on the bike and put his on. You hopped on behind him and placed your hands on his hips, not sure where else to put them.

Keanu took your hands in his own and moved your arms so that they were wrapped around him securely. Your chest was flush against his back. You could feel your heart quickening in pace at the close proximity. You were worried that he could feel it too. You were so close that you could smell the laundry detergent on his coat and the cologne he used. He smalled so good.

“Make sure to hold on tight,” he said before he straightened the bike up and kicked the stand from underneath it.

He started the bike and revved it up for a moment before he put it into gear. He started out slow through the parking lot before he finally made it out onto the road. He didn’t go too fast. Just under the speed limit since you were riding with him. The sun was just starting to go down so it was that time where the sky was painted in beautiful colors. You took in the scenery as you held onto Keanu tight. There was a bit of a chill to the air, but it wasn’t unpleasant. It felt great and so freeing being on that motorcycle. You’d forgot how fun they were to ride on.

“You doing okay?” Keanu asked you over the engine as you were stopped at a traffic light.

“Yeah, I forgot how amazing this felt,” you answered him, loud enough so that he could hear.

It didn’t take too much longer for him to pull into the parking lot of a restaurant that you’d never been to. It looked nice on the outside, but not overly so, which you liked. Keanu parked his motorcycle close to the entrance and helped you off of it when he had climbed off himself.

“That was great,” you said after you took your helmet off and ran your hand through your hair in case it had been messed up any.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Keanu replied as he smiled at you and took the helmet from you so you wouldn’t have to carry it. “It’s one of my favorite things to do. It’s a good stress reliever.”

You walked inside the restaurant with Keanu. It was a a nice place and you could smell the food being prepared in the kitchen, which smelled great. Thankfully, it wasn’t very crowded. He asked the hostess for a table that was more secluded, however. She was nice enough to put you at a table that wasn’t around any other patrons and even took the helmets from Keanu to put away for safe keeping.

“I don’t mind eating around other people, but sometimes I just enjoy some privacy,” he told you after the waiter came to take your drink order and you both looked over the menu.

“That’s understandable,” you told him. “I’m sure it gets tiring people recognizing you and stuff.”

“It can be, yeah,” he said and nodded. “I enjoy my job though and that’s just a part of it. It’s cool meeting people, but it definitely can be tiring.”

The waiter came back with your drinks and you both ordered your meals. You were left alone again after that. You had to admit that you were a bit nervous because you weren’t sure if this was a casual thing or if it was a date.

“So what do you think of the movie so far?” Keanu asked after he took a sip of his water.

“I think it’s great,” you told him, honestly. “Lots of action, which everyone enjoys. I can’t wait to see the finished product. I know everyone’s going to love it.”

“I hope so,” Keanu said after he took a bite of some bread the waiter had brought with your drinks. “We all have been working so hard on it. Especially you.”

You raised a brow at Keanu as you tore off a piece of bread. “Me?”

“Yeah,” he answered, seriously. “You’ve been helping with fixing things around the set and making sure everything is in order. You help me with my lines and stuff. You’ve done a lot. That’s why I asked you out on this date...so that I could thank you for everything that you’ve done. Also, I like you and I wanted to get to know you better. I think you’re really great. I hope that isn’t inappropriate.”

Your eyes widened slightly at Keanu’s confession. Keanu Reeves just admitted to liking you and wanting to get to know you. This seemed like something that could only happen in your wildest imaginations.

“No, that isn’t inappropriate,” you told him and smiled. “I thinks it’s really nice of you and I appreciate it. Also, I like you too. You’re a great guy and one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. I really admire that.”

Keanu looked at you and smiled. You weren’t sure because of his beard and the dim lighting of the restaurant, but you could’ve swore you saw him blushing. He seemed flattered by your compliment. He acted as if he had never been complimented, but you knew that couldn’t be the case.

The rest of dinner went by with you both telling each other more about yourselves. Favorite books, movies, bands, food...basic things. You spoke of your childhoods and other things like that, but didn’t get too personal. It was a first date after all.

Keanu paid the tab even though you offered to help then he drove you home on his motorcycle. He walked you to your door and bid you a goodnight with a hug. You kissed his cheek and thanked him for dinner, which made him grin before he left.

Things progressed steadily between you and Keanu after that date. You spent even more time around each other on set as long as you both weren’t busy of course. He took you out on more dates and you learned even more about each other. Keanu opened up to you about his hardships through life and you told him of your own. You trusted each other. He was there for you and you were there for him. A relationship blossomed between you two, but you didn’t go out announcing it to the whole world. You weren’t hiding your relationship, but you weren’t putting out in the open either. You and Keanu were both private people. You both felt it best that way.

The last day of filming soon came and you were happy yet sad about it. You knew you would still see Keanu, but you had enjoyed working with him and everyone else. It had been fun.

“That’s a wrap!” The director called out and everyone started clapping.

You clapped and smiled at Keanu as he stood from the ground. Everyone was surrounding him and the other actors left on set, telling them how amazing they had done. You stood back and watched, knowing you’d get your time with Keanu.

Everyone began scattering away and Keanu came over to you. He leaned down and kissed your cheek. You may be keeping your relationship private, but that didn’t mean most people on set didn’t already know. They were all cool about it.

“You did great, babe,” you told him. “Another successful John Wick film under the belt.”

“We’ll have to wait and see I guess,” he said. “You did great too. A lot of this couldn’t have been done without you, sweetheart.”

“Thanks,” you told him and took his hand in yours. “So now what are we going to do?”

“Well, first I’m going to take a shower and put on some fresh clothes,” Keanu said and looked down at himself. He was wearing his signature suit that was all kinds of messed up because he was supposed to be beat up. “Then I’m going to take my beautiful girlfriend out to celebrate.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” you told him with a smile. “I guess I should get to work then so we can get out of here.”

You leaned up and kissed Keanu’s cheek before you started walking off. He grabbed your hand before you could make it too far, however. You looked back at him with a curious look.

“I just wanted to say that I love you, Y/N,” he told you as he looked you in your eyes.

You smiled as you squeezed Keanu’s hand in your own. That was the first time he had told you that. You hadn’t made it to that stage in your relationship till that moment. It warmed your heart hearing him say those words to you. This whole relationship with Keanu had been unexpected, but it was amazing.

“I love you too, Keanu,” you told him. “Now, go shower and I’ll finish up here so we can celebrate.”

He nodded and pulled you into him so that he could kiss you. A few people whistled who happened to see you two kissing, but you both ignored them. You finally pulled away after a few moments and pat his chest. He smiled before he walked off. He was ready to get you out of there and have you to himself.