#and Vincent playing it absolutely cold

[ennaih]

Every Film I Watch In 2023:

235. Witchfinder General (1968)

[gh0ulixs]

Dating the Sinclair Brothers

ʚ♡ɞ ʚ♡ɞ ʚ♡ɞ ʚ♡ɞ ʚ♡ɞ ʚ♡ɞ ʚ♡ɞ

Bo Sinclair

♡ The absent attachment type. He seems distant, emotionally and sometimes physically. It's the one way he knows best to show he cares about you.

♡ Likes it when you spend time with him at the service station. He'll sometimes play music on the old radio of his, going about his duties as you sit comfortably on the counter. "Almost like a pretty little trophy" as he claims.

♡ As hot-headed as he can be, he will instantly apologize big he even dares raise his voice at you. You're the only one in the house that can cool him off.

♡ Doesn't like you near Vincent or the Basement. He wants you to himself and also not dead, so he will always find ways to keep you occupied or away from both of those things.

♡ Will flirt with any man or woman to get them turned to sculptures, but God forbid you try flirting with someone else. He'll be pissed, and will make sure to show you who you really belong to afterwards.

♡ Calls you things like Darlin', Sugar, Doll, etc.

♡ Likes it when you cook for him. He'll always get seconds of whatever you make, no matter how simple or complex it is.

Vincent Sinclair

♡ Slightly codependent on you. He's always attached to the hip with you, never wanting you to leave for too long or be out of sight. If you're going out on the town, he's going too. No questions asked.

♡ Very insecure about his face. It takes a long while for him to fully trust you enough to take his mask off. Once he does, shower him with praise- he'll absolutely melt.

♡ He overworks himself often. He'll spend hours, even days at a time working on sculptures. You have to remind him to eat and take breaks, and even that takes a little bit of coaxing.

♡ He's very jealous. He hates it when you spend a little too much time with either of his brothers; worrying that they'll manage to steal you away from him. He will never out right say it, just sulk and give you the cold shoulder until you figure out what's wrong.

♡ Calls you thinks like Sugar, My Muse, Love, etc.

♡ Doesn't like it when you watch him work. He'll always try and shoo you out of the basement so you don't get scarred from what goes on down there. Even if you insist you're okay, he keeps his ground firm.

♡ Makes you little things out of Wax.

Lester Sinclair

♡ The sweetest man alive. He always helps you with anything you need- Need help with dinner? He's suddenly an experienced chef. Car troubles? He'll take a look and get Bo to help if he can't figure it out. He loves showing you he cares by lending you a hand.

♡ Brings you back bones from the animals he finds. It makes him so giddy to watch your eyes light up as he hands you the newest trinket he found.

♡ Jonesy loves you. He makes jokes about her loving you more than him, and takes you with him when he walks her.

♡ Doesn't get jealous very easily, although he's a tad insecure that you find his brother more attractive. Just shower him with love and assure him it's okay.

♡ Calls you things like Pumpkin, Angel, Sweetie, etc

[cybercore-creations]

All good things

Summary: Life played him for a fool again, he was stupid for thinking he'd get a single good thing

Tw: Suicide, Kidnapping, implied Stolkholm syndrome

He thought everything was okay. He thought you finally accepted this was where you were staying. Giving him a kiss every morning, helping Vincent with the sculptures, taking Jonsey on walks with Lester. You didn't scream or cry anymore. Didn't have to be locked up. Everything felt normal. A normal spouse, A normal family, A normal life.

But nothing ever went right for Beauregard Sinclair. He could never have a normal anything. Never had one normal thing in his life.

Maybe it was hopeful thinking or straight denial. Just playing pretend. But he didn't expect when he entered your shared bedroom to find you with bleeding wrists and one of his knives weakly clutched in your hands. There was no note. No closure. Not a simple thing to tell him it wasn't his fault.

You didn't have to say it, but he knew it was his fault. He shouldn't have kept you alive. Shoulda just threw you in the museum like everyone else, but he didn't. You were a spitfire from the beginning. That's what he liked about you. He never expected a victim to hot wire Lester's truck and try to run him over but there you were smiling as you pushed the old thing as fast as it could go. He laughed when you'd slammed your face onto the steering wheel when he shot out the tires. It wasn't even a sadistic one, he genuinely found it funny.

You saw the man. He was distracted, looking off into the distance, probably trying to find you but you hit the gas hard. The pedal slammed to the ground as you changed gears (He always liked someone who could drive stick) Bo heard the truck before he saw it. The loud rumble of the thing much too old to still be driven. It was like second instinct as he hopped out of the way, shooting out the tires. The truck spun out and all he heard was "FUCK" and then the slam of your forehead on the uncoushined wheel accompanied by a "ow"

His eyes drifted towards the now bloodied silver band on your finger. You were supposed to get married. You'd been in Ambrose for a little over a year when he popped the question and he remembers the bright smile before squeezing him tight. The memory would make him happy but instead he felt nothing but betrayl.

As the night draped itself over Ambrose, The two of you found yourselves perched on the rooftop of the old, weathered church. The stars above twinkled like glitter strewn across a velvet canvas. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves of the nearby trees, and the only sound that echoed through the quiet night was the faint chirping of crickets. Bo took your hand in his, a soft smile playing on his lips. "You know, Peaches, I've been thinking about a lot lately" You raised your eyebrows "And what does that thinking gotta do with Hun?" He fiddled with the ring in his pocket before taking a deep breath. For the first time in his life, he was nervous. "Our future together. How I wanna turn ya into Mx.Sinclair." "W-What?" You stuttered. "Peaches, the second I laid eyes on you went you came in for that fan belt, I was hooked. Every second since then I've been falling harder. So uh, will you be my spouse?" He pulled out the ring, hands shaking. You grabbed onto him. Squeezing him tightly, he could feel your smile against his shoulder. "Absolutely. I wouldn't want anything else."

He went soft and he absolutely hated you for it, well thats what he tried to tell himself when he ran to your side trying to find a pulse. It was obvious you'd been gone for awhile. Blood was already dried on some places and your body was cold to the touch. He was frozen in time like one of Vincent's statues as he stared before he dropped to his knees. Bo let out a scream. A noise so deep in his chest that it didn't even sound human. An animalistic sob that you could probably even hear the town over. The one good thing in his rotten life was taken from him

"I hate you. I hate you. I HATE YOU." He yelled. Tears now rolling down his face. "Why did you have to leave me?"

[daechwitatamic]

VII. Supposed to Be With You

(banner by @/itaeetwon)

Title: My Feet to Follow, and My Heart to Hold (Masterpost)

Rating: NSFW - minors dni

Genre: college!au, roomie!au, angst, s2l, the absolute slowest of burns

Pairing: Namjoon x female reader, unrequited Taehyung x reader

Beta'd by @/kookstempo, @/casuallyimagining, and @/toikiii - thank you endlessly!

Summary: You know a lot about the many types of love thanks to Kim Taehyung. You love him as the only person you see as “family”, you love him as your very best friend, and you love him as the beautiful, funny man he’s become. But when a twist of fate during your senior year has you rooming with his good friend Kim Namjoon, you just might find that you have plenty left to learn about love. 

Lesson One: there are such things as a right way and a wrong way to love and to be loved.

//

You and Namjoon support each other through some tough days.

Section Warnings: language, dealing with loss, pov switch to Namjoon for a section or two

WC: 6k

The world is mine: blue hill, still silver lake, Broad field, bright flower, and the long white road A gateless garden, and an open path: My feet to follow, and my heart to hold. - Journey | Edna St. Vincent Millay

Saturday November 10th

[9:22 AM] You: grocery run??? [9:36 AM] Tae Bear 🧸: ur just using me for my car 🙁 [9:37 AM] You: not true!!! i like when we go together and talk while we shop 🥺 [9:37 AM] You: the car is simply a bonus ☝️ [9:39 AM] Tae Bear 🧸: i mean do i rly want to go run errands this morning… no [9:40 AM] You: you’re the worst [9:43 AM] Tae Bear 🧸: text me later tho! and buy those chips? remember the good ones? [9:45 AM] You: you’re literally insufferable 🙄

Officially on your own, you rise from the couch, coffee mug cooled and almost empty in your hand, and head back to your room to get dressed. When you’re ready, you place your coffee cup in the sink to deal with later and get your little wheely cart from the pantry. When you turn, Namjoon is in the living room, and you jump - just barely fighting back a shriek of surprise.

“God, you really are jumpy,” he laughs. “Are you ever just relaxed?”

“I startle easily!” you say defensively, laughing too. 

“Are you getting groceries?” he asks, eyes catching on the cart in your hands. 

“Yeah,” you say, following his gaze and looking down at your hands. ��I was just on my way.”

“Can I go with you?” he asks, totally surprising you. “I need a few things.”

“Oh,” you say, still a little shocked by the question. “You can tell me what you need, if you want! I can grab it for you.”

“I’d rather join you,” he says, “as long as you don’t mind?”

You consider this. “No, I don’t mind,” you say, shrugging. “Do you need a few minutes?”

He shakes his head. “I can go now.”

It’s pleasant, walking through town together, pulling your little cart. It’s unseasonably warm, though the forecast claims you’re due for a frost that night and the next few days will stay cold. Namjoon talks easily with you as you collect produce, meats, and cheeses from the front section of the store. Overhead, the muzak plays 90’s hits that your mom used to love. 

“You start on this side?” he asks, a little playful. “I always start on the other end.”

“I have a system,” you insist, smiling. “You’ll see. It’s very methodical.”

On the cereal row, your favorite brand seems to be low in stock. You stretch on your tippytoes, reaching, fingers just barely catching the corner of the box. It tips, then settles back where it was. 

You know what’s coming, somehow, and you - the world’s jumpiest human - aren’t startled at all when you feel Namjoon’s warm body solidly against your back. One hand steadies you both by resting on your waist, the other reaches easily for the box you wanted.

There’s space between you again, too quickly, as he hands you the box. He avoids your gaze, like he’s not sure if he crossed a line or not. 

“Be careful,” you tease, “or I’ll get spoiled and I’ll ask you to reach all the high places for me.”

He smiles. “It’s a curse I’ve lived with for a long time.”

You make your way, shivering, through the freezer sections, grabbing what you need. Namjoon carries a reusable bag of his own handful of items he’s picked up through the rows, so that he can pay for his separately. 

Once you’re done, you check out and head home. Namjoon places a hand on the cart to pull it for you, and you shoulder him away.

“I’ve got it,” you insist. 

He gives you an indulgent look. “You can let me pull the groceries, Y/N. It doesn’t have to mean anything you don’t want it to mean.”

This shames you into silence, and you move over to let him take the cart. You don’t feel like you deserve the patience he’s affording you. 

“Don’t get all quiet on me, little cactus,” he says, eyeing you sideways. “Everything’s fine. We’re fine.”

What’s we? The only reason you don’t know is because you’re too cowardly to ask.

“What ever happened with your ex?” you ask, needing the subject to change. “We haven’t talked about that in a few weeks. Did you ever answer her?”

Beside you, Namjoon grimaces. 

“We don’t have to talk about it,” you say quickly. “I was just curious.”

“I answered her a while ago… back before Halloween. I told her I wasn’t interested in talking. She’s… been persistent.”

You frown. “Has she said what she wants?”

He shakes his head. “Just that she wants to see me, she wants to talk. I’ve pushed it - I know she’s got a reason - but she sticks to that story. She just wants to see me.”

You wrinkle your nose. “It doesn’t sound like she even knows.”

He purses his lips, annoyed with the situation. “That’s not it. She knows. She just can’t straight out say to me that she wants to see me to find out if I miss her or not.”

“Well…” you say carefully. You’re walking behind him a little, so you don’t have to see his face as you ask, “Do you?”

“I truly don’t,” he says, turning to look at you, something earnest and insistent in his voice. Like he needs you to believe him. “Trust me, it was toxic.”

You’re quiet for a minute, following his footsteps. “I think you can recognize the flaws in a relationship and still miss the person, though,” you say quietly. “I’m just saying. I wouldn’t judge you if you did, a little.”

“I don’t,” he says firmly. 

You walk in silence, chastised. Then, you ask, “So she hasn’t given up?”

Namjoon shakes his head again.

“Let me talk to her for you,” you tease. “I’ll sort her out.”

He looks backwards at you now, smiling a little. “You’re not scary,” he disagrees.

You drop your jaw in pretend indignation. “I am scary!” 

He shakes his head. “Not even a little.”

You pretend to gasp. “That is absolutely the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me,” you pretend to pout, reaching out to give him a playful swat. 

The apartment is in sight, and you’ve got Namjoon’s laugh ringing in your ears as you get close enough to the front steps to register that someone is sitting on them. Then you register the parked car along the sidewalk.

Your brain slowly puts two and two together.

Taehyung watches you two come closer, the groceries in tow. He looks serious, and as you get close enough to talk to him, you wonder anxiously if he’s here because something is wrong. 

“Hi,” you say, a little breathlessly. He steps out of the way to let Namjoon up the stairs with the cart. “We were getting groceries.”

“I see that,” he says, voice just a touch flat. He looks between Namjoon and you. “I called you.”

“Oh,” you say, reaching immediately for your pocket. “I didn’t feel it go off. Sorry, Taetae.” You give him big, sad eyes. He cracks quickly, just like he always has. 

“It’s okay,” he says, sounding more like himself. “I just wanted to see if you wanted to hang.”

“I definitely do,” you tell him. “Come up while I put the groceries away, and we can figure out a plan?”

He nods, following you up the stairs. In the kitchen, the cart sits in the middle of the kitchen, all of your items waiting for you. Namjoon is in the fridge, putting a few of his own things away. 

You start pulling your own items out of the cart one by one, putting them where they go. You and Namjoon move around each other easily, like it’s choreographed. At one point, he gently takes a box from your hands and puts it up on the highest shelf for you. You smile at him in thanks.

Taehyung watches all of this silently from where he’s perched at the breakfast bar. When your groceries are put away, you face Taehyung and put your hands on your hips. “What do you wanna do?” you ask.

He shrugs easily, his eyes on his phone screen as he scrolls. “Don’t care. What were you gonna do before I showed up?”

Honestly? Probably hang out with Namjoon in the living room, read a little, do some homework, maybe watch a show. 

“I’m going to get some writing done,” Namjoon says, even though nobody asked him. It’s like he wants you to know you can remove him from the equation. You have a feeling that hadn’t been his original plan, either. 

“Just hang out,” you say, looking back at Taehyung. His messy hair falls over his eyes as he bends his head to look at his phone. “Wanna put on a show?”

You get comfortable on the couch. The familiarity sets in, the comfort of doing your normal thing, with your normal person, in your normal place. It’s so much less scary than foraying into uncharted territory with Namjoon. 

But it’s stagnant, too.

“My parents said to tell you hi,” Taehyung informs you from his side of the couch. “They asked how you were.”

“Oh,” you say, looking over the top of your phone at him. “Hi! Tell them I’m good. I miss them! Tell your mom I miss her stew, like, badly.”

“I can’t tell her that,” Taehyung laughs. “She’ll make you some and tell me to drive there to get it for you.”

“I fail to see the problem,” you sniff. From behind Namjoon’s door, you hear the telltale sound of classical music. 

You know what that means - the writing isn’t going well. On the other side of the door, he’s stuck.

Thursday November 15th 

Your alarm on Thursday goes off way before it should. You tap the snooze button without looking, and then are baffled when the buzzing doesn’t stop. You actually open one eye to peek at the screen and see that Kris is calling you. Something must be wrong.

“Hello?” you answer groggily, clearing your throat.

“I am so sorry,” they say in greeting. “I am such an asshole for waking you up and I am such an asshole for what I’m about to ask you.”

You groan, already knowing what’s coming.

“Can you please - please please please please please - cover me at the store for like two hours later?” they beg. 

“I’m in class until 4:30,” you tell them. 

“That’s fine, I don’t need you until six.”

“You want me to close?” you yelp. “Kris!”

“I will owe you a hundred times over,” they say desperately. 

You roll onto your back and close your eyes again, the phone pressed to your ear. “Fine,” you grumble finally, because you love Kris, and because you need the money. 

You survive both your morning and afternoon classes, grabbing lunch with Taehyung in the caf between the two. After your afternoon class, you have a weird gap of time before Kris needs you at the store, so you head for the library and do a bit of work. When it’s nearly time, you pack up and head to the store. You’re nearly there when you feel your phone vibrate in your hand.

[5:51 PM] Namjoon: did you order dinner already? I’m leaving campus now

[5:51 PM] You: im covering kris at the bookstore until 8:30 :( 

You watch his three dots appear, then vanish. Appear, then vanish. Appear… hover… then vanish. 

[5:54 PM] Namjoon: want me to bring you something to eat?

You want to sink down onto the concrete path and melt into the ground. What is this absolutely boyfriend behavior, and why are the butterflies in your stomach having a rager over it?!

It’s like he knows you’ll be having a whole meltdown about it, because he follows up quickly.

[5:55 PM] Namjoon: it’s not a big deal i can grab something on campus for myself too and bring it over

[5:56 PM] You: i would really appreciate that :’) best roomie ever

[5:57 PM] You: that was NOT me roomie-zoning you!!! you can be best roomie ever AND ….whatever else lol

Sometimes you wonder who decided to let you ever leave your house. You deserve a trophy for being the most awkward human alive. 

You can’t dwell on it, though, because you’re at the store and you have to clock in and take over the register. There’s always a bit of a rush around the dinner hours - more students are in the student center for dinner anyway and stop in for what they need, or opt to get crappy snacks instead of real dinner. You don’t judge. 

It’s almost eight when you see Namjoon’s familiar shape in the door. He’s holding a bag of food and uses his shoulders to push the door open. 

“You brought me sustenance?” you ask hopefully. Your stomach is growling. 

“I did,” he tells you. He sets the bag on the counter and you dig into it immediately, pulling out the wrap he got for you. 

“You are a god amongst men,” you tell him reverently. He beams at you, standing still practically in the doorway of the store. He shifts over when the bell above the door chimes, and a pretty girl with dark hair steps through. You don’t think anything of it until you watch the smile literally drop off of his face.

“I thought that was you,” she says, her voice hushed like she’s in church, and her eyes are on his. You shove another bite of your wrap into your mouth and sink further behind the cashier’s counter, praying for invisibility. 

“Elyse,” he says, and you notice several that all of him has gone tight - his eyes, his shoulders, his fists, his voice. All of it becomes coiled, ready to spring. You resist the urge to say his name, even though it’s fighting its way out of your mouth, so strong is your urge to calm him. “What are you doing here?”

“I was just passing,” she says, sounding a little wounded. “I thought I saw you in here, so I came in. What are you doing here?”

You wait for him to implicate you, to indicate that he’s here to bring you food, spend time with you on the sly. 

Instead, he says, “I lost my headphones again.”

A lie. 

A lie that leaves you out. 

The smile creeps over her face, fond and adoring. She shakes her head, hair swishing. “You’re such a mess, Namjoon.”

His eyes narrow, but he says nothing. The silence stretches between them, and finally he says, “What do you want, Elyse? You saw me and you came in why?”

Her eyebrows knit together; the hurt you’d heard in her voice shifts onto her face. “I just wanted to talk to you,” she says. “I’ve been trying to talk to you.”

He licks his lips, glances at you for the barest of seconds before facing her, arms crossing defensively over his chest.

“I’m aware,” he says dryly. “And I’ve been telling you no thanks. So, again… why are you here?”

Now the girl - Elyse, obviously - eyes you for the first time. You take another bite of your wrap, all innocence. For all she knows, you’re just the girl working the register at the school bookstore. She doesn’t know where you live… or what you’ve been doing with your roommate. 

“Can we… go somewhere?”

He looks at her flatly in response.

“To talk,” she says, like she needed to explain, like he doesn’t completely get it. 

“If you need to say something to me so badly,” he says, his voice scarily even, “you can do it right here.”

“I just…” she says, faltering, looking back at him, “I just wanted to know how you were, I guess. I’ve been… having a hard time, and I…” She glances at you again, like she’s embarrassed for this conversation to be witnessed - and honestly, you don’t blame her. “I guess I wondered if you were, too.” She looks at the floor, rubbing her arms self-consciously.

And here’s the thing… from an outside perspective, even though you’ve heard his side of this… you kind of believe her. Maybe he was right when he said she just needed to grow up a little. 

“I’m sorry you’re struggling,” he says, his voice softening. “You know I don’t want that for you.”

“I know,” she whispers, looking up at him through her lashes. 

Damn, you think. This girl is good. 

“Honestly, Elyse,” he continues, his voice still soft, gentle, “I’ve been doing fine. I’ve been okay. Just… just writing, you know?”

She smiles again, a tiny smile. You can’t believe your amazing luck to be able to innocently witness this transaction, but you also feel for him - to have this conversation in front of you has to be killing him. You can’t imagine trying to have a conversation like this with Taehyung with Namjoon listening. But you can’t leave - you’re glued to the register, your mouth still full of a chicken-avocado wrap. 

“Of course,” she says, smiling shyly up at him. “Always writing. But, Namjoon...” She heaves a sigh. You wish Kris was here to witness this with you, to help you dissect it later. “I guess… I wanted to talk to you because I’ve been… I’ve been thinking about us.”

Your eyes go wide and you look at Namjoon immediately for his reaction.

“There’s no ‘us’, Elyse,” he points out, so kindly, like he doesn’t want to hurt her and he knows he has to anyway. “You made sure of that.”

You almost gasp out loud, and you quickly stifle your reaction with another big bite of dinner. 

She has the presence of mind to look cowed. “I know that,” she admits. “I just… I guess I’m not sure how I feel about it now. About how we left things. And like… if that’s just me, I guess it’s my problem. But I needed to know… if it was just me.”

You’re chewing furiously, and then the damndest thing happens. Namjoon looks right at you.

You hold his gaze, and wish you could call time-out, pull him aside, confer with him before he answers. Say what you need to say, you’d tell him, because you get it. As complicated as shit is with you and Taehyung... of course you get it. 

You’re fully prepared for him to tell her that it’s not just her, or at least something kind of in the middle, like it’s complicated.

He surprises you.

“It’s just you,” he tells her, and he’s holding your gaze the whole time. Like he’s talking to you. “I’m not coming back, Elyse.”

The door opens behind her, and a group of girls come in, talking loudly to one another. It gives Elyse time to get her face right, you guess, because when you look back she’s managing to smile at him, though it’s clearly forced. 

“Okay,” she says. “Thanks for telling me. If your mind’s made up… then I guess there’s nothing else to say here?” She makes it a question.

“There never was,” he says, and though his words are cutting, his voice is still kind. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

She nods, licks her lips, eyes on the ground, and then she heads for the door. The group of girls come up to the register to pay, and you catch Namjoon’s gaze over their heads.

“I’ll see you at home,” he says, not a question, and you nod, scanning their items blindly. 

The rest of your shift crawls, uneventful and lonely, and when you finally clock out you’re dying to text Kris or literally anyone about the episode you just witnessed. 

After you lock up, you head outside of the student center. It’s dark, and freezing, and you hike your jacket up around your neck. 

A voice says your name and a hand reaches for your elbow. Every time Namjoon has startled you at the apartment and you’d jumped or dropped what you were holding pales in comparison to now; you shriek, so loud that some students further down the path turn around to check on you. 

“Jesus,” Namjoon huffs, laughing. “It’s just me.”

“Don’t grab people!” you scold, heart pounding against your ribs. “Holy shit.”

“Sorry,” he says, kind of an afterthought. “Are you going home now?”

As you come down from the adrenaline rush, things start to piece together in your head. “Were you… did you wait for me? It’s been almost an hour!”

“I know,” he says, rubbing a hand over his face. “I know. But I wanted to make sure I caught you.” 

You take a few steps in the direction of home and he follows. You start walking together this way, you leading for once. “Why?” you ask him, genuinely curious. 

He sighs, looks away from you as you cross campus together. “I wanted to tell you thank you.”

“For what?” you demand, flummoxed. 

He runs his hand down the back of his neck, still avoiding your gaze. 

Adorable, you think. 

“For being there. For all that with Elyse.”

“Firstly,” you point out, “I did literally nothing except popcorn-gif. Secondly, if you think that was dramatic, you haven’t watched enough dramas with me. That was tame. No one even cried.”

He laughs, once. “Chances are she’s crying now.” 

“What happens when the scene cuts away doesn’t count,” you tell him firmly. Then, a beat later you add, “You were admirably forth-coming with her.”

“Made me feel like shit,” he admits in a grumble. You reach out and pat his arm reassuringly. 

“I’m sure it did,” you tell him. “But this has to be better than stringing her along or something.”

He gives you a hum of agreement. “Well, anyway. Thank you.”

“Namjoon,” you say seriously, “I didn’t do anything.”

“Y/N,” he says, equally serious. “You have no idea how that would have gone if you hadn’t been there. You being there saved my ass from telling her we could talk again, if it made her happy. It stopped me from getting swept away in nostalgia, or her magic powers that make me stupid. You… grounded me.”

This knocks you into silence. It feels big, like he’s telling you a lot more than he’s actually saying. 

And, you get it. Because Namjoon makes you feel grounded, too. 

You aren’t sure what to say. You want to say thanks, because it feels like he’s given you a compliment. You want to say you’re sorry that he had to stare her down and tell her no, when - probably - at least one, little part of him wanted to say yes.

Instead, you just ask, “Are you okay?”

He shoots you a grateful look. “Yeah,” he says, “I am. Thanks.”

“Stop thanking me,” you tease, smiling, elbowing him lightly. 

He catches your wrist, tugging you closer as you walk. When you’re close enough, he wraps an arm around your waist, holding you tight through the last two city blocks.

Monday November 19th

You’ve walked to campus with Namjoon three Mondays in a row, so he waits for you this morning too, sipping his coffee at the breakfast bar patiently. As he watches the time pass, the time you normally leave together inching closer, he starts to get a little concerned. 

He tries texting you - you coming to campus today? - but you don’t answer. Finally, with about ten minutes to spare, he caves and knocks on your closed bedroom door. He hears your voice respond, muffled, but he doesn’t catch what you say.

He inches the door open, and is surprised to find that not only are you not ready to go, you’re still just a lump under your blankets.

“Y/N?” he ventures. “Are you sick?”

There’s some movement up by your head as you move the comforter enough to peer at him. “No,” you tell him, your voice a bit gravelly from sleep. “But I’m not going to campus today. You can go without me.”

“You’re not sick?” he repeats, just to clarify. There’s a little part of his brain that wonders if this is a menstruation thing, but wouldn’t he have noticed days like this in the months before now?

“No,” you repeat, and pull the blanket back up to cover your ears. 

He feels unsure, like maybe he shouldn’t just leave you here, at least without getting to the bottom of what’s going on. 

“Are you… okay?” he asks, the same question you’d asked him before the weekend, when Elyse had tried to fucking blindside him and drown him in guilt. 

“Mhm,” you say, and he waits for more, an explanation, a reassurance, anything. You give him nothing. 

“Okay,” he says finally, when he’s about five minutes late and he can’t stand it anymore. “I’m going to class. You’ll be alright here?”

You give another hum of an answer. He leaves your door open as he leaves, like it’ll help.

Concern and guilt eat at him all the way through his morning class; he can barely concentrate. He doesn’t really have time to go home between class and his TA hours, but when his professor dismisses him, he finds himself lifting his bag off the ground by his chair and heading in the direction of the apartment. 

The apartment is so quiet when he gets there that he feels a flash of relief - you’d gotten up and gone to class after all. But as he makes his way through the living room and peers into your room, it’s clear that you haven’t moved. 

What is going on? he wonders. 

“Y/N?” he says. There’s no movement, no indication that you heard him. He inches into your room, still unsure if you want him there, if he’s crossing boundaries, if he’s overstepping. “Hey, have you eaten or anything?”

Silence. He purses his lips. Words Elyse used to throw at him ring in his head - stop trying to fix it when I’m upset. I don’t want a solution, I want support. But as far as he knows, you haven’t moved all day. He goes into the kitchen and fills a glass with water and walks it back to your room determinedly. 

When he gets close enough to set the glass down on your nightstand, he can see that you're awake, laying on your side, your eyes on the wall, unblinking.

He sets it down, watching your face carefully, and backs away. He’s about to give up and head out to the living room when he hears you, quiet as a breath, whisper, “Thank you.” 

He pauses, turning back. “Can I…?” He falters, still so uncertain. “Can I stay with you?”

You don’t respond right away, the moment stretching heavy between you. Then, silent, you nod your head, just once. Something blooms in Namjoon’s chest, stretching and growing so that he feels his ribs must shift to make room for it. He circles around to the other side of the bed and gingerly sits, turning and stretching his long legs out, leaning back against your headboard. 

You don’t move, you don’t talk, so neither does he. He just stays, and waits, and watches the slant of sunlight through your blinds crawl inch by inch across your bedroom wall. After about an hour of this, he rises, needing to move to get his phone out of his pocket. He stands, trying to get some circulation back in his legs, as he dials the department head. 

“Hey,” he says, walking to your bedroom window and peering through the crack in the blinds. “I’m going to take a sick day today, okay? I didn’t have anyone scheduled… maybe Alec can take it if you need someone?”

He listens for a minute, then adds, “Yeah. Thanks, I appreciate you. Yeah, I should be fine for tomorrow. Okay. Sorry about that. Thanks again.”

When he turns back to you, you’ve actually rolled a little bit peering over your shoulder at him. “You didn’t have to do that,” you say. 

He regards you seriously. “I… think I did,” he admits. “I just don’t understand exactly why yet.”

You don’t answer, your tongue sneaking out to wet your lips. Then you reach over and flip the corner of your comforter down on the empty side of the bed, an invitation. 

He sits, as expected, sliding his legs under your blankets, and pulling the comforter up to his chest. He lays next to you for a few minutes, about six inches between your bodies. Then, emboldened, he scoots closer, rolls and wraps an arm around your middle, pulling you flush against his front. You stiffen for the barest of seconds, then melt back against him, letting out a deep breath. His hand rests against your stomach, and after a few minutes you shift to place your own hand against his, holding tight. Keeping him in place.

Namjoon might not know what’s going on with you today, he might not know the best thing to do to help you. But he knows he wants to do this - hold you close, wrap himself around you like a protective cocoon - until you tell him you don’t need it anymore. 

He thinks he drifts off for a little; he wakes, groggy, from a half-sleep, his nose buried in your hair against the pillow, his hand slack against the mattress, still touching yours. The tightness in your shoulders tells him that you’re awake, and the blue glow from outside the window tells him the sun has set behind the buildings across the street. 

He rolls a little and hugs you tight again, moving to press his face to the junction of your neck, gently. “I’m going to get up and make us something to eat,” he tells you.

“You can’t,” you tell him.

Puzzled, he asks, “Why can’t I?”

“Because I can’t save you from lighting the kitchen on fire,” you tell him seriously, and he’s so surprised that you’re joking right now that it startles a laugh out of him. 

“I’ll do a better job this time,” he promises. “I’ll start smaller. You good with ramen?”

You hum. “The spicy one. With an egg.”

He smiles against your neck, and you shiver when it tickles. “Your wish is my command,” he tells you, starting to rise. 

“Be careful,” you warn. “I’ll get used to this.”

“Nope,” he tells you, finally releasing your middle and scooting towards the edge of the bed. “Once you’re out of the bed, I go back to being normal.”

“Guess I’m never getting up, then,” you say wryly. Your phone buzzes on the nightstand - a call - and you ignore it. Namjoon leaves, making a point not to look at the screen. He knows who’s calling you, even without looking. 

In the kitchen, the water’s not yet boiling when there’s suddenly a pounding on the door. Eyeing his pot of water over his shoulder, Namjoon walks over to open it, only to find Taehyung standing there holding a bag of take-out. The relief he feels actually surprises him, but he realizes instantly that he probably should have reached out to Taehyung in the first place, to ask if he knew what the fuck was up with your sudden day of silence. 

“Thank god you’re here,” he blurts out, and watches as understanding crosses Taehyung’s face, followed by guilt.

“Ah,” Taehyung utters, upset. “I should have been here hours ago. Where is she? Has she eaten?”

Namjoon steps back to let him in. “She’s in bed,” he says. “She hasn’t moved all day - I was just heating up water for ramen for her.”

Taehyung sighs, sinking in on himself. “I’m glad you were here,” he says, so genuinely that it makes Namjoon feel sick with guilt, like he was taking part in a great deception. “I usually take care of her today. I fucked up. I didn’t realize what day it was until like half an hour ago.”

Namjoon nods at this, not sure what to say. Part of him wants to ask Taehyung for some answers; a bigger part of him would rather it come from you, when you’re ready. To give himself something to do, he moves into the kitchen to pour out half the water - he only needs to cook enough for himself, now. 

Taehyung makes his way into your room, the food bag clutched in his hands. He doesn’t close the door, and Namjoon tries not to eavesdrop from the kitchen, but he can’t help but hear Taehyung tell you, in a voice that’s absolutely sorrowful, “I’m so sorry. I’m a fucking terrible friend.”

He doesn’t hear you reply, but Taehyung says, “Yes I am. I left you alone today.”

This time, Namjoon hears your reply. “I wasn’t alone,” you tell Taehyung firmly. “Namjoon was here.”

“Good,” Taehyung says, his voice muffled, like maybe he’s hugging you in there. “Good.”

Tuesday November 20th

Namjoon awakens to the smell of bacon. Confused, he pulls a tshirt over his head, and blearily peeks his face out of his bedroom. You’re bustling around the kitchen - something he’s literally never seen before - cooking a full-course breakfast. 

“Y/N?” he ventures, and you whirl around, eyes wide, the spatula in your hand.

“Oh!” you say happily. “Come get some eggs!”

Namjoon doesn’t dare argue. He sits at the breakfast bar, still half asleep, trying to open his eyes all the way. You present him with a full mug of coffee, which he takes gratefully. Then, you load up a plate and slide it in front of him, and then you lean against the counter from the kitchen side, watching him intently.

“Yes?” he asks archly. 

You take a deep breath. “I’m sure you have questions about yesterday,” you say seriously.

He lowers his coffee cup. “You don’t have to tell me anything,” he says quickly. “Don’t feel like you owe me an explanation. I’m just… I’m glad I could be there for you. I don’t need anything else.”

You look away from him, blinking suspiciously hard. He waits you out. When you face him again, there’s something steely in your expression. 

“I have a hard time on the 19th,” you tell him. “Every year. It’s… an anniversary. For, um. For when I lost my parents.”

Namjoon’s appetite leaves him instantly. He feels himself lean forward, like he’s trying to get closer to you, like his body needs to wrap you up, just like he had yesterday. He murmurs your name, and you avoid his gaze again. 

“Anyway,” you say brusquely, “thank you for staying with me. And trying to feed me. Normally Taehyung does that.”

He wasn’t here this time, something ugly inside Namjoon thinks. 

Instead, he says, “You’re welcome. I’m glad I could… be there. I’m glad I was with you.”

Your gaze drops to the floor, then you seem to get it together and look up at him. “I am too,” you say, and the words sound heavy coming off your tongue. “So, really… thank you.”

Namjoon pauses. He wants to ask - he wants to know - but he’s afraid it’ll push you away. “Can I ask you something?” he ventures, finally. 

You look back at him, clearly nervous. “I guess,” you say, clearly uneasy.

He grimaces a little, unsure of the choices he’s made. “Yesterday… should I have called someone?” There’s a pause, where Namjoon decides to say what he actually means. “Should I have called Taehyung? Would that have been the right thing to do?”

He watches you soften, eyes widening as you realize what he’s been worrying about. You set down the dish towel that had been in your hands and come around the breakfast bar so you can look at him unobstructed.

“No,” you tell him seriously, eyes on his. “No, you did exactly what I needed.”

“Okay,” he says, reaching for his fork to try and eat some of the eggs you’d made for him. “I just wanted to make sure.”

“Namjoon,” you say seriously, and he looks back up at you, fork in hand. You shake your head, voice pleading with him to believe you. “There is not even a tiny part of me that wishes it was Taehyung with me yesterday instead of you. I promise. Okay?”

“Okay,” he says easily, taking a bite of egg. Does he believe you? He’s not sure. But he’s eager to move on; the topic’s uncomfortable. He knows he started it, but he really did want to know if he did the wrong thing. “Did you eat any, yet?”

You give him a little smile. “I was waiting for you,” you tell him. “I’ll make my plate now.”

You settle next to him, eggs and coffee cup both steaming, and you eat in silence. Namjoon can’t say what you’re thinking about, but his head is spinning. He’s thinking about how it had felt when you’d touched his hand in the bed yesterday, giving him the signal that you were okay with this, that you didn’t want him to move away. 

He’s thinking about how when he’d opened the door and found Taehyung standing on the other side, he’d felt like the person who was supposed to be with you had arrived to make it right. 

He’s thinking about how when Elyse sent his mind skittering towards old, bad habits, locking his eyes on yours had kept his feet firmly in the present. 

He’s thinking about your hips under his hands in that damn halloween costume, almost a month ago, and how he hasn’t come even close to kissing you since then.

<- Prev || Next ->

la di da di da :) what are we thinking?! how are we feeling?! pls consider some type of feedback!!!

thank you so much for readingggg, i'm so happy you're here!!!

[heichou-dancho]

FFVII Rebirth thoughts (Spoilers for everything)

I reemerge having finished Rebirth after four weeks and 92 hours in-game playtime. That’s an incredibly short but also massive amount of playtime for me, Yakuza 0 took me a year with pauses. I’m still reeling after finishing chapter 13, and since all my FF buddies from the old days are long gone, I’ll just vent here. I enjoy reading the reactions and thoughts of other players, so maybe someone else does too?

This post is full of spoilers and Shinra fangirling, but it’s about the whole game:

Shinra:

First, somebody on the team that wrote material for the Turks and Rufus must be some Shinra fandom veteran grown up with 20 years of fanon. Just Elena as a whole, Rude getting her that ice cream, Rufus in the Gold Saucer harassing fighting Cloud for fun, Dark Star not only obeying Rufus but also Tseng. Rufus complaining that Tseng is being overprotective… (faints) So much crack and shippy moments, I was grinning like an idiot.

(Is crack fic even a thing anymore? It feels like they’ve gotten rarer)

I expected maybe three or four scenes with the Turks, maybe less for Rufus. AND THEN SQUARE SHOVED THEM IN WHEREVER THEY COULD WITHOUT DERAILING THE PLOT. Elena was given so much room to breathe. Same for Rufus. Those little moments with Darkstar. I’m over the moon.

Okay, Rufus, so your father got stabbed, and the first thing you did after that was recording some motion-capturing and dialogue for a Turk recruitment hologram-video-thingy in an abandoned facility? It makes zero sense, but it’s my favourite protorelic mission and I’ll happily add it to my headcanon as a sign that Rufus gave Tseng his okay to recruit more Turks.

(The real answer would probably be automatically generated AI shenanigans, but that’s not very exciting.)

Viceroy Saruf. Just … Rufus, you’re such a cheeky idiot and I love you. Is there any faction in this world you’re not manipulating from the background? I can’t shake the feeling that being the man in the shadows suits you more than actually openly running the company.

Tseng and Reeve were great, I would love more little moments like that, where the Shinra folks just interact outside of action scenes and dramatic moments. The talk Tseng had with Reno and Rufus in Remake after the Sector 7 collapse hit the same note for me. I want more Reeve in part 3.

The scene between Tseng and Aerith at the temple made my eyes misty, but I wish it had been longer. Tseng keeping it short and abruptly leaving to "make a report" was perfect, and I know Cloud being so cold and cutting Aerith off fits his behaviour, but something about the timing just felt off.

I was surprised that Heidegger would take a bullet for Rufus. For President Shinra, absolutely, but Rufus? Hmm… This makes great fanfic material. I’ve read a fanfic before that tried to reimagine the Shinra executives (even Palmer) as more realistic people, and I found it to be really interesting, but then I’m a weirdo with plot bunnies in my head that involve a younger President Shinra, his wife, Veld, Vincent and the older Shinra execs.

I’ve never been a fan of Hojo but his R re-imagining is one of the few that doesn’t work at all for me. OG Hojo was far more unsettling. R!Hojo is just your typical mad scientist, I just can’t care about him, which is a shame, because him taunting Aerith in Remake with how he dissected Ifalna hit me hard.

I still haven’t quite grasped why Rufus is so obsessed with the Promised Land. It probably all comes down to wanting to be more successful than his father, right? I’m probably forgetting or mixing up details from Remake, Rebirth or the OG here, but I assumed that Rufus would outright dismiss it as a fairy tale.

Apparently there is a Midgar DLC for Power Wash Simulator. Square Enix, where is Hitman: Tseng and a version of Yakuza where I can play the Turks dealing with dumb crap doing missions in Midgar? Give us Shinra fans something, I'm still waiting for the EC version of Before Crisis. And I don't even like gacha mobile games. >:(

General game thoughts:

The open world is fantastic, I want to live in Gongaga or Kalm. So pretty. People online seem to hate the Gongaga map, but the soundtrack and the jungle theme made it work for me. I found the gliding parts in Cosmo Canyon far harder to navigate.

Shinra Manor is terrible with Vincent being it’s only redeeming part. The actual mansion looked great (the portrait of President Shinra was a nice touch) but the upper levels being inaccessible and turning it into another lab dungeon was boring. Same for the box throwing mini-game.

Dio the archaeologist turned body-builder is great, but Shinra knowing about the keystone and just not bothering to use it when President Shinra was looking for the Promised Land is a weird plot hole. It would have been a lot easier than trying to convince Aerith to come to them. There were some other little details like that, that bothered me but it’s a blur now.

Remake Barett made me into a Barret fan, Rebirth Nanaki into a Nanaki fan. The writers are genius when it comes to rewriting these characters from the OG. I’m not really bothered Cid not being grumpy and swearing all the time. Him reminiscing about Ifalna was cute. Vincent using his old Turk skills (and having some lingering loyalty to the job?) was cool. Really looking forward to seeing how they’ll handle Lucrecia, the one character in FFVII I'm so conflicted about.

I’m still confused about Aerith’s death scene, especially the cuts where she’s lying in her own blood and then isn’t. I understand that she’s dead in her current reality, but is the scene without blood (and Aerith "waking up" in Cloud’s arms) Cloud’s hallucination or just a different reality? I’m also utterly confused by how many Aeriths we’re dealing with. The Aerith and Cloud we’re playing with and the sleeping Aerith (and Cloud) from the dimension where Zack lives are one and the same? It’s tying my brain into knots, and not in a good way. That’s why I usually can’t stand from stories involving elaborate time travel loops or parallel universes.

(Man, why doesn't Tumblr allow spaces between paragraphs? I hope your eyes aren't bleeding)

I first played the OG as a young teen. Cloud’s mind being fractured and hallucinating was a neat bit of storytelling back then that I hadn’t encountered in video games before. Twenty years later, I’ve dealt with loved ones who are ill but refuse help, and known plenty of people have some form of psychosis or schizophrenia. Whilst I would never seriously compare Cloud’s problems with rl mental illnesses, I found the scenes where he sees Sephiroth and no one else, or is completely out of it hard to stomach. Interacting with somebody who has hallucinations (even "harmless" ones) or paranoid thoughts is unsettling at best, nightmarish at worst. The group trying to passively bear it and keep things together rings very true (especially Tifa) but I’m surprised that even Barett or Yuffie aren’t trying to confront Cloud about his behaviour at least once.

(I tried to format in html, but it somehow looked worse. I'm old. This is how Vincent must feel like every day.)

Dyne, Myrna and Tseng talking to Aerith at the temple had me tearing up, and I lost it at Aerith’s "date" with Cloud in Ch. 14. Hoo boy, I know Aerith stalling off the inevitable just for a little time, was the game having a very direct conversation with the player about what’s going to come, death and how we deal with it. But to me personally, it was more about how one gets caught up in trauma and repeat it over and over in your head, mulling about the point of where things went wrong and what you could have done to prevent it. I know it doesn’t fit, but that’s what my weird brain made out of it. Also Dyne’s and Aerith’s (at the temple) speeches about how they deal (or didn’t) with grief and trauma rang absolutely true.

Damn you, silly anime action game, you really shouldn’t affect me this deeply, but then a lot of fiction hits me harder than it used to.

[studentinpursuitofclouds]

hello 👋 I hope you had a wonderful day !! , can I please request People from SDV, SVE and RSV react to the Farmer snap , the Farmer snap because somebody had hurt their love ones and their friends or somebody could had done something stupid that could had got them hurt with the others and the farmer save them before that could happen, maybe there was an argument that escalated to far too ,the farmer having enough didn’t yell in anger but remain calm and cold and somewhere quiet with the blinks stare in their face, making the whole situation feel unsettling and cold by just a few words and the farmer quickly apologize going back to their usual self , because to be honest do you really want to fight with the person who have the power of defeating army’s of monsters and doing some crazy things with it too!! , I hope you have a wonderful day 😃.

Hey hey, dear anon 👋 Thank you so much for the question, hope you're having a good day too! 😊❤️

I apologize, but I can't describe absolutely everyone, as all the people with vanilla Stardew Valley and with two global mods comes out too many for one ask (60+ people). Still hope you can enjoy the little HC! Thanks again 🫰

_________________________________________

"You're dead, man. Rest in pepperoni." Oh, trust me, the famous trio of Abigail, Sam and Sebastian know very well how fierce and menacing Farmer can be. And Farmer don't even need to yell for that, just the sight of them makes the blood freeze in their veins. Sam remembers that he once suggested a stupid and dangerous venture to Abby and Sebby, and though no one got hurt, Farmer scolded Sam a lot. So the idiot who was an asshole for Farmer's partner is very unlucky.

Oh, a free show? Great, 'cause Pam's TV just broke, so that scandal will keep her busy. She'd rather listen to Farmer put some out-of-town punk in his place than try to find something interesting to do in a trailer. True, if Farmer's injured friend is her daughter, Penny, then Pam will take part in a heated discussion with all the fury and profanity herself.

The way the Farmer had snapped loudly and unexpectedly at the idiot tourist during the Stardew Fair, who - unbelievable! - was offering Jas, Vincent, and Leo a cigarettes (a cigarettes?!) made the poor kids wince and squeeze closer together. Without stopping to wince, they watched as Farmer chased the frightened tourist away. But then the Farmer's angry look immediately softened as they turned to the children and offered to treat them to ice cream. The young Farmer was a little embarrassed and guilty that he was swearing right in front of the kids (Jas almost cried). But the delicious ice cream helped the kids forget about this unpleasant moment.

Oh, Shane's just in time to sneak a packet of crisps in his hoodie from the Jojamart warehouse, because the way the Farmer just morally destroys some out-of-town loader/colleague from Joja is a real show that won't end any time soon. And there's just the right snack to crunch on - like in the cinema! Even cheers for Farmer when Shane hears the reason for their snap. Hell yeah, fuck em up, Farmer.

Depending on the situation itself, Robin and Demetrius will behave slightly differently. Of course, they are surprised by Farmer's sudden outburst of rage, but when they both recognise the reason for it, they will side with Farmer, remaining fairly calm. If the idiot nearly hurt Maru and Sebastian, Robin herself will be as furious as a mama bear, and her husband (and other random people present) will now have to contain the rage of two people already. Nobody mess with Robin's children.

Harvey was extremely surprised that such a calm person like Farmer could get so furious with someone. Local doctor of the Pelican Town could understand why Farmer was so upset, but it was unnecessary to make such a loud scandal, whatever that stranger does.

June has seen a lot of different people in his time playing the piano. And so it is now, at Ridgeside Village. Most of the people who walk through the main lobby of the hotel are nice and quiet, with a few rude types. However, the hotel visitor that nearly pushed Farmer's friend down the stairs was simply out of line. It's a good thing that Farmer themselves happened to be nearby and were able to stop the rascal. June is not a fan of scandals and didn't really understand the reason for the whole situation, but even he is pleased when the scoundrel got what he deserved for his disgusting act. Well done, Farmer.

Richard doesn't know what made Farmer snap at one of his hotel guests like that, but will ask them to deal with everything outside his hotel. Sorry Farmer, nothing personal, but the other guests are nervous about the tense situation.

Marlon and Lance had to work hard to calm the unexpected anger of the ever-calm Farmer and keep them from hurting one foolish upstart from Castle Village. Both adventurers can understand their young fellow adventurer, but also remind the Farmer of the rules and code they swore an oath to when they stepped into the adventurer's shoes, and one of those rules is to protect people, not harm.

Oh, man... The same rude teenager who decided to tease and insult Vincent is now listening to the tirade of not only a furious Farmer, but also Jodi, joined by her friends Caroline and Olivia. The moms of the town are not surprised by Farmer's rage, they themselves would lose their temper if someone was hurting the local children (especially if they were their own son/daughter!).

Magnus doesn't usually use magic to intimidate. But the case in which a pale Morgan was hiding behind Wizard's back was the exception. The Farmer may have been the first to stand up for Morgan when some creep started bullying the kid, but Magnus would be the one to have the last word, giving the bully a good lesson. A couple of flying fireballs were enough to make the insolent man cowardly run away. Morgan has no need to be afraid, as neither their friend Farmer nor their teacher Magnus will let the child be bullied. Wizard is not surprised why Farmer snap, he would do the same.

Both Penny and Maru were naturally displeased when some idiot tourist threw a soccer ball at the two of them. But the girls even felt a little sorry for this tourist, when Farmer, in a fit of worry for Penny and Maru, and rage, frightened the idiot so much that it seemed that dumbass was about to cry.

To be honest, Jio, Daia and Kiwi are a bit disappointed. Why? Because they thought they would finally see the true power and fighting skills of the Farmer, the savior of Spirit Realm, because they have never once seen Farmer in battle. The young hero was masterful at using mere words to make the enemy retreat and apologize for bullying Farmer's friends, but Belinda's followers expected a battle. Sigh, boriiiiing...

Sophia and Victor don't know what they were more afraid of: the big bully who teased the pink-haired girl, and Victor too (as he was trying to protect Sophia), or Farmer, who drove the big guy away from them with the fury of a honey badger. They clearly hadn't expected that the Farmer could be so... intimidating. But Farmer is still a Farmer, after they returned to Victor and Sophia and apologized for the sudden outburst of aggression.

Considering that Louie and Ariah was being, to say the least, sometimes not very polite (mostly Louie) but calling them such words was clearly unnecessary on the part of some rich guest. Young Amethyne was even more surprised to realize that someone other than their family and servants were defending them. And with such fury. A Farmer?

Speaking of his family: of course Maive will not tolerate such behavior from her guests, and therefore, having found out the reason, she will kick the insolent guest out of her mansion. The Farmer will stay, but Madame will give them a stern and warning look, saying, "Don't try her patience." Sonny and Irene thank Farmer for standing up for Louie (albeit a little aggressively).

[thistleation]

Hi lovely blog and art, just chiming in to say I also think Beatrice is ruthless and that she is portrayed as ruthless in warrior nun, she shot a tranquilizer dart in Ava's neck. Like I guess she expected the other to talk to her and convince her of going with them, but ofc ofc she's the one that not only thought about the scenario in which Ava resisted and tried to escape, she arrived there with a solution, mind you, a swift solution that removed agency from Ava. Also she she asks Vincent is removing the halo would mean Ava would die, she's talking about it like she's discussing the weather. Seeing as she was a nun, I was actually expecting her to be like 'but father Vincent we can't even consider that, because the value of human life bla bla, and this is a innocent human life that got caught in the middle of it all', instead cold as ice sister Beatrice's response to the possibility of killing Ava to retrieve the halo was: 'but the politics though' it actually made me laugh. I mean she was raised by diplomatics/politicians ofc she has concepts like 'optics, church PR' in mind. That actually made me realize that even before being a nun, she's above all, a devoted warrior. Above her supposed catholic ethics and compassion is her absolute, unwavering commitment to The Mission. Beatrice is ruthless and I love that about her. Because after Ava, that ruthlessness, that devotion, all of her skills have shifted and she's loyal to Ava with that same ruthlessness

Yes exactly!

I think all of them can be expected to have a certain level of cavalier attitude towards death as any of them who've been on more than a handful of missions can be expected to have killed in the line of duty.

Beatrice though has her upbringing that plays a role as well.

She's been taught from an early age that her feelings are wrong, and her coping strategies for that trauma are repressing her feelings and cold, emotionless logic.

I don't think S1 Beatrice means to be cold and callous, I think she's quite empathetic underneath, even then. It's just that she's so used to trusting the moral aspect of her actions to the church.

Again, her feelings, her judgement can't be trusted — she's been told as much since childhood — so instead she relinquishes those to a higher authority. And what higher authority is there than the church, the literal embodiment of God's will on earth?

And so Beatrice instead focuses on the tactics, the strategy, the logical breakdown of any situation as a problem to be solved, trusting that the problem that was put in front of her was put there by the church and God and is therefore morally right to solve.

Beatrice only focuses on the line.

And eventually, when the situation gets messier, when her love for Ava grows stronger and stronger, and she finds her personal priorities have shifted because she's finally, finally found something for herself to truly live for, that line is still there, and Beatrice can see it clearly.

I'm fond of saying that one of the sexiest things about S2 Beatrice is that she's prepared to turn her back on the mission and let the world burn if it means saving Ava.

There's this post I saw a good while back that said there's an appeal to being loved by a villain, because a villain can put you first, can choose you even if it means thousands of others die, where a hero can only ever put you second, after the greater good.

Beatrice will put Ava first. Before anything else.

I think she realizes that towards the end of S2. I think it scares her, and I think that's partly what led to the "would you come with me" scene.

But in the end when it comes down to it, she still makes the decision. Fuck the mission and fuck the world if that's what it takes, she puts Ava first.

And I love that for her.

[obsessivehopelessromantic]

As oof recently, I played dead plate which was, without a doubt, absolutely beautiful and I really liked Rody's and Vincent's dynamic(whether in ship or not)

And then, I realised that my favorite ship from STP was burned bridges or smitten x cold and then I realised what probably was my favourite dynamic..

Lovestruck fool &/X cold and cynical guy who may or may not like them.

[malimaywrite]

for redacted-tober 2023 | day 1: vincent & home general | wc: 1.7k

cw: depictions of grief, the beginnings of a panic attack; discussions of death and loss, very brief allusion to postpartum depression

notes: includes very brief non-canon physical descriptions of vincent and a lot of non-canon backstory on him as well; banner image from 'oak fractured by lightning' (1842) by maxim vorobiev

/ / /

She saw her son every night.

She saw him in the living room when she reclined in the leathery cushion of their couch. Her husband's gruff clearing cough covered by the sound of the nightly news blaring ahead of them. The glow of the anchor never touched the Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, and Beastie Boys CDs that continued to gather dust in the dark wood storage of the TV stand. All blues and white spines coated in gray underneath.

She should get to them. She should clean them off. She should finally put them away.

Vincent always forgot to put them away.

He'd stroll in with his hunk of a boombox Sunday mornings, absolutely dragging his feet because he knew it was time to clean. Handle in one hand, the chipped plastic of too many CDs in the other. He dropped them to the floor, opened the curtains wider than she liked. The scream of the vacuum and guitars soon followed.

She often called to him to turn the noise down some. He always would. His hum and half-whisper singing broke through as he wiped off the windows, straightened the magazines on the coffee table.

Those same songs sometimes played on the 'throwback' hour on the radio now. She always heard Vincent's hum along with them. Light and heavy at the same time, soothing even mixed with the clash of cymbals.

The CDs blurred the longer she stared at them.

They rested right where he left them his last Sunday.

A hard swallow as the same Max's Rustic Pizza ad blasted in bright red along the screen, as she ignored her uneaten cake slice on the table. She braced and pushed herself off the couch with a huff, a slow breath that steadied her. Her body took longer to do so these days.

She saw Vincent in the kitchen. All in the cabinets, all in the mug that sat too high for her to reach now. The words 'Best Mom Ever' decorated the bright pink ceramic—a gift from him when was six via his dad.

Vincent wobbled over to her that Mother's Day morning all ruffled hair and bright eyed with his security blanket in tow. High-pitched squeaks of 'mommy, mommy' warmed her ears. He tried to reach for the mug she already had on the counter. Little hops to replace that one with his.

She did it for him then scooped him up to plant kisses on his dimpled cheek until he giggled.

He flashed in front of the jug of some artificial juice that sat unopened in the pantry. They'd had it for a week. Vincent used to cobble for it, horde the drink in the midst of his studies. The electric blue of it half gone within days whenever he found it. Once in awhile, her husband would grab a jug at the store, grumble about seeing 'what the fuss' used to be about.

She saw Vincent rod straight against the framing of the pantry door. Marker in her hand and black ink lining his height. Only one dash for every year until eleven when he asked to grab the stool to kneel on so he could measure her height too. His own handwriting joined hers, barely legible until he was sixteen—until he started rolling his eyes with a smirk when she started his birthday mornings with their heights.

He'd laughed on his 18th when it was his turn to measure her again. She turned to see her new height just slightly under the year prior.

“Mom,” he'd started with feigned shock. “Don't tell me you're shrinking on me?”

She'd nudged him then. He only laughed harder. A song and his beam of a smile in the back of her mind that made the kitchen less cold.

A deep breath—one that trembled on its way in and out.

Flickers of him in the bathroom he shared with guests. His tall and lanky frame practically contorted closer to the mirror to get all the black hair dye through the gelled waves of his dark brown hair. The splotches from it still dotted the dark purple bath mat he picked out—all the washes since only turning it gray. The dull gold of the doorknob still wobbled when it shut ever since he slammed the door that one night she grounded him for skipping school to go skateboard.

The glimpses of him in the hallway—running to head out the door for the school bus, rushing at the honk from his friends waiting in the driveway, shuffling half-asleep with his midnight snack. Framed pictures of him hung along the wallpaper walls. The posed picture of a bow-tied, red-faced toddler caught mid-cry. The edited floating head of him wailing hovered above him in the gray backdrop. His other bow-tied photo from his senior year, all middle part swooped hair and a closed smile. One photo with a missing tooth, one with multicolored braces. Another with him squinting through the sun on their redwoods trip, another when he led the family hike for the first time.

Her chest fluttered, breaths starting to leave her faster than she liked.

Her feet dragged across the carpet as if her body didn't want to leave the space, as if she hadn't already etched every detail of the aging snapshots onto the back of her eyelids.

Her sister asked earlier if all the pictures up made it harder. She didn't know. Her niece had a son in 2003, gave him Vincent for a middle name. He'd stopped by today—now the same age as Vincent when he—stared at the photos, told her he thought they would have gotten along really well. She did know that.

The open blinds of their bedroom windows led to the shadows covering Vincent's swing set out back. She'd pushed him as high as he could go then, as high as what wouldn't unnerve her, when his feet couldn't touch the ground. When his feet could, they sat together as he rambled about a crush, a group project, some fancy cars he wanted when he got older.

She saw him tumble dramatically off the swing, sending her heart into her throat, before running over to her—before yelling that he couldn't go to his first day of kindergarten tomorrow, mommy, because he just broke his leg. Several years later, he sniffled over a small patch of dirt near the back fence, where they buried his pet iguana Littlefoot. She told him it would hurt less later.

She may have lied to him then.

Her breaths stuttered, all staccato in the center of her chest.

Underneath that bedroom window lay an empty space. One that over forty years ago rested the gray wood of his crib. He'd leaned to look at her between the bars, a garbled babble left him. His tiny hand reached out for her.

The questions that rumbled like thunder ever since she sat scared in the bathroom with a positive pregnancy test staring back at her. What was she going to do? Would she do right by her child? Would she ruin them? Would they end up a good person? Would they hate her? Would they think she's a good mom? Would she protect them? Would they be happy?

He cried out to her, only one year old then when the rain cloud of postpartum gave way just enough for her to see the sun. To see it on Vincent's face.

She held him then, cradled him so maybe, maybe he could hear her heartbeat. He calmed eventually, staring up at her in what seemed like awe on his little face. She was sure her expression matched his. She trailed a finger gently down, down from the top of his forehead to the tip of his button nose until he fell asleep in her arms. The first time of thousands, all the way up until his anxious night before he'd drive four hours away for his college freshmen move-in day. And she held him each time. She always held him.

Her baby. Her Vincent. Her home.

Her home, her home, her home.

She didn't know when she ended up in Vincent's nearly untouched room again. Or on her side along his flannel blanket that stretched tucked into his queen size bed. Her veiny, age-spotted hands warming up the side her body couldn't.

Her breaths quick and shallow, racing now.

Some years were okay. On his 31st, they took Vincent's favorite hiking route—followed the bright orange of the California poppies. On his 23rd, 34th, and 40th, they popped over to her sister's an hour away, cherished stories between each other like pieces of gold. Last year, she and her husband headed deeper into Dahlia and got ice cream.

She didn't remember his 22nd or his 30th. She'd told her husband she needed to stop by the store for the former mid-morning, but didn't come home until early evening. The whites of her eyes red. There was nowhere to place herself. The day after the latter he asked why their car smelled like someone else's cologne. She didn't have an answer for either. He asked her to stop drinking. She was sure she hadn't had a single glass.

Some years were bad. On his 25th, she screamed in the courthouse lobby asking the clerk which judge, which shitty judge declared him 'presumed dead' when she could not bury her son. On the 27th, she fussed at her husband for not including Vincent in the 'survived by' section on her father-in-law's obituary. She locked herself in the bathroom all day on his 32nd.

Some years.

Some years the weight pressed heavy on her chest. It threatened to crush her until she was no more.

Some years her cries out to him only eased ever so slightly when a new weight sunk down the bed behind her, when her husband smelled of frosting and took to rubbing her back until she fell into a troubled sleep.

One where she got to see her baby the same as he was that last Sunday.

Today was her son's 43rd birthday.

And she missed him.

She'd miss him, miss him, miss him until there was not a breath left in her.

[jadedbirch]

The Three Musketeers (2023) - Part 1: d'Artagnan

Directed: Martin Bourboulon

Starring: Vincent Cassel, Eva Green, François Civil 

First of all, you do not know the struggle we had to go through to even get our eyeballs on this movie! Only die hard Dumas idiots like me would have even bothered 🤦🏻‍♀️. Finally, we had to buy it from AppleTV. Anywho, below is my live blog of the latest French nonsense! I make a point of tutoring myself watching as many 3 Musketeers adaptations as possible, regardless of the psychological damage, and I kind of have high hopes for this one despite the fact that I can already tell they cast more for 20 Years After than for The 3 Musketeers. But I'm willing to pretend there are no good, young actors in France (because there's no other way to explain these casting choices) for the sake of my own sanity. The rest of my babbling and movie spoilers will be below the cut!

I see we start the movie in 1627, which already makes me laugh 🤣. The book famously starts in 1625 and then they time skip a year and a half into the future because I guess Dumas remembered that the war starts in 1627. Alex was the king of inexplicable time skips and I see the movie has chosen to stick to history rather than literary canon 👌🏻.

Everything is cold, dark, and wet. I have no idea what's going on, or who this blond woman is, or why d'Artagnan is coming back from the dead. But I'm always in favor of immortal abominations 😈.

It does entertain me that Eric Ruf, who played Aramis in an earlier French adaptation, plays Richelieu in this one. Nice touch.

LOL d'Artagnan gate crashing the musketeer headquarters all "I'm not Soviet, the French do not stand in line!" Anyways, he's authentically obnoxious, which I like, although clearly also 20 years too old.

I feel like this is an AU that takes place before they invented soap and also dyes, which is hilarious because if they're going for historical accuracy, this is just what the plebs think looks "authentic". Why are these men all so dirty and old? At least they make fun of Athos being a thousand years old in the movie, but why is Jussac also so ancient? And still serving in the guards? Life expectancy back then was like 25, but surely no one would be serving in the army past the age of 50, which was like Ancient for the 1600s, even among nobility.

I must laugh at the fact that Athos straight up introduces himself to d'Artagnan as Athos de Sillegue, le comte de La Fère. So, I see we are just going to go there 🤭🤭🤭. This changes his story arc completely though, stay tuned for my whinging. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Absolutely incredible, legendary , A++, 11000/10: bisexual Porthos waking up in bed with a lady and a dude after a night of debauchery! Chef's fucking kiss! I forgive the fact that there are no young people in France.

Aramis, so far is very Murder Kitten. I do wish he'd wash his face more and do something about his guyliner (I feel like he should have just committed to MORE MAKEUP frankly because the guyliner alone is odd), but c'est la vie, I guess.

Plus one point for Athos getting wrongly arrested, minus twenty points for making Athos a Protestant WTF? And in what world would a nobleman of Athos' lineage get sentenced to death for stabbing an unknown woman? This is all so silly! (I do have to give Milady points for just like fucking with him so fantastically. Plus one revenge point to Milady.)

Aramis torturing a guy to save Athos is honestly 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻 11/10 Murder Kitten, automatic plus one point.

This is all incredibly Dramatique, as much as it strains credulity. I love it when modern directors decide that they can write better "action" than Dumas himself. I'm just sitting here screaming "Why would you have that conversation where anyone can hear you!" Minus one point.

I must say Constance and d'Artagnan have a much more believable romance here than in the book. Plus 5 non-creeper points.

(Please I can't stop looking at how old all these Musketeers are 😅😅😅)

Okay so they've also given Athos a BROTHER. Who is part of a Protestant conspiracy. This is all so fucking crazy, I don't even know what to say. Am I watching the musketeers or La Reine Margot? 🤔

Incidentally, the King also gets a brother! Everyone gets a brother! J/K at least the King really did have a historical brother. Athos just gets fucked with in this movie a lot. Automatic minus one point for unnecessary siblings.

WHY must you all insist on having these super SECRET conversations in the middle of a public square where literally anyone can hear you? Minus one dumbass point.

And now d'Artagnan must go to England.... Alone? Because it's more heroic this way? Ambushed by ghost squirrels in the woods? Oh no, that's just Athos, lurking in the woods, as one does. "All misery comes from love." Thanks, Old Man Lush.

This revisionist tale of Milady's past is all very convenient but I FUCKING HATE IT every single time they try to do this in modern adaptations. Let Milady Be Evil 2023! But I see that you will not. Listen, it's not "feminist" to turn the villain into the victim. I'm so tired. 🤦🏻‍♀️ These misguided attempts at feminism really do not do her any favors, she has a lot more agency as simply the Really Bad Girl who just wanted money and power. Minus 5 points for not letting Milady have any fun and minus another 10 points for giving her an abusive ex-husband!

As for Athos, IMO it's always much more compelling to let him be the guy who tried to kill his beloved wife for betraying him, than to make him the spineless man who turns her over to the authorities for Handwavium. Yes, it's pretty fucked up. But it's much more humanizing and makes him a darker, more interesting character. And I will always maintain that.

(This movie is so fucking dark, all the scenes take place at night or in some cthonic tunnels or prisons ffs have mercy on my eyes!)

Oh dear, here we go again. Milady taking a Dramatique - and completely unnecessary - dive off a cliff. Only this time, we know she doesn't die because.... She can swim? And definitely will not have all her bones broken by that 1000 ft fall. Minus 20 points for lazy writing.

(My God, everyone is so dirty, you would think they never did their laundry in France 🤦🏻‍♀️)

Ironically, the only well lit scene takes place in what looks like the Notre Dame which is just very silly as that place is a sepulcher.

(Once again, we are advancing the plot by having super secret conversations conducted in the middle of the palace with an open door where anyone can see and hear you plotting 🤦🏻‍♀️ Minus one petty point.)

Okay, so poor Constance has been kidnapped, and our young hero (who is already a Lieutenant because he and his pals conveniently saved the King's life in a plot twist that was very necessary in other to return Athos to favor in this version) lies unconscious in the streets. They probably didn't even try to kill him this time because they know he's immortal. And speaking of people who just won't die, in a mid-credits scene, it is confirmed that Milady is indeed, very much Not Dead Yet. Surprise! The scene is now set for war in The Three Musketeers: Part 2: Milady.

In summary:

I tallied up my totally random points and ended up with a score of -51, which is Not Good, my friends.

Okay, so I've seen much worse? It's better than Atrocity in 3D, for example, which was just barely watchable as a film and as an adaptation. But they changed so much about the plot and some of the main characters, that it doesn't really feel true to the spirit of the book at this point, which is my main criteria for measuring whether an adaptation is successful. And the main reasons for that are because it's much darker and grittier and less fun than the novel. Which - Quelle domage!

I know that as an unrepentant Athos fangirl, I tend to be biased, so I was trying to be on guard (heheh get it?) for my own biases while watching this. But it's really difficult when Ya Boy is such an integral part of the novel as well as this particular adaptation. And so I must regrettably come back to what a shame it is that they've cast a 60 year old Athos (Vincent Cassel is 57 and he's a fabulous actor whom I've loved in many of his worlks), and I feel like they had to rewrite his character to be more age appropriate and less of the drunken asshole he is in Dumas' first d'Artagnan book. But that's the asshole I fell in love with, and will stan forever. Without him going around beating his servant, indulging his gambling addiction, and being a sarcastic pain in everyone's ass, it's just a completely different story.

Pros:

Hot Eva Green!

bisexual Porthos!

d'Artagnan is given a much less creepy love story with Constance (and I assume he will also not be nonconning Milady in this adaptation)

The King and Queen are much more humanized and sympathetic here.

Cons:

Visually really drab, everything is brown, everyone is dirty.

Very little humor unlike in the novel and some other adaptations.

EVERYONE IS WAY TOO OLD, which changes the feeling of the story significantly, and IMO for the worse, because these people are just not allowed to have fun, and subsequently, neither is the audience.

I will still absolutely be here for Part 2 because I am a masochist!

Grade: B- as a piece of art, but a C as an adaptation of the Dumas classic.

[smrsxx]

Growing Old Together | Zlatan Ibrahimović x Female Reader

Summary : After so many years of playing football , Zlatan decides to retire .

Tw: insomnia , physical pain and tears , but mainly fluff .

English isn't my first language so if you spot any mistakes please just bare with me.

5k words : \

__________________________________________________

05 : 00 a . m .

He checked the clock at his bedside table for one last time , before he tried to sit up on the bed .

He was in pain .

He was in so much pain .

Everything in his body was in pain .

Every bone in his body was in pain .

His muscles were in pain .

The painkillers didn't do anything .

Nothing helped him .

' ' Try and get some sleep Big Man . Alright ? ' ' His manager said to him .

Well he tried .

He tried multiple times this week .

This month .

The last couple years .

He is in constant pain .

He loved football .

Football was his whole life .

But right now , at the age of 41 years old and after so many years of playing , he felt . . . Tired .

He turned his head right and stared at the woman sleeping peacefully besides him .

His soulmate .

His wife .

The mother of his two kids .

The Love of his life .

He got up trying to not wake her up and made his was in the living room to make the phone call .

__________

06 : 00 a . m .

She woke up and before she opened her eyes , her hands searched for warmth .

For him .

His side of the bed was empty and cold .

" Maybe he went for training . " She thought to herself .

She got up and made her way to the kitchen to prepare breakfast for her kids and a coffee for herself .

' ' Morning . ' ' Her older son Maximilian said .

' ' Goodmorning honey . ' ' She said to him back while making him a toast just the way he liked it .

' ' What's dad still doing here ? ' ' Max asked her before making his way back to his bedroom .

' ' What ? ' ' She asked quietly while looking outside the living room .

He was outside at the balcony with his hair up like she loved , an open grey hoodie and black shorts talking to his phone .

She observed him for a couple of minutes while sipping the coffee from her mug and when he was done with the phone call , she walked over to him .

__________

' ' Is everything okay ? ' ' She asked him while looking up at him .

He grabbed her from her waist and kissed her soft lips that he so much loved .

After a while , when they parted their ways , he looked at her pink cheeks and her puffy lips , her beautiful eyes and caressed her face .

' ' You're worrying me . Is everything okay ? ' ' She asked him again while holding his arms .

' ' From now on , I'm all yours everyday and every night . ' ' He answered to her with a smile .

' ' You're retiring ? ' ' She asked him seriously .

' ' Yeah . I just did it and they gave me an opportunity for the head coach of the team and I took it . ' '

' ' I am so proud of you . Really . But are you sure about that ? ' '

' ' Yes I'm absolutely sure . I'm just tired . I'm tired of feeling pain everyday when I wake up . It's too much and I have trouble sleeping . I know it's gonna be difficult for the fans but I just can't do it anymore . ' '

' ' Why didn't you tell me anything ? I could have helped you somehow . ' ' She told him while tears escaped her eyes .

' ' How long has this thing going ? ' ' She asked him again but before he could say anything back , her sobs filled the quiet morning .

He embraced he in a tight hug for a couple of minutes to calm her down .

' ' I now it's gonna be hard for some people , because of the my past but I'll try to get better in the future . ' '

' ' Do not think about the past nor the future. Just enjoy the moments of the present . ' ' She told him before hugging him again .

' ' I love you . ' ' She said to him .

' ' I love you too . ' ' He said back .

That stayed like that for a couple of minutes .

' ' Dad ? Why is mom crying ? ' ' Max and Vincent both asked while looking at them trough their bedroom window ready for their parents to take them to school .

After that they both started laughing .

__________

Tags : @unimportantbabymilksharkte

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Ghost Story

Jameson's masterlist (scroll down)

-

CW: Traumatized whumpee/PTSD, references to past murder and torture, some dehumanization references, chronic pain, grief, a wee teensy bit of choking at the end

-

He fell asleep on the couch with a movie playing, Vincent Shield and Nat settled into armchairs on either side. Shield holds his water bottles like they'll vanish if his knuckles aren't white from the effort, and Jameson had watched him off and on, catching the way one hand shakes a little, the bouncing of his knee. The nearly visible craving for a drink that he tries to drown in juice and water and coffee.

They were there, when the movie started. When he wakes, they're both gone and there's a heavy blanket laid over him. That'd be Nat, always taking a second to do a good thing when she could just ignore it and no one would mind. His crutches are still leaning against the wall, waiting for when he gets up.

He can, vaguely, hear Trash Cat trying to break into a the cabinet in the pantry where her food is kept. The sound of her little paw trying to force it open despite the baby-proofing cabinet lock Nat bought is a constant soft thunk. thunk. thunk. thunk.

"Fuckin' quit it," He groans. The thunking sound briefly pauses.

Rrrrrow? Her little chirp is barely audible, curious and surprised. She must've forgotten he was down here. He hears her tap-tap-tap her way into the doorway, look at him, and then tap-tap-tap her way back to the pantry again.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

His eyes barely blink, working hard to squint and see the time on the clock.

2:45 am.

"Jesus fuck." His voice is a mumble, heavy with his exhaustion, as he rubs a hand over his face. There's stubble around the spaces where scars stay smooth and hairless, the cockeyed lift of one side of his mouth pulled always where a knife had been dragged like cutting cold butter.

Even goddamn better: his legs won't unbend. They stay curled, bent at the knees, throbbing agony down to his toes and up into his hips when he tries to straighten them. He can damn near feel the buckles from the braces he hasn't worn since he stabbed Brute to death. He can damn near hear Robert's echoing, rasping laughter.

He can't walk. He could hardly crawl.

He doesn't want to crawl around like a fucking dog anymore.

Maybe he'll just stay here til dawn. Why the fuck not?

The house is silent around him, with that particular empty weight of a home waiting for its people to bring it back to life come morning. A place between something and nothing, and Jameson isn't enough on his own to fill it.

He's barely a drop in the bucket of what you need to feel alive, at a time like this. Absolutely alone in the darkness, staring up at an old popcorn-style ceiling where a fan spins lazily, barely moving air.

Hey.

His head whips to the side at the voice, wide-eyed, pushing himself up on his elbows, heart pounding. There's someone in the doorway between the entryway and the living room, where Trash Cat had been before, watching him in shadow.

You passed out on the couch again. Gonna go to bed any time soon, or am I going to have to tiptoe around your dumb ass in the morning?

His head hurts. Maybe from having woken up from dreaming at the wrong time, it pulses pain with the same rhythm as his heartbeat, at the throb in his knees. They pull up even tighter, and he has to bite back a whimper he absolutely will not let out.

"... who the fuck-"

Call Mom, by the way. You haven't called her in like a week. She says you have 48 hours or she's calling the cops.

He collapses back against the arm of the couch, breathing slowly. His headache is taking over, wiping everything away but itself. Jameson closes his eyes.

Is he still goddamn asleep?

He counts to ten, breathing more slowly and evenly with each number. Then, on the final, torturously slow exhale, he cracks his eyes open again.

The shadow is still there. It hasn't turned into a person, only sort of smudged outline of one. There's a hint of blue jean seams down the legs, the suggestion of hair very much like his own. Even the glimmer of dim moonlight and streetlight from outside against a pair of hazel eyes.

Not that he can see what color they are from here.

He just... knows.

Just like he knows the taste of that voice, even though he can't remember having ever heard it in his life. It's a taste he's known his entire life.

Did you hear me, dumbass? I said call Mom.

"... who the fuck are you?"

Hey, so, while you're here. It's like he didn't say anything, or like the shadow is acting out the words of a script, not actually present or hearing anything he says. It moves, and Jameson flinches violently backwards only to see a beam of moonlight pass right through it as it goes past him, to the window. One grayish-nothing arm lifts, like peering through the blinds. I wanted to say... fuck. I guess just... sorry. About the other night.

"Wh-what-"

It was stupid. I knew you liked her and I still asked her out. That was really shit of me to do, Johnny, I'm sorry about that. You're just way better than me at getting girls to, like, see you...

"I d-don't know what the fuck you're talking-... who's-"

His head.

The pain is like a flash of lightning, bright white and chilled ice behind his eyes. He can't hold this sound back and whines like a goddamn animal as he curls up, hands up over his head, pressing his palms against his eyelids like somehow he can force the pain out of him if he only tries hard enough. The flashes keep sparking, again and again.

"Oh, God-... oh fuck, jesus-"

I broke up with her anyway. So, like. Sorry. Again. Can we not fight about shit like girls, anyway? I hate it. Who am I supposed to talk to if I can't talk to my brother, you know?

Tears run hot like tracks of sun-soaked water through desert down his cheeks. He's sure they'll leave rising blisters in their wake, as he chokes back one sob, and then another. His heart is twisted up in his throat and his legs are bent and useless, his hands hurt where his fingers are twisted into his hair, yanking at it ineffectually, unconsciously. "Please, it h-hurts, fucking stop-"

It's not your fault, Johnny. I was the idiot, you know? We had a fight, fights happen. I didn't have to leave it like that. I shouldn't have left it like that. Still. You didn't have to leave it like that, either. Takes two to fix a fight, right? You could have apologized, too.

There's a long beat of silence.

His headache starts, finally, to slide somewhere further back in his mind. It's still there, still a throbbing immovable force, but he can just barely manage to open his eyes.

The shadow is an inch away, staring at him.

Why didn't you apologize first?

He flinches backwards again, and the sharp spike feels like ice picks right through his eyes as his back arches, a tense bow of pain everywhere. An electric shock, discipline for the wrong thoughts, false memories clawing their way to the surface.

He hasn't worn a shock collar since training, but his body knows what happens when he remembers the life he left behind.

It punishes him anyway.

Why did you let me walk off by myself in the dark, Johnny?

"No-... no-... I s-signed up, I don't want you, I didn't want you anymore, it was t-too much, fuck, fuck off, fuck you, I didn't want to hurt anymore they promised I wouldn't miss you anymore, go away go away go away they took you out of my fucking head go the fuck away this hurts-"

Everything would be okay if you had stopped me. But you just let me walk away, like an asshole.

The shadow of his dead brother watches him with unsettlingly calm eyes, the thatch of his dark hair, the glint of teeth straightened by years of braces.

You let me walk away angry at you. You let me walk right up to him, didn't you? You never even tried to stop me from leaving. Who would I be if you hadn't let me die?

"Please... please, Hank-"

I was still alive when he threw me in that ditch near the woods, remember? Do you think I was awake? For that last hour or so? Do you think I was conscious? Do you think I was thinking about you?

The shadow of his brother might be smiling.

Do you think that I was still angry when he slit my throat?

Jameson pulls the blanket over his head. He can't think of anything else to do but hide.

The shadow can't find him here. The reality of everything he did, everything that's his fault, can't follow him this far into the warm darkness. The murder he could have stopped by being a better brother just one night out of a thousand belongs to the cold and the light.

It can't find him here.

It's ridiculous and childish and yet the voice goes silent, then, and his tongue goes numb. Seconds tick by, tracked by a clock Nat has on the wall. The quiet is heavy and Jameson fills it with every single thing WRU ever taught him.

His lips move mindlessly. He's never forgotten a single sentence. Every chant, every mantra, every constant repetition of his own lost humanity pushes the reality of what led him to it further and further away.

He keeps his eyes closed tightly, shivers in the chill of a cold white room entirely in his own mind, and whispers I signed up for it for a reason, I signed up for this, I was a slut with no future, I didn't want to be a person anymore, I ruined lives, it's all my fault, I'm better off this way, I don't have to hurt anymore, no one else will die because of me, I was made for this I was made for this I was made for this again and again.

The sense of the shadow watching him doesn't fully fade until he closes his own hands around his throat and tightens just enough to feel like a collar, just enough that he has to fight a little for air.

How long he stays like that, he doesn't know.

But eventually he realizes he can hear Trash Cat again, still trying inexorably to find a way into the cabinet where her food has been maliciously kept away from her need to constantly eat at all hours of the day.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Rrrrrow? Rrrrow. Thunk. Thunk.

He had a nightmare, he thinks.

Thunk.

Some kind of weird-ass dream. Something that tasted like a voice, frightening enough to have his heart beating and his body feeling wrung out and aching, like he was throwing punches in his sleep. Fighting something. Or fleeing from something.

What did he dream about?

There was a shadow, and hazel eyes, and a voice...

Thunk. Thunk.

Trash Cat apparently gives up. He hears her little paws tap-tapping along the floor as she tries her luck at shredding the toilet paper in the bathroom.

The nightmare's gone. He can't remember what was bothering him any longer. Still, his heart races and fear is a cold stone in his stomach. Fear and the sense that he has done something terrible. Something he can never make up for or take back.

He doesn't go back to sleep.

He waits, watching the ceiling fan spin, for the safety of dawn.

[salternateunreality2]

Imagine Lucrecia had 2 sons. First with Vincent that she later gave away for adoption and second with Hojo.

She knew she f up with the second one, but maybe the first one can live a calm and uneventful life in Banora?

The Jones family adopted Baby Lucent. He was a smart, pale little kid that constantly stuck his nose into things he had no business snooping on. He found out about how the Rhapsodoses let their nanny hit their son, and how Genesis and Angeal were science experiments gone wrong. He saw the boys form a bond, playing together and sneaking over to see each other in the dead of night.

Lucent always wanted to join them, but was rarely able to see them during the day, when it would have been acceptable to talk to them. He was too quiet when he watched at night, and it would have been creepy to introduce himself then.

Lucent was his parents' only child, and grew up knowing he was adopted. They loved him and did their best, even when he'd materialize out of nowhere around the house like a ninja, starting from before he could crawl. Or when he'd just happen to know things that no one told him. He knew the mayor was sleeping with the butcher. He knew who his bio mom was and that she was a Shinra scientist. He knew the people who spied on him every few months were Turks. He guessed that either he was a Turk child or a lab experiment or both.

His mom and dad had longed for him so much, and they really did their homework in raising him. They paid careful attention to his emotional well-being, and encouraged and disciplined him to the very best of their ability. He loved them immensely, and they him.

So when he kept getting top marks at school, they didn't hesitate to put him in online and university classes, or to scrape together funds to support him when he went to Midgar to study. He was advanced enough that he got admitted early and went around the same time as Genesis and Angeal enlisted.

He worked hard, and by the time the Crisis Core era rolled around, he had a medical degree and employment with Shinra. More importantly, he had access to records now, was fast friends with Kunsel, and was constantly being courted by the Turks, who he turned down every time.

It did take up until this point to confirm his suspicions about the slope of Sephiroth's nose and the funny way his bangs grew, but now he knew, and now, at 11:30 am on a Tuesday, it was time to meet his half brother.

Lucent coughed once, then finally knocked on Sephiroth's office door.

"Come in," said Sephiroth. "Oh. What does the old man want now? Blood?"

Lucent blinked in confusion.

"I'm not sure who you mean; I'm here to deliver the report for the 3rd class health statistics," Lucent said.

"Very well, you may leave it on my desk," said Sephiroth, returning to his computer.

"I also wished to discuss something else with you."

Sephiroth sighed and fished around for a pen.

"Did you want an autograph?"

"No, I want to know if you remember our mother."

Time seemed to freeze, and the temperature of the room dropped.

"Excuse me?" Sephiroth asked, cold as ice.

"Lucrecia Crescent, listed as a primary scientist in the Jenova project. Long brown hair, same face as you, probably died when you were a baby...? I just want to know more about her, if you have more information."

"Get out."

Lucent felt animal fear jolt through his veins, but he powered through. He wasn't known for letting curiosity go easily.

"I understand this is a shock. I will leave, but please contact me if you change your mind," Lucent said, placing his card and the forgotten report on Sephiroth's desk. He kept his composure as he exited, closing the door firmly behind him, walking calmly down to his office, and shutting his own door.

Then he slumped against it, shaking and breathing hard. He'd be a stupid man not to be absolutely terrified from the energy in Sephiroth's office. He didn't know how long he sat there on the corporate carpet, trying to calm his nerves and telling himself he did the right thing, but he was interrupted by his PHS ringing.

"Dr. Lucent Jones," he answered automatically.

"Commander Rhapsodos. Look, Jones, I don't know who you are or where you've come from, but on behalf of Sephiroth, I will give you exactly one opportunity to speak with me. If I don't like what I hear, I will kill you. Meet me at the coffee shop on Loveless and 6th in one hour." Genesis paused. "Just to make it perfectly clear, I will kill you. This is a company line and I know Reno or someone is listening in. I will kill any Turks if they follow you, and if you're working with them or any other group to take advantage, I will kill everyone involved. If you don't show up, I will blackball you from practicing medicine in Midgar, but it will be better than death."

*click*

Lucent let out a strained laugh. Genesis Rhapsodos might be dramatic in everyday life, but that was not an idle threat.

---------

Lazard watched as a man in a lab coat left Sephiroth's office. That couldn't be good. As soon as the man left, Lazard tapped on Sephiroth's door, knowing he would have heard him coming. After a few seconds with no response, he swiftly entered, shutting the door behind him.

Sephiroth was sitting at his desk, completely motionless, pupils blown wide, gaze fixed on a stack of papers topped by a business card.

This wasn't going to be a good day.

---------

Eventually, Lucent is vetted by at least 3 layers of Sephiroth Protection Squad members, supported by Kunsel, and breaks into the inner circle. With him on their side, he's able to help with Genesis and Angeal's degradation using his Turk inclinations and medical knowledge.

He brings Sephiroth to meet his parents, and they love him and adopt him immediately, laughing over his ability to appear out of nowhere and cooing over his handsome funky bangs. They cherish his awkwardness covered by learned manners, fondly remembering Lucent's teenage years.

Lucent keeps digging, becoming more and more horrified between what he uncovers and what he hears from Sephiroth. He is right that this can't continue, and he is right that something must be done about Jenova.

He, Sephiroth, and Genesis go to Nibelheim with a spunky little trooper and Angeal's puppy. Shit goes down, but they ultimately find themselves with an emo vampire.

Sephiroth smirks weakly from where Genesis is practically holding him up.

"Guess it's my turn to spring some shocking parentage news on you, big brother," he says, nodding his head at Lucent and Vincent's matching red eyes and pale skin. Everyone laughs, relieved that Sephiroth is going to be ok, Jenova is dead, and the little trooper pulled through after being yeeted into a wall.

When they return to Midgar, Vincent kills Hojo and the president, and after the dust settles, Sephiroth retires to Banora. He has dinner with the Jones family most nights, and when Genesis or Angeal is in town, they eat apples together.

Lucent keeps his job at Shinra, helping the trooper through his mako sensitivity and his transition to SOLDIER. He's always wanted to help people, and Midgar is rife with interesting and difficult cases.

Of course, he visits home regularly to see his family, often tagging along when Lazard visits Sephiroth.

[gh0ulixs]

Dating Vincent Sinclair

ʚ♡ɞ ʚ♡ɞ ʚ♡ɞ ʚ♡ɞ ʚ♡ɞ ʚ♡ɞ ʚ♡ɞ

♥︎ He's extremely lost at first. He had never been in a serious relationship like this before, so you will have to be patient and take lead a lot.

♥︎ He believes he doesn't deserve someone like you. You're just so... Nice to him. He can't wrap his head around it for a long while.

♥︎ Vincent works a lot, usually forgetting to wat or go to bed. You'll have to pull him away from his work or bring him food. He's very grateful for what you do.

♥︎ Makes you little things out of wax. He'll leave the little sculptures around and absolutely beams with joy when you like them.

♥︎ Very insecure about his face. It will take a lot of time to finally get him to take it off. When he does, be sure to compliment and kiss him; he needs it. He'll probably cry the first few times you do that.

♥︎ He loves having his hair played with. Feeling your fingers in his hair calma him down greatly. He'll even do your hair to match his if possible.

♥︎ His hand are very cold and big. They're rather calloused because of his work, but he will absolutely melt if you hold them.

♥︎ Vincent will let you do his makeup. He enjoys seeing your concentration and care you put into making him look pretty. Same with painting his nails.

♥︎ Lends you his sweaters sometimes. He finds it adorable when you walk around in them.

♥︎ He'll go to you when he needs help with Bo. He doesn't defend himself much, so you have to do it for him; much to Bo's annoyance.

♥︎ Likes dancing with you to love songs sometimes. Bo and Lester crack jokes and pick on you two, but you don't pay them any mind.

♥︎ Loves cuddles. You can convince him to do anything if he gets cuddles afterwards: Go harass Bo? On it. Grab you something to drink? Why of course.

♥︎ He'll treat you like Royalty. He adores every inch of you, and will do anything in his power to see you happy.

♥︎ He gets jealous whenever you talk to others, whether it be Bo or some tourists that are in town. He's worries you'll leave him for someone else. You have to convince him you aren't going anywhere and give him lots of affection.

♥︎ If you ever get hurt, he will stop everything and rush to your aide. If he finds out a person hurt you? They won't live to see another day. The museum will get a few new wax sculptures on display...

♥︎ He has a few dates he takes you on when he's not busy: He'll walk you around town, take you to watch the movie at the cinema they have and go exploring with you.

♥︎ If you're an artist, he'll keep all of your art and crafts you make. He absolutely cherishes everything you create, and will get very protective of it. Same with music; he'll listen to it while he works.

♥︎ He cannot cook to save his life (Nobody in that house can to be honest), so you'll be doing a lot of the cooking and such. He always treats everything you make like it was the finest thing he's ever tasted. He'll press the lips of his mask to your forehead and head back down to the basement with the food in hand.

♥︎ Words of Affirmation and Gift Giving as a love language definitely.

[bluelolblue]

I present more Santino headcanons🍷

I love talking about him, I'm literally him :>

@evren-sadwrn you wanted more Santino headcanons AND I GIVE YOU MORE SANTINO HEADCANONS ‼️

I'm starting with sad/angst stuff bc I'm feeling like it but TRUST THE PROCESS

Santi started smoking as a teen, (like idk 16-17 years old) as a coping mechanism from all the stress that he's been going through, mostly bc of his father bullshit and that age was just rough for him

Vincent was kinda like his first boyfriend but that mf was very toxic with him. And Santino couldn't see that at first bc he was young and in love but later on he realized how he was actually being treated and just used, he broke up with him. I'm talking about how Vincent manipulated the shit out of him all the time and just used everything he told him against him. Even his traumatic experiences. Vincent used it against him in arguments to get what he wants

Santino learned how to control his emotions. He can switch up fast. But it's not a good thing. He literally goes into the bathroom while fighting back his tears, looks at himself and kinda just breaths through it and just smiles like he didn't want to scream and cry a second ago

He likes to sing (I can't remember if I mentioned it already?) but ONLY around people he trusts and can actually be himself around...so not often and not too many people

Speaking of people he trusts...he barely had any friends growing up. I mean, he was the Camorra's heir ofc it's gonna be a struggle to find true friends. However, Ares still remained loyal to him through years and that's something he values. Loyalty. (They had crushes on each other for some time)

Aahhh I always talk about him and John AND I WILL CONTINUE-

Santino was literally jealous of Helen. Because she hit the jackpot. John is everything Santino is looking for in a relationship. John is caring, loyal, romantic, helpful, careful, gentle...the list just keeps going

And that's something Santino needs.. he needs to heal

Thing about Santino is that...he knows he's broken on the inside, he can feel it yet sometimes he doesn't bother with trying to help himself. He just suffers in silence because he got used to it...but he kinda knows that's not right

Okay how about some positive stuff :D

Santino has a collection of some books he's into. Like...a full collection of A LOT of books that he ACTUALLY read.

Santino actually likes watching football (or soccer, so some of you don't get confused) but only when it's like World or Europe competition, not clubs. And he's gonna be screaming and cursing in Italian at the tv

I wrote this already but- his guilty pleasure is pizza, spaghetti and risotto and he likes all that in the most basic way. Like plain cheese pizza. But not the fucking frozen ones, he's gonna kill whoever offers him frozen pizza.

Santino discovered most of his kinks with John. Because John was up for anything, really:

"Choking? Alright but I'll be gentle."

"No, you don't have to be~"

"...Santino, we talked about this-"

John just doesn't want to hurt him, even if it's by accident

Not to mention the hair pulling UMNHH~ sorry, got a bit excited :3

Yeah he's very...VERY into the hair pulling

He also just likes the feeling of someone rubbing his head, like playing with his hair. When John discovered that, he did that to him every night while they were cuddling in bed until Santino fell asleep. It's such a comforting thing that Santino can't get enough of. *sighs* it has to do with the trauma...

Yes, he likes to tease and be very flirty with John. And he absolutely loves to wear his shirts in the morning after their sexy time- or when he's cold or can't find his shirt (*coughs* or it got ripped *coughs*), John is like: "You can have mine :)" and it's too big for Santino so it kinda looks funny but they both like it so it's fine. And Santino likes the way it smells like John

The fucking praises. He eats that shit up:

"You're such a good boy, Santi..."

"You're doing so good for me..."

Praises like that

And he doesn't mind when the dog joins them in bed before sleeping. If they're in um...flirty mood however, they just kinda give the dog some treats and lead it outside of the bedroom

I GOT CARRIED AWAY-

He smokes after sex most of the time

He has this mindset on: "I don't want to be like my father." But then keeps doing similar things his father did...like smoking and he often catches himself even acting like him- mostly when he snaps at someone and he regrets it

He loves spending time at the beach. Summer time, he's gonna be in Italy on the beaches (yk what? He even goes to Croatia during summer, when I catch him there) so he likes to get some tan and breathe in the scent of the sea and yeah go for a swim

John also took him there few times during nights so it's only them two and it was really romantic. At the beach during night, looking at the sky and how the moon reflects on the sea

He likes strawberries...and grapes...most of the fruits, bc why not

When he tries not to live a day on cigarettes and coffee, he actually eats some fruit as a snack

His breakfast is: Cappuccino or other type of coffee that he feels like having, black coffee when...when um...it gets rough or he is hangover and then a cigarette...on bad days, it's even worse

Someone give him some tiramisu, he loves it

Anyways- I'M HAPPY TO TALK ABOUT MY ITALIAN HUSBAND 😫 🇮🇹 ‼️

I will probably write more headcanons about him again...bc like, I stan him and he's my husband

Here are my first headcanons about him

[letmeintourheart]

last Trip| Vinnie Hacker

Part.1

pairing: vinnie x sofi

summary: last trip to beach house before going to college, unfolding truths.

word count: 875

warnings: fluff, some teasing

authors note: this is my first time writing leave any comment for request and recommendations on how to get better lmk.

My best friend has always been by my side in good and bad times. She’s always had my back for everything. We’ve known each other since we were babies. Our moms were best friends, so we became best friends. I think growing up with her was the best part of my life. She has an older brother, Vincent. He likes to be called Vin, but I like to fuck around with him and call him his baby name, Vinnie. He absolutely hates it. I will admit, though, that the hardest part of growing up with Violet was that I had to see Vinnie grow up. Why? You may ask, Well, let’s just say he had the biggest glow up. Me and Vi made a pact that we would never date each other, brother. They are off limits, but that didn’t stop me from looking at his godly features, how perfect his face and eyes are, how his lips are a perfect red color, and how his body was sculpted by the gods. I mean, what more can I say? He’s perfect.

This is the last summer me and Vi are spending with our families since we are going to college. We decided that this weekend we were going with some of my friends and Vis to our family beach house for the week. We also invited our brothers because we are very close to each other. While I was packing, my brother Eden walked in, "Hi, are you ready to go?” He asked. "Yeah, I just need to pack some other things, and we’ll be on our way.” I answered, "Okay, I’ll wait for you at the car. By the way, Vin is here, he’s getting a few snacks for the rode, so if you want any, let him know,” he answered. Eden knew that I had a little crush on Vinnie, but he never confronted me about it. After I finished packing, I went down the stairs to the kitchen to get some drinks. I bumped into someone; it was Vinnie. “Hi, you want any chips or treats for the rode?” He asked. “I’ll get them, thank you,” I answered quickly, trying not to look at him. Vinnie is a very tall and intimidating guy, and since I had a little crush on him, it was very hard not to feel intimidated by him. “Whatever you say, Fia" he said with a grin on his face. I turned around to face him, trying not to attack him right then and there after the nick name that came out of his mouth. “What did you just call me?” I said it with a loud tone. “You heard me,” he said, leaning on to the island counter in the middle of the kitchen. I rolled my eyes and turned to the fridge door. "Okay, Vinnie," I said while laughing. His eyes stayed on me, but this look was different; his eyes became dark, and his smile became a small smirk. "Oh, it’s on,” he said while walking toward the now-open fridge. I closed the door of the fridge and saw him standing behind me, death staring me up and down and stopping at my eyes. He moved closer and closer to me, not breaking eye contact. I got scared of what was going to happen and started walking backwards until my back hit the cold fridge door. We were now inches away from each other's faces, and when Vinnie broke the silence, "We can play this little game all day and I'll still win,” he said, laughing at how intimidated I looked. “What are you even talking about, Vinnie? I'm not playing any games with you, am I?" I said, smirking, that I knew exactly what I was doing to him. He began to grab my hands and put them above my head. I couldn’t help but stare at him and lose my breath. He got closer and closer to my face, to the point where our lips made the smallest contact. It made me so desperate to taste him. I wanted him to touch me in ways others haven’t and wanted him to ruin me in this kitchen right now, but that was all interrupted when we heard someone coming from around the corner. Vinnie let go of my hands and moved a few feet away from me. I was still taken back by the events that were about to happen.

Violet then entered the kitchen. “We’ve been waiting for the past 10 minutes for you two. What’s taking so long?” She said, and me and Vinnie looked at each other before he started talking. “We were just getting the last few snacks for the rode, and Fia here asked me to help with her bags,” he said, looking at me with that same smirk that led to the events led to the events before. We then began to walk out the house and load mine and vinnies bags, and i wasn’t so lucky to sit with Vi because she called shotgun so i got stuck with vinnie in the back. The ride to the beach house is about 6 hours and we were just starting to take off at 6 pm, so this is gonna be a long ride.