#also same jim someone's gotta watch all the tv and it's me

[nick-nellson]

THE OFFICE 1.03 Health Care

[tiecladartist]

Okay, spoilers beneath the cut because I have some issues with Rise of the Titans.

Tales of Arcadia is one of my favorite series ever. It handled the "Kid is the chosen one" situation brilliantly, every character had depth (even characters like Steve, Eli, the teachers, etc). Theme was expertly handled with each part of the series. Destiny, heroism and sacrifice for Trollhunters; Family, duty and home for 3-Below; Legacy, prejudice and family (again) for Wizards. Every season brought me to tears, made me laugh, made me fear for the safety of the characters and want good things for them after watching them sacrifice over and over again. It is a comfort show for me and always will be.

Now, the movie...

So, I don't think it was bad. I also don't think it was good, unfortunately. The animation took a bit of getting used to after bingeing everything else leading up to this, but I can't deny it was incredibly beautiful. It was especially nice to see places other than Arcadia and Akiridion-5. It started off strong with the train fight, and admittedly there were a lot of scenes I quite liked during the movie. But, just the scenes. I liked moments, but overall it didn't come together quite as well as the shows did.

The biggest factor is likely time. I doubt making this a movie was the initial plan since I know production companies enjoy snubbing out strong series for various reasons. Honestly, I was surprised we got an "ending" at all based on the trends of recent shows being forced to wrap things up prematurely. Even Wizards felt rushed compared to the others and as a result a lot of interesting concepts were brushed over quickly. I mean, I for one would've loved to see more Camelot "filler" shenanigans since those less plot-heavy episodes that we had throughout Trollhunters and 3-Below helped us explore the characters and grow to love them, and we didn't get quite as much of that with Douxie, Archie, Lancelot, Charlemagne, etc. But I digress, this post is supposed to be about the movie, not Wizards.

So yeah, I think Rise of the Titans should've been a show rather than a movie. We could have more time before Nari is captured, focusing on the "where are they now" of all the characters after the year we skipped. Jim gets to cook and eat human food after losing that passion when becoming a troll, adjusting to being human again! Maybe him and Toby talk about Barbara and Stickler being together and how it's kinda weird (Toby could compare it to having conflicting feelings over his Nana dating an alien). Krel and Aja have a call about how it is being the Queen and Steve interrupts because he misses Aja. Perhaps we hear Eli in the background doing something related to the "Secret weapon" and the call gets cut off quickly because this leads to a small disaster on Aja's end that she needs to go fix. Claire is practicing her magic with the help of Zoe while Douxie is off with Nari. NARI AND DOUXIE INTERACT WITH EACHOTHER AND WE ACTUALLY GET TO SEE IT! (Like, I know that they were travelling together for a year and that that is why Douxie is sad when Nari dies, but it didn't impact at all outside of empathy because there was no emotional investment on my end towards their friendship). But yeah, we get to see what's going on with everyone, and then perhaps this first episode ends with the reveal of them being ready for a plan of sorts (luring the arcane order and cutting off their magic. That wouldn't be revealed though). Cut to the Arcane Order in their super secret clubhouse saying they're close to finding Nari and you get a decent cliffhanger.

Episode 2 would start with the train fight and go fairly the same way. We see Jim struggling with fighting with no armor. Or perhaps he has akiridion armor, but it's too rigid or keeps malfunctioning (doesn't fit, so to speak). Only difference is that Jim's arc wouldn't be about whether or not he's still the trollhunter, because we've been through that already and he knows. I could get having moments of doubt, but his full on denial was kinda out of place after everything he went through. Instead, it could be that he feels useless due to now being a burden in a fight. Or perhaps instead he's wrestling with guilt. He's blaming himself since the arcane order got the seals due to them trying to rescue him. Maybe both? Maybe he even misses his troll body and feels that he's too weak now. Yes, he's still the trollhunter, amulet or not, but he's feeling less and less capable of answering this particular call, and that bothers him. He doesn't want to be a burden after all. Fight ends with the train crash, arrest, Douxie swapping with Nari, all the same.

Now, this is where things would go very very differently. Have more time before Douxie and Nari switch back. Let the Arcane order monologue a little more. They want to reset the world because the balance has been shifted? Cool! Tell me more! Did they used to try to get along with the humans? Did they try diplomacy in the past only to fail due to the stubborn humans, and that's why they've decided to take drastic measures? Or if not, explore why they believe they're the ones allowed to decide the balance is off. Is it because they're powerful? Or how long they've been on Earth? Did they reset it in the past and thus know through experience? I don't mind not knowing, since not everything needs to be spelled out for the audience, but there was potential to make them characters rather than obstacles, and it wasn't really utilized to its full potential. Allow Douxie to pick their brains a little instead of immediately swapping him and Nari back and only succeeding in delaying things a few more hours. Hell, if it was a TV show I honestly would've had one or two episodes before doing that while we address how that initial failure (and the fact that magical creatures/aliens were revealed to the world) affected everyone.

Maybe I'll go through and like, actually plot out episodes and stuff, but since I only just finished watching, here's just some various things I'd change:

-Get rid of that whole Steve pregnancy. That was just out of place and rather than the "comedy" breaking the tension, it shattered it completely and distracted from everything. If you wanna explore his father-based character arc, maybe have him and Aja discussing the fact that now that she's queen, she'll need heirs. And maybe Steve isn't sure he could be a good dad due to his history with paternal figures. You could even have it that he's taking care of Nari while her and Douxie are switched, and that leads to a situation where he helps her out and realizes he may be a better dad than expected. Or perhaps Blinky gives him paternal advice. Or Strickler. Or even BARBARA AND JIM like, Steve couldn't be worse than Jim's dad, and letting Steve and Jim bond over that would be nice. There was so much potential, but instead, Steve was reduced to an out of place running gag instead of getting a resolution to his character arc. And hey, if you wanna keep the whole male akiridions give birth thing that's cool, but it's gotta be done in moments where it won't distract. Or, you could even have it be that it means Aja and Steve need to adopt because uh... she's inorganic and he's organic? His body likely isn't actually built for akiridion childbirth despite the movie glossing over this fact? And maybe Steve has mixed feelings about someone else being the dad of his kids, but Coach and him talk about how Coach isn't his biological dad, but that doesn't mean he loves Steve any less.

-GIVE DOUXIE MORE SCREEN TIME! Seriously, had this been a show he would have the most potential for character growth out of everyone. His series was the shortest, so really all he got was a confidence boost and moving past needing Merlin's approval. But there was so much to explore with him still. What was up with that extreme burst of magic after Merlin's death that was never brought up again? How has he been mentally handling singlehandedly guarding Nari against the Arcane order for a year? Once he and Nari switch back, does he feel guilt over not being able to protect her? "Merlin wouldn't have failed like that. He kept her safe for thousands of years, I lasted a little over one". Perhaps, in his constant desire to prove himself to the people he cares about, he takes risky moves to try and save Nari again and make up for his mistakes, similar to how Jim was acting in the movie. Eventually, when he and Nari meet up again when trying to break her controlled state, Douxie is apologizing and talking about how he wants to make things right. He sees Nari as a friend; as family, just as much as Archie, and he doesn't want to lose her like he lost Merlin. He doesn't want to lose anyone else (which would make Archie getting stuck in the other Trollmarket, and Nari's sacrifice even more painful later on if that still happened).

-Krel, Eli and Stewart also needed more time. I get it was a movie, so time was short, but still. Krel's entire thing is that he grew to see Earth as his true home, and we didn't get to address the fact that he was immediately at risk of losing it at all. Not to mention the sheer amount of stuff he'd built for everyone. Like, could you imagine an episode where, to break up the tension (in a proper way, not a weird pregnancy way), in the midst of everyone trying to figure out how to stop the titans, Krel has overworked himself fixing and managing everyone's tech. He has to spend a day resting and disasters ensue as no one knows how to fix any of the stuff he usually manages. Like the tech keeping Camelot afloat, for example. Stewart and Eli could be the ones that end up stepping up to fill the Krel sized gap for the day.

-And I know that these fillers would lower the tension a bit, but like, having the titans need to charge up after awakening (like, absorbing elemental energy or something), or perhaps making the Arcane Order have to collect certain things to break the seals in the first place that they had on their fortress but lost when that was destroyed , or any other kinda obstacle to give time between the train fight and the Titans waking up would give time for less plot-heavy, more character focused episodes. And even after the titans wake up, they were moving super slowly and walking across the planet. It's not like they'd be short on time despite the movie making it seem like walking from china to america was a short jog at most.

-Don't give Toby the amulet. Don't get me wrong, I love Toby very much and literally bawled out loud at his sacrifice scene. But like, it made no sense to give him the amulet? Jim doing everything again with years of Trollhunter experience would help solve a lot of problems from his first go around (and I'm not fully on board with the whole time reset in the first place. Resetting to the start of the movie, or even just the fight with Bellroc would be better). Jim knows the burdens of being a trollhunter first hand, and you really think he'd be okay dumping all that on Tobes? Toby, the guy completely content with being the wingman and helping the people he cares about. Toby, the guy who never worried about not having a grand destiny up until the movie. The guy who in his biggest dreams was a Duke, not a king. I think Toby was well aware of how important moral support is and wouldn't see it as a lame superpower. But even if he did, in a tv show they could explore that in a way where he comes to learn just how much that moral support does for his friends. And if you still want his moment of glorious sacrifice (because I count that as one of the well done moments), then do that! But rather than going back in time to save everyone, make it so they sacrifice the stone to turn back time a bit. Risk their victory to try saving Toby. Have them fight Bellroc together instead of it being just Jim, because it's trollhunters, not trollhunter. It always has been, always will.

-And if you're like "But if they don't go back then Strickler and Nomura stay dead!" Then how about they don't kill them for shock factor in the first place? Have Strickler badly injured instead, because by god Barbara deserves some happiness. And think of the potential scene of her treating his wounds, and the two of them think about how things have changed since that visit to trollmarket when they were both hurt. About how Strickler stuck around, and when Barbara thought she'd lost him it scared her. How she's sick of almost losing everyone she cares about. She could talk a bit about Jim's dad then too, and it could be revealed that Jim was outside because he was going to check on them, but stopped when he realized they were talking. And then later on, he asks about his dad, admitting he overheard, and we get that conversation they had in the movie. And if you keep the Nomura sacrifice, give her more of a moment ffs. Like, she deserved better! Have the death be a sacrifice to save someone else instead of just "oops I got caught and I'm in the sun now". Make it deliberate. Make it her decision after a life of serving others. Finally, she got to be the one in control of her fate, and she chose to protect the people she cared about.

There's so much more I could say about this and the potential that was killed by the lack of time, but this is getting long and I should probably try actually doing the work I need to do today.

Edit (Because this just popped in my head and I need to add it).

THEY WERE LITERALLY AROUND THE ROUND TABLE! THE NINTH CONFIGURATION (which like, screw that there are more than 9 heroes here to save the day) WERE THE NEW KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE. They were there to protect the world, and like... did the bond between Lancelot and Steve just not exist anymore? Did that get timeline erased too? Could you imagine Steve fighting to protect the world, doing his best to protect the people he cared about so that he never loses someone like he lost Lance again? He gets to keep his promise to carry on the legacy of the Knights even after they died. THE POTENTIAL WAS THERE!!! THE SET UP WAS THERE!!! BUT NO! WE GET MPREG STEVE INSTEAD!!

[lovelyirony]

"a single thread of gold/tied me to you" for ironhusbands?💛

If there is one thing that James Rhodes cannot stand, it is “love at first sight.” In his professional and personal opinion, there is no such thing. It is simply a concept that Disney invented so they could make cutesy stories about princesses finding their princes immediately and give people hope about love, but in the end it is all about the money. 

“You’re a cynic,” his sister Jeanie tells him over breakfast. She flings a stray Cheerio at him. “You are a cynic and you’re never gonna date someone because they’re going to think you suck.” 

“People are going to date me and realize that I’m a good, realistic choice,” James responds, sticking his tongue out and stealing a drink of her orange juice. “People are going to date you and you’ll be disappointed because you watched too many romantic movies and you let it taint reality.” 

“Loser.” 

“Dork.” 

And then he’s in college. 

Surprisingly, he doesn’t meet Tony Stark for two years despite the fact that every single year, they live in the same building on different floors. He has had to evacuate about twenty different times because Tony cannot stop himself from doing experiments in his room. 

The third year, James is an RA and required to live with one of the residents because of “experimental tendencies.” They don’t elaborate on why he’s stuck with a roommate, what the tendencies are, or who he is. 

“You’ll know,” comes the email from the coordinator, and he has never wanted to curse so badly in an email before, but here he is. 

But he’ll deal with it. Just like how he’s going to deal with everything this year. 

-

He thought he would get the room to himself for a little while before everyone moved in and brought everything and he would check them in. 

But no. 

There’s his roommate, lounging on a bed, and grinning. 

“Simply enlightening to meet you, James. They told me I could come back if I had a trusted roommate.” 

“And they stuck you with me?” 

“Well they were going to stick me with some dude who got the email, and then immediately transferred to Dartmouth. So I think you were the second option.” 

“Great.” 

He hates life, maybe just a little bit. 

Tony wants to do things. Which is fine, but he isn’t really in the mood to have the conversation of the fact that he can do things, but he doesn’t want to do them. He has to focus on being an RA and preparing for the Air Force. 

“Why prepare for that when you could be living?” Tony asks, lounging on Rhodey’s bed. 

Oh yeah, that’s new too. Rhodey. Apparently, “Jim,” “James,” and “Rhodes” were unacceptable nicknames. 

What is acceptable is Rhodey. And of course, the “honey bunches of oats” and “loveliest RA of all time in the history of MIT” and “sugar-puff” and “sweetness overload” 

He’s responding to all of them, by the way. 

Rhodey didn’t think his mental health would get this bad by the beginning. He had actually scheduled it to be around October. 

- 

And then the students come. There are nervous freshmen, the sophomores who don’t say anything as they move in and get settled, and the returning juniors and seniors greet Rhodey and Tony with familiarity and laugh about the posters that Rhodey’s worked hard on. 

“So, we’re having joint-RA’s or something?” Miles asks, throwing his comforter over his bed. 

“No, we’re not,” Rhodey says, hoping his expression is somewhere along the lines of not-showing-emotion. “Tony’s just...” 

“I’m simply too exhausting for Housing to deal with anymore, so I have a babysitter,” Tony says with a wink. “And who better than our lovely Rhodey?” 

“Don’t call me that.” 

“Sugar-puff?” 

“Still no.” 

Miles snorts. 

“This year should be good. Tony, you gonna pull any fire alarms this year?” 

“Rhodey has expressly banned experiments in the building, unfortunately,” Tony sighs. “It’s like he doesn’t want everyone to bond over having to leave at two in the morning...” 

“Nothing says bonding like hating a rude wake-up call,” Rhodey says, and Tony nods. “We’ll let you get all moved in, Miles. Remember that floor dinner is at six!” 

“You got it!” 

Rhodey gives Tony a look. 

“You know, I can do this on my own.” 

“Aw shutterbug, I’m not gonna let you.” 

“Are you really this intent on following me around?” 

“Well, what if I want to overtake your position next year? What if you tragically get a raging headache and it’s up to me to know what to do? What if your mother kidnaps you and never lets you come here again?” 

“I’m sure the college kids will be fine,” Rhodey stresses. “And I’ll still have access to email and the groupchat, genius.” 

Tony just laughs. 

“Alright, okay. I gotta go get some shit for my new class. The teacher sent out an email stating that the textbook is mandatory, and we have to do book work. This feels like eighth grade all over again.” 

Rhodey snorts. 

“Is it for Professor Casper?” 

“Yeah, did you have him?” 

“Yeah, you don’t need the book. You can find it online for free, and he never collects the book work. It’s a waste of time to get the book.” 

“You’re an angel-and-a-half, love of my life,” Tony says. “And for that, I’ll snag an extra pudding for you at the dining hall.” 

“Is it vanilla or chocolate this time?” 

“Chocolate with cookies in it.” 

“Oh my god, seriously? Already?” 

“Guess they must have had a jump,” Tony teases. “I’ll see you at dinner.” 

- 

Tony has a specific way of getting people to open up and actually talk with others that Rhodey envies. 

If Tony wasn’t so hellbent on convincing the group that if Miles and Kamala create a distraction, they could totally sneak out one of the pictures of the mascot. 

“We are not doing that the first week,” Rhodey says. “Maybe the last.” 

“It’s a beaver,” Tony whines. “Who’s gonna miss it, a Canadian?” 

“It’ll be the floor bonding activity,” Gwen says, finishing off her fifth (maybe sixth) slice of pizza. “Better than talking about your feelings about the campus or whatever.” 

“No.” 

“We’ll convince him soon,” Tony whispers conspiratorially. “Also, who here is a freshman? I have some advice regarding the math classes and which teacher you want...” 

- 

Rhodey does have to admit, that sometimes it’s easier to have Tony around, who is so willing to stay up until the late hours because of some stupid drama or to help Peter at his chemistry homework and also ease his anxiety about leaving his Aunt May all alone. 

Tony isn’t all wild and crazy as stories have led him up to be. 

"I wore out all my crazy freshman year after going to two frat parties and deciding that no one knew anything about how to have fun,” he declared. “I mean, come on. Why have beer pong when you could quiz people about obscure fashion facts?” 

Rhodey snorts. 

“Don’t make that the next game night. Hey, what do you think about having a movie night this Friday? I’m thinking something not scary, we’ve been doing a lot of those.” 

“It is October, what do you mean not scary?” 

“Some of our residents don’t like scary,” Rhodey reminds him. “Honestly, I think we could do with a bit of Halloween fun.” 

“Hocus Pocus? Double Double, Toil and Trouble? If you want to be slightly scared of old women and clown parties, I’d recommend it.” 

“You weren’t scared of clowns beforehand?” 

“Of course not, I wanted what they have; the ability to fit eighteen people in a car.” 

“Couldn’t you just gut the car?” 

“Not the same effect, honey-pie. Not the same effect.” 

Miles and Peter both end up lobbying for Hocus Pocus, with little to no competition other than a promise that the other choice would be shown later on in the semester. 

They’ve shoved all the chairs together and multiple people have brought out their own chairs, and Tony saves a seat for Rhodey under the premise of “Rhodey organized it, he gets a seat.” 

It’s a tough squeeze, and Tony and Rhodey get all tangled up together. 

Tony smells like expensive cologne and coffee, and he grins up at Rhodey and maybe the lights from the TV aren’t bright enough, but for a moment his heart skips a beat. 

Well. Shit. 

When he goes home for Thanksgiving break, Tony seems a bit...sad. 

“What, your mom cook the worst turkey in the world?” he jokes. 

"Sure,” Tony says, eyes unfocused. “Yeah.” 

"Dude, you okay?” 

“Yeah,” Tony says, turning. His smile brightens, eyes crinkling. “Why wouldn’t I be fine, buttercup?” 

Rhodey gives him a look. 

“I’m gonna call you when I get home, okay? You better answer.” 

“I always answer to you,” Tony says, and damn Rhodey’s mind shouldn’t be going where it is. 

Rhodey waves, gets in his car, and thinks about how Tony most likely has a problem on his mind, how he should probably not room with him, and his Aunt Ada’s green beans. 

God, he loves those green beans. 

- 

Tony is alone for Thanksgiving. Jarvis and Ana got an opportunity to visit Aunt Peggy in England, and he knew that they hadn’t seen her in two years. He didn’t want to be selfish, have them stay just for him. 

So, it looked like deli turkey sandwiches were in his future. If there’s still some soda in the fridge, maybe that too. 

He sighs, and turns towards the lab. Dum-E’s not even here, as he didn’t fit in the travel car, so Tony let him loose on the floor to “keep guard” over the dorms and make sure that no one broke in or stole the cords that he knows he accidentally left in the common room. 

The odd thing is, he had almost told Rhodey. Almost let him know that he’d be alone for Thanksgiving, but is that weird? That’s weird, right? To tell people your emotions just...it’s so messy. 

They have to deal with it, you have to deal with the fact that they’re dealing with it, and then other people know that you both are dealing with it and it’s just a whole mess of epic proportions, you know? 

-

Rhodey finds out on Thanksgiving, when they’re doing the parade on the TV and there’s a new snippet on the gossip channel when they go on commercial break. 

Howard and Maria Stark, vacationing off the Mediterranean Coast. 

“It’s reported that Tony Stark has preferred to spend his time in the vacation home,” the news reporter said, her smile wide and placid. 

“Tony’s lucky,” Mama says, wrapping golden yarn around her fingers as she works on another sweater. (A small one, a tiny one. It’s for the new baby in the family for Christmas.) “He tell you about it?” 

“He’s not there,” Rhodey says numbly. 

“He’s not?” Dad says, eyes raised over the newspaper. 

“No.” 

“He didn’t tell you, did he?” Dad asks. 

“No, no he didn’t.” 

“Well then. Next time he’ll come with us.” 

Rhodey nods. 

“Christmas?” 

“Clear it with his parents if they’re not spending time together.” 

“Got it.” 

- 

Rhodey’s Thanksgiving is...nice. He can’t stop thinking about Tony going alone. 

So he calls him. It’s two in the morning, he might be asleep, and Rhodey’s not sure if he got the “eight” in the last four digits right or not. 

“Howard’s out, who is it?” comes a sleep-addled voice. 

“Good thing I’m not looking for Howard, Tones.” 

“Rhodey? Why are you calling me?” Tony asks, and Rhodey can imagine his eyes lighting up and that’s...that’s something. 

“You spent Thanksgiving alone, I wanted to see how you were.” 

“Aw, checking in your residents?” 

“Checking in on you.” 

Tony stills for a moment at the phone. 

Besides Jarvis, no one had ever really checked in on him. 

“Um, I’m fine?” 

“You sure?” 

“Yeah. I mean, it sucks to be alone on Thanksgiving, but I don’t really like any of the foods that people usually have, so I’ve been fine. I ordered wraps from my favorite place.” 

“Good to hear, good to hear.” 

There’s a silent pause for a moment, the one where they both try to find something to say. 

“Listen,” Rhodey says. “If you’re ever stuck for a holiday alone, you’re coming with me, okay?” 

“I don’t want to intrude on your family,” Tony says softly. 

“They all wanna meet you. Jeanie says she can kick your ass at ice hockey!” 

“You guys can actually play ice hockey?” 

“With limited degrees of success.” 

“Oh, now that I gotta see some time.”

- 

They come back to college, and Tony is back to his usual antics, greeting everyone who comes through the elevator with a shower of shredded paper. 

“Welcome to Winter Wonderland! Next stop: suffering through finals!” 

“Ugh,” Kamala groans, “stop it. Stop making me think. I have to memorize Byronic poetry. Do you know how boring that is?” 

"Speak for yourself, I have to build a wooden chair,” Riri whines. “Who works with wood these days? It’s so old-fashioned.” 

“Create the most bitching chair alive,” Tony says. “And I’ll help you with the necessary tools. Your professor isn’t expecting much, mainly just that it can support the weight of two people, you’ll be fine. Kam, Byronic poetry is not that bad, you will be good. We will bake cookies.” 

“Can we even bake cookies? I thought our floor got banned from kitchen usage,” Peter says. “Hey Rhodey.” 

“Hey kiddo,” Rhodey says. “First of all, yes we are banned from the kitchen. Second, we’re only banned and get in trouble so long as they know we’re there. And since more than half of us are nocturnal creatures and I am willing to wake up to help, we can bake cookies.” 

There are cheers around the room, and Tony mocks offense. 

“You don’t trust me to help the future youth?” 

“Given that we’re not allowed to rent out any more equipment from the front office? Yes.” 

“You wound me, darling.” 

“Only as much as kitchen equipment goes, sweetheart.” 

Tony grins. 

“Aw, you missed me.” 

“Yeah, I did. Now come on, you gotta help me with a billboard about the movie night this Friday. We thinking a romantic comedy or something mildly terrifying but probably won an award?” 

“Mildly terrifying!” Gwen calls from her dorm. “If we watch two people falling in love I’ll choke! We’ve been doing it all year!” 

“We’ve only watched, like, three rom-coms?” 

Gwen rolls her eyes, as if he’s missed something completely obvious. 

“You don’t get it. I’ll try again later. Hey, are we doing floor dinner tonight?” 

“They’re serving pizza sandwiches, so obviously,” Tony says. “We will feast like kings.” 

- 

Christmas is a festive time for Tony. He loves it, and goes overboard with decorations. Rhodey lets him, because you can’t stop Tony once he loves something (and Rhodey is kind of. Fond of him). 

Pepper comes up from the fifth floor, whistling. 

“Damn, Jim. I knew you would do a good job with decorations, but not this good. Is this...did you buy a miniature village? How was this budgeted?” 

“It wasn’t,” Rhodey says. “Tony’s really into Christmas and the floor convinced him that the theme should be Christmas Village. He’s been crafting identities for each villager instead of studying for any exam. The craft store employees know him by name now.” 

“Well, we all have our vices. You two seem to get along well. Housing is pleased that he hasn’t blown up anything yet.” 

“If they try to serve cheese ravioli again, he might.” 

“That’s a problem for Dining,” Pepper reminds him.  

“Still, it’s abominable. Where did they get them, bottom of the Hudson River?” 

She snorts, adjusting her shirt. 

“Probably, but hey. They still got eaten, even if that one freshman threw them all back up at the entrance.” 

“It was payback, they were vile.” 

Tony waltzes into the lobby, arms filled with glittering tinsel. 

“We are not letting you hang that,” Pepper says, gaping at it all. “Do you know how hard it is to get rid of tinsel?”

“We’ll manage!” Tony says. “Also, are you free at six-thirty?” 

“No, that’s when we’re getting dinner on my floor, what do you need?” 

“Just that little tidbit of knowledge,” Tony says, looking down at his phone. 

A message buzzes from the groupchat, and Rhodey glances at it: 

We are a go for the real Christmas tree. I have the vacuum, and a believable lie. Rhodey’s gonna tell us when the RA on duty is gonna come so we can hide it. 

Rhodey looks at Tony, grinning. He smiles right back. 

“Is there some weird roommate telekinesis I’m missing here?” Pepper asks. 

“Yes,” Rhodey says. “We’re discussing dinner plans.” 

Another text from Harley: 

I’m already picking one out with Peter. I have good taste. When is the ornament-making party? 

Pepper looks at them. 

“You’re planning something that I probably would have to disapprove of. I’ll tell people I got your floor watched tonight.” 

“Pepper, light of my life, my absolute sunshine? You’re the best,” Tony says, grinning. “Rhodey-darling, help me with tinsel?” 

He can’t say no. Simple as that. 

That is how tinsel gets strung throughout his hair as he’s watching Tony climb onto chairs that shouldn’t be climbed on to hang it from everywhere. 

“People deserve to have a good-looking Christmas,” he says. “Besides, I wanna win the decoration contest.” 

Rhodey laughs. 

“Okay, okay. I think we got it in the bag.” 

Later on in the week, Tony can be seen flitting about from room to room with help and jokes to lighten the mood. 

Rhodey has to admit, being an RA with Tony around is...nice. Better than he thought. 

And maybe he has feelings. He’s not going to say anything about it. After all, they’re roommates. He also isn’t allowed to have a relationship with anyone on the floor, regardless of anything. 

It doesn’t mean every RA follows it. God knows Sharon’s snuck down to the fourth floor to see Sam near-about every night, and her residents usually keep it a pretty good secret. 

Still. There’s also everything else to consider, and the fact that he doesn’t even know if Tony likes him like that. 

He doesn’t have to focus on it. 

- 

At least, not until the week of finals when he’s dying and Tony’s made him peppermint hot chocolate and sits on his bed, just about an inch away from his notes for his history class. 

“Do you remember what you told me on the phone?” Tony asks softly. 

“You up to compete against Jeanie for this year’s ice hockey championship?” Rhodey asks, smiling. 

Tension releases from Tony’s shoulders. 

“Only so long as you’ll have me.” 

“Always, genius. Always.” 

- 

After the last resident leaves for the holiday and Rhodey checks in with those who are staying, he and Tony hit the road, dragging suitcases behind them. 

“Are you sure I’m allowed?” Tony asks. “I can always find a hotel along the way...” 

“Mama wants to meet you, I keep telling them a ton about you,” Rhodey says, laughing. “They told me they want to hear your side of the great Glitter Debacle.” 

Tony laughs. 

“You mean the truth?” 

“Uh, I’m sorry, how are you going to convince them that green glitter was needed? And that you could clean it out of carpet?” 

“Determination and grit?” 

Rhodey laughs again as they pull onto the highway. 

- 

After a couple of hours, they make it to Rhodey’s home. His sister comes out, hugs for both. 

“Good to meet you Tony,” Jeanie says. “I’ve heard a lot, and I think we’re going to get along awesomely after I tell you every single embarrassing thing that Jim’s ever done.” 

“Only if I get to share stories too,” Tony teases, grinning. “Aw, they call you Jim?” 

“What do you call him?” Jeanie asks. 

“Jim-Jam, angel-dear, sugar-puff, Rhodey. You know, the usual.” 

Jeanie snorts, taking one of Rhodey’s bags. 

“Calling you the first one from now on.” 

“Tony did you have to let her hear any of those?” Rhodey asks, exasperated in a teasing manner. 

“Of course I did,” Tony sing-songed. “Now after you, I’m sure your mom is waiting to hug the living daylights out of you.” 

- 

It’s not until Rhodey gets all settled in and Tony is downstairs competing with his dad in a round of chess that Jeanie sits on his bed, the intention to annoy. 

But it’s...different. She looks at him. 

“You love him a lot, don’t you?” 

Rhodey stills. 

“You wouldn’t have told him he could come here if you didn’t.” 

“You’re right.” 

“I’m always right,” Jeanie says, flipping braids over her shoulder. “Nice of you to finally realize that I’m the smart one.” 

Rhodey doesn’t say anything as she saunters out of the room. 

He makes the decision not to tell Tony. 

If it goes wrong and if Tony says no, he doesn’t want it to be an awkward family event but more importantly, the most awkward rest of the year ever. He can say it as they’re moving out, and that’s that. 

He tells Jeanie as such. 

“I thought you didn’t believe in love,” she says as they’re preparing the soup for dinner.” 

“I don’t believe in love at first sight,” Rhodey says. “I do believe in love. There’s a difference.” 

There’s a hell of a difference. 

First sight, you don’t know everything. The second, third, fourth, fifth, and so on? Oh you learn so much more, and they become that more important. 

He learns that he doesn’t mind picking up tinsel, so long as Tony is laughing and singing along to all of the worst Christmas songs ever, and maybe. Just maybe he could picture looking at Tony underneath the fairy-lights that they hung in the dorm room for all time. 

Love is terrifyingly exhilarating, even when it isn’t supposed to be. 

Rhodey did not think his heart would race so much as Tony listened to his Mama talk about her wedding china, about the utter disaster that his father was. 

“He forgot his tie,” Mama said, smiling. “Oh my lord, my mother had a cow about that. I thought he looked kind of dashing.” 

Tony’s eyes drift towards the wedding pictures, which are slightly shaky, but everyone had such wide smiles. 

It’s a far cry from the publicity photos from the Stark wedding, Rhodey remembers the solemn expressions, the stuff tuxedos. 

“I love it,” Tony says softly. He looks at Rhodey across the table, setting down the final plate. “Tell me more, Mrs. Rhodes.” 

“Call me Mama, honey, Mrs. Rhodes is for people I don’t like that much. I think you’re gonna be my new favorite.” 

“Even over me?” Jeanie says, grinning as she kisses Dad on the cheek. “I’m your favorite.” 

“You’re my favorite until now,” Mama says. “Don’t think I don’t know that you skipped out on setting the table because Tony was here and graciously offered.” 

“It was nothing,” Tony says. “Just happy to help. Thank you for letting me stay at your home for the holidays.” 

“We’re always lucky to have guests,” Dad says, setting down the main dish. “Now let’s eat.” 

Family dinner is a brand new concept to Tony. He’s had maybe four or five of them, and the majority of which were staged for some holiday shoot or some “celebrating American values” shoot. 

It was awkward, weird, and he didn’t get why. 

Now, he does. Jeanie has been steadily moving mashed potatoes away from Rhodey’s plate, and Mama caught her eye and winked, distracting him with talk about his college major and news about the neighbors. 

Mr. Rhodes watches it all with a careful eye and a lax smile. 

After dinner, they play cards. 

It should be boring, but Jeanie puts on an old record and Rhodey keeps trying to count cards, and Tony didn’t think you could count cards in a game of Spoons. 

“You can’t, he’s just a try-hard,” Jeanie stage-whispers. 

“You-” 

Jeanie laughs, rolling herself out of Rhodey’s grasp as he chases her around the family room. Tony leans back into the couch, and shouts with surprise as Jeanie trips Rhodey into the couch. 

His body twists, and Rhodey’s facing him on the couch and they’re close and with the fire roaring in the fireplace and the Christmas lights outside shining through the windows, it’s almost magic. 

It is magic, but Rhodey is kind of terrified of that. 

Tony breathes in, breathes out. 

“Hello sugar-puff,” he says. 

“Hello genius,” Rhodey says, a smile on his face. 

Oh. 

The night does not get much sleep. 

Tony doesn’t sleep anyway, but Rhodey finds that quite often he can’t sleep without some softly-playing rock in the background, doesn’t matter if it is a highly-questionable AC/DC song. That and Tony softly murmuring about his plans, and it’s like a personalized lullaby. 

Rhodey cannot sleep. Tony’s in the guest room, and he can’t sleep. 

There’s a soft knock on his door. 

Tony’s there in shorts and a t-shirt that’s probably expensive, but he’ll never say if it is or not. 

“Can I...I can’t sleep.” 

“Get in here, Tones. I can’t sleep either.” 

The bed is a tight squeeze, but they make it work. 

Rhodey whispers until he drifts off to sleep about Christmas and school and everything else. 

Tony watches with quiet eyes, interjecting with his own stories occasionally. 

They fall asleep tangled up together, and Rhodey doesn’t mind it one bit, not as he pulls Tony in closer. 

-

Waking up is bittersweet, honestly. Rhodey has Tony in his arms, and that’s...that’s perfect. He thinks this is going to be the best thing that’s ever happened in his lifetime. 

“It’s too early, darling,” Tony groans. The light from outside is already peeking through the blinds, and he has stuffed his head right back into a pillow. 

“Jeanie’ll be here soon to bother us for Christmas breakfast,” Rhodey says. “And unless you want her pouncing on the bed and landing on wrong everything, we better get down there.” 

Tony smiles sleepily, stretching. 

“Thanks for letting me sleep in your room, honey-bunch.” 

“No problem,” Rhodey said. “Missed the constant AC/DC and late-night discussions about robotics.” 

“Not like I did much talking, Mr. Sap,” Tony teased. “Or was it me who mentioned that they had a favorite plate for dinner?” 

“Listen, it’s superior and you did not once interrupt that story to complain. I think I did a great job explaining it.” 

Tony laughs. 

“I’m gonna go get dressed, okay?” 

“Not until after present unwrapping,” Rhodey says. “We stay in pajamas.” 

“I’m cold,” Tony whines. 

Rhodey chucks his sweatshirt at him. 

“Then here you go.” 

Tony’s eyes light up as he shrugs it on, wiggling as he brings it up to his nose. It shouldn’t be that cute. But it is. 

“You are the light of my life.” 

Rhodey laughs, rolling his eyes. 

“Maybe. Now come on.” 

They head downstairs together, and they both get swept up into the speed of things, with Jeanie racing around the house and telling Tony that he got treats too, they just didn’t have a back-up stocking. 

“Hush,” Mr. Rhodes says, handing Tony a carefully wrapped gift. “After breakfast, we’ll go ahead and open it.” 

He smiles, and Rhodey thinks it’s the best thing he’ll ever see. 

- 

Christmas gifts, Rhodey thinks, are his new favorite thing to see Tony interact with. 

It’s painfully obvious that he’s never really had any personal gifts, anything that reminds people of himself. He carefully unwraps the paper, careful not to rip it. 

“You nerd,” Rhodey says, grinning. “Come on, show us what you got.” 

Tony laughs as he opens a box with two coffee mugs from the rest of the family, emblazoned with “Rhodes” on one cup, and the other being a simple red with gold trim. 

“They’re perfect,” he says. “Thank you so much.” 

“You’re feeding his coffee addiction,” Rhodey answers. 

“Like you aren’t doing the same,” Jeanie teases. “You made him his cups of coffee this morning.” 

“That is because I have trained him well,” Tony says, grinning. “Rhodey, here’s my present to you, open it.” 

He’s nervous. 

Both of them are, but Tony especially so. 

He told Rhodey once that he’s not good at shopping for other people. He tends to have the phrase “go big or go home” permanently circling in his mind, and it can lead to...complications. 

(Rhodey remembers the overhaul of his closet for his birthday, complete with a visit from a rather well-known designer.) 

Inside is a beautiful jacket. It’s all patchwork, artfully sewn together with embroidery thread spelling out “James” at the lapel. 

“I commissioned Janet,” Tony says, smiling softly. “She wants you to still walk in her fashion show, by the way. Says you’re a model.” 

Rhodey snorts, shrugging on the jacket. 

“You helped with this, right?” Rhodey says. “I can see it in the gold thread you got on the sleeves.” 

“I may have had some creative input.” 

“I love it,” Rhodey says. “Now here’s mine.” 

Tony breathes, and Rhodey wonders if this gift will be enough. He feels a bit stupid, it doesn’t seem like that great of a gift, in retrospect- 

It’s a puzzle. 

A puzzle of their favorite cafe and restaurant to go to at MIT. It was in a shop window, and Rhodey could tell that Tony would love it. 

On top is a scarf, since Tony gave away his last one to another student in their philosophy class. 

“I love it,” Tony breathes, tackling Rhodey in a hug. “I love it, I love it! We have to do the puzzle after this.” 

Mrs. Rhodes sends her husband a look. 

Yeah, Tony would be around for a long time. 

- 

They set up the puzzle on the floor of Rhodey’s room, clearing away any luggage. It’s silent for a while, Tony moving around the pieces and Rhodey looking for edge pieces. 

They work closely together, side by side. 

Rhodey can’t stop staring. 

He should be able to. He’s stopped himself before, but now? 

Sunlight is coming in through the window, playing around Tony’s fingers as he nimbly picks up puzzle pieces, and this is the eternity that Rhodey wants so badly. If he died right now, he thinks he would choose for Heaven to look like this. 

“You okay?” Tony asks, eyes looking up. He took his contacts out, and now he’s just in his tortoiseshell glasses, the ones that he secretly likes more and Rhodey loves. 

“I’m in love with you,” Rhodey blurts out, because he can’t stop thinking about how beautiful Tony is and how much he loves him. 

He realizes that this could very well be considered a mistake. Because they still have to live together and drive back together and it won’t be the same, and the residents will notice no matter how well they both act--

Tony pops his head right under Rhodey’s chin. 

“Kiss me?” 

That’s all it takes. 

They mess up part of the puzzle, but that’s okay. They find they don’t mind it too much. They can work on it later, when Tony’s done getting Rhodey out of his new jacket and Rhodey works his hands underneath Tony’s sweatshirt. 

-

Mama takes one look at them for dinner and grins. 

“Jeanie, you owe me a night of dish-washing.” 

“Seriously?” 

“Mama!” Rhodey hisses, embarrassed beyond belief. 

Tony just cackles, and elbows Rhodey out of the way so he can get to his chair at the table. 

“Couldn’t have fooled you for a second, could we?” Tony teases. 

“Not at all,” Mama states proudly. 

Rhodey rolls his eyes and squeezes Tony’s hand under the table. All will be well. 

- 

When they both get back to college, none of their residents are surprised, at least not until they have to have a “knocking before entering” policy put in place after one particular late morning. 

[quiverwingduck]

When you have a second-hand alter-ego, some identity crises are bound to crop up. When they do, it helps to have a Launchpad. 

(Includes minor descriptions of injuries.)

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27794749

Twitter Link:

    Darkwing Duck woke sometime around sun-up, judging by the severity of the beams of sunlight that squeezed through the cracks around the garage bay door to glare into his eyes. They highlighted the dust in the air that he’d been breathing in while he slept, and they did very, very little to warm the solid concrete he had passed out on. 

    He was laying face down on Launchpad’s floor, several feet between him and the couch he’d been borrowing ever since his last gig went up in flames. Launchpad slept on a platform above his little area, and that was about all the privacy he got these days. Except Launchpad wasn’t here now. If he was, Darkwing would hear the snores. If he was, he wouldn’t have left Darkwing on the floor all night. 

    Darkwing moved his arms to prop himself up, and there was an audible pop, a cacophony of grinding and scraping from somewhere within, and a debilitating stab of pain. It was jarring enough that even Darkwing “Get Back Up” Duck had to give pause. His whole body was sore and that made it hard to pinpoint any single injury, but if whatever it was wasn’t completely broken yet, putting pressure on it would certainly get it there.

He tested one arm and then the other, and used the one that hurt less to push himself up. Except as he shifted his leg, it happened again, and this time it was bad enough that his vision melted away and he collapsed. 

Above Launchpad’s couch, there hung one of several posters of Darkwing Duck. Jim Starling’s Darkwing Duck. The real, the original, the one he was meant to emulate. He was looking down on him. He was always looking down on him. It was only a piece of paper, but it was difficult to shake the notion that Jim Starling was seeing him fail. 

He held Jim’s artificial gaze until consciousness left him again. 

——

When Darkwing Duck woke again, it had tilted towards noon, and the air in the garage had grown warm and stale, and Launchpad was there, and he looked so upset, and there were voices outside, and the world came at Darkwing so fast the moment he opened his eyes that it dazed him. Launchpad was asking him questions that he couldn’t hear, much less answer. 

Launchpad’s arm slipped under Darkwing’s and hoisted him up off the floor with no effort at all. There was dried blood where he’d been laying. Darkwing had no idea where it had come from. There were any number of bad sensations to choose from. 

Launchpad’s voice faded in abruptly, like someone had cranked the volume on a stereo. “--McDee’s right outside, DW, you gotta be quiet!”

Darkwing hadn’t realized he’d been making noise, but as Launchpad jostled him, a prevailing pain shot up his leg and into his back, and he had to cut off a yelp by holding his own bill shut. 

Unable to walk, unable to process, and there stood Jim, watching him in all his shortcomings. 

Launchpad fell into what was rapidly becoming a familiar routine with him. Hide the costume. Clean up. Bandage wounds. Food, generally refused. At least a little water. Then sleep. Darkwing wanted sleep so badly. Whatever had just happened to him, it didn’t feel like rest. Exhaustion was still weighing on him, a cinderblock hung around his neck by a thin little string. It pulled him under again while Launchpad was stitching up a frighteningly deep, jagged gash across his abdomen. 

When he surfaced once more, Launchpad was still there. Darkwing had made it to the couch somehow, all stitched and bandaged and cozy under one of Launchpad’s big, heavy blankets. Launchpad was sitting next to the spot where Darkwing’s head was laid, on the one cushion he wasn’t taking up, sprawled out as he was. 

Darkwing woke facing the cushion, and the wall where Jim’s poster hung. He rolled over as quickly as his he could, pushing against fatigue and stiffening wounds, but Jim’s face was right there waiting for him on the TV screen, too. He hated the dread he felt. 

“Hey, LP,” he said, croaking. His throat was still full of garage floor grit and maybe a little blood. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“Nah,” Launchpad said flippantly, pointing the remote outward to turn the volume down. “Mister McDee’s doing work around the house, and Della took the Sunchaser out.”

Darkwing grunted, shifting onto his back and shutting his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at Jim anymore, just for one minute. 

“You feeling better, DW?” Launchpad continued. Darkwing could feel him staring, and decided not to look back. 

“Sure, Launchpad. I’m fine. I am unflappable. I’m—”

“Darkwing Duck. I know.”

“I was gonna say the terror that flaps in the night.” 

Launchpad let out a sigh, and Darkwing felt a hand on his stomach. It wasn’t a tender touch. He could feel Launchpad pressing down on his abdomen, just hard enough that it would cause a reaction if something were wrong internally, and for all either of them knew something might be. Darkwing kept his eyes and his mouth shut and willed Launchpad not to notice him clench his teeth. 

Launchpad knew better by now than to suggest a doctor visit. Instead he said, “Go back to sleep, DW,” and his hand moved up to Darkwing’s hair. 

The next time Darkwing woke up, Launchpad hadn’t moved a muscle, but he had burned through about half of season two. He was currently on the episode where Darkwing Duck had been driven to hang up his cape, thanks to the machinations of Quackerjack. The breakfast sandwich that Launchpad had left out for him hours and hours prior was starting to stink up the garage even worse, old egg and mayonnaise and cheese. 

The only indication that Launchpad had moved recently was a water bottle pressed against Drake’s eye, still a little bit cold. It felt nice. He didn’t need to look to know that eye was swollen and bruised. 

Launchpad had Darkwing’s cape laid out over his lap, and was neatly and patiently running a needle through it, closing up yet another hole.

Darkwing sat up on his own for the first time since he had broken into the garage in the small, dark hours of morning and cracked that water bottle open, draining it in one swig. 

“Morning, DW,” Launchpad said, good-natured as ever, though Darkwing could see plainly that the sun had already begun to descend.

This time, Launchpad paused the show. Darkwing wished he hadn’t, now staring down the barrel of a freeze frame of Jim’s face looking straight back at him, an expression that was angry and judgmental, but somehow still wearing a wicked little smirk. 

Launchpad, clearly not noticing Darkwing’s chagrin, kept on talking. “Hey, did I ever ask you what you thought of the characterization with Quackerjack in season two? It felt odd, right? Like maybe—”

“Like maybe Paddywhack’s influence never fully went away? Yeah.” Darkwing smiled good-naturedly. He’d definitely had this conversation with Launchpad multiple times already in the few short weeks he’d been living here. There was a time in his life where he would have loved to talk circles about deep Darkwing Duck lore, but that time had passed, violently and without ceremony. 

Launchpad tilted his gaze Darkwing’s way. He didn’t look any less upset than he had when he’d first found Darkwing on the floor. “You feeling alright?” he asked again. This, too, was part of their routine. The smell of old breakfast turned Darkwing’s stomach. “Sixteen stitches, DW. That’s a lot of stitches. Any stitches is a bad number of stitches.” 

“Launchpad, I’m fine,” Darkwing replied, because he was supposed to. It was part of a script, for a role that was getting more and more difficult to step out of.

“You also might have a break this time.”

Launchpad pressed a finger against Darkwing’s left ankle, just one, and it lit up with fire. Darkwing’s eyes filled with water, and with no mask and wide, droopy hat brim to hide behind. 

“Quit poking me!” he snapped. “I said I’m fine!” The crushing guilt for being mean to Launchpad McQuack set in immediately, but Darkwing found that feeling bad just made him angrier. On the screen, Jim watched his outburst.

“This was your idea, LP! Remember? Remember ‘do it for Jim’, Launchpad?”

Launchpad clicked the power off, Jim’s face vanishing into a black screen that reflected their own instead, Darkwing scowling and Launchpad frowning, looking so sad in that bottomless and expansive way that he felt every emotion. Darkwing hesitated, beak hanging open in disbelief at himself. “I’m sorry,” he said right away, and he meant it. “I’m sorry. That was awful. I—I need to go.”

“Drake, no—” Launchpad started, but Darkwing snatched the cape away from him, thread and needle still hanging off of it, and moved to stand. He stopped immediately when his broken foot touched the floor, debilitated by the searing agony that started in his leg and burned all the way up into his brain. 

Launchpad, ever helpful even when someone was treating him like garbage, shot his arms out to give Darkwing something to lean on that wasn’t his injured leg. “I was gonna say that you won’t be able to walk,” Launchpad said dryly. 

Darkwing Duck stood, as best as he possibly could, and exhaled slowly, weighing his options. Night was settling in, and with it came a need, gnawing at him like Jim’s inescapable glare. “I have to patrol,” he said, knowing already that wasn’t the answer Launchpad wanted.

“On a broken foot?”

“I’ll call an Uberd.”

“An Uberd? Do I mean nothing to you?”

Launchpad griped, mirroring back the same overdramatic overacting that Darkwing himself was known for. He was trying to play, trying to lighten the mood, trying to trick him into calming down. 

Darkwing grumbled in frustration. The poster loomed over their heads, and he thought back on the day the studio caught fire. The day that Jim Starling finally snapped. The day that Launchpad McQuack nearly died right before his eyes, a split-second and a hair away from being caught up in the explosion, all because he’d wanted to help. 

Darkwing closed his eyes and tried to will the omnipresent vision of Jim Starling away. “I have to be out there. I have to do something. I…”

“Drake.”

It was the second time already that Launchpad had used his actual name, and somehow it stung worse than his ankle, or the stitches in his gut. Was the idea that he could actually become Darkwing Duck slipping away from Launchpad already?

Drake breathed in deep and tried to swallow his fears, but they remained, boiling over and spilling out of his mouth. “... If I stop moving, I start to think about Jim, and I… I can’t think about Jim.” 

Launchpad looked puzzled. His gaze turned up to the poster as if he was realizing for the first time in a long time that it was even there. 

Drake wished he could leave it at that and just stop talking, but that’s not what he did. “Jim died, Launchpad. He died because he hated me, and he hated me so much that he hurt innocent people over it. He hated me so much that he stopped being a hero. He hated me so much that it killed him.”

“DW—”

“Don’t.”

“Drake. Jim died saving us, remember?”

“No, he died saving you,” Drake said bitterly. “I was just in the way.”

“... Do you want me to take the poster down?” 

Drake balked. It had occurred to him, of course, but the thought of actually making Launchpad do it opened up a well of guilt. “No. No, no, I just—I should find someplace else to sleep, this is your space and—” Launchpad was already standing up and reaching for the poster, and without the support, Darkwing’s leg gave and he sank back down onto the cushions, grabbing uselessly at Launchpad’s sleeve. “No, LP, stop. Really.”

“It’s just a piece of paper, DW,” Launchpad said. He peeled it carefully off the wall, collecting sticky tack between his fingers, and rolled the paper up delicately in his hand, picture facing in. No longer a source of torment, just a white tube. He tucked it away behind some stacked crates serving as a table, or a dresser, or maybe just crates.

“But it’s… still important to you,” Drake said. “You shouldn’t have to take it down on my account.”

“The real Darkwing Duck’s crashing on my couch, that’s way more impressive than an old poster.”

The real Darkwing Duck. Drake sat with those words for awhile, staring unfocused at the empty spot on the wall. “... There is no real Darkwing Duck,” he said finally, dejected, throat tight. “I’m still just a dumb kid playing make-believe.” 

There was a heavy pause, neither of them daring to so much as shuffle their feet or breathe too loudly. Launchpad kept his eyes on the spot behind the crates where he had stored his Jim Starling poster, turned away just enough that Drake couldn’t read his expression. When Launchpad did turn back to him, he was grinning in a way Drake doubted he had been before.

“Hey, you wanna grab a burger?” Launchpad asked, as upbeat as ever.

Drake gave him a dumbfounded look, slowly processing what Launchpad was trying to do. Could it be so easy to just let the moment pass? Was it the right thing to do? Or was he just taking advantage? 

Launchpad’s expression fell a little as he waited for a response, and he adjusted his approach, cutting off a downward spiral that must have been apparent in Drake’s face.

“I love Darkwing Duck,” he said, speaking slowly, with carefully chosen words. “But… I’m worried about Drake Mallard. I haven’t seen much of him lately.”

“Thought I was—”

“You have to be both,” Launchpad said, speaking over Drake. “You are Darkwing Duck, and you are Drake. It’s not just a role you’re playing. It’s not separate. It’s part of you.”

Drake threw his arms up as if there were a physical onslaught he could block. He almost wished there were. That’s a situation he would know how to handle. 

“You gotta ask for help,” Launchpad went on, softer now. “I never said for you to do it all alone.”

Drake took in a deep breath. Relying on someone else still felt like failure, but it was easier to fall into without the weight of Jim Starling’s judgment hanging over him. “Okay, LP,” he said, exhaling. “I need your help.”

Launchpad brightened up instantaneously. It came so damn easy for him. Drake--Darkwing--wondered if he could hold onto that radiance somehow and let Launchpad drag him out of his rut. 

“We’re gonna get some burgers and fries,” Launchpad said decisively, already reaching for the keys to Scrooge’s green Jeep, “and we’re gonna spend a quiet night in, and tomorrow I’m gonna take you out on patrol, ‘cause that leg is not gonna heal in 24 hours.”

Launchpad was nice enough to not point out that a busted leg meant Darkwing would not be running down criminals for weeks to come, and Darkwing didn’t point it out either. He let Launchpad hoist him up and pile him into the car, the both of them carefully guarding his injuries.

---

The road that would take them into town spiraled several times around Killmotor Hill. Whenever Darkwing had to take this descent on foot, he typically scaled down the sides, sliding down rocky faces and trudging through bushes. It was just faster. This time, he got to sit comfortably in the passenger side, gazing out the window at the landscape and shorelines around them. 

Launchpad, evidently, was taking in the sights as well. He righted the car and himself a second after they nicked the guardrail, and Darkwing screamed a little louder than he was proud of.

“Whoops, sorry!” Launchpad shouted, jerking the wheel, but over Launchpad’s voice Darkwing could hear another one, muffled and tinny and jarringly familiar, coming from the glove compartment. Darkwing popped it open and pulled out a little Darkwing Duck bobblehead, looking thoroughly placid as he held it up to his own face.

“You are such a nerd,” he said, tapping the bobblehead so it would spit out the titular catchphrase. 

“Okay, Darkwing Duck,” Launchpad quipped right back. The two laughed at themselves and at each other, and something heavy in Drake’s ribcage dissipated. Drake put the toy on the dashboard instead of hiding it away again, and it felt okay.

Later, parked next to a burger joint where they sat pulling greasy fries out of a paper sack, Launchpad reached over and tapped the bobblehead again. “I looked for First Darkness merch, too,” he said. “There wasn’t much.”

“Yeah, they produced some to capitalize on the release, but I think even the bigwigs didn’t expect the movie to do very well. Feels weird to admit. Like, don’t get me wrong, I was over the moon to get the part, but I was thinking years in the future. I was thinking that there would be more releases to follow, maybe even a reboot of the show, and I’d… I’d be there, because I had to be. I’m Darkwing Duck.” 

He was Darkwing Duck. He’d wanted it all along, his whole life. He could never have become anything else, and the version of himself that had denied it just ten minutes prior felt like a different person. A stranger. 

Drake took a pause, holding a rapidly cooling french fry between his fingers because suddenly his stomach was too knotted to eat it. “I guess that’s all Jim wanted too, huh?”

“Jim… lost his way.”

“And what if I lose mine?”

Launchpad reached over. His hand completely dwarfed Drake’s, fingers curling inward around it, and slowly threading through Drake’s. Drake stopped breathing, something he prayed Launchpad didn’t notice as he worked the ulterior motive of sliding the french fry out of Drake’s grasp and stealing it away into his own mouth. 

“I get that you’re mixed up about Jim,” Launchpad said eventually, through chewing. “It was… scary. But it doesn’t have to take away what Darkwing Duck means to us, you know? I understand if you don’t wanna watch the show with me, but don’t give up on Darkwing Duck. He’s so much more than a TV character.”

Drake caught a hint of desperation, the tiniest hairline crack in Launchpad’s relentless glee. It gave him pause, observing as Launchpad upended the carton of fries into his mouth and chewed through a frown. 

“Okay, LP. I told you what Darkwing Duck is to me. What is he to you?”

A huge grin cracked across Launchpad’s face, and Drake sensed he’d made a mistake.

“He’s my hero, and he’s an inspiration, and he thinks he doesn’t snore at night but he definitely does.”

“Rude! Slanderous and rude!”

“Like the Sunchaser’s engine after I crashed into that dam.”

Drake stuck his tongue out, and Launchpad did the same, and then a silence fell over the car. One not too comfortable, Drake content to sit there and eat quietly in the company of his best friend, but acutely aware of the way Launchpad squirmed in his seat, trying in vain not to let more words spill from his mouth. 

“Darkwing Duck was my only friend when I needed one most.”

A cold stab in Drake’s gut, thinking back on beatings in the schoolyard, dented lunchbox, handmade cape torn from his shoulders, the ground rushing at him. Someone’s foot planted on his back to keep him down while others kicked and punched and spat. Blood and dirt and tears and lonely nights spent bandaging his knuckles while the television droned in the background. Telling himself that if Darkwing Duck could take the hits, then so could he.  

He wondered if Launchpad had ever endured the same. Poor, sweet, big-hearted Launchpad. 

    Drake shook the memories, and sighed dramatically, holding out his fries. Launchpad took the container from his hand without hesitation, and within seconds, they were gone. “As always, LP, you are right.” 

    “I am?” Launchpad said, an elated glimmer in his eyes. “So you’ll keep being Darkwing Duck and inspiring a new generation to stand strong and fight for what’s right?”

    “Well, yes,” Drake said, as he prodded a finger lightly against his abdomen and marveled at the searing pain that flared up. “But I meant about taking some time off… and maybe finding a doctor.” 

    “Oh!” Launchpad grabbed his burger, wedging it in his mouth before putting the keys in the ignition. He hit the gas hard, intending to speed off in what Drake imagined would have been a very cool fashion, but the car flew into reverse instead, and they were sent careening through a chain link fence, screaming.

[ichayalovesyou]

The Undiscovered Country (Live Reaction)

CAPTAIN SULU OF THE EXCELSIOR CAPTAIN SULU OF THE EXCELSIOR CAPTAIN SULU OF THE EXCELSIOR EVERYONE STFU HE DESERVED HIS OWM GODDAMN SHOWWWWW!!!! “Should we report this?” “Are you kidding??” I love him so muchhh

Oh this one is gonna be about racism isn’t it? Yup. I know people judge Kirk for his prejudice against the Klingons in this movie, and I wanna clarify that it’s still not okay, but I just... look back on all of his experiences with Klingons, and he became less and less chill with them as they kept doing stuff to him and his crew, torturing Spock, Sherman’s planet, torturing Chekov, the ugly decisions in A Private Little War then on top of that they killed a son he never got the chance to connect with because his ex never allowed him custody. They almost cost him the chance to bring Spock back on top of that too. I’m not saying it’s not right, and whether it’s justified is subjective, but I also know he learns his lesson in this film. It makes me think of Katara’s arc in S3 of ATLA, how much she hated (understandably) Zuko and the Fire Nation, how she almost killed the man who killed her mother, but then didn’t. If we can love her still with that character growth, I see no reason to suddenly hate Jim.

“Logic is the beginning of wisdom Valeris” god I love Spock, he’s grown so much ☺️ also maaaaan everyone is old now lol, wait?! Where’s Bones?! Oh there he is! Oh wow I can smell the traitor on Valeris she is acting extremely shady! Oh hey it’s General Chang!! I’ve heard of this guy!! Apoliticality hall of fame up in here huh ST? Damn. Klingons love them some Shakespeare lol. Nice Scotty! Ohhhh Chang that was a loaded question, oof thanks for saving your grumpy husband. Ooooh man I love dinner scenes like these, the tension, the delicate conversation, the unspoken words ugh hell yeah. Oof!

Chancellor made a DAMN good point there! Calling Kirk out on his shit before they left! Yessssssss!! Lol everyone is hung FUCK WHAT JUST HAPPENED??? OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK!!! That Zero G effect is cool as fuck! Oh no oh no oh no oh no the war is being staged oh god oh no oh shit oh shit ohhhhhh no!! Ohhhhhhhhhh shittttt this is B A D. Ok so Klingon blood is pink? Huh.

Even with Jim’s prejudice he still values this peace than he does his feelings and that is a Captain Kirk ass thing to do. Bones being fucking AWESOME! Ohhhh nooooo, I liked Gorkon 😔 “Don’t let it end this way Captain.” Wowwww that was cool ass last words. “I sympathize Mr. Scott” growth 🌿 oh hey Sarek is back! Federation has an alien president now? Neat! Also I freaking LOVE Gorkon’s daughter, I am also growing progressively more confused by their kinda over exaggerated behavior in future TV shows? (I imagine they probably had a fanatical ideological takeover, kinda like the Vulcans and Surak but... violent.)

The defense attorney sounds like Michael Dorn??? I know it’s not him but still? OH MY GOD IT IS???? Cool! His name is also Worf? Weird. Awww Bones he’s GOTTA stop making me cry like this I can’t even do this oh man he’s breaking my hearrrrrt. Oh wow they really just listing everything “bad” Jim has ever done huh? Damn. CAPTAIN SULU IS BACK oh and he’s gone again damn. Ooooof penal colony punishment yiiiiikes, seems the Klingons have as outdated a prison system as we do now 😬 oh so Spock is distantly related to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? Neat. Oh Spock don’t trust Valeris, I know you don’t know better yet but still 😬😬😬

Ooof this whole person thing is super interesting?? Who is this WOMAN whose informing them McCoy & Jim, I love her! I love this political intrigue murder mystery stuff!! Those Wargs look AMAZING wow, loving seeing TOS crew with a budget love it! “Not everyone keeps their genitals in the same place Captain.” OH MY GOD 😂😂😂 oh it’s McKirk hours boys, and awww even in a Klingon prison Jim’s prejudice is decaying. McCoy is DUDE WHAT IS WITH YOU?? And I agree, even as an old man Jim is a lil’ bit it a slut. WAIT CHRISTIAN SLATER???? That was a weird cameo. Even after he made out with that lady he was like “damn, what is wrong with me??” Lol

WAIT IS MATIRA A CHANGELING?? That transformation was VERY gooey?? I mean I know there are a bunch of shapeshifter races but still???? Hey watch McCoy is gonna give out from the cold first cuz he’s a southern damsel just you wait. Aaaaaand it took 5 minutes! 😂 he’s immune to dinosaurs but vulnerable to cold. Bullshit Uhura doesn’t know Klingon??? What was that?!?! Oh she’s not a Changeling. TWO KIRKS AGAIN???? How many times is this now, four? 😂😂

Now they’re close enough to kiss lmfao KISS DAMNIT! Aw. Uh oh. I have never, NEVER seen Spock this posed off ohhhh my god. OH MY GOD HE JUST SMACKED THAT SHIT OUT OF HER HAND. Ooof I need to sit down (I say sitting down) way to frickin kick Jim right in his soul with his own words damn Valeris... wow this is so GOOD, fuck. Oh man, the amount of personal strength, feelings of hatred and betrayal, and circumstance it takes for Spock to FORCIBLY meld with someone when we all know how he feels about consent 😨 this is like, the only ONLY situation I can imagine him, in character, EVER doing this to anyone. Wow... wow. Oh my god. OH MY GOD. Ohhhhhh wow, that’s gonna haunt Spock for the rest of his life... fuck.

SULU IS HERE TO SAVE THE DAYYYYYYY WE LOVE HIM!!! Awwww look at these too poor idiots regretting their moral transgressions :( they’re so married. Over here examining prejudices and stuff, I need to study this screenplay oh my goddddd. This is so GOOD oh my god. Kittomer Accord hours!! Here we go! Oh MAN Chang is a cool ass villain!! Here we gooooooooo!!! EXCELSIOR IS HERE TO HELP!! Aw Spones out here flirting before they go save peace in their time, love that! This battle tastes like a beautiful marriage between Balance of Terror and Conscience of A King 😍 YEAH SCOTTY!!! And thus, Kirk completes his character growth. Lol and then everyone claaaaaaped.

Man, Sulu and the Excelsior really deserved their own his Star Trek show, something I hope they will someday remedy! Awwww that little love letter to TNG and all future Treks at the end heck yeh ☺️

[frustrated-writer-skyeknight]

S.q.u.a.d. reacts to the Lion King

Based on this article: I watched The Lion King as a grown-ass man.

"Man, Disney should just stop with the remakes already." Jamie sighed as he took some textbooks from his locker, "I mean, I think the Lion King one was just a CGI version of the original."

Jack frowned, scratching the back of his neck. "There was an original version?"

"What? Dude, of course there is. It's a classic. Everyone's seen it." Jamie snorted, turning towards the approaching brunette trio. "Hey guys, you know about the old Lion King movie, right?"

Dimitri shrugged, "I know there's a new lion movie out." He said. "Looks more like a documentary thing, if you go by the trailer."

"Didn't have cable growing up," Jim replied, "still don't. Plus, Disney is overrated anyway."

Hiccup hummed thoughtfully, "What's lion king?"

Jamie stared at his friends dumbfounded. "Okay, we are so having a movie night now." He said.

Later that Friday evening, Jamie and his friends find themselves in the den of his home, parents out with the younger sister, and three bowls of popcorn with different flavors; cheese, butter, and barbeque. Plus, two boxes of pizza.

"Wow, Jay," Astrid whistled as she settled on a spot next to him, "you sure went all out for this."

Jamie shrugged, "Disney is my childhood." he said.

"I still say they're a gold digging empire," Jim deadpanned, but took a handful of popcorn. "But I never say no to free food."

Dimitri took a slice of pizza as Jack had too, and they 'toasted' to it, "Preach."

"Okay guys," Jamie rolled his eyes as he set Netflix on the television, "at least wait for the movie to start. Since I brought it up earlier, let's start with 'The Lion King.' I've got tissues ready in case you need it."

Jim snorted, rolling his eyes. "It's an Animated kids movie." He said. "Nobody cries over those.

───────────────

🎶On the day we arrive on the planet~🎶

"Well, opening song sounds good." Jack hummed, "wouldn't mind getting it stuck in my head. Unlike that overrated Queen Ella single one."

Dimitri groaned, "Ohmygod, yes." he groused, "People will not shut up about it!"

"Okay boys." Astrid rolled her eyes, "focus."

They did so, but it didn't take long for someone else to speak up. "Whoa, now hold up. So, that monkey dude..." Jim frowned, and Jamie felt the need to pause the movie. "I mean, come on, this monkey chief dude comes hobbling around on a walking stick earlier, and you expect that he can hold a damn newborn over a cliff? That's shady, man."

"Just watch." Jamie rolled his eyes, smirking at his friend's offended expression. "Also, I'm gonna have to preemptively warn you to suspend your disbelief for a lot of these movies." He hits play once more.

And they watched.

"He's as mad as a hippo with a hernia."

"That's some mad alliteration skills," Jack mused, "ugh, alliteration. Still confuse that with assonance."

Hiccup stared at his boyfriend, "The fact that you even bring that up casually..."

"Okay, feeling that Scar's the bad dude here." Astrid interrupted, "but I'm liking the accent."

Rafiki is painting Simba on his tree...

"There's that shady baboon butt again, doing grafitti without his goddamn walking stick." Jim snorted, "I don't trust that punk."

Dimitri chuckled, giving his boyfriend a one-arm hug. "Pup, you have trust issues. It's your thing." He cooed, "it's a cartoon monkey, he can't hurt you."

"But he can hurt his fellow cartoon animal peeps." Jim countered. "Shady bastard."

Dimitri rolled his eyes, "and they say you're a cold, insensitive prick." He snorted.

"Wait, a Lion in a Pride mates with all the lioness..." Hiccup frowned, his eyebrows knitting together. "He's literally sleeping with his wife and the rest of his, uh, concubines in a single..."

Jamie groaned, "You're ruining my childhood here."

"So, this is that famous overmemed scene." Jack snorted, "pretty grand, I'll give it that. Tempted to google what the shadowy place is, though."

Jamie shook his head, taking Jack's phone. "No spoilers." He said. "It's coming up soon anyway."

"Forgive me for not leaping in joy. Bad back, you know."

Hiccup nodded faux sagely, "Scar is me at every social gathering." He said.

"No, no! Don't, you gullible lion cub!" Jim shouted at the TV, much to everyone's amusement. "THAT DARK PLACE IS OBVIOUSLY NOT AN ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD, SIMBA. DON'T DO DUMB SHIT. LISTEN TO YOUR PARENTS. GO TO LION CUB SCHOOL!"

Dimitri snickered, gesturing to his soulmark. "He's talking in capslock again." He said.

🎶"I just can't wait to be king~!"🎶

"Okay, I'm so finding a playlist in Spotify now." Jack mused, scrolling at his phone that Jamie returned earlier. "These tunes are gonna be my jam."

Hiccup shrugged, "I still find it funny that the animals are so okay with their predators being their king. No revolution sparked by discontentment at all." He pointed out. "Sounds kinda fishy."

"Okay, anyone else feeling kinda awkward with Simba and Nala's sexual tension?" Jim voiced out, "I mean, they're kids... Or cubs... Whatever. They're young."

Hiccup nodded, "Not to mention, cousins. Being in the same Pride..." He trailed off as Jamie kicks him lightly on the shin.

"Again, ruining childhood for me." Jamie sighed, and Astrid rubs his arm soothingly.

Jim points at the screen accusingly, "Ah! An elephant graveyard!" he gawked. "okay, was wrong on that, but still creepy as hell. Especially now that practically everywhere in the Savannah is an elephant graveyard... Even a rhino graveyard."

Jack shook his head, "Guys, you need to chill."

"Okay, these hyenas reminds me of that old Cartoon Network show, Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy." Hiccup mused, "Especially Ed, who's basically Ed. Can't be a coincidence."

Astrid snickered, "He's also you; laughing or making jokes to laugh about in inappropriate situations." she teased. "Got us in trouble a lot in those 'bring your kid to work' events."

"Aaaand Mufasa comes in to save the day," Jack slow clapped, "knew it. But boy, is Simba grounded. You done fucked up, kid."

"I'm surrounded by idiots..."

Jim huffed, leaning back against the couch and Dimitri's arm. "Mood." He deadpanned. "Also, calling out their cruelty to animated zebras."

"I know right?" Dimitri humored him, "where the fuck is PETA when you need them?"

Jamie snorted, smirking at them, "Uh, I don't know... Reality?"

"Doesn't feel like it either." Astrid quipped, "elephants still dying everywhere."

Jack rolled his eyes, "Fucking chill guys."

"Ah, Hiccup, look. How's that for discontentment?" Astrid pointed at the screen, "Scar's not satisfied with being sass king of the jungle. Wants to run for real king, that can't end well."

Hiccup shrugged, "I'll take it." He said, "and it's not a jungle, actually.

"Dude has mad pipes though." Jack pointed out, "I'd definitely attend the opening night of 'Scar: The Musical.'"

Jamie hummed thoughtfully, "Huh, a lion king remake with his perspective instead would be an improvement." He said.

"Simba, it's to die for!"

"Okay Hiccup, take notes." Astrid quipped, "Scar's pun game is topnotch."

Hiccup snorted, tossing a throw pillow her way. "Must've learned from me." He shot back, "I'm a master."

"Still," Astrid said, laughing as she threw the pillow back, "I have the feeling this is the point of the movie I'm gonna start hating Scar."

Jamie cringed as the stampede started, and he paused the movie much to everyone's frustration. "Okay, guys. Again, maybe you need ti—" he trailed off.

"PLAY THE DAMN MOVIE!"

Jamie did so. And he found it strangely satisfying when everyone cried out a despairing 'NOOOOOOOOOO!' along with Simba as Mufasa fell to his death.

"Mufasa is dead?!?!" Jim gawked, "he died?!!? Just like DUMBLEDORE?!?!?! Just like MY FATHER?!" He whimpered, leaning on Dimitri as his boyfriend reached for the box of Kleenex from Jamie. "Feeling unusually upset right now. It's a damn kid's movie. It has no right to be hitting it home, and right to the feels."

Dimitri sighed, patting his back consolingly. "There, there..."

"Fuck you, Scar. Just..." Jim groused, "Fuck. You."

Astrid sighed, taking a sheet from the Kleenex herself. "Gotta say, though," she started, "for a schemer like Scar, he sure does skimp on the quality of his henchmen. Letting Simba go is gonna bite him in the ass someday. Guaranteed."

"Okay," Jamie paused the movie. "intermission. Who needs a bio-break?"

Jim just stood up and went for the bathroom. The rest finished the pizza and Dimitri made sure to leave some for Jim.

"You good, Jim?

"Shut up and play the movie." The brunette groused, "ugh, I can't believe I cried. Damn you Scar."

Jamie laughed as he plays the movie once more. "Told you you'd need tissues."

"Screw you, man."

───────────────

"Mufasa's death was a terrible loss..."

Jim eats his pizza. He continues to curse Scar as he speaks of Mufasa's death. "Don't fall for his crap, come on!" He scowled. "Zazu, he fucking slammed you to a rock!" He sighed, "Why the hell are you letting him become king? This is why you animals are getting extinct."

"It's.... really not." Hiccup protested.

Dimitri massaged his shoulders, "Jim, you can print out a picture of Scar and dart him, okay pup?" He soothed.

"The hyenas look like they can get shit done, though." Jack mused, "well, except for giving Simba the slip."

Jim hummed, "Oh, baboon guy. Almost forgot about this dude." He said. "Cutting him some slack because I feel he's going to drop some Yoda shit on this bitch."

"You get so feisty when you're irritable." Dimitri mused, "and this is why Scroop secretly has a thing for you."

"WHAT!"

"What?"

"Don't worry," Dimitri shrugged, kissing the tip of his nose. "I don't share."

Jim huffed, "Well, I bloody hope not!"

"You gotta put your behind in your past."

"Gotta get a tattoo of this Pumbaa quote." Jack joked, "words to live by 101."

Hiccup audibly whimpered, taking Jack's hand. "Please don't " he said. "Your skin's perfect. It's bad enough that my choice of words already marred it."

"Aw, babe..." Jack hugged him, "you know I love it."

Astrid blew a raspberry. "Get a room."

"Uh, my house, so no." Jamie protested.

Jim blinked, "Wait, I know this is Timon and Pumbaa because I had them on a pencil case when I was eight or something. Then, I got one of space and that was that." He started. "But damn, I didn't know Hakuna Matata was from here. I have heard this song before, I am not entirely ignorant."

"I'm so hungry, I can eat a whole Zebra."

"I'm condemning this casual Zebra slaughter," Hiccup declared. "Let it be known. You can't just eat a whole Zebra, Simba. Come on."

Astrid gagged, "Insects? Really?" She shakes her head. "Simba's diet is fucked. I'm not a nutritionist or a zoologist, but I really, really, don't think insects are enough to get Simba through all those years in the jungle. I mean, it's like asking humans to survive on dog food alone."

"And yet he has grown into a fine-ass lion over the course of about three bars of song." Jack whistled, "Intriguing. Switching to insect-based diet after the movie."

Hiccup shakes his head, "Snowflake, I rather you go vegan."

Rafiki appears and takes Simba's floating fur with the dandelions...

"There's monkey Yoda again," Jim snorted, "jumping down on trees, not a walking stick in sight. He's on to something though, so I'll let it sli—HOLD THE PHONE!" The brunette balked, "Did baboon man REALLY figure out Simba was still alive from smelling dandelions that floated from miles away?"

Dimitri rubbed his back in circles, "Pup, stop being antagonized by the damn monkey already." he snickered, "it's cute, but I'm worrying over your mental health."

"Don't tell me what to do, dimwit." Jim scoffed, "I mean, really, this insane Yoda monkey with inconsistent usage of walking aids might be the movie's last hope. How to feel about this, I don't know."

"AAAAAAH!"

Hiccup hummed, faux sadly. "We're gonna lose Pumbaa. I can feel it." he said. "Life's just not fair, and warthogs just aren't fast."

"Oh, wait, it's Nala!" Jack cheered, "Yaaay!"

The freckled brunette snorted, crossing his arms. "Nala goes from hunting Pumbaa one minute to having a conversation with him after Simba vouches for him?" he shook his head, "So, tell me how there aren't any riots with the predators being friends with some preys, and others not? Unjustifiable exceptions."

"Guys, suspend your disbelief." Jamie sighed, "I think I gave out that warning earlier."

🎶...You needn't look too far; Stealing through the night's uncertainties, love is where they are~🎶

"Whoa, 'Can you feel the love tonight' was from this movie? Okay, it's official, I'm in love with this soundtrack." Jack made an exaggerated bowing down motion towards the screen, "Hands down one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard."

Dimitri narrowed his eyes at the screen, in scrutiny. "They totally boned at this scene, right?" he deadpanned. "I mean, did you see those bed room sex eyes?"

Jim stuffed him with a pillow, "At least the sexual tension between them doesn't feel as awkward now."

"You said you'd always be there! But you're not... it's because of me..."

Hiccup nodded his head, "Sexual tension replaced with crippling self-loathing, just like real life." he sighed, "feel ya, Simba."

"God, I don't know how many therapists mom made me see until I finally got over blaming myself for my sperm donor leaving us." Jim sighed, shaking his head. "and then guidance counseling when we found out he killed himself a few months before Freshemen year started."

Dimitri stared at his boyfriend worriedly, "Pup, do you need a hug?" he embraced him without waiting for a response.

"It ain't your fault, Jim. Shit happens... Especially stampedes if you're in a forest."

Jamie sighed, "Savannah."

"Real talk, though," Astrid mused, "shit happens when you've got scheming uncles who planned to push their brother off the buffalo freeway."

The brunette stared at his girlfriend before picking up his phone, "I'm tweeting that."

Rafiki appears humming incoherently...

"I swear to god, this monkey is on meth." Jim snorted, shaking his head. "Yeap, he just called Simba a baboon. This primate is trippin'."

Dimitri stared at the rest of his friends, as if he was in 'The Office'. "I'm never gonna hear the end of this, am I?"

"Better not bring him to any Zoos soon," Jack advised. "He might try to throw rocks at the monkey containment."

"Okay, I take it back." Jim raised his arms, "This is going to be some pivotal revelatory shit." he started.

"Correction, I know your father."

Jim glared at the screen, pointing an accusing finger. "Okay, still trippin'" He scowled at the meditation monkey, "I hope this really is Mufasa and not some metaphorical mambo-jumbo. If not, I call subterfuge."

Jamie was starting to wonder if this whole movie marathon was a good idea. They were just starting with the first one, and Jim already seems like a lost cause. Maybe there was a reason innocent children were the target audience.

"CALLED IT," Jim growled at the television, "that's a reflection, you punk-ass monkey. Way to let a brother down." He shook his head, frowning as the screen shows cloud Mufasa. "Aaaaand now he's slipped Simba some acid. Just great."

Definitely a bad idea.

"Wow, it worked." Even Hiccup is surprised. "who'da thunk it. Hm, might wanna check for hidden projectors, though. Monkey might've pulled a Mysterio... Well, for a good cause, but still. Jim's got it right with subterfuge."

Dimitri glared at him, "Dude, spoiler alert."

"Oops." Hiccup blushed, "sorry."

Jack blinked at the screen, "What the fuck," he scowled, "He just left Nala behind and returned home? When it was her idea in the first place? Bro, that's your soulmark. Boy, is he in for some pain."

"I think this came out before the discovery of soulmarks." Hiccup patted his hand soothingly. "there, there.... What we should really be questioning is that desert. I'm still wondering how there's even an oasis in this movie."

Jamie face palmed, "Suspend your disbelief, suspend... Oh, forget it." he groaned.

🎶"He eeee's a big pig (Yup, yup). You could be a big pig too. Oy!"🎶

"In a movie filled with amazing songs," Jack snickered, "Timon's luau song's gonna be my personal favorite. Bonus points for presentation."

Astrid sighed, placing a hand on her forehead. "And they fell for it," she tossed her hand in a 'I'm so done' manner. "This is why you hire quality hit man, Scar. You can't half-ass a coup and not expect repercussions."

"Well, if he was Loki-smart," Jamie shrugged, "well, there's no Avengers to beat him up and the heroes don't win."

Jim snorted, "Simplified hero-winning's overdone." he said. "Villain redemption arcs like Zuko's should start catching on."

"So, you have no cable for Disney," Dimitri started, "but you know ATLA?"

Jim shrugged, "A therapist was a fan," he explained, "and she thought it'd help with my father abandonment issues. Confirmed: It did."

"I killed Mufasa..."

Hiccup face palmed, and groaned as if he was in real agony. "Aaaagh, typical villain behavior." he groused, "shut your damn Zebra-holes, and finish the job for once, you idiots never learn."

"Chat shit, get banged, Scar." Dimitri snickered, "Chat shit, get banged."

Jim stuffs a pillow at him once more, "Stop it with the innuendos!" he sighed, as he stared at screen. He raised a brow, "Amidst this all-out melee, meth-monkey is doing some serious damage. How, I do not know."

"Well, guess he's been hiding his pizzaz all along."

Simba and Scar finally battle it out

"NOOOOOOO!"

"YEEEEEEEEES!"

Jack cheered, "SIMBA WINS." he grinned, "And the hyenas have also found a temporary solution to their food shortage. Win-win."

"This was a kid's movie..." Jim narrowed his eyes at the screen, "and they heavily implied Scar getting gang-devoured."

Jamie snorted, and snickered. "You should see the one when the villain got hanged from the treetops."

"WHAT!"

"Remember who you are..."

"Feel like 'The Eye of the Tiger' would be a proper song for this moment," Jack mused, before pausing in thought, "wait, wouldn't that be 'Eye of the Lion', then?"

Hiccup laughed, shaking his head. "And just like that, the land is glorious again. No mention of rehabilitation process with might have included replanting trees, and attracting livestock with lucrative real estate prices." he mused.

"Let's just hope this heralds a decline in the merciless killings of animated Zebras." Jim snorted, "still unsure as to how meth-monkey hasn't managed to drop a cub off the cliff yet."

Jamie shook his head, as he went back to Netflix's home screen, and grinned towards his friends, "Now, as payback for effectively ruining my childhood, here's a little piece of info to mindblow you guys: The Lion King is basically Hamlet but with lions, and a happy ending."

"WHAT!"

"Ohmygod!" Jack balked, "IT IS! IT SO IS!"

Hiccup frowned, shaking his head. "I can't believe I didn't see it," he frowned. "And I fucking love Hamlet. I feel like I've let Shakespeare down."

"Baboon man should've made like Yorick and turned into a skeleton head..." Jim snorted, "Wait, was that why they made Scar hold that skull in a certain way?"

Dimitri rolled his eyes, "And here I thought we moved past the whole Rafiki antagonized drama."

Jamie laughed outloud, clutching his stomach. "Just wait till you see the Romeo and Juliet sequel."

"Can we get a movie with more..." Astrid scrunched up her nose, "... humans please?"

[leverage-commentary]

Leverage Season 2, Episode 9, The Lost Heir Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

Peter: This is Peter Winther, the Director of episode...

John: 209.

Peter: 209.

John: John Rogers, Executive Producer.

Chris: Chris Downey, Executive Producer and Writer of this episode, entitled The Lost Heir Job.

John: There you go. Chris, where did this episode come from?

Chris: Well, there was a different episode, very different episode, that didn't come together, and uh, I called Dean, Dean Devlin, our Executive Producer, and I kinda asked him, ‘What kinda bad guys are you thinking about, we haven't done?’ And one of the things he said was, ‘How about an evil lawyer?’ And me being—

John: And you used to be an evil lawyer!

Chris: And me being a former evil lawyer, I thought okay, I can work with that. And it kinda sprung from there.

John: The uh, Peter, uh, this is a lovely affecting scene. Is this in our hospital set that we get enormous mileage out of, or are we in a hospital today?

Peter: Ah, no this is the hospital set that we redesigned to look like a different hospital set.

John: Nicely done. This is very touching. Peter, let me ask you, this is the first episode of Leverage that you've directed, and there's Peter Reigert as the evil lawyer.

Peter: Yes.

John: When you're coming onto a new show to direct for the first time, what's your prep? What do you do?

Peter: Well, you know, first of all, you read the amazing script by the writers. And yeah, I cried, I laughed. Yeah, then you do the normal stuff, you location scout, you find anything that you need to find, and you kinda work with—I mean luckily for me, like a lot of the guys that worked on Leverage, I've worked with before, whether it's through the Dean Devlin world of Independence Day and Godzilla, so...

John: And Librarian, you directed the first Librarian.

Peter: And the first Librarian.

John: A big thing about this episode is- Uh, and that's London. A big thing about this—

Peter: We went to London.

Chris: If you can't tell, there's Big Ben right there.

John: Ah, we like to assume that whenever we find Sophie, she's standing in front of the most recognizable landmark ever. 'Who's dead?' I love that reaction by the way. This was a challenge. This was the first episode where we knew that we needed a female grifter for the team; we had to introduce her, we wanted to check in with Sophie, and kind of establish why we were going to introduce a semi-permanent character. A lot of struts and bolts had to be thrown up here.

Chris: Yeah, yeah.

John: That was the real challenge. We had to have a scene that made us not think this relationship was broken, but that she wasn't coming back.

Chris: Well, I mean, the hard thing is when you're introducing a new character who's gonna take over, you wanna make sure that the audience understands that that character has been approved of by the character that she's replacing.

John: Yeah, to a great degree you need—it's weird—you need Gina's character to be the initiator of the replacement in order for the, you know-

Chris: And there's kind of a story about the Mary Tyler Moore pilot, that I heard from Jim Brooks, who wrote- the great Jim Brooks, apparently when they tested the Mary Tyler Moore pilot, the audience initially hated the Rhoda character.

John: Really?

Chris: Absolutely hated her. And the network said, 'You gotta get rid of her.' And Jim Brooks re-shot a scene in which Phyllis's daughter, Phyllis the neighbor upstairs, hugs the Rhoda character, just gives her a hug in one of the scenes. They tested again, went through the roof. And what they realized was, all they needed was someone on the cast that the audience liked to give their approval of this character. And Dean really was the driving force here because he said, 'We have to make sure that the audience buys into this.'

John: Yeah, a lot of shows replace people in between seasons, but coming up with a substitute person in the middle of the season has—I've never seen it successfully done.

Peter: Until now.

John: Until now. And this is interesting, this was tricky, is, essentially we talked about bringing the Tara character in, we'd beaten out the backstory of the character, given it to Jeri Ryan, so, you know, she could consider it, and consider signing on, and then we originally were talking about her coming straight in, and then realized we'd need at least—particularly since this episode is kind of a classic Rockford mystery—that we needed to throw a little spin on it.

Chris: Yeah, this episode doesn't have a— doesn't really have a con in it, but what— and I think this was your idea, John—was to make Tara's presence in the episode the con. That she cons the rest of the team.

John: At least engaging so we could get ahead with the story rather than the audience like, 'Wait, who's she? Why am I watching her?' Instead it's- we're playing this as if she could be a character on a, you know- And you stage this beautifully, by the way, putting her on the same side of the table, you know, really locking in for the audience who that is. And we know that most of the audience thought ‘Oh, they're gonna take this lawyer character and corrupt her.’ And the twist worked right up until the end; it was nicely done.

Peter: And especially when you see Jeri Ryan come in, you assume that something's gonna happen with her. So the whole game is to make it seem like she's just playing this part. Nothing else.

John: TV audiences have seen a lot of TV; it's very hard to fool a TV audience.

Peter: Yeah, exactly. They're like, ‘Ooh, she's a special guest, there's something significant's gonna happen with her.’ So we have to keep clouding that and make it seem like nothing's happening with her, and she played it great.

John: Yeah, this is just the guest star, yeah.

Peter: Just the guest star, that's it.

Timestamp: [5:00]

John: That's a nice shot of the bar I don't think we've done before, with the light coming in, like it's 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock in the afternoon.

Peter: And this is Anna Campbell, by the way. She actually is a local actress, and she did a terrific job. She's on Mad Men, as well.

John: Oh yeah!

Chris: Was she on Mad Men? Wow.

John: That was a great vic scene, by the way. That was really- when I was watching this the first time, I'm like, wow, dragging away the nice young woman, helping the old alzheimer guy, this is a dark one, man. You know what? I hate that guy. And getting Peter Reigert was a stunning bit of casting.

Chris: And that we have to give credit to Tim. Tim, who has lots of friends who are terrific actors in New York, and he suggested Peter, who, you know—I didn't even think was on the list of our casting people to even consider. Peter Reigert of course, you would know from Animal House, played Boon in Animal House, and my favourite movie of all time, Local Hero, which I asked him about incessantly about during the week of filming.

Peter: Yeah, see, Chris was stalking Peter, pretty much. On the weekends, Chris would track him down and keep asking him stuff.

Chris: [Laughs] There's not a frame of that movie I didn't ask him about.

John: The, uh, this is a nice conversation, the whole way that she digs in here, and the way she gets very righteous. And what we're kind of doing here, is making her be the way Nate Ford used to be before his fall. And that was—that's pretty much how this worked.

Peter: And it was very interesting. She was like, she had a hard time of it, because she's used to playing very strong, independent, powerful women, and not naive at all, and that's who she is as a person too. So she was really going and taking a risk by playing this person.

Chris: She was- she was very—and she said, 'Is the audience gonna buy, me, you know, an adult woman in—'

John: Paragon of virtue.

Chris: Yeah.

John: But you know, that's a role that people played in the 40s and 50s all the time. You know, this is very much kind of our take on a classic con, classic con movie. Ah, and that's 'we never let Vicki Vale in the Batcave.' That was my big beef from the original Batman movie, is, 'No one must ever know I'm Batman! Except for the nine or ten women who've wandered through here at any given time.' C'mon man, that's the whole point.

Chris: This is a tricky scene too, to do, because you- Uh, Peter, maybe talk about the kind of emotional—you gotta cover a lot of emotional ground here.

Peter: Well these scenes, I mean, it was interesting for me, being the first time I've done these episodes. They've all done, you guys have done these informational scenes in front of the screens before. This scene scared the hell out of me, 'cause how much, like the explainer scene can you do, you know? And uh, but it was great because, the way you guys wrote the script, we could play the comedy of him getting busted, going there, and then lead into it. So it took a little bit of the curse of trying to explain it, you added some comedy, and like—

John: I also like how you've got them appearing around him at first, so he has to keep turning and looking.

Peter: [Laughing] Yeah, exactly.

Chris: And these little, kind of, photoshopped shots look great. I mean it really does look like he's in London.

John: And what's a lot of fun about the—and they're tormenting him, this is very much the family vibe. What's really kinda fun about this is, you know, we dread these scenes as writers too. And the fans love them.

Peter: Oh no, I know, it is. But that's because every time you do a little twist on it, you know, and this scene had a lot of emotional beats; there's the fun of teasing him, and then they find out she's not coming back, which you have to really then transition into a big emotional moment there, and then he's gotta rally everyone back, and now they gotta get it.

John: Yeah it's like three or four emotional beats in one one scene, yeah.

Peter: So it's really tough. But it turned out really well, I thought.

John: And then you let the screens go to black, to show their mood. That was a nice choice. I'm sure that was totally intentional.

Peter: Oh yeah, exactly. I'm a genius like that. I'm an accidental genius.

John: You are. And, uh, Eliot knowing this is not a good idea; everyone knowing this is not a good idea, and...what was I gonna say? Oh, that's the key to these scenes also, is, get somebody pissed off in it. Someone in one of these informational scenes has to either not like the con, or not like the—

Chris: By the way, I need to interject, this is one of my favorite montages ever. This is an industrialist, and I think there's a picture of a, of like a drum of oil—

John: Look, there's a drum of goo poisoning children, and then an oil well fire, and him drinking a whiskey. [Evil laughter] I like, also, that this is a magazine called Lawyer Monthly. Is there a Lawyer Monthly? Is there an evil Lawyer Monthly magazine? I would like to get a subscription to that. And again, this was kind of the thing that we were learning, is that, you know, the lost heir, and the lost will, is a crime trope from the 1600s, that has been done on a lot of different crime shows, a lot of different con show, and so the fun is taking it and finding the variation that fits your show. You know, that's one of the great things about working in a genre that has a long history. To a great degree, you're almost like—it's more like what your variation on this theme is than the actual theme itself.

Peter: It's your homage.

Timestamp: [10:00]

John: It's more than an homage, it's uh, you know. Homages are more accurate.

Peter: Yeah it's more like folk music, you know, like—

John: You're supposed to put a little spin on it, you know, and your spin adds to it.

Peter: Yeah, you're updating it, that's what it's all about.

John: Exactly. God this is a long informational scene.

Peter: I know.

Chris: This is a big one; it's a lot.

John: We gotta do the character beats, we gotta do the—and that was the other thing we found, is, you know, that you can hang out—even in like, really fast moving episodes—you can hang out for half an act in this room.

Chris: Yeah. I mean, that's what we learned.

John: As long as there's emotional beats, or you open it really strong, and, you know, uh, taking away alzheimer dude's only hope really lands it. Now this is amazing. Where are we here, guys?

Peter: Uh.

Chris: Well, we're at a jail that was built outside of Portland, and then they ran out of money. So it's basically been just sitting there, and really, this whole act was designed because we knew we had this jail. And here is of course, we wanna introduce—

John: The 'pan up legs' shot.

Chris: The pan up from the pair of legs.

Peter: We had a slow motion version, but I didn't [mumbles] time to shoot. It was a little, a little too much.

John: It was a little buttery.

Peter: Yeah, you know, I've got, I like buttery though.

Chris: But the happy accident was that, like, whatever that stuff was in the air that was blowing—

John: Gave, like, a view.

Peter: I had a guy there, he was sorta—

John: You just had a big thing of pollen?

Peter: Yeah. We did it in the Patriot actually once, where it was like, we had—it was all this stuff and there was no really apparent reason for it, but it was up in the air.

John: Looks really pretty.

Peter: Yeah, exactly. That's the reason.

John: 'Put some more schmutz, put schmutz in the air. I want schmutz, Peter.'

Peter: Yeah, pretty much.

John: And this is again, you know, outside our character, different attitude, lot of fun. And not being able to tell the truth—this is another thing where we—

Chris: This was Guys and Dolls, it was when we were breaking it, this was- we're gonna see if we can corrupt her.

John: And that was the idea, is originally, you know, we didn't know how Tara was gonna come in, and who the character was. We talked about a Guys and Dolls variation, where we would corrupt the character, and then realized that would take too much explanation, and wouldn't be approved by Sophie... but we used every part of the animal.

Chris: Yes.

John: Wow, Chris wound up really rocking those 70s sunglasses this season. He really looks like he's come out of um, Grand Theft Auto there. Ah, this shot.

Chris: Oh this guy. This guy, uh, is this actor, Tobias Anderson, is a local actor in Portland, and is just fantastic. As a matter of fact, when we were looking—when we were doing this shot, right here, I went up to Tim afterwards and I said, ‘I wanna—can we do Chinatown? Can we remake Chinatown with you in the Jack Nicholson role, and him as.. not Walter…

John: Walter Huston?

Chris: The Walter Huston role, 'cause he really just had that perfect, kind of patrician accent.

Peter: And he was the last guy I saw, like, cast. Everyone else I was like, ‘eh, I dunno’, and then finally he came in.

John: This was kind of a recurring theme this year, to. We were really busting on the whole white collar, minimum security jails, 'cause I'm like seriously man, if you steal a billion dollars, your ass gets sent to the pen. Why do you get a vacation? It was also probably tied into the fact that at this point, we were working fourteen to sixteen hours a day, and a stint in a white collar jail sounded really good to me. I was like 'so I can't work at all, I gotta sit in there and be in jail.' Oh, this was my favorite character we did all year. This is very Rockford, this is Jimmy Joe Meeker.

Peter: I have to say, when he first came in with that blue suit, I wasn't too sure about it, but [snaps fingers] his character, he totally pulled it off, like after the first scene I'm like 'Okay, I get it, I totally get it.'

Chris: Well the thing is that in the cons, essentially when Nate is in these roles, his job is to get under the skin of the mark. I mea,n that's really what it is, because that's gonna lead the mark to make bad decisions, so that's what— there was actually more to this whole sequence too, where he actually—

John: This sequence, he gets dragged out outside and beaten up.

Peter: Oh yeah, yeah, because he's that irritating. Or the suit was that blue.

John: And also, you haven't done a Rockford homage until you had the gut punch.

Peter: And this was my first shot on Leverage; right here, this is where we started.

John: Oh really, great, nice. Look at this production value in Portland, wow.

Peter: And I have to tell you, these guys are the right guys to start your career on Leverage with, these two guys, because they are so hilarious–

John: It's really just, roll the camera and get out of their way, isn't it?

Peter: It's roll the camera [laughs] and like, let the guys play.

John: Look at that!

Chris: Look at that, isn't that a great-? Look at that shot. I mean, this pristine jail. Yeah, I mean the key we've found with them was to give them a funny attitude to play. If you find an attitude for them to play, it doesn't really matter what the script is, they know what to do.

Peter: Right, you just give them, like, guidelines and a goal at the end, and where to start, and then you roll. And these guys just go—especially these two together are like, amazing.

John: And nicely enough it's a happy blend, because it's not totally improv, they really do go off the dialogue, but there's always a little twist right at the end.

Peter: Absolutely.

Chris: Oh, but boy, him playing the traumatized prison guard just killed me.

John: Yeah, just the panic—he does panic very well. [Chris laughs] And again, Hardison, Hardison always goes over the top, always a little up.

Peter: But his over the top works, because every time I was watching him I was 'he's almost–he's not quite over the top, he's just at the edge of it, he keeps it right there.'

John: Well, cause the whole point is to make you so uncomfortable you're distracted. That's a lot of—

Peter: It's all sleight of hand.

Timestamp: [15:00]

Chris: And also to sell to him the idea that to go to maximum security prison would be the end of his life.

John: Is an unspeakable nightmare, yeah. Oh, I forgot, that’s our nurse, right, that's, um...

Chris: Yes, uh, in the picture.

John: We shouldn't say her name actually so she's not stalked, but yeah. And this is a lovely ventilation shaft scene, um, really, you can't go more than two episodes on Leverage without a ventilation shaft scene.

Peter: You would think that when people make buildings they would, like, stop making ventilation shafts, because that's how everybody steals the stuff, you know what I mean?

John: Well they tend to make them small, but Beth is very small.

Chris: By the way, she's just adorable in ventilation shafts, just the childlike wonder that she has.

Peter: Just goes together.

John: I also love that Hardison's managed to find Orangina even in a prison. He's just found an orange drink, even there.

Chris: And this is Doug Brookes, who was great also.

John: Yeah, he's the other guard here.

Peter: He was hilarious. I mean there was so much stuff—this was one of— I could have shot this for three day straight, this scene, because we were cracking up the whole time.

John: And what's really interesting here is, this is something that if you're going to shoot comedy, don't over complicate comedy. Your best friend on a comedy shot is a locked off comedy shot. It's just like—you see how often we just go back to this wide right here? 'Cause all comedy plays—well that's a Woody Allen rule, comedy plays on a two shot. And this is all attitudes and reactions. You know, there's no fucking camera movement, yeah, exactly.

Peter: Because you see two different reactions in one shot that's why it works.

John: Oh, and he's so hurt. He's so hurt.

Chris: And I love him yelling ‘clear’, I mean he just digs in.

Peter: And then usually, as you guys know, we just roll the camera at him and he just keeps talking. We'll keep rolling for another two minutes, he's got—he will never stop, we have to cut.

John: I love that this is what was—this is the worst frameup in history. I remember we were pitching this in the room, we came up with stuff like, like an M16 he'd assembled out of bed parts—

Peter: But it's the tone of the show, you can get away with it.

Chris: It's all he needs, it's a Nazi armband and a picture of Hitler.

John: But why the picture of Hitler??!!

Peter: But what about the first Nazi armband they gave me? It was like, yellow and white, I'm like...

Chris: Kudos to the wardrobe department, who quickly, maybe a bit too quickly, sewed a Nazi armband when we needed.

Peter: Maybe they didn't sew it; maybe they just had one.

John: But this was also, it's pretty amazing when you think, alright we're a cable show, we're in Portland, our wardrobe department had to come up with all these prisoner outfits, because random outfits are much easier, people often wear their own clothes when they're extras. All the uniforms, all the prisoner outfits, on like half a week of prep, by the time they get the script and everything, you know for blocking. And, the bookending scene.

Peter: And I will say, Tim's suits, they pulled out of their derriere as well, because that was kind of a last minute addition, and they went to some pimp store, and found it in Oregon.

John: There's a pimp store in Oregon?

Peter: I think so.

John: Wow, I wouldn't think there'd be enough pimps to support a mini culture like that.

Peter: I mean if you look at his jackets, there's like a little button that you can hang it on from the back on, it's like, really a great jacket.

John: And she's being great, she's really selling the whole innocent lawyer. There was a moment, when we were doing this, watching the dailies, I was like 'I'm gonna miss this character'. I kinda like Jeri as this—

Peter: As the earnest...

John: Yeah, as the earnest lawyer, because she usually plays so aggressive. Because she's a very good looking, powerful woman, and, uh, it was really great. That suit's magnificent. 

Peter: Yes.

John: And this is another one, when our guys—the only way to put pressure on our guys is, things are moving too fast, they're constrained in time and space, you know, it's—

Peter: Here's one I love; I love this shot. Whoop, and then—

John: Aaand, that's.. you're right, there it is.

Peter: The button—

John: And ripping out the pages, and here, here's what I love about Reigert here, if I may, and we wrote it a little like this, but really, most of our bad guys are like, 'what the hell are you doing here?' Reigert has, in theory, been an evil dude for thirty five years. He has buried a lot of bodies. This Papadokalis—this Tim Hutton character is not gonna throw him.

Chris: No, that was really the key, the key was for him to underestimate him for the entire episode, and this, this scene to me just epitomizes the whole episode. These two guys—

John: This is one of my favorite bad guy scenes, absolutely.

Peter: And these- we put them on opposite sides of the table for obvious reasons, but then these two guys really just—again, it was like the prison scene, but in a different way—these guys really, I mean, ad libbed, and played off each other the whole time. And it was pretty amazing, it was fun to watch.

John: That's a lot of craft at that table, right there.

Peter: A lot of craft. And it really worked, there was like, they were kinda playing with each other on an actor level, and on a character level at the same time, and it worked both ways.

John: Kinda trying to one up each other a little bit in the scene. That's a great set—what is, what offices were those?

Peter: That was a real lawyer office.

Chris: Yeah, I mean we—

Timestamp: [20:00]

John: Look at that deadpan, just that total dead-eyed—

Peter: Yeah and it's great, it's really like a fire and ice kinda scene, because Jimmy Papadokalis is all over the place, and he's like this, and Peter's just cool as ice.

John: And that's another thing, and you'll see it—we kinda found the rhythm as we went into the back half of second season, the bad guys get progressively scarier. And more competent. I like to think that the Leverage crew has cleaned out all the easy white collar dudes. Like in their first year, they got all the easy marks.

Chris: Well, I gotta give credit to Peter Reigert, I mean, he so inhabits this character. I remember being on set and people talking about, ‘I think this guy's killed people before’. Like, literally, when people debate about the backstory, you know you've hit a home run.

John: Now this one I like, is that we go out, and we're strung and we have no answer, and you're watching Nate Ford play chess here in his head. He's putting the facts together, he's doing detective work. And again, this is the thing we mention in a couple of the commentaries, a lot of second season was realizing, criminals are like detectives - they know crime, they can put stuff together. And Nate Ford was a detective, so you know, when he throws this together, it's using the available facts in a convincing way. And he's reading Reigert.

Chris: Yeah.

Peter: And the way Tim plays it, he was really brilliant in the scene, because you really feel like he's making this stuff up as he goes along. You do. I mean, you're like—like I'm watching, like we were watching and we were like, like what's he gonna do now? It was, like, it was amazing.

John: How is he saying the words, they seem fresh.

Peter: Yeah, and you just get sucked in, he's like, I mean he's—those looks, those blue eyes he's got man, they're just a killer.

John: And that's, again, structurally, this episode really is, we need X information, we do a mini con in act two to get X information. That information is not what we think it is, therefore we have to change the plan in act three. In act four, the violent ramifications of that changed plan comes to the fore. It's the template, it's the one comforting blanket...

Peter: What I love about this episode—besides 'I directed it'— was that I really felt, even when I was watching it, as a fan, later, I was like 'I don’t know how they're gonna defeat this guy', you know, like he's not gonna get ruffled.

John: He's a good bad guy.

Peter: And even like, in the scene that's about to happen, when she comes in, it's like, he doesn't buy that for a second either.

John: That's a big difference on shows, is, uh, a lot of times for us it's not are they going to defeat this guy, because meta structure—again, TV audiences have seen a lot of TV—it's how. This is one of the few times it's like 'I don't really know— I dunno if they're gonna do this.'

Chris: Well, I mean, that's what was so nice about introducing The Lost Heir Con, fairly deep into the show, I mean you know, there could have been an episode where that came out of the briefing scene, but because it became a development...

Peter: Right, because a lot of the episodes I saw, like that— they figured out the con at the end of the first act—

Chris: This is the con, this is what we're gonna do.

John: And that's really tricky, 'cause we really know we're not a detective show, because we have broken some episodes where there's like an investigatory first and second act. We always wind up throwing out those outlines. You know, it's gotta be a weird mix of investigation first and second act—

Chris: Well...

John: Because you do. If you introduce the con too early, you run out of steam.

Chris: But I think what we learned here was, that what the audience wants at the end is a twist. And you can give them a detective twist if we put it, like with the Tara character, if there's a con shell around it.

John: Yeah. You could easily do this as a private investigation episode, on any other show. 'Bye bye. Out. Get out.' And Parker's utter inability to act now.

Chris: 'Are we gonna go get meth?'

Peter: Dude, the meth line, we were all in tears. And there's like four different versions, and they're all awesome, and uh, yeah.

John: It's really hat-rific in there today, look at that. That's one, two, three, that suit's really a hat. [All laugh] Uh, that's three hats in there. And I remember breaking this, and going over like, women's names, or what we could possibly do, we had to look up and see uh, what had been, what could wind up on drivers licenses, when the drivers licenses were digitized—

Chris: Well the tricky thing here was, and you came up with it, was finding ways to bury the colorblind... because if you kinda like, if they they keyed up on colorblindness here, really we're tipping the ending, and it was just, trying to find a way to throw it in.

John: But that's one of those times where writing is really, we describe it as making the license plates, you sit in the writer's room for six hours, staring at the ceiling, until the answer comes, you know and just throwing out crap.

Peter: Yeah but it was a great 'gun in the drawer' kinda thing, you know, where it's like, he really—

Chris: He saw it up there, it landed visually, he mentions is—

Peter: Yeah, it's right in front of your face, and then it comes back later and no one sees it coming, and that's the best way. I always hate shows where it's like, suddenly they come up with a magic answer, and it was like, we never saw it. Here, you put it in front, but it's all sleight of hand.

John: There's a—Dean Devlin's father had a great thing, which is 'there are no drive ups in the third act', and we have the same thing. There's no new information in the fifth act. You're not allowed to give anything new, it has to be something, a version of what we've already seen.

Chris: That's a nice transition, too.

John: Yeah it is, a nice whip over to her. And there was actually an original scene, another scene in this, too, where he's kind of talking her into doing this? But the fun—it turns out this is much better, just knowing that somehow he's conned her into this.

Chris: The audience, you should know, this episode was eight minutes long when we finished it, and we kept—and it was a real hard thing to edit it down—

Timestamp: [25:00]

John: Oh, there's a lot of good scenes on the floor, in this one.

Chris: But I still feel like in the end, the final edit was the best edit. I mean, you've really like- when you get into it, you find out that you really didn't need all this stuff.

John: Yeah, a lot of the other stuff were grace notes.

Chris: And the eating stuff was Peter's—Peter likes eating scenes. [All Laugh]

John: All actors like eating scenes.

Peter: They do, it gives them some—they need business.

John: By the way, that's one of Spielberg's tricks.

Chris: Really?

John: One of Spielberg's tricks is to show, if he wants you to like people, he shows them—he shows them cooking.

Chris: That's interesting. Well, I guess it also shows how little, you know, disregard he has for everything.

John: And this was another trick, was to figure out a way to involve the lawyer character in the con, in a way that didn't violate the character, and the idea is, we were sitting there, 'but she's supposed to be scrupulously honest,' and we realized, well, we use that, that's the point.

Chris: And also it answers the question as to, wouldn't this guy just ask for a DNA test? Well, we always find—

John: Oh that's right, that was the big argument in the room, is, how do you get him to not want a DNA test?

Chris: Well, you convince him it's the worst possible option. Ah, and this is a great scene, too.

John: And, a couple months afterwards, it was in the news, a way to fake DNA tests. We killed ourselves, we killed ourselves to figure out some way to get him to not ask for the DNA, and then a couple months later in the news there was a way about how to fake it.

Peter: They probably saw the episode and —

John: Yeah, I sent them all the research. This is a very classic, this is, we could stamp a Quinn Martin production on this scene.

Chris: He looks like the, uh, actor here, who I'm gonna look up his name quickly—

Peter: David.

Chris: Is it David?

Peter: I think so.

Chris: Yeah. He— right out of a Quinn Martin production.

John: Actually I — He could play in Spencer as the, uh, the heavyset Boston sargeant that's his buddy, yeah. And this is, a good, uh, good showdown on the docks scene. This was originally an alley, in a parking garage,

Chris: Yeah, wasn't it, it was a parking garage, and what was—what led to you guys scouting out here?

Peter: You know what, it was just, for me, I'd watched all the episodes, and I just felt, you- There was this whole river thing, and in Boston there's a river even though, you know- 

Chris: It worked great.

Peter: But I just wanted to open it up, you know, give some size to it, and I dunno, the parking garage, there was no good alley parking garage in Portland. So, we went into this scene. And it opened it up a little bit, 'cause we were in a lot of rooms, up until then.

John: Yeah, there's that whole, that whole second act, to a great degree, is prison, lawyers office, and that's a good- you know what, any act break where a dude's aiming a gun at you is a good act break.

Peter: It's always good.

John: You know what, I'm gonna—I'm gonna stand by that. Now, what happened is, people were wondering, how did Eliot see this guy? This is Eliot's job. Eliot's job is to walk the perimeter and beat the hell out of people.

Peter: He showed up with them in the car, and then like, got out earlier—

John: They dropped him off so he could— now this is great.

Chris: This is great, there we go.

John: This is not CG. [Referring to Eliot chucking a rock at a guy's head.]

Peter: This is not, this is real, and this was- this was Christian's idea, you know, to throw the rock, because we had played softball that weekend, and he was shortstop and he was so good and then he came up "Dude, you saw how good I was at shortstop, right? I can do that, I can throw that." And he kept it in frame and everything.

Chris: And his, uh, his baseball skills become in evidence later in the season, I'd say.

John: Yeah, exactly. This is also a nice fight, because it really showcases something that Kevin Jackson really tried to do this year, which was, all of Eliot's fight style, because he's, you know, he's fast, is getting inside your reach and just working the ribs; it's not big kicks, his job is to get in there, break your ribs, and make you lay down. Yeah, maybe break an elbow, uh, and this was also great. We had to figure out how to get a time constraint on it, having him shoot the tires out, it was just a nice bit of work.

Peter: Yeah.

John: We should have used the Hyundai Genesis for this, though. Why the hell didn't we do that? Oh, we shot the tires out, that's right. That's right, you can't really do an endorsement for a car that you shoot.

Peter: Right, exactly.

Chris: Aww.

John: Aww, this is fantastic.

Peter: Oh, this is the best.

John: And Reigert's acting—

Peter: And by the way, we were in a mad rush right now, because the sun's going down.

John: Yeah. And just, gimme the gun. There you go. Thank you. Boom. Oh god!

Peter: And he's so blasé.

Chris: [Laughing] He says thanks!

John: Ahh. Dude, he has so put a bullet in a junkie, like in 1985 in an alley.

Peter: We had a great moment there, too, where he drives off and the guy's left in the dust. But it's really extra.

Chris: And I can say that this episode, in the earliest versions, one of the earliest nuggets of it was this fourth act, which was a race to the courthouse. It was one of those things we always knew was, there was gonna be Eliot and Parker, racing to the courthouse, and cops trying to shoot them, and it was the gauntlet.

John: Yeah, and that's, again, very simple goal, one goal per act, you can make—

Peter: I just love, like they think 'Oh I'm gonna put on some shades, no one will recognize us.' 

[All Laugh]

John: And this, this is really my favorite Eliot-Parker run in the entire two years. Because it's one of the times that we're really reminded of the fact that they are the two most dangerous people on the team, and then when they're not with the others, they can sometimes allow themselves that.

Timestamp: [30:00]

John: You know, they pretend to be normal humans around Hardison and Nate and Sophie, because they know they're not supposed to be, you know, like, not supposed to enjoy this. And now a good gloat from Reigert, that's nice.

Peter: Yeah, exactly.

Chris: 'Crawl under a rock.'

John: Yeah, so the entire thing was us sitting around like, what are the three or four locations, if you're trying to get to the courthouse, you know, what could the possible obstacles be? And I think this, this whole run was uh, I think this one's mine just because I did the key bit, remember?

Chris: Yeah the key bit, I think that was gonna be something with a ball bearing at one point?

John: Yeah, we played around with it, and just um, it was... oh, it was jury duty. It was like, the only thing that's keeping you from getting into a courtroom, really, is a metal detector. I love this push in on the reverse by the way,

Peter: Yeah, this was great, this was like, we really blocked this out big time, but then Mark shot-

John: There you go!

Chris: Oh, that's an iconic shot.

John: Yeah it is. And what's kinda interesting there is, he's not looking forward to it, and she's smiling, she genuinely is looking forward to it. And there's our naive lawyer, completely hung, and we've just said this girl is not part of it.

Peter: But this is the scene that, like, I think people really believe that she really is that person, and really is naive. She really sells—

Chris: Yeah, she did.

John: She sold the hell out of it. Now, she was—you know what, you get a new actor to come to your show in the middle of your season, it could be a disaster in a lot of ways. Jeri was nothing but a professional, and she was sweet and she's funny as hell, seriously, it couldn't have gone better.

Peter: And so, so prepared, you know when she's so prepared, you can play around a little bit.

John: You know what, this also comes from - my mom, when I was eight, we flew down to see friends of hers in San Antonio, she was taking kielbasa from this deli in Worcester with us—

Peter: This is already a good story.

John: But we go through the x-ray—it was one of the first times they'd had an x-ray machine—so there are three, uh, tinfoil wrapped cylinders that looked like explosives in my mother's luggage. And I remember at eight, like the guards just descending on us.

Peter: I love that. That's like, let's be blatant shall we?

John: You know what, television is not [???]

Peter: No, no, no. But here's what's great about Peter in this scene - he really made everyone around him feel nervous, like he was like really doing that thing. He did like, you know, acting-directing, you know, which I always love.

John: Okay—THERE, THE CATCH!

Chris: The catch! By the way, after he did that, he came up to me—because I wasn't there for this—and he said 'You gotta call Rogers and tell him I caught the bullet.' I mean he was like a little kid, talking about that.

Peter: He did it on three different takes, he caught the bullet.

John: He did it on three takes without—and she tasers him without looking. And the little smile...

Peter: Loves it. And then she gives him another one as she bails.

John: And just the look back to him, like, 'What? What? I'm supposed to not do that?'

Peter: 'I just went to the dark side for a second.'

Chris: And just one little *zzz* jolt on the way out.

Peter: It's so great with her, 'cause she's so sweet looking, and then she's got this little dark side which is awesome.

John: And that was the other thing, you really see that coming out in the back half of the season. Like from here on—it was nice because things had slowed down and we were like, 'Alright, what are some beats that we haven't hit in a while? Oh that's right, Parker's crazy.'

Chris: Yeah, she's crazy. That's a beautiful entrance too, that sweeping camera.

John: Great courtroom. Was this the same courtroom we shot yours in?

Chris: Same courtroom we shot in.

John: Nice. But they're not in Belbridge, they're in Boston proper.

Peter: It is the best, it's like the peacock, you know, he's totally got his mirror out, and—

Chris: Well that, I'll tell you where that was from, Gerald Shargel, the great mob lawyer. I remember there's a famous story where he was doing a mob trial and opened his briefcase before he was about to do a cross examination, and it was all hairbrushes. [Peter laughs] it was like, there was not one file folder...

John: Yeah, you think anybody else is gonna wander in here, no. She’s—and now we're doing our courtrooms. Oh, look at that. Was that a federal courthouse?

Chris: It was a former federal courthouse, and you know, I said this, I think, in the earlier one, there are, in a lot of American cities, there are beautiful federal courthouses built in the twenties and thirties. And then, you know, they decided 'no, they don't work for us anymore', built brand new federal courthouses with your tax dollars, and these things are sitting there—

John: Just sitting around empty.

Chris: Just waiting for television shows to arrive.

John: We could do a courtroom drama, we could just live in this place, yeah.

Peter: And by the way, Jeri feeling very at home in a courtroom because of Boston Legal. She was like, she had that down, but in a different way. She was playing, more of an innocent...

John: Yeah, not the shark. No the, uh, and then the show becomes a courtroom drama. The show really is, like, four different episodes, you know? There's kind of an early Rockford, then there's the gauntlet—

Chris: And then becomes a courtroom drama.

John: —and now it's Perry Mason.

Chris: It really is, that's it.

John: Except Peter Reigert is much more formidable than Hamilton Burger. Hamilton Burger, a reference only five of you will get. Oh no, and now he's really starting to get pissed off. No it was interesting, we actually played around a lot with, like, how evidence is admitted, and what the...

Chris: Yeah, you know me, I get very...

John: No, it was interesting, it was one of the few times that I've been, ‘I wanna make sure I get this right’. And you were explaining that what is allowed as evidence is pretty much up to the judge. 

Chris: It is, yeah. I mean, this was all, I vetted this, this is pretty much all on the level. 

Timestamp: [35:00]

Peter: What I love about this scene is like, on one level, we have no idea how he as a character, Tim as a character, is gonna, like, pull this off, because we're not thinking about the color blind thing. But on another level, Tim is like ad-libbing a lot in there, and so the actors are also like, they don't know what's gonna come at them. So everyone's like on their toes, which worked really perfectly for the scene, because you really had to listen to everything he said, because everyone had to react to it. And all the actors, including the judge, the local actors, they all rose up and like, really handled it well, and it makes the scene work terrific. 

John: This was interesting, I just, looking at these shots, because this is not a designed courthouse but a real courthouse, a designed courthouse would have more gack on either side on those sight-lines. You know, there'd just be like high risers, or wouldn't be quite so deep, you know.

Chris: But this was, I remember, there's a few times when you're watching, you know, filming something, when you're like, this is something special. And there was a take here where it was like, between the two of these guys ad libbing, that was really something special. And I remember the three of us looked—it was you, me, and Dean—were like, wow, that's it.

Peter: No, it really was.

John: The, uh, and then now the launch. The whole unraveling, and she's really sympathetic; that was good casting on our part.

Peter: So sympathetic.

Chris: She was fantastic.

John: 'What color?'— that was the moment in the room when we got it. Because we're trying to figure out like, what's the moment? What's the one thing that'll lock it in? Because we were doing the lost heir con, and we hadn't come up with the idea that she was the lost heir yet.

Chris: Yeah that was a fairly late addition.

Peter: And all this stuff that Tim does, where he's like, it looks like he's trying to—but now as a character, he's playing Peter Reigert's character, like, 'Oh I don't really know what I'm doing,' but his character totally does.

Chris: It's the typical like, ‘I'm just a country lawyer. I dunno about you big—’

John: It's very Columbo.

Chris: ‘—you big city lawyers, I mean all I know is this.’

John: 'Pardon me, just one more thing before I leave, my wife's very excited that I met you, I gotta ask—'

Chris: 'Now, maestro—'

John: 'Maestro, when you doing one of these orchestra things? Exactly how long are you playing here?' And that's when we do the revelations of observation.

Chris: Here's where he figured it all out. Colorblindness, trying to play fair.

John: See, if you go back on the DVD, right there, it's right there.

Peter: All those shots are there.

Chris: There was a lot of debate about how much to see of the flowers in that scene, it was—

John: No, because you're focused on Jeri Ryan.

Peter: But the whole thing for me is, you have to see all that stuff, but not see it at the same time. But it has to be there, else you're cheating.

John: I'd forgotten that. That's one of my favorite moments in the room this year, where we're just sitting there, staring at the ceiling, and we've just been beating at this for hours, and all of a sudden, 'what color is my tie?' and you just saw like the walls fall into place, like, bang bang bang bang.

Chris: And a great choice of Tim here to drop the Papadokalis character. Like by now, by now he becomes Nate Ford, lawyer.

John: And sympathetic dad. You know, he kinda, he genuinely, he's figured out that there's a massive tragedy at the center of this, you know? And we had a big talk about, like, redemption and what the- why this guy would try to change, and... lovely. It's a nice little episode. I think everybody dug this one. Yeah. And she's working the hell out of that, look at that, she's tearing up.

Peter: She's so good. No, and she totally gets it, you know, for me, acting's all about transitions; it's all about, that's the most important part, the change. And she really gets it, she's like, really... and Tim really helped a lot, like on the off camera stuff, 'cause he would just start rattling off all this different stuff to help her get there.

John: I gotta tell you, that was kinda cool, when you're up there in Portland, and you're watching, like, local actors get a seminar with Tim Hutton. Because he worked with the girl who played the victim's daughter in the opening one. I'm like, you're a fifteen year old Portland actor, and you're working with an Oscar—

Peter: She, by the way, was fantastic.

John: She was fantastic. Yeah, and you're working with Tim Hutton. I mean, you're not gonna get this anywhere else. No, we loved the Portland actors. We love shooting there, it's a great place. Now, he's losing it.

Chris: Now he's completely unhinged. [Laughing]

Peter: He's suddenly realized. And it's only now that you realize, he's gonna lose. And it took this long, and that's what's great, is like—

John: 'Papadokalis!!'

Peter: Yeah, dude. That was the best. 

[All Laughing]

John: And he's gone, now Nate's gone from the clown to the guy in charge. And it's, yeah, utterly unmanned him. And I love the fact that, if you go back and watch this now, knowing what Tara is, she's running, like, a double con at this moment.

Chris: Yeah.

Peter: But at this point, you would never guess it, because the Papadokalis character is so big, it camouflages everything that Tara is doing, you know what I mean? And uh, and that's what helped it, her performance and Jimmy Papadokalis being so big, makes you not think about it.

John: I like that wink he threw her, too. That moment, it was a really sweet moment. And uh, a little gloat.

Chris: Oh, here's the gloat. Dean loves the gloat.

John: Dean's rules, the villain must suffer, and there should always be a gloat, if you're going for optimal. I love that she kisses stuff when she gets—she kisses money, she kisses—this is her, she gets pleasure from stealing. No other way around it.

Peter: I gave her like, what that was, in the thing, what's in the paper, and then she kissed it, but I wouldn't tell you what it was because it's private.

John: What? Aww.

Timestamp: [40:00]

Peter: I'll tell you after the DVD thing.

Chris: Oh, and he's dragged away.

John: Dragged away! Ruined! That, my friend—

Peter: I love how she perches up there; she's like a percher. She likes to perch on things.

John: Actually, in another episode, you know, we note the fact that you almost never see her enter a room. Usually the camera comes around, and she's just sitting there. You have no idea how she got there.

Chris: And here this really sells that; you think this is the end of the line for her.

John: Oh, special guest star Jeri Ryan.

Chris: This is like, you know, 'I hope you learned from me.' 'I think you learned something from me.' Like, the audience goes, ‘Oh okay, that's the end of Jeri Ryan.’

Peter: That was a good part for Jeri. That was a good thing for her.

Chris: Now this is very much a Rockford scene, because in every Rockford, there's usually a scene with the girl at the taco stand at the very end, when Rockford surmises why what happened happened. And he doesn't really know why, he just, he's taking a guess with his Rockford wisdom, and that's what Tim is doing right here. I felt very much writing this, that this was the quintessential coda Rockford scene.

John: Yeah. And the sort of, you know, the universe is a disordered place, and our job is to bring order to it. And you really have to read Harlan Ellisons—

Peter: I always love that entrance, these guys 'eh, we all happened to come in and enter right at this time.'

John: They wait around for each other outside, they know the effect they have when they walk in. And now the flip. And look at each one of them locking it in in a different way.

Peter: This is the zoinks moment; that's the zoinks moment.

Chris: And there she is, rocking the boots.

John: And she looks a little different there.

Peter: Slightly.

Chris: That's no librarian!

John: This was great. And it was a great way to introduce the character. Because again, the team is hypercompetent, you really have to... there's only so many ways you get a character to come in here and ordinarily, if you're bringing in a new character, as most shows do in the pilot, it’s the rookie story. We can't have this be the rookie story, because we're in the middle of a season. So, you know.

Peter: I just love, I love the interplay between her, Jeri and Beth, it's great. Because like, you know, that's the two girls and she's the biggest defender for Gina's character.

John: Yes, exactly. And they, by the end, they became really fantastic friends over the course of the season. And it really started being a lot of fun just putting the two of them in scenes together, because they'd found a really nice rhythm between Parker and Tara.

Chris: And I think the actors hung out a lot, they had a really nice—

John: They did; that's what I'm saying, they really were very good friends.

Peter: Well, especially because it's such a guys club, you know. [Laughs]

John: Especially since Gina wasn't, by that point, not in the [mumbles] because of her pregnancy, so this—and we had a bigger scene here and this was just a nice look. This is just—

Chris: That smile!

Peter: And that's her like, in her full like, 'Oh, this is gonna be great.'

John: And it was. We had a great time with her. And the turn, and ‘Dad, make it stop’, and there you go.

Chris: 'What did I just do?' That's—we went out on our summer season finale.

John: On that. Exactly. And this wasn't supposed to be the summer season finale, and it turned out to be a great one. It really was a great, solid, sort of back to basics episode.

Peter: It just makes sense, when you're introducing that new character, now it's like, a whole new change, and then you make 'em wait to get the next ep.

John: Uh, anything you want to say to the nice folks before we wrap it up?

Peter: Well for me, I had a great time doing it. It was a great time in Portland, except for the writers on the set—

John: I understand. Nothing but trouble. 

[Chris Laughs]

Peter: Yeah, nothing but trouble. But otherwise, I mean, great cast, great crew, everything was a lot of fun.

Chris: We had a good time.

[usernameorwhatever]

7am

The spot on the ceiling was beginning to look a lot like a car. The outdated popcorn texture above him cast small shadows as the sun began to creep into the room, and one of those took the shape of a minivan, ugly to look at but reliable. The prettiest things were so unreliable.

9am

Jim’s head rested against the pillow but he couldn’t feel its comfort. It was a hot Florida morning and the comforter had never been unfurled for him to curl under anyway. He didn’t move, he didn’t make a sound, he didn’t even feel like breathing.

10:30am

It was time to get up. Depression wouldn’t stop the world from spinning. But willing his body to move proved more difficult than usual. It felt like he was stuck in wet cement, every motion took all the energy he could muster. Just reaching his arm out for his phone, which he hadn’t bothered to plug in the night before, exhausted him. But just as he assumed, no messages. No calls. Jim was the type of person that never put much stock in his birthday, in any birthday really, so it was some sort of karmic balance that no one paid any attention to his.

11:30am

Another hour passed before he finally got up. True to his character, he did the bare minimum effort just to get out of bed; his body rolled to the side of the mattress, and his legs bent to allow his feet to press against the floor. It was then that he remembered his shoes were still on. Oh well. He pushed himself up so he could stand, but even that made him tired. He was made of glass and he had to be careful to navigate his way through today, because one wrong move and he would crack and shatter into a million pieces.

1pm

His phone stayed in the bedroom, the battery low but with enough juice left for him to do what needed to be done. But that didn’t mean Jim was ready to do it. He sat in the empty kitchen, the table littered with mail that hadn’t been sorted through yet, but he managed to clear off a section for himself big enough to place a bowl of cereal down on it. Spoon in hand, he twirled it around in the milky concoction — the sugary pieces of cereal had gone from wet and crunchy to soggy in the time it had taken him to bring a bite to his lips. But one bite was all it took for him to realize he wouldn’t be eating the rest anyway. Jim brought the bowl to the sink, paused as he looked out of the small window, and dropped the bowl into the basin with a loud clang. His fingers gripped the edge of the counter tightly, and his breath caught in his throat for a moment. He inhaled deeply through his nose and exhaled slowly.

2:45pm

The couch felt lumpy. No matter what position he tried to sit on it, it just brought discomfort. The minutes passed by as he shifted from sitting up, to leaning against the arm, to laying across the cushions. At one point he even hung upside down on it, his feet kicking in the air as he tried in vain to focus on the tv. All he wanted was a distraction. He knew what loomed on the horizon, and he also knew he didn’t have the courage or the will to face it in person. It’s why he avoided his phone like the plague, because once he went back into that bedroom, he had to pull the trigger. The worst part was that he couldn’t even feel the anger anymore. It was just pain. He couldn’t use the anger as a vehicle to drive him to what needed to be done ... because that wasn’t who he was. He wasn’t an angry person. He wasn’t an emotional person in general. It’s why he didn’t take a baseball bat to that dude’s car, or go knock on her door to confront her last night ... all he wanted to do was curl up and forget that the last six months had ever happened. If only Doc Brown would show up at his front door and give him the keys to the DeLorean. If only life was like that.

5pm

Whatever movie has been on was ending, and the corner of the screen flashed that Grease was about to start. That was a sign that it was time. He flicked the screen off before, fighting off the memories of one of their first nights together outside of the locker room. No. No more putting it off. Jim put his hand on the coffee table and used it as a means to pull himself back up off of the floor, where he’d been seated long enough for his back to hurt. His feet lazily shuffled him out of the living room, but there wasn’t a crowd of people cheering him on this time. His indifferent demeanor was real right now. Not an act. When he finally made it to the bedroom, he looked down at the darkened screen of his phone with a sigh. He stood beside the bed, arms folded across his chest, the stain from the donut still on his black shirt. But finally, he reached down and picked it up to start this terrible process. As he unlocked it, the clock read 5:33pm. He apparently missed a few calls from Dustin recently, but the last thing he wanted was to hear anyone sing happy birthday. Or explain to anyone why he was comatose. No, he ignored them and instead opened up the message thread that had stood idle since yesterday. The cursor blinked as it waited for him to begin typing with his thumbs.

“I’m not going to play games or anything...but I mean, not even a text on my birthday? You’ve seemed a little distant lately but I figured it was because of the injury and having to watch life go on and your spot being given to other people. I tried to be there for you and also give you your space. But I guess that was the wrong thing to do, because you just filled that space with someone else. I was at your house yesterday, Anna. I saw you leave right after telling me you were sick. I saw you have a brunch date with some guy and get into his fancy car. I saw that same car in your driveway in the middle of the night. If you weren’t happy being with me, you should’ve said something, because I was like...super happy. The happiest I’d ever been I think. And now I just feel so... stupid... like this is what I was trying to avoid, ya know? I never wanted to be in this relationship in the first place, but then when you finally dragged me into it, I gave it my all. It just...really sucks that you made me fall in love with you, Anna. Because now I have to let you go. So, good luck with that guy or whatever, I guess. Should’ve known a minivan wasn’t good enough for someone like you to begin with.”

Not even bothering to proofread it, because his eyes were already blurry ... from having to look at the screen so long, most likely ... and he just didn’t have the energy. Once it was sent, he immediately dropped his phone and sat on the edge of the bed. Another thirty minutes or so went by before he heard the front door open. But before Jim could even pretend like he wasn’t in his room, he heard heavy footsteps and his name being called. Then without warning, Greg pushed his bedroom door open in a rush and Dustin was soon to follow him inside.

“What are you doin’ buddy? We’ve been trying to call you! C’mon, we gotta go.” Dustin said.

“No ... I’m good.” Jim replied nonchalantly.

“Seriously, come on. It’s important.” Dustin retorted, walking over to Jim to try and pull him off of the bed.

“I don’t feel like going anywhere.” Jim said with more authority to his tone.

“You don’t get it man — look it’s supposed to be a surprise, but Anna is throwing you a party right now and you’re late!” Greg finally spoke up, and he and Dustin both stared down at him with annoyance. “She got rented you this super cool car too!”

“Yeah man it’s a replica from Fast Five. It’s a Lexus or something, I don’t know.” Dustin added.

Jim jumped up off of the bed immediately, remembering the car of his nightmares. His whole body felt suddenly alive, live he’d been bolted out of a deep sleep. “Wait what...” he mumbled, looking between the two of them. “We have to get to that party now.”

A few minutes later, the three of them were in the minivan, as fast as the automobile would take them.

[kinetic-elaboration]

April 3: 2x13 Obsession

Okay, trying this again! My live-blog thoughts from watching Obsession last night. I didn’t remember this ep very well, and I was a little uncertain about it going in. But ultimately I think it was a really solid Kirk episode and a really solid triumvirate episode.

How many times as hard as rock is this mineral you’re looking for? Let’s be precise. (Aka how Spock flirts.)

I’m really into the sets and special effects today. This big rock that is obviously Styrofoam. The ominous cloud of smoke.

Set phasers to disrupter-b? I feel like he just made that up.

Oh no, three red shirts set out on their own! I feel like this one is pretty smart, though.

Leslie!!! RIP my favorite extra.

“Something that can’t possibly exist… but does anyway.” That’s it, that’s the show.

Well Kirk’s obsession is obvious right away. That’s good. We’re getting right to the point.

They have to meet up with another ship in order to transport perishable vaccines!! I know from first-hand experience that that is very important! Get it together Kirk. Admitting straight out, “I’m okay with some other people dying so I can further investigate the monster” is not a good look on him.

Also I feel like TOS often confuses “cure” and “vaccine” (as in Miri) but even if these are actually vaccines, they could still save lives urgently!

McCoy’s autopsy report: uh, just look at their faces??

The Yorktown, the Farragut… someone on the AOS team loved this episode apparently. (I remembered that the Farragut was Kirk’s first assignment but I did not remember the Yorktown.)

Interesting that the creature smells of honey because “rotting honey” was the smell that indicated the presence of Area X in the Southern Reach.

Some gratuitous touching.

When Garrovick Jr. first showed up, the shot was so ominous and dramatic that I legitimately thought that the creature was a shape-shifter and that was him lol.

Is this another episode where Kirk sees himself in a promising young man and then proceeds to judge him incredibly harshly as a way of judging his own past self? I think it might be!

Garrovick looks like he’s sitting in front of a green screen during this interrogation. Honestly, the colors in this episode are really going off in general! I can see how this would be fun to watch on a new color tv.

“Go to your room! You’re grounded!”

“Put it in your report, Spock!” I really wish we’d seen AOS Kirk do that. Like, fighting with reports and regulations is one of my favorite parts of TOS but we only saw AOS Spock use that as a weapon and it was made to show what a stick in the mud he was but like… they all do it! And AOS Kirk should have too.

And now a scene where Spock and McCoy gossip about Spock’s boyfriend.

I honestly love McCoy and Spock scenes. They have such a great rapport… the respect is not even grudging, it’s clearly there, but they make it more palatable to themselves by adding in some barbs and little digs at each other. But it’s still McCoy that Spock goes to when he needs advice or even, as he says here, just someone to bounce an idea off of, and McCoy is there to listen to him.

Oh, Spock definitely understands obsession.

Kirk’s quarters are looking very purple today.

Mccoy is trying to wax poetic and Kirk just wants him to get to the point.

Time to lie down in an Emo Fashion again.

Not to be nitpicky, but if the creature killed 200 people on the Farragut, and that was half the crew… wouldn’t the Farragut be a lot bigger than the Enterprise? I don’t think that’s right. Also, not to be even more nitpicky, but how did they finally get away from it? Did it get on their ship? If it killed all the people on the surface, could they not have just… stopped hanging out on the surface?

Anyway. McCoy is such a good best friend.

Garrovick was Kirk’s Pike.

Oh no, bringing in the big guns: the boyfriend. A blue shirt conspiracy.

Spock sounds like he’s in one of those HR training videos. Like, he’s attempting to sound conversational while still blatantly quoting from the Starfleet Handbook.

“Why are we delayin’ here?” Heavy Southern drawl.

They really are ganging up on him.

Intuition is a command prerogative.

I love how Bones says “We’re not ganging up on you” after a long scene where they gang up on him.

Oh no, the creature’s on the move! Just straight up floating through space. Cool cool cool.

Kirk’s so distracted by the creature that he’s not even looking at Spock’s ass.

Another bad day for Scotty.

I like Chapel but honestly, imagine Rand in this scene with Garrovick… I miss her.

Garrovick, what an idiot. Throwing shit and hitting switches across the room.

I legit don’t understand how the creature moves in space. Or what this has to do with gravity… which doesn’t exist in space.

Monster hunt, monster hunt!

Spock is agreeing with Kirk now, about the creature’s intelligence.

Whatever is going on with the vents in this ship, it seems like maybe they’re not the most well made.

“Let’s just nuke it.” That’s always a good idea.

Spock is trying so hard to make Kirk feel better. Even calling him “Jim”—which he used to do almost every episode and now rarely does anymore.

Lol, now he’s off to try the exact same thing with Garrovick. “If Jim won’t let me comfort him, perhaps this other irrational human will.”

“Garrovick, let me explain your own thoughts and feelings to you. I’m an expert on humans, you know. I’m around them all the time.”

“I know you want to be emo, but could you please just listen to me??” The absolute transparency with which he’s trying to be helpful.

Kindness actually isn’t an emotion… it’s a choice. Spock really will call anything a human emotion in order to avoid having to deal with it.

I'm sorry but he SNAPS THE KNOB OFF, goes "eh," throws it away, and then tries to stop the gas coming through the vent with his HANDS? How did Sarek raise this boy?

Garrovick is so Dramatic. A true Kirk protégé.

The creature tried to eat Spock and Spock didn’t taste so good.

"I'm asking for your military appraisal of the techniques used against the creature." Professor Kirk coming out.

Poor creature was lost, I guess. Just wants to go home.

And SPAWN. That word just gives me flashbacks tbqh…

Kirk and Spock having their usual ‘who will sacrifice himself first’ – off.

Realistically it should be neither the XO NOR the Captain but this is a tv show.

I do remember this part. Carrying that weird little device down to the planet. It is very aesthetically pleasing. I kind of want it for my apartment, to display as like a modern art sculpture. Minus the bomb

Mmm, a delicious snack for the creature. Yum. Got that gross green blood taste out of its mouth.

LMAO at Garrovick trying to be all heroic, knock Kirk out, and become the sacrifice. You thought!!

Spock and Scotty at the controls so you know how serious the transporter situation is.

McCoy versus the transporter again.

"It was my cross-circuiting to B that recovered them." Yes, Spock saved his space husband, he saved the day, and we should all acknowledge it.

Aw, that’s sweet, Kirk volunteering to reminisce with Garrovick about his father.

The end! I ended up enjoying it a lot overall. We gotta stop having episodes where Kirk is questioned or learns lessons though lol. I want my unabashedly heroic captain! Still no matter what he is always a hero in the end. And as I said, really great triumvirate ep with good individual characterizations, and scenes with each part of the triangle together.

If the Farragut incident was 11 years before this, and, as established in the last ep, Kirk is 34, that means he was 23 at the time. Pretty young to be a lieutenant imo. He was also a lieutenant at the time he was teaching Gary Mitchell at the Academy, which I’m going to personally headcanon, starting now, was right after Garrovick’s death. He returns to San Francisco, takes a year or a semester off to teach, and meets Gary.

Next up is Wolf in the Fold, a rare Scotty-centric episode.

[sillystarshine]

90210 season 3

ep 29&30  Commencement parts 1 and 2

I am loving the whole gangs outfits at the beginning of this episode

did they really all take a 40 min drive(if traffic was light) just to discuss this plan of theirs?

I love that Brenda and Dylan were the first ones togo for steve’s plan(soul mates! little rebellious soul mates ;) those two )

awe. cute little moment with Brenda & Dylan playing football >.<

Senior Wills? never heard of those did anybody do these at their high school 

David 6 finals in 3 days means 2 finals a day...is this not the norm? I mean that’s exactly how i took my finals in high school  2 finals each day school was over by noon each day

How’s Dylan able to go anywhere sending in his application so late? unless he plans to start in the winter or spring semester?

WOW I’m shocked that hulu/the show was actually able to keep one of the songs they used in the original airing(school’s out by Alice Cooper)

Do people who work in TV just blissfully ignore/or forget about college application deadlines? It’s either late May or Mid June by the time these kids are graduating so they should be (or have already) finding out what college they are going to... not just barely submitting applications and recommendation letters

whoa make that 2 for 2 in keeping the songs!

I love that Nat is now an honorary member of the class of ‘93

OMG I forgot that David wasn’t really a part of the gang during the whole Laverne episode! (update: just watched the Laverne episode again David was actually there when Brenda and co. were lip-synching It’s my party) 

Also is this episode clip/flashback episode?! So cheesy and cheap and yet I love it already!

oh no Andrea don’t you be having second thoughts about Yale just because of Brandon

lol baby David Silver...back when he had a crush on Kelly... they work much better as step siblings

The Walshes should just open their own ice cream Parlor at this point 

Also Brenda and I both agree extra candy in ice cream everyday ;)

“Mom, this is the '90s: what kind of insecure wuss chooses a college based on where some guy is going” ~Brenda just before Andrea walks in...Pot meet Kettle lol

No Andrea thought Damn he’s cute! when Brandon first walked into the news room and you know what i can’t blame her ;)

i think we all jumped to conclusions regarding Andrea and Yale...oops

Smush??? :P that’s really you’re nickname for him Kelly? bleh

of all the flashbacks why must we flashback to Dylan choosing Kelly? did the writers enjoy seeing the fans suffer 

they need stop acting like Kelly and Dylan were the big will they wont they couple of the show I’m sorry but they’ve barely been together for like 6-8 months and i’m going to stop there i’ll save the whole Dylan-Brenda-Kelly love triangle fiasco for another day

getting interrupted all the time you’re with Dylan, Kelly maybe you should take it as a sign 

I love Dylan’s mom! She’s definitely the captain of Brylan(Brenda & Dylan) ship

“you’re still with Kelly?!”~Iris Mckay 1993 what a mood; same Iris same

I love Steve and Andrea’s friendship such an oddball one but it works

An egg hahaha 

the double date from hell! lol that episode was hilarious and one of the last genuine sweet moments Kelly and Brenda had as friends(sans season 4 b/c idk what’s happening there)

Brenda’s Pairis adventure will always be her big what if...and i hate it :’(

an SNL skit lol too cute David and Donna

Damn no forgetting it’s the early ‘90′s with all those TVs on rolling carts...i guess they couldn’t project their video with a projector?

Damn David is not holding back handing Steve the giant legacy key lol

do you think the class of ‘93 was like WTF when they got their video year book and it was basically days in the life of Davids best friends lol

like why was David even considering putting the gangs camping trip in the yearbook? it had nothing to do with school

but i sure am glad they’re showing it lol

wait since when did Brenda and Kelly have a film crew with them when they went sky diving? lol

Hello Day! and who could forget Emily Valentine 

what is this random musical number? about Brandon hahaha

oh i thought Brandon was day dreaming but nope it’s happening which makes all that much more bizarre and funny

also is it a little odd that Brenda is apart of this song? maybe it’s just me lol

oh Brandon you’ve been with more than a few girls

Oh the Spring Dance back when Dylan and Brenda were the happiest they’d ever been!

Jim and Cindy get a flashback too and it’s to one of their strangest encounters ever hahahaha until Brandon got arrested for Drunk Driving

Why do they keep teasing/hurting us with these greatest moments of Dylan and Brenda! Now the shower moment?!

Awe i still feel so bad for David and Scott :’(

If i didn’t know any better i’d say this episode is leading back to Dylan and Brenda getting back together but i know it’s not

it sure does feel like you flipped a coin Dylan 

 had there been no Kelly i think he Brenda would’ve gotten back together

I still think he would’ve had a summer fling...but had it been with someone random or a new character then i think it would’ve ended and he’d realize how stupid he was and get back with Brenda

He loved her more than he ever thought he could love anyone!

so he was scared by how much he genuinely loved Brenda i knew it!

Oh Iris I love how she doesn’t hide who she’s rooting for! 

Dylan i know you have your problems with her but when it comes to relationship advice please listen to her ;)

I really wish Kelly would’ve gone to Paris :/

awe cute Minnesota twins moment(but has Brandon always been there for you Brenda? really it’s debateable)

oh I’m glad to see the writers remembered that both Brenda and Brandon transferred to West Beverly as almost straight A students and they are now graduating with honors

it just sounds weird to hear 1993 as 19 hundred and 93

damn poor Andrea can’t even relax on her graduation day

awe Kelly’s father actually showed up :’)

awe i loved that Jim(and Cindy) had a flashback moment that was specific to Brandon and Brenda 

Dylan not only got a picture with his mom but now she’s taking a picture of him with Jim and Cindy who she knows might as well been his actual parents with all the times they were there for him

oh wow that was so mature of Dylan to reinstate the trust

uhhh no seriously i’m pretty sure they have to watch out for mountain lions

Very cool (and cheesy) way to end the high school years of 90210(gotta love that green screen lol)

and so we’ve come to the end of another season overall i’d give this season a 7.5/10 it lost a lot of points for all the Brenda-Dylan-Kelly BS it put me through and then even more pints lost when my OTP didn’t come out on top :P but overall good season

Onto Season 4 the gangs first year of college and honestly possibly the last season i watch since Brenda/Shannen leave the show at the end of it idk we’ll cross that bridge when we get there

[fratboyvivimatthews]

superstar - jack hughes

summary: with being drafted first comes the media tour, and a lot of time away. something you’re used to being jack’s girlfriend, only this time something seems wrong. 

warnings: sad fluff, swearing

word count: [8,190]

“You know I should be happy right now,” Jack admit eyes pulling away from yours, his forehead dropping to rest against your own. “I’m about to get on a private plane, talk hockey for who knows how many days, get to play hockey at the prospect camp, and best of all - sign my contract.” His blue eyes met your e/c again, as you cupped his cheeks in your hands. 

“But you’re not?” You asked not understanding fully. “J, this is what you’ve been dreaming about since you started skating. At this time next year we’ll be at the lake house talking about your first NHL season. You should be over the moon.” 

A soft smile graced his face while he tilted his head to press a kiss to the inside of your hand. “Yeah, and I am Y/n/n, promise. I’m over the moon, but I’d be even happier if I got to take you to Newark with me. Mom and dad are going, and they said it’s okay if you come. I get your reasoning for wanting not to, I really do love, but I want you there with me. Supporting me, so please Y/n/n you can still come with,” Jack begged a hopeful look in his eyes, but as soon as he saw you start to shake your head, it was gone. 

Sighing you offered him a sad smile. “Jack, you know I want to come with. I want to spend as much time with you as I can before college and you the NHL, but babe this isn’t my place to be,” you explained with a frown painting your face. “This is about you, not me, and it should be for you, and your parents. They’re the people who’ve been there for you through it all, I haven’t.” 

It was Jack’s turn to frown as he slowly nodded his head. “Don’t you get it Y/n? Your place is there, because your place is with me. Sure my parents have been supporting me forever, but so have you. Who was the person there for me in Minor Midget?” 

“Me,” you mumbled looking down at his dress shoes, and your high top converse. 

“That’s right you were love. Y/n anywhere I’ve been you’re there following me, cheering me on. You have been since we met and became best friends when we were five. That’s not gonna change now that I’m in Jersey and you’re at Penn State,” Jack rambled, his hands now resting on top of your own. “So this is just as much for you as it is me, and my parents. Please baby, just come with us,” he whispered, eyes never pulling away from yours. 

You opened your mouth to speak but were cut of by someone calling for Jack. “You have to go to Newark J, without me. I’ll be fine with Quinn and Lukey - hey why are your eyes watering?” Gently his head shook, and a single tear slipped out of his eye. Your thumb brushed over his cheek wiping the tear away. “J please don’t cry,” you whispered as more threatened to fall, “it’s okay love. You have all of those fans waiting for you, so much planned. Plus we’re still gonna get to talk every single night you’re gone. It’s going to be okay Jack.” 

His head nodded as the smile he held for you, and only you grew on his face, “‘m gonna miss you, that’s all.” You nodded quick to agree with him, as he was called for again but his time by Ellen. Your arms snaked around his neck so you could pull him close to you. “God ‘m gonna miss you so fuckin’ much Y/n/n. I just wish you’d come with.” 

Turning your head you pressed a kiss to his neck, trying your hardest not to cry. “‘M gonna miss you too J. So damn much, but you know I can’t. I’d feel out of place, spend time with your mom and dad for me. You can call me whenever you want, I’ll always answer you.” He nodded before pulling away slightly. 

“Jack come on we gotta go,” Jim called making you both frown. 

“I’m coming,” he called over his shoulder before giving you his full attention again. His lips pressed against yours softly before he pulled away from you. “Well I guess I gotta go,” he muttered scared to look you in the eyes as he did. 

“You better go J, or else they’re gonna be coming over here to get you,” you answered untangling yourself from him. “Hey, I love you superstar. You’re gonna have a great time there, I know it.” 

Jack leaned over grabbing his bag before throwing it over his shoulder. “I love you too Y/n/n, I’ll call you when we land.” You gave him a thumbs up scared to hear the waver in your voice as he pressed one last kiss to your cheek, before turning around and walking towards Ray Shero and the rest of the management staff. Sighing you turned around and walked towards Quinn and Luke who had watched the entire scene play out. 

When you made it over to them Quinn’s arm wrapped around your shoulder, pulling you into him as the three of you walked towards the gate for your own flight. “It’ll be okay Y/n/n, I know it sucks right now, but Jack will understand why you didn’t go with. Plus you’re in good hands with us.” 

A smile cracked across your face and you nodded, “Yeah I guess I am.”

-

“He fucking met Adam Sandler,” you called throwing your phone on to Jack’s bed. “That lucky little bitch.” The door burst open and in came both Luke and Quinn concerned looks on their faces. “What’s wrong?” You asked confused as of why they were suddenly in the one place you found comfort when Jack was gone for hockey. 

“There was screaming,” Luke huffed collapsing on the bed next to you out of breath. “Wanted to make sure you were okay.” Your eyes moved up to Quinn who nodded in agreement before dropping down on the other side of you. “But you were saying?” 

You scrambled to grab your phone to show the two boys the picture that the Devils had posted on Twitter and Instagram. “Jack got to meet Adam Sandler, and th-” You were cut off by the sound of Jack’s text tone and a notification from him. 

In the message was the same picture of him and the actor captioned: met your second favorite hockey player. games about to start. A smile broke out on your face, even if he had broken the news about meeting Happy Gilmore late.

my second favorite player? who’s my first j? well, have fun, and quit texting me! enjoy it babe:)

You were quick to clear out the conversation seeing as Quinn and Luke were looking over your shoulder to see what was happening. “Will you quit looking at our messages? God you’re worse than Jack,” you huff in annoyance locking your phone, ignoring the fact he had just texted you again. 

“You’re not gonna answer that?” Quinn asked picking your phone up from where you dropped it. “Oh look he snapped you too Y/n/n, it must be important.” Your eyes rolled as your snatched the phone from his hands. 

“Trying to hide something Y/n? Don’t want us to see something?” Luke pressed with a smirk growing on his face, a matching one also on Quinn’s. You shoved the youngest Hughes brother away from you, reaching over him in the process to grab the remote for Jack’s tv. Turning it on you pressed a button bringing up Netflix causing both Quinn and Luke to groan. 

Looking between the two you raised your eyebrows, “Something wrong boys?” 

“Yeah there is. I swear to god Y/n/n, if you put Gossip Girl on I’m gonna kill you. I don’t get how Jack puts up with it. You’ve rewatched it how many times?” Sheepishly you held up five fingers causing Luke to scoff and Quinn to shake his head. “You guys have been dating for three years, I swear that’s the only thing you guys watch on Netflix.” 

Luke was rapidly nodded his head. “It is, sometimes Friends gets thrown in there, but otherwise it’s always Gossip Girl.”  Your mouth dropped open shocked that he had ratted you out to his older brother. A smirk of victory painted his face, and you shook your head arms crossing over your chest.

“Fine we won’t watch Gossip Girl,” you sigh skipping over it on your recently watched. “How ‘bout The Office? Some Michael Scott sounds good right about now.” The two of them fell quiet and they knew you were missing Jack, and that’s exactly why they didn’t plan on leaving your side. The three of you soon cuddled up together, your head resting on Luke’s chest. You were so into the show, and bickering with the two brothers that you hardly answered Jack, or heard when he text you. 

Occasionally you’d answer his score updates, his random i miss you’s, mixed in with some i love you’s. Your responses were simple; telling you missed him too, that you loved him, a couple thanks for the updates, ended with the “i’m not the priority j. pay attention to the game”. The time must have flown by because suddenly you got a notification that he had posted on Instagram followed by a text message. 

on the way to the hotel. talk to you in a few?

of course, i’ll be waiting

“Was that J?” Quinn asked causing you to nod your head from Luke’s chest. “What did he say? Tell you to go like his new post?” Reaching over you slapped his shoulder while Luke laughed next to you. “I’m joking Y/n, what did he actually say? I haven’t heard from him like at all today.” 

“He said he’s on his way back to the hotel, and that he’ll talk to me in a few,” you explained your attention falling back on to the tv show. You laughed along to some stupid joke Dwight made trying to shake the feeling that Quinn and Luke were both looking over at you. “Do you guys wanna stay and talk to him or?” 

Luke’s body shrugged from underneath you, and you turned to see Quinn do the same. “He’s calling you Y/n/n, not us. We can talk to him another time.” Looking up you watched Luke nod his head to agree with his oldest brother. “We can stay and sa-” 

The sound of Jack’s ringtone played throughout his room, as you picked up your phone from where you set it on Luke’s chest. You were quick to hit the green accept button, just seeing his contact picture brought a smile to your face. “Hi Jackie,” you sang smiling brightly up at him. 

“Hi Y/n/n, god it’s good to hear your voice finally,” he gushed while setting his phone up so it rested against a lamp. “Hi Luke, hi Quinn. Please stop trying to steal my girl from me,” he teased referring to you still cuddled up to his younger brother. 

“Don’t worry J, we’re just here to say hi, but now she’s all yours,” Luke informed shoving you off of him. Him and Quinn both waved at the camera before disappearing out of the room, and closing the door behind them. 

Jack sighed on the other line while pulling his black tee-shirt off and throwing out of the frame somewhere. “Are you trying to give me a trip tease J? Because I hate to break it to you, I’m already dressed for bed in one of your sweatshirts and a pair of your boxers.” His laugh filled your ears, but your couldn't help but notice how it seemed wrong. Not in a bad way, but in a way were he sounded like he was sick. A concerned smile crossed your face which didn’t go unnoticed by him, but you were quick to ask him questions. “So how was your day today? The game looked like it turned out eventful.” 

He was quick to smile and nodded before picking up his phone and falling back onto the white hotel pillows. “Yeah it turned out pretty eventful,” he answered, hand running through his hair. “But yeah it was busy. I had that podcast, met with some fans, the MSG network thing, and then the game. So yeah pretty busy. What about you love, what’d you do?” He asked eyes glued to you the entire time. 

“Well Jackie, my day wasn’t that eventful, but yeah I did nothing. Worked out with Luke and Quinn and that was about it. I can barely feel my body,” you whined causing his laugh to fill your ears, and you couldn’t help but focus on the fact that it still didn’t sound right. “Watched some episodes of The Office, but nothing much.” He nodded his head and your mind started racing, thinking of the podcast he had done, then it clicked. “Hey J, are you feeling okay?” You asked sitting up to rest against the headboard. 

Jack’s eyebrows raised in confusion as he slowly nodded his head. “Yeah I feel fine, why babe?” Your shoulders shrugged and you focus back on the TV in front of you embarrassed you assumed wrong. “Hey talk to me Y/n/n, why do I don’t look okay?” 

Your eyes went wide as you shook your head no. “God no J, you looked so good in that suit last night, and on that talk show. Plus again today? Wow I can’t believe that you’re all mine.” A pink tint colored his cheeks as you rambled on. “It’s just you sound sick, you know what I'm getting at?” He hummed in response causing you to look back down at your phone to see his face. “Not only that, but you look exhausted babe.” 

“Well I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, that talk show and whatever,” he explained and you nodded your head quickly, not fully believing him. “I’m kinda jet lagged, but it’s getting better, but yeah I think I’m fine.” You could tell it was a lie as soon as it left his mouth, and you knew it was a lie because he had called you three times during the night. Each time you missed because you were sound asleep, but you woke up to one voicemail, and two texts; one being the explanation for the calls, and the second being your normal good morning text from him. 

It was safe to say you knew he wasn’t okay. “Okay well, if you say there’s nothing wrong, I guess there’s nothing wrong right?” You asked biting into his lie. He mumbled a ‘right’ and you forced a smile. “J it’s pretty late, you should try to get some sleep superstar. You got another big day tomorrow.” 

Closing his eyes he sighed. “I know, and that’s why I wish you were here Y/n/n, I could really use one of your back massages right about now.” That was another tell that he wasn’t okay, he never asked for a back massage unless something was really bugging him. “But I get why you didn’t come love, and you’re right I do need to get some sleep. A lot is happening tomorrow.” Smiling you nodded your head, proud of what he was doing, but also sad you couldn’t be there for him when he clearly needed you there with him. Now that was on you. 

“Well I guess I should let you go huh?” You asked with a defeated tone not wanting to say goodnight to him. 

“Yeah I guess you should, unless you wanna stay on Facetime until we fall asleep,” Jack suggestested with a shy smile. “If you don’t want to I completely get it Y/n/n.”

“Jack you’re crazy if you think I don’t want to stay on the phone with you. Of course I do, but you have to promise to get some sleep,” you countered with a smile of your own. You hoped this would help you figure out if he really was getting sleep or not. His pinky showed up on the screen making you lift your own. “Goodnight J, I love you. Please, please get some sleep,” you begged while plugging your phone in, and setting it on Jack’s pillow. 

Exhaustion started to pull his eyelids down, but his smile for you never faded. “Goodnight Y/n/n, I love you too, and I will. I promise.” It didn’t take you long to fall asleep to the sound of his breathing on the other line, but for Jack it was another sleepless night. 

-

Wiping the sweat from your forehead you pulled the Hughes’ fridge open looking through it for the bowl of fruit you knew was hidden in there somewhere. But not before opening up the Devils new post which just happened to be of Jack and little kids. Squealing you were quick to go through the pictures, double tapping it in the process. The smile on Jack’s face caused your own to grow, Jack and little kids had that effect on you. 

Screenshotting almost all of them, you sent them in a message to him along with a picture a picture of tears in your eyes and a bright smile across your face. 

j, are you trying to kill me? 

You knew you wouldn’t be getting an answer for awhile, but even though it hurt to think about you were okay with it. Locking your phone you went back to the mission at hand, and grabbed the tupperware of fruit before shutting the fridge door. Walking over to the island you set it down, pulled the top off and popped a few raspberries in your mouth as a text from Jack popped up on your lockscreen.  

Opening it you saw a selfie of him and a little blond haired boy both smiling widely at you. Your heart raced at the image of your boyfriend with the cute little boy, almost so much that you missed his message.  

that’s exactly what i’m doing love. this is chase, he says hi and that you’re pretty. i think he’s trying to steal you from me:/ 

well since you’re trying to kill me, i guess chase is my new boyfriend;)

“Why are you so happy? We just ran five miles,” the sound of Quinn’s voice caused you to jump and drop your phone onto the counter. “Oh shit sorry Y/n/n, I thought you heard me walk in.” 

Grabbing a grape from the container you threw it at his head glaring at him, “No asshole I didn’t hear you walk in. You don’t make much sound when you walk into the kitchen Q.” His hands shot up in surrender as he bent over to pick up the grape that had hit him, and dropped to the floor. “And as of why I’m happy even after a run, your brother is with little kids signing stuff, and he sent me a picture of one.” Quinn didn’t even need to be looking at you to know your smile was larger than life. Everyone knew how happy Jack made you, plus mixed in with little kids? You were a goner. 

“Well that explains it,” he answered  with a smile of his own before sliding up next to you. “So did he have anything else to say, other than the fact he’s with fans?” The tone of his voice caused your eyebrows to raise as you reached in to grab a strawberry. “Don’t look at me like that Y/n, it’s a serious question.” 

You shook your head no, choosing not to speak with your mouth full. “No he didn’t Quinn,” you stated mouth empty of fruit, “he’s still at the meet and greet with them. Busy man and all.” The oldest brother nodded his head to agree with you, popping a couple more grapes into his mouth. But you couldn’t help but focus on the look he was giving you. “You know something don’t you?” You questioned arms crossing over your chest. 

Quinn’s shoulders shrugged as he silently ate more of the fruit in between the two of you. Narrowing your eyes you leaned in closer to him in efforts to make him speak. Sighing he caved, “Fine I do. I know that he needs you there Y/n/n.” Your eyes rolled as you grabbed more fruit to eat. “Hey don’t get mad at me, I’m telling you what you wanted to hear.” 

It was your turn to sigh as Quinn’s focus never left you. “He looks so happy Quinn, he’s finally getting everything he’s ever deserved,” you spoke eyes staring down to your lock screen which showed a picture of you and Jack in the bathroom mirror. His arms wrapped around your waist, your back flush to his chest, and his lips pressing against the skin of your neck. “He doesn’t need me there.” Your eyes carefully glanced up to gage Quinn’s reaction who just stood there shocked you would say such a thing. 

“Y/n/n you guys have been together three years, of course Jack needs you there,” he countered making you let out a huf. “You’re the person he goes to for everything, and he may be happy right now, but god Y/n he’d be so much happier if you were there.” Your heart squeezed at the thought of Jack being sad over the fact you weren’t there.  

“How do you know that?” You whispered, pulling your gaze away from his, scared to admit you made a mistake by going back to Michigan and not going to Newark with Jack. 

Quinn grabbed your hand away from the bowl of fruit, pulling your eyes with it. “Because I just do, and I just got off the phone with him, he needs you there Y/n,” he confessed with a sad look flashing across his face. “I can’t tell you why, that’s for him to tell, but listen to me when I say he needs you there. Jack needs you Y/n.” 

You closed your eyes to stop the tears from falling, ones that shouldn’t have even formed in your eyes. Not when you had agreed with everything Quinn was saying to you. “Okay,” you mumbled opening your eyes to meet Quinn’s, “but only if you help me pack for Newark.” 

-

Taking a breath you walked into the lobby looking around for the blond you had considered your own mother. “Y/n!” Wiping around you turned on your heels to see her open her arms for you to walk into. Even if had been only a couple of days since she last saw you, Ellen had missed you terribly. Almost as much as Jack did, but that’s what happens when you’re always spending your time at their house. “Oh it’s so good to have you here sweetheart, Jack’s missed you so much,” she whispered into your ear as you hugged her. 

“Oh trust me, I know. Any chance he can he’s been texting me saying he misses me,” you inform with a large smile causing his mother to laugh. “At least we know he loves me right?” 

“Oh please, that kid will never stop loving you. I swear he hasn’t stopped talking about you since the minute the two of you met,” Ellen explained slowly starting towards the doors that led into the arena. “And that was thirteen years ago.” Smiles graced the both of your faces as you thought back to the first time you met Jack. It was a local skating rink in Boston, and he ran into you, not paying attention to anyone other than the fact he wanted to go fast. 

“All I remember is him almost crying because he ran into me,” you admitted opening the door for Ellen to walk through. “That and the fact Quinn was standing at your side laughing his head off.” Her eyes rolled as she shook her head at her oldest son. She mumbled a thank you while walking through the door, waiting for you to speak again. “Who knew running me over that day would lead to us being best friends, and now dating.” 

Ellen sighed before smiling again. “I had a feeling it would,” she admitted arm wrapping around your waist pulling you towards her. You gave her a questioning look before she responded, “Call it mother’s intuition.” You nodded your head to agree with her as the two of you fell into place next to Jim on the boards. 

He smiled over at you before taking his turn to hug you. “Y/n we’re so happy you decided to come out, Jack’s been going insane without you here. Needs someone to keep him grounded,” Jim confessed before pointing out to the ice where Jack was dressed in all new Devils gear. But Jack wasn’t the only thing that caught your eye, the fact that he was surrounded by little kids caused your heart to flutter. 

“He’s skating with little kids,” you mumbled to yourself remembering the tweet you had read, “man how could I forget that that was today.” Ellen and Jim shared a look, but let you continued to look out at the ice, more entertained by a cute five year olds than you’re eighteen year old boyfriend. “Wait,” you said pulling yourself from your trance, “is it even okay for me to be here right now?” All of the doubts you had about coming to New Jersey in the first place suddenly filling your head. “Because if it isn’t I can just go back to the hotel, and wait to see him later tonight.” 

Jim shook his head at you with a soft smile, “Y/n/n of course it’s okay for you to be here. We would’ve have invited you in the first place if it wasn’t.” Your smile made its way back onto your face having some reassurance that you could be there. “We’re going to go sit down, but feel free to stay and watch right here,” Jim informed. “But if you want to come sit down, we’re going to be right there,” he turned and pointed to somewhere to the left of you and you nodded your head. 

But you choose to stay right where you were, watching from behind the goal as Jack messed around with a little boy. Soon his arms wrapped around him so he didn’t have to step over the black buffer. God you were so in love with him, you didn’t have a word to describe what you felt for him in that moment. The way he smiled down at the boy was breathtaking, and how he spoke to him sent you over the edge, love just radiating off of you. 

Soon the drill changed, and after Jack demonstrated how to do something you found yourself glancing over to where he now stood talking amongst a couple of official looking people. Jack was standing off to the side, eyes glued to a kid in a red jersey, hardly paying attention to the conversation at hand until he heard what he wanted to hear. “Looks like you got an audience Hughes,” the guy said nudging his shoulder. 

“Yeah my parents are here somewhere,” Jack answered not bothering looking around the arena to try and find him. He thought the little kids were much more entertaining than his parents. 

The guy tapped him again, “No not your parents, there’s a girl at the other end.” Jack’s eyes snapped away from the kids to try and locate the girl he was getting told about - who happened to be you, but he didn’t know that yet. And when his eyes landed on you he swears he almost broke down into tears. “That’s your girl right?” He was asked, he had recognized you from the pictures Jack had posted, along with seeing you at the draft on Friday night. 

“Yeah that’s Y/n, that’s my girl,” Jack answered voice sounding much livelier than it had been before, “if you'll excuse me.” That’s when you saw him skating towards you, his signature smile for you pulling on his lips. “Y/n, oh my god, what are you doing here?” He asked through the glass.

You smiled before shrugging your shoulders, “Needed to see you that’s all.” Jack held his hand up to his ear, a cheeky smile replacing the old one, but it didn’t stop you from playing his game. “Needed to see you,” you called again louder this time and Jack shook his head before pressing his ear to the crack in between the panels of glass. “I missed you, you dork okay?” 

“I missed you too Y/n/n,” he admitted before turning to face you fully again, “we’re almost done here, then we’re going to lunch I think? I’m honestly not sure, but you’re going to come aren’t you?” Jack asked eagerly, his voice sounding much better than it had on the phone last night. 

You nodded your head, “That’s why I’m here J, to support you, like always.” Jack turned away from you quickly at the mention of his name. He nodded his head before turning to look at you. “Looks like superstar duties call, I’ll meet you in the lobby with your parents.” He nodded and started skating backwards before you called out, “I love you superstar.” 

As his smile grew on his face he couldn’t help but shake his head, his curls slightly falling out from his hat, “Right back at you love.” A frown crossed your face at his teasing manner before he said the three words, “I love you Y/n/n, I’ll see you out there in a few.” And just like that he had disappeared back to the group of kids who all lunged forward to try and hug him. Your smile only grew as you couldn’t help but shake your head at the scene. 

Soon the kids were making their way off the ice, Jack and the other coaches following behind them. Ellen and Jim made showed up on both sides of you, “So how was Michigan, they boys weren’t burning the house down were they?” Your attention turned away from Jack who was staring at you smiling, over to his mother who couldn’t help but interrupt your staring contest with her son. 

You chuckled before making your way towards the doors, “No they haven’t, but they did force me to work out with them. Yesterday Quinn made me go on a run, it was awful.” Your complaints caused the two adults to laugh as you walked through the door and back into the lobby. “But they watched The Office with me so it was okay, can’t complain too much.” 

They both nodded their head to agree with you, but before either of them could answer Ray Shero was standing in front of your group. “So next we’re goi-” Then his eyes landed on you and he stopped talking, offering his hand out for you to shake, “Ray Shero, you must be the girl Jack can’t stop talking about. Y/n isn’t it?” 

Your cheeks flushed red, and you couldn’t help but smile at the fact that Jack was talking about you to anybody who would listen. You placed your hand in the general manager for the Devils so he could shake it. “Yeah that’s me,” you said, “Y/n L/n. It’s a pleasure to meet you Mr. Shero.” 

The man laughed before pulling his hand back from yours, “The pleasure is all mine Y/n, but please, call me Ray.” You smiled kindly before letting him continue on with what he came over here to in the first place. 

“Hey stranger,” Jack called causing you to focus on him, and not the conversation happening next to you. Once he got to you his arms wrapped around your waist tightly, pulling you in as close as he could. “I missed you so damn much Y/n/n,” he whispered into your ear. You couldn't stop smiling as he whispered sweet nothings into your ear. 

“Jack too tight,” you wheezed trying to pull away slightly. His arms loosened around your waist and he offered you an apologetic smile. “But I missed you too superstar, more than you’d know.” His eyes rolled as a muttered a not possible before pressing his lips to your cheek. “Okay so I was told there was going to be food, so I vote we do that first.” Jack laughed, the three adults soon joining, and you frowned, “I’m taking that as no.” 

Before you got an answer Ray was leading the group out of the lobby, Jim right by his side talking about something. While Ellen waited by you and Jack. “Come on love,” Jack said offering you his hand, “you’ll get your food soon enough.” Sighing you placed your hand in his, interlacing your fingers together. “Hey, I love you,” Jack added holding the door open for you. 

A pout stayed on your face as you pulled Jack through the door, waiting as he held it open for his mom, who you had no doubt was either taking a video or pictures of the two of you. “I mean, I guess I love you too. I’d love you even more if I got that food you were talking about.” Jack’s blue eyes rolled as he opened the car door for you allowing you to get in before following behind you, your hand still held tightly in his. 

To say what he had to do was exhausting was an understatement. It was around eleven by the time you had actually went back to the hotel, and you had no idea how Jack had been doing this for three straight days. “All I can say is that I’m happy I can finally take these shoes off,” you stated before dropping down on the edge of his bed to pull the white converse from your feet. 

Jack was still standing by the door taking his time to hang up his suit jacket. “All I can say Y/n/n is that I get to be the little spoon tonight.” Soon he was standing in front of you in between your legs, chest bare but his suit pants still on. “Don’t look so surprised, I always let you be the little spoon.” 

You shook your head with a little laugh, “That’s not what I was getting at J. You can be the little spoon, that’s fine by me.” 

“Then what were you getting at babe?” Jack asked confused, his hands coming down to grab your shoulders. “Is everything okay Y/n?” 

Humming you looked up to his blue eyes. “I’m okay Jackie, promise. It’s just, you look like you haven’t slept since Saturday night.” His shoulders shrugged, his attention going to mess with the necklace around your neck that read “jack <3 y/n” on a golden plate. “Jack my eyes are up here.” 

He sighed before taking a seat next to you. “That’s because I haven’t,” he admitted eyes running across your face to gage your react before he started to take off his dress shoes. 

“What?” You asked shocked. “Why?” 

Jack’s hand found its way to yours before he smiled sadly up at you. “Because I can’t sleep without you.” His confession caused your breathing to stop, and you didn’t know what to think. Then slowly it started to make sense. The random text messages you’d get from him while he was on a roadie and you were sleeping, the missed calls, voicemails, and of course the sneaking into his hotel room at tournaments.

Your eyes went wide with realization, and you frowned before throwing your arms around him. “Oh love, you poor thing.” You just sat there in silence, holding him while he melted into your side. “So this is why you needed me huh?” You asked remembering what Quinn had said. “You tell other people you can’t sleep without me, but you don’t tell me?” 

Jack’s head tilted upwards from its place on your chest to flash you a sheepish smile. “I don’t know babe,” he whispered as you pushed his hair off his forehead. “I just - I, I dunno,” his voice got quiet and you could see the tears well up in his eyes. 

“Hey, shh, it’s okay J,” your voice was soft as you place a kiss to his forehead. “If you don’t know, you don’t know, but for right now let’s just focus on the fact that I’m here with you okay? You’re gonna get some much needed sleep tonight, and for the rest of the summer because I’m not leaving your side.” What you thought would help only caused his tears to actually fall. 

Your hands moved from their place on his back, to cup his cheeks in an effort to help wipe away the tears. “It’s not this summer I’m worried about,” he cried softly. “It’s the next four years.” Everything that was racing through your head came to a stop. Jack can’t sleep without you, and here you are, the two of you about to go separate ways for four years. Your heart rate picked up as you tried to make the situation better. Sure there were going to be times in the year you’d be together, but not that often during hockey season. Not when he needed you the most. 

Tears filled your own eyes as you frowned down at him. “See? This is why I didn’t want to tell you I can’t sleep without you Y/n. Because you’re going to rethink everything, and with that over think it all.” Jack sat up, pulling away from your hands. “You’re going to Penn State, so don’t even try telling me that you’re not.” It’s like he could read your mind, because that’s exactly what you were thinking. “I love you too much to let you do that Y/n/n.”

“But then what are you going to do Jack?” You asked rubbing your eyes to try and get rid of the tears. “I can’t be there for you during the school year - the hockey season - and you have to sleep bub. It’s gonna kill you if you don’t.” Standing from the bed you walked over to your suitcase, pulling out a pair of joggers and one of Jack’s tee-shirts. “So tell me how I’m not supposed to over think that J. Because I love you, and god I-” the tears that fell from your eyes cut you off. 

In a flash Jack was standing next to you, his arms wrapping around you to hold you close to him. Tears still fell down his face as you held each other in your arms. “It’s only 255 miles away from me, I promise I’ll figure something out Y/n.” Your head nodded against his chest, the doubts you were having still prominent. “Okay so maybe I won’t figure it out, because it’s fucking hard,” Jack confessed. “It’s near impossible to fall asleep without you next to me Y/n.” 

Your mouth opened to speak, but no words came out. Your heart ached at his words. “Then I won’t go to Penn State,” you whispered backing away from him a little to see his reaction. Jack’s mouth opened, but you beat him to it, “I know you told me not to, but J my dream school isn’t worth you putting yourself through that, I don’t want to put myself through that.” 

“You’re going to Penn State,” Jack stated. “I’d rather never sleep again then take that away from you, especially because it’s not your fault, it’s mine.” Your eyes looked back up to Jack’s, his tears had stopped, but they were red and puffy. “You have nothing to feel bad about my love, you don’t have to put yourself through this,” Jack explained acting as if this wasn’t a big deal. 

“I have nothing to feel bad about Jackie?” You scoffed, trying to not come off as mad. The last thing you wanted was to fight with him over this. “I have everything to feel bad about superstar. You can’t sleep without me Jack, that feels like it’s on me. If I’m not sleeping in the same bed as you J, you don’t sleep.” Jack’s eyes dropped down to the floor, his hands grabbing yours. “If I wake up in the middle of the night, you wake up too. We can’t have you play games tired, I have to be sleeping in the same bed as you end of story, or we have to figure something else out.” 

He brought your right hand up and pressed a kiss against your knuckles. “Y/n, you’re going to Penn State, even if I can’t sleep without you in the bed. I guess we’ll just have to figure something else out, but you’re right, it is on you.” Your face fell at this comment, ready to fire back, but then Jack started to smile. “It’s on you that I’m so fucking in love with you, that I can’t sleep without you. That I’m that wrapped around your finger I wake up as soon as you wake up in the middle of the night, and you know what?” 

“What?” You whispered eyes looking up at him through your lashes. 

“I wouldn’t change it for the world,” he smiled wrapping his arms back around your shoulders. “We don’t have to figure it out right now, we’re supposed to be celebrating this week.” Your head shook at how fast his mood could change. “And you know what’s great for celebrations?” You rolled your eyes, ready to shoot down his idea which you figured would be sex. “Ice cream!” 

A laugh escaped your mouth before you nodded to agree. “You know I can never pass up ice cream J. Vanilla and butterscotch has a special place in my heart just because of you, I hope you know that babe.” 

Jack gave you a cheek smile, “Oh I know it does love. Now hurry up and change, there’s and ice cream place right across the road, and I wanna treat my girl.” 

-

Your hand was interlaced with Jacks as you walked around the lower level of The Rock. The events of last night seemed like light years away, and the fact Jack fell asleep with a smile on his face, and he got a goodnight’s sleep was all you could ask for, especially since it was going to be another long day. Wake up early to eat breakfast and then gone all day. “Have I told you that you look beautiful today Y/n/n?” Jack asked, causing you to look away from the pictures on the walls to his blue eyes. 

With red cheeks you nodded. “Maybe once or twice.” The smile on his face was contagious, and you couldn’t stop the one forming on your face even if you wanted to. “But it’s nothing much, just a t-shirt dress that’s been sitting in my closet, no big deal J.” 

“Well dress or not, you look beautiful no matter what you wear Y/n/n,” he complimented before pressing a kiss to your cheek. “And that’s a promise.” If it was even possible your cheeks were a darker red, growing a deeper shade with every word he said about you. “Now, it’s time to go sign a contract with my girl by my side.” 

It was your turn to place a kiss against his cheek unable to stop from smiling at him. “And I’m always going to be superstar. Now that you’re signing your ELC that means big bucks are on the way,” you started to tease with a cheeky smile. “Why would I leave when my boyfriend is going to be a hockey stud - well already is - and a millionaire? You ain’t getting rid of me now honey.” 

Jack’s eyes rolled as he could hear his mother and father laughing behind the pair of you as you slowly made your way up the stairs. “Happy to know you’re only staying for the money,” Jack said playing into your game, “and not the promise ring around your finger.” Your shoulders shrugged as you smiled so wide that your cheeks hurt.

“Hey you know I love you J, and not the money. Of course I’m here for the promise ring around my finger,” you answered, voice trailing off after realizing how bad that sounded. Shaking your head you looked away from his eyes and down to the stairs. “You know I’m here for you, I’m in it for you, that’s the reason the promise ring is around my finger.” 

“You know I’m just teasing you Y/n/n,” Jack sang while nudging you with his shoulder. “And I know exactly what you mean love, I’m in it for you too. So much that I can’t sleep without you.” A shy smile formed on your face as you looked back up to his eyes. “But you already knew that.” You hummed in response, not able to find the words as you came face to face with the door to Ray Shero’s office. Jack’s blue eyes looked down to the shocked look on your face. “Yeah, I know.” 

You looked up to him with a smile, “It just doesn’t seem real, and I’m not even the one that’s about to sign an NHL contract.” Before anyone else could say anything you were all welcomed into the GM’s office, and getting right down to business. Small talk was made, as Jack got settled into a chair, his smile only growing in size. Throughout the whole meeting his eyes kept finding yours, and then he did it. 

Jack signed his name on the dotted line making it official. Jack Hughes would be playing in the NHL for the New Jersey Devils in the 2019-2020 season, and it brought tears to your eyes. The boy who ran into on a rink thirteen years ago, the one you’ve watched grow into the player he is today, was finally getting to live out his dream. You were just thankful you got to be the one by his side for it all. 

“Oh, and we have one more thing to show you all,” Ray smiled standing from his chair and leading your group out of his office. “If you’d follow me please.” Just like that Jack was at your side again, his hand sliding into yours as you made your way back down to ice level. The pace Ray had set was fast, clearly set on showing you all the surprise within the next couple of minutes. 

And when you got there you could see why. Jack stared in awe at the dark arena, as he kept pulling you towards the light coming off the screen. Turning your head you watched as Ellen and Jim stopped and stood by the zam area and you thought you should do the same. So your tried to pull your hand from Jack’s but he stared at you confused. “What do you think you’re doing Y/n/n, you’re coming with me to see this.” 

Shaking your head you smiled. “Jack just go,” you said trying to pull your hand back from his again, “I can wait by your parents. Go embrace it babe.” He shook his head with a cheeky smile, tugging your hand towards him, not letting you pull away from him. “Jack come on, quit being stubborn,” you huffed with a serious face. 

“I’m not being stubborn, but I need you by my side for this,” he answered walking backwards towards the dark arena, “please?” Sighing you nodded, letting him pull you towards the area where the ice and boards should be, lit up by the jumbotron that had his face and number displayed on it. 

The area fell silent and when your eyes should’ve been focused on the big screen you couldn’t pull them away from the astonished look on Jack’s face. Then the smile that came with, “And for the first time in The Rock, number eighty-six, Jack Hughes.” His hand squeezed yours before his blue eyes met your e/c ones. His tongue wet his lips before smiling widely down at you. 

“I can’t believe that just happened,” Jack confessed as you walked towards his parents. “Can somebody pinch me, because it doesn’t seem real. None of this seems real. I just signed my first NHL contract, with my three biggest supporters by my side, and heard my name called for the first of many times. But god it doesn’t seem real,” Jack gushed unable to shake the smile from his face. 

You stopped, causing Jack to turn and look at the proud smile on your face, “Well you better get used to it superstar, because it’s gonna be happening for a long time.” 

[ofstarsandvibranium]

This Is Your Song

Fandom: Marvel (Rock Star AU)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Your best friend is the lead guitarist of the up and coming rock band, The Howling Commandos. You’ve been with him and the band since the very beginning and throughout that time, you’ve realized you’ve fallen in love with your best friend. And you’re not sure what to do anymore seeing that you’re the band’s assistant and you’re tired of seeing Bucky with other women.

A/N: Was inspired after listening to Sami by Darren Criss and I changed some of the lyrics a bit. Also, this is long af (nearly 6K words!!), so I’m sorry.

You watch from the side of the stage as the Howling Commandos finish off their final song, the crowd going wild for them. There’s screams, hollers, cheers, all of it for your best friend and his band. You’ll never get tired of hearing the enjoyment the band gives to people, nor will you ever get tired of the proud look on Bucky’s face whenever they finish a show. 

“Thank you so much, everyone! We’ll see you next time!” Steve, the lead singer, shouts and the roar of the crowd grows as each member trickles off the stage. 

Dum Dum is off first, and he ruffles your hair as he passes by. Jim and Gabe both give you polite smiles. Jacques takes your hand and kisses it, he was the biggest flirt out of all of them. James gives you a little hip bump which makes you giggle. Steve pulls you in for a hug. And Bucky?

“WOO! THAT WAS QUITE THE SHOW TONIGHT, EH, Y/N?!” he lifts you up and twirls you around making you squeal and giggle. 

When he sets you down, you ruffle his already messy hair, “Yeah! They really dig you guys!”

“Alright, guys, let’s pack up and head to the hotel! We fly out tomorrow morning and you all need your beauty sleep...except maybe Dum Dum. He’ll always be ugly.” you all chuckle as the band’s manager, Howard Stark, pokes fun.

“Fuck you, Stark,” Dum Dum replies with a smirk, shoving his manager. 

Everyone exited the building, heading towards the waiting van. There were already fans waiting for them outside. Screams and yells for each member’s name from different people. They all took a few pictures with fans, gave some hugs, and signed some things. You sat in the back of the band watching them with a proud smile on your face. They’ve come a long way from that small garage band. 

Your eyes moved from each member and then landed on Bucky. Your smile wavered when you saw him accept a number from a very attractive woman around your age. 

“Hey,” you look to your side to see Steve sitting beside you. He never really liked the crowds or the attention. He still saw himself as the small, shy kid from Brooklyn. Not some rockstar, “You okay?”

You put on a smile, one that you’re sure he knows is fake, “Of course! You guys did amazing last night.”

Steve looks at you with pity and you hate it. He’s well aware of your feelings for Bucky, “Y/N, you-”

You shake your head, cutting him off, “Just drop it, Steve. Please.”

Bucky is the last one to enter the van and he has a big grin on his face, probably because of how many numbers he received from some attractive looking fans. He looks back at you and immediately sees the worried look on your face, “What’s wrong?”

“Just tired is all.”

He scoffs, “Come on. You can’t be tired! We have our ritual!” Ritual meaning going to Bucky’s room watching crap reality tv while binging on snacks. 

You shrug, “Sorry, Buck. But you need your rest anyway, like Howard said, we’ve got an early flight.”

He slumps in his chair groaning, “Fiiiiine. Guess I’ll be watching The Real Housewives of Orange County all by myself.”

You roll your eyes at his dramatics, “It’s only for one night, Buck. You can live without me for a night.”

He smirks at you, “You’re my best friend. There’s no way I can live without ya.” the way that he looks at you right there makes your heart beat faster. It’s just one of those things that makes you think, Maybe he feels the same way. But then you see how he flirts with fans and groupies and other women. Then that hope is gone. 

Twenty minutes later, the lot of you are trekking down the hall towards your individual rooms. Yours is across from Bucky’s and right next to Steve’s. You pull out your card key and open the door, but before you step inside, Bucky stops you.

“Y/N?” you turn around to see him standing there, hands in his pockets. He then leans in and kisses your cheek, “Good night.”

You muster out a “Good-night” back and watch Bucky enter his own room, the door closing behind him. You look to Steve, who witnessed the whole thing, and he looks how you feel, completely in shock. You close your door and push Steve into his own, closing the door behind you. 

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God!” you cry out, “That just happened.”

Steve snickers as he kicks off his shoes and catapults himself onto his bed, “Yeah. That happened. I told you he likes you. The whole flirty bad boy act is just that: an act. You’ve known him for ten years, Y/N, there’s no way that any other woman can hold a candle to you.”

You want to believe Steve. You really do, but you think back to all the other women Bucky’s been around. They’re so beautiful. And you? You’re just some girl from Brooklyn who’s been following her best friend and his band around the country. And you’ll only ever be that: Bucky’s best friend. 

The excitement from the kiss has faded back into sadness, “He doesn’t mean it, Steve.” you mumble as you sit on the edge of his bed.

“Oh come on!”

“Steve, why would Bucky have me when he’s got all these beautiful women throwing themselves at him?”

“Well, for one, you know him like no one else. These women just like him for his looks and talents. They probably want bragging rights to say that they slept with a rock star.”

You look up at him, seeing him hugging a pillow, trying not to fall asleep, “How does Peggy do it?” you ask softly.

Steve’s eyes immediately widen at the sound of his girlfriend’s name. A small smile appears on his lips and his eyes soften, “I don’t know to be honest. Peg’s something else. She knows her worth and sometimes I feel like I’m not worthy of her. I’m gone a lot, on the road traveling. I’ve tried to break up with her a few times, saying that she deserves better. But she doesn’t want anyone but me. She loved me before the band even started and she loves me now. And-I don’t know, Y/N. Guess I’m just lucky to have someone as understanding and trusting as her.” 

You stare down at your lap, “I love Bucky, Steve. I really do, but I don’t know if I can handle being rejected by him.”

Steve sits up and moves over to you, his legs now hanging over the edge of the bed, and he places a hand on top of yours, “You won’t be rejected. That guy love you, Y/N. I know he does. Sure, he hasn’t told me that, but I see it. So enough of this mutual pining shit! You walk out of this room and up to Bucky’s. You barge in there and you tell ‘im that you love him!”

You nod, “Okay! I’ll do it!”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“Yeah!” Steve wraps his arms around you and gives you a big hug, “You’re not gonna need it, but good luck.”

You snort,��“Thanks, and don’t forget to call Peggy before you go to sleep!”

“Right! Ha, I forgot. Thanks, Y/N!”

“It’s what I’m here for!” you give him a wave and then you walk out the door. 

“Okay,” you mumble to yourself, “You got this, Y/N. You got this.” you walk the short distance to Bucky’s door and you knock on his door. There’s no answer. Maybe he’s in the bathroom. You look at the time and see that there’s no way Bucky could be asleep right now. He usually doesn’t go to sleep until late. So you pull out the key to his room, one that you kept only for emergencies and you walk in. 

“Hey, Buck, I gotta tell you someth-” you stop when you see a woman roll off of Bucky. She’s naked, save for the panties she still has on. Bucky is down to his boxers.

“Y/N! I-I-”

You shake your head, “Sorry. Sorry, I-you didn’t answer and I didn’t think you-Sorry. I’ll go.” you’re heading for the door and Bucky’s crying out for you.

“Wait, Y/N! Don’t-fuck!” you hear a thud, but you don’t dare turn around. If you did, you’d see Bucky on the floor, scrambling to pull on his jeans. The necklace with his ring, the friendship ring you gave him, swinging around his neck, “Y/N! Wait!” the door shuts in his face and Bucky’s body fills with dread. 

“She your girlfriend or something?” the blonde woman asks, sitting at the edge of his bed, looking unnerved. 

Bucky runs his hands through his hair, “Get out.”

“What?” the blonde looks at him in disbelief.

“I said get out! Get dressed and get the fuck out!”

The blonde is pissed as she quickly throws on her clothes, “Can’t believe this!” and she pushes past Bucky and out the door she goes. 

Bucky grabs his shirt and pulls it on. Not bothering with his shoes, he steps into the hallway. He takes two steps and he’s in front of your room. He hesitantly knocks. 

“Y/N? Can-Can we talk for a minute?” he runs a hand down his face, “I just-I’m sorry you had to see that.” he lets out a shaky breath, “Can you please opent he door, Y/N? I need-please?” he presses an ear to your door and he hears nothing. No shuffling or footsteps coming towards him. You’re either ignoring him or just not in your room. He really hopes it’s the latter. 

_________________________

Earlier.

As soon as Bucky stepped into his room, he felt a grey cloud loom over him. He didn’t like that he had to come to his room alone. After every show, you were always with him and you always did your post-show ritual. But now that was broken and he doesn’t really blame you. You’re tired and he doesn’t wanna force you to do something when you’re not in the mood to do it. So he let you have your rest. 

He decided to go to the hotel’s bar instead. Maybe get a few drinks in to numb the loneliness that’s usually filled in by you. 

He isn’t even finished with his first whiskey and he’s already approached by a beautiful leggy blonde. 

“Hey, you’re in that band right?”

He glances her way and eyes her form. She’s gorgeous and maybe this is his chance to finally get over you, “Yes, I am. I’m Bucky,” he sticks out his hand with a smirk.

“Elaine,” she says in a low, seductive tone, “How ‘bout we get outta here, Bucky? Bet we can have a lot more fun somewhere private.”

Bucky licks his lips and nods, slapping down a few bills, not worrying about the change and pulling Elaine by the hand, towards the elevator. 

Her lips are on his as soon as the doors close. She tastes a bit like vodka but he doesn’t care. He needs to drown out your smile, your laugh, your eyes. The doors open to his floor and he practically drags Elaine to his door, glancing at yours, before heading inside his room. 

Clothes are discarded. Bucky’s on his back, down to his boxers and Elaine’s straddling him, completely topless. The kisses are wet and messy and-

“Hey, Buck, I gotta tell you someth-” at the sound of your voice, Elaine rolls off him and he sees you standing there wide eyed. He looks at Elaine and then you.

“Y/N! I-I-” he’s stumbling over his words, trying to find the right ones to say, to explain to you that-

“Sorry. Sorry, I-you didn’t answer and I didn’t think you-Sorry. I’ll go.” you’re heading for the door and Bucky’s heart is pounding. 

He calls out for you, “Wait, Y/N! Don’t-fuck!” he scrambles off the bed, falling onto the floor with a thud. “Y/N! Wait!” he tries to run after you but the door shuts in his face. 

This was a mistake. Why did he think he could do this?! He loves you!

He kicks Elaine out with no remorse. She should’ve never been there in the first place. Once she’s gone and he’s redressed, he goes to your door, pleading for you to open up. When he gets no response, he really hopes that it’s because you’re not in your room.

________________________

You’re crying in Steve’s arms. You should’ve never listened to him. Why did you listen to him? You knew the truth. Bucky Barnes will never have feelings for you like you have for him. 

And now what do you do? You’re the band’s assistant and you don’t know if you can face Bucky. What are you going to do?

The next morning you and everyone else are packed into the fan, heading to the airport. You’re sitting next to Steve again, ignoring the Bucky’s pleading gaze on you. You put on your earbuds and close your eyes, drowning out face and the pain. 

You don’t sit next to him like you’re supposed to. You and Bucky always sit next to each other on plane rides, but this time, you don’t. You seemed to have switched tickets with Dum Dum, sitting next to Steve and Dum Dum next to Bucky. Guess no rom-com movies with you. 

The days seem so dull and slow now that you seem to be avoiding Bucky. He hates it. The ignored texts and calls. Being waved off to go help the stage crew. He just wants you to look at him, to listen to him. 

He happens to catch you all alone in the green room. You’re setting up the band’s snacks while everyone else is doing sound check. Bucky said he needed to use the bathroom, but really, he was just looking for you. 

“Y/N?” he sees your body tense and he hates that he’s the reason.

“I’m busy, Bucky,” you mumble, going back to setting up the snacks.

“Y/N, please, stop ignoring me.”

“I’m not ignoring you, Bucky. I’ve just been busy doing my job.”

“You don’t answer my texts or calls, you keep pushing me away whenever I try to talk to you, and you’re suddenly spending so much time with Steve? How is that not ignoring me. I’m your best friend-”

“Yeah, Bucky. You’re my best friend, not my boyfriend! I don’t have to text or call you or hang out with you every second of the day!”

Bucky tries not to let your words hurt him. You’re upset with him, that’s it, “Listen, Y/N, I just want to explain that ni-”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me, Bucky. I’m not your girlfriend. I’m not your anything. You can sleep with anyone you want. I don’t care.” You push him out of the way and head for the door. 

“No, Y/N, please! You’re not listening to me!” 

You look over your shoulder, eyes teary and lip quivering, “Just leave me alone, Bucky.” and the door slams behind you. 

You march up to the sound booth where Howard is watching the sound rehearsal. He looks at you with a worried gaze, “You okay, kid?”

“After tonight, I’m quitting.”

“You sure?” 

You nod, “Yeah. I just-I need a break from all this. I wanna go back home work on my songwriting.”

“Alright,” you know he wants to say more, but he doesn’t. His arm just wraps around you and he pulls you in for a hug, “I’m gonna miss you, kid.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

The show was a blur for Bucky. His heart wasn’t in it like it usually was and everyone could tell. The band kept asking him what was up and he just answered with the same thing, “Nothing.” He goes straight to his hotel room after that, just needing some sleep and hopefully, when he wakes up, it would be just a terrible nightmare.

It wasn’t. In fact, it was so much worse.

“Quit? She just-she just quit?”

Howard nods, “Yeah. Flew back home last night. Said she needed a break.” 

This was it. After everything that you and Bucky had gone through, you were done. And it was all his fault. 

______________________

3 months later and 2 months until end of tour.

Being in back in Brooklyn is so weird. You became so used to hotels and big arenas and now you’re back to your old apartment. Your roommates Wanda and Pietro still around, giving you comfort and support. 

While working at a cafe, you continued to work on your songwriting, something that was a hobby you obtained whilst being friends with Bucky. You actually helped him write a few songs for the band and it always brought you joy to hear them play it, hearing the crowd sing along to the lyrics. But now the thought just made you sad. 

You’re in your room, sitting in front of your small recording set up, guitar in hand as you strum the chords you’ve been practicing, as well as the lyrics: 

I've seen your face, I've heard your name I've lost my place and you’re to blame And I can't stand it when I'm staring in your eyes And you’re not looking back, it's not a big surprise

I've heard music, I've heard noise I wish that you could hear your voice The way that I do when I go to sleep at night And dream my life away but you’re gone when I awake

You stop strumming to write down more lyrics into your notebook. It’s not much, but it’s definitely a big deal since this is your first song you’ve written without Bucky or anyone’s help. 

Speaking of Bucky, according to Steve, he’s not doing well. You see from footage of fans and media outlets that he’s not as lively as he used to be. Sure, he’s smiling on stage and meeting fans, but people have come to realize that he’s not genuine. Are you worried about him? Of course, but you need your time away from Bucky. You can’t handle your feelings for him while he’s around so being away from him has definitely helped...despite you writing a song about him. 

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Bucky just loves to torture himself, it seems. He’s in his hotel room and the tv is on in front of him, but he’s not paying attention. Instead, he’s watching a video of you and him on his phone. 

You and he are sitting on the couch in the green room before a show. The band is chatting away in the background while you and Bucky are tossing grapes into each other’s mouth. It was a competition to see how many you could catch in a row. You were winning. 

Bucky watches as you throw a grap at him, the small fruit hitting his nose instead of his mouth, which resulted in you bursting into laughter. A sad smile appears on his face. He notices how he’s looking at you on screen. Eyes filled with so much amusement and love. He should’ve just told you how he felt instead of trying to push his feelings aside. Maybe if he did tell you, you wouldn’t have left. 

“Hey,” he looks up to see Steve standing at the edge of his bed.

“How-”

“Stark let me in. I did knock.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Steve hears your laughter coming from Bucky’s phone and he shakes his head, “Stop it. You’re hurting yourself even more.”

"I miss her, Steve. She’s still not reading any of my texts or answering my calls. I love her and I fucked up.”

“Well, soon enough, the tour will be over and we’ll go back home. Then you can beg and plead and all that, but right now we have a job to do. So get off your ass and let’s go.”

__________________________

1 month until end of tour

You finally did it. You came up with the chords and the lyrics and you’re done. The song is done and you’re so proud! 

You sit in front of your camera, guitar in hand and you smile, “Hey, Steve. I did it! It’s done! I spent all last night finishing it up and here it is! I hope you like it!” you clear your voice and then begin to strum your guitar:

I've seen your face, I've heard your name I've lost my place and you’re to blame And I can't stand it when I'm staring in your eyes And you’re not looking back, it's not a big surprise

I've heard music, I've heard noise I wish that you could hear your voice The way that I do when I go to sleep at night And dream my life away but you’re gone when I awake

Bucky, Bucky... Why can't you see What you're doing to me?

The way your hair falls in your eyes Makes me wonder if you'll Ever see through my disguise And I'm under your spell

Everything is falling And I don't know where to land Everyone knows who you are But you don't know who I am

Bucky, Bucky... Why can't you see What you're doing to me?

I see you singing on that stage You look just like an angel And all I do is pray

That maybe, someday you'll hear my song And understand that all along There's something more that I'm trying to say When I say

Bucky, Bucky... Why can't you see What you're doing to me?

What you're doing to me!

Bucky, Bucky... Why can't you see What you're doing to me?

What you're doing to me..

“So yeah. That’s-That’s the song,” you chuckle, “Clearly, if I take this to the studio, I’m gonna change Bucky to, I don’t know, Baby. That makes sense, right? Anyway, tell me your thoughts and if I should change anything. Hope to hear from you soon!” you wave at the camera and then end the recording. 

You then hook up your camera to your laptop and attach your video to an email, sending it to Steve with anxiety coursing through you. 

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Steve his on his laptop in Bucky’s room. His earbuds in and Bucky assume’s he’s watching youtube videos or something. Meanwhile, Bucky is trying to read an email on his phone but the format is all weird. He turns around and waves at Steve, who pulls out an earbud, “Yeah?”

“Can I borrow your laptop? Becca sent me an email and I can’t read it ‘cause the format is weird.”

“Uuuhh, yeah.” Steve clicks something and then pulls his headphones out, “Here ya go. I’ll be back. I’m gonna grab my charger from my room.”

“Yeah. Kay. Thanks, man.”

Bucky sits up and settles the laptop on his lap and moves the mouse to add a new tab, but he stops when he sees your name. He knows he shouldn’t read Steve’s email, but it was your name! Curiosity got the best of him and he began to read Steve’s email.

It sounds amazing, Y/N! I’m really proud of you and I’m very honored to be one of the first people to hear your song. Keep up the good work and I expect you to remember me when you’re famous. 

Miss you a bunch, 

Steve.

“Song?” Bucky mumbled to himself. He looked up the thread and saw that you sent him a video. He clicks on it and he’s greeted to your face, your voice, your smile. God, did he miss you. 

He watched as you began to strum your guitar. Your mouth opened and there came that beautiful voice he loved:

I've seen your face, I've heard your name I've lost my place and you’re to blame And I can't stand it when I'm staring in your eyes And you’re not looking back, it's not a big surprise

I've heard music, I've heard noise I wish that you could hear your voice The way that I do when I go to sleep at night And dream my life away but you’re gone when I awake

It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful. You wrote this all by yourself? Bucky couldn’t help but swell with pride as he hears you sing-

Bucky, Bucky... Why can't you see What you're doing to me?

What? “She wrote a song about me?” he mumbles out loud. He looks up and sees Steve standing there, laptop charger in hand, “Why did she write a song about me?”

“The same reason why you’re so depressed that she left. She loves you.”

“She loves me,” he whispers to himself, “Did she send you an audio clip too?” Steve nods, “Can you send it to me?”

____________________

You knew that The Howling Commandos had their last show in Los Angeles. That meant everyone was coming back home, which meant Bucky was coming back home. You don’t know what you would do if you saw Bucky again. Would you apologize for walking out on him? Would you explain your jealous rage and heartbreak? Would you tell him that you love him? You didn’t really know, but you supposed you’d cross that bridge when you get there. In the meantime, you’ll continue working at the cafe during the day and then working on your songs during the night. 

Tonight was open mic night. Anyone can sign up and perform for the cafe. It was usually busy on these nights, so you didn’t have much time to enjoy the performances since you were hustling to make drinks. 

Your coworker Denise was the emcee tonight. So before and after every performance, she was there to announce the next act. Like now.

“Alright! Thank you, Kelly for the amazing cover of All Star. Now, our next performer is going to be singing an original, but not one he wrote. A special someone of his did. Anyway, let’s give it up for James!” the people sat around the small makeshift stage clapped and then gasped. You didn’t really care nor did you have the time to pause for a moment. You needed to get these drinks out.

“Iced matcha for Matt!” 

You hear the faint strumming of a guitar over the espresso machine. When you hear some all too familiar lyrics, you freeze. 

I've seen your face, I've heard your name I've lost my place and you’re to blame And I can't stand it when I'm staring in your eyes And you’re not looking back, it's not a big surprise

You excuse yourself from behind the counter. Your other coworkers not paying you any attention as you weave through the crowd, heading for the front of the stage.

I've heard music, I've heard noise I wish that you could hear your voice The way that I do when I go to sleep at night And dream my life away but you’re gone when I awake

You make eye contact with all too familiar eyes and the low melodious singing voice. There, sitting on the stool onstage is Bucky. He looks like he hasn’t slept and his clothes are disheveled. Did he just arrive from the airport?

Baby, Baby... Why can't you see What you're doing to me?

You continue to be captivated as Bucky sings the rest of your song, replacing his name with Baby, like you had mentioned in your video to Steve. Wait, did Steve show him your video? 

After a few more minutes, Bucky finishes the song and the entire cafe erupts in applause and whistles. He nervously chuckles and thanks everyone for their time. Hopping off stage and towards you. 

Your heart is pounding out of your chest and you feel like you’re on the brink of fight or flight mode. Mostly flight. You want to run away but your feet are planted to the ground. 

“Hi,” Bucky says, standing right in front of you.

“Hi,” you mumble back. You feel everyone’s eyes on you and your anxiety is creeping.

“Um, is there somewhere private we can talk?”

You nod and have him follow you to the storage room. Again, your coworkers paying no attention because they’re too busy pushing out orders. 

The door is closed and you’re both just standing there awkwardly. Bucky clears his throat and sets his guitar to the side, wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans, “I, um, I miss you, and I understand, truly now, why you ignored me and eventually left. I mean, I think I understand? That song, that beautiful song, says a lot, but I still don’t know. I can only hope what you truly mean by it? I don’t know, I’m rambling. I didn’t really think all of this through.”

You shook your head and gave a deep breath, “I thought, from the way that you behaved around me and wanting to spend time with me, that maybe you had feelings for me. But then you’re flirting and talking to other women, so I thought maybe not, and then I did. You gave me a lot of mixed signals. I was gonna tell you that night that I loved you. Then I saw you with-with her and I was just heartbroken. I couldn’t face you after that, or the fact that you didn’t have feelings for me the way I do for you.”

“But I do have feelings for you, Y/N. I have for years and-and that night should’ve never happened. You said you were tired so we didn’t do our post-show ritual and I got stuck in this loneliness. I met..her at the hotel bar and brought her back because I needed to get over you. I loved you, but I couldn’t have you ‘cause we’re best friends. One thing led to another and yeah, I almost slept with her. Then you came in and everything went downhill from there. And I was a mess. 

“I don’t know if you remember, but that same night, I told you that I can’t live without you. And it’s true. I can’t live without you, Y/N. You’re my best friend, yeah, but you’re so much more than that.” he steps closer to you and cautiously take a hold of your hand, “I’m sorry for hurting you, Y/N, and I’m sorry for being confusing about my feelings for you. The truth is that I’m in love you. Period. No one else has made me feel the things that I feel for you.”

You sniffle, trying to hold the tears in your eyes from falling, but to no avail, they’re streaking down your cheeks. Bucky uses his thumb to wipe them away, hating that he’s causing you to cry.

“i really missed you, Bucky. I’m sorry I hurt you too.” you throw yourself into his arms and he tightens his hold on you. 

“Sssshhh. I forgive you, Y/N. I’m so, so, sorry. Ssshhh. It’ll be okay. We’re gonna be okay.”

____________________

1 Year Later

Bucky is standing front and center on stage, his guitar in hand while the rest of the band walk off stage, “Alright. Hello, everyone!” he smiles when people cheer back, “So, we’re gonna take things a little slow now. Some of you may know this song, and if you do, sing along.” he begins to play a few chords, but stops, “Actually, wait. I think I need a little help with this one. So can I have Y/N to the stage please?”

The crowd cheers as you enter from stage right, hurriedly walking towards Bucky, with an extra stool in your hands. You sit down next to him and he smiles.

“Hey, sweetheart.”

You giggle, “Hey, Buck.”

“So you okay singing this song with me?”

“I mean yeah, I was the one who wrote it for you.” People scream out, knowing what song was coming up next.

“Right. Of course. Anyway, you ready?”

“Duh!” 

He looks out to the crowd, “Are you guys ready?”

“YEAH!”

Bucky starts to strum the chords, his eyes not focused on the guitar or the crowd, but you, as you’re sitting there beside him, hand holding up the mic, and engagement ring shining in the spotlight. 

[bunnymcbunnister]

SPN Season 15 Spoiler Sheet, update 11/18

Some updates including an ep 7 description, some guesses on the writer/director for 12, and some vague filming info for 11. I feel unsure about Misha’s status in eps 9-11, so if anyone knows differently, let me know. Might have to wait for episode descriptions on that. Also, I added in some guesses on airdates based on this post, but they are not for certain. And no photos for 6 yet, but they will likely post 30 seconds after I post this. 

DISCLAIMER: This is gathered info from various sources. This is not confirmed information. Stuff in this WILL be wrong. Don’t take this too seriously. This is for fun. 

General Info (oldest to newest)

There is hope to wrap up some Wayward Daughters storylines in the back half of the season

They are adding a whole extra day to filming to do the final scene. They will film the final scene last.  (Implies logistics- lots of returning people?)

Brad Bucker used the word “romance” when asked about Sam and Dean’s arcs. Did not specify who. 

In an interview, Kripe indicated that the series ending would have “peace” for Sam and Dean

Not much new at the TCA’s, but it was said it is “unlikely” Jeffery Dean Morgan will be back since his last appearance was such a good end note. There were some jokes about a Castiel spin off. Hell, I’d watch. 

There will be a special tribute ep, not clear if its one of the 20 or additional

Misha will be in 15 out of 20 episodes this season

According to Dabb, Sam and Dean are going to start to lose people who, in past seasons, we would’ve never lost — and lose them in a very real way. Our guys are going to realize there’s a certain finality, and some of the things they’ve relied on to get through the day — people, talents, things like that — they are no longer going to be able to roll out. And that’s going to throw them for a loop

Also according to Dabb, Jack is still in the empty and “he’s not coming back in the near future”

Cas’ deal with the Empty may come up later in the season. 

Dabb intimated that Chuck was inherently responsible for killing Mary when asked how the boys would respond to Jack. 

Adam Rose, who played Aaron Bass from the golem episode vauge-tweeted about working a show with two badass leads. Could be Supernatural, but I think the timing is off- he indicated he was filming late Friday night. 

Dabb compared Chuck and John Winchester, claiming that Dean would have to break free of “conditioning.” Also, for Jack “there have been cosmic forces fighting for his attention since he was in the womb — and that will continue. As much as this season is about Sam and Dean finding agency, it’s also about Castiel finding agency, and it’s about Jack finding agency. As always, death is never the end. It’s just part of the journey and that’s certainly true with Jack.” 

Per Variety: At the outset of the season, the “Supernatural” foursome of Dean, Sam, Castiel and Jack are split up, but Dabb notes they won’t be for long because “ultimately this is a found family, and they have deep emotional bonds” that make up the most important part of the show.

Sam’s wound from the equalizer gives his powers/an advantage of some kind (per TVGuide)

Jack will be a critical part of the ending of the show

The cage/Adam is looking like it will be coming up for midseason

Shaving People, Punting Things: https://youtu.be/azTwku2uosA

The shaving promo, punting things promo shows glimpses or Lucifer!Sam and MOC!Dean, as well as bearded Dean in tactical equipment. Recent interviews by Dabb seem to indicate that these are glimpses into other universes, a la Apocalypse World, and other endings from Sam and Dean. 

According to the MarySue and other interviews, Sam’s bullet hole will give him a connection and insight to god- like a tin can telephone string.

In the cage, Micheal and Adam have formed a working relationship (MarySue)

Dean and Amara’s connection will be explored

There will be a bunker themed episode (MarySue)

According to Misha (Cinablend) Dean and Cas will have discord up to ep 8- which is the mid-season finale. 

At a convention, Jake Abel was asked to share two lies about Adam’s return and a truth. The said 1. Adam is not upset about hell 2. Adam kills someone 3. Adam bring someone back. I am assuming its the bring someone back (Micheal?)

In one of his cookbook interviews, Misha used the word “we” several times when talking about the final scene of Supernatural. He said that would be the last scene they shoot. It seemed to imply that he was in the scene, but that could be open to interpretation. 

The finale will air on Monday May 18th. The show will move to Mondays when it comes back on March 16th. It’s gotta come back either than that and go on a mini break or something, because that is not enough Mondays. 

Episode 15x06

Title: Golden Time

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS: OUT OF DIFFICULTIES GROW MIRACLES – Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) are visited by an old friend. Castiel (Misha Collins) investigates the disappearance of a local teen. John Showalter directed the episode written by Meredith Glynn (#1506). Original Airdate 11/21/2019.

Written by: Meredith Glynn

Director: Showalter

Filming Dates:  9/16-9/25

Airdate: 11/21

Photos: https://ew.com/tv/supernatural-season-15-episodic-photos/

Promo: https://youtu.be/xAD_k5l1AdA

Sneak Peak:

Castiel? Yes Jack? No

Guest stars: 

Other Spoilers/info:

Misha tweeted from set in costume, so Cas. 

Misha also tweeted a pic in blood spatter with two bullet holes in his shirt

At least Jensen and Jared filmed in Rowena’s apartment 

This will be a witch episode- Witches will invade Rowena’s apartment looking for books. They are very powerful. Dean gets thrown into a wall and Sam uses magic to stop them (from TVGuide)

Looks like Eileen in the promo!

 Episode 15x07

Title: Last Call

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS: CLOSING TIME – Dean (Jensen Ackles) goes off on his own to take on a case. Meanwhile, Castiel (Misha Collins) has an idea of how he can help Sam (Jared Padalecki) track down God. Amyn Kaderali directed the episode written by Jeremy Adams (#1507). Original Airdate 12/5/2019.

Written by: Jeremy Adams

Director: Amyn Kaderali

Filming Dates:  9/26- 10/7

Airdate: Dec 5th

Photos: 

Promo:

Sneak Peak:

Castiel ? Yes Jack ? 

Guest stars: 

Other Spoilers/info :

Misha posted from set in new shoes- very shiny with well tailored pants. (The next day he posted in full Cas costume, so are the shoes a one off? Another outfit with new shoes?). 

Misha and Jensen made a video from set. I feel like if Jared was around he would have been in it since it was about money raised?  Maybe a Dean Cas scene?

There will be a battle scene in this that Jensen mentioned he was looking forward to and we would enjoy. 

After NJ Con, it appeared that Jensen returned to work, Jared and Misha stayed an extra day and then Misha went home. Misha only did about 2 days of filming. 

Jensen and Christian filmed at a bar called Swazey’s. This was the fight scene Jensen was referring to. 

At some point, Sam might be shirtless or we can see part of his chest- Jared had his anti-possession tattoo at the weekend convention.

Per TVGuide, Leo and Dean will have a wild night out in an effort for Dean to recapture his mojo. Dean will become the lead of a band called Dean and the Impalas, which is made up of Supernatural crew. 

Osric Chau popped over to set, but he is filming on Legends of Tomorrow in the same studio. Sebastin Roche also indicated he would come by, he is filming on Batgirl. Unfortunately, neither Kevin or Balthazar will appear in this one. 

 Episode 15x08

Title: Our Father Who Aren’t in Heaven

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS: 

Written by: Buckleming

Director: Speight

Filming Dates:  10/8- 10/18 (no filming 10/14 for Canadian Thanksgiving)

Airdate: 12/12 (?)

Photos: 

Promo:

Sneak Peak:

Castiel ? yes Jack ? 

Guest stars: Jake Abel, Shoshannah Stern

Other Spoilers/info:

Jake Abel posted a script with the caption “hell hath no fury like a brother scorned”

Shoshannah Stern was spotted on set- Eileen!

This will be the midseason finale

At BurCon, Misha mentioned Dean is still acting like “a dick” in the ep they were filming- which is this one. 

 Episode 15x09

Title: 

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS: 

Written by: Berens

Director: Singer

Filming Dates:  10/21-10/30

Airdate: 1/16?? 

Photos: 

Promo:

Sneak Peak:

Castiel ? I can’t tell but maybe not Jack ? maybe

Guest stars: Rob Benedict, Kim Rhodes, Jim Beaver

Other Spoilers/info:

Midseason premier episode

Misha was at home for the first week of filming, and I think the second. I don’t think he is in this. 

Alex and Rob were hanging out- Chuck and JACK?

Kim Rhodes posted in front of the SPN set and with her trailer- Jody looks very likely. She also had dyed hair and she has been rockin the grey for the past few Jody eps. Maybe a flashback/AU?

Jim Beaver posted from set- Bobby!

Jensen shared that in this episode, Dean will pray to Cas to “confess” why he has been treating Cas the way he has. Misha confirmed this in another interview and said tears would be shed- not sure who is doing the crying (besides me). 

Episode 15x10

Title: 

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS: 

Written by: Dabb

Director: Showalter

Filming Dates:  10/31- 11/12 (No filming for Veterans/Armistice Day)

Airdate: 1/23 ??

Photos: 

Promo:

Sneak Peak:

Castiel ? Jack ? 

Guest stars: 

Other Spoilers/info :

Misha texted some local fans from set in costume about an WA election, but after the convention was promoting his cookbook all over the place. I think he filmed 2 days, max. 

The story will be about Sam and Dean as heroes from the good and bad side (from MarySue)

At DCCon, Jensen shared that  this a bit of a wacky episode- Sam and Dean lose their abilities to fight, Dean gets cavities and Sam gets a cold. Jensen later seemed to refer to this ep when talking to TVGuide- mentioning the Impala will get a flat. 

Episode 15x11

Title: 

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS: 

Written by: Davy Perez AND Meredith Glynn 

Director: Beeson

Filming Dates:  11/13-11/22 

Airdate: 1/30??

Photos: 

Promo:

Sneak Peak:

Castiel ? Jack ? 

Guest stars: 

Other Spoilers/info:

Misha and Jensen made a video for a fan that I think was filmed during the first day of shooting? Not for sure. So maybe Cas?? I’d love the king of social media to post publicly in costume to know for sure. 

Megan Fitzgerald (writer/showrunner’s assistant) and Emma Peterson (production office) were very excited about something in the dailies for this ep. 

They filmed at a church and a park in Surry according to YRShoots. 

 Episode 15x12

Title: 

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS: 

Written by: Bobo AND Glynn

Director: Speight

Filming Dates:  

Airdate:  2/26??

Photos: 

Promo:

Sneak Peak:

Castiel ? Jack ? 

Guest stars: 

Other Spoilers/info:

[this-lioness]

Just Another Update

Nothing much to see here, really

Full disclosure, I did not make either falafel, tortillas or donuts last weekend.  Instead we ended up running a bunch of errands in the morning, and by the time I would have had to start getting everything together I was like, “lol no,” and we made four cheese pasta bowls again. NO REGERTS.

This weekend we’re going to get takeout from our favorite Mediterranean place, so I guess I’m absolved from having to do much of anything this weekend either!

Actually, that’s not quite true. On Saturday we’re going to make a run to Produce Junction (not sure if this is just a local thing, but it’s basically a big produce market where you go in and yell the names of fruits and vegetables at the staff and they throw giant bags of fucking dirt-cheap produce at you, you throw cash back at them, and then run out wondering how the fuck you just bought 10 lbs for potatoes for $4.

I’ve got a whole little list going, so the plan is to get everything we can, then come home and clean / chop / cook / vacuum seal and freeze.  I don’t know what their inventory is really going to be like, but we’ll see what we can get.

One of Marc’s projects for the weekend is to install a screen door in the cat room / exercise room.

Long story short, last weekend we did a full tidy of the exercise room and Marc spackled the corner of the room where the TV needed to be mounted.  We got our hands on a bunch of puzzle-piece foam floor mats and laid them all out nearly corner to corner, then put into place the treadmill, our weights, and the fucking Fluidity barre.  We also had a spare Roku that we moved into there so that we can do guided workouts and watch TV and movies and stuff.

Rosie’s response to this was to immediately start racing around the mats at full speed, so a good percentage of them now have claw marks and gouges. *sigh*

The way this room is laid out, when you walk in from the upstairs hall there is a short, narrow passage into the room, with a wide closet immediately to your right.  We took the doors down from this closet awhile ago, and floored over the tracks, and since then have been using it as the “litter box nook”.  There are shelves above the litter boxes so there’s room enough for us to scoop them, but we can store cat supplies (travel crates and fostering stuff) out of the way.  I need to get my hands on a tension rod so we can hang a curtain to hide that part from sight.

But anyway, point being, you’re sort of “funneled” into the room past the litter box nook, after which the rest of the room opens up.  The cats need access to the litter boxes, obviously, but we’re going to install a screen door just past them, right before the room opens up, so that we can keep them from infiltrating the workout area and fucking up the mats (and tracking litter everywhere).

So that’s Marc’s project.  My overall goal for the weekend is to better organize the mass of shit that I took home from work back in March, which is currently occupying our dining room.  I’ve got another +/- 15 boxes of window envelopes headed to me shortly, so I’m going to need to figure out where the fuck to put them until it’s safe to take them back to the office.

I think I mentioned that I finally set up the sewing machine and made an (admittedly hideous, but still functional) mask.  I ordered supplies for making more on Friday but we STILL haven’t gotten the email telling us they’re ready for pickup. :/

I took my Mom out grocery shopping on Monday.  One of the local stores has “senior hour” from 6 AM to 7 AM so that older folks and the immunocompromised can shop in relative safety.  She hasn’t been out of the house in something like 6 weeks, so I figured it would be OK to suit up and take her out.  I think she was happy that she got to leave the house, and also that -- thanks to the mask -- she didn’t have to put her fake teeth in.  Gotta find joy where you can, I guess.

It was... stressful, but OK.  It seemed safe enough, there were only a handful of people in the store to worry about, but of course any shopping trip with my Mom is always some percentage of nightmare.  She can spend 15 minutes poring over which trash bag to buy (what kind, what brand, what quantity) instead of jst saying, “I need trash bags -- BOOM -- alright, onto the next item.”

We filled up -- I shit you not -- one full-sized and one half-sized shopping cart.  And this is after we’ve been going shopping for her, like, every week and a half.

I do think it was good for her to see for herself that I’m not making it up when I say that pickings are slim.  I understand that she’s limited in what she can eat, because of the whole toothlessness thing, but also she spends way, WAY too much time poring over what Jim will and won’t eat, when Jim has no reason at all to be as fucking picky as he is.

Like, if the package is the wrong color he won’t fucking eat it.  Oh, it’s the right brand but he likes it thick cut, not thin cut.  He likes this brand not that brand.

How about you’re 86 fucking years old and you’ve got people waiting on you hand and foot in the midst of a national pandemic crisis, MAYBE YOU CAN AFFORD TO COMPROMISE A LITTLE INSTEAD OF DEMANDING SOMEONE BRINGS YOU CHICKEN A LA KING. 

But that’s Jim.  He’s always been that way and he always will.  Hopefully it doesn’t get any of us killed.

Marc and I both took half a vacation day today in order to see if we can get to Lowes for what we need for the door project.  I have been trying desperately to get my hands on a chest freezer for my Mom, but no such luck -- seems like everyone else has the same idea.  Spoke to an appliance company yesterday that said there’s a nationwide backorder, and they’re not expecting any until July or August at the earliest.

We’ll do what we need to do, but hopefully we’ll be able to get one for her before this thing comes back in the fall.  At that point we can get her stuff in bulk, portion it out and freeze it, which will mean fewer trips to the grocery store for everyone.

Just trucking along though, as we do.

How are you?

[lockdownuk]

Lockdown Diary Part 7

A personal account during the lockdown in the UK due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

23/03/2020 8:30pm Boris Johnson, UK Prime Minister, gives a live address to the nation to, effectively, put the country on lockdown to stem the spread of the deadly coronavirus strain, Covid-19.

Many of us have been self-isolating for days but this latest development within the UK in reaction to the pandemic feels very serious and very scary. I decided to keep a simple diary and where better but online.

Day 181: Typing on day 182. I received an email from someone at DSM who had got my CV from Helen Proctor (she was the manager that interviewed me along with the founder) and wants me to interview for a IT business consultant role for a shoe firm (Loakes) in Kettering. I called the chap and had a quick chat and arranged it for Wednesday.

A few beers, as it’s Friday, and caught up via video chat with Foggy and Irish Mike (Foggy’s on quarantine having holidayed in the south of France). It was a late one and they were both pissed, but nice to chat. Andy and Ham were meant to join but were no shows - Ham had his sister’s funeral this week - might explain it.

Day 182: I messaged Ham - he went round his folk’s house after work last night as his two sisters were there. I have to admit, I am ignorant of all of Ham’s brothers and Sisters so he may well have meant one was Preaya in an urn.

Someone on the Oundle Chatter FB group asked about Google Hangouts (on behalf of her son who is attending college and they have online classes using it. I am now about to look into it for her. Why did I get involved. It’s 8pm on a Saturday, ffs!

Update, I researched it and messaged her - seems I hit a nail on the head and she seemed suitably grateful. Booze and pizza coming right up (at 9:15pm)

Day 183: Up at just before 2pm - I drank shed loads last night and went to bed after 4am. Faffed about but did manage my stair climb, a 10km walk and I am now making a roast dinner-ish tea (chicken breast stuffed with red leicester and wrapped in bacon) with all the veg and yorkies (I am trying to empty the freezer as it needs defrosting).

Day 184: I posted on FB that today was half a leap year of lockdown (that’s wrong, should have been yesterday). Rachel replied that it isn’t lockdown anymore. I replied that it is for me but that got me thinking - are we officially in lockdown still? Checked, and we are. Posted that on the same thread and Badger replied that the current level of lockdown has been uprated to level 4, whatever that actually means. Rachel’s post worries me - 1. ‘cos it’s indictative of the far-too-relaxed attitude and, 2. I wasn’t even sure even though I’m still observing the same lockdown behaviour that I was before Boris made his announce on March 23rd. Scary how facts bleed into fiction. 

Jim contacted me today, asked me to call. I did so, he says I’ll be asked to return to work (from home) on the 5th October (two weeks). Shirley from HR will be in contact. I’ll believe when I see the email from her! 

Day 185: Boris announced a tightening of the relaxed lockdown including pubs shutting at 10pm. None of it really affects me since I’m still in as full a lockdown as when it started.

Received an email from John Morton at DSM for an interview at Loakes tomorrow (Wed) at 09:30am.

Received a Facebook message from the editor at Oundle Chronicle - he wants to do a short article about the photos I take and post on the Oundle Chatter fb group.

Day 186: Interview went ok.

Called Dad and Rita to let them know that I received an email from RCI confirming that I will be back at work on the 5th of October.

In the evening, Facebook had posts concerning somebody walking round Creed Road with a knife in his hand, and the police getting involved!

Day 187: Spend spend spend. Paid my speeding fine today £357, my water bill £147, bought two new duvet cover sets and two new sheets £58, a new pair of walking boots (my relatively new Hi-Tec are leaking and falling apart) £75. Oh, and the car insurance renews day after tomorrow, £230. Thank fucking fuck I’m being taken off furlough!

Day 188: Friday and I’m going to have a few beers and watch a couple of films.  I’ve been trawling through Seinfeld and am most the way through S3, and it’s brilliant. The Kramer character is mentally good. One episode had the actress who played Janice in Friends - that episode is a classic - which also included an scene whereby the cast are all exclaiming ‘Saturday night’ similar to the Friends TikTok trend. Got a call this morning about a service delivery lead role for EPM, a education service provider, based in Huntingdon. It’s a good role, very involved, reporting directly to the head of IT. But it’s only £32k pa. I replied to the email the recruiter subsequently sent to say I am interested but that salary is less than £5k pa than I am on now as a 2nd line support techie!  Lastly, I am well on my way to doing 500,000 steps in September!

Day 189: I was woken by the doorbell - a delivery of one of the duvet cover sets. On the door mat was a missed parcel delivery note from Ryal Mail (I have to get whatever it is from Warmington PO) and a note from next door (No. 34) asking for me to turn my music down at 10.30pm. That’s fair enough but....10.30pm! What are they, 80 years old? I have felt low today. There is no rhyme nor reason as to my moods suffice to say I am not of the happiest dispostion on a permanent basis, resigned to being alone. In fact, I have come to terms with the fact I’ll die alone but, it seems, some days I cope with it a lot worse than others. On that cheery note, it’s 8.45 pm on a Saturday night so, I am about to launch into some beers, weed and pizza. I think tonight I’ll seek out the second John Wick film - watch the first last night - so fucking good. You gotta love Keanu!

Day 190: Hopefully the last Sunday of having an enforced no-work-on-Monday so I’m going to have a beer or two (it’s now 8:20pm - just cracked open a Bud), watch American Sniper and eat Chilli and naan bread and onion rings. I did a 12 km walk today - I recall a time when 40-45 minuts walking was enough. Today’s walk was 2 hours! I know it’s only walking but I feel fitter than I have for years; still unfit, but fitter. Day 191: Well, I enjoyed the decadence of boozing last night but it meant getting up at after midday! Still managed two walks, trip to Tesco’s in Hampton after picking up the mystery parcel from Warmington PO. It was two unknown bottles of beer for a marketing campaign I entered a few days ago! I have to not open the beers until I receive instruction whereby I’ll be joining in with other drinkers in video chat! Day 192: Smahed 500k steps for September with one day to go! Cleaned the kitchen - I’m going to do the whole house over the next few days while I have the free time since I’m back to work on Monday.  The lad from next door called round this eveing to ask if I got the note. When I said yes, he told me they (he and his partner) can still hear music. FFS! I asked where their bedroom was, it’s along side mine, so I guess it’s the TV sound that is travelling up and disturbing them. Great, fuck knows what I should do if I want to watch anything after 10:30pm. I suppose going back to work is good timing..I shall be going to bed around that time myself, especially if I want to get up early to get a walk in before starting at 09.00 am.

Day 193: Typing on day 194. Only managed one walk today, before 9.00am. It made a great change walking that early. I then set about doing housework (which I started yesterday) - I want to clean the house from top to bottom before going back to work. i.e. while I have time during the working week. I did the Kitchen yesterday and the whole lounge today. It’s fucking knackering. I managed 519k steps in September, works out at 9.6 miles per day, which is good and, also, annoying. I have taken delivery and laundered all my new bedding. It’s brushed cotton lushness, can’t wait to try it. Last ‘happy hour’ of (this current) furlough, so I had beers (and a fucking spicey sausage casserole)...hence penning this a day late.

Day 194: I didn’t get out of bed until nearly 2pm, FFS. Spome with Ricky Roberts about kayaking, it sound sliek something I could take up but, I would need to join the boat club to have somewhere to get in and out!

Day 195: Sueanne from work called to let me know she’s taking over from Jim ‘til new yer and that the team are looking forward to my return - lovely. Dad called, he and Rita are fine as usual - lovely.

Day 196: Got up fater 2pm. I was seriously fucking wasted last night. Had a video chat with Fog - just checked, it ended at 02.04am and I did a lot more drinking and smoking after that. I still managed a 9.7km walk and am now going to settle down to a few (just a few!) beers, shepherds pie and watch Casino. Day 197: Quiet Sunday with some bizarre results in Super Sunday in the prem. Man U lost at home to Spurs 1-6 and Liverpool were thrashed at Villa Park, 7-2. Work tomorrow, feeling a little apprehensive, not sure why. Got to go to the office (to reset password) at 09.00am

Day 198: Back to work. It went OK. I had to go to the office so that my a/c could be enabled and password reset and t get VPN working. There were a few problems but I was back home and logged in OK in the afternoon. Saw Mark in the office - he’s lost weight and was telling me about a cycling accident - I knew about it, but I didn’t realise he had been in hospital and had a plate put in his shoulder. He also has the exact same issue with codeine as me! I am pleased to be back at work but it’s different - no Jim and Sueanne in charge is the main thing. I’m just going to keep my head down; it’ll be for the best.

Day 199: Second day back at work and I’m (trying to) crack on with it. It’s all coming back... New walking boots arrived today (I have them on as I type); I reckon I’ll be OK to walk in them with no breaking in. That’s just as well as my evening walk took me by the marina and the path between the lock, the small bridge and, especially, the larger bridge into the field at the bottom of Basset Ford Road was flooded, no way my boots will be dry for tomorrow.  I did my stair climb before work, 3.5 km walk at lunchtime and then a long, second one, as mentioned, later. I want to try and do a short walk before work in future, hopefully. On the way back from the lunchtime walk, I saw the lad from next door who thanked for me keeping the music down as per the note he left, so, that’s all good.

Day 200: I’ve started a work diary,  à la ENDC....nowhere as urgently required but I just think it’s a good idea.

I wore my new boots for the lunchtime walk (3.6km) and they’re fine. However, I didn’t use them in the evening, they niggled the left foot a bit, so some breaking in is required. My usual ones were just about dry enough having been sat on the radiator! Day 201: Popped into the office today to pick up my full headset dongle, did a quick shop at Asda. So, only one walk today. I have not yet managed to get a walk in before work, just the stair climb, so missed out on a lunchtime walk today since I was shopping. Did 8.5km in the evening. Bought a card online for K’s birthday. Not sure why, we seem not to be communicating - I haven’t heard from her for over a month now which, as mentioned before, I shouldn’t find as hard as I do. The card’s pretty cool though, a quip about just getting a card as a present would involve non-essential travel. Now I am back at work, I want a to do loist app. I recall a smart one that was a linear/curved affair that I saw on Producthunt but, fuck me, I couldn’t find it after over an hour looking. Then I checked Google apps and there it was (Lightpad.ai) - I was chuffed and relieved. The lad from oundle School has been trying to get hold of me via Messenger (he tells me by email) so he can interview for the article in the Chronicle. He has pencilled in Saturday at 6pm.Fuck knows if it will go ahead, the whole thing is sketchy. Day 202: First week back at work over and done. I ordered some stuff from Amazon (slippers and socks) and they offered a free trial of Prime, which is the norm, but, seeing as I have had a free trial under that a/c, I assumed it would error, as I have seen before. This time it didn’t! So, tonight, I just about to have some beers, eat pizza and watch The Gentlemen,. It was suggested by Miles on FB when I asked for  recommendations. It’s been on my to-watch list since its release. I need some cheering up, I’m having a low ebb today.Day 203: Typing on day 204. The Gentlemen was pretty good. I had lots of beers and smoke and went to bed fucking late, gone 4am. Up at lunchtime. I was meant to be going up Foggy’s for a few beers and to listen to Cobblers vs Posh but I sacked that off. I went for a walk at tea time when it got dark fucking quick and pissed down. I didn’t mind ‘cos Posh won 0-2. I watched two films in the evening: Master and Commander: Far Side of the World and Official Secrets. Both excellent. Day 204: Another late night, so up at just before 2pm. 12.64 km walk! I’m going to make stirfry and watch Knives Out...taking advantage of Amazon Prime.Day 205: I didn’t watch Knives Out last night, Amazon Prime was playing up. Tonight, however, after uninstalling and reinstalling the LG app, it’s working again. But, rather than a film, I have started watching The Boys series. 3/4 through the first episode and I’m kinda hooked. Another long walk tonight (I didn’t go out before work or at lunchtime), over 5 miles. My new boots are a marvel...they’re still new - I can tell I’ve got a little bit of wearing in still to do, but, pretty much from the off, I can walk long distances in them. I’m impressed. I think, because they are so light, they may be susceptible to the cold, especially now I can walk for longer periods without hypo-ing. The snow and frost will be the test.Day 206: Bit of a frustrating day at work. I am pleased I have a diary of events to update, that’s all I will say on this potentially public diary. Had a chat with Mark about certain aspects of the day, it was a good chat whereby he agreed with some of my gripes. In the evening I took part in a Ipsos marketing test of two beers with a whole bunch of people online. Ultimately, you have to choose one of two beers you prefer and answer questions why. It’s then revelaed which beer you chose. The beer I iked best was Stella but 4.6%, I think that’s the next product iine for them. You don’t get to find out the other beer. I shoudl recieve a £15 amazon voucher for partaking. If that actually happens, I’m going to buy a pair of gaiters. My new boots are fab (although I did turn my ankle last night) but their insides don’t half attract gravel and debris.Day 207: A productive day incorporating ToDoist with work and GCal, I have sacked off Lightpad.ai (it was too cumbersome moving tasks between dates) - so I managed to tick a few things off the task list as a result (responding to Jo Broom’s voicemail, chasing an eye appointmen, for example). Tim came round and did the garden, nice chinwag. I saw little Derek the other day, as well, he’s not coping great with the whole pandemic atm, certainly now lockdown has relaxed, he’s not as social as before. Day 208: Had a chat with Sueanne today, which is not unusal, and I was asking about creating KBs...she remarked how well, and quickly, I getting up to speed. It pleased me. I am having battered fishcakes, potato wedges and peas for tea. I am looking forward to it the most ridiculous amount (it’s cooking as I type). I shall eat as I watch more of the rather excellent The Boys. Seinfeld is on the back burner atm. Day 209: Emily Folgate’s room mate at uni has tested positive for Covid19! Marc’s avoiding the pub and I am glad I didn’t pop up there last Saturday! Bumped into Ash and Dee when i walked past the vets, chatted for 5 mins, it was really nice to see them. The lady next door (38) stopped me outside to say she recently realised that it was me who posts photos to FB, and said they’re ‘amazing’! End of week 2 back at work. As I type, I’m on my first beer, about to have many more and a smoke, half way through The Trial of the Chicago 7 on Netflix. Living the dream! Day 210: Things got messy last night. Sugar levels were a mess. I couldn’t even make it upstairs at one point, laid down on the long rug nursing a big bottle of coke. Got up at around 1pm and did usual shit, now having a beer, spicy sausage casserole in the oven (and it is fucking spicy) and I’ll pick a film to watch in a bit. Posh won, 2-0 at home to Oxford, up to 4th, one point behind Lincoln.

[eldritchsurveys]

898.

5k Survey XXV

1201. Have you ever owned a record? >> Yeah, I own several records. 1202. In some states people want to make it a requirement that creationism (god made the world) be taught alongside evolution in high school sciences classes. What do you think of this? >> I don’t think it should be a requirement. I think the current evolution-based curriculum should be standardised, and teaching about the fact that creationism is a concept is something a teacher can do, if they’re so inclined to present that side of things. Even then, since creationism is not a true theory that has been subjected to the rigors of the scientific method and found viable, it’s technically not on-subject for a science class. So. 1203. Should evolution also be taught in religious establishments like church or temple? >> If the function of a religious establishment is to perpetuate the beliefs of that faith, and evolution doesn’t count as a belief of said faith, then there’s no point? That’s just not what a religious establishment is for. Now, if we’re talking about religious schools, then I guess it’d depend on whether it’s publicly or privately funded. I imagine you can make a publicly-funded religious school use the same curriculum as the public schools, but good luck getting that to fly in a privately-funded institution. In which case, like it or not, they get to teach what they want. 1204. Can a person believe in creationism and in evolution at the same time? >> I don’t know. There are a lot of seemingly-opposite ideas that a person can hold in their minds at the same time without their head exploding, but I’m not too sure truly believing in creationism would also allow one to recognise the validity of evolution. Or vice versa. 1205. You obviously like surveys since you are filling out a 5,000 question one. Do any of the following surveys sound interesting: The Doors/Jim Morrison Survey: They all sound interesting (except the WTC one, like, what...?), I just wouldn’t take all of them. Moving on. The David Bowie Survey: The Beatles Survey:  The Rocky Horror Survey: The Labyrinth Survey: The SLC Punk Survey: The birthday survey:  So this is love, the survey:  The heartache/break up survey:  Creationism vs. Evolutionism Survey: Opinion Survey: World Trade Center Survey: Halloween Survey:  Survey of Sin:  How evil are you? Survey: The Roaring 20’s Survey: Well, once, long ago, I created all those surveys. Now they are floating around in people’s diaries because the diary I had them in (Simply Surveys) was deleted due to disuse. >> Moving on.

1206. Who did you get this survey from? Say one nice thing about the person you got this survey from: >> Another survey-taker is taking it and I’m copying it from her blog. She seems like a friendly person. 1207. Here is a list of priorities… Love/sex Family Close friends School/learning Job/career Being true to yourself/self respect Honesty Aesthetics (beauty in the world) Creativity Patriotism Knowledge Wisdom Leading an exciting life Making a contribution to humanity Being rich Being famous Having power Justice/fairness World peace Accepting and understanding others Finding yourself Spirituality/religion Health Happiness What are your top three priorities from this list? >> Being true to myself, health, wisdom. 1208. Out of that same list what are your BOTTOM 3 priorities? >> Being rich, being famous, having power. 1209. How many hours of TV do you watch in an average day? >> 1 or 2 hours. Exceptions would be days like today, when I binge 6 episodes of a show in a row because they finally added the latest season to Netflix and I was excited off my ass. 1210. Do you want to have a car, a house and 2.5 kids? >> The house would be fine, I suppose, but I don’t care about the other shit. 1211. What song, CD, or band is a ‘guilty pleasure’ for you (meaning you know it sucks but you like it anyway)? >> There’s no such thing for me. I don’t even understand what “you know it sucks but you like it anyway” is supposed to mean. Either I like something or I don’t. 1212. If you were going to vote for a candidate for president and then you found out that the person you were going to vote for is HIV positive would that effect your vote and why? >> No. 1213. Have you ever had an HIV test? >> Yes. 1214. What time do you: Get up in the morning: Any time between 6.30a and 9a. Eat lunch: I don’t have dedicated meal times. Do something active during the day: If I don’t do it in the morning, shortly after waking, it doesn’t get done. Go to bed: Any time between 10p and 12a. 1215. Have you ever ridden a motorcycle? >> I’ve ridden on them many times. 1216. When you hear the word ‘biker’ what kind of person do you think of? >> A person in leathers who rides a motorcycle. 1217. Did your parents ever talk to you about sex? >> No. 1218. If your pet dies, you can now have it cloned for $50,000. How do you feel about this? >> This doesn’t interest me in the slightest. Also, where the fuck am I getting 50 grand? 1219. Are you or would you be embarrassed about buying condoms? >> I was never embarrassed about condoms. 1220. Do any of your clocks make an odd noise or play a song when the hour strikes? >> No. 1221. What are the things that make you go 'Hmmmm….’ (remember that song?)? >> I don’t remember that song. 1222. Are you a sinner? >> I imagine I would be if I subscribed to a worldview that included sin. 1223. Are you naughty or nice? >> --- 1224. Is belly-dancing sexy? >> It is. It’s also just pretty, and skillful. 1225. What celebrity would you love to be able to dance with? >> --- 1226. What is your favorite comic book movie? >> I don’t have one. Black Panther and Thor Ragnarok were cool. 1227. What movie would you recommend for couples to watch on Valentine’s day? >> --- 1228. Besides when you were little how many people have seen you completely naked and who? >> Quite a few people have. Not even necessarily in sexual contexts. 1229. Is sex something that should be treated casually? >> If that suits you, then sure. It doesn’t suit me, so I don’t treat it casually. 1230. Have you ever participated in an orgy? If no, would you ever consider it? >> No. I’ve considered it in the past, but I’m just not interested in outworld sex of any kind at this time. 1231. What song is in your head right now? >> The Shameless theme song, because I spent half the day watching that and the song is catchy. 1232. What was the best day of your life like? >> --- 1233. What are you all about? >> --- 1234. You have won a contest where you get all these great prizes but you can only keep one for yourself and must give the others away to friends, family or whoever. Which one do you keep and who do you give the rest to: A $5,000 gift certificate to radio shack: A brand new yellow jeep: An all expense paid vacation for 2 to Italy: Lunch with N'Sync: A lifetime supply of herbal essences shampoo: A $1,000 check: A palm pilot? An autographed picture of Shakira: Breakfast with kid rock: A shirt once worn by Jonathan Davis: One round of mini-golf with Sharon Osbourne: A phone call from Robert Smith: A brand new washer/dryer: Free medical insurance for 1 year: 1235. Who do you think you might have known in a past life? >> --- 1236. Do you take vitamins? >> No. I probably should. 1237. Do you prefer fake or real flowers around the house? >> I don’t care about having flowers around the house at all. 1238. Sometimes roses are pink, yellow, white or red. If you give someone a rose, does its color change the meaning behind it as a gift? >> If you know flower language, yeah. If you don’t, then I guess it’s just about colour preference. 1239. What’s the most deadly thing you can think of? >> Death. 1240. To-MAY-toes or to-MA-toes? >> I say it the former way. 1241. Out of all your friends, family and the people you know who is the most: Intelligent: Happy:  Miserable: Easily influenced: Cranky:  Bitchy:  Evil:  Nice:  1242. What’s the best live musical performance you ever saw? >> The only live musical performance I’ve seen is Phantom of the Opera, but I gotta say if that’s the only one I ever get to see, then that’s fine because it was amazing.

1243. Have you ever had a 'pregnancy scare’? >> Yes. 1244. Kelly Osbourne or Madonna’s version of “Papa Don’t Preach”? >> I’ve only heard Madonna’s. Or, I only remember hearing Madonna’s. Either way. 1245. Can you change a tire? >> Yeah. 1246. Have you ever put your fist through a wall? >> Nearly. 1247. When do you feel the most relaxed and able to be yourself? >> When I’m at home in my room and not having an emotional flashback or overload or whatever. 1248. Do you have a place that is your own where you won’t show anyone else? >> No. Not for a lack of desire, though. I just don’t know any place that I can keep that private. 1249. Are you a part of any teams or clubs? >> No. 1250. Is cheerleading a sport? >> It fits the profile to me.