#anyway I guess some movies are like field of dreams and the bad news bears and Hoosiers and idk… a bunch of those sex comedies i don’t like

[pizzaqueen]

My list of movies I think Steve would like is basically just like movies that are similar to Animal House* and also some sports movies. And maybe some Tom Cruise and the odd John Hughes/typical teen movie I guess

*he doesn’t hesitate to say it when Keith asks for his top 3 movies so I’m assuming it really is his fave??

[keelywolfe]

FIC: Welcome To Backwater ch.6 (spicyhoney)

Summary: There are some strange happenings in this little town, is Stretch about to get some answers or only more questions?

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Read Chapter Six ‘It’s All Academic’ on AO3

or

Read it here!

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The store was still a good block away by the time Stretch’s legs decided they’d had enough of doing all the heavy lifting today and would he mind finding a place for them to park his ass for a while, thank you ever so much.

His youthful escorts started drifting off right around the time he got into town proper and his sneakers hit sidewalk. Probably outsiders weren’t as interesting without the possibility of imminent disaster and the kiddos started back to their abandoned bikes and hopscotch squares, leaving him to stagger on.

By then, the wobble that had infected his knees before he even got out of the cornfield was working its way up to a full-out gelatin jiggle and his mouth was filled with the taste of the sweat that ran down his skull, bittersweet salt heavy on his tongue. The sun overhead was bearing down on him, the heat scalding through his t-shirt and shorts right down to his bones.

He wasn’t gonna make it to the store, Stretch realized with dismay, and flopping down on the sidewalk would be about as comfortable as hopping into a greasy skeleton-sized frying pan. Ending the afternoon charbroiled was somehow even less appealing than going back for s second visit with Edgar Allen and Stretch gave his surroundings a slightly desperate look.

The library. He hadn’t been inside yet, but it was right there, not ten unsteady steps away. A small ‘open’ card was in the front window and it was sure to have air conditioning, plus a place to sit and tally up what remained of his scattered wits.

Stretch gathered up the last of his waning endurance and headed for the door. It opened easily, no cowbell here to mark his entrance, and the blissfully cool rush of crisp air against his sweating skull the moment he opened the door confirmed all his hopes and dreams. He managed to close the door behind him and then staggered back a step to lean against the solid wood. Hopefully, no one else was heading in to swap out their latest reads for something new because he needed about five good minutes before he was prepared to even try moving.

Now that he was out of the heat, his mind was clearing a little and he was able to give the library a good look around. It took a minute longer for his vision to adjust; compared to the bright sunshine, this room was like stepping into a shadow, dim and mysterious the way libraries should be, even ones that weren’t in weird little towns.

Huh. It was bigger than it looked on the outside, big shocker there, another little surprise of Backwater’s to add to his growing list. Only one room, sure, smelling musky despite the air conditioning, but the bookshelves were tall, towering even over his head and Stretch was on no one’s short end of the scale. The walls were lined with those shelves, and more stood independently, every one of them heavy with all kinds of books.

There were also a couple of small wooden tables and for the first time, Stretch noticed he wasn’t alone. Someone was sitting at one of the tables with his back to the door and unless there was yet another skeleton Monster hanging around town that Red hadn’t bothered to introduce, it had to be his brother. Couldn’t be sure, of course, all Stretch could see was his back, but he was willing to lay down a bet on even odds.

He’d left off the jacket this time, a wise choice in Stretch’s opinion given the ever-rising thermometer outside. Instead, he was wearing a thin black t-shirt and without the bulk of the leather jacket, his shoulders were narrower, putting him at only a little broader than Stretch’s generally scrawny condition. A crimson scarf was neatly wound around his neck, adding a splash of bright color not only to him, but to the shadowy room.

His spine was poker stiff, only his neck bent as he perused whatever book was in front of him, and his voice was that same rich chocolate tinged with battery acid from their first meeting as he spoke without turning around.

"Choosing to broaden your horizons with reading instead of wasting all your time at the movies, my, what will my brother…say…" the skeleton trailed off as he turned his head enough to glance at him. His head whipped around to give Stretch the full force of his startled gaze. The chair screeched on the floor as he shoved it back, climbing abruptly to his feet, his sockets narrowing as he looked Stretch over. It was not a sudden outbreak of overwhelming lust in that crimson gaze, more’s the pity, but stark concern as he asked sharply, "Are you all right?"

"yeah?” Stretch said uncertainly, and why was the world so unfair that he sounded like a croaking frog with developing case of laryngitis in comparison to that roughly silk voice? Worse, he still didn’t actually know if he was okay, might be better not to fully commit to an answer. Considering he was still covered in dirt and cornsilk, and felt like his bones might actually melt into a mess on the floorboards, he probably looked even worse than he sounded.

Red’s brother didn’t seem to buy it, either. He leaned over to rummage through an open backpack by the table leg, pulling out a bottle of water. Those heavy boots were surprisingly quiet on the wooden floor as he stalked over and thrust the water bottle into Stretch’s hands. He drank it gratefully, the cool water soothing on his parched tongue, only to nearly choke on a drenched yelp as wincingly brisk hands started dusting him off.

The other skeleton plucked free a straggly leaf that was clinging unknowingly to Stretch’s sleeve and held it up like an accusation, stating flatly, "You went in the corn field.”

Wow, this guy managed to fit a whole lot of disapproval into one sentence. He must’ve taken lessons at the same place as Blue. Probably aced the class.

“yeah,” Stretch admitted. He left off that the kids tried to stop him from going, always better to plead ignorance while you still could. “kinda got lost."

The other skeleton made a sound that was an honest to bits harrumph. He gave up on Stretch’s clothes, to be honest they hadn’t been in top form before he went into the corn field, and instead, holy shit, started poking at his actual bones.

Already the whole incident seemed more like a bad dream than reality, and now he was falling back into another dream, only this one was of a wet variety. It was really hard (heh) to stay traumatize with a guy this gorgeous unhesitatingly feeling him up. He was probably looking for injuries like a good Samaritan and an outside source needed to firmly (heh heh) tell Stretch’s bones that, because they sure weren’t listening to Stretch on the matter.

Hands skimmed down his ribs, sharp-tipped fingers cautious as they slid lower, ghosting over his shorts and the femurs beneath them. He crouched down to reach Stretch’s dirty sneakers, gently gliding over the delicate bones of his ankles and leaving behind a heat that was nothing like the sun’s.

Stretch took another long swig of cold water, nearly as desperate as his first but for entirely different reasons, and tried not to think of the skull that was currently level with his fly. Okay, he didn’t exactly want this to stop but he really, really, needed it to. He hoped the guy chalked up the renewed croak in his voice to lingering trauma. "um, thanks, but i’m okay. this scarecrow guy helped me."

“Ah, did Edgar Allen help you back out?” the guy said approvingly. “Good.”

Stretch tried not to look disappointed as he stood back up, seeming to decide there was no permanent damage from his unexpected ‘field trip’. At this point, any lingering aftereffects weren’t from the corn, and he took a shaky breath, sternly advising everything below the waist that systems were not at go, launch not in progress, abort, abort.

A distraction was in order.

Okay, so, no one in this town was at all surprised by the sentient scarecrow. Stretch didn’t pretend that he knew everything about the surface world, okay, this was his first time out of Ebott, but he was pretty sure that if this were the worldwide norm, he’d’ve heard about this once or twice; on the news, TMZ, twitter, something.

“edgar allen, right. um…soooooo, what is he?” Stretch asked.

That got him an impressively scornful look. “He’s a scarecrow.”

Yeah, okay, that was true, but Stretch wasn’t about to pretend that the scarecrow part of Edgar Allen was the debated issue right now. “scarecrows aren’t supposed to move. not on their own, anyway, and they really aren’t supposed to be able to offer opinions on the corn.”

“No?” The other skeleton waved a negligent hand as he turned away, heading to his chair as he tossed over his shoulder, “What should he be able to offer his opinion on, Paris fashions?” He settled into his chair, bending back over his book. “I’d appreciate it if you don’t tell him your personal theories on his condition, he doesn’t need that kind of negativity right now.”

“wha—of course i won’t, why would i…?” For a moment, Stretch felt absurdly guilty for his preconceived notions on scarecrows, then he shook it off because seriously? He went to the table and pulled out another chair, turning it around to straddle the battered seat. The other guy didn’t even look at him, right, right, he was a dick, how quickly a little unintentional petting made Stretch forget.

“is he a monster?” Stretch asked. That would sort of make sense, not that Stretch knew any Monsters who’d willingly sit in a field all day long. Then again, he guessed it depended on the hourly rate and what kind of signal you could get on your phone.

The other skeleton licked the tip of his finger before turning a page and it was seriously embarrassing how that little flick of crimson tongue threatened to make Stretch forget all his questions again. But what he said snapped Stretch back out of it. “Not at all. Quite the opposite, actually.”

“okay. hang on right there.” Stretch set his water bottle down and propped an elbow on the table. He rested his face in one hand, pressing a knuckle between his eye sockets where a headache was starting to form. “what does that even mean? what the fuck is up with this place?”

“There is nothing up with this place,” the other guy said, testily. Whether that was from Stretch’s questions or the fact that he was interrupting his reading was up for grabs. “This is normal here and if you’re having difficulty with it, then the problem is yours, not the town’s.”

“i don’t have a problem with it, i never said it was a problem…!” Stretch blew out a frustrated sigh, “look, i’m just trying to understand!”

The other skeleton still didn’t look up, his crimson eye lights focused on the page in front of him. His mouth curved into a smile that was almost bitter and a stern reminder of who he was because in that moment he looked very reminiscent of Red. “Understanding Backwater is a fool’s errand and I suggest you get used to not.” His eye lights flicked up briefly. “If you recall, I tried to get you to leave. You’re the one who wanted to stay.”

“i…yeah. i did. i still do,” Stretch said, defiantly, “wanting to understand doesn’t mean i want to leave, you know.” He left off the ‘asshole’; if this guy didn’t already know he was one, Stretch wasn’t gonna waste his time trying to tell him “edgar allen really helped me out, i was losing my shit out in that field.”

“That’s his job,” the guy said. See, that right there, that was an extra piece to the puzzle Stretch was struggling to make. Helping people out of the cornfield was Edgar Allen’s job as a sentient scarecrow, good to know, even if one of the townies might’ve wanted to bring it up before Stretch took a stroll through the stalks.

“his job. okay, i get that, but not in a paycheck sort of way, right?” No answer and Stretch hesitated, drumming his fingers on the table as he considered, “wonder if he gets bored out there, hanging out all day long in the corn. think he'd like a magazine or something? maybe a farmer's almanac?” Not like it could hurt to add a scarecrow to his friends list, but how could he get it to him, leave it right inside the field and give him a shout? Maybe the corn would give him a heads up, it sure seemed chatty when it wanted to be and—

He abruptly realized that the other skeleton was staring at him, but not in a scornful way this time. It was a little softer somehow, those sharp eye lights assessing.

“what?” Stretch asked, a little defensively.

A beat of silence, then, “He's usually sleeping if no one is in the field,” the skeleton said, finally, “But that's very thoughtful of you.”

“never hurts to repay a favor. how do you know so much about edgar allen, anyway? do all the locals know or are you special?” Stretch gave the room another quick glance; there were two other tables with their own chairs, the faded floral pattern on the cushions barely visible in the dimness. Tucked into one corner was an old-fashioned card catalogue and next to it was an ancient computer, the monitor showing only bright white text against a black screen and a blinking cursor. Only one table had any books on it, the one Daddy Long Legs here was using, and that was it. They really were alone in here and now that Stretch thought of it, that was kind of weird, wasn’t it? Should be at least one other person here, unless— “are you the librarian?”

“No,” the skeleton scoffed, “There is no librarian. And as to what I know, I simply pay attention. Simple observation can be very informative.”

“it hasn’t helped me out much yet.” Stretch leaned forward a little, lowering his voice conspiratorially, “you know, i still haven’t heard your name.”

“That would be because I haven't said it." But the skeleton gave him a faint smile and it was miles different than those past sardonic ones, soft and secretive. It shouldn’t have been fascinating, watching those sharp teeth curve warmly. "But if you ask, I may give it to you."

"for keepsies and everything?" Stretch teased, ignoring his slight breathlessness, seriously, he was not this hard up, he really must’ve gotten too much sun. "okay, how can i resist. what's your name?"

Crimson eye lights met his, a brief flicker, then back to the book. "You can call me Edge."

Stretch ignored the fluttering trill of delight in his soul, it was a name, for fuck’s sake, not an invitation. "edge,” he repeated, curling his tongue around that single, stark syllable. “that's some careful phrasing there, edge."

"Yes. It is,” the guy, Edge, agreed. “Nonetheless, that is what you can call me."

“edge,” Stretch said again, just to say it, “i like that."

Just in case Stretch got any ideas that he might not be a complete dick, Edge made sure to say as dry as glass of desert sand, “Wonderful, I've been waiting with bated breath for your reassurance. And if you want to know more about Edgar Allen, I’d suggest talking to his creator. You have a few weeks left, the scarecrow will be around until harvest time.”

Stretch frowned in confusion; what the hell did that mean? “what happens after harvest time?”

“He ceases to exist,” Edge said, matter of fact, “like all the scarecrows before him.” Yeah, because everyone knew that, right, who didn’t, that was probably kindergarten shit around here.

Only Stretch obviously hadn’t been around for that class. Stretch lurched backwards, accidently knocking over the water bottle and almost tipping over his chair as he blurted out, “what? he dies??”

Edge caught the bottle before it could roll onto the floor, setting it back upright. “He’d have to be properly alive to die. As I said, if you’d like to know more, ask his creator.”

“who, the wicked witch at the end of the woods? no thanks,” Stretch shook his head, which was still reeling from the knowledge that the guy who’d save him this afternoon was going to go kaput before Halloween. It wasn’t enough time, not at all, he hadn’t even figured out how to get him a magazine, how to properly thank him. Just another incident of ‘not fair’ to add to his lifetime, “i already had my children of the corn adventure, i’m not interested in adding any red riding hood to my agenda. doesn’t really go with my work schedule.”

Edge only arched a browbone, “On the contrary, his creator is my roommate.”

Wow, this guy really did like dropping puzzle pieces into Stretch’s lap, didn’t he, if only he’d do other lap-related—stop it, he told himself, then aloud, “oh, so you do live someplace. your bro wouldn’t tell me where.”

“A remarkable astute choice on his part.”

“i mean, you're already living rent-free in my head." Shit, shit, Stretch knew he didn’t mean to say that, but apparently his mind hadn’t sent the memo down to his mouth yet that Red’s sexy brother was off-limits, caution tape engaged.

"I…what?" Edge only looked confused and yeah, okay, dipping his toe into the flirting pond was only gonna give him wet feet. Tempting as a fling might be, Red was against it and Stretch didn’t really blame him. Just because Edge was single didn’t mean he wanted a starring role in Stretch’s shitty Hallmark movie and a fling was all it could be, a quick little rebound fuck, and his boss/landlord’s little brother was not the right choice for it, nope, nope, nope.

But, oh, honey, those hips—

“never mind,” Stretch said hurriedly, “what are you reading, anyway.”

“I’m doing research.” Dismissively, a pretty big clue that Edge was done with this particular chat. Stretch’s knees were doing a lot better, it was probably time to head out back to the store and surely Red could put him in touch with Edge’s roommate if he was really curious about Edgar Allen. He should go, should, but.

Stretch didn’t want to leave yet. Stupidly, he really wanted this guy’s tally mark on Doris’s side of the friendship list. Red was over there now, Edgar Allen was hovering in neutral territory, and Mitch was still firmly on the other side of the page, and hey, if a fling was off the table, friends might still be up for grabs, right?

“yeah?” Stretch craned his neck, squinting at the page, “maybe i could help.”

“I sincerely doubt it.”

Stretch ignored that, “come on, i know how to research.” Stretch grabbed one of the books from the stack and flipped through, pausing to frown down at the page. “uh. what language is this?” He wasn’t even entirely sure it was a language.

Edge almost ripped the book from his hands, snarling out, “What it is, is from the restricted section and none of your business!”

Stung, Stretch looked around the library. It was literally one room, not so much as an extra door in sight, not even a restroom. “restricted section? where? do you keep them locked up on the roof?”

Edge took a long, deep breath in through his nasal cavity, then ground out through gritted teeth, “Do you mind? I’d like to get on with it. I do not need your help, I don’t need anything from you!”

“sorry, sorry,” Stretch mumbled, cringing inwardly. He just had to push it, didn’t he, every fucking time, Blue always tried to tell him that slow and easy was the way to go, but, no, couldn’t do that, now could he? Stupid, so stupid, always, and Stretch slid clumsily off the chair to his feet and headed for the door. Even then he couldn’t help adding, “see you around.”

Guess he could add this guy’s name beneath Mitch’s in the ‘hates me’ column.

He wasn’t two steps away when a soft, “Wait,” stopped him.

Stretch turned back around, hardly daring to let the hope well in his soul. Edge was sitting sideways in his chair and he sighed, scrubbing a hand over his skull, fingers clattering against the smooth bone, “I’m sorry. That was rude of me.”

“it’s fine,” Stretch said hurriedly, “i’m the outsider here, right?”

“Yes.” Edge said, a simple agreement. “But that’s no excuse. You’re very fond of questions, perhaps you’d care to answer mine. Tell me, why are you here?”

Stretch hesitated, then shrugged. Not like Red didn’t already know. “broke up with my boyfriend. it…kinda sucked, and i wanted to get out of my hometown for a while.” The memory was enough to finish cooling off any of his overheated jets and almost absently he rubbed his sternum, right over the faint, lingering ache where his soul sat.

Edge frowned, his sockets narrowing in irritation, "If you’re not going to tell the truth, then you can just say you don’t want to talk about it."

Huh?

“hold up, what?” Stretch asked, bewildered. Like he needed any other confusion today.

“That’s not why you’re here,” Edge said decisively, with enough arrogant confidence to grate over Stretch’s already raw nerves.

“uh, yeah, it is,” Stretch said, his own irritation rising, why did he want to be friends with this guy again? “i think i’d know better than anyone.” He ignored the taste rising at the back of his throat, faint bitterness that refused to be swallowed away, and yeah, okay, maybe, it wasn’t the entire reason, but like Edge’s name, you took what you could get.

“Then you don’t know yourself as well as you believe.” Edge stood up then and walked over the shelves and Stretch followed him, more to watch the sway of his hips than to see check out the local dewy decimal layout. Hey, if he was going to deal with the asshole outbursts, he should at least get to enjoy the view.

Edge barely had to search before he pulled one off the shelf and held it out. “You should check out a book. As I said, there’s no librarian, it’s all based on trust. Write the catalogue number on the record and have it back in two weeks.”

Stretch looked at the book Edge was holding out. It was a thick, hardback novel, heavy enough to use for self-defense or maybe against alien invaders with a lethal allergy to paper cuts. “nah, i think i’ll stick to the movies.”

“Read this book,” Edge said and there was a certain urgency in his voice, in the way he held the book.

Stretch sighed inwardly and took it. This guy was hot as hell, yeah, like the town, and just as peculiar. He turned the book over and read from the spine, ‘An Informal History of Backwater.’ He looked back up. “what, is the formal history too posh for me?”

“Just read it,” Edge said, impatiently.

“yeah, okay, i can do that,” Stretch sighed. It had to be better than nightly ‘Wheel of Fortune.’ Then, because he was an idiot and always liked a chance to prove it, he said, “so, if you think i need to talk to your roomie about edgar allen, does that mean you’re inviting me over to your place?”

“No, it means you need to do your own research and find them,” Edge smiled then, suddenly, wide and bright, “But if you happen to find your way down the path, I may feed you when you get there, Riding Hood.”

Stretch stared helplessly at that smile. All his irritation melted away as he tried not to see the way it changed Edge’s entire face, suffusing those sharp angles with softened warmth.

He shouldn’t, he really shouldn’t, and it wasn’t exactly the kind of dinner invitation any normal person might’ve hoped for, but then, Stretch was starting to learn that if he wanted normal, he should’ve stayed on the bus.

“okay, then,” Stretch said, trying for something at least slightly above inane, “i’ll, uh, start looking for grandma’s house.”

“You do that.” With that, Edge went back over to the table, sitting back down in front of his book, and Stretch knew he was dismissed.

Okay, well, not exactly a friend yet, but he was still adding this one to the tentative win column. First, read the book and then he’d start on the new puzzle of finding out where Edge and his roommate lived. He wasn't as good at puzzles as his brother, sure, but Stretch was pretty sure he could manage that.

He did hope the whole Riding Hood gig was a joke, though. Stretch wasn’t really interested in meeting the big bad wolf right about now.

tbc

[tiptoe39]

the time i kissed you

Reposting this because the LJ-cut didn’t work the first time.The prompt was “give me an AU and I’ll give you the first kiss for that AU,” wangxian, childhood friends, by @notenoughgatorade.

Disclaimer: feel free to think of this in america if i say a thing that wouldn’t happen in china, it’s a little kissy ficlet, chill out. props to @hils79 for the bunny!

2nd disclaimer: the LJ-cut doesn’t seem to be working for me so I apologize for the long post!

“Lan Zhan, do you remember the time I kissed you?”

Lan Zhan stops. Of course he remembers. He didn’t think Wei Ying remembered.

It’s their last night as college students. Tomorrow, they graduate, and it’s a whole new world. For tonight, they sit on the roof and drink. Well, Wei Ying drinks. Lan Zhan sits, and looks at Wei Ying, and yearns.

They’ve been talking about childhood memories. Playing in the back hills of Cloud Recesses in the snow. Trying, and failing, to smoke cigarettes when they were thirteen. Their field trip to the zoo as fifth graders, when Jin Zixuan threw up on the way back. And now … this.

He plays dumb. “You kissed me?”

“Oh, of course you don’t remember it!” Wei Ying laughs. “We were tiny. In first grade, we had, I guess it was a playdate? Our uncles took us to a park. There was a dog off its leash and I ran screaming. Don’t look at me like that, Lan Zhan, the dog was huge and I was six. Anyway, you got all angry and chased it off, and I was so happy and for some reason I had in my head that kissing someone was the best way to thank them, so I just popped one on your mouth.”

Lan Zhan puts a finger to his lips, remembering. The taste of it. The way Wei Ying had looked at him with those big, tear-filled eyes. The resolution that formed in his heart, with the certainty of childhood and more: I will always protect him.

And he has. Whenever Wei Ying has needed him, he has been there. He hid with Wei Ying in the forest the night Wei Ying ran away from home. In high school, he eased Wei Ying’s broken heart when the first girl he liked didn’t like him back. He lent him notes for tests, walked him home when he missed the last bus, helped him write his college admissions essay. Even came to this school, to be close to him. Just in case Wei Ying needed him.

Tomorrow all that might disappear. Wei Ying’s determined to move to the big city, make his living as an artist. Lan Zhan has obligations back at home. He’s invited Wei Ying to come back and live there; there’s plenty of room for him, even studio space, but Wei Ying is resolute. No, he wants to be where all the action is. He wants it more than he wants Lan Zhan and that’s just the way it is. The way it’s always been.

“The dog wasn’t that big,” Lan Zhan says.

“So you do remember!” Wei Ying turns to him with wide, sparkling eyes. “I was six,” he adds peevishly, “all dogs were big.”

“I was six too,” Lan Zhan reminds him. Wei Ying grumbles.

“Anyway! I think that’s the day we became best friends, don’t you?”

“Maybe.”

Wei Ying is flushed with the alcohol, and boldly, he scoots closer to Lan Zhan on the rooftop. “I should give you another kiss,” he says.

Lan Zhan’s heartbeat quickens. “Why?”

“As a thank-you!” Wei Ying. “You’ve been my best friend for so long, and I couldn’t have gotten here without you. Come here, Lan Zhan.” He slings an arm around him and presses his lips into an exaggerated pucker. “Let me lay one on you.”

Lan Zhan dodges. “Stop it,” he says. “You’re drunk.”

“So what? I’m always drunk. Doesn’t make me love you any less. Come on now, Lan Zhan, kiss me back. You should say thank-you to me, too!”

“For what?” Lan Zhan has to dodge another attack, as Wei Ying darts in to try to catch his mouth.

“For all the fun you’ve had with me all these years! Admit it, without me you’d be locked up studying all day and night. I got you in trouble for the first time, and it was the best thing to ever happen to you. Come on, thank me.”

Lan Zhan holds him at arm’s length. The warmth of him seeps into his hands, goes rushing up through his arms, makes his heart swell uncomfortably. “I’m not kissing you to say thank-you,” he insists.

“Then sit still and let me thank yo–oohh!” Lan Zhan dodges a final time, and loses his grip on Wei Ying, who goes sprawling across the roof tiles. He scrambles to get his bearings and grabs Lan Zhan’s shirt; Lan Zhan gasps as he loses his balance and falls over Wei Ying. He grabs the nearest thing he can find, which is Wei Ying’s waist, and just manages to keep from smashing their heads together.

So now here they are, Wei Ying lying on the roof on his back, with Lan Zhan over him, a breath away. Wei Ying won’t stop laughing. “Now you should definitely kiss me,” he says. “This is too good, this is like you see in the movies. You fell on top of me, now you have to kiss me. That’s the rule.”  

Lan Zhan fights for reason. “What rule?”

Wei Ying loops his arms around Lan Zhan’s neck. “The rule I just made up,” he says. “The rule that says if we lie like this, we have to–” Suddenly he cranes upward, trying to reach Lan Zhan’s lips. Lan Zhan pulls away, but Wei Ying still has him in a loose grip, and he can’t sit up or get away.

“Stop it.” Lan Zhan scowls down at him. His temperature is rising and his patience is fraying.

“Why? Is it that you don’t want to kiss me?” Wei Ying is still laughing. “Lan Zhan, don’t tell me it’s that you don’t want to kiss me. I promise my alcohol breath isn’t that bad. I’m only tipsy! Come on, pucker up.”

“No.”

“You’re being difficult!” Wei Ying yanks with both hands, pulls Lan Zhan’s head close. “Why can’t you just say thank-you like we did when we were six?”

“If I kiss you,” Lan Zhan warns, “it won’t be a thank-you.”

Wei Ying blinks, for once out of words. His lips go slack and his hands let go of their grip. If Lan Zhan moves now, he could get free, go back inside, get some distance and some sanity back.

He could. It’d be the wisest thing to do.

Instead, he kisses him.

His mouth comes down on Wei Ying’s with the suppressed passion of years and years spent wanting. It’s the last night of college and Lan Zhan might never see him again and he needs this now, to take one thing for himself, after years of giving and giving. He kisses Wei Ying greedily, grazing his teeth over Wei Ying’s lips, licking them apart.

Even with everything, all the pent-up frustration, if Wei Ying resisted for even a moment, Lan Zhan knows he would scramble back, apologize, and leave him alone. But Wei Ying isn’t pushing him away. No, Wei Ying is kissing back, one hand tangled in Lan Zhan’s hair, the other on his shoulder, pulling him closer. Wei Ying’s tongue licks at his, and he moans, Wei Ying moans, and the sound sends a red flare of heat down through Lan Zhan’s whole body.

He’s kissing back like he wants this. Like he’s wanted this since before. But Lan Zhan can’t be that lucky, can he?

He stops, pulls up, looks down at Wei Ying. His mouth is pink from kisses and bites, his eyes steady.

“You could have told me, Lan Zhan,” he says, running a hand through Lan Zhan’s hair. “You could have told me years ago.”

Lan Zhan shakes his head. “I couldn’t.”

“So shy.” Wei Ying tsks gently. His smile is small, understated for a man who often grins big as a planet, but it’s there. “Do you know how much time we’ve wasted? We should have been doing this in high school.”

“I–” Lan Zhan can’t get hold of his thoughts. “Then you–”

“Lan Wangji, you obtuse idiot,” Wei Ying says, “I’ve been in love with you since middle school.”

Lan Zhan can only stare.

“All through high school, your name over and over on the margins of my notes,” Wei Ying goes on. “Daydreaming about dancing with you at prom. So afraid you’d run off to another college without me. Wet dreams, Lan Zhan, the wet dreams!” He laughs, that wide smile back where it belongs.

“Then why didn’t you–?”

“Me? You were Lan Zhan! You were the straight-A student who had too much studying to do! I was lucky to get you out of your house for an hour! Everyone knew I was dragging you down. How could I demand any more of you than you already gave me? I knew I didn’t deserve you.”

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says. They’re the only words he can get out out.

Wei Ying’s eyes shine as he looks up. “My beautiful Lan Zhan,” he murmurs. He trails a finger along the line of Lan Zhan’s jaw. “Please accept this kiss as a thank-you for everything you’ve done for me all my life.” He leans up, pecks Lan Zhan on the mouth once, and lies back down.

Lan Zhan’s eyes brim with tears. “And this kiss is my thank you to Wei Ying.” He gives Wei Ying an answering peck. They smile at each other in the moonlit night.

“And this kiss,” Wei Ying says, “and every other kiss from now on, is because I love you.”

He pulls Lan Zhan down again.

[oliverstarked]

where I belong

[PG-13, 3.4k words]

"Buck's not sure of the exact moment that he knew Eddie was it for him, but it’s been that way for so long now it’s become a part of who he is. He used to be good at pretending his feelings didn’t exist, but he’s so tired these days."

A little bit of introspection, a lot of idiots in love.

[read on ao3]

The ocean is so beautiful at dawn. 

Under the soft pink-orange sky the water looks bruise-purple, whitecaps leaving foamy trails on the sand. The sun is only just peeking over the horizon, edging towards another gorgeous LA day. But before that begins, before the hustle and bustle and wailing sirens, Buck sits on the beach on the cold sand and feels caught in a moment so peaceful, so nice, just the squalling of gulls and the gentle crash of the waves for company. 

He pushes stale air out of his lungs and breathes the fresh in deeply. The chill feels good, raises goosebumps on his skin and reminds him that he’s alive. A reminder he’s needed a lot lately. He’s been struggling, even though his leg has healed, even though the tsunami is months behind him, even though his relationship with his 118 family is better than ever and he has no reason to be struggling. Nightmares come and go, cold sweats, little niggling thoughts that burrow their way into his brain throughout the day. 

He tries not to talk about it. There are so many people who have it worse than him and he doesn’t want to become some kind of social… leech around his friends, constantly draining them of energy by going on about his issues. You’re exhausting , Eddie said to him once. Buck knows it’s true, knows he takes inches and runs them into miles. His heart may be in the right place, sure, but he doesn’t know when to shut up, when to slow down. If there’s one thing his lawsuit mistake has taught him, it’s that his actions, his selfishness, has consequences on those around him. 

So what if he has bad dreams occasionally? He’s not a kid, he can look after himself. It’s more important right now that he’s there for his friends: asking Bobby how Michael’s doing, bridging the relationship between Chim and his brother, being there for Maddie always, listening to Hen talk about how Nia is settling in, being whatever Eddie needs to stop him doing stupid things again. It doesn’t leave a lot of room for his own problems.

It doesn’t matter. That’s just what Buck does for the people he loves.

The warmth of the sun creeps onto his face as it rises higher, prickling his skin. Buck squints into it, seeing nothing but gold, then sighs and gets to his feet. He brushes sand off the seat of his pants before slowly turning and making his way back up the beach. 

At least he gets to go to work. 

   Eddie’s getting changed when Buck walks into the locker room, and Buck manfully pretends he can’t see the miles of bare skin on display. Hen is sitting on the bench, laughing at something Eddie must have said, and it’s easy to grin at the two of them and say, “Well, good morning.”

“Hey,” Eddie smiles, shrugging into a t-shirt, thank god. 

“Buck, I have to show you this.” Hen holds her phone out, a video paused on the screen. Buck takes it, taps play. It’s Nia, holding onto Denny’s hands and bouncing up and down in time with her blonde curls, screeching in delight as a catchy pop song plays in the background. 

“That’s pretty damn cute,” Buck says. “When do I get to meet this li’l nugget?”

“Soon,” Hen tells him, slipping her phone back into her pocket. “It’s a lot for her, the social worker says we need to introduce new things and people gradually.”

Eddie, tucking his overshirt into his belt now, says, “Well, whenever you guys need a babysitter, hit us up. Chris and Denny can play and Buck and I will dote on that gorgeous girl.”

Hen snorts, looking between them. “Should you be volunteering Buck for that?”

Honestly, it didn’t even occur to Buck that he wouldn’t be there. The automatic assumption on Eddie’s part too makes him feel warmer than he did five minutes ago. 

“Hey, you know I’m down,” Buck beams, “you just name the day.”

Hen squeezes his arm as she heads towards the door. “Thanks boys, we will definitely take you up on that.”

When she’s gone, Buck finally moves towards his own locker to start getting changed. Eddie is still there, tapping away on his phone. Buck wonders if he’s texting Ana . If they’ve even reached the ‘exchanging numbers’ phase yet. 

“Hey, man, you wanna grab pizza tomorrow night? You, me, Chris and Mario Kart at my place?”

“Sure,” Eddie agrees, hardly glancing up, definitely distracted. “But, uh, Chris won’t be there, he’s got that overnight field trip at the observatory tomorrow.” 

Damn, Buck should have remembered that. Christopher had been chattering excitedly about it for a couple weeks now. Eddie had mentioned it several times too, although decidedly less excitedly and more in worried-dad-mode. 

“Oh yeah, that’s right. Well, in that case you definitely gotta come over. We can drink beer and watch a movie that doesn’t involve some kind of talking animal.”

“Sounds good.”

He’s still typing. What is he doing, writing a goddamn article? Who could he possibly have that much to say to? 

Buck takes a breath, remembers he’s not being a selfish asshole anymore and gets changed quietly. Ana sounds like a nice person, she’d probably be good for Eddie. Buck’s feelings, his stupid feelings that he’s shoved so far down they make him feel a bit queasy more often than not, shouldn’t even factor into it.

“Are you okay?”

Buck startles at Eddie’s question. He’s not on his phone anymore, but looking straight at Buck, a little crease in between his eyebrows.

“Fine… why'd you ask?”

“You look tired.”

“Yeah. I, uh, got up early to go for a run on the beach. Anyway, not even eyebags could ruin this handsome face so you shut your mouth,” Buck blusters with an exaggerated wink and a bit of swagger as he closes his locker. 

It works, and Eddie rolls his eyes. “So glad that your ego remains unaffected.”

They argue playfully back and forth as they head up to the kitchen together and by the time they sit down to plates of Bobby’s French toast, Buck has all but forgotten his weird start to the day. 

Luckily, work keeps them busy. Any downtime they get is spent either stuffing their faces with food, showering the grime and sweat away, or trying to catch a few minutes of sleep. The entire twenty-four hours passes without major incident, unless you count Chimney tripping on a firehose and falling ass over teakettle on the freshly-waxed station floor. They’re still laughing about it as they get changed to go home the following morning, exhaustion making it hard to stop.

By the time he gets back to his apartment and collapses into bed, Buck’s tired enough that falling asleep is the easiest thing in the world.

 He wakes late in the afternoon, hot and sweaty from the sunlight pouring in through the windows. He showers, eats a sandwich, and texts Eddie to ask what time he’s coming over. 

Some sort of clarity must have crept in while Buck slept, because his head feels a little clearer. Still, he wonders what it means that a clear head feels like some kind of miracle these days. He thinks it means that he might need to talk to Frank again.

Buck grabs his phone and fiddles around on it until he pulls up his contacts. Frank’s name is sitting there right underneath Eddie’s. Before he can think about it too much, he calls and makes an appointment for his next day off. Part of him feels that old anxiety come back, worries that he’s slipping backwards instead of moving forwards, but another part of him is ultimately relieved. He doesn’t have to worry about burdening Frank, it’s his job to listen. He’s not allowed to be exhausted by Buck and his issues. 

By the time Eddie arrives not long after seven, Buck has cleaned his entire apartment, gone grocery shopping to get that beer that Eddie likes, and watched a Nat Geo documentary on bears. It’s been easy, simple, and he’s feeling okay. 

Eddie lets himself in with a smile and a tupperware container, and even though they only parted ways that morning, it’s still good to see him. “Hey, sorry I’m late, Ana called just as I was leaving.”

And just like that, Buck’s stomach sours. 

“She called you?”

“Yeah, I asked her to update me on Chris. She said he’s good, that they’ve just eaten dinner and he’s with his friends.” Eddie pauses, makes a face. “Guess that means I should stop worrying, right?”

“So you guys just talked about Christopher?” Buck asks because he’s an idiot who likes to torture himself. 

Eddie frowns, putting the tupperware on the kitchen counter. “Yeah. What else would we talk about? I emailed the school his overnight care plan this morning and she just wanted to reassure me. Anyway, Abuela made you tamales, shall I put them in the refrigerator or d’you wanna have them with the pizza?”

Buck still doubts that any other parents are getting personal calls from their kid’s teacher, but it makes him feel better knowing that Eddie’s only thought is the well-being of his son. 

Maybe this whole Ana thing is something he should talk to Frank about, too. 

“I’m going back to therapy,” Buck blurts, his brain to mouth filter nonexistent. “I have nightmares. I stopped talking about it because I thought I was being selfish but it’s fucking me up so. Yeah. I’m going back to therapy.”

Eddie’s eyebrows hit his hairline. Buck silently begs him not to make a big deal out of it, and is relieved when all Eddie says is, “Good. Thank you for telling me. The tamales?”

A mildly hysterical laugh bursts out of Buck. He comes forward and wraps his arms around Eddie, so fucking relieved that after everything, he still gets to have this. 

Eddie goes with the moment gracefully, pats him on the back a few times, and when Buck pulls away, Eddie leaves a hand on his shoulder and says, “I’m here for you. I know I haven’t always been great at that before, but I am. You don’t have to do this by yourself unless you want to.”

And Buck knows it’s true, can tell by the fierce determination in Eddie’s eyes, and thinks that maybe this means he’s not so exhausting to deal with after all. That maybe Eddie was exhausted with himself just a little, too. 

“We’re good, Eddie,” Buck says honestly. “I’m gonna call the pizza place, you take those tamales and the beer over to the couch.”

 They’re one and a half movies, two pizzas and half a dozen tamales in when Buck opens his mouth and “So are you and Ana dating?” comes out of it. 

Eddie chokes a little on his beer. “No? I don’t really know.”

It’s not quite the answer Buck was hoping for. “How can you not know, man?”

Shifting uncomfortably, Eddie leans back on the couch until he’s looking up at the ceiling, like he can’t meet Buck’s eye. “She’s nice, and pretty, and good with Chris. I dunno, Buck. It feels like it could go somewhere?”

Buck swallows hard. He knew it. He should definitely have waited to have this conversation until after he’s seen Frank though, because he has no goddamn clue how he’s supposed to be the supportive best friend when every fiber of his being is burning with jealousy. He’s not sure of the exact moment that he knew Eddie was it for him, but it’s been that way for so long now it’s become a part of who he is. He used to be good at pretending his feelings didn’t exist, but he’s so tired these days.

But what he has with Eddie and Christopher right now is the best thing going on in his life — he’s not going to risk losing that. 

“I wouldn’t even know how to ask her out,” Eddie continues, laughing a little at himself. “Out of practice would definitely be an understatement, I have no clue what I’m doing.”

Buck mirrors Eddie’s position, staring up at the beams under the loft. “I think you just say ‘would you like to go out with me’, Eddie. It’s not that hard.”

“Easy for you to say,” Eddie snorts. “I bet no girl has ever turned you down.”

“Ha, you should speak to Joe Levinson from high school,” Buck tells him. God, he thought Joe was so cute. He never told anyone, especially not his parents, and Maddie was off at college, but he used to trail around after Joe like a lovesick puppy. “We’re talking the crush of all teenage crushes here, man. I was so gone on Joe and it was senior year and then prom was coming up, and I—”

“Oh no,” Eddie laughs, “you got turned down?”

“I got humiliated,” Buck grins. “I thought I’d go classic, y’know? A love note in the locker, little hearts doodled on it and ‘I really like you, will you be my prom date?’ written in glitter gel pen. Imagine my surprise when the next morning my note is not just in Joe’s locker, but on the front of every single locker, in the halls, the cafeteria, even the damn teacher’s lounge. He made sure the last few weeks of high school were not good ones.”

“Wait…” Eddie tips his head sideways, confusion written on his face. “Joe was a boy?”

Shit. Buck isn’t ashamed of being bisexual at all, but it occurs to him now that he hasn’t actually told anybody besides his sister. “Uh… yeah?” 

“Did you just come out to me?”

Buck shrugs. “I kinda forgot you didn’t know?”

Their faces are pretty close at this angle, their heads cushioned by the back of the couch. Eddie doesn’t look hostile or disgusted though. He looks thoughtful. 

“That was really brave,” he eventually says, quieter than before. “I can’t even imagine asking a boy out in high school.”

There’s something in the way he says it that gives Buck pause. “Did you want to?” he asks carefully.

“It wasn’t an option.” Eddie doesn’t sound sad, just matter-of-fact. “Besides, I met Shannon in college. And I really loved her, Buck. There were… occasions, while I was in the army, but I never acted on it. I’d made vows, they meant something to me.”

Buck can’t look away from Eddie’s face, pulled in by the wide-eyed openness and the thought that he didn’t know this about Eddie — that they didn’t know this about each other. 

“And now?” he asks, not sure why he’s whispering.

“Now I don’t know,” Eddie says honestly. He licks his lips. Buck couldn’t tell you which of them moved first but all of a sudden their lips are touching, pressing. It’s dry, a little chaste, but most definitely a kiss. Buck shifts, brings his hand up towards Eddie’s face, and barely touches his jaw before Eddie is springing backwards, shock written all over him. 

“Buck, I’m sorry—”

“No, dude, that was all me, I was totally over the line.”

“We just got — caught up in the moment,” Eddie says, and Buck’s not sure which of them he’s trying to convince. 

“Yeah, all that talk about dating and my tragic high school trauma. Woulda been weird if you hadn’t wanted to kiss me,” he smirks, aiming for cool and cocky and probably missing by several miles. 

Eddie lets out a bark of laughter that’s more panic than amusement. They’re quiet for a minute. Eddie’s knee is still pressed against Buck’s, warm and solid. Buck doesn’t know what’s happening here but he knows he really liked kissing Eddie, can still feel his lips tingling. He knows he’s not going to lose Eddie over this though, can’t lose him. He’ll do whatever it takes for that not to happen.

“It was a moment,” Buck concludes, for both their sake. “Moment’s over.”

Eddie’s throat visibly bobs when he swallows. “Right. Y’know, I should probably take off. Before—”

He cuts himself off. The tips of his ears go bright red. It takes every ounce of willpower Buck has not to ask him ‘before what?’

He follows Eddie across the apartment to the door, but he really doesn’t want this to be weird when they get to the station in the morning. He lays his hand on Eddie’s forearm and asks, “We’re okay, aren’t we, Eddie?”

To his relief, Eddie smiles and it seems real. “Of course, Buck. Nothing’s changed. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As he lets himself out, the door closing softly behind him, Buck can’t help thinking what a bad liar Eddie is. Of course something has changed. Everything has changed. That kiss will hang over them for the rest of their days as partners — as friends. You don’t just ‘accidentally’ kiss your best friend and then act like it didn’t happen. 

Buck wanders into the kitchen, fists his hand in his hair, scrapes them over his face, repeatedly bangs his forehead into the cupboard door. Stupid stupid stupid . 

Restless, he clears away pizza boxes. Drops empty beer bottles into the recycling. Seals the lid on the tupperware and puts the remaining tamales in the refrigerator. Shuts off the TV — how didn’t he notice the movie was still playing? 

He’s wiping down the kitchen counters when there’s a knock on the door. 

Eddie’s standing there on the other side, looking just as wide-eyed as he was when he left. 

“Hey,” Buck says uncertainly, ignoring the swoop in his stomach. “You forget something?”

“Yes,” Eddie says and he takes a step forward, holds Buck’s face in his hands, and crashes their mouths together. 

This kiss is nothing like their last. 

Eddie is demanding, relentless, tongue tracing the seam of Buck’s lips straight away until Buck opens up for him and everything gets hotter and wetter and so much more amazing. His own hands, which had been floundering in surprise, land on Eddie’s waist and Buck walks him backwards until his back hits the open door and closes it with a bang. He leans into Eddie with all his weight, pushes him against the wood, shoves their hips together and groans the filthiest sound he’s ever made into Eddie’s mouth.

It’s incredible, feels absolutely perfect. Buck moves his hands, slips them under the soft fabric of Eddie’s shirt, finding warm skin and hard muscles and a stomach that trembles when his thumb flicks over a nipple. 

With a gasp, Eddie pulls back and smacks his head against the door. Buck removes a hand and places it gently behind Eddie’s head to cushion it, kissing a lush apology to his lips. 

“You feel so good,” Eddie mumbles. “Buck.”

Buck kisses down Eddie’s neck, their stubble rasping, his lips fluttering over Eddie’s thundering pulse. He shoves their hips together some more — once, twice, and again because he can’t stop — and he can feel Eddie’s dick through their jeans and he’s so turned on he can hardly breathe. 

“We should talk,” he says to Eddie, breathlessly, “but first we should fuck.”

“Best idea you’ve ever had, Buckley.”

A grin spreads across Eddie’s face and Buck copies it, kissing him again because he just can’t help it and grabbing his hand, dragging him away from the door and up the steps to the loft.

Two orgasms, one set of clean sheets and one shower later, Buck feels brave enough to say, “I want this every day forever.”

Eddie’s nearly asleep, head right next to Buck’s on the pillow, one arm slung across Buck’s stomach. He cracks open an eye and presses a tiny kiss to the corner of Buck’s mouth. 

“Guess we’re on the same page then.”

“I don’t want you to date Ana.”

The other eye pops open, trademark Eddie Diaz exasperation all over his face. “Buck.”

“Just checking!” Buck laughs, drawing patterns on Eddie’s arm. “Y’know, I’m still gonna need therapy.”

“I’d be worried if you didn’t. Unless sex really is a magic cure.”

Buck tries to smile but instead finds himself softly saying, “I might have a nightmare.”

Eddie kisses him again, for longer this time, then shifts closer and nuzzles his nose into Buck’s temple, his hair. “I’m not going anywhere. Go to sleep, Buck.”

They settle in, warm under the blankets, and Buck closes his eyes, falling asleep quick and easy, between one breath and the next. 

[cagestark]

-Defender//4-

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six

Warnings: tony recounts trauma that is very reminiscent of civil war, but just a reminder that this is an Alternate Universe where there are differences between this story and canon.

Read here on AO3.

-

Training goes well.

Peter meets Black Widow (and she is even more beautiful in person, so beautiful that it’s eerie). She offers him her hand and he shakes it, firm and polite. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Steve staring at their hands as they clasp together, but if he’s expecting Peter to use his strength on an unenhanced human—not to mention one who has done nothing wrong—he’s got another thing coming.

Just to rub it in, Peter puts on his best respectful veneer when he says: “It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.”

“Ma’am! Do you hear that, Steve?” The man mutters an I hear it under his breath. “Call me Natasha. They’re calling you Spider-Man, you know that? I guess that makes us of a similar Kingdom and Class.”

Peter feels warmth in his gut, the pleased, tingly feeling of belonging. He has a name like Black Widow or Hawkeye or Iron Man. Fuck. May would tease him without end for that, in between her proud smiles and glistening eyes. “That’s so cool,” Peter says, sounding as star-struck as he feels. “We’re like, the spider subdivision of the Avengers or something. Ancestral Arachnids.”

“Natasha is going to be overseeing your training,” Steve says. He shows no signs of Peter’s unpleasantness earlier in the week, but something about the way those blue eyes track his every movement keeps Peter from letting the man stand at his unprotected back. “She’s one of the best in the field when it comes to hand to hand combat. You more than likely already have the instincts you need if you’re enhanced, so she’s just going to help you learn how to listen to those instincts and hone them, plus run you through our procedures in the field. Sound good?”

It does sound good.

“Do you want to spar, Captain?” Peter asks while Natasha changes into work-out clothes. This time, the other man doesn’t fall for his wide, guileless eyes and the gentle, pubescent sounding voice. He assesses Peter with flat, knowing eyes.

Steve shakes his head. “Busy today, kid. Some other time.”

“I’ll hold you to it,” Peter promises, flexing the fingers he’d used to crush the other man’s hand. He cracks the joints swiftly.

Natasha isn’t enhanced, so he is careful not to hurt her while they spar, but her depth of knowledge seems endless. She knows techniques from martial arts subdivisions that Peter can’t even pronounce, and Peter watches her every move, soaking up the knowledge like a sponge. He loves learning. He loves being useful. He loves the ache in his body after a workout. He loves having a purpose.

“How often does Mr. Stark train?” Peter asks during a water break.

Hawkeye (Clint, as he introduces himself) and Falcon (Sam) are wrapping their knuckles by the water cooler and overhear him ask. Clint snorts. “Tony? He doesn’t. At least, not with us.”

“He comes to the mandatory team exercises every other week. We’d kick him out of those, too, except that it’d be dangerous for us in the field,” Sam admits. “You’ll find that Tony is kind of like the third wheel on our dates with the bad guys, Pete. He tags along or shows up even when we ask him not to. Sometimes he comes in handy, sometimes he gets in the way.”

“But he pays for the tech and the Tower, so try not to piss him off or we’ll all end up out on the streets,” Clint adds. He and Sam touch knuckles.

Peter says nothing—stunned. He might have guessed that with a team leader like Steve, the rest of the team would have the same viewpoints but it’s still…disappointing. The Avengers were his heroes in his teen years, but they’re turning out to just be normal people. Shitty ones, at that. Peter feels another part of his illusioned childhood slip through his fingers.

He trashes it, along with his empty water cup.

“Peter?” Natasha asks. He can tell by the look on her face that she senses his tense mood, her eyes flickering between him and the two older men preparing to spar behind him. “You want to run through things one more time before we call it quits for today?”

“Actually, I’m feeling a little tense in my shoulders,” Peter lies, ignoring the guilt that gnaws at his stomach. He rubs at one trap for effect. “I think I’m going to go stretch and shower and rest—don’t want to pull a muscle, you know.”

“Right,” she says. “Well let me know if you aren’t feeling up to doing more in the morning. You have weeks before you’ll be cleared for fieldwork, so there’s no rush. Here, give me your Starkphone and I’ll program my number into it.”

“I don’t have a Starkphone,” Peter says. He’s never even had a smartphone, much less a STARKphone, the specs of which can’t be compared to anything Apple and Samsung are cooking up in their wildest dreams. They aren’t even mass produced considering their at-cost price is three grand. Peter has two dollars in change in the pocket of his backpack, but that’s it (and it’s mostly pennies). “But if you just tell it to me, I can memorize your number and put it in my track phone when I get upstairs.”

Natasha’s brows draw together. “Tony must be slacking if you don’t have one. He gives every new Avenger the latest model to make sure we’re up to date on the newest tech and able to communicate efficiently—something about how iPhones are the equivalent of chiseling on stone or sending smoke signals. I’ll talk to Tony for you.”

“Mr. Stark doesn’t need to make me a phone,” Peter insists. “I have one upstairs that works just fine. Maybe when I start getting paid, I can save up and get one of my own—”

“You don’t have to save up to get Stark tech,” she says, smiling. “It’s free. That’s the perk of having Tony on the team.”

The perk, she says, like Tony’s money is the only thing he has going for him.

“I don’t want it,” Peter says. He puts space between them, jabbing the button for the elevator with more force than necessary. When the doors open to finally take him away from this gym with these people, it feels like he’s watching the pearly gates open for the way relief fills him. “But thanks anyway. I guess I should be thanking Mr. Stark, though, right?”

The doors close on her confused face.

Thirty hours later, Peter is climbing the walls. Figuratively, this time. He feels even less inclined to leave his room now than he had before. He’s already become something of a nocturnal recluse, exiting the kitchen only in the dead of night when he can hear the sounds of the other Avengers sleeping around him. He’s met some of the others who come and go and some who live on the floor: Thor, Wanda, Dr. Stephen Strange, Bruce Banner. There are hushed mentions of another member, Bucky, but Peter never sees him. What hurts most is Tony’s glaring absence. Ever since Peter got the man off, he hasn’t seen a trace of him. Anxiety blooms in his chest like water expanding upon freezing, icy barbs that make it hard to take a full breath. What if Tony is mad at him? What if Peter misinterpreted things between them? What if the dynamic has changed, and now he’s nothing to Mr. Stark but yesterday’s news?

It wouldn’t be the first time something like that had happened to him.

“Peter?” the disembodied voice with the exaggerated Irish lilt makes him jump.

He clears his throat, out of sorts as it is from disuse. “Yes, Ms. FRIDAY?”

“It’s Mr. Stark, Peter. He wants to know if you’re available to meet him in the lab.”

Peter jams his feet into his shoes without bothering to put on socks.  

Tony blinks in surprise at how quickly Peter arrives through the glass door of his lab, eyes scanning up and down Peter’s figure before settling on his face and giving a warm smile. Peter takes the time to assess the older man as well (fair is fair!). Tony looks exhausted, eyes shadowed, hair a mess. He’s wearing the same clothes he was the last time Peter saw him, but it’s been so many days, surely he’s just rewashed and decided to wear the clothes again—right?

It’s the first time they’ve seen each other since Peter moved rooms, since the night he ground on the man’s lap until Mr. Stark came in his pants. Just the memory of it (which Peter has revisited several times in his bed, in his shower) makes him flush with phantom arousal. At least he can blame that on the speed he used to get here.

Maybe it should be awkward, but it isn’t. Not on Peter’s end, at least.

Tony points to the lab table closest to the door where a large box rests. “I am bearing a gift for you, spider-boy.”

“Spider-Man,” Peter amends, already smiling. The difference is amazing and something he didn’t necessarily notice until he saw the man again, until the apathetic listlessness was washed from his skin leaving him feeling refreshed and exuberant. Peter missed him. He tip-toes towards the table, fingers hesitating above the ominous box. “You didn’t need to get me anything, Mr. Stark.”

“I didn’t—I made you something. Big difference. Go ahead, open it.”

With trepidation, Peter opens the box. There is a large mass of dark fabric inside and a smaller, sleek box sitting on top.

“Ta-Da!” Tony says. “Two gifts! I lied. I’m such a liar—”

Tony sways where he stands, like he’s suddenly lost his balance. Peter nearly upends a lab table between them trying to get to the man, watching as he white knuckles the nearest surface to ease himself down into the chair he’d abandoned. The heart in his chest pounds, skipping beats, a horror movie soundtrack that Peter is privy to, but Tony just waves the younger man’s concern away. “Gifts. Don’t worry about me, the look on your face will heal me of all my ailments, clear my skin, water my crops, all the things the kids say these days.”

“Your skin is already clear,” Peter mutters, frowning as he returns to the box and glances in the open lid. His stomach twists as he removes the smaller box. When he opens it, there is the sleekest, thinnest phone starring back at him, nestled in plastic that hugs its smooth curves, midnight blue. When he gingerly takes it from the box and turns it over, he sees the Stark Industries logo on the back and all the breath gets trapped in his lungs. “Mr. Stark—I—”

“I’m going to be honest, your expression isn’t healing me right now. What’s the matter kid? You wanted a different color?”

“I didn’t want one at all—” The look on Tony’s face is some mix between shock and disappointment. “No! I just meant, I mean, of course I want one Mr. Stark, these are the best phones in the world, I’m not just saying that, but I didn’t want you to go through the trouble. I know that these aren’t mass produced.”

“They aren’t,” Tony admits. “I made that one personally last night. Just for you, Pete. One of a kind. Like its owner.”

Peter’s face flushes. “I’ll save up my money and pay you back as soon as I can.”

“Don’t worry about it. Get out the next present. Come on, I want you to put it on and make sure it fits.”

Somehow Peter is even more nervous—did Tony buy him clothes? He gets an image in his head of him walking around the penthouse wearing one of Tony’s band-shirts. Surely it would swim on Peter’s thin, petite frame. If he wore nothing underneath it, it’d be perfect access for Tony to come up behind him while Peter is at the counter in the kitchen (making coffee, cooking pop-tarts, who cares), ruck up the hem, and grind his erection against Peter’s bare ass.

Trying to slow his breathing, Peter hopes that his thoughts aren’t written clear as day on his face. When he pulls it from the box, he finds himself holding a jumpsuit made of a material that feels unlike anything he’s touched before: hard like metal, but flexible like fabric. It’s of a blue so dark that it’s nearly black. To match his phone maybe, he thinks. “What is this?” Peter asks. “Pajamas?”

“I’m sorry—pajamas? Jesus, kid, you’re, fuck. You’re really busting my balls today. It’s your suit! Well, the prototype. My struggles right now are just finding a material that’s strong enough to deflect bullets but flexible enough for you to do your creepy-crawly gimmick. Go and try it on, I want you to tell me if it fits.”

Peter sheds his shirt right away only to catch the stricken look on Tony’s face. “I meant go in the bathroom and change, Chippendale, but if—yeah, okay, that works, I’ll just—” he turns around to face the opposite direction. Peter rolls his eyes. His abs might be the one thing he has going for him, and Mr. Stark refuses to look at them now. Great.

He strips to his boxers and begins to tug on the suit, but a problem announces itself immediately. “Mr. Stark, this doesn’t have holes for my hands and feet. I need skin to surface contact for the scopulae to work.”

Tony remains looking resolutely away. “Not anymore. Thanks to all the in-depth scans FRIDAY completed last time you were here, I’ve found a way to recreate your scopulae mechanically. The sensors in the fingers and feet of your suit (and it should fit like a glove, Peter) will activate only when you activate your spider-touch. The suit is just expensive interfacing that will keep you from getting your fingers sawn off or developing frost bite. Are you in it yet? Come on, kid, the anticipation is killing me.”

Peter flexes around to zip himself up and yeah, the suit fits like a glove. The tightest glove he’s ever worn. One that was made for the contours of his body, the flatness of his abs, the bulge of his biceps. “It’s on. You can look.”

Tony spins around on the stool. He eyes Peter from the collar down, and the younger man grows flush, feeling that gaze on him as easily as he’d feel fingers reaching out to caress him. But when Tony fires off a series of technical questions about the fit, it becomes clear that he isn’t checking Peter out. He’s checking out the suit. Which kind of makes Peter even more crazy about him, if such a thing is possible.

“I’ve already tested the things it can and can’t do: it can’t be cut, it can’t be pierced or penetrated. Can’t be burned, though some hazardous materials are corrosive enough to it with long term exposure, so try not to take any lengthy dips in inconveniently placed vats of acids. But I have not yet seen what you can do in it. Let’s take it for a test run, huh kid?”

Tony takes him to the training room, which is empty on a Sunday. The ceilings are high—very high, and Peter scales them with ease. It feels strange at first, not feeling his bare skin on the plaster of the walls and the textured ceiling, but the suit fits so close to him that it’s easy to forget it isn’t his skin. There isn’t any difference in grip that Peter can detect, but he tests it anyway, hanging precariously by one hand.

“Oh no, Mr. Stark,” Peter says, placing the back of his free hand against his forehead like a true damsel in distress. He lets his legs kick a little in the air. “Please, save me!”

“I’m watching you use four fingers and a thumb to stick to a glass window twenty feet off the ground,” Tony calls. “I don’t think you need any saving. Still—this is not an invitation to be scaling my building, understand?”

“I don’t know, it feels pretty inviting to me!”

“Peter Parker—no death-defying circus acts, do you hear me?”

“No promises!”

Tony shakes his head. Peter thinks that he maybe looks a little fond. But maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

“Dinner plans?” Tony asks as they reenter the lab. He turns away so Peter can strip off the suit, though the younger man rolls his eyes. “I was thinking about ordering in like I always do. I’m feeling like soup though, need something light on my stomach. FRI, baby, what do you recommend?”

“After forty hours of no other sustenance, I’d not recommend anything spicy, high in fiber, or fried.”

“So you’d not recommend anything good, I get it—"

“Forty hours?” Peter asks, nearly tangling himself up in his haste to pull his shirt on over his head. He can’t see Tony’s expression, but his shoulders are hunched, one elbow resting on the table. Even from behind, he looks exhausted. “You can’t do that, Mr. Stark. You need to take breaks.”

“This is my break, kid. FRI, order me some vegetable soup from that vegan place down the street, and get Peter—Pete, what do you want? Does soup sound okay? What am I kidding, you’re enhanced, you need more than that. FRIDAY, find Peter something to eat that’s good for him, I don’t know, I’m hardly role-model material.”

“Soup is fine, Ms. FRIDAY,” Peter insists before the AI can purchase him an entire barbecued pig or something equally ridiculous. If she is anything like her creator, she must have a tendency to go overboard. Out to sea. Past the line of the horizon. “I don’t need anything special. Just a lot of it, if that’s okay.”

They take the soup up in Tony’s penthouse, and it’s the happiest Peter’s felt since being moved down to the Avengers’ communal floor. It feels like nothing has changed when Tony kicks up his socked feet onto the coffee table, takes the soup bowl into his hands and drinks the broth from it. He leaves all the carrots in the bottom, and it should be dorky that Peter finds something like that so fucking endearing.

“How’s it been, living with other superheroes?” Tony asks him, sipping spring water. “Everything you dreamed it would be?”

Peter shrugs, swirling his spoon around his own bowl.

“Not everything you dreamed?” Tony amends.

“I don’t want to badmouth my teammates,” Peter mutters. “We just obviously have different opinions about some important things. But that’s normal right? You put a half dozen people in the same apartment and of course they aren’t always going to agree.”

Tony hums. “You hate how Barton puts the coffee grinds right into the garbage disposal, don’t you? I’ve told him time and time again—”

Peter snorts. “No, that’s not it. It’s…well. It’s you.”

Tony frowns now. His whole demeaner changes, shrinks. With forced humor, he asks: “Me? What’d I do this time?”

“Nothing,” Peter hurries to assure. His face flushes, he wants to press his palms against his burning cheeks, but he doesn’t want to call attention to it. “I guess that’s just where the other Avengers and I disagree. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t want to cause trouble or to make you feel bad, I just—I wish they treated you better. I wish they saw what an amazing person you are. You know?”

“Maybe you’re just seeing me with rose-tinted glasses, kid,” Tony says, smiling sadly.

“I just see the way you treat me,” Peter admits. “People were always pretending I wasn’t there. When I was sleeping rough, they’d just walk by, turn their heads so we didn’t have to look at each other. So they didn’t have to look at me, I guess. Even working here, not a lot of people pay attention to the Maintenance Department. We’re supposed to be…invisible. You treat me like I’m a human being, though. Like you see me.”

“You are a human being,” says Tony. “And I do see you. I don’t know how anyone could miss you, kid.”

God. Maybe that’s just basic human decency, but Peter hasn’t been shown such a thing in so long that it makes his heart clench, makes his stomach churn and palms go sweaty. He’s filled with such longing that his insides twist. More and more lately, he feels like if he doesn’t have this older man for himself, it might kill him, a desire so keen that it hurts.

“Woah there,” says Tony, reaching out quickly to sit his bowl down on the table. “Don’t give me that look. That look is liable to get us into trouble.”

“What look?” Peter asks, breathily, letting his eyes drag down the man’s body. He licks his lips reflexively—what, they’re dry, okay?

“That look!” Tony says, pointing. “That one right there, the one that says you’re about to eat me whole.”

“Spiders are mostly carnivorous,” Peter says.

Tony laughs, scrubbing at his face with one hand. “Peter, I’m really not known for my self-control—actually I’m sort of famously known for my lack of self-control. Have some mercy on an old man.”

“Who needs self-control,” Peter grumbles. All the things that embarrass him—the kind words, the affectionate touches—sex isn’t really one of them. Peter hasn’t been a virgin in years, and it’s been too long since he had a partner as good as he knows Mr. Stark will be. A partner as incredible as Mr. Stark is. “Besides, I’m twenty years old, I’m not supposed to have good self-control either.”

“How old is that is spider years? Because I think you’ll probably still come out more mature than I am.”

“Spiders aren’t dogs, Mr. Stark—” Peter finds himself inching closer to the man. His skin is so sensitive that he can feel the heat thrown off by Tony’s body. It’s impossible not to know how the older man is affected, not when his heart stutters, his pupils bloom. “You know, I don’t think that soup was enough. Maybe I need something else to fill me up.”

“I’ve heard a lot of dirty talk in my time, kid,” Tony says. Though his voice is unchanged, his breathing is haggard. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

“That sounds like permission if I’ve ever heard it,” Peter breathes. In one swift move, he straddles the man’s thigh until it rests between his own, arching his back so that his cock rubs against that muscled leg.

Tony stops breathing. His eyes are half-lidded, the whiskey color turned deeper and darker. He takes several long, slow breaths to calm himself, but Peter doesn’t want that. He wants to see this composed man become the opposite of calm. He slips down off of his perch on the man’s lap and between the parted knees.

“Kid,” Tony says, catching his wrist when it moves towards the man’s belt buckle. “Don’t.”

“Why not?” Peter asks.

“I’m exhausted,” the man says, and as he says it, Peter can see it. Between his legs, the man isn’t even hard. He reaches out with one trembling hand and pets at Peter’s hair, traces the shell of his ear with his thumb until Peter shivers, smiling. “I’ve been awake for, FRIDAY—”

“Fifty-one hours, boss.”

Tony points up to the ceiling. “What she said. I don’t think I could get hard even if I tried right now.”

Peter lets his head rest on the man’s thigh, watching carefully to make sure that Tony is okay with the intimacy. Judging by the soft smile, the way his hand comes down to pet at Peter’s curls, Tony’s okay with it. Shuddering at the stimulation on his scalp, Peter wills away the erection between his legs. Now isn’t the time. “Is it normal for you to spend so much time in the lab?”

“Nothing about me is normal, kid.”

“You know what I mean.”

Tony hums. “Sometimes when I have a project deadline, or when something’s caught my interest. After Natasha reminded me that I hadn’t made your phone yet—”

“Natasha?” Peter’s head lifts from the muscular thigh. He grits his teeth, officially adding her to the list of people he can’t trust with Tony’s wellbeing. “I told her not to bother you. It’s not your job to manufacture a phone for me; you’ve already done so much.”

“Just a match on the fire of things I’d do for you, kid,” Tony says. He sounds half asleep, and the sight of the shadows under his eyes reminds Peter that their positions are very backwards. Tony’s eyes blink open when Peter moves away, wide and bloodshot, looking ready to apologize though he’d done nothing wrong.

Peter sits at the opposite end of the couch and pats his lap. “Put your head here.”

“There?” Tony asks, pointing. “What for?”

“Think: why would I put my head in your lap?”

“To suck me off—?”

Peter sucks in breath to laugh and chokes instead, coughing until he’s red in the face. “Save that thought for another time. Just lay down.”

Tony does, gingerly. He lays flat on his back, one of Peter’s thighs cushioning the arch of his neck. It gifts Peter with the most delicious vantage point of the man’s face, even if he looks a little trepidatious. With all the tenderness he has in him, Peter reaches out to stroke the dark hairs off of the man’s forehead. Immediately, Tony’s eyes flutter and he inhales. The billionaire has noble features, even as delicately lined with age as they are. With his nails, Peter softly scratches at the man’s temples where gray hair is sprouting.

“God,” Tony mutters. “That feels good. Never stop.”

“Quit,” Peter says, smiling. “You’re going to make me hard.”

Eyes shut, Tony smiles, baring the prettiest, white teeth. God, there’s nothing about him that Peter would change. Nothing about him that is less than perfect—except for maybe the way he sees himself. How could someone so intelligent be so off base in their self-perception? “Should I talk about something that will turn you off instead?”

“Thanks, but no. You can go to sleep if you want to. You sound really tired.”

“I am really tired,” Tony concedes. His voice is soft and just a little slower than normal. Slurred, drunk with exhaustion. “Shouldn’t sleep though.”

“Why not?”

“I have nightmares,” Tony breathes. Underneath his eyelids, Peter can see his eyes flickering, like he’s watching his nightmares playing out in his mind. The man shivers—honest to God shivers, and Peter’s own senses take notice. Something is upsetting Tony, the goosebumps on his arms say, the anxious twisting of his stomach. Something is scaring him. Help. Protect. “Night terrors, according to FRIDAY. I get violent.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Peter says. Tony’s eyes slit open to stare at him, as if assessing the truth of his statement. “I could snap you in half, remember? I, I could snap Captain America in half, for what it’s worth—”

And the way Tony’s eyes open, shoulders stiffening where they’re pressed against Peter’s thighs, suddenly he knows. He knows that whatever is hurting Mr. Stark goes back to Steve Rogers. Peter strokes through the dark hair, rubbing at one temple with a tender thumb, but Tony’s eyes don’t close again. They stare at the ceiling above them, seeing through it like it isn’t there. Peter feels both hot and cold all over, inside his body and yet far away, watching through the windows of his eyes.

“Did he hurt you?” Peter asks. His mouth feels numb.

“It was my fault,” Tony says, shivering. “There was an altercation, and I made him choose between me or his closest friend. I can’t fault him for not choosing—for choosing Barnes. Some skeletons came out of the closet; I guess Barnes was responsible for my parents’ death—”

“Excuse me?”

“—it’s a long story,” Tony says. His eyes slip shut. “He killed them, but he was brainwashed so, so it doesn’t really count, I guess, does it? That’s what everyone says, what they keep telling me—that he was just as blameless as a gun might have been, he was just a weapon—”

“Tony. Hey. Just take some deep breaths—”

“There was a fight. Me versus them,” Tony continues. Peter’s heart sinks to think of this fragile, unenhanced man having to hold his own against two enhanced super soldiers. The suit had them on more equal footing, but two against one was never fair. Ever. “I was hurt. Very badly.”

Tony takes one of Peter’s hands, spreads open the fingers that melt under his touch. He presses it to the center of his chest and the young man can hardly believe what he’s feeling, isn’t even sure what he’s feeling. There’s a depression in Tony’s chest, centered on his sternum, a hollowness in the shape of a perfect circle. It’s right above his heart.

“What is that?” Peter asks, placing his palm there.

“After my stint in a cave in Afghanistan, I came home with an electromagnetic pacemaker that was keeping me alive and powering the Iron Man suits. During the fight, Steve destroyed it. The suit, it—it felt like a coffin. Hours went by before I was found. I don’t know what was worse: the sound the shield made when it came down on my heart or laying there with the thought of someone peeling open my suit someday and finding my skeleton.”

“Jesus,” Peter mutters.

And they live here. Steve is one floor down from them, probably doing something domestic like making dinner or watching television or doing crunches in his room. How can he show his face here, when he nearly took Tony’s life from him? How can the other Avengers let him? And Barnes—Peter isn’t even prepared to deal with how fucked up Tony having to house his own parents’ murderer is. Because it’s beyond fucked.

Tony rolls onto his side, face toward Peter. It might be arousing under different circumstances, but now it makes Peter curl up over him, removing his palm from the hollow chest and reaching for Tony’s hand. The palm is clammy, but Peter could care less. He squeezes, firm but gentle, and continues to card his fingers through Tony’s hair.

“’m so sorry,” Peter says lowly.

Tony’s eyes are closed, but he still murmurs back, “It’s no big deal. We’ve all made up, now, even Barnes and me. But sometimes—”

“—sometimes you’re still scared.”

Tony brow furrows just the slightest, lines that Peter wants to reach out and smooth away. “No,” he mumbles, more than half asleep now. “No, Stark men don’t get scared…made of iron...”

Peter says nothing. He sits there, stroking the man’s hair until his breathing evens out and his mouth goes slack, and even then Peter can’t bring himself to move. When he speaks, it is quiet, more to himself than to Tony. “You have nothing to be afraid of anymore. I will never let anything happen to you Mr. Stark. You have my word. I will protect you.”

Softly as he can, he maneuvers himself out from underneath the man’s head. There’s an afghan on the back of one armchair (though not the kind Peter’s used to, not the kind his grandmother might have made considering this one feels so soft and rich and new), and he lays it across the man. Oh, if only Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone and Time magazine could see him now, the soft and relaxed expression, the gently parted mouth.

Quiet as a spider mouse, Peter cleans up their mess from dinner so that Tony won’t have to wake up to it. After everything is back where it should be, Peter sits heavily in the armchair by the couch, a silent vigilant.

Tonight, Peter is a dreamcatcher.

When he finally leaves the penthouse and heads back to his own room, the sun is just starting to hint at rising. His own eyes are heavy, and his shoulders bowed with troubles—his own and Tony’s. All of it evaporates when he sees a figure sitting at the window watching the sunrise, a cup of coffee in his hand and the goddamn newspaper beside him, truly a man out of time.

Steve looks at him with all the prim disapproval of an old biddy, as if Peter was walking in with high heels in his hand and no panties on underneath a party dress. They stare at each other in silence for a long moment while the fury builds under Peter’s skin.

“Looking for a fight?” Peter asks, his hands shaking. A normal human might miss it, but Steve doesn’t.

“No,” Steve says. “I’m not going to fight you, Peter.”

“You will. Soon.”

“Not every disagreement has to come to violence.” The magnanimous attitude makes Peter see red, but then he wonders the sound Captain America’s shield makes when it strikes metal and feels cold all over.

“That’s real rich,” Peter mutters. He lifts a hand and flips him off. Steve’s lips get thin—but there’s no satisfaction in it. Giving Captain America the bird is small beans compared to the trauma Tony experienced at the man’s hands.

Peter doesn’t bother looking back.

In the privacy of his room, Peter takes the time to look through his new Starkphone. He discovers that he already has one contact: Tony. Peter rolls over to press his face flat into the mattress and keep from making any embarrassing noises (or at least to keep from making them loud enough for Steve to hear in the main room). His life has taken the strangest detour, and he hopes that whatever the destination may be that it takes ages to get there. He’s enjoying himself far too much. Take the scenic route, fate. Thanks.

Even though Tony is asleep, Peter can’t help but send a quick message and hope that FRIDAY screens his texts and will keep it from waking the exhausted man.

Thanks again for the phone, Mr. Stark. It’s awesome.

He sits his phone aside on the table, telling himself that he won’t check it until the morning.

Peter wakes with the phone pressed flat between his cheek and the pillow, the vibration of an incoming text making his skull buzz. Squinting at the phone, he sees that it’s a nine in the morning, and Tony has just replied to his message.

We’re very even, kid. x

Falling back to sleep takes forever, but the smile that threatens to split his face is worth it.

[incorrectly-quoted-queers]

Drunk Punch Love- Chapter 2

Pairing: FemShep and Garrus Vakarian (Shakarian)

Rating: PG-13 (with some tossed F-bombs)

Summary: Their awkward, badass journey through saving the galaxy and accidentally falling in love

Chapter 2: The Morning After

When she woke up, she was alone.

The night before, cradled in Garrus' arms, felt like a wild fever dream more than reality. Anya half convinced herself it was, until she noticed the message notification blinking on her data-pad.

Left when you fell asleep. Hope you wake up feeling better, Shepard.

If she didn't quite literally have a galaxy to save, she'd kill herself. Might as well, after last night's embarrassment.

Not only had she been a wobbly drunk, but she spent half of it high on being attracted to Garrus Vakarian of all people and the other half weeping about the burden of being a hero. That wasn't what Commander Shepard was supposed to be like, especially not in front of her subordinates. She felt like a fucking idiot.

Pulling on her well-worn boots, her longest surviving pair, she decided just to get it over with. She was hardly suave enough to avoid the problem with grace, or clever enough to lie herself out of it. Anya just had to put on a brave face, talk to him, profusely apologize, and never get drunk again.

All throughout the halls, she felt like everyone was watching her, which they weren't, but she was hopelessly skittish and paranoid. But a few helmsman did shoot her an odd look. Did anyone see Garrus walking out of her room at god knows what hour? Was there damn buzz around the ship that she fucked the turian even though she didn't even get to do the fun part of that?

On cure, her head shot a lightning bolt of pain through her forehead. Right. She shouldn't be thinking about there being a "fun part".

She spent her life a soldier, and only ended up with a rank because she hadn't died yet and, for some reason, people loved her speeches. They were always cheesy blends from all the war films she watched, but they seemed to work. Didn't mean she deserved a command for them.

Okay, well, ANya had to admit she was a damn good leader on the field and she could get nearly anyone through any firefight. But that didn't feel like enough, just being the one who stumbled into all this good praise.

Maybe it was about time she stumbled into something less praise-worthy, like getting frisky with her subordinates.

The second she thought the word frisky she wanted to vomit. And anyway, who was she kidding? No one gave a shit. Half the crew was placing bets on if Liara or Kaidan would get her into bed.

God, if anyone saw Garrus last night, that'd really fuck up the pool.

She hoped that, at the very least, they'd be annoyed with her for ruining their game. Garrus really didn't need all the bullshit that came with the crew thinking they were sleeping together. Because they weren't even sleeping together, so he didn't even get benefits from rumor bullshit like that.

Christ. Benefits. Her brain needed a fucking time out.

Anya didn't really have time for a time out, though, because she already was in the elevator, holding her breath. Time to face the music and hopefully make this the last awkward day between her and Garrus for a long time.

When she got down to the main battery, he was already working on the Mako like a surgeon. Anya walked over, trying to act like it was any other normal day. She kept her posture stiff, her hands tucked behind her back, and from the outside she probably pulled it off damn well. Ashley and Wrex probably thought nothing of it.

On the inside, though, she was screaming.

"Ah, Garrus? Can I talk to you?"

Garrus pulled so quickly out from under the Mako that he hit his head. He grimaced the entire time he was standing up, brushing his oily talon on his armor. He wasn't normally so messy, so it clearly was an awkward time here for everyone. "Shepard. You don't have to do that, I get that last night-"

"Sorry, my question wasn't really a request." Cocking her head to the other side of the Mako, away from prying eyes, he followed her. When they finally were still and she felt like she had enough of a sane head, she started talking, "I just wanted to apologize for my behavior. If I had any idea i'd act like that... Anyway, I'm your CO and I never should have gotten so personal with you. It won't happen again."

Garrus just had this complicated look on his face. "I appreciate the sentiment, Shepard, but I think you needed it." He sighed, not meeting her eyes, but still looking so serious. "If you need someone to talk to sometimes, I'm always here. You always have my back, I'm happy to have yours. The galaxy is an awful lot for one person to carry on their shoulders. And if it's knocking out bad guys or helping you carry the burden, I'm with you."

While his face and his company was so comforting, and hearing him support her smoothed down a lot of the panic seething in her gut, there was an important thing he didn't mention. And as much as she'd like to not mention it, she wasn't good at ignoring things. "And I see you've completely omitted that whole kiss thing. Good. We should probably never talk about that."

"Yeah, of course. Don't want this to turn into some interspecies awkwardness thing anyway."

Shepard laughed, but she knew it felt like it was choking through a damn stranglehold. Of course it would've been weird to come onto him, right? He wasn't into humans like that. Most Turians weren't. "Right. I think I was just lonely, please don't think too much about it-"

With this sly look in his eye, he cocked his head and asked, "Think too much about what?"

This time, real amusement bubbled out of her. Anya even snorted. Even if it meant crushing that fleeting crush of hers like she crushed Geth under the Mako, that smile of his and the way he spoke to her, funny and understanding, made it better. "Perfect. Now I guess I'll leave you to the Mako." Taking a deep breath, she added, "Still on for movie night in two days."

"Wouldn't miss it for the galaxy, Shepard."

While he seemed to stand easy next to her, something in the back of her head was just begging her to keep talking, to keep the silence away, banter enough so she could gauge his behavior and see if they really were alright again. Anya added, a little too quickly, "Okay, but if we run into Saren, we better miss it."

He didn't even seem to notice her jitteriness next to him, just was glancing back and forth between her and the Mako like he had something to do. But he still kept talking. "I dunno, I have a pretty great movie lined up for us." Garrus chuckled, but then added, "Don't worry, if we finally catch that son of a bitch, I bring our guns every Friday anyway."

"You don't."

Then he looked straight at her for the first time all morning, with that fire in his eyes. The one that made her ask him to join the Normandy in the first place. "Always gotta be prepared to bring a rogue spectre to justice."

"And this is why I have movie nights with you. You think of everything." Anya then took a deep breath, relieved. They were okay. Patting his shoulder, she instead focused back on being what she was good at: a soldier. "I planned to do some target practice this morning. Wanna join?"

Just as she was ready to hop into the elevator and try to beat him at snipers again, his expression wavered. Her stomach fell through the floor. "I.. I really gotta finish up work on the Mako. Have fun, though. I'll see you with everybody at dinner." And, too smoothly, Garrus sat down on his mechanics bench and slid right below the Mako again.

Anya couldn't bear to get caught standing there, staring at him, even though she could've stuck her stunned ass there for way too long. Instead, she swallowed her pride and remembered that she was trying to put things back to normal, right?

With a flick of her head and a sharp bite of the inside of her cheek, Anya re-adjusted her dejected posture and looked to the other people in the room. They had to be her focus now; they were all friends here, just friends, nothing else. So anyone could shoot with her and it wouldn't matter.

Using her Commander voice, louder and more confident than normal, Anya said, "Wrex. Williams. Target practice?"

Across the room, she watched the other woman's face light up. "Hell yeah, Commander."

Wrex just said, "Don't tell me what to do." But then he picked up his favorite guns and headed towards the elevator.

Perfect. She didn't need Garrus to want to do everything with her. It probably would just help her kill these drunk feelings she had, and she could start by proverbially putting them on a target and shooting them out.

Anya Shepard was out here to take down Saren, and she didn't have time for drama.

Walking behind Wrex and Ashley, they passed Kaidan and he had this expectant look in his eyes. But looking at him looking at her like that?

Well, Anya walked right by him, too. She didn't need that drama anymore, either.

The only thing she had time for was being Commander Shepard, the first human Spectre, hope for humanity, and the woman who would take down Saren. Yeah, that sounded about right.

///

I remember this chapter being harder to write than I expected! The intro to Garrus and Anya talking was easy, but it was hard to walk the line between their very comfortable friendship and the new boundaries they crossed. 

Anyway, thanks as always to my loveliest patrons:

Danyell Jones

Amy Connolly

If you want to support my stories, help me become an even bigger nerd on Twitch, and get so early and bonus content, please check out my patreon: patreon.com/gracejordan 

[miximax-hell]

Guess who fixed SAI! And just in time for the BEST @inavember day--miximax day!!

It sure has been a while since my last proper post, so I wanted to bring something nice to the table. I sinned by first showing the idea of Tetsukado’s miximax with Tsunami through crappy doodles, so I think I owed you all a proper post about him, final design and all. So, here it is! He’s a tricky one to draw in general terms, but not too bad compared to other people. In fact, his might be one of the less convoluted designs... It’s cool for a change.

Anyway, more about TetsuTsuna’s powers under the cut!

Well, all goes once we’re under the cut, so let’s make use of that! How are you all doing? I’m rather tired, but still okay, all in all, because my internship is going well! For those who didn’t read my latest update, I’m currently working as a scriptwriter for a local videogame company, which is a dream come true~ My boss just congratulated me for a work well done, so I have no complaints there. =u=

Also, all this hype made me want to complete the very first Inazuma game once and for all, and I actually managed to do so! ...Somehow! Ura Zeus are some overpowered bastards with an extremely high level (in the European version, at least--I know it’s different in the Japanese one, although I don’t know exactly how different), but I eventually managed to score five goals against them without receiving any. It only took 20+ victories, haha-- Gosh, levelling up in that game is painful, and facing level 90 enemies with level 50-60 players is not a walk in the park... But all is well that ends well! I hope you guys have been having fun too. So, without further ado, let’s get straight to the point.

Golly, it’s been so long since my last time explaining someone’s powers that I don’t even remember how it works, so please bear with me, ha ha. For the sake of keeping things simple, let’s pick up from where we left off last time.

As you may recall/have just read, I left a couple of cliffhangers in that post, so let’s cover them. I first explained why no one from Inazuma Japan would truly benefit from Tsunami’s aura, but I made sure to specify that Kabeyama and Hijikata would be the worst candidates to mix with him, unlikely as it may seem when you think about how much both of them share with Tsunami. The reason why is probably very clear for those of you who are familiar with the games, but let’s explain it for those who either couldn’t know or simply didn’t make that connection. No shame there. uvu And, in order to do so, we must talk about the first hissatsu Tetsukado would get from miximaxing with Tsunami. It’s a personal favourite of mine.

The first and main hissatsu Tetsukado gains is the excellent Whale Guard! Whale Guard is Tsunami’s game-exclusive signature move, as he has this technique in every game of the original trilogy and in all of his incarnations within those games. It’s a really cool block technique and, objectively, the one that would be the most useful to Tetsukado, since he’s a defender and all.

Now, Whale Guard is awesome, but it’s a combo hissatsu for two people. And not just for any two people. No, sir. To perform this technique, Tsunami must ride a character who has a large body and use him as a boat while the field gets flooded. Among all the players in the team, the only ones Tsunami can rely on to do this are Kabeyama and Hijikata. Therefore, what’s the point of giving Tsunami’s aura to someone who won’t even be able to use Tsunami’s hissatsus, since their role is to be ridden and not to ride someone else? (Man, that sounds WRONG, but bear with me.) Characters with a large body can’t call the whale in the game, and I take it as part of the challenge to keep things accurate to canon not only in terms of story, but in terms of gameplay and mechanics too. So, on top of all the reasons i explained last time, this automatically excludes them both from getting Tsunami’s aura too.

This, however, leads us to the next front I left open: can Tetsukado really bring out Tsunami’s true potential even if he is playing with Earth Eleven and Kabeyama and Hijikata aren’t there? The answer, as I said last time, is obviously yes! Despite not having them around, Tetsukado can always rely on someone else to help him, and that is no other than good ol’ Kusaka! While body shapes in GO aren’t as precise--nor restrictive--as they were in the first trilogy, it’s obvious that Kusaka has a rather large and muscular body, (kinda) similar to Hijikata’s. Kusaka could easily serve TetsuTsuna as a boat/surfing board/whatever while he does his whale-calling thing. And they aren’t too far apart within the field either, so it’s even more viable than Endou using The Phoenix or something crazy like that. ww (But I still love how extra Endou is when he goes all the way to the opposite goal to shoot. You go, baby boy.)

Anyway, that’s about it for unsolved questions, so let’s ask ourselves some new questions now! The most obvious one being, “What’s TetsuTsuna’s second hissatsu?” The answer will probably make people frown, but I couldn’t care less. *+*+*

Let us not forget what Tsunami is known for: being super over-the-top and shooting despite a defender. So, like it or not, Tetsukado needs to get a shot hissatsu or this miximax would be absolute poop. So, Tsunami Boost or The Typhoon? SCREW THEM BOTH--SPARKLE WAVE ALL THE WAY!!

...I’m surprised I can still talk when so many people have just jumped at my neck and ripped it off with their bare teeth, but I’ll use the last minutes of my life to explain why Sparkle Wave is a far better option in this case even though Tsunami Boost or The Typhoon are much more signature-ish than it.

First of all, let’s remember that my adored sister @ishidoshuuji used to call me “Champion of the Unloved.” I just can’t help but fall for those things no one else likes or cares about. I HAVE AFFECTION ISSUES AND THIS HITS ME CLOSE, OKAY. And, obviously, Tsunami Boost and The Typhoon are far, FAAAR more popular than Sparkle Wave. After all, those were used a gazillion times, while Sparkle Wave was only used a single time in a movie that no one seems to have watched. And that’s exactly what I’m going at: Sparkle Wave is still completely unexploited! Tsunami’s other techniques have been used plenty of times and are all worn out by now, but Sparkle Wave is nice, new and shiny. Why should we repeat old formulas when we have new ones to explore? That’s much more interesting. And come on--I thought we were all always starving to see new techniques!

The second reason is that Tetsukado has miximaxed with adult Tsunami. Yes, Tsunami Boost and The Typhoon were Tsunami’s signature moves, but that was when he was a teenager. Tsunami is now an adult and, as an adult, he didn’t use Tsunami Boost or The Typhoon. He used Sparkle Wave. Only and exclusively Sparkle Wave. Like it or not, in terms of anime canons, aka what most people move within, Sparkle Wave is adult Tsunami’s signature move. His only move, in fact. ww So it only makes sense that adult Tsunami would grant Tetsukado the ability to use his new signature move.

And last, but by no means least, is the fact that adult Tsunami used Sparkle Wave over his old hissatsus. The fact that he did this means Tsunami developed a new technique at some point, his strongest one yet, and started using it by default instead of the old ones. Therefore, and obviously, giving Tsunami Boost to Tetsukado would be a completely pointless nerf, since it’s obviously inferior at this point and Tetsukado is miximaxing precisely because he wants more power. As such, it only makes sense to borrow the strongest technique you can possibly get, right? There is a difference between being confident and being stupid, if you know what I mean. ww

Yes, I know most people won’t be convinced, but these are my arguments. And they’re more than good enough for me, thankfully. ww So, moving on!

(Also, Minna Ike Ike! is a close third. I loved the idea of TetsuTsuna getting this, but there isn’t room for everything, and actual hissatsus are always more exciting. Too bad.)

To finish with the whole issue of hissatsus, let’s talk about which of Tetsukado’s own techniques would get boosted thanks to Tsunami. For once, this is pretty easy and straightforward. ...As you know from that stupid pun, it’s obviously Dead Straight. After all, the fact that Tetsukado has a technique like that is part of the reason why he and Tsunami are such a great match! Tsunami is known for his shot techniques, after all.

Also, Dead Straight is a shot hissatsu, but one that can be strategically used from Tetsukado’s position--that is, much like Tsunami’s techniques. Yes, Tsunami Boost and Sparkle Wave are long shots while Dead Straight is a block shot, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s rather unusual for defenders to have shots--and ones that can be used imaginatively, no less! The combination of both will give Tetsukado a ton of resources, and that’s precisely the point of this project to begin with.

To end this rant, it’s interesting to see how Tsunami will change Tetsukado’s natural abilities/stats. We know from the anime that Tsunami is the super excited and swift kind, but he’s also fairly strong. Tetsukado is much more muscular, but his footwork is--obviously--impressive too, although he can’t match Tsunami’s natural speed. They are kind of opposite, really. ...Or are they?

What the anime canon pretends to say is not so supported by NUMBERS, aka my favourite thing ever. A quick look at Tetsukado’s and adult Tsunami’s stats in Galaxy will tell us that, hey--Tsunami happens to be TWICE AS GOOD AS TETSUKADO AT KICKING! Ain’t that fun! In fact, Tsunami is better than Tetsukado in every single sense, save for Block and Stamina. However, the difference isn’t always all that noticeable, so it doesn’t make sense for TetsuTsuna to be much faster than normal Tetsukado when Tsunami is only 5 points better than him. However, more noticeable differences, like the aforementioned kicking capabilities, do make a great difference here--especially since Tetsukado will be shooting much more than before now. This is especially useful when combined with Dead Straight, which can block opposing shots and even reflect them if the user’s kick stat is strong enough. How convenient, huh! ...Oh, and his technique goes up too? Might be useful to get some advanced hissatsus going, but that’s not very relevant plot-wise, I’m afraid lmao

All in all, TetsuTsuna’s main perk and niche within this team is the fact that he’s bringing back everything Tsunami once was and multiplying it by adding Tetsukado’s own natural abilities to the mix: a terrific stamina, new shots to make better use of Tsunami’s awesome kicking stat and, of course, his fantastic Soul! Fairly straightforward, I know, but very much needed all the same. We all wanted Tsunami back, and no one wanted him back as much as I did. Not to mention that, as I said last time, it has SO much plot potential. Oh, God.

...If only I had a plot. rip.

[ecotone99]

[RF] In the Dark

Chapter one

The engine turning over without igniting on my p.o.s truck is my worst nightmare. Especially when all the rich kids at my school love to watch the struggle. Almost as I’m a scene in National Geographic. “This fucking truck”! I shouted hitting the frayed steering wheel. I had just gotten out from 6th period at school on a Wednesday afternoon. It was hot and dry; a typical summer day in central California. I had learned to not let my poorness image affect me in any way. You see I was a loser, more importantly, I accepted the fact I was a loser. I had no skills that were worth anything. I sucked at sports, video games confused the shit out of me, and I wasn’t out on Friday nights cruising the streets, looking for teenage antics. I had about six months until graduation. I had a promising career at a grocery store or gas station in the future, as college wasn’t an option for me. But there is one thing I do that may separate me from the rest; I’m on a laser tag team. That’s right, laser tag. And tonight was a championship match that’s been 6 months in the making. I take laser tag very seriously. Its in the dark. You see, there’s no image to uphold in the dark. No judgement from others, and best of all, I can escape out of the real world. Escape into something else. Be someone else.

Chapter 2

I rolled up to the laser quest complex about an hour early. I completed my pre match ritual, and I was ready for action. Every professional athlete, performer, or entertainer has a pregame ritual. Mine has been developed, no, perfected over the past few years. I stretch my legs, you know the typical stretch you learn in elementary school. The one where you grab your foot and pull it up to your ass cheek. I eat some ramen (shrimp flavor) for some carbohydrates, and slip into a black shirt and black jeans. It’s important to wear black in the arena. Anything lighter than black will put a spotlight on your position from the hundreds of black lights lined throughout the gaming area. And lastly, I listen to a song by the band Korn, called blind. When I listen, I imagine myself as a mother fucking warrior during the game play. Flipping, bouncing off walls, having a shot accuracy of Atleast 98 percent, and then being hoisted out to the parking lot by my team mates after the win. Music has a funny way of helping you escape. I listen to music a lot.

Chapter 3

My teammates showed up shortly after I did. They’re older then me. They all had blue collar jobs, like the one I’ll probably get soon. They also loved the escape. They greeted me with fist bumps, and threw me a monster energy drink. We immediately started talking about the game plan inside. We have a play book, positions, and have even come up with our own form of communication, surely to confuse the other team. This was our life, and in a sense, this was our Super Bowl. We are all in, down to the custom titans stickers we had made down at the mall. We practice whenever we can. But unfortunately we don’t have the funds to rent out the arena to ourselves. When we do practice we typically have to play with the general public. Unfortunately not many adults play laser tag, so our opponents are typically kids that are attending birthday parties. As birthday parties are the main source of revenue for a place like this. We Annihilate the general public, all of our names appear on the game rankings at the end of a game, well before anyone else. Deep down we know it doesn’t mean much, but for a moment you feel pretty badass when you’re in the top ranks of a game. This list is displayed on a large tv screen in the lobby. Seeing your name on the big screen makes you feel as your watching a CBS sporting event, where you are the star of the show. We play in the regular laser tag league which consists of 4 teams. Our team is called the titans. There is typically a game once a month for 6 months, and a series of playoffs in the last month, determining the teams in the final. We beat the flames, and thunder hawks this year which led us to this moment. Tonight we play the beam masters. They’re good, if not the best.

Chapter 4

The beam masters were exceptional players. They seemed to have everything going for them Inside and outside of the arena. They all drove nice cars, played golf together, and seemed to be really close with one another. I don’t think they take this as seriously as us. I mean why would they? They have things to look forward to after this game tonight, they were living a great life, Atleast from my perspective. They rented out two hours of the arena every weekend to practice. That’s literally $400 a week for a private practice session. By default, they’re the best. In my head They share similarities to the jocks and popular kids in my school. We on the other hand, are kind of like the bad news Bears near the end of the movie when they started to get good. I would say we all have some personal issues, but through dedication And not really having a life outside of laser tag, we were damn good. Both teams were in the parking lot prior to the match. There’s not any bad blood, but the beam masters aren’t really talkative towards us. I have always wanted them to wish us good luck, Come over and start a conversation,help us feel normal for a brief period. But they didn’t. I guess we are outsiders in a game designed for outsiders. The irony of that makes my head hurt. It’s 20 minutes before game time now, I yelled at my teammates, “let’s get this party started”. We headed inside.

Chapter 5

The lobby of the arena smells of tombstone pizza, and burnt popcorn. It’s not the greatest smell to be exposed to, but it comes with the territory. The owner of the place stands on the concession counter and delivers instructions. He explains “its the Best of 3 matches, meaning who can win 2 out of the 3 games. Each game is 15 minutes long with a 10 minute reset. Each team will be awarded a win for most combined hits after the match.” He briefs us on safety, and stresses that no physical violence will take place of any kind. The titans aren’t physical anyways, most of us have never been in a real fight. Actually The thought of a real fight makes me want to piss my pants. However, I have a certain amount of rage within me that I’m sure will be let out someday. Maybe it’s from the rough childhood I had, maybe it’s the constant expectation of What society thinks I should be, maybe it will be a culmination of the loneliness I will endure for the rest of my life. I often wonder what form my rage would take if it ever came out? I don’t know. I’m pretty sure my teammates share the same similarities-but we never talk on that level. Probably because we are in denial, and why visit those emotions and feelings if there is no hope of changing from our simple pathetic lives. We walk into the player rooms to get geared up for the first match. We have a chest piece with Flashing lights and senors, and a gun that seems oversized for what it is. In my head it looks like armor from a medieval battle, or like we’re storm troopers ready to defend the dark side. We’re dressed, were nervous, but we are ready. A distorted announcement is heard on the speakers “You have 30 seconds to take formation in the arena before game play, starting now.” It’s our time, it’s my time. We may be the underdogs, but we’re hungry for a win.

Chapter 6

We take our station in the arena, and the game buzzer sounds. To us, it’s like the hunger games. This is life and death. The next season doesn’t start for another year. A long time to reflect on a loss, if that does happen. I sprint out and start firing. My teammates and I trade positions, using hand signals and yelling out strategic communications. It’s the longest 15 minutes of my life. I took some hits, but I know I tagged more than a few beamers. I felt good. As the first match ends, we feel we have come out on top. Entering the reset time we joked around as if we just beat the living shit out of them. However, when we got our scores, we came up short. Fuck I said. “That’s okay” I tell my teammates. We are all. Disappointed. We put everything into this, The thought of losing the only thing that we have in our life is unbearable. The second match starts, we continue to use the same tactics as before but the Beam masters are just so fluent in every aspect of the game. Every move we make they have already anticipated it. We go left they go right type of stuff. The match ends, and we wait for the scores in reset. We all know the outcome. But maybe there was a glitch in the scoring or something. Maybe we were just being too negative. Nope, They swept us. It wasn’t even close. That means it’s over. There is no third match, there are no technicalities, no options. It’s time to accept defeat. In less than 45 minutes, our small world has flipped upside down. We walk out to the parking lot, I’m not hoisted up.

Final

A full year to think about this. What do I have now? What am I supposed to dream about now? My teammates got in their cars and left. We didn’t say anything to each other afterwards, I mean what’s the point? it’s over. The beam masters stared my way but said nothing. I was hoping for some recognition from them, maybe to the affect of “you were a worthy opponent” or “you almost had us”. Sitting in my truck I started to weep. Weep like a fucking baby. It was too much to handle. For someone like me, who has so little, this is grounds for suicide. I got a sense of relief imagining my lifeless body swinging from a tall structure. Extreme? Maybe, maybe not. Ive come to realize that people who have money and lives seem to have a better chance at everything, or Atleast a head start. Or is it a level playing field? “Fuck that, it’s unfair”, I said. The truth is I have another year to bury these thoughts in my head. I thought, Maybe I can get into something else? I need something to make these painful thoughts of never amounting to anything go away. I want to be normal. I wish I had real bullets in my laser gun. I’m in the dark.

submitted by /u/One_take_only [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2TWwtfD

[finleymbct]

Contexts of Game and Play: Readings Week 5

Yep, skipped one, my bad.

Things of Beauty: Super Smash Bros. as Spectator Sport (Innuendo Studios, 2015)

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that one of the readings was from a YouTuber who I recognized. Innuendo studios has done some pretty interesting commentary on games news, and it was the video about Phil Fish and fame that got me onto his channel. (want a fun fact? It contributed to Notch selling MineCraft and leaving games development)

Anyway, I did find the video quite interesting actually, in spite of never being a fan of Super Smash Brothers Melee, I was aware that there was still an eSports scene around - somehow - after 16 years. I guess this video did a lot to show what was so fascinating about the game, particularly as a spectator sport - on some level I can relate, having watched more than a few Counter-Strike tournaments. The difference between Melee and CSGO is pretty stark however. CSGO is still being updated; just recently they patched the R8 revolver and Negev in an attempt to give them some viability, and even the smallest tweaks to staple weapons such as the M4s, AK-47 and AWP can have much of the community, competitive and otherwise, in uproar. Smash isn’t going to ever change however, - everything that is possible now is equally possible sixteen years ago. The Game is fundamentally imbalanced, as Innuendo Studios discusses in the video: characters are tiered by the community in terms of viability, but even though there have been no changes whatsoever to the characters, their rankings have been known to change simply as a result of player meta. 

To me it’s quite bizarre to see a game live on with a community that relies on sixteen year old hardware, battered CRT televisions and actually having to be in the same room to have multiplayer. 

Set and Setting

A quick Wikipedia article, which seems to be mostly about psychedelic drug trips. The title describes ones mindset going into the trip (the “set”) and the physical and social environment (the “setting”) in which you have the experience. The importance of these both is that they will influence the participant’s experience - Timothy Leary describes it as:

“ the drug dose does not produce the transcendent experience. It merely acts as a chemical key — it opens the mind, frees the nervous system of its ordinary patterns and structures. The nature of the experience depends almost entirely on set and setting. Set denotes the preparation of the individual, including his personality structure and his mood at the time. Setting is physical — the weather, the room's atmosphere; social — feelings of persons present towards one another; and cultural — prevailing views as to what is real.”

I guess this does somewhat relate to gaming, as it can be a highly immersive medium. I’ve certainly learned that going into a game pissed off usually results in poor performance and exacerbates my own frustration. As for setting, it often doesn’t matter as much so long as I’m comfortable. I’m reminded of year 12 English, where we studied the film Inception - how the whole dream thing was a metaphor for cinema, where you get totally immersed in a world that doesn’t exist in a physical sense. You ever notice the feeling of disorientation after you get up after a movie in the cinema.

What is ontology? Introduction to the word and the concept -  Kent Löfgren

This one was pretty short; a discussion of ontology, a philosophical and non-philosophical context. In philosophy, it’s about what is and isn’t real, so what are the fundamental parts of the world, and how do they relate to each other. He uses the example of shoes and walking, are shoes more real than the idea of walking? They’re certainly related, as shoes are designed for the purpose of walking, but obviously you don’t require them in order to do so. 

He discusses two schools of thought in ontological philosophy: ontological Materialism, which is that physical things, such as particles, matter, chemical reactions and energy are actually more real than things such as the human mind. It’s the idea that reality exists regardless of a human being there to observe it. I guess it goes back to the old question, if a tree falls in the forest but no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

The other school of thought is ontological Idealism, which is the belief that immaterial phenomenon, like human consciousness. It’s the idea that all of reality is constructed in the mind of the observer, and that the only thing I can say is true is that I exist as some kind of conscious thought. It kind of brings up the thought of “if this is true and the world is just a figment of my imagination, why should we care?” The answer which I found, funnily enough, was from the game VA-11 HALL-A: Cyberpunk Bartending Action (which I still haven’t gotten over), where one character had an existential crisis based on that very question. The answer was, you’re able to feel emotions and care when reading a book, watching a movie or listening to music, so you should be able to care what happens around you, even if in the end we’ve been living in the matrix and nothing is real.

In a non philosophical context, ontology is the description of what exists in a determined and specific field, such as every piece that exists within a set. This also includes the relationship and hierarchy between each of these parts. It’s more for researchers than those concerned with philosophy, and what is “real.” Much more objective, I suppose.

Serenity Now - Crash a Funeral in Winterspring

This one was mostly people being dicks and crashing a in game memorial - but also somewhat people underestimating trolls. While what the troll guild did wasn’t very cool, it was also stupid to try to hold a memorial in a PvP zone. The game wasn’t built with such things in mind, and the area in question was made for people to kill one another, gather, so Serenity Now were conforming to the system that was already in place. The next reading delves further into this very moral conundrum.

Serenity Now bombs a World of Warcraft funeral: Negotiating the Morality, Reality and Taste of Online Gaming Practices

If you put do something stupid, but well meaning, does that make it right for someone to take advantage of you? If I walk into a dark alleyway in a neighborhood that I know is rough, and end up getting mugged, does any blame lay on me for doing something stupid and risky? Mugging someone is clearly wrong, and the law is quite clear on that. Is it my fault that I got mugged in that instance, for getting into that situation? Is it the fault of the mugger in question, for waking up and deciding that my money would be better as theirs rather than mine? 

People will tell you that the mugger was wrong, but often they’ll tell you that you were stupid for getting into that situation. This moral discussion extends to all sorts of topics, and can get quite heated for some people based on the moral standards to which people hold not only themselves, but other people. When people say “she was asking for it” after someone rapes a drunken and scantily clad woman at a party, it’s much the same discussion - but people will obviously feel a lot more strong about it based on their perception of the victim, the crime and circumstance. Fundamentally I believe that blaming the victim is stupid, and anyone who takes an opportunity to commit harm to another person is just a guilty as someone who premeditated, but that doesn’t mean that people should be so trusting. It would be a much kinder, more caring world if we all treated one another with decency and respect, but the world isn’t that way, and naivety isn’t a good way to live. 

Going back to something maybe a little more lighter in tone, does crashing the in game funeral for a player who died in real life make you a douche, or does that make you foolish? Is having a funeral in a game about role-playing as warriors, mages and hunters inappropriate? I think that everyone has a right to remember someone in a respectful manner, even if it was just online, but people really should bear in mind the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, as named by Penny Arcade.

Play and interpret: 'Year in Review'

This one was a pretty simple game, just keep hitting the N and O keys to slow your drowning. You spam NONONONONONONO as you hear a voice-over pleading “pleasepleaseplease nononono”, and eventually your character disappears beneath the waves, and you’re shown a screen that shows: Your 2015 was a <number of times you hit N and O> out of 10. I guess the most immediate "meaning” I picked up was that the developer’s year was shit and that they felt they were drowning - a common metaphor for being overworked. One way or another, at the end of the game you drown, it’s over, you get a score.

I wonder if they made a game for 2016...

Play and interpret 'Slave of God'

This is probably the most bizarre game I’ve ever played. The colours, thumping (but pretty good actually) and deliberate visual glitches are downright headache inducing, and most certainly not for those suffering epilepsy. I think I finished this one, so here’s a rundown by memory:

You walk into the club, lights flashing, people dancing.

You get a couple of drinks from the bar out the back, and give one to a person sitting next to the dance floor. Every time you stand near where you put your drink down, you drink some, and it apparently never runs out.

You take a piss in the bathroom.

you visit two shady looking types below the stage, to the right.

car crashes next to the dance floor. How it got there is anyone’s guess.

you stand next to someone frantically dancing with a light beam coming out of their head. It catches you in it’s rapture, which is difficult to escape, and you can “pull” them away from the dance floor, getting to the final stage

you then follow a glowing path to see a window, at which point you see a “sun” come up. The games stops, and apparently ends

it was pretty interesting, though to be honest the presentation was difficult to get past. It worked well as a simulation of clubbing while drunk or high, as one moment blends into the other, and everything is reduced to abstract shapes and still images. I don’t know if there was an underlying story, though it reminded me somewhat of some sequences from the first Trainspotting film.

Play and interpret: 'Cyberqueen'

A sci-fi horror text adventure. It reminded me a lot of Systems Shock, which I admittedly have not played but know a fair bit about thanks to a few YouTubers. One such video describes the series antagonist, SHODAN, a sentient AI who takes over a space station and slaughters everyone aboard after the protagonist hacks her I finished the game, and clearly wasn’t imagining things. SHODAN becomes a megalomaniac with a god complex, frequently calling the protagonist and humans in general “insects”. Cyberqueen is pretty horrifying, describing in graphic detail your own dissection and subsequent melding with the AI, with things taking an often erotic-horror tone towards the end. You can choose to masturbate, high on your own power as you become one with the machine. It’s an awful lot like the themes of H.R. Giger’s art, with humans and machines locked in erotic embraces as one melds seamlessly into the other.

Play and interpret: 'Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist'

The most premium feeling “Game” of those in the readings. Made by Crows Crows Crows (A studio which I know from a VR experience they made for the HTC Vive called Accounting) and a guy Called William Pugh who directed The Stanley Parable. It’s quite clear that TSP had some influence on this one, they have a similar storytelling style and work to mock and satirise a particular aspect of games - TSP mocks the notion of player choice, whereas Dr Langeskov mocks a lot of the contrivances that occur in any story - you’re the man behind the scenes, making the rain happen, the tiger escape, etc etc. Maybe it’s some kind of author tract regarding the role of the game’s director in making everything “happen”. 

Christ alive, I’m done. Where are my thirty pieces of silver

[wiersema1]

The day was July 25, 1982. I was a seven-year-old boy walking into Comiskey Park for my first major league baseball game ever. My parents and sister were there too, although once I saw the beautiful green grass field I probably didn’t look at any of them again until the drive home to Lake Zurich. What I remember, and I’ll never forget, was how green the grass was. How big the field was! My seven-year-old eyes had never seen anything so pristine, so gorgeous, so wonderful. Only in my dreams would I have envisioned something so glorious. And now thirty-five years later, it remains in my dreams. When I go to sleep at night I sometimes dream of ancient ball fields like the Polo Grounds, Ebbets Field, old Yankee Stadium, and old Comiskey Park. I want to go back in time and be a Giants fan in the Polo Grounds, a Dodgers fan at Ebbets, a Yankees fan cheering on one of my all-time favorites Mickey Mantle in Yankee Stadium, and I want to be a seven-year-old boy again cheering on Harold Baines and Carlton Fisk in the old Comiskey Park.

Ironically twenty-two years after that wonderful day, our first child was born. Our daughter Natalie joined us in 2004. What is it about July 25? It will always remain one of my favorite days on the calendar. Speaking of favorites, in an incredible journey as a gigantic sports fan, it’s hard to ever replace the Chicago White Sox after that illustrious start in 1982. The Sox are my favorite baseball team by far, but they may be topped by one and only one sports team.

One time around ’84 or ’85 I sat down after running around outside to watch college football on a cold autumn Saturday afternoon. I asked Dad what he was watching and who he was cheering for. From my memory, he was watching a Nebraska vs Oklahoma football game and he said he liked Nebraska and cheered for them because of their coach, Tom Osborne. He was a good respectable, Christian man who does it the right way. I didn’t need to watch for long and I was sold. Nebraska was my new team! The overwhelming amounts of red, the fans in Memorial Stadium, the dominance. As I got older and learned more about Nebraska, I was just floored by the incredible fervor surrounding this team. The story was Coach Tom Osborne had gotten so close and deserved a National Championship but was never able to fully grasp it. As the bowl losses mounted year after year, and the haters said the same stuff year after year (“Nebraska’s schedule stinks…..they will lose their bowl game against a faster team once again…….they can’t pass…….they can’t beat Oklahoma………they’re too slow……..they can’t beat a Southern team from Florida such as Miami or Florida St. anyway even if they DO beat Oklahoma”), it only fueled my desire for a Big Red Championship that much more. As the years went on and the bowl losing streak hit five and six straight years in 1991 and ’92, I was exhausted but determined to win it all. The Huskers were my team and I would help them do it with unreasonable support. I felt like the only Nebraska fan in the state of Illinois growing up. I was made fun of constantly for cheering for the Huskers.

When I went off to college to Champaign/Urbana and the University of Illinois in the fall of ’93, my allegiance to Nebraska remained. Obviously I was a huge fan of the Fighting Illini too, but it wasn’t much of a conflict since the schools were in different conferences, the Big 8 and the Big Ten. Who would have thought that Nebraska would one day join the Big 10 (now the B1G) in 2011? So when undefeated Nebraska went to the National Championship in the ’93/’94 Orange Bowl to face the 18 point favorite Florida St. Seminoles playing in their home state, most people expected the same ol’ thing would happen once again. Not me. I believed in this group of Cornhuskers. The signs were showing through like a flashlight visible through a bed sheet……hazy, but you could see the light. These Huskers were different. They had a difference maker at QB in Tommie Frazier who wasn’t scared of the Florida St. defense. Hell, he went to school with half of those guys in Bradenton, FL. The defense was now a solid attacking 4-3 under the direction of Defensive Coordinator Charlie McBride. Trev Alberts had 15 sacks from his Rush End position. Nowadays they call those guys EDGE rushers. Despite a dislocated elbow suffered in the 21-7 regular season finale victory over Oklahoma, Trev put on a memorable thick brace and totalled three sacks as he pressured Florida St. Heisman Trophy winner Charlie Ward all night! In one of the greatest Championship games ever, Nebraska lost 18-16. It was hard to hold back the tears after getting so close but ultimately falling short in that historic final minute.

As they say, the rest is history. Nebraska would go on to win three National Championships over the next 4 years in 1994, ’95, and ’97. Most experts would agree that the ’95 version is the greatest college football team of all time. Needless to say, I was ecstatic. When your team finally breaks through like the way Nebraska did in the 90s, you never go away, you never break confidence, you never give up hope. You never can renege on your fandom. What they gave you was so much, so special, so incredible that you will never forget. So I didn’t. Now we have a Big Red Room downstairs in the basement, a collection of Nebraska media guides that goes back to the ’80s, not one but two subscriptions to Huskers magazines, one unhealthy obsession with the state of Nebraska, and most importantly, a son named Trev.

Dutch Lion’s Favorite Teams

 Nebraska Cornhuskers football – “There’s No Place Like Nebraska” isn’t just a saying. I dare you to drive out to Lincoln and take it all in on an Autumn Saturday. It is truly special. “The Good Life” still exists. You just need to find it. GBR! (Go Big Red!)

 Chicago White Sox – When the Sox won the World Series in 2005, it was like living a dream. I still can’t believe they won! I seriously never thought it would happen. Whereas in other sports with other teams I am very positive and always think my teams will win it all, with the Sox it just seemed like an unreachable goal. I guess it was all those years, from ’82 to ’04 that drained my belief that it would ever happen. And then, for some reason that ’05 Title made me hungrier for more. Don’t get me wrong, that one Title quenched my thirst for several years, maybe even a decade. But now 12 years later, we’re getting hungry. Will they win again? Let’s hope. No matter what, I’ll continue to keep my streak of going to at least one game every year since ’82.

 Illinois Fighting Illini basketball – The biggest heartbreak of all was the 2005 Illinois Fighting Illini’s Road to the Final Four and the subsequent Championship that ended with a deflating loss to North Carolina. I still can’t believe this either. It all ended so sadly. We HAD that game. That was OUR year! I still refer to them as the “Real Champs”. 37-2! Only one team has ever had a better record and NOT won the Championship (’08 Memphis led by DRose was 38-2, falling to Kansas in OT). If you watched his year’s National Championship, it may have occurred to you that we had a very similar irony at play. #1 seed Gonzaga was 37-1 as they ended up losing in the last minute to those big bad North Carolina Tar Heels, just as Illinois had 12 years earlier. 37-2 once again. It brought back a lot of bad memories. I still haven’t watched the full replay of Coach Weber’s bunch in that last minute defeat. I looked it up and it’s on YouTube. Maybe one day I’ll check it out. It’s only been a dozen years of heartbreak. Someday Illinois may just go on and win that elusive National Championship, but it will never be the same. That ’05 team was the greatest of all time! They deserved the acclaim from the masses as National Champions. In fact, if one or two of those last minute threes by Luther or Deron drops, the ’05 Illini probably go down as one of the greatest college teams of all time. No matter…….to me, they will always be Champions! I-L-L!!!!

  4.  Chicago Bears – Growing up down the road from Halas Hall, it was always obvious that I would be a Bears backer. How lucky was I to be a 10-year-old in 1985?!? How lucky were we? My grandparents lived in a condo in Vernon Hills in the mid 80s. Downstairs in their unit lived #99 Dan Hampton. I know! One time my grandpa introduced me to Dan and I was completely nervous. This hulking man was my hero! I don’t remember saying anything. I’m sure I was speechless. The normal thing to say about 1985 would be that we didn’t know how great it was while it was happening, but that would be totally untrue. What was unique about the ’85 Bears was that we did indeed know RIGHT THEN that it was a once in a lifetime team. Really? The Super Bowl Shuffle!?! It all seems like unbelievable, like a Hollywood movie. Like Forrest Gump! The ’85 Bears defense remains in the Pantheon as the greatest defense of all time! Ask anyone. There will never be another team like the ’85 Bears. They were the best, they were the most dominant, and they were the most interesting group of characters on one team of all time. How do you top that? You don’t. We’ll never see anything like it again.

5.  Chicago Bulls – OMG! Here we go again…..how lucky were we to be watching the greatest of all time while we were children. I mean, seriously! Growing up in the 80s was an extremely special time to be a Chicago sports fan. I’ve been really blessed to witness the rise of Michael Jordan and the Bulls while living right down the road from the Bulls practice facilities in Deerfield. Think about it. When’s the last time you heard anyone, I mean anyone, that didn’t think MJ was the greatest basketball player of all time? 6 Titles in the 90s? Talk about expectations and greed amongst a fan base. The parade at Grant Park got to be a regular thing on the City of Chicago calendar. Since ’98 it has never been the same. It never will be. That was a special time. Could it be again? Possible but not probable. How many times do you get a once in a lifetime athlete in one city?……….Once.

6. Chicago Blackhawks – I love the Hawks but I’m not a fully invested hockey fan. What I mean by that is I never played hockey. I was never on a team and don’t understand the subtleties that only a true hockey player who has gotten coached would understand. Nonetheless, I love the sport but it’s clearly down the list as no higher than my 4th favorite sport behind baseball and football (tied for 1st) and basketball (3rd). I respect these guys as amazing athletes. Moving fast, bumping your opponents into walls, shooting a frozen puck at 100 mph, all while skating on ice??? Truly ridiculous and remarkable. Will the Hawks win another Cup? I hope so but I don’t need it. I’m not a greedy fan. Three Stanley Cup Championships over the last 8 years is enough for me to be happy. Nonetheless, I’ll “Commit to the Indian” forevermore.

7.Netherlands national soccer – “You ain’t much if you ain’t Dutch”. Cheering for the Dutch national soccer team has been one of the great, unexpected joys of my adult life. I just love the history of Johan Cruyff and the “Total Football” Dutch team. As 3 time World Cup runners-up (1974, 1978, 2010), they may be down right now, but the Dutch will one day win the World Cup…..and I can’t wait! One of these days my wife and I are going to take a trip to Amsterdam and hopefully attend a game in the ArenA. “Hup Holland Hup”!

8.  Notre Dame Fighting Irish football – I haven’t always loved Notre Dame consistently, but I usually cheer for them, often times based on their head coach. Coach Lou Holtz (1986-’96) had me enamored, especially with that 1988 National Championship team. That Fighting Irish team was one of my all time favorite single year teams. Outside of the other teams listed, ’88 ND is right up there with the ’86 New York Mets, ’93 Philadelphia Phillies, ’01 Philadelphia 76ers, ’04 Boston Red Sox, the Steve Nash era Phoenix Suns, ’07-’08 Texas Tech football, ’10 Auburn football, ’14 Oregon football, and ’16-? Villanova basketball. Those teams I followed and loved for at least one year. It’s funny but I could care less about some of these teams during other parts of their history. For example, the Phillies won the World Series in ’08 but I could care less about that particular group. Same with Auburn. I loved the Cam Newton led Tigers as he won the Heisman Trophy for them, but in other years I probably not only didn’t cheer for them, but I probably even cheered AGAINST them. The reasoning is I usually love a specific player(s) and/or coach(es). Sometimes I grow to love squads because of fantasy players or coaches that might catch my interest.

9.  Oregon Ducks football – I started following them in their ’94 Rose Bowl season. I loved this dude named Chad Cota. He played safety on that ’94 squad. Then I loved QB Joey “Heisman” Harrington during their ’01 Fiesta Bowl season. It started with Coach Rich Brooks, continued with Coach Mike Bellotti, expanded further with Coach Chip Kelly, and topped out with Coach Mark Helfrich as QB Marcus Mariota led them all the way to the National Championship game in ’14. Now that they fired Coach Helfrich, I’m in a holding pattern. Will my love for the Ducks wane?10. Washington Nationals/Dallas Cowboys/Milwaukee Brewers/Stevenson H.S. Patriots/Illinois Fighting Illini baseball/other random teams – As a huge sports fan, I’ve loved a ton of different teams over the years. I often cheer for teams because of their coach or a specific player. From Florida football during the Steve Spurrier years to Phoenix Suns basketball during the K.J., Charles Barkley, and Dan Majerle era. From the ’80s New York Mets and the ’90s Philadelphia Phillies when they had my favorite baseball player ever Lenny Dykstra leading off, to the Washington Nationals since they drafted Stephen Strasburg 1st overall in ’09 and then Bryce Harper 1st overall in ’10. I’ve always considered the Dallas Cowboys my second favorite NFL team behind the Bears. I loved Tony Dorsett and the big star on the helmet since I was a little guy. Recently, I’ve become a big Villanova basketball fan over the last few years because of Jalen Brunson committing to play for Coach Jay Wright. We know Jalen from working at Stevenson High School and it’s been quite a fun journey following his career. In fact, I just ran into Jalen the other day as he came back to his alma mater to visit. He’s a good, polite kid and we’re really proud of him. He has two years left at Villanova as he aims for his second National Title. As long as Coach Wright is there I see myself cheering for ‘Nova. There will be more teams, more coaches, and more players. As long as I’m breathing I’m sure I’ll find people to root for outside of my own special teams. I look forward to seeing where the journey takes me.

Dutch Lion Hates!

Chicago Cubs – Do I need to explain? I don’t think you want to read this. If you need more explanation, go read my previous blog posts such as “Reid ‘Em & Weep 2.5”  or The 2016 Cubs……..Not That Good! Excuse me now while I go hoist my “L” flag.

Green Bay Packers – My wife is a Packers fan from the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha. I understand that she likes them but it’s really a shame. My brother-in-law Jay is also from Waukesha and a huge Pack fan. Meanwhile, my other brother-in-law Joe is from Deerfield and is a gigantic Bears fan. I remember when Joe and I were so excited when Brett Favre’s career was winding down because we thought the tide would finally turn for Chicago. We figured Green Bay would come back to earth after Favre’s dominant run over the Bears. Then Aaron Rodgers emerged. Really? How often does one franchise get back to back franchise quarterbacks? I can only think of two occasions….the ’80s San Francisco 49ers when they went from Joe Montana to Steve Young and then these Packers. Ugh. We’ve been in the wilderness for thirty years and are searching for our Moses to lead us to the Promised Land. My wife is great, but I’m not sure she fully understands. I know it’s cyclical. She knows too, as the ’80s Bears dominated the Packers of her youth. But when does the cycle revert back? It’s been 25 years since Favre was traded to the Packers from Atlanta (February 11, 1992) and the Bears fired Coach Mike Ditka (January 5, 1993). These two franchises have never been the same since.

Wisconsin Badgers football and basketball – As a fan of Nebraska and Illinois football and Illinois basketball, it kills me to see Wisconsin consistently winning since the turn of the century while my teams have often struggled. Along with some of the unsavory coaches in Madison (Coach Bret Bielema and Coach Bo Ryan), the Wisconsin fans are over the top. I’ve been to Camp Randall Stadium a few times and felt lucky to get out alive on my last two visits for Huskers games. The fans are sometimes rough. Isn’t getting pasted on the scoreboard enough? Have no fear……things will change. The cycle has been all roses for Wisconsin lately but it won’t last forever. The Huskers and the Fighting Illini are surging! We shall return!

And now for the Dutch Lion’s friends…….

Jeff Marchese

Age: 41

From: Darien, IL

Attended: University of Illinois (Class of ’98)

I met Jeff at the U of I in about 1994 or ’95 and we’ve been buddies ever since. Jeff is a great sports fan that currently resides in Downers Grove, a western suburb of Chicago. In fact, Jeff and I worked in radio together at WPGU in Champaign. We were both DJ’s, sports reporters, and in general, fools! We had some great times. One time Jeff was hosting a Sunday morning show called “Sports Talk” and I still remember our discussion almost 20 years later. We discussed the best point guards in the NBA and I recall listing Damon Stoudamire while Jeff mentioned Allen Iverson. Then we were talking about college football and the Fighting Illini. For some reason I mentioned that Penn St. was really tough and don’t count them out because of their defense headed by Defensive Coordinator Jerry Sandusky. I know…..twenty years later, it’s haunting.

Jeff Marchese’s Favorites:

Illinois basketball & football

Chicago White Sox

Chicago Bears

Chicago Blackhawks

Chicago Bulls

Jeff Marchese’s Hates:

NFL –maybe Patriots although I respect what they’ve been able to do

NBA –Lakers and Knicks maybe?  Tired or hearing people say you have to be on the coast as a player to make money.  Although league does suffer when they aren’t good

NHL  –maybe the Ducks?  Stupid name.

MLB –don’t hate the Cubs but don’t cheer for them.  And I hate the Red Sox/Yankees “rivalry” since it’s so overplayed by ESPN.

NCAA –Muck Fichigan!

  “I would love if my alma mater won a championship and help keep up any pride in the school which has disappointed me years after year in both football and basketball.  After that I’d go with the White Sox.  Their championship seemed to mean more to me than those of the Bulls, Hawks, and even the ’85 Bears win. Although I betcha can’t find a true Chicagoan that doesn’t know the entire offensive and defensive starters for that Bears team.  Several diehards even knew the backups. And despite my favorite sport being college football, my allegiance to teams other than Illinois always tends to drift towards players that I love…even Oregon and Texas.” – Jeff M.

I love Jeff’s comments. He touched on a bunch of hot button topics that I also covered above such as the ’85 Bears and liking “players” from fantasy teams. Sometimes it takes loving players and getting to know them as individuals first, THEN adopting their teams as your favorites. As usual, Jeff’s comedy shone through on comments about hating the Anaheim Ducks and Michigan Wolverines. Well done! Thanks for your help and your opinion Jeff!

Jeff and I (circa ’98)

Mike Lis

Age: 43

From: Darien, IL

Attended: Western Illinois University (Class of ’97)

Mike is Jeff’s cousin. He started visiting Jeff in Champaign in the mid 90s. Jeff and I used to hang out at work as well at local establishments such as KAM’s. So when Mike visited we would go out together in Chambana. Naturally, we became close. We’ve been through a lot together. In fact, we even married girls that were roommates. It all started when Mike and I were living together. His girlfriend Julie was living with Deborah. We went on a double date. The rest is history. Mike and Julie got married in June 2000. Six weeks later Debbie and I got married. We’ve both been married for 17 years now. Needless to say, we’ve been buddies ever since. We remain great friends, despite some of Mike’s allegiances.

Mike Lis, Jeff, and I at Sox/Blue Jays game, July 6, 2015

Mike Lis’s Favorites:

Chicago Bears – For the same reasons I listed above, Mike loves the Bears because growing up in the 1980s with the ’85 Bears team was special. It wasn’t just 1985 either. Don’t forget this Bears team headed by Head Coach Mike Ditka won the NFC Central Division five years in a row from 1984-1988. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone our age that grew up in Chicagoland that does NOT like the Bears. Mike stated, “This was the team of our childhood”.

University of Michigan basketball and football – Mike’s dad and his uncle both attended Michigan so Mike heard “Go Blue” most of his life. He loved the Fab Five era basketball. As a Western Illinois alum, Mike doesn’t have a natural D1 school to cheer for so I think it makes sense that he now cheers for one of the Big 10’s perennial powers.

New York Yankees – Mike lived in New York City in 2000-’01 and thus he grew to love America’s most iconic team. Living in NYC during the Yanks amazing run of 4 Championships in 5 seasons didn’t hurt (’96, ’98, ’99, ’00).

Chicago Bulls

Chicago Blackhawks

Mike Lis’s Hates:

Green Bay Packers – When I asked Mike about who he hates, he got really lit up! In fact, I could feel his heart rate increasing as he dived into the conversation. It was an amazing interview where the tension increased exponentially. I wish I would’ve recorded this conversation but I’ll try to recreate it this Summer during our annual golf match.

Pete Carroll – Words used to describe Carroll, courtesy of Mike, “He’s so shady, he’s a cheater, he’s lucky too….I hate him!”

Pat Riley – This one caught me off guard a bit. I had forgotten how much Bulls fans hated Riley in his N.Y. Knicks days. Now I remember…..the slicked back hair, the dirty play of guys like Anthony Mason, Derek Harper, Charles Oakley, Charles Smith, Patrick Ewing, John Starks……that was seemingly encouraged by thug-master Pat Riley. I’m pulling my hair out all over again.

Good stuff Mike! Thanks for your comments and quotes.

Mike Lis and I golfing – October 9, 2015

  Mike Feigh

Age: 36

From: Willowbrook, IL

Attended Concordia University

I just met Mike about seven years ago at work. We both work at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, IL. Mike is a former assistant basketball coach for Stevenson and is a huge sports fan. He loves fantasy sports and dominates his leagues the same way he dominates life. Here’s his list:

Mike Feigh’s Favorites:

Notre Dame football

Villanova basketball

White Sox baseball

Hawaii football – I was surprised to hear that Mike’s father went to Hawaii and played quarterback for the Rainbow Warriors back in the ’70s. Aloha Stadium, Honolulu, Waikiki…….very cool.

Mike Feigh’s Hates:

Coach John Calipari

Coach Bill Self – Mike mentioned that he not only hates Coach Self for the way he treated Illinois but also for his recruiting tactics. Paraphrasing Mike, he even went so far as to say, “I don’t want to give the details but you’d be appalled at what he tried to do to get Jalen Brunson away from Villanova.”

Coach Pete Carroll

So now you know where the Dutch Lion stands. Who do you love? Who do you hate? Tell me about it in the comments section. Next up on “Reid ‘Em & Weep”……..the NFL Draft Preview!

Reid ‘Em & Weep (2.6) – The “Dutch Lion’s” Favorite Teams The day was July 25, 1982. I was a seven-year-old boy walking into Comiskey Park for my first major league baseball game ever.