#and so there had to have been a deeper reason why he chose billy?

[chirpsythismorning]

One thing I love about twelvegate is that it easily explains why Henry picked Billy to torment them in the first place. Because in doing so he was also mocking the truth right under El's nose...

Billy aka William

[theladybarnes]

DON’T YOU WANT ME, BABY? : CHAPTER SIX

“It's like before it's gonna storm, you know? You can't see it, but you can feel it, like this, uh... Electricity, you know?”

▸ summary: feelings are starting to surface at the wrong time ▸ characters: steve harrington, dustin henderson, ft lucas sinclair, & max mayfield ▸ word count: 4.5k       ▸ warnings: semi-fluff, angst, and boys being dumb ▸ series masterlist

It feels like mere minutes of sleep by the time you actually get up the following morning. The only “alarm” that managed to get you up was the intense sunlight that peeked through the slit of your curtains. Much like a hangover, the lack of sleep managed to give you a slightly irritating headache. Making you curl up further into the warm pillow that was pressed against your cheek. 

 The alluring smell of musk and something else filled up your nose as you rubbed your face against the soft cotton. Whatever plans you had for the day evaded your mind as you enjoyed the warmth that curled around you. That is, until you felt the nuzzling of something or better someone against the top of your head. 

 Craning your neck up, you finally take a look at what’s pulled you from your sleep.

 Sleeping peacefully was Steve Harrington. You had almost forgotten that it was you that forced him to stay. Making him spend the night inside rather than in his freezing car. Something you’re still having trouble wrapping your head around considering how inappropriate it was. You remembered at least setting up a space between the two of you. Giving you both the clear room to not be bothered by the other. But from the looks of it, that was a complete failure.

 Somehow in the few hours of sleep, you both managed to not only push away the pillow wall, but Steve had kicked off the spare blanket and got himself tangled up inside of yours. It brought the two of you incredibly too close. Glancing down, you nearly gasped out loud when you noticed how one of your legs had hooked over the side of his. 

 What on earth had gone through your mind during sleep to allow yourself such boldness to cuddle with Steve Harrington? Have you been hit on the head recently? Was Steve really that much of a heavy sleeper to not notice you both moved?

 Shaking your head, you regrettably pulled back to glance back up.

 Steve always looked good. But right now? He was gorgeous. The wisps of his long lashes were brushed over the apple of his cheeks. The pout on his lips was pink and pillowy. It was almost unfair how naturally pretty he was! Even his giant nest of hair looked soft. And here you were, hair wild from sleeping and practically wrapped around him like a snake. 

 Last night you over-shared your feelings to him. Something you hated since it allowed Steve once again to have a deeper inside on your feelings. The last time proved to be such a mistake. There was some reason why you couldn’t filter yourself when around him and that bothered you immensely for several reasons. 

 Did he think you were a foolish girl who allowed one boy to dictate so much of your life? How did he feel now about your past relationship with Billy knowing that you chose to be with someone who was such an asshole? 

 Your eyes follow along the features across Steve’s face and you reach out. Hovering over the bridge of his nose before you pulled back. Slightly worried how you almost affectionately touched him while he was asleep. This whole thing was getting a little pathetic.

 Carefully, you pulled yourself away from Steve. Shoving in a pillow in your place so that you could slide off the bed. His arms reached out and hugged the pillow tightly against his chest. Grumbling in his sleep about being cold. But all you really needed to do was pull the blanket over him and he went back to sleep.

 Looking at the alarm by your bedside, you get a good look at the time, cringing at the early hour. After that morning shock, you figured you wouldn’t be sleeping anyway. So, you quietly rush over to your dresser, grabbing all the change of clothes you’d need and quickly reach into the pocket of Steve’s jacket for his keys. 

 They make an unnecessary jingle noise that has you freezing. Thankfully nothing happens as you make your way to the door to peek your head out. The house is dead silent.

 Down the hall you noticed the door to your Aunt’s room is opened. She must have something early to do that morning. It at least gave you three the chance to get what you needed done.

 You steal one last glance over to the bed. 

 For some reason, seeing Steve so peaceful and asleep in your room had your heart beating faster than you expected. It was something you still couldn't wrap your head around. But instead of asking why, you simply closed the door behind you and walked down the hall towards the bathroom. A nice hot shower would definitely clear your mind.

  “Why the hell didn’t you wake us up?”

 You nearly dropped the heavy knife in your hand at the sound of Dustin’s tired voice. Both he and Steve were yawning as they shuffled into the kitchen. Ignoring the sight of Steve’s bed head, you focused on finishing cutting the meat in front of you. 

 Already there were two other buckets filled up with cuts of cold red meat. The butcher in the market offered you a discount for the parts of meat that didn’t really sell right away. Thankfully he didn’t question why some random high schooler needed so much meat in the first place.

 “You guys were pretty beat up yesterday. And since I’m an early riser, I figured I’d get most of the petty work done.”

 Dustin walked over to inspect the so-called work that you did. Which was mostly cubing up pieces of meat. His face contorted at the sight of the red chunks before he glanced back at you. “Did you just say you’re an early riser? Seriously? You?”

 “I get up early.”

 “You get up with minutes to spare most days!”

 Steve walked up behind you, peering over at your work. The close proximity has you nearly messing up the next cut since the smell of his leftover cologne managed to flood your senses. Thankfully he finished whatever analysis he was doing and moved towards the counter across from you. Leaning against it coolly while he rubbed the corner of his eyes with his finger tips. 

 “How’d you even get all this stuff anyway?” He asked with a yawn.

 Sheepishly you set down the knife and reached into the back pocket of your jeans to fish out his keys. It’s the first time you glance at him all morning and you’re met with a look of disapproval. “Really? You took my car?”

 “She drove like a beauty.”

 Rolling his eyes, he stuffed the jingling keys back into his pants. “She better still drive that way when we go out today.” He mumbled under his breath. 

 You frowned a bit and swiftly turned back to your work. “Don’t get so worked up, your highness. Excuse me for wanting to give the two of you an extra hour of sleep.”

 “Hell, I’m thankful for it.” Dustin chimed in. His entire upper half was stuffed inside the pantry while he dug around for something to eat. When he failed to find anything good, his hungry eyes found their way to the grocery bag you had brought home. “Oh sweet, pop-tarts.” 

 He tore open a bag, offering one up to Steve as he joined him at the counter. The taller boy tentatively took one, breaking off a piece before he stuffed it in his mouth while he continued to watch you. The eye contact had you gulping. Did he know about this morning? Did he wake up and not say anything to spare your feelings? He did nuzzle into you now that you think abou—

 “So you think we’re ready to go? Or can I have a shower first?” Dustin said suddenly while chewing. You shoot Dustin a sour look for talking while eating before answering back. 

 “Don’t be gross,” you chided. “But to answer you, I’m actually done. So we can head out now if you’re ready to go.” 

 “Sweet,” he said, chucking the wrapper into the trash can. The foil completely missed the mark, bouncing on the side before it fell on the floor. He ignored it to turn back and smile at the two of you. “Let’s get going.” 

 “Ugh, if you’re not gonna be able to shower you should at least brush your teeth.” You groaned while walking over to throw the trash inside the bin. “I don’t wanna have to deal with your rank breath all day.” 

 Dustin looked over at Steve with an exasperated expression. “Do you hear the way she talks to me? Loving family, huh?”

 The older boy offered only a meek smile before he shrugged his shoulders. Finishing the rest of his own piece before he spoke up. “Just hurry up, dude.”

 Dustin simply rolled his eyes and waved off the two of you before he dashed down the hall towards the bathroom. You’re suddenly painfully aware of how quiet it is now that it’s just you and Steve again. And from the way you could feel his eyes behind you still, you knew he must feel something off. 

 While you knew it might be a dumb idea. You figured that perhaps talking it out a bit could help make things go back to normal. Or at least whatever type of normal you both had before.

 “So about last night..” you started. 

 “Do you have any water?”

 His question threw you off slightly, but you pointed over towards the cabinet behind. “The glasses are in there.” He doesn’t say anything but reaches behind him for a glass before walking over to the sink beside you. Keeping his focus on the liquid pouring inside the cup.

 Again you attempt to talk about what was making things so awkward for the two of you.

 “So..last night.” you chuckled, feeling your heartbeat quicken. “Sorry for dropping so much emotional baggage on you.” The knife felt suddenly heavy and with Steve’s lack of response making you more tense, you’re worried about dropping it. So after it’s placed down in the sink, you quickly wash your hands. Wiping them on a nearby towel while looking at Steve from the corner of your eyes. He’s still holding onto his full glass of water, not drinking it but keeping his focus into the cup.

 “I-I know I’m not the easiest person to talk to when pissed off. And I’ve been such a bitch lately—“

 “You haven’t.” he interrupted again. You turn to face him better and notice that his water is still filled to the brim. “And last night can be just last night if you want it to be.”

 “What?” Confusion washed over you as you tried to figure out just where Steve was trying to go with whatever relationship you both had. 

 “I mean, you were obviously upset about Billy and I was there for you to vent it out to. And like I said later on, it doesn’t have to be more than just hanging out today fighting a cat eating monster.”

 He’s keeping such a neutral tone that you can’t really distinguish what he’s trying to come off as. It’s almost like he doesn’t care. But if he didn’t care then why would he waste the effort of reassuring you last night? 

 “..Okay?” you said slowly. Trying not to sound completely confused. This whole thing was starting to mess with your head and considering what you both were gonna have to face later on, it might be better to just drop it. “Sounds good then..”

 Nodding his head, Steve finally downed the water from the glass before walking over to place it in the sink. Seeming to wait for your words before he made the next move. Frowning a bit, you try not to let your emotions get the best of you. But something about Steve not caring at all about the night before didn’t sit right with you.

 “Uh here,” you spoke up again. Reaching for the bag, you grab hold of the toothbrush you brought for him when you felt sad about him having to stay instead of going home. But with his sudden blasé attitude, you almost think he doesn’t deserve fresh breath. “Thought you might want this since you can’t exactly head home right away.”

 His brown eyes looked down at your hands before he reached out for the toothbrush, his fingers lingered a bit longer than needed and you’re quick to pull your hand back before you read too much into that. 

 “Thanks,” he muttered. “I’ll just uh, go get to it.”

 Without another glance, he sped down the hall to join Dustin in the bathroom. There’s a slight muffling of their conversation starting. And you can’t help but cover your face and silently groan. 

 “I hate boys.” 

  The car ride to the train tracks was thankfully pretty quiet. For the most part, it was mostly just going over the plans again. And how the three of you might have to take on Dart if none of the other members of the party respond. 

 It’s when you’re all unloading the trunk with the supplies that Dustin’s radio goes off. 

 “Dustin! This is Lucas! Do you copy?”

 Dustin paused his unpacking to turn on the comms to his radio. His sarcastic attitude was ready to fire as he responded back to his friend.

 “Well, well, well, look who it is.”

 “Sorry, man. My stupid sister turned it off.”

 Dustin glanced over at the two of you placing the items on the ground before he faced away again. But while he was responding, you couldn’t help but laugh at how ridiculous you all looked with matching yellow gloves, and buckets of red meat. Thank God you managed to order a new pair of shoes for the long walk you were about to take.

 “Well, when you were having sister problems, Dart grew again, he’s escaped, and I’m pretty sure he’s a baby Demogorgan.”

 “Wait, what?!”

 “I’ll explain later. Just meet me, Steve and my cousin at the old junkyard. “

 “Steve?!”

 “And bring your binoculars and wrist rocket.”

 The two of you managed to gather everything in the spare backpack Dustin found in his closet. But Steve looked exasperated as he ignored the sudden shock from Lucas. To be fair, it was a strange addition to the boy from last year. He wasn’t aware of Steve’s previous help.

 “Steve Harrington?!”

 He closed the truck to his car gently, looking tired before he motioned for the three of you to get going. “All right, let’s go.” Neither of you wait as you follow Steve’s lead. Dustin sent out one final order to Lucas before he joined you both down the trailway.

 It was going to be a very long afternoon.

 At point down the path, you found yourself leading the two boys. Throwing out pieces of meat in different spots where they could help fill out after you. Never did you think you’d be spending the day leading a trail of food for a monster, but Indiana was happy to give you another year of surprises. 

 Steve and Dustin’s interaction was another surprise to you. For some reason, they seemed to oddly get along well. Being able to volley effortlessly in conversation. You thought that someone like Steve would be annoyed with Dustin’s endless questions or even sometimes sudden tangents but he was pretty good at answering and bringing back focus. 

 It made something spring in your stomach.

 But eventually, like any conversation from boys. The subject eventually made its way into girls. And despite your cousin being a part of the half talking about them, you couldn’t help but feel a little curious to hear some insight on Steve’s thoughts. Subtly, you slow down your pace, keeping your face forward as you listen in.

 “..I don’t know. I just feel like you’re trying way too hard.”

 “Well, not everyone can have your perfect hair, all right?”

 You pouted a bit. Disappointed that looks were slowly becoming a thing that Dustin was starting to notice about himself. He was cute! But having his older cousin point that out would probably embarrass him and you gripped your bucket tighter to control yourself.

 “It’s not about the hair, man.” Steve is thankfully quick to interject. Some solid advice at least. That is until he kept talking. “The key with girls is just..just acting like you don’t care.”

 “Even if you do?”

 “Yeah, exactly. It drives them nuts.”

 It’s taking all the power of God and Jane Fonda not to turn around and smack Steve for his terrible advice. There’s literally so much better ideas and methods to getting a girl’s attention and you’re beginning to wonder how the hell Steve gets girls.

 “Then what?”

 “You just wait until..uh..until you feel it.”

 “Feel what?”

 “It’s like before it’s gonna storm, you know? You can’t see it, but you can feel it, like this, uh, electricity.” 

 Steve almost sounded nervous explaining. And while he’s trying to get the words out, you’re trying to wrap your mind if you’ve ever felt that way about anyone. If you have, then you certainly haven’t made a point to notice.

 “Oh, like in the electromagnetic field when the clouds in the atmosphere–”

 “No, no, no, no, no. Like a..like sexual electricity.” 

 “Oh,”

 “You feel that and then you make your move.”

 “So that’s when you kiss her?”

 “No, whoa, whoa. Slow down, Romeo.”

 “Sorry.”

 KISS HER? YOU’RE A BABY!

 Your thoughts make you miss a wooden plank. Making you trip over your footing for a second before quickly catching yourself to continue forward. Dustin called out for you but you waved him off pretending to look over at some interesting trees.

 “Sure, okay, some girls, yeah, they want you to be aggressive. You know, strong, hot and heavy, like a..I don’t know, like a lion. But others, you gotta be slow, you gotta be stealthy, like a..like a ninja.”

 The impulsive need to correct Steve and tell him not every girl likes either guy was growing harder to ignore. It felt totally backwards to assume that just two generic types of guys would woo over one girl. Really, most girls wanted someone funny, caring, confident, a listener, maybe a little hot, but that last one didn’t really matter too much–

 “What type is Nancy?”

 “Nancy’s different. She’s different than the other girls.”

 “Yeah she seems pretty special, I guess.”

 “Yeah, she is.”

 Your stomach turned at his answer. It wasn’t like he was wrong. Nancy was a special kind of girl and you admired her in different ways. But something about his blind adoration for her didn’t sit right with you. Especially when she’s up and left town without so much as an explanation. 

 “And uhh what about her?” you heard Dustin ask more softly. The hair on the back of your neck began to stand up and you knew without even checking that they were both most likely looking at you right now.

 Would Steve assume you’re like the other girls here? Categorize you into a side of pathetic girls that could easily be swayed by hair and aggressive tactics? Or were you the ones that needed extra caution and planning. Either answer was bad.

 “..I’m still trying to figure that out.”

 Scratch that. There’s a worse answer.

 “But this girl’s special, too, you know. It’s just like, something about her.”

 “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, hey, hey.” 

 “What?”

 “You’re not falling in love with this girl, are you?”

 There’s a second where you pause your steps and pretend to tie your shoe, listening closely to see if your little cousin is already feeling love so intensely at such a young age. If so, then maybe you’d have to find a separate time from today and give him real advice.

 “Uh no, NO.”

 “Okay, good. Don’t!”

 “I won’t.”

 “She’s only gonna break your heart, and you’re way too young for that shit.” 

 The two grow quiet finally and you contemplate turning around to reassure them both that despite girls possibly breaking their hearts, it was not the end of the world. For Christ’s sake, you guys were all still in school! 

 But the more you thought about it, the more you figured that you haven’t actually gone through the feeling of heartbreak. Did you ever really love anyone that deeply? Billy was such an infatuation and sure, you felt deeply hurt when he cheated on you back home. But was it for other selfish reasons like vanity and pride? Or something more genuine.

 That would explain why you had no struggle in cutting ties with him. But did Billy ever feel that special electricity with you? Has anyone?

 The two stopped following behind you quite some time ago and it isn’t till you’re a few tracks down that you see Steve leaning close to Dustin. Pointing a stern finger on his face before he chucked another piece forward to the ground. 

 “Move your ass, your highness.” you called out. 

 He gave you an annoyed look before picking up his steps to catch up. From the front you can still hear Dustin pick up a question as he follows Steve.

 “Farrah Fawcett, really?”

 “I mean, she’s hot.”

 “Yeah..”

 The two go into another conversation now, but have moved forward enough to include you in their circle. Though you’re just as quiet as before you can’t help but watch again as Steve managed to comfortably talk to Dustin.

 It’s enough to make you start to see him differently. Even if he was popular and annoyed and didn’t want to be here, he was still around. Willing to help, and even being nice with Dustin. Things most guys you knew wouldn’t do. So despite the rough morning you two shared, when he finally took a glance over again shot you a small smile. You found yourself smiling back for once.

  The rest of the walk to the junkyard took up the majority of the day. Nearing it to late afternoon by the time the three of you made it up the grassy hill.

 “I’ve never been so happy to see a bunch of trash.” you groaned, placing down the bucket to give your tired hands a rest. The other boys hummed a bit, looking over the area. Steve was the first one to really access, nodding his head in approval instantly. 

 “Oh, yeah..Yeah, this will do.”

 He reached down to pick up your bucket. Giving you a quick wink before he set forth to lead the way. “Nice call, dude.” he threw over his shoulder as he continued to throw meat for the trail. Dustin looked just as taken back as you felt while watching him go. 

 The three of you found the perfect spot to dump the rest of the meat with a sudden voice yelled from across the yard.

 “I said medium well!”

 Turning all your heads, the three of you watch as Lucas and Max begin their way down the hill. 

 “Who’s that?” Steve asked. 

 You’re a bit bothered to see the poor girl here. Wondering why on earth Lucas would drag her into this. There was no way it could be safe with any of you guys there but to bring in another innocent kid? What would happen if she got hurt? You wouldn’t even have the agents from the lab to help with this. “I can’t believe he’s involving Max in this–”

 You feel a jab to your side and frown over at Steve before he nodded towards Dustin. There was a forlorn look to his face. The type you had seen whenever Jonathan watched Steve and Nancy from across the room. 

 Ohhhh!

 “Shit.” you muttered, watching as Lucas cheerfully approached you guys. He had no idea Dustin was totally crushing on Max. That’s why he was so keen on keeping Dart. A girl like Max would think he’s cool. But Dustin didn’t need to play into a character like Steve suggested. All she’d like is someone with honesty. 

 “Hey guys, how’s it–”

 Lucas barely had the chance to greet you guys before Dustin yanked him away. Pulling him in the direction of one of the cars for a bit of privacy. Steve let out a small whistle while he discarded the buckets. 

 “I can’t believe he likes her.”

 “What’s so weird about her?”

 You turned to face Steve, shaking your head as you helped him take off the backpack with the rest of the supplies. “It’s not her that’s weird. It’s Dustin liking girls that’s weird.” Placing the bag on the hood of a car, you unzip the rest, careful not to hurt yourself with the spikes of the nails.

 “Did you think he’d never like girls?”

 “No! Well, to be honest, I didn’t think he’d like anything other than Space Invaders for the past couple of years. But moving onto the phase of liking girls is just..” You hand Steve the backpack and bat back while trying to form up the right words. “He’s just a baby!”

 Steve rolled his eyes, laughing as he fixed the strap of the bag back over his shoulders. “I can assure you that he is not a baby. He’s a dude going through his first crush. Besides, boys like girls a lot sooner than you think.”

 “Is that so?”

 “Yes,” he urged, pointing over towards the pile of loose sheet metal before he began to lead the way. “The honest truth is that boys will find someone they like as early as Kindergarten.” 

 “Okay, that’s puppy love. He’s definitely too early to be so..love struck, right? He’s known Max for less than a week.”

 He moved a large piece of metal to slide in front of you, keeping his gaze down at his hands while he leaned in closer towards you. “It doesn’t really take that long for a guy to feel love struck by someone.” One of his fingers carefully slid over to where your hand was, grazing the knuckle a bit before he finally looked up. “It can happen for someone as quick as a day.”

 You try not to read into his words. Implying that he means anything else was just going to mess with your head and you really did not need that before preparing to fight Dart. But like Steve, it seems like your words are coming out just as impulsively.

 “You say that like you’ve shared the same experience.” 

 Making sure the metal was in your grip, he pulled away slowly. Watching over his footing for a second before he finally shrugged a reply to you. “Maybe I have. But I think I’m not the only one.” 

 You can’t help but think Steve is a bigger asshole for making your brain go completely broke again. First this morning was cold and cut off. Now he’s switching it things up by making it confusing. There’s so much at stake tonight and you really didn’t have the mental space to digest just what he was saying to you.

 The worst part of it all is you’re feeling that he might be right.

  “Hey Dickheads! How come the only one helping me out is your cousin and this random girl? We lose light in forty minutes. Let’s go! Let’s go, I said!”

 “All right, asshole! God!”

 “Okay! Stupid.”

a/n: so i’ve sort of had to split this episode in two. mostly to help with the fact that no one but el is in episode 7 i believe. so please keep that in mind. i’ve also sort of don’t have a beta reader anymore. so all mistakes or bad writing in general is just by myself. thank you so much for reading!

tagged request: @hollandweather​

[whoever-the-heck]

On Daisy Jones and The Six

I love books and tv shows and movies that make me question my morals and have me rethinking my life principles. This is one of the reasons why I really loved the book Daisy Jones and The Six even before it became super mainstream. Ahh, the character development! The clashing motivations - morality stopped being either/or and became a spectrum of rightness and wrongness. The unique format is so refreshing too, and it didn't hurt that it had a gripping storyline that switched from being a mystery about rock and roll band abruptly dissolving at the height of its fame to being all about the complicated human relationships that fueled both its success and downfall. I am still so happy I read it without any idea about it going in (recommended by a boss, so I wished to impress, ha) because it surprised me in the best way possible.

Best of all, I have really complicated feelings about Daisy, Billy and Camilla - and I still enjoy analyzing those feelings to this day especially with tv show out.

Each of them has a very strong personality, and I already kind of saw it coming that the three of them together was bound to implode one way or another; there was just no way they could coexist in the same circle for long.

Something - or someone - has got to give, was what I thought.

Camilla loved Billy, yes, but her motivations ran deeper than that. Above all, she loved herself. She simply had to get her due - she felt that she had earned her ideal life, and she would have it at whatever cost because she deserved it. Billy was part of that ideal, partly because she stuck with him through thick and thin, partly because his being a changed man (sober) was largely due to her. Without her, he was nothing. And Camilla knew it very well.

In short, he was in her possession.

Billy loved Camilla. No question about it. He had been crazy about her from the beginning. Then he let himself get carried away by fear of being tied down and of fatherhood that he resolved to drop to his lowest so she would cut him loose, thus freeing him. But she didn't do that! She gave him a chance and a choice, and he chose to get better and stay on the right lane for her and their family. Because of that commitment, he was saved - from being wasted away, from becoming his father. She became his guiding light and his strength.

In short, he was indebted to her.

Daisy's love was... drugs. Then she met Billy. Her match in every way. Creatively, passionately, intellectually. They couldn't be more different, yet they couldn't be more alike. For the first time she encountered someone on her wavelength, someone who could actually handle her, and not just <i>handle</i> her. He respected her talent, he celebrated it, he helped her discover more depths to it, and never resented her for it. Not only that - he also understood her addiction. It was only a matter of time before she fell for him deeply and hopelessly, incredibly aware of his unavailability and his unwavering commitment to his wife and children. But could she give him up? When he was <i>it</i> for her?

And now the strangest thing and perhaps the most painful question. What was Daisy to Billy? Did he love her? Like, really love her? Or was that just lust? Desire for the unattainable? Desire for what he couldn't have - like the booze/drugs lifestyle he gave up for his family?

Daisy was not an alternative to Camilla, but the alternate version of himself.

She was what he could be when he's... not sober.

So was Billy in love with her or did he only see himself in her? Was she a temptation to his heart, or to his addiction?

In that triangle, it was always Daisy who was the loser. While Camilla and Billy loved each other and Daisy loved Billy, Billy's feelings for Daisy had been obscure.

But ultimately, it was not Daisy - it was Billy. Billy had always been the weakest link between the three of them. He was always going to be the one who would eventually give in, and Camilla knew that. So she stepped up and told Daisy to walk.

Time would eventually give Billy a wider perspective, allowing him to dissect his feelings for Daisy without the haze of booze and drugs in the forefront of his mind.

But poor Daisy never quite got the amount of love she gave.

This is why the TV show is working for me. It has a different take on this dynamic, balancing out the triangle, although it never quite portrays Billy's love and indebtedness to Camilla correctly or even remotely similar to the book. I want to see that take shape. I want them to show Billy's complicated feelings about Daisy, that it's not simply just lust or love for her as a woman. And I want to see Daisy's hopelessness when it came to Billy.

Jury's still out!

[skellebonez]

Why Worry At All?

I had so much trouble writing certain parts of this out for some reason, which makes no sense to me because I chose to write this on my own without a prompt. But I finally nailed out the in between parts that were giving me trouble! So... Billy Kametz can sing, huh?

Xiaotian knew what they were hearing. They knew it!

They'd heard Xiaojiao before and she wasn't that deep. They'd never heard Sandy but he had to sound much deeper if he could. Tang and Pigsy were out of the question, Tang couldn’t hold a tune to save his life and Pigsy never did more than hum at a much different octave. It couldn't have been Wukong, he'd still been asleep from overexerting himself in their last fight.

So that only left Macaque as the one who could have been singing outside the med bay door.

“But then I guess we know there’s blame to share... and none of it seems to matter anymore...”

It was such a soft tune, something that Xiaotian barely recognized from a video online he watched long ago. Maybe something Xiaojiao had shown him. Something soft and gentle, which made no sense given the possible culprit. Or the fact he heard it being sing just outside his mentor’s room while he was checking on him. But he was hearing it through the door nonetheless. Almost whisper like in how soft it was, it was too weak to have been heard belted from a distance, and muttered almost a bit off tune. That only left it being from someone right outside the door. But why not just come inside?

Unless the singer, who again Xiaotian was certain was Macaque, didn’t want anyone- even Sun Wukong- to know it was them who was singing and they didn’t realize that anyone was in the room with the power drained immortal.

So, like anyone who heard a mysterious singing voice would do, they pulled out their phone and started recording.

The song only lasted for another few seconds before silence, and then the almost deafening in comparison sound of running footsteps.

And as Xiaotian looked down at the recording on the phone, less than even 20 seconds in length, they were struck by a realization.

“... I can use this.”

~

“Well well well,” Macaque said with a chuckle, turning to face the person who joined him on the deck of the self piloting drone ship. Just where they knew he would be at this hour of the morning. “Didn’t take you for a morning person, kid.”

“I’m not,” Xiaotian grumbled, hair down and unkempt and clearly barely brushed just to keep it out of their face. "But I wanted to check on Wukong after what happened yesterday.”

This made the other’s fur stand up and his tail tense, though whether this was because he realized what Xiaotian meant or of it brought his mind back to the fight of the day prior they couldn’t tell. The fight that, for some reason, Macaque left himself vulnerable during. That left him wiped out and barely able to move out of the way of an oncoming attack. That make Sun Wukong rush in and save him much to the surprise of everyone involved, Macaque himself included.

The fight that Xiaotian was beginning to think was going to change a lot more than just knowing the de-powered duo’s limits.

“You’re going to be honest with me for once.” they proposed, joining the immortal monkey at the guard railing he casually leaned against.

“What makes you think I’m going tell you anything?” Macaque asked, chuckling boastfully and smirking that damn smug smirk he’d been wearing almost every minute since he had been taken onto the ship.

The longer Xiaotian saw it the faker it seemed to be.

“Oh, I dunno... maybe this?” They rebutted, pulling out their phone and hitting play on the open audio file they had pulled up long before the conversation, and they watched with their own smirk as a look of surprise and then horror and then something akin to “resigned but impressed” flashed on the ancient demon’s face.

After hearing the other speak there was no doubt that the two voices were identical now.

“Qi Xiaotian,” Macaque said, an almost cat like smirk gracing his face. This one seemed slightly more honest than the last one. “I didn’t take you for a blackmailer. Maybe I did have an influence on you after all.”

“Why were you singing this outside Wukong’s room?” Xiaotian asked, not in the mood for playing the other’s games this early in the morning. “Why were you trying to hide it? Why did you not realize I was in there? And...” He gestured to his phone, the soft gentle sounds of an almost uncharacteristically sweet song playing through his speakers. “What the hell is this song!?”

“Alright alright,” Macaque said, holding up his hands before he leaned forward on the railing. “No need to give the the third degree, great hero. It’s just a song I heard online.”

“You know how to use the internet?”

Turning his head, Macaque leveled the other with a very over exaggerated wilting gaze of disbelief. “I am honestly offended you’d think I wouldn’t learn how to.”

The tone of voice he had did not give the impression that Macaque even gave a shit, but Xiaotian muttered an apology regardless, to which the other simply laughed at.

“There’s this guy... Bill something? Kinds sounds like me, you know. Found him by chance one day and just kinda looked for all his songs and memorized them a long time ago out of boredom.” He shrugged, a distant far off look on his face. “Almost considered just being a copy cat voice for him once, way before I found out where our great King was, but I never followed through with that. Shame, though, knowing I’m on par with Broadway. Probably could have snagged a pretty decent amount of yuan from desperate fans. Don’t really have much use for money, though so eh.”

He shrugged, and for once he sounded... honest. Just honest.

“I wasn’t really trying to hide it, not from you anyway. Just... didn’t wanna deal with Wukong waking up and hearing me sing for the first time after. Ya know.” He waved his hand with another shrug. “History and all that. It was just a moment I had with myself, nothing more.”

Xiaotian took particular note that he avoided one particular question.

“You’re awful open about all this stuff,” the Monkie Kid mused, the two of them watching the horizon slowly move under the drone ship as the sun rise continued. Everyone else would be getting up soon enough. “Even for blackmail.”

“It’s not really effective blackmail,” Macaque admitted after a moment, tail lazily swishing behind him. “Not content wise, anyway. I was bound to be heard eventually no matter how much I hid. Think of this as more a... reward for you being able to catch me unaware. Take a lot of skill to do that with my ears.”

“I know most of your powers are gone too,” Xiaotian said bluntly, dropping the real piece of information he was here to hold over the other’s head out in the open, and that got Macaque to freeze instantly. “Not like ours are but... I dunno. I didn’t really think that far ahead. But if you still had most of them we wouldn’t be talking right now. You ran away instead of just whooshing into the shadows I know were in the hall. You’ve been wearing earplugs since we let you stay, I saw Sandy give them to you and you’re even wearing them right now, but even with your hearing dulled you would have been able to know I was in that room. You’ve been walking through doors instead of just vanishing. I don’t think I’d seem you walk through one except for at the shadow play before last week, and that was obviously to get my attention. I don’t think I’ve seen you make a clone or transform either, or manipulate a single shadow. Why not flaunt your powers over us, knowing we don’t have ours since you’ve made a point to annoy us about our lost abilities, unless you don’t have yours too?”

The elder said nothing, only growled and glowered out at the horizon before letting out a deep sigh.

“You really are a good kid,” he said with a humorless chuckle. “Smart, too, when actually you put your mind to stuff. But you’re only half right.”

“What do you mean?” Xiaotian asked in shock, amazed that the other was even still admitting to anything point blank at this point.

“I still have all my powers, it’s just... Not a good idea for me to use them too much,” he said vaguely, shrugging his shoulders and turning to walk away from the young man in a way that clearly indicated this line of conversation was over with. “I know you can keep a secret, kid, so do me a favor. Keep quiet about this.”

That same humorless chuckle, the one the young man now realized was more common from the demon’s mouth than not, sounded as he stepped into the forming shadows of the driver’s post from the rising sun and seemed to fall and melt into the floor in an instant.

Xiaotian couldn’t help the flinch that ran through their body at the implications of that final sentence. His training of Xiaotian. The second meeting. The Calabash.

The White Bone Spirit...

“Asshole,” Xiaotian muttered under their breathe, taking the door instead.

~

The very first thing Xiaotian was greeted with when they entered the communal kitchen was low and muttered but still the less than whispered tune of a song by a pop punk bank from overseas.

“Why do we worry at aaaaall,” Macaque sang just loud enough for everyone around him to hear, the baffled and in some cased impressed faces of everyone (barring the presumably still resting Wukong) looking in his direction as he seemingly ignored them to prepare his own fruit based breakfast. “Why, just tell me why do we worry? When worries never happen tell me why, why worry at all?”

When Macaque turned to look at Xiaotian he smirked almost playfully, winking at him.

And the only thing that ran through Xiaotian’s head was “there goes half of my blackmail... asshole.”

Though... when he looked closer...

Macaque seemed oddly tired.

Did he have the dark bags under his eyes during their conversation before?

[wiener-soldiers]

so, you’re real - tommy shelby

summary: while high off his ass, tommy shelby is approached by a mysterious woman offering him something more valuable than drugs: information. your services become essential to how tommy conducts business, but your anonymity means he can’t help but fall in love with you from a distance.

words: 5.4k

pairing: tommy shelby x fem!reader (race non-specific)

warnings: tommy shelby. that’s the warning.

a/n: first tommy fic :D he’s one of the most beautifully complex characters ever in television imo but that also means his kinda nightmare to right. so,,, he might come off a little ooc because he’s very soft!tommy in this. i also wanna write a tommy fic based off ‘why’d you only call me when your high’ by arctic monkeys for obvious reasons.

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Tommy Shelby could count the number of people who’s seen him high as a kite on opium with three fingers. Arthur was the first; he drukenly stumbled into Tommy’s room instead of his own one night and the smell of the pipe sobered him enough to start asking questions. Tommy shoved him out and by the morning, Arthur was too hungover to remember a thing. The next was Polly; Tommy stumbled down the stairs as he was high around three in the morning once as he searched the house for more booze. Polly watched from a distance as he sat himself on the kitchen table and wept, squeezing his eyes shut and covering his ears with his hands. She chose not to mention it the following morning, but a perscription for morphine found its way to Tommy’s desk a few days later.

The third person... was you.

You didn’t know the Shelby’s personally. You were the assistant of a local Small Heath accountant that dealt with Birmingham’s most infamous clients: local coppers, factory owners, politicians, even gangsters. Your boss was known as the Devil’s Safe—nothing that came in went ot without the client’s consent.

But you weren’t a saint. Being so close to his office at all times and knowing far too much about where the most influential people in Birmingham got their money and where they spent it, it was nearly impossible to keep your mouth shut.

So, you didn’t. At a price, of course.

You quit your job and created a small network of spies that could feed you information about anyone or anything at anytime, using your knowledge about the Devil’s Safe as leverge. You charged whoever could afford for your services, coppers and criminals alike. Some self-righteous copper tried to shut you down once. Keyword: tried. There were too many spies all over the city to try to arrest (that is, if he could find grounds to arrest them), and you were too important to too many important people that arresting you would likely have him assasinated.

That, and you tipped him off about a corrupt police captain who had been trading orphans for cash. It got him a promotion and you a protective shield over your dealings from the coppers.

Tommy first met you at the races. You were hanging off the arm of Roberts, Billy Kimber’s advisor, and he briefly caught your eye before returning his gaze to Grace who stared at him lovingly. He didn’t know it then, but you were analyzing him. His posture, his facial expressions, how he spoke to Kimber, and most importantly, his books that Roberts happened to have a copy of. Nothing went unnoticed by you. The Shelby’s were starting to cause ruckus all over the city and you were interested. But, to maintain your facade, you snuck a few kisses to Roberts’ neck to distract him from your snooping.

When Tommy returned to the table with the bag of cash his brothers had collected from the Lees, you were gone.

---

The second time he sees you, he isn’t even sure if it’s you.

It’s late at night as he approaches The Garrison when he notices Polly standing with another figure in the alley. He slows his steps and silences his breathing, trying to catch the end of your conversation.

“You’re sure this is where she is?” That’s unmistakingly Polly’s voice.

A soft chuckle rips through the air and Tommy suddenly wonders what your voice sound like. “There’s only so many women carrying a newborn and looking that terrified of what may be behind her,” the other voice says. It’s not soft or angelic, Tommy notices. Nothing likes Grace’s. It’s deeper, smoother, and he can almost hear the smirk in her voice.

“How do I know you’re not lying to me?” Polly asks back skeptically. Tommy has the common sense to realize she’s talking about Ada who had gone into hiding after Freddie was arrested. Polly hadn’t been able to stay in the same room as him for very long since.

You pull out another envelope from your coat and teasingly dangle it in front of her. “Here’s the list of all of Ada and Freddie’s known addresses. The Communists have them move every few weeks; the address I gave you is Ada’s current address. Go there tomorrow from seven to nine in the morning. Ada’ll still be in bed and Karl will still be asleep. Then, you’ll know I’m right, you’ll give me the full payment, and I’ll give you the rest of the addresses.”

Tommy is slightly stunned at what he’s hearing. They had been trying to look for Ada for nearly two weeks to no avail, but this woman was able to find her that easily?

The woman turns to walk away before Polly can respond and in the street light, Tommy can make out the outline of your face. It was so brief that he couldn’t tell if you were actually there or if he imagined your face in the darkness.

Polly doesn’t notice him as she makes her way back inside the pub. The following afternoon, Polly is pounding on his office door saying she’s found where Ada had been hiding.

---

The third time he sees you, he’s sitting in the empty Garrison with a bullet wound in his shoulder, whiskey coursing through his veins, enough meloncholy and anger to swim in, and a broken heart.

Billy Kimber was dead. Campbell was gone. But, so was Grace.

It was a series of emotions he hadn’t felt in a long time: relief, then anger, then happiness, then frustration. Then the shovels started. Then, it all got too loud and he slipped his opium pipe into his coat pocket before going to The Garrison to drink his sorrows away. He had never taken the pipe out of his room before. In that state, he didn’t care.

He doesn’t really know how you got in; he had angrily yelled at everyone to leave the bar when the night was late enough for him to feel emotion and locked the door behind him. Maybe I didn’t lock the door right, he thinks. In reality, you had picked the lock.

“I could’ve told you she’d been working with him,” your voice calls behind him. He’s still hunched over his drink, the pipe lying next to a nearly empty bottle of whiskey. He didn’t need her to clarify who she was talking about.

“You could’ve, eh?” Tommy mumbles dangerously. He felt light, but his eyes and his heart felt heavy. He hated the feeling. Oh god, he hated it.

“Hmm,” you hum back, taking a seat next to him. You reach behind the bar and pull out a bottle of gin and poor yourself a drink. Tommy watches you do so. You don’t look like you pity him, in fact, you don’t even look at him. Instead, you focus your attention on the drink.

After taking a sip, you reach into your coat jacket and pull out an envelope, slidding it over to Tommy. You had clearly seen the opium pipe that still had smoke coming out of it, but you gently pushed it out of the way so the envelope rested in front of Tommy’s drink.

“What is this?” he asks, still too high to think straight.

“Consider it a resume,” you quip back, taking another sip of your drink as you study the collection of liquor and spirits on the back shelf of the bar.

“For what?”

“My services.”

“You a fuckin’ whore? You think that’s what I need right now, eh?”

“What I think you need right now, Mr. Shelby, is a sense of security. To be ahead of the enemy. I can give that to you,” you reply smoothly, barely flinching. Tommy notices your voice doesn’t falter even at his jab. He begins to sober up, finaling looking at you.

You had an air of mystery and intrigue. Your eyes looked all-knowing and the corner of your lip was quirked. A white blouse was tucked into a deep red skirt with your black wool jacket overtop of it all. If he was a different man, he surely would have taken you home.

“Why are you telling me this?” he finally asks.

You look back at him, the smirk on your lips growing. “Because I quite like your family. Polly is quite intelligent and Ada is a delight. I also know far too much about you, so it’d be a shame if someone paid be good money to tell them everything there is to know about you. But if you came to me first, there wouldn’t be much of an issue. The rate for ratting out one of my clients is ridiculously high.”

So, it had been you with Polly that night, he thinks. “You’d work for me?” he asks again, tone getting more serious. The last time a woman worked for him, it didn’t end particularly well.

You laugh and Tommy is momentarily stunned. It’s a beautiful laugh that appeared in an awful moment. “I don’t work for anyone, Mr. Shelby.”

And then you left. Tommy stares a the door for a few minutes after you’ve left, wondering if he had imagined your visit the whole time. When he turns back to his drink, the envelope you left behind is a sign that you had been real. He hesitantly opens it and his jaw unhinges at the contents inside: there were several documents, reports, and even pictures tying Grace Burgess and Inspector Campbell together. It seemed so plain and simple once it was laid out in front of him.

Under the flap of the envelope was an address as well as a rate of service. It was high, Tommy couldn’t deny it, but he also couldn’t deny how the pressure on his chest eased for a moment when he was with you. Even more so when you had left the address.

The next morning, a wad of cash from Shelby Company Limited shows up at one of your drop locations. It’s more than you asked for and quicker than you expected it to come. You smirk softly and get to work.

---

Tommy doesn’t see you again until he pays a visit to Sabini’s club a few years later as he works on his London expansion. He had been a client of yours for nearly two years now and he was continuosly impressed with your work. You literally had eyes everywhere; there wasn’t a place between Manchester and Brighton that you couldn’t get to. You had been the one feeding him inside information about Sabini’s operations in London, as well as how to get Alfie Solomon’s attention.

Despite all this work, he hasn’t seen you since you approached him when he was high in the empty pub. He gets all his information through courriers, telephone calls from messengers, and packages from drop locations all over the city. He asked a courrier once why he hasn’t seen you since.

“No one really sees her, sir. We just get orders in one way or another, we excecute them, and then money shows up. She doesn’t want anyone to tie her to her clients or the boots on the ground.”

“She’s clever.”

“She’s bloody brilliant, is what she is. She’s set up this system so bloody tight that no one really knows how it works except her. One lad up in Coventry tried to turn her in. Went missing a few days later.”

He doesn’t think about you often, but when he does, he’s reminded of that night in The Garrison; how mysterious and beautiful and dangerous you looked, how his chest seemed less tight with you around. Maybe he’s imagined it. Maybe it was the opium clouding his vision. So, he pushes those thoughts away because as far as he’s concerned, you’re an enigma.  Hell, he doesn’t even know your name and he’s been paying you big money and giving away too much of his plans.

But he sees you that night when he and his brothers storm Sabini’s club. You’re sitting on a fancy velvet lounging chair, tucked under the arm of what Tommy assumes is a wealthy banker or socialite. You don’t see him (not yet, at least) but Tommy sees you. All Tommy sees is you. The smoke that flows out of your nostrils as your lips curl at whatever attempt at humour then man with you made draws Tommy in. So does the cut of your deep blue, satin dress. He knows it then, that you’re real. That you’re not a figment of his imagination.

“This place is something else, innit?” Arthur remarks as they make their way deeper and deeper into the club. Tommy is still drawn to you as his brothers gawk at the permiscuous behaviour around them.

The party atmosphere doesn’t last long however, as the boys make a show out of trashing the place. Tommy makes sure to put on a performance, to play up the fear. When he shouts something along the lines of being on a holiday, he happens to catch your eye and the first thing he notices is the smirk playing on your lips. He’s first confused as to why but he understands: you had a large part of the London expansion and you also likely knew that Tommy was going to be there that night. You weren’t there with a man. You were there to see him. You were there to see his reckoning.

The image of you tattooed itself onto Tommy’s brain and the feeling he felt in his chest was something he craved to feel again.

---

The next morning, the brothers stumble into Ada’s home, uninvited. Their younger sister begrudgingly lets them in, still clad in her nightgown, and hastily tells them to keep their noise level down as Karl was still sleeping.

It doesn’t last very long.

“You shoulda seen their bloody faces, Ades!” John hollers, mouth full of biscuits and tea. Ada hisses at him for spewing food across the table.

“Didn’t know what was coming, the lot of them,” Arthur adds, already taking a sip from a flask. He was barely sober from the night before and it wasn’t even eight in the morning. “Fuckin’ Sabini, Ada. He won’t know what’s bloody comin’.”

“Sabini, eh?” Ada plays along, still slightly annoyed but now intriguied. “You didn’t happen to hit up his club last night, did you?”

“’Course we did!” John snickers. “What’d you think we’d do, start small?”

Ada’s facial expression suddenly changes into one of slightly more concern. Arthur and John don’t notice, but Tommy does. “I was hopin’ you would,” Ada plays it off but Tommy notices.

“Ada?” he asks, voice stern but eyes curious. His sister was intelligent, so much so that her mouth was as good at getting her out of trouble as it was getting her in it. Tommy was sure that there was more than what she let on.

“Tom?” Ada says back, not meeting his gaze and instead taking a bite out her toast and jam.

“Why’re you so hung up on Sabini’s club?” Tommy asks  directly, slowly getting tired of his sister’s semantics. He mommentarily understands how Polly feels when he keeps things from her.

Ada sighs, having also attracted attention from her two other brothers. She sets down her toast and looks directly at Tommy. “You saw her, didn’t you?”

“Saw who?” Arthur asks, booming voice too loud for the sudden change of tone in the room. Ada grimaces but still stares at Tommy.

Tommy knows exactly who she’s talking about. But he wonders how Ada does.

“I did,” he says simply.

“Who’re you talkin’ about?” John asks next, looking between his siblings. Arthur shrugs at him.

“Did you say anything to her?”

“No.”

“Good,” Ada says too quickly. Tommy narrows his eyes at her.

“For God’s sake!” Arthur says again, slamming his tea cup back down onto the table. “Who in the bloody hell are you talkin’ about?”

Ada rolls her eyes and continues eating and Tommy is left to stare at his brothers. He wants to answer. He wants to answer so badly. But he doens’t even know her name.

“I—” Tommy trails off. He’s rarely rendered speechless, but he is when it comes to you. Who were you? Why did Ada know you? Why can’t he get you out of his head? Why does he hope you’re standing there in the shadows every time he steps out on the street?

“You? You what, Tom?” John asks this time, equally as exasperated.

“He doesn’t know and it should stay that way,” Ada says simply. “She offers you a service, you pay her, end of transaction. Stay away from her Tommy, I mean it.”

“What service?” John asks again, still getting more questions than answers.

Tommy sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. “After Grace, she offered me a service. Cash in exchange for information. Said she knew that I needed a sense of security.” She was right, Tommy thinks but doesn’t dare say.

“Information about what, exactly?” Arthur asks, voice dropping an octave as he leans forward.

“Everything. Anything and everything. She knows everything. I don’t have the slightest clue how,” Tommy answers honestly, his own disbelief being obvious for the first time.

“She can betray us...” John warns, skeptical especially after Grace.

“She won’t,” Ada says simply.

“How do you know?” John challenges.

“She won’t,” Ada reaffirms with a glint in her eye. John immediatley backs down. Ada doens’t trust easily, especially after Freddie.

Tommy believes her. You know too much, far too much. More than he or you had bargained for. You also gave too much. Tommy asked for one thing, you gave him what he wanted and more. Tommy wanted a brief description of the shipping business in Bristol, you gave him an itemized list. Tommy asked you to keep an eye out for any potential threats, you gave him incredibly precise weekly reports. He asked people what your service was like as if he didn’t already know himself: you were never this thorough. He knew you wouldn’t betray him because you would have done it already. The question is, why did Ada trust her?

“You know who she is, don’t you?” Tommy asks his sister once again, doing his best to intimidate her. It’s no use.

“I do,” Ada says simply.

“Even her name?”

John scoffs. “You don’t even know her bloody name and you’ve got that look like you’re in love? Jesus, Tom! You need a good fuckin’, I’m telling you.”

Ada ignores her brother’s comment. “Even her name.”

Tommy gestures for her to elaborate and Ada hesitantly continues, “Polly paid her to find me after Karl was born. She found me personally, not through a messenger. We got along quite well, she was very honest about what she’d been hired to do. She gave Polly that information she was looking for, but we kept in touch. Personally, I mean. I like her.”

“Tell me her name, Ada.”

Ada makes a face of fake appeasement. “Can’t do that, sorry Tom.”

Tommy’s jaw clenches. “Ada...” he warns.

Ada’s glare mathces his own. “Her identity is all she’s got Tommy. The minute a client knows who she is, it all falls apart. For the love of God, for your safety and hers, don’t find her.”

And hell, does Tommy want not to listen. He wants to find you again. To see you. To speak to you. To learn your name. To feel the weight in his chest lighten once more.

But you remained impossible to find. Even with his London expansion, he wasn’t any closer to finding out who you really were than the day you first spoke to him at The Garrison.

So, he tried to push his thoughts away. He didn’t get so lucky.

---

He was used to receiving messages from you on Sunday evenings before the week began and Thursday mornings before the week ended. Sometimes, they’d be in the form of a phone call from a messnger reading a message written by you. Other times, he would visit a drop site where he picked up parcels of information and evidence you had collected. Fridays were paydays, so he’d get a Blinder to drop a parcel of cash (though they never knew it was cash) at a drop site and wait for a courrier with a blue ribbon pinned under the lapel of their overcoat to retrieve it.

All your foot solidiers and clients wore the ribbons. You avoided paper trails so everything was with symbols. Ribbon colours were a discrete way for both the client and the courrier to tell who was who. Clients wore white ribbons, courriers wore blue ones, messengers wore green ones, and red ones were used for emergencies.

That’s why Tommy panicked when a man burst into his office late at night the day before he was set to take down Sabini, urgently lifting his lapel to show his red ribbon.

“What’s happened? Are we in danger?” Tommy asks immediatley, standing up from his chair.

“No, sir,” the foot soldier said. They were never allowed to say the names of clients, only sir and ma’am. “I have a message from her. It was urgent and couldn’t have waited until Thursday.”

The man gives him a sealed envelope before bowing and leaving as quickly as he came. Tommy checks to make sure that he is alone before ripping it open. It wasn’t a message, but a phone number and the word clairvoyant scribbled quickly with fancy ink.

Tommy furrows his eyebrows but picks up his phone and dials the operator. The other end picks up immediately. He hastily says the number he wants to be patched through to as well as the word scribbled below it. The operator says nothing else and he hears the phone ring again before a female voice finally picks up.

“Mr. Shelby, I was waiting for your call.”

It was you. Tommy’s heartbeat quickens. You continue to speak, oblivious to his shock, “I don’t make calls myself unless absolutely neccassary. You don’t need to worry about privacy; I have connections with the operating center that patched you through. They won’t say a word to anyone, telling them that you called and they won’t be listening.”

Truthfully, Tommy hadn’t even been thinking of that. He was still slightly shocked that he was hearing your voice, the same voice as nealry three years ago. The opium fucked with a lot of things, but not his sense perception. Your voice was as beautiful as he remembered it to be.

He forces the thoughts out of his head and finally speaks. “What’s happened? Is there an emergency?”

“You aren’t safe at the races tomorrow. There will be an attempt on your life.”

Tommy is not entirely surprised. “I’m sure you can put two and two together; what I plan to do at the races is practically a suicide mission, dear. Of course there’ll be an attempt on my life.”

You scoff at the other end of the line. “Mr. Shelby, I’ll rephrase: you may succeed in your plan tomorrow, but something will catch you off-guard. Something big.”

“What is it, then? If you’re so sure,” Tommy challenges, but is taken aback by the silence.

You sigh, defeated at the other end of the line. “Mr. Shelby, I’ll be honest. An Inspector Campbell approached me this morning, asking for my services to give him everything I knew about you plans tomorrow. I took his money.”

Tommy’s jaw clenches. “You called me to tell me you’re a fuckin’ conspirator against me now, eh?”

“I resent that. There’s a reason I ask you not to tell me anything about your business aside from what I need to know to do my job,” you snap back. “Campbell gave me money to tell him information I didn’t have. So, I took the money and told him lies. He didn’t pay enough money to turn me against one of clients anyway and I don’t negotiate.”

Tommy laughs in slight disbelief, “You clever bloody woman.”

You can’t help but grin at the other end of the line. “He let it slip that he had something planned, though. That you weren’t getting out of this alive. Thomas, I don’t know what and I don’t have enough time to find out, but you needed to know,” you say before soflty adding, “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t tell you.”

Tommy nods solemnly before saying, “That’s the first time you’ve called me Thomas.”

You laugh and Tommy’s heart clenches at the sound. “Is that what you choose to focus on?” you ask, amused despite your worry.

“I’m not afraid of death. Not anymore,” Tommy answers.

“It’s a shame. There seems to be a lot in your life that’s worth living for,” you reply, your voice softer that Tommy’s ever heard it.

“Will you do me one final favour? Take it as my dying wish.”

“Thomas—” you start before he cuts you off.

“Can you tell me your name?” he finally asks, but he’s met with silence. He clears his throat and adds, “Please?”

You sigh at the other end. This is not how you were supposed to conduct business. Anonymity was the only thing keeping you from being excecuted at the hands of the Crown or a crime-boss. But here the feared Thomas Shelby was, asking as his dying wish to know your name. You don’t know him aside from your brief interactions and stories from Ada. But strangely, you trust him with the key keeping your identity safe.

“Y/N. My name’s Y/N.”

---

The following evening, Tommy trudges home covered in mud and blood. His encounter with the face of death was anticipated, but still left him scarred. Despite his success against the races and against Sabini, he felt trapped. With a success in the business, he still finds himself indebted to Winston Churchill. He’s exhaused of this cycle and in the moment, he embraced his fate just a little.

As he pushed the door to his home open, his eyes are immediately drawn to crackling fire. He hadn’t expected anyone to be home, as the family was staying in London with Ada to celebrate their successes.

So the sight of you, sitting on his couch and staring into the fire shocked the life back through him.

He takes of his hat and stares at you in slight disbelief. “So, you’re real.”

You turn to face him and the tension previously present in your features fell and the corner of your lip quirked upwards. “You’re alive,” you state the obvious.

“The Devil’s tried too many time to kill me, I’m starting to wonder if God does exist,” he says plainly, taking off his coat and taking a seat on the other end of the couch from you.

A small laugh escapes you. “He has jokes, does he?”

Tommy smiles softly but shakes his head and stares at you. “You’re really real. I was starting to think I was imagin’ ya.”

“Ada says you’ve been asking about me.”

“I have. She wouldn’t tell me your name, though.”

“You got it anyway.”

“Who’s to deny a man his dying wish?” Tommy darkly jokes again.

“I can’t go back to operating how things were. Even you knowing my name is too much,” you say softly, turning back to the fire. You were slightly frustrated with yourself. Years and years of building a network built around your anonymity destroyed by one man. Deep down, you felt that it was time.

“I wouldn’t tell anyone,” Tommy says simply.

“But you’d want to be in my life,” you say back, still not looking away from the fire. “I’m a woman, but I’m not stupid. I know why you tried to look for me.”

Tommy sits back and watches her. A woman’s never been more direct with him before. Even Grace, who had just asked him to lay with her one final time before moving back to America at the races, had never laid out what she saw so simply and bluntly before. She was right. Tommy wouldn’t tell anyone your name if you asked him to, but he would still want to see you. The only thing more painful than not knowing who you were was knowing and still not being able to see you.

“You could start again,” Tommy says. He barely recongizes the softness in his own tone, but he decides the change is good. “You could work for me, have your men join the Blinders if they wanted.”

“I don’t work for anyone, Mr. Shelby,” you say again cheekily, reminding him of the first time the two of you spoke. You turn to face him and stop to admire his beauty—how the fire cast beautiful shadows across his face, how the moonlight sparkled in his eyes.

“That you don’t,” Tommy hums in agreement, still looking at you. His gaze hadn’t left you since he came home.

It’s silent for a few moments before Tommy says, “Stay.”

“With you?” you ask in slight surprise.

“With me, in Small Heath, with the company—whatever you want. Just stay.”

“You barely know me.”

“Then let me get to know you, Y/N,” Tommy answers, finally saying your name for the first time. He loves the way it spills off his tongue and you equally adore the sound of his voice when he says it.

You nod softly, agreeing with his hearfealt proposition. The two of you spent the rest of the night staring into the fire, allowing your heartbeats and breaths come into sync as you slowly fell asleep.

---

It’s been five years since you had started working for Shelby Company Limited as Tommy’s senior advisor and security specialist, four years since your network of spies had merged with the Peaky Blinders, three years since you and Tommy got married, two years since you gave birth to a set of twins named Benjamin and Mae Shelby, and one year since you had also become a political advisor to your husband and his allies in Parliament.

With your years together, the Shelby family found you to be an intriguing, fascinating, and intimidatingly wonderful woman. They couldn’t comprehend how right you seemed with Tommy. They also couldn’t comprehend how involved you were in their success without them even knowing who you were. However, they love to poke fun at Tommy for basically falling in love with from two interactions.

You were currently at the Arrow House doing the final touch-ups to your makeup for the gala you were hosting in your home. It was a typical charity ball that made sleezy politicians look good in the eyes of their constituants, but you had pressured Tommy to allow you to host it on behalf of the Shelby Family Institute. He had been skeptical, but relented when you reminded him that it wasn’t about giving them a platform to look good, but using their ego to benefit the institute.

“I’ve put the children to bed,” Polly announces as she walks into the master bedroom. The room is obscenely large with a king sized bed in the middle, but Polly can’t help but feel pride every time she visits. It was the both of your hardwork that you got you here and she was proud. “Ben passed out almost immediatley, but you’re right about Mae. She’s a trouble maker.” 

You give Polly a smile through the mirror of the vanity you sat in front of, “Thank you, Pol. Really.”

“Where’s that bastard husband of yours?” Polly jokes as she stands behind you, inspecting her pearls in the mirror.

“His study, no doubt,” you joke with a slight smirk.

“The faith the two of you have in my is astounding,” Tommy says sarcastically, immerging through the en-suite dressed in his tuxedo.

Polly rolls her eyes and leaves the room, leaving the couple to stare at each other.

“You clean up well, Mr. Shelby,” you state, smiling as he approaches you. “Though I’m not sure if that’s because of you or your OBE.”

“Sometimes, I wonder if I should have continued loving you at a distance,” he comments humourously.

You laugh—a real laugh—and wrap your hands around his neck while his arms immediately find themselves around your waist.

“How’re you feeling, darling?” Tommy asks, referring to the mental and emotional preparation for the event that was about to start downstairs.

“I’m not the biggest fan of a lot of your colleagues, Tom,” you say honestly. “Their wives however...they give me thousands of pounds worth of information every sentence.”

“You never cease to amaze me with that mind of yours,” he tells you honestly.

“And you never cease to amaze me with how verbally affectionate you can be,” you quip back lightheartedly before Tommy softly kisses your lips.

“How ‘bout this?” he says once you pull away. “I take care of getting donations, you take care of getting more leverage on the labour bill I’m looking to pass.”

“Done,” you say with a smile before Tommy kisses you again. You begin to hear cars pull into the driveway when you try to pull away, but he keeps you close.

“Tom,” you giggle, breathless. “Tom, the guests are arriving.”

“I’ve waited for you for years, they can wait for you a little while longer,” he replies with a smirk before kissing you deeply once again.

[macgyverseries]

rebutting and debunking frequently used arguments against macriley

I made this 10-page google doc rant a while ago, but I never ended up posting it. Today, however, I woke up and chose violence. So here it is: my thoughts on frequently used arguments against macriley.

I took some quotes and arguments that people put online (reddit, tumblr..), and I debunked them all :p I feel like I always see the same arguments all the time, and I’m honestly getting a little tired of hearing them. I’m here to settle this once and for all.

and yes, i did manage to cut down the google doc by 3 pages :D (but it's still long af so rip my brain)

1.”Mac and Riley are siblings because Jack is their father”

I can (mostly) get behind the argument that Mac and Riley shouldn’t be in a romantic relationship because of their super strong friendship. Some people really value that sole platonicness, and I get that.

But the argument that I can’t get behind is that: Mac and Riley are siblings because Jack is their father figure”

If you google the definition of “father,” the first result that comes up is: “a man in relation to his children.”

Now, Jack was definitely the father figure to Riley, and I would consider her his child. He raised her. He helped shape her ideals and upbringing.

Mac only met Jack when he left MIT. So it was pretty much after Mac was raised (by Bozer’s parents haha), that Jack really came into his life. Mac already became his own person. (also, I always saw Mac and Jack as more of a bromance)

So because Riley and Mac met Jack at different periods of their lives, and they were raised differently, I wouldn’t say that they were siblings who were raised by the same father.

2. “The show writers left the impression that there was a huge age gap between them”

I understand this a little. I do think Riley was introduced as pretty young and idk naive? Because she was literally in highschool, and then she went to prison, and then she got released into the wild. Personally, when I started watching the show, I googled the whole cast. So I started the show knowing that they were the same age.

And also, the more I got to know Riley, the more that I thought that Riley was more mature and had an old soul herself. I think it was because she was just a dynamic and round character, who is well-developed.

But, I get first impressions. I feel like once you get stuck on an impression, it’s hard to go away from that.

Also, Jack would’ve totally shipped macriley, and you can’t change my mind.

3. "Riley isn't ready for a relationship"

I honestly think that this argument should be more geared towards Mac. He needs to figure himself out and go to therapy ffs. However, this person targeted Riley (the literal queen), so I shall defend her:

I understand wanting Riley to take some time off, and figure herself out before going straight into another relationship with someone. But here’s the thing. Throughout the first few seasons Riley’s character was very well established, and she didn’t have any partners during that time. She has proven that she is a strong, well-rounded, independent woman (with or without a partner). So i think it is valid to say that she isn’t just some girl who only has boy toys. She is much more than that.

My next point is that Riley has made it clear that she wants a lasting relationship with someone who will support her. When talking with Mac in 4.04, we see her express her interest in a stable, healthy relationship. It’s not wrong to go out and look for that potential partner. This applies to everyone (not just fictional characters): It’s going to take a few relationships and self-discovery, to find a good relationship, and people shouldn’t be shamed for searching for that.

Riley has only ever had two major boyfriends that I remember. First was Billy; she took that relationship very seriously. She really did seem happy with him. It was a shame that he cheated on her. Second was Aubrey. She also took that relationship very seriously. She had been living with him for six months (and they even had the cutest date nights!) So I wouldn't say that Riley only has boy toys. She has meaningful relationships.

Lastly, I think this was written when season four started airing, but it’s been over a year (and a pandemic) since Riley has dated. I think enough time has passed.

*4. I had to split this one up because, oh boy, there is a lot to unpack here.

4a. “If that was the direction they’d chosen to take with that relationship from square one… My issue with it is that Mac and Riley were presented to us as friends/ found siblings for three years. There were NO romantic vibes to speak of between them..”

I actually felt the same way about macriley. The thought of them being together in season one, made me want to throw up. I don’t think the writers intended on having macriley, and I was perfectly fine with that.

I know that people look for different things when they ship. Some really like having instant gratification with the spicy, hot, sexy parts of a relationship, like macdesi (which is why I was fine with the idea of shipping macdesi in the past).

I always wanted to see macriley do more: have hot, flirtatious banters/interactions. it can be hard to ship people who seem to be missing that part of the love equation. So i agree. It's definitely strange. And I understand if you genuinely have a hard time seeing the romantic potential of macriley, when the writers have only dragged out and shown us the platonic potential of them.

Also, the reason why it is difficult to see macriley as romantic, was because they ALWAYS PRIORITIZED AND WERE DRIVEN on their friendship. A partner should be friends first, and then makeout buddies second.

But just because people start off as friends, doesn’t mean that they still don’t have that potential to be lovers. Because guess what?! Feelings change. It’s now canon that Riley has feelings for Mac, and Mac always had feelings for Riley (but never acted on it).

I'm sorry, but you like a boomer when you say “bAcK iN mY dAy, tHeY dIdN’t HaVe fEeLiNgS fOr EaCh oThEr.” like okaAAAyyYYyYY????? We are not “back in your day” anymore. We are in the present. We are in today. And today, macriley is real :)

4b. “There’s the incredibly tired trope where long-term coworkers suddenly catch feelings for each other out of nowhere”

Personally, I will never get tired of the friends to lovers trope. I think the fact that Mac and Riley had such a strong friendship and foundation is what makes them perfect. Again, I know that some people just like instant gratification, but I love when a couple can take their time to have depth, emotion, and realness in their relationship.

Obviously I am biased because I have so much love for this trope, it's my favorite trope, but I don't see why you would use the “it’s overused” as reasoning to hate a ship. Just because a trope is used a lot, doesn’t mean it is bad (that’s probably why it is so good lmao). I can understand getting tired of it, and growing a dislike towards a trope. For example, I have grown an extreme dislike towards the love triangle.

A bit of a tangent: But the difference between overusing love triangles and overusing friends to lovers, is that love triangles aren’t just commonly used tropes. They are cliches. They cause unwanted drama and unnecessary hurt to one character. Whereas friends to lovers doesn’t involve as much drama and pain for a character. It is more of just angst between two people. And we know that they will get together eventually with a happy ending. So it was never really problematic.

And even then, the great thing about overusing or utilizing tropes, is that they can act as a guide. It allows the show writers and cast to make it personal, make it their own, adding their own special flair to it

I just don’t see the “this trope is used a lot” as a valid reasoning for disliking a ship .It just seems like this commenter doesn’t like the friends to lovers trope for the sake of not liking it.

I could be very wrong in my assumption of this person’s thoughts on friends to lovers, maybe there is a deeper reasoning as to why they don’t like it, but the tone that i interpreted when i read this section, was that they don’t have a real reason to dislike it, it’s more of just because.

4c.“then there's the fact that Riley had a mostly single Mac in her life for 3-4 years and she never even considered him romantically until he was with someone else”

First: Riley didn’t CHOOSE to fall in love. You may recall that “emotions aren’t a science. You can’t control them.”

Second: Mac was broken up with Desi when she caught feelings for him. Plus, the moment Riley saw that Mac and Desi were getting happy together, she moved out and gave them space. She sacrificed her own feelings for his happiness, despite the fact that her heart was breaking.

4d. “and finally, Mac not only still doesn't seem to even have Riley on his radar in that way but he literally told another woman that he loves her just last week. Neither of them look particularly good here if they get together now.”

I'm assuming that this was written when 4.12 first aired. I'm also assuming that this comment was more directed towards the idea of Mac and Riley getting together immediately at the end of the season, rather than later down the road. I always saw of macriley as more of endgame material. That i would see them get together sometime in the future. So I agree. Macriley getting together during that time period, would be too rushed and unsatisfying.

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

So those were most of the supposed arguments that I saw for people who were against macriley, but I also wanted to provide some really good examples of people who were very respectable, and actually had valid reasoning for disliking them.

1. they just don’t like shipping in general

Ships can be annoying af. Seeing people ONLY focus on the ships is sometimes tiring. I, myself, even feel a little guilty making this post, because I need to chill and mind my own business lmaooo. I really should let people do whatever they want to do with their lives, and not get caught up in the ships, but here I am :p

Anyways, I know that there is a lot of unnecessary drama that comes with shipping, and it's tiring to see people constantly go on and on about romance, when there are other perfect things about the show.

2. No matter how hard they try, they just feel it.

This is literally so dumb (and a little hypocritical/self-contradictory), but if you have a gut feeling, and you just can’t get yourself to ship it, I get it. If you truly and genuinely believe that they are best platonic friends, I can't change your opinion. And I have respect for you (if you say it in a kind manner).

Here is a nice example of a person who expressed their opinion in a nice way, with no BS.

So the moral of the story: I can't control your deepest thoughts. I can't control your gut feelings. And that’s okay. But the moment that you start backing up your thoughts and insights with BS reasoning, is the moment that I lose respect for you.

[thegreatestofheck]

i love you ≬ JJ Maybank ≬

request -  If you do song request, can you do a JJ one based on i love you by Billie Eilish? Angsty please :))

warnings - angst. swearing, cheating, unhealthy relationship synopsis - your relationship with JJ had always been rocky, built on a mutual desire for affection. that doesn’t mean he would never break your heart.  a/n - anon, ask and you shall receive ;)  (i’m an idiot and didn’t give this a title last night before I queue’d it, oops) 

                                                             ***

It's not true Tell me I've been lied to

Your heart shattered in your own hands. You watched as the still bleeding pieces fell to the ground, mixing with the dirt and the dust beneath your feet. 

JJ stood in front of you, his hands out in front of him too, as if his own heart was sitting there like yours was. But his heart was in his chest; safe and warm and still beating. 

“What the fuck?” you breathed. You could have said a thousand things, some of them angry, some of them sad, some of them numb. But that was all you could come up with.

“y/n, I-” JJ took a step forward and you shot him a look that told him if he moved another muscle, he was dead where he stood. So, he stopped in his tracks and swallowed. “Please, just...hear me out.” 

“Hear you out?” Your voice broke as a thickness tightened your throat. Your nose burned as your eyes filled with tears. Trying to blink them away, you closed your mouth and gave a shake of your head. “You don’t get to say anything else. Not after what you did.” 

“It wasn’t what you think.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” you nearly shrieked, your hands shaking as you lifted them toward your head. “How could it not be what I thought? What I saw with my own two fucking eyes?”

JJ covered his face with his hands. 

“I didn’t mean to-”

“You’re drunk off your tits right now, aren’t you?” You asked, eyes narrowing. JJ was silent. “Aren’t you?” 

“That’s besides the point.” 

“So, just because you’re drunk that excuses you....” You shifted your lips, fighting with your tongue over the shape of the words you were trying to say. 

“No, it doesn’t.” He took a step forward and you flinched, but you didn’t have the strength to give him any more hateful looks. “It doesn’t and I’m sorry. Baby, I’m so sorry.”

At his words, you collapsed to the ground, your knees completely giving out beneath you.

Crying isn't like you

You hit the soft dirt beneath you with a muffled thud, a strangled sob tearing from your throat. Your fingers dug into the dirt, part of you hoping to pull out what remained of your broken heart and piece it back together again. 

It wasn’t until you felt droplets of water hit your hands that you realized you were crying. But then it came like a hurricane, pouring out of you like a beast that had been rattling at the cages for so long. 

You had seen all the signs, of course you had. You knew exactly what you had signed up for when you started dating the infamous JJ Maybank. But you turned a blind eye to it, hoping that somehow, he would be different with you around. That the drinking and the smoking and the girls would all fall on the back burner and it would just be you. 

You were an idiot to think that would be the case. 

Digging your fingers deeper into the earth, you squeezed your eyes shut. Another sob came from you mouth and you dropped your chin to your chest, admitting defeat. 

JJ stood there, unmoving. He couldn’t recall a single time he had seen you cry since he had met you months ago. But here you were, dissolving right in front of him and it was his fault. 

JJ stepped closer by a single foot and when he noticed that you didn’t react at all, he took another. He stepped closer and closer to you until he loomed just above you and then he lowered himself to his knees. 

What the hell did I do?

He put his arms around you slowly, afraid that at any second you would scream and shove him away. But all you did was cry. 

When his arms were all the way around you, you let out another, heartbroken sob. He waited awkwardly until you lifted your hands from the dirt suddenly to cling to his arms like they were the only thing keeping you on this earth. He pulled you in to his chest and you let him, barely aware of what you were allowing him to do. 

You dug your fingernails into his skin, but he didn’t make a sound, he just held you close. 

“What did I do?” You sobbed, barely capable of breathing at all. “What the hell did I do?” 

“Nothing, baby,” he whispered to you, his voice breaking as he brushed your matted hair from your eyes. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” 

“Then...why? Why, JJ?” 

He hesitated, giving you a tight squeeze. 

“Cause I’m fucked up. And you...are so good. Too good. And I know I don’t deserve you. And I had to ruin it and I’m so sorry.” 

You tightened your grip on his arm, the pain in your chest not easing at his words. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t stop your endless sobs and you couldn’t get a single proper breath into your lungs. 

JJ ran his fingers delicately through your hair, not even tugging when he reached the knots.

This might have been easier if it was you fault. If you hadn’t loved him enough or if you hadn’t given him what he needed. If you had been a pain or a bother or made him angry. If you had hid the liquor and cussed him out when he came back to you drunk. If you had taken all his blunts and thrown his lighter in the trashcan. If you had made a louder fuss when he flirted or danced with other girls. If you had...if you had...if you...

But you did everything right and he cheated anyway. It wasn’t your fault, so why did it feel like you messed up somewhere?

Never been the type to Let someone see right through

You had spent your entire life shutting people out, keeping everyone at an arm’s length away. The closer someone was to you, the more they could hold over your head, the more they could control you. And you were tired of being controlled. 

It was your mom who raised you as a puppet. Every word you ever spoke before you turned 15 was a direct quote from her own mouth. She chose what you dressed, who you talked to, what you studied in school, which sports you played. She made every decision in your life and you couldn’t handle it anymore. 

After she died, you vowed that no one would ever hold that kind of power over you again. No one could break you if you didn’t show them you were made of glass. 

But then you met JJ. Every second that he was around, dropping his pathetic one liners and trailing his tantalizing fingers over your skin, your walls cracked little by little. You weren’t ready to admit they were crumbling until you were already his, wrapped so tightly around his finger that there was no hope of letting go. 

From the moment he first smiled at you, the light of the campfire illuminating the sapphire in his eyes, to the moment he broke your heart to pieces and even after, you were his. 

Up all night on another red eye

The world was dark as you sat awake in his bed. It wasn’t really his bed. It was John B’s bed. But this was the place that JJ always brought you. Back to this bed. 

He was asleep beside you, breathing heavily. You had spent enough nights awake in this same place to know that this was the very beginnings of a nightmare. You could wake him now, stop it before it started, but you did that once and he hit you accidentally. You couldn’t hold it against him, it wasn’t his fault, but you didn’t want to risk it. 

Your legs were still sore. With JJ, you were always sore. It was a different feeling that you were used to. But it was this part that you enjoyed the most. The not being alone at night, sleeping in an empty bed with nothing but the rustling leaves and the creaking house to comfort you. That’s probably the same reason JJ liked having you here with him. 

You looked up at the ceiling until JJ’s heavily breathing became quiet whimpers. Rolling onto your side, you propped yourself up onto one elbow and put your hand on the side of his face.

“Baby,” you whispered, leaning in close, your lips grazing his cheek. “You’re safe. You’re okay. You’re safe.” 

He jerked once, but you only held him tighter, pressing your forehead to his temple. 

“You have nothing to be afraid of,” you told him quietly. His eyes opened, but he wasn’t truly awake, not yet. “No one will ever hurt you. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

JJ groaned and blinked rapidly. You felt his breathing go ragged, panic settling in for a few seconds before he realized who was speaking to him. He relaxed after a few moments. 

“y/n?” He murmured, turning toward your face. You smiled.

“It’s me.” 

“I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

“No, honey. You didn’t.” 

“Oh, good.”

He was already falling back into his deep sleep. You held him close, letting him mimic your own steady breathing until he was once sleeping once again. Humming quietly to yourself, brushing your thumb across his cheek, you wondered if you would be able to coax yourself to sleep as easily as you did him.

I wish we never learned to fly

But this is where all the love got you; a shattered heart and a sore throat. 

If you hadn’t let your walls fall down so easily, if you hadn’t taken that step off the cliff and unfurled your wings, maybe you wouldn’t be here now. 

You were Icarus and JJ was your sun. You were too desperate to fly and he burned too hot. There had never been any chance that the two of you would make it out in one piece. 

”Baby, I’m sorry,” JJ said again. You tightened your jaw and let your eyes flutter shut. “I don’t want to hurt you ever again. I’m sorry.” 

”Why did we do this to ourselves?” You asked, your voice broken from so much sobbing. “Why did we do this?” 

JJ didn’t say anything. He clenched and unclenched his jaw. You knew he wanted to say something, but he just couldn’t bring himself to say it. It didn’t take long for you to realize that he wasn’t going to say anything, so you held on tighter to his arm and he pulled you in closer. 

You could hear the pounding of his heart. His chest rose and fell just like it did when he had a nightmare, only this time, the nightmare was yours. 

Slowly, you started to breathe again. The tears on your face started to dry and JJ brushed away the remaining salt as his thumb grazed gently across the skin of your cheek. 

For a moment, he almost thought you had fallen asleep. Your eyes closed and breath finally steady, JJ thought this was the calmest he had ever seen you. You were so often wound up, thinking about everyone else other than yourself. Constantly worrying about him and everything at home that you barely slept at night. And now here you were, resting soundly in his arms.   Maybe we should just try To tell ourselves a good lie

“Lie to me,” you said suddenly, reminding him that you were awake. Your words startled him enough that he stopped his rhythmic stroking of your face. 

“What?” He asked, looking down at you. You squeezed your eyes tighter together and nestled further against his chest. 

“Lie to me,” you repeated, feel another tear slip down your cheek. “I don’t care what you say. Just...lie to me.” 

JJ let out a breath through his nose. 

“I’ll never hurt you,” he whispered. Your stomach seized and the muscles of your face flinched. “I’m yours completely. Nothing will ever come between us. You’re safe here.”

I didn't mean to make you cry

You could feel his tears against your scalp. There was a part of you that wanted to sit up and wipe away his tears and tell him that it was okay, that you forgave him. But there was another part, the bitter and angry part that knew that he didn’t deserve your forgiveness or your love. 

And both of those parts mingled into something that you couldn’t place and it  weighed down, keeping you where you were. 

“I never meant to hurt you,” JJ whispered and his voice broke. “I never wanted to hurt you.” 

For a moment, you almost thought he was telling you the truth. 

Maybe won't you take it back Say you were tryna make me laugh

There wasn’t a person alive who made you laugh like JJ did. With his strange antics and his stupid jokes and his constant idiocy, there was very little that JJ could do that wouldn’t make you laugh. 

You remembered the first time he made you laugh, all those months ago while you stood in line waiting for your ice cream. He said some stupid joke to his friend from all the way across the small shop. All you did was laugh quietly to yourself, but it was enough. Ever since that day, he had his eyes fixed on you. 

He told you jokes, he made you laugh, and he made you cry. 

And right now, you wished none of it had happened. You had asked him to tell you lies, to make you believe something that wasn’t true, and part of you was starting to think that was what he had been doing from the beginning. 

It had all been one big, massive joke that went too far. He was just trying to make you laugh. 

And nothing has to change today You didn't mean to say "I love you"

“I love you.” 

His final lie. A wave of numbness washed over you. The pain in your chest eased and you could feel your heart start to beat again. Pulling away from him slowly, you looked him dead in the eye. He dropped his hand from your cheek and let it fall into his lap. 

“Say it again,” you said, a clearness in your voice that hadn’t been there before. “Say it again.” 

“I love you.” Again, you almost believed him. If you could get the image of that girl in his bed out of your head, the very same bed that you often shared, if you could forget about her and the ecstasy on JJ’s face at her mere presence, maybe you could have believed him.

I love you and I don't want to

You wouldn’t lie to yourself. There was no point. In the months since you had known JJ Maybank, you had fallen helplessly in love with him. He was all you had in this dark and unforgiving world. You couldn’t give that up.

“I love you, too,” you whispered, lowering your head, almost in defeat. You watched the muscles on JJ’s face twitch as he examined every inch of you, waiting for you to take it back and say you didn’t mean it. 

But you did. You meant it and you couldn’t take it back. 

You made your choice. Even if he was lying, you chose to believe him. You had to. It was all you could do to keep on breathing. Without JJ, you would be alone again, stranding wingless on the solid ground, trapped in a cage that you made yourself, alone in an empty bed with no company save for the rustling leaves and creaking house. 

It was a terrifying thought. 

You never wanted to be alone ever again and if JJ was your solution, no matter how badly it ached, you weren’t going to walk away from it. From him. 

The smile that you gave me Even when you felt like dying

It took JJ a few moments to decide you weren’t going to take it back. But when he did, a tearful smile twitched its way up his lips. You looked up at him then, tears making clear tracks down his grimy cheeks, his pink lips still unsure, unknowing as they smiled at you. You caught a glimpse of his teeth beneath those honey sweet lips and, try as you might, you couldn’t help but see them as fangs. 

JJ put a gentle hand behind your neck and pulled you toward him, pressing his forehead to yours. The breath he released was ragged. You shut your eyes once again as he shook ever so slightly, still uncertain. Pursing your lips, you lifted one of your hands and placed it over his wrist, accepting his gesture. Even though your eyes were closed, you knew he was smiling. 

And to your surprise, so were you. 

We fall apart as it gets dark I'm in your arms in Central Park

JJ moved his hand from behind your neck to just under your jaw as he could tilt your face up toward his. He didn’t give you time to even open your eyes before he pressed his lips to yours. At first, it was almost like a promise. You weren’t sure exactly what it was he was promising, but it felt sincere. 

Then it became needy, like it always did. JJ flicked his tongue along your bottom lip, pulling you in even closer. That hunger that always burned within him came out whenever you were around and now was no different. 

By his touch, you knew he needed you just as badly as you needed him. He couldn’t stand to be alone either. And those girls he had on the side and the booze he hid under the pillow, they weren’t enough to fill the void in his chest. You were. 

Your touch, your words, your presence. You were what he needed, like a medication that started as something good but slowly became an addiction. He couldn’t shake you. 

Everything was falling apart. The facade was fading. Any mirrors or glass barriers that the two of you had put up to pretend like whatever was going on in your relationship was perfectly normal had long since collapsed. But it didn’t matter now because you were in his arms once again. The only place you ever needed to be was right here. 

Maybe you were both falling apart, but it was better to do it together than alone. 

There's nothing you could do or say I can't escape the way, I love you

You had never lied to JJ before. Not even the little white lies that everyone always told. You could never bring yourself to do it. You would never be able to believe a single word that came out of his mouth, but he would always be able to believe you. 

“I love you,” you said again as you pulled away for a breath of air. JJ kept you close, foreheads still together, mouths only a breath apart. He breathed heavily and his hand tightened at your words. “I love you.” 

You were crying again, silent tears running from your eyes. You hoped he wouldn’t see them. 

“I love you,” he replied, a mantra you knew he would tell himself over and over and over again even though the words were dead to him. Whatever it took to keep you by his side. 

“I love you.” 

I don't want to, but I love you

[writings-n-stuff]

High Tide (Jacob x Reader)

Pairing: Jacob Black (with long hair) x (gender neutral) Reader (who lives on the Quileute reservation)

Summary: After insisting that the reader’s childhood friend (and crush!), Jacob Black, could never charm her, Jacob proves he can sweep them off their feet. In doing so, he reveals his mutual feelings for his forever friend. 

Words: 2,857 words

Content Warnings: a couple swear words, fluff, reader wearing a dress

Note: The reader is written to be Indigenous, a member of the Quileute community. Please keep that in mind!

The beach waves tickled your feet in chilly, bubble-filled water as you watched the sun set in the distance. The tide was coming in at La Push Beach, and though the wind had been blowing heavily all day, you enjoyed the way that the frigid water felt on your skin. 

You spent almost the entire day out at the beach, sitting by yourself and just enjoying the crash of the waves, the smell of the water, the way the cloudy sun bathed everything in a soft, comforting warmth. Being so naturally warm, the slight frigidness of the water and wind was calming for you in a way that almost no one else on the reservation seemed to enjoy. Why would you choose to be cold, your parents remarked, when our community is alive with warmth? When we’ve protected ourselves against the Cold Ones for so long? To nearly everyone else, one overcast day was completely backwards.

Hair still damp and filled with sand already, you lie on your back as the water rolled up and around your body. The bubbles tickled your ears as the waves crept further up the beach. Soon you would have to depart; the tide was coming in, and your mother had made it abundantly clear that you needed to be ready by the time Billy and Jacob Black arrived for dinner. You had decided that sunset gave you a perfect amount of time to run back to your house, shower, and change clothes. You didn’t want to miss a moment with your closest friend.

You closed your eyes, smiled as your thoughts wandered towards Jacob. Long hair, chocolate brown eyes, and a smile to die for, Jacob Black had been the object of your affection since you were kids. Ever since you could remember, he was there: playing in the dirt, racing through the woods, roasting marshmallows, hearing the history of the reservation, passing notes in class. Jacob had been your friend since you could walk, the person you turned to when you scraped your knee or when your parents spent the night arguing. He was always there, a warm hand to hold, a carefully placed joke, and eyes that just seemed to get you.

Almost as long as you could remember being friends with Jacob, you had also been completely head over heels for him. Though his bear hugs, his warm smile and flirty, simmering comebacks been so clearly platonic, you still imagined his actions being rooted in something else. Something that was more delicate, and much deeper. 

“Better get out before you get swallowed up!”

You looked left, right, seeing only beach, water, and trees a little ways away. A laugh already building in your throat, you propped yourself up on your elbows and looked directly behind you. As expected, Jacob was walking towards you with a similar grin. Coming to stop right behind you, he lightly nudged your arm. “I’d still love to have dinner with my best friend,” he stated, crouching down so his face hovered directly above yours, “but I can’t do that if you were swept out to sea.” This close to him, you felt his body heat warm your wind-blown skin. His eyes were light and playful with a hint of something else. Something sizzling. 

Rolling your eyes, you pulled your knees into your body, preparing to stand. “I guess you bring up a good point.” You took your time swiping your arms and legs, getting some of the built up sand off your body, before pushing yourself up on your feet. Stretching your arms above your head, you let out a little yawn. “At least the ocean could sweep me off my feet.”

Hair blowing and curling in the wind, Jacob smirked handsomely as you prepared to walk towards your house. “You think I can’t sweep you off your feet, babe?” he joked, matching his step with yours.

You shrugged, exaggerating your doubtful expression. Your insides fluttered as he used the nickname you jokingly called each other, a secret joke that just stuck after one night of bashing cringey pet names. Though you initially hated the idea of calling someone “babe,” you quickly warmed up to it as Jacob began to use it when he tried his best to annoy you. Now, it only gave you butterflies and wishes that he’d feel the same. “I’m just saying you’ve never done it before, babe.”

The line of residential houses coming into sight, Jacob glanced at you, smiled, then started nodding, accepting his new challenge. “All right,” he said, acting out stretching his arms, warming up his muscles. “I promise, tonight I’m gonna blow you away,” he vowed, eyes staring right at you. There was an excitement there, one that released another round of fluttery feelings in your stomach. He stared at you with so much intensity that you felt a blush warming your cheeks already.

Walking you to your door, Jacob took your hand and squeezed for a moment. Stopping in front of you, his passionate gaze felt too intimate for the outside air. He ran his thumb over the back of your hand, and he moved your connected fingers to his chest, thin t-shirt tightly stretching over what you knew to be a sculpted body. “I’ll see you in a bit, babe,” he said sincerely, running his thumb over the back of your hand.

You were almost convinced that he was honest, almost. A little smile playing at the corner of his lips suggested his competitive strategy. Still, while you just wore a similar t-shirt-and-shorts outfit, you could have been wearing the most elegant gown with the way he stared at you. Or nothing at all, you thought darkly.

Getting more flustered by the second, you playfully punched his chest. “Yeah, whatever, babe,” you retorted, trying hard to diffuse the sudden emotional tension between you. Hiding your quickly warming face, you let go of his hand and quickly made towards your front door. Leaving no time for Jacob to reply, you shut the door behind you and made a beeline to the bathroom.

As you walked inside, Jacob chuckled after you. Why were you so damn cute? Your soft eyes in his mind, he mussed his free-flying hair, determined to make you realize how he felt for you. How he desperately wanted to sweep you off your feet, make you blush, make you laugh, make you want him. He wanted to prove to you that he wasn’t just the boy that launched spit balls at your bullies, but that he was the boy that covered your eyes during the scariest scenes of Monster House, the boy that invited you to stay with him when your parents went out of town for two weeks, the boy that slept on your floor when you had called him, sobbing incoherently. The boy that also stayed home when you were sick, kissed your forehead, wiped cold towels over your cheeks and arms until your fever broke in the middle of the night. He was there, and he wanted to stay.

- - - - - 

Rinsing conditioner from your hair, you thought deeply about Jacob’s sudden change in energy. It all happened so quickly: one moment he was all smiles, the next simmering with all kinds of tension. You couldn’t understand how easily it was for him to shift his mood, and how easily he could gain a reaction from you.

I am so pathetic, you thought, combing the last bits of sand from your hair. Jacob had done things like this before, proving that he could be just another boy that you could crush on instead of his lifelong friend. You fell for it every time. You were just glad to be graced with a sly tongue and a quick mind that could play it off... most of the time.

Turning off the water, you stepped out of the shower and wrapped yourself in a towel. What could he possibly try tonight? Especially when parents were around? Jacob would no doubt let Billy in on the plan, asking him to insist that “the kids have their kid time,” allowing you both to retreat to the backyard or your room or really any setting in which you were alone. This would give Jacob the freedom to truly try anything he could to reduce you to an anxious, romantically confused mess. 

Yes, tonight was going to be interesting for sure

- - - - - 

Unsure about how this evening was going to go, you lingered in your room for a while until your mother impatiently knocked on your door, informing you that Billy and Jacob had arrived. “Come on, honey,” she said, “come greet them! I know Jacob’s excited to see you.”

Frowning one last time in your mirror, you trudged out of your room and into the dining room, where your parents, Jacob, and Billy greeted you warmly. Jacob especially smiled, tilting his head a bit and eyeing the dress you chose to wear, the only piece of clothing which you felt could charm the pants off Jacob back. Stepping towards you, away from the adults’ discussion, he sighed, biting his upturned lip. “You look beautiful,” he beamed, shoving his hands shyly in the pockets of his Nice Jeans, one of his three button downs fitting across his shoulders nicely. Very nicely.

His hair was braided back, just a little more formal than the event called for, but you weren’t complaining. For some reason, a part of this meeting felt like some sort of date: the dressy clothes, the awkward compliments, the steady eye contact. “So do you,” you replied, rubbing the back of your neck, unsure of what to do.

Just as you expected, Billy insisted that the kids “have their kid time,” making you take paper plates loaded with food out to the backyard. You rolled your eyes as your mom raised her eyebrows at you, wanting to comment on Jacob’s change in attire. Somehow, she knew about Jacob’s crush on you and got overexcited whenever he did anything even remotely kind. You just shook your head at her and followed Jacob out to the back porch. 

Having missed Harry Clearwater’s homemade fish fry, the first minutes of your alone time was spent in the usual comfortable silence. Sitting shoulder to shoulder, you and Jacob ate heartily, practically shoveling bites of food into your mouths while you sat on the porch steps, plates balanced on your laps. Having grown up eating with Jacob, it seemed unnatural to even think about being any type of polite. However weird this situation was at the moment, you were still sitting next to your best friend. “This food is so fucking good.”

“When is it not?”

Soon, your eating slowed and the unfamiliar tension came back between you. Taking your plate and his, Jacob placed your dishes off to the side. As he turned back to focus on you, he let out a long, content sigh. “So, tell me about your day.”

The taste of the amazing fried fish still on your tongue, you looked up at the darkening sky. “Honestly? I spent the whole day at the beach,” you replied honestly, curling your toes as you remembered the cool sand on your feet and the saltwater in the air. “The entire day.”

Jacob listened intently, that deep, polite smile on his lips. “Any reason why?” He leaned back on his hands, one arm resting behind your torso, the first step towards an arm around your shoulder. The fish swam around in your gut. “What were you thinking about?”

A sudden burst of confidence, you met his intense gaze fearlessly. “The wind felt so freeing.” You shrugged, your fingers playing with the hem of your dress as you thought. “I don’t know, it all feels connected out by the water, more real. I...” you thought about how to verbalize your day, “I think my memories feel like they make sense out by the sea.” You broke eye contact, chuckling nervously at your sincerity. “It’s kind of silly,” you retreated, already embarrassed to share something so deep. 

Jacob shook his head, expression hanging onto each word. He leaned into you, your shoulder touching his side. As always, he knew exactly where your mind was. “No, I totally get it.” He looked out at the sky. “I kind of feel that way when I’m walking through the woods. Like everything that I am is finally a part of something greater, but that it truly always has been.” He sighed, eyes proving that he was out among the trees, shadows of the canopy’s leaves playing over his face, mulling over the Quileute tradition as he thought about his own journey. “It always seems complicated, but in those moments it all makes sense.”

You nodded, remembering your own collection of days thinking the same thing, resting your head on Jacob’s shoulder. Naturally, he wrapped his arm around you, thrilled to hold you close and smell your freshly conditioned hair. You sighed. “I just don’t want to forget how important this is to me,” you said softly, thinking about how many of your friends, people that you looked up to as a child, had moved away, choosing better jobs or better homes rather than staying within the reservation. Most of your current friends wanted to leave as soon as possible, go to college far away and find some well-paying arrangement. Jacob was one of the few people your age that truly wanted to stay on the reservation forever. Whenever you thought about it, your eyes stung with the possibility of tears. All those memories that you shared growing up could never compare to an expensive life outside of your home. 

You both continued to think, almost in each others’ minds as you subconsciously leaned closer together. Jacob ran a hand over your arm, his warmth electrifying, making your skin feel radiant, awakening somehow. You responded by placing a hand softly on his knee, squeezing lightly, feeling the years-old connection between the two of you. Stars began to shine in the sky, the inky blue settling into the night.

This felt so much more intimate than you had ever dreamed.

“What are you thinking about now?” Jacob asked huskily, breath fanning across your face. You looked up at him, almost startled at his smoldering gaze. He was in love with you. Your heartbeat roared in your ears, a flood of white noise blocking out everything but him. The way he traced circles into your side, his lips held slightly open, eyes half in memory and half caught in you, the realization that your forever friend was looking at you in this way filled you with relief as well as anxiety. When did this happen? you questioned yourself, And how long did I ignore it?

Silently telling yourself to kick up some courage, you carefully practiced your answer in your head once before responding with the honest truth. If you stuttered or tripped on your words, the perfect moment might slip away “I’m thinking about kissing you right now,” you said clearly, answering his question and asking your own. 

As you nervously waited for his reply, Jacob smiled with an incalculable emotion you had never seen so clearly before. “Me, too.” Taking one last breath together, you both seemed to lean in at once, mutually inviting each other’s kiss. 

Waves of emotion crashed around you, and settled in your mutual embrace. The little ball of anxiety that followed you whenever Jacob was around finally released. Filled with all that you had dreamed of and more, Jacob’s lips felt like pure fire meeting yours. Unimaginably soft, his lips moved slowly with yours, your actions mirroring each other’s and almost anticipating the other’s moves and flowing together. 

Fully embracing you, Jacob held you close, resting a hand on your jaw, his thumb lightly grazing your cheek carefully. Your own hands were on his chest, one at the base of his neck, the other curled over his fast-beating heart. You were sure your own heart was running a mile, so distracted by the feeling of his lips on yours, his hands on you, that you were forgetting to breathe. In your distracted state, a small part of you noticed that Jacob had forgotten to breathe, too. 

Just as your lips moved together, you both pulled away in the same moment. Holding each others’ faces in your hands, a tenderness that rarely graced your friendship was showing its full force, bubbling up between both of you. Though the sky was dark, you could swear only a pink and orange sky and puffy clouds surrounded you both. Still riding the high tide that your longest crush felt the same, you couldn’t wrap words around what you were feeling. 

Luckily Jacob found his footing first. Exhaling heavily, a smile radiant with pure love, he said, “I think you swept me off my feet.” He laughed to himself, giddy under your touch and your gaze.

You smiled in kind, kissed his cheek tenderly. “And you swept me off mine.”

[where-is-francis]

Boys Don’t Cry

Steve Harrington x Male Reader

Request:

Prompt: “I came by your house late at night for advice and you’re dancing in your bedroom to The Cure and, not gonna lie, it’s pretty amusing.”

A/N: And the slowest writer ever award goes to: me. But ok Boys Don’t Cry is one of my favorite songs to dance to in an over-dramatic fashion while I’m alone in my bedroom. And I figured like. Why not.

TW: underage drinking, Guys Bein’ Dudes™️, slight language, you dated Nancy but the sexuality is never specified.

Cliques were always dangerous. You never really fit in with any specific group. Fellow peers at Hawkins had just kind of dubbed you a wanderer. And for as much as the teachers liked you, you found yourself in detention quite a bit. Not because you actually started fights, but pissing off Steve Harrington was one of your favorite hobbies. And when Billy Hargrove moved to town, your focus simply shifted to tormenting him instead.

Steve would be lying if he said he didn’t miss the attention. For whatever reason, aggravating each other was the main basis of your friendship.

It was about third period and you’d come in to school late. The secretary noticed you weren’t at roll call for algebra or science, so she called your house. And before you could get to the phone your mother picked up and began screaming at you, whom she just assumed had already left, prompting you to get ready and leave.

The hallways were empty and it was fairly quiet, save for the noises of one of the gym classes going on. Your locker, unfortunately, was in the hall right beside the gym. Squeaks from sneakers and thuds from a dribbling basketball came from behind closed doors. Every time that damned ball hit your head throbbed more, still recovering from the party last night.

Tossing your Walkman inside, you began to grab out one of the books you’d need. English had been boring, but not as laggy as math and science. For a kid who was good with numbers you were surprisingly bad at the two subjects.

A sudden break in your thoughts came when a familiar face spotted yours and began to walk over. You could sense the uneasiness in the way he walked, normally he’d be trying to scare you. With everything in your hands, you nudged the door to your locker closed and waited for him to say something snarky as a greeting.

But he never did.

(E/c) orbs met dark brown ones. The light behind them was gone, now replaced with a sorrowful expression.

“You good?”

“Not really,” he sighed defensively.

“What’s got you—?”

Memories of the party from the night before came back in a blurred montage. Drinking, dancing, smoking, laughing, making out, repeat. You didn’t remember much, but at one point Nancy spilled her drink and went to the bathroom. What seemed like five hours later, Steve was pissed and ended up leaving.

“Oh, shit.” You visibly cringed.

“Look, I’m going to go talk to her.”

“It’s a wasted effort, man.” You reasoned. “Coming from somebody who’s been with her, just trust me.”

He always went to you for advice when it came to her. Nancy Wheeler was a very complex person, but you two dated for a while, and you kind of knew everything. A breakup came after about ten short months when you grew apart, but after a bit of a chat you two decided to stay friends.

The brunette shook his head slightly and glared. Reaching a hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose, he muttered something about just getting it over with. You opened your mouth to speak just when the secretary stepped out, a less than pleased look on her face.

“(L/n), you better get to class before you end up with another detention. You too, Harrington.”

A small smirk crossed your features. “Aww, that’d be such a shame, huh?”

Steve quickly sauntered off, presumably to talk to Nancy, and you were left with the secretary. The look in her tired eyes that reached your own pleaded for you to just shut up and go to class.

“They aren’t paying me enough for this,” she groaned.

The smirk on your face morphed into a full shit-eating grin, then prompting you to make your way down the hall and into your English class. Just another average day would follow, nothing out of the ordinary.

Later that evening as you got home, you decided it would be best to unwind and listen to music. Nobody else was home, your parents both at work, so that meant you could do pretty much whatever you wanted. Reaching your beat up door, you began to tug your denim jacket off and toss it onto the chair in the corner.

Everything about the room was overdone; posters adorned the off-white walls, the pictures overlapping at times, and stickers thrown onto the closet door. Two large bookshelves were filled to the brim with your music collection, some sketchbooks, and whatever other junk you had that couldn’t be left on the floor.

Nancy always hated your room but that was to be expected. It didn’t bother you much, you’d rather be at her house anyways.

You shut the door and began to change into something a bit more comfortable, wondering what you’d do with yourself for the remainder of the night. Ordering a pizza sounded pretty good, considering nobody was home and you didn’t want to cook. Most nights alone you’d end up watching TV, playing video games, and then crash at about 2 AM. A vicious cycle, one you never grew tired of.

Without thinking, you reached over and grabbed your phone from the receiver and dialed Steve’s number. It seemed like a good idea at the time, the two of you could hang out for a bit without getting yelled at.

Last time he was over, your parents came home earlier than anticipated and found the two of you sat on the couch, drunk, reading through the phone book (for whatever reason), only to just lose your shit whenever you saw a name that sounded even mildly amusing.

The phone rang a few times before eventually being picked up.

A sigh could be heard. “What?”

“Hey, loverboy. I’m ordering pizza tonight. You wanna come over and hang out?”

“Are we going to get our asses ripped this time?” The brunette retorted.

A fake laugh came from you. “That was one time, so are you coming or not?”

There was a minute long pause between you two. No matter how much you annoyed each other, you were one of his weaknesses. And pizza was something that he couldn’t say no to.

“Fine, but—”

“Great! See you in a few.” You chirped and practically smashed your phone back onto the base.

Steve lived only a couple streets down from you. You met back at the beginning of elementary school, both of you riding the same bus. Neither you, nor him, could really remember when you started to consider the other a ‘friend’. But it mainly had something to do with him and Nancy being a couple.

Since she and you dated before and were still close friends, somehow you ended up becoming the marriage counselor along the way.

But hey, the more the merrier, right?

Your mind couldn’t help but drift sometimes. Steve was pretty cute in your eyes, even with his weird hair. Generally the same taste in music, shows, movies, and obviously the same taste in girls. And although he was stupid (sometimes), he was a good dude.

It wouldn’t take long for him to reach the house. In the meantime you decided it would be best to put in the order for the pizzas. A quick call to the nearest shop, and they’d deliver it as soon as it was done.

After scanning through some music, you finally settled on one: a mixtape of your favorite songs from The Cure. You popped it in with no hesitation and set your player to max volume. The intro to Siamese Twins rang out in your bedroom, the beat eventually making all of the furniture thud in perfect time. Glass window panes shook as well, you’d probably have the neighbors complaining in the morning.

Your feet guided you around the house aimlessly as you searched for something to drink, the sound of music becoming more muffled as you entered the kitchen. It reminded you of the party a few nights ago, but far less stuffy. And with better music.

“I chose an eternity of this; like fallen angels, the world disappeared,” you sang slightly to yourself as you rummaged through the cabinets.

Nothing.

Onto the fridge, stocked full of Coke and other stuff you didn’t much care for. Nobody

Meanwhile, down the street, Steve could hear loud music coming from your street. Which was odd, if there was a party he would’ve known about it. Upon further inspection he realized it was coming from your house. The sun was already starting to set behind said abode, nestling itself deeper and deeper into the rows of houses that occupied the area.

The Harrington boy stepped a bit closer and took in the view; your house covered in orange and red tinted leaves, the living room and kitchen lights shining through their respective windows. Your silhouette moved about inside, gracefully, to the beat. Almost like a shadow with perfectly fluid movements.

His focus shifted to the porch lights, then the door, the doorbell, and back again. He only assumed your parents weren’t home but he wasn’t sure, although with as loud as the music was, ringing the doorbell or knocking wouldn’t have done any good anyways. It took him a bit to move, then walking around to the darkened backyard where he counted the windows.

The first one was your parents’ room (he learned the hard way), the second belonged to the bathroom, and finally, the third was the entrance to your bedroom. He glanced down, careful not to step on the flowers, then maneuvered his way around to find a spot where he could see through the gap blinds. What he got was something out of a renaissance painting.

You with your mom’s pearl necklace and matching earrings draped carelessly, your shirt all the way unbuttoned, and a wine glass in your hand. To top it all off, your hair was a mess, but complemented the askew lipstick that painted your lips. Your hips swayed back and forth in a graceful yet drunken manner. Inside, Boys Don’t Cry came on the stereo.

Each step you took was calculated to sync with the beat, the only thing that could’ve made it more amusing was if you would’ve been wearing heels.

“What is that moron doing?”

“I would say I’m sorry

If I thought that it would change your mind

But I know that this time I have said too much,

Been too unkind,”

You sang along, a slurred version not being heard by the other male as he watched from the window. Brown eyes were fixated on your form as you leapt up onto the bed, forcing a bit of a stumble from yourself. After almost toppling over, you continued on.

“I tried to laugh about it, cover it all up with lies

I tried to laugh about it, hiding the tears in my eyes cause—”

“Boys… don’t cry.” Steve finished.

In the midst of the dancing spree you turned and locked eyes with said boy. The room was swaying about and took a minute to stop, your vision focusing on him. Each step you took closer to the window made your knees feel weaker, but somehow you managed to pull the screen up to let the other boy in.

The room was almost like a time capsule; nothing really moved or touched since the last time he’d been there, the only difference being the clothes that had been strewn across the floor. Sudden weight on the bed caused it to dip behind him. When he turned, your body was draped gracefully across the dark (color) sheets. Almost something out of an erotic painting, the clash of textures and colors alike.

Originally, the plan had been to come to wallow in self pity and ask for advice about Nancy. Now all he could think about was you, tipsy, singing along to music so loud it would rival an actual concert.

“You—you want a sip?” You shouted over the lyrics, somewhat slurred.

Steve thought about it for a minute, taking glances at your extended hand every so often. A slight sigh escaped him, then taking the glass and downing whatever was left. He started coughing and gagging as a result of the cheap liquor hitting, but didn’t care too much to do anything besides wipe his mouth off.

Everything in that moment was fuzzy, and loud, and warm. Time was stopped for you two. Nothing really mattered except the exact moment you were living in. Not some dumb party, not some spoiled suburban girl, and most certainly not being sober.

Steve’s hands fell to his hips. The newfound anxiety on his face made you wonder, but still too afraid to ask.

“Is there more to drink?”

“Yeah, in the kitchen… come on.”

Everything that happened afterwards became a blur of colors and muffled noises. Almost like going under anesthesia in the hospital, you couldn’t really remember what went on until something triggered it. And from then on you’d spend your time wondering if it was real or not, trying so hard to distinguish a vivid dream from a drugged reality.

One thing happened to stand out. The single thing you could remember.

Not so many hours later, bottles of liquor had been spread across the floor and the lights turned off. The music that once blared and annoyed the neighbors was turned down now, a much softer volume. Melodic hums came from your lips as Steve ranted about Nancy. The party, it was all because of the stupid party.

“— and, I mean, I apologized. Me. Steve fucking Harrington.”

After what seemed like four rounds too many, his speech was slurred.

Steve buried his face in his hands.“I don’t know what I did wrong…”

“You didn’t do any-anything wrong, man. Nancy just... has a stick up her ass, nothing new.” You assured him with a soft shove to the shoulder.

Your eyes met for a brief moment, his hands sliding down the sides of his face. A pitiful laugh found its way from his throat, soon after turning into something far more maniacal. Something about the situation was funny to you as well.

But not what you had said about Nancy, no. What made you laugh was the look on this idiot’s face, perfectly illuminated by the neighbor’s porch lights. How he slid down deeper onto your floor, ribs aching from giggling too hard. Though he was drunk, the smile plastered on his face was genuine.

Two separate roars were only extinguished after a few minutes, but at the time it felt like hours. You attempted to regain your composure but it was hard when his face was right next to yours. Once perfect brown hair was now askew, the result of the perfect night in. Eyes in the color to match brimmed with tears from laughing, something he felt like he hadn’t done in a while. Nearly perfect skin and perfect lips almost begging for some action; it was too amazing.

“If I didn’t know better I’d say you wanted to make out with me…”

It took a minute for his words to sink in. Even in the dark he could see the red flush rise to your cheeks. You swallowed a bit, hand rising to comb through (h/c) locks anxiously. Harsh shadows covered your (s/c) face but even then Steve could still tell you were biting your lip.

It seemed he had his answer.

“Oh,”

“Yeah, oh,” you mirrored.

Everything happened what felt like hours later, but at the same time, all at once. Your bodies had been forced together, the taste of long forgotten cheap wine playing on your tongues. His hands reached up to tangle gently in your hair, all while yours gripped desperately at the lapels of his denim jacket.

The kiss was soft and messy, but whether it was the alcohol’s fault or the fact he was nervous was anybody’s guess. For whatever reason, Steve expected it to feel different but it didn’t. The kiss was just that; a kiss. Not a kiss with a boy, just a kiss.

Clumsily, he straddled your lap to get a better angle. It still felt the same. The time had come to an end, your lungs begging for air, forcing the two of you to pull back. His shoulders heaved, the room only being filled now with the slight sound of you both panting.

(E/c) hues opened to take in the view. Steve Harrington straddling your lap, breathless, disheveled, only being lit by the light that came through the window. The grip you had on his jacket slowly loosened, only to be stopped by his hand on yours. Red lipstick that once adorned your lips was now shared. The Cure that played in the background had finally come to a complete stop. But the gaze Steve had on your lips didn’t, especially when he began to lean in again.

“Don’t tell Nancy,”

[amazingflyingdick]

trouvaille.

WHO: Dick Grayson @amazingflyingdick & Slade Wilson @terminator-deathstroke ; mentions of Damian Wayne @sonofabct WHERE: A random alley WHEN: October 16th, 2020 WHAT: Dick waits for Slade when he sees his bike parked outside Rose and Joey’s apartment

SLADE: Slade hadn’t heard from Dick since the incident with NOVA. But then... he didn’t expect to. After what he had done, he knew Dick would be too moralistic to want him again. Why shouldn’t he be? It was who he was, he had claimed. Even if Slade knew him better. Knew him deeper. He would be lucky if he ever saw Dick again in any other capacity besides staring at him from the end of his own blade. Maybe this was what it took.

But this time... it hurt. Slade was surprised by that part. But then... maybe he wasn’t. After all, Dick had coaxed vulnerability from Slade. Honesty that had peeled off his thick hide to leave the underbelly exposed. He had known that it would be rented by claws Dick couldn’t help but swipe after what had happened, but he couldn’t slow the bleeding as well as he’d thought.

The strongest of his kids had always been his Rosie. His little girl who stared back at him in mirror image. His hair. His eye. His anger and his skills. She was always going to be like him and nothing he could have done would have stopped it. And right now he was grateful, because it meant there was someone with whom to have conversations of nearly monosyllabic sentences as he worked through what the fuck this strangeness was.

He had had a good amount to drink, which means he’d be drunk for maybe ten minutes before he had to start again. And the ‘drunk’ he was just just enough to numb the pain, not even dull him or make him act stupid. Might be nice to blackout, but his metabolism wasn’t having it. So he made his way down the road, intent on his bike concealed nearby.

DICK: The events at NOVA at everything that happened since left Dick feeling lost and confused. He was oddly quiet, unwilling to discuss what had happened at the facility aside from the lackluster explanation of the events he'd given to Steve. The thought of facing Bruce and telling him about that conversation was enough to make him nauseous. It wasn't something he wanted to relive, especially not with Bruce's emotionless stare and inscrutable expression. Maybe he wouldn't have said anything, but he wouldn't have to. Dick knew what he would have been thinking. For that reason, he was relieved Steve destroyed the surveillance. 

But Bruce wasn't wrong. That was the hardest part. Everyone had been right all along when they told him that this was a bad idea. Now, he couldn't decide if he felt guilty for having done it or because he didn't regret doing it. The varying emotions left him bewildered and sick. He had no idea what to do and there wasn't anyone who would tell him. Well, there was, but he already knew what their answers would be. Maybe it was time for him to listen.

As the days passed, he felt worse, not better, and talked even less. He spent most of his time in his room just to avoid interaction. His brothers provided brief respite and provided silent support. He was grateful they weren’t intrusive in their efforts. Concerned stares were too much for him. He knew what they were all thinking. It was convoluted and messed up and he just wanted to stop dwelling on it. Unfortunately, without patrol, there was nothing to keep his mind occupied; Dick had nothing but time on his hands. When he hooked on Sasha's leash, he didn't have any intention to go anywhere in particular. He walked the usual route route, one that brought him around to Joey's place. He knew he shared the apartment with Rose and definitely knew better than to stop, but there was a familiar weight on his chest as he walked by, gently tugging on Sasha's leash so she wouldn't get too close. It wasn't until he made the turn down an alley, half-hidden by an overhang, that he caught sight of Slade's bike. No one else would have seen it, but Dick was trained to notice tucked away hiding places. After so many years spent tracking Slade, he'd practically made it a habit.

For a few seconds he just stood there, struggling against two juxtaposing voices in his head. Finally he sighed and sat on the curb next to it, winding Sasha's leash around his hand and gently pulling her to stand between his knees. 

It was a while before he heard footsteps approaching. When he saw Slade turn the corner, his heart suddenly felt as if it were in his throat even though his voice was calm and quiet. "Hey."

SLADE: He hadn’t expected to hear Dick’s voice. Hadn’t expected to find him waiting at the bike. And further, it was as Dick, not Nightwing. Slade took a breath, hands disappearing into the pockets of his leather jacket. “You go out of your way to find me?” He asked. “Or am I meant to believe this is happenstance?”

Looking down at the dog, Slade reached out to touch her head. He wondered if she would smell Roscoe on him. He hadn’t meant to get a fucking dog. He hadn’t even wanted on. But then he had passed by a shelter proclaiming puppies and he had remember Dick’s fucking dog. Billy had mocked him for hours when he found out a Slade had come out with a dog only a little more than two months old. Fucking thing. If anything, Grant likes Roscoe, and then dog had warmed his bed for the past few days.

DICK: Dick studied Slade with a small frown, his gaze scrutinizing, but the question made him blink. He looked away, scraping the leash with his thumbnail idly. "Saw your bike," he finally said. Did it matter? He'd sat down and waited for him. He wanted to see him and maybe that was stupid. No, scratch that, it was definitely stupid.

Sasha was especially interested in sniffing Slade. Dick's grip on the leash loosened so she'd have more slack. All of the things he'd thought about saying once Slade showed up suddenly seemed insignificant or misplaced. "You've been drinking. You shouldn't drive." That probably ranked as one of the top five dumbest things he'd ever said, but it was the first thought that popped in his head that he knew he wouldn't regret.

SLADE: Slade dropped down to one knee to all Sasha to smell him—and Roscoe—as he listened to Dick. When he chastised him for alcohol, he raised a brow. “Who said I was drunk, Smokey Bear?” He asked. “Should I be sure to prevent fuckin’ forest fires, too?” He was hardly drunk anyway. Just enough. Though, not enough to be seeing his little bird.

“What do you want, Dick?” He asked him as he finally stopped petting Sasha and pushed back to his feet. His arms crossed over his broad chest. “I haven’t seen you in over a week. And you made it pretty clear what ground we stood on that night.”

DICK: The more Slade spoke, the more certain Dick felt that this had been a mistake. His grip on the leash tightened until it was cutting into the side of his palm. "Don't be an asshole." That he could stand there and talk to him normally, or even as if Dick had been the one to upend their lives, pissed him off.

"What do I want?" He didn't even know what to say to that. "Actually, come to think of it, pretty sure I left my favorite floss at your place." He stood up, coaxing Sasha back to his side. "Forget it," he added tersely, moving past him and toward the sidewalk. "I shouldn't be here."

SLADE: As Dick moved to pass him, Slade’s hand lifted to catch his bicep, tightening there. “Come on, kid,” he said quietly. His grip was tight but somehow gentle. “Either you hate me or you don’t. I can’t play the games.” He didn’t want to play the games. It was all too weird for him that he was even so fucked up about it as he was. But Dick was right there and Slade didn’t want him going anywhere. Maybe that was what was wrong with this picture, but here it was.

DICK: Dick stopped when Slade caught his arm. Startled, he looked up at him with a confused scowl. "I never said I hated you. I'm the one one playing games? Are you serious? You kept secrets from me. I walked in on a bloodbath, my entire family is in chaos now, and because I have the audacity to be upset about it, you think I'm playing games? Everything is fucked."

SLADE: “Why else would you wait by my bike, Dick? You hoping I’m going to apologize? I won’t. I sent a fucking message.” He shook his head, eye fierce. “I did what your family wouldn’t and retaliated. I’m protecting you.”

DICK: "I wasn't waiting by your bike looking to mess with your head. I don't do that." Dick snapped. "And I don't need your protection. I don't want your protection, because, full offense, you're terrible at protecting people. That’s why you left the first time, and look where that got us. Do you think this is any better?"

SLADE: “My protection comes with the package, Dick,” Slade said. “And don’t you think I noticed that I didn’t see you for ten fucking years and then I’m with you a few months and you got shot in the head. I’d laugh if it wasn’t so fucked up.” He shook his head, watching the other. “You need all the protection you can get. And you need to understand that I am Deathstroke. I love you, Grayson, but I’m never going to be one of your little fiancées or the fucking mutant.”

He paused, meeting Dick’s eyes for a moment before shaking his head. “You know what I am, and you chose me anyway.”

DICK: "It had nothing to do with you. If it were actually NOVA behind it, then it was for something I did." If anything, Slade being associated with him should have discouraged NOVA from doing what they did. Dick's eyes narrowed, and he scoffed angrily at the mention of his ex-fiancés and Josh. "Don't you think I know that? I'm not an idiot. I know what I chose and I know who I chose." 

He paused, closing his eyes for a moment as he took a slow breath. "I don't want it to be like this. I don't." Some of the anger was fading quickly, even though he was trying to hold onto the resolve. "I wasn't expecting you to apologize,"  he finally whispered. "I just... I wanted to see you." The admission brought his attention straight back to the twisted feeling in his chest. "I miss you."

SLADE: Slade softened the moment Dick spoke those words. He missed Dick, too. Of course he did. How could he not when the pair of them would be so well suited and were when Dick didn’t have his head up Batman’s ass.

Reaching out, Slade caught Dick’s chin, tilting his face up. “I’ve been right here, little bird. Same spot I always am.”

DICK: Dick winced, holding his breath as he took a moment to respond. It was impossible to hide how devastated he felt and he shook his head, his eyes clouded over. "No, you haven't been. You left. Then you kept secrets. I’m the one who stayed and adapted to you, because I wanted you so badly that I was willing to give some things up. Marriage. A family. I even..." He trailed. His throat felt tight. "I've even thought about giving up Nightwing. And maybe it was naïve to think that you'd do the same. But I'm just supposed to accept that you're Deathstroke and Deathstroke does things like this, isn't that right? I know better than anyone what Deathstroke does, so I'm pretty sure I belong in a cell in Arkham right next to him. I can't keep bending to this without losing everything, including myself. I need something from you, even if it's just meeting me in the middle, or I need to walk away."

It was the first time he'd asserted himself or outright asked Slade for anything. Part of him had been walking on eggshells until now, out of fear that he'd run him off, but at this point he had nothing to lose. "So what’s it going to be?"

SLADE: "I didn't ask you to give up Nightwing, Dick." And he never would. As for Marriage and a family... Slade didn't honestly think that Dick wanted those things. If he wanted them, he'd have them. He could have married any of the three women on whose finger he put a ring. Slade was out of the picture for the most part at that point. If he'd wanted babies, he'd have them. He had all but cut his jobs completely when Dick had asked him to, but he was never going to sit idly by and not work at all. Still... He was in love with Dick. And it stood to reason that Dick would ask something of him. He didn't want to destroy everything in Dick's life so he could change nothing.

"What'd your ideal?" He asked. "If I give you the parameters of: I'm not going to stop working, what would you ask me for?" Because he had kept jobs out of Star City, just as Dick had asked him to do. He wasn't completely incapable of change. He just needed to know what they were talking about. "I wouldn't change anything about you, Dick," he added. "So you don't have to stop being Nightwing. That's your job."

DICK: "I know." Slade hadn't asked him to give up anything. It didn't mean that being with him meant he wouldn't be required to make sacrifices, at least if he wanted to maintain his sanity, and Dick wasn't resentful about the choices he’d made. What held him back from committing to Kory and Babs had everything to do with the fact that part of him hadn't moved on. He had loved both of them, he would never deny that, but he'd never been able to give himself over fully, no matter how badly he'd wanted to.

It sent a wave of guilt through him when Slade pointed out that he wouldn't change him. Was that what he was doing? Maybe it was wrong, all of it, because suddenly it didn't seem fair. Dick never considered that he could be challenging who he was by asking him to change his method. Was that a fundamental part of him? He always believed that Slade did what he did because he wanted the money, not because he believed in it,  and he didn't want Slade to change his belief system or values - even if his own were the complete opposite. Was that how he would interpret it? "I wouldn't ask you to give up Deathstroke. Just that you target real criminals, people committing injustices or considered evil. If I asked you to do that, will you think that's what I'm doing? Asking you to change who you are? Because I won't do that." Rejecting how Slade operated was one thing, but he wasn't comfortable if it came off to Slade that he was rejecting him.

SLADE: Slade looked at Dick. He thought that was complicated. It wasn't necessarily unfair... were Slade a moral person. He wasn't. Or rather... his morals were not the same as others. But he hadn't mentioned that he wouldn't change Dick as an attack. He just meant it on its own. Separate from Deathstroke. He had meant it as an argument not to have him drop Nightwing for seemingly no reason--to Slade, at least. He didn't care where his money came from as long as it came. It wasn't that he had an aversion to not killing random people. It just... was never that simple. "You want me to be like your brother," he said simply. "Trouble is... I don't have Wayne's standards. When you start trying to decide who lives and who dies based on who's "good", aren't you just playing God at that point? Not that I'm a pious man, but you're trusting my morality, Dick?"

It was a legitimate question. Who the fuck was supposed to vet his jobs for him when he and billy had been doing this all so long that it was basically like asking two death row inmates who was good and evil. The black and white of it all was just as hypocritical to him as taking a stand against order. People with those kinds of stances confused him. Slade had never claimed to have the authority to choose one or the other. It was all just down to who he, personally, would accept as a contract.

"This is all stemming off of blowing out NOVA," he continued, admittedly confused as to what he was supposed to be. "Are they not "evil'? What's your point of comparison? Am I evil?"

DICK: It wasn't that Dick agreed with what Jason did, because he didn't, but he could reconcile with it. He didn't have to stretch to compromise to it. When they did work together, Jason didn't kill people. He respected Dick's morals enough to put that aside, at least temporarily, although some deadly force had been used against the Bratva when they’d fought inside the jail. "I don't know that there is a God," he said quietly, shrugging his shoulders. "But taking someone’s life is always playing God, whether it's for money or morals. At least the second is more justified in its reasoning. Sometimes you're taking a life to save a life." Was it something Dick agreed with? Of course not.

"You're not evil," he said quietly, his expression troubled. "But that doesn't mean you don't do evil things." That wasn't something he was going to absolve him of. "Some agents are, yeah, but was every person you cut down in that building evil? No, I don't think so." He'd worked there. Undercover, sure, but long enough to see that not all of the employees were there with nefarious intentions. The receptionist, for one. She just answered phones and collected a paycheck. There was no such thing as evil by association. People had their reasons.

"I don't know what your definitions are, Slade," he said quietly. "It's subjective, isn't it? Maybe it isn't who you target that makes the difference, but why you made the choice. You were protecting me." He paused. "But what did the college intern who fetched coffee do to me? Nothing."

SLADE: "There isn't. Or if there is, He just hangs out in the sky." The only gods he knew about for sure were the Norse and the Olympians. He'd seen the former here in Star City and he'd met the latter on a mission. "But the concept remains." He shook his head. He didn't agree that morals and money were different, because they were both arbitrary to him. Money, at least, got him more luxury. More things to continue his skills. But there was no point picking apart everything Dick said, and he didn't want to be unnecessarily combative.

He shook his head. "Evil by your standards," he responded. "Pragmatic by others, and useful by still others." He wondered when Dick, and by extension Bruce Wayne, had decided that they knew better than everyone else in the world. "Nazis are still Nazis even if they were 'just following orders', aren't they? Someone in that group made the call to have you shot, someone else picked the team, still someone else outfitted them, and then someone drove the truck. Talking, choosing names from a page, building something, and driving. All seemingly innocuous. And yet every action ended with you almost dying. It's that simple to me, Dick."

There was no world in which he was going to feel sorry for any person in that building. If there were, he wouldn't have done it. He loved Dick, and he had done it for him in spite of knowing it might destroy them. It was done. And he'd do it again if it were necessary. "It wasn't a job for me. And if it had been dealt with sooner by the pacifists in your group, we wouldn't have needed to do it. But even Damian agreed that there's been a lot of sitting around while people are getting snatched. I don't care about them. Not really." He was just being honest. "But I do care about you. Have this whole time."

DICK: "If there's no God, then the concept is meaningless." Regardless, Dick never felt as if he had the right to take a life. It wasn't for him to judge. Jason made those calls. He didn't feel comfortable outlining the circumstances for Slade, because that made him responsible for the choices he would ultimately make. He would trust him to be logical about it and not kill someone for running a red light. And he wanted to trust that he wouldn't focus on finding loopholes in Dick's request.

He sighed heavily. There were obviously arguments to make on both sides. That was the whole point. Evil was subjective and he wasn't trying to reach an agreement on the definition of it. "I'm not making the standards. It's for you to judge, not me. I'm not telling you who to kill and who not to kill. You've operated like this before, it's not a completely unfathomable concept to you, and I don't expect us to always agree. But I'm not going to be hovering over your shoulder. I understand why you did what you did, I do, even if I don't agree with it. I just wish you hadn't involved my family. I know Damian makes his own choices, but... that can't happen again, Slade. It can't. And you can't keep things from me, either. That's the same as lying." That was exactly why he hadn't expected a move like that from Slade. He hadn't believed he would seek vengeance for his sake. Why should he? NOVA as an agency was far-reaching. They didn't know for sure who was involved in his shooting, even though he knew Tim was close to an answer. "I know," he finally said softly, stepping back and leaning against the brick. His arms were crossed tightly over his chest. At this point he was reading Slade's response as an unequivocal no, because he definitely hadn't said yes. Sasha made a whining nose and stuck her nose against his knee, but Dick's gaze stayed focused on the sidewalk. "So now that this is... done, does this mean our original agreement is off? Are you going to to be taking hits in the city?"

SLADE: "You'll have to speak to Damian about that. Though he would do well with me. If any of you would let him live to his potential, I could help him a great deal." He didn't even to postulate it. He knew that was true. However, he shook his head. "But I don't care if I train him or not. Though I'm better that Jason. Even if he'd throw a fit about it, I'm better than he is. I could train him better." He shrugged. "Plus... I knew his mother. Know what he'd be best at." But they'd never let him be what he needed to be. So it was moot anyway. It was a fucking waste.

He shook his head. "I haven't taken a single job since I promised you I wouldn't," he said. "I gave you my word." Dick should know what that meant to him. "NOVA wasn't a fucking job. They had it coming. Even if death means nothing here anyway." He shook his head. Slade didn't know how to live his life based on Dick's arbitrary standards, but he guessed he was going to have to try. He'd never done that before--lived for someone else. It was his problem in his fatherhood and his time as a husband. He had lived by his own code. It was what defined him. Now he was going to choose Dick over his own instincts. He just hoped it didn't bite him in the ass.

Shrugging, he ran a hand over his face. "Any other conditions?" He asked. "Get 'em while they're hot." He was a brusque person by nature, and he was going to have to take some time to adjust to this. To figure out what the fuck he was going to do with it. But this fucking kid... He loved this fucking kid. He'd just nuked a government agency for him, for all the lack of appreciation it earned him. He was obviously choosing whatever path he had to.

DICK: "If that's what Damian wants, then..." Dick trailed, shrugging. He couldn't do anything if Damian chose a different future for himself. "I want him to make his own way, his own decisions, but it has to be his choice. Just his. Don't act like you encouraging him to take the complete opposite path is any better. He should be able choose for himself." As upsetting as he was, he didn't want Damian to live the way he did. Every decision Dick made was filtered through a lens of what Bruce would think about it. As often as he tried to be his own person, break away from Batman's strict code of morality, sometimes the guilt in doing so was crushing. He was still trying to understand himself. Maybe Damian was struggling too. His goal had been to give him an idea of what Robin was like. So Dick might have taught him different morals, but at the end of the day, it was Damian who got to decide what type of man he wanted to be.

Frowning, he shook his head. He was about to explain what he meant, that Slade wouldn't be bound to keeping his word if they weren't continuing whatever it was they were, but he couldn't bring himself to actually say the words aloud. Watching him walk away had been difficult enough. Dick hadn't said goodbye then, even though he'd been furious, and he dreaded having to say it at all. Something told him that it wouldn't be easy.

He was pondering the conundrum when he heard Slade’s question. Startled, he looked up at him quickly, his brow furrowing. "...Really?" The relief in his expression was clear, even if part of him knew it might make him a bit naïve, and he hoped Slade wouldn’t come to resent him for this. "Um..." Dick pretended to think about it. "One more thing, super important - you let me store Lucky Charms at your house."

SLADE: “That’s just it, Dick,” he responded. “I didn’t encourage anything. All I did was point out that he looked angry. That I was going to do something about it. He wanted in.” There was this perception that he had somehow coerced the youngest. Were they all so blind to the fact that Damian wasn’t the boy they thought he was? Maybe they just found it more palatable that way.

“I already said I was in this, before. I’m not going back on it now. No use when you get me all irrational.”

As he asked about the cereal, Slade paused. “You’re really pushing with that fuckin candy food, Dick.”

DICK: Dick hated the sinking feeling that gave him. It came as little surprise to hear it from Slade, but it was confirmation of something he’d already suspected. He was an idealist, but he was far from stupid. “I know.” He sighed and ran his hand through his hair, his shoulders slumping. “He did a lot on his own. Before this.” And that had been during their time in Alaska. That wasn’t something he could put on Slade, or even wanted to.

The teasing smirk was quickly replaced with a look of innocent disappointment. “No? I could give you another week to think about it.”

SLADE: "He's an Al Ghul," he said with a shrug. As if that explained it. As if there was nothing more to say. Because to Slade, there wasn't. They had been ruining that kid for ages now. "He's always going to be one."

Furrowing a brow, he gave a snort. "The cereal's the breaking point?" he asked. "What a strong foundation we have."

DICK: “That doesn’t mean it’s all he’s good at,” Dick insisted stubbornly, unwilling to believe that someone could ever be fated to such things just because of blood. “He’s just as much a Wayne.” Even as he said it, he wasn’t sure it was much better. It wasn’t as if he would ever want Damian to be Bruce.

Laughing, he gave a slow shrug. “I have priorities.” Some of the tension in his body was fading the longer they stayed standing there, talking, because it meant Slade wanted this badly enough to still be there. At the very least, he wanted to try.

SLADE: "Maybe. But it's not what he gravitates toward. All kids have something they're good at." He shook his head. "Maybe this is what Damian is good at. You can't keep forcing it." Lifting a shoulder, he added, "My daughter wanted to be me. She screamed about not wanting to live in my shadow and then wore my outfit, cut out her eye, learned my fighting style. Even after I had pushed her to you for the final time after Titans East, she still wanted to be like me. No matter how much I beat her up or screamed at her, she was who she was going to be." Kids just did that.

"Like diabetes?" He asked wryly. "You're not a metahuman. What happens when your metabolism slows down, you little menace?" It was easier to make jokes now that he thought Dick might actually want to see him again, though he would have figured out how to make them regardless.

DICK: "I'm not forcing it," Dick said tiredly. He didn't want to force Damian to do anything. All he ever wanted was to give him options. For years he'd been told that he couldn't be anything else but a killer. If this were going to be Damian's path, then he wanted him to choose it because he wanted to do it, not because he thought he wasn't good enough for anything else. That was the difference. "I told you, it's his choice. Rose is doing her own thing now, too, isn't she? She didn't follow in your footsteps." Not completely. From what he'd heard, Rose’s methods sounded similar to Jason’s.

He laughed, unconcerned. "At least I can enjoy the time I have left. Age gracefully into my midlife crisis." Slade's metabolism made it impossible for him to stay drunk, Dick knew that from experience, so he knew it was safe for him to drive home now. It was likely fine at the start of their conversation, too, but it was better to be safe than sorry. "Didn't mean to hold you up."

SLADE: "You didn't," he said simply, reaching out to catch Dick's chin and lift it so he could meet his eyes. "But are we done here? Or are you going to text me tonight?" What did this little foray mean? He didn't care to dwell on Damian or Rose right now. This was about him and Dick. He had anticipated that the other would leave him. Was he right? Or was this going to actually blow over? Would Dick always resent him for what he had done? Did that matter to Slade?

DICK: Dick looked up at Slade silently for a few seconds, thoughtful, but then he smiled. "Keep your phone on you. You might get lucky." It was hard not to kiss him, because he wanted to, but he knew he'd get caught up in it if he did. Later he planned on stopping to the manor to check on Damian; the last thing he wanted to do was get sidetracked.

SLADE: Slade bit his lip as he watched the other. He was thinking the same thing as he watched the other. He took a step closer, opening the invitation. If Dick wanted to take it, he'd let him. If he didn't, then Slade would get it, even if he mentioned that he should keep his phone. There was still some uncertainty. Who knew what was going on in Dick's head?

DICK: It was instinctive for Dick to move forward at the same time, meeting him, and one of his hands lifted to the front of Slade’s arm. There was a brief pause after Dick leaned up while he studied him, silent, and then he turned his head and pressed his lips against Slade’s cheek. It would have been an innocent gesture if he hadn't lingered. The smile was back by the time he pulled away. Dick stepped back, wrapping the leash more around his hand. "See you soon," he said with a wink, and whistled for Sasha.

SLADE: Slade's hand barely had time to go for Dick's waist before he had pulled back. That was a tease if he had ever seen one. Or maybe it was a promise. He wasn't sure. However, Slade would admit that Dick had managed to surprise him again. After that run-in at the NOVA headquarters, he had been certain he would never see Dick again. He shook his head. "I'm going to get you for that, little bird," he told him gently, but ultimately let him go.

DICK: "Maybe you will, maybe you won't," Dick teased, flashing Slade a grin as he led his dog out of the alley. There were some things he had to do that night, not least of all go to the manor and process what he'd talked about with Slade. He couldn't ignore that this set them back, but it made it no less true that he'd missed him. 

[cyndecreativity]

Day 25 - There’s Always Time

Clothes – “Sometimes you can even see.”

Seeking reassurance from your husband on your choice in clothing is always difficult. But when he has become a spokesman for millions? It’s all you can do to drag his attention away.

---

She tugged at the low neckline of her red kimono, baffled at how it managed to be with how tightly she wrapped it. Garren assured her it matched to the newest fashions of the Pisces, but she had gone shopping without him first and not one tailor had something this revealing. She turned to the side, checking her profile in the mirror. Despite the low cut, she approved of her silhouette. Not what she preferred, but being married to a Djinn meant her horizons had to expand.

“Billy? How do I look?” She called out to her husband in the next room.

“Hm?” She recognized the deeply distracted tone.

She sighed and grabbed a bit of the dress to make it easier to walk to the study. He loomed over a paper, one elbow on the desk, hand rubbing his forehead. His other hand idly rubbed a blowfish needle between his fingers, ink dry on the end.

His horns had grown a bit in the last few years, a growth she attributed to his status as Djinn. His skin had become almost unbearably warm, leaving him with a healthy dark tone. The color of his eyes and his hair had become more intense, as if lit from within. Everything about him exuded raw energy, a brightness that called to her. The furrow of his brow, the strength of his hands, the way the light hit the angle of his stubbled jaw. She considered for a moment the difficulty it took to appropriately wrap herself in her attire, how arduous it might be to remove and replace, and the amount of time before their expected arrival at the event.

“Billy…” Her voice felt deeper, smokier, though unintended. She cleared her throat.

His head tilted against his thumb on his temple, a vain attempt to pull his attention away, yet his eyes remained on the paper. “Yes, my love.”

She chuckled. He took his work so seriously. Even as a simple patrol scout, he put every ounce of his attention and effort into the execution. She liked to think that had been one of the myriad reasons why the Fire Elemental chose him. “What do you think of the clothes, dear?”

He nodded. “I told you they’re wonderful.”

She giggled. “Sometimes you can even see.”

That seemed to break him from his focus. He blinked and lifted his head. His eyes widened at her, the warmth of his skin somehow darker on his cheeks. A blush, then? “Spirits, aren’t you a vision.”

She felt the fire inside her as his eyes roamed her. She spread her arms wide, striking a few poses to provide him a whole view. “Well, thank you. Coming from you, I suppose the spirits agree?”

He stood from the desk, fish quill forgotten. “They don’t so much speak as-“ A lopsided grin played on his lips. “How much time do we have until the festival?

She shook her head. “I’m glad we’re of the same mind, but with the time and effort it took to get this costume on, there isn’t enough time to get if off and then put it back on. Not to mention, you still have to put yours on.”

He slipped his hands around her waist, eyes following the neckline of the kimono. He tilted his head. “It’s a dress, though, isn’t it?” She nodded. He leaned down to press a kiss to her neck, the ridges of his horns caressing her cheek. She failed to suppress a moan. “Then there’s plenty of time.”

[margoshansons]

I Let You Go: s.h.

Steve Harrington x Reader

Part Two of This

Summary: Y/N’s headed off to college, but not before tying up one more loose end on her list.

Request: For many people, but I’m tagging @yessii-i because they were the one who requested it in the first place.

Warnings: angst, swearing, jealousy

Notes: I finally gave in and wrote a part two. But I honestly don’t think I’m going to write a part three because I love this ending. I hope you guys love it too!

It had been weeks since Billy and her broke it off. She chose not to dwell on it, choosing instead to put all of her focus into applying for colleges.

She had gotten into some great ones so far, even NYU. Y/N could honestly say that she was looking forward to getting out of Hawkins.

The town had grown stale, and she was tired of her friends keeping secrets from her. Nancy trying to explain the strange girl Mike was now dating, Jonathan and Will keeping to themselves, even Steve refused to talk to her.

It sucked. 

Because she somehow still had feelings for the idiot. Not that she was going to act on them. She left in three days, she still needed to get packed. She still needed to say goodbye.

“Are you sure you’re ready to head to New York?” her mom asked, blocking the doorway to her room. 

“Yeah” Y/N chirped from the floor, folding up a pair of jeans, “I’ve never been more stoked to get out of here.”

Her mom shuffled, crossing her arms in an act of nervousness. “Have you said goodbye to everybody yet?”

Y/N paused at the passive-aggressive tone in her voice. “You mean have I said goodbye to Steve yet?”

“You two were best friends Y/N” Mom urged, “I think you should talk to him before you leave.”

Y/N scoffed, pushing the rising nerves back down into her stomach, ignoring the knot that formed. “Why?” She stood up to face her mom, “So he can tell me he doesn’t care anymore? So that he has an actual excuse to ignore me? No thanks.”

She pushed past her parental unit, heading toward the stairs that ran up from the basement, pausing as her mom called to her with one last plea, “At least give him the chance to say goodbye.”

She pushed forward, refusing to think about how much she missed pizza movie nights, refusing to think about how she longed for one of his hugs, refusing to imagine herself in his arms, fingers running through his hair as she tried to convince him to let her braid it. She couldn’t think about those times.

She couldn’t think about their friendship.

Not when she was days away from starting over.

She definitely couldn't think about how long she had been in love with him. 

How when she and Billy had sex or made out she imagined Steve instead. How the past year had been hell, because she couldn’t push past her own stupid pride and admit her own feelings for her former friend.

How she only said yes to Billy because he was what Steve had been before he pulled away. How the reason they broke up was that he simply wasn’t enough.

How Steve was the real reason they broke up and Billy never let her forget it. 

She couldn’t think about how much it would hurt to leave Hawkins behind without saying goodbye to him. How much she wanted to stay here and do a year of Community just to be with him.

She couldn’t do that to herself. Not when she was so close.

Her sneakers slid against the newly paved parking lot of Starcourt Mall, knowing what had driven her here, but refusing to acknowledge it.

Denial poured into her brain, even as she pushed open the heavy doors of the shopping center, the bright blue and white sign catching her eye long enough to pull her toward the newly built ice cream shop. 

“Hi” She breathed, locking eyes with the girl behind the counter. The pretty girl behind the counter. “I’m uh, looking for Steve Harrington, is he here?”

The girl’s eyes scanned Y/N’s body fully before replying to her question, “I wasn’t aware the dingus had friends older than age eleven”

She gulped nervously, “So, he uh, hasn’t mentioned me at all?”

The clerk shook her head, a bored look in her eyes, “Nah, he’s been a bit busy trying to crack secret Russian communications.”

She exhaled, a mirthless chuckle escaping her closed mouth. She chewed on her bottom lip at the realization. 

More lies.

More excuses.

More reasons to avoid her.

Well, fuck him then. 

“Thanks” Y/N glanced at the clerk’s name tag, “Robin. If you see him, tell him Y/N says to come up with better excuses.”

She spun on her heel, anger knotting itself up in her chest as she strode out of the mall, chiding herself for believing that Steve had changed. For allowing herself to hope. 

***

“Hey, dingus!” Robin’s grating voice rang through the sliding window, tearing Steve away from the banana he was eating, “You screwed up big time.”

“With what?” He asked, mouth full, racking his brain for anything he had done to piss Robin off in the past few hours. 

Her eyebrow arched, “One of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen walked in here and told you to find better excuses for something.”

Steve scrunched his face in confusion, chowing down on the yellow fruit. 

“Said her name was Y/N?”

Steve’s mouth froze. His eyes widened. “Y/N was here?” He asked, food forgotten, “Like here, here?”

Robin nodded.

“Holy shit” He shoved the rest of the fruit down his throat, “Where’d she go?”

Robin shrugged, “Outside, probably back to her car.”

“Holy shit” Steve whispered once again, mouth still full. “Watch the store I gotta go” 

“What did you do?”

“Just watch the stupid store!” He urged, launching himself over the counter, sneakers racing toward the expansive parking lot, eyes searching for the ugly color of the chevy that belonged to his best friend.

“Y/N!” He called after her, catching a glimpse of her ponytail. He’d know that hair anywhere. 

“Steve?” The girl asked, eyebrows creased in confusion. “I thought you weren’t-”

His lips on hers cut off the statement. The connection sending pleasant shivers down his spine, sending his heart racing, his mind reeling. 

Her lips moved against his seamlessly, a culmination of everything the two of them wanted meeting in a single kiss.

He was thrown away from her.

“What the hell Steve?” Y/N yelled, anger ablaze in her eyes, “You can’t just kiss everything better, we aren’t kids anymore.”

Silence filled the space between them, tension blazing.

“That’s not--that’s not what I was doing Y/N.”

His chest writhed as he caught the hurt expression on her face. 

“You ignored me for weeks!” She ranted, breathing ragged, “You hide behind excuses, citing babysitting, or work, but here you are, having your co-workers make lame excuses like decoding Russian communications.”

Steve bit his cheek at that last bit, he shouldn’t have trusted Robin with that bit of information. “Whoa, Robin has nothing to do with this, she never even knew you-”

“Like that’s supposed to make me feel better?” Y/N shot back. “Were you ever going to tell me that you found someone or were you just gonna keep it a secret forever?”

Steve stepped back at the accusation, shock inhabiting his body, “Robin and I aren’t--”

“And really? A secret Russian communication? I know you can lie better than that.”

“That part is true” Steve reluctantly admitted, hands on his hips. 

Y/N’s eyebrows arched skeptically, “Really? You’ve been entrusted by the government with this big conspiracy and only you can decode this message?”

He stammered, trying and failing to get words out. When she put it that way it did seem like he had been making up the instances of the past three years up. “Minus the government interference, yeah.”

She scoffed, the lazy gesture throwing a dagger of pain into his chest, the wound writhing around before forming a solid knot that began to weigh him down.

“I can’t believe I came all this way to say goodbye, and instead,” She bit her lip, “I’m disappointed, again.”

“Y/N I’m sor--wait” His brain finally caught up with his mouth, “Goodbye? Where are you going?”

She rubbed her arm nervously, jaw set. “New York.” She spoke curtly.

“For how long?” Steve’s voice grew soft, almost as if he was hurt.

“Does it matter?”

He scoffed, disbelief written across his face, “Uh yeah, you’re going to be several thousand miles away.” He pointed out, the realization growing heavy on his shoulders,  “We won’t even get to see each other anymore.”

“We already don’t see each other Steve.” Y/N snapped, irritation rife in her voice, “You’ve been ignoring me for half a year, or have you forgotten that little part?” He glanced down at his feet. “Cause I haven’t.”

“You can’t just go away, I mean, you have family here. Right?” He urged, breathing racing, heart pounding,  “I’m here. You can't leave, right?”

He was enough to keep her here. He had to believe he was. She wouldn’t leave him behind. Would she?

Silence confirmed his fears.

His stomach dropped. “Oh my god, you- you’re serious, this is- this is real?” Disbelief clouded his eyes, the dagger digging deeper into his chest, “You’re really headed to New York for god knows how long and you weren’t even going to say goodbye?”

“You didn’t give me a reason to.” Was all she said.

“I told you I loved you!” Steve raised his voice, rage spilling out, “You were the one who threw everything away for that Hargrove asshole!”

“Billy and I broke up weeks ago!” Y/N pointed out, rubbing the relationship further in his face, “You could’ve approached me anytime and instead you ran off with Nancy’s brother’s friends!”

“I keep telling you I was babysitting.” Steve continued telling the half-truth, determined to keep Y/N away from any interdimensional threats.

She scoffed at the excuse, seeing right through him. “Right, because thirteen-year-olds need a babysitter, they’re almost in high school! Mike and Lucas have girlfriends!” She screamed, voice thick with emotion, “I know that because Nancy still talks to me! Meanwhile, you went out and got a girlfriend without even telling me!”

“Jesus Christ, Robin and I are not a thing!” Steve yelled, placing emphasis on the last phrase, hands waving wildly, “Besides, you could’ve reached out too y’know! You weren’t the only one who thought our friendship was ruined forever.” He sniffed, rubbing his hand under his nose to quell the oncoming snot.

“I thought our friendship was over, so I spent time with people who actually wanted to be around me.” He explained, launching into his summer spiel, “That’s why I was hanging out with Dustin's friends. And I needed this job because my asshole dad wants to teach me a lesson and I just can’t-I can’t face the fact that ever since you left my life has been a trainwreck.”

He leaned on the car, head hanging as his arms crossed defensively, his biggest secret revealed. “And now you’re leaving and I just, I have to face the fact that I will have lost my best friend forever.”

Y/N joined him on the hood, shoulders relaxed, arms curled nervously, “Not forever. Just four years, maybe less. Maybe I’ll graduate early.” Her voice was softer, calmer.

He let out a mirthless chuckle, hoping she was right, “You always were the smarter one of us.”

“I forgive you,” Y/N confessed, hesitancy lining her voice, “and I’m sorry I pushed you away.” 

He refused to speak, mind wandering toward what his summer would look like without her. What the next four years would look like without her. 

Her head joined the rest of the weight on his shoulders, the two adults staring at the pavement, the sun setting behind them. Their relationship was broken. Their friendship almost shattered. The pair was holding on to the last few threads of their meaningless construct, neither one wanting to let go. Only one question plagued their minds. 

Y/N chose to voice it.

“What do we do now?”

Holy shit that was cathartic. I think I may have some unresolved issues, ahahaha. Oh well, that’s what therapy and writing are for right? Please like and reblog!

Got a request? Send it in!

[daggerzine]

Early DC hardcore gent Rob Moss tells us what it was like then....and now.

When I became friends with a Rob Moss on Facebook a year or so back I knew the name sounded familiar. Then, I’d heard he was a musician (as well as an author) and releasing a new record under the name Rob Moss and Skin-Tight Skin. Hmm….very interesting band name. I then began digging a little deeper and found out it was the same Rob Moss who had been in the Washington, DC-area pre-Marginal Man band called Artificial Peace and had later played in Government Issue for a time.

Apparently Rob hadn’t played music since those old hardcore days, but was now back in the saddle and living in Portland, Oregon (where he’s lived for several years). With Rob Moss and Skin-Tight Skin he put together an interesting concept, a different guest guitarist for each song. Some of the names you will definitely recognize from the punk rock days and beyond. It’s certainly a unique sounding record (and I reviewed it here on the site a few weeks back).

I wanted to ask Rob about the old days and have him bring us up to the present and everything in between. He was more than happy to oblige.

You’re on Flex Your Head and were in two iconic Washington, D.C. hardcore bands, were you born and raised there?

We moved from Boston to Wheaton, Maryland in 1966 – I was three – and to Bethesda a year later. The Bethesda I grew up in had a downtown of mostly old two- and three-story buildings, and there were cows in the field across from Walter Johnson High when I went there. I’ve not lived in the D.C. area since the fall of 1983.

Do you remember your earliest exposure to music?

My first memories are my dad playing records, like Edvard Grieg’s Hall of the Mountain King and Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. I think he chose them because that kind of music’s so visual. In the mid 1970s I discovered WPGC, a Top-40 station. I had a Radio Shack cassette deck that I’d put up against the radio to record stuff like The Night Chicago Died (Paper Lace) and Blockbuster (Sweet).

How and when did the punk rock bug hit you?

The how and who was Marc Alberstadt (original drummer in Government Issue). We’ve been friends since kindergarten and went to Hebrew school together. We used to hang out at his house and listen to his older brother’s records. Like Can’t Stand the Rezillos, the first Generation X album and the Sex Pistols. The when was 1978 or ’79.

Back then, Kenny, Marc’s brother, would sneak us in to see bands at the Psyche Delly and at the University of Maryland. There were no underage shows then. We saw the Slickee Boys, the Bad Brains, Tina Peel, Sorrows – bands like that.

But as far as really getting bit by the bug, it was when I saw how much fun the Slickee Boys had on stage. I had to start my own band, even though at that point I didn’t play a guitar or anything. This was before the Teen Idles, Dischord, or any of that.

When did you first pick up an instrument?

Marc was already playing drums, and Brian Gay played guitar. They convinced me to get a bass. Brian and I started getting together at his mom’s place in 1979 to write songs. They were pretty crude, we were taking our cues from the :30 Over D.C. compilation album.

How did you meet the Artificial Peace guys?

Let’s go back further. I was away for two weeks in the summer of 1980. And during that time, Government Issue had formed with Brian on bass and Marc on drums.

Brian and I already had a bunch of songs, and he still wanted to play guitar. So we formed another band – he played in both. We knew Mike Manos from school and learned that his brother had a drum set. Mike didn’t really know how to play. Marc gave him some tips, the rest was on-the-job training.

But we still needed a singer. This new wave-looking girl, named Sandra something-or-other, appeared in our school. She’d just moved from New York. None of the other girls at school looked like her. We asked her to sing. We called ourselves The Indians – it was supposed to be ironic.

Our first show was at American University with the GIs, S.O.A. and Youth Brigade. But it got cancelled at the last minute. So everyone met up at Roy Rogers. Fifty, maybe seventy-five, punks walked into the place within a few minutes of each other. The manager came out from behind the counter, he thought we were up to no good. But all we wanted was something to eat and to come up with a plan-B.

We ended up playing that night in the basement of a house in D.C. It was the first time we actually got to hear Sandra sing, because she’d kept pulling a no-show to our practices. John Stabb said she sounded like a dying parakeet.

After that we replaced her with Steve Polcari, who we’d known since junior high school, and changed our name to Assault and Battery. We played some shows like the infamous Pow Wow House gig, which I had set up, and recorded a demo a few months later.

But at the end of the summer of 1981, Brian went to art school in Chicago and I started at the University of Maryland. That meant the GIs needed a new bass player and we needed a new guitarist. Minor Threat had just broken up for the first time, and Brian Baker joined the GIs on bass, he later moved to guitar. Red-C had also just disbanded, so we welcomed Pete Murray to join us.

Artificial Peace was the name of one of our songs. I don’t know if we’d played it with Brian, I may have written it after he left. But we felt like we needed a new band name. We became Artificial Peace.

What were some of Artificial Peace’s most memorable shows?

Opening for the Bad Brains at the Peppermint Lounge in New York City. H.R. called the number he had for me, which was the pay phone down the hall from my dorm room in College Park. We drove up the day of the show, unloaded our gear and discovered H.R. gave me the wrong date. It was the next day. The show itself was terrible! The soundman screwed us. There was nothing in the monitors, we couldn’t hear a thing.

We played another show in NYC at the A7. The first band went on at midnight, we went on around five in the morning. Cheetah Chrome played that night, all I remember was that he was pretty messed up.

We also opened for Black Flag in Baltimore on their Damaged tour. We played well, but the power went out twice during Black Flag’s set. Henry recreated the Damaged album cover and punched out one of the mirror tiles that edged the stage. Lots of blood. How punk rock (laughing)!

As far as D.C., we played some shows at the Wilson Center, which were probably our best. We also played a talent show at the high school that Mike, Steve and I went to. We’d graduated the year before – I don’t recall how we got on the bill. A lot of punks showed up, it was pretty funny.

Only known color photo to exist of Artificial Peace. Wilson Center, 1982. Photo by Davis White.

How did the band end?

Pete called me on the phone, telling me that he and the guys didn’t want to play anymore. It was a surprise. He gave no reason. A few weeks later I heard about Marginal Man. I guess they couldn’t be straight with me.

Was G.I. next? How did that happen? Stabb was my first D.C. hero that I ever met (1985 in Trenton).

Before I joined the GIs, I got together a few times with Kenny Alberstadt, who’s a fantastic guitarist, as well as a female guitarist, whose name escapes me. She looked like Joan Jett and played great! But it didn’t go anywhere.

Then Mitch Parker left Government Issue in the spring of 1983, and I got a call asking if I wanted to join. I played on the GIs summer tour. Our first show was at CBGBs. We had John’s dad’s Buick and a U-Haul trailer full of gear. Just us, no roadies. Tom and I did nearly all the driving. John never got a license. We’d let Marc drive only if Tom and I needed a break. We’d crash at people’s houses after the shows. Some nights it was at nice place and we got to do laundry. Other times, it was more like a squat. Tours were grueling then.

Marc Alberstadt, Tom Lyle, Rob Moss, Tuffy. Outside Shamus O'Brien's, South El Monte (Los Angeles), 1983. Photo by Jordan Schwartz.

 John Stabb and Rob Moss, Sun Valley Sportsman's Hall (Los Angeles), 1983. Photo by Ted Ziegler.

How did your tenure in G.I. end? Did you stop making music?

Around the end of the tour I heard that my transfer to Boston University got accepted. I told the guys. Tom, understandably, was not happy. Once I moved, I stopped playing. And by that time, I felt the scene wasn’t fun anymore.

How did Rob Moss and Skin-Tight Skin come about? Had the idea been brewing for a while?

I’d always wanted to do something more in music. About three years ago I picked up a guitar, started writing songs and posted a few on Facebook. Dwight Reid asked if I wanted to record them at his home studio. He’d play bass and we’d find a drummer. That’s how it happened.

Why did you get a different lead guitarist for each song?

I can get by playing rhythm guitar and singing, but not leads. And I wasn’t ready to commit to forming a touring band. Under those circumstances it would’ve been too big an ask to interest a great lead guitarist to get involved.

But what if, instead, I asked a different guy to play on each song? So I called up old friends and friends of friends, and nearly everyone agreed to help.

What made it such an incredible experience for me is how many musicians I’ve long admired said yes. In your question earlier, about when the punk rock bug hit me, I told you about seeing the Slickee Boys when I was 16 and hearing the first Generation X album. To have guys from those bands – Marshall Keith and Bob ‘Derwood’ Andrews – play on my new album is tremendous. I feel the same about Nels Cline, Don Fleming, Franz Stahl, Stuart Casson, Billy Loosigian, Dave Lizmi, Saul Koll, Chris Rudolf, Marion Monterosso, Spit Stix and everyone else who took part.

How’s the response to the record? Are you happy with it?

Many people comment on the song quality. That even after hearing the album once, they find themselves humming the songs. The earworm thing. To me that’s the best compliment.

What’s also made me happy is hearing from the guys who played on it. That they really like the album as a whole, not just their work on it.

Did you consider recording a hardcore album?

Listening to proto-punk and pub rock made me happy as a kid. And when I speak with friends who were there, many say the same thing. That’s why I make that type of music now, not hardcore.

With all that’s going on, isn’t hardcore still important?

As protest music? I suppose but it seems like preaching to the converted. Bob Dylan’s entire career is protest music, but he grew as an artist to express himself and reach more people. When he went electric in 1966, the folkies booed, they called him a traitor. They expected him to play the same Woody Guthrie songbook forever.

It's the same with hardcore. It had its place. I’m glad to have been part of it. But I no longer want to play it. Still, plenty of my new songs contain the kind of messages I wrote when I was in Artificial Peace. There’s also humor, like Ugly Chair and A Maltese Falcon. Or humor and tragedy, like Got My Ass Stuck in a Tree. Some are about getting older (Tony Alva’s Pictures) or being a kid (Life at 33 1/3 RPM).

How do you discover new music?

Recommendations from friends, mostly. But when I lived in Manhattan in the mid-‘80s to early ‘90s, I had a neighbor in the music business. He’d set down stacks of albums, mostly promo copies, by the trash. I saved what I liked and traded the rest.

That’s how I discovered a band I missed growing up. Willie Alexander and the Boom Boom Band. They were incredible, should’ve been huge! The intro to Rock & Roll ’78 still makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.  

Years later I met the guitarist from that band, Billy Loosigian, through Facebook. And now he’s played on one of my songs. Experiences like that really made the album special to me. I hope it does for everyone else.

What’s next? More music in the future?

Anything’s possible.

 https://skin-tight-rock.bandcamp.com/

[mittensmorgul]

Death is one of my favorite characters in the history of Supernatural. OG Death AND Billie, both.

I feel like I needed to make that clear, because I’ve seen multiple versions of Dean’s first chat with Death from 5.21 floating around since 14.20 aired, and I think this actually merits some deeper considerations than “lol guess Chuck’s gonna bite it in the end, because the show said so back in s5.”

First, I’m gonna go all Doylist on this mofo with a few reality checks:

Kripke’s in-show avatar-- Chuck-- was about to peace himself tf outta the story, as Kripke himself was about to step down. And you know who wrote this episode? Who wrote this scene? I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count.

(It was Sera Gamble, aka the godkiller...)

Right as Sera was arranging things to set up the story she intended to start telling in s6. Where she retold the original story of family betrayal and sacrifice, elevating Cas to a form of mutant godhead only to snuff him in 7.02. And Death didn’t even get to do the deed, despite having been bound to the Winchesters and on the scene ready to snap his fingers, but Godstiel beat him to the snap... literally:

And then... and then the rest of s7 happened, until Carver was tapped to run s8 and forced her hand to bring Castiel back. 

(I won’t drag out all the receipts on the behind the scenes cringeworthy stuff that led to this, because it’s all out there again recently because of what has gone down on the Magicians, but suffice it to say... there was animosity...)

And Dabb, our plucky showrunner now, was there in the writing room through all of this. Since the first go-around of this Betrayal-Sacrifice narrative swirl. And it’s evident how exhausting he finds it based on the seasons he himself has run, beginning in the back half of s11 after Carver stepped aside... He had to keep running through the spiral, but what he highlighted over and over was the damn futility of it.

From the BMoL and their evil monster genocide and mindless obedience to their Code and black-and-white morality, to the utter pointlessness and single-mindedness of Michael and Lucifer-- in this and apparently ANY universe, they only know the single drama that brought forth their existence in the first place.

And Dabb told us that story at the end of s11, with the return of Chuck and his reunification with Amara, apparently healing the original rift that kicked off creation to begin with. Their reunification should have been the end of the cycle, right? Creation could be allowed to continue with the two of them again standing in balance to one another. But apparently even that wasn’t enough for Chuck. He didn’t want to let go of his favorite show. His original story kept playing out, staring “his guys.” Sam and Dean Winchester, with Cas by their side. Once again, Cas was “supposed to have died,” after Jack was born. The “new monster” in a story that had theoretically concluded Cas’s role (this is sarcasm, because this was Sera’s reason for killing Cas off in s6... she literally thought Cas’s part in the story was concluded, that he hadn’t become essential to the narrative). This makes the specific way Dabb had Dean grieve for Cas, and then the specific way Dabb brought him back, all the sweeter, honestly. It was essentially that grief arc from s7, told in a third the number of episodes, in explicit defiance of the original version.

And now Chuck has laid bare his villainy, which is more inability to see any other version of the story. He’s played out every possible variation of the Family Betrayal and Ultimate Sacrifice Angst Narrative that’s possible to play, but on this turn through the arc, in trying to force the despair-betrayal-sacrifice story that brings forth yet one more turn of the cosmic narrative, his characters have seen it enough to see through the spiral.

The Creator only knows one story. It’s HIS story. It’s the story of Creation itself, retelling itself over and over and over, and not even his resolution with Amara was enough to teach him a new story.

Maybe Chuck just hadn’t been willing to end it, because what is the Darkness but his own story’s personal ending? But his Creation has achieved sentience now, and wants to tell its own stories. 

But now Dabb is sitting in the driver’s seat. He’s been slowly steering us to a point where he can FINALLY jump lanes and pull off the narrative rotary. It’s just a matter of which direction he takes the story to the end.

So what do we know about DABB’S feelings about the original author of this story he’s clearly been lovingly retelling us for TWELVE YEARS?

Well, obviously he loves the story, you know? You don’t keep writing the same story for twelve years, taking over as showrunner for the last four and a half of those unless you truly love the characters and their journey. I mean, that’s why we write fanfic of these guys. WE UNDERSTAND HIS LOVE HERE.

Through him, we’ve been learning what these characters really want... they want a happy ending. They want to rest. They want to be able to lay down the baggage of their past and embrace the future without those burdens. THEY want off the ride that “Chuck” has been putting them through from the start.

But they are ALL finally at a mutual point of being unwilling to sacrifice what they HAVE in order to get that ending. They’re not willing to destroy the family they’ve built for it, and they’ve finally had a chance to face The Creator and say that to his face.

They just want to live their own lives. (borrowed from this post): 

But this is the struggle that Dabb has set up for the end of the road. This is him choosing an exit ramp. No matter which road he chose, it would’ve been a bumpy ride. But the fact that this is what the characters themselves are saying they want at this moment before the creator tries to take it all from them, I’m hopeful that the road they’re on will actually lead them to this ending.

They wouldn’t go back and want to erase their past, wouldn’t change what it took to get them to this point, because it’s made them the people they are, and they like the people they are. Just as I don’t think Dabb wants this story and characters that he obviously loves to suffer unrewarded at the end of this very long spiral, I don’t think he intends to destroy the original creator that gave us fifteen years of “our favorite show.” And “our guys.”

[exsanguisdraconis]

i don’t have a blog for this so even tho i’m supposed to be fixing this blog up and getting active i’m going to use this blog to viciously complain about HBO’s His Dark Materials. the below opinions are overwhelmingly negative so if you aren’t interested in that, don’t read it.

I just... don’t understand these writers. I feel like over the course of the five episodes we’ve had that I’ve been very laid back. My expectations were high, I’ll admit that, because I needed SOMETHING to save me from the absolute shit tornado that was The Secret Commonwealth. I needed some good HDM to lift me up from that low and I was counting on the show. Maybe that was unfair. 

To start off with some good things the show, for the most part, looks really nice. Most of the actors are really good. I was pleasantly surprised about the number of POC in the cast. The daemons, though not focused on nearly enough, still look really nice. Ruth Wilson is phenomenal in her role as Mrs. Coulter and even in the couple of scenes where I was like “why did they add this to her character” Ruth acts it out so well I’m happy to just accept it. I think this show is adding in a lot of the complexity to her character that Pullman always wanted, and given she was one of my first “older villain woman I definitely shouldn’t be in love with but am” crushes in media I’m thrilled about that.

My main problem with the show is that it’s---boring. And it’s ridiculously frustrating because it feels like you have to put effort into making it so bland and dry.

The newest episode is an absolute train wreck that lumps together all the minor issues I’ve had with the show into one big pile of shit.

First off I’ve never seen Dafne Keen in anything else. I don’t know if she’s a good actress. I know that in this, she’s really really bad. Even when they put her in emotional scenes, her inability to act like she has real human emotions sucks the life out of them. When Coram was recounting the story of his lost son in the last episode I went from being a little choked up to almost laughing with how much it just didn’t seem like Lyra gave a fuck. Her delivery is so monotone that it just zaps the feeling out of everything she touches.

Secondly what the fuck happened with Billy Costa. Or more specifically what the fuck happened with how they chose to handle the scenes with Billy. The death of Billy, the reactions of people toward him, the dialogue from Iorek, these are some of the most interesting parts of the book. But rather than having Lyra ask, get denied, and then ask Iorek to take her anyway, whisking her off into the night and encountering the witches and creeping into the fishing village where they’re met with terrified villagers... they spend several scenes with Lyra just asking people if she can go. And it’s not even heated argument or charming wit. It’s just “I want to go” and “No it’s out of the way and too dangerous.” Over and over again. 

This really hits on a big problem I have with a lot of media right now where they want to tell me something rather than show it. Usually because that’s the cheaper route of doing things. I get it. The bear is probably difficult and costly to animate... however, why have him IN the show at all if he doesn’t get to be a proper character with proper emotional building scenes. I would have much rather them cut that scene where he’s just giving exposition on bears to Lyra in favor of him telling Lyra about the witches going to war and shaming the people for not having Lyra’s bravery in dealing with Billy Costa. Because those are scenes that tell us something about Iorek the character, and that’s always going to mean more than general lore about Svalbard’s bears.

You see it doesn’t mean anything to me to hear the words “it’s dangerous” or “something is really wrong here” and then not.... see it. The scene with Billy is meant to turn your stomach. You’re supposed to think “who the fuck are these people mutilating children in this way” as Billy repeatedly clings to a dead, dried fish and vacantly asks “where’s Ratta” over and over. And something that adds to that revulsion is seeing how other people treat this small, innocent, injured child. It’s not with compassion and sadness. People are AFRAID of Billy. They don’t want to look at him or touch him. The fishermen beg for Iorek and Lyra to come and relieve them of this evil being. They have no compassion for this child, no outrage for what has been done to him. All they have is fear. 

And maybe I missed Iorek’s iconic “when I’m afraid I will master my fear” but I’ve watched the episode through twice and haven’t found HIM saying it first. So Lyra not wanting to look like a coward in front of him, and Lyra mastering her fear in favor of compassion for Billy means NOTHING. Because it wasn’t in the show. There was no scene where Lyra sees that Billy’s daemon substitute has been ripped from his dead hands and she flies into a rage at the utter disrespect of the people around her. There’s no scene where she gives him the coin with Ratta’s name scratched out in an attempt to give him that dignity and respect that was ripped from him before he died. So what did we get to replace these deeply emotional and telling scenes? Two sing-a-longs from people that can’t goddamn sing.

The thing about these scenes is they’re very straight forward, and we don’t care enough about Ma Costa or John Fa to care that they’re sad. At most they tell us “the Gyptian people are united” but we’ve already seen that. It was the FIRST thing they showed us about them. What we haven’t seen yet in this show is Lyra’s character development. Where Lyra starts to go from a pigheaded, selfish child into a more mature and compassionate person. These scenes rob the situation of deeper meaning. Because we KNOW Billy’s mom is sad, we don’t necessarily need to see it. The story isn’t about her or John Fa. The story is about Lyra, and by cutting more meaningful scenes where she deals with Billy and shows him compassion, and instead just showing her be a little sad at his grave side... it feels flat and emotionless. I didn’t feel sickened or sad for Billy.

I’ve read the books over a dozen times, and out of the series I feel like The Golden Compass/Northern Lights is the most special. It is paced well and filled to the brim with interesting characters and when things happen they happen for a reason. The show is making cheap shots at my emotions by showing a crying mother and honestly it’s bouncing off the rim.

To be clear I WANT this show to work. I felt like episode 4 was perfect. I had absolutely no complaints aside from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s painful attempt at a southern accent. I LIKE that they’re showing a bit of Will’s backstory rather than try and juggle flashbacks or exposition in season 2 (if they get a s2 and I don’t think they will unfortunately). In fact, it seems like most of the scenes they add in for themselves, most of the details they insert, actually have a lot of depth and feeling. Mrs. Coulter’s relationship with her daemon and her scenes of dialogue that hint at her self loathing is brilliant. The scene where Tony and his friend break into her home in defiance of Ma Costa and the others is exciting and emotional. 

Third and finally I just feel like this show is trying too hard to say “I’m not the movie.” First off, I don’t think The Golden Compass was a terrible movie. There are a lot of things I don’t like, but when I think of a terrible remake I think of Gerard Butler playing the Phantom of the Opera and the train wreck into a flaming pile of dumpsters that entire movie was. And I think this show is trying so hard to avoid certain lines and scenes that were in the movie that it’s killing some of the best content from the book that they could pull from. The big problems with the movie didn’t have anything to do with the dialogue or source material, but rather pacing, acting, and set design choices that were made. 

Idk. I hope we get a season 2 and I also kinda don’t care. Because if this is what they’re going to do with The Golden Compass I’m a little worried about what they’ll wind up doing with the other books in the series. And I feel bad because I genuinely like His Dark Materials, I even really enjoyed La Belle Savage. Sure the newest book was.... bad. Really bad, but at the very least the first three books of His Dark Materials deserve a really good show or movie and I feel like between some of the direction choices and Dafne’s acting (which I’m not entirely certain isn’t due to choices from the directors) in some ways this show is way, way worse than the movie ever was.

[swishandflickwit]

Shirbert — promise me (no promises) 1/1

Summary: Maybe love didn’t always mean the adventure was in far off places, but was found within the four walls of her classroom; where a rival, in actuality, was not the villain but a prince in disguise?

Maybe love wasn’t always the stuff of legends. What if it was the quiet things? The constance? Love was steady, she realized. It was study sessions and long walks, an ashen gaze and an encouraging smile in a sea of faces that expected her to fail.

It was standing up for what and who you believed in, going after them when they walked away and promising to want them for all time.

Words: 6.8k

Ratings: General Audiences

Also on: ff.net | AO3

Other writings

Anne Shirley-Cuthbert was in a rage.

How dare he, she seethed, that vile, repulsive, odious, witless pissant!

Oh, how Marilla would despair at her thoughts!

(Rather, Marilla would equally rage at her debasing introspection, as she would later realize once she had calmed herself)

However, in that moment, Anne thought no one in Canada—in all the world even—could neither rival nor temper her resentment. Fury rolled off her and stained her skin an angry red to match her hair. She imagined steam leaking from her pores as her blood curdled… boiled, and not even the pleasant coolness of the summer night air could ease her pique.

She stomped through the lane that would take her home to Green Gables, unmindful of the mud that tracked her boots and splattered across her pristine, white stockings. And they were new too!

I never should have come to this party, she continued her merciless tirade. I should have known better than to accept an invitation, from the Pyes no less! Nothing good ever came out of a gathering hosted by the Pyes. Never mind that it should be the last time we might all be gathered in such a fashion for a long while.

Indeed, for school had come to a close the previous day—at least for Miss Stacy’s pioneer class. A smattering of them would be staying in Avonlea but for the most part, a majority were resolved to pursue their higher education, including (though it hurt her to leave Diana behind) Anne.

Billy Andrews, however, had other… unsavory opinions about that.

“You got into Queen’s?” he scoffed, referring to the Academy in Charlottetown where those with a vocation in mind chose to pursue them. Anne had not only gotten accepted, but gained the highest marks out of all the applicants in Prince Edward Island.

(She was tied with Gilbert though she often, and with much convenience, forgot that fact)

Billy, the thick-headed oaf, elected to ignore this certitude. He had nothing of import or quality to say for Queen’s Academy, having not applied (and in his innermost musings, known that he was not smart enough to be accepted anyway), and therefore inwardly envied and outwardly ridiculed those who had passed.

Anne, through no provocation of hers, nevertheless received his special brand of scorn.

“You may have fooled the Cuthberts, and our classmates. You may have even fooled this entire island. But you’ll never fool me. I know who you are,” he said this in low tones, and lower still as he crept closer and whispered in her ear like she were his lover murmuring sweet nothings to warm her heart, “the Cuthberts didn’t want you in the first place. They were stuck with you, there was no one else. You may have gotten lucky with them, but you ought not to forget who you are and where your place is.” He grinned then, blinding and malicious. “I feel sorry for the Cuthberts. If I were them, I’d have treated my dog better than you. You’re lower than dirt. You’re an orphan, and who could ever truly want you?”

How she burned and burned, the nerve of this insolent and ill-mannered fool! And yet—she meant to say this out loud, make the most of her extensive vocabulary but, her body betrayed her. Her throat felt parched and her feet leaden. Where had her voice gone? The words that were otherwise ready for her to wield as weapons or shape as clay? Where was her indignation?

Her spirit?

Just as quickly, heat melted to cold, noise gave way to a ringing silence and she felt herself rooted to her spot, Billy’s awful, smug smirk frozen before her eyes until—

“ANDREWS!”

Gilbert’s voice pierced through the static that clouded her mind and Billy’s ugly visage was, at last, removed from her line of vision as he turned towards their schoolmate. Anne did not wait to see what would commence between the two boys, however. As soon as the feeling returned to her legs, she imagined she walked out of there with the poise and dignity befitting a nobility such as the Princess Cordelia.

(Bolted, would have been closer to reality)

With nothing but moonshine for light and the faint rustling of the poplar trees for conversation, Anne was her own company. She thought for sure Diana would have come to her side by now, but she supposed that no one had really seen her leave. Billy, for once, hadn’t made a spectacle of himself though somehow this was worse, for she shuddered at the intimate way he had pressed himself onto her as he purred his contempt.

She did not even deign to consider that one witness to that deplorable interaction and what it meant that he had not followed her so for the moment...

She was utterly alone.

Evenings were a curious thing. There was, after all, something quite romantical about the night—lovers meeting in secret to proclaim their forbidden romance, friends exchanging hushed yet excitable stories beneath blankets by candlelight, oh the adventures to be had under the dusky twilight!

But, it was not called the witching hour for nothing. Terrible things happened once the moon had come to siege the sky for every sin, if only for a moment, could be hidden beneath the cover of darkness—ghosts and wolves and brigands and villains abound, and demons too.

Anne’s demons were not of the horned and pointy-tailed kind. Though they too were born of baneful things, they were mostly made of shadows, wispy and seductive intimations that brushed softly against her mind, lulling and comforting and infinite, till it was a pervasive tumor that lay siege to her sense of reason before she ever realized it was a threat.

She looked at the mud tainting her legs, at the stark contrast between muck and cloth, and thought about how she was much like her stockings.

I am a stain. All I’ve ever given Marilla and Matthew and even Jerry since I got here was grief. And Diana... I dread to think how many times I’ve gotten my bosom friend in trouble! As for Cole, the only reason he is still my friend is because he’s miles away in Charlottetown and therefore spared from my importunate nature. Not to mention, I almost drove Miss Stacy to quit her first year here. I’m nothing but trouble! Though I have no love for it, it must love me, for why else would it follow me wherever I tread?

Anne sniffed, shame filling her gut as she fought back tears. I’m just a stupid, orphan girl. There’s no imagining my way around that. No one could ever want me. No one.

So immersed was she in her melancholy that she hadn’t noticed someone was calling her name till a hand descended on her shoulder.

She shrieked (a shrill, embarrassing, banshee of a sound), closing her eyes even as she whirled around to face her assailant.

“Whoa!” exclaimed a deep and resonant voice.

“Whatever riches you may think I possess I assure you sir I am as poor as the dirt beneath your feet, poorer even, than a cow that grazes a pasture for I am utterly incapable of producing anything of value and I—”

“Anne!”

She hadn’t realized she was without breath till she let out a long and heavy exhale. It occurred to her, then, that the tenor by which her name was said was uncannily familiar, the scent of her would-be attacker was that of sun and grass and clean sweat and deeper still, an aura redolent of quiet, fortitude and refuge.

She opened her eyes and breathed.

“Gilbert.”

“Anne,” he chimed in equally, susurrous tones. When she let out another astonished gasp, the air before her crystallized in an algid cloud.

“Where’s your coat?”

She groaned. Of course! Of course, she forgot her coat and bonnet when she left in a huff. Why, walking out may be as dramatic an act as they came, but the books failed to mention just how inconvenient it was! How had the heroines in her favorite literatures managed their adversities with so much courage and grace? And such humor too! While she must have her exposé out in the cold, with (at this, she is gratified) no audience in sight (and at this, she is mortified) save for one, as she cowers and quakes in her boots?

The ardor that fueled the ire in her blood had by now dissipated, leaving an icy and hollow blitz in her veins. Humiliated to her core, she demanded of him, in squeaky volumes, “What are you doing here?”

So she cleared her throat and asked, more stately, again.

Gilbert shook his head. He did not answer. Instead, he looked at her with wide eyes—silver pupils darting back and forth, as if he couldn’t take in the image of her enough. She felt the fleshy, apple of her cheeks flush, a bit of heat returning to her body though a shiver continued to wrack her bones.

“You’re freezing,” he blurted, before an urgent concern (that made Anne rather uncomfortable, as she was wont to be whenever she found herself in Gilbert’s presence—alone or elseways) driving his motions had him divesting his own coat and, without evocation, wrapping it around her frame.

Encased as she was in his jacket and engulfed in the warmth from his body that had suffused itself onto the cloth, the sweet and opulent smell of him further intensified.

(As did the beat of her heart)

(Though this, if asked about, she would vehemently deny to her grave)

“I don’t need your pity,” she averred in what she hoped was a cold and unforgiving demeanor, even as her hold on the coat about her shoulders only tightened.

“It’s not—”

“Isn’t it?”

He sighed, his face scrunched up in exasperation and though a part of her felt abashed at her behavior, a larger part was content to drown in thorough defeat.

“We’re friends, aren’t we Anne?”

She licked her lips, something of a nervous habit. His eyes darted to track the movement and his throat bobbed. She felt her blush deepen.

“Are we?” She whispered.

He laughed though it was more tight than it was humorous.

“Must you always answer my questions with questions?”

She glared at him in the universal expression of, you’re asking for it.

He chuckled in genuine good-nature this time and she felt her irritation abate as she joined him. But their mirth abated all too soon and Gilbert was once more looking at her through hooded eyes that did nothing to lessen their intensity.

“I don’t know what Billy told you that made you react this way, but nothing good ever came out of his foul mouth anyway so, whatever it is he said—don’t believe it,” he shook his head. “It’s not true.”

At once, where she was bereft, the animosity welled within her at the reminder. The wrath that had been absent when she stood before Billy Andrews was now within her grasp and expelled itself onto the nearest presence—Gilbert.

She shoved him. It was a commiserable attempt since he hardly moved, but he let her anyway and she felt a little of her dauntless energy return.

“You can’t say that. You don’t know!”

“Then help me know,” he pleaded.

“I can’t,” she exclaimed, an unwanted sob building in her throat. “It’s too gruesome.”

“Then at least tell me that you don’t believe it,” he took her hand in his with utmost care, his palm coarse with calluses born from a life tending to a farm, his fingertips of ice. And yet, she had never felt so delicate, her hand cradled within his. “Tell me you know he’s wrong.”

“That’s the worse part,” she whispered as she pulled her hand away. “He’s absolutely right.”

A frightful silence had descended upon them. Even the wind had died and the poplar trees halted their rustling, as if Mother Nature herself wanted to be privy to their conversation.

“You can’t mean that, you don’t know what you’re saying—”

“And you do?” she sighed, running a hand—that same, still-tingling hand that Gilbert held what seemed like only a heartbeat ago—over her face.

He groaned. “Not this again.”

She scowled at him. “What do you care anyway? Why are you here? What I do or what I talk about with other people, worthless they may be, is none of your business.”

“And if I want to make it my business?” he countered, the muscle in his jaw ticking from restrained frustration.

She frowned. “What do you mean, Gilbert?”

“Tell me what Andrews said and I can prove to you, I can guarantee, that it’s not true.”

“But it is!”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes. It is! ”

They bickered in this fashion as if they were six instead of approaching sixteen. She insisted on her truth (or rather, Billy’s truth), though she hadn’t the faintest idea why. Is this not what she craved? Is this not the assurance and acceptance she sought her whole life? But still, she found herself scoffing.

“You don’t even know what I’m talking about!”

He rolled his eyes and in snide intonations, rebutted, “Because you won’t tell me!”

“FINE!” she relented and snarled, nay, practically spat the words at him.

“I’m an orphan! Is that what you wanted to hear? Maybe my parents loved me, once upon a time, but apparently not enough to live for me.” Her voice was guttural, her words laced with so much acrimony, it was unrecognizable to her. “I’m a burden to Matthew and Marilla, who wanted a boy in the first place and instead was saddled with me. I bring misfortune on anyone I touch. I’m nothing but a curse. No one could ever want me.”

There. She said it. And again, that insidious reticence, how she was beginning to abhor it. She closed her eyes, unsure of which she was dreading more: his resignation or condescension.

As it stood, she had neither to fear, for what she received was far worse.

He laughed. Laughed!

“How dare you, Gilbert Blythe!” She fumed. She punched him on the shoulder, though his chortles only grew in volume. She made to cuff him again, but he caught her fist in his and pulled her closer—closer than either of them had ever emboldened to be.

No one was laughing now.

“You are an idiot, Anne Shirley-Cuthbert,” he murmured, his whisper a hot hiss of breath against her cold and beggared lips. She had never been more aware of the weight of her hand in his, she had never been more aware of him. “A downright fool.”

She was mindful that she should have been peeved by this imputation, her common sense screaming at her to react and do so with equal and voracious impudence.

If only the rest of her faculties got the message.

For though his words were intended to wound, the effect was rather lost in translation. Not when there was an undercurrent of awe in his inflection, not when he said ‘idiot’ and ‘fool’ as if that was not what he meant at all; like they were terms of endearment rather than grave offenses.

As if Gilbert had his own personal meaning just for her, and it was the very opposite of its conventional connotations.

“Am I?” She returned in watery tones for she trembled under the weight of all that implied.

He smiled and it was slight in breadth but tremendous in affection. He stepped closer till she had to crane her neck just to be able to take all of him in, her face tilted towards the moonlight. He stopped his beaming then, for a silvery stream had caught his eye.

She hadn’t realized she was crying till he brushed away a droplet.

“I guarantee you,” he repeated, his eyes fervent and bright, “no one could have ever provided you a better home than the Cuthberts. And Diana—she’s positively radiant around you and she was never that way until you came along. Cole found the courage to be who he truly is and you helped him achieve that. And it was you who orchestrated the plan to keep Miss Stacy in school and believe me, she has never regretted the experience for a single moment. This whole island is alive because of you, you emit a gravity of your own and anyone who meets you can’t help but fall into your orbit. If that’s not enough to convince you…”

That same rough hand, from which he never relinquished her violent fist, now urged her to bloom her fingers so that he might place it on his chest. There she rested them and there he cupped her fingers, with a lambency that made her ache for she didn’t expect such a touch from one who lived most of his life as a laborer.

There she felt his heartbeat, strong and certain and—and racing.

How could it thud so hard and so fast when they hadn’t been running or walking since they began? Astonishment etched itself across her features.

“How—?”

“Do you really need me to spell it out for you?”

“For old time’s sake,” she strived to banter, afraid to reveal herself.

(Afraid to acknowledge the truth)

“How did you figure that no one could ever want you? I’m right here,” he avowed. “I’m here, and I want you. So much.” He shook his head and released a laugh that was riddled with disbelief. “I can’t even begin to explain just how so. I want you, plain as that. I wanted you from the moment I laid eyes on you and I want you now and I’m—” he gulped. “I’m quite certain I’ll want you for as long as I live.”

She gaped, the flow of her tears halted from her stupor at such an exaltation. All this unbeknownst to Gilbert, her countenance spurred him to quip with a, “Well, Miss Shirley-Cuthbert, what say you about that?”

His lips stretched into a timid smile that betrayed his timorousness all the same.

“I’m at a loss for words,” she admitted freely. At that, his smile dimmed but did not diminish altogether.

He did, however, let her go.

(She hadn’t realized how much of him had seeped into her skin when at once, he stepped back, taking all the heat with him and leaving a resounding void in her chest)

“May I walk you home?”

And just like that, the conversation was dropped.

Anne, who was more confused leaving this exchange than she was when she entered it, acquiesced to this simple request for lack of a better reaction.

The true gentleman that he is, Gilbert indeed accompanied her the entire trek to Green Gables. Bubbles of conversation drifted between them before fizzling out due to the vapidity of their topics. It was only when they reached her porch did he speak to her with a solemnity that matched their earlier situation.

They stood facing each other, the space between them so corpulent it was its own presence. The camaraderie they had built (and sincerely enjoyed) in those final years at school seemed to have evaporated till their very atmosphere felt too hostile to breathe—they were that edgy. Still, he must have wanted to reclaim a bit of ease with a manoeuvre reminiscent of their first meeting.

He tugged on one of her braids.

But the stark difference between then and now was the intent for there was nothing teasing about his touch. There was no mistaking the feeling in his caress when it was so careful.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

It was devotion.

She licked her lips and again, the muscle in his jaw strained as he clenched it.

“Um,” she stuttered. Answer? Answer? She wasn’t ready to answer. Nor did she think she ever would be ready to answer!

“Relax,” He laughed, no doubt reading the panic that pulled her face taut. He smirked.

“We are friends,” he said, a bit of anxiety leaking into his tone. “Right?”

She blew a relieved breath though she shouldn’t have been, the uncertainty in his voice consoled her all the same. In this, she could unfailingly put her faith. She nodded with the eagerness of a pupil first in her class.

“Always.”

At her affirmation, he gave her hair one last, fond tug and replied quietly, “Good,” before arranging it away from her face and tucking it behind her ear.

“Anyway…”

She felt her breath catch in her throat.

“Anyway,” she returned in an equally hushed voice.

His parting smile was a shot of radiance in the gloom. She returned it with a crooked one of her own, praying it concealed the jumble of her emotions. His smile… it—did things, to her insides. Strange things. Things that made her sick at the image of him walking away from her.

Things that made her want to stop him leaving.

“Gilbert!”

He whirled at the sound of her voice, hope a living flame on his countenance. She floundered.

“I… you…” her hand clenched around the jacket engulfing her frame, and she remembered. “Your coat!”

She moved to take it off but Gilbert stopped her.

“Keep it.”

“But won’t you be cold?”

He shook his head. “I’ll be fine.” he said. “Take care of yourself, Carrots.”

She pursed her lips. Where once the nickname would have incensed her, now it filled her with a breathless sort of glee, like a language only the two of them shared because they were the only ones in the world who understood it.

“I guess… I’ll be seeing you around?”

Why was she stalling?

“So much, it’ll be impossible to miss me,” he teased with a roguish smile.

She chuckled.

He was approaching the gate when she called to him once more, “Goodnight!”

He turned, walking backwards as he tipped his newsboy hat towards her and bowed. “And to you, Miss Shirley-Cuthbert!”

And though he couldn’t see, she bit her lip, trying with all her might to hide her grin.

Watching him leave, she found her ebullience ebbing. Something felt different within her... had her soul shifted somehow? She did not feel like she had been halved nor did she feel any less of herself. If anything, she felt bigger. She felt more. Like her essence had expanded, only to carve a mold shaped suspiciously to Gilbert’s silhouette. She felt forever changed, it was incomprehensible to her that he didn’t feel the same way. And yet—

How could it be so easy for him to walk away?

His frame was swallowed by the darkness before he disappeared altogether, the echoes of their confabulation fading with him until she was all alone.

And it was as if it never happened at all.

Sun chased moon and dusk gave way to dawn. Recounting the occurrence to Diana and Cole (who was visiting from Charlottetown for the weekend to celebrate the start of summer with his childhood chums) betwixt the orange orchard that bordered the Barrys’ property, the sun warm and effulgent on their skin, she deemed her revelation from the night before as ridiculous.

“Right?” she questioned the two, expecting their full agreement. “I was being ridiculous!”

“I suppose that’s one word for it,” Diana muttered.

“I’m sorry,” exclaimed Cole, not sounding apologetic at all, “But I’m still hung up on the part where Gilbert proposed to you.”

Anne was certain she blushed to the roots of her flaming hair.

“He did not!”

“You’re right,” he acceded and she felt it safe for her mind to enter a state of palliation when he followed with a biting, “you are an idiot.”

“Technically, Gilbert said that.” Diana smirked as she spoke. Anne turned to her with a glare.

“And what is your opinion on this, oh bosom friend o’mine?”

She demurred but Anne persisted with a whinge in her voice.

Diana was perfectly aware what Anne wanted her to say, which is why it hurt her to divulge her true opinion. It seemed her friend was in dire need of a wake up call—not that she would be the one to give it.

So she skirted for an answer.

“Well, ‘as long as I live’ seems an awful long commitment…”

Apparently she hadn’t skirted well enough for Anne bellowed with a disparaging, “Diana!”

She cringed. “But—”

Anne groaned. “No! I think I’ve had enough of this conversation.”

Diana bit her lip, looking rather miserable. “I’m sorry, Anne.”

“Don’t be!” Cole reproached her. “Tell her.”

“Whatever it is, I won’t hear it!”

Anne, in a fit of childish tantrum, put her hands over her ears. It prompted Cole to roll his eyes and march over to where she was seated, buried amongst the roots of a tree so that he could unhand her. He locked eyes with Diana and raised his eyebrows. He tipped his chin towards Anne, who was glaring viciously at him.

“She needs to hear it.”

Anne turned her head away, but it didn’t stop her from hearing what Diana made known.

“I saw you leave last night,” she started. “I was going to follow you, but then Gilbert punched Billy! And apparently, it wasn’t the first time for no one stopped him. Personally, I think Billy has the kind of face that’s just asking to be punched so truly, who could blame Gilbert?”

“Diana,” Cole chided, though his mouth twitched in barely suppressed laughter.

“Well, Gilbert didn’t wait for Billy to get up, he just dashed for the door and that’s where he bumped into me. He asked me if I saw you come out that way and I said yes. I told him I was just about to run after you but, he stopped me.

“‘I’ll go after her,’ he said. ‘There are… words I must say and I can no longer conceal myself.’”

Diana and Cole expected Anne to react in an explosive manner, or, at the very least, say something. When she did nothing but give them both a blank stare, Cole gave Diana an encouraging nod.

“There’s something else, Anne.”

“Oh, what is it now?” she wailed.

Diana shook her head. “It’s not about you. It’s… I’m—”

Her troubles forgotten, Anne jumped to her feet and was at Diana’s side in a blink.

“Are you all right?”

Tears sprung into her eyes and Anne’s alarm grew. “Diana?”

She shook her head.

“I couldn’t be better. I’m, well,” she took a deep breath.

“I’m engaged!”

Anne stared.

Diana deflated. “Oh, don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what,” she said, crossing her arms in defense.

“Like I’m a different person. Like everything's about to change.”

“Everything is about to change!”

Diana looked away.

“When was this?”

She paused, as if unsure whether she should answer.

“Last week.”

“Last week,” Anne repeated, rolling the words around her brain till it clicked. “Last week!”

Diana nodded haplessly. Anne turned to Cole and pointed at him an accusing finger. “You knew!”

“To be fair, she only told me today, as we both made our way here.”

Anne furrowed her brows and rubbed at her forehead. An ache was forming at her right temple.

“But… but we’re only sixteen.”

“Prissy was sixteen when she first walked down the aisle.”

“Look how well that turned out,” she rebutted in a tone heavy with sarcasm. “And what have your parents to say about this? I don’t need a wide ‘scope of imagination’ to figure that Jerry is hardly their first choice for you!”

Diana flinched.

“They… don’t know. I haven’t exactly told them.”

“Oh Lord,” Anne muttered. She was beginning to sound a lot like Marilla, and was just now understanding the spectrum of emotions she herself put the female Cuthbert through on a daily basis.

“When will you tell them?” Cole asked in a more gentle manner.

“If you tell them!” she called out. "Diana, this is Jerry. He’s a dear friend but—"

“Stop it, Anne!” Cole bursted before he shot her a glare. “For someone who prides herself on her tolerance, you sure have a narrow perspective on this. If you would listen to her, you would see that she’s in love.”

“What do you know about love? What do any of us know of love?” she shot back.

Cole sighed in frustration. “You and I may be limited in experience but you would have to be blind not to see it in Diana. And perhaps you are, if you go on in this fashion! Are you so lost in your flight of fancies that you’ve turned your head around on what it means to love? Just look at her, Anne.”

She frowned but for once, Anne forced the words that piled itself into her mouth, down her throat. She turned still wary eyes to her oldest friend and observed her with the kind of open mind she beseeched upon the world, and saw her, truly saw her, anew.

Despite her pallor, she stood straight, her shoulders back in a way that would make her mother proud save for her chin, jutted out in defiance. She had never looked taller. Her eyes held a certain shine—as though nothing, not even the threat of her parents or the prospect of leaving Jerry behind to go to finishing school in Paris, could ever banish their light.

“I know he’s not the Ideal Man we promised ourselves we would find in our youth, nor is his proposal the grand advent that we dreamed of nor is our love the epic we longed to command, but Anne, I don’t know how to explain it without sounding like a silly, lovestruck fool. He’s so much better, he’s so much more…”

(She felt more. Was this not a thought she conjured to herself last night?)

Diana trailed off, evidently lost in her thoughts. In that moment, Anne had never felt so far away from her friend. But this wasn’t about her feelings. Diana had a smile on her face and it was awash in excitement but more than anything, it was serene. As though she had found her rightful place in the world, and it was by Jerry’s side, her arm slightly outstretched and her body angled in a way like she was merely waiting to fit herself to him.

Chagrined, the pit of her gut flooded with the shame of her actions. That she drove Diana to have to explain herself! How could she have done this and ever called herself a bosom friend?

In the end, she only had one other question to ask.

“Are you happy?”

Both Cole and Diana turned surprise eyes, at her and her tone, soft and apologetic. Diana though, her lovely jet-black hair a blazing amber in the noon sunshine, looked perfectly brilliant and Anne had her answer.

“If you’re happy, then so am I.”

She went to her, a mist transforming her gaze into pools as she hugged the girl who had grown into a woman, seemingly before her very eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “you can’t know how much,”

“It’s all ready forgotten.”

Cole shortly joined their embrace and the three friends were laughing even as they wiped rivulets of tears from each other’s cheeks.

“Well,” Cole prompted. They were spread on the grass, their heads together in a triangle while they mooned onto the blue sky and painted pictures out of clouds. “How did he propose?”

Anne’s mouth twisted as she deduced that it must have been unromantical—though this sentiment, she kept to herself lest she again upset the comradeship that was so newly established amongst them.

But Diana’s tenor was sweet and dreamy as she recalled, “He wrote me a letter—a full-fledged letter! He gave it to me personally, of course, for fear of my parents finding it first but oh, it was in an envelope and stamped and everything, as if he had sent it to me through courier.”

She was all too relieved that she kept her opinions to herself, for though he hadn’t gone down on one knee, Anne supposed that an epistolary proposal sounded absolutely beauteous—especially once she considered just how far Jerry had come from, being illiterate as a child. He prided himself on his abilities now.

“If anything, I have you to thank Anne, for you began his tutelage.” Diana sighed. “I’d show you the letter, but I’d like to keep it to myself if you don’t mind.” She blushed as she said this and they all giggled, for they did not mind at all. “But truly, it was divine, it was himself in words. All his emotions on a page, and yet all he wrote of was me...”

Nestled within the grass, Diana was a rose in bloom with the way she blushed as she spoke of her betrothed. It was then Anne had an epiphany.

Perhaps love did not always come in the form of impassioned speeches or grandiose adventures. Perhaps it wasn’t always a princess who was locked up in a tower guarded by a fire-breathing dragon, her prince ready to brave the flames.

Maybe it was a low-burning ember, less hot than the blaze of a fire sure, but just as passionate. She thought of Diana and Jerry and wondered if it might be letters written in longhand, if the prince’s sword was actually a pen, the ink his weapon that illustrated his ardor—if the dragon wasn’t a dragon but the politics of society that told young lovers they must not marry below their station or, and she looked at Cole, their same sex.

Maybe love didn’t always mean the adventure was in far off places, but was found within the four walls of her classroom; where a rival, in actuality, was not the villain but a prince in disguise?

Maybe love wasn’t always the stuff of legends. What if it was the quiet things? The constance? Love was steady, she realized. It was study sessions and long walks, an ashen gaze and an encouraging smile in a sea of faces that expected her to fail.

It was standing up for what and who you believed in, going after them when they walked away and promising to want them for all time.

“Anne?”

Diana touched her shoulder but all she could say was, “I am a fool.”

Cole smiled knowingly.

But, fool that she was, it took her till twilight to empower herself to take any sort of action. With word to Marilla on where she would be, and Marilla raising an astute eyebrow at the very young male coat she left behind when she departed (honestly, was she the only one oblivious to her own feelings?), she went where her heart led.

And her heart led her at the boundary of the Blythe farm, where she paced back and forth, back and forth and back and forth until—

“Anne?”

She startled. “Gilbert!”

“Hello…?”

He looked bewildered at her being there, and rightfully so. Dusk was falling, and here they were again. She chuckled, though it was riddled with tension.

“You’re always catching me unawares,” she jested. “I wonder when I’ll ever return the favor.”

“Impossible,” he muttered.

Disconcerted, she inquired, “why?”

He gave her a modest smile, though he didn’t look away.

“I’m always aware of you.”

She was tempted to look away—so heated was his gaze. But her determination was even more ignited and so she compelled herself to hold his stare.

“Not that I’m displeased,” he continued, before the silence could prolong. “But what are you doing here? It’s nightfall. Is something wrong in Green Gables?”

“No, no,” she assured in quick tones. “The very opposite. I just—I need to tell you something.”

His brows furrowed as he tilted his head for her to go on. “Yeah?”

“It is rather important,” she began. “Could we… could we talk somewhere more privately? Preferably, not out in the cold.”

“Oh!” Gilbert laughed in abashment. “Of course, let’s go inside.”

“Where are Bash and Mary?” She asked when they entered the dark and empty house. Gilbert led her to the parlor where he offered her a seat and he lit candles as he spoke.

“They’re in Charlottetown, I just came from the train station where I dropped them off actually. They’re going to attend to Mary’s son. He’s fallen ill.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I offered to go with them, but it doesn’t sound so serious. Overfatigue, probably stress from work, and a fever. Mary wants to be with him, just to be sure and Bash, well,” he rolled his eyes though when he spoke, it was full of fondness. “He never wants to be far from Mary.”

Again, they shared a weighted look. Anne cleared her throat, but nothing came out. Should she make more small talk? Ease into it? Or should she just dive right in?

“So,” Gilbert smoothly urged. “You had something important to tell me?”

Right, she thought, diving into it, then.

“I needed to see you,” she started.

“In the middle of the night?”

He sounded amused. Was he mocking her? Here she was, laying her heart bare and he was ribbing her?

“Hardly!” she burst out, her temper rising. “The sun hasn’t even fully set!”

“Hasn’t it?”

He gestured towards the window where, surely enough, darkness had conquered the sky with a swiftness Anne had forgotten it was capable of. She frowned and when she looked back at him, that insufferable smirk was affixed to his lips.

Oh he means to rile me, she conjectured. He thinks he’s so clever!

His goading gave her an inexplicable boost of confidence so, abruptly, she declared, “I have objections.”

“Objections?” befuddled, he scratched at the side of his head—a habit of his, she knew. “To what?”

“To ‘as long as I live’.”

“As long as I—”

He broke himself off as all humor was swept from him and the light of realization settled upon his eyes.

“‘Forever’ sounds ever more romantical, don’t you agree?”

“Anne,” he whispered, hope lighting his face and forging her heart and soul anew. She hid a smile. How unfair it was that he should look so glorious under the candlelight, the shadows sharpening his all ready chiseled jaw and the strong slant of his nose.

How he glowed.

“I think I ought to school you on the proper techniques to proposing. I am, after all, to be a teacher.”

“Oh,” he queried, his voice wobbly and a suspiciously wet gleam in his cinereal look. “What exactly would you have me do differently, teacher?”

“Well, for one, I would have you down on your knee like… so.”

Gilbert’s eyes widened in genuine shock. In truth, Anne too was surprised at herself. She never thought she would be so happy, lowering herself to the ground. But she was, as she bent on one knee.

“And then?” he said, low and susurrous.

“Then, I would have you take my hand,” Anne’s fingers touched his, resting open on his lap like he was just waiting, waiting.

They entwined.

“We would look deeply into… each other’s… eyes…”

Her breathing began to quicken. From the rapid rise and fall of his chest, so had his. She was drowning, captured by the depth of his wonder—nothing could have made her look away from him.

“Then?”

“The most important part, of course.” she breathed. “A vow.”

She gulped.

“I love you.”

Gilbert exhaled shakily, his grip tightening on her hand.

“Would you have me, Gilbert? Would you do me the honor of being my partner… forever?”

Her breath hitched. For one horrid second, she was of the mind he would deny her.

He let go of her hand. He shoved the chair away and was leveled in front of her in a heartbeat. He cupped her face in his hands, his touch light and cool as a doctor’s should be. Anne closed her eyes.

Was there ever any doubt?

Gilbert kissed her.

In this, she could trust. This, she thought, is true.

She was happy to stay that way, ecstatic to be linked in the most universal language of devotion. But air was a necessity, and when they pulled but a hairsbreadth away she asked, “Is that a yes?”

Gilbert laughed, jubilant and boisterous, and oh how it outshined even the shadows.

“What now?” she breathed, her hands cupping his own around her face.

“I love you, Anne Shirley-Cuthbert, more than anything. I’ll love you in this life and the next, you can be sure. Forever isn’t nearly long enough.”

“Now that’s a vow.”

He laughed again. She joined him. "Shut up and kiss me, Carrots."

"You shut up and kiss m—"

He did, and she didn't even mind that he cut her off.

For Diana was right. They were no Elaine and Lancelot, but how could she ever give this up? Give him up? A lifetime of his kisses, a lifetime of his touch, forever in his arms?

No... this was better.

This was more.

AN: Come say hi to me! ;)