#TWO MOTHERFUCKING MILLION BUCKS

[originalhufflepuff]

I am freaking out a little bit

[savingcrxws]

EYES ON FIRE | just pretend

[ next chap ]

synopsis. you and carmen start off on the wrong foot and richie stirs the pot.

word count. 3.5k

warnings. language, hardly proofread but i tried

authors note. lets goooo, this is based off of this headcanon that i would recommend reading before this chapter(kinda treat it as a prologue)--lets get to part one!

"Richie, you dick."

If you had a dime for everytime Richard Jerimovich managed to inconvenience you, you could probably buy the Bean three times over.

But this, this really takes the cake. 

“Well if it isn’t our little college graduate here in good ol’ Orleans Street,” Richie cheers, throwing his hands in the air in fake surprise as a smirk rises slowly onto his face. You feel like if you were to glare at the man any harder, you might actually make his head explode.

“What brings you here, sweetheart?”

You take a minute to try to collect yourself before you absolutely blow up in Richie’s face. Carmen stands directly across from you, just behind the bar, dressed in a dirtied white tee stained in a sauce of some kind. He’s very obviously avoiding eye contact with you, leaning over the bar and seemingly very interested in the walls around you. 

“If I recall correctly, you asked me to come here, Richie,” you grit out, gripping the tote bag that hangs over your shoulder tighter. You press your lips together before a choice few words slide from between your teeth.

You see Carmen tense up at what you said, shoulders hunching up before dropping almost as quickly. The dirty blonde brings a hand up to his forehead in what you can only assume to be pure disbelief. 

You continue. “You called me literally like, two hours ago.”

“Really, me? You sure it wasn’t another Richie? Maybe a Rick?”

“Richie, please don’t piss me off right now. I swear to God–”

A loud slam interrupts the developing argument and nealyr sends you flying out of your skin.

Your eyes dart over to Carmen, whose hands are splayed flat across the span of the bar. His head is tilted down, curls falling to cover almost all of what you could see of his face. He takes a breath before turning his head to look at the older man behind him. 

His face is a bright red, angry flush sinking down past the collar of his shirt.

“Richie, you motherfucker,” he grits out, dragging a hand down his mouth before slamming his fist on the bar counter, rattling the plates and miscellaneous cups that littered across it. Richie tenses up behind him, catching on to the anger almost radiating off of him.

"Why the fuck would you invite her here?" Carmen yells, speaking of you like you weren't only a couple feet away from him. You frown, insulted at his disregard of you.

"Oh believe me, I hardly am jumping to be here myself, Berzatto." You spit.

Richie raises his hands in defense, taking a step back as Carmen bucks up towards him. “Hey, man, don’t shoot the messenger.” He casts a stray hand in your direction and Carmen’s eyes instinctively follow, making eye contact for the first time since you entered the restaurant.

The heat of his stare was strong, something that you could best describe as a blend of anxiety and anger. You notice that his eyes trail up and down your form, not in a "checking you out way" and more of a "I cant believe you're here right now" way.

“Bug usually never responds to my messages! Honestly, how was I supposed to know she would now,” Richie continues, still trying to maintain distance away from Carmen.

Carmen seems overwhelmed, split between jumping at Richie for his fake naivete or running a million miles away from you. He curls his hands into fist, and for a second, you think he's going to throw a punch. Quickly though, Carmen steps away from Richie and casts one more look towards you.

You wait for him to say something to your face, but he doesn't.

“I’m leaving,” Carmen mumbles under his breath, taking in another deep breath before abruptly turning and throwing open the kitchen door. The swinging door flies out and hits the wall, a sudden crack that you are sure would leave a dent later.  Almost immediately, you hear the sound of distant bustling and pans clattering around. 

A voice yells out in confusion. “What the hell, Jeff?”

You bring a hand to your forehead, feeling a headache incoming. It couldn’t have been more than three minutes and simply being around Carmen had given you more stress than you’ve had in the past week. Casting a glance up at Richie, you give him a final glare. The man simply shrugs his shoulders and gives a charismatic grin. “Well, that was pleasant wasn’t it, bug?” 

“Ayo, Richie, what the fuck is up with Jeff,” a voice questions as they walk in from the path of destruction that Carmen left in his behind. The owner of that voice is none other than Tina, and for some reason, seeing her alleviates at least some of the headache you feel pulsating across your skull. Tina casts a confused glance at Richie, who simply points over in your direction. Tina’s eyes follow and when she makes eye contact with you a familiar smile drapes across her lips. 

"Oh, well now I understand why Jeff's so pissed off."

"Yeah, and then the asshole has the nerve to act all coy, like he didn't blow my phone up with messages begging me to go down to the restaurant," you complained, throwing your head back to take another gulp of the wine in your cup.

In front of you, Sugar swirled her own glass of sparkling grape juice, shaking her head in disbelief at the absurdity of it all.

Shortly after Tina had walked out, you had left the restaurant (not before flipping Richie the bird) and immediately went to text Sugar for a rant session. Being the absolute angel that she is, she agreed almost immediately, stating that she had some qualms she wanted to rave about as well. Two glasses of Merlot for you and some non-alcoholic beverages for Natalie later, you two were sitting on the two ends of Sugar's couch, the TV playing a rerun of Selling New York as background sound for your current conversation.

"Yeah, Richie is a jerk." You nod in appreciation for her understadning your annoyance.

"And don't even get me started on you-know-who's reaction? He barely even acknowledged my existence!" You throw your free hand in the air. "Speaking about me like I wasn't right there?"

You release an exasperated sigh. "The ego on that guy."

Natalie hums, taking a languid sip of her drink. "Well, that sounds like Carmy alright. A tiny little ball of asshole-ery at any given point of time." The blonde reaches a hand over and places it on your knee. "Sorry my brother is such a dick."

You give a small smile at Sugar, resting your own hand on top of hers. "No need, it's clear you took all the 'sane person' genes in the Berzatto bloodline." Your joke pulls a giggle out of Sugar, the slight truth of her statement not missing between the two of you.

"But enough about me," you place your glass down on her coffee table before continuing. "What's going on in your life Nat?"

You listen as she rants about the stress of preparing for a bringing baby into the home. She talks about how those Al-Anon meetings she regularly attends are going, and how her one coworker Bryson seems to have a vendetta against her.

After a moment, Natalie coughs slightly, eyes darting across the living room in thought before returning back to you. "And well, I hate to keep talking about Carmy but..."

The smile drops quickly off of your face as Sugar trails the last word. "But what, Suge?"

"Buttt, Carmen's trying to rebuild The Beef," Sugar peers down into the contents of her glass as she speaks, "he's rebranding it as The Bear, and I've been trying to help him and the crew get everything sorted before they start tearing the building down."

You press your lips together tight at the mention of the familiar name.

"Personally, Carm, I don't see much wrong with the restaurant now?"

"The place is held together by a roll of duct tape and a dream, bug, I don't think you have to look very hard to see some issues."

You glance up at him from your position on his chest, looking as he gazed up at the ceiling of your bedroom. While his gaze was physically directed at the old glow in the dark stars scattered across the ceiling, you could tell his head was in a total different world.

"So you want to start a new restaurant?" You question, watching as Carmen shakes his head as soon as the words leave your lips.

"Nah, I just want to make it better, ya know? For Mikey, and Sugar, and Ma."

Sugar, noticing you are distracted, stops her sentence and gives a little frown, watching as your gaze drifts off somewhere distant.

Despite the years that have past, she knows that you still have feelings towards her brother. She was there for most of it, watching as you and Carmen went from daily hangouts to a weekly phone call, to a monthly check-in text, to, well, nothing.

She consoled you through most of the grieving phase of a post-breakup, like you had done for her a couple of times before. And after a few weeks of busting into tears anytime his name was mentioned, you began to heal, and focused those strong emotions towards improving yourself.

Natalie let a wistful sigh, pulling you out of your thoughts. Shaking the fog away, you give a remorseful smile at having basically cut Sugar off midway through her spiel. She gives you another small smirk before shaking her head, dismissing your silent apology with a wave of her hand. She draws another sip of her sparkling juice.

"But Carmen has been driving me up the wall with all the shit he wants me to help juggle. If I schedule one more appointment I might pull my hair out."

"Oh no, please don't do that, honey," Pete calls out from the kitchen, very obviously having been listening in on your gossip time from the kitchen table. Sugar gives off slight grimace at Pete's abrupt callout at her obvious exaggeration, shrugging her shoulders and giving a placating call back towards her husband.

Reaching back towards the table, you grab the wine glass from earlier. "Do you have anyone to help you? You know I have some connects who can manage the money and strategy end?" You offer, more than willing to alleviate some of the stress from your friend's shoulders.

"Yeah, can I have that guy who assisted you when you managed La Raison?" Sugar teases. "I have no idea how you managed to help that business go from near bankrupt to one of the best sellers down Michigan Avenue."

"Carter? Yeah, no. That dude was an asshat. He was more useful kissing up to the store owners than actually doing his job," you shake your head at the mention of one of your old employers. Since graduating, you had taken into strategic and financial management for businesses across Chicago. La Raison had been one of your main businesses for a while, the owners soon becoming close friends of yours.

You loved what you did, though business management sounded like a right pain to most, you found joy in being able to rub your braincells together and actually make a difference. Plus, the pay wasn't too bad either.

Sugar chuckles. "Yeah, well, I wish I could just have you as a little angel on my shoulder, giving me all the answers to all of these problems that keep popping up."

Though she was joking, you can see the way her brows furrow simply thinking of all of the things that she has to do. You could only imagine the stress she is under right now. Balancing opening a new restaurant with her ever-present family dilemmas, and a baby on the way?

Natalie was beyond used to extensive stress, so you know she won't verbally express all of her worries. But the thought of Sugar carrying all of that on her shoulders draws a slight frown on your face.

Before you know it, the thoughts are falling from your brain and past your lips.

"What if I helped you manage the place."

You honestly do not know why you offered to help manage this fuckery that is disguised as a restaurant.

Shortly after you had offered to help, it was as if Natalie had died, saw the light, and returned back to Earth. She squealed like a teenage girl and thanked you profusely. While she shaked you and explained all the things that needed to be done, you slowly began to realize the implications of your offer.

You, helping Natalie manage Carmen, your ex-boyfriend's, restaurant. A responsibility that would obviously take months.

And honestly, you were tempted to withdraw your offer despite the happy squeals of relief that Natalie was letting out. That was, until the tears of relief started pouring from her eyes.

Those pregnancy hormones really guilt tripped you.

Now, a week later, you're back at The Beef. Well, you suppose The Beef is gone officially now, the rusting sign pulled down from its former position hanging above the restaurant entrance.

"Why the hell did I sign up for this shit," you question out loud, watching as Manny and Angel pulling out a broken sign from inside the restaurant. Sighing, you reach into your bag and pull out a cigarette box, pulling one out before digging for your lighter in your back pocket.

"Mami, what are you doing here?" You turn around at the voice behind you, cigarette hanging loosely from your lips. Tina stands behind you, a smile stretched across her lips. "Seeing you two weeks in a row? Someone must be dying."

You smile, opening your arms for a hug that Tina reciprocates. "Oh you know, I'm here to save your asses from complete and utter failure." Tina gently pats your back as you pull apart, and it makes you regret not checking in on her and the rest of the crew more often.

"Missed you, T." You mutter, a small grin pulling up on one corner of your mouth.

"Missed you too, mami," Tina pats your arm before wrapping her hand around your elbow. "Now, I'm not trying to step on your toes but...you do know who your helping out right?"

You grimace at her implication, the reality hitting you once again. Behind those glass windows stands the man who took your heart and literally tossed it away like it was nothing. Took all of those years that you had spent together and wasted it away.

Broke up with you over fucking text.

And now, you're about to walk into his restaurant and help Sugar, and, consequently, help him fix this fuck up.

Talk about fate.

"Yeah, T," you start, letting her guide you towards the entrance of the restaurant, where you see Marcus and Fak carrying out some lockers. You wave towards the men, to which Fak responds with such enthusiasm that he drops some of the lockers on the ground, much to Marcus' chagrin.

You grimace before continuing. "Just helping my asshole ex because his sister is my bestie."

Sugar had texted you that Sydney, Carmen's former sous chef and business partner, had been more than happy to hire you as a strategic manager for the business. Although she didn't mention it, you knew that a certain dirty-blonde was not so excited at mention of you coming to help.

"He knows we need the help, no matter how fragile his tiny little ego is," Natalie had told you, a knowing smile on her face.

"Don't lose your head, boss." Tina teases, pushing you first through the doorway. As you finally enter the store, you take note of the pure chaos that is the restaurant.

Plywood and debris scattered across the flower, miscellaneous kitchen supplies and utilities lining the walls. Ebraheim and Sweeps were taking a sledgehammer to some random panels, while Richie was yelling something from the kitchen. As you take in the madness, Tina pats your elbow before heading back towards the kitchen.

"Welcome to The Bear!" Richie calls out as soon as he notices you. Spreading his arms out in what you assume is a hug, you only offer him a solid stare. Richie drops his arms and heads towards you despite your very clear disdain for him at the moment. "Glad you could join the team, bug."

"Richie, why the hell are you covered in black dust?"

"Inconsequential, sweetheart," you roll your eyes at his response before stepping over the debris in front of you.

"Where's Nat, Richard," you question walking behind the bar and towards the office in the back. Richie grumbles something under his breath before shouting out 'office.' Busting through the kitchen door, you note that the kitchen is just as messy as the front of the house. Stepping over black dust on the ground, you tread over to the office.

"Suge? You in there?" You call out, peering over the corner and into the office. The room is unoccupied, filled with nothing but discarded papers with miscellaneous phone numbers and sprawled writings.

You make note of what you know to be Nat's handwriting, eyes trailing over all of her notes for appointments and scheduling. Your eyes also rove over the chicken scratch that you also know to be Carmen's scribbles. Placing your bag down on the desk, you sit down in the rolling chair and decide to wait for Sugar to come in.

You grabbed a random pile of papers and attempted to digest some of the information being presented to you.

Bank statements, IRS requests, insurance, licenses, permits.

Judging by all the shit that needed to get cleared just for the restaurant to legally be open, your surprised that Mikey wasn't being physically chased down by the IRS and thrown into jail.

"Hey, Sugar, Syd and I are going to work on the chaos menu tonight so I'm going to leave the rest up to you, okay?"

Carmen slings around the corner, too focused on pulling his coat on his shoulders to notice who exactly was sitting in the office.

Instinctively, you freeze at his sudden appearance in the doorway, breath caught in your throat. At the lack of response, Carmen finally looks up and makes direct eye contact with you.

His blue eyes widen, clearly not expecting you to be the person in the chair. You rack your brain over the next move to make, the silence continuing as he just stands in the doorway and practically gawks at your existence.

Deciding that staring indefinitely at each other was probably one of the worst things you can currently think of, you clear your throat to break the silence. That seems to break Carmen out of whatever state of shock he seemed to be in; you watch as he awkwardly wrings his hands, like he was at a lost of what to do next.

You're half-expecting him to make a repeat of the last time you saw each other and storm away from you. However, Carmen just stands there, eyes darting from you to random objects in the office then you again on repeat.

Both of you are waiting for the other to say something. To yell, chastise, and start an argument.

Biting the bullet, you start. "Hey, Carmen."

He seems to be taken aback that you even uttered his name, eyes meeting yours once again. You almost forgot how blue his eyes are-so bright that they're almost clear.

He nods in acknowledgement before saying your name to greet you in return.

Awkward silence fills the room once again. While you know that Carmen is hardly a conversationalist, this has to be the most painful quiet you've ever experienced.

Be amicable, you think to yourself. He's your boss/business partner now.

You're doing this for Sugar.

"Umm..," you trail off, eyes scanning the office around you in attempts to find something else to talk about. "I tried to find Nat, but she might have gone A.W.O.L"

Carmen nods his head a couple of times, a soft hmm leaving his lips. You can tell that he wants to say something, the words on the tip of his tongue but sealed behind his lips.

"Yeah, ok-okay, yeah." He nods rapidly, crossing his arms across his chest, lowering his gaze down to your shoes.

"Yep."

God, someone shoot me now.

Carmen clears his throat. "I-I-uuhh, you know, Sugar really appreciates the help."

You nod, licking your lips out of habit. "Yeah, she's told me."

"Yeah?"

"Yep."

Just when you were about to figure out a way to turn invisible or sink into the floor, Sugar rounds the corner and lightly bumps into Carmen's back. She lets out a noise of surprise from her throat and Carmen jerks forward a little.

"Carmy, why the fuck are you standing in the fucking doorwa-" Sugar cuts herself off when she spots you over her brother's shoulder. She makes eye contact with you and you swear you see a little mischief in her eyes. She pushes past Carmen to step inside of the office, crossing her arms over chest to assess the room.

You, sitting in the office chair, papers still grasped tightly in your hands and your lips practically licked dry from your nerves.

Across, Carmen stands angled towards Sugar, almost trying to physically minimize the amount of eye contact you two share.

Natalie surmises that she just saved the both of you from a very awkward moment "Oh, shit. Didn't mean to interrupt."

"No-no, uh, you're good, Sugar," Carmen sputters out, face flushing a bright red. He brings a hand over his mouth to physically stop the word vomit that was about to fall out of it. "Umm, was just gonna tell you that Sydney and I are leaving to work on the new menu."

Sugar's eyes dart over to you again, sitting stiffly in the office chair. She raises her eyebrows in question but you subtly shake your head.

Let's not talk about it right now.

She nods in acknowledgement before turning to fully face Carmen.

"Okay Carmy, you're good to go. Me and Bug here are just gonna get some paperwork sorted." Carmen looks in your direction at the use of the familiar nickname before he hmms again.

He takes a step back and waves his hand in goodbye. "All right, bye Sugar," he's fully outside of the doorway now, but he pauses before leaving you and Sugar's line of sight completely.

He stands there for a beat, running whatever thought across his mind a couple times. Finally, like he settled on an answer, Carmen gulps and raises his head to look at you.

He nods his head and whispers out your name and a goodbye, followed by a swift exit out of the kitchen.

You're practically stuck in the chair, the past five minutes having been a complete whirlwind. The kitchen door whips against the wall in a crack, the squeaking echoing from your place in the office. Your gaze is still focused on where your ex-boyfriend had stood not even a couple of seconds ago.

"Well," Sugar starts, a knowing smile across her face. "That wasn't as violent as I thought it was going to be."

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[around1302]

XVI. OUR SONG

SPARE PARTS: a series (16/20)

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS

(W) strong language, slight handjobs, cockwarming, implant protected sex, drug use

CHARLIE’S POV

Deciding to go for a nap after those events of the living area was a good idea in theory. Sleep the next two hours away, pretend like it never happened, wake up in Amsterdam and get ridiculously high.

But ideas are always better in theory.

Slowly after I collapsed onto my bed, pulled the curtain and forced the blankets to my eyes, I heard the rest of the guys trudge through. They were probably talking about Harry and I before returning to the beds, and my stomach had been churning at the thought until I decided to just distract myself on Twitter.

Now, I’m a hundred tweets deep into a debate on cockwarming. Weird, weird morning.

Scanning through the words with a furrowed brow, I can’t understand the debate. I don’t particularly understand the activity. My sex life has been pretty sheltered (by choice, I might add) and warming a cock isn’t something I’m especially used to.

So, I text the biggest slut I know.

have u ever tried cockwarming?

Sent 06:04

I’m not even sure if he’s awake, or willing to answer that question, so I quickly return to Twitter and–

I practically throw my phone across the small space as orange light is suddenly shed into my bunk, the speed and sound of the curtain making me gasp loudly and nearly bang my head on Niall’s bunk above me.

My heart’s still beating a million miles a minute, but I start to calm down when I realise I’m not about to be murdered (I think) and that it’s just Harry – looking like he woke up all of two seconds ago.

“What?” He hisses, mussed curls hanging around the collarbones beneath the Fleetwood shirt he’s adorning.

“Ssh,” I quickly interrupt, trying to keep my voice as low as possible. “Someone’s gonna hear, what are you doing?”

Without warning, Harry starts to climb in, moving me up the twin mattress full we’re squashed together and then he draws the curtain back – leaving us in pitch darkness. I blindly reach above me to pull the dim bunk lighting on, noticing just how tired his features look. He’s all puffy lips and cloudy eyes looking down at me.

“Harry, someone’s going to know–”

He lifts a finger to his lips, silencing me as he holds up his phone, revealing my message. I gulp. My eyes meet his, trying to mentally have some sort of conversation.

I’m laid on my back, him hovering half above me on his left elbow so that his legs are pressed firmly against mine. By accident, pure instinct, muscle memory if anything – I look down. His sweatpants seem to have swelled in the same place they had before.

It’s dangerous, especially considering everyone on this bus – in this room – know about us now. But fuck it. We never finished what we started, and I didn’t mean to trigger something with that text, but I’m not one to complain about a little spontaneity. What else have we got left to lose?

So I press my thumb over his and lock his phone, slipping it next to mine at wall side of the bunk. I reach between us, my hand finding his semi and palming him through his joggers.

Harry gasps, loudly, to which I glare at him and stop.

He mouths an apology, sealing it with a chaste kiss to the corner of my mouth. I hide a smile as I begin to palm him again, basking in the glorious sight that is Harry Styles becoming undone around my touch.

The motherfucker always has to one up me, however.

His hand slips back into my sweats, rubbing me over my knickers and picking up a speed that has me gasping. I bite my lip, the eye contact nearly unbearable as we get each other more hot, more bothered by the second.

When his fingers move my pants to the side and start to swipe over my bare clit, I have to bury my head in his chest and muffle my quiet cries against his shirt. My hips buck against his fingers, and the moment I grip the side of his hip he whispers,

“Please.”

I lift my head, understanding his plea and quickly nodding. I push his joggers down, pulling his briefs with them, and start to work his dick – achingly hard. He shivers when I touch him, biting down on my shoulder before flipping us over. I rest my head in the crook of his neck, gripping for dear life onto his left forearm loosely hanging around my neck.

Harry pulls my sweats down too (a difficult feat in a twin sized box) and reaches around to keep rubbing at my clit. Something about Harry’s fingers are fucking magic; it needs to be studied. Scientifically.

He kisses the spot on my shoulder he bit earlier, lifting my right leg a little as he guides himself into me. I turn my face into his arm, mouth hanging open as I push back. I can feel his short gasps into my hair, the way his bicep tenses around me. He holds my hip to pull me back and forth against him, slowly, and my fingers dig half-moons into his skin while they blanch and I try my best not to make a noise.

The bed has other plans, however.

Any sudden movement makes the mattress creak, and the more he thrusts in and out, the more I can feel it shake, too. Harry seems to notice, as well, because he’s getting slower with each squeak and pauses after every shake.

The thrill of it is fun, and the feel of his dick is even funner, but the guys sleeping only a few feet from us makes me grab his thigh behind me.

Maybe we can’t fuck, but I did just read a Hell of a lot about cockwarming.

I shake his thigh a little to make him realise he needs to stop, to which he does and instantly pulls out of me. But, I shake my head, and push his cock back inside me.

“Sweetheart,” Harry pants, “I can’t move.”

“Good,” I whisper, “isn’t that the point?”

It seems to take him a second to remember the actual reason why he came over to my bunk, but when it hits him he breathes out a chuckle and nods against the back of my shoulder.

“Sit up.” I murmur.

Harry does as asked, pulling out of me again so we can change position. We sit up as best we can in the bunk, and soon I’m straddling him and cursing myself for shifting position: he’s hitting deeper, now, and fuck. Maybe this was a bad idea. Especially with how his brows pinch when I sink down on him, when I move my hips slightly to adjust.

“You’re trying to kill me, Greene.”

This position also gives me the chance to look at him again. His features are less tired and more dishevelled now, and I can’t help but trace the outline of his pink lips with my index. He kisses my finger, tracing circles on my back.

It’s a weird feeling, having Harry inside of me, unmoving. Oddly whole, despite my urge to grind, circle, move – anything. It just feels… close. Comforting, if anything.

“Have you ever done this, then?” I murmur.

He tilts his head, a flicker of a smirk playing at his lips.

“Cockwarming?”

The way he says it makes my thighs clench. His jaw does, too. “Sorry.” I huff out a quiet giggle. He smiles.

“Do you really want to talk about my sex life?”

I shrug. “I don’t know anything about your sex life.”

His eyebrows shoot up at that, his tongue poking his cheek. “You seem to give me a lot of shit about something you don’t know.”

I roll my eyes. “I know you fuck, you make that clear. I just…” I trace my hands down his shirt, watching the way the muscles on his arms ripple and his grip on my thighs tighten as I do so. “Tell me about Rachel.”

“You know Rachel.” His tone seems firmer, now.

“I know she bartends with Zayn.” I don’t know why I’m pushing this, I’m not even sure I particularly want to know the ins and outs of what Harry does when he’s not doing me. But a part of me has to know. “Tell me about your relationship with her.”

“We don’t have a relationship.” Harry snaps.

I swallow thickly. I want to tell him to remember to keep his voice down, but the words get stuck in my throat.

“So, what, you just bang her whenever you see her? Smoke her weed, text her when you’re in cities thousands of miles away?”

“We’re friends.”

“You’re friends with your hookups?”

“It is possible, you know.”

“Didn’t think you were capable.”

“Trying to start an argument with my cock inside you isn’t a good idea, sweetheart.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?”

“You’d prefer princess again?”

“I’d prefer my name.”

Harry sighs. I tug at the hem of his shirt anxiously as if it were my own. He moves his hands upwards, gripping my hips and grinding me against him, slowly, and only once. The action has my eyes closing, however. I nearly forgot I’m sat on his dick.

“Charlie.” He whispers. My eyes open.

“Charlie,” he repeats, grinding me against him again. My palms flatten against his torso, gasping as he moves me once, twice, three times.

I ball the material of his tee around my fists, starting to move with him. He sits up, his face inches from mine as he snakes one hand up to the nape of my neck and starts to tug at the hair there.

He speaks against my lips, now.

“Charlie.”

With every time he says my name, another level of fuck a squeaky bed and fuck the fact everyone’s in the room adds to how fast I move my hips – until we’re swallowing each others gasps with our mouths and his fingers pull at my hair so tightly I have to hold onto his shoulders for stability.

“Charlie,” he pecks my lips, “Charlie,” another, “Charlie,” another.

My bunk becomes a symphony of hushed moans and my name being relayed back to me in a thousand different progressions of need until we’re coming and his name gets added to the song, too.

“So, since we all heard you guys fucking earlier, I think you owe us the first round.”

I flush red while Harry just rolls his eyes at Niall’s insinuation. I knew it was a bad idea.

“Keep it down, yeah?” Harry shuts him up for us. I smile in gratuity at him.

We’re waiting outside the Grey Area, the coffee shop notoriously small and incredibly popular, whilst I border on an anxiety attack because despite the legality of weed here – I’m convinced someone will recognise us and somehow our careers will be fucked.

Disguised in sunglasses and dark hoodies, we’re practically unrecognisable, but it only takes a staff member to ask us to remove our hoods and boom: shit show.

“Okay, found us a table guys,” Zayn rushes out to us, to which the six of us quickly follow, a trail of guilt behind me.

Zayn still doesn’t know about Harry and I, and yes. No one was supposed to know about Harry and I – but now they do, and the one person it may actually effect is in the dark.

“Isn’t this gonna make us too hungover to perform tomorrow?”

“Weed doesn’t give you a hangover, Niall,” Louis throws his arm around the only newbie, “welcome to the wonderful world of marijuana.”

We all take up our booth, keeping our glasses on and hoping no one spots us. The last thing we want today is a mob. A waiter comes over, smiling sweetly at us all and looking half-high himself.

“Hoi, waarmee kan ik je op weg helpen?”

“Zes mimosa's, alstublieft.”

“Jesus, you speak Dutch, too?”

Harry shrugs beside me, smirking as the waiter thanks him and leaves to put our order in. I’m wedged in between Zayn and Harry – and I don’t even notice till I catch Amelia’s pointed glare and realise why I recognised the scent of cedar and smoke.

“Feel like we haven’t spoken in ages,” Zayn murmurs in my ear once the group splits into conversation. I feel Harry’s hand ghost the space behind my head

Talk about a rock and a hard place.

“Mm,” I murmur, fiddling with my sleeves.

“I don’t want you to feel freaked out,” Zayn keeps his voice low, but I feel Harry’s eyes on my profile. “I know I’ve made my feelings clear, but we’re still friends, yeah?”

“Zayn, I don’t want to get into this here.”

“But I–”

“Six mimosas.”

Our infused drinks are laid before us, thankfully cutting Zayn off and stopping the creeping panic. Harry’s glare cuts from me too, and I sigh in relief before downing my drink before I can participate in the Amelia-triggered cheers.

“Okay…”

Then everyone follows suit.

I raise my hand, gaining the attention of our waiter. I circle my hands around the group, waving my glass. He nods knowingly, disappearing back to the bar.

“Jesus, Charlie. You trying to white out by midday?” Louis guffaws, wiping the liquid from his bottom lip.

“What the fuck is a white out?” Niall looks like a deer in headlights. Everyone chuckles.

“Relax, buddy,” Liam claps his shoulder, “it probably won’t happen.”

“Probably?”

“Shut up before you give the poor guy a heart attack.” Amelia intercepts, reassuringly rubbing Niall’s chin. He sinks into her touch, and I melt at the PDA.

Usually I cringe away and make some childish comment about them getting a room, but lately their affection seems to be something I crave. To touch so openly, to love so visibly. It looks nice.

“You good, Greene?” I hear Harry’s voice in my right ear. I nod a little too largely.

Our next round arrives, and just as I go to tip this one back too, Harry presses his index to the bass of the flute, discreetly keeping it to the table.

“What are you doing?” I mumble.

“We have the whole day,” his eyes seem softer than I imagined them to be when I meet them. “Just pace yourself a little.”

“Sorry, dad.”

“Don’t trigger my daddy kink.”

I let out the ugliest squark of a laugh. Everyone gapes at me as I smack my palm against my mouth, and I see Harry shift in my peripheral, covering his own face and stifling laughter.

“You feeling it already, mate?” Louis cocks a brow.

taglist: @lilfreakjez @be-with-me-so-happily @sirtommyholland @tpwksm @b-reads-things @tiaamberxx @daphnesutton @mleestiles

“Fuckin’ Amsterdam.” Zayn chuckles beside me.

Everyone cheers to that.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

It’s November, and that means it’s Thanksgiving season! What better way to celebrate than by reviewing some of the most infamous turkeys in cinematic history? Here are some of the biggest box office bombs around! Which one will I have to endure this weekend?

One of the single biggest animated flops ever, grossing under a million bucks on a budget forty times that. This science fantasy film just couldn’t catch a break.after it’s tumultuous production.

An infamous comedy that was once shorthand for “bad movie,” it features two white idiots going to the Middle East, something I’m sure had aged really gracefully.

Kevin Costner gets wet and wild in this post-apocalyptic flop. Is it as bad as its over-exaggerated bomb status would tell you?

Kevin Costner goes postal in his second shot at post-apocalyptic stardom. Not even making back one fourth of the eighty million dollar budget probably made him want to return to sender.

John Travolta really wanted this Scientologist clusterfuck to make it big and be the next Star Wars. To say he failed beyond his wildest dreams is an understatement.

“That's how big I am. I bomb over a hundred million." - Will Smith’s own words about this weird western, which features a legless Kenneth Branagh and a steampunk spider mecha.

People were really looking for a redo of one of the most famous X-Men stories after the last attempt at adaptation tarnished the series. Unfortunately, this movie ended Fox’s run with the characters on a wet fart.

Warren Beatty’s so vain, he probably thinks this bomb is about him… because it is. He’s the star of this rom-com which tanked his career for 15 years, something not even the aforementioned Ishtar managed.

It’s not very often a bomb blows up the whole studio with it, but this one tanked Image Movers and saved us from whatever the fuck they were gonna do to Yellow Submarine. But is it really app that bad?

In a shocking twist no one could have foreseen, up-and-coming director M. Night Shyamalan tarnished his career and turned himself into a punchline with this bizarre modern fairy tale.

Surely remaking South Korea’s greatest revenge thriller of all time with white people will lead to success, right? At any rate you get to see Elizabeth Olsen in a sex scene, surely that’s worth it…?

That motherfucker Johnny Depp is at it again, though at least he’s only in a supporting role… as a Native American. Surely the rest of the movie isn’t as bad as that, right?

[x-heesy]

Coming from another realm I'm a work of fiction and I'm never coming back I'm running back into the mind of Howard

Lovecraft plague mask in the back gas is irrelevant

I'm traveling on fuel from the shadow of Hephaestus flames

Crafting a blade for me so I may faithfully

Run up in to WBC and decapitate anything that I see

Funny how ignorance makes me so mean

Like, when a motherfucker believe anything he read or see on TV

Knee deep into propaganda, better pop a hand of xans

If you're too pussy to handle your life like a man

I can't relate I'm on another plane

Can somebody tell me how to live and breathe and die a mortal way?

Im a lost cause really, hey

Never gonna wanna belong, pardon while I burn sage

Everything I read leads me to believe maybe one day

Im a be apart of something so much greater than me

When I perish

Get the kerosene and burn me to oblivion but don't make a scene

I need privacy so the prophecy may be complete and I merge with the images of ethereality

Count on me when I am finally free I will watch you while scrying in the sea

Underground catatonia

I found a scroll in Rome from a secret map I found in Macedonia

Fuck this music, I don't got the time to even hate cause I got secret service people from the Vatican approaching, bruh

Whatchu tellin' me?

I'll shoot an apple off your wifey's head and miss

And hit the bitch in the head like William Lee

A murderous 8th dimension night breed killa Dylan be

Clip on my hip and the chip on my shoulder turned into the monster next to me

Bloodline illuminati 666 lizard people all around me man

Rozzy really bout to take a trip to North Korea and come back a brand new man

Coming back and founding Dylananastan

To build a wall to separate me from the stans

Bitches wanna hold my hand

But they dont even know about the demo of my favorite band

Dylan got the stamina to keep it goin' 90s baby getting buck like Pretty Tony

I don't got no time for phony rap bologna

We gon' fuck the bitch and have a ceremony

Mask on face

Weapons in my place

A hundred million bodies Ima concentrate

Anybody with a cheerful disposition

Who believe in heaven might just meet their fate

Dylan throw it, tell the bitch to go wide

Fuck around, participate in homicide

From sea to shining sea, a christian holocaust

A pagan neo-judaistic genocide

Yesterday, I got so fuming angry that

I stabbed myself, in the thigh, with a fork

Whatchu know about the wretched wicked shit?

Like the atrocities of Malachi York

Busted and dusted, like an angel that just lost its way

And we all gone die anyway so

Fuck it, mane

Mind gone straight lost in a fog of haze

Two brothers from the housing authority

Came to take your kids and dogs away

@bethanythestrange @frenchpsychiatrymuderedmycnut

Wr̵̠͖̂̀̄́́̕e̵̯̞̎̈́̀͑̂̓̽̕͝t̵͎̳̠̏͐͒͆̐c̶̡̙̙̞̊̅̋́̒̔̈̑̑h̶̨̢̺̪̻̱̞̓̓͊ͅe̵̯̞̎̈́̀͑̂̓̽̕͝d̶̖̠̖̳̏̇̏̆͆̂̾̚ (f̵̢̘̦̺̼͈́̒̈́̊͝e̵̯̞̎̈́̀͑̂̓̽̕͝ǎ̸̹͔̅̈́͘t̵͎̳̠̏͐͒͆̐. Ro̵̳̞̖̖̩̻̩̎̍̓́z̴̡͍̹̼̝̣̃̇͑̈͗͘z̴̡͍̹̼̝̣̃̇͑̈͗͘ Dy̵̧̛̝͙̪̘͑͋͌͂̓͌̉ͅl̵̡̬̹̙͕͍͙̜̂͌̾i̴̛͕͍̤̐͆͆͂̇̈́̍̍͊ǎ̸̹͔̅̈́͘m̵̖͌̈́͜͠s̶̢͎̮̝̭̫̞̏̒͛͗͜) b̵̧̙̮̰̜̳̟͈̞̓̀͋̅̓̔ͅy̵̧̛̝͙̪̘͑͋͌͂̓͌̉ͅ Gh̶̨̢̺̪̻̱̞̓̓͊ͅo̵̳̞̖̖̩̻̩̎̍̓́s̶̢͎̮̝̭̫̞̏̒͛͗͜t̵͎̳̠̏͐͒͆̐e̵̯̞̎̈́̀͑̂̓̽̕͝m̵̖͌̈́͜͠ǎ̸̹͔̅̈́͘ṋ̷͆̽̍͊e̵̯̞̎̈́̀͑̂̓̽̕͝ v̷̛̼̣͍͈̮̉̾͗̄̋̉̄̀̄8

[shirkers2018dirsanditan]

one of my old church camp counselors i follow on instagram has gotten so reactionary shes always posting nonsense but shes also joined the train that pretends like kanye and kyrie irving are being crucified or something and its insane to me. people on theshaderoom (i KNOW) are literally calling it a LYNCHING and MODERN DAY SLAVERY that this guy has to pay a donation HE offered and attend two trainings and a couple fucking meetings and then say sorry. that is literally nothing. that’s literally some nonsense lol the nets just told him to play like hes contrite and do some bullshit DEI nonsense and some superficial dialogue and then they can all go back to making millions. and theyre like, it’s giving your name is toby! like you are broke motherfucker defending a millionaire for jeopardizing a position people would KILL FOR over some deranged nonsense.

and you know what? if kyrie actually believed in whatever this silliness is, if this is actually some serious noble stand he’s taking, then he would be willing to risk mainstream acceptance and money and his position for it. athletes that actually took real stands for radical views and not hateful internet garbage were willing to take whatever to stand for what they believed in. that’s what taking a stand means, that’s what protest means. that’s why bill russell and muhammad ali and kareem abdul-jabbar and tommie smith and john carlos (and peter norman) and kyrie’s fellow players on the bucks and on the clippers - and countless others - are so respected for what they did. lynching my fucking ass

[sailorstarr-chan4]

Summer Manga Trash: Love Celeb and Honey x Honey Drops

Total Ratings: 2.5 stars out of 5, rounded up for pretty art

Summary for Love Celeb: Aspiring teen actress is quite literally sold, without her knowledge or consent, by her creepy agent to be a Hot, Powerful Teen Celebrity's personal sex toy in order to finally be successful. I'm not even kidding.

Summary for Honey x Honey Drops: Young commoner student accidentally offends a rich asshole fellow student, who then "buys" her into servitude as his "honey," which her family happily accepts because Financial Backing for her expensive AF schooling, and she also eventually embraces (it's a fucked up master/slave servant system in the academy, in which "honeys" help their "masters" grow and achieve good grades; the series reeeeally tries to convince you that it is Good Actually, because masters find love with their honeys or some shit lmao).

~~~

Review for Both Series:

(Technically, this mostly fits Love Celeb, but Honey x Honey Drops is verrrrryyyyy similar with themes, non-con scenes, etc, sooooo yeah)

These two titles are, hands down, the trashiest manga I've yet read. And I low-key liked them lmao.

Would I ever recommend them? Not in a million years.

Would I own them? Only if I found the entire series for a couple bucks at a used bookstore, otherwise, nah, not worth it.

Did I enjoy them? Hell yes, they are both pure soap opera entertainment madness!

The characters are awful people! The romances are toxic and borderline abusive! There's sexual assault or at best dubious consent in basically every single chapter! The "plots," if you could call them that, are all over the place! But they're both so over-the-top in its absurdities, so dramatic, so deliciously, shamelessly horny, that it's impossible to take them seriously. If the romances were in any other kind of manga, I'd rake it across the coals. As it stands, I just found them both hilarious in its trashy state.

The art was also pretty damn good, and the erotic scenes were both tasteful and shameless, and every twist and turn was as batshit insane as you could expect. They are both just... a ridiculously fun ride.

~~~

Pros vs Cons:

Pros: Good art, cute moments, hilariously absurd drama

Cons: ........ I won't lie. Consent is a motherfucker Issue™ in both series and is rarely given freely and enthusiastically. *siiiiiiiiiiiiigh*

If I really had to compare the two series..... Honey x Honey Drops is lowkey better because the characters are shockingly more endearing??? And slightly better written???

Kai (the male love interest) actually grows and improves and is accountable for his mistakes???? Yes, he's still a horndog who sucks at accepting "no" for an answer, but he's a helluva better at reading the room, as well as trusting his "honey," Yuzuru (our hapless female protagonist).

Yuzuru has somewhat more agency, even if she's constantly tricked by This One Rapist Bastard (whom she NEVER develops feelings for, thank Christ), and the side characters are fun in their own ways.

Not to mention, it's the only one between both series that actively points out that sexual assault is.... ya know..... A BAD THING. I mean. It doesn't stop the series from showing it, but I genuinely appreciated that Kai and his friends never ever ONCE blame Yuzuru for her unfortunate situations, but ALWAYS blame the man who assaulted her. Which.... is kinda a miracle in these sorts of stories, tbqfh.

Love Celeb is........ it's fine. It's fine it's fine they're fine she's fine he's fine it's fine. It's fine. It's FINE. 🙃

~~~

I now need to make a list of my Top Trashiest Manga that's helluva fun to read, even they're still like. super fucking awful lmao

[teddy06writes]

Who Knew Being A Youtuber Was Dangerous

requested by this anon: "Okay last one I promise…. I think. So CC!Dream x Bodyguard!Reader or reverse the roles, whatever works. Premise: Dream starts going to conventions and needs to be protected from all the antis and obsessive fans. But Dream didn’t know his bodyguard was gonna be attractive…"

dream x reader

trigger warnings: some swearing, yelling, general violence/threats

premise: The first vidcon after Covid has finally arrived, and with his face newly revealed, Dream's getting a bit worried a bout how a week in California will turn out, so, he (lets be real it was his manager) hirers you and your team for protection

{Also reader has implied military background}

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You didn't tell me that they were coming all the way out here! I thought we were meeting them in California!" Dream argued into his phone.

You leaned against the rented escalade, watching as he paced back at forth.

One of your partners half leaned through the passenger seat window, "Sir? We're going to be late if you don't wrap it up!"

The man in the driver seat tapped his thumbs on the wheel anxiously, "I can handle politicians, I can handle CEO's, hell I can handle regular celebrities'- but youtubers? Dude why?"

You looked back at him, "Don't complain, he's paying bigger bucks than anyone we've had in years."

"I know but-"

You shook your head, cutting him off as Dream approached the car, "I'm sorry- I just thought I wasn't getting your services until I landed in California."

You shook your head, "You've still got to get through two international airports, and your flight. We'll be going along with you throughout the duration of your trip, but that won't happen, if you don't go get your things so we can leave on time."

"Yeah-" He sighed, "I'll- get my bags."

Shaking his head, Dream hurried back inside, grabbing his things before sending Sapnap a panicked snap 'sap help the body guard is hot'

When he got no response, he sighed, pulling his things out of the house and locking up behind himself, "You know for body guards you are dressed awfully casually."

You sighed adjusting your windbreaker, as you grabbed one of his bags to put in the trunk, "We're supposed to blend in. People might think it's suspicious that you need body guards, they could... plan things."

"And three extra people traveling with me isn't?"

"Smith and McAllen aren't going to be with us, with us. Within range, sure, but not following you around. You're going to be telling people I'm just- a friend or something- your life was private enough it would blend in." You reported, closing the trunk and moving to open the other door for him.

You moved around the car, climbing into your own seat, "Let's move."

~~

The airport was fairly crowded, but you navigated through it carefully, avoiding the biggest groups of people and instructing Dream to keep his hood up.

After almost two hours of anxiety, you had finally boarded the plane, tucking your backpack under the seat in front of you.

"Where'd the other two end up?" He asked quietly.

"Smiths on the other side of the row, two up, and McAllen's behind us." You reported.

Dream nodded, and the two of you settled in for take off.

Nearly an hour in, and you could tell he was getting bored as he leaned over, "So how does one end up doing body guard stuff anyway?"

You shrugged, "My contract was ended early.... I was looking for a job, retaining all my previous work experience, and I stumbled upon this agency."

"It's strange that it's even a real job."

"It's strange that playing a video game is even a real job." You shot back, grinning.

"How do you know what type of videos I make?" He asked skeptically.

"Well I have to make sure a client is legit before taking a legal offer, right?" You chuckled.

~~ The flight was nearing at end, finally, and you went over the plans again, looking over the layout of the airport on your tablet.

"What're you doing?" Dream asked.

"You never get tired of questions do you?" You sighed.

He frowned, "Sorry..."

You sighed again, "We're supposed to plan the routes around every fucking building you go into. We have a plan, we stick to the route, we keep idiots like you safe from anti's and crazy fans."

"Crazy fans?"

"Well you only just revealed what you look like, you've never been mobbed in public," You explained, "You can never trust what a obsessed person would do. That's how John Lennon died."

"Really? You're citing the Beatles on why your looking at airport maps?"

"You literally hired me for this!"

~~ So far, vidcon had been uneventful on your part, and you found yourself back in the old routine of standing off to the side, in hallways, or generally out of the way as your client did his thing.

The same lie had been told millions of times by now, Dream's partner, that's how the internet knew you, and lies grew, but all you had to do was walk along side him, nothing more.

Your partners could normally just explain away being assistants or managers working with vidcon organizers.

"Someone on twitter started a conspiracy thread that 'dream and (y/n) are not a real couple, I found so much proof this weekend'." Sapnap laughed.

From your place at the other table you nearly choked on your sandwich as Dream began to wheeze.

"why is this getting traction!?!"

"Someone added to the end," Smith reported, looking up from his phone, "Their debating if it's real, fake, or if the person made the thread cause they were jealous."

You took a sip of your water, "I can't wait till this is over, then we'll break up and the stans will forget about me."

Dream laughed, "That's too bad, I was thinking of taking you guys on full time."

You sighed, shaking your head, pretending to be annoyed, "Oh no, being paid to fake date some cute famous guy."

"You think I'm cute?"

You rolled your eyes, ignoring him, "Hurry up, we've gotta leave in ten."

~~

You were halfway through the convention center when suddenly you began to miss all that standing around.

As usual movement through the convention center was tough, but this time the crowd seemed different, particularly as someone near the back began yelling about something.

You scanned the crowd, and the woman seemed to lock onto you, "You! Yeah you! Who the hell do you think you are?"

You glanced back at McAllen, who nodded, starting to move to the side, Dream following, ever so slightly.

"You don't get to date him! How could you stoop that low Dream?"

More yelling erupted from the crowd, and someone seemed to charge forward.

You immediately took charge, grabbing Dream's arm and pulling him along with you as Smith hurried forward to block the man.

"What the fuck is going on?" Dream asked.

"Shut up, and stay behind me." You hissed turning down a side hallway as all hell started to break loose in the convention center, a single gunshot ringing out.

"Shouldn't you be going to stop that?" Dream asked as you and McAllen hurried him down another corridor.

"Job for the police, not us." You muttered, "Exit's through here, lets go."

From behind you, there were more shouts, something about stealing Dream.

“Motherfucker, these people are insane.” McAllen muttered.

~~

Somehow, you’d managed to get Dream out of the building, double back, and also collect Smith and Sapnap on the way.

Running on pure adrenaline, you’d then helped anyone else, evacuating civilians as the police worked to talk down the shooter.

By the time you had arrived back to the hotel, finished making statements and refusing to answer a frat deal of questions from father fans, you were about to collapse.

“I thought your job was just to get me out of there.” Dream said, looking up as you entered your room.

“I did.”

“And then you went back in.”

“I help people, okay?” You snapped, “Normally this job doesn’t include being shot at because I have to fake date someone who I’m protecting.”

You sat down heavily, “just- gimme a minute to breath. You’ve made my job more complex than it needed to be.”

“With my dashing good looks?” He laughed.

You rolled your eyes, “I mean with the amount of trouble you’ve caused me we might as well be actually dating, then I might benefit more.”

He grinned, “I just might take you up on that.”

[perpetually-forgettable]

Chapter One

Chapter Summary: We meet Bucky and reader in their junior year of high school and get a glimpse into their relationship as they lose a bet. Certain events reveal that perhaps both reader and Bucky feel something a little less innocent than just friendship.

Warnings: Lots of swearing, sexual tension, confusion, implied masturbation

Word Count: 3,544

A/N: So this is my first ever fanfiction, and I'm nervous to post a different version of a much-loved character, things will become more canon later on though. I'm new to writing in general, but especially various POVS, so hopefully it all makes sense. 

****Takes place in September of their Junior year of high school. They're both 17 but turn 18 on March 10th.****

Your best friend is James Buchanan Barnes, you call him Bucky. Your best friend since birth, seeing as the two of you were born on the same day, 30 minutes apart. And damn those 30 minutes too, because he liked to act like he was eons older than you and would tease you about it constantly. You grew up together, lived next door to each other all your lives because your mom was best friends with his mom. You celebrated birthdays together, even when you were upset with each other. You shared a party every year, blew out your candles together, took turns opening gifts but always waiting until the end to open the gifts you gave each other.

“Man, this is bullshit.” He hollered while slinking down on the small couch sheepishly, barely even on it anymore.

“MOTHERFUCKER!!!! Goddammit, Barnes, I told you we had a sniper on us. I told you not to go for the loadout yet!” You huffed at him while the sniper took you out after trying to revive him. The screen showing you placed 3rd. You quickly stood up and angrily pressed the buttons on your controller to get out of the game lobby before plopping down on your back on his bed.

“I told you. I fucking told you, Buck!! Now we owe Steve 50 bucks.”

He didn’t reply. Only staring in your direction on his bed with mixed emotions. You played Call of Duty: Warzone frequently. Either together or alone and you were good. Hella good. So good that Bucky’s friend from the football team made a bet with you guys. The bet was that him and his friend Tony would place 1st and have a higher kill count than you and Bucky, whoever made it the longest got 50 bucks, whoever got the highest kill count got to choose a new bundle with weapons and stuff that the loser had to pay for. You and Bucky placed 3rd, but Steve and Tony were still alive, so they automatically won the 50 bucks. You spectated them while they played still to see the ending kill count. You had the highest.

Bucky finally spoke. “I’m sorry y/n. That was totally on me.” He sighed and moped towards you and plopped onto the bed face first next to you.

You turned your head to him. “Your damn right it was. You have to pay him the whole 50 bucks, I’m not paying half for your fuck up.”

“Ugh. Fine. Just shut up about it already.” Closing his eyes.

You crossed your arms under your breasts and taunted “No, I don’t think I will.”

He lifted his head and looked your way with a smirk. Then he began to try to shove you off his bed. You squealed and tried to hang onto something or roll over to the other side or anything to keep you from hitting the floor. Giggling and screaming you grabbed his pushing hand and rolled over closer to him, ending up laying prone on his back while he was still face down on the bed. Both of you stilled for a moment to catch your breath. He bent his arms to use his hands as pillows when he started half rolling side to side to get you off his back. You squealed again and clung to him as best you could. You squeezed your thighs on him, and your hands clung to his arms that pillowed his head, noticing the hard planes of muscles you hadn’t really cared to notice before. You knew he was muscular, he was on the football team and trained and worked out regularly. But something inside you changed with this newfound knowledge of what his biceps felt like under your tight grip. No…it’s not that you never noticed his muscles before, you just never appreciated them like you were now. You stilled, about to get off him when he lifted himself off the bed, with you still on his back. You let out a startled cry and wrapped your arms around his torso and legs around his waist from behind in fear of meeting the floor with your face.

Bucky was laughing the entire time, now breathing heavy, he lifted up more and put one knee on the edge of the bed and the other foot on the floor and violently turned to the side to shrug you off him and onto the bed. Your body was thrown, and you bounced as your back landed on the mattress. You laid there, chest heaving from laughing and something else you were unsure of, your hair fallen from your messy bun splayed onto the bed and smiled up at him.

He looked down on you grinning wide and laughed. “You done now you jackass?”

You silently nodded yes, still laying on the bed trying to catch your breath and calm your nerves. He moved to the couch to start a movie when his phone notification went off. He grabbed it and sighed after seeing it was from Steve.

*Guess your girl ain’t as good as she thinks she is huh? I’ll hold up my end once I get what I earned. See you at the game tomorrow bitch. *

Bucky groaned and threw the phone down on the couch and sighed. You went over to read the text and sat down next to him on the small sofa that barely fit the two of you. Reading the text pissed you off. Steve could be so cocky sometimes. He thinks because he finally made varsity that he’s tough shit, when Bucky has been varsity since sophomore year. “God, he’s such a dick.”

Bucky took his phone from your hands. “Yeah, but a bet is a bet. I’ll pay him myself tomorrow at the game. Don’t worry about it.” He leaned back to get comfortable, pressing play on Top Gun. It was a favorite for both of you, something y'all have watched a million times but still enjoyed it.

You crossed your legs under you and tried to get comfortable. “You better. Also, make sure you leave an opening tomorrow for someone to tackle his ass.”

Bucky snickered. “I’ll do my best.”

Sitting next to Bucky in such close proximity like this never used to be a problem. In fact, more often than not you leaned on each other’s shoulders or put your legs or head in each other’s laps when you watched movies or played video games. This time was different though. You were slightly uncomfortable. Maybe it was the frolicking on the bed with Bucky’s hard muscles from earlier or the fact that, despite frontward appearances, you felt some type of way when Steve essentially called you Bucky’s girl in his text. It was weird for something that simple to set you on edge. But here you were, sitting next to Bucky like you have a million times before, feeling….weird. Watching the same movie you have a million times before but again….feeling weird. So weird in fact that once the infamous Take My Breath Away scene was about to happen you shot up to your feet like the couch cushion personally offended your backside. You moved so fast you made Bucky jump and clutch his chest.

“Jesus y/n, where’s the fire?” He exhaled.

You took a deep breath and didn’t even try to hide the fact you didn’t have an excuse. “I’m gonna go home, I’ll…text you later.” And you walked out of his room, down the stairs, out his front door, down the handful of steps on the porch, onto the sidewalk then turned right and walked a few feet, then up your porch steps, through your front door, up your stairs, into your room and planted yourself face first in your bed to muffle the “What the fuck?” that escaped your mouth.

That was fucking weird he thought to himself once y/n left. But he could finally relax and he was honestly more than a little thankful. For some reason every since he fucked up and cost her the bet, he’s been tense. He felt bad, yeah, but it all started when she went and laid down on his bed. He wasn’t sure why it bugged him, but it did. And then when she laid on his back. He enjoyed it a little, feeling the pressure of her body on top of his. That’s why he started moving, to try and get her off of him, only to realize how strong she was when she clung to him the way she did. Looking at y/n, nobody would think she had such a strong grip, let alone the power her thighs held. The places his mind went when she put her legs around him were involuntary, but not exactly unwelcome. He knew he had to get her off of him. This is y/n for crying out loud he chastised himself. He’s never imagined her that way, never let his mind wander about her. That was until he looked down at her on his bed. Breathing so heavy it made her breasts bounce ever so slightly. Her hair a mess all around her and smiling up at him. After teasing her he had to get some distance from her, not realizing the couch was not the best place for that when Steve texted him.

*…your girl…*

Seeing those words made him groan. Out loud. He played it off as frustration at the text and threw his phone for good measure. Silently cursing himself as the action only brought her to his side. He tried to distract his wayward thoughts with a movie they had watched so often they could say every line by heart. He noticed y/n didn’t seem comfortable. Her body rigid and she didn’t invade his personal space as much as she usually did. But then again, he didn’t either. Then he heard the opening chords to Take My Breath away, knowing what scene was about to take place and his heart rate picked up speed, he was nervous. Then y/n shot up like a bullet from a gun and jolted his mind back into reality. And then she left.

He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. Bucky and y/n had been friends for all of their lives. Literally. They shared a bed on family vacations, took baths together as toddlers, grew to love the same TV shows and movies, played baseball and football together, went on hikes together. There wasn’t much they haven’t done together. All their lives they had each other. No matter what.

With a sigh, he looked at the time on his phone and decided it was late enough to consider going to bed. He stood up and walked to the bed, taking off his shirt and jeans and getting into bed. He rolled over and let out a pained groan into the pillow when he smelled the combination of her perfume and shampoo. Y/n is his best friend. His best friend that he was now thinking of as his briefs began tightening. Why? Why of all people is this his body’s response to? He had had sex before, a few times actually. He’s had a few girlfriends and was not shy about his capabilities in that regard. But he would be lying if he said the images his hormone-driven brain conjured of y/n didn’t make him blush.

Much to his dismay, his fist found its way into his briefs to relive some of his frustration. After his thoughts ran rampant he finally found his release. Covered in sweat, his breath ragged when his phone buzzed with a video chat incoming. Seeing her name and photo, he contemplated whether or not he should answer it, deciding to answer it despite his current state.

“Hey, did I leave my wallet over there? I can’t find it anywhere” she asked before the video even connected. When it did he saw her hair was wet, leaving wet marks on the Mandalorian t-shirt he had bought for her after they watched the show together. He also noticed she wasn’t wearing a bra, probably getting ready for bed.

Finally seeing his end of the video chat after looking for her wallet some more and not hearing a response from him, she saw that he was laying in bed, his hair sticking to his forehead, his chest glistening, and breathing a little heavy. “Hey…are you okay?” She stopped roaming around and sat on her bed.

“Yea….I’m okay. Just….uhh…yeah, I’m okay.” He sat up and did his best not to make a bigger mess. He made sure to hold the phone in a way that didn’t put the evidence of his previous activities on display for her. “Just…hold on….gimme a sec.” He grunted as he set the phone down to show y/n the ceiling as he got up and cleaned himself up a bit.

After donning a pair of pajama pants, making sure to hide the mess he grabbed his phone and searched for y/n’s Batman wallet.

“I’m not seeing it doll, did you take it out here at all or do you think it fell out somewhere?” He looked by the couch, his computer desk, the bookshelf, and the little table by the TV and didn’t see anything.

She was silent and just stared at him for a minute before sighing “I don’t remember. Between losing the bet and you assaulting me I can’t remember taking it out of my back pocket. I’ll just come by tomorrow before the game to look, I wanna sleep in a bit in the morning” she let out a breath as she laid down in her bed and rolled to the side. His mind wandering again, seeing her like this.

“Yeah….okay. I’ll…umm.. I’ll keep looking but I’ve gotta get to sleep soon. Big game tomorrow.” He chuckled under his breath, getting back into bed and laying the same way y/n did. They both just smiled at each other for a second, neither saying anything.

“Okay…well I’ll be there when I wake up. If you’re already gone for the game I’ll look myself and meet you at the field. I’ll be on the sidelines as always.” She responded, smiling softly.

Bucky smiled at her. “Okay…if you can’t find it I’ll buy you dinner tomorrow night after the game. And drive you to DMV and all that other bullshit.”

“Okay, but just so you know…I’m not getting a fucking salad.”

Raising his eyebrows “Oh I know, I’ve seen you eat y/n. You eat more than I do” He chuckled. “Where do you hide all that food anyway? I’m not convinced you actually eat it, you’re too small.”

“Too small my ass!” She snorted.

“Nah…your ass is just fine.” He smirked, not realizing what he just admitted.

Y/n was silent.

Bucky yawned and groaned while stretching “Alright doll, I need to sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow. Night.”

“Goodnight Buck.” She whispered before ending the video chat.

Bucky sighed. Dammit. He was being weird. Doll? What is wrong with him? He plugged his phone into the charger and set it down, rolling over and forcing y/n out of his thoughts so he could attempt sleep.

When you got home earlier you decided to take a shower, somehow settling on a temperature cooler than that which you usually enjoyed. With the cool water running over your hair you thought back on the way Bucky felt underneath you. You had been in close proximity to his body before but this time, you really took notice. He was strong and hard beneath you, his arms flexing as he moved beneath you.

You angrily grabbed your shampoo and lathered your hair, not wanting to think about his body. Rinsing out the shampoo you found the combination of the cool water and the soapy remnants of your shampoo sliding down your chest sent a shockwave straight to your core. Feeling your arousal growing you made quick work of conditioning your hair and grabbing your body wash, you lathered and scrubbed your body, reluctantly imagining bigger and rougher hands roaming your body instead of your own. After rinsing off you felt your hand slide downwards and decided to let your imagination run wild. Just this once.

The water from your shower was now ice cold. With your breathing still labored you quickly washed your body again, trying your best to imagine you washing away the dirtiness of the things you just did, hoping it would ease your mind. It didn’t.

Getting out of the shower you quickly dried your hair in a towel, scolding yourself of thinking of Bucky that way. He was your friend, it was wrong to imagine him in anything but that context. You felt like you betrayed him, corrupted your friendship with your dirty thoughts.

After putting on a shirt and some underwear you went in search of your wallet, and the small picture of the two of you at the state fair last fall when you both piled into the smallest photo booth you’ve ever been in, still smiling and laughing after he won a stuffed animal from one of the games. You tried to beat him because you really wanted that Pikachu plushie, but he knocked the tin target down before you. He chose the Pikachu, teasing you about it all the way to the cotton candy vendor. After admitting defeat, you paid for two cotton candy sticks and then proceeded to slowly eat yours and handing him his, only to grab it out of his reach in the last second and eating it all in a matter of seconds. You both laughed so hard you were crying. He called you a pig and took your sticky hand and lead you to the photo booth, tears still in your eyes. It was one of your favorite memories of him and you each got a small set of three pictures from the photo booth. You saved them in your wallet so you could look at them as often as you wanted. Smiling every time you did.

In your room, you noticed your wallet was nowhere to be found. You checked everywhere. You were actually really upset about it. Maybe you forgot it at Bucky’s, or it had fallen out of your pocket after the incident on the bed. You grabbed your phone and initiated a video call while still looking in your room for your wallet. At the sound of the line connecting, you asked him if your wallet was over there, not bothering to look at the screen. When he didn’t say anything, you finally saw the state he was in. He wasn’t wearing a shirt so you could see his broad chest heaving up and down, his hair plastered to his forehead, you saw the sweat collecting at the hollow of his neck and your imagination took off. Remembering the reason behind your call, you asked Bucky if he was okay, he looked worn out and…weird. You couldn’t place the expression on his face and when he replied his voice was rough and gravelly, finding that it pleased you in a way you didn’t like to think about.

When he set the phone down all you could see was the ceiling, but you heard him grunt and rummage around. He picked up the phone and began searching. Then he called you doll. And your heart simultaneously stopped and beat out of your chest. You didn’t know what to say. How do you respond to that? You laid down on your bed, rolling to your side and Bucky did the same. You explained you’d just go over tomorrow to look yourself because he was so clueless sometimes, keeping the reasoning why to yourself. You had a spare key to his house so even if he left for the game by the time you got there it wouldn’t be an issue. The team had to get ready and be at the field way before the gates opened anyways. Bucky offered to buy you dinner and help you get everything squared away in the event you truly did lose your wallet. After your joke about a salad and some snarky remarks, he complimented your ass with that shit-eating smirk he used when flirting with the cheerleaders. You again were stunned into silence again, worsening your shock when he called you doll…again.

After you ended the call, you laid there, replaying everything since losing the bet over and over in your mind, trying to figure out what changed. Because there was something different now when you and Bucky spoke. Something that made you a little excited and nervous, mostly nervous. Long gone was the friendship you once had. You weren’t sure how, but you knew there was a change now.

Deciding not the think about it anymore, you settled in for the night. Telling yourself everything was fine. It was just a weird day. Things would go back to normal. No big deal. You forced your mind to quiet, to erase all the wanton thoughts in your mind of Bucky until finally, you fell into a fitful sleep.

Next Chapter

[popculturebuffet]

Static Shock: Shock to the System and Aftershock Review

“You know what? 13 years ago, me and some friends sat in a restaurant all night and daydreamed about the kinds of stories we would tell if we had the chance. We wanted to expand the concept of superhero to include characters that kind of looked like us, who had some of the same background, experiences and dreams as we did. We wanted to create something fun that a new generation would respond to the same way we responded to our childhood heroes -and damn if we didn't succeed beyond my wildest dreams. Today, Static Shock is a household name with millions of fans of all ages (Is there stuff I'd do differently? Yeah, almost all of season four but why nitpick?) Static is the most successful thing I've ever helped create and I'm both proud and gratified that people have taken it into their hearts. “ 

Dwayne McDuffie, Co-Creator of Static and Writer for Static Shock

This review is dedicated to Dwayne McDuffie and Robert L. Washington III.                                                        Rest In Power Static Shock is awesome. I grew up with the show watching it both first run on the WB and second run on Cartoon Network and loved it as much as I did other large parts of my childhood courtsey of DC like Batman the Animated Series, Teen Titans and both Justice League Shows. What makes this unique among the DC Properties is that Static wasn’t really a big name when he got a show. He wasn’t even part of the DC Universe. 

See as I had no idea for probably a good decade, Static actually came from Milestone Comics, a company ran by and focused on african americans. The goal was understandable: While black heroes existed at the time, and there were some fantastic ones like Storm, Jim Rhodes and Steel... these guys weren’t the center of their universes. The big faces of the big  companies, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Iron Man, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash.. were white. So milestone was a shakeup of that with the main teams and heroes all being black, from Icon, an alien who’d lived among man but rather than end up in kansas like say superman ended up imprinting on a slave woman centuries ago and has been with us since, who was encouraged by an energetic teenager named Rocket to put on a costume and do something with his powers and his community, Hardware, a tech genius who had his work stolen by a white asshole and wanted to fight back and BLood Syndicate, a group of gang members all caught in the “The Big Bang”, a huge fight between all of Dakota, the midwest city where the comics take place, that ended when the police released a bunch of experimental gas that gave them all super powers. 

As most of you who have watched the show already know, this is where Static comes from. Static was the company making their own Spider-Man, i.e. a nerdy teenager who suddenly gets super powers, in this case Virgil Hawkins who at the prodding of a friend took a gun to The Big Bang to get revenge on a bully. .but ultimately couldn’t go through with it, decided it wasn’t him and got rid of the gun and ran.. and still ended up in it, becoming Static, a young hero dedicated to using his powers to fight other “Bang Babies”.. a term that dosen’t really sound that great and they really should’ve thought through. But Phrasing aside the character was great and I look forward to reading more and only haven’t because I have to buy the issues gradually, but DC is currently re-releasing the individual issues of Static, Icon, and Hardware weekly in anticipation of a reboot of Milestone Coming in May digitally on Comixology at only 2 bucks a pop, and rereleased the original print collections that were long out of print for 10 bucks each, though i’m getting static on it’s own since i’ts really not that much less expensive as it only collects four issues while Icon and Hardware both collect 8, so I can wait a bit there on Hardware and already own Icon: A Hero’s Welcome.. and really need to review it at some point. 

While Milestone’s output was good, at least from the two books i’ve read, with Robert Washinton III, who sadly not only ahs also passed but was fucking homeless for a while  in the 2000′s.. what the actual hell, writing Static alongside Dwayne McDuffie, whose later moved onto animation writing tons of Static episodes all of them classics including the school shooting episode, the first three rubberbandman episodes and both Anasazi episodes. Point is it had good writers and artists and even had a distrbution deal with DC, so they had a leg up on the glut of other comic book companies.. but happened to start at the start of the comic book crash, a huge downturn in sales in the 90′s as the speculator boom, i.e. a bunch of people assuming every number one would be worth golden and silver age money, forgetting a character has to BUILD INTREST and this stuff takes time, and whose attempts to sell fast flooded the market with comics no one wanted,, caused the roof to cave in and with a bunch of assholes pegging milestone as a “Company for black people” rather than you know, a company trying to add fucking diversity and represntation to the comics industry, and that simply wanted a unvierse that was centered around people of color instead of white guys. The company eventually had to shut down, and was left to lisencing.  This is where the show comes in. Producers HAD been trying to make shows based on Milestone for a while, as far back as the mid-90s and the company was was all for it but the closest it got was an x-men style team series using various characters whose first draft was terrible and whose second draft by Alan Burnett, a producer on various DC Animated shows who’d go on to produce Static Shock, that McDuffie and others really liked but sadly did not get picked up. eventually though with presistance Static ended up getting a series and as I said McDuffie went on to write for it though he did not develop it. Some changes went into place naturally to make it work for an early 2000′s kids show and while i’ll probably miss so since again, only read one issue as we go. But due to Milestone coming back my intrest was peaking, hence finally reading the copy of Icon I had to buy from the library years ago due to keeping it overdue but am now EXTREMLEY glad I own as i’ts incredibly rare and really damn good, and wanting to read static, doing so lately since it’s finally on digtiial and again not too expensive. So join me as I give you a shock to the system and revisit this hell of a series to see if it holds up.. which just to cut that short it does and i’m only holding off binging MORE because I want the first two eps to be fresh enough in my head to review properly.. and also go over the various voice actors because that’s a thing with me now and charcter co-creator dwayne mcduffie because he’s awesome. 

As I like to do when covering a series first episodes, let’s run down the voice cast. 

First up is an UTTER LEGEND, and I use the term voice acting legend a lot, and mean it every time and have good reason to use it when I say it, and Phil LaMarr is a GOD in the buisness, having done a metric ton of voice acting roles, and being easily the most proflific black voice actor in animation. He’s also done some acting work, mostly in pulp fiction which I have not seen, but his true staying power and talent is in animation so here’s just the roles I feel are most notable or may not be very notable but i’m bringing up anyway because it’s my list. 

His roles besides Virgil include Lester Payton the Texas Ranger who showed up for one very good episode of king of the hill to be badass and show up the hickish, stupid and very punchable local Sheriff, Gearld’s obnoxious older brother Jamie O on Hey Arnold, Hermes Conrad from futurama, Carver from the Weekenders (PUT IT ON PLUS DISNEY), Axel Foley for exactly one bit in Clerks the Animated Series, but anyone whose seen it will know exactly which one, Micheal on the Proud Family, Black Vulcan on Harvey Birdman (In His Pants), Hector Con Carne and Dracula on Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Evil Con Carne, Jack on Samurai Jack something I didn’t know for decades (and I didn’t know about the carver thing till today though i’ts obvious in hindsight), John Motherfucking Stewart on Justice League and later Steel and Adult Static in the Unlimited seasons, Osmosis Jones on Ozzy and Drix, Bolbi Strogofski on Jimmy Neutron (And yes i’m just as shocked as you are.), Wilt on Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Marcus on Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Bull Sharkowski on My Gym Partner is A Monkey and Also a Sociopath Please Help God My Life is a waking nightmare..... okay the rest of that title is implied but we all watched the same show, we all know in our hearts that was the title

Moving on, he was also, and yes there’s MORE: Maxie Zeus on The Batman, Philly Phil on Class of 3000, Both Robertsons AND Fancy Dan on the Spectacular Spider-Man, Jazz on Transformers Animated, Kit Fisto and Bail Organa on Star Wars the Clone Wars, Gambit and Bolivar Trask on Wolverine and the X-Men, Aquaman I, L-Ron and Green Beetle on Young Justice, J.A.R.V.I.S. and Wonder Man (Simon Williams) In Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Gabe and Carny on Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters (Really miss that game and have been snapping up what cards I can get lately), Baxter Stockman in the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (And there’s also an awesome photo of him with 2003 Baxter... the two best together in one place. I got chills), Dormammu (I’ve come to bargin) in various Marvel Shows, Noville in Mighty Magiswords, Zach’s dad Marcus in Milo Muprhy’s Law, Craig’s Douchey Brother Benard on Craig of the Creek, showing he’s clearly come full circle, And Mr. Scully on the Casagrndes. And given It took about two paragraphs to cover all of this, yeah, I MEANT legend. 

Next we have Kevin Micheal Richardson as Virgil’s Dad Robert, and it’s the first time since I started introducing Voice Actors on a show that i’ve overlapped. I already covered him during the second episode of legend of the three caballeros, but for the short version he’s also very acomplished, very damn good and I somehow missed he played the old blind guy in hey arnold> Needless to say the dude is awesome. 

Virgil’s Sister Sharon is played by Michele Morgan who was in the rap group BWP and did some smaller roles outside of this the one exception being Juicy on the PJ’s, which I have not watched much of but REALLY do not like, though i’ll at least give it credit for being a decently long lasted black claymation sitcom at at time when there were, and hoenstly still aren’t, many black animated shows. 

Back to long casting sheets, next up is Jason Marsden, who is one of my faviorites as i’ve realized recently as Ritchie. As I also found out only recently he started on the Sitcom Step By Step and while that show is .. ehhhhhhhhh, he is great in it because he’s great in everything. He also apparently has his own internet variety show which I have to watch now. His roles include Max Goof, ironically given I was just talking about that role a few days ago, Haku in the english dub of Spirted Away, Micheal, the kid being yelled at by a bunch of 80′s cartoons characters not to take drugs in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue!, Nermal in the DTV Garfield movies and The Garfield Show, Tino on the Weekenders (SERIOUSLY DISNEY), Snapper Carr on Justice League, Rikochet on Mucha Lucha! for the last season (Why I do not knkow and while I love the guy he was not the right choice), Felix on Kim Possible, Chase Young on Xiaolin Showdown (WHich I did not realize was him and now I do easily his best role and I REALLY should’ve), Red Star and Billy Numerous on Teen Titans, Speedy on Batman Brave and the Bold, Impulse/Kid Flash II on Young Justice, and Fingers on Kaijudo. He hasn’t done as much lately which is a shame but hopefully i’tll pick up again. 

Next up is Hotstreak, Virgil’s brutal bully turned unhinted pyromancer played by DANIEL COOKSY, another actor i’m happy to talk about and another faviorite I haven’t seen much of lately. Daniel was an actor from childhood, playing Budnick on Salute Your Shorts, but he quickly gained a long and storied catalogue of VA Work: His first big roll was as Montana Max on Tiny Toon Adventures and if there is a god he’ll be back for the reboot, Stoop Kid on Hey Arnold, the incomprable Jack Spicer on Xiaolin Showdown, far and away his best role and part of why Chronicles sucked so bad was he was he didn’t get to reprise the role, The titular Dave the Barbarian, Django of the Dead on El Tigre (Had no idea), Kicks utterly insufferable big Brother Brad on Kick Buttowski and apparently he’s back at it again after laying low for a bit as he’s voicing Snag in Long Gone Gultch.. which I already really needed to watch but hot damn, I missed him. Sign me up. 

Frieda, Virgil’s crush and close friend who in the comics was his main confidante and love intrest but here is eventually pushed aside, is voiced by Danica Mckeller whose work didn’t seem all that familiar.. until I found out she was Ms. Martian on Young Justice. Hello, Megan. Very talented and she did get a major role in a dc show eventually so good for her. Can’t wait for season 4. 

So with our major players out of the way,  let’s talk about Dwayne. McDuffie is an AWESOME man and my respect has grown for him more and more with time. A writer and editor at Marvel, McDuffie has a decent resume doing smaller but awesome books, which I got most of for free last year when Marvel was giving out free digital collections due to the lock down, like Damage Control, a sitcom set in the marvel universe about the company that picks up after superhero battles and the logistics and antics that insue and Dethlok, about a pacfist trapped inside a cyborg zombie. He was as mentioned one of Milestone’s founders, and wrote Icon, Hardware and co-wrote the first few issues of Static. He’d go on to a pretty stacked career in animation, writing on this show and Justice League before becoming  story editor and show runner for Unlimited , even making a return to comics as a result writing the Marvel miniseries beyond and an arc of Fantastic Four in which Black Panther and Storm filled in for Reed and Sue while the two of them worked on their marriage after Reed did.. pretty much everything he did in Civil War. He also became head writer and show runner for Ben 10: Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, revamping the franchise a bit, and Alien Force, at least the first two seasons are awesome and I feel people overreacted on the changes. Ultimate Alien is okay, but has it’s problems but the finale was awesome and left the man’s legacy on a high note.. as he sadly passed in 2011 due to heart complications. He is truly missed and produced some utterly amazing stuff whlie he was alive. So on that melacholy note let’s see what happens when his creation hits the tv screen shall we?

Shock to the System:

This episode is written by Christopher Simmons, who is apparently a huge art designer guy.. but i’m not sure that’s the same chirsptoher simmons. Much more notable is the writer of the episode after this Stan Berkowitz, who was showrunner for season 1 and has done a LOT of DCAU work and is suprising talent, having written a lot of awesome Justice League episodes including Secret Society and The Royal Flush One. Point is we’re in first class hands.  Before the episode itself I want to talk about the intro and how it’s unique among DCAU shows. Like most Western Animation the intros for DCAU shows didn’t change much over the seasons with the most I can see is JLU changing up the footage to preview the current episode and later adding Hawkgirl to the intro after her return to the team. I THINK superman the animated series changed some of it’s footage too, but I can’t confrim it and may of just been imagining it. As i’ve talked about on my blog it’s normally a pet peeve of mine, mostly because shows you know, change after season 1, characters get added some one shot characters used for the intro never return, and after a while it can feel dated especially in more recent shows where the status quo is not at all set in stone and things change quite a bit. But sometimes it can be good enough that either the dated elements don’t matter or general enough that you don’t need to change it and i’ts just that good.. and given Batman the Animated Series has both in spades, you can see why i’ts probably my golden standard for intros and after superman the animated series DC mostly followed suit. But being part of the teen superhero boom of the 2000′s Static is unique in that it splits the diffrence: It’s intro gets the character across perfectly like a good intro should starting with Virgil getting out of bed and running a comb across his head before showing off to his sister to bug her and literally running into his dad who hand shim his bag and smiles, silently showing off his family. He then runs to school and runs into some trouble.. and said trouble changes for each intro, with Rubberband Man for season 1, Kanga (Whose name I only know because I happened to run across it) for season 2 and your guess is as good as mine for seasons 3 and 4, though Hotstreak is a constant. They still save some money for seasons 1 and 2 by recycling some animation.. but that’s alright with mea s it was good animation, and the improtant thing is cycling out old villians for new ones, while Season 3 is the only out and out redo to show off Richie taking on the Gear identity, adding about 10 seconds of intro to let him show off.  Seriously it’s an utterly great intro and like the other DCAU intros outside of superman, stuck in my brain. 

The other change that’s ENTIRELY diffrent from the rest of htem is that the music changes each time. The first two have the same formula just with a difrent vocalist and backing track: a superhero theme but with some hip hop beat boxing over it. The first intro is fine enough, not specattcular but stilll god. The second song.. is eh. Not really great and feels like a marked downgrade from season 1 and just dosen’t blend an ocrehstiral superhero theme with the beatbox elements NEARLY as well. The third song though is my faviorite.. even if I HATED Little Romeo as a  kid because I really did not like his nick show, it’s more a straight up rap song, but it has a faster beat that fits the intro better, and Romeo’s bragging fits Virgil’s character and penchant for Spidey quips perfectly. I also find it ironic that the theme that blends in with the dcau the most, the first season’s, is the one from BEFORE they decided to put it in the same universe. Still this season’s intro slaps, I just like the LIttle Romeo one a bit more.  The opening scene is picture perfect. Some masked crooks looting a warehouse are loading some stolen TV’s into a van when suddenly the lights come on one by one above one of the crooks before his tv switches to various channels before going haywire. Cue our heroes’ entrance. Let’s tak ea good look at him

Static’s Costume is awesome. While I prefer the season 3 redesign, and clearly DC agrees as the redeisgn was used for both pre and post new-52 when they used him, and while he’s getting a fresh design for the reboot, said design takes a lot of cures from said outfit. As for how the outfit differs from the comics itself  this is the design he had in the comics

It didn’t change much from the first issue, with the exception of his now iconic big puffy jacket which was added pretty early into the character’s history but I was unaware of that and just assumed he had the bodysuit the whole time. The more you know. But as you can see outside of the cool puffy jacket over a costume the two couldn’t be more diffrent. While the Dakotaverse outfit is more a standard superhero outfit, with some regular clothes touches on top the first cartoon outfit comes off more realistic, looking fantastic, but still coming off as something two teenagers could realistically have thrown together with what clothes they could buy, while still looking awesomely superheroy. IN short it’s perfect and only topped by the season 3 onward look...

But the slicker look, with an even cooler jakcet and the new colors all fitting the lighting ascetic better, but fits: not only has Virgil come along farther since he started, but with Richie now having a genius brain as Gear, he can provide a far slicker, far more professional superhero outfit on the budget the two have.  This show is just great  at costume design. 

So getting back to the episode at hand, Static puts up a huge sign in elecrticy saying “Bad guys here”, PFFFT, and then hides away and narrates that a few days ago he’d be the last person anyone would’ve expected to be a hero. Cue Flashback. 

We meet Virgil Hawkins on an average day: rapping into his razor, getting into a petty argument with his older sister Sharon, as a younger brother myself I relate to this, and talking to his dad who tries to get them to cut that out. We find out his mom has passed via his sister making really terrible eggs and saying that’s how mom made them. Exposition! Though we do get a great bit through this as when his sister gets distracted by her boyfriend calling, he uses the opportunity of her leaving the room to dump the eggs.. after having earlier jokingly prayed to his mom for a way out of breakfast. “Thanks for looking out for me mom” That’s both very sweet and very hilarious. 

This is a change from the comics it turns out as I was utterly flored to find Virgil’s mom alive and well when reading the first issue of Static. Turns out this was a change made during development and one Dwane McDuffie admitted in the interview I got the tribute quote from to not liking as he had a good reason for having Virgil have a nuclear family, as most black families in media at the time were just one single parent and a kid or two with the other having either left or died. He wasn’t too bothered by it as while he preferred what he came up with in the first place, the show DID get some really good stories out of her being gone and didn’t just have her be absent because shut up. Virgil is still working over her death and the way HOW she died ends up playing an important role in this episode and gives Virgil a dislike of guns, as she died to gang violence. So the change wasn’t for stupid or racist reasons, but likely both to keep the character count down while giving them something to work with for storylines. Or it could’ve been for stupid reasons and the writers simpily made lemonade out of that very dumb lemon, either way it ended up working.  Virgil also plans to ask his friend Frieda out. Frieda was a bigger deal in the comics, being Virgil’s friend and confidante as well as his ocasional love intrest, but here while she was inteded to at least be his love intrest here, that sorta fizzled out. As for the best friend role we meet her replacement in Richie, which McDuffie conceded was the kind of change a studio would make swapping out a female character for a male one. That being said the crew made the best of it and Richie is awesome, a bit of an overcompensating dipstick at times, but a good sounding board and pal for virgil and funny as hell too. He was also gay, something only revealed post series by McDuffie.. but unlike say Dumbledore, it’s a bit easier to swallow here: The early 2000′s were an even worse time for gay characters in tv let alone cartoons, and if they couldn’t kiss or have sex scenes on regular tv, there was no way we were getting any representation in a children’s show. So it was largely just hinted at by Richie overcompensating in how “into girls” he was and i’m once again fine with this being word of god as it was literally the best they could do and his counterpart in the comics was also gay, if not as relevant.  Ritch encourages Virgil to work on his opening to ask her out as it’s awkward as heck, hits a bit close to home.. but I do appricate the show just .. having him try and ask her out from the first episode. They likely would’ve drug thigns out a bit granted had they used Frieda more, i’m not blind to the convetions of the time. .but as someone who got the very wrong idea from tv that just waiting around meant a girl would like you eventually, when no you need to actually try even if rejection happens, I honestly wish we had more of this in media than the other garbage morals at the time. 

So he prepares to , not helped by her mentioning guy after guy is asking her out.... but before he can F-Stop, the future hotstreak, shows up.  F-STOP

That being said...... it’s not as bad as the original gangster name for the comic’s version, Biz Money B. Yes BIZ MONEY B

So yeah while F-Stop is no more intimidating, it at least means I can stop laughing. Francis, because I can’t type F-Stop without laughing and this review is already behind, shoves Virgil out of the way and agressively hits on Frieda, even saying “you smell good”, the international sign your a douchebag and also to call the police. Virgil steps up to the guy and gets PAINFULLY slammed into the lockers, something I give the animation team a lot of credit for, as you can FEEL how fucking painful that was. Virgil is saved by Wade, another local gangbanger who in the comics was a close friend of Virgils but here saves him seemingly just because.. seemingly. 

On the way home though Virg’s problems don’t end as naturally, the giant sized asshole with nothing better to do has his goons corner virgil before VIOLENTLY beating him.. off screen but the noises, and the clear brusies including a black eye, on virgil afterwords.. just holy damn i’m suprsied they got away with this but it shows just how horrifing it was and that this is a step above regular bullying, which make no mistake is absoluttley terrible and the series would later do an episode on it and school shootings, into straight up gang violence. Wade shows up again and gets the bastards to flee.. but also makes it clear he can’t keep doing this.. and forces Virgil to meet him at his base under the bridge. And it’s a tense sequence, with Virgil KNOWING this is a bad idea but having no real choice and Wade making it abundantly clear that he wants Virgil to join his crew, and makes a chilling point: while Virgils dad RIGHTFULLY dosen’t want his son to join a gang as Virgil points out.. he can’t be there for him all the time and eventually one of those times, Francis will be around. And he may not surivive that. Virgil nods noncomittaly.  At home it gets even more grim as he dosen’t open up to his family, understandably as his dad would jsut say to call the police and well.. we’ve seen how the police treat black people. At best they’d just try and use Virgil as an informant and that likely wouldn’t end fucking well for Virgil. Ritchie points out he can’t join a gang, virgil’s mom died that way.. see told you it’d be important to the plot.. but I like how the story dosen’t offer an easy answer.. well okay he gets electric powers soon enough but without the fantastic element this is just an innocent kid caught between either joining the very thing his mom hated or hoping a system not built to protect him will keep him alive. It’s utterly saddening and chilling and holy shit is it amazing a cartoon in the early 2000′s was able to get away with.. ANY OF THIS, and they handle it great, paired down a bit from the comics but even then it’s still incredibly balsy they got THIS much in. 

Naturally Wade calls in his favor and our hero is forced to come running.. and soon finds out Wade’s brought him in for a massive gang war. Welcome to the big bang, baby. He hands Virgil a gun as things get started and Virgil.. drops the thing and tries to escape, in a harrowing sequence.. and runs into Francis because god apparently REALLY hates this kid today. As if to prove that the police show up and while that prevents a beating, they demand they disassemble. then release untested gas on them because of course they do. 

As a result the big bang truly begins, with the various gang members getting mutated.. and naturally so does virgil. Though he wakes up the next day seemingly fine. How’d he get home? Does his dad know where he was?

I don’t know and we’re not getting any answers, but Virgil soon finds weird stuff happening like his clock shorting out, change being attracted to him and his razor going wild. It’s only once he get sback to his room he gets an inkling of what’s going on and calls Ritchie to meet him at the Junk yard.. though it is a bit of a dick move as he dosen’t you know, tell him anything about Wade or Francis right away. He does at the yard though.. and that he has powers, having finally figured out how to use them to a point. And the series does provide a decent justification later as to why he’d get this so quickly: Virgil is a smart kid, gets great grades at school and apparnetly there’s even an episode later where he gets a scholarship to a fancy genius school. So him getting how elctromagntisim works or being a quick study on it makes perfect sense. 

Richie suggest the obvious.. to become a superhero. And the thought.. hadn’t occured to Virgil. It’s honestly a nice twist on the old trope. That he hadn’t thought of it, not because he’s selfish or any of that or needs to learn a hard lesson, those have been done.. simply because the rush of getting his powers, and implicitly of having a way out of his current predciament, a way to keep Francis off his back and keep Wade from pulling him in further. His own path. But once i’ts brought up.. he jumps on it. Part of it is being a nerd like you or I, of course he wants to.. and being a good intetioned one, he knows this is the right thing to do. It’s waht makes a superhero a hero: Anyone can get powers in a universe like this, esepcailly the dcau, but it takes true courage and heart to use them selflessly and knowing you’ll be in danger. It’s why I love surperheroes: they often didn’t ask for this but they do it anyway because somebody’s gotta. We also get an intresting wrinkle is superman is, at least I think in this episode I could’ve missed it or misremembered things, mentioned as a fictional character. That’s because originally like the comics this wasn’t part of the DCAU.. but eventually the crew decided it shared staff from it, shared a network, both first run and on reruns, why not just make it part of the DCAU proper. I fully support this decisionf: While i’m midly annoyed unlimited never really used anything from static shock outside of Static himself in the time travel episode, despite you know Static and Gear having BEEN to the tower and not being much younger than Kara and defintely older than Courtney, I chalk it up to weird rights issues or something like that. But having Batman, Batman Beyond, Superman, Green Lantern and the Justice League itself all guest star was a good idea, and expanded both static’s universe and gave the DCAU something differnt as most heroes in it were older and more experinced in contrast to the up and coming virgil. Again really would’ve been nice if he and gear could’ve been a part of the expanded league but production might of just been too far ahead or, given he had his own series, they might just have wanted to stick to toher characters. Also begs the question why Icon or Hardware wasn’t adapted for the expanded League but hey, questions for later and the tricky logisitics of the milestone rights might’ve been the issue. I don’t know I wasn’t in the room. 

So we get a costume montage, including Black Vulcan from Superfriends, who again ironically would be voiced by Lamarr not too long after this, though weirdly they DON’T use his outfit from the comics for this montage. I mean why not? It fits the gag and would’ve been a good second to last choice.But what could’ve been aside we get our winner and cut back to present day...

Thanks boys. Static finds out one of the things in the warehouse is a shipment of computers for the school and can’t help but show off, showing up to the school, where Frieda and Richie are setting up for the dance, and dropping off the computers, and even saying his catchphrase for the first time “I’ll put a shock to your system” (Which Richie chimes in with awesome line and I agree, great catcphrase), before helping set up and flirting with frieda. 

Though as Richtie says he’s a natural. He’s not wrong as he can work a crowd. .but back it up too as his first run out had him easily taking out the crooks, and as many teen superheros and fans of heroes of hte type, myself included will tell you, getting it right in one is not easy. Not even Miles MOrales was immune. All Static needs now is a villian. 

And the end of the episode provides one as we see, in horrifc and once again damn suprising detail most of hte new metas aren’t doing so good and are melting and other stuff and we catch up with Francis whose burning up.. and naturally given that hair, though given he named himself F-Stop it’s the least of his problems, he’s got fire powers and escapes to “Have me some fun”

So with that we end episode 1. And it’s excellent, a great way to introduce the hero and while the warehouse opening is a bit superflous, it is a decent addition, showing our heroes first outing in costume and giving us a bit of an action scene to get us through the very heavy rest of the episode. But the rest of the episode is no less grippping, telling the tale of a teen caught in an unwinnable scenario who suddenly finds a way out. And speaking of which waht of Wade? Will we see him again? Is he perhaps Ebon, the series big bad as I thought when I was a kid? What comes of the man who directly caused static’s origin?

Yeahhh that’s the one mistep I think the pilot makes. Frieda is understandable as that was likely a simple change in creative direction. This though? Why build this guy up if your not going to bring him back. I mean where he went was probably the grave, as he probably did due to his mutation, but it’s still VERY weird to spend a whole episode focusing on this guy, building him up as a big personal threat to our hero.. and NOT have him become the series big bad. And maybe he WAS supposed to be ebon and they just changed their mind. I don’t know but it bothers me it bothers me a lot. Otherwise though flawless. ONe more to go. 

Aftershock: We open outside an electronics store, as our heroes watch the news reacap what happened in the first episode, with the media dubbing it the Big Bang and revealing their could be hundreds of “Metahumans”, as Virgil dubs after deciding the media’s term “Mutant” dosen’t fit, a nice wink to the fact that that’s the term used in dc comics and I believe milestone but could be wrong there. Me I like the term, has a nice ring to it. 

At the store while Richie mulls over waht this means Static finds out he’s a human CD player.... this was before mp3 players and streaming on your phone made them horribly obsolete mind you and if you don’t know what one is congradualtions you live in some sort of bubble and you made me feel really old junior. 

Frieda happens to be there and Virgil quips “What’s the matter they run out of britney cds”. Dude she’s not bad. Also be careful what you wish for man. Nickeback returned the year after this. You have not truly suffered through bad music yet my young friend. They spot a kid looking feverish, and he soon turns into a purple werewolf, as you do. It’s a bang baby.. those are richie’s exact word and you may not want to start a panic there bud. Just saying your best friend is one. THeir not all like this. Our heroes book it only to run into Francis who naturally refuses to let them leave and only doesn’t try to beat up Virgil because Virgil points otu the werewolf and nonplussed, he goes to fight it, scarring it off by revealing his own powers. He’s now dubbed himself Hotstreak which points for getting an actually good name kid. No points for what happens next as unsuprisingly getting powers did NOT mak ehim a better person and he attacks Virgil who blocks with a garbage can lid and thankfully is blasted into an ally. Richie tries to guard frieda for damn obvious reasons but gets hsi shirt burnt up because shut up Thankfully Static shows up, and we get our firsdt full on superhuman fight as both fight each other with aplomb, and it’s a damn good fight.. and one that goes pear shaped for Virg as he’s caught off guard when he finds out Hotstreak can use his powers to fly, and tackles him and his previous trauma causes him to freeze up. Thankfully , as Frieda put in a call earlier, the fire department arrive and HOt streak has to retreat, though Virgil is bummed that he “Choked”. And I love this as it not only shows Virgil’s inepxerince, as this is his first time fighting a bad guy but that just because he HAS power now dosen’t mean trauma and his previous fear of Hotstreak goes away or you won’t freeze up from time to time. It dosen’t make him weak or anything like some assholes would call it .. it makes him human. Humans make mistakes, and it makes him all the more relatable that he’s not pefect and that he did freeze up as I know I certainly would at last once in the circumstances. 

Things don’t get better at dinner as Sharon and Pops argue over the bang babies with Pops calling them a meance and Sharon pointing out Static exists so they can’t all be bad. See assuming a group of superhumans are bad because a handful of them ar edick sis why the x-men had to get their own island nation. You can only save an ungreatful populous so many times before you say “fuck it i’m getting my own island, pay me for life saving drugs, save your damn selves and stop doing genocides on us. Kay thanks”. But he does bring up a valid point that rattles his son: We don’t know anything about the Bang Babies or their biological structures and it’s likely they might further mutate into monsters, Static included. 

Virgil, understandably, wants to check this and thus he and richie compare blood samples in science, to no real conclusion. She he checks out with his doctor who assumes he’s sexually active in a great getting crap past the radar bit and a bit of realisim, but he agrees to the test though if something came up he would have to tell Virgil’s dsad and is up front about this. Nice dose of realisim.

That night City Council has a meeting and the Mayor TRIES to deflect Papa Hawkins questions about the bang babies which again, while being a judgmental ass as not every person hit was a gang member (Virgil, and as we discover later some others), and not every gang member is there by choice, some by circumstnace some, like virgil almost was, because they HAD no other option. Again years of reading x-men may of just made me a bit touchy on assholes admitely assuming superpower people bad. But it’s clear the public is upset and while she says an investigation is underway... Virgil and Richie are not only not convinced, but figure she’s actively covering it up. And unlike everyone else there who probably suspects the same, they can do something about it and tail her.  It’s during this, and cleverly as I didn’t realie till writing this using similar skills to his human cd player act, Virgil listens in and discovers whose behind it: Edwin Alva, whose apparently richer than bill gates and a beloved phinarophist Alva, as it turns out, was actually the arch enemy of Hardware in the comics, taking advantage of the guy in his civiliian idtentiy and thus casuing him to launch a war on the asshole. He does transition into this series well though, being the one behind the gas that caused it and with the mayor agreeing to back off, planning to simply dump the info about the big bang on a disc then destroy everything for now till the heat dies down. Yup sounds like a corprate douchebag. 

Static tails him, finds the lab and infiltrates it, stealing the disc.. but getting caught by Alva’s goon, and trapped in a glass prison, forced to use ALL his power to escape and barely getting out alive, but not before bouncing off alva’s car. Still he now has the proof.. and meanwhile Hotstreak, who I was wrong did get captured, is forced to take pill sbut spits them out once the orderly is gone. Dude.. WHY DIDN’T YOU WATCH HIM. Make sure he swallows that shit especially since, as he has no powers right now and can’t harm you. 

Hotstreak escapes off screen and our heroes discuss the disc before he shows up, and we get a REALLY fucking amazing scene: Virgil ducks into an Alleway and ritchie is worried.. and Virgil disarms him with just one word responses Ritchie: Virg you can’t take him.  Virgil: Gotta. Ritchie: Well at least wait for the fire department Virgil: Can’t.  It’s simpile but it gets the point across: This is his fight, he can’t wait for help, and people need him. And this is what makes a true hero: It’s easy to be a hero when everythings going well.. but it’s the true ones who stick it out against the odds and fight anyway. And he’s going to.  So we get one hell of a fight, though naturally Hotstreak burns up the disc. And I do like this as it dosen’t feel contrived.. yes Static could’ve left it with ritchie.. but he wasn’t thinking in the moment and dind’t really have time to think abotu the disc, only that people were being hurt and he was all they had between them and Hotstreak. It was no choice at all. Still that pisses Virgil off that the last night’s work is now worthless, and he fully charges up and curbstomps francis who retreats into a clearing. Hostreak brags when static follows, as even he’s figured out Static needs to be around metal, as he’s usually on his disc or the street, and in the park there suppodsidly isn’t any. But he’s not THAT smart as Virgil points out two things: one, he hoped to do this on PURPOSE so they wouldn’t be around people and no on e would get hurt and 2).. this is a city, there’s metal everywhere.. and he awesomely and cleverly proves it by unlodging a sewage pipe with his powers and dousing his foe, winning and proving his stuff. I love this solution, it’s a clever spider-man type way to disarm him, using smarts and the einvroment instead of just brute forcing it. Though the sewage part wasn’t intetional our hero still won and gets praise from the people dumb enough to follow the fight. 

However at home Virgil points out it was  Pyrrhic Victory and shows off his smarts by telling the tale behind it, which I didn’t know,because tv tropes didn’t exist yet: king pyrhus fought the romans and WON.. but had so little armies left that he still lost overall. That’s what this feels like to Virgil: he beat hotstreak but any chance at a cure for Bang Babies and Alva going to jail for causing them is gone. His mood does get a boost though as the doctor calls and reveals he’s fine, he just has a bit too much elctrolytes and just needs to lay off teh salt. He celebrates, we get a quick gag and the episode ends

Aftershock is another stellar episoe, giving us Virgil’s first super foe and a personal one at that, while showing some growth. As richie tells him he’s not virgil anymore he’s static and he can’t let his past get to him.. and he does’nt going from cowering in fear to easily beating his foe with simple logic. It’s a good followup that answers questions you may have from the first ep, like what does this do to virgil’s body, who supplied the gas, and why has no one done anything about this, and sets up another villian for Static in Alva. Great stuff. I highly recommend these episodes and the show as a whole: it’s fast paced, grounded and enjoyable, having just enough levity to not be too dour but just enough tension and stakes to be intresting. A throughly fantastic superhero show and one that i’d certainly love to revisit on this blog If you have an episode of static or the dcau in general you’d want me to cover, my comissions are open and details are on a tab on my blog or can be gotten simply by asking me via ask or dm. Tommorow we’re going deeper underground, there’s too much damage in this town as the Lena Retrospective continues. So expect gay ducks, straight ducks and some terrfirmains. See you next rainbow. 

[navegandoaciegas]

Sunshine Girl

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: fluff, soft!Bucky, mentions of injury (no graphic descriptions), 3.6k words

Summary: You are the sun and he’s simply basking in your light. And he’s so selfish, he thinks as he holds the velvet box with the diamond ring inside of it, he’s so damn selfish he wants to keep the light all to himself for the rest of his life.

Two years ago you were supposed to enjoy a solo road trip after years of Avenging, but Bucky invited himself along. Now you’re forced back to New York, and your boyfriend is ready to surprise you once again.

A/N: Bucky’s POV. Sequel to I love my baby to death, but I suppose you could read it on its own. As always forgive any mistakes, English is my third language.

Had to repost this cause it didn’t show up in the tags, hopefully this time it will

“I swear Buck, if I see one more damn corn plant I’m losing it. I am this close” you say pinching your thumb and pointer finger real close “to a mental breakdown. I’m never eating corn again, mark my words. No corn flakes, no corn on the cobble, no nothing. I’m done.”

“We’re in Iowa, in the middle of the corn belt, I don’t know what you were expecting.” he replies, slightly amused by your little outburst and sour mood.

“Well, clearly not ending up on the set of Children of the corn.” you groan, getting back to sulking in the passenger’s seat, seething at the fields that are only a scapegoat to the real problem.

You’d been merrily skiing in Montana when his skis got somehow tangled with yours and he tumbled down on you, dragging you down the slope. Hadn’t you injured yourself, rolling in the snow like it only ever happens in cartoons would have been pretty comical.

“What?” you screech, almost jumping off the stretcher and grimacing in pain when your left foot hits the metal poles at the side. “No. It’s just pain, I’m sure it will go away, right? I mean I was an Avenger, I’ve suffered worse than a fall.”

“I’m sorry, miss, but knee surgery will be necessary, the MRI here shows you’ve torn your ACL and from the looks of it, your left knee was already damaged badly, numerous times at that, probably a result of your time on the field.”

“I can’t, I can’t just get surgery, we’re miles away from home and I-”

You’re almost sobbing and Bucky feels like shit because he’s the reason for all this and all he can do now is pat your back reassuringly.

“Given the extent of the damage, I’m afraid there’s no other option.”

“How long is the recovery time?” he asks, voice unsure.

“Well, it’s my knowledge she’s not an enhanced individual, so like any average human it will take anywhere from 6 to 9 months to recover fully. In the meantime, no more hikes or sports.”

Bucky inhales a sharp breath. Six to nine months. No more hikes. Surely you’ll have to go back to New York.

God, you are so going to break up with him.

Turns out you didn’t dump him in Montana, you didn’t abandon him in one of those auto stops along Interstate 90 in South Dakota, and you don’t seem to want to break up with him amidst the green fields of Iowa, but still, he knows he will drive through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It almost seems like a cruel twist of fate, driving the same route you did as friends two years ago, along Interstate 80 headed East instead of West, only this time he’s not hoping to be more than the annoying old man who invited himself on your trip; he’s your boyfriend now, but maybe not for long.

“You know, you really are dramatic.” you say in a teasing tone, “I’m not going to break up with you, stop thinking about that, it was an accident, ‘s not like you beat me.”

“I know, I’m just sorry because you’re in pain and it’s my fault and now we have to get back home but I know you wanted to stay more and I did too and if I didn’t-” he’s rambling, and your place your hand on his thigh and squeeze reassuringly, offering him one of those sweet smiles he dies for.

“Buck, it’s okay” you interrupt his word vomit “like I said a million times before, it was an accident, it’s going to be fine I promise. I’m sorry if I made you think otherwise with my mood, I swear I’m just pissed at all this damn corn. We’re never going to a maze again, by the way.” That gets a laugh out of him, and he loves you even more because you’re always there to lift his spirits. “I’m dreading these next months, the surgery, physiotherapy and all, but I know you’re there for me, yes?”

He nods, teary eyed, and you continue, “And I can’t lie, it’s been a while, I’m kind of excited to see everyone again, I mean except for Sam of course,” you say, as if he didn’t “live rent free in your head”, like Sam himself put it, “Jesus that man, how many of our trips has he invited himself on? I’ve lost count. ‘Member when we found him waiting for us in Phoenix? Fuckin’ weirdo.”

You both chuckle at the memory of Sam in your motel room, waiting on your bed with crossed arms like a disappointed parent, pissed off because you hadn’t called in a week and he was worried sick that something may have happened to you, a deadly sniper, and him, the Winter fuckin’ Soldier. Truth is, Bucky was so excited about your new relationship that he rarely let you leave the bed when you were in your room, and when you did you were in no condition to Facetime anyone, with your smudged mascara and swollen lips.

“I’ve heard Clint will come visit us with Laura and the kids. Nathaniel must be so big now.” you add, your eyes glazed over as you think of the little boy who was named after your Natasha.

“God, Morgan is probably all grown up.” he muses, a tinge of sadness in his voice. You squeeze his thigh again. “And the spider kid too, he’s a grown man now.”

“That he is.” you chuckle, “But to me he’ll always be the boy in the red spanx who knocked us on our asses in Berlin.”

He smiles and shakes his head at the memory, and you both fall in a comfortable silence. Now that he’s not consumed by fear anymore, Bucky kind of agrees with you that all this green is, in fact, nauseating.

“You know what, no more popcorn either.”

“Deal.”

-

A year and something ago

Arizona

“Can you believe there’s a city in New Mexico called Truth or Consequences? We should totally go and visit just for the hell of it, sounds like the type of place Steve Rogers should have been born into.” you state with all the seriousness in the world, and he snorts because after all this time you still haven’t found it in yourself to stop mocking Steve’s righteousness.

You’re walking ahead of him and he’s so distracted by your tiny denim shorts that he, the master of stealth, almost trips over a boulder. You’re always pretty but tonight, illuminated by the orange sky of Arizona, you look like a dream. And you’re so happy, snapping photos at everything you see, that even if Bucky hates the desert and the heat makes him uncomfortable, he won’t tell you, because the look on your face makes it all worth it.

“Baby, look at this big boy here, he’s like 20 feet tall. Oh my god, he’s so cute and beefy, just like you.” you gush at one of the giant cactuses of Saguaro National Park.

He raises his eyebrows skeptically.

All he sees are green spiky motherfuckers that he’s accidentally hurt himself with more times that he’d like to admit in all those damn ‘hikes’ you like so much, but to you cactuses are the most beautiful sight in the word. He genuinely does not see the appeal, but he understands now how you feel when he talks about all his ‘nerd shit’, as you call it.

“I’m cuter.” he says frowning.

“Of course you are.”

For some reason you don’t sound convincing at all.

-

It’s only spring but here in Tucson the temperature is 85 degrees today and he’s sweating buckets underneath the long sleeved t-shirt he’s wearing to conceal his vibranium arm. He’s long past the time when he was forced to hide from authorities or the general public’s judgement, but still he doesn’t want to be recognized and attract attention. He doesn’t do well with crowds, and he doesn’t understand how you can be so calm and collected when people stare at you and ask for photographs while you’re minding your own business.

As soon as you get back to the motel you’re staying at he takes off his soaked shirt, not caring that the air conditioning is probably going to end his old ass.

“What the hell happened to you?” you ask, scowling as you analyze the skin around his prosthetic.

He shrugs. “It happens sometimes.”

“Why?”

“No idea.”

“Don’t you fuckin’ lie to me James.”

You only call him that when he’s in big trouble. He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose: why do you have to be so damn stubborn all the damn time? “It’s nothing sweetheart, just sometimes the skin becomes flared when it’s too hot.”

“Nothing?” you shrill, throwing your hands around animatedly, “Nothing? Bucky your whole shoulder is super red and irritated, don’t act like it’s normal. We’ve been in the sun for hours, for days really, why didn’t you tell me anything? I would have driven us back here immediately. Does it hurt?”

“That’s why I didn’t tell you, I didn’t want to ruin your fun, you liked it so much there. And no, it only itches a little.”

Your eyes soften and you move to cup his face in your hands, looking at him with so much love that he feels himself melt away into a puddle, “Baby you don’t need to do that, you know I care more about you than anything else.”

“Even more than the cactuses?”

“Well, now you’re asking too much of me.”

He snorts and playfully hits your arm, then he falls back on the bed and drags you down with him. You stay cuddled like that for a while before you pull back to look into his eyes.

“I appreciate you doing this for me Buck, but you don’t ever need to sacrifice your own comfort for me, okay?”

“I know, I’m sorry. But you looked so happy.”

“Don’t be, and I’m always happy with you, I promise.”

“I’m always happy too.”

“We’re such saps. Gross. Anyways, guess where we’re going next?” you ask him cheerfully, scratching his scalp the way that makes him purr like a cat.

“The plan was New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana, right?” he frowns. You’d made plans together ages ago and you were so excited about visiting Texas of all places for God knows what reason. He’s predicted already that he won’t stand the suffocating, humid heat of that whole area. At least Arizona was dry as hell.

You on the other hand, everyday he’s become more aware of how much of a lizard you are, seeking the sun and walking around in the scorching heat not even breaking a sweat.

“Guess again baby boy, we’re going straight to Oregon. I mean, it's not Alaska but it’s not as hot as the desert here, right?

“Wait, what? Why?”

“Because I don’t want you to overheat?” you state like it’s obvious, rolling your eyes, “We’ll do New Mexico and the rest next fall, and now Oregon and Washington because it’s a little cooler there. So what do you say?” You ask with a hopeful look in your eyes.

“Princess I appreciate you doing this for me, but I promise I’ll be fine. You don’t have to change plans for me, this is your road trip.”

“No you won’t Buck, you’re not doing good and I don’t ever want to see you suffer, you understand? By the time we get to Texas it will be summer and you won’t stand it, it’s better if we visit when it’s colder.”

He smiles softly. He knows he’d do the same for you. “Then Oregon it is.”

You get up from the bed and head to the bathroom to shower, “Oh, and baby?” you call out,  peeking your head from behind the door, “This is your road trip too, never forget that.”

-

Oregon

“Why does Thor get to have places named after him and we don’t? We were Avengers too.”

“But are we norse gods?”

“I mean, not yet, but I definitely deserve some nature’s wonder, or at least a star, to be named after me.”

“I’ll call WMO and get them to name a hurricane after you, princess. It seems more fitting.”

“Asshole.”

You’d been camping somewhere in Oregon’s wilderness when he came up with the idea of visiting all of the State’s so called seven wonders, starting from Thor’s Well on the Coast and ending in Mount Hood near Portland. You took a thousand photos of each attraction and sent a video of the water seemingly draining inside the famous well to the God himself, who enthusiastically expressed his appreciation.

Bucky’s cherished every minute of it, from the hot springs of Crater Lake to the chillier temperatures at night that force you to snuggle closer to him to warm up.

You’re in Portland now, and you’re thoroughly enjoying it, but what’s new about that? You’re always so full of life, so genuinely excited about everything the world has to offer that he’d be worried if you weren’t having the time of your life as you usually are.

He likes the city too, which is saying a lot.

“Blueberries are the superior berry and that’s the hill I’m willing to die on.”

You’ve been eating your way through Portland for weeks, and you’ve been discussing pies for a solid thirty minutes now. It’s raining outside and you’re cooped up in a small pie shop, eating more than an average human can and receiving weird looks from the waitress as you tell her to ‘keep ‘em coming’.

“I’m sorry but you’re wrong princess,” he states with a stuffed mouth just for the sake of aggravating you to no end, “blackberries are just so much better.”

It works as you grimace in disgust, both at his statement and his manners.

He’s found out you are weirdly opinionated when it comes to pies: pecan pies are an abomination, pumpkin doesn’t belong in dessert, lemon pie and key lime pie are only acceptable if someone’s grandma is kindly offering them to you, rhubarb pie without strawberries is a threat to mankind and cherry and blueberry pies are the absolute best. Apple pie is too bland to even take the time to discuss it, although the taste is likeable enough.

He on the other hand likes anything pie and anything sweet. And anything that gets a rise out of you.

“Please Buck, this isn’t even a blackberry pie, it’s some sort of inbred experiment that turned out kinda right.”

He shushes you, barely holding back a laugh when he sees the waiter side eyeing you as you disrespect one of Oregon’s most famous dishes, “First of all, it’s called marionberry and it’s a type of blackberry. And second, keep it down unless you want us to be kicked out, you’re offending a whole state.”

“Sorry.” you shrug, “But blueberry tartness level is where I draw the line, anything more than that is unacceptable.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re still a child and haven’t developed adult taste buds yet baby.” He does love his senior citizen card a bit too much.

This earns him a kick under the table and a scowl. “Stop it, grandpa.” you groan.

He grins and digs in your slice of marionberry pie. You resume to people watching.

God, he loves Oregon. And he loves you.

He really is a sap.

-

Wyoming

Washington was nice enough. You’ve taken him bar crawling most nights, and all of them have ended with him giving you a piggyback ride, per your request, back to the hotel room you were staying at.

It takes 13 hours to drive from Seattle to Yellowstone and you’ve driven all the way. You refused to disclose the destination of the trip and he’s fallen asleep the last 3 hours in the car. He’d mentioned he wanted to see the geysers somewhere in Pennsylvania two years ago and you remembered and took him.

Bucky couldn’t be happier.

He’s still describing the constellations above you when you fall asleep, and he’s so absorbed by the sky that he doesn’t notice until your head falls on his shoulder and he hears your soft snores.

He picks you up bridal style and takes you back to the fancy tent he bought on a whim in Ohio after you both slept in the SUV and woke up with major back and neck pain. He smiles as he removes your makeup with a wipe and does your skincare just the way you taught him, and admires your relaxed state.

He grazes your pretty face with his vibranium fingers, something so unimaginable to him before he met you, as he never thought his arm could bring anything other than pain.

Back when he was a semi stable 100 year old man thrust in another fight yet again, he hadn’t realized the extent of his feelings for you, believing he was only attracted to your beauty and youth. He hadn’t seen the way your smile lights up a whole room, nor the way you listen, truly listen, to anyone who may have anything to tell you, without ever judging them. He hadn’t witness your kindness and patience, let alone experienced them on his own skin. He hadn’t been lucky enough to watch you feed bird seed to the ducks of every pond of the country, or try to rescue a cat from a rooftop and almost falling off to save it.

Then Sam told him you were leaving and he felt like the word was collapsing on him. He’d found the sunlight and he never wanted to be without it.

Now he’s seen it all, all the little things that make you who you are, including your flaws, and he loves you not regardless of them, nor in spite of them, but because even your worst imperfections make you… you.

Bucky doesn’t know if meeting you was a way for the universe to fix all the wrongs that have been done to him, a sort of payback for all the shit he’s been put through, but in case it is, then he’s got no objections. And maybe he doesn’t deserve someone as good as you, but he’s a selfish man, and now that his sunshine girl is with him he never wants to plunge back into the the darkness ever again.

He tucks you both under the sleeping bag and snuggles next to you.

“Buck?” you mumble in a haze, tugging at his t-shirt, “Love you.”

It’s almost imperceptible, but his supersoldier hearing allows him to pick it up. He kisses the crown of your hair as he caresses your back.

“I love you too sweetheart.”

He wants to spend the rest of his time on Earth proving you how much.

-

New York

6 months later

The doctor wasn’t lying when she warned you that recovery would take 6 to 9 months.

You said the aftermath of the operation hurt like a bitch and that physiotherapy hurt even more. Today’s your last session and Bucky is glad about it for many reasons, like how you’re not in pain anymore for starters, and maybe because of how annoyingly fun, smart and hot your therapist is. Not like he’d ever admit it to you.

“Jesus,” you groan, “he turned me inside out like a sock, I can’t feel my legs anymore.”

“Sounds fun.” he deadpans.

“Someone’s jealous of the doctor?” you ask with a mischievous smirk.

“‘M not. He’s not all that.” he mumbles, blushing like a school boy.

You snort and drawl a ‘sure’. He sends you his best death glare.

“Whatever. I hope you don’t mind if we take a stop before going home.” he announces, helping you into the car. His palms feel clammy and he’s sweating despite the chilly winds of New York’s fall.

“Sure, where are we going?”

“Actually, that’s kind of a surprise, you’ll see.”

You beam at his words; he knows you love surprises and he hopes you’re going to like this one.

----

You look radiant as you lie on the blanket he’s spread on the grass, surrounded by colorful foliage. You’re sipping some of your favorite wine and nibbling on crackers as you admire a flock of birds migrating south in the sky.

You are the sun and he’s simply basking in your light. And he’s so selfish, he thinks as he holds the velvet box with the diamond ring inside of it, he’s so damn selfish we wants to keep the light all to himself for the rest of his life.

He’s prepared a long, passionate speech to tell you how much he loves you, of all the ways you’ve changed his life for the better and of all the reasons why he’d be a good husband.

But when you look at him with those bright eyes and beaming smile, he can barely remember his own name. He drops on one knee and holds the box out with shaky hands.

“Marry me, please.”

----

Thank you for reading! If you liked it, please reblog and comment, don’t be shy, feedback is always appreciated 🥺🤲

[aizawaskittenwhore]

  𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐮𝐭

words:3.7k

pairing: aizawa x fem!reader

warnings: tw mention of blood, tw mentions of death, mentions of drugs in case you forgot this is a cartel au, murder, swearing, keigo being a cocky lil fucker, sexual harassment towards the end cause yakuza men suck

rating: 18+ cause shit gets real this chapter

a/n: i FINALLY FINISHED IT FUCK YES chapter two mothafuckas!!! i’ve been having so much fun brainstorming everything to come, and here you’re gonna really get a feel for how big this cartel is. player two, f/n l/n, you’re up! <3

all rights reserved ©️aizawaskittenwhore. do not copy, repost, or modify.

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐰𝐨: 𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐝’𝐬 𝐞𝐲𝐞 𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 ↳ 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐞

September 13th, 2181

2:56pm

Musutafu, Japan

“Hold the fuck up. This doesn’t make any sense, I mean—these are Pros. Well known and well respected Pros, at that. The hell would they be tryna’ run a fucking cartel for?!?” Ken Takagi (more commonly known as Rock Lock) rubbed the bridge of his nose in confusion, not understanding the motive or correlation. “I mean think about it. These motherfuckers got more money than they know what to do with. Endeavor is a shareholder in goddamn Nintendo, Hawks owns his own fucking agency and line of sports cars, and I could’ve sworn I saw Eraser getting Shinsou fitted for a fucking Cuban on his birthday a few months ago. It’s not like they’re strapped for cash these days.” Ken huffed, the agent’s arms crossed as he leaned back in the conference chair.

In an attempt to try and broaden the range on your current investigation, your department recruited the help of several Pros to provide reinforcements in Japan, the States, and wherever else sales were being made. Going undercover was already plenty dangerous, and going alone was the equivalent of signing your own death warrant. Enlisting the help of Rock Lock, Ryukyu, Miruko, Fatgum, Edgeshot and plenty of others was relatively easy; these were Heroes that had experience with smugglers and narcotics-based operations, so when you’d approached them with the task at hand, they’d happily agreed.

However, some needed more convincing than others.

“Takagi. Think about it. Sure, they may not be living paycheck to paycheck, but look at the timeline.” You state, looking over your shoulder towards the holographic board displaying an interactive timeline of the investigation, including photos, invoices and even audio recordings pulled from surveillance cameras. “Two years ago, we seized a truck containing approximately 78 kilograms of crack cocaine. When we questioned the driver on where he was taking it and where he got it from, he didn’t budge. Luckily for us, the dumbass wasn’t smart enough to avoid a paper trail, leaving the insurance documents in the glove compartment when we’d taken him into custody. The insurance company was under the name “Target Lance”, but after doing some digging on the name we found out the corporation went bankrupt six months before and was eventually bought out by Chevrolet.” Pausing to return to the screen welded to the wall behind you, your hands swiped as you searched for the file reading December 5th, 2178: A live video feed of a towering skyscraper being built, the building’s name reading “Chevrolet Corvette Inc.” as it hovered above tens of stories above each worker.

“But you all haven’t heard the name Chevy in a while right? That’s because two weeks after that building was built, the hundred-million dollar company was bought out by Takami Corporate-”

“-who owns Takami Motors. Which is the brand associated with the Peregrine Speedsters, Hawks’ damned sports car line.” Ken finished for you, brown spheres twinkling in sudden clarity. “Now you’re speaking my language.” You nod, hands waving as you continue to brief the room of Pros.

“The Todoroki and Nintendo console collaboration didn’t happen until about earlier this year, March to be specific. Which is quite convenient..since around that time the price of cocaine per gram stabilized in both America and Japan, rising from $112 to $138 bucks a pop. I’m nobody to speak on looks either, but for as long as we’ve known of him, Eraser has dressed like a depressed college student with insomnia that doesn’t understand the concept of soap or a pair of clippers. Now he’s got his wife in Cartier bracelets and getting his shirts tailored because the collar “doesn’t allow him enough room for his capture weapon”?!? Bullshit.” You huff, stifling a smile as you watch Miruko and Edgeshot snicker in their seats at your...blunt observation.

“It makes sense. Three years ago all our agencies, including those overseas, started cutting our checks down by half. They can barely afford to pay us a quarter of what we used to make, and these guys are making these lavish purchases while we all starve?? No way. Something’s fishy, and it’s damn sure not this takoyaki.” Fatgum spat, hands quivering with rage as he struggled to grasp the food with his chopsticks.

“Fatgum’s right. Hero unemployment is at a staggering 8.7 percent. Meanwhile, these men are spending money like it’s going out of style. It makes no sense.” Miruko pondered, Ryukyu folding her hands in her lap as she voiced her approval for immediate action. Edgeshot nodded in agreement, brows furrowed in frustration at this blatant disregard for the law. “So we’re all in agreement that our own people have resorted to breaking the law. Cool, got it. Question is, why? And what the hell are we gonna do about it?” Ken demanded, his patience having worn thin from all this speculation.

“Good question. I think they’re trying to take advantage of the tough spot the Hero Commission is in right now, manipulate that vulnerability and use it for their own gain. They’re not invulnerable to the tough times Pros are facing in the workforce. So they’ve gotten together to try and make it work for them, even if it means breaking the law.” You query, hands typing furiously at the virtual screen to pull up the files of each Hero, displaying all the current information on them from their blood type to each known family member. “These three banding together though? Along with other people? There’s no way. They hate each other. Or at the very least couldn’t get anything done even if they did have a common goal in mind.” Edgeshot murmured lowly.

“I thought so too. But then it hit me: it’s not just some flimsy group project. Sure, crime has gone up since the formation of this cartel, but nobody who holds any rank has been murdered or harmed in any way. No no no, these guys are singing in tune for now...which means there’s a damn good choir director among them. So I’ve volunteered to go undercover, work my way through this organization and figure out just how high up this goes.” You assert, shoulders rigid and chin aloft as the harnesses of your costume frame your figure.

“Alone?? Are you outta your goddamn mind? Let me go, you’ll need back up-” Rock Lock sputters, hands fanning out in shock.

“No way. What about your wife, your kid?! This isn’t just some average drug bust, we’re dealing with powerful men in possession of superhuman abilities that have the game on lockdown. You’ve got too much to lose, more than any of us anyway. Edgeshot and I will go, we’ve seen the other side of the law before, and our quirks are better suited for stealth should anything go wrong.” You fire, eyes narrowing into slits. “The rest of you will be working in tandem with the DEA and our resources, and we’ll report back to you with all future developments. We’ll also need you to be ready to fight at a moment’s notice, if we need it.”

A thick silence clogged the air, Ken settling back into his seat across the table. His amber eyes flickered in irritation before huffing in acceptance, the situation being out of his hands. All the conference participants’ gazes fixed in determination, some with anger. The tense aura weighed on everyone present before Miruko cleared her throat, ivory teeth gleaming in a smirk.

“Well we’ve got a solid plan. So all I wanna know is...when do we start?

June 2nd, 2182

In all honesty...you thought the nickname was just a sad attempt to stroke his ego. But seeing the way over seventy commercial-size planes and approximately 30 seaplanes sat aloft balmy concrete in the Guadalajara sun showed you exactly why they called Hawks “Lord of The Skies”. Arrays of laborers with avian-oriented quirks loaded kilo after kilo of coke on to each and every plane, some by hand and others by forklift. Welders were personally hand selected by Keigo himself to eliminate the issue of utilizing every available inch of space; each vessel having been stripped of everything from the seats to the built in mini-bars (much to Keigo’s chagrin). From where you stood in the scalding hot beams, the runway seemed to extend for miles as it brimmed with visible heat-waves.

Dressed in a simple black tank top, black biker type shorts, aluminum plated gauntlets, steel toed combat boots and harnesses that encapsulated the curves of your body before coming to a stop at your thighs, you silently rejoiced in the airflow your gear allowed you in spite of the color. The bandanna atop your hairline helped to absorb some of the sweat, which was a bonus.

“Not bad for a starter fleet huh? The wingspan on these babies almost makes me jealous.” A rich and decadent voice called from your left. Sleek carmine appendages and brassy blond hair entered your peripheral vision, giving way to the man who ran the show: Keigo Takami. Adorned in a pair of low rise denim jeans that were so incomprehensibly tight they accentuated every bit of his dick (which was likely intentional), a plain white tee and ebony cowboy boots that looked like they cost three times what you make in a week; he most definitely looked the part of the People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” and Playboy’s “Player of the Month” titles he’d earned. Luminous olive skin glistened with sweat, droplets sliding down the deep v neck of his shirt with ease; the way the daisy-hued fabric stuck to his crafted abdomen leaving nothing to the imagination. Tourmaline and Argentium piercings dangled effortlessly from both ears, and if you weren’t so hell-bent on putting the motherfucker in jail you would’ve had no problem admitting how attractive he really was.

“Starter fleet? You’re about to put Delta out of business, look at this shit!” You guffaw, arms folded, an eyebrow raised in astonishment at his “humble” admission. “Flattery will get you everywhere, and then some.” Keigo chuckles, breath hot against your ear the instant he bends at the waist, hands settled in his pockets with that cocky aura about him.

“-And having your damn breath against my ear in 107 degree weather will, respectfully, get you my foot up your ass. I didn’t fly down here to get treated like one of your poor interns. I came here to make money, so let’s talk it.” You lash, the climbing tempature slicing your tolerance for bullshit to shreds.

“Shit. Straight to the point huh? I like it. You wanna talk shop, say no more. Over lunch though, I’m starving out here.” Keigo clicks his teeth with a grin, escorting the two of you towards the very jet he’d arrived in. “A little unknown fact about me, usually I hate flying ”conventionally”. Gives me anxiety, and I’m awful company when I’m nervous.”

Settling into the light taupe hued cabin, you observe the not-so-subtle elements of class. Ivory shochu bottles with intricate crystalline glasses to match, the bar fully stocked with gold accents along the upholstery. Plates of costly Kobe style beef rested atop spotless porcelain, romaine lettuce coupled with grilled applewood bacon, chicken, avocado and buttermilk dressing settled into envy-inducing black marble bowls. The plane was spacious, and certainly cost a pretty penny or two. “You’re upfront, so I’ll be honest with you. As of right now, this plane is the last thing I’m worried about-” Hawks mutters lowly, dijon eyelets tapering into thin slivers.

“-It’s the Shie Hassaikai making their encore appearance, and with the Colombians at that.”

You choke on a sip of Vega Sicilia, pupils dilating at the thought. 

“Now you spoke about wanting to make some money, right?” You nod, heart rate steadily rising. 

“What if I could offer you something more? Something of...extensive value.” Keigo drawled, dark undertone flooding the air like a thick smoke.  “Like what, Takami?” You inquire.

“A seat at the table.” He shrugs, like one would if they were discussing something as trivial as ice cream flavors or Friday night plans, not the reorganization of a crime syndicate. “You’ve been workin’ for me shy of a year now right? Somethin’ like that? Anyway..”

He takes a deep, contemplative swig of the chestnut liquid, eyes boring into yours. 

“You’re efficient, and you don’t take anyone’s shit. Good help’s hard to find in our line of work, and before you know it, this little hierarchy is gonna go under some..reorganization. Only the people who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty will have a place in the new order, so I want you there.”

“What’s the catch? I’m not dumb enough to just assume this is some promotion for busting my ass.” You tread, brain working double-time to try and decipher just what Keigo’s getting at. “Clever girl. It’s a simple task, in and out.” He assures, middle and ring finger sliding a matte-finish photo across the mahogany. Displayed was Kinan Zango, a member of the Shie Hassaikai’s middle rankings shaking hands with Joaquin Fuentes, a Columbia native known for having a body count in the double digits. 

“Another fact about me: Only one thing heightens my anxiety more than planes...people who fuck with my money. This asshole Kinan’s been selling my routes to the fucking Columbians and pocketing the profits, and getting 20% of the product as a little “thank you” when he knows nobody moves coke through the Gulf other than Takami fucking Keigo. He’s becoming a problem, and I don't like those.” Kei growls, left eye twitching minutely. His nails are sinking into the polish of the wood, his energy vehemently furious.

“Take care of this for me, and you’ll be my plus one to Guadalajara tomorrow.”

The general public often made the mistake of writing Keigo off as just your average “pretty boy”. Whereas a trained eye could see that while he may be pretty, he was nobody to be tested. The sheer intellect he possesses to seek, hand-craft each and every route, assign planes to their designated locations along with alternatives should there ever be an issue? He just didn’t get enough credit. 

So he took major offense when someone had the audacity to treat his hard work as though it was theirs.

Besides.. you got a man with looks, money and bloodlust? Tch. You’ve just created a monster.

You weren’t necessarily opposed to the idea of ridding the world of another drug-dealing degenerate, but the idea of casually committing a murder as a DEA agent in a foreign country just didn't sit right with you. Undercover agents weren’t permitted a “license to kill” should the investigation call for it either, so it was between committing a murder as government agent, or declining Keigo’s request and missing out on a front row seat to the cartel’s entire operation.

The silence that followed his sentence was deafening. Ice cubes chimed loftily as they swirled around inside his glass, clear liquid sloshing around while he awaited an answer.

Your jaw sets, eyes piercing into his. 

“Consider it done.”

Blood spattered onto the pale concrete, moonlight illuminating the scarlet hues. Your knuckles throbbed with pain, the sensation blossoming through your hand as your lips curled back in a snarl, vigorously ridding your hands of the other man’s bodily fluids. 

“ If you really think coming after me for that bird brained motherfucker is gonna change anything, you got another thing fucking coming.” Kinan spat, nose steadily flowing with red. His lip was busted, face splotched with yellowing purple bruises. Tugging at his restraints he thrashed, mouth spewing white-hot venom.

“You’re talking a lot of shit for a middle-ranking yakuza who thinks some new coke routes is gonna keep the Hassaikai from dumping your body on the side of some road in Zacatecas.” You observe, sending a harsh kick between the mans ribs, steel toed boots making an audible crack. “The Japanese are like Dixie Cups to them...”‘use em’ once, then throw em’ away”, right? You’re a fool if you think your days aren't numbered once you wear out your welcome.”

“Fuck you. You’re little boy toy threw a temper tantrum, so he sent you to “take care of things”, isn’t that right?” Kinan coos, eyes softening in a mocking pout. 

“Trust me, you're not the first slut Takami’s been sticking it in that he’s sent to kill me. Only difference between you and the rest of those bitches-” He huffs, head craning back against the metal chair to let our a soft breath of laughter. “-is that you’re gonna put up a fight.”

Suddenly his bones began to shift, popping and snapping as his skin began to pool below him; you recoiled in fear watching his body slowly slip from his imprisonment like gelatin exits a mold.

“I’ve got elastic bones kid! Whatever breaks just snaps right back into place.”

Skin stretching and pulling as he regained his original form, legs sprinting towards you. Before you could fire off your Quirk’s sonic blast his grip seized the back of your neck, a blade taking residence just below your left eye; it’s tip pressing uncomfortably into your water line. 

“Now, if you're good, I’ll make it quick. Though I’m known for being pretty... through with my toys.” Kinan leers, a hand slowly slithering down your sides to reach for the muscle of your ass. 

“Go to hell, and die there while you’re at it!” You shout.

Bile creeping into your throat, you seize the momentary shift in energy, generating a small sound wave that sent Kinan a few feet to your left; giving the two of you some distance. Your Quirk allowed you to absorb sound to power-up your physical movements, or send it out in the form of sonic blasts or sound waves, so the louder the sound, the more power it gave you. Readying your fists in anticipation for combat, you silently willed for a sudden disruption in the deafening silence as he rushed back to your rigid body. 

What you didn’t anticipate was that the sudden bang that filled the air, and the lifeless body of Kinan dropping to your feet with a thud, his head...

excavated, for lack of a better word.

“Don’t you know the entire point of having backup while under cover is to... call for backup?” Edgeshot snarked, striding towards you, gun settled back into it’s holster. His foot carelessly nudged the bleeding man before removing a Polaroid camera from his knapsack and snapping a photo of the carnage.

“W-what the fuck?! Look, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful when I say this, but what the absolute fuck did you just do??? We’re government agents, in a foreign country, we can’t just fucking murder these assholes nor do we have the license to-” You sputter, brows arching in frustration.

“This was your ticket into Guadalajara. I just secured you box seats when you were this close to getting stuck in the damned nosebleeds. I believe the correct words you’re looking for are thank you.” Kamihara snaps, shoving the photo into your hand. 

“We’re in a world completely different from our own. It’s forgiveness first, and permission later down here. I don’t like it either...but it’s just the way things are.” He sighs, hanging his head while his shoulders settled like the solar system rested on them. 

“I’ll take care of this. Now take that to Hawks, and don’t you dare fuck it up. Don’t let me have killed this poor asshole in vain.” 

You nod, stepping over Kinan’s body. 

Good riddance.

“Thank you, by the way.” You putter. Kamihara returns the sentiment with a nod, before turning to the corpse before him, phone raised to his ear as he spoke with whoever was on the opposite line, eyes that were once grey now swam with deep scarlet.

“Excellent work! I won’t lie, I had a feeling you were hardcore, but damn, this is some seamless shit! You deserve my praise.” Keigo beams, pearly teeth sparkling in the light of the cabin. Nodding in acceptance you grasped his hand upon his offering, permitting him to escort you towards your respective aircraft.

“Well, a promise is a promise. And if nothing else, I’m most certainly a man of my word. Meet me at this airstrip same time tomorrow, 8am. Pack light, Mexico’s a bitch in the summer, though you already know that.”

“Got it. Pleasure doing business with you, Hawks.”

“Call me Keigo, if you want. I hate all the formal shit, long as we got respect, that's all I need.” He shrugs.

“Understood. See you tomorrow, Keigo.” You affirm, climbing the ladder to your jet, body visibly relaxing at the thought of rest.

“Wait--before you go, I wanted to ask ya. What’s with the whole ancient hieroglyphics tat you got goin on, on your spine? It just looks familiar, is all.” He queries.

Home.

November 12th, 2174.

“Y/N! I found somethin’! It’s this super cool protection rune I found in grandma’s things. Check it out! It wards off all evil, and whoever’s in possession of it can, like, balance their energy with the divine power.”

“You’re such a hippie, I swear to god.” You grin.

“Don’t hate because my chakras are balanced and yours aren’t, bitch.” She grinned, index and thumb coming together to flick your forehead. 

“At least take it with you for your exam, for good luck! Pleaseeeee! I think it’ll really help.” Her doe eyes melting your steely resolve. You could never deny her, those eyes constantly solidifying her role as the younger sister. 

“...Only if you’ll clean my room for me when I come back for Christmas.” You demand, an eyebrow raised in mirth.

“Deal.”

And even though you never did admit it to her, that tiny piece of paper tucked into your bra did more for you during that exam than any late night cram session ever could’ve.

“It’s a protection rune. To ward off all evil energies, spirits and all that shit.” You mutter.

“Hm. Looks like it works, seeing how well tonight panned out for ya. Could use me one, would probably keep old man Todoroki out my fuckin’ hair.” He chuckles, hands releasing from the railing as he threw you a wave.

“But I wouldn’t worry too much about tomorrow, anyway. I got a feeling you’re gonna fit in just fine with us.” He smirked.

Ah.

If only that were true, Keigo.

taglist! : @liliesoftherainmain @therealwalmartjesus

[blackhakumen]

Mini Fanfic #771: Burgers Date Night (Super Smash Bros Ultimate)

7:34 p.m. at Big Bang Burgers.......

Kyoko: (Giggles Softly While Sitting Next to Her Girlfriend and Boyfriend Together on a One Sided Table) I still can't believe you actually wore a tuxedo on our date night, Pitto-Kins~

Misako: (Starts Snickering) Yeah. (Playfully Pulls Dark Pit's Cheek Next to Her) Were you planning on wooing us for the rest of the night, babe?~

Dark Pit: (Scoffs While Rolling his Eyes) You wish. I'm only wearing this cause mom told me that I should look presentable in these type of occasions....

Kyoko: Was it your goddess mom that told you that or your witch mom?

Dark Pit: Both of them.....But speaking of which, why exactly didn't you guys wanna go to your school prom tonight? Not that I mind spending the night here eating out or anything, but isn't attending prom suppose to be more important or something?

Misako: (Simply Shrugs) Nah. We just never really been interested in going to that kind of stuff.

Kyoko: Yeah. (Slumps Her Head Down on the Table) It also doesn't help the fact that stupid Hasebe and Mami are attending there too. One of them probably already won Prom Queen as we speak....

Misako: (Starts Rolling her Eyes in Annoyance) Or both of them at the same time.....

Dark Pit: You really don't like those girls, do you?

Misako: Not in a million years. They've been a pain in our asses since kindergarten.

Kyoko: Always thinking they're so much better than us in every way.....

Dark Pit: ('Tch') Please. There's no way those stuck up twerps are better than either of you girls.

Misako: Tell that everyone else in our classes.....

Dark Pit: Well, your classmates obviously have piss-poor taste. You guys are a lot more amazing than anyone gives you credit for. Or at least....(Starts Blushing a Little) I....think you're both amazing.....

Kyoko: (Heart Begins to Melt in Pure Happiness as She Hugs Dark Pit on her Side) Your such a sweetheart, Pitto-Kins~

Misako: (Hugs Dark Pit and Kyoko on Her Side) Yeah. Not to mention a handsome cutie too~ (Gives Dark Pit a Kiss on the Cheek)

Dark Pit: (Blush Turns Brightly Red as He Starts Bashfully Looking Away) W-Whatever.... Can we just order something already?

Kyoko: Ooh! (Excitedly Points at a Picture of a Giant Looking Burger on Front of Her Menu) We can totally do the Big Bang Burger challenge together!

Misako: (Raised an Eyebrow in a Bit of Confusion) "The Big Bang..." what now?

Kyoko: The Big Bang Burger challenge! It's this really cool challenge everyone been talking about in school. We'll be King and and Queens in this establishment if we can beat!

Misako: King and queens, huh? (Turns to Dark Pit) What do you say, DP? Wanna give this challenge a go?

Dark Pit: (Simply Shrugs) Eh. I'm down. Might not gonna be that much of a challenge any-

Few Minutes Later......

The trio widened their eyes in horror at how big and wide the Big Bang Burger in front of them, really is.

Strength..... Courage.....Wit..... Endurance.....All these skills and more are cruial to completing THE BIG BANG BURGER CHALLENGE!!!

Kyoko: I-I-Is this really that big of a burger?.....

Waiter: (Smiles Brightly) Yep! Biggest one we've made so far. We here at Big Bang Burgers would like to wish you lovely couple the best of luck. (Walks Away) You are gonna need it....

'Door Close'

Misako: ...................This is a mistake.

Dark Pit: I'd say we get the hell up out of here before anyone noticed.

Misako: Agreed. (Was About to Leave Out of Her Table With Dark Pit Until....)

Kyoko: (Stops her Girlfriend and Boyfriend While Pouting at Them) Guys!! We can't leave here yet! We have to do the challenge!

Dark Pit: (Turns Back to Kyoko) Kyoko, have you SEEN how big this fucking shit is!?

Misako: There's no way we can finish that!

Kyoko: ('Sigh') Look, I know this burger is big, scary, and could probably give us a menacing looking glare if it has eyes, but if we're able to beat mean girls, jocks, and thugs into submission, then I'm sure we can handle a measly big burger, am I right?

Misako: (Takes her Girlfriend Words into Consideration Before Sighing in Defeat) Our adorably dense girlfriend is right?

Kyoko: Hey!!!

Misako: (Turns to Dark Pit While Ignoring Kyoko Altogether) We can't back out of this challenge now. Not without fight.

Dark Pit: ('Sighs in Defeat') Damnit, you're right. (Turns Back Towards the Burger Along With his Girlfriends) on the count of four: we eat this motherfucker like hell. In a one....in a two....in a one, two three, four-

Twenty Minutes Later.....

Dark Pit/Kyoko/Misako: (Groans Miserably and Slumped Their Heads Down onto the Table While Being Completely Full in the Process) 'Ughhhhhhhhh'

Kyoko: My tummy can't take anymore.....

Misako: Tell me about it.....I don't wanna see another damn burger for as long as I live......

Dark Pit: (Turns Back to the Waiter Standing in Front of their Table) Please tell that we were AT LEAST this close of the beating the challenge......

Waiter: Can't say that you have I'm afraid. (Smiles Brightly) But you're efforts this evening was spot on to say the at least.

Misako: (Starts Rolling her Eyes Again) Spare me the enlightenment crap already....

Kyoko: (Rest her Head onto One Side of Dark Pit's Shoulder) So....full......

Dark Pit: (Gently Rubs Kyoko's Head) Who would be this crazy enough to finish a challenge like that.

Waiter: Well, if you must know....(Shows the Trio a Taken Photo of the BBB Challenge's Hall of Fame on his Tablet)

Kyoko: (Amazed by the Picture in Question) Woah.......

Misako: Hey, wait. (Points at the Frame Up Top of a Very Familiar Face) DP, is that your older brother at the top.

Dark Pit: (Takes a Look at What Misako is Pointing at Before Groaning in Annoyance) ('Ugh') Should've fucking known.....

.........................................................

Dark Pit: Hey.

Ren: Hey there, champ. How your little date goin' along?

Dark Pit: Exhausting. We tried that stupid Big Bang Burger Challenge and failed miserably.

Ren: Lol really?

Dark Pit: Yeah. REALLY!

Dark Pit: Pain.jpg

Ren: Wow. You guys looked pitiful lol.

Dark Pit: No shit Sherlock.

Dark Pit: Word has it that you were known as the King of the place.....

Dark Pit: Is that true?

Ren: I...... don't know what you're talking about I'm afraid.

Dark Pit: The Champion.jpg

Ren: That obviously could've been someone else in that frame.

Dark Pit: You're really gonna start lying to me right now, Joker boy?

Dark Pit: I thought your Queen specifically told you not to take the challenge anymore....

Ren: She did!

Ren: I just...Think that could've been anyone in that picture, ya know?

Dark Pit: I'm five seconds away from texting her right now, man.

Ren: Okay! Okay! Fine! You win! I did take that challenge last year! Back when Banjo and I went to their grand opening

Ren: I wanted to impressed him. So I.... decided to take on the challenge.

Ren: Still surprised I completed it TBF....

Dark Pit: Interesting.....

Ren: Please don't tell Makoto about this.

Ren: Graduation is coming in a couple of days. And the last thing I want for her right now to be worried about my health.

Dark Pit: That depends really....

Dark Pit: It'll cost ya.

Ren: Fiiiine..... I'll give you ten bucks.

Dark Pit: Give me Twenty and you got yourself a deal.

Ren: Don'tcha think you're pushing it there, Pitto-Kins?

Dark Pit: Oh look. Makoto's name is already showing up on my contact list

Ren: Alright! Alright! Twenty dollars! Take it or leave it!

Dark Pit: You got yourself a deal, Joker boy.

.....................................................

Eventually Outside of the Burger Joint............

Dark Pit: (Walking Next to his Two Girlfriends on the Sidewalk) Sorry this date isn't as glamorous as some prom night...

Kyoko: Are you kidding? (Happily Rest her Head on One Side of DP's Shoulder While Hugging one of his Arms) This was the best date night ever~

Misako: (Rest her Head on the Other Side of DP's Shoulder While Hugging his Other Arm) I agree. We rather spend the whole night with our sweetheart of an angel than attend some dumb-

'Limousine Horm'

Without warning, a white luxurious limousine suddenly coming next to the sidewalk with none other than Hasebe & Mami standing on the sunroof with smug looks on each of their faces.

Hasebe: Well, what do we have here? A bunch of peasants walking alone on the sidewalk.

Mami: Like, guess who won Prom Queen this year?~

Misako: (Starts Rolling her Eyes in Annoyance) Both of you?

Hasebe/Mami: Both of us!~

Kyoko: Go figure.....

Mami: Like, who would've thought being ridiculously popular and obviously better than you two losers could give us both the title?~

Hasebe: I know, right?~ What a crazy world!~ By the by....(Points at Dark Pit) Who's the angel freak in the middle?

Dark Pit: (Eyes Widened in Anger) The fuck did you just called m-

Misako: (Gently Squeezes Dark Pit's Arn to Calm Him Down) His name is Dark Pit. (Smiles Softly at the Angel) Our boyfriend.

Kyoko: (Happily Snuggles her Head Onto her Side of Dark Pit's Shoulder) Whom we love very much~ (Gives DP a Kiss on the Cheek)

Dark Pit: (Smiles a Little While Blushing)

Hasebe: ('Ugh') Of course you two would date s weirdo like him.

Dark Pit: Takes one to know one, bitches. (Gives the Middle Finger at the Duo)

Misako: ('Heh') Yeah. (Gives Hasebe and Mami The Middle Finger as Well) Up yours, assholes.

Kyoko: (Giggles Softly at What is Going On Right Now)

Mami: ('Ugh') Whatever. We were like, leaving anyways.

Hasebe: Takes us away, Limo Driver!

And with that, the limousine begins to drive off. Leaving the couple behind.

Dark Pit: ('Sigh') I think I'm starting to see why you guys hate them so much....

Misako: Told ya they're bitches. (Turns to Dark Pit) You okay, babe?

Dark Pit: Yeah. I'm already over it. (Turns to Misako and Kyoko With a Small Smile) Mostly cause I got you two with me. Thanks.

Misako: (Smiles Back at DP) Oh please. You don't need to thank us for that.

Kyoko: (Smiles Brightly) Yeah, Pitto-Kins. We got your back no matter what!~

Dark Pit: Yeah. I know. You guys wanna spend the rest of the night back at my place?

Misako: Lead the way, handsome~ (Starts Walking Back to the Living with Her Boyfriend and Girlfriend With Her)

Kyoko: (Want Back to Resting her Head on Dark Pit's Shoulder While Walking) Can you give us lot of cuddles once we get there?~

Misako: Yeah. I second that request~

Dark Pit: Anything you desire, your highnesses~

@keyenuta

@caleb13frede

@cyber-wildcat

@albion-93

@ma-lemons

@miki-13

@princekirijo

@chompycroc

[gladiatortale]

My DEPRESSION BEATING, fandom obsessing, shit-tastic FANTASTIC year in review!

TL;DR: I’m fixing my mental health and figuring out WHO THE FUCK I AM one fandom filled day at a time! Thank you to everyone who’s been there for me along the way. xoxo

what’s up HEATHENS.

stating the goddamn obvious here, it’s been a HELLUVA YEAR. One emotional rollercoaster after another but we’re ALMOST DONE. I know things aren’t gonna magically get better the second it flips to 00:01 on January first, but I’m excited to put this year behind me, and (SHOCKINGLY) a bit sad to see it go.

It was a year where the whole world completely stopped, we realized what is really important, what is really worth fighting for, and took a GODDAMN SECOND to just breathe.

For me personally, the year (which I’m counting off from November 1st) started out UNBELIEVABLY SHIT. I had just been kicked out of the country I called home for the last four years (thank you Brexit), I had ZERO job prospects, my depression was the WORST it had ever been, and I just didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning. And in the beginning, the pandemic felt like salt in the wound, an extra kick in the teeth to my early twenties that had already “failed to launch.”

But I tried to embrace the madness, really take advantage of the world (that I always thought moved to fast) properly slowing down, and take time to try and become myself again. I wanted to figure out what I loved and try and become a bit more like the person I was before my depression got so bad.

I often say I became that Manic Trash Planet Lady™ you see in sci-fi adventure films; a bit zany to say the least, with a million ideas and a very eclectic fashion sense, but embracing the insanity as it comes...

*cough cough* audrey, get to the goddamn point!

Right. lol. THE POINT IS! 

I’m not 100% “healed”, I’m not sure if I think depression is a “oh look you’re officially cured! hooray!” type of disease, but this year I let myself ENJOY SHIT for the first time in god knows how long. I still don’t know “wHaT i WaNt To dO WiTh mY LiFe”, but I’ve got a better idea and I’m heading in (what feels like) the right direction. And most of all, I can look back and say I am better than where I was a year ago.

So I wanted to say T H A N K Y O U to the mad lads on this website that introduced me to the fandoms, shows, movies, fics... THE SHIT that made me happy this year and were there to be one (BIG) piece in my healing journey.

AND SO, with out further rambling ADO! Here are the highlights of the year marked by my ridiculous hyper-fixations and OBSESSIONS. Thanks for putting up with me ya fiends, xoxox

November 2019  The Arcana (Visual Novel)

I had just gotten home and I was in a LOOOOOOW place. Randomly decided to download this app when it came up and it proceeded to ruin my life (and my bank account...) for pretty much the rest of the year. It was exactly what I needed to get me through a tough time and I was thoroughly, horse-blinders-up-to-the-rest-of-the-world, OBSESSED. These gorgeous magical fiends ruined me and all I could say was thank you.

Joined the fandom: November 2019 Obsession peaked: Late November Obsession faded: December 2019; I started a new job AND my bank statement came in and I realized I had accidentally spent over SIXTY BUCKS on this stupid app. No ragrets, but I definitely started to phase out at that point. Fandom friends: Velma, (@lanavxds on insta) miss you girlie xx Fanfics you NEED to read: ‘Second Mistake’ by DeathBelle on AO3, because DAAAAAYUM SON. Favourite moments: Basically the whole of the Julian arc. That gangly himbo OWNED my ass for a month.

December 2019 Hazbin Hotel (TV Series)

Y’ALL okay here me out. Am I proud of this one? No. Is the show crass as hell? OOOOOOOOHHHH YEAH. Did my angsty ass love it at the end of last year? DAMN STRAIGHT IT DID. Goes without saying, but this is NOT FOR EVERYBODY, but it definitely helped me along the way to becoming more comfortable with myself and being open about being the massive geek that I always was, and watching things I enjoy regardless of what people say about it.

Joined the fandom: December 2019 Obsession peaked: Shortly there after. Fandom friends: None. Dipped one toe in fandom discourse and then promptly YEETED the fuck outta there. Obsession faded: January 2019. Still curious to see the full series if A24 actually ever does produce the whole thing, but I have def moved away from it. Fanfics you NEED to read: Haven’t read any. Maybe I’m a pussy baby piece-o-shit, but I DID NOT want to go down that rabbit hole, NO MA’AM. Favourite moments:

Discovering the Hunicast podcast. These guys are a riot and Ashley is a flustered GEM. Even if you don’t watch the show, go watch an episode of these fucking LADS just dicking about and your day will get better.

Watching the first episode with my partner and watching him realize his girlfriend is a total freak.

January 2020 Lore Olympus (Webtoon Comic)

*Officially* discovered this one thanksgiving weekend in 2019, but my Arcana phase was still raging pretty strong at that point so I didn’t really get in to it until later. EVERYBODY AND THEIR MOTHER NEEDS TO READ IT. It has everything and handles the reality sexual assault and it’s aftermath EXTREMELY well.

Joined the fandom: Late November 2019 Obsession peaked: January 2020 Fandom friends: KELLEY. MA GIRL XOXOXO Obsession faded: June-ish 2020. I’m like 10 chapters behind now, but I still love this story so much. Fanfics you NEED to read: SO MANY ON MY ‘MARKED FOR LATER’ LIST AAAAAH. I have to get to that... NEW YEARS RESOLUTION lol Favourite moments: Having a drunk conversation on New Years Eve in 2019 with one of my oldest friends from high school about how much she loved it too. Helped me see how popular fandom and fandoms, are especially after feeling like I needed to hide my enthusiasm through high school and uni. (THAT WAS A MISTAKE BUT I’LL GET THERE IN A MINUTE).

February 2020 Versailles (TV Series)

SO FUCKING GAY Y’ALL. Oh my god everyone in this show is so gay. Even when they’re not they still are a little bit. AND BEST OF ALL!! it’s very historically accurate (except for the demon satanic nonsense in season 3, what was that???)

Joined the fandom: February 2020 Obsession peaked: Like??? The SECOND I finished episode one. Fandom friends: none... WHERE ARE ALL OF YOU??? Obsession faded: March 2020. It was a fast and passionate love affair, what can I say? Fanfics you NEED to read: IF YOU HAVE RECS, GIVE ‘EM TO MEEEEE. Favourite moments: 

Showing the first episode to a friend of mine and the *ungodly GASP* that came out of her throat was... PRICELESS.

The ENTIRE throuple(???) relationship between the Chevalier, Philipe, and Palatine. PLATONIC/ ROMANTIC LOVE G O A L S.

March 2020 Yuri!!! On Ice (TV Series)

*deep breath* ...y’all knew this one was coming.

Was I ready for this show to ruin my fucking life? No.  Am I so glad it happened??? FUCK YEAH.

NEVER IN MY LIFE have I fallen off the deep end so quickly with a fandom. HOLY SHIT. This blog didn’t have much of an “identity” before, but I you said that this is a Yuri On Ice blog now I wouldn’t even be mad (nor could I really defend myself to the contrary... bc??? like??? just go LOOK at my archive). Craziest thing is I watched the first two episodes like?? a solid TWO YEARS ago, but I didn’t continue watching because I was just not in the right head space for all the love and silliness and positivity.

I could do a whole separate post about how much this show and how this fandom has changed my life (DON’T TEMPT ME I JUST MIGHT). But I’ll stick with the highlights for now ;)

Joined the fandom: March 2020  Obsession peaked: Has it peaked?? Went straight up and it still going lol Fandom friends: Sandra, my mentor, my queen @aeriamamaduck, my fandom ride-or-die. Thank you for taking this internet bby under your wing. RACHEL @idancewiththefairies I TRAPPED YOU HERE. MUAHAHAHA xxx Obsession faded: ON GOING. CAN’T STOP, WON’T STOP. Fanfics you NEED to read: jfc, SO MANY.

‘Until My Feet Bleed and My Heart Aches’ and ‘Of Bright Stars and Burning Hearts’ by Reiya @kazliin​ -- Rivals AU companion pieces. Longest fics I’ve ever read and JESUS CHRIST these two fucking SENT ME. Most popular YOI fics on AO3 for a REASON.

‘Tell Me Where Your Love Lies’ by @aeriamamaduck -- Royalty AU, trope-breaking ABO. Ah sweet, TMWYLL, how you’ve killed me over and over again. This BEAUTIFUL wip has SUCH amazing world-building idk where to start (Congrats on passing 50,000 hits!) EVERYONE GO READ IT.

‘Blackbird’ by sixpences -- WWII/Coldwar Spy Fic. I don’t have enough words to describe how amazing this is. It’s elevated to a higher plane beyond fanfic. Just go read it. Thank me later.

‘Zanka’ by rinsled05 @dreaming-fireflies -- The geisha fic that ruined me. *deep breath* AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH *gasp* I’m fine. lol I sooooo not ready for this fic. Holy hell, Aoyagi had my heart in his hands from the first chapter. “’Please’ [...] ‘Don’t give me hope.’“ FUUUUCK.

‘Echoes’ by Reiya @kazliin -- Future fic. First fic I cried at... BOI. I was NOT ready for this. Shouldn’t be surprised given the author, but MAN. “‘A love like that, a love like what they had together, it never leaves completely.’ Yuri spoke again, eyes still staring out onto the ice, lost in memory. ‘There are always echoes.’” JUST FUCK ME UP.

Favourite moments: Oh good lord, where do I begin??

Having two (count ‘em TWO) main characters with mental health issues (Yuuri and his anxiety and Victor with burn out and depression) and NOT MAKING IT THE ONLY ASPECT OF THEIR PERSONALITY. CLAPS FOR KUBO AND YAMAMOTO!!

Everything about Yurio (ESPECIALLY HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH YUUKO AND HIS GRANDPA), that tsundere motherfucker is too pure for this world.

THE KISS. THE PROPOSAL. MY HEART WASN’T READY. AAAAAH!!

This fandom *properly* introducing me to smut on AO3...

Thinking I was going to get Rachel to like the show... NOT being prepared for her to fall off the deep end and START LIKING REAL SKATING TOO!!

Staying up waaaaaay too late waaaaaay too often to plan out plot points for TMWYLL with Sandra. Love ya dearie.

The warm fuzzy feeling I get every time I think about Victor and Yuuri.

April 2020 Bungou Stray Dogs (TV Series)

I had a hunch I was gonna like this show considering ALL of the characters are based off of famous classic authors from around the world... what I was NOT prepared for was just HOW MUCH I was going to love it. HOLY SHIT. The art style? Love it. The plot?? Bonkers, but so fun. THE VOICE CAST??? AMAZING. Highly recommend to anyone who wants to get in to anime, great place to start.

Joined the fandom: April 2020 Obsession peaked: Probably this summer? But we have DEF plateaued in a VERY high place. Fandom friends: FIJI. MA BOIIIII @lil-1nsane  Obsession faded: Hasn’t. Hope it doesn’t Fanfics you NEED to read: So so so many. The smut in this fandom is *chef’s kiss*, but here are a few...

‘He Works Hard For the Money’ by CataclysmicEvent @cataclysmicevent2019​ -- Sugar Daddy AU. FUCK MAN. I was not expecting to like this one, but bloody hell. This fic grabbed me by the throat and WOULD NOT let me go. Praying for chapter 16! But the author is working on another STELLAR fic so I’m okay for now.

‘Everything or Nothing’ by CataclysmicEvent @cataclysmicevent2019​ -- University AU. FUCK THIS FIC. Started reading it as I was waiting for HWHFTM to update and BOI, this fic ROCKS. The alternating POV fits so well with the enemies/idiots-to-lovers vibe. Solid 10 outta 10.

‘The City Where Wind Blows’ by @raven-rein​ -- Cancer Death fic. *pained shriek* AAAAAAGUUUUUUUHHHH *gasp* aaaaaaAAAAAAHHHHHHHH, FUUUCCCCCCCCCKKKK MEEEEE. THIS FIC. Only the second fic I’ve ever cried to but I BAWLED MY GODDAMN EYES OUT. FUUUUUUUCK. I was not ready, never would have been ready. This is so tremendously well done, it killed me so beautifully, 

‘Haunted by Hatred’ by DeathBelle -- Canon compliant Soukoku. It is a CRIME that DeathBelle doesn’t have more BSD fics on her page, but this one is still brilliant.

Favourite moments:

THE CHUUYA-DAZAI MAFIA REUNION TEAM UP WHEN THEY FIGHT LOVECRAFT. Ooof. BOI. We love it.

The first three episodes. Soooo many break neck plot twists.

Every insane hypothetical conversation with Fiji.

Every time Atsushi or Tanizaki is on screen bc I LOVE THESE LIL BEANS.

June 2020 Trash Taste (Podcast)

Goddamn I love these chaotic lads so much.

As I became more and more comfortable with myself and my love for anime I stumbled upon these three goons, -- Joey, Connor, and Garnt, -- best known for there SUPER successful (mostly) anime YouTube channels. Even if you don’t watch anime, WATCH/LISTEN TO THIS PODCAST. The focus is mostly on their lives and the overall expat/immigrant experience, with a bit of anecdotal anime references sprinkled in. 

This show is both wholesome and heathenous in equal measure, and after having lived abroad for a significant portion of my (admittedly still quite short) life, it was such a breath of fresh air to hear people talk so openly about how living outside your home country is both wonderful and terrifying. They’re wonderfully candid about the fact that even if you love a place dearly, no where is perfect, and you WILL hate somethings about your new home even if the majority of the experience is fantastic. I cannot rate this show highly enough.

Joined the fandom: June 5th 2020, loved it from the first episode. Obsession peaked: July maybe? I was RELIGIOUS about watching the episodes as soon as they came out. Still watch every week, but less “on time.” Fandom friends: None :( but I have tricked my partner in to listening several times :) Obsession faded: It’s dimmed from where it was, but still going strong. Fanfics you NEED to read: NONE. NEVER PLAN TO. Hard and fast rule, I don’t read fics about real people. Characters played by real people, even that’s a maybe for me. But real-real people? FUCK NO. (some of my) Favourite moments:

Any time Garnt and Connor get into a big-brain-monkey-brain argument and Joey is just LOSING his GODDAMN MIND in the corner.

Bringing a retired Japanese porn star in the show for an honest conversation about consensual sex work and showing people can have more than one career in life.

Everything about the, ‘Are Online Friends Real Friends?’ episode. GO WATCH IT, it’s brilliant.

Garnt making “chotto-THE-FUCKING-matte” an expression

August 2020 Great Pretender (TV Series)

Spent most of the summer marinating in my BSD and YOI bubbles, until THIS BAD BOI came up on my Netflix recommendations. HOOOO BOI. This is some Anime Of The Year shit right here. Has a pretty original concept (Catch Me If You Can by way of Oceans 11-ish) but generally starts out like most other shounen (sans the super powers). AND THEN EPISODE FIVE HAPPENS. Not gonna spoil it but they TOOK THAT SHIT UP A NOTCH. Brilliant, even with a bit of an insane ending. GO WATCH THIS ONE.

Joined the fandom: August 2020 Obsession peaked: Pretty much as soon as I started watching it. Fandom friends: What’s up Fiji ;) @lil-1nsane Obsession faded: Naturally faded, but so glad I watched Fanfics you NEED to read: None so far! Little scared about this one, heard mixed reviews, but maybe someday. Favourite moments:

Edamame’s “madness arc” at the end of season 2. HOOOO BOY.

Laurent getting fucking WRECKED when Edamame punches him mid way through season 2, kills me every time.

Introducing my partner to anime with this show.

October 2020 Attack on Titan (TV Series)

RETURN OF THE KING. lol

In my quest to find an anime that I can watch with my partner, I turned on season 1 of this bad boi. Holy hell I forgot how much I loved this show, NO WONDER everyone lost their goddamn minds when this show first aired. I NEED to catch up before all the season four spoilers come to get me...

Joined the fandom: Winter 2016 Obsession peaked: Basically as soon as I started watching it. Fandom friends: None yet, but I know you’re out there... Obsession faded: 2017, JUST BEFORE SEASON TWO... I should have stuck around longer I know, but it’s slowly coming back. Reeeeeally need to catch up on seasons two, three, and four. Fanfics you NEED to read: GIVE ME YOUR RECS HEATHENS. Favourite moments:

Watching my partner FREAK OUT about Eren’s “death.”

EVERYTHING ABOUT POTATO GORL! lol

Getting in a conversation with a die hard fan after I hadn’t watched it in three years and saying... “Who’s that blond bitch that cries all the time?”/ “Armin?”/ “THAT’S THE ONE!”

November 2020... kind of. Figure Skating (Sport)

Okay this one is a bit hard to explain. 

I have been a DIE HARD figure skating for A LOOOOOONG time. My grandmother got me a hat from the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City and I remember watching even then. But I first became consciously aware of different skaters, my faves, etc. from about 2010. I vividly remember watching Plushenko skating in 2014 while on a school trip to Hawaii, and my friends laughing at me as I yelled at the TV.

But I didn’t TRULY get involved in the fandom side of it until this year. I had all this knowledge bottled up, but didn’t have any skating friends to talk to... UNTIL NOW. Super ironic that this happened in a year with almost NO skating, but I’ll take what I can get ;) Also did I stay up until FOUR-GODDAMN-THIRTY IN THE MORNING a few nights ago to stream Japanese Nationals on my phone??? YOU BET I DID.

Joined the fandom: Three times; 2002, 2010, and 2020. Obsession peaked: 2014? 2018? Idk it peaks any time someone does something amazing. Fandom friends: Rachel, my girl @idancewiththefairies​, WHY DIDN’T I INTRODUCE YOU TO THIS SOONER??? Obsession faded: Hasn’t. Won’t. lol Fanfics you NEED to read: NOPE. NONE. NOT GONNA HAPPEN. No fanfics about real people. Never gonna change that. (some of my) Favourite moments:

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir doing THAT routine at the 2018 Olympics.

Rachel​ sheepishly admitting to me that Shoma may have replaced Yuzu as her favourite, and me being SO DAMN PROUD of her for growing and developing her own skating opinions apart from me.

Yuzu’s 2012 ‘Romeo and Juliet’ routine and Worlds. THE RAW FUCKING POWER OF THAT SKATE.

Plushenko, cheeky bastard, changing his 2014 Team Event routine AS IT WAS HAPPENING.

The worlds friendliest rivalry between Yuzu and Nathan.

Any thing the Shibutani’s do, and all they do to break up the stereotype that all of Ice Dancing has to be rOmAnTiC and SeNsUaL to be good.

Watching my early faves become coaches and the D R A M A.

Honorable Mentions:

Coco (Film): I watched this the weekend I came home and I owe this movie a lot. It is so sweet an heartwarming, and it a roundabout way it brought me back to Tumblr (needed somewhere to vent my feelings considering I watched the movie a solid THREE YEARS after it came out, Tumblr seemed like the place to go lol). Watched in again in 2020 and it’s just as amazing.

Jekyll and Hyde (All media): Loved this book from the first time I read it in my first year of uni. But in December 2019, my fandom understanding reached its PEAK. The musical?? The comic?? YOOOOOO.

Dear Evan Hansen (Musical): I have BARELY engaged in fandom discourse, but the MUSIC. She fucking SLAPS.

Sirius the Jaeger (TV Series): This show is such an underrated gem. It literally has so much; "dead” family drama? Eclectic international group of monster hunters? Cowboys and vampires?? Yes, yes, and YES. And the main character has the same Japanese voice actor as Atsushi from BSD!

Studio Ghilbi (Films): My love affair with Ghibli goes back to when I was about 5 and BEGGED my mom to take me to the library so we could rent Kiki’s Delivery Service on DVD. But that love has been FULLY rejuvenated this year when I went to the Ghibli Film Festival in New York City (ironically in the last week in February). If you haven’t seen them, go watch From Up On Poppy Hill, Whisper of the Heart, and The Wind Rises. Spoilers, you’re probably gonna cry.

If you’ve made it this far, THANK YOU FOR READING! 

And thank you to all the amazing people that made my 2020 not so horrible. Good riddance 2020, don’t let the door hit you on the way out!

[x-heesy]

Coming from another realm I'm a work of fiction and I'm never coming back I'm running back into the mind of Howard

Lovecraft plague mask in the back gas is irrelevant

I'm traveling on fuel from the shadow of Hephaestus flames

Crafting a blade for me so I may faithfully

Run up in to WBC and decapitate anything that I see

Funny how ignorance makes me so mean

Like, when a motherfucker believe anything he read or see on TV

Knee deep into propaganda, better pop a hand of xans

If you're too pussy to handle your life like a man

I can't relate I'm on another plane

Can somebody tell me how to live and breathe and die a mortal way?

Im a lost cause really, hey

Never gonna wanna belong, pardon while I burn sage

Everything I read leads me to believe maybe one day

Im a be apart of something so much greater than me

When I perish

Get the kerosene and burn me to oblivion but don't make a scene

I need privacy so the prophecy may be complete and I merge with the images of ethereality

Count on me when I am finally free I will watch you while scrying in the sea

Underground catatonia

I found a scroll in Rome from a secret map I found in Macedonia

Fuck this music, I don't got the time to even hate cause I got secret service people from the Vatican approaching, bruh

Whatchu tellin' me?

I'll shoot an apple off your wifey's head and miss

And hit the bitch in the head like William Lee

A murderous 8th dimension night breed killa Dylan be

Clip on my hip and the chip on my shoulder turned into the monster next to me

Bloodline illuminati 666 lizard people all around me man

Rozzy really bout to take a trip to North Korea and come back a brand new man

Coming back and founding Dylananastan

To build a wall to separate me from the stans

Bitches wanna hold my hand

But they dont even know about the demo of my favorite band

Dylan got the stamina to keep it goin' 90s baby getting buck like Pretty Tony

I don't got no time for phony rap bologna

We gon' fuck the bitch and have a ceremony

Mask on face

Weapons in my place

A hundred million bodies Ima concentrate

Anybody with a cheerful disposition

Who believe in heaven might just meet their fate

Dylan throw it, tell the bitch to go wide

Fuck around, participate in homicide

From sea to shining sea, a christian holocaust

A pagan neo-judaistic genocide

Yesterday, I got so fuming angry that

I stabbed myself, in the thigh, with a fork

Whatchu know about the wretched wicked shit?

Like the atrocities of Malachi York

Busted and dusted, like an angel that just lost its way

And we all gone die anyway so

Fuck it, mane

Mind gone straight lost in a fog of haze

Two brothers from the housing authority

Came to take your kids and dogs away

Wretched (feat. Rozz Dyliams) by Ghostemane @bethanythestrange 😂🫶🏽

[simsadventures]

Only Mine: Chapter 11: Night Out

Summary: Attending a ball with Bucky as his official girlfriend is a big deal for you, and you try to prepare accordingly. Meanwhile, Bucky tries to determine the actions of his enemies.

Warnings: fluff, mentions of sex (nothing graphic here), mobster AU, swearing, angst

Word Count: 3035

A/N: Who’s excited for this? Because I definitely am! Reader’s dress are showcased in the moodboard, for anyone interested, but feel free to imagine any dress you like. It’s your story after all! FEEDBACK is gold my people, so please, please let me know what you all thought of this chapter. Lots of love!! xx

Series Masterlist __ Masterlist

< Previous Chapter

Waking up, you felt butterflies in your stomach. Well, it actually felt more like a bunch of bats were trying to tear you from the inside, trying to get away, but that didn’t sound so romantic, so when Nat asked you how you were feeling, you told her the butterfly version.

It was Friday morning, and even though you had to go to work, you couldn’t care less about that. Tonight was the night when you’d finally be introduced as Bucky’s girlfriend to more than his closest men and family. And as much as you were nervous about the whole thing, you couldn’t help yourself to feel excited as well.  

You knew that the Bucky you’d see in the evening would be a very different version to what you were used to, but you also realised that if this relationship was gonna work, you’d have to get used to even to his official mobster persona. You told him like a million times during the week, that if he treated you like one of your bitches, he’d regret it. Greatly.

And despite him being the actually dangerous one in the relationship, you heard him gulp through the phone, and he just husked out a simple understood, which made you smirk in return. This big mafia boss was yours, and you couldn’t be happier about it.

True, you two didn’t have any conversation regarding your feelings, but if tonight went well, you were determined to tell him how you felt about him. You weren’t able to hide it any longer. Every second you spent with Bucky convinced you that you were doing the right thing, letting him have your heart. As cautious as you were during the very beginnings of your relationship, none of it bothered you now. Every day, Bucky proved to you just how much you meant to him, even if the actual words never left his mouth.

Work was torture because all you could think of was your beautiful dress awaiting you at home, the wonders that Nat could do with your make-up, and the moment you finally was with Bucky again. He has been busy the whole week, only managing to visit you once, for a brief talk before you fell asleep, completely exhausted. You knew he was there with you until you fell asleep, drawing circles on your exposed back, humming compliments into your ear. You remembered thinking that you could get used to something like this every night because sleep always came easier when Bucky was there with you.

So when you finally escaped work, thinking about all those things that happened between you and Bucky, and about what was about to happen, you almost sprinted the whole way to your apartment. You felt like an idiot feeling so giddy about such thing, but you just couldn’t help yourself. Your man would be astounded by your appearance tonight, and you knew for a fact that he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands to himself.

—-

“What do you mean nobody saw him for the last 3 weeks?” Bucky’s voice boomed through his office, every man sitting there, shrinking further into their chairs. Bucky was furious, the vein on his forehead was ticking like a time bomb, ready to explode, his nostrils flaring like an angry lion. Even Sam and Steve were quiet, their heads bowed because they knew too well that were they to piss Bucky off at that particular moment, a bullet might be the next thing they saw.

As much as Bucky seemingly calmed down ever since you walked into his life, it didn’t seem to affect his work. He was as ruthless as ever, maybe even more, because now he had an actual person to protect from all the shit happening in the city.

And Pierce being underground didn’t seem like him, and it made chills run down Bucky’s spine. He needed to know where Pierce was at all times, and because his men forgot to mention that they couldn’t find him for the good part of the month, Bucky was ready to explode.

“Why the fuck is nobody speaking up? Didn’t I tell you that the second something changes with that motherfucker, you come right to me? Huh? Or are you idiots to fucking dumb to remember a simple task? I’m looking at you two shitheads, Rumlow, Johnson. I thought you were assigned to his case!”

The two men still didn’t look at Bucky, probably not even breathing in fear it would make Bucky snap.

“I expect answers!” Bucky yelled, and he saw Peter flinching from the corner of his eye. But he didn’t care, not at that moment. Somebody’s hurt feelings were the last of his worries, and if he had to, he would beat the information out of his own men.

“We thought he just had a vacation, or something, y’know?”

Boom.

A book that was laying on Bucky’s side of the table was sent flying across the room and landed with a loud thud.

“Vacation? You’ve got to be kidding me, Rumlow. For fuck’s sake. Dig deeper and fucking find him. And I’m telling you, if anybody crashes tonight’s party, heads will be chopped off. And I fucking mean it, so I advise everybody here to fucking do something about it. I want all the other guys at the ball too, I want everyone there in case Pierce decided to show up.”

Bucky yelled and left the room before he actually hurt somebody. Steve and Sam shared a look before they both got up from their chairs and followed Bucky outside. The rest of the men remained seated, waiting till they heard some door closing behind Bucky, so they could sneak out unwatched.

Bucky went outside to the porch, watching the trees move under the light breeze, trying to think of things to calm him down. He really didn’t want to have to kill anybody on his own team, but it was getting harder and harder to keep to that.

He knew Steve and Sam would come to talk to him, so it didn’t surprise him when he heard the door opening and closing and set of two boots strutting towards him.

“It’s probably nothing, Buck, and you know it. If the guys genuinely thought it was something, they would have told you. I bet they just didn’t want to disturb your honeymoon phase with Y/N. We all see how happy you are with her, and nobody wants to destroy that,” Steve said softly, patting Bucky on his shoulder.

Bucky sighed and closed his eyes. He knew Steve was probably right about the men, and definitely right about you. Just the thought of you laughing at something stupid he told you made a small smile creep to his cheeks. You’ve ruined him for any other woman, that was for sure. Maybe, you even ruined him for the line of work, people trying to protect him from any sort of information was not something that happened too often.

“I know, and all that’s nice, but when I give an order, I fucking expect people to follow it, and not think about my poor, poor heart. I’m the boss here, and something, I’ve the feeling people forget it.”

“Ha! Don’t worry, you instilled the fear of God in them a long time ago. Nobody doubts what you’re willing to do for the city, for your men. Trust me, man, if anything, they fear you even more, because everyone knows that were something to happen to Y/N, you’d probably murder half the city, including them,” Sam smiled at Bucky, patting his other shoulder.

Bucky nodded thankfully at both his friends, feeling better about himself and about the whole situation already. He huffed out a breath he was holding and let himself get excited about tonight. His birthday was on Sunday, but he wanted the ball to be on Friday, and the theme for this year was Hell. Simple but effective, Bucky thought, and he seriously couldn’t wait to see what you’d wear.

He wanted to buy you a dress, but you insisted on them being a surprise, and, honestly, Bucky wanted to be surprised by you and your beauty. The night couldn’t come soon enough for him.

—-

It was a surprise to find Peter standing in front of your door at 8 sharp, and even a bigger surprise was that Bucky wasn’t there with him. You scolded yourself inwardly because you knew it was his party and the host should probably be there for when all the guests arrived. Still. Your possessive ass wanted him for yourself, and it only now dawned on you that tonight would be the first night when you’d be with him, be he wouldn’t be entirely yours.

“You look exquisite, Y/N. Bucky is gonna faint when he sees you,” Peter interrupted your invasive thoughts, and you blushed slightly at his compliment. You looked him up and down, finding him dressed in a suit, looking sharp as hell.

“Well, you don’t look too bad yourself, Mr Handsome! All you mobster boys can dress up really nicely, Imma give you that,” you smirked at him, getting into the back of the car. You could see Peter blushing as well, and you had to chuckle. He really was too sweet for this life.

The car ride was filled with the two of you laughing like crazy people, him sharing some stories about his aunt May, while you told him what your younger twin-sisters did to prank you when they were little. You didn’t even realise you were driving so long when you suddenly saw a beautiful renaissance building in front of you, with red and black drapes hanging on the railings, giving the whole building a hellish look.

Bucky really did take the whole theme seriously, you thought as you got out of the car with Peter’s help.

You looked around the entrance, and could already see many people, standing there and chatting. Your eyes slid to the women, who were all scarcely dressed, all their dresses reminding you more of lingerie than an actual dress. You gulped and looked down at yourself, suddenly feeling weird in your silky red dress with tin straps and long slit. It was still a long dress, and you wished you wore something more revealing, doubting that Bucky would even spare you a glance in the vast amount of mini-dresses, where the women showed their panties without hesitation.

Peter saw your doubts, and he rushed to your side. He didn’t understand what was going on, but he wanted to make sure you were ok, nevertheless.

“He’s right inside, Y/N. C’mon, you look lovely, and I bet the big boss is anxiously awaiting your arrival.”

You scoffed and shook your head.

“Look around, Peter. Everyone looks much hotter than me and, let’s be honest, Bucky is more prone to look at the girls with their boobs spilling out of their dress than at me, barely showing anything other than a bit of cleavage and my leg. Ugh! I should’ve known that this was not a normal ball. Maybe I should’ve let Bucky buy me the damn dress, and he would actually like what he saw!”  

Peter squinted his eyes and then raised his eyebrow, unbelievingly.

“Wait a second. You think Bucky will be interested in anybody else than you? I meant it when I said you looked exquisite, and if you only gave Bucky the chance to actually tell you himself, maybe these idiotic doubts wouldn’t come to your mind,” Peter said with a smirk, proud that he could scold you like that without apologising.

You gaped at him slightly, before you blinked a few times and let him know that you were ready to walk into the lion’s den. You caught Peter’s elbow, not willing to face all those people alone, and he gladly let you use his arm as both physical and moral support.

You could feel people staring at you, some with curiosity, but most, and especially the women, with distrust and disdain. You pursed your lips even harder, not giving them the chance to talk to you because you needed to find your footing first. You needed to find Bucky to calm down. Or to tell you that you weren’t what he wanted and you could go home and cry.

Peter wasn’t really sure where his boss was, but he was determined to find him as soon as possible, preferably before you’ve had enough of your self-doubts and turned around to leave the party. From the very first second, Peter met you, he enjoyed your presence, around the mansion and around Bucky, and he was determined to keep you two together.

When he finally noticed three men, standing like they owned the place, and he noticed that the shapes of the heads matched heads of Bucky, Steve, and Sam, he quickened his pace, not realising that your high heels didn’t let you run around like him. He tapped Bucky’s shoulder, and for a second, he was scared of his boss because Bucky gave him a look that said how dare you to disturb me, but that quickly changed.

Bucky glanced at Peter with a snarky retort on his tongue, when he noticed somebody with their beauty beyond words gripping Peter’s arm and his heart skipped a beat.

You looked like a goddess, or the queen of hell, to be more precise. Your dress wasn’t as revealing as most of the women in the ballroom, but maybe that was why Bucky loved your dress even more. They hugged your curves perfectly, leaving little to the imagination as they accentuated your breasts and your hips with your ass, the slit on your leg revealing your perfect thigh to the world. And as happy as Bucky was to see you, he suddenly didn’t like that dress that much.

You watched as Bucky’s expression changed from bitchy to amazed, to angry in a few seconds, and the last look almost made you take a step back. Why he was angry, suddenly, was beyond you.

Bucky nodded at Peter, who then let go of your arm, and Bucky stood impossibly close to you, pressing his chest against you in a desperate hug.

“What do you think you’re wearing, doll?” He hissed into your ear, and you bowed your head, ashamed. You knew he’d be pissed because you didn’t show enough.

“I’m so sorry, James. I thought this was a ball as in a ball, but when I came and saw all the mini dresses all around, I felt like a fool. I still do. Maybe I can make Peter drive me to the closest mall, and I can get myself something shorter? Or maybe tighter? I know how much-“

“Shorter? Tighter? Have you lost your fucking mind? I thought you were revealing too much! Everyone can see your perfect body like that, and that body’s mine! I don’t want these sly men ogling what’s fucking mine!”

You frowned and pulled away from him slightly.

“What? Have you seen what the other women are wearing? I’m like the most modest person here, babe!”

“Yeah, but all these women are mostly sluts only here to try and get into our pants. And while I’d love you in my pants, I can’t stand the idea that other men are thinking the same fucking thing,” he growled and instinctively pulled you to him again. You let him and smirked into the crook of his neck. He still had eyes just for you.

“I’m yours, Mr Barnes. No need to be jealous. I don’t care what other people think as long as you’re not ogling other women,” he whispered into his ear, and it was now his turn to pull away, his mouth turned to an amused smirk.

“Other women? I don’t even fucking see other women, doll. I told you, you’re different, and you’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

You giggled before he pulled you in a heated kiss, obviously laying claim on you, but you couldn’t care less. His claim on you meant that you had a claim on him, and so you happily obliged, hoping that all those bitches were watching you and understanding that your man was off-limits.

Bucky seemed to have read your mind because he gave you a knowing look and pecked your lips once again, before you started walking around the room, him talking to some important people, while you were standing by his side, calming him with your presence.

The whole night was rather pleasant, Bucky’s hand firmly placed on your hip, and whenever you had to go to the restroom, he would make Peter or Drax, or both take you there and back to him after. You wanted to fight him on this, but one stern look from him told you that this was not the place nor time when you should protest against his commands. So you always just rolled your eyes, inwardly, and let the guys take you to the restroom.

When you were back in Bucky’s arms, his shoulder lost the tension they had whenever you left his side. It was well after midnight, both you and Bucky had a glass of champagne in your hands, and you were stealing away a second for yourselves, having a hard time to keep your hands on your own bodies, when the other looked so delicious when you heard the first crash.

Bucky’s playful side was suddenly gone, and in was the sharp and concentrated man you remembered from the night of your attack. You exchanged a quick glance before you stepped into the room.

Another crash sounded, and you only then realised what it was. Gunshots. Somebody was shooting in the ballroom.

Before you knew what was happening, you were on the ground, panting heavily, and a pain shot through your whole body. This wasn’t happening.

It was only when you saw droplets of blood around you that you let the panic overwhelm you. You were under attack, and there was almost a zero chance that the two of you would make it out alive.

/ Next Chapter >

Only Mine: @albinotigerpython​ @brownlee-22​ @yennewolf @heywess @bitchwhytho​ @thegirlwhowritesfics​ @eteramfools​ @blonddnamedhandz​ @everything-is-awesomesauce​ @justlovelifeblog​ @scuzmunkie​ @rohaintahquil​ @d-jall​ @cap-just-said-language​ @readermia​ @chubby-dumplin​ @slcvely @thewackywriter​ @mswinterfalcon​ @ieshaa96​ @calwitch​ @everythingisoverrated​ @maggyme13​ @sukeraa​ @new-romanticz1989​ @captainchrisstan​ @asteria33​

Bucky Taglist

@this-kitten-is-smitten​ @paradisiacalsparks​ @crazybutconfidentaf​ @owlyannah​ @lassini​ @s-trawberryv-eins​ @reniescarlett​ @bxrnsfeyson​ @the-soulofdevil​

Marvel Taglist

@voltage-my2dlove​ @kneel-begyourpardon​ @lumar014​ @ptrs-prkrs​

Forever Tag:

@eileenalone​ @sasbb23​ @p8tn0lish​ @coffeebooksandfandom​ @waiting4inspiration​ @caswinchester2000​ @mogaruke​ @justthatfangirloverthere​ @mushyjellybeans​ @livsheph​ @sebbbystaaan​ @notyourtypicalrose​ @itsunclebucky​ @rinkashirikitateku​

If your name is crossed out, tumblr won’t let me tag you for some reason, I’m sorry.

If you’d like to be tagged comment/message/send an ask. If you like the story, please reblog :) any comments are appreciated, even the critical ones. Always a space to get better, so let me know what you guys think.