#about 18 K more but I still have all my notes in the same file

[ladylynse]

Man, I remember when my Huntsclan!Jake AU fic was just a collection of short scenes and three sentence fics that might’ve totalled 5 K if I were being generous, and now it’s 60 K and counting.

[levis-coffeecup]

Chapter 15 | All that is lost

WC-9.9 k

Content/Warnings

canon- compliant, canon-typical violence, descriptions of PTSD, grief, depression, heavy angst and themes, strong language.

Author's note:

Brace yourself for this really really long chapter, because some it's almost 10k words long and idk how.

There are 2 scenes in this one, and the first one takes place a month after chapter 14, where Levi and Mae kinda confront each other. And the second scene is a month after that. (So basically, 2 months covered in this one chapter)

Also I'm sorry, there's been quite a delay on my side. Its 1:26 in the morning which does mean that I'm almost 1 and a half our late and Sunday has already ended. But also the fact that I had been posting in the afternoon the past weeks. (I was in my hostel and we don't have good internet there at night, so I was posting the chapters early, but now I'm back home for a week, so I took my time🤡)

So in short, i'm really sorry if someone was waiting and i showed up 12 hours later lol.

The song for this chapter is lost on you - by LP. I hope you guys like it!

Chapters

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Masterlist | Playlist | Other Works

SEPT 846

Cold air blows in Mae’s face, as she wipes the tear that rolls down her cheek. The river streams below the rock she sits on. And the moon is out, crescent shaped today. Shining its light on the clearing in the forest.

She takes in a deep breath as she looks down at the ebbing river. And even though she doesn’t see her reddened face in all the darkness, she doesn’t need sight to know that her face is swollen from all the crying.

She’s doing well as a doctor. The bar is good as well, no man has gawked at her ever since the Levi incident. And she’s not alone, she has Hange and Raz. 

Things are fine, and there is no blatant reason to be upset. But she is still crying.

It feels like there is so much sadness trapped inside of her. And she doesn’t know why it's here or how it got here. But she carries it everywhere… And it comes out at random times, in the form of the quaking of her shoulders and the glossy film that covers her eyes.

Her tears feel cold against the blowing wind. The sound of the flowing river fills her ears. And the stars in the sky blur out due to the moisture laced in her eyes.

 It's been so long since she’s been here. To her spot, to the place that used to offer her so much solace.

But today, as she sits here and feels the sturdy rock beneath her body, she is reminded of the time when she first met Levi. Days spent sitting under a cedar tree, on the outskirts of the clearing. Giving a mere stranger some space because to her he looked upset.

And now he stands behind the same tree where she once sat. Staring at her instead as she cries on the rock. The tables have turned and life has drastically changed. And there seems no way for things to get back to how they once were. So naive yet spiteful. 

September is about to end in a week, And it's almost been 2 months since that day when Levi beat up that creepy customer and created a scene. And since then he’s been coming to the bar daily, he hasn’t missed a single day.

He stays at the bar for her entire shift. From 8 to 12. Glaring at anyone who even looks at her. And it's not just that.

He follows her back to her house as well, and he only leaves when he sees her shut the door and blow the candles off. Resting safely inside her home. 

And oh! How hard she has tried to get rid of him.

She left his table uncleaned. Told Raz to ignore him and not serve him anything. She even added salt in his tea some days, and yet he drank it without filing a single complaint to the manager. Without even making a face. 

And she’s failing again. History is repeating itself. In the most ironic way. Just like 2 years back, when she was trying to get him out of her spot.

And yes his presence does make the bar a much safer place. Raz feels more comfortable as well. But Mae doesn’t want her stupid heart to throb for him once again.

She wants to forget about him. She left her job, she left everything she had, for this, and now he comes chasing after her. Acting like her bodyguard. 

Acting like the man she fell in love with.

Her mind feels heavy with thoughts. And her thoughts are crashing inside her like a hurricane. Messing up everything that stands its way. Her head throbs and she clutches it with both of her hands. Her fingers dig into her scalp and she lets out a frustrated groan.

It's all the same, just like all those days back then. She isn’t able to get him out of her spot and she isn’t even able to get him out of her heart.

And Mae doesn’t understand how Levi is even managing everything? Have his duties as a captain magically reduced? Or does he not need any sleep anymore?

Her mind flashes back to the day after, when she lashed out on him. Weak and miserable, begging for him to cooperate.

It was raining, so hard that Mae thought a storm would come in.

The bar was jam packed, filled with customers and people taking shelter from the rain.

And words couldn’t describe the disappointment on her face, when she found Levi sitting at the same cornered table, with that same damned cloak on. As if she never begged him to get away from, just a day prior.

The rain stalled for a minute. And her feet moved on a will of their own, ignoring all the customers who were waiting for her to come to their table. 

She pinched the fabric of his cloak, and dragged him outside the noisy bar.

The streets were quiet and water filled up all the crevices in the cobblestone path. There was hardly anyone in sight, and to Mae this filthy, mud covered street seemed like the perfect place to confront Levi. 

Or maybe it was her desperation, her mind that was begging her heart to forget him. And her heart, that was poorly failing. Trying everything in hand to not think about him, 

And yet he was here at the bar, acting as if nothing wrong ever happened between them. Acting like she still was his friend, and he still cared.

Mae pivoted around, hand still clenching on to the fabric on Levi’s shoulder. And her face was filled with venom as she sneered. “Why are you here when all I want from you is to not be in my life anymore?”

But Levi was quiet as usual, head facing down and body so still, as if she wasn't even saying anything . It reminded Mae of the day she confessed to him.

And anger seeped into her system, at his lack of response. “LEVI! I’M A MARRIED WOMAN, YOU NEED TO STOP PLAYING THESE GAMES WITH ME.”

Levi remained quiet again. His cloak covered half of his face. And Mae couldn’t see the expressions on his face, but she knew the man in front of her wasn’t the indifferent, cold man who never breaks out of his demeanor.

It was something else, maybe a part of him that he had caged deep within him.

Thunder cackled through the clouds, and it was only at that moment that Levi looked up. Reaching his hand forward towards Mae, that he knows, shudders at the sound of thunder. 

And it was true. She had shriveled up, hands hugging herself and eyes wide in a moment of fear. 

Her heart was beating faster, and she didn’t know whether it's for the thunder that scared her, or for Levi’s hand hovering over her shoulder. 

She never told him that she’s afraid of thunder… it must have been something he observed. And just like always he knew her like the back of his hand. Every fear, every desire and every thought.

It felt like time had frozen. They looked at each other, eyes filled with unspoken words and buried emotions. 

One contemplating whether it was wrong of her heart to still beat for him, when she had long decided that she needed to forget him. And the other contemplating whether he was allowed to touch her anymore.

The silence was broken by thunder once again. The rain picked up, even stronger this time. Drenching the both of them whole in a matter of seconds. 

But they stood still, lost in time and in the downpour of their emotions.

Mae heaved out a sigh as she pulled her eyes away from him.

She hated herself. She hated herself so much for being weak. For still feeling for a man who had hurt her so many times. Who’s thoughts still made her cry every night.

She turned to his hand that hovered over her shoulder, and forced a grimace on her face. And Levi withdrew his arm back, as his eyes fell back to the ground once again.

“Mae… “ His voice cracked and he took in a breath to compose himself.  “Yesterday you told me that it’s a person’s will that’s the strongest… And you were right, because I can only break their bones and dislocate their shoulders, but they still have the choice to not surrender, even if they are in a… horrible condition.”

He looked up at her and a fire reflected in his eyes. “Your life is your own, and at the end you can do whatever with it. You can choose anything from the options in front of you, even if the options are shitty… And I have chosen for myself to stay here. Because I’m not leaving you to work all alone at night…That’s my will. Do whatever you want. I’m not going to let anyone harm you here… and I’m not going to leave.”

His resolve was evident in his voice and Mae’s lips quivered as she took in a shaky exhale. 

Why was he here acting like the man she fell for, when all she wanted to do was forget him? Couldn’t he just continue being an asshole and make things easier for her? 

Why was he here with his decision to stay, when all she wanted was for him to be gone from her life and her heart?

The rain pattered against her frame, and she was grateful, because it hid her tears so well. 

But this was Levi we are talking about. The man who knows her as well as the back of his hand.

She turned around, wanting to be as far away from him as she could. But Levi’s hand was quick to grab on to her wrist. He didn’t want her to leave with a sullen expression like that. 

He’s wanted her happy, he’s always wanted her happy. 

Her head swiveled, and she looked back at him. Face blank and eyes cold.

“M-Mae, I’ll never hurt you,” his voice cracked. 

A painful expression took over Mae’s face. ‘You've already hurt me Levi,’ it said. And Levi’s eyes widened as it told him exactly what she was thinking./ everything about the thought in her head.

“.... physically.” He muttered out, to save himself from the weight of his own actions.

His hand was still latched onto her wrist. It was cold and Levi’s body was always the first to lose its warmth when the weather dropped.

And he was sodden in the rainwater… he could catch a cold.

But Mae wasn’t supposed to care about him anymore. 

So she shaked her hand out of his grasp. And walked back into the bar with heavy steps.

Levi has always been a violent man. This clearing itself stands a testament to it. 

The first day she went to him, he tackled her to the ground. And the other day in the market, he beat someone up just because they were looking at him?

But there is more to it, Levi doesn't just beat up people for looking at him. If that was the case, then she would have been long dead by now.

Hange says Levi gets violent when he’s angry, annoyed or overwhelmed, sometimes even when he’s stressed. Or when he needs to prove a point. 

In a way violence is how he expresses himself. He doesn’t crack under the pressure, he explodes loud enough that everyone feels his rage.

It has something to do with his past, Hange said. He has had it very harsh, they said.

And Mae can’t help but think how brutal Levi’s past must have been, if he believes in philosophies like ‘strength is all I need to survive’?

She lets out a defeated sigh, as another tear slips down her eye.

Why he did what he didn’t doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter.

The point is that Levi is a violent man, and she’s known that ever since the day she met him.

So why did her heart manage to discard the things she already knew about him? How did she be so blind in her love for him?

Levi never told her much about himself. Yeah, she knows about all his likes and dislikes, and all his small quirks. But she doesn’t know about his past, she doesn’t know about his parents. Heck, she doesn’t even know his surname.

And the irony is that she doesn’t know him well. But right now it feels like she doesn’t know herself as well.

She looks into the mirror and she doesn’t know the woman who blinks back at her.

Because the woman she thought she was, was cautious. Never a risk taker. Always walking meters away from any danger.

And even though she has always been quite sentimental, a part of her was always rational. Able to decipher the truth between all her emotions. 

She knew that the evacuees would be abandoned one day. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to save her parents. Because the odds were against it. And it was the bitter truth that her heart learned to accept the first month after the announcement of the mission itself.

And no smart person offers food to a cat that bites back.

Then why is her heart so hell bent on playing with fire? Why is a part of her so adamant on understanding why Levi did things the way he did?

It's only now that she sees the way she’s latched on to him. The death of her loved ones left a void in her heart and Levi was the quick relief that took all her pain away. And she was so distracted by the rush of her heart that she hardly paid any attention to the void that weakened her from the inside. 

He was something she relied on, instead of strengthening her own will. And it's been 4 months since the day he held her up by the collar, but imagining a life without him still feels hard.

It's cold, so cold.  Her teeth clatter, and her body shivers. She crosses her arms and places her hands on her shoulders. Trying to warm her body by rubbing her palms.

But the sound of footsteps comes to her notice. They are silent and fast, like Levi’s. And she knows they are coming towards her because of the fallen leaves that they crush on their path.

The footsteps are coming closer but she is reluctant to turn around. For once she wants to be lost in her own world, without any reminder of reality. For once she wants to be left alone.

A coat falls onto her lap . It's the Survey Corps cloak. And the hands that keep it next to her are pale and calloused.

“You’ll catch a cold.” Levi’s voice is gentle. And she doesn’t need to cast a glance to know he’s wearing a thin white cotton shirt himself. Because she’s seen him throughout her entire shift plenty of times already.

Levi stays there for a moment, standing next to her, and staring at the river ahead.

He follows Mae back everyday. And he sees the house she’s now living in. It's despicable, just a single room, with a metal shed on top, in the poorest section of the city. 

She’s working as a waitress. Living in a house, smaller than the dorms in the Headquarters.Working at a cheap clinic in the slums.

And all he wants to do is to beat that damned Ivan. He wants to steal all his money and get her settled in Sina. This isn’t the life he wanted for her. This isn’t the life that he distanced himself from her, for.

But he holds it all inside of him. She wants him out of her life and he doesn’t have the right to barge into her life anymore. Not when he himself kicked her out of his.

And he blames himself for the situation she’s in. He should have interrogated that fucking husband of hers personally, and he should have spoken to Mae as well. 

He should have taken her thoughts into consideration, before assuming what's best for her.

And he’s so ashamed of himself, that he doesn’t even find the courage to look at her. He failed her, he hurt her. The one person who’s cared for him selflessly. The one person who’s been gentle with him.

But if he did take a chance and meet her eyes, then he would see the sadness trapped in her insides.

Mae shifts her position, so her back faces Levi and he doesn’t see her cry. 

There goes her heart beating faster again at the gesture. And there goes Levi, toying with her feelings once again.

At this point she’ll never get over him.

And Levi grimaces, as Mae keeps his cloak on the spot next to her instead of wearing it. An exhausted sigh escapes his mouth, and then he turns around and walks back to the cedar tree.

But he lets the cloak be, on the rock, just beside Mae. Just in case it gets too cold and she changes her mind.

His footsteps fade away and Mae shudders as another tear escapes her eye. 

Every time Levi comes to her, the same question surfaces in her mind.

What about her bandaging his hand out of sheer concern made him feel cornered and pushed him into a state of violence?

What about her just trying to be a good friend and looking out for him, got on his nerves?

Was she being too annoying back then? Did he need more space? And did she fail in giving him that?

Because it's so annoying now, when he follows her back to her house everyday. Yeah, his intentions are good and he’s just protecting her, but she doesn’t want him here. She wants to stay away from him.

And she can’t help but think that maybe Levi felt the same way back then as well.

Her father always told her that it's in the toughest times that teach you the most.

And the past months have been so painful, if nothing she wants to learn something from it. She wants to come out a better person.

Nothing in her control is in her life anymore. She’s making money but it's not enough. She has a job but its not stable enough.  And the one thing she was sure of that she would do, was forgetting Levi.

And even that seems impossible now that he’s always in front of her.

But the hate she has for him, is a poison in her own heart. And she doesn’t remember the last time she truly felt happy

Her face turns into distaste every time she sees him. And it's sad that she still has so much power over her. Enough to ruin her mood at the mere sight of him.

It's only now that Mae realizes that ever since her parents died she only found happiness in Levi. And he became the source of all her joy.

And it's time she takes control of her happiness. It's time she learns to make herself happy.

Maybe they were never meant to be, but one thing's for sure. Levi’s care wasn’t a pretense. It wasn’t an act he put up just to earn her favor. And maybe Hange was right all along. Maybe he does like her.

But the moment is long gone, and things have forever changed.

No feelings can undo what happened between them.

And she’ll learn to forgive him, but she’ll not let him in her life until he gives her a valid explanation for his actions that day. Not until he proves to her that violence isn’t something he goes to whenever he gets angry. That his violence isn’t a beast that he can’t tame.

The unknown is unfolding. 

She doesn’t know where she’s headed, she doesn’t know where she’ll be a few months from now. And she doesn’t know what’s going to happen between her and Levi.

But the stars are twinkling brightly above her, and it reminds her of the words she told Levi on that starry night.

“There will always be so many things that are out of my control, but I just want to keep doing all that I can. I want to stand tall amidst all the chaos and I want to make the most of the limited time I have…”

The things that are happening are out of her control again. And she is trying her best. Once again it's time to make peace with it. It's time to heal.

And she’ll learn to be patient with the heart that she’s hated for so long. And maybe she’ll stumble on the path, make a mistake and flop down. But she’ll get up.

She has to get up.

The water gushes below her, moving through every obstacle its way.

And just like the water, she’ll learn to persevere.

She’ll learn to let go, and be carefree. She’ll learn to be light and to not take everything so seriously.

And she’ll adapt to every situation and find happiness no matter what.

And just like the ebbing water, she’ll go where the wind takes her. She’ll change, she’ll learn and she will have the faith that good things are coming for her.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

OCT 846

The sound of clinking glasses echoes through the illuminated halls of Tipsy Titan Hours. And the once cramped bar, mellows down as the moon rises higher and higher.

Raz glances back, her head whirling and eyes lagging, as she scans across the empty seats and tables for the millionth time. And once again her eyes are quick to land on the quiet table in the corner. ”My vision is hazy, but I'm ssure he's still starin' at ya.”

"...It doesn’t matter anymore.” Mae hisses as the cool metal of the jug meets her sodden lips. The golden beverage promptly washes down her throat,  and a burning sensation now covers its trail.

She slams her jug on the desk, and rolls her head back in contentment, "my head hurt-sh... but 'tis feels good, to just forget for some time." 

Glasses clink, and in a matter of seconds they are empty as well. Raz pushes herself up again. Hands propping against the stale table as she gets up to bring another beer bottle. 

It's around 12. Working hours are close to an end, and perched on the center table are the waitresses, wasted. 

Today has been a hectic day. A celebration marking the one year anniversary of Tipsy Titan Hours. Free drinks were served to everyone, and the bar was jam-packed for hours. 

But now that roaring crowd has finally dulled, and the workers are free to have whatever they want as well. After all, it's their hard work that has also contributed to the success. 

And so, Mae has been spending the past hour drinking. It's not something she would have done a few months back. But she is changing, and what is life if you don’t open yourself to new experiences?

Levi sighs with distaste, as he looks at her empty another mug down. The table she sits on is filled with blotches of alcohol. Fuck that, the entire tavern is so damn dirty, usually it just stinks of booze but today it stinks of sweat as well. Because of all the people who have danced here in their drunken state today.

And instead of cleaning all the shit up, the waitresses lay wasted. Gulping bottle after bottle themselves. Every inch of Levi’s body is telling him to leave and it's taking every ounce of resolve left in him to stay put in place.

Tch, if he knew that his life would end up like this, then he wouldn’t leave the underground in the first place. 

He takes his eyes off the musty tavern and looks at the window next to him. Staring at the streets of Jinae, which are empty and quaintly silent.

He just hopes that Mae knows what she’s doing, and she isn’t wasting her life away.

Thoughts of her fill his head again, and he turns his head to watch that silly, drunken lady who captures all his heart. 

But he only pots Raz. Mae’s seat is empty and he doesn’t see her around the other tables as well.

Levi's face contorts into a frown as worry swells up in his heart, and in an instant he gets up and marches towards Raz. "Where is she?"

"Uhm... to my left." Raz speaks blankly, and she swivels her head to the left. Only to be met with an empty seat again. "To my right then.”

“Your drunk as fuck," Levi jabs as he turns around and wanders through the dimly lit interior.

And Mae’s name tumbles out of his lips as soon as he spots her through the partly open bathroom door. 

She’s on the floor, body hunched over the toilet seat, as violent fits make her lurch forward and empty the contents of her stomach out.

In a breath, he’s beside her, holding her soiled hair back as he stares at her face, flushed and sticky with sweat. 

The bathroom is the filthiest of them all, and the stench of the washroom and alcohol, makes his nose crinkle in utter distaste. But more than that, it's Mae.

She reeks. Of sweat, ale, and vomit. And a dark crease runs along Levi’s forehead as his eyes hover over her face. It's a pity to see her in a condition like this. 

Her brows are pulled close, and numerous lines of tension are forged between them. And her eyes are shut tight as soft pants leave her smeared, red lips. 

And as filthy as she looks, she also looks like she is in pain. And so, his free hand finds its way to her back, rubbing long strokes, in an attempt to soothe her. 

Mae looks at him solemnly. And Levi doesn't miss the slight downturn of her lips and how instantaneously her hand grips the wall for support as she tries to stand up. 

Only to fall into his grasp once again.

"You can't even hold yourself upright,” he comments.

She throws a wary look his way and tries to free herself from his clutches. But Levi holds her upper arm in an iron grip. ”Don’t act so reckless, you’ll fall to the ground and hurt yourself” 

But obviously she doesn’t listen and continues to struggle to take her arm out of his. “Levi,” she squirms as her brows scrunch up in frustration.

And Levi freezes, eyes wide and lips parted in fright. Shit, did he mess up again, was that way too harsh? Did he hurt her… again?

In an instant, he takes his hand away from her and staggers back, caught off guard by the thought and the horrible feeling it brings along. 

Mae wobbles away from him, out of the bathroom. Towards Raz, who has dozed off on the sodden table itself. And Levi watches her figure slowly fade away. Because these days, all that he can seem to do is to watch her slip away from him, again and again. 

"RAAZ-" Mae extols, raising her arms up excitedly and shaking it side to side, with much vigor. But her loud call hardly seems to rouse the other waitress from slumber.

Her speed increases, and her heel lands on a wet patch on the floor. Her foot slips due to her hasty pace. And Mae doesn't know what surprises her more, her embarrassing fall or the hands that instantly catch her entire frame.

Levi is beside her again, one arm around her waist and one around her shoulder, as he helps her up. And he’s glad that the crowd has completely simmered down, and now it's just him, Mae, Raz and the cashier.

It will save Mae from all the embarrassment she’ll have to deal with tomorrow, when she comes back to her senses.

“Mae, let's go home.” Levi’s voice is soft and imploring.

But she ignores him and continues moving forward. Pace still as fast as before. And it's only his support that’s holding her upright and not letting her topple to the floor. “Mae, you’re going to hurt yourself this way… please… let me take you home,” he continues.

“Leviii,” she drones out, “do you have to be so damn stubborn and persistent all the time… I wanna have fun.” she pouts. And Levi sighs defeatedly as he helps her sit on the tall bar stool.

Raz is asleep right beside her, and Mae's entire attention shifts to her. She pokes and prods at her colleague. Whining like a little child, asking for her to wake up and have another shot with her.

And Levi looks at her softly.

“Raz is fast asleep, how about you sleep as well?” He says as he slides the beer bottles to his side of the table.

All he wants for now is to keep her away from alcohol. She’s vomited once, and if she keeps having alcohol after that then it will just lead to her stomach getting worse. And it might also lead to alcohol poisoning or blackouts.

“You know you come in my dreams sometimes… and how do I know I’m not already asleep and you aren’t dream’ Levi?” Mae’s words slur as slowly turns her head towards him.

Levi‘s posture stiffens and warmth gathers to his cheek. His perpetual shyness floods back to him, and it's been so long since he has felt this way. His lips quirk up a little, reminiscing such moments that would happen so often in the past. And at the fact that she dreams of him… 

And well he thinks of her too. She’s stuck in his mind and seated in the chambers of his heart. Like a guest who’s way too comfortable. Who’s found his place and will never go back home. 

And just like he can’t tear his heart away from her, he can’t take his eyes off her as well.

Every part of Mae’s face is tinted red. Her eyes are red, her cheeks are red. And Levi is so dazed by the situation that he can’t even make out whether the reducing distance between them is just a stupid imagining of his heart. Or whether Mae is actually so drunk that she is leaning forward… to kiss him or something. 

Then he feels her breath graze the slant of his nose. And he freezes, eyes wide and any intake of breath, halted. 

“I’m gonna be wild tonight,” she says as she looks into his eyes. Face extremely close to his and her hand reaching out towards the beer bottles that he has stacked at the other end.

"W-what?" Levi almost topples off his chair, his ears flushing red as inappropriate scenarios fill his head. And god bless his quick instincts and his fingers, that clutch on to the table and help him balance himself. 

"I am gonna drink till 1, and then I'm gonna dance till 2, which is why I can't go home now… you need to understand." She pleads with seriousness as she drags a bottle from his side to hers. And the sound of glass screeching against the wood, brings Levi back to his senses.

“Oi,” he warns as he snatches the bottle away from her and shakes his head.

“But Levi… I want more.” She pouts and he sighs to himself. She’s going to be in a horrible state tomorrow morning. Probably regretting everything and down with a nasty headache.

But she’s made her decision, even though in a shitty state. And he has crossed his boundaries once, but he’s not going to do that again. He has no right to tell her how to live her life, when he himself kicked her out of his.

And so he’ll protect her from the sidelines, he won’t impose his choices on her anymore. Because that is what caused all the mess in the first place.

So Levi watches, as she ruins herself. And he’s beside her, filling her glass with water whenever she reaches out for some beer. And he’s beside her, holding her hair back whenever she’s in the bathroom, vomiting. Even when it hurts to see her like this.

It's a little against his judgment, but he isn’t going to stop her from doing what she wants. As long as she is safe, he’s fine with it. And as long as he’s here, he’ll let nothing happen to her.

And as much as he’d say she’s in a pitiful and defenseless position right now, she’s smiling. And it's been so long since he has seen her like this. So lively and untroubled.

And so he’s beside her, ready to catch her whenever she gets up to dance.

He scans the tavern once more, checking for any dangerous objects that Mae might hurt herself with. And his eyes land on the cashier, who’s busy watching the both of them, instead of reading the damned novel in her hand. A string of curses fly out of his mouth at her prying eyes and her callous attitude, and he flashes her a disdainful look.

But then his eyes land back on Mae and they soften once again. She’s prancing around the tavern, halting at a chair, or speaking to a flower vase placed in a corner. Like a child, so bright and carefree. And it's been so long since he has seen her like this. Without any worry or a tear rolling down her cheek.

He would see this side of hers so often. In the days when she would share without thinking about how much she’s receiving in return. And when she would put hours of effort just to make him some pie to appreciate the small wins of his life.

It was the part of her that loved selflessly, that cared limitlessly. Without taking into account the cruel realities of the world… and of people. And he hurt her… He hurt the inner child that she so courageously showed him.

And even though it's completely his fault, he’s tired of seeing her hurting.

 She smiles at everyone, but it never meets her eyes. And even though no one else might be able to tell the difference, Levi can see the sadness brimming inside her. 

Even now, her cover of sadness is only broken due to temporary the haze of the alcohol. 

But he’s glad nevertheless. He’s glad she can have a single moment of rest and he can have a moment of reprieve as well. 

Mae reaches to his usual table, and lifts the tote bag he always carries around up. And Levi throws her a thumbs up in return, indicating she can do whatever she wants with it.

And she takes a red book out of it. The same red one that made him realize his feelings for her. The Fable of the Fallen Apple.

She shuffles towards him, and takes a seat on the bar stool next to him. And then she starts reading the story to him, just like the good old times. 

It reminds him of the days when she used to tutor him, except she’s holding the book in the opposite direction.

And he looks at her, chin resting on his palm and fingers drumming against his cheek. Eyes as soft as possible.

He decides he likes it. Even though her words are slurring and things just hardly make sense.

It's been so long since she has been like this with him. Having a normal conversation and not caring what anyone else thinks,

And very soon this will also fade. The contempt in her eyes will be back, and her voice will be quelled with sadness again. And he’ll go back to watching her walk away from him. Again and again.

And so he stays in the moment today. Savoring every word she says and every breath she takes, so it doesn’t hurt as much when she’s gone.

Half an hour passes by and the cashier finally says that it's time to close the tavern now. That working hours are close to an end, and it's time to wind up and clean the place.

Levi gets up as soon as hears the words. And makes his way towards her with some money in his hand.

“Sir you don’t have to pay today,” she responds politely as Levi extends the cash forwards towards her.

“This…,” he throws her a stern look but no one can deny the ever darkening hue on his cheek. It's prominent even in the dim light.”... Is too keep your mouth shut about all that was happening today.”

“… And,” Levi continues. “Make sure she reaches home safe, that redhead who is fast asleep right there.” He points towards Raz, who’s now snoring in her slumber. 

Mae rests there as well.  Almost mimicking Raz's position as she rests her head on the table. Utterly exhausted with all the prancing she has done in the past hour. 

His face softens in an instant.

Today she’s not here. The cautious, caring woman whose father told her to only drink in a safe place, with safe people. And today he’ll be gentle and patient, the man that he failed to be for her.

He walks over to her, and dotingly his hand lands on her shoulder. "Mae, let's go home." 

She shifts her head towards him, and the slits of her eyes lazily open for a split second as she glances at him. But she remains quiet and offers him no response.

“The store is closing… we need to go home now.” 

But the request garners no response again.

"Mae, please, let me take you to your house."

"B-but…  I don't wanna go home. I don’t like it there." She mutters out slowly and he grimaces as the words leave her mouth.

The sound of footsteps coming close feels louder in the silence that settles between Levi and Mae. And the tension in the air only reduces when the cashier steps in, and stands next to Raz.

And Mae tries to get up as well, as she sees Raz being woken up. But she’s had so much alcohol that she can’t even stand on her own feet. 

And Levi sees only one solution to the problem. 

“We’ll go to the headquarters okay… that works for you?” He speaks out a little softer. He may not have the right to pry into her life anymore and know all her problems. But he’s still here for her, and he’ll still help her whatever way he can.

She hums in agreement, and slowly they make their way out of the musty tavern.

The streets are quiet, the night is dark. The light from the street lamps brings out the texture of that cobblestone path. And Mae’s front is pressed to Levi’s back as he carries her back to the Survey Corps headquarters. Giving her a piggyback ride.

Her calves sway along with every step he takes, and her face is beside his, so close that he can feel her breath in and out.  A gush of air hits their face, and he breathes in a sigh of relief.

Finally he’s out of that filthy tavern and fresh air touches his face again.

“This feels awfully familiar doesn’t it Levi.” Mae mutters, voice low and hoarse from all the drinking she’s done with Raz today.

And Levi reminisces a little as he thinks of the day when those thugs attacked him. She stayed with him, begging and yelling that she won’t leave when he was repeatedly telling her he’d be fine on his own.

It is a memory he will cherish forever. “It does, except this time you are stinking.”

Mae falls quiet at his words and then she exhales heavily. “I really despise you sometimes Levi. You play with my heart in the worst ways possible.”

He falls quiet at her statement, and his shoulders wilt a little. A question lingers in the back of his head. One that he has been wanting to ask her forever. Do you hate me?... Because sometimes I hate myself too. 

But she beats him to it.

“But I still can’t bring myself to hate you… I don’t think I could ever hate you… You saved me and then you hurt me.  But you were you all along. It was me, who’s perception was distorted. It was me who clung to you because I thought I couldn’t do without you. I had low self esteem, I was lonely. And so I was the reason for all my heartache…” She pauses, and then her voice comes out much more sadder. ”I know I messed up and I should learn to find happiness all alone. I should have been more careful, less naive but it just hurts sometimes you know. …I’m never the first choice. Be it with Mr. Mendes, be it with you. I give all that I have in all my relationships. And every time someone else turns out to be more valuable than me…”

She lets out a sigh as she rests her chin on his clavicle and mutters,” I miss my parents so much. My friends as well. I don’t even know why I bothered staying. I should have just worn an olive cloak and offered myself to a titan.’ A sardonic laugh escapes her mouth.

And Levi frowns at the miserable joke. "Shut it, it's not funny. Don’t joke about dying to the titans.”

“I know I shouldn’t…” her voice cracks and somehow it turns more melancholic. “ But it’s so lonely without them, my family, my friends… Everything feels worthless.” 

What she is saying right now, is what she feels in the depths of her heart. Things she knows she might be wrong for feeling. And thoughts she knows, that will get her nowhere.

These are the thoughts she doesn’t want to settle with, and the thoughts she’s always fighting against. These are things that she’s admitting in her drunken state.

And Levi wants to cower and hide. He’s never been good at consoling and shit, and he wants to act like she never said all these things. He wants to continue staying invulnerable and never get his feelings out.

But he also knows these feelings all too well. These feelings of loneliness. And he doesn’t want her to suffer all alone with them, just like he does.

“Also I am heartbroken but I’m not dumb. I’m only telling you all this because you are ‘dream’ Levi, and just my imagination…The actual Levi will never touch me in a state like this… I am absolutely filthy.” She starts rambling, and in all her chatter, Levi tries to compose himself.

And he can feel the heat gathering to his cheeks as he tries to force some words out. “L-listen M-Mae.” 

It's hard. It doesn’t suit him and he's so unused to speaking out loud about his feelings. But he’s not going to let her feel miserable forever. He’s not going to succumb to his inner demons.

And he is going to comfort her with all the softness that remains in his heart. “You are not all a-alone… y-you might not consider it, b-but I am–.” He pauses again, to collect his thoughts, and calm himself. 

The air is heavy. And Levi is fumbling and stuttering with the way he is expressing himself. And much to his relief the moment is broken by sudden taps on his shoulder.

.“Levi, something’s coming up… I can feel it.” Mae speaks with urgency. 

And he almost freezes for a second. All thoughts of Mae and her loneliness simmer away, and for the first time in many years, Levi panics.

“NO NO NO,” He gets frantic, eyes wide as he scans every nook and corner. Then he spots a tree, at least 50 meters away and he darts towards it. “You need to control it, hold it in. HOLD IT IN.” 

“Levi h-hurry,” her voice is strained, and Levi tries to move as fast as possible, also making sure that his speed doesn’t further dislodge the contents in stomach.

The air feels heavy again, but this is a different kind of heavy. Filled with a different kind of suspense. 

The tree is just a few meters away,  but alas Levi is too late. 

“Le-” an ungraceful,  hideous sound pierces through the air. Right out of Mae’s mouth into his ear “-vi.”

And Levi halts in his tracks, eyes wide and eyebrows raised up, taking a moment to process what just happened. 

And it’s only after a minute that he comes back to his senses and sneers, “you just BURPED, in my ear.” 

Nevertheless, he’s very glad it's just a burp and not vomit.

Mae is still for a moment, and then she slouches again, chest pressing fully against his back as her chin goes back to resting on his collarbone. “‘M sorry… but Hange says why fart and waste it when you can burp and taste it.”

Laughter ripples past his lips. This time it isn't a stifled chuckle or a subtle giggle. But a loud obnoxious cackle. ”You and Hange… “ he speaks in between breaths. “You and Hange will be the death of me.”

And Mae smiles at his words as well. Because Hange is amazing and iconic.

Shops and houses pass by, as Levi resumes walking at his regular pace, and Mae’s eyes remain wide awake. Staring at all the stores, almost searching for something.

And then her eyes light up, when she spots a shop all too familiar. Decorated with creepers and veils climbing along its white walls. “Is the bakery open? Can we go inside it.”

“It's 1 in the morning, obviously they’ll keep it open for you.” Levi retorts with blatant sarcasm.

And she huffs against the crook of his neck in response.  “I’ve not had a pastry in so long,” she drones out, and Levi frowns at her words. He vividly remembers how often she would have a pastry. Almost one every week because she's always been a firm believer of celebrating the small moments. And celebrating life in itself without any reason or accomplishment.

But he decides not to dwell on the topic any further, because it might make her upset. 

“All that energy is finally depleting hmm? It’ll make you easier to handle… What’s got you so energetic today, anyways?” He asks, as he changes the subject.

“I’m happy! I had a lot of fun with Raz today.” Her voice lights up and even though Levi can’t see her face  because of the position they are in. He knows that she is smiling with how sweet her voice sounds.

He smiles a little at that as well.

The rest of the journey passes by in silence. Mae closes her eyes and rests against Levi’s frame, and Levi listens to the thump of her heart against his chest . She’s so close to him, and she still stinks. But he’s glad nevertheless, He’s glad she had fun, and he’s glad he's getting to spend some time with her in so long.

In a way, all of this is wrong. She’s married and if she wasn't drunk she wouldn't let him touch her like that. But it's all going to fade away anyways. It will be ripped away from him just like everything is, and so he’ll stay while everything lasts, even if it's just for a day.

The headquarters come into sight. Time is running out, and a part of him doesn’t want to put her down. He wants to relish in her warmth that he's experiencing after so long.

But she needs rest, and she needs to sleep on a proper bed. So he enters the dim hallways and makes his way to his quarters.

His quarters are covered in darkness, with not a single candle flame flickering. But Levi knows this place as well as the back of his hand.

He places Mae on the couch, and quickly makes his way around to light a few candles.

And if Mae was in her senses she would have noticed that his room isn’t as clean as it used to be. The tea bags are hastily left on the kitchen counter, the bedsheet isn’t creaseless anymore. And what adds to it, is the stacks of paperwork piled both on his desk and even inside a few shelves.

But the alcohol rests heavy in her system, and her eyelids are shut close in exhaustion. She sighs in relief, finally a soft, comfortable surface to rest upon.

Much to her dismay, she is woken up by the sudden cool feeling that touches her skin. Her eyes open partially and Levi stands in front of her with a wet towel in his hands. “Levi let me sleep, what are you doing?” She calls out in frustration.

“It's not good to sleep with so much product on, not good for your skin… And your dress is stained everywhere, you are not sleeping on my bed with that on.”

But Mae feels so drowsy that she hardly listens to him. Her eyes close midway, heavy with sleep and she sits still on the couch, completely unbothered with whatever Levi is doing.

And Levi stands in front of her, dipping down from his back, as he scans her face. And cupping her jaw as he holds her face straight.

If only she’d open her eyes, she would see how close he is. She would see the red on his cheeks. And if only she wasn’t this sleepy, she would have felt how clammy his hands are, due to nervousness.

He takes in a deep breath and his hands quiver as he roves the towel over her eyelids. With all the gentleness that he can garner in his hardened fingertips. And as the makeup comes off from her skin, he sees the dark circles that now encircle her eyes, and skin that looks so dull and lifeless, filled with acne

And his silver eyes flock with concern as he stares at her a little longer.

She looks battered, like a worn out soldier who’s been strong for too long. 

And she’s here, because she didn’t want to go home. She doesn’t like it there. The thought itself fills Levi’s mind with rage and fear. 

And all that he knows for sure is that he is going to beat the shit out of her piece of a shit husband. 

"Is your husband treating you like shit?" he asks, with his voice drawn taut and jaw clenched.

"What husband?" she mumbles incoherently.

And Levi sighs, as he looks at her and her passed out state. He gets up defeated, and picks the comb he brought along as well. And then he moves behind the couch and positions himself behind Mae’s seated figure. “Straighten up, I’ll comb your hair.”

She gives in thoughtlessly, and it's only when Levi sees the clumps of hair that fall out of her head, does he notice how thin her hair has gotten.

He realizes he hasn't seen her properly in months, and now he sees her on the verge of breaking.

He gets visibly sadder at the thought, and in a mere attempt to distract himself he gets up and stands in front of her again. Wrapping both of his hands around her upper arms as he says, “come I-I’ll help y-you g-get changed.”

Mae’s sleepy eyes open wide at that, and a new found energy grips her voice. “NO, thank you mister, I can change by myself.”

“You can’t even stand.” Levi mutters, as he gets her up to her feet, hands still clutching on to her so that she doesn’t drop to the floor.

“As far as my brain tells me,” she says, tapping her index finger to her temple, “standing and changing clothes are two completely different things.”

And Levi looks at her incredulously, almost taken aback by her stupidity. “Tch, you are so drunk,” he grumbles.

And Mae gets quiet for a moment, before she says. "I'm not drunk, I'm beautiful."

Levi looks up at her as she says those words. Her skin is now clean and fresh, ridden of the smudged makeup that once dawned on her face. And the ponytail she wears, gives him a full view of her tired eyes that burn with boldness and conviction.

Indeed very beautiful.

"My face is not disgusting," she continues, as her eyes bore into his. But Levi doesn’t miss the slight tremor of her lips. 

His face falls and his heart sinks into a pit of disgrace. 

Those were the words he'd told her, weren't they?

All of a sudden he’s reminded of who he is, and what he’s done. And it's only now that he understands how he has hurt her. With every look and every word.

His throat runs dry and he finds himself unable to speak a word, without disintegrating.

The silence becomes agonizing. And Levi backs away, as he realizes that if he looks at her any longer, then he will break. Into bits and pieces. Because more than her husband, he’s a reason for the condition she’s in as well.

He takes slow steps backwards, unable to take his eyes off the floor and meet hers.

He needs a distraction. He needs to think about something else. And so he darts towards his bedroom, and finds his way to his cupboard. Opening it and absent mindedly pulling out a shirt and a trouser.

And when he stands in front of Mae, he’s back to being aloof. It has always been like this, a moment of defenselessness until he shrouds behind his mask of nonchalance.

"Go change," he places the clothes in her hands and struts away. Giving in to her demands even though she’s probably going to trip and fall. But also, a little too scared to displease her any more than he’s already done.

"Levi, wait," Mae’s hand latches onto his wrist. "I don’t want this…want the gray one… The v neck, it is my faaavourite on you.”

His face softens at the words and that’s all it takes for his mask of indifference to fade, once again.

There's a child in her, and he hopes she can always keep it alive. He hopes it doesn’t wither away in the cruelty of life, like the child in him did.

His cheeks turn pink again as he glances at the shirt she is holding out, because she wants his gray one.  And he makes a mental note to buy more in the same color. 

As quick as ever, he gives in to her request, and hands her the gray shirt she demands. 

At that her eyes squint and she flashes him the same smile that always takes his breath away. The same smile that makes him feel like he’s the reason behind all her joys. His cheeks turn pinker at the thought.  

No one’s ever smiled at him the way she does. No one has looked at him with such warmth and affection. And he’s glad that he can see her smile like this one last time. 

A part of him doesn’t want to leave. A part of him doesn’t want to go away so that she can change her clothes. A part of him doesn’t want to be apart from her a single second more. 

But he’s wronged her a little too much, to still be around her. A little too much to still crave her company.

And so he walks her to his room, lights a candle there as well and ambles away. Because even though his heart gravitates towards Mae, he isn’t a man capable of love.

The office seems silent now that she is cooped up in his room. And Levi lets out a heavy exhale as he walks towards the small kitchenette placed at the adjacent wall.

He brews himself a cup of tea, and takes a seat on his desk. Eyes glazing over the stack of paperwork piled in front of him. Somehow, the familiarity of it all calms his nerves and he takes a sheet out and starts with his paperwork.

And he waits, for the sound of Mae collapsing to the floor, or the gate opening and her wobbly figure leaning on to the doorframe.

He waits, and he waits but she doesn’t come out.

And drunks are so annoying, he prays that he never has to deal with them again.

Time ticks out, curiosity gets the best of him, and he walks to his room.

And when he opens the door, he’s met with the sight of her resting on his bed and the faint sound of her snores.

The candlelight kept on his side table casts dancing shadows across her sleeping figure. Her mouth is slightly parted, and her hair is strewn messily on the pillow. And Levi can’t help but hold a breath in as he stares at the way she looks so relaxed and peaceful;.. 

Then he pushes her towards the center of the bed, lest she fall and crack her head open. He tucks her in a blanket and places two pillows at her side just for protection. And finally he blows the candle off.

And as he looks back at her, he doesn’t know why he has the sudden desire to touch her. 

His motion stutters, and his fingers tremor as they reach towards her head. 

His mother would often pat his head when he had difficulty sleeping, but Mae is already asleep. So why does he have the sudden, irrational desire to caress her head?

And Levi doesn’t know indulgence. 

But he knows that the sun will rise tomorrow, and he will be blackened by his own regrets. Unable to face her because now he knows that he has probably left her, even unsafer, in an unhappy marriage. Now he knows how much he has hurt her. And now he knows how miserable she really is.

It feels like their last night together. Because tomorrow  she'll be gone, back to ignoring him. And he’ll go back to the miserable person who mourns the loss of that love that he himself destroyed. With his own two hands.

Levi doesn’t know indulgence, because everything he cherishes always ends up getting torn apart from him. 

But he has lost her already. She has been ripped away already.

And so he rests his hand on her head. And so he roves his palm over her head. Looking at her dotingly, caressing her gently. His heart beats wildly,  and for once he lets it win over

She looks peaceful now that she is asleep. Far different from the exhausted face she sports all the time in that filthy bar. And he drinks all of her details in for one last time.

He wants to look at her more, the desire only seems to deepen the more he stares at her face. He wants to be next to her the entire night.

And so Levi shifts his desk into the cramped space of his bedroom. As quietly as possible. And he lights up a candle as he sits down to do his paperwork. Right next to her sleeping figure.

Author's Note:

Okay! So with this we are done with half of the chapters for this fic.

This chapter is kinda bittersweet, I don't know how happy I am with this chapter honestly, because it has gotten too long and it might have some cringe moments, but I just wanted to show how close Mae and Levi are and what there bond was once like.

Also in the first scene, Mae has a realization that she needs to start working towards and in the 2nd scene, a month later she still hasn't been able to implement it completely yet. Its like you know you should love yourself, but you still find it hard to.

And that realization will come to her, but LATER on, not in the recent chapters for sure.

Also the line 'why fart and waste it, when you can burp and taste it' is not something my brain has come up with, i don't have that kind of genius-ness lol🤡. Its taken from a bollywood movie Queen, which I definitely recommend, because its a pretty good watch.

Another thing I want to mention is that its highly likely I'll take a few weeks off again, after I finish this arc, because I don't have enough content written to keep up with my writing schedule. And I don't want to write fast and compromise on the quality of the chapters, because I really want to give my best shot with this fic, and it takes me time to come up with good metaphors and ideas that I can put into the scenes. I'll completely address this situation next week.

Thank you reading! I hope you liked it. As always I appreciate any comments, questions and criticism as well. See you next Sunday

Taglist: @keijikunn @evas-leslas @leviackermanmyhero245

[witchlyboo]

Definitely, maybe.

Part five: The one who belongs to someone else.

Introduction. Part one. Part two. Part three. Part four.

Paring: Latina!reader x Logan Lerman x Tom Holland x Ben Hardy x Timothee Chalamet x Pedro Pascal x Michael B. Jordan

Warnings: Swearing, angst, misspellings, some Spanish, me learning how to write properly, and NY stuff that I've learned from movies that we all agree to pretend are real.

Word count: 6.4 k

a/n: You been asking for smut, I know, I know, I just wanted to introduce you to all the boys first, and we're getting there, just one more ahead. Also, I'm working on a masterlist because we are getting too many parts already.

All body types and skin tones friendly. You can also enjoy it as a no Hispanic reader. Constructive feedback and misspellings correction is always welcome.

Red and blue lights flash the driving mirror.

—No, no, no, por favor que no sea a mi—You beg to the sky looking at the patrol that is asking you to park, or someone else, there's a lot of cars in this part of the city, there's a big chance is the panic who's controlling your senses.—Dios, mi abuela fue a la iglesia cada domingo de su vida y nunca te pidió nada, please let me have some of her divina recompensa.—But that's not how it works, you end up parking with just a few seconds to think what to say. There's a perfect explication of why you are driving a car that is not yours in the middle of the night and smelling like a minibar.

Then this ridiculous thought comes to your mind, you look expensive, you've never seen the daughter of a senator but you must be close to it, it would make you less of a feminist if you just use your attributes? Ugh, you feel sick just to think about it but don't have enough money to pay a fine, and the constant paranoia of being chased all the time as an immigrant will only get stronger.

You pull down your dress a little so your neckline can do its job but you regret it immediately, and you're pretty sure you look more like an expensive prostitute who stole the car of his lover than some influential men's daughter.

—License and registration.—You hear him say when he approaches your window. You don't like this but you have to play the dumb tourist, the pretty foreign girl that is too stupid to be dangerous, with the look you have tonight it shouldn't be hard. But damn you hate cops, any uniformed man that works for the government is your eternal enemy, and you don't know how long you could keep the nice dumb Latina game before spit on his face.

—There's something wrong, officer? ...You?!—Your sexy and fake high voice is ruined when you see the face of the man who stopped you. This night couldn't get worse.

—Wait, what happened with the party?—Evan interrupts you while you finish some notes for work, little remainders for later when you don't have an eleven years old kid running around you, he's not usually this energic and you have to blame yourself for that, you're describing a life of excess and eccentric fun, something you let behind so many years ago that your own son doesn't know even a bit of it.

—Ugh, a nightmare doesn't worth telling.—You remember vaguely most of it but what keeps fresh in your mind is bad enough to don't want to bring it back.

—But if Timothée is my dad I have to know the important things, including the bad stuff.—Sounds perfectly reasonable and that's what makes you groan at him. Sometimes you feel blessed that your kid is better than you in any possible way, and sometimes you want to kill his brain with video games and reality shows like the rest of the parents.

—Ok, cool, but I'll keep all the +18 content for myself, so this part of the story might be blurry for you.—It kinda is for you anyway.

You should’ve known this night was cursed, you had a feeling because a) your earring fell off at the same time Timothée texted you to give you the party address and say he can't pick you up. And b) he won’t pick you up. Your mother would say that’s reason enough to not go, a real gentleman wouldn’t make you go to an unknown place in the middle of the night on your own in a city like this. But you decide to ignore it because you are a modern woman and because it’s worth it. It better be.

The outfit must be something special. You always take your time to choose what to wear, even if just another regular day, and since this isn't the case you thought about it for hours, that made your mind busy enough to not thinking about Tom and the whole love confession. He texted you saying he'll come for you to go to class together on Monday, which is completely impractical because he's way closer than you but is progress and you're going to take it.

You wanted to ask for Sheep's opinion but you thought she might not care, has been a few days since she started acting strange like she's bothered just to see you breathe. You want to blame his boyfriend to take all her time and attention from you but is probably just her new job, she got a small role in a Netflix show, and even when you're so happy for her, that's the event that has changed her into someone completely different. But you give her time, stress can do bad things to people.

The winner is the exact copy you made of the black and white striped dress Cameron Diaz wore in "The Mask" beautiful, classy, and sexy enough without being too scandalous, not that you have any problem with that, but this isn't the occasion, you don't want to feel like you're being too much or too little, just enough, it's supposed to be easy, right? you were born for this. Just adding some big shiny earrings you got on a thrift shop that look like real diamonds and you're ready, not that you own any to compare. Red lipstick, dark eyes, and a messy bun to get that disinterested pitch every look needs.

Getting there wasn't a problem, you were in the rich part of the city, everyone know who, where and what just to brag about it. The excitement is growing with every second, you check your makeup like thirty times in the elevator and send texts to your mom just to let her know where you are, and because you have to share that moment with someone and you are limited of friends these days.

Timothée opens the door with red eyes, drunk, high, or somewhere in between, you know then you were right about the bad feeling. He jumps on you to kiss you and no matter how much you try to explain the delicacy of your lipstick, he does it anyway, leaving a taste of alcohol and shrimps in your mouth. Taking you by the waist he walks you to a group of people you don't know while you're trying harder to fix the red color of your mouth without a mirror.

—Here is the companion I bought, look at her, that's how five grand per hour look like.—They laughed but you were too disoriented to process all the things he said, it was supposed to be a joke? if it is, why isn't he correcting? Instead, his hand goes straight to your ass and presses it to get you closer to him.

—I'm actually an intern in the costume designer department of the new version of "Sense and Sensibility".—You wanted to mention your recent promotion to hairstylist and makeup artist but that might be too pretentious. Anyway, they don't seem to care what you are or not, in fact, they don't even see you, all eyes are on Timothée

—Oh, well, is easy to forget when you're paying them—All laughs again. Who is this person? Who are all these people, actually? You recognize some influencers, a few cast members but there's no sign of the director, other main actors, not even his co-star. You feel like an extra in a movie where someone will be killed in a luxury party, hopefully not you. You take his hand from your body and clear your throat.—I'm just joking my love, she looks stunning, isn't she? I’ll get you a drink.

He leaves and the group of people surrounding you suddenly dissipated like boiling water, you were on your own again and despite some judgmental gazes is like you’re not there, you’re sure you could just take your dress off and throw it to someone’s face and unless Tim says something about it, no one would care. You’re there as his companion, an ornament, and that’s not enough to earn their attention because it’s too obvious you’re the one in turn.

You walk to the only window no one is smoking and check your phone, you know, the thing you do when you pretend you have important issues to attend, but no, you end reading some old messages, pictures, texting your mom of how much fun you’re having at the party, and somehow you check your filed Facebook messages to find Logan’s name. You cover the screen so fast you hurt your nail, his name is enough to make you tremble like a Chihuahua, you haven’t talked to him since that night, you know from his sister he lives in the house he bought for you two and he’s having the happiest life without you. You want to believe that because that means you took the right decision but deep inside… no, you can’t be that person, you want him to be happier than ever.

You find the guts to open the message, and you read as slowly as is humanly possible. “My angel, I hope this finds you in perfect health…” Dios, just Logan could start a message like that, your smile is almost too big to fit in your face so you bit your nail to cover it a little. “I recently found one of the human body drawings you made for me to study, you’ll be happy to know…”

—That’s a fucking long-ass message.—Tim appears behind you and takes your phone from your hand, spilling some of his drink on your dress in the process. Apparently, he's been there long enough to read part of the message.

—Give it back.—You command in the most severe voice you have, your magical moment got ruined and you remember the hole of hell you are.

—"My angel, I hope this finds you in perfect health. I recently found one of the human body drawings you made for me to study, you must know I still use them now and then"—Timothée starts reading the message, and even when no one is close enough to hear it and you don’t really care about this people’s opinion, that’s not for anyone to read, that’s one of the few parts of your life you treasure the most and you’re not ready to get over it.—You little slut, are you cheating on me with a med student?

—Give it to me.—You repeat trying to take the phone from his hand but he’s faster and walks away putting it out of your reach.

—"I meticulously preserve them, I certainly know any piece of art made by you will be priceless in the near future"—You don’t want to hear it coming from his drunk mocking voice, so you try to ignore what he’s saying and put more effort on chasing the phone.—Should I had kept the jeans where you left the wet spot on? I didn’t know you were an artist, my love.

—Timothée, por el amor de Dios.—Now you're trying to climb him, it wouldn't be that hard to take him down, he's skinny and you're fierce. That's what you thought but he's not moving even with you are on top of his shoulder and his opposite long arm keeps the phone away from you.

—Who is this guy and why is he talking to my girl like this?—You see the olive eyes getting darker and the tone of his voice went deeper than you thought he could do. You desist from taking the phone, you know the bullies love the attention, maybe that's exactly what he wants and give it to him just makes it worse.

—I'm not your girl.—You claim fixing up your dress having enough of games, and you have no reason to keep worrying about losing your job, the filming is done, and apparently your relationship with him too. You don't care about any of that anymore, just want to read Logan's text.

Even behind all the alcohol and the eyes injected in blood thanks for who knows what kind of drug, you can see the disappointment and anger, but it's not a broken heart, Is the hissy fit of a child that loses his balloon and now everyone will pay for it, especially you.

—Are you sure about that?—You can see him swallow hard, almost looking vulnerable, but his voice is defiant and threatening to prove you wrong. He just has to stretch out his arm to reach the open window with your phone in hand, his intentions are clear and the only thing you can do is raise your hands as a reflex.—You were mine the moment you put a foot on my trailer, and I don't fucking share my stuff.—Before you can say a word he drops the phone from the fourth floor.

You know is senseless but you find yourself running out of the party and going to search the device, using it also as an excuse to get away from that place. This is the first time someone makes you feel meaningless, you know the famous' world is cold and lacking in empathy but this is ridiculous, they're a bunch of parasites fed by attention and power. By Timothée.

The screen is crashed and the rest of it is probably beyond repair, not that you're surprised, its life is longer than you've been in the country and you admit you should have replaced it much earlier but you're not the kind to throw away things that still work. However, is not the phone you are worried about, not as much as what it contains.

—That was obsolete anyway, I'll get you a better one.—You didn't know he was following you, his voice interrupts your self-wailing. He sounds calmer and a little embarrassed, but not enough to say sorry, you don't think he's capable of saying it.

You shake your head and start to walk away without a word, you don't want anything from him, not materially, at least.

—Don't make a scandal out of it, it's just a phone!—He yells erasing any trace of regret in his voice. He doesn't see the reaction he expected and that's when he runs after you and with a hand on your upper arm pulls you back, you gasped for the sudden bluntness.—That annoying habit you have of leaving when I'm talking to you.

You push him away with all the strength you have, which resulted in him almost falling on the ground.

—I don't care about the stupid phone!—You finally break, but sadly is not as satisfactory as you thought it would be.—You are mean, vain, arrogant and the worst part is that you enjoy being this despicable human because you have absolutely no consequences to it. Everyone around you just accepts it and I feel so sorry for you because the only possible way for you to fill the void inside is to be surrounded by that crowd of mules licking your steps—To your surprise, he has nothing to say, he's just standing there with no facial expression, whatever he feels is easily covered by his years of experience acting, even drunk.—I can't give you that and it's obvious they don't want me either. What am I even doing here?—You ask yourself thinking where would be the best way of getting a cab, is a rich zone, must be easy.

—Everything is better when you're around—His voice is thin and fragile, you have to process what he said three times in your head to understand his words. You're not willing to look at him yet.—You're not like the others.

—Pure bullshit. You love to repeat that misogynist discourse of girls being in a certain way because is easier than be responsible for the people you choose to be—You were hugging yourself the whole time, is a cold night, but not enough to be bothersome, you enjoy Fall weather—You got me for a moment, I give you that, you fooled me but I'm too tired of guessing what version of you is real—When you return your gaze at him, he doesn't try to hide the guilt anymore, but there's still haughtiness in there.—Now, if you don't mind Mr. Chalamet, I need to get a cab.

—No, you came with me, you leave with me.—There's no trace of alcohol in his voice anymore, a good scolding is enough to put you sober, you know that thanks to your mom. Oh god, you're becoming her.

—You didn't bring me here, gigantic head—You look at him and put your hand in front of him with the palm up. He stares at it for several seconds before put his own on it—Not that!—You shake it and start looking inside his jeans pockets until you feel the metal of his key car.—You can't drive and I have to get home. You'll find it in the studio tomorrow.

That's how you ended with a car way more luxurious than you expected, driving so slowly and carefully that the police stopped you. What a night, but at this point, you couldn't care less about anything that is not that message, is been months and you can't get over it, over him. Not even Ben moans, Tom's comforting arms, or fight with a movie star at 3:00 am. is enough to get him out of your mind.

—So is true, you don't wear anything that hasn't appeared in a movie, huh?—Michael B. Jordan is leaning on the car window with a mocking smile and a sparkle of satisfaction that you would love to punch but his uniform keeps you in line, where you come from police is not equal to justice, most of the times is oppression.

—You know where it's from?—That was kind of comforting, no one at the party noticed. Not that you care.

—Is The Mask, not some Adam Hitchcock's blurb.—He smiles and even when you really don't like him, it's nice to be with a familiar face, you are really tired of running away, scaping for problems that are a result of your null capacity to deal with emotions. Ugh, what a word.

—Is Alfred Hitchcock, actually.—You didn't want to sound priggish, but you correct him with no time to stop yourself, an old habit.

—You got me, smarty, you know more than movies than me. Where did you get this car?—You feel really nervous even when you got this legally, you have your documents and license on time and he's being nice enough to not want to run away in a car that you technically borrowed for yourself.

—It's not mine.—No shit, Sherlock.

—No shit, Sherlock, I was asking where did you steal it.—You wanted to laugh but there's something with the uniform that just doesn't allow you to be yourself.—Are you drunk?

—No, no, fuck, no, it's just, I don't feel comfortable with cops—He raises his eyebrows but that is his only reaction.—Listen, is my boss' car, I'm doing the favor to take it to the studio, and I'm really nervous because is fucking expensive, he's an asshole, I haven't drive un almost a year because you people only use cars if you're rich or your work and lives depend on it. I'm starving.—The last part came out of nowhere, you haven't eaten anything in almost 13 hours, maybe that's the actual reason why you are that moody.

He doesn't answer right away, takes his time to look at you, what makes you blush, he's really close, closer than he's ever been. Does he smell like green apples? Not the actual apples, the artificial smell they had given to them.

—Get out of the car.—Oh no, is he arresting you? Is he finally taking revenge for every time you make fun of his Hawaiian-type shirts? You know you have too much karma accumulated and a cop making you pay for it when you don’t believe in their sense of justice is kinda poetic, and evil.

You don’t want to discuss with someone with a taser, gun, pepper spray, or who knows what else. So you take your bag, the key car, and get off defeated.

—My turn is almost over, I’ll take you to eat something, c’mon.—He walks back to his patrol and you stay still for a few seconds still processing his words, you must look totally devastated for him to offer that. How you see it you have two options, go with him and spend an awkward hour with a person you don’t like or risk getting a fine, Tim can pay it, it’s not a big deal but you don’t want to owe him even the minimal thing.

You get in the car holding on to your bag to feel calmer, this is the first time you’re fully alone with him since you found him half-naked in your kitchen. Those defined abs may never leave your brain.

—Are you cold?—He interrupts your thoughts with his question, you didn’t notice you were shaking. He looks for something under his seat and gives you an NYPD hoodie, you hold it doubting your next move, is not like you don’t appreciate the gesture but it’d be easier to take if it doesn’t get that words printed—Is clean.—He says chuckling when he sees the way you’re looking at it.

—Is not that, just, you know, fuck the police, defund the NYPD, demilitarize the pigs and that stuff.—You say putting on the hoodie anyway, is a cold night and you won't help the institution wearing their propaganda.

—Yeah, I get it, but you can't change the system just from within.—You decide is not the right moment to have a political conversation so you shrug your shoulders and discreetly smell the hoodie, a mix of cologne, green apples, and cheap soap, you know is cheap because you buy the exact same, do its job.

—I'm in the mood for pizza.—You say casually, making a deal to yourself to try to be his friend, he is a small part of your life anyway.—Domino's is open at this time of the night?

—Tell me you're not consuming that shit, dear Lord, you been here for how long, two years? I can't believe your idea of a good pizza is Domino's. Stella hasn't taught you anything?—You're surprised by the level of condescension with a pizza and you mirror his smile, suddenly feeling embarrassed. Your school program includes people from all around the world so you don't have that much experience with actual new yorkers. Logan is rich, so he doesn't really count.

—What's wrong with Domino's? I don't buy much street food, is cheaper to buy things on the food market. Besides, all pizza is good.—The mention of Sheep makes you a little tense, so you don't say anything about it, is not a conversation to have with him.

—Don't blaspheme in the patrol, I just washed it—You laugh, finally, after a terrible weekend. You can see why she likes him, there is something about his voice, smile, and his eyes that feel... calm, like watching Friends after a marathon of Lord of the Rings.—There are rules to survive this city, and I'm surprised you have made it this far without a proper guide.

—Chill out Mr. Miyagi, I'm not from the jungle, and I've learned a lot by myself.—He gives you a lopsided grin as a request, and you put your fingers up ready to enlist your acquired knowledge.—Walk fast, like you're about to be stabbed, something that actually happened to me, with an umbrella—He nods and laughs being related to it.—Number two, no small talk, no one cares, even if they ask. Number three, if you look a stranger in the eye, especially a homeless person, you have essentially invited them to approach you.

—Number four, we never eat from Domino's, Papa John's, Pizza hut, or any other chain restaurant, only trucks and local places are allowed.—You roll your eyes but you get the point, is just, again, you're not much into street food, it doesn't taste like home and the only way to eat food like that is preparing it yourself.

—Fine, fuck capitalism, let's support local places—You make an obvious fake enthusiastic tone but he nods proudly.—Number five, you don't need a car to live here, not even know how to drive. I would have successfully avoided this police brutality if I had followed that rule.

—For someone who is about to eat for free, you whine too much.—He parks the car and gives you a sign to go with him. You see him go to a pizza truck and order, you realize at the moment how ridiculous you look, so before chasing him you let your hair down, take your huge earrings off, and roll up the skirt of your dress until your mid-thighs letting the hoodie cover the rest, and clean the red lipstick with a Kleenex from your bag. Now you look more like a college person and not a rich girl who just got seized.

—Here you go.—He says giving you a slice as big as your head, looks oily and spreading cheese everywhere. Perfect.

—Is it vegan?—You ask receiving the food with an obnoxious face. His kind grind turned into a dread expression and you give him your second laugh of the day.—I'm kidding.

You are about to give it a bite when you see passing next to you a huge rat with the exact same slice as yours in its mouth, running into the dark of the night happy to have obtained the food for its family. They use to scare you when you just moved out but now they're like any other pigeon in the sky.

—Rule... whatever, a rat with a slice of pizza is a symbol for good luck, congratulations.—He pets your head awkwardly, not sure if you're ok with the physical contact, which, surprisingly, you are.

—I see rats with bagels all the time.—Pizza and bagels, that's the main culinary wonders of the city, you like it, not much to object but is hard not to compare it with your home's food.

—Is easy to confuse a rough diamond with a simple rock.—You both eat in silence, enjoying the mixed sounds of the city and all the different smells, the whole situation feels like one of those lofi music videos. You remember thinking about moments like this before getting the scholarship, what would it be like to feel normal in the city of your dreams.

—How do you know that much about movies?—He asks after a few minutes when you take a break to drink something, that pizza is not easy to take.

—When I was a kid a spent much time on my own, so my dad bought me a used DVD reproducer, and at the corner of my neighborhood was this movie store where you could buy 5 pirate movies for one dollar. They were blurred, with a terrible sound, and most of the time with the wrong movie inside but they helped me to not feel lonely. Eventually, the store closed but I've watched everything in it by then—He gives you a warm smile, you never told that story to anyone, not because is too intimate to share, but because no one asked, it doesn't sound like a question with a complex answer.—Anyway, I watched Marie Antoinette when I was like eight, and I decided at that moment that however is done I wanted to be part of that magic.

—You hear all kind of people chasing dreams in this city but is hard to find someone who actually deserves it.—You blush and you cover it with your hair but the smile on your voice is impossible to hide.

—Is that a compliment? You must really want me to like you to date Sheep.—You laugh but you can see his face tense, so you can guess your friend has been busy breaking everyone’s hearts.

—She hasn’t returned my calls in three days so I don’t think there’s much you can do—You nod, all this time you thought he was the reason she is ignoring you but apparently you are both in the same boat.—But yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking, what I should have said is, Marie Antoinette at eight? I can see where all the damage started.

You gasp and throw your napkin at his head, he easily catches it without even looking at it and laughs; that was unexpectedly attractive.

—Why a cop?—You ask, not sure where that question came from, maybe you authentically want to know more about him, he just bought you food, and honestly, that's the easiest way to win your trust.

—I wanted to be an actor when I was a child. This is the city of opportunities so you may think that if you want to chase the big wonder, this is the perfect place to do it. But I grow up surrounded by these people giving their entire lives to get something just given to one in a million so I decided is not worth it. For many years I wondered what I wanted to do with my life and the answer was really clear, my dad was a cop, a good one, or that’s what people say. I don’t remember much because he died when I was seven—Conversations about death are not your strength, everything can turn out uncomfortable if you choose the wrong words.—It might not be that glamorous but if my father died for it, it surely worth it.

—For the good ones.—You raise your almost empty can of Coke and he does the same with a grin that warms the cold weather of the night.

—For the good ones.

The next two hours passed like minutes talking about anything and everything. It just felt right to talk freely with him, you didn’t feel judged for your awkward family moments or your random thoughts, not even once because he told you his too. At some point of the night he borrowed you his gym sweatpants, any of you could just suggest going home but that was off the table, end that peace just for weather reasons would have been a tragedy.

—I read Timothée Chalamet is a dick. Is that true?—The mention of his name remains you of your life and everything that comes with it, including the middle semester project that you must dedicate your entire day, one that is about to start.—What, you can’t talk about it?

—He is a complete dick with no sense of privacy or human decency—And when he interrupts a deep kiss to look at your eyes, smile, and caress your chin, you feel like a character of his Victorian movies. But he didn’t ask that.—But the next week he’ll be no longer my problem.

—That’s why we have rule twenty-three, don’t ask for a picture of a celebrity unless they are local—You have heard about it before but you haven’t got the opportunity to decide if you like that rule because the only celebrities you have seen are from work and that club’s party opening.—That means you’ll be free to go to the Stephen Kings’ movie projection there will be for Halloween.

You don’t know if that was a proposition, a suggestion, or just a simple recommendation, and whatever it is, you noticed he was nervous to ask. Is it wrong? It feels wrong like you were betraying your friend accepting to hang out with his boyfriend without her consent. But he didn’t ask you to go with him so is safe to answer.

—Yeah, I guess—You get a moment, four seconds top, where you shared innocent, curious, and tenting gazes like three graders in the playground. And that’s the further you will allow yourself to go.—We better leave, if the sunlight touch me I’ll turn into dust.

You get off the car hood and go to the side door, but this time he opens it for you. You give him a “seriously?” Look, receiving a little push in your arm as a response.

↬☀︎︎

A distant voice asks you to wake up, softly whispers that turn into caresses on your cheek, your eyes feel so heavy, even when you are well aware of your environment your eyelids keep closed.

—Good morning, Princess—This is the first time Tom calls you that way, the change from silly nicknames to Princess is enough to get you out of hibernation. He is squatting beside your bed, his smile is the promise of a better day, and chasing that idea you give him one small back.—Your mom has been texting me desperately all day, she said you're not answering her calls and is worried.

—Fuck, my phone broke last night, can I call her from yours?—That’s an oversimplification but in the search for a better story, that's what you decide to believe and tell. Tom nods and gives it to you, he looks happy, beyond that, this is the first time you see that subtle blush on his cheeks and the eyes sparkling. You sit on the bed next to his body looking for your mom's number, slowly he moves between your legs, you have shorts and an oversized Back To The Future t-shirt, you got took the time to prepare yourself to bed last night and keep Michael’s clothes inside your closet to wash them, like The Tell-Tale Heart, a little innocent secret who feels dirty somehow

The conversations with your mom are always long, nostalgic and the tears are hard to hold for both parts; after a long life sharing almost every day with her, her absence never feels smaller. But this time is different, Tom is exploring the bare skin under your knee with his warm hands, asking for permission with curious eyes, and when you don’t object to the touch the British boy keeps his exploring mission cautiously, giving special attention to see your eyes in case something change. Is time to hang up when he gives a long and loving kiss to your knee, the less erotic kiss you could think of but so intimate to bristle your skin.

—Not nice to touch someone's daughter when is talking to her mom.—The protest of your voice loses strength at every word, he heard that and just straight his back to reach your face, the gap is almost extinct.

—We're okay, she likes me.—He assures holding your hips and pulling you a bit to him. Tom looks very comfortable with the new closeness authorization, you like it but are not very sure about it yet, most of you still think of him as your best friend.

—Did she tell you that? Are you talking with my mom behind my back?—You laugh when he does, almost like nothing changed.

—She adores me, I swear, I'm invited to Christmas, you know?—You're not surprised, she invites everyone, Logan was too but the first time he got family plans and didn't make it to the second.

—You should go, maybe we can do...—His lips touch yours in a peak at the middle phrase and makes you forget what you were about to say.—Man, the audacity to interrupt...—Then he kisses you again, deeply, using his tongue to taste your inner lip and his hands holding your shirt in fists. That's a twist of events.

—Is that ok?—You hear a weak whisper coming out of his voice but you got so mesmerized on his lips that decided to ignore it and kiss him back instead. He responds to your touch and starts to lean over you to make you lay on the bed.

Jesucristo bendito, is this happening? like, actually happening? you must look like trash, you barely took all the makeup from the night before and didn't take a shower, you start to get so worried about smells, feelings, and what that'll mean to your already too much-spoiled friendship.

However, the time of doubts is done when Sheep starts yelling in the living room, you both reacted running to the sound and looking for your blonde friend. Michael is there but doesn't look like the same as a few hours ago, is annoyed and tired for the lack of sleep, a look that doesn't match him at all.—What did you do?—You ask him fast assuming she's mad for something he did.

—Just in time, the star of the movie, I was wondering how much it will take you to be the protagonist of this.—That is Sheep's voice talking about you and what must be your heart breaking from her words.

—Excuse me?—You wish your tone would be less savage but you can't help respond the same way she did.

—Logan wasn't enough, then you got the drummer, fucking Timothée Chalamet, Tom and now my boyfriend. I'm so glad I didn't leave you alone with my dad or I'd be calling you mom now.—You have no words to that, Michael doesn't even dare to look at you, he must have told her something she misunderstood, but Sheep, or well, Stella is saying things she actually thinks and keep to herself. Tom walks in front of you whispering things to her to calm her down but she is not looking at him, you didn't tell her anything about Tom either so he's taking responsibility this time.—Go ahead and fuck the whole city, Michael if that please you but you're crossing the line with Tom and you know that, you're going to ruin him as you ruin every man that enters in your life.—She has a very you moment having the last word of the dispute and getting out of the apartment with Michael going after her but not putting much effort in it.

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[whentherewerebicycles]

i am not reblogging this post from OP (posted 2 days ago, with 4,400 notes and counting) because i know that often people are just making their own vent posts on their blogs and maybe don’t expect them to circulate widely outside of their small tumblr circle! and i don’t mean to like, jump on someone who is just commenting on something and then going on with their life. but i feel like i keep seeing versions of this sentiment on leftist twitter too and i really think it is a gross misrepresentation of the bill that passed earlier this month - which is due in part to social media’s intense focus on the “stimulus check” part of the bill. but the bill was not called “the stimulus check” act! it was called “The American Rescue Plan” and it was specifically geared towards providing desperately-needed relief to the American middle & working classes. the $1400 direct payments to individuals was just one small portion of the bill. here are the far more important parts:

in addition to receiving a $1400 direct payment themselves, individuals with children receive an additional $1400 check for each dependent

college students who are still listed as dependents on their parents’ tax forms (typically so they can retain health insurance benefits under the ACA) can more easily claim stimulus money - which is huge for college kids who may be helping to financially support immediate or extended family members

unemployment benefits have been extended from March 31, 2021 (their original expiration date) to September 6, 2021

unemployment benefits will be supplemented with a $300 weekly payment (ie $300 on top of what people are receiving from their state government)

unemployment benefits received in 2020-21 are tax-exempt (a retroactive change that means people who are unemployed won’t receive a surprise tax bill counting their unemployment money as “income”)

a substantial tax credit for employers who offer paid sick leave and paid family leave benefits (ie creating a direct incentive for employers to authorize emergency paid leave)

15% increase in food stamp benefits and extension of eligibility

child and family tax credit benefits!!!! this is the part that people are describing as one of the most significant anti-poverty initiatives in American history. families are eligible for a tax credit of $3600 for each child under the age of 6 and $3000 for each child between 6-18. people can also claim a child and dependent care credit with a maximum benefit of $4000 for one eligible dependent and up to $8000 for two or more. it also expands the earned income tax credit and lowers the age limit to 19. dems also pushed to get at least 50% of the tax credit money to people this year instead of making them wait for their 2021 tax return. this calculator allows you to calculate how much families will receive. if you make $50,000 a year and have four children, you will receive $13,200 through the child tax credit alone, paid out in monthly payments of $1,100 from July to December 2021 + an additional $6,600 lump-sum payment when you file your 2021 tax return early next year. there are also some additional dependent-related tax credits things that I don’t fully understand but that seem to indicate people are eligible for even more money.

forgiven student loan debt is made tax-free (a necessary prerequisite for future efforts to cancel/forgive student loan debt)

huge expansion of grant benefits to small businesses, including $28.6 billion specifically for bars and restaurants; $15 billion for low-interest, long-term replayment emergency disaster loans; and $7 billion more for the paycheck protection program (which can only be used on payroll expenses and makes it possible for small businesses to keep workers on payroll even if they are operating at lower capacity). you can describe this as “for the economy only” if you want, but I sure feel like it will alleviate a whole lot of human suffering by allowing people to keep their jobs & paychecks even if their workplaces remain partially shut down. my dad is a small business owner and has been able to keep his entire staff on payroll through the entire pandemic. the bill also includes billions for airlines and concert venues, which will again! means people won’t lose their jobs!! plus it allocates $175 million to fund a Community Navigator Program that reaches out to eligible businesses and helps guide them through the application process—ie making it possible for small businesses to actually take receive these benefits.

$350 billion to state, local, and tribal governments

$130 billion for K-12 schools to improve ventilation, reduce class sizes, purchase PPE for employees and students, and hire support staff; of this money, 20% must be dedicated to programs designed to counteract “learning loss” from students who missed school during the pandemic

$40 billion for colleges and universities, at least $20 billion of which must go to emergency grants to students (our university has been giving regular emergency grants throughout the pandemic to students to help cover rent, unexpected medical expenses, costs related to family emergencies or lost family income, tuition bills that they suddenly can’t pay, fees associated with wifi or purchasing tech equipment so they can learn virtually)

a HUGE amount of money four housing benefits!!!! i keep seeing people yelling about how $1400 won’t cover their rent but THAT’S WHAT THE RENTAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS ARE FOR. $21.6 billion in rent and utility assistance, paid directly to states and local governments so they can disburse it to eligible households!!! plus $5 billion to Section 8 housing (which “must go to those who are or were recently homeless, as well as individuals who are escaping from domestic violence, sexual assualt, or human trafficking”).

$5 billion to support state and local programs for homeless and at-risk individuals (can be used for rental assistance, homelessness prevention services, and counseling; can also be used to purchase properties that will be turned into permanent shelters or affordable housing for people who are homeless). plus an additional $120 for housing counseling.

$4.5 billion earmarked for a special assistance program that helps low-income households cover costs of heating and cooling and $500 million to cover water costs

$750 million in housing assistance for tribes and native Hawaiians (who are also eligible for other benefits through the rental assistance and direct tribal government grants described above)

and then BILLIONS of dollars to support FEMA, the Veterans Affairs’ healthcare system, the CDC, and state, local, and territorial public health departments for all things related to: COVID testing, contact tracing, vaccine production and distribution, vaccine outreach, PPE, and public health education. this includes (among many, MANY other things), $5.4 billion to the Indian Health Services (division of the Department of Health and Human Services that specifically provides health services to Native people and tribal territories), $200 million for nursing loan repayment programs, $80 million for mental health training, $3.5 billion in block grants specifically geared towards community mental health programs and substance abuse/prevention/treatment programs

$86 billion for a rescue package for pension funds (esp union-sponsored pension funds) that are on the verge of collapse - collectively covering 10.7 million workers.

billions of dollars for public transit programs (and sure, public transit is important to the economy, but access to regular, reliable, affordable, and safe public transit is HUGELY important to human health and well-being! it is how many people esp in urban areas access grocery stores, health care, their jobs, childcare facilities, etc.

$10.4 billion for agriculture, of which $5 billion is specifically earmarked for socially disadvantaged farmworkers. to quote wikipedia: “Experts identified the relief bill as the single most important piece of legislation for African-American framers since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

tons of money to fund 100% of premiums for COBRA (health insurance for people who have unexpectedly lost or had to leave their jobs) through October 2021. COBRA is hella expensive and experts estimate that 2.2 million people will need to enroll for COBRA benefits in 2021. there are also various provisions that expand Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (a program targeted at uninsured children in families who don’t qualify for Medicaid but may not be able to afford adequate healthcare coverage. it also fixes some things with the ACA that could’ve led to people getting surprise bills due to fluctuating income or unexpected changes in employment status.

i am SO OVER the so-called ‘progressive’ rhetoric that no good can ever come from the government, or that all politicians (dems or republicans) are basically the same level of evil and incompetent, or that ~mutual aid~ (ie small payments made between individuals in a community) is the only thing we can count on or should count on in times of crisis. no!!!! fuck no!!!! like mutual aid is great but America is an INSANELY WEALTHY country and it is such bullshit to act like we can’t or shouldn’t expect our government to take care of the people who live here. and i am also just GRAHARRGHGHH at people who are completely disengaged from politics offering their jaded and hyper-cynical hot takes on things they don’t! actually! know! anything! about!!!!!!! and in the process making other people increasingly jaded and cynical about the possibility of electing a government that actually prioritizes the needs & well-being of its citizenry!!!

ugh i’m just TIRED of leftist political cynicism y’all especially when it comes from people who have absolutely no understanding of how much WORK it takes to make huge things like the American Rescue Act happen (work that includes not just the immediate negotiation of the bill but also the years of organizing & voter recruitment work it took to get a narrow democratic majority in the senate so that we could pass things like this!!!!). I’M DONE WITH BEING CYNICAL!!!! i feel, in a totally earnest and unjaded way, that it’s absolutely incredible that dems were able to write, negotiate, and pass this bill, and i feel so so so relieved to be currently living under an administration that is flawed in many ways but is at least actually and earnestly TRYING to reckon with unprecedented “suffering in an actual human scale” (to quote OP) and is even using this crisis as an opportunity to advance major anti-poverty initiatives that will have a LASTING IMPACT on actual human lives. as opposed to our previous administration, which was made up of thousands of people who woke up every single day and asked themselves “what can I do today to further dehumanize & inflict needless suffering upon millions of people?”

PHEW!!!! SORRY!!!! JUST HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS I GUESS!!!!!!!!

[ohtheseboysilove]

Wrong roommate [Roger Taylor x F!Reader]

Words : 6, 000 K +

Warnings : +18! 

Summary : You go back to a guy’s flat and ended up the night with his roomie instead. 

Note : I literally dreamed about that two days ago and spent all my free time writing about this, I have to admit it was pretty fun and about 70% smutty. (That also the reason why I didn’t finish the chapter for TSFAFIS, I will post it next tuesday!!!) 

Tell me what you think lovies !! 

☀ Masterlist ☀  800 followers celebration !!!

“It’s okay, it happen to the best of us” You said and cringed internally at how awkward all of this situation was. “Really James, it’s no biggie, hum maybe next time yeah ?”

You quickly pulled back your skirt on and buttoned your cute blouse, ignoring the aching of your pussy. You were dripping wet and more frustrated than ever.

“Wait ! Give me just a minute okay ? I can…” James called you, he was sat on the end of the bed, one hand wrapped around his dick which was now wearing a worrisome purple shade. “Maybe if you show me your tits again ?” He glanced at you, fingers tugging like a crazy on his cock and honestly you were worried he would hurt himself.

You rolled your eyes and shook your head, it was time for you to go home. You were beyond desperate, your clit throbbing painfully and your nipples hard like rock. It should be the case of James’ dick too but nothing worked, he couldn’t go further than half-hard, no matter what you both tried. It was humiliating for him and for you too — weren’t you hot enough to make him hard ? — so you decided it was for the best to stop here.

“I will see you around James” You muttered and ignored his whining, closing the door behind you.

You sat on the sofa, kicking before an old and smelly tee-shirt and slid your right stilettos on your foot, sighing loudly. You couldn’t wait to go back at your dorm and taking care of yourself, you were never disappointed that way. You cursed internally James, technically it wasn’t his fault if he couldn’t have a hard-on but he should have know himself better. You gave him a handjob in his car before he drove you here and you asked him few times he was sure if he could get hard again if you make him cum. He said yes, of course! Fucking liar. He didn’t even finger you correctly, forgetting about your poor clit and he was too eager, not really knowing was he was doing. It was frustrating because you were really excited, he was incredibly hot with a perfectly sculpted torso, brunette hairs hanging in a bun and a killer smile. Everything you liked. The tattoos were only bonus.

“It’s not your fault, you know” You raised your head at the voice and were relieved than it wasn’t James, running after you. Instead it was a lanky boy, well he wasn’t that tall but he was shirtless and clearly thin compared to his flatmate James. “You’re not the first girl to end up the night disappointed with our little Jamie” He flopped himself next to you, a beer in his hand. “This block can’t get hard half of the time, doesn’t matter how hot the girl in his room is” The boy chuckled but his eyes ogling you without a once of shame.

“Thank you...I guess” You replied awkwardly and focused on closing the strap of your shoe, trying to ignore his intense stare. “Why are you looking at me ?” You asked without glancing at him, sliding on your second shoe.

“It’s just such a waste, you’re so hot” His voice was octave lower than before and when you looked at him, you didn’t miss the lust dancing in his pupils. You rolled your eyes. “Too bad you picked the wrong roommate” He cockily added, his tongue sliding on his bottom lip before taking a long sip of his beer.

You snorted at his words.

“And you’re supposed to be the good roommate to bring home ?” You sassily questioned, crossing your arms.

“I am better than good, sweetheart” He bowed his head toward you, giving you a better look of his soft features. “I’m. So. Fucking. Great” He murmured hoarsely, his hand went on your bare knee, squeezed lightly before moving it away.

You couldn’t deny that his little charming act made you more bothered than you already were. But honestly, you had enough disappointment in one evening.

“Yeah, yeah, I already heard that somewhere” You motioned to James’ door and closed your strap shoe before standing up. He did the same and chewed his lower lip, finishing his beer in a sip. “And no offence honey but you don’t look like you could handle correctly a girl” You murmured and he didn’t seems hurt, instead he smirked and ran a hand in his messy hairs.

That was true, compared to James who was muscular with broad shoulders and much taller, he looked a bit ridiculous. You took another glance at him. They were so different. This man was blond, you could see he dyed his hairs and you found that pretty weird for a boy but it did look good on him. Wild long messy lock. His eyes were big and deep blue, adored with insanely long eyelashes – honestly you were jealous –, you were almost sure he had black eyeline under his eyes. It was strangely turning you on. His features were soft, almost feminine with his little pink lips and his teasing tongue, always poking out. Alright, he was hot, a different kind of hot but still.

“Like what you see, Sweetheart ?” You moved your gaze away after his little comment and he took a step toward you and this time, you didn’t budge. “You’re really beautiful, ya know that ?” He murmured and pushed away a strand of hairs from your face, a low shiver rolling down your spine. “And so frustrated” He added, his finger trailing on your jaw but you slapped it away.

“That only because of your stupid roomie” You felt obligate to defend yourself. “I’m gonna home and take good care of myself” The nameless blond breathed loudly and he rubbed a hand on his bare shoulder, eyes checking your bare legs.

“I know you can, sweetheart” He nodded, his voice was filed with hunger and you could feel the tension in the air. Thick and hot. You could feel more than never the wetness on your panties and it wasn’t very comfortable, that was the least to say. “But I can do it better” The blond said without any cockiness in his tone for once, like it was just a fact.

You scoffed and turned your head, trying to ignore how distracting his breath against your cheek was, the warmth emanating from his body was making weak. You didn’t say anything and he took it like an encouragement, coming closer to you.

“I’m not like James, I don’t need to oversell myself to have a girl in my bed” The blond grabbed your chin softly, his eyes roaming on your red painted lips. “I’m sure he told you how insanely good he is and how big his cock is, right ?” You pouted as a confirmation and he chuckled gently, running a thumb on your bottom lip. Sensually and slowly. He was right, James promised you so many things for tonight, you weren’t that surprise that his dick was smaller than he said, most of men lied about it. Pride and all but he went too far, the guy couldn’t even get a boner ! “My poor little kitten, I bet this soaked knickers aren’t really nice to wear, hmm ?” You stopped breathing when his right hand found your waist and his other hand cupped your cheek, lips brushing lazily against your neck.

His mouth slowly travelled down your throat, putting light kisses all the way. The tip of his nose was cold making a contrast with his hot lips and it was a very nice feeling.  

“I don’t even know your name” You weakly protested, his hands slid down your bum and squeezed it cheekily, a low moan escaping your parted mouth.

“I’m Roger and you are (Y/N)” He murmured onto your skin, his teeth nibbling on your neck, making it very hard to think. “And I can give you a really good time, if you let me, sweetheart”

“How do you know my name ?” You asked absent-mindedly, your hands moving to cross on the back of his neck, head titling on the side lightly, giving him more space to work.

“Because I had planned to take you home tonight” Roger confessed and slowly walked back, his mouth still attached to your neck. “James was quicker, unfortunately” He sat on the sofa and tugged your hand to make you follow. You didn’t even think twice and straddled his thigh, your forehead falling on his.

You snorted quietly, his cocky tone making you laugh.

“That a very smooth line, even for you Roger” You slowly grinded your drenching panties on his jeans, moaning with relief at the feeling of friction against your clothed clit. His right hand slid under your blouse, caressing your soft skin of your belly and the other hand was helping you rocking on his leg.

“But it’s true” He chuckled and grunted loudly when you palmed him through his pants, more than delighted to feel hard under your touch. It didn’t take long. “I was at the End of the world too, in fact my band was playing in that pub tonight” His digits went on your cheek, grabbing your face and his teeth gently tugged on your bottom lip, sucking on it lightly.

You sighed with pleasure and quickened the pace of your rubbing, feeling the knot in your stomach tightening at every move.

“Really ?” You asked with surprise and he hummed in approval, letting go of your lip and barely brushed his mouth against yours, just enough to tease you and making craving for more. “I didn’t see you”

“The perk of being the drummer, always hiding in the back” Roger murmured, his voice thick with need and his hips were rolling at the same rhythm as you, his chest puffing up and down. “But I saw you, your perky, little bum barely covered with this tiny little skirt” He moaned against your lips, his large palms rolling up your cloth to knead shamelessly your ass. And you didn’t mind at all.

His fingers were callous and incredibly hot, your orgasm was approaching at a fast pace and Roger’s eyes were widely dilated with lust, making only groaned highly.

“Well, you were pretty good, the gig was amazing” You complimented truthfully but you were having trouble to keep your mind clear with the pressure building inside your belly.

“Thank you (Y/N)” He said and you mouth fell agape, few more seconds and you were done. “Let go for me sweetheart, cum on my pants” He whispered in your ear and you let out a strangle cry, feeling so so close.

“Kitten” You breathed out with difficulty. He arched a brow and you repeated. “I prefer when you call me kitten” You were too aroused to even be embarrassed by the need dripping from your voice.

He smirked but didn’t tease you and gently bit on the lobe of your ear.

“Cum for me kitten” That was all you needed and in a muffled sob – Roger’s lips captured yours at the same exact moment – you came on his pants. Hard.

And now he was kissing you, deeply and intensely, swallowing all your little moans and cries, making sure you rode all of your high. His tongue went to mess with yours, hot and sloppy kiss, only adding fuel in the fire burning between your thighs.

“Holy shit” You breathed loudly, breaking the kiss to breath. “I can’t believe I just did that. James could have walked on us at any moment” You wiped with your thumb the lipstick around Roger’s mouth and slowly stood up, pushing back correctly your skirt.

You just cum on a complete stranger’s jeans. You didn’t see it coming. It felt strange but you weren’t regretting it, you finally had an orgasm.

“That was so hot” The drummer murmured, his pads scratching lazily his little belly, covered with few light hairs. “Should we move to my bed room ?” He asked and you hesitated, feeling a bit weird to sleep with the roomie of your...date of the night.

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea” You mumbled, trying to tame your hairs a little. “I mean...James is a nice guy, I shouldn’t have sex with you just because he can’t get a hard-on” You chewed your lips awkwardly, Roger was visibly painfully hard and his jeans had a wet patch on it because of you. You didn’t own anything to James but you felt bad to do that, you wouldn’t like to see the guy you brought home go sleep with your roommate. Absolutely not.

“James...is not as nice as you think, kitten” The blond stood up and licked his swollen lips before grabbing your hand, his fingers playing with yours. “How mad would you be if I told you he has a girlfriend ?” He used his free hands to turned toward a framed picture on the shelf. It was James and a girl, beautiful one, his arm wrapped around her waist as she kissed his cheek lovingly.

“Fucking asshole” You groaned and humphed angrily, eyes darting toward his door. “He can’t fucking get a hard-on and he also cheat on his girlfriend ? What a useless little shit” You shook your head and a wave of relief rolled on you at the thought that you didn’t sleep with him. You found him hot but you were certainly not the kind of girl who sleep with the boyfriend of other girls.

“Laura, that’s her name, she is gone for three months for an Erasmus exchange and he didn’t wait more than a day before bringing someone else here” Roger explained with a sigh. “Most of the girls finished like you”

“What ? You mean on your thigh ?” You mumbled almost angrily. You felt like he used you, knowing you would be desperate. Maybe it was his thing ? Fucking the girls his roommate couldn’t satisfied ?

He chuckled loudly and shook his head.

“Hell no, I mean frustrated and disappointed” His baby blue eyes locked with yours and he easily picked up your irritation. “Usually the girls aren’t as hot as you, not at all. And I told you, I don’t have problem to bring girl back in my room” He shrugged and brought your hands to his mouth, kissing softly your knuckles.

“So why are you alone on a saturday night, Mister hottie ?” You chatted back and he grinned, like he wished you would ask that question. “Didn’t get lucky tonight ?”

He didn’t reply and crashed his mouth against yours, a surprise gasp leaving your throat. The kiss was slower but much, much deeper. Lips melting into each other in a frenetic need. He slid his hands under your knees and you automatically wrapped your legs around his waist, moaning at the pressure of his boner against your center.

“I already told you, I saw you and I really, really wanted to take you home, kissing these pretty lips of yours” He let go of your mouth and walked to – you supposed – his room. “And your other lips too, bet you taste fucking delicious kitten” He purred into your mouth, giving you another mind-blowing kiss.

You let out a shaky cry at his words, your pussy throbbing with need and desire. This man was good with his tongue and words. And you were sure you didn’t even see half of his talents.

“What didn’t you talk to me in the pub ?” You murmured as he dropped you on the bed, his body flushed against yours. He dove into your neck, sucking harshly on your skin then soothing the pain with his hot tongue.

“You were in deep conversation with James, I didn’t wanted to screw my chance with you” He glanced at you, fingers on your blouse and you nodded eagerly. His pads quickly unbuttoned your clothe and exposed your red bra, your favourite and you were glad you decided to wear it tonight. You were slowly discovering how interesting Roger was and you wanted to please him. “I thought I would wait until you were annoyed with him but then, I saw you leaves with him” He whined and threw somewhere in the room your blouse, mouth kissing the shape of your breasts. “I knew you would be frustrated with this idiot, I was about to bring a chick home too but I thought that maybe...I could save your night afterwards” He winked and unclasped your bra, a low and hot moan escaping his mouth at the sight of your hard tits.

“You were right” You giggled dizzily, his warm mouth was now sucking on your nipple and you couldn’t thing about anything else. “But Roger...I had been enough disappointed tonight, I couldn’t bare go through that again” You cried, his fingers zipping down your skirt, the cold airs tickling your soaked knickers.

He stopped for a sec and pecked softly your lips, his large palm kneading your boob in the most delicious way possible.

“I won’t disappointing you, kitten, trust me” And you did. When his lips kissed gently your wet thong, nose brushing against your throbbing clit, you couldn’t control the bucking of your hips, begging for more friction. “Let me take care of you” You sighed with pleasure when he tugged down your thong, chuckling about how wet you were.

He stood for a second and you pouted, completely needy for him, any ounce of pride had left your body. You just wanted him, right now. He winked at you and took off his jeans, giving you a good view of his – too – tight underwear. The outline of his shaft was visible, a hard cock with a little patch of wetness coming from his pre-cum, begging to be sucked. You stretched a hand toward his clothed dick but he brought it in his hairs instead.

“I’m not done with you, kitten” He winked and kneeled on the floor, putting your ankles on his shoulders and spread your legs with a hungry look. “So fucking wet” He licked his tongue and ran a finger into your folds then brought it to his lips, sucking his digit clean. You moaned loudly at the sight, his pupils wide and filled with lust. “And so fucking good. I knew that the minute you walked into that pub”

Roger’s mouth trailed on wet thighs, kissing and gently biting, teasing you a bit and you tugged his hairs to make it stop.

“I still don’t fully believe you about seeing me in the pub, could just be what you said to every girl James brought home” You murmured and he chuckled softly before pressing a kiss right on your center, your back arching without any control.

“I didn’t lie, kitten. I saw you before we started our set” He dove into your pussy, eagerly and hungrily, tongue lapping loudly your wetness. The sound itself could make you cum. “You were with two friends, a little brunette and her boyfriend probably” He sucked his middle finger and inserted it into you, earning a soft whimper of your throat. “You went to the bar, all by yourself and you ordered a pint, looking for someone to spend the end of the night with. Weren’t you, kitten ?” You giggled softly, hips rolling automatically against his mouth, your fingers tugging in rhythm on his hairs.

“I was” You agreed, sighing softly as he nudged your clit with his nose, examining every of your reactions. “Needed a good fuck” You confessed in a strangle voice.

“You did look like you needed a good shag” Roger chuckled and dove a second finger into your folds, thrusting in and out in a slow pace. You felt your body burned at his caresses, little whimpers leaving your mouth, making the drummer’s cock throbbed painfully. “I was on the stage, installing my drums kit but you didn’t look at me, not once. Was fucking disappointed” He quickened his pace, his pads rubbed against your walls until he found the spot. The one which made you see stars and your toes curled.

“Jesus, Roger !” You cried and dug your heels into his back, one hand around the sheet and the other strongly gripping on his hairs. He hissed loudly and slid his fingers out, making you actually sobbed. You wiped your eyes and looked at him with anger. “The fuck you are doing ?”

“Relax, kitten, I just need to take off your shoes before you stabbed me in the back with these heels” He took off the strap of your stilettos and put a kiss on each of your ankles before positioning himself back. His skin was red and scratched.

“M’ sorry” You murmured, hand wiping the sweat from your forehead

“There we go” He threw the shoes away and gave you an apologetic smile at your whining, these stilettos were very expensive. “Where were we, pretty girl ?”

“I was about to cum” You pouted and he hummed appreciatively, fingers going back inside you and his marvellous mouth went on your clit, sucking on it. The combination of the two stimulations made your body shake and shameful loud cried of Roger’s name echoed in the room as you cum for the second time. “Ho– holy shit ! Rog, baby...that was...that was amazing” You panted and watched the drummer licking your arousal from around his mouth, a cocky smile on his features.

You sat lazily and stretched your arms, watching the blond standing up. You immediately tugged on his waistband and freed his cock, red and hard as a rock, slapping against his stomach. The sight made you drool. James was definitively the problem, not you or your body.

“See what you did to me, kitten ? Just for you” He purred and brought your right hand on his shaft to make you felt it. It was burning hot and twitching into your grip, begging for some attention. You were more than eager to comply. You bowed your head and licked a strip on his cock, right on a throbbing vein. He automatically bucked his hips toward your mouth and cursed quietly. You kissed softly his tip then swallowed it, looking at Roger through your lashes, giving him your best does-eyes. “God, wait (Y/N)...shit!” The way you were looking at him was killing him and he was afraid to not last long enough to please you. “As much as I love having these pretty lips around my cock, I really need to fuck you, kitten” The drummer brushed the hairs away of your face and you letting his cock go, brushing a last kiss on his red head.

“Alright then fuck me, Roger” You cockily said, your head falling on the pillows and legs spread widely to give him a nice view of your soaking pussy. Your pads went pinching your hard tits, moaning softly the touch. He watched you caressed yourself several seconds, gaze following every of your movements until your digit disappeared into your folds, it was his spot. He quickly grabbed a condom and crawled on you, looking like a predator ready to jump on his prey. A shiver ran through your body. An excited and eager one.

“I was so mad that you didn’t look at me before our gig” He shook his head, trailing his lips on your jaw, his cock flushed against your bare center and honestly, your legs were shaking with anticipation. “Didn’t have time to go and talk to you before the start” He growled against your skin and you buried your head further into the pillow, one of his large palm caressing your bum. “And I couldn’t see you during the gig because I’m fucking blind and you were too far in the back” He complained and you whined softly, his teeth tugging on the flesh of your neck, adorning your skin with a love bite. “So I thought I would come and talk to you at the end of our set” His lips melted on yours, a sweaty and sloppy kiss that made your mind dizzy. He was an incredible kisser. In fact, it was the most skilled kisser you ever met but you wouldn’t certainly not tell him, he was cocky enough like that.

“You should have talked to me” You cried, watching him rolling the condom on his cock before rubbing his tip against your pussy, your hands clenching around his sweaty neck. “I wouldn’t have lost my time with this asshole” You pressed your bare heels into his pretty bum and he picked up what you wanted, inserting his hard cock into your core, both of you moaning into each other mouths in the hottest way possible.

“Didn’t have time, kitten” He protested and you both chuckled, his teeth nibbling on your jaw. His thrust were slow and lazy, not in a hurry to finish. “But I wanted to talk to you after the set but you were already busy with James, his tongue deep into your throat” He almost grunted, a sparkle of jealousy in his eyes.

“Were you jealous, baby ?” You purred with a smirk and gave you a particularly hard thrust, making your cocky smile fell from your face, immediately replaced with an agape and moaning mouth. “Yes, yes, yes ! Don’t stop, Rog !” You pleaded, eyes closing in intense pleasure and fingers tugging harshly on his roots.

The drummer wasn’t slow anymore, he was rough and merciless, pounding into you strongly, little cries falling from your lips in continuity.

“I was fucking jealous (Y/N), I knew he wouldn’t satisfied you and you deserved the best shagging of your life” The blond bended one of your knee to go deeper and reached this sweet spot again, your eyes rolling into your skull. “Then I saw you leave with him, so I packed my things, flirted a bit and went home, none of these girls were...interesting compared to you, kitten” His voice was hoarse and panting, drop of sweat rolling down his neck into your breasts, hips snapping against yours harshly.

“You– Oh! You’re quite the charmer, Roger” You moaned and giggled as the head of the bed started hitting roughly against the wall, echoing through the flat probably. “James gonna hear us” You whispered, chewing on your lips to not scream in pleasure.

“That’s the point, kitten” He gave you a wink like the cocky bastard he was and tugged on your bottom lip, letting your moans resounded in the bedroom. “Let our good old Jamie hear how good I make you feel, give him a little show kitten. Show him what he missed” Roger wasn’t the most impressive person with his soft features and high pitched voice but when he wanted he could be the hottest thing ever. He knew were he was skilled and didn’t lie about it. You listened to him and let out the dirtiest and filthy moans and whimpers, the name of Roger echoing again and again and again.

You wanted James to hear you, making this asshole regretting this evening, making your waste your time and using you to cheat on his girlfriend.

“Just like that, kitten, sing for me” The drummer cooed, mouth falling against your nipple, tongue twirling around it.

“Wait, wait” You gently pushed his chest away and he furrowed his brows, confused by your sudden gesture. “Wanna ride you, baby” You purred and the hottest little noise fell from his mouth, apparently loving the idea.

He slid out of you and quickly laid on his back, his chest dripping with sweat but you didn’t mind a bit. You didn’t lost any second and sunk on him, bouncing up and down eagerly, chasing your third orgasm of the night.  Roger’s gaze were on your breasts, watching them moving in rhythm, his palms stabilizing you by the hips, completely hypnotised by your beauty. Eyes closing in pleasure, mouth parted and hairs sticking everywhere on your face, cheeks flushed by all these...intense exercises.

“So beautiful kitten, so fuckin’ stunning” He complimented you, trailing one of his pads on your neck then sliding it in your mouth and you sucked on it automatically, your eyes back on him. “The hottest gi–“

He stopped himself when he saw the door behind you opening, a flustered James in hallway, gaze glued on your naked body. He was quiet and shocked, not expecting seeing you here.

“Get out of here, fucking weirdo !” Roger groaned when he saw his roomie completely starstruck by the scene. You turned your head and met James’s gaze, jealousy and shame drowning his pupils. You sent him a wink – you were surprised by yourself – and continued to ride Roger, slower and gaze locked with the brunette, moaning quietly. “James, get the fuck out !” The drummer yelled and sat up, his hands covering your ass and his sudden movement made his cock buried further into you.  

When James finally woke up from his dazed state, his cheeks were wearing a deep shade of red and he hurried to close the door, without a word. The room fell quiet for solid ten seconds before you bursted into laugher, head shaking against Roger’s shoulder.

“Oh...my...god...his face !” You giggled hysterically, your thumb wiping a tear from to much laughing. “Priceless !”

“I think he is traumatised” The drummer snorted, his ribs were hurting and he was extremely sensitive with his cock still inside you. “Kitten, sto– stop clenching around my dick” He whined and you giggled even more, making him laugh too.

“I’m sorry, I’m– sorry” You panted and brushed a kiss on his shaky lips, slowly calming yourself down. You felt your eyelids becoming heavy and Roger cupped gently your face, pecking several times your smiling mouth.

“Want me to finish, kitten ?” He asked softly and you nodded lazily, you didn’t have more energy to ride him anymore. You slowly moved off from him and laid down, Roger immediately following you. He pushed open your legs with his knee and bent both of your knees, allowing himself space to work. “Jesus, you feel so bloody good” He moaned with a strangle voice when he slid back into you, his lips putting few light kisses on your tired features.

“Oh Rog...I’m so close” You cried, your hands crossed behind his neck, fingers lazily tugging on his locks. Roger’s mouth fell on the shell of your ear, murmuring praises and, in a last deep thrust, you came for the third time this evening. The waves of pleasure rolled over yourself, drowning you in a dizzy but delicious way, mind clouded from the orgasm. “Mmm...”

You smiled stupidly and cooed gently at Roger when he came too, lazy little moans falling from his throat. You both looked at each other, in a strangely intimate way, the two of you sleepy and utterly satisfied. His nose brushed against yours then he gave you a long, sloppy kiss, his lips melting lazily on yours and a low sigh of happiness escaping your mouth.

“Wanna sleep here ? We could continue our activities in the morning...” The drummer murmured in his usual cocky tone, rolling on the other side of the bed. You watched him standing up, eyes following his pretty little bum as he threw in the bin the condom. He winked at you when he caught your gaze. You weren’t sure if it was a good idea to sleep here but the thought of getting more sex tomorrow was very attractive. “And we could tease James a bit more, having a nice awkward breakfast with him” He handed you a bottle of water and you took a big sip, throat dry from the moaning.

“That sound good” You replied and went to the bathroom to pee then cooling down your face with some fresh water. You came back and grinned at Roger’s gaze on you, roaming all the way of your bare body, clearly appreciating the view. “You don’t really like your roomie, hum ?”  You slid your knickers on and joined Roger on the bed, only wearing his underwear.

He brought you closer and let one of his hand slowly rubbing against bum, absent-mindedly.

“He is a pain in the ass” The drummer groaned as he switched off the night stand light and wrapped the both of you under the sheets, his eyes already closed. “I’m gonna move with one of my bandmate, I can’t wait. I’m gonna be closer to Uni, it’s good. You’re in Uni, right ?” You hummed in agreement, to lazy to reply verbally. “That’s good to know” He said in a charming voice, his finger playing with your panties’ elastic.

“Perv” You murmured with a little laugh, hand resting on his bare and sweaty chest. “Night Rog” You pressed a small kiss above his pectoral.

“Night, pretty girl”

**

The next morning was difficult. You were deliciously sore, needing to stretch yourself several seconds before leaving the bed. Roger wasn’t really a morning person, you could see it, how hard it was for him to wake up but he looked really cute like that. You washed quickly your face and attached your messy hairs as Roger slid his pants on, the clothe was a bit too big for him, falling loosely on his hips. It was strangely hot. He murmured something about tea and left the bedroom after giving you a little kiss.

You found your blouse somewhere and thankfully it wasn’t too creased so you put it again. It was a large clothe, falling right at the middle of your ass, giving a good view of it. You let the two first button open, just enough to be teasing and made your way to the living-room.

“Morning” You yawned and walked to Roger who was sat on an old chair, a cigarette hanging between his fingers.

He wrapped an arm around your waist and you gently unknotted his locks, earning a soft sigh.

“Sleep well, kitten ?” You nodded and watched James entered the room, a fuming mug in his hand, the journal in the other. He glanced at you, gaze starting a bit too long at Roger’s arm around you and sat on the other chair, clearing awkwardly his throat. “Want a tea, darling ?”

“Yes, please Rog” You replied and pecked quickly his lips before seating on the chair, there were only two of them.

“On it, kitten” He disappeared into the kitchen, his hips rolling lazily as he walked away, his hand scratching his shoulders.

You could feel James looking at you as you pretend to look at yours nails, humming quietly with the radio.

“How could you sleep with my roommate only because I didn’t get hard ?” He spat suddenly and you glanced at him, cocking your head.

“How could you sleep with me when you already have a girlfriend ?” You mimicked in a sarcastic tone and his eyes went wide as dinner plates. He swallowed nervously and blinked few times, surprise that you knew this information.

“It’s not...I...It’s complicated” He muttered with shame and ran a shaky hand on his hairs. “We’re not...She...”

“Yeah, I’m sure it is” You snorted and he stopped talking, bowing his head into his cup and you were savouring his quietness. Roger came back, a smirk on his face and you saw clearly that he heard your conversation, finding it very funny. “Thanks, Rog” You took the cup and stood up, letting the drummer sat before he grabbed your hips, perching you on his lap.

You spent the next fifteen minutes giving James a show, Roger kissing you obscenely, an eternal smirk on his face. His hands caressed your bum without any shame, his tongue meeting yours again and again. It was sloppy and too much, but it was incredibly funny to tease his roommate, he deserved it. James swallowed his breakfast so fast he almost chocked before leaving promptly the flat, his ears red with embarrassment.

“Did you see his face ? I almost feel bad” You giggled against Roger’s mouth.

“You shouldn’t, it was so funny” The drummer gently bit your jaw. “Wanna go shower with me ?”

“I saw your shower Rog, we won’t fit together in this tiny thing” You replied with a pout, tracing the shape of his lips with your digit, he softly nibbled on it.

“Trust me we will fit, kitten” He winked at you and you get up, snorting at his hard-on. He slapped your bum and tugged on your hand, almost running to the bathroom.

You quickly found out that Roger was right about the shower.

**

Permanent Tag list :  @jennyggggrrr @luvborhap

[brideofedoras]

Soulbound: Almost Human

Disclaimer: the usual.  I only own my OCs...

Word Count: 2400+

Rating: 18+

Warnings: Thoughts of self harm, taking medication, angst, Kennex is a jerk.

Chapter Three (with links to Chapters 1 and 2)

Emily buried herself in work once she returned to the lab.  Anything to get her mind off the itch that had grown steadily more pronounced with each mile she put between herself and the precinct.  But even her personal project she hoped to pitch to the police department could not keep the itch at bay.

She pushed her sketchbook away and spun around on her stool.  “Focus, Emily,” she murmured to herself, pushing herself into another spin.

“Emily, are you all right?”  Rudy asked from his desk, not looking up from the robotic butterfly he was working on.  A blue morpho, she smiled when she recognized the shape and color of the wings.  

“I’m…  I saw him this morning,” she finally told her boss.  “I’ve been feeling out of sorts since.”

Rudy nodded slowly.  “I wondered if he would finally come in.”

“He did,” she sighed.  “Part of me wants to meet him… but at the same time…”

He lifted his magnifying glasses to look at her.  “I know,” he nodded.  “I understand, Emily.”  He nodded toward her computer.  “How far have you gotten on your project?”

She couldn’t help but smile.  Rudy wasn’t the best at offering comfort or advice, but he knew how to divert attention into safer territory.  “I can’t focus on it right now, my mind is going ninety to nothing.  I can’t decide if I want to start small or just go big.”

“Ah,” he nodded.  “Explain your concept to me again, maybe I can help steer your mind in the direction you need.”

She dipped her head in agreement before picking up her sketchbook.  “I already told you that I started brainstorming this idea when I was in grad school, before Dad…”  She trailed off, her mind tripping back to the night she’d first dreamed up the concept.  Sam had been working late on a case, and she’d sat up half the night waiting for him to come home so she could run the idea by him.  Her dad had fully supported the idea.  “Shortly before the raid,” she flipped to the front of the pad.  “I got the idea after five K-9s were killed by that bomb they couldn’t detect during the big drug bust.”

“I remember that one,” Rudy frowned.  “Two of the handlers had been hospitalized.”

“I remember when Daddy came home, he was devastated by the loss of the dogs.  He always loved dogs and was planning on adopting one when he retired,” she continued softly.  “He’d told me it was a senseless loss for the department, five incredible K-9 officers, all highly decorated.  He said ‘we’ve got android cops to lead us into gunfights, why can’t the dogs have something similar?’  One day after class I went home and fell asleep, and dreamed about building an android K-9.  When I woke up I started writing ideas down and sketching dogs.  I nearly pounced on Dad when he got home, I was so excited to tell him.”  She shook her head as she reached up to wipe away an unexpected tear.  “The back story for the idea isn’t really that important.”

“Yes, it is,” Rudy disagreed with her.  “The idea had to come from somewhere, and the back story is the most important part of the conception.”

She half-laughed at that.  “It’s cheesy and sappy is what it is,” she argued.  “Daddy loved the idea and encouraged me to go for it.  I… I had actually planned to design and build one for my big project, but after Daddy… after he passed I couldn’t do it.”  She shrugged again.  “Daddy would have retired this year, that was his plan.  Retire from active duty at sixty-five, teach some courses for the academy for a few years, and fully retire at seventy.  I think I laid awake half the night, my mind racing in circles before it popped into my head that I needed to start working on the K-9 android.”  She took off her glasses to rub at the bridge of her nose.  “The androids would be for the dogs the same way the MXes are for the police.  Designed to sniff out or detect drugs, bombs, people.  Send them into potentially volatile areas or situations.  They would be equipped with built-in audio and visual recording, sensory detection and scanning, and transmitting information as it records to a datapad or an MX.  The dogs we currently use have to be equipped and outfitted with microchips for identification and tracking, flak vests, protective booties, headgear with built-in audio and visual recording and transmitting devices, which weigh and slow the dogs down.  The android K-9s would not need flak vests or helmets.  Their eyes would be the cameras.  Their ears the microphones,” she held the sketchbook over to Rudy.  “I’m just undecided on big or little.”

“What was your father’s favorite breed of dog?”  Her supervisor asked as he looked at her notes and sketches.

“He didn’t have a favorite breed,” she smiled.  “‘Mutts are the best kind of dog you could ever ask for, Cupcake,’ he told me several times.  Especially the old, the half-blind, or the three-legged ones.  You show them love, they will love you forever.”  She shook her head fondly.  “He always spoke about this one dog he’d grown up with.  He wasn’t sure what all Bobo was, part lab.  Beautiful dog and faithful.”  

Rudy handed back the sketchbook.  “If you need any assistance with this, I would be more than glad to help,” he told her.  

“Thank you, Rudy,” she hugged the book to her chest.  “Mind if I take my lunch break and run out for something?  I’ll pick something up for you, if you’d like.”

“That would be wonderful,” he nodded.  

 The break away from the lab and out in the crisp fall air invigorated her and calmed that itch, that urge that had been crawling along her skin since the precinct.  She almost hated to return to the lab.  Almost.  But she’d promised Rudy lunch and she’d taken the opportunity to run by her apartment to grab a photo from one of her dad’s old albums, a photo of his dog.

She pulled up in front of the old church and frowned slightly when she noticed a flat black police issue sedan with a Saint Christopher’s Medal hanging from a chain on the rearview mirror.  She felt her chest tighten.  

She heard the voices as she descended the metal stairs to the lab.  She glanced around before finding Rudy and a tall man with his back to her, standing around the metal table away from their workbenches.  She dropped off his lunch at his desk before shrugging out of her jacket and making her way over to join them.

“All right, plug it in already,” a low, deep, very masculine voice nearly growled out with a touch of impatience.  “I got to get back on the street.”

Emily’s eyes widened when she saw the android on the table.  A DRN.  Why was he reanimating a DRN?  Her eyes snapped up to Rudy as he held out the wand to the man across from him.  

“Okay.  Please have the honor of waking him up yourself,” he addressed the man.  “Touch it against his left ear.”

The man shifted as he took the wand and followed the instructions.

The DRN gasped, his black eyes immediately changing to a brilliant baby blue.  “How long was I out?”  he asked as he sat up and took in everything around him.

“Uh, four years and three months,” Rudy answered the DRN’s question.  

The DRN focused his attention on the other man.  The side of his face lit up as he scanned and processed information.  “Detective John Kennex.  I’m Dorian.  How are you?  Your record is outstanding.”

Emily’s lungs constricted when she realized the man who still had his back to her was John.  But why was he activating a DRN?  Where was 785?

“Used to be,” Kennex sounded a little put off.

“Excuse me?”  Dorian asked, curiosity filling his expression.

“Update your files,” John started to turn.  “Let’s go.”

Emily felt her lungs rattle when John Kennex turned to face her.  This time half the distance of the bullpen at the precinct wasn’t separating them.  He was five feet from her now.  Close enough to see the scar on his chin she’d become so familiar with.  Close enough to breathe in a hint of the cologne he wore.  Close enough to see the tension in his eyes.

“Rudy, when did you get an assistant?”  His eyes were locked with hers while he addressed Lom.

“Emily has been working with me for a year now,” Rudy answered.  “John Kennex, Emily Williams,” he quickly made the introductions.

“So, what’s a girl like you doing working in a dungeon like this?” Kennex asked, his eyes studying her.

He’s talking to me.  Ohmygod he’s actually talking to me.  He…  Her eyes widened when his words sank in.  

The soul mark on her inner right thigh tingled.  “You…  You said my words,” her voice rasped out as her lungs grew tight.  “This can’t…  this can’t be real…”  She fished into her pocket for her inhaler when a harsh wheeze gripped her.

The warmth in his hazel eyes cooled considerably as his jaw ticked.  “You must be mistaken, Sweetheart, ‘cause you sure as hell never said mine,” his tone was hard, his words clipped.  “Synthetic, let’s go.”

 You must be mistaken, Sweetheart, ‘cause you sure as hell never said mine.

John Kennex’ cold, cruel words ran through her head on a rapidly increasing, distorting loop in Tilt-A-Whirl fashion.  Over and over.  Emily tried to shut her mind off, tried to put her focus on her project.  She failed.

That itch was back.  She hadn’t realized it had faded earlier, but it was back with a vengeance.  It took everything in her willpower to keep from grabbing an X-acto blade from her desk drawer and cutting into her forearm.

Rudy had given up trying to ask if she was okay, she’d shut down on him when he had enquired if John really was her soulmate.

She didn’t understand.  His first words to her were the very words branded onto her inner thigh when she was born.  So, what’s a girl like you doing working in a dungeon like this?  

Words that had caused her a world of hurt when she was barely a few minutes old, when her birth parents had taken one look at her tiny little leg… and rejected her.  Words that had caused many potential foster and adoptive parents to turn their backs on her.  Nobody wanted a baby, a child, branded with words insinuating a life of sexual debauchery.  What else could those words mean?  Especially with the location of those words on her body, indicating the soul bond would occur during a very intimate moment.

Words that had shaped a young mind and made a little abandoned and nameless child decide she never wanted to ever meet the man she was fated to be with.  Words that had left Baby Jane Doe fearful of what her life might be, fearful of never finding someone who truly loved her, fearful of always being rejected or thrown aside.

The urge, the need to carve those words from her thigh was too strong.  No matter how hard she tried she could not push those thoughts away.  Not when they were gripping her.  Suffocating her.

She shoved away from her desk and ran toward the bathroom.  She barely dropped to her knees before her stomach upended itself.

Rejected.

Abandoned.

Forgotten.

She retched until there was nothing left in her stomach.  You must be mistaken, Sweetheart, ‘cause you sure as hell never said mine.

 Emily crawled under her work bench and grabbed her messenger bag.  She ignored Rudy’s concerned glance (one of hundreds he’d given her all afternoon) and rooted her hand through her bag’s contents until she found the cold metal pill canister containing her anti-anxiety medication.  She pressed her thumb to the top of the container before popping a tiny pill into her mouth and swallowing it dry.  

She hated taking the pills.  Hated how lethargic and stoned they made her feel at times.  She hadn’t done herself any favors, going fifteen months without taking them regularly, just on the bad days.  But ever since John Kennex had woken from his coma and her visits were forcibly stopped (for her safety and well-being and for his own recovery and rehabilitation) she had been taking them daily, sometimes more.  She wasn’t supposed to.  Those daily visits had done more for her than those damned pills ever had, and without the comfort of that routine, without the soothing presence of the comatose man she had fallen in love with over time, she found herself relying more and more on a synthesized balm to soothe the anxiety.  But it didn’t always work.

She raked her fingers through her dark hair before folding her arms around her legs and burying her face between her bent knees.  She had refused Rudy’s gentle suggestion of going home earlier, knowing full well what would happen the moment she was alone.  She’d wind up finding something sharp.  She’d wind up carving up her arm.  She’d wind up carving the damned soulmark from her right thigh.

She wanted to focus on something other than that damned itch.  She wanted to be able to give one hundred percent of her attention to her job.  She wanted to be able to crawl out from underneath her desk and not worry about giving into the consuming need to inflict pain to forget.

To forget that the man she had fallen in love with had said her words.

To forget that he had coldly rejected her.

To forget that he had walked out and abandoned her just like every other person who was supposed to love her left.

She stayed under the desk until the meds kicked in and that itch faded to a dull annoyance, burying herself in work when Rudy received a message alert from Dorian regarding a chemical analysis they needed.

She worked late through the night with her boss, gathering the necessary equipment needed to reactivate the MXes that had gone down with the EMP used at the precinct.  It took four hours, going floor by floor, to get the androids on their feet and fully functioning.  Another two hours to repair some moderate damage to other synthetics.

 It wasn’t until she was tucked away alone in her little apartment that her brave face came crashing down.  

[hewittao9-blog]

Its not all the foreigners

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[sigritandtheelves]

so, um, more simple? please? love you. k. bye.

your wish is my command, anon, and i love you too. this ask popped up just as i was finally working on ch7. 😊

Simple

Chapter 7

Other Chapters: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six

PG-13 | 2k wds | pre-XF AU | MSR, Melissa/Samantha

_+_

February 2, 1990 - Stanford

Dana Scully said “Thank you,” and hung up the phone, but when the receiver settled into its cradle, she found herself unable to think. It took her a moment. She wobbled on her feet, and then sat heavily in the chair beside her kitchen table. She couldn’t quite breathe. She didn’t know what this meant. She didn’t know who to call first. Melissa, she thought, maybe, but then… no. Fox. She needed to talk to him first. He answered on the fourth ring.

“H-hi,” she stammered.

“Dana?”

She looked at the pad of paper where she’d just scribbled down some notes: dates, a list of questions, the words 18 weeks and fitness test. “Did you do this? Is this because of you?” Her fingers felt numb gripping the phone and she was suddenly cold, even under the fuzz of her purple sweater.

“Do what? Hey, are you okay? Dana, what’s wrong?”

“I—“ she began, but faltered. “I just got off the phone with the FBI,” she said. “They, they’re, they said… They want me. I mean, they want to recruit me. They got my scores from the last exam, and they said they’re looking for pathologists, and… was it you? Did you tell them to do this?”

“Dana, that’s so… oh my god, we could work in the same building. God, that’s incredible!” He laughed. “And no! I don’t know why I didn’t think of it, but no, this was all you! I don’t work in recruitment.” He laughed again, his excitement buzzing through the phone line, and then he seemed to pause. “But,” he said. “Are you happy about this? Is it something you might want?”

This made her stop and think a moment, which she hadn’t yet had a chance to do. Was it? She thought of the FBI’s resources, the kinds of cases she’d come across, the excitement of looking over Fox’s case notes when he’d shared them with her. This wouldn’t be overdoses and liver cancer or small-town average deaths. This would be murders, strange deaths, important cases. Her answer seemed so easy. “Yes,” she said “God, yes. More than anything, I want to do something important.”

There was a sound behind him, someone else’s voice, and then his hand must have come over the mouthpiece because he offered some kind of muffled response.

Dana frowned. “Who’s that?”

“Oh,” he said. “Partner. We’re heading out on another case tomorrow. Georgia this time.”

“On a Saturday?”

He chuckled. “Hey, murderers don’t take weekends off.”

“And neither do telekinetic mutants?”

“Nope. This one’s no mutant, though. At least I don’t think. Hey, are you coming out to interview? Get a tour of the Hoover building?”

She smiled. “Yeah. Thursday. It’s all happening so fast. Will you be back by then?”

“I’d damned well better be. I don’t want to miss you.”

If he were out of town, she thought she might scream—to be so close, to be where he worked, and not see him. The FBI. Working side-by-side with him, or at least in the same city. It was… perfect. Maybe too perfect. There had to be some catch. And of course, she supposed, there was.

“Oh God,” she said. “What will I tell my dad?” She thought of Ahab’s stern frown when she’d said she was interested in pathology, how he’d said Now, Dana… like she were a child. He would cross his arms and frown and make her feel small again. Like Daniel had.

“Don’t worry about that now.” Fox’s voice was warm, and she imagined him behind her, talking into her ear, lips in her hair. She missed him, couldn’t believe he’d been here only two weeks ago. “I’ll try my hardest to be there.”

“Okay,” she said.

He sighed, and she could sense, suddenly, his distraction. “Hey, I have to go. But I’ll call you from Georgia, okay? I got one of those calling card thingies for when I’m out of town.”

“Alright,” she said. There was a tinge of melancholy seeping in at the edges of her excitement. Because this partner was taking him out of town at just the wrong time. Because of her family. If she flew east and saw them, if she told Melissa, she’d have to tell her parents, too. She could already sense their disapproval, from across the continent.

But.

But if it worked out…

“Hey, Dana?” His voice was low, murmured, as if to keep between just them.

“Yeah?”

“I’m so excited for you.”

“Me too,” she said. “I— I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

And they hung up.

—

Her parents, it turned out, were not the most pressing problem she had to deal with. First thing Monday morning, scrubbed and starting rounds, she looked up to find Daniel stalking toward her like a bull. Pen to the chart she was reading, Dana’s jaw fell open at the sight of his determination.

“Daniel, what—“

“I need to talk to you,” He said.

Dana blinked. She glanced at the patient whose chart she held, then back at Daniel’s red face. “Excuse me a minute,” she said to the patient, and placed the chart back at the end of the bed.

Daniel practically dragged her out of the room, hand firm on her elbow.

“Please let go of me,” she said. Her words seemed to startle him. He checked himself, dropped her elbow, and gestured toward his office door. Before it had even closed, he was turning that hard look on her again.

“Where are you going?” He asked.

Dana’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“You requested off three days this week.”

She stiffened, crossed her arms across her chest. “Yes,” she said. “I have an interview.”

“With the FBI?”

Her eyes widened. He had inched closer to her, and she involuntarily stepped back. “How—“

“They requested my letter. I had half a mind to send them a different one.”

Dana felt her face getting hot. “You can’t do that. You said you wouldn’t let this—“

“Who is he?”

Those eyes. She’d never seen him this way. For the first time in his presence, she felt not just irritated by his territoriality, but threatened. Unsafe. Against the fear, she straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Who is who?”

He leaned in again. “Don’t play with me, Dana. That man you were with. You were kissing him outside your apartment. Does he work for the FBI? Are you fucking him to get a place there?”

A red streak of anger plunged through her, head to toe, at his words, and she squeezed her hand shut to keep from raising it to slap him. She breathed deep, held his furious gaze with her own. The worst thing of all was that she had wondered the same thing at first, wondered if Fox had put her name through to someone. But that wouldn’t have been as low as what Daniel was suggesting now. And he hadn’t, anyway. “Are you following me? You were watching me?”

“You said there was no one else.”

“When I said that, there wasn’t.”

“How’d you meet him?”

“Daniel, it’s none of your business.” She’d backed up further, and now she gripped the door’s handle behind her back.

“When?”

“Daniel,” she said again, slower this time. “It’s none of your business.” Eyes fierce, ice blue, hard as stones, she wouldn’t back down.

“You’d be stupid to join the FBI.” His words were bitter things. “You’d be throwing your life away. You’ll be nothing, just some lab rat. Is that all you are?”

His shift in tense didn’t go unnoticed, and his vile words stung. She saw, then, that he thought he was losing something of his own making in her decision to leave. He saw her choice as his failure. Part of her wanted to feel pity for this man and his crippling pride. But she did not. “I’m not yours,” she said. “You didn’t make me what I am. My future is my own.”

“Your future’s in some cinderblock basement without any heat, surrounded by dead things.”

“I’ll bring justice to those dead things,” she said with her own version of venom, which was truth and not poison. “And you’ll send the FBI the first letter, because it’s what you promised.” She swallowed. “And my future is with someone I love.”

With that she twisted the handle and swung open the door. Dana turned on her heel and kept her shoulders straight as she could down the length of the hallway. She pressed the barred door that led into the stairwell and, when she saw that it was empty, collapsed against the railing. Her hands came to her face and she let out one solitary sob, a single choked concession to her overwhelming emotions while she bent at the waist over disinfected tile. Then she tucked them back into place and stood, if somewhat unsteadily. She wondered how many more men like this there would be in her future. How many in the FBI, how many in the labs, on the training field, in her own parents’ living room. She imagined her spine stiffening like rebar, her heart growing brittle with ice as it steeled itself against cutting onslaught of their judgment. Then she thought of Fox, how his face crumpled slightly when he spoke with empathy for his victims. She thought how he’d said It takes a lot out of me. She thought how his eyes could thaw the ice and melt the rebar before they could make her rigid and cold. If he were there, she could be a different kind of strong.

Still braced against the railing, Dana swiped at her eyes, pushed some escaped hair back toward her ponytail, and took a deep breath. She went slowly down the stairs, regaining herself as she went. She’d caught the FBI’s attention on her own merit. She loved someone who didn’t want to possess her, but to listen to her. She was flying toward him, and a new future near him, in two days. She would be okay.

—

Tuesday - Athens, Georgia

“Diana, this case designation is strange.” He had loosened his tie, and was slouched at the motel’s small table, looking through the file for a hundredth time. “I meant to ask earlier—why does it begin with an X in stead of a number?”

Diana sat across from him, transcribing notes from a recorded interview. She paused the tape and pulled the orange padded headphones from her ear. “Hmm?”

“The case file,” he said, tapping the number on its outer file-folder. “Its designation is strange. I haven’t seen that before.”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “This one came directly from Blevins.”

Fox looked up. “From Blevins? Why so high up?”

Diana shrugged. “The second victim, he was ex-military. Maybe some government big wigs wanted to push it through?”

Fox chewed the top of his pen, tried to use this information rethink the connections, the motive. “You think the killer could be military too?” The deaths seemed random, but too strange to be unconnected: localized burns, charred like stripes across four men’s torsos.

“Could be,” she said. “It’s worth checking. Unless you’re in too much of a hurry to get out of here. You have a date back in DC or something?”

She said it jokingly, but Fox looked up sharply, caught in the headlights. He supposed he was pretty obvious, and she’d been there when he got the phone call, but he didn’t want his love life to affect his work. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Diana shook her head with a half-smile. “Who is she?”

“She’s—“ he thought about how to describe Dana Scully, what words he could possibly use to talk about her. Then he thought about the fact that she may be joining the FBI and thought he’d better keep her name to himself. She didn’t need to start out in this minefield already surrounded by rumors. “She’s a doctor. Brilliant. But it’s long-distance right now.”

“Must be hard.”

A small, tight nod, followed by an awkward silence. He looked back at the report.

“Do you think…” he said after a moment. “You think there are more cases like this? Marked with an X in this way?”

— end chapter seven —

go to chapter 8

[something-tofightfor]

The Punisher Season 2: Episodes 6-10

Initial reactions as I watched these episodes.

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT. SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT. SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT. I literally tagged it four different ways for spoilers so if you read them after this it’s your own damn fault. 

6: Nakazat Amy looks like every typical 16 year old girl at the mall Oh frank. Frank frank frank. You with that gun Curtis is such a genuinely good guy. Goddammit. Fuck. He better not bang her. Alright AMY. Don’t bring up the kids. Frank is so fucking sad. Oh so he sees through the transformation bullshit. And he’s apologizing for spying on her. Interesting. SELF ASSURED BILLY IS COMING BACK SLOWLY it’s interesting that she isn’t giving him rules TONGUE So these pictures are literally of men kissing. Interesting. Roughhousing with Frank, must be 18 to ride this ride I actually really liked this scene in the trailer with the gun training. Looks like Billy can do more than 20 pushups now And he’s reading his own file.... WHO IS KM Billy and Curtis...  and he APOLOGIZED. Jeeeeeesus. He’s fucking crying. I can’t. He’s so sad. So angry. So confused. Brett and Dinah again.... hmmmm. Brett still doesn’t know that Frank was there. Madani feels guilt about lying about the carousel.... HE CALLED her out about lying. Frank stole a limo, ok. This confrontation between Pilgrim and Madani is... not that tense. But i mean maybe don’t point your gun st someone on a sidewalk in broad daylight? Is the subplot of this show a fucking Russian election meddling scheme? Yes. Yes it is. When Frank Castle tells you to get on your knees, you get on your knees MY FUCKING GOD WHY DO YOU LET HIM LIVE Where is billy getting money from? He’s finding a group of friends again... he’s earning his spot at the head of the pack again. Giving orders sounds ... natural coming from him. This is billy trying to reassert himself. Trying to do “good”. The accent is much more pronounced when he is in the moment. You’re not a petty criminal Billy. You’re better than this. Way better. Would you do it all over again, frank? Maybe. This poor kid, and Curtis trying to clean up the mess. Again. Welp, guess it doesn’t matter that Frank let him live. Oh Dr. Dumont just hid her most recent notes. Why is she protecting billy? ... he has poor impulse control and yet you slapped him and stabbed him in the damn hand with a letter opener.... and you have a degree in psychology? K. I just threw my glasses across the room. This is not happening. This group therapy session between Frank, Madani and Curtis is constructive.

7: One Bad Day Madani’s interview... ONE YEAR HAS PASSED. MADANI BEING HONEST. Her poor choice in sexual partners got her here I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE LETTER OPENER lmao madani having to talk about sleeping with Billy in detail. This is what i wanted. Madani admitted to her mistakes. THIS IS EVERYTHING #justiceforstein Frank needs to stop people from telling him what the fuck to do. He can live with killing people ... but it’s not easy. Madani is lying about never wanting to kill Billy herself... but she doesn’t have the balls to do it. Frank doesn’t want to kill him, but he’s going to do it because he feels that he OWES Curtis and Madani. This bitch chewing her pills kills me More billy sex flashbacks ... she’s fucked. The biggest fucking sigh to ever come out of my mouth just came out of my mouth. .... so they’re getting off on hurting each other. I really hate this bitch She’s lying. Billy’s being honest again. The sex helped him more than therapy or medication. Knowing that he has “friends” out there helped. Oh this bitch is a manipulator. Holy shit. Oh. But he put someone ahead of himself for once. Interesting. He just wants to know what it feels like to have part of everything. That’s... different. BYE BITCH. Billy. You. Are. Not. A. Petty. Criminal. The fuck are you doing? It’s really interesting to me that Billy is choosing this path because he fell in with an easy, shitty crowd. He’s better than this. He’s capable of so many things. I get that this is because he’s a wanted man... but.... STILL TALKING ABOUT BETH... She sold you out FRANK, KAREN FUCKING PAGE WOULDNT EVER this drug addict is going to fuck everything up. Everyone wants Billy dead... except Madani... and I think Billy is included in this group of people that want him dead. Talking about a “new normal” This applies to frank and billy and madani and even Curtis ... HMMMM Interrogator Frank Madani and Curtis just standing there and watching with bored expressions on their faces is the best Lots of hand stabbing in this season. Good thing Curtis is a medic. BILLY DIDNT MURDER FRANK’S WHOLE FAMILY we’ve officially reached the point in the season where i feel BAD for Madani. .... nevermind. (Not even two minutes later) This is intense. Goddammit LILLIAN he didn’t kill anyone. He did everything he could to NOT kill anyone. Interesting. OH FUCK THE VEST OH FUCK billy is having a panic attack. Holy hell.

8: My Brother’s Keeper I don’t like the title of this. Billy remembers. Not everything, but enough I think. I have been waiting for billy with this gun for MONTHS Did not disappoint. Frank is literally running down the street in the Punisher vest, like.... is that a good idea or nah? Curtis just saved his ass twice LET HIM REMEMBER YOU ASSHOLES OH WELL OK THEN. Frank and Curtis... are having a moment and it’s much needed. Frank’s analysis of Billy’s response to seeing him and having Frank fire at him breaks my heart. He looked at Billy and saw family. “he does not know what he did” OH FRANK. Oh sweet frank. He had a shot... and couldn��t take it. Billy came back to Krista.... He said please again. Billy Russo is going to beg? He didn’t have to Oh lord. He remembers and knows that frank betrayed him but not WHY. god this is heartbreaking. Ben Barnes is an incredible actor. His tears and the emotions are so goddamn real. This scene after she lets him back in is one of the best acted scenes on TV. “I know but i don’t know. I don’t feel it” Christ almighty take my heart and stomp on it why don’t you “He was my best friend, but he was pointing a gun at me” ... oh Billy. She can’t help you. She’s manipulating you because she wants power. She needs to feel wanted. FUCK YOU KRISTA DUMONT Curtis had a shot too... and he didn’t take it. Neither of them could do it. Curtis just wants to be normal. He wants to have a life - an “AFTER” ... Frank screaming at this girl is great. That’s not the way she thought the day was going to go. Brett knowing about Castle is really interesting to me. This conversation is really interesting to me. He’s not fucking around. Billy would give his life for Frank. And he thinks that he’s not the man he was before... THERE ARE MORE PIECES BITCH. I THINK KRISTA WAS IN THIS FUCKING CULT Now frank is seeing billy ... and Curtis is calling him out on it Still walking around in the vest... This is Frank’s moment.... OH FUCK YES BILLY He just punched a hole into a wall and I think I had a stroke OH YOU MANIPULATIVE BITCH Do not choose her billy Russo ... goddammit Lmao Amy just tried to kill Curtis OH SHIT THIS IS THE ANVIL SPEECH AGAIN. Oh Billy. You’re thinking very big here. I have nothing to say about this little dinner between Curtis and Amy and Dinah Frank visiting Maria and the kids at the cemetery... 

9: Flustercluck Frank’s gonna drop some knowledge. “Let me be what I’m meant to be” This bitch is trying to make plans with Billy in the future.... uhhhhhhhhhh This isn’t Billy. Yeah she “accepts” him.... but..... Ok so they’re growing in numbers and in strength and in visibility, quickly. They could have established Billy this season without making him fuck this broad. He wants to know why frank tried to kill him... but does he REALLY?!?!? So wait Schultz is in this cult?!? Uh oh. This guy knows who pilgrim is. WHERE ARE YOU GOING AMY?!? ..... billy in madani’s new apartment. And he found the journal. HE CUT OFF THE DUDES THUMB OH MY GOD Billy is there. Oh my god oh my god oh my god This is nuts. Billy and madani have more chemistry out of bed than in Madani telling him the TRUTH. YES YES YES YES YES ... but.... there’s no need to be such a bitch. BILLY WITH THE FUCKING MIC DROP i can’t tell if she’s scared or happy or aroused - maybe all three? Oh Amy, you just killed this girl. Why did you leave your bag in the other room. This is a trap. Frank’s very nervous for Amy Billy... deserves more? He thinks he deserves more, at least KRISTA HE DOESNT CARE ABOUT YOU. Billy doesn’t want to run. THERE IS NO “us” KRISTA. i hope he snaps her fucking neck. Like you barely know this woman...and i get that you feel a connection because she’s been your therapist.... but this isn’t normal. This isn’t right. She.... she’s using you, she’s LYING about something and i am pissed that i can’t figure it out I AM STRESSED AMY SHOT SOMEONE GOOD LORD Dad Frank 🤤🤤 Omg is Krista going to kill madani Just two girls that have both boned Billy Russo hanging out in the same room....  this is going to end well Pilgrim’s real name is... Robbie? WHO ARE YOU THOUGH Who did he steal money from?!? And what did he do with it?!?! 10: The Dark Hearts of Men ... another flashback. :( billy is getting his ASS kicked... and so is frank.... holy hell TONGUE Frank and billy.... GODDAMN. I am sad. Holy fuck Billy’s watching them 24 hours earlier?!?! Oh god someone’s dying The wine is called “decoy” ... billy is listening to this. Madani’s going to go DEEP with this i think... Frank and Curtis are reminiscing about Billy. frank misses being active duty too... just like billy Frank admits they’re the same. Oh yikes. Pilgrim killed some people. He’s very bloody ...and snorting something. Cool. Did he just effing reset his jaw?!? This is what happens when you’re in a cult for 12 years.... you have all kinds of pent up anger and kill 5 people in 3 minutes Instinct and emotion.... justifying it afterward.... Hmmmmmmmmmmmm Frank has done the things billy has done though.... not on the same scale, but.... Welp Pilgrim is apparently on his rumpsringa ... hookers and blow and murder Billy is always alone.... true. But now he thinks he isn’t. And that’s dangerous ... oh, ok. I mean your wife is dying but go on and get a BJ from some methhead Frank and Curtis live on this roof now Billy creeping from a nearby rooftop is me waiting and watching for new content from this show after the teaser was announced at the end of the January promo but before we had any other information John and Rebecca in s sweeter moment ... and she’s questioning him... and she had every right to do so. This description is like Frank and Billy rolled into one... AND SOMEONE STILL LOVES HIM. Krista is getting Madani drunk....... And madani just said she wanted him dead... not the right answer Dinah. “He is just a man alone”.... Billy is a great motivational speaker. ITS A TRAP FRANK. He knows you’re coming. Boom. And here we go Oh this is good This is well shot This is disorienting Frank is getting his ass kicked again Billy is the only one not in a mask. Well. I thought you were better than this billy Holy shit this fight choreography I’m gonna be real pissed if Curtis dies Oh fuck frank just killed civilians FUCK. His desire for revenge killed innocent people. He isn’t any better than Billy ....and Curtis killed someone too. Yikes He was there the whole time. FUCKING billy. Krista is twisted as hell. And i hate her but i gotta kinda respect her for fucking going after what she wants (i reserve the right to change this opinion at a later time and i hope i get to) She’s trying to prove herself to billy..... but I’m not sure if she actually cares or if she just wants the satisfaction of knowing she helped. Fuck... frank is screwed.

[secretcupcakesublime]

Some important CSS and JS Libraries

1. Styled components

An idea born in an Australian whisky bar has developed into a project of 18 K stars, widely embraced within the culture. Styled components make it simpler to use CSS in React components, by identifying styled components with encapsulated styles as a mediator layer without CSS classes. Styled-components are generated by literal notation using the ES6 framework to describe components. As you would normally do using CSS, CSS properties can be applied to the component as required. Styled components can create specific class names when the JS is parsed, and inject the CSS into the DOM. You will learn more about Max Stoiber in this great chat.

2. Radium

Radium is described as "A toolchain for React component styling" at 6.5 K stars and developed by FormidableLabs. With React without CSS, it's a collection of tools to handle inline types. Radium provides a simple interface and abstractions to manage CSS features that can not easily accommodate Radium inline styles, enabling you to bundle styles together with your React elements, combining javascript, html, and styling. It also provides rendering based on props, allowing you to design your components according to the state of your game.

3. AphroditeAphrodite is a framework-agnostic CSS-in-JS library with server-side rendering support, browser prefixing and limited CSS generation support. Aphrodite transforms everything into classes, using the class attribute.This project operates with or without Respond at 4 K stars and offers features such as modeled injection into the Dom, styles of auto prefixes and more, all at a fairly small size of 20k and a handful of dependencies. Here's a handy rundown of Aphrodite vs. Radium. 4. Emotion

At 4.2 K stars Emotion is a strong and versatile CSS-in-JS library that enables you to style string or object-based apps. To prevent variance problems with CSS it has uniform structure. Based on the glam library and its philosophy the concept is to maintain runtime output by parsing styles with babel and PostCSS while writing CSS. The core runtime is 2.3 kb, and 4 kb with support from React. Emotion isn't just about Reacting.

5. Glamorous

Note: the project is no longer actively maintained! still cool though :)

At 3.6 K stars, PayPal's Glamorous is focused to create styled components and jsxtyle inspired "maintainable CSS with React." Kent C. Dodds describes the project as "React component styling with an elegant (inspired) API, small footprint (< 5 kb gzipped) and great performance (through glamour)." It has a rather similar API to modeled parts, and under the hood it uses similar methods.

6. Glamor

Glamor, inspired by ideas from this great talk, is small and powerful. It helps you to write CSS inline in your components using the same supports for style prop Object CSS syntax React. It is fast and efficient, independent system, serverside / static rendering and adds vendor prefixes / fallback values. Here's a short introductory API notes, a comparison of Glamor CSS techniques and a helpful Glamor tutorial with Gatsby.

7. Fela

<FelaComponent  style={{  backgroundColor: 'blue',  color: 'red'  }}  render={({ className, theme }) => (  <div className={className}>I am red on blue.</div>  )} />

Fela is a project developed in JavaScript for State-Driven Styling, highlighting 3 things: rendering styling dynamic by design, introducing framework-agnostic (Bindings for Reacting) and performing. Based on the state of the application it is adjustable by nature and renders types. It generates atomic CSS and supports all common features of CSS such as media queries, pseudo-classes, keyframes and font faces. It can be used on any view list, including the native React.

8. Styletron

Thanks to this

code-carrot post

Styletron is a "component-oriented styling toolkit" at 2500 stars. Styletron supports stateless, single-element styled components as primitive base styling with conditional / dynamic styling prop interfaces, and style composition via (typed) JavaScript objects without additional tooling (e.g. Webpack loaders, Babel plugins, etc.). The design of style objects is often un-opinioned on. This fascinating HN thread lets you know more.

9. JSSJSS is a CSS abstraction that uses JavaScript to define styles in a declarative and maintenable manner. It is a high performance compiler JS to CSS that operates both runtime and server-side. This core library is agnostic at low level and frame, and is around 6 KB (minified and gzipped). This can also be expanded by API plugins. Here's a good SCSS (Sass) conversion tutorial here. Test out even React-JSS, a React JSS integration.

10.

Bootstrap Icons

For their icon library the Bootstrap team recently published the Alpha 3 Update. The newest update adds tons of new designs and now has over 500 icons on the Bootstrap SVG icon pack. Bootstrap Icons are designed to interact with components in Bootstrap, from shape controls to navigation. Bootstrap icons are SVGs, so they can easily and quickly scale and be styled with CSS. Although built for Bootstrap, they will work in any project. They are open source (MIT), so you can access, use, and expand it free of charge. Heads up though, right now they are in alpha and open to drastic changes.

11.

Polka

This is my short analysis of Polka which is "... just a native HTTP server with added routing, middleware, and sub-applications support ...!" even though express is relatively light, polka is lighter. What I find fascinating in this approach gives you even more insight into how to build an application. I think Polka is an excellent way to express yourself. With only a few extra modules, you'll have a fully fledged system with stable paths, templating, static files providing in a more lightweight (and hopefully faster) bundle all you have in express. It has not the same express acceptance but this could be an advantage.

12.

Size limit

Open-source tool to measure the performance of JS apps that offers an estimation of how much time end-users will need to run your Javascript. It can be plugged into Travis CI, Circle CI, GitHub Behavior so it runs automatically and prevents over-budget size limit commits.

13.

Stryker

Stryker is a very fascinating project in JavaScript and other languages to run mutation testing. It works by adding "mutations" to the code and running tests on them in random locations, testing how many of the mutations pass and how stable the code really is. By an example let's explain this, Suppose you're creating an online casino. Users are only permitted to access the casino if they are over 18. So you write the following piece of code to test if anyone can access the site:

function isUserOldEnough(user) { return user.age >= 18; }

Stryker will find the return statement and decide to change it in several ways:

/* 1 */ return user.age > 18; /* 2 */ return user.age < 18; /* 3 */ return false; /* 4 */ return true;

We call such shifts mutants. After discovering the mutants, they are introduced one by one and the experiments are performed against them. If at least one of the experiments fails, we're saying the mutant is murdered. This is what we want to see! If no check fails, then it has succeeded. The better the experiments survive the fewer mutants.Stryker produces the results in various formats. One of the easiest reporters to read is the plain text:

Mutant killed: /yourPath/yourFile.js: line 10:27 Mutator: BinaryOperator - return user.age >= 18; + return user.age > 18; Mutant survived: /yourPath/yourFile.js: line 10:27 Mutator: RemoveConditionals - return user.age >= 18; + return true;

The direct text reporter outputs precisely how the code has been changed and which mutator has been used. It would then tell us whether a mutant has been killed which means that at least one test has failed, or whether it has survived. In this case the second mutation is marked as survivor. This means that a test that specifically checks for age younger than 18 is possibly lacking

14.

Dinero.js

Dinero is a JavaScript library designed to work with monetary values. It has a well-designed API which contains all the methods for money and currency operations you might need. Dinero.js allows the development, estimation and formatting of monetary values in JavaScript. You can do arithmetic operations, read and format them thoroughly, search for a variety of items to make your own creation process simpler and safer.

15.

Uppload

Uppload.js is a modern JavaScript library designed to enhance the experience of uploading images. The library offers an elegant interface for file collection that allows the user to drag-drop images from the locale.It also allows you to import images from any data source, such as URL, camera, Instagram post, Facebook public post, etc. Thanks to its plugin program, it provides multiple upload options, allowing you to add more image sources, such as Instagram, screenshots, Giphy and more.You are also allowed to crop, resize, rotate the client-side images until they are submitted to server.

16.

MoreToggels

Pure CSS library offering over 50 stylish checkbox toggles of a pleasant variety. These are very easy to use and customize-only surround a div in your checkbox, add the right class and it's done.

17.

μPlot

Fast, memory-efficient diagram library to generate superb 2D Canvas-based charts. It offers lots of different types of graphs, lots of customization options and other cool features.

18.

Rsup Progress

Easy but still very successful progress bar plugin with promising support and smooth animations. It is super easy to configure and very useful to show the load times at the top of the page.  19.

Bootstrap Treeview

Bootstrap treeview is used to represent hierarchical information starting with the root element and continuing with its children and their respective items. Besides the root every element has a parent and can have children. Easy Bootstrap 4 plugin designed to build elegant treeviews with collapse list objects. It's a fantastic little feature and we wouldn't be shocked to see it integrated with future Bootstrap models. Siblings are objects with one parent and the same. Objects can collapse and expand.

20.

Electron React Boilerplate

Electron React Boilerplate uses Electron, React, Redux, React Router, Webpack and React Hot Loader for rapid application creation (HMR).Great starting kit for the production of Electron-based cross-platform mobile applications. The project GitHub provides a strong framework to help you customize everything and get started in no time.  

21.

Panolens

They're panolens. Js is a WebGL focused and event-driven panoramic viewer. Lean and versatile. It is constructed over Three. Amazing JavaScript panorama viewer library right in the browser to create beautiful 360 ° experience. Three.js-based library keeps output fast and smooth, even when viewing high quality images or videos.

22.

Octomments

Very smart solution for adding comments to your website which uses GitHub as a discussion source. The project consists of a GitHub App and a JS library working together to view a fully featured comment section, hosted within a selected repo issue of GitHub.

23.

Rome

Rome is a toolchain experimental to JavaScript. It includes a parser, linter, formatter, bundler, frame checking and more. It aims to be a detailed platform for everything that relates to JavaScript source code production. Rome is not a set of known instruments. All the tools are designed specifically for Rome, do not rely on any external dependencies and are made to communicate with each other seamlessly.

24.

massCode

MassCode is a snippet manager for developers of open-source code. This nice little app offers a clean interface for all of your code snippets and cheatsheets to handle. Runs on Mac, Linux and Windows.

25.

Bootlint

The Bootstrap team's new linter tool that lets you test if your pages use Bootstrap's components with properly organized HTML. It also ensures the appropriate tags are used, an HTML5 doctype declaration is included, and the page's overall markup is accurate.

26.

DarkModeJS

This library uses the mix-blend-mode css to get Dark Mode on all of your websites. Only copy and paste the snippet and you'll get a plugin to turn the Dark Mode on and off. You can also use it programmatically, without the button. Lightweight module, installed in Vanilla. Super lightweight JS library to help you integrate dark & light teams into your applications. It senses local time for the user and changes the UI appearance accordingly. It doesn't have light and dark themes.  

27.

Hex Engine

Modern 2D engine designed to render browser games. This versatile toolkit for game development features a Canvas-based rendering engine, aids in physics and sound, gamepad support, integrated design tools, and more.

28.

Chardin.js

A tiny JS tool which makes adding overlay instructions for your apps super simple. These guides can be extremely helpful to clarify the UI, demote the various features of the app or simply show the user what to do next.

29.

Sharect

Share. Js is a lightweight, zero-dependent JS library that transforms any text selected into quotes that can be posted on Twitter and/or Facebook, as you can see in Medium.com.

30.

Lottie

Lottie is an Android, iOS, Web, and Windows library that parses Adobe After Effects animations exported as json with Bodymovin and makes them natively accessible on the smartphone and on the web! The Airbnb developer team's incredible library that exports Adobe After. This makes animations that can be very complex with lots of details and keyframes as well as being super-performing and smooth buttery. It's now designed to expand its use to android, iOS, React Native and Windows in addition to his great work.

31.

Vue Interactive Paycard

View-Interactive-Paycard-Smooth and sweet micro-interaction credit card shape. Includes the printing of numbers, validation and automatic identification of type of token. Designed with viewjs, and completely sensitive as well. Very impressive credit card snippet type which beautifully animates as users input their data. One of the finest projects we've seen all year round, with everything polished to perfection, from the typography to the animations. It's not only pretty either-the card is also very user friendly with the formatting of numbers, validation and the identification of card size. Also, when entering cc info, users actually prefer a well-known interface and not some custom UI.

32.

Cube.js

Cube.js is a scalable open source platform for building analytical web applications and designing your own sophisticated, custom analytics systems. It consists of a wide SDK frontend and a lightweight API backend which can be linked to most databases and systems like MySQL, Postreges and MongoDB .. It is primarily used for developing internal business intelligence tools or for applying customer-facing analytics to an existing app.  

33.

Tessaract

Tesseract. Js is the pure Javascript port of Tesseract's popular OCR engine. Node and browser JavaScript library which extracts text from images. It analyzes the image, automatically detects location and orientation of the text, and with great precision extracts words and sentences. Tessaract can recognize more than 60 languages including more complex ones such as Chinese, Arabic and Russian

34.

Barba

Lightweight library for linking seamless transitions to pages on your website. It takes up your usual static website and makes it a great-looking single-page application experience. It helps to reduce the delay between loading pages, to decrease requests for HTTP, and to make the web feel more premium.

35.

Freezeframe

This fun JavaScript library allows for the control of animated GIF playback. It can start and pause the GIFs, for example, based on user feedback such as clicks or hover. As it uses a canvas feature to draw the individual frames, it is also very performant under the hood.

36.

Ink

React-based App building command line interface. It provides a great range of predefined components which can be used to accelerate the creation of terminal interfaces while also allowing features such as more sophisticated templates and controls to be added.  

37.

Instant Page

This fun library speeds up loading times when users hover over them by prefretching the links. This makes loading of a page faster until the user clicks on a connection and navigates to the next page. With the latest update it can also automatically prefix all links in a list-great for static content.  

38.

Filepond

FilePond is a JavaScript library that lets you upload silky smooth drag n 'drop files. It has a polished UI which is a pleasure to use, while also offering some interesting features under the hood such as optimizing photos for quicker uploads. Just 21 kB gzipped, with adapters available with React, Vue, and jQuery for easier implementation. These docs can assist in downloading, setting up, updating and extending FilePond. If you don't know FilePond you can find more detail on the FilePond product page.  

39.

Micromodal

Micromodalistic. Js is a modal library written in pure JavaScript, lightweight, configurable and 11y-enabled. It helps you to build modal dialogs consistent with WAI-ARIA guidelines, with trust and with minimal configuration. Minified and gzipped at just 1.9 kb, it's a tiny library for big change.

40.

Brain.js

A great project for all of you who want to take their first steps in machine learning, Brain.js offers a powerful framework for working in a JavaScript environment with the neural networks. It has lots of examples of excellent documentation that will help you understand some of the most important ML techniques.

As a reputed Software Solutions Developer we have expertise in providing dedicated remote and outsourced technical resources for software services at very nominal cost. Besides experts in full stacks We also build web solutions, mobile apps and work on system integration, performance enhancement, cloud migrations and big data analytics. Don’t hesitate to

get in touch with us!

Source:

whizzystack.co

#b2b ecommerce

#b2b content marketing

#b2b seo

#Ecommerce

#socialmediamarketing

[technicallyelegantruins]

Some important CSS and JS Libraries

1. Styled components

An idea born in an Australian whisky bar has developed into a project of 18 K stars, widely embraced within the culture. Styled components make it simpler to use CSS in React components, by identifying styled components with encapsulated styles as a mediator layer without CSS classes. Styled-components are generated by literal notation using the ES6 framework to describe components. As you would normally do using CSS, CSS properties can be applied to the component as required. Styled components can create specific class names when the JS is parsed, and inject the CSS into the DOM. You will learn more about Max Stoiber in this great chat.

2. Radium

Radium is described as "A toolchain for React component styling" at 6.5 K stars and developed by FormidableLabs. With React without CSS, it's a collection of tools to handle inline types. Radium provides a simple interface and abstractions to manage CSS features that can not easily accommodate Radium inline styles, enabling you to bundle styles together with your React elements, combining javascript, html, and styling. It also provides rendering based on props, allowing you to design your components according to the state of your game.

3. AphroditeAphrodite is a framework-agnostic CSS-in-JS library with server-side rendering support, browser prefixing and limited CSS generation support. Aphrodite transforms everything into classes, using the class attribute.This project operates with or without Respond at 4 K stars and offers features such as modeled injection into the Dom, styles of auto prefixes and more, all at a fairly small size of 20k and a handful of dependencies. Here's a handy rundown of Aphrodite vs. Radium. 4. Emotion

At 4.2 K stars Emotion is a strong and versatile CSS-in-JS library that enables you to style string or object-based apps. To prevent variance problems with CSS it has uniform structure. Based on the glam library and its philosophy the concept is to maintain runtime output by parsing styles with babel and PostCSS while writing CSS. The core runtime is 2.3 kb, and 4 kb with support from React. Emotion isn't just about Reacting.

5. Glamorous

Note: the project is no longer actively maintained! still cool though :)

At 3.6 K stars, PayPal's Glamorous is focused to create styled components and jsxtyle inspired "maintainable CSS with React." Kent C. Dodds describes the project as "React component styling with an elegant (inspired) API, small footprint (< 5 kb gzipped) and great performance (through glamour)." It has a rather similar API to modeled parts, and under the hood it uses similar methods.

6. Glamor

Glamor, inspired by ideas from this great talk, is small and powerful. It helps you to write CSS inline in your components using the same supports for style prop Object CSS syntax React. It is fast and efficient, independent system, serverside / static rendering and adds vendor prefixes / fallback values. Here's a short introductory API notes, a comparison of Glamor CSS techniques and a helpful Glamor tutorial with Gatsby.

7. Fela

<FelaComponent  style={{  backgroundColor: 'blue',  color: 'red'  }}  render={({ className, theme }) => (  <div className={className}>I am red on blue.</div>  )} />

Fela is a project developed in JavaScript for State-Driven Styling, highlighting 3 things: rendering styling dynamic by design, introducing framework-agnostic (Bindings for Reacting) and performing. Based on the state of the application it is adjustable by nature and renders types. It generates atomic CSS and supports all common features of CSS such as media queries, pseudo-classes, keyframes and font faces. It can be used on any view list, including the native React.

8. Styletron

Thanks to this

code-carrot post

Styletron is a "component-oriented styling toolkit" at 2500 stars. Styletron supports stateless, single-element styled components as primitive base styling with conditional / dynamic styling prop interfaces, and style composition via (typed) JavaScript objects without additional tooling (e.g. Webpack loaders, Babel plugins, etc.). The design of style objects is often un-opinioned on. This fascinating HN thread lets you know more.

9. JSSJSS is a CSS abstraction that uses JavaScript to define styles in a declarative and maintenable manner. It is a high performance compiler JS to CSS that operates both runtime and server-side. This core library is agnostic at low level and frame, and is around 6 KB (minified and gzipped). This can also be expanded by API plugins. Here's a good SCSS (Sass) conversion tutorial here. Test out even React-JSS, a React JSS integration.

10.

Bootstrap Icons

For their icon library the Bootstrap team recently published the Alpha 3 Update. The newest update adds tons of new designs and now has over 500 icons on the Bootstrap SVG icon pack. Bootstrap Icons are designed to interact with components in Bootstrap, from shape controls to navigation. Bootstrap icons are SVGs, so they can easily and quickly scale and be styled with CSS. Although built for Bootstrap, they will work in any project. They are open source (MIT), so you can access, use, and expand it free of charge. Heads up though, right now they are in alpha and open to drastic changes.

11.

Polka

This is my short analysis of Polka which is "... just a native HTTP server with added routing, middleware, and sub-applications support ...!" even though express is relatively light, polka is lighter. What I find fascinating in this approach gives you even more insight into how to build an application. I think Polka is an excellent way to express yourself. With only a few extra modules, you'll have a fully fledged system with stable paths, templating, static files providing in a more lightweight (and hopefully faster) bundle all you have in express. It has not the same express acceptance but this could be an advantage.

12.

Size limit

Open-source tool to measure the performance of JS apps that offers an estimation of how much time end-users will need to run your Javascript. It can be plugged into Travis CI, Circle CI, GitHub Behavior so it runs automatically and prevents over-budget size limit commits.

13.

Stryker

Stryker is a very fascinating project in JavaScript and other languages to run mutation testing. It works by adding "mutations" to the code and running tests on them in random locations, testing how many of the mutations pass and how stable the code really is. By an example let's explain this, Suppose you're creating an online casino. Users are only permitted to access the casino if they are over 18. So you write the following piece of code to test if anyone can access the site:

function isUserOldEnough(user) { return user.age >= 18; }

Stryker will find the return statement and decide to change it in several ways:

/* 1 */ return user.age > 18; /* 2 */ return user.age < 18; /* 3 */ return false; /* 4 */ return true;

We call such shifts mutants. After discovering the mutants, they are introduced one by one and the experiments are performed against them. If at least one of the experiments fails, we're saying the mutant is murdered. This is what we want to see! If no check fails, then it has succeeded. The better the experiments survive the fewer mutants.Stryker produces the results in various formats. One of the easiest reporters to read is the plain text:

Mutant killed: /yourPath/yourFile.js: line 10:27 Mutator: BinaryOperator - return user.age >= 18; + return user.age > 18; Mutant survived: /yourPath/yourFile.js: line 10:27 Mutator: RemoveConditionals - return user.age >= 18; + return true;

The direct text reporter outputs precisely how the code has been changed and which mutator has been used. It would then tell us whether a mutant has been killed which means that at least one test has failed, or whether it has survived. In this case the second mutation is marked as survivor. This means that a test that specifically checks for age younger than 18 is possibly lacking

14.

Dinero.js

Dinero is a JavaScript library designed to work with monetary values. It has a well-designed API which contains all the methods for money and currency operations you might need. Dinero.js allows the development, estimation and formatting of monetary values in JavaScript. You can do arithmetic operations, read and format them thoroughly, search for a variety of items to make your own creation process simpler and safer.

15.

Uppload

Uppload.js is a modern JavaScript library designed to enhance the experience of uploading images. The library offers an elegant interface for file collection that allows the user to drag-drop images from the locale.It also allows you to import images from any data source, such as URL, camera, Instagram post, Facebook public post, etc. Thanks to its plugin program, it provides multiple upload options, allowing you to add more image sources, such as Instagram, screenshots, Giphy and more.You are also allowed to crop, resize, rotate the client-side images until they are submitted to server.

16.

MoreToggels

Pure CSS library offering over 50 stylish checkbox toggles of a pleasant variety. These are very easy to use and customize-only surround a div in your checkbox, add the right class and it's done.

17.

μPlot

Fast, memory-efficient diagram library to generate superb 2D Canvas-based charts. It offers lots of different types of graphs, lots of customization options and other cool features.

18.

Rsup Progress

Easy but still very successful progress bar plugin with promising support and smooth animations. It is super easy to configure and very useful to show the load times at the top of the page.  19.

Bootstrap Treeview

Bootstrap treeview is used to represent hierarchical information starting with the root element and continuing with its children and their respective items. Besides the root every element has a parent and can have children. Easy Bootstrap 4 plugin designed to build elegant treeviews with collapse list objects. It's a fantastic little feature and we wouldn't be shocked to see it integrated with future Bootstrap models. Siblings are objects with one parent and the same. Objects can collapse and expand.

20.

Electron React Boilerplate

Electron React Boilerplate uses Electron, React, Redux, React Router, Webpack and React Hot Loader for rapid application creation (HMR).Great starting kit for the production of Electron-based cross-platform mobile applications. The project GitHub provides a strong framework to help you customize everything and get started in no time.  

21.

Panolens

They're panolens. Js is a WebGL focused and event-driven panoramic viewer. Lean and versatile. It is constructed over Three. Amazing JavaScript panorama viewer library right in the browser to create beautiful 360 ° experience. Three.js-based library keeps output fast and smooth, even when viewing high quality images or videos.

22.

Octomments

Very smart solution for adding comments to your website which uses GitHub as a discussion source. The project consists of a GitHub App and a JS library working together to view a fully featured comment section, hosted within a selected repo issue of GitHub.

23.

Rome

Rome is a toolchain experimental to JavaScript. It includes a parser, linter, formatter, bundler, frame checking and more. It aims to be a detailed platform for everything that relates to JavaScript source code production. Rome is not a set of known instruments. All the tools are designed specifically for Rome, do not rely on any external dependencies and are made to communicate with each other seamlessly.

24.

massCode

MassCode is a snippet manager for developers of open-source code. This nice little app offers a clean interface for all of your code snippets and cheatsheets to handle. Runs on Mac, Linux and Windows.

25.

Bootlint

The Bootstrap team's new linter tool that lets you test if your pages use Bootstrap's components with properly organized HTML. It also ensures the appropriate tags are used, an HTML5 doctype declaration is included, and the page's overall markup is accurate.

26.

DarkModeJS

This library uses the mix-blend-mode css to get Dark Mode on all of your websites. Only copy and paste the snippet and you'll get a plugin to turn the Dark Mode on and off. You can also use it programmatically, without the button. Lightweight module, installed in Vanilla. Super lightweight JS library to help you integrate dark & light teams into your applications. It senses local time for the user and changes the UI appearance accordingly. It doesn't have light and dark themes.  

27.

Hex Engine

Modern 2D engine designed to render browser games. This versatile toolkit for game development features a Canvas-based rendering engine, aids in physics and sound, gamepad support, integrated design tools, and more.

28.

Chardin.js

A tiny JS tool which makes adding overlay instructions for your apps super simple. These guides can be extremely helpful to clarify the UI, demote the various features of the app or simply show the user what to do next.

29.

Sharect

Share. Js is a lightweight, zero-dependent JS library that transforms any text selected into quotes that can be posted on Twitter and/or Facebook, as you can see in Medium.com.

30.

Lottie

Lottie is an Android, iOS, Web, and Windows library that parses Adobe After Effects animations exported as json with Bodymovin and makes them natively accessible on the smartphone and on the web! The Airbnb developer team's incredible library that exports Adobe After. This makes animations that can be very complex with lots of details and keyframes as well as being super-performing and smooth buttery. It's now designed to expand its use to android, iOS, React Native and Windows in addition to his great work.

31.

Vue Interactive Paycard

View-Interactive-Paycard-Smooth and sweet micro-interaction credit card shape. Includes the printing of numbers, validation and automatic identification of type of token. Designed with viewjs, and completely sensitive as well. Very impressive credit card snippet type which beautifully animates as users input their data. One of the finest projects we've seen all year round, with everything polished to perfection, from the typography to the animations. It's not only pretty either-the card is also very user friendly with the formatting of numbers, validation and the identification of card size. Also, when entering cc info, users actually prefer a well-known interface and not some custom UI.

32.

Cube.js

Cube.js is a scalable open source platform for building analytical web applications and designing your own sophisticated, custom analytics systems. It consists of a wide SDK frontend and a lightweight API backend which can be linked to most databases and systems like MySQL, Postreges and MongoDB .. It is primarily used for developing internal business intelligence tools or for applying customer-facing analytics to an existing app.  

33.

Tessaract

Tesseract. Js is the pure Javascript port of Tesseract's popular OCR engine. Node and browser JavaScript library which extracts text from images. It analyzes the image, automatically detects location and orientation of the text, and with great precision extracts words and sentences. Tessaract can recognize more than 60 languages including more complex ones such as Chinese, Arabic and Russian

34.

Barba

Lightweight library for linking seamless transitions to pages on your website. It takes up your usual static website and makes it a great-looking single-page application experience. It helps to reduce the delay between loading pages, to decrease requests for HTTP, and to make the web feel more premium.

35.

Freezeframe

This fun JavaScript library allows for the control of animated GIF playback. It can start and pause the GIFs, for example, based on user feedback such as clicks or hover. As it uses a canvas feature to draw the individual frames, it is also very performant under the hood.

36.

Ink

React-based App building command line interface. It provides a great range of predefined components which can be used to accelerate the creation of terminal interfaces while also allowing features such as more sophisticated templates and controls to be added.  

37.

Instant Page

This fun library speeds up loading times when users hover over them by prefretching the links. This makes loading of a page faster until the user clicks on a connection and navigates to the next page. With the latest update it can also automatically prefix all links in a list-great for static content.  

38.

Filepond

FilePond is a JavaScript library that lets you upload silky smooth drag n 'drop files. It has a polished UI which is a pleasure to use, while also offering some interesting features under the hood such as optimizing photos for quicker uploads. Just 21 kB gzipped, with adapters available with React, Vue, and jQuery for easier implementation. These docs can assist in downloading, setting up, updating and extending FilePond. If you don't know FilePond you can find more detail on the FilePond product page.  

39.

Micromodal

Micromodalistic. Js is a modal library written in pure JavaScript, lightweight, configurable and 11y-enabled. It helps you to build modal dialogs consistent with WAI-ARIA guidelines, with trust and with minimal configuration. Minified and gzipped at just 1.9 kb, it's a tiny library for big change.

40.

Brain.js

A great project for all of you who want to take their first steps in machine learning, Brain.js offers a powerful framework for working in a JavaScript environment with the neural networks. It has lots of examples of excellent documentation that will help you understand some of the most important ML techniques.

As a reputed Software Solutions Developer we have expertise in providing dedicated remote and outsourced technical resources for software services at very nominal cost. Besides experts in full stacks We also build web solutions, mobile apps and work on system integration, performance enhancement, cloud migrations and big data analytics. Don’t hesitate to

get in touch with us!

[lakhwanabhishek]

Some important CSS and JS Libraries

1. Styled components

An idea born in an Australian whisky bar has developed into a project of 18 K stars, widely embraced within the culture. Styled components make it simpler to use CSS in React components, by identifying styled components with encapsulated styles as a mediator layer without CSS classes. Styled-components are generated by literal notation using the ES6 framework to describe components. As you would normally do using CSS, CSS properties can be applied to the component as required. Styled components can create specific class names when the JS is parsed, and inject the CSS into the DOM. You will learn more about Max Stoiber in this great chat.

2. Radium

Radium is described as "A toolchain for React component styling" at 6.5 K stars and developed by FormidableLabs. With React without CSS, it's a collection of tools to handle inline types. Radium provides a simple interface and abstractions to manage CSS features that can not easily accommodate Radium inline styles, enabling you to bundle styles together with your React elements, combining javascript, html, and styling. It also provides rendering based on props, allowing you to design your components according to the state of your game.

3. AphroditeAphrodite is a framework-agnostic CSS-in-JS library with server-side rendering support, browser prefixing and limited CSS generation support. Aphrodite transforms everything into classes, using the class attribute.This project operates with or without Respond at 4 K stars and offers features such as modeled injection into the Dom, styles of auto prefixes and more, all at a fairly small size of 20k and a handful of dependencies. Here's a handy rundown of Aphrodite vs. Radium. 4. Emotion

At 4.2 K stars Emotion is a strong and versatile CSS-in-JS library that enables you to style string or object-based apps. To prevent variance problems with CSS it has uniform structure. Based on the glam library and its philosophy the concept is to maintain runtime output by parsing styles with babel and PostCSS while writing CSS. The core runtime is 2.3 kb, and 4 kb with support from React. Emotion isn't just about Reacting.

5. Glamorous

Note: the project is no longer actively maintained! still cool though :)

At 3.6 K stars, PayPal's Glamorous is focused to create styled components and jsxtyle inspired "maintainable CSS with React." Kent C. Dodds describes the project as "React component styling with an elegant (inspired) API, small footprint (< 5 kb gzipped) and great performance (through glamour)." It has a rather similar API to modeled parts, and under the hood it uses similar methods.

6. Glamor

Glamor, inspired by ideas from this great talk, is small and powerful. It helps you to write CSS inline in your components using the same supports for style prop Object CSS syntax React. It is fast and efficient, independent system, serverside / static rendering and adds vendor prefixes / fallback values. Here's a short introductory API notes, a comparison of Glamor CSS techniques and a helpful Glamor tutorial with Gatsby.

7. Fela

<FelaComponent  style={{  backgroundColor: 'blue',  color: 'red'  }}  render={({ className, theme }) => (  <div className={className}>I am red on blue.</div>  )} />

Fela is a project developed in JavaScript for State-Driven Styling, highlighting 3 things: rendering styling dynamic by design, introducing framework-agnostic (Bindings for Reacting) and performing. Based on the state of the application it is adjustable by nature and renders types. It generates atomic CSS and supports all common features of CSS such as media queries, pseudo-classes, keyframes and font faces. It can be used on any view list, including the native React.

8. Styletron

Thanks to this

code-carrot post

Styletron is a "component-oriented styling toolkit" at 2500 stars. Styletron supports stateless, single-element styled components as primitive base styling with conditional / dynamic styling prop interfaces, and style composition via (typed) JavaScript objects without additional tooling (e.g. Webpack loaders, Babel plugins, etc.). The design of style objects is often un-opinioned on. This fascinating HN thread lets you know more.

9. JSSJSS is a CSS abstraction that uses JavaScript to define styles in a declarative and maintenable manner. It is a high performance compiler JS to CSS that operates both runtime and server-side. This core library is agnostic at low level and frame, and is around 6 KB (minified and gzipped). This can also be expanded by API plugins. Here's a good SCSS (Sass) conversion tutorial here. Test out even React-JSS, a React JSS integration.

10.

Bootstrap Icons

For their icon library the Bootstrap team recently published the Alpha 3 Update. The newest update adds tons of new designs and now has over 500 icons on the Bootstrap SVG icon pack. Bootstrap Icons are designed to interact with components in Bootstrap, from shape controls to navigation. Bootstrap icons are SVGs, so they can easily and quickly scale and be styled with CSS. Although built for Bootstrap, they will work in any project. They are open source (MIT), so you can access, use, and expand it free of charge. Heads up though, right now they are in alpha and open to drastic changes.

11.

Polka

This is my short analysis of Polka which is "... just a native HTTP server with added routing, middleware, and sub-applications support ...!" even though express is relatively light, polka is lighter. What I find fascinating in this approach gives you even more insight into how to build an application. I think Polka is an excellent way to express yourself. With only a few extra modules, you'll have a fully fledged system with stable paths, templating, static files providing in a more lightweight (and hopefully faster) bundle all you have in express. It has not the same express acceptance but this could be an advantage.

12.

Size limit

Open-source tool to measure the performance of JS apps that offers an estimation of how much time end-users will need to run your Javascript. It can be plugged into Travis CI, Circle CI, GitHub Behavior so it runs automatically and prevents over-budget size limit commits.

13.

Stryker

Stryker is a very fascinating project in JavaScript and other languages to run mutation testing. It works by adding "mutations" to the code and running tests on them in random locations, testing how many of the mutations pass and how stable the code really is. By an example let's explain this, Suppose you're creating an online casino. Users are only permitted to access the casino if they are over 18. So you write the following piece of code to test if anyone can access the site:

function isUserOldEnough(user) { return user.age >= 18; }

Stryker will find the return statement and decide to change it in several ways:

/* 1 */ return user.age > 18; /* 2 */ return user.age < 18; /* 3 */ return false; /* 4 */ return true;

We call such shifts mutants. After discovering the mutants, they are introduced one by one and the experiments are performed against them. If at least one of the experiments fails, we're saying the mutant is murdered. This is what we want to see! If no check fails, then it has succeeded. The better the experiments survive the fewer mutants.Stryker produces the results in various formats. One of the easiest reporters to read is the plain text:

Mutant killed: /yourPath/yourFile.js: line 10:27 Mutator: BinaryOperator - return user.age >= 18; + return user.age > 18; Mutant survived: /yourPath/yourFile.js: line 10:27 Mutator: RemoveConditionals - return user.age >= 18; + return true;

The direct text reporter outputs precisely how the code has been changed and which mutator has been used. It would then tell us whether a mutant has been killed which means that at least one test has failed, or whether it has survived. In this case the second mutation is marked as survivor. This means that a test that specifically checks for age younger than 18 is possibly lacking

14.

Dinero.js

Dinero is a JavaScript library designed to work with monetary values. It has a well-designed API which contains all the methods for money and currency operations you might need. Dinero.js allows the development, estimation and formatting of monetary values in JavaScript. You can do arithmetic operations, read and format them thoroughly, search for a variety of items to make your own creation process simpler and safer.

15.

Uppload

Uppload.js is a modern JavaScript library designed to enhance the experience of uploading images. The library offers an elegant interface for file collection that allows the user to drag-drop images from the locale.It also allows you to import images from any data source, such as URL, camera, Instagram post, Facebook public post, etc. Thanks to its plugin program, it provides multiple upload options, allowing you to add more image sources, such as Instagram, screenshots, Giphy and more.You are also allowed to crop, resize, rotate the client-side images until they are submitted to server.

16.

MoreToggels

Pure CSS library offering over 50 stylish checkbox toggles of a pleasant variety. These are very easy to use and customize-only surround a div in your checkbox, add the right class and it's done.

17.

μPlot

Fast, memory-efficient diagram library to generate superb 2D Canvas-based charts. It offers lots of different types of graphs, lots of customization options and other cool features.

18.

Rsup Progress

Easy but still very successful progress bar plugin with promising support and smooth animations. It is super easy to configure and very useful to show the load times at the top of the page.  19.

Bootstrap Treeview

Bootstrap treeview is used to represent hierarchical information starting with the root element and continuing with its children and their respective items. Besides the root every element has a parent and can have children. Easy Bootstrap 4 plugin designed to build elegant treeviews with collapse list objects. It's a fantastic little feature and we wouldn't be shocked to see it integrated with future Bootstrap models. Siblings are objects with one parent and the same. Objects can collapse and expand.

20.

Electron React Boilerplate

Electron React Boilerplate uses Electron, React, Redux, React Router, Webpack and React Hot Loader for rapid application creation (HMR).Great starting kit for the production of Electron-based cross-platform mobile applications. The project GitHub provides a strong framework to help you customize everything and get started in no time.  

21.

Panolens

They're panolens. Js is a WebGL focused and event-driven panoramic viewer. Lean and versatile. It is constructed over Three. Amazing JavaScript panorama viewer library right in the browser to create beautiful 360 ° experience. Three.js-based library keeps output fast and smooth, even when viewing high quality images or videos.

22.

Octomments

Very smart solution for adding comments to your website which uses GitHub as a discussion source. The project consists of a GitHub App and a JS library working together to view a fully featured comment section, hosted within a selected repo issue of GitHub.

23.

Rome

Rome is a toolchain experimental to JavaScript. It includes a parser, linter, formatter, bundler, frame checking and more. It aims to be a detailed platform for everything that relates to JavaScript source code production. Rome is not a set of known instruments. All the tools are designed specifically for Rome, do not rely on any external dependencies and are made to communicate with each other seamlessly.

24.

massCode

MassCode is a snippet manager for developers of open-source code. This nice little app offers a clean interface for all of your code snippets and cheatsheets to handle. Runs on Mac, Linux and Windows.

25.

Bootlint

The Bootstrap team's new linter tool that lets you test if your pages use Bootstrap's components with properly organized HTML. It also ensures the appropriate tags are used, an HTML5 doctype declaration is included, and the page's overall markup is accurate.

26.

DarkModeJS

This library uses the mix-blend-mode css to get Dark Mode on all of your websites. Only copy and paste the snippet and you'll get a plugin to turn the Dark Mode on and off. You can also use it programmatically, without the button. Lightweight module, installed in Vanilla. Super lightweight JS library to help you integrate dark & light teams into your applications. It senses local time for the user and changes the UI appearance accordingly. It doesn't have light and dark themes.  

27.

Hex Engine

Modern 2D engine designed to render browser games. This versatile toolkit for game development features a Canvas-based rendering engine, aids in physics and sound, gamepad support, integrated design tools, and more.

28.

Chardin.js

A tiny JS tool which makes adding overlay instructions for your apps super simple. These guides can be extremely helpful to clarify the UI, demote the various features of the app or simply show the user what to do next.

29.

Sharect

Share. Js is a lightweight, zero-dependent JS library that transforms any text selected into quotes that can be posted on Twitter and/or Facebook, as you can see in Medium.com.

30.

Lottie

Lottie is an Android, iOS, Web, and Windows library that parses Adobe After Effects animations exported as json with Bodymovin and makes them natively accessible on the smartphone and on the web! The Airbnb developer team's incredible library that exports Adobe After. This makes animations that can be very complex with lots of details and keyframes as well as being super-performing and smooth buttery. It's now designed to expand its use to android, iOS, React Native and Windows in addition to his great work.

31.

Vue Interactive Paycard

View-Interactive-Paycard-Smooth and sweet micro-interaction credit card shape. Includes the printing of numbers, validation and automatic identification of type of token. Designed with viewjs, and completely sensitive as well. Very impressive credit card snippet type which beautifully animates as users input their data. One of the finest projects we've seen all year round, with everything polished to perfection, from the typography to the animations. It's not only pretty either-the card is also very user friendly with the formatting of numbers, validation and the identification of card size. Also, when entering cc info, users actually prefer a well-known interface and not some custom UI.

32.

Cube.js

Cube.js is a scalable open source platform for building analytical web applications and designing your own sophisticated, custom analytics systems. It consists of a wide SDK frontend and a lightweight API backend which can be linked to most databases and systems like MySQL, Postreges and MongoDB .. It is primarily used for developing internal business intelligence tools or for applying customer-facing analytics to an existing app.  

33.

Tessaract

Tesseract. Js is the pure Javascript port of Tesseract's popular OCR engine. Node and browser JavaScript library which extracts text from images. It analyzes the image, automatically detects location and orientation of the text, and with great precision extracts words and sentences. Tessaract can recognize more than 60 languages including more complex ones such as Chinese, Arabic and Russian

34.

Barba

Lightweight library for linking seamless transitions to pages on your website. It takes up your usual static website and makes it a great-looking single-page application experience. It helps to reduce the delay between loading pages, to decrease requests for HTTP, and to make the web feel more premium.

35.

Freezeframe

This fun JavaScript library allows for the control of animated GIF playback. It can start and pause the GIFs, for example, based on user feedback such as clicks or hover. As it uses a canvas feature to draw the individual frames, it is also very performant under the hood.

36.

Ink

React-based App building command line interface. It provides a great range of predefined components which can be used to accelerate the creation of terminal interfaces while also allowing features such as more sophisticated templates and controls to be added.  

37.

Instant Page

This fun library speeds up loading times when users hover over them by prefretching the links. This makes loading of a page faster until the user clicks on a connection and navigates to the next page. With the latest update it can also automatically prefix all links in a list-great for static content.  

38.

Filepond

FilePond is a JavaScript library that lets you upload silky smooth drag n 'drop files. It has a polished UI which is a pleasure to use, while also offering some interesting features under the hood such as optimizing photos for quicker uploads. Just 21 kB gzipped, with adapters available with React, Vue, and jQuery for easier implementation. These docs can assist in downloading, setting up, updating and extending FilePond. If you don't know FilePond you can find more detail on the FilePond product page.  

39.

Micromodal

Micromodalistic. Js is a modal library written in pure JavaScript, lightweight, configurable and 11y-enabled. It helps you to build modal dialogs consistent with WAI-ARIA guidelines, with trust and with minimal configuration. Minified and gzipped at just 1.9 kb, it's a tiny library for big change.

40.

Brain.js

A great project for all of you who want to take their first steps in machine learning, Brain.js offers a powerful framework for working in a JavaScript environment with the neural networks. It has lots of examples of excellent documentation that will help you understand some of the most important ML techniques.

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