#also i am trying to make it clear—maybe clearer—in the extras that ice is very kind

[compacflt]

does thomas kazansky believe hes an honarable man? what does honor mean to him?

i love this question because this is my version of tom kazansky’s whole thing, and i think my version of tom kazansky is a man very conflicted about what honor means—the purpose of everything he does, the way he acts, what he acknowledges and refuses to acknowledge, is to achieve some higher level of honor… one more medal, one more rank, one more star. but of course in his personal life (womanizing, his relationship with mav, all the secret-keeping), he is not an honorable man, no.

and the funny thing is, i don’t think he could answer this question—the fatal flaw of my fanfic, as I’ve written about (and made diagrams etc) here, is that… for plot reasons, no one can really ask him that question! It’s actually very visible in the slider one-shot: every time slider or someone else gets close to asking, “Look, can you just be honest with me about this for a sec,” they literally get interrupted in the middle of their sentence, because for plot reasons Ice can’t actually be pressured to answer a question like that until maverick dies! So I think, if you asked him what honor is, he would say “I’d like to think I’m an honorable man. I have four stars that prove it.” But if you pressured him about some of his actions… what about pulling Bradley’s papers, or your secret illegal relationship… he wouldn’t know what to say. Honor, for him, is whatever the NAVY tells him it is. The navy says honor = four stars, he has four stars to prove how much honor he has earned. Anything in his personal life comes secondary to the honor he’s starving for in the navy. And, he feels like he has no control over his personal life, because he just lets that happen to him.

So—in summary, I’ve been writing him as someone who values professional honor over personal honor, and then ends up paying for that in the end.

But here’s also the thing… I’ve been trying to write him as someone who still TRIES. He’s been given this life…all these secrets… some of it is his fault, yes, but some of it also isn’t. It’s just life. He’s trying to do the best he can within its (admittedly artificial) constraints.

He’s just trying his best. hopefully ive left it up to you to decide if he succeeds.

[words-writ-in-starlight]

prompt: modern MDZS, Wen Qing berating someone as she does DIY bullet removal

Leverage AU, huh?  Sounds like you want to talk about a Leverage AU.  For this H/C ask meme!

“Everything was under control, Wen Qing,” Wei Wuxian says, smiling through clenched teeth.  There’s drying blood gluing his slacks to his skin and sweat beading on his forehead and throat, but his hands don’t tremble as he lowers himself into a chair.  He at least has the good grace to sit at the table, so that she’ll have somewhere to put her supplies.  She’s going to murder him anyway, but it’ll be much more convenient to kill him in a kitchen chair than on the couch.  Wen Qing likes her couch.  She intends to keep it blood-free.

“Clearly it was not,” Wen Qing half-snarls, and she snaps a hairtie around her bun to keep her hair out of her face as she glares down at him.  A quick rummage in her pockets produces several purple exam gloves, liberated from the hospital during a shift and forgotten.  “A-Ning, get me a towel from the kitchen, one of the flour sack ones, and a bowl of warm water, and the shears kit from the junk drawer.  Everyone else, figure yourselves out, I’m not running a daycare.”

A-Ning, who’s always been a good boy even if Wen Qing is taking pains not to know what he does with his time these days, vanishes like a cat into the kitchen.  Mianmian, who has sense, promptly knocks her knuckles against Wei Wuxian’s head and says, “Be good, Yuandao,” before she flops down onto the couch without regard for her regal evening gown and apparently goes to sleep.  Nie Huaisang, who knows when he’s no longer needed, picks his way across the room to Wen Qing’s only armchair, and folds himself up like an origami figure that looks very unlikely in his suit.  

Lan Wangji, who has never done anything convenient in his life, remains standing beside Wei Wuxian’s chair and blinks at Wen Qing.

Wen Qing has no idea why everyone pretends Lan Wangji is completely unreadable.  He couldn’t be clearer if he printed make me move, I dare you on his forehead.  He’s smeared with blood, all down one side from half-carrying Wei Wuxian to her doorstep, and he’s bruising up blue on one cheekbone, and there’s a table knife tucked into the pocket of his suit jacket, bent out of shape into makeshift brass knuckles.  Wen Qing doesn’t really feel like fighting the point just now.

“Fine,” she snaps, “just stay out of my way.  And you,” she adds, pointing at Wei Wuxian.  He cringes a little, because he’s smart.  “We’re going to have a talk.”

“Jiejie,” A-Ning says, reappearing with towels and trauma shears in hand.  She doesn’t twitch when her brother pads up behind her and lays the lot on the table.  Wen Qing is used to her brother drifting around like a ghost, and to his wide-eyed expression of trying to get on her good side.  “Don’t be mad at him.”

“I am very mad at him,” Wen Qing says.  “Bring me the water or I’ll be mad at you too.”  Wei Wuxian snorts out a breathless laugh, and Wen Qing grabs the trauma shears from her tidy pack of tools to shut him up.  “So,” she says, crouching down and briskly cutting up the seam of his pants toward his knee.  “What the fuck happened?”

“Got shot,” Wei Wuxian says, helpfully.

“I can see that,” Wen Qing says, and only barely resists the urge to give his leg a shove and see if that makes him focus up.  She cuts the extra fabric away, straight across the knee crease, and gives a light tug on the rest, just to check if she might be able to get it off immediately.  Wei Wuxian makes a breathy noise, like a swallowed gasp, and she absently touches his calf, a soothing gesture until the trembling eases.  “Can I get a little more detail?  Was it a cop?”

“No!  I’m--I’m just a hacker, people don’t shoot hackers,” Wei Wuxian says with completely false confidence.  “People shoot, I don’t know, cat burglars and hitters.  Lan Zhan’s been shot, right, Lan Zhan?”

“Clearly, people shoot hackers too,” Lan Wangji says flatly.  But then, because he’s weak, he adds, conciliatory, “But yes.  Five times.  It is my job.”

“My brother’s never been shot, right?”  Wen Qing raises her voice at the end, over the rush of water in the other room, and hears a squeak of alarm.

“Uh--that’s right, A-jie!”

“Because I would kill him,” Wen Qing tells Wei Wuxian matter-of-factly.  “And then I would kill his entire team that got him shot.  You understand that, right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Nie Huaisang confirms from the armchair, because he might be a ruthless son of a bitch when he feels like it, a mastermind whose best game is poker and has the mask to prove it, but he’s also a well-trained younger brother and he’s never once had the guts to fuck with Wen Qing.  “Wen Ning has never been shot.”

“Good,” Wen Qing says forbiddingly.  “Because I don’t ask questions about what you get my brother into,” she continues to Wei Wuxian.  “Just like I didn’t ask questions about how my brother paid for my degree.  But that doesn’t mean you get to show up on my doorstep at eleven on a Saturday night with a bullet hole in your leg, and answer no questions.”

“That’s fair,” Mianmian says, without opening her eyes.  “You have to give her that one, Yuandao.”

A-Ning slips back into the room and puts a metal bowl of warm water on the floor next to Wen Qing’s knee, and then walks into the bathroom, because he’s a good boy and he knows what she’ll need before she can even ask for it.

“This is going to hurt,” she tells Wei Wuxian, quiet and serious.  "Keep talking, it’ll keep you awake.”

“You’re so mean to me,” he complains as she wrings out a cloth until it’s only damp.  “You won’t even let me pass out?  I got shot!  I got shot taking down the CEO of an oil company, by the way, you should--fuck!”

Wen Qing’s free hand locks around Wei Wuxian’s lower leg, a practiced grip to hold him in place as he startles at the pressure on the wound.  “Hold still, and it’ll be quicker.  Tell me about your latest idiot crusade, Wuxian.”

She soaks the blood-stiff cloth until it can be cut away and lets Wei Wuxian’s shaking voice wash over her, barely listening.  Something about an oil spill, and a family whose entire town was crippled when the fishing industry went belly up.  It’s all very idealistic.  It’s all very Wei Wuxian.  They got the guy on camera shooting a civilian, though, which is apparently just icing on Mianmian’s grifter cake of very illegal bank transfers and a burgeoning RICO case.

“Okay,” Wen Qing says, when she’s cut away the rest of Wei Wuxian’s pant leg and exposed the bullet wound--halfway up his outer thigh, blessedly clear of the artery, but clearly a very small caliber, the kind of thing a CEO might be able to get into a benefit without looking excessively paranoid.  Which brings her to...  “Well, this is going to suck a lot,” she says.

“It already sucks a lot,” Wei Wuxian says, and his laugh is a little hysterical.  “What in particular are you thinking about?”

“Next time,” Wen Qing says, carefully dipping her tweezers in rubbing alcohol, “get shot with a bigger gun.”

“Absolutely not.  What?  I’m not getting shot again, and definitely not with a bigger gun, what is wrong with you?”

“This bullet didn’t go all the way through,” Wen Qing says.  “So I’m going to have to take it out.  A-Ning, come here and hold a light.  Lan Wangji, hold him down.”

Wei Wuxian lets out a breath and it trembles, but for all his dramatics, he’s never been a coward.  Once, when Wen Qing was in undergrad and she and her brother were surviving the fallout of the Wen mob going to prison in droves and Wei Wuxian had just been kicked out of the Jiangs, he cut open his palm with a broken glass.  He sat on the floor and let Wen Qing pick shards out of his skin for twenty-five minutes, and joked and teased the entire time.

“Okay,” Wei Wuxian says.  “I’m ready.”

It’s a bad hour, as Wen Qing pulls the bullet from his thigh and then puts two stitches in the hole.  Wei Wuxian doesn’t scream, doesn’t cry, just takes shallow, shuddering breaths and doesn’t move.  Sometimes he even laughs, a ragged sound of apparently genuine amusement when A-Ning wonders aloud if Jiang Yanli is going to kill them before Wen Qing gets the chance, and a bark of vicious humor when Nie Huaisang reports that their target’s been arrested on more fraud charges than you could shake a stick at.

“We’re not telling A-Li,” Wei Wuxian says when Wen Qing finally tapes down gauze and collects her bloodied tools into the emptied water bowl.  “She’ll come look sad at me.”

Wen Qing summarily ignores him.  Instead, she looks at Lan Wangji, who looks nearly as shaken as Wei Wuxian.  He’s not holding him down anymore, but his hands are still resting on those stiff shoulders, a thumb smoothing over the skin at the nape of Wei Wuxian’s neck just above his collar.  Wei Wuxian’s head tips a little toward that side, resting lightly on Lan Wangji’s forearm without apparent concern for the blood on the hitter’s wrist.  Maybe Wei Wuxian’s, maybe whoever got to experience the pleasure of being punched by one of the Twin Jades.  

“Don’t let him do anything stupid,” Wen Qing tells Lan Wangji firmly.  "I can get him antibiotics--you are taking them, Wei Wuxian--but I’m not getting him painkillers, because the second he feels okay he’s going to get A-Ning to teach him to free climb a building or something, and A-Ning is going to do it because I raised him terribly, I guess.”

“Hey,” A-Ning says.

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

“I will keep Wei Ying from doing anything stupid,” Lan Wangji recites obediently, and goes up a few notches in Wen Qing’s estimation.

“We’ll get out of your hair, Qing-jie,” Wei Wuxian says, stirring like he’s going to get up, and Wen Qing stands and sighs and scowls, and peels off her gloves to make a neat little ball of latex in one palm, all the blood concealed inside.

“You can stay here,” she says.  “You can take A-Ning’s room and he’ll sleep on the couch.  Everyone else, you have to get out unless you want to sleep on the floor, though,” she adds, pointing to the two in her living room.

“I will stay,” Lan Wangji says.

“Yeah,” Wen Qing says, already distracted by the odds of being able to find a pharmacy open at this hour.  “A-Ning has a full, you’ll fit.”  Wei Wuxian makes a choking noise, which she ignores.  “I’m going out to get ahold of some meds for you.  Don’t do anything stupid, and lock up if anyone leaves.  A-Ning, don’t let this idiot leave.”

“I won’t, A-jie,” A-Ning says obediently, and Wen Qing stomps into her bedroom to change into something not speckled with blood.

[the-last-cuddlebender]

Bigger Than the Bad Guys

“Bumi, I am very disappointed in you.” “I know…” “You could have been killed. You deliberately disobeyed me. And what’s worse, you put Kya in danger.”

...Even Auntie Toph had told them to stay away from the bad-place in the city. And Auntie Toph never told them not to do something. Bumi just wanted to be brave like Daddy and make his Mama smile again…

********************************

A/N: This is exactly what you think it is because f*ck me if DadMufasa!Aang and ToddlerSimba!Bumi in post-atla/pre-tlok are not so wholesome that I damn well might perish.

(very lightly edited because I was in a mood but mehhhh)

Rating: G (W for wholesome)

Words: 4,572

ArchiveOfOurOwn

********************************

Kya was having second thoughts, and Bumi would be lying if he said he wasn’t, too. 

They’d been walking for forever in the almost pitch-black. It was really stinky, too, even by his standards, and the heavy air pressed against him like it was squishing him smaller and smaller as the tunnel got bigger and deeper. The damp stuck to his skin in a greasy film.

He couldn’t count how long they’d been walking—he couldn’t count a lot at all since he didn’t know all his numbers—but it was long enough to make him hungry. 

It was also long enough for Daddy’s concerned face and Mama’s teary shouts to become clearer and clearer in his memory. The mind-picture made his chest itch like something was stuck there, and he kept swallowing and itching it like he might be able to dig it out.

It didn’t work. But for Kya, he pretended it did. He tried to walk like Daddy.

He wasn’t second-guessing their mission, of course. That was the utmost priority. Mama and Daddy had been worrying over the bad guys from ‘the underground’ for so, so long…

It made Bumi almost as frustrated as it made him sad. 

He didn’t understand for the life of him why their parents didn’t go to ‘the underground’ with Auntie Toph and Uncle Sokka to beat the bad guys up and get it over with. 

They were the bravest heroes ever.

And it wasn’t like ‘the underground’ was hard to find. 

It was underground.

Duh. 

Granted, he and Kya had to go through the old bad-place that Daddy had been helping Auntie Toph ‘clear out’. 

Mama had told him—before his and Kya’s planning phase—that they weren't allowed to follow Daddy to his Avatar-work near that place.

Bumi didn’t understand why she was so serious. 

Her or Daddy.

Especially Daddy.

The even worse part was that their father had smiled while he made them promise not to go to the bad-place. Then he had taken them for ice-cream, and Mama let them jump in the deep end of the oasis to practice their swimming. 

Then Daddy paced throughout the night, and Bumi heard through his door (if he pressed his ear so hard it hurt) that Mama stayed up with him and talked with him in the gentle way she did when he or Kya had nightmares. 

It made Bumi’s heart hurt in the ache-y way his lungs did when Kya dunked him in the water for too long and got in trouble for it. 

He didn’t want Daddy and Mama to hide frowns with fake smiles anymore. 

They were being brave, though. They always were. 

‘The underground’ was a really, really big bad, after all.

But Bumi and Kya could be brave, too. 

And their mission would help their parents way more than the extra hugs and kisses they’ve been giving them. 

Maybe, after he and Kya return as brave heroes, Daddy and Mama will sleep instead of fidget and whisper when he and Kya curl in bed with them.

Bumi sighed. Kya held his arm a bit tighter. His sister didn’t care what people thought; if she was scared, she showed it. 

Bumi wouldn’t admit that he was, though. Mama and Daddy wouldn’t. Especially not to Kya. Especially especially when his Sissy held his arm with both hands as their torch burned to its wick. He was teetering on a razor’s edge between thrill and terror, and he made himself smile at her even when his stomach felt all float-y.

Because even Auntie Toph had told them to stay away from the bad-place. And Auntie Toph never told them not to do something.

But Bumi could be brave like her, too. And Uncle Sokka. 

He will be. 

He and Kya were brave just like Daddy and Mama.

Plus, Bumi had his new knife that Uncle Zuko gave him for his birthday, so he was prepared for anything. 

********************************

Bumi lost his knife and their torch as soon as he saw the first bad guy. His hands shook so much—the bad guy was so big—that he dropped them.

Kya could at least waterbend. He saw her (try to) push and pull the water with Mama the last time they swam in the deep end of the oasis.

If there was any water down here, then maybe she could have made them slip.

They ran. They hit a dead end. Bumi’s limbs were long enough. He could climb up into the next tunnel. 

His sister’s weren’t. Kya’s whimpered panting—her lungs weren’t as big as his, either—broke free her first sob as she clawed the wall and kept slipping down.

She looked at him like Mama had when she watched him fall off the roof without knowing until she raced to the bottom that Daddy was there to catch him.

It made his insides turn to slush, and Kya’s small cry put daggers in his lungs.

His Sissy was terrified.

Bumi was almost just as scared, but he jumped back to the enemy-laden ground and glared like he was about to beat their butts all at once, just like Mama did in the stories Auntie Toph told them when their parents weren’t watching. 

His Sissy’s tight grip on the bottom of his shirt—she had only ever held on to Daddy’s robes, and only if she was really, really scared—gave Bumi the strength to hold on to the last string holding his shaking limbs together. 

His sister was smaller than him. He would not leave her, and he would not let the bad guys hurt her. 

No matter how big the fourth bad guy was. 

Or the eighth. 

Or the twelfth.

Kya’s back hit the wall before Bumi’s did, and she slid to the ground. Bumi stood in front of her. The bad guys painted the wall with the inky cloaks of their shadows. Bumi was a broken leaf between his sister and a pack of devils who jeered new no-no words that, even though he didn’t know what they meant, by the way they said them to his Sissy gave him the feeling that even Auntie Toph wouldn’t use them. 

The bad guys stepped closer. Bumi tried to stand like Daddy did a year ago when the other bad man and broke a hole through Kya’s wall and hurt Mama.

Daddy had stood over all of them in the middle of a storm of stone and fire and arrows and didn’t move an inch. He broke apart boulder after fireball like they were nothing as they waited for Auntie Toph and Uncle Sokka to get there. 

Bumi’s legs shook, and he sucked in a breath and held it like maybe the air would keep him afloat and on his feet when his legs gave out. 

Auntie Toph and Uncle Sokka weren’t coming this time.

Or Daddy and Mama. 

Bumi and Kya were alone.

Bumi’s heart raced so fast that it felt like it was vibrating more than it was beating. He stopped breathing a while ago. His lungs were shriveling up and hiding in his throat like they were even scared-er than his Sissy. 

Kya was crying on her knees behind him. She was shaking, too—he felt it from where she grasped his calf.

One of the bad guys had grabbed her arm the first time they cornered them. Bumi had bitten him and ran as far as he could while he dragged Kya behind him.

Now the bad guy was earthbending a boulder the size of Bumi six-times-over, and they all glared at him and his Sissy with smiles that were hungry to kill them. 

They were big. So, so much bigger than him. Bumi barely reached his head to their mid-thigh on his tip-toes. 

He was small. 

Too small. 

Bumi wanted to cry. His eyes did, too. They were hot and sting-y, and tears made his picture of the bad guys all blurry. 

He couldn’t cry. He made a vow with Uncle Sokka not to cry unless he deserved it. 

Kya was crying because she was hurt. 

He had gotten them into this mess. He had no right to free himself of the sea-prune-sized sob choking him.

Bumi bared his teeth. His voice broke, but he didn’t let his tears fall.

“S-Stay away! I-I—‘M w-wa’rn’ yous!”

Kya held onto him tighter like she was deluded by his voice into some feeling of reassurance. 

“Or what? You gonna throw dirt at us?”

“Daddy’s not here to save you, brat.”

Bumi swallowed. He would have been sick if he had eaten lunch. 

One of the bad guys had his knife. He reached to grab one of them, and Bumi used the last of his strength to move in front of him and puff out his chest. 

He still didn’t cry. 

The wall adjacent exploded in a shower of earth. 

The howling boom and hiss of all elements clashing were terrifying enough to bring more tears to Bumi’s eyes yet familiar enough to keep him from crying. 

Bumi threw himself over his little sister. Kya held him so tight it hurt. Dirt and rocks hit his back, and heat threatened to blister his skin even through his clothes. His Sissy screamed, and it sounded like she was calling for Mama.

He held Kya tight. He closed his eyes even tighter.

He didn’t open them even when Daddy, out of breath and smelling of ash and earth, slid to his knees before them and herded his whimpering, shivering children into the protective circle of his arms with soft coos and gentle assurances. 

Bumi knew it was him; he heard the smile in his voice. 

Daddy’s shadow swallowed them both like a too-big cloak. He patted them down from head to toe, muttering to himself between kisses to their faces and dozens of jumbled concerns before relaxing, a mountain leaving his shoulders as he sagged over them. He smiled like he might cry—Bumi felt it from where Daddy pressed his trembling lips against his cheek. 

Daddy rubbed their backs and kissed their foreheads as he gently, but urgently, pressed between their shoulders to encourage them to his chest. Bumi and Kya were too filled with panicked goo to move on their own, otherwise. 

Daddy crouched closer, as unmoving and safe as an iron shield but inviting like his smile would blind anyone who would do them harm. He curled deeper on his knees and bent around so he had to look up at them. He made himself small, like them, and he was smiling that smile that drove instinct to herd themselves into his arms. 

Bumi still hadn’t opened his eyes, though. He heard the smile in Daddy’s voice. It was safe. 

Bumi clutched his father’s robes, and he breathed again. Daddy was safe. His scent and his voice and his touch wrapped them in a bubble that unwound their grip on each other and massaged away the primal fear that had them flinching wherever he had first touched them. Now they leaned into him like they were trapped in a frozen shell and his hands were torches. Even the air around Daddy bled comfort into them; it was as potent as the sleepy-shots Mama used to help people feel better. 

Bumi and Kya latched onto him like they were built to be there, and Daddy cradled them like he was made to hold them. 

Bumi melted against his chest like he was sinking into warm water. Daddy’s arms were stronger than the ones that had hurt his Sissy. 

Daddy was bigger than the bad guys.

He was stronger and braver, too. 

He was their hero. 

Bumi fisted Daddy’s robes so tightly that his hands shook and his fingers tingle. Beside him, Kya shook even harder and hiccuped little sounds that made his chest hurt and his arms itch to hug her. 

Bumi still hadn’t opened his eyes. He didn’t want to open them and be in front of the bad guys again. He didn’t want to open them and suddenly be out of Daddy’s arms. 

He held his father tight. Daddy held him even tighter. 

Bumi didn’t open his eyes even when he smelled fresh air and heard the sounds of outside again. He tasted metal, sharp and cold, before he heard Auntie Toph. She was yelling so many no-no words that it made him cringe, and metal clanked as dozens of police-people ran by and around them.

Uncle Sokka yelled his relief and then an alert, and Mama’s voice was far away and then in his ear before Bumi took his next breath.  

Her warmth hit his back and wrapped around him in a force heavier and tighter than an iron net. Mama hugged Daddy and pressed Bumi and Kya between them so snugly that all Bumi knew in that moment was his Mama, his Daddy, his Sissy, and the warm-fuzzy feeling that bubbled under his skin and felt like home. 

He and Sissy grabbed tight handfuls of her dress. Mama grabbed them even tighter. 

Her soft coos and million kisses lassoed his heart and broke it tame. Daddy rubbed his back and scratched his beard on his neck as he kissed his hair, Mama’s face, and Kya’s hair over and over again.

Daddy was big enough to hug them all. His voice was soft, even for him. It wound around Bumi like a warm breeze on a cold day. 

Bumi kept his eyes closed. He tried to focus on Mama’s heartbeat. It was fast and light like Momo’s. Her face was wet when it pressed to his, and he tasted salt when he kissed her cheek on instinct. 

Mama’s arms were comforting. Daddy’s arms were safe. Bumi wanted to have both of them again, like when Mama first appeared. 

Kya whimpered. He got his wish.

He wished he hadn’t.

His Sissy was hurt.

Daddy’s arms were shaking when they held him again. His lap was warm as they rode Appa home.

Bumi’s eyes were still closed.

He only opened them when he tripped.

Mama tried to help him up, but Daddy lifted him to his feet before she could. 

Bumi looked up and wished he hadn’t.

Mama was sad.

She looked hurt.

Sissy was in her arms—she looked a bit better, but she held her arm close to her chest and bit the inside of her cheek.

She was hurt, too.

Daddy’s hand was on his back and between his shoulders when Bumi could hear again.

“Katara, take Kya home.”

Bumi flinched. He’d never heard Daddy talk like that. His voice was hard and flat and forced like a piece of measured timber sawed out of the corpse of an ancient tree. 

“Aang, sweetie, maybe right now isn’t—”

“Katara.” The hand on his back urged his shoulders to turn away from Mama. “Please. Take Kya home.” His voice lowered to something even more foreign. “I need to teach our son a lesson.”

His tone struck Bumi like a whip. Mama didn’t say anything. It was quiet for a while. Bumi wished he could see her, but he couldn’t think enough to even move his eyes off of the grass and setting sun that framed the ocean opposite the city. 

The soft crunches as Mama walked away made the silence even heavier. The hand on his back didn’t move until she was far beyond the courtyard. 

Bumi wished it wasn’t so quiet. His Daddy stood behind him, and the awareness of where he stood increased gravity ten-fold. 

His father ground his teeth so hard that Bumi heard it, and he exhaled a breath that burned the air and poured smoke over the back of Bumi’s tongue. 

The hand left his back. Daddy walked ahead of him. His shoulders were raised like a bristling tigerdillo, and waves of heat leaking from him and rolled over and into Bumi like thick licks of lava.

Daddy clenched his jaw and didn’t look at him.

The Avatar was mad.

“Bumi.”

His spoken name wound around him and tugged him along like a leash. The sky was pinker now, bordering on purple. Daddy’s face was bordering on red.

Bumi swallowed, but his throat wouldn’t move. The wind whipped around them and bent the tall grasses in an amber-green wave. It was cold. He hugged himself, wishing for his parents’ arms again. 

The wind blew harder as they neared the cliff. Bumi slowed down. He had to lean into the wind. He had to fight it. 

Daddy was unmovable even when a violent gust hit them. He didn’t even break his stride. Bumi had to crouch to keep from being blown over.

He looked up. Daddy was so much bigger than he was. 

Bumi’s chest rang hollow, and something cold blossomed from his stomach and crawled into his chest like creeping fingers of ice. It curled around his heart in an unforgiving fist. 

His limbs ached, filled with frozen webs. Even his breath came out cold from his closing airway. 

His Daddy was a hero. 

Bumi couldn’t protect his own Sissy.

“Bumi.”

Bumi flinched. He hugged himself tighter and walked towards his father, who was sitting facing the ocean with his arms and legs crossed.

Bumi swallowed. His throat burned. He crept around Daddy, passing through his shadow, to curl up beside him. The few inches between them yawned like a few oceans. 

He hugged his knees and tried to think he was bigger than he was, but he had to tilt his head all the way vertical to see his father. 

Daddy was tense like a loaded bow and drawn to his full sitting-height like he was ready to jump up into a fight. His arms were still crossed, but his face wasn’t bordering on red anymore. The sky had settled on a navy velvet, and Daddy’s eyes looked up instead of at him. 

But then he looked down.

And Bumi wished he hadn’t.

He wished his father would have kept looking at the sky.

He wished his father would have stayed angry at him.

Because the laughter and warmth in Daddy’s eyes were muted by something sad and caged behind something upset. A frown had moved in where his smile should be—where it always was.

The hot coal in Bumi’s throat made his eyes wet, and it threatened to sear a hole in his neck. 

“Bumi, I am very disappointed in you.”

His words were arrows, and Bumi hugged his legs so hard that the bony bits of his knees hurt his chest. 

“I know…”

“You could have been killed.” Daddy got louder, and his words bellied something like he was choking on a hot coal, too. “You deliberately disobeyed me. And what’s worse, you put Kya in danger.”

Bumi’s tummy flipped. The night had swallowed up the day, and his father’s shadow blended into the inky night that covered Bumi and all that he saw and knew.

“I—I-I wa’...w-wa’ ju’t—” Bumi’s lip trembled, and he wiped his eyes in hurried swipes, rushing to speak his defense before Daddy yelled at him. 

Daddy had never yelled before. 

But Daddy had never been this angry before.

Bumi wanted to wake up already so he could sneak into Mama’s bed and fall asleep in his parents’ arms.

The Daddy beside him curled over, just a bit, making himself smaller. He waited for Bumi to catch his breath and his words; though the searing heat of his stare burned his head, his shoulders, and everywhere else he looked. 

Bumi’s voice was little more than a gasp, a leak of air from a broken pipe. 

“I-I was just trying to be brave like you.”

Daddy uncrossed his arms. He looked down at him in every sense and meaning of the words. He was so much bigger than Bumi. His eyes looked down at him as distant and as powerful as the stars beyond him.

“I’m only brave when I have to be. Bumi...” Daddy sighed, and he suddenly looked like he had been beaten to within an inch of his life and slapped into manacles heavier than mountains. Bumi looked away. Daddy’s eyes were still upset and sad, and the gentle bass that leaked into his voice—the deep sound that cooed him after bad dreams and whispered their inside jokes behind Mama’s back—as he said his name nearly made Bumi break his warrior-vow to Uncle Sokka to never to cry unless he deserved to. “...Bumi, being brave doesn’t mean you go looking for trouble.”

Bumi looked up and couldn’t look away. Daddy’s eyes had locked onto his own and held him like a too-tight hug. 

Bumi couldn’t curl up anymore, either. His knees were bruising his chest. 

He wished so badly to crawl into his father’s arms. 

“B-But you’re not scared of anything.”

Daddy hesitated. Bumi didn’t notice that the wind had long since died until his father’s voice became quiet. It was hardly above a whisper. 

“...I was today.”

Bumi hesitated, too. He looked at his father, who had curled over a bit more and made himself a bit smaller. Their eyes were almost on the same level. The tension in Daddy’s shoulders unwound into an almost relaxed position, and Bumi would have thought they were just sitting there and talking like they always did if not for the lack of smile on Daddy’s face. 

“You...You were?”

Bumi’s voice cracked, and the small break of his words shattered the cage holding Daddy’s eyes prisoner. They were clear grey and rippled with a thousand unspoken words.

Bumi almost cried for him.

“Yes.” His father bent down some more. The hand Bumi hadn’t realized had been wrapping behind him gently curled around his shoulders. His father kissed his hair. He held there for a few seconds while he rubbed his arm. 

Bumi unwound and leaned into the touch on instinct; his father lifted him into his lap. He was small, but Daddy was big, and Bumi grinned and hugged his father’s light-y-blue-arrowed arms as they pulled him close to his chest. Daddy curled over him like he was trying to mold himself into armor around him. 

His warm voice was soft and small, like Bumi, and rumbled like smooth stones against Bumi’s back when he spoke. “...I thought I might lose you.”

“Oh…I’m...’M sorry, Daddy...” 

Bumi dared to glance at his father. Sunshine curled across Daddy’s face in a small grin that called Bumi’s lopsided one out to greet it. His Daddy smiled wider. Grey eyes softened to a wordless ‘I love you’. He touched his brow to his and held him even tighter.

Bumi’s squirmed like he was tickled. He fiddled with one of his father’s hands like it was taking the place of his habit of twisting his shirt. Their grins fed off of each other until they were both smiling stupidly. A giggle bubbled into Bumi’s next breath and shyly bled into his words. “I guess even Daddys get scared, huh?”

“Mhm.”

Bumi sank dramatically into his father’s robes and hugged tighter the arms that were curled around him like shields. “But ya know what?” he whispered, glancing about like he was hiding behind enemy lines.

Daddy looked around just as dramatically, matching Bumi’s theatrics step-for-step like he always did. (No one else ever did, and no one else ever could.) “What?” he whispered back.

“I bet those bad guys were even scared-er.”

His father laughed, and color came back to Bumi’s world. The night felt less like a shadow and more like a blanket, especially when Daddy pulled him closer and smiled like playing with Bumi would be the only thing that would ever matter. 

“That’s because nobody messes with your dad.” He laughed evilly. “C’mere, you.”

Daddy roughed his already roughed hair, but Bumi wiggled away. They were both on their feet, and the chase was on. His father’s laughter was loud and airy like happy thunder, and Bumi’s choppy giggles raced after him like sheets of rain. 

The cold night became so bright with his Daddy’s smile and so warm with his father’s hugs that Bumi thought he might cry without breaking his warrior-vow to Uncle Sokka. 

“Gotcha!”

And even though his Daddy was bigger—much bigger—Bumi somehow managed to catch him. He rolled him over with his little arms and sat on his shoulders like a lionbear over its kill.

They laughed some more. They laughed until it hurt to breathe, and they kept laughing until it ached to move their faces into anything but a smile. 

Bumi hugged his father’s neck and smiled like accidents could never happen. He forgot why he was ever upset. There was no reason to be upset—to ever be upset.

He had his Daddy. 

Bumi was small, but his Daddy was big.

And when Daddy was with him, Bumi didn’t feel small.

He felt big.

He felt bigger than the bad guys.

And besides, he had won! He had captured the Avatar and winded an airbender! 

He couldn’t wait to tell Mama and Kya and everyone else this story.

“Hey, Daddy?”

Daddy caught his breath, and Bumi could hear his smile. “Mhm?”

Bumi plopped his head on his father’s and hugged around his chin. His beard scratched his hands in a familiar way. “We’re pals, right?”

Gentle thunder rumbled beneath him. “Right.”

“And we’ll always be together, right?”

His father hesitated again. 

Daddy pushed up on his arms, making Bumi slide down his back. A gentle hand reached around and found the scruff of his coat, and Bumi, all-to-familiar with this maneuver of theirs, climbed around his father’s torso while Daddy sat cross-legged again. He curled his arms around his neck and tried to wind his legs around him even though they were too short to reach across his chest, let alone meet up behind his back. He was too small.

But Daddy held him close and held him up, all with one arm. His free hand rubbed his back with a few swirling scratches before hugging him close.

Bumi hugged him even closer. He pressed his face into his father’s neck and smiled into the robes that smelled like home and felt safer than a steel wall. Bumi heard his heart just like he’d heard Mama’s heartbeat earlier. Daddy’s was slower and harder, though. Like Appa’s. 

“Bumi, let me tell you something that Gya—that my father once told me.” He nudged his head up. They both looked up at the sky. “Look at the stars. The bravest heroes of the past—like Mama’s mama and Uncle Zuko’s uncle—look down on us from those stars.”

“Really?” Bumi shifted his weight and held on tighter.

“Yes.” 

Bumi looked at the shiny brave people. He liked the stars before. They were pretty. 

Now he loved them. They were safe.

And they were always there. 

They would always be there.

...But they were also so far away. 

“So whenever you feel alone, just remember that those brave heroes will always be there to guide you…” Daddy held him tighter and gently rocked them. 

Bumi’s eyes drooped. Daddy’s breaths were slow and strong and lifted him against his chest like the beats of large wings.

He smiled through his yawn.

Something sad moved into where the smile in Aang’s voice should be.

He kissed his son’s hair again.

“...and so will I.”

********************************

Hope you enjoyed!:D

~~~~~EL FIN~~~~~

[boy-who-never-grew-up]

MGG smut plz dont read this

“Oh what-can-it mean to a daydream believer and a homecoming queen“ I sing as the songs ends “Cheer up sleepy jean”

Claps come from the drunken maybe 30 or so people at the karaoke bar. I take an overzealous bow and try to keep my balance. The room spins slightly as I stand straight up. The DJ loudly announces the next singer and song as I walk back to my group of friends. They give another drunken round of applause and compliments all around, even though I really butchered the last verse in “Sleepy Jean”. I feel my best friend yank on my arm and pull me closer to her face.

“Look who came in half way through..” She pointed vaguely across the bar at a group of people, none of which whom I knew. “Tonight is your night, I told you. Did I not?”

As she talks eagerly in my ear, I look deeper into the crowd. I remain unsure of what the fuck she’s talking about. I quickly sweep over and over again, looking for a familiar face, but I find none.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I stop her mid-ramble.

“It’s what’s his nuts... You know from the show you watch- not Law & Order the other one... What’s his fuckin’ name the tall cute one.” She yells into my ear, as if I’ll understand her better the louder she is.

“Matthew Gray Gubler?” I ask.

“YES! I knew his name, damn. Yes! He’s here, he walked in half way through your song.” She excitedly gets her point across and tugs on my arm.

“No fucking way, you’re wrong.” I scoff at her.

There’s no way he’s here. I try to look again, but now there are more people at the bar in the way of whoever was there before. She pulls me about two feet to our left and positions our heads just right and points across the room; much more specific now.

On the other side of the room, by the bar and near the wall, I see a man with curly hair with a drink in his hand by his mouth, but like he was too enthralled with what his response would be to whoever is talking to him so he couldn’t take a drink. He smiled wide as he listened, and I watched for a second or two as he gave his response, they both laughed, and he finally took a drink. 

“Fack.” I spoke bluntly “Fucking shit dude.”

“You have to talk to him, I’m not giving you the option. This is happening.” My friend spoke, still attached to my arm with excitement. 

“He’s probably here with someone.” I immediately excuse.

“He’s literally not. Oh my- listen, all you gotta do is talk to him. The worst that happens is you get turned down.” She refutes “This is a one time chance, and you’ll regret it if you don’t do it”

Anxiety rises in my chest through my stomach as I watch him and his friends move to the open pool table. I feel like my fucking mouth is sweating and like there’s no way that I’m gonna be able to go over there and say anything to him.

“Plus, you’ve been saying you wanna try to hoe it up a little. this is the perfect time. Vacation, bar, pretty guy.” She grabs my chin and turns my face to her to make demanding eye contact “You look extremely hot tonight. Your ass- looks great in those jeans, I cant stop staring. Literally, everywhere we have been I’ve had to keep the guys off of you. You’re the one in charge here.”

She speaks with such confidence and power. She raises her eyebrows at me as if to say “Are you gonna go fucking do it?” So I take a big huff and ball up my fists and turn to start walking over. I’m suddenly feeling how actually drunk I am, and if I wasn’t so drunk, that would make me nervous that I’m gonna look like a complete idiot. I suddenly realize that I have no game plan and the drink I’m holding is just ice at this point. I’m about ten feet away and there’s no stopping because it is now very clear that I was actively making my way across the room to this specific spot. I’m physically shaking at this point where I walk up right behind him as he leans over the pool table. I watch as he misses his shot and stands back up. I take a deep breath and let it out as I step up next to him and look up to smile.

“Hi.” I say, hopefully loud enough for him to hear.

“Oh, hello.” He says back to me and smiles.

There’s silence for a second, he looks back to his friends taking their turns, and back to me.

“Can I buy you a drink?” I blurt out, after what seems like holding it in for minutes in silence.

“Ah,” He looks at his half empty drink and back to me “Sure. You heading to the bar?” 

He points to the bar, and honestly, I’m just surprised I made it this far.

“Yeah!’ I respond, trying to keep my cool.

We both take off in direction of the bar and I am mentally trying to sober myself up to walk a straight line. As we reach the bar, he turns to me and immediately reaches out his hand to shake it.

“I’m Matthew.” 

I shook his hand and gave him my name with a smile. 

“What are you drinking?” I ask him, pointing to his drink.

“Ah, whatever seasonal beer this is.” He twists his bottle to look at the label, and then turns it for me to see as well “What about you?”

“Gin and tonic.” I say and raise my drink a little.

“Oh, wow. You look really young for a sixty year old dad.” He dead pan says to me.

My jaw drops with a hint of a smile. I feel a wave of peace come over me as we both laugh and I defend my drink choices. 

“Cheap beer seems to get the job done for me.” He says and takes another drink.

“I can’t help that I just have a refined palette.” I tease.

He nods towards his friends to gesture that we I follow him, as he turns to walk back to his friends.

“Are those your friends?” He points to the group of girls I came with who are now walking up to do a karaoke song together.

“Oh gosh, they really are drunk.” I say as “Ice Ice Baby” comes on over the speakers.

He laughs and leans down slightly to say to me “Are you not?”

I giggle and turn to look at him as I say “I mean yeah, but not group Ice Ice Baby drunk.”

He smiles at me and grabs the pool stick he had earlier and steps up to take his shot.

“They’re about to fuckin’ kill it though just watch.” I add in.

He misses his shot, hands the pool stick to his partner, then grabs his friends attention and introduces me to them and vice versa. I smile and wave extra awkwardly and sip at my drink which is starting to only taste like lime and not gin.

“Are you gonna do another song?” He crosses his arms and looks at me before looking back at my friends going hard to “Ice Ice Baby”.

“Uh, yeah I think so. I’m still trying to decide what song I wanna do.” 

I watch as my friends start to get sloppy at the mic and laugh a little. Matthew speaks to me again, but this time he’s much closer than before. He cranes down a little to listen and speak to me.

“What are your choices?” He asks.

I dare not turn to look at him lest his face be close enough for me to analyze under the dim bar lights and see the color of his eyes. I keep my eyes on the group of girls at the front rapping their hearts out.

“I’m thinking What’s Up by 4 Non Blondes or maybe I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston.” I say loudly.

“Ooh, throw backs. I love it.” I can hear his laugh much clearer now 

“You should do 4 Non Blondes, if you care what I think.” He adds that last part as he stumbles over his recommendation.

Smart. Also, good suggestion. I smile and nod.

“Yeah, I think you’re right.” I say coolly and step forward to walk to the DJ.

I’m freaking out that I’m actually maintaining this casual courtship so fuckin’ well. He seems to want to talk to me, which is amazing, and I’m not tripping over my feet or stumbling over my words. I can feel my cheeks tighten as I smile walking towards the DJ booth. I wait as the last song finishes and I am handed a mic to head out. All through the song, all I can think is that he’s watching me. Normally I like the attention, but right now I feel nervous-like when you’re forced to participate in something as a child. I try to relax and get into the song. I close my eyes and after awhile it’s just me and the music. I do my best, even give a little bit of a performance. I do another bow as the song ends and smile. I look up to see him standing in the back smiling and clapping. My heart races as he smiles wider when my eyes catch his. I hand the mic back to the DJ and walk back towards him. I left my drink at his table, irresponsible around strangers I know, but I had felt like I needed a reason to come back to him. I walk past my table and give one friend a high five and my best friend smacks my butt as I pass. She grabs my arm and stops me before I walk away.

“If we all need to crash in their room so you can have our room at the hotel, that’s fine. I can stay with them tonight. I am in all support of this.” She whispers in my ear.

I smile and thank her for her kind idea as I continue my walk back towards that tall tall man. 

“Hey! That was great!” he perks up as I near him.

Nervously, he raises his hands and I don’t think initially he knew what he was doing, but I didn’t either. We both end up double high fiving and then awkwardly looking away because we both knew that was so fucking stupid. I grab my drink and make sure to thank him for the compliment before I sip. 

“What did your friend say into your ear? Looked like she was gonna rip your arm off.” He says as he finally turns back to me.

I take a breath and turn back to him to make eye contact.

“She heavily implied some very inappropriate things.” I smile and take another drink.

“Oh! That’s super awesome.” He says blankly. 

“She’s very set and steady that I take you back to my hotel tonight.” I said honestly “However, I literally have never gone up to a man and bought him a drink at a bar and I’m just not sure that I could really get myself to a place that I could do that.”

“Well, you’ve already done the hard part right? Taking initiative. I’ve never had a girl by me a drink before, surprisingly. I’ve had some ask if I could buy them a drink. So, it’s a first time for me too.” He reassures me.

“Is that something that you would want to do? Take me to your hotel room?” He says as he sets his beer at the table with my drink and leans on it, facing me directly.

“I’m not really sure. I feel like there’s so much to disclose before something like that but the bar isn’t the best place to do it.” I reply honestly.

He scrunches his nose and nods “I totally get it. I don’t feel like I have to tell you but, you don’t have to do anything you don’t wanna do.”

“Well,” I start before taking a sip of my drink “Is that something you would want to do? Go back with me?” 

“Do you wanna have another drink? We could sit down when I’m done with this pool game.” He replies.

“Actually, I need to drink some water.” I shrug “I have to make ‘responsible decisions’“ 

I pfft my tongue at that and smile. 

“Who says?” He laughs as he responds.

“I do, actually.” I blush and look down at my drink, away from his smiling face.

“Well, do you wanna sit down over a couple waters then?” He suggests.

I look back at him and smile and nod. I wait as he finishes the pool game, every so often coming back and standing by me to talk to me. Occasionally, my friends would wave me down and give me extremely obvious thumbs up and gestures to check my phone.

I roll my eyes and give in and check my phone.

:“you need the room or nah? we tryna to head back”

I huff and look up at Matthew. It couldn’t hurt right? It’s once in a lifetime thing, I  have to.

:”I think so, but we’re gonna hang out a lil more”

:”k we’ll get anotha drink then call the lyft.”

:”Okay”

I set my phone down on the table and look up to the opposing team taking the winning shot. Matthew drops his shoulders and pouts for a second, but quickly moves on to come stand by me.

“I’ll be right back.” He says and sets his half empty bottle down at the table and walks towards the bar.

I fidget with my nails as I wait, nervously. He seems sweet, and he seems to be just as awkward as me. As confident as it must seem to offer him a drink, I feel so small and dumb. He clearly came here with his friends to play pool and now I’ve ruined that. 

As I worry through my thoughts, he comes back to the table and sets down two large glasses of ice water. Luckily, he’s good at sparking questions and the conversation went on pretty well. He’s very awkward but somehow it makes me feel comfortable. We talk about pets and coffee and youtube videos and it goes well. Really, not what I had expected from trying to pick someone up from a bar. He asks for pictures of my pets and of course I show him. We talk about classic rock and our favorite bands. Comparing oldies and swooning over Bright Eyes. We sip through the remainder of our drinks and keep going on about music. At about a third of water left, somehow religion gets brought up religion and other beliefs. At water empty, it started getting deep. Bringing up childhood trauma and dealing with death. 

I look over at my friends and they are standing around as if they’re waiting. I dismiss myself quickly and head over to them.

“Hey, you guys can go...” I interrupt.

Shrieks of shock and joy come from them but I try to shush them as much as possible.

“Listen, I’m not promising anything will happen. But, I’m going to stay and chat with him a bit. I’ll get another Lyft.” 

They all smile and tease me. I give them hugs and send them off as they spew warnings about men and encourage me to have fun.

“Looks like you missed your ride.” I jump as Matthew speaks next to me.

“Oh, uh yeah. They’re gonna head out, I just wanted to hang out a little more...” I excuse.

“Those things you wanted to disclose... “ He turned to look at me “We can get an Uber, is that a good place to talk?”

My heart thumps through my chest as I look him in the eyes. He has another cup of water in a paper cup in his hand and the Uber app open in his other.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, that would be fine.” I stumble out.

“Are you sure? I mean, we can just share the ride back nothing has to happ-”

“Yes, I would like to. I want to.” I cut him off.

“Cool, well, we have like fifteen minutes until the Uber is here. Did you want another water?” He offers the cup in his hand with a smile.

“Sure, thanks.” I say as I take the cup.

We both kind fall silent as we wait. Like everything to be said here at the bar has been said. The next dialogue is to be in the car. The disclosure. We’re in the loading screen. I spend a little time peeing in the bathroom and checking my makeup. The rest I spend internally panicking. Not in a “I don’t wanna do this” way but more like “There’s no way this is really happening” way. Occasionally, we would catch each others eye contact and blush and smile. It feels good to know that he is just as nervous as I am.

*In the car*

“Let’s disclose this foreclosure!” Matthew declares as we get on the road.

“I don’t think that makes sense.” I tease.

“Yeah, y’know I tried. You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, yeah I know what you mean.” I mumble.

The car is so quiet compared to the bar. The late night empty roads seem deafeningly silent. I try not to look him in the eye again. There’s so much I want to say, but how does one even say them?

“So?....” He starts.

“So?” I stall.

“What did you wanna talk about?” He pushes.

“I’m not... Well, I’ve never just hooked up with someone.. I guess.. Like, outside of a relationship, and just really have never had an experience that I was satisfied with. There’s so much I want, but I’ve never had someone to give that to me, y’know.” I can feel that I’m definitely still pretty buzzed and saying things is coming rather easy once the first word comes out.

He smiles as he watches me explain my predicament.

“Yeah, I’m not really one to really go home with people from bars either so we’re on the same boat there.” He reassures me.

I can see his eyes watching me intently. Watching my lips intently. As I talk I feel my words being seen. He licks his lips once as he listens.

“I just feel like, if I’m gonna hook up with someone, I should go all out right? Trying to mix your body with someone’s that you don’t even know seems complicated. I feel like it’s trial and error and time, and all I’ve ever been is dissatisfied.”

“Anything else?” He says quietly, still not breaking his stare.

At this point we’re both facing each other in the back seat, nearly dismissing the middle seat entirely.

“I don’t think I can promise I won’t catch feelings for you.” I say finally, letting out my breath as I do.

He pauses for a second, I don’t think he even breathes, but he says “I’m fine with that.”

Before I know it, the gap between us is closing. He moves in hastily like he’s been craving to kiss me. I bring my hand to his cheek and kiss him back. He lays one hand on my neck and the other on my hip as he almost pushes me back in my seat, hungrily stealing kisses. I hold his hand that lay on my neck and snake my other arm around his neck. We keep kissing as the ride goes on. Going back and forth between peppering kisses on each others lips to overwhelming amounts of open mouth exploration. His right hand slides down and over my chest, and though I’m holding his hand, I can tell he didn’t just move there for convenience. If I wasn’t buckled in, he would have me on his lap right now. Which is really where I wanted to be. 

The car ride felt both too short and too long. Making out in the backseat is a world I could get lost in. Ahead, in the hotel I need to be ready to get real. Making out in the backseat is easy and actually hooking up with someone is complicated. I could stay in this sweet bliss forever,.

As the car rolled up to the hotel doors, we parted lips. I go to pull away but he holds me in place for a moment.

“I want you to know... I promise I won’t disappoint you.” He tells me, softly and kindly.

After we get out of the car, Matthew runs around to meet me and we walk into the lobby together. Down the hall, away from the front desk, he grabs my hand and leads me. He kisses my hand before pulling me in to kiss me on the mouth again.

“Fuck, I really like kissing you.” He says as he smiles against my lips.

“We’re almost to the room.” I try.

“Which one is it?” He asks, in between kisses.

“Next one on the left.” 

“You have the key?” He asks, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me closer.

I push the key into his hand then, to my surprise, he literally sweeps me off my feet. Okay, maybe not literally. With his arm tightly around my waist, when he stands, my feet come off the floor. He unlocks the door and ushers us inside. He tosses the key card and drops me onto the edge of the bed. He plops down beside me and immediately grabs my face and begins kissing me again. Through this, he sloppily takes off the flannel he has on top of his pink t-shirt and tosses it across the room onto the desk. This time, he pushes his fingers back into my hair and I wrap my hands around his wrists. He pulls away to speak, but he stays close and doesn’t open his eyes. The glimpse of him that I catch he looks breathless. Like drinking a full glass of water after a drought.

“You said that there’s so much you want...” He says slowly “What do you want?”

“I don’t know,” I mumble “I’m all over the place man.”

He kisses me again before he speaks “How about...” Another kiss “I can start off, y’know, in charge...” Another kiss “And when you feel comfortable,” Another “You can do whatever you want..”

His kisses stray from my lips and down my chin. Over my my neck and to rest on my shoulder. Here stayed many, placed tenderly. I feel him rest his head against me, his hot breath wafting down my chest.

“We’ve got the room all night, right?”

My fucking heart stops. This won’t be disappointing.

“Yes.” I say in almost a whisper.

“Yes you want me to take charge or yes we have the room all night?” He sits upright, away from me.

My body reacts to him pulling away, too soon. I catch myself from reaching out after him. 

“Yes to both.” I agree.

“Sweet.” he nods “I have promises to fulfill.” 

He gently pushed me back to lay down, slowly looming over me as I do. His hand runs down my chest, my stomach, and to my hip. He leans down to kiss me, but only once before layering kisses down my chest to the edge of my shirt. He slides down to rest on his stomach and pushes my shirt up slowly, followed by a trail of kisses. He breathes slowly against my skin as the shirt moves higher and higher up my chest. I finally take the liberty of just removing the shirt to get it out of the way. He re-positions himself again, on his knees, leaning on his right arm and his other underneath me, reaching at the bra clasp. Just as I thought hungry Matthew was gone, he pulls the bra off completely and immediately presses his mouth to my chest. Wet, soft, and suckled kisses wander across my breasts and quickly turn to starved rough kisses and light bites of skin. He moves down over my stomach, taking time adjust to the curves and rolls of my body, before laying a fully contacted wet one onto my skin. 

At the top of my jeans he stops, resting his head against my skin and pulls at the sides of my pants.

“These looked great on you, but now they gotta go.” He mumbles.

Swiftly unbuttoning my pants, he continues to lay kisses on my exposed skin. He large hands pull at the sides of my jeans, this time successful, and pulled then down over my legs, off my feet, and tossed them to the floor. I feel the rumble as he lets out a whiny groan against my stomach. 

“Tell me to stop whenever.” He says as he pulls down my underwear, slowly, all the way off my legs.

“Please, don’t stop.” I say in a hushed voice, already ashamed of what I wanted from him.

I can feel him smile against my skin as he begins to press kisses to my thigh.

“I like that ‘please’.” He kisses further in, where leg meets body.

I feel his tongue glide up my bikini line and over the bare skin near my hips.The chill tickles me and my body tenses one degree more. He sits upright, still holding my leg, at the ankle now and rubs his other hand down my leg.

“I’m gonna make you feel so good, okay?” He asks softly “But I wanna hear you say please.” 

He kisses my ankle and holds his lips there, waiting for my response.

I pause for a moment, wondering what exactly I should say. A jumbled murmur of unfinished asks stream out of my mouth.

“Yes, please... I want you to. I want to. Please.”

“Fuck,” he whispers, lips still pressed to my ankle “don’t have to ask me twice”

I brace my nerves as he kisses up my leg and slides his tongue up into the folds of my pussy. He places a wet kiss at my clit before running his tongue down, around, and inside me. I hide my face with my arms, and try to steady my breath. I feel his arm that’s not wrapped around my thigh slide up my stomach and his hand grasps mine.

“Hey,” he pulls his mouth away from my wetness, and kisses my tummy once “Uncover your face.”

He pulls my hand away from my face and intertwines his fingers into mine.

“I want you to look at me.” He says, with sweet nurturing eyes as he leans his cheek against my thigh.

He kisses my leg with the side of his mouth as I take a breath and uncover my face to meet his eyes. He never breaks eye contact as he goes back down on me. I watch intently, trying to control my facial reactions, as he utilizes his whole tongue and head movements to pleasure me. I can’t help but whine as I watch him so intently do his best to make me feel good. Every time his tongue touches my clit, I flinch and tense, leaving behind a trail of “Oh”s and “Ah”s. I try desperately, but it’s so hard to keep my eyes on his when all I want to do is close my eyes and lean my head back. Not to mention, it feels so vulnerable, him watching me as I come undone. As I feel a tension in my stomach begin to rise, I hide my face once more with my free hand. I feel his touch get lighter and I can hear his soft pleading voice, in between sweet sultry kisses.

“Relax, okay?” he begs me.

I nod, still hiding my face and mumble “I know, I’m just embarrassed.”

“Hey,” he whispers once again as he hovers up to kiss my face.

“I love this,” his hand that holds mine pulls down over his jeans and atop his hardening cock “Trust me. Please don’t be embarrassed.”

He lets go of my body and stands upright on his knees. I watch as he slowly lifts his shirt over his head and off his body. He tosses it to the ground and quickly undoes his pants. He pushes them down and awkwardly struggles to get them all the way off, and even more so as he tries to toss them away. I giggle a little as I watch him. Even on his knees he towers over me but he’s so soft that it’s calming. When he finally draws his attention back to me, a big smile crosses his face. We both take a second to just laugh a little. He licks his lips, and my eyes start to wander down his body. His sharp shoulders and thin frame. The muscles on his arms tense in pulses and his hands, making their way back to my body, feel like they encompass all of my skin whole. I can feel every joint in his skinny hands as as squeezes my waist a few times before descending back to my body.

His mouth quickly goes back to work, kissing my pussy like he was so desperately kissing my mouth earlier. I let myself watch him, but I let myself enjoy it too. I watch his bare shoulders and neck, tensing every time he moves his head. I let out a shaky moan as he hums against my core and loudly makes out with my body. My moans grow louder with every flick of his tongue and it sets me off more when I hear him begin to moan from his own pleasure he derives from getting me off. Any sense of fear and holding back, leaves me body as I can feel the energy rising within me. Finally, I tangle my fingers in his messy curly hair and hope he doesn’t mind that I pull on it as he begins to bring me to my climax.

“Oh, oh.” I whine “Don’t stop, please don’t stop.”

He laughs between strokes of his tongue and continues the movement he was doing, but slightly faster than before. I ball my fists in his hair and cross my ankles on his back. My hips begin to lightly roll against his face and the sound of him begins to fade way in a mess of my own cries. His left hand comes around and pulls my hand from his hair and intertwines our fingers. My legs tense around his head as I spill over unto ecstasy in a heap of praise and a chorus of “Yes, yes, yes!”. When I squeeze my hand around his, he squeezes back and I don’t let go until I can finally relax and let my breath flow.

I let out breathy whines as he kisses up my torso and back to my lips. He kisses me like before and I can taste myself on his tongue.

“Fuck,” he says between kisses “You’re amazing.”

“You definitely didn’t disappoint.” I whisper in his ear as a tease and leave a kiss at the top of his jawline.

I begin to kiss his neck, and it’s salty from the small sweat he worked up pleasuring me.

“Well, I’m not done yet.” He mumbles, clearly distracted by my kisses.

He pulls himself closer to me, his chest on mine, and I can feel his erection underneath his underwear. I can’t help but moan, knowing that he’s hard from eating me out and feeling his full size against me. He shivers and I lay a few bites on his skin. I push his underwear down as he wraps his arms around me and leans his full weight on top of me.

"Do you want me?" He mutters in my ear.

"Yes, fuck yes I want you." I reply, desperately.

I tried to hold onto his shoulders but as he pulled away to align himself with me my hands landed in his hair. I tighten my grip as he enters me, letting out his own moan of satisfaction.

"Fuck," our stomachs brush together as he pushes into me "Fuck, it's tight."

He lets out more of a cry in a shaky breath as he lays his face to rest in my neck. He says it's tight, but I'm not sure that he's not just bigger than what we were both accounting for.

His arms hold tight around my body and he forms a rhythm, pulling in and out of me, pushing deeper everytime. He fills me completely but I don't think he's even all the way in. The thought of him is ravishing, but feeling him actually pumping in and out of me is making me delirious.

"Ah, ah," he moans into my neck "Fuck, you feel so good "

He starts pushing in harder, trying to fit his length inside. His right arm snakes up my body and his hand onto my hair. He pulls my head back as far as I can lean it, and bites my trap near my neck. With every stroke, he gets harder and harder, still yanking on my hair for momentum. His breathing dampens my neck as he pants with his movements. I can see his contorted face, nose scrunched and eyes shut tight, mouth hanging open letting all his moans spill out.

All at once, with his hand still in my hair and on my back, he flips me over on top of him. He lets both hands rest holding my ass, pulling me in the same rhythm he was before. I barely have to do any work as he moves my hips to make me fuck him. His right hand lines up my torso, pushing me to sit upright, and he massages my breast in his palm. He watches me for a second as I try my best to keep my hips moving. Then, again, he picks up my weight and sits up, pulling himself out of me. He kisses me once, tenderly before speaking.

"Turn around." He says against my lips.

I don't hesitate to respond to his demands, I turn around and lean down on my knees and elbows, widening my legs as much as possible. With one hand pressed into my back above my ass, and the other pulling on my hips, Matthew pounds into me. I bury my head in my hands and let him take what he wants. Listening to him unravel because of me raises tension inside. I cry out for him to go faster and without answering, he does. Strings of curses and praises drip from his lips like honey. I can tell he loves being inside me.

He pants faster and faster and stumbles over his words. His pace becomes unsteady and sloppy and I can tell he's gonna cum. His arms wrap around my body, his hands holding onto my opposing hip and shoulder, holding me in just the right spot for him to pump in and out of me a little more before he climaxes. Listening to him, I feel my peak rise and take over. I hold onto to his arms and stretch as I feel it pulse through my body. As I slowly loosen, I feel Matthew reach his climax as well, burying his head in the crook of my neck. I can feel his open mouth breath on my skin as he catches back up with oxygen. I run one hand up and through his hair, pulling him closer to kiss him on the face.

"You're amazing ..." I whisper to him.

He takes a deep breath and lets out a tiny moan against my skin.

"I keep my promises." He says lazily.

[nowitsdarkfic]

chapter nine - part two (midnight at denny’s)

⚠️ ...slight risqué content warning ⚠️ 

“Alright, good work, guys. Let’s call it a night and have some munch.”

We finished up later in the evening, well after the sun went down behind the forests on the far side of town. We had spent the first two hours at the rink without our knee pads, and then by lunch, Brick hurried back home real quick to fetch his. Meanwhile, the rest of us roamed about the slick ice surface with very little protection aside from our gloves and our masks. The rain and snow the past couple of days made the ice extra slick so we were able to almost glide about the surface like five ghosts.

But after the scare I had had with the apparition, specter, thing, whatever it was, of Maya before me, I roamed about the rink with my back erect for most of the afternoon: once the sun went down, I ducked low and gave my ass, my thighs, and my knees a strengthening. At one point during the middle of the afternoon, when no one was looking, I stuck the hockey stick in between my thighs and reached back for a feeling of my own ass.

Getting tighter, I can tell. Bigger? I can’t tell.

We played for quite a bit longer: now it’s almost ten at night. Now we’re all famished and now it’s dark.

Once we all had unlaced our skates and headed back to Spence’s car, I called shotgun and now here I am sinking down in the passenger seat next to the man himself. Brick, Barney, and Billy are crowded in the back behind us.

“I say we go to Denny’s up the road here,” he suggests once he shuts the door behind him.

“Works for me,” Brick says aloud.

But on the way there, all I can think about is seeing Maya there on the ice. How did she even get there? And what was going on with her skin and her hair? It made no sense, and I’m unsure if I’ll find the right answer for any aspect of it.

My heart hammers inside of my chest. It’s been a long day, but for good reason, though. Hockey is my other love after all.

I really, really want to touch myself right about now to rid of the extra adrenaline but it’s too close of a spot here with the boys and I don’t want to shoot all over the upholstery. It’s not worth it at the moment. And I’m not risking it back at my place, not with Maya there and Mrs. Snow manifesting in the mirror behind me. Maybe when I have a moment in the bathroom I can.

In fact, once we reach the Denny’s about a block from Black Orchid, the first thing I do is run to the men’s room. We’re a block away from the girls there. From Morgan, Lizzy, Cindy, the Jacksons, and Gwendolyn. Gimme a minute. Scratch that, gimme five minutes.

I take the stall closest to the door and unbutton my jeans. Down my hand goes into my underwear.

I sigh through my parted lips: at least I’m alone. Poking and stroking right there on my dick. I lean back against the cold metal for another shot of adrenaline.

I’ve got it now. At least I think I do. Every stroke of my thumb is like a shot of lightning right across my mind. I can think a lot clearer now.

I have to help Maya somehow, but I can’t if the slightest bit of adrenaline is enough to give me an erection. Maybe if I can have Lars assist me, we can uncover her past and her secrets. I hope I see him again because I don’t think I can do this solo.

I take my pants off all the way and once I have my belt around my knees, I reach over for some paper to clean up. Could be worse: one time at home, a few days following when I first moved into the complex, I came so hard, I had to mop up the kitchen floor and scrub part of my carpet. Ever since then I have secretly referred to myself as Chief Big Way: I’m that Indian boy with everything I could ever possibly need in the biggest way possible. It’s even funnier because Gwendolyn called me the Italian Stallion.

Too much. I’m too much even for myself at times.

When I step out of the stall, I head over to the sink to wash up, and for a split second, I swear I catch a glimpse of Maya and Mrs. Snow in the reflection of the mirror before me. I glance over my shoulder. Nothing there.

I shrug it off and proceed to clean off the little sticky bit that spilled over onto my fingers. I then cup my hands for a bit of water in my palm and run my fingers through my hair. Yeah, that’s a lot better.

Once I dry up with one of the paper towels, I head back out and make my way over to the booth tucked in the far corner of that front room. I have a seat on the end next to Brick, who’s next to Spence, who’s next to Barney and Billy; they’re eyeing me like they have something to tell me.

“What?”

“So do you like her?” Brick raises his eyebrows at me. I hesitate with my hands on the lapels of my coat.

“The fuck do you mean?”

“Do you like her?”

“Who?”

Spence shows me a smirk. And then it dawns on me.

“You told them?” I demand. He gives me a shrug.

“It is what it is. If our captain’s with a girl, we should know.”

I fetch up a sigh and that’s when the young blonde waitress steps over to our table. I don’t care if it’s getting late: I’m having coffee.

Once she makes the rounds of the table, the five of us are left alone with that hanging thought.

“Okay, first of all,” I begin, bowing my head even though the only other patrons are two truck driver looking guys about two tables away from us, “I have no romantic attachment to her--just gonna clear that up right now.”

“Are you sure?” Brick asks me with a chuckle.

“Positive. I’m not joking, man. I don’t even know how old she is--for all I know, she could still be a teenager.”

The smirks and smiles from the table; Barney and Billy even gape at each other.

“Two nights ago, I was taking a walk to get something to eat and I had an encounter with the Grim Reaper.”

“Again?” Barney’s stunned.

“Yeah. Dude, she’s only just to remind me of the fact there’s a piece of earth underneath me. Aside from that, I dunno what else she wanted me. But anyways, I looked across the street and I found her laying there in the storm drain--and you know, it was pouring rain the other night, too--and she had a rope around her ankles. For all I know, someone could’ve beaten the holy hell from her.”

The waitress returns with five glasses of crystal clear water accompanied with slivers of ice near the surface. I take a drink--God, I’m so thirsty!

“So what’d you do?” asks Billy, running the tip of his finger around the rim of his glass.

“I took her home. Well, not entirely. I was over by the strip club over here--”

“Black Orchid?” Brick fills in for me.

“Yeah. And it was the only place I could see offhand, and so I took her there.”

“I was wondering where you were yesterday morning,” Spence pipes up. “I was gonna take you over to Rochester to meet some lady friends of mine.”

“Lady friends?” I ask him, holding my glass at the base; the waitress returns again with our mugs of black coffee and a little white china dish filled with a pile of those stumps of creamer.

“Sonia and Marcia. They’re sisters from the magnificent Pacific Northwest, Oregon.”

“What’re they doing here upstate?”

“Marcia works at a bakery that apparently is trying to branch out over here. To get an idea of the area, she got a job at this upholstery place over in Rochester. Sonia’s an actress trying to bring her one woman show from the left coast to the right coast.”

“They’re sisters, you said?”

“Yeah. And they’re living in a pad a lot like yours, overlooking the lake. What’re you doin’--manana?”

“Manana? More than likely nada, unless my parents come back home early.”

“I’ll take you to meet them if you’d like.”

“I’d love to.” I take a sip of the coffee: perfectly beany and rich, just how I like it. “So at any rate, I guess all the girls there had just gotten off their shift because they all had their clothes on and they were extra nice to me and her. We spent the night and I told them it was birthday so they even threw a little party for me. But then I took her home and--” I shook my head as I hold the mug with both hands and rest my elbows on the table top.

“What?” Brick asks me.

“Whenever I ask her if she wants anything, like something to eat or whatever, she refuses. I mean, full on refuses. She will not eat anything. I don’t when the last time she ate was, so last night I was like ‘Jesus, she’s gotta be starving.’ You know, if I don’t eat for a while, I almost feel carsick. But she turns down any offer. She turned down offers over at the strip joint, and she turned it down from me. I don’t wanna force her to eat, but I also can’t do that to her. I can’t let her die.”

I bring the mug closer to my lips but I don’t take a sip.

“She’s got this weird scar on her forehead, too,” I recall, running my index finger along my forehead, underneath my bangs. “A perfect horizontal line, like a lobotomy scar. When I found her, I could even see it in the darkness. Very prominent, and very strange.”

“She wouldn’t tell you about that, either?” Billy frowns at that.

“What do you think you can do for her?” asks Spence, as he stirs in a packet of Sweet n’ Low into his coffee.

“No idea.”

“Well, I hope you can find something for her, dude. She sounds—interesting.”

“Interesting, yes. An unlikely wild card in my life, definitely for sure. But at the same time--and I can totally sense this, too--she needs help. You know, I got close to her face to check out the scar on her forehead and she acted like I just electrocuted her. She spent the rest of yesterday evening with her hands over her face. So she needs the help of professionals, but not me. I’m no pro at this sort of thing.”

The four of them glance at one another again.

“Well, in your defense, Joe, I wouldn’t know the first thing about that, either,” Barney confesses.

“If it were me, I would take her to the cops,” suggests Billy, “but other than that, I wouldn’t know what else to do.”

“Nah, the fuzz wouldn’t do her any justice,” Barney points out.

“They really wouldn’t, either,” I add to that before taking another sip of coffee, “I can barely get three words out of her, so I dunno if they’ll be the ones to pry answers out of her.”

“But that’s what I’d do, though,” Billy insists. “Or we can invite her home with us.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Barney scoffs at him.

“What? She’s obviously holding Joe back at the moment. We can probably take better care of her at the House of Grey.”

“We’ve got the Man in Black there, though.”

“Will ya stop with the Man in Black?”

“Hey, I saw Vera last night before I went to bed,” I wag my finger at Billy, “and I just about shit my pants. I can only imagine her scaring the hell out of Maya herself given how close Vera likes to get to me.”

“You’d rather she be staying in the realm of a malevolent ghost that causes nightmares?” Barney looks at me, appalled.

“I’d rather she be in the realm of just one ghost than many, a few of which are still freaking me out every time I see them, that is Vera and Mrs. Snow. The Boy With No Hands, too. And besides, it’s not like the Man in Black shows up all the time, either. At least, I hope not.”

I take another sip of my coffee before speaking again.

“Besides, you guys have a house,” Brick adds. “Joey just has his little bachelor pad.”

“Yeah, it’s just me there. She seemed pretty comfortable over at the strip joint because there was eight of us there surrounding her. Just from what I’ve seen anyways. She could use the extra company over at the House of Grey.”

Barney sighs through his nose and looks at Billy for a good long moment. Within time, he purses his lips and picks up his water glass for a big swig. And then he nods in affirmation.

“Alright,” he finally says. “We’ll swing by your place, Joe, and take her home with us.”

And right at that moment, the waitress arrives once again with our late night dinner. I have a feeling I’ll be eating more midnights at Denny’s like this from this point forth as I pick up a piping hot French fry and blow on it before dipping it into my ketchup.

“I should also add,” I start up again, holding the fry before my lips with my thumb and my index finger.

Billy lifts his gaze from his steak and Barney from his putting his napkin in his lap.

“--you guys want to convince her to take a bath or a shower, something. I don’t know when’s the last time she ate, nor do I know when’s the last time she bathed.”

“You found her in a storm drain, too,” Spence recalls, picking up his spoon.

“Yeah, when I got close to her face, she smelled--you guys know that nasty, earthy smell you get from wet leaves? Like during this time of year when the leaves are falling and they get wet from the first rains, and they have that smell to them? It’s like that.”

“Oh, God.” Billy almost gags at that.

“It’s pretty intense, too, like my eyes started watering when I got close to her face. So--yeah. I couldn’t convince her to eat but how she feels about cleaning up is a mystery.”

We fall back into momentary silence and then Spence starts talking about something completely different. We’re just five friends having dinner together, and that’s all I can ask for at the moment. But I still think about Maya and that apparition of her on the rink. Maybe she was trying to grab my attention from the fact she’s back at my place all alone with four ghosts? Who knows, and this fried chicken and French fries are too good to think about anything else.

Once our stomachs are full and slightly distended, and we all pitch in for the bill and the tip for the waitress, Spence takes all of us back home, starting with Brick’s house, and then to my place so Barney and Billy can take Maya back with them.

I left Maya alone for hours on end today. I hope she was able to find something to eat and something to do all day because I feel terrible about it now.

But when I unlock the front door, I find she had turned on the light and I can see the front room had been cleaned, the carpet vacuumed, the kitchen floor swept, the top of the table wiped off, all of it clean and smelling of lemons.

“Maya?” I call out. A brief moment of silence, followed by the sight of her stepping out of the bathroom, still wearing the same clothes as the night I found her but with rubber gloves on her hands. Barney and Billy congregate at the front door while I set down my things behind the couch. I then check out my chair and the couch itself, and I find she vacuumed and straightened both out for me. I then take a look at the phone: she even cleaned the spaces between the buttons on the keypad and the curls of the cord!

She enters the room as she peels off the gloves with a nonchalant look upon her face.

“Did--Did you clean my apartment?” I ask her, setting down the phone receiver.

“I did,” she replies, her expression never changing. “Top to bottom. I even vacuumed your mattress and cleaned the loo.”

“Thank you,” I can hardly speak from the feeling of my heart skipping a few beats. I shake my head and turn my attention to the two of them. “These are my friends, Barney and Billy. They wanna take you home with them.”

“I would love to,” she answers, the tone of her voice never changing from that gentle soft tone.

“We live just down the street, too,” Barney explains, gesturing out the door. “So if you wanna--you know, visit Joey--you can just mosey on over here.”

I swallow, feeling my face grow warm. I run my hand through my hair as she steps closer to them.

“You guys have a good night,” I tell the three of them as Billy coaxes her out of my apartment.

“Take care, Cup of Joey,” is the last thing Barney tells me with a wink and a smile.

“You, too, Barn-meister.”

With nothing more, the front door closes behind them, meaning I’m alone again. I sigh right then with the decision to turn in for the night. Maybe I should tell my parents about her.

[cosmicdaya]

look-alike, love again | part 3

{summary} : someone learns more about someone

{warning} : swearing ( spoiler-free )

{word count} : 1749 words

{pairing} : smol bean!peter parker x reader, fuckboy!tom holland x reader

{requested} : no one

{type of story} : series

{continuation} : (part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5)

{author’s note} : thank you so much to those who loved this series!! Thank you so much for your support and love! Plus I will only continue this series if it reaches more than 150 notes I WATCHED IW AND I CRIEED (no spoilers tho) pssst #lalaps

{taglist} : @maddieolivialove // @mrsmouthymerc // @sophie2003003 // @shookspudey@leni-lion-luke-larb-logic // @saltywerewolfcrusade // @writtenbypics // @slytherinshadowhuntersuperhero // @unadulteratedgalaxyprogramming // @yetitty // @heyyyyitsanie // @random-fandom-lady // @nextkaratekid // @shookspudey // @definespidey // @alimaawilliams // @aquariusiel // @twoplayergaymers // @maybetheylikedmyokdays // @amagicalpieceofshit // @impossiblepizzapainterbagel // @bitchhstopp // @blueavocadosocks // 

(tumblr didn’t let me to tag those username which are striked)

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You dragged your pillow and your blanket all the way to Room 305, where Ned, Peter, Michelle and Rowan were awaiting your arrival. You knocked on their door a few times, before deciding to call one of them. As you unlocked your phone, the door swung open to reveal Rowan in a baggy t-shirt and a pair of shorts.

You plopped yourself down on the couch as you hugged your pillow tightly. You stared at the television, not paying attention to the movie playing.

“Hey Y/N, you okay, man? What did you mean by you were fucked in the groupchat?” Ned asked you, bringing a bowl of ice-cream to eat.

You snatched the ice cream from him and started eating it as he looked at you in shock.

“Okayyyyy, that means our girl is in big trouble now. Ok, honey spill the tea,” Michelle announced.

You told them everything about how to tried to kill Mr Harrington and how you are stuck with an annoying dumbass as a roommate.

“Oh shit, bro. That’s so bad. I would probably go crazy if I was in your shoes,” Rowan slung an arm around you as you kept eating Ned’s ice-cream.

“Where’s Pete?” you asked, realizing the absence of your friend.

“Oh, he’s at the library to do some revision. He did text me saying that he is on his way,” Ned replied.

You nodded your head, setting down your bowl of ice-cream on the table. You heard a knock on the door and went to open it. You saw Tom standing there.

“Tom, what are you doing here?” you asked, confused.

“What do you mean, Y/N? I am Peter,” Peter clarified, knocking you into your senses.

“Oh, sorry. It’s just that my mind is pretty messed up these days,” you scratched the back of your neck, trying to cover up the fact that you mistook him for Tom Fucking Holland.

He gave you a boyish smile which made your knees weak. It’s not that you didn’t like him, maybe you did. It’s just that you were too afraid to tell him that you like him and no one knows about your not-so-little crush on him.

“Why are you here? Wait, I didn’t mean it like that! uhm, uhm,” he started to stutter, making a mess out of himself.

“Ah, it’s just that my roommate has some important stuff today, so I will be crashing here today,” you explained to the cute boy in front of you.

“Where are you sleeping tonight? ‘Cause Rowan’s room is under ‘construction’,” he said using air quotes.

“Oh, Y/N, I can crash with MJ and Rowan, you can stay with Peter,” Ned said to you.

You felt the heat rising to your cheeks and you gulped and saw Peter who was as pale as a ghost.

“Is it ok with you, Pete?” Ned asked Peter, sending a wink at his way that you were unsure why.

“Yeah, yeah, no problem. I am going to my room to freshen up first. Y/N, you can just come in,” Peter proceeded to walk to his room.

You cleared your throat and picked up your stuff, heading to his room.

Oh boy, it’s going to be a long night.

You sat down on Peter’s bed as you took in your surroundings. You noticed that his room was a light shade of blue filled with everything related to Star Wars and Tony Stark. You smiled widely as you saw the Star Wars poster you gave to him on his 15th birthday hanging on the wall.

You reached for the nearest magazine and started reading it as you waited for Peter. As the bathroom door opened, you smelled the manly smell of his body gel. Peter walked in with a towel loosely hanging on his hips, his rock hard abs on show for you.

Your cheeks turned so red and you tried to calm yourself down but unfortunately for you he took no notice of you. When he was going to remove his towel, you cleared your throat loudly to inform him of your presence.;

“Oh shit, Y/N. I-I am s-s-sorry, I didn’t-um- notice that you w-were here,” Peter stuttered as he scrambled around for his pants. You turned around as he wore his boxers and slung a tank top over him.

“It’‘s okay, Peter. Anyways, I should say thank you to you as I am crashing at your place,” you said.

He gave you a soft smile as he sat down next to you. You could feel the body heat emanating from him and it gave you comfort as you were shivering.

“So, movie night or...drama series night?,” he raised his eyebrows.

Fuck, that was cute.

“We have class tomorrow but it starts late. I don’t know,” you reasoned.

“So, drama series night it is,” he said as he turned on Gossip Girl for you to watch.

You snuggled up close to him as he lay an arm over your shoulder. The comfort of you against him slowly lulled you to sleep.

The only thing you remember before going to sleep is Peter setting down on the bed.

You woke up to the sound of an alarm blaring loudly, threatening to rip off your eardrums. You tried to reach it to press the Snooze button but something was holding you down, not allowing to move.

Wait, this doesn’t even sound like my alarm...

You opened your eyelids to see a creamy pale neck and chest. You looked up a little and saw Peter’s arms around you in a hugging manner with a bare chest. You felt content and happy looking at the view in front of you. You could stay like this forever.

What the fuck, man? Come back to your senses!

You tried to move from your spot without waking up Peter, but you were futile at your attempt.

“Hey Y/N, good morning, love,” he said as rose, rubbing his eyes to make his vision clearer.

You gave him a soft smile before you looked at the clock near the bedside. The LED screen showed that the time was 8.00 am in the morning. Your class starts at 8.45 am.

“Oh shoot, Pete. I have to go now as my class starts soon. See ya soon!” you exclaimed as you grabbed your stuff and made a beeline for your room.

Peter just sat there smiling like a goof, reveling in the fact that you just slept with him, not in that way, but in a good way.

As you were heading to the cafeteria after the class, you stopped by the receptionist to take a pamphlet concerning an extra course that you were planning to take. 

You stopped in your tracks when you spotted a notice in your peripheral vision. The notice said “ SUMMER PLAY : The Prince and The Pauper” and to also include the name of those who are interested. You grabbed a pen and scribbled down your name as fast as you could.

MJ, Ned and Rowan were waiting for you at the cafeteria, because Rowan wanted to meet up and tell you guys something about Tom.

“Ok, as we all know, Tom is a playboy who is rude to everyone and I found out the cause of it,” Rowan crossed her fingers in a sassy way.

“Wait, I thought that was a disorder he was born with?”

“Ned, that’s just plain rude, man,” Michelle frowned.

“Okay, okay, I was just joking. Come on, Rowan, spill the beans,” Ned raised his hand in a surrendering motion.

“So, Tom used to date a popular girl called Laura in high school. Their relationship looked good on the outside but actually it was wrecked as hell. There were also rumors that Tom went through depression,” 

“Just one day before their two year dating anniversary, Laura broke up with Tom because she was cheating on him all this while. Tom then changed school and no one from his old high school heard from him ever again,”

“How sure are you of this?” Ned raised his eyebrows.

“My sources, I have. Very trusty, they are,” she replied with a smirk.

“A very good reference, that was,” Ned let out a hearty laugh.

Tom laid against the couch of the common room, the soft glow from the television illuminating his face. He slowly played with the curls of his hair absentmindedly.

His thoughts were filled with you. Thank God, he didn’t have any classes today or he wouldn’t have paid attention. It wasn’t like he ever paid attention anyways.

Why didn’t she sleep here?

Does she hate me that much?

A soft rustling sound from the other side of the room woke him up from his thoughts. He first shook it of as the sound of leaves rustling, but he got alerted when he heard a loud thud.

He took the baseball bat that you used and held it in a ready-to-strike position and tried to find the source of the sound. He let out a breathy gasp as he realized it was coming from your room.

Is she sneaking in?

Tom’s hand was on the door knob as he tried to steady his breathing before opening the door. When he opened the door, he got the shock of his life.

It was Spider-man on the floor clutching his side.

“Holy shit, you are Spider-man! My childhood idol!,” Tom practically shouted on the top of his lungs.

“Dude, chill. Where’s Y/N?” the masked hero asked without looking at Tom.

“Oh, she’s not here yet. Wait, how do you know her?” he asked her.

Spider-man just responded to him with a grunt as tried to stop the blood flow from his side. Tom noticed the blood seeping through his suit and his mask and ran to the common room to take the first-aid kit.

“Wait, you can’t take off my mask!,” Spider-man protested as Tom tried to pull off his mask.

“Then how you expect me to treat you?!” Tom shouted in his face.

The masked superhero reluctantly took off his mask to come face to face with his doppelgänger.

“What in the world?” Peter muttered under his breath as both of the young teenagers stared in disbelieve.

“Do you know you look like Tom Holland?” Tom asked Peter.

“Who the hell is that?”

“Me, Bitch,”

( pls stop me from quoting vines )

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[jodiwalker]

Every Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Thing Arie Did in Part 1 of the Awful, Riveting, No Fun, Painfully Mesmerizing 'Bachelor' Finale

So, as it turns out: "needle dick" was a pretty solid assessment of a highly thoughtless person, gifted to us during The Bachelor's season 22 “Women Tell All” special a few weeks ago. Yes, it was an assessment made by a pathological narcissist with a YouTube channel and a WebMD printout of "laryngitis" symptoms, but still...

On Monday night, The Bachelor decided to air three hours' worth of their chosen testicle-in-charge Arie repeatedly telling his final two sister-girlfriends that he was so in love with each of them, choosing one to propose marriage to, and then breaking off the engagement with That One while a camera crew filmed the whole thing because he figured out he was actually in love with The Other One. Now, let's be clear: Becca K. as she's known around the Bachelor Thunderdome, has dodged the most boring of bullets. When all is said and done — or in the case of Arie and Lauren, when all is just done — this situation will ultimately be nothing but a win for Becca K. She comes out looking like a Minnesota rose with the most treasured quality of all: not being engaged to Arie.

But this entire show is designed to make Becca fall in love with Arie, and she did that. Becca did exactly what The Bachelor asked of her, and they repaid her by having a dude whose personality amounts to "cars go vroom vroom" break up with her in real time on national television. Obviously, the very worst thing Arie did on Monday night was setting his fiancé up for a blindside, and agreeing to film it for mass consumption. But in The Bachelor world, it's near impossible to know what's contractually obligated and what kind of behind-the-scenes manipulation is at play. I put the burden of airing Becca's heartbreak on this franchise; at least until the final two hours of this trainwreck air on Tuesday night when perhaps Arie will explain himself [ed. note: hahhahahahaha omg srsly, wut am i thinking?].

Even with that benefit of the doubt given to Arie about just how callous and insensitive we could believe him to be to the women he claims to love, our Bachelor still spent the entire three hours of Monday's filmed finale in "hold my beer, watch this" mode. Truly, he had moves we've never seen — and a few we've all seen. Without needing to hear a single thing he has to say live on Tuesday night, these are unequivocally The Worst Things Arie did in Monday night's Bachelor finale:

TELLING BOTH WOMEN HE LOVED THEM EVERY TIME THEY GLANCED IN HIS DIRECTION

At some point, Arie decided to replace his most-used catch phrase, "I love that," which is entirely devoid of meaning, with a variation—"I love you"—which is one of the most important phrases in the English language. When Ben Higgins told both of his final two women that he loved them, he immediately knew he'd made a mistake, and spent the rest of the finale looking like he was going to throw up on his penny loafers. Because Ben realized telling them such an important thing would make both women feel extremely confident, and eventually one of them would be extra hurt and confused, knowing that he loved her a day ago when they were making out by a waterfall, but he's now rejecting her next to a pedestal from Home Goods with Chris Harrison lurking around in the background. Basically, Ben took one single moment to consider his girlfriends' feelings and was like, Ohhhh, I'm a fucking idiot.

Arie is a fucking idiot who will never, ever realize it, as is evidenced over and over again in his final, excruciating breakup with Becca. He loved that Becca and Lauren both felt so confident about their relationship with him, almost like he never once considered that one of them would be completely traumatized once they hobbled down a Peruvian hillside in the name of an engagement to the man they loved—and who loved them!—only to get a swift Kanye to the face [ed note: you know, Imma let you finish, but Becca had the best wife potential of all time]. Arie telling both women he loved them repeatedly, often, and with mounting conviction wasn't his worst mistake, but it was his most fundamental mistake. It's the infrastructural jackassery upon which his Mount Rushmore of his jackassery stands. Shall we proceed?

ASKING HIS FAMILY WHICH OF HIS TWO BELOVED GIRLFRIENDS HE SHOULD MARRY

Okay, I did kind of savor how rude Arie's parents were without seeming to have any idea how awful they were being. While I could empathetically understand that it would suck for Becca that Arie's family kept being like, Yes when we met Arie Jr.'s other girlfriend Lauren yesterday, we enjoyed her exactly as much as we are currently enjoying you…it was also a little hilarious how insensitively clueless they were. Heyyyy, it's almost like that characteristic runs in the family or something! Food for thought.

My family's opinion matters to me too — wanting to keep that opinion hovering around "only slightly worried about her delayed progression into adulthood" is one of the many reasons I would never go on The Bachelor (the other reasons are that The Bachelor wouldn't take me because I have curly hair, have never been a catalog model, and unabashedly ate a cookie for breakfast last week). What I'm saying, is your family's opinions go out the window the minute you decide to do any of this. But Arie clearly couldn't get past his family's assessment of two women they'd spent maybe three hours with, and whose only immediate differentiating features are: one is shy-nice, and one is outgoing-nice and they have two different hair colors, though I can't for the life of me remember which belonged to which woman. I want to say there was a Sarah. Was someone named Sarah, Arie Jr.??? Anyway, pick Becca—she talks!

AT LEAST ARIE'S FAMILY COULD EXPLAIN WHY THEY CHOSE BECCA OVER LAUREN

This situation was doomed from the moment ol' Pillow Lips himself explained that he wanted to be able to tell Lauren something that would help her understand why he was breaking up with her, "But I have no real reason to give her."

All I wanted to say to Arie throughout the entire finale was: TRY, Arie. Why don't you just try to explain it? It's a good practice, trying! I get that it's hard, but if you put in the work, and try even a little bit to understand your feelings, I swear you can ink something out, even if it's just: I do love this, and I don't love this. Those words are very solidly in your vocabulary, I know it. Just TRY to relay your feelings to the people you supposedly love, you weak-willed doofus!

LETTING LAUREN LAY OUT ALL THE REASONS SHE LOVES HIM BEFORE TELLING HER HE'S BREAKING UP WITH HER

Rude, so rude. This woman literally hates to speak, Arie—that is what you love about her! (I think!) And you're going to let her go on and on, quite eloquently might I add, about how you've inspired her to let her walls down and how she's soooo glad she finally let herself believe that this love could be real??? This man's spine is made of pudding cups.

TELLING LAUREN HE LOVED HER AS SHE GOT IN THE BREAKUP LIMO

At this point, the idiocy truly became astounding. Not only has he blindsided and traumatized a woman who he has been telling that he loves for weeks by choosing another women over her, but now he's going to tell Lauren that he loves her moments before proposing to Becca? Has he considered that might be painful for his alleged future wife? Of course not! I think if you told Arie that other people have internal thoughts and feelings just like him, his head would explode, and then he'd just go on living his exact same life as a headless torso being told what to do by the Bachelor producers. But at least this brings us to...

HONORABLE MENTION: THE BEST THING LAUREN DID

I know this will shock you, but the best thing Lauren did during the finale was speak a series of words out loud — and boy were those words dead on the money. In the limo, feeling shocked and betrayed, she repeats out loud one of the idiotic things Arie told her when he broke up with her: that he didn't know who he was going to choose until just that morning. "Does that not terrify him?" she asks. "How could you get down on one knee if you weren't sure, like, three hours ago?" An excellent question, and proof that even Lauren would have been a more equipped Bachelor than Arie.  

PROPOSING TO BECCA

Obviously, Arie's biggest mistake, from which there is no turning back—although he sure does try, that stinker!—was exactly what Lauren couldn't wrap her head around: he got down on one knee and proposed marriage to Becca when he had been completely in love with another woman and unsure of who he wanted to spend the rest of his life with just hours before. 

Never has it been clearer how toxic the construct of this show is than now, when it's been thrust upon a canvas as blank and malleable as Arie. He spends the entire finale saying he's not sure about one woman, spending time with that woman, and then being completely reassured that he's in love with her, basically because she is in love with him; lather, rinse, repeat with the next one. I truly believe that if Becca had the first final date with Arie, and Lauren had the second spot, Arie would have chosen Lauren instead. He has the emotional retention span of a drunken dance floor makeout. I think a baby trying ice cream for the first time might have a stronger grasp on what love is than Arie.

Oh, and let's not forget this standout line from Arie’s proposal of marriage: "I choose you today, and I choose you every day from here on out." Arie apparently thought "here-on-out" was like one of those Old English words like "wherefore" or "fortnight" where it sounds like it means one thing (forever), but actually means another (two months, or whenever the camera crew is available to come out to this mansion in the Hills).

THE ENTIRE BREAK UP CONVERSATION WITH BECCA, START TO (ATTEMPTED) FINISH

Assessing the production genius and emotional sociopathy of the decision to show Arie breaking Becca's heart in real-time split-screen is for another time. For now, let's just block off the next four hours to discuss every single stupid thing Arie did during said exploitative disaster. First, after sitting Becca down for a serious talk, Arie tries to ask her how a recent trip to Las Vegas was and compliment a new tattoo. [Ed. note: The distraction of trying to figure out if the tattoo had anything to do with Arie, and ultimately, the immense relief that it did not but was merely your average bumblebee wrist-tattoo, was at least appreciated.]

Becca, however, is like, cut the shit and tell me what you want to talk about; that is our first sign that Becca is equipped to deal with the fuck boi nonsense that is about to be presented to her. I would like to be clear though, that just because Becca is strong, and Arie is weak, would not make this any less painful for her. 

Arie then proceeds to explain in great detail how he can't explain why he's breaking up with her, except to say it in the absolute harshest, and most callous way possible: "The more I hung out with you, the more I felt like I was losing the possibility of maybe reconciling things with Lauren." I honestly think the worst part of that awful statement isn't saying that you've been thinking about someone else the entire time you’ve been with Becca; it isn't saying that you're leaving her for another woman; it isn't naming that woman by name just to really drive the knife right in the bumblebee tattoo; it's calling your engagement "hanging out." GROW UP, ARIE!!!

Becca's flawless response: "Are you fucking kidding me?" NEVER CHANGE, BECCA!!!

Arie goes on to say just about every wrong thing possible. He didn't think "it would be fair" to stay with Becca if he was only half in the relationship. "So are you going to be half in with her?" Becca asks. Nope, Arie's gonna full-love Lauren, and he feels like he's been "pretty upfront" with Becca about how he's been struggling to get past his feelings for Lauren. That's when Becca's left hand with her giant engagement ring briefly dips below the split-screen, and without saying anything, comes back up diamondless. And that's when I fall in full-love with Becca. Perhaps, Arie says, he didn't let Becca know "the extent" to which he hadn't moved on from Lauren. "Clearly," says Becca, a queen.

Then this martyr-ass-muthafucka tells the fiancé he's breaking up with in order to go chase after another woman that he "thought it would be good for us to talk about this now," rather than doing it on After the Final Rose. Becca tells him it would have been good if he hadn't proposed to her in the first place. She says she's done here, and goes in the back of the house to start re-packing the suitcases she brought with her when she was assuming this would be a romantic weekend with her fiancé…

NOT FUCKING LEAVING WHEN BECCA ASKED HIM TO FUCKING LEAVE 100 DIFFERENT TIMES

People talk to me about The Bachelor a lot. Even when I'm not writing about a season, or not really watching it, they know I'll be down to clown about The Bachelor and I love that — always talk to me about The Bachelor, I beg of you.

The number one thing I've heard from women who watched last night's slow-motion disaster, is how sick they felt watching Arie hang around that house and follow Becca around, and ask her to talk to him, even after she’d repeatedly told him that she wanted him to leave and had nothing to say to him. Because there is a certain type of immature man than many women (and men, I'd imagine) have dealt with: men who want women to reassure them that they're still good men even though they're doing a bad thing. Arie begged Becca to talk to him some more, and when she relented, he stared at her in silence. Because he was waiting and waiting for her alleviate the emotional weight of his guilt for him, so that he wouldn't have to feel it anymore.

Becca refused to do that: she refused to hug him goodbye. She refused to tell him that it was okay. She refused to tie an ugly situation up with a pretty bow in order to take this man's emotional baggage onto her already heaving load. And that is the admirable, strong, very good, incredibly courageous thing Becca did.

[whatson-northwales]

The sun has finally broken through the clouds here in north Wales, and the temptation to get into the Snowdonia hills, got to much to handle. There has been a dusting of snow from 650m up in the northern hills in Snowdonia for a week. So before the winter disappears into the distance I’m out to get some winter hill walking training in.

Breaking back into winter fitness with pack weight takes me some time, so I tend to get a few mid range walks in to create some stamina and get my body, legs and engine used to the different fitness that winter walking has to offer. With the day in question being Saturday, I had been asked by a colleague to go and do the north ridge of Tryfan, which in winter has been on my hit list. Without real fitness, iced up and on a weekend, I decided to get some hill fitness time on Carnedd y filiast instead and leave him to his busy and frozen north ridge. Good job Rob.

A wintery looking north ridge of Tryfan in the distance 

The Ogwen valley can get a tad busy at weekends in winter and if you are really serious about bagging peaks, its almost best of you get there at 6am to find parking and begin in the dark. The cars at Cwm idwal, when I got there at 9 am, where already taling back for 400m in either direction from Ogwen cottage! So with that said, I use a bit of discretion and common sense. I head to a quitter part of the Snowdonia range. Now initially I had though about doing some hill repeats, on the steeper sections on Y Garn or Pen Yr Olwen, but with Cwm Idwal being rammed, I chose to opt for the quieter parts of the Carendd y Filiast area and doing some nav with some fitness training with 15kg pack weight.

Why the pack weight you ask? Well winter climbing is what I’m actually getting fitness for, we have to drag up a fair amount of climbing kit with us and it weighs a fair bit so, its always good to get the body accustomed to some extra weight, so when the snow and ice arrives its not too much of a shock to the system.

With all the pack weight comes more frequent water drinking stops

So Carnedd y Filiast is a nice steep peak, its quite and its remote and I like to practice nav there. The peaks where I can go straight up hard and fast are excellent for the fitness curve, even if I am slow and steady at this point in the year, the diesel engine slowly builds up momentum. I park on the old roman road in a lay-by, don’t obstruct traffic if your going to the same and be considerate to there road users in the valley.  There are two access points to the beginning of the walking route, one stile which is near the house on the roman road and there is a wooden gate further up the old slate quarry man track.

Stile access near the house, be warned its wet here.

The route winds its way up the grassy sections up into the valley above where at about 650m, where it steepens and then moves into the scree sections up towards the summit. The parking spot for the car starts at 200m and the peak is at 820m and its fairly steep but quite enjoyable indeed. The sun will be on you this time of year from 9am over the top of tryfan and as long as you stick to the outer right section, the sun will grace you with its warming rays up until the scree slopes. I like to break right at the scree slopes and make my summit bit from there. This its around I hiked to 700m, did some hill repeats from 600m-700m on the steep stuff and avoided the scree. The idea of hill repeats comes from my running days where I would practice hills over and over in preparation for the snowdonia marathon. 3-6 sets of South stack hills and steps would be run with a optional 6 mile run bolted on for friendliness.  I wonder how I would cope with that now a decade on..

The training worked out well and at 700m I did some relocation nav and had a well deserved Organic warm cocoa, no food for these shorter ones in the sun. Just plenty of stream water from the fast running sections of the streams. Its worth taking a half hour sometimes juts high up to sit and take it all in, I often find that altitude I can get much clearer thinking and things that seemed to bother me, kind of melt away in the midday sun, surrounded by all the beauty that we take so for granted on our door step. Not a soul came by in 3 hours, not even a bird in fact, these was nothing to really mark the barren landscape other than this one lonely sole tree in the distance a 1000m from where I was sitting.

Taking time to readjust our senses to being present and becoming ever conscious of the present moment and giving some gratitude for the blessing and faculties that we have in life is so important. With the world feeling kind of heavy for some many people, I urge you to find solace from a crazy world by finning inner solace in nature, it works for me every time. Nature is the best healer there ever was and is. After lying down on my sack for the best part of thirty minutes, it was time to head down to finish the training off, I like to take a different route down and this time I feathered off tot he left into the valley below, where I found the original path I had been looking for on the ascent. oh well, its nice to go off the beaten track sometime and the beautiful flora, fauna and geology when I go off piste never ceases to amaze me. Some examples of the wild and beautiful plant life of Snowdonia below.

  What can me these small walks more significant is the amazing views you get on a blue sky days. Looking over towards Carnedd Daffydd and Llywelyn the white snow line looked especially beautiful with he blue back drop and then over the north west the Menai Strait and Penmon all looked as if they where but a stones throw away, a nice clear line out from land to see cleared by a monstrous glacier almost 10,000 years ago.

Menai Strait in the background an the Ogwen valley leading down to it

Can you beat these blue sky days in the hills?

So with the sun on my back I decided to descend in a slow an steady way, it was that kind of day, no need to bag the peak, I got the fitness hit, ill go for that on the next run. My last few months has been a little hit and miss on the training front so ill go slow and steady as not to get an injury which is often the case when I’m a thousand mile an hour. The descent is always a great part, try and find a route, see a sheep track follow it for a bit, get a little lost, find another way and repeat. Quite a fun off piste way to descend hill, the occasional step into a mud calf deep bog also tends to amuse me.

Peculiar rocks on the descent ..seemed a bit spooky.

The sun was beating so hard down when I got to 300m I could not resist the urge to sit quietly on a rock and take a moment to look at the hills.  Looking up top its east to try and plot new routes. for instance there is a route I saw that traverse the other side of the valley from Pen yr Ol wen to Carnedd Dafydd which looks rather fun, and you could in theory drop down on to the road side rather than have to do that boring walk out to Gerlan!

Is it so wrong to take a selfie?! Enjoying the sunshine 

I got back to the car and then had the great pleasure of waiting a few hours until my partner (a little older and wiser at 70) did his ridge walk. So I headed for a walk around ideal lake and stretched my legs then had some veggie lunch in the sun. Tryfan north ridge will have to be ticked off in the next month I dare say, ill keep you all posted. As I sat until sunset waiting for my friend the most amazing lenticular emerged over y garn and with a night sky behind it looked rather magical. The temperature dropped and the van campers where all in the car parks preparing their sleeps for the night. A great end to a great day.

Lenticular clouds incoming over Y Garn

  Good description of the route here by Mudandroutes.com

Route time : 3 hours

Roue distance : 6km

Elevation : 630m

  Thanks for stopping by and reading our blog we appreciate every single one of you. Feel free to leave us a comment, give the blog a like and share the content far and wide. If you have a favourite hike in Snowdonia then drop a mention in the comments below, we love to hear from you all.

Here are some other articles that might be of interest to you regarding Snowodnia.  You could look at our blog on top walks in Snowdonia  That would be a good start, and then maybe have a look at the top attractions in Snowdonia too for some ideas on what to have a look at. Don’t forget we have lots of new ideas on things to do in north Wales on the new website also. Favourite cafes in Snowdonia is another too. Enjoy.

Well if your heading out this weekend, I hope you have a greet weekend here in north Wales, weather look fantastic and there is a dusting of snow on them hills, enjoy and take the usual winter kit packlist, head out early and head down early and check the weather always.

Take care,

Nick

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  Winter Walking in the Ogwen valley, Snowdonia The sun has finally broken through the clouds here in north Wales, and the temptation to get into the Snowdonia hills, got to much to handle.