#and the fourth gif! the way they automatically know to reach for one another

[amythedvdhoarder]

Deals with the Devil

Pairing: Ransom x Reader

Warnings: Swearing and smut (lots of it) 18+

Word count: 3.9K

A/N: (gif not mine) So this is the fourth (?) entry for @drabblewithfrannybarnes​ sweaterbaes challenge. I chose the prompt “Shove it Satan” because I mean come on, if you could put that quote with any character it was gonna be Ransom.  Carly you know I am all about the fluffy goodness but I can’t seem to write a SFW Ransom fic 🤷‍♀️ Hope you don’t mind?  Ily hun 😘

Not beta read so any mistakes are my own 🎃

xxx

You and your housemate were civil, not friends. Ransom came from money and his sudden change in circumstances and meant that he’d had to give up his expensive house and rent somewhere considerably cheaper. That’s how he ended up with you. The rates in your building had all but doubled meaning you had to rent out the spare bedroom. When the knock on your door came you hadn’t expected to come face to face with the disarmingly handsome Drysdale. As you had shown him around the apartment he didn’t seem impressed, in fact his face had the expression that he was smelling something rather disgusting. Despite this though he still asked, well told you, he could take the room, but only after demanding you got rid of the bed so he could move his own superior one in. It pained you to rent the room to him, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

You took much delight in Ransoms fall from grace. Losing his inheritance was perhaps one of the best things that could have happened to him. It was evident that he had never had to stand on his own two feet without the bank of Granddaddy Harlan to fund his lavish lifestyle. But now the spoilt man-child had to actually get a job, which thanks to his ‘connections’ he managed to do within a week. Of course, that gave him the ammunition to bitch and moan constantly. Something he was doing very loudly right now.

“This is fucking stupid,” you heard him grumble as he walked into the sitting room.

You turned to look at him and couldn’t stop the snort escaping. He glared daggers at you.

“What?” he snapped as narrowed his eyes at you.

“The horns suit you. Really feels like you’re revealing your true self to world,” he shot you a sarcastic smirk.

“Well I see you’re still wearing your costume from last year. Got to say Y/N, the mask is terrifying,” you rolled your eyes at his childish comment. God the man was infuriating and even with the horns, he looked damn good in his black suit.  

“Oh, shove it, Satan. Least I’m not a fully-grown adult dressed up as the devil for a works Halloween costume party.” Ransom laughed, he actually laughed at your insult.

“Yes, how embarrassing. Almost as embarrassing as being in your 20’s with no one to go out with on Halloween,” slamming your books down on the table you glared at him.

“I’m studying you jackass, I have exams next month. Some of us aren’t just given us jobs because we come from rich families.” Ransom was shocked by your outburst, but quickly rearranged his face to its usual hard, arrogant exterior. To be honest he was a little turned on, he had never really seen you display anything other than indifference towards him.

“Sucks to be you. See you later sweetheart,” with that he turned and strode out of the apartment.

“Fuck you,” you screamed at the closed door. The way he said that little pet name replayed in your head. The smarmy git. How could one man infuriate you so much and also make you want to jump his bones at the same time?

Well at least Ransom wouldn’t be around to cause any further turmoil tonight. Sticking to your original Halloween plans you made yourself a cup of tea in your pumpkin mug (even if you weren’t going out you could still get into the spirit of things), plopped yourself back onto the sofa and picked up your notebook and started making notes on the life cycle of algae.

After an hour or so you had met your target for the night, you placed your books on the table and stretched out. The chill autumn air was blowing a cold draft into open plan living room making you shiver. Glancing around you tried to find an extra layer to put on. All you could find was Ransoms cream cable knit thrown onto the arm chair where he had thrown it off the other day when he had been caught in a sudden downpour outside. You pulled the soft knitted jumper over your head and pulled the sleeves down over your hands, gripping the material in your fingers. The man might be a complete and utter douche but damn if he didn’t have good taste in jumpers. Lifting your hands up to your face, you could smell Ransoms lingering scent. It brought a small smile your face knowing how furious he would be if he knew you borrowed his sweater. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, besides you would be in bed way before he got back, that’s if he even came back. The bastard might get lucky? Ransom would think the walk of shame was like walking up to collect an award.

xxx

Ransom was miserable, he didn’t want to be here. He certainly didn’t want to be wearing this fucking costume but his boss had told him he had to, and even though he hated taking orders, he needed the cushy job. Well, at least until he could figure out how to usurp that Marta bitch.

Only one thing would make sure that this evening wasn’t a complete waste of his time and that was getting laid. Many of the women at the party were dressed in the cliché incredibly revealing nurses’ outfits, skin tight catsuits with deep plunging necklines or the newly popular Harlequin costume. Some were throwing themselves at Ransom, but he didn’t find himself excited at the prospect of any of them. Every time a new woman approached him, he suddenly thought about you; face contorted with rage and shock just before he left the flat earlier this evening. He had to admit that he found you physically appealing but until tonight had never thought about acting on it. You must be as in need as him. In the last 6 months he hadn’t heard or seen a man anywhere near you. A couple of times he had heard your soft sighs and moans as you took matters into you own hands. On those occasions he had joined you, getting himself off to the sound of you getting off.

At the feeling of his slacks getting tighter Ransom muttered his goodbyes to his boss and headed back to his car. It took him 15minutes to drive back to the flat. If this all went to plan any speeding ticket he might have gotten on the journey back would be worth it. He could hear the tv faintly in the background as he stepped through the front door.

“Shit,” he heard you whisper shout as the door clicked behind him. He walked down the short hall and leaned against the door frame.

“Well if it isn’t the devil himself,” you give him a sarcastic smile. “Thought you be trying to entice some angels to join you in hell.”

Ransom chuckled making you roll your eyes at him. You shifted ever so slightly making sure you were hidden fully behind the back of the sofa, you still hadn’t taken his sweater off. “You almost sound jealous sweetheart. Don’t worry there’s …,” Ransom stopped and suddenly walked over so that he was stood at the end of the sofa. One eyebrow raised in amusement. “Sweetheart, are you wearing my sweater?”

You scrunched up your face as you tried to think of some convincing lie but nothing came to mind. “Nope,” this is mine Ransom.”

“You don’t sound so sure Y/N,” he said, his voice teasing. “How about you stand up and let me have another look?”

“No, I don’t think that’s necessary,” you stuttered.

“Oh, but I do,” he stepped closer, took your hands and hauled you to your feet. “Now my jumper had a hole right here,” he pointed to his chest and looked at the little hole mirrored on the jumper you were wearing. He took his finger and threaded it through the hole, it brushed up against the side of your breast making your breath hitch.

“You really are the devil, aren’t you?” you whispered.

“Better believe it sweetheart,” he pulled his finger out of the jumper and slipped his hands underneath the t-shirt you had on below the jumper. His hands travelled up and held onto your ribs, thumbs teasing over the thin lacy material of your bralette. You knew you shouldn’t be letting Ransom do this but you couldn’t bring yourself to tell him to stop. In fact, this slow torturous approach he was taking was starting to make you a little impatient.

“You win, it’s your jumper. I was cold alright? And Ransom, if we are going to do this you better hurry up and fuck me.” He growled at the challenge you issued him.

“Works for me sweetheart. Now take my sweater off, I don’t want it to get ruined,” he removed his hands from under your shirt and stood back to watch you.

“You don’t get to tell me what to do, this is a mutual fucking. Anyways you’ve still got those ridiculous horns on your head, they’re going to have to go,” you chided before removing the jumper and your t-shirt in one go.

“And here was me thinking you wanted to fuck the devil,” Ransoms eyes fell appreciatively to your sheer bralette, his tongue darting out to lick his bottom lip.

You couldn’t help but roll your eyes at him. “I would still be fucking the devil without the horns on.”

Reaching up on your tiptoes, you pulled the horns off his head and threw them across the room. After that you turned your attention to his jacket, pushing it off his shoulders before moving onto the buttons of his shirt. He helped you with the last few buttons and shrugged it off. You had seen him without a shirt on before but never had the chance to drag you nails over the contours of his abs. It looked like you weren’t going to have much time now either as Ransom grabbed your waist and picked you up. Automatically your legs wrapped around his narrow hips, fingers entwining in his hair.

Ransom attacked you mouth with his. Teeth and lips crashing together in a moment of pure need and desire. There was nothing romantic about it, it was animalistic. He moaned into your mouth as you tugged his hair. A cry escaped you lips as Ransom crashed you both into the wall. He pinned you against it, moving his lips along your jaw and sucking at the sensitive skin at your neck, whilst his hand found the door handle to his room. Once he had managed to open the door, his hands moved down to knead your ass as he carried you over the threshold.

The room was tidier than you expected. There were little traces of his former life, Egyptian cotton sheets, expensive bottles of cologne on the shelf and a small collection of swiss watches on the bed side table. Normally you would have commented on how much of a spoilt prick he was but all you could concentrate on was the feeling Ransoms hardening length pressing against your core. He fell backwards onto the bed with a soft thud making you squeak in surprise, you had to throw your arms out to stop yourself from rolling off him.

“Watch it arsehole,” you chided. You sat up and pulled off your bralette, the movement making your hips, which we straddling Ransoms waist, wiggle. The sound that escaped Ransom brought a grin to your own face. His lust darkened eyes were fixed on your chest, his finger tips gripping your waist, encouraging you to continue moving. “Who knew the trust-fund prince was such a pervert?” His eyes narrowed as they met yours. “Oops, forgot your just a commoner now like the rest of us,” you teased.

“Careful sweetheart,” the threat in his tone made you shiver.

You rolled your bottom lip between your teeth and raised an eyebrow at Ransom. “Who say’s I want to be careful?”

Before you knew it, Ransom had rolled you so that you were beneath him. His arms resting either side of your head, a carnal look in his eyes. “You may regret saying that.”

That was the only warning you had before his head dropped and began nipping and sucking a trail of small marks from your neck to your chest.  You gasped as his took one of your pebbled nipples into his mouth and flicked his tongue his over the taut bud before biting it gently, then turned his attention to the other.  Ransom let out a moan as your dug your nails in the muscular planes of his shoulder. He detached his mouth from your nipple and captured your lips in a bruising kiss. You sucked on his bottom lip as his hands explored every available part of you. When his hands reached the band of your pyjamas his paused and sat up, searching your eyes for any sign that he should stop.

He didn’t find one.

You lifted your hips so that he could slide your bottoms down your legs. He tutted slightly making you scowl.

“No underwear, I’m not the only devil in disguise,” he smirked.

You couldn’t help but roll your eyes at his comment. “You’re not in disguise arsehole”.

“You’re right, I’m not” he lunged forward and attacked your pussy with his mouth.

Back arching and hands knotting into the expensive cotton sheets as his tongue swirled and flicked at your bundle of nerves. Ransom ran a thick finger up and down your slit, coating it in your arousal, before inserting inside. You could feel Ransom smile against you as your back arched off the bed and you tried to press yourself against his mouth. As another one of his long fingers entered your slick core, it was impossible to contain your moans as his tongue it’s assault and his fingers scissored you open.  His ministrations had a familiar coil in your stomach beginning to tighten. As your breaths became pants and your toes began to curl in ecstasy, Ransom stopped and pulled back. He sat back on his knees and licked the glistening fingers, that moments ago, had been so close to giving you much needed release.

“What? I told you’d regret saying it” he said innocently as you scowled at him.

“Fine” you huffed, “I’ll just take matters into my own hands seeing as you’re not up to the job.”

Ransom watched, mouth parted in shock, as you moved your own hand down your body, fingers now toying with where his tongue had just been. When your eyes closed as the pleasure built, you felt Ransoms hand on top of your own helping add to the pressure on your clit. Just as you neared the edge of your release, Ransom pulled your fingers aside and replaced them with his tongue. You wove your fingers into his hair, holding him in place giving him no chance of escape this time. You cried out as the coil finally snapped, body going taut with the sheer pleasure of it. Ransom worked you through your orgasm until you had to push him away because the overstimulation was too much.

You raised yourself up, resting on your elbows and studied Ransoms face which was currently resting just below your stomach. His cheeks flushed, chin coated in your release and his lust blown eyes fixed on your heaving chest.

“That all you got Satan?” you taunted at him.

A slow smile spread across his face. “Not a chance. Just planning on how to corrupt you next.”

“Who says it’s your turn again? Shouldn’t we share the sin?” at your words he lifted his head up and cocked an eyebrow at you.

“Oh yeah, what exactly do you have in mind?” he pulled himself up so that he was raised above you.

“Well let’s just say you’ll enjoy it.” You lifted you head up and attacked his mouth, moaning as you tasted yourself on his tongue.  Just as Ransom began to trail open mouthed kisses down your jaw and to your neck you placed a hand on his chest and pushed him off you.

His brows furrowed together in confusion as you knelt next to him, completely unashamed with your nakedness. You winked at him as your fingers trailed over the bulge in his trousers. His cock twitched as you ran your fingernails against the tight material along the length before undoing the button and slowly pulling down the zipper.  Ransom lifted his hips so that you could pull his slacks and boxers down. As you tugged them off and threw them onto the floor, his hard length sprang free, resting against his lower abdomen, red tip leaking with pre-cum. He hissed as you licked a trail along the throbbing vein on the underside of his length stopping before you got to tip. You swiped your thumb over the weeping head before taking into your mouth and making a show of twirling your tongue around it, licking off the salty mixture, humming in delight.

“Such a tease,” Ransom scolded. He was about to add something else but choked on the beginning of his words when you spat onto your hand and wrapped it tightly around his cock. He whimpered at your tight grip, making you grin.

“Who’s the fucking devil now?” he gasped.  

“Guess we’re about to find out,” you smirked, loosening your grip on him and sliding your hand up and down his length, twisting your palm over the sensitive tip occasionally. Your other hand tugged harshly on his balls, making him moan as his hands shot up to grab hold of the pillows. His hips writhed under your touch, his eyes screwed shut and his mouth parted as his breaths became pants. It really was a sight to behold; Ransom, born with a silver spoon up his ass, Drysdale was completely at your mercy.

“Sweetheart, if you keep that up I’m not going to last much longer,” Ransom grunted in between gasped breaths.

A smug grin formed and you stopped your movements and bent down and gave his weeping tip a few kitten licks. His cock jumped on your tongue and his eyes shot open. He raised himself up on his elbows and watched as you straddled his hips, lining yourself up. You took hold of his length and ran it along your slit, coating it in your arousal before sinking down slowly until Ransom was fully sheathed within you. The satisfied sigh you let out had Ransom feeling fit to burst already.

His hands moved to your hips as you sat still and became accustomed to the stretch. When the slight sting had gone you rolled your hips and slowly lifted yourself up so that only the tip of Ransoms cock was inside you before slowly sinking back down again. The grip on your hips tightened as he tried to remain in control and let you set the pace but you could see in his face that he was struggling. Both of you moaned simultaneously as you sped up your movements, falling forward so that your hands were splayed on his chest for support.

Ransom took advantage of your new position and moved his hands to your breasts, brushing his thumbs over the sensitive buds before rolling them between his fingers making you hiss. A cry left your lips and Ransom began to thrust up into you.

“Please… Ransom harder,” you whimpered.

He growled at your request and before you knew it you were on your back, Ransom towering above you. His hands either side of your head as he pounded into you.

“Fuck sweetheart, so fucking tight,” he panted in your ear. “Come on Y/N, wanna hear you.”

You clawed at his back leaving angry red lines in your wake “Shit Ransom, please,” you whined.

He slammed into your with so much force that the bedframe hit the wall. “Yes” you chanted over and over as the coil within you began to wind once again. “Just like that, please Ransom,” you mewled.

Ransom had fucked people before but nothing on this level. He couldn’t believe that you still wanted more. As you lifted your arms above your head to grip the headboard to brace yourself as Ransom watched as your breasts bounced up and down. “I can feel you sweetheart, you’re so close,” he said pulled out of you completely before slamming back into you with all his weight.

He lifted your hips slightly allowing him to reach new depths making you cry out his name in ecstasy. You locked your ankles around his narrow waist, eyes rolling back as his cock kissed your cervix. His hand found its way between you and his thumb worked your clit. All of the sensations starting to become too much but not enough at the same time. The sounds of both yours and Ransoms moans and gasps filled the room as his thrusts reached a frantic pace.

“Look at me sweetheart,” he grunted as he felt his balls tighten and your walls beginning to flutter around him.  

In your thoroughly fucked out state you only just managed to follow his instruction. When your eyes locked on his there was barely any blue in his remaining. Ransom enjoyed the hazy look in your eyes knowing that he had caused that. The coil was a breaking point and as Ransom worked your clit harder it snapped. You screamed out his name, eyes rolling back as your whole body shook as your orgasm tore through you.

This was all it took for Ransom to follow you over the edge. As your walls clamped around his cock his thrusts became erratic and stilled as he came deep inside you with a shout, coating your walls in thick ropes of his release. He gave a few more shallow thrusts, his cock still twitching as he came down from his high.

Ransom stilled for a minute and just enjoyed feeling the aftershocks of your orgasm still pulsating around him. When he finally pulled he collapsed beside you, both of you panting as you tried to catch your breaths back in your post coital glow. A pleasant warmth could be felt as your combined releases trickled down your leg. Ransom let out a satisfied sigh causing a little giggle to escape your lips.

“What are you laughing at?” Ransom turned to face you, his face still flushed from all the exertion.

“It’s nothing. I just can’t believe we did that,” you covered your eyes with the back of your arm.

“Better believe it sweetheart, it’ll be happening a lot more from now on,” he said smugly.

“Oh yeah, how do you work that one out?” you removed your arm and turned to look at him, eyebrows raised.

“Because there isn’t anyone else who can fuck you like I can,” there wasn’t a trace of doubt in his voice.

“Maybe,” you shrugged.

Ransom growled and rolled over you, pinning you to the bed. You could feel your arousal pooling again.

“Can I make a deal with the devil?” you asked before leaning up and biting on his bottom lip.

“Go on sweetheart. Try me,” he sounded amused.

“If we manage to break your fancy bed tonight, then we can keep fucking,” you trailed your finger down his sternum.

“I think we can manage that sweetheart,” he smirked before lowering his mouth to yours again.  

Taglist is open, let me know if you want in or out 🥰

@stargazingfangirl18 ,  @silentcoyotesong, @queenofstarliqht, @buckys-henley, @lonelyheartsm @alexa-lightwood-blog, @angrythingstarlight, @drabblewithfrannybarnes, @rogueheretic555 @rebekahdawkins @chrissquares @pumpkin-and-pine, @hereforbuckyandsteve, @drakelover78, @baddie-barnes    @thehumanistsdiary​ @thefallenbibliophilequote​

[panharmonium]

round 3 of in-progress naruto thoughts, featuring me crying tears about pretty much everybody

[spoiler policy disclaimer first, as always: i’m only still in the early stages of shippuden (we just finished the asuma arc).  i literally had zero interest in naruto growing up, so i remain unspoiled for virtually everything that happens past this point.  i would love to stay that way, so please don’t interact with this (tags included, because the notifications now show them to me automatically) with any spoilery commentary, including even general things like “oh i love this show but it gets less good after X point” or “X season is better than Y season” or any general assessments of quality/likability/etc re: future seasons.  Thank you! <3 ]

- well, folks.  i have apparently reached the point in my viewing experience where i am deeply emotionally attached to virtually all of the characters and i care when bad stuff happens to even the most minor of them, because the asuma arc really ripped my heart out and used my feelings as ping-pong balls

- that said - i have to admit, if you’re going to kill a character, that was the way to handle it.  it wasn’t glossed over or dropped like a hot potato; it had a huge arc attached to it and major development for the other characters involved and it came full circle at the end in such a quiet, complete way.  i was hoping from the very beginning that the answer to “who’s the king” was going to be “children” (all i could think about was asuma yelling at kazuma “children aren’t pawns to protect the king!” during the sora arc) and ultimately that ended up being true, and i found that so satisfying.  (painful.  but satisfying.)

- SHIKAMARU.  HERO.  i always loved him, but what an incredible arc he had.  and that episode, “team 10″ - WOW.  wow.  they really kicked it up a notch for that one - that was legitimately beautiful television, not just “good by naruto standards.”  gorgeous animation/composition/editing...this show is in fact capable of magic, when it takes its time.

- grow up, you three.  the shadow of death hangs over us all.  some deaths may be harder to accept than others, but if you can’t get past that, there can be no future!  

^^ this is legitimately my favorite line of the series.  i can’t stop thinking about it.  i love how tsunade is speaking from her own experience, and how she’s not wrong - nobody in this confrontation is wrong, really; shikamaru has his stuff more together than tsunade realizes, and tsunade is just telling the truth, and i just love how this entire line relates so closely to the thematic heart of this arc, which is the sanctity of children and the future they represent.  like...so many characters in this show have seen so much death and tragedy, but we see children/the promise of the future pulling people out of that hole and back into a hopeful place.  it’s literally tsunade’s whole story with naruto.  she’s speaking from the heart, and it’s one of those lines that you can feel resonate across the whole story.

- kakashi, once again, coming to destroy me with his level of devotion to the kids.  not even his own kids, this time.  when he shows up at the end of “team 10″ and offers to take over for asuma and go with shikamaru’s group - i lost my mind.  he’s been keeping an eye on those kids the whole time.  nobody told him about what they were doing; he has no reason to be out at the gates at that time of night - he’s been keeping tabs on them.  he knows exactly what they’re going through.  he knows how they must feel.  he wants to make sure they’re okay.  and when he sees that they’re in an appropriate frame of mind for what they’re planning (aka, not unbalanced by rage or grief or the desire for revenge), he immediately offers himself up as an adult support figure.  he inserts himself into that situation and assumes responsibility for making sure nobody gets hurt.  he puts himself into a position where he can escort them through this experience safely (in more ways than one).  he lets shikamaru take the lead and achieve closure, all while simultaneously monitoring the situation to make sure every choice the group makes is the safest, smartest thing to do.  and then in the battle, he puts himself in between the kids and certain death over and over again - he saves their lives so many times. 

the kids are so grateful to him for doing that.  they respect him so much for it.  they feel supported.  they feel looked after.  they feel validated.  three kids who just lost their adult mentor in such a sudden, violent way - for them to have another grown-up step in and temporarily assume that role, for them to feel a pair of capable, steady hands propping them up before they fall down - that is so important!

kakashi is beautiful to me because he takes every horrible thing that ever happened to him and turns it into an unwavering commitment to help other people navigate the same rocky waters.  everything he does is designed to catch people when they fall, particularly when it comes to children.  he doesn’t have to take that kind of interest in asuma’s team.  none of the other adults are monitoring them like that.  but he understands what they’re dealing with and he knows they could hurt themselves if somebody doesn’t take care of them and so he steps in and assumes that responsibility himself.  and then he does the same thing with team 8′s kids, too, in the next arc, when kurenai is out of commission.  he takes all of his own painful experiences and turns them into ways he can protect other people from stumbling into the same pits he fell into, and i’ll tell you this for damn sure - he’d rather take a deadly hit himself than allow another cohort of children to be wiped off the face of the earth before their time. 

i love that about him.  i love that he turns all of the trouble he’s seen into ways he can be a source of strength for others.  i love that he is always thinking about the kids.  that’s the whole point of this arc: children are king.  kakashi knows that just as well as asuma did, and the way he consistently throws himself in front of the children to keep them safe is my favorite thing about him.

- fucking LOVE that shikamaru turns down the feudal lord’s offer because he wants to stay in the village in case his friends need him.  i feel like this kind of choice is never portrayed as a good thing in media - it’s always shown to be better to get yourself out there, try something new, leave old things behind, take a risk, make a change, as if staying home is somehow the same thing as settling or wasting your potential.  i love how asuma lifts up shikamaru’s decision to stay rooted in his home as a worthy and admirable thing.  the will of fire, indeed.

- the EMOTIONS i felt every time kakashi was helping naruto figure out how to complete the rasengan....when kakashi tells him “i truly believe you are the only shinobi who can surpass the fourth hokage” and then while walking away yamato’s all “you sweet-talked him” and kakashi immediately sets him straight like “no.  no.  i believe he can do it.”  SOBBING.  

- “good old asuma.  he must’ve known you inside and out, huh?”  i’ll be over here crying in the club, folks

- kakashi having conversations with sasuke in his head was Too Much for me ;__;

- we watched a bit past the asuma arc and are now into the part about the gemstone lady but the only thing i have to say about this new arc so far is about jiraiya and honestly i’m going to have to gif it to do it justice.  that scene with him and naruto where naruto falls asleep on him just...struck me down where i sat.  i was actually about ready to cry for real.  my feelings couldn’t take it.  i used to not really care too much about jiraiya in the shonen jump days (and yes, there’s some stupid stuff with him that you have to just look past if you’re going to enjoy things) but i love him so much now and i am finding myself so moved by the way he is rejoining the village and (re)building his connections with the people there, and how much meaning has been brought back into his life by the opportunity to work with naruto in particular, and how like...i mean, this is just my own impression, because i haven’t seen his full backstory yet, but he strikes me as someone who’s been running away for a long time, who had very little hope for the future, someone who experienced some terrible things and gave up, just like tsunade, until he runs into naruto.  and now things have changed for him, and it warms my heart to see it.  i love watching him take naruto on training field trips, and i love the depth of care we see from him towards naruto now - a far cry from the “i don’t like kids” of early shonen jump.  i love seeing him collaborate with kakashi - tag-teaming their teaching and climbing in through the window to check on him in the hospital and teasing him about how silly he looks with a sheet over his nose.  i’ve just become so touched by his progression and by the way the establishment of these relationships with “his” kids and the village as a whole (bonds, connections, all the things that this show can’t shut up about) has almost been a...healing sort of thing for him and has changed his entire outlook on life and given him a new sense of hope/meaning.  

like.  i can’t believe i am out here having jiraiya emotions after how little i cared about him when i first met him, but...here i am.  

[padfootagain]

A Crimson Christmas (II)

Chapter 2: Erika

 Here we go for the next part of my Steve Rogers series! Will be focusing quite a lot on some character building for the reader, and some cute things with Steve. As several of you seemed to appreciate how I started the first chapter, I tried to make something similar for this chapter too. I hope you all like it!

Gif not mine

Word Count: 2417

18 000

11

400

150 000 to 300 000

It is a strange thing to sum up an event in numbers. It makes one's head spin, and yet it never quite stirs the true horror of a tragedy or joy of a miracle. Yet, most of the times, when trying to describe an event, using numbers as a first weapon is almost a reflex, an automatic response of our brain as it tries to grasp something it can't hold.

If one wanted to sum up the sinking of the oil tanker Erika in December 1999, off the shores of Brittany, they would use the 4 numbers written above.

The first is the number of litres of gasoline that were released in the ocean from the cracked hull of the ship.

The second is the number of days it took for the fuel to cross the distance from the wreckage to the shore.

The third is the number of kilometres of French coast that were polluted by the floating gasoline.

The fourth, and last, is the estimated number of birds that died in the catastrophe.

Numbers though are but abstract quantities, and if one wants to truly describe the event, there is no other way but to attempt to draw a fair picture of the shores at the time.

The scenery is easy. December 1999, a lot of grey and blue as a storm rages out. The violent waves end to pierce the already weakened steel skin of the oil tanker and cause its carcass to sink to the bottom of the ocean. Its sailors are saved, but the shipment, 30 884 tons of petrol, is partially released in the Atlantic Ocean. The attempts to stop the black wave to reach the coast are cut short by the storm that shakes the sea at this time of year.

11 days later, the first pools of gasoline touch the islands that stain the French coast.

4 more days and 400 km of coast are completely covered by toxic oil.

At first, it is but a few dots staining the sand, some grey caught in the foam left by the waves. A few hours later, there are large blocks of black sticky substance all over the seashells. The next day, the rocks, and the paint of the boats, and the sand are barely visible at all. The army is sent to clean the shores, but the scale is too great. Volunteers join in, with shovels and sponges and knives and brushes in an attempt to clean up every rock, every grain of sand.

Walking through a beach at this time is walking midst soldiers and volunteers. Every step is a fight against the sticky product, with boots sometimes buried ankles deep into the dark petrol. It is the fresh salty smell of seaweeds replaced by the sour one of gasoline. It is cliffs falling in black sand instead of the blue sea. It is bodies of birds stranded all over the place.

What did it change? For the people living on the coast, it is still today an open wound. If one tries to talk about the incident with the local population, they will be met by a pair of sad eyes and the tale of Christmas holidays spent ankle-deep in gasoline.

For the world? Nothing. Just one more incident to add to the long list of chasms carved in the environment.

For you? Everything.

You remembered the long ride from Saint-Malo to the western coast. First holidays since you entered University. For this first semester, you were majoring in all subjects, but you already had a vivid passion for bio-ecosystems, and in particular, marine biology.

Then the Erika sank. It was natural to go and help. You remembered Christmas day spent breathing the toxic petrol until it was all you could smell. Your boots buried in the sticky, black slime. Shovels and shovels digging the polluted sand. Soldiers all around you, but despite all this help, it wasn’t enough. You knew everything the gasoline would touch would surely die. It would take years for nature to heal. It had taken a few hours and a few minds craving for money to destroy it all.

You were picking up your fifth dead gull of the day. The gasoline, stuck to its feathers, made it impossible for it to float, and impossible for it to fly. Most of them had drowned, and all you could do was pick up the corpses.

You had ventured further than the rest of your friends, closer to the rocks now barely visible in all this black, when you heard a loud cry. A cormorant, without a doubt. You needed only a few seconds to spot the bird, covered in oil already, struggling to escape, struggling to avoid drowning, struggling to survive…

Somehow, it was just too much. After all you had seen that day, it was the last thing you could endure. You didn’t think at all as you ran across the slippery rocks and jumped in the salty water, trying to keep your head above the petrol.

You grabbed that poor agonizing thing in your arm, trying to keep it afloat, and you didn’t let go as it tried to escape.

The sea was far from calm though, and the thick layer of gasoline made it impossible to swim. At the first big wave, you were submerged, swallowing a bitter gulp of mixed salty water and fuel. You heard then the distant voices of your friends calling after you, they sounded scared, and you realized that you were too. Another forceful wave had you pushed against the rocks and you hit your head hard, and all went as dark as that bloody gasoline…

The rest was a blur. You remembered waking up in a hospital bed a week later, a real miracle. You should have died, that was what everybody said. But you didn’t, instead, somehow, you lived with new abilities.

You didn’t know where they came from, and were too scared of what any doctor could do to you if you ever showed any sign of abnormality, you had seen too many movies and read too many books to ignore the threat of becoming a lab rat. Years later, the Avengers formed, and you were spotted by Nick Fury. What had happened in your mind when you accepted to join them, you didn’t know. You reckoned that in the end, it was worth it all. This moment now, especially, made it all worthwhile.

After all, seeing Captain America wearing mascara and red lipstick was a sight to see.

"Mets tes lèvres comme ça!" the ten-year-old girl instructed Steve as she pursed her lips to show him what she wanted him to do, and he imitated her.

"Parfait!" she clapped her little hands in excitement as she added even more red to Steve’s lips.

"Gwen, laisse-le tranquille," your brother admonished, trying to rescue Steve from the excited child. But Steve merely smiled.

"It’s okay, we’re just playing," he reassured the worried father.

"Lèvres! Comme ça!"t Gwenn called Steve back into position and he pursed his lips again.

You picked up your phone and sneaked a picture, that you immediately sent to the entire Avengers WhatsApp group. With the different timezones, you reckoned you would have no answer before a few hours, but it was worth the wait.

It was true that joining the Avengers had meant a lot of changes, a lot of risks, a lot of pain. But it meant that you had met your best friends as well, and you couldn’t refrain a tender smile as you watched Steve play with your niece now.

"Y/N… the coffee is growing cold!"

You reached absentmindedly for your cup and warmed the beverage again. Your sister gave you a look.

"Cheating again."

"Controlling water has to have a few advantages. My drinks are always at the perfect temperature!"

She rolled her eyes.

"So, for how long are the two of you staying in Saint-Malo?"

You merely shrugged as an answer.

"We don't really know. I mean, we're supposed to just stay for the holidays, but I guess we don't know what to do next."

"Ha… retiring superheroes… poor you. You will definitely not have the complete retiring allowance now! Does that even count as a job, superhero?"

"I don't think it does. Shit… I've lost all these years…"

The two of you giggled, but your father did not.

"You should think about what to do next. And you could stay here. It's home."

"Papa, it's not that easy."

"Why not? Because monsieur muscle over there won't move here for you? So, you could be with your family."

You and Steve exchanged a glance.

"Well, we… haven't really talked about that," Steve tried to elusively respond, but it failed.

"You've spent years living a dangerous life. It's time to settle down. And you have to think about financial security now."

"Papa…"

"You need to get a job. A real one."

"Saving the Earth was not a job important enough for you?" you fired back, feeling more and more annoyed.

"You wasted years over this superhero adventure. I'm not saying it was useless, of course not. And I am proud of you. But you sacrificed your life during all this time. You didn't settle down, you didn't think about having a family, you didn't think about your old days… And I think it's time for you to have a normal life for a change."

You considered his words, and realized there was wisdom in them. You didn't quite like the way he put it, but you couldn't deny that you had spent years putting your life on the line. And maybe he was right, maybe now it was time to think about your own happiness before everyone else's.

"And you?" your father turned to Steve, his tone accusatory. "Don't you want her to be happy?"

Steve was playing your fake boyfriend, yet, he didn't need to lie to answer that question. And you could see it, deep down, in the depth of his blue eyes, that he meant the words he spoke. That was what friends were made for, right?

"There's nothing I want more than for Y/N to be happy, sir."

It was hard to look away from his baby blue eyes for some reason. Despite his funny look, covered in make-up, you didn't want to laugh at all. You just… wanted to keep on looking at him.

You guessed that you were letting your thoughts drift too far, and forced your brain to focus on your family again.

"We'll see, papa," you gave your father a smile. "It's not that easy to decide what to do next. It was our life for so long."

"I haven't forgotten how much you had to sacrifice," he mumbled in a dark tone, and you knew that he was referencing to the years you spent on the run with Steve.

You heaved a tired sigh.

"We've talked about it… countless times. It was my choice to make, and I agreed with Steve. You would have preferred for me to become a pawn that could be used by governments whenever they wanted?"

"Of course not. Governments couldn't be trusted…"

"Then why are you still bringing that up?"

"Because I didn't see my daughter for two years, that's why!"

You heaved yet another sigh, and Steve finally stood up from his spot on the carpet where he had been playing with Gwen. He took some cotton and started to clean up his face.

"I think we've both had a life that was out of the ordinary for too long," Steve spoke with a slow, quiet tone, his voice deep and calm showing he had been giving the situation a lot of thought. "It's hard to imagine what to do with the life we have left. I think… we just need a little time to let it all sink in, the truth that it can be over, that we don't have to be the ones in charge anymore. I think… we had both come to be at peace with the idea that we didn't have the choice of a life of our own. Now that we do, it feels strange. We don't really know what to do with it. Personally, I've never been anything else. We just need a little bit of time, to get used to it all. Then, I'm sure the decisions will come to us quite naturally. In the meantime, we just want to enjoy Christmas."

He reached for your hand, and you guessed that it was just for the act. Just because he played your fake boyfriend. It would be logical, if you were a couple, to be holding hands then, you reckoned. He was right. Besides, it felt safe to hold his hand.

"You know, I think I'm very tired after our long journey and everything. We should go to bed," you proposed.

Your grandmother finally joined the conversation.

"I've forgotten the blankets."

"I know where they are, mamie, don't bother."

But she was already walking towards the bedroom, and after you bid goodnight to your family, while they were getting ready to go as well, you and Steve joined Martine in the bedroom she had prepared for Steve and you.

You were not surprised to find that she had already put the blanket upon the bed.

"Oh, I forgot," she explained, but you were not fooled.

There was a short silence, before she heaved a sigh.

"Your father is worried. He always is. He's just not good at showing it. He does it all wrong."

"I know."

"It doesn't matter what you choose to do next. We're all here for you. Et puis, je l'aime bien, ton petit Steve," she added with a tender smile towards your 'boyfriend'.

He gave her a warm smile.

"I'm glad you like me, I've spent a lovely afternoon with you, Martine," he answered.

"Tomorrow you can show him the town," your grandmother instructed you.

"Yes, I will."

"Goodnight, les amoureux!"

You could only bury your face in your palm. She had to call you lovebirds, of course… if only she knew the truth.

"Bonne nuit, mamie."

The second she closed the door behind her, Steve and you exchanged a tired glance. It was more than time to go to bed. Tomorrow would be a brand new day. And there was much to do, and many questions to find answers to.

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

Taglist : @ponycake27​ @horsesreign​ @xinyourdreamsx​ @jbluevelvet​ @notkeppeki @daynigt-dreamer-stuff @fudgeflyss​ @stuckupstucky​ @snek-shit​ @suchatinyinfinity​ @i-padfootblack-things​  @buckybsarmy @heyohheyitsgabi​@jigsawlover10​ @emyyjemyy​ @addictedtofictionalcharacters​ @staringmoony​

@marvelcapsicle @madamrogers @rishlo @theshortegg​ @blacklilyqueen​

[beckzorz]

Out of Nowhere (12/21)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/OFC Summary: An offhand comment at work draws Jesse Kaplan into the orbit of Bucky Barnes. Bucky’s excited at the prospect of normalcy, but there’s nothing normal about falling in love with the Winter Soldier. Words: 3259 A/N: The song for this chapter is “Assassinat - Take 3” by Miles Davis on Ascenseur de l'échafaud.

PART 12: “ASSASSINAT - TAKE 3″

Current Relief Inc. was in Queens’ Long Island City. Mike had told Jesse about a back alley entrance, which she’d passed on to Bucky along with all the other details she’d gotten. Arrive at midnight-thirty, go up to the third floor, turn right and take the fourth door on the left.

Bucky parked the motorcycle a block and a half from the alley Mike had mentioned. For the first time, Jesse watched as Bucky shut the bike down and locked it. The security was far more sophisticated than a single key. It was just as involved as his apartment door.

Jesse couldn’t blame him for it. After the past two weeks, she wanted something as secure for herself. But she didn’t have those resources. She wouldn’t even know where to look. And it wasn’t as if she had anything to lock up. All that she had was at Bucky’s. She had no idea what had happened to the rest. She was still in a borrowed shirt and jacket, for heaven’s sake.

The street was chiefly commercial, though most businesses were closed. The only one with lights still on was a Chinese place, by some unkind coincidence. Jesse turned her head aside as they passed on their way to the back alley that abutted Current Relief.

The building itself was seven stories tall, with the look of newness along all its clean corners and blank walls. Compared to the rest of the alley, its walls were clean—minimal graffiti, no obvious splatters of bodily fluids or streaks of bird shit. Apparently they kept themselves clean. No one would have guessed that such fastidiousness had to do with anything more than an anal owner.

Bucky led the way down the narrow alley, his hand tucked under his jacket by his hidden holster. He glanced suspiciously up at the security cameras, but he didn’t stop. They had to trust Mike. Jesse knew Bucky wasn’t happy about it, but they hardly had another choice. Sure, he could storm in, guns blazing, but then all the data would no doubt be lost. Mad scientists were all about destruction, after all.

The emergency exit was a thick blank door. Jesse realized only a few feet away that it was propped open with a wooden shim. Bucky had to worm his fingers into the crack between door and frame in order to get it open. Jesse held her breath, but no alarm sounded. She let out her breath between her teeth and pressed a hand to her racing heart as she slipped in after Bucky.

The door closed with an ominous click behind them. Bucky pulled out a gun from a holster on his thigh. At his expectant look, Jesse pulled the pistol he’d forced her to take from its spot at her side. He’d drilled her on how to use the damn thing back at his place. The safety was still on, but the heavy feel of it in her hands still made her queasy.

A concrete staircase wound up; Bucky gave the door into the rest of the building a brief inspection, then began to climb. He went smooth and slow enough for Jesse to keep pace with him. She generally preferred running up stairs two at a time, but this was no time to be stomping.

At the third floor, Bucky paused by the door and motioned Jesse to keep quiet. She held her breath until he nodded and pushed open the door.

The second she stepped into the hall, Jesse’s heartbeat pounded loud and urgent. The lights were only half-on, but it was enough to make her catch her breath. This was the place—this was it. This was the hallway she’d seen Mike, where she’d been dragged by Stocky and the other one to horrible confinement. Bucky glanced at her with a frown. Could he hear her racing heart? She jerked her chin in a nod, and he led the way down the hall.

He moved smooth and silent, his black outfit and sideways stance lending him the air of a stalking panther. Jesse followed as close as she dared, ducking slightly as he did.

They made it past two doors, and then the ding of an elevator rang through the empty hallways. Jesse’s blood ran cold as she stared ahead, but Bucky grabbed her arm and pulled her back. He forced a door open and hauled her inside before pulling the door shut.

Jesse’s heartbeat echoed in her ears as her breath came quick and low. She couldn’t see. The room was warmer than the hallway, and Bucky was very close in front of her. She could just feel his shallow breathing across her face. Jesse reached out to the side and almost immediately touched a wall. She explored with her hand and felt long handles, which made her yank back. She didn’t want a repeat of the incident at her apartment. Handles, then. A closet?

Of all the times to be stuck in a closet with Bucky Barnes, it had to be now. Great. In better circumstances, she’d’ve been glad. Excited, even. They hadn’t been this close since they’d last danced, and that felt like eons ago. Right now, she was just aggravated, jittery. She checked the safety on her pistol, then stuffed it away. She was barely able to keep still; she didn’t trust herself with a weapon right now. Her hands twitched in the heavy silence until the sound of footsteps filtered in from the hall. Then she didn’t breathe at all.

Maybe that was just to be expected, now.

A minute passed, then Bucky blew out a breath. “Clear,” he murmured. He pushed the door open—it swung silently on its hinges, thank god—and led the way quicker two more doors down and pushed open the swinging door to the server room.

Jesse slipped in after him and held out a hand to still the doors behind her. Over Bucky’s shoulder, she saw Mike frozen in a swiveling chair at a terminal. His eyes were glued to Bucky. When he saw her, he sagged in relief.

“Thank god,” Mike breathed.

Jesse edged out from behind Bucky. His face was stone cold; he stared at Mike with narrowed eyes and his gun half-raised. When Bucky glanced down at her, he stuffed the weapon away with an automatic ease that made her blink and look away. Tall blinking servers lined the narrow room. The terminal Mike sat at had the only chair and the only screen.

“Talk,” Bucky growled.

Mike flinched and pushed the chair back. “Y-you brought something to download the data?” he asked, voice shaking.

Bucky pulled a device from his pocket and pressed it to the side of the console, out of sight of the door. He’d gotten it while Jesse was napping after lunch; it was Stark tech, perfect for stealing data. It didn’t even need a USB port. Jesse crept around Bucky to squint at the tiny screen. 0.03174%. The numbers crawled up, and she glanced up at Mike as she stood. He jumped out of the chair and offered it to her.

“Thanks,” she said automatically.

Bucky shifted until he was between Jesse and Mike, who scrambled back almost the full length of the room. Jesse spun the chair to face the console. Mike had been working. She didn’t dare click on anything, but there were multiple windows open. The front one was a bunch of gifs—looping the cameras, maybe? She saw a spreadsheet, but the only columns she could see listed boroughs and zip codes. Brooklyn, Brooklyn, Queens.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Uh—”

Mike shuffled behind her. Jesse glanced over her shoulder. Mike was still pressed against the far wall. She couldn’t see Bucky’s face, but she could imagine it well enough.

“Talk,” Bucky said again.

Mike swallowed. “Looping cameras,” he croaked. “And… a spreadsheet. Of people.” He didn’t meet Jesse’s eyes. The hair on the back of her neck stood up.

“Is this the list? Is this the list someone put me on?” Jesse pressed. She jabbed her finger at the screen.

“I… I think so,” Mike whispered. He inched closer. “Yeah—yeah.”

Jesse turned back to face the screen as tears pricked at her eyes. She still didn’t click anything. Who had done it? Why? She still had no idea. But she didn’t dare ask. She didn’t want Bucky to hear the pain in her voice. He’d warned her, but she’d insisted on coming. Mike’s compliance was worth whatever desolation she was feeling.

But Bucky slid a hand onto her shoulder and squeezed it. She reached up and grabbed his hand; she’d brought it halfway to her mouth before she thought better of pressing it to her lips. Instead she just leaned her cheek against his hand, then dropped it. She blinked back tears.

“How did you get out?” Mike asked quietly.

Jesse drew in a shaky breath. “I got lucky,” she muttered. “And I didn’t listen to you. How did you get in?”

Bucky huffed. “As if that has anything—”

He stopped mid-sentence, eyes suddenly narrowed. He took a step towards the door, but seemed to think better of it. Instead, he came back and shoved her chair behind him just as the door opened.

Jesse peeked around Bucky’s side. There was a Latina woman in the doorway, maybe twenty-five, with a rumpled shirt and a gun in her hands.

“It—Liz,” Mike croaked.

“Don’t move,” Liz said. Her voice was flat, her eyes cloudy and unfocused. She slid her fevered gaze over Bucky, and Jesse seated behind him, then honed in on Mike, who stood frozen by the servers. Liz’s gun came up lightning-fast. “Traitor, time’s up.”

Without thinking, Jesse leapt out from behind Bucky’s arm, hopping aside to keep him from dragging her back.

“Liz, STOP,” she ordered.

Liz paused, taking in Jesse, her outfit. Jesse moved quickly between her and Mike, empty hands taut and still. Liz lowered her gun just enough for Jesse’s heart to start beating again. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Bucky inching towards Liz.

“You need to listen to me,” Jesse said. Her voice wavered; if Liz noticed Bucky, she’d shoot him. Liz’s eyes narrowed. Jesse forged ahead, trying to keep her voice even, commanding. “I’m a doctor. Listen to—You need to listen to me. Put the gun down.”

“I need to kill the traitor,” Liz stated.

“No, you need to put the gun down.” Jesse stepped closer, swallowing back the rising tide of terror building in her chest, and thrust out her hand. “I’m a doctor. You need to listen to me. Give me the gun.”

Liz stared at Jesse for another long moment. Jesse held her gaze. She willed her face to stay stern, her hand to keep still. She willed Bucky to wait, to hold… If he surprised Liz, she might shoot, and Jesse’s heart was already about to pop. She had no way to motion to him to stop, not without breaking her fake authority.

But Bucky held, and Liz deflated.

“Yes, doctor.” Liz held the gun out to Jesse, who took it gingerly by the barrel and stepped back. Liz was looking at her like a lost puppy, just standing with her arms limp by her sides.

“Don’t move,” Jesse told her. She tilted her head back at Mike. “How do you get her out of this?”

“Blunt force trauma to the head,” Bucky cut in. He stalked the final few steps to Liz and hit her with a clenched fist on the side of the head. Liz dropped like a stone.

“Shit!” Jesse almost dropped the gun. Bucky knelt to check Liz’s pulse. When Jesse stepped towards them, he shot her a quelling look. She held back. What did she know about any of this, anyway?

“Holy shit, Jesse,” Mike breathed. Jesse finally turned to him; Bucky could handle an unconscious woman on his own. Mike was ashen, his tall frame pressed against the wall as though he’d fall down without it. Jesse automatically gave him a one-armed hug. He put a tentative hand on her back.

“I’m so sorry,” she murmured.

“Like hell you are,” Bucky snarled. He bounded to his feet; Jesse pulled away from Mike. “What the hell, Jess! This guy’s responsible for who knows how much bullshit, and you’re sorry he gets some comeuppance?”

“No one should be held at gunpoint!”

A beat of silence passed, and Jesse felt the irony of her words as Bucky’s face twisted unpleasantly. She’d just been held at gunpoint. And Mike hadn’t apologized—not for that, anyway. Not yet. She was sure he would, once he had enough brain cells for it. She flushed and looked away. Bucky spun on Mike.

“You,” Bucky said to him. “Take this one—” he toed Liz’s leg— “and get the hell out of here. Go to the police.”

“What? No!” Mike stepped up next to Jesse. “I’m not leaving you here.”

“Yes you are,” Bucky said. He scooped Liz up in his arms and held her out to Mike. “You’re going to take her and leave.” His voice dropped dangerously, and Mike gripped Jesse’s elbow.

“Jesse…”

“Mike, just help her,” Jesse said. She offered him Liz’s gun. “You can get her out of here. Your cover’s blown anyway.”

Mike pressed his lips together with a frown as he took the pistol from her hand. “You should get out of here too. You should—”

“She’s not going with you,” Bucky snapped.

Jesse stared at him. The longer they were stuck here, waiting for that damn Stark tech to finish, the more likely it was that they’d be caught. It would only get worse. Didn’t Bucky want her out of his hair, away from the work he still had to do? After he’d had to move her, stand guard over her, slow down for her on the stairs—she couldn’t imagine that she was doing anything but slowing him down.

But she wasn’t going to argue, not with Bucky.

“Okay, okay.” She stepped away from Mike. “Be safe, Mike.”

Mike didn’t answer. He just took Liz from Bucky’s outstretched arms, shot Jesse a tight smile, and elbowed his way through the swinging door. Jesse let out a slow breath and turned to check Stark’s drive—almost done, thank god. A relieved smile spread on her face as she turned back to tell Bucky, but his harsh glower stopped her in her tracks.

He’d never looked so angry. Jesse’s face fell. She stepped back, afraid and confused. Why hadn’t he let her leave, if he was just going to be angry at her?

She swallowed. “I…”

“‘Be safe?’” Bucky took a threatening step towards her; Jesse had nowhere left to go. Her shoulders tensed. “What about you, huh? What about you?”

“What about me?” Jesse’s free hand clenched into a fist against the console. “You’re not my boss.”

“I didn’t bring you here to get killed!” For a moment, the fury on his face slipped, and Jesse saw at once that he was afraid. For some reason, that just made her angry.

“Oh, fuck you,” she spat. The thunderstruck look on his face was almost enough to make her smile, make her laugh, but fury burned too bright in her chest for her to be distracted now. “You don’t get to shame me out of caring for people. You don’t get to tell me my priorities. And you sure as hell don’t get to lecture me about being safe when you’re cornering me like a fucking serial killer!”

Bucky stepped back, his face suddenly blank. Jesse unmolded herself from the console, her fury cooling at his sudden change.

“Fine,” he said. “Fine.” He turned to face the door, effectively ignoring her.

Jesse blinked at his back. She hadn’t expected him to give in so quickly, so easily. All she’d done was snap back at him. She deflated and sat down.

Jesse drummed her fingers on her knees and stared at the looped videos on the screen. After studying them for a few minutes, she could see the skips that signalled the start of the loop. She glanced at Bucky, but he still stood guard by the door, his shoulders in a tense line.

Stark’s drive beeped three times.

“About fucking time,” Bucky muttered, turning back.

Jesse quickly looked away and pulled the drive free. It weighed next to nothing in her hand, and yet so much rested on getting it out. It needed to get out. As angry as she still was at Bucky’s presumption, there was no sense in holding onto the thing herself. No matter what happened to her, he’d be able to get out.

She held the drive out to Bucky without a word. Bucky’s fingers brushed hers as he took it, and her hand twitched at the touch. He didn’t notice. He just slipped the drive into a pocket on his black cargo pants and pulled his pistol back out of its holster.

Damn her brain. Couldn’t she focus for one minute?

“Let’s go,” he said.

He was all back to business. He cocked his ear to the door, pulled out his gun, and led the way out. The way back to the back staircase was clear; they moved quick and quiet towards the door.

Just as they reached it, the elevator dinged behind them.

Bucky swore. He grabbed Jesse’s elbow and shoved her ahead of him into the stairwell. The door swung shut behind them. From above their heads came the squeak of another door, and then footsteps running.

“Shit,” Bucky hissed. His metal fingers kept a bruising grip on her arm as he ran them both down the stairs. His lightning speed was beyond Jesse, what with being over half a foot shorter. She stumbled on the second floor. She careened into the wall, her arm yanking free of Bucky’s grasp, and banged her head.

A gunshot echoed loud in the stairwell. Jesse scrambled to her feet, head pounding. She’d hit the same damn spot she’d gotten stitches. Bucky was already shooting up towards their pursuer, who yelped.

“Go, go,” Bucky urged.

Jesse ran down the last flight of stairs two at a time; Bucky followed close, gun still trained above. Another door banged open, and more footsteps. As Jesse hurtled down the last half-flight, two more gunshots fired off. She burst out into the alley, her harsh breaths slicing through her lungs like wildfire as pain bloomed in her head.

Bucky slammed the door shut behind them. He grabbed Jesse’s wrist and dragged her along to the main street; her feet felt like lead blocks, but she managed to keep them under her.

Until she didn’t.

Jesse cried out in alarm as she stumbled again. She stuck out her free hand to catch herself, but Bucky caught her first. Without missing a beat, he lifted her with his metal arm—god, more bruising—and swung her in front of him, where he hitched his other arm under her legs. He didn’t stop moving, even when she hooked her arm around his neck. Jesse stared back over Bucky’s shoulder, but no one emerged from the alley to chase them. The air whistling past her was cool on her face; she reached one hand up to touch her temple, and the fingers came back wet with blood.

Bucky skidded to a stop by his bike. He deposited her without ceremony on the back and climbed on in front of her. In the space of half a breath, they were off.

A/N: Well, that went well... Ha... ha ha.......

I hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you think :3

[adoeadeer]

Rekindled

It’s been two and a half months since Sweet Pea and Isabelle had broken up. Two and a half months of not feeling his touch, hearing his voice whisper her name, no smelling his signature scent of Old Spice, no helping him gel his hair and messing it up.

Two and a half months ago Isabelle was in a bad place. She felt isolated from everything and every one, like no one was there for her and no one wanted to be. That included Sweet Pea. He’d felt distant, so far that when they were together, she could reach her hand across the room and still not be anywhere near him.

Since then, she had begun to learn the basics of yoga, study healing crystal stones, focus on keeping her room plants thriving, and even writing her own stories.

Isabelle tried her best to avoid him at school. Even though it was a mutual end-of-relationship, she wasn’t comfortable being around him, even in their classes. It wasn’t like she was very close with any of the Serpents, but she missed Toni and Fangs. Though the both of them had clarified that she was always welcome to hang out with them.

Eventually, Isabelle was cast upon the crowds of Southside High as a loner. A loner was also the term that described her before Sweet Pea had Swept her off her feet. Eating in the library, detesting partner projects, walking alone in the hallways.

She did her best to avoid conflict between Serpents and Ghoulies alike, but it was almost as if they pitied her, and so they treated her like she was invisible. Isabelle wasn’t sure if that satisfied her or not.

It was a Friday morning before summer break, the last day she would have to walk past Sweet Pea in the halls until September. Isabelle pushed herself to get a shower and get dressed, choosing her favourite high waisted black skirt, and tucking in a white t-shirt. She slid on her black ankle boots and tied her long blonde hair up into a pony with a white scunchie. Yes, Isabelle thought to herself, I’ll go for my usual black and white aesthetic today.

School dragged on and on and by lunchtime, Isabelle felt the need to follow everyone else, and skip the last two classes. Everyone usually left, it’s just the fact that Isabelle didn’t know what she’d do if she actually skipped. After the bell that signalled the beginning of lunch rang, she made her way to the library and grabbed a couple of novels to take home for the summer before the librarian could notice.

She sneakily snuck them into her bag and then slyly backed out of the library, and by large mistake, into the back of someone who was standing right near the doorway.

“Watch where you’re going, fuckface.” came a growl. Isabelle turned to see that it was in fact, Sweet Pea. “Iz, sorry. You’re not a fuckface. I expected some prick that was looking to get his teeth smashed.”

“No fuckface here, just me, on a stealth mission from the library.” she shrugged, a nervous smile on her lips.

“As usual. Did you just steal books to read over summer break?” Sweet Pea asked, raising a brow.

“How did you know?” she asked, pretending to be shocked.

“I just know Isabelle Miller.” he gave a shrug.

Isabelle sighed. “And here I was, thinking I had changed so much in the last two and a half months that you wouldn’t even recognize me anymore.”

“That’s impossible, Iz. Hey, a bunch of us are meeting at the Wyrm right now for a few drinks. Want to come get a buzz on? End of school celebrations.” The tall boy grinned.

This could go one way, or another. Isabelle could choose to go home, curl up with one of her stolen books and a cup of tea, or she could tag along with the Riverdale misfits for some drinks. Well, it is summer.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll meet you there.” she decided, immediately regretting it.

“Great, I’ll save you a seat at our table.” Sweet Pea gave her a wave and took off down the hallway, reconnecting with his group of friends.

After Isabelle was finished kicking herself in the teeth for giving in, she walked down the road to the Whyte Wyrm to meet her ex and his friends. That didn’t sound stupid or anything. In order to avoid backing out due to her anxiousness, she focused on the clicking of her heels against the pavement until she reached the Whyte Wyrm, pulling open the heavy door and making her way into the smell of cigarettes, joints and alcohol. The seventies music played in the background, bass thrumming and the crowds voices overpowering the song.

Isabelle spotted Sweet Pea sitting at a round table next to Fangs and Toni. Figuring she would only get carded and turned away for ordering a drink, she decided to just go sit without an alcoholic beverage to hold on to.

Fangs and Toni looked up as Isabelle approached the table from behind Sweet Pea, and they waved. “Hey, stranger!!” Toni called, clearly already on the booze. Sweet Pea automatically jumped up and pulled out a chair for Isabelle.

“Hey.” she replied over the music, and then nodded in thanks to Sweet Pea. “Always a gentleman.” she smiled.

“Of course.” Sweet Pea nodded back.

“Hey, Iz. Have a beer.” Fangs grabbed an unopened bottle out of his bag. Isabelle gladly accepted, knowing that the operators at the Wyrm didn’t care if you drank, you just couldn’t be sold their liquor.

“Thanks, Fangs. Get ready, it’s been a while.” Isabelle grinned and grabbed the bottle opener from Sweet Pea, flicking off the cap and taking a swig like it was orange juice.

“She’s still got it!” Toni applauded, and Isabelle pretended to bow. The pink haired girl scooted her chair closer to Isabelle’s. “I’ve missed you so much.” she wrapped her arms around Isabelle.

“Aw, T. I’ve been lacking some vitamin pink in my life.” she responded, causing Toni to burst out laughing.

“Fangs! Take me to the jukebox. I need some Led Zeppelin up in here!” Toni jumped up, as did Fangs and Isabelle watched as the two slightly tipsy Serpents made their way to the large sound system.

“Thanks for coming, Iz.” Sweet Pea said over the music, taking a drink of his own beer.

Isabelle shrugged. “It’s not like I had anything better to do.” she replied, smiling. “I missed it here.” There was once a time when the group of four had spent many an evening at the Wyrm, playing pool, dancing, getting very, very drunk.

“I missed you. I mean, we all missed you.” Sweet Pea was quick to cover up, running a hand through his hair before falling to his chest, twirling around his dog tags.

Isabelle didn’t have a chance to reply, as Toni and Fangs soon came back. The afternoon soon turned to evening, and one beer for Isabelle soon turned to six. The four were all burning out and decided to take off home.

“Thanks for the great time, guys. Need to do it again soon!” Isabelle told the group, while they all clambered out the door from the Wyrm.

“Anytime Iz, you’re my favourite and I love you.” a drunk Toni kissed her cheek, pulling back and giving her a wink. “Fangs! My noble steed. Whisk me home.” after saying goodbye to Sweet Pea and Isabelle, Fangs hauled Toni up over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“I’ll walk you home.” Sweet Pea smiled down to Isabelle.

“I can walk myself home, thank you very much.” Isabelle replied, causing Sweet Pea to chuckle. he could always hold his liquor better than her.

“Not in those heels, Princess.” Sweet Pea grabbed the bag she had slung over her shoulder which was weighing her down. He then wrapped an arm around her waist, keeping her steady as they walked up the road. “Hey, what I said earlier about missing you, I actually meant it. I always see you alone at school, alone walking, alone everywhere and I feel like that’s my fault. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Pea. I’m like a living organism that doesn’t need to travel in a pack.” she shrugged, doting on his words. Isabelle never really thought about this. “I miss you too.”

It seemed as though Sweet Pea didn’t know how to reply, and the two walked in silence until they reached Isabelle’s driveway. “Come around again, will you? We always need a fourth for pool.” he returned the bag to her shoulder, leaving goosebumps where he touched her.

“Yeah, of course. Just text me.” she smiled up to the boy who first held her heart. He smiled back, and a moment later he wrapped his arms around her, pulling Isabelle against his chest. Her old safe space. She wrapped her own arms around his waist, breathing in the old smell of him. A second later, he pulled back far enough to catch her lips in a kiss, and Isabelle was surprised to find herself kissing back.

Sparks flew as once was a burnt out flame reignited.

A/N: A new story again about Sweet Pea! He’s a huge muse for me. I’m super excited to get into this story, I can’t wait to keep sharing! Constructive criticism is welcome of course! xo B

**NOT MY GIF**

**REQUESTS OPEN**

[themclbird]

The Elevator (cont.) - Lysander x Candy NSFW

This is a milestone celebration request for a continuation on the gif inspired request “The Elevator” I wrote a little while ago. It does have the entirety of the original within it so that you don’t have to go from the first one to this one to get the full story. I hope that you enjoy.

There were certain ways that one was expected to act when in public. Along with these expectations were activities that were considered to be unwelcome and inappropriate to perform in public. Perhaps it was because of these expectations that performing the unwelcome sent a rush through the bodies of those who took part in them. Perhaps it was the desire for this rush that had people performing them.

The reasoning behind why people did these things didn’t particularly matter. Knowing what the reasoning was wasn’t going to stop people from doing it. All that Lysander could do was look away and pretend that they weren’t doing such things. All the while telling himself that he would never find himself in their positions.

At least, that’s what he had been doing for most of his life. It’s funny how one person entering your life can send you into situations that you never expected for yourself. For example, a boy who was always on his best behaviour when in public suddenly finding himself pushing his girlfriend against the wall of an empty elevator.

Lysander couldn’t deny the excitement that ran through him as her back hit the wall. While one of his hands held onto her neck, her hair falling over his skin, the other rested on her waist keeping her in place. Both of her hands couldn’t stop moving. One minute they were resting on the back of his hands, the next they were gripping at the back of his jacket.

The elevator was slowly raising them to their predetermined floor. With every passing second they were increasing the chances that the automatic doors would open and somebody would catch them. This thought didn’t hesitate Lysander, but rather pushed him further. Catching Candy’s roaming hands, he held them against the wall above her head.

With control of her hands taken away, Candy whimpered against Lysander’s lips. Raising one of her legs to wrap around Lysander, she pulled him closer. Their bodies were as close as two could be without removing their clothing. And if it weren’t for the fact that an elevator was technically a public place, they may have done just that.

Loosening his grip on Candy’s wrists, he broke the kiss. Even with the gentle grasp on her wrists, Candy kept her hands were they were. The feeling of the cool metal wall against her skin helping to remind herself where she was.

For a moment she thought that perhaps they had finished. That Lysander had decided there was no reason for them to continue until they were truly alone in a private place where there was no chance of being interrupted. This thought was proven wrong as Lysander’s head dipped down to her neck.

His white hair tickled against her skin as he nipped and licked the sensitive skin of her neck. The two sensations: tickling and biting, creating a mix of emotions to bubble within her. The leg wrapped around Lysander’s body pulled him even closer, resulting in his entire body rubbing against her.

Mouth open wide in an ‘o’ shape, Candy was about to throw her head back (and probably hit her head against the metal wall) when she briefly opened her eyes. The elevator doors were slowly opening to reveal three individual’s waiting for the elevator. She watched as their eyes began to widen at the sight that was emerging before them.

“Lysander,” It was a breathless moan. One that Lysander took as a sign to continue. Biting on her neck, he almost made her forget why she had moaned his name in the first place, “Mmm…stop.” Her voice was barely above a whisper as another moan begged to come fourth.

It took him a moment, but Lysander managed to realise that she wasn’t being playful when she was asking him to stop but actually wanting him to do just that. Pulling away from her, he looked up at her face. Candy’s eyes were glued to the sight behind him. A sight that he was slowly turning around to face.

The pair quickly had matching rosy cheeks as their brains registered that they had been caught. As they both attempted to adjust themselves in order to look presentable, the three who had caught them filed into the elevator. Nobody spoke a word. Nobody made eye contact. Everyone within the elevator simply stood in silence as the doors began to close.

When the elevator finally reached their floor, Lysander took Candy by the hand and lead her out of the metal box. As the doors shut behind them a giggle bubbled up and out of Candy’s throat. Moments later, one followed from Lysander. Within a few seconds the two were trying to stifle their laughter as they walked hand in hand down the corridor.

With every step they were just a little bit closer to their destination: their hotel room, which they had been staying in for the last week. When they finally found themselves at the door to their room Lysander tugged on Candy’s hand, whirling her around to face him. Pulling her into a kiss, he walked her towards the door.

It only took a few steps backwards for Candy’s back to be pressed up against the locked door. Her hands rose up to cup Lysander’s face, deepening the kiss. She wanted his full attention and for him to be able to think of nothing else but the feeling of her lips on his in this moment. Yet despite her best efforts to make him forget everything but her, she could still feel him searching through his pockets for something.

Breaking the kiss, she pulled back and pouted up at her boyfriend. As she did, Lysander looked down at her with a smile, finally removing his hand from his pocket. Raising the hand up to Candy’s eye-line, he showed her exactly what he had been looking for. Dangling from his finger was the hotel room key, “I love you, but we aren’t doing this outside.”

“Oh,” Was all Candy said as Lysander reached around her to unlock the door.

Candy was not into public sex, at least she didn’t think that she was. But, she was finding herself enjoying the thrill that came with them making out in the corridor. Anyone could walk passed at any moment and catch them. It had her heart beating faster in her chest and her desire building within.

And when Lysander had said that they were taking it into the privacy of their room, she found her heart dropping slightly.

She should have been excited; If they were going into the room then that meant that Lysander had every intention of escalating things. Fast. Yet, she was upset that the thrill of getting caught was going to be gone the moment they walked through the door.

Then Lysander pushed the door open and captured her lips in another kiss. With that, the beating in her chest picked back up and the desire was bubbling up once more. Nothing dwindled as he walked her through the door, and none of her feelings faded as he closed the door behind him with his foot.

Perhaps it wasn’t the public thrill that was making her heart beat the way that it was. Perhaps it was the way that Lysander was taking control of the situation, the way this gentleman was eager in his kisses and desperate in the way he gripped onto her waist. With every movement Candy could feel the passion that was going into every one of Lysander’s actions. Then she could feel the passion in his pants pressing against her.

As Lysander slowly guided them towards the bed, one of Candy’s hands moved down between them. Slowly (and semi-clumsily) she rubbed his growing erection through the fabric of his pants.

He groaned into the kiss at her movements that were raising his desire to a new, more desperate, level. His hands moved to the hem of her dress, slowly inching it up her body.

Candy was quick to take the hint and stopped her actions to pull the dress off over her head and toss it across the room. Now standing there in nothing but a pair of heels and her underwear, her hands worked to unbutton Lysander’s jacket while his mouth busied itself by kissing along her neck.

Biting her bottom lip, holding in her moans, she undressed Lysander as quickly as she was able. Every few seconds her actions stalled as Lysander distracted her with a bite against her skin or a tug of her hair. But eventually, she had rid Lysander of his jacket and shirt.

Playing with the button of his pants, she undid them right as Lysander bit hard on her neck, “Fuck,” she moaned. While Lysander continued to create what was sure to become a prominent hickey on her neck, she tugged down his pants as far as she was able. Once the pants moved down to his mid-thigh, Lysander pulled away from Candy’s neck to take them and his boxers off completely.

Candy’s eyes watched him as he showed his entirely naked body to her. While she watched, she reached behind her back to unclasp her bra before sliding off her wet panties.

For a moment, the two of them just stared at one another and their naked bodies. Both of them looking at the bodies that they were in love with, nearly not believing that they’d been together for as long as they had.

Breaking this moment of peace and admiration, Lysander moved forward quickly, recapturing Candy’s lips as his own. As he pushed her backwards, he knees gave out and had her falling down onto the bed and breaking the kiss. She quickly shuffled up the bed, moving towards the pillows as Lysander crawled above her.

Cupping her cheek, he leaned down and kissed her long and slow. All of his desperation and desire moving away from his mouth and moving towards his cock.

Guiding himself towards her entrance with his hand, he slowly thrusted into her. Inch by inch he entered her and it wasn’t long before his entire length was completely surrounded by her warmth. It was a familiar and wonderful feeling that sent a shock of pleasure through his whole body causing an involuntary thrust that sent his cock deeper into her.

A long moan escaped Candy’s lips as she felt herself be filled with his hard cock. Every move from Lysander felt like a jolt of electricity running all the way through her. She needed him to move, she needed him to fuck her hard and deep.

Lysander had never been one to be rough during sex, but this time seemed to be different. Not only was Candy wanting it rough, but Lysander was wanting to give it to her rough.

And this desire was made clear when he began thrusting in and out of her. Each hard thrust pushed through her whole body and she could feel her orgasm building within her.

A series of moans and words of encouragement spilled out of her mouth, urging Lysander to continue. To go faster. To go harder. To really and truly fuck her.

Obeying her requests, he thrust harder and faster into her. Hitting as deep into her as he could.

As he thrust he felt himself quickly catching up to the level of pleasure that had Candy loudly moaning beneath him. “Oh God, oh God, oh God…” Candy’s voice echoed the two words like a mantra as Lysander’s groans became louder with her, neither of them caring if the people in the next room could hear them. They were both nearing their own release with ever thrust against her pelvis.

All that mattered in this moment were their climax’s.

Candy’s hands gripped at the bedsheets as her words faded to nothing as she was hit with an orgasm. Her walls tightened around Lysander’s cock, squeezing even more pleasure out of him as he continued to thrust deeply into her.

Not only were his movements nearing him to release, but they were also milking Candy’s orgasm for everything that it had. Each thrust gave her orgasm a new wave of pleasure to rush through her body, and had another squeak of pleasure to fall out of her open mouth.

With one deep thrust into Candy, he stopped his movements as he rose to his own climax. Slumping his head next to Candy’s he groaned deeply as he came.

Both of them were panting as if they has just run a full marathon, Lysander pulled out of her and rolled over to lie next to her. “I love you.” He told her as he wrapped an arm around her, pulling her towards him to kiss her on the cheek.

[aka-willow]

Far Behind

gif

Words: 1258

Characters: Willow Wren, Trish Walker

Prompt/Tag: “I locked the keys in the car.” x / @anti-solidcoffee​

Summary: Willow sidequests onto an investigation about IGH

Timeline: April 2015

Song: The Safety Dance - Men Without Hats

A/N: Kilgrave arc is ending very soon uhoh

—————————————————————————–

A lot can happen in a few days and for once, lucky for me, I managed to miss most of it. On Wednesday of my spring break, I returned back to Marty’s apartment, and on Thursday morning, I get brunch with Peter and Ned, finally sucking it up and letting them see the cast. They weren’t as suspicious as I thought they would be. I told them I fell down some stairs. After, I texted Trish, hoping for some good news about Hope, or maybe she had a new attack plan against Kilgrave.

In response, I received something completely off base.

>Trish: Kind of random, but have you ever heard of a corporation called IGH?

>Willow: No? Why? Is that who was messing with Kilgrave?

There was a slight delay before Trish responded.

>Trish: No, someone else. I was wondering if you happened to hear of it when you were younger. Or anything similar.

>Willow: Oh, because I grew up in an underground lab I just happen to know about all the others?????

>Trish: I’m sorry that’s not how I meant for it to sound.

>Willow: lol I’m just kidding. I might know how to find some info though. Good at that stuff.

>Trish: I have some files if you want to look through them?

>Willow: Only if I can please get lunch while I’m over there :)!! Please!!

Sometimes, I had a feeling Jessica was asking Trish to rope me in on these side quests to keep me out of trouble, but I didn’t mind. Especially if lunch was involved, and if it would help me figure out more about where I was from, or whatever organization headed the Facility.

Somehow, this stuff always ends up being connected.

So, we worked on IGH that afternoon and I tried to not look at the giant bruise on Trish’s forehead or the fact that the place smelled strongly of bleach. I wanted in on whatever Jessica was up to, but Trish wasn’t giving me many details on what happened over the last day. Her mom stopped by at one point and I automatically jumped up when I heard the knock.

“It’s fine,” said Trish. “It’s just my mother.”

“Is she evil?” I asked.

“Not in the way you’re thinking.”

I nodded and continued to sift through Google search results on my laptop. I heard dead bodies mentioned. I put my headphones in. It’s getting hard to keep this all straight.

Trish tossed her car keys at me. “There are a few more files in my car. Can you go get those? I’ll deal with her.”

Everyone has shit coming up, I thought. Almost makes me grateful that Peter and Ned and Kate and Marty are a pretty drama-free bunch.

I thought about who my mother was, the one who left me after I was born. Was she trying to save me when she left me? Or was she really hoping I would die there?

Who cares, you’re still alive now.

I climbed up from Trish’s apartment, onto the roof, and took the stairs back down to her car. Part of me thinks this is all pointless stuff. Who cares who got experimented on? It happened. It’s over. Then again, I knew that was just me trying to justify forgetting about the Facility. Even though I couldn’t. Even though I still had my siblings there.

I was lost in thought when I finally found Trish’s car, and when I slammed the car door shut after grabbing the files, I realized I made a big mistake. The keys were still sitting on the driver’s seat, the door locked behind them.

Ah, shit.

I went back up to the apartment, while Trish was still arguing with her mother. She opened the door for me immediately and I saw the other woman standing haughtily in the kitchen. “Who is she?” Trish’s mom asked. “Your ward? Seriously, Patsy?”

“Did you get them?” Trish asked, ignoring her mom.

“Yeah,” I said, handing them to her. “But I kinda locked the keys in the car. Sorry.”

After a brief argument that I tuned out with more music, Trish’s mom left. I pulled out an earbud. “Another win for orphans I guess.”

Trish smiled, just a little. “You got that music on all the time?”

I nodded. “Yeah. Helps with the—” I motioned around me. “You know. Everything else. Kilgrave hated it, made me cut up my old headphones since I couldn’t always hear him, which sucked because they were brand new and…”

“Huh,” said Trish, picking up her phone. “I’ll have to tell Jessica to take a page from your playbook.”

I had a good idea?! Awesome. “Just tell her not to use her favorite pair.”

“She wants us to meet her in a bit, if that’s okay.”

I checked the time. “What about lunch?”

Trish sighed. “Right. Yeah. We should eat.”

When we got to the car, I remembered the keys locked inside. “Crap, I’m sorry.” The window was cracked just a little, but not enough to reach in and grab them.

“Hold on,” said Trish, “we can fix this, let me just call—”

I stared at the keys, sitting on the seat, tantalizingly close. I don’t want to wait to get a coat hanger or a car service.

It reminded me of a test we did back at the Facility, but one that felt more like a party trick than anything else. Great, I’m gonna have to tap into those wind powers again, huh?

Not my favorite move. It always left me feeling drained.

But I was hungry. So I focus on the keys and put my hands to the small crack in the window. I pictured the air moving under the keys in a burst, enough to push them up over the window. It was a tough maneuver, but I had done it before.

I shut my eyes and flung a sharp wind under the keys, catching the key tags just right. They jumped up into the air, but then fell back down before I could catch them.

“Did you do that?” Trish asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Wait, hold on.”

I tried a second and third time, but the keys didn’t jump high enough. Finally, on the fourth try, they jumped up to the window crack and I grabbed the keyring with my pinky before pulling them through.

“Got ‘em,” I said. “Sorry. For locking them in the first place.”

“How…” Trish started, but I shook my head and got in the passenger seat.

We drove in silence to a cafe near Jessica’s place and when I got there, I ordered my usual: root beer, fries, and mustard.

“What else can you do?” Trish asked me in a low voice from across the table. “I mean, you can fly, right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “And the wind thing that you saw. The flying is more fun, especially if you start messing with airspace. But I mostly just do pranks with the wind one, which can actually be really funny if—”

“You could use your abilities for something more useful,” Trish said.

I shrugged. “I do.”

“I mean, you could do some really amazing things someday,” she said. “If you trained…”

I’ve already been down this route. “Screw training.”

“What about… I don’t know… the Avengers or something?”

“I don’t think they recruit. Would they? Do you think?”

Trish’s phone buzzed and I saw Jessica’s name come up on the screen. “Just something to think about, kiddo,” she said, picking up the phone.

[therumpus]

I. This doesn’t begin with the fire, but it’s as good a bookend as any— just one tableau of many featuring the usual cast of accusatory fingers and the figures in their line of ire. Those whom rules have favored and those who know what it is to suffer. We’d never been to that space, never met the artists and attendees who perished in a building like the wooden belly of a ship, but we know places like it, have danced and sung among fairy lights, handmade lofts, puppets built by da Vinci’s latest incarnation as a trans girl. Those people shouting shame over building codes have likely been the comfortable kind exercising freedom not to be spat on, threatened, killed for being observably at odds with the bodies they were given. Yes, I said those people, and I meant the enfranchised yapping like lapdogs from narrow confines, not the beings residing in rinky-dink bedrooms/garages that double as performance spaces for bands nowhere else will book. I’m a straight-seeming cis white girl learning to catalogue my privileges and extending them to others when I can and still I have been on the shitty side of a rental inquiry. I know how it feels to be, on paper, worth absolutely nothing and how easy to feel that way off of paper, too. II. I don’t get told to kill myself, but I know many in the LGBT community hear this regularly. Sometimes the command is convincing enough. Anger is a mirror and I don’t believe the otherwise-at-ease offended by some people’s existence are looking in it. I try to imagine having love and sympathy even for livid Jesus-freak gazillionaires stripping rights from everyone who can’t pay their way out of a bind and I can’t do it, can actually see my own humanity’s limits. Would that they too would try this exercise, or another: admit faults! Hard to trust anyone who has no sense of humor. A gentle soul who says she talks to angels has become someone I don’t recognize, taking to Facebook to slut-shame Beyoncé, tongue-lashing Obama for his immigrant sympathies, typing in vitriolic caps about all of the WHINERS who can’t accept Trump as a gift from the Lord. If he is a gift, it is a flaming column of shit wrapped in dubiously human skin, in my very un-angelic opinion. What’s absurd about the man is the obviousness of his insecurities— he doth protest too much—the kind of complex that might inspire sympathy were he not responsible for the lives and deaths of everyone within these borders and many beyond. An awareness of my faults makes me hesitant, makes me reach for the scaffolding of facts while his make him bombastic, loose-cannon, a smug, dumb charlatan, the emperor everyone knows is nude. The angel lady insists not all of God’s chosen ones were perfect. I’m a heathen by choice, prefer to direct my energies to stones, intentions, the wheel of the year. I like my lore more figurative. Still, something tells me God’s chosen weren’t hate-mongering gropers (or worse). Just a hunch. A woman’s intuition. Since childhood I have tried not to know anyone well enough to dislike them, or give them license to antagonize, but Facebook is the license now. We are all animals. At work I held and scanned sweat-stained armbands from the Holocaust, touching fabric that touched people condemned to death or to put them there: red and green triangles, Stars of David, angular S’s and skulls. This is not a metaphor. The rabbi-turned-collector I work for, who deals in Judaica, tells me something I’ve never known: shows me the band that says Jüdische Polizei, for Jews the Nazis forced to police their own people, a level of fucked-up I’d never read. Each day new 1930s and 40s equivalences grow more disturbing, like how fucking stupid and heartless are we, and what kills me is that it’s the red-blooded self-professed patriots only too happy to repeat history, likely the same people who look back at any clash and think they would have been hero underdogs, which is what all Americans fancy ourselves, right? My husband’s aunt is a troll. This is a metaphor. Says he doesn’t watch real news, directs him to YouTube conspiracy videos. These are our times: rhetoric trumps reason, is wielded like a weapon against “ignorance” by those who vilify book-learnin’. I know only too well that I don’t know everything, which makes me not want to claim expertise on anything, which is of course what I want from everyone else, the same control in different clothes. I know how to escape a dinner party mostly unscathed, how to be a worker about whom no one has license to complain, but I don’t know how to be a soul or what true goodness is. Sometimes when I am in a mood, it seems easiest to leave the earth plane altogether, let everyone else deal with this ever-intensifying mess because who am I to do it? I, riddled with faults! I, not very kind! When my serotonin levels are not set to self-destruct, I wonder how often Donald Trump thinks about offing himself and figure the answer is never. III. For the first time in three years, my husband and I were home in the U.S. for the fourth of July. We’d spent twelve months in a nation where kings own newspapers and teachers sign waivers saying they’ll never speak ill of their school, the king, or the country. Portraits of royals hang in every business and home. I watched from afar as my homeland grew foreign to me, an unfunny joke I didn’t bother to defend. At least U.S. journalism is real, I’d thought, an antidote to automatic support for all-powerful leaders. Sad! In Bhutan, foreign workers need government permission to leave town for the weekend, afternoon, even an hour. This is granted by the immigration office, assuming all goes well with a letter from one’s employer, the whims of government workers, and sometimes a whiskey bribe. We presented our papers at checkpoints and kept trips to a minimum, inconvenienced and suspect because foreign. For us, there was an endpoint to this suspicion. In our own country again, we sang “proud to be an American” with gusto, gallows humor. I didn’t yet think such a system could happen here, didn’t know that six months later I’d be shouting at the airport with hijabis and Jews holding signs saying “We’ve seen this before.” I can’t command and articulate encyclopedic knowledge on the history of anger in and toward and from the Middle East and everywhere else, which is what I feel I need every time anyone starts in against Islam, but it’s not like facts are doing too hot these days so what does it matter, why am I still trying to fight fair against people who make up the rules as they go, who pride themselves on never reading books, whose tones of voice call to mind a fat cartoon man tugging his suspenders with jazz hands, chewing one end of a cigar? Floating over my shoulders I’ve got on one side a stenographer and on the other a housecat, both judgey and withholding, not the spirits to summon in an argument against oversimplification, the casting of all of a kind of person as their worst representative—which is what U.S. Americans can anticipate now that the rest of the world sees us for what we’ve always denied that we are: buffoons, ill-meaning and otherwise. I don’t know what to do with myself so I am calling representatives, studying Spanish, reading the Quran before the Bible, wishing my boss Shabbat Shalom, trying out Insha’Allah, everything graceless as crayon art magneted to the fridge, but an alternative to withering. At the women’s march, where I didn’t march so much as shift my weight from side to side for hours, so crowded, all I did was look and listen to people who’ve done this before, their history of anger a resistance pre-dating my existence. I imagine the fire victims who might have marched with us against all manner of finger-pointing, their pockets perhaps like mine lined with stones: malachite for a resilient heart, sodalite for courage to speak truth, tiger’s eye for personal power. Among the signs about witches and coat hangers: Black lives matter. Can’t believe that statement is ever a provocation, but then what I cannot believe is redefined every time I read the news now. Home after the protest there’s a Facebook statement from the angel whisperer: “Congratulations, ladies. You just marched for terrorism.” A flame of anger. Then a video clip: someone just punched a Nazi in the face. 2017 battle cry as .gif. “We’ve seen this before” manifest as a fist. For a moment, that was all the clarity I needed.

RUMPUS ORIGINAL POETRY: “Mewl” by Sarah Lyn Rogers

[myfifatales]

The tale of... Singapore

Winning the World Cup with the Solomon Islands gives you such a feeling of accomplishment that you got to wonder "what's next?". Actually, having walked it makes you question the game in a new example of being drunk with success and getting ahead of yourself. So is it time? The Cook Islands? No. I really want to leave that one for later. Next time I try the ULTIMATE MYFIFATALES CHALLENGE again I must be sure of achieving success. Not that I don't trust my exceptional abilities, but... You know, I’ve failed three times already...

After our title party in Honiara and being so close to the AFC zone I thought of not traveling all the way back home and staying (relatively) close. What could possibly keep my hunger for more success alive? Who could be a good candidate to win back-to-back world cups? Singapore you say? Should I try Singapore? Slightly better ratings than the Solomon Islands you say? Success guaranteed? I hear you. Let's see what Singapore can offer me, lads.

The tale of... Singapore 🇸🇬

4-4-2, attacking mentality and on to see what I got in my hands. Singapore start in a group with Lebanon and the powerhouse Kuwait, and in the first game against the former, I got a taste of what was awaiting me. I quickly checked that winning with Singapore wouldn't be easy at all. Their incredibly sub-standard finishing was going to make things twice as complicated (where's the white Berry?), although I must admit their keeper seemed pretty decent for FIFA 98 standards. Still, you need goals to win.

LOOK, A GIF! Singa-poor: A sign of things to come?

Not that my debut didn't go well. 3-0 win against Lebanon but 6 or 7 would've been no exaggeration given the missed clear-cut chances. After this, not losing in Kuwait was pivotal for me, and a 0-0 there was then followed by a 0-3 win in Lebanon. A 3-2 win against Kuwait in a dead rubber finished off the group. Easy run in the first round, but the second was a little bit trickier, even if, spoiler alert, I qualified top of the group.

I always say it. Qualification is the toughest part (?).

A frustrating 0-0 draw against Iraq was followed by an even more frustrating 1-1 draw against Indonesia. After these two results, I faced a must-win game against China and... I won it 1-0. Yay! I didn’t have the top place guaranteed with another win in the last game of the group, but I beat South Korea (3-1) and, yes, I qualified first. In this video game, the AFC qualification is pretty weird, as you play only once against each team in the second round, and if you advance as group winners, you play a strange dead rubber against the first-placed team from the other group (both group winners qualify automatically), so I don't know what's the point or what’s wrong in this version. Anyway, in that AFC zone champions game (?) I beat India 2-1. I was the champion. Wait, not yet.

“You Qualify! You Qualify!” Everybody do the chicken dance!

Poor finishing was an issue throughout the qualifying campaign, but there I was, again in France, ready to obtain more glory. A group with former World Cup winners Tanzania (was it me? *wink wink*), Czech Republic and UAE didn't seem too complicated, and a comfortable 3-0 win against Tanzania confirmed this. *PLOT TWIST* So there I was with my Singaporeans, facing the biggest test yet, the tricky Czech Republic, and what happened was just inexplicable. One of those things you can't understand even if you try to. At half-time I was trailing 3-0. I was completely blown away. From the very first minute. However, when these things happen I just think "this is turning into a good script for an epic tale". In video-games (as in life?) nothing is impossible, so I was still determined to turn it around... But they scored a fourth goal relatively early and that was it. The lads gave up and a damning 4-0 was the score in my second World Cup game.

You will rarely see this, so look at it at length: me getting torn a new one.

After a game like that, where you have no answers and get beaten so badly, you have to come up with a reaction. Then again, I was lucky with the group and surely the UAE weren’t really going to put up a big threat, right? Plus, a draw would see me get through, so there was no need to panic. I must admit the game wasn't as easy as I had expected. It was pretty cagey and even until the end, which is always dangerous, but in injury time I scored the goal that would restore my confidence and see me advance to the next round with a 1-0 win.

My game is fair play.

My rival in the last 16, Denmark, weren't easy on paper, at least as difficult as the Czechs, I thought, but I had already been warned so this time I was well aware and avoided the early embarrassment. It was very evenly-matched, and again a last minute winner bailed me out and saw me get through. It's Fergie-Singapore time.

Dat ass.

Luck is important in this game. You can win a World Cup without beating any of the best teams and that includes having to beat real bizarre footballing nations. In this case, the Czech Republic (uh-oh) could have awaited me in the quarterfinals. However, they lost to (George Weah's) Liberia and they were my rivals eventually. Again, an African side proved to be extremely easy for my Singaporeans and my 4-0 win was even flattering for them. Almost without realizing I had reached the semifinals with a side I didn't really feel that comfortable with, or let's say, very confident. Two more steps. Certainly not easy ones, since there are no easy games at this level and all that. I’ll cut the crap: Sweden, a tough side but obviously not the toughest, were my opponents for a place in the final.

On my way to a thrashing. Players could feel it. Celebrations all ‘round.

I'll be straightforward. This game was one of the most disgusting I've ever played. The whole point of FIFA is having fun, whether you win or lose (even if losing upsets you), but there was no fun in this game. Sweden were not only negative, but violent, and the referee let them be as violent as they wished. They injured three of my players and stopped every play with a blatant foul. In addition, I had no way to break them down and when Larsson scored with an acrobatic effort in the 68th minute, I really feared for myself. Fortunately, I went for it with determination and I found a gap in their defense to tie things up almost right away through Yahya, one of the guys who came off the bench.

No goal-line technology needed here. Just ruing my luck.

Luck wasn't on my side when in added time I hit the crossbar, but right before full time, they (finally!) got a player (Larsson) sent off and I was in a better position in extra time... Wasn't I? I was! I made the extra man count scoring a golden goal through S-moothy to get to the final! Take that, Sweden. Really f*ck off (and the ref too). Disgusting game. The most frustrating win of all time.

"What is this about now? Been doing the same all game, mate!”

It was time for the great final... against Mexico! It's been a few times the Mexicans have been close to winning the World Cup, but it doesn't seem to really happen for them. I have a theory that they'd love to have me to finally claim the title, but that would be too easy for me, wouldn't it? Anyway, the final didn't really start well, with the Mexicans dominating and scoring first. Were they finally going to make it? I had a good reaction in the second half and again Yahya tied the game, but tied it remained. There was no way through, not even in extra time, partially because my finishing, don't forget it, was rubbish in the most decisive moments. What I didn't want to happen, happened, and there we were, deciding the new World Cup winner in a penalty shootout.

S-moothy would be key again. Let’s all celebrate like 10-year-olds in his honour.

I was taking first and I made no mistake at the start. Then it was their turn and they killed a bird with their first effort, and that obviously made me feel calmer and gave me the momentum. I scored next, they scored too, and I scored again. I was enjoying a perfect shootout when they missed the target again and I knew this was going my way. I tried to secure my next penalty way too much and the keeper saved it comfortably, and then they scored. Still, 3-2, and I just had to score the last one and that would be it. And there, my friends, there I was serene and lucid enough to put it away to trigger the biggest celebration the city-state of Singapore has ever seen.

Singapore are lifting the cup! What a dream maker I am.

Taking penalties with poor sides is really, really uncertain, but I scored 4 out of 5 (pretty good) and I retained the World Cup with another pretty crappy side (no offense, but, they aren’t very good, you know). I really wasn't very optimistic once I played my first game, but if you're lucky enough you can basically win with anyone.

What a tournament. Thank you, FIFA 98.

I must say, though, that this time, the games against Sweden and Mexico, or even Denmark, why not, could have gone either way, and the fact that I won really made up for many other occasions when I wasn’t lucky enough. This just shows that with the right determination you can achieve anything no matter how many times you fell short before. Try hard always. Now it's time to celebrate again (with smoothies)!

That was the tale of... Singapore 🇸🇬

[euro3plast-fr]

Getting Ahead of the Customer-Centricity Curve With Personalisation

Wow your customers with ingenious and useful personalisation

As 21st-century marketers, part of our job is to always wonder: What do I need to do to create compelling and engaging experiences for customers and clients, with our company? It requires an ever circumspect awareness to know what will not only satisfy customer expectations but “wow” them along your sales funnel.

That answer to that question is changing all the time, particularly with the rapid advancement of technology. One such critical trend to practice and be aware of is customer-centricity, and personalization. Loosely speaking, customer centricity is the principle, and personalization is how you put it into action with your company’s digital presence and relationship to your customers.

In the age of data saturation, we as consumers want our experiences online to be relevant, to be adapted and shaped around our interests. Every major development in how we use the internet, from search engines to social media, has to do with having our data sorted for us, intelligently. If it’s possible to achieve this on your company’s website, why choose anything else? One size never truly fits all, and customer expectations are shifting more than ever to having a digital experience tailored and adapted to our data footprint. This emerging trend is loosely called personalization.

Knowing this, the question becomes: How much personalization is necessary just to satisfy, and how much can set you apart from your competitors? Can we afford this wow factor?

While we’re all familiar with how major players like Amazon and Netflix benefit from using personalization in the form of content or product recommendations, you may be surprised by how much more this invaluable marketing tool is capable of, and how accessible and affordable it has become to SMB, thanks to scalable SaaS personalization solutions. With dynamic website personalization, it’s possible to adapt your entire website to individual customers, and segments.

The relevance and benefits of this strategy have been proven with market research:

52% of marketers see personalization as essential

72% of customers are frustrated by irrelevant content

Conversion rates rise by an average of 20% with personalization.

That’s an extra 1/5th of current revenue waiting for your personalized website to take in, and that’s just an average; when applied skillfully, it could be more. All the signs are clear: recommendations are the new norm, and dynamic website personalization is the cutting edge in customer-centric digital marketing; when applied skillfully, it all but guarantees a boost in revenue, as well as other key factors like customer loyalty.

Here are some examples of the completely adaptive, customer-centric user experiences your company can create with the power of dynamic website personalization.

A Patriotic Holiday

Worldwide Travel is incorporating personalization into their core marketing strategy, with a heavy focus on quality recommendations in different forms on their page. While relevant recommendations are guaranteed to improve their conversion, WWT also wants to go the extra mile to create a uniquely personalized experience for every visitor, beyond recommendations alone. To do this, they utilize a comprehensive and affordable SaaS personalization solution, which is able to provide a tailored sales funnel from landing to checkout on their website.

Fred is:

A returning customer

A budget traveler

Looking for family vacations

Looking for Fourth of July vacations, interested in domestic and patriotic

Without personalization, Fred sees a page filled with irrelevant promotions and recommendations:

With the power of personalization, Fred’s experience on Worldwide Travel can be completely transformed. How?

From previous interactions with the site, the personalization engine knows Fred is interested in domestic vacations, his preference for family vacations, and that he is typically bargain shopper. Additionally, it knows that he has already shopped for 4th of July trips once, before.

Because he has searched for trips on the 4th before, Fred will automatically match a customer segment created by WWT’s marketing team specifically for the holiday, that will trigger patriotic modifications to the home page; he will see only domestic packages with priority on patriotic destinations, such as Washington DC or Mt. Rushmore. The service will also know that he will have interests related to family vacations, and may be in the market for travel insurance, or even packages that include separate kids/adults activities.

When Fred, ever the bargain shopper, decides to leave the site and shop around a bit first, as soon as his exit intent is detected, a popup appears with a promotional code for 10% off all patriotic destination packages around July 4th, complete with waving flag GIF background. When Fred still decides to shop around, personalized re-marketing emails are sent with the packages that will also link to landing pages which are personalized, to create maximum exposure of all recommendations that are relevant to Fred.

How much more likely do you think Fred is to buy a package through Worldwide Travel after his personalized experience, versus the generic experience without personalization? How much more do you think Fred feels like Worldwide Travel knows him, and is going the extra mile to meet his needs?

Data-Driven Financial Marketing

Your Local Bank is a mid-sized banking chain in the Eastern US, and they are re-visioning their marketing strategy for the new year. Part of their new approach is creating a customer-centric, dynamically personalized website, driven by in-depth customer data. They plan to achieve this using CRM integration, to expand the information they have available about each customer, for enhanced segmentation and personalization.

Pranav is a current customer of YLB, visiting their website. Through CRM data, YLB knows that Pranav:

Regularly wires money to India

Is in his early 30s

Has over 5,000 in checking

Is a renter who pre-qualified for mortgages

Bought a car 5 years ago

Has no known credit card

Without Personalization, Pranav sees the same irrelevant version of YLB’s landing page as everyone else:

A Whole New Landing Page

By incorporating a variety of personalized promotions on their site using in-depth CRM data, YLB is able to tailor their landing page completely to Pranav.

As you can see, every new element of the landing page is relevant to Pranav, in one way or another, which makes him much more likely to explore his other options in regards to mortgages, car loans, new types of account, and perhaps wiring money to India more often.

To go beyond promotions and recommendations, YLB also creates an automated, personalized email marketing campaign, to send relevant emails containing promotional offerings, with different versions of each email for different customer segments such as age groups, marital status, income, etc. They also create a number of dynamically personalized landing pages on their site for different categories of services, to serve as hubs of personalization, to direct the flow of site traffic to what is most relevant for each visitor.

How much more likely do you think Pranav is to upgrade accounts, purchase loans and mortgages, or wire money more often, after personalization? How much faster will YLB reach their ROI goals for their online marketing with personalization in place?

B2B Personalization Success

Strega provides software solutions to a variety of businesses for marketing, sales automation, customer service, accounting, and CRM. Strega has hired a new marketing director, who recognizes the importance of quality personalization. As a B2B solution, in the past, Strega always considered their visitors to be less convenience-driven than typical end-consumers, but recent B2B market research has debunked that idea; having dynamically personalized content can boost sales just as much, regardless of whether your customers are other businesses or end users, particularly when conducting an Account-Based Marketing strategy.

Randy, a visitor to Strega’s site, is:

Operations Manager, at a utilities company

Interested in customer service and sales automation

Existing Customer, shopping from his work IP

Arrived via search keyword: “customer service automation software”

Before personalization, Randy sees the same generic version of the landing page that everyone else does:

After personalization, using data on his location, industry, previous purchases, search referral keywords, and site interactions, Randy’s experience on Strega is personalized from the moment he lands. Because Strega has embraced an Account-Based Marketing strategy, they are devoting more resources to individual leads such as Randy, and incorporating CRM data for expanded customer knowledge such as role in company, type of industry, position in the sales funnel, and other parameters normally unavailable from default behavioral tracking.

The promotions he sees on the new personalized landing page are all relevant to him, and even include testimonials from professionals in his industry, for the kind of software he’s looking for. As he continues to navigate the site, behavioral tracking also recognizes that he is seeking accounts management software, as well. Randy make an inquiry about a demo using the button at the top of the page, which requires him to insert his name and email.

After he leaves, he will also receive personalized emails that include his name, his company, and which show the various offers and promotions related to his two registered interests, customer service automation and accounts management, in addition to the response about the demo.

If he clicks any one of these offers, he will be directed to landing page for that software, which also includes promotions and recommendations related to it, determined by customer interest algorithms Strega’s marketing team has chosen, as well as add-ons or upgrades to other software he has previously purchased. Since he is a high-end user, his interest is also registered with sales department, who can prioritize his business, and attempt to contact him via phone.

How much more likely do you think Randy is to recommend Strega’s software to a decision-maker, over a competitor whose site knew nothing about his company’s needs, and whose emails weren’t personal at all? How much more is this company going to want to have a working relationship with Strega, versus another company who treated them like a number?

Thanks to Jonathan Riley for sharing advice and opinions in this post. Jonathan is an Account Manager with Personyze, where he helps online marketers from all types and scales of business provide their sites' visitors with tailored and relevant experiences, using artificial intelligence and dynamic website personalization software. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.

from Blog – Smart Insights http://www.smartinsights.com/ecommerce/web-personalisation/getting-ahead-customer-centricity-curve-via-personalisation/