#bobby sees right through their bullshit as always

[eddiediaaz]

yeah. who does that? 5.09 ✽ past is prologue 7.05 ✽ you don't know me

[anonymous-dentist]

Bobby and Roier die together in the midst of a robot uprising 1,678 years after Bobby was born and seven galaxies away. They stop the revolution from happening a thousand years before its time, but at what cost?

Two hours later, Roier sits in another man’s clothes holding Jaiden’s hand as they watch Bobby’s body float peacefully into a black hole. They’re side-by-side sitting in the TARDIS’ doorway, and the universe, for once, is completely still.

“I’m sorry,” Roier croaks, not for the first time. But he’s still surprised by the sound of his own voice, he doesn’t know whose voice it is yet.

Jaiden shakes her head. Tearfully, she leans her head onto Roier’s shoulder.

“Nah,” she says. “Don’t be. He was a hero.”

“He was stupid. I told him not to follow me, and- ugh!”

Roier groans and throws his head back in frustration. God. Damnit!!

Jaiden sniffs. “Don’t be a dick. He saved an entire planet.”

“Yes, and? He still died.”

“So did you, so. So stop moping, okay? Look at him.”

She reaches up with her free hand and guides Roier’s head until it’s facing front again. They watch together as Bobby sinks into the event horizon, and it’s kind of nice, isn’t it? He’s frozen, now. Eternal. You can’t see past the event horizon of a black hole, there’s kinda just nothing beyond it. Just Bobby forever.

Dead.

“I’m looking,” Roier says, words all smushed together by Jaiden smushing his cheeks. “Maybe we should’ve done an actual funeral.”

“This is a funeral. He asked for it, and we gave it to him.”

It’s true. When Roier and Jaiden first met their little stowaway, Bobby hijacked the TARDIS’ controls and steered them towards the nearest black hole just so he could try and kill it. Even after giving up on that whole thing, he insisted that he’d get to fight a black hole one day. He might’ve been a kid, but he was gonna grow up eventually!!

Well. Look at how that turned out, hah.

Roier lets out a quiet laugh through his nose and averts his eyes.

The life of a Time Lord is a lonely one. Being immortal is one thing, but having your entire DNA structure and personality changed every time you die is another. Keeping friends is hard, and keeping them alive is harder.

(Roier curls his left hand into a fist.)

Humans are social creatures, though, and Roier loves them. Sure, he might be a freaky time-traveling alien, but humans are kinda like intergalactic cockroaches, and they can actually cook decent meals, and they were the first creatures in their galaxy to discover the concept of love, so Roier can’t not take them with him when they want to see the stars.

“I want to go home,” Jaiden quietly says.

Roier lets out a breath and nods. “Okay.”

Neither of them moves. They watch their dead son circle the black hole he’s always dreamed of killing, and they cry, and this is it, isn’t it? The end of an era. No more Familioier because Bobby is dead and the Roier that Jaiden met and knew and loved died with him and was replaced with some goofy dude with a new face and new voice and blegh. No wonder she wants to go home, her son is dead and her best friend was replaced with a stranger.

Still. It was nice when it lasted.

-

So Jaiden goes home. Roier drops her off five minutes from when he first picked her up almost a year ago. He even managed to get her in the right city, hell yeah! (Apparently he’s good at driving now, go figure?)

She hugs Roier and makes him promise to come and get her only when she calls him, and she’ll know if he does some time travel bullshit to get her before he’s ready, because she just knows him like that. She’s his best friend, and she’s the best human he’s ever known.

They hug one more time outside of the TARDIS, and then Roier is alone again.

He slips back into the TARDIS and closes the door behind him. He leans against the wall next to it and looks down at his ring and idly rubs it with his thumb.

“Goddamnit,” he mutters.

Time Lords have 12 ‘lives’ before they die. They change each time, both physically and mentally. It’s some metaphysical biochemical bullshit Roier doesn’t care too much about, but. But he’s on life number 12 now. One more death, and they might even get to see each other in the cosmic abyss. He can introduce him to Bobby, wouldn’t that be nice?

…Nah! He isn’t dead! Sure, he might’ve disappeared during the War, but so did, like, half of the planet, and most of those Time Lords have turned up. Some haven’t, but most have! What’s to say he isn’t any different? He’s probably in jail or something, wouldn’t that be crazy?

Roier smiles to himself. Hell yeah, prison time? Time for prison? He’s only got an infinite number of prisons in an infinite number of galaxies in an infinite number of years to dig through, easy!

He’s halfway to the TARDIS’ controls when he hears it: a quick, panicked-sounding knock-knock-knock on the TARDIS’ doors. Which should not be happening, the TARDIS is literally another dimension stuck inside a box, it’s soundproof! What the fuck!

Hesitantly, Roier goes to the door. His hand hovers over the handle until he hears another round of knocking. Then, he swings the door open to see… a guy.

A very surprised-looking guy. Human, probably, though you can never be too sure these days. Green shirt, messy hair, slight beard, chain necklace leading under his shirt. Nice-looking, if not kinda super visibly terrified out of his mind.

Roier’s son has been dead for an hour and a half. He still hasn’t gotten a chance to see what he looks like now- for all he knows, he could be, like, ugly, ew. His best friend has left him to grieve all by himself because she needed to grieve by herself, and he is starting to get just a little bit annoyed by, like. Everything.

Still, he tries to smile when he asks, “Hello? Can I help you?”

“Um,” says the guy, “hi. Sorry to bother you. But… help?”

Giving Roier absolutely no time to think about it, the man ducks under Roier’s arm and runs into the TARDIS, and he only halfway gasps when he sees the whole pocket dimension inside.

Roier briefly wonders, ‘what the fuck?’

And then he sees what this guy was clearly running from: a bipedal robotic polar bear thing easily the size of a horse running towards Roier and the TARDIS with a gun pulled.

Ah.

Roier closes the door and listens as the bear shoots his beloved spaceship. (Piece of shit…!)

That’ll do it.

[tvseries-writings]

Road Trip VIII

Road trip masterlist

Wandanat x Bioquake x reader (Bobbi x reader platonic!)

TW: blood

Summary of previous chapters: When Nat, Wanda, Daisy, Jemma and reader have an accident, reader is injured so badly that Jemma and Wanda must combine science and magic to save her with only one side effect...special healing powers that allow to project the injuries onto someone else but at a high price. What happens when the girls find out what this “high price” consist in?

Silence invades the room since you told them the truth about the tests. You had hoped that lie would last at least a couple of weeks, but instead it hadn't even lasted a day. Jemma looks at the papers in her hands, barely holding back tears and quickly shaking her head.

They say there are five stages of grief. And even if that is not their mourning, not yet at least, each of them, knowing the truth, is going through at least one of those stages.

Jemma is facing denial, rereading again and again those words that are incomprehensible to you but which Fitz has diligently summarized for you, as if by doing so he can find a permanent solution to your situation that you can accept.


"No, no, there must be something we can do...if you don't use your powers then, maybe-"

Daisy paces back and forth across the room, making her shake just barely, almost imperceptibly to anyone who doesn't know her. Daisy is incredulous, bewildered by a revelation of such magnitude.

"This is not your choice, all right? I wanted to tell you because I was forced to," you cast a glare at Daisy before continuing to speak, "and you have no say in the matter, get over it."

You know you've been hard on them, you know it and you see it in their looks but it's for their own good and for your own sanity. No one banned them from using their powers, even when they were hurting them so they have no right to ban you...not if you can save lives. You could even heal cancer with your powers, how can they not understand that.


"You may be right, sometimes our powers hurt us but we don't sign a death warrant every time we use them detka." Wanda takes a few steps toward you but you back away, shaking your head.
"I could save who knows how many lives, I...you are special, you always have been, by your powers or your qualities and now I too will finally feel useful in something" "Even if it means your death y/n? Because that's what we're talking about, you can't deny it and each of us is all too aware of it; do you realize that if you keep using these strange and dangerous new powers, you'll only destroy yourself until there's nothing left of you?"

Natasha struggles to keep the fear from seeping into her voice but you know her, you know she is only scared and afraid of how far your recklessness may take you this time.

You look away, unable to sustain the former widow's sharp but concerned gaze.


"I'm aware of that Nat, I know I'm signing my own death warrant but if it will help even one person then I'll be more than happy to take the risk."

"This is bullshit! Are we really going to allow her to do something like this? This is stupid and dangerous. You're committing suicide y/n and I can't stand by and watch you do it, at the cost of stopping you by force."

Daisy raises her arm toward you, she doesn't know why either but hopes to stop this madness even though both you and she know she would never hurt you. In fact, after a few seconds in which you all remain silent, the inhuman lowers her arm with a defeated air.


"Please love, please...we would not survive without you."

Daisy lets tears line her cheeks as she collapses to her knees, repeatedly shaking her head, "you can't choose to leave us if you have the option to not to, please..."

Your heart breaks and your body moves before you can stop it. You kneel next to her and hug her, kissing her cheek and whispering that it will be okay even though you know it is a promise you cannot keep. Wanda approaches you and joins the embrace, Jemma follows her while Nat remains motionless, just a few steps away from you. She would like to join but the pain she is feeling right now prevents her from doing so.


"Nat" Wanda whispers, turning toward her lifelong companion, inciting the redhead to join but the latter shakes her head.
"Please" you look up, mimicking the word with your lips, and she resists for a few seconds before complying with your request. This warm squeeze is supposed to be for Daisy but actually, if you have to be honest, you think it serves all of you.

You don't know how long you stay like this but when you speak again, your mouth is dry and your voice trembles.
"I'll...I'll be careful, I'll only use them when I think it's necessary okay?"

The girls nod, not what they wanted to hear but they know they won't get anything else from you.
"All right but first I want to do some tests and many, many blood tests so I suggest you prepare yourself psychologically."

You huff dramatically and hide in Wanda's arms.

"Wands save me" you whimper and Nat pats you on the butt shaking his head.
"I don't think you're going to get off that easy" "No no, Jemma is right and in fact, we'll help her hold you down for as long as detka" Wanda leaves a kiss on your temple and smiles when you let out another whimper.
"If you're going to have your way at least you have to suffer a little" Daisy sticks her tongue out at you and you kick her on the shin which makes her pout and massage the injured area.

"I hate you" "No you don't" "No you don't...I hate you very much."

"Y/N!"

.................................................................................

During the next three weeks Jemma doesn't give you a break and Bobbi certainly doesn't help. You have pitted arms and think you're missing a lot of blood after all the blood draws the biochemist forced on you. Just like she's doing today.


"Stop it Bobbi, that's the third one today..please."

You sigh, shaking your head and withdrawing your arm from the blonde's hands and almost injuring yourself with the needle.
"Y/n! Be careful or you'll hurt yourself."

Bobbi removes her gloves and places them, along with the syringe, on the small table to your right.

"I know you hate all these rockstar withdrawals and I know how terrible you are as a patient but-"

Your phone rings and as soon as it does, you immediately recognize the ringtone.
"Director Fury, tell me."

Bobbi watches you throughout the entire call, trying to figure out what your boss is telling you but can't. She has never been good at reading other people's emotions, let alone their looks.

"All right director, no problem. We'll leave right away."

You end the call, putting the phone back in your pocket and getting up from the infirmary bed. A dizziness forces you to sit back down and Bobbi snaps toward you, grabbing your arm to keep you from falling to the floor.

"Hey hey, easy. I just took a liter of blood from you, I don't think it's a great idea to get up so fast without even drinking your juice."

Bobbi hands you the juice and watches you carefully as you drink it all so as not to infuriate her.

"Can I get up now boss?"

A smile of defiance paints your face and the spy rolls his eyes, nodding his head to give you permission.


"What did Fury tell you?"

Bobbi tosses the used syringe and gloves into the trash can, but continues to watch you out of the corner of her eye to make sure that once you're on your feet you don't get hit with dizziness again. 
"We have a mission and we need to leave right away, it's a 084."

"Origin unknown..." Bobbi whispers and you nod. You both know that code all too well, as does Daisy.
"We need to warn the others and move now."

You head for the infirmary exit but Bobbi blocks you.
"You can't go on the mission, Fitz hasn't finished designing the electricity absorber for your neural connections yet and if anything goes wrong Jemma would kill me, non-" "Bobs, I know. It's going to be okay okay? I promise. Now get ready, I'm going to call the others."

When you finally find them, they are all four ( or almost) engaged in a violent, but also deeply exciting, sparring session.

Natasha is on top of Daisy, pushing her against the mat beneath them while Wanda and Jemma watch them on the sidelines with mischievous smiles on their faces.
"Do you give up Agent Johnson?" "Forget it Romanoff."

It takes Daisy a couple of tries before she gets the better of Nat and knocks the redhead to the ground, holding her hands above her head and legs apart.

That sight makes you hot, but as soon as you remember the real reason you came after them, to your regret, you interrupt the little scene before you.

"As much as I hate to interrupt you...Fury called me, we need to leave immediately for a mission. It's about an 084."

Daisy untangles herself from Nat's grip and looks at you with a look you've never seen on her before.
"When do we leave?"

………………..………………………..…………………………….

In less than four hours, 084 turns out to be much more "known" than expected, and you, Daisy, Bobbi find yourselves tied, in a cold, dreary gray cell, to each other, because of a white, misogynistic, and, above all, psychopathic Nazi asshole.


"I remembered you dead."

You spit on the floor; the mix of saliva and blood settles inches from his designer leather shoes.

You cast a glance at Daisy and Bobbi. The former is still unconscious but the rise and fall of her chest indicate that she is still alive while the blonde is awake and struggling against the handcuffs as she watches that being torture you helplessly.


"Oh my dear, you know how we Hydra people are...when you cut off one head two more pop up."

Whitehall smiles; a crooked, sick smile so sadistic it makes you cringe, even if you don't show it.
"Although it's been years, I see you still use the same jokes. Old age is looming eh? Indeed, since you ran out of your beauty serum, quite a few wrinkles have appeared."

Another fist crashes against your jaw and is so hard that your head snaps to the side and more blood joins the blood from before on the floor. Whitehall wipes his hand on a handkerchief taken from the pocket of the ivory jacket he is wearing.

He shakes his head, smiles at you and grabs your face with his right hand, cupping your chin between his index finger and thumb so hard you think he might shatter it. Despite his age, the asshole still has a lot of strength.

As long as he takes it out on you and leaves Daisy and Bobbi alone, though, he's more than okay. At least until Nat, Wanda and Jemma come to your rescue. Knowing them, they will already be hot on your trail.


"Now tell me agent y/n, where is the journal that S.H.I.E.L.D. seized from me?"

Whitehall grazes your cheek with the scalpel, causing a small cut that makes Bobbi wiggle even more from her restraints; you know that look, she's telling you not to pull too hard.

"For the umpteenth time, you Nazi prick, I don't even know what you're talking about!"

Blood drips from your nose, probably broken considering the throbbing pain. Obviously you know what he's talking about, it's no secret that S.H.I.E.L.D. came into possession of the red journal inside of which were engraved the super-soldier activation words but I doubt that a Hydra bigwig would need it so badly that he would kidnap three S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

Daisy lets out a groan as she slowly opens her eyes and you freeze, aware that Whitehall will now focus all energy on her.

And to think he only managed to capture you with a sedative in the form of gas...uh, Nazis, those assholes never change.

"You Americans are so stupid...the red diary, from Hydra. Seems obvious to me."

Whitehall cracks a smile before carving you one more time with the scalpel only this time, the cut is deeper and all too close to your carotid vein and Daisy, who has just woken up and recovered from the sedative, as soon as she sees how you are reduced struggles against the handcuffs and yells at Whitehall to stop.

"The destroyer of worlds...glad you could join us in this pleasant reunion."

He turns away from you, focusing on Daisy. The Inhuman tries to activate her powers but can't, the collar on her neck prevents her from doing so, and the Hydra scientist smiles as he sees her tenacity.


"Daisy Johnson, Quake, the Destroyer of Worlds, many names but without powers you are nothing."

Whitehall approaches one of your soulmates, and when he injects something into her neck, you can't see anymore and the handcuffs become completely useless against the rage you're feeling and the fear that whatever that was inside that damn syringe might cause Daisy harm.

It all happens quickly; Whitehall reaches down and grabs you by the chin again and then uses that same hand to dab the blood that suddenly comes out of the wound in his neck-the exact same wound he gave you that is now gone from your skin and transferred to his. The blood from your nose comes out even faster and more copiously so that your head starts to spin but you can still make out a smile on that psychopath's face.

"Ha Ha, I knew the rumors were true, and a little water injected into one of your lovers gave me the confirmation I was looking for. What amazing powers, the gift of healing and destruction as sides of the same coin."

Whitehall shakes his head while continuing to smile as he takes his handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabs the blood coming from your nose; not that it has much effect since the bleeding is due to your powers.
"I look forward to experimenting on you, my dear. It will be painful but you know, breakthroughs require experimentation."

He turns to the two energetic men on either side of the door, the only way out of that room, and motions for them to take you away.


"Pick her up and take her to the room. I'll prepare for operations; we must start now. Science does not wait!"

Bobbi watches intently, and as soon as Whitehall and one of his two henchmen emerge from the gray and far too brightly lit cell in which they are keeping you locked up, the handcuffs that held her bound fall to the floor. The sound the handcuffs make as they hit the floor makes Igor the enforcer turn toward the blond spy. Bobbi picks up the chair to which she was tied and smashes it over the giant's head, and within seconds the latter falls unconscious to the floor before he even realizes what is happening.

You observe your surroundings without really doing so. Your head is spinning and the nosebleed still doesn't seem to have stopped; in fact, you don't know if it has; you are so dazed that you don't realize it. Passively, you watch Bobbi untie Daisy and then pick up the gun that the giant idiot dropped after being stunned. And then, as Daisy approaches you and Bobbi unties you, you feel yourself return to the reality around you. At least in part.

"Hey, look at me, are you okay?"

Daisy takes your face in her hands, tearing off a piece of her shirt and dabbing at your nose to the best of her ability.

Bobbi keeps her gun pointed at the door as her spy skills take over, though that doesn't keep her from checking you out with her eyes every few seconds. After all, she is one of your closest friends and she cares a lot about you.
"You're an idiot, you shouldn't have used your powers for me."
"You would have done the same for me Dee," you whisper, concentrating on focusing on her face and straining to pronounce the words correctly. Daisy does not respond and merely looks at you, continuing to hold the now blood-soaked piece of her T-shirt under your nose.

"Shit Bobbi, it won't stop bleeding. What should I do?"

Bobbi continues to watch the door as she kneels down to slip something metallic from her right boot before tossing it to Daisy.
"This is the neural connection stabilizer that Fitz designed, it's only a prototype but it should help. Besides, it's not like we have much choice right now sestra."

Bobbi shoots you a look, startled by how out of it you seem and lacking connection to reality. Daisy applies two electrodes to the sides of your temples, attaching them to the thick and particularly heavy iron headband at the back of your neck, and then, as soon as she presses the power button Bobbi points to her, the pain suddenly fades and your head stops spinning considerably, the same way the blood stops going down.


"How I love Fitz," you smile, shaking your head just barely to try to ward off even the dazzling nausea that unfortunately has not yet gone away.
"Yeah well, don't push it, we don't know how much it holds and I'm not about to find out y/n" Daisy gives you a warning look before helping you to your feet. You sway dangerously to the side as the world tilts but Daisy keeps you firmly anchored to herself, giving you a concerned look. It takes a few seconds before you stabilize.


"I just feel a little dizzy, that's all. I'm okay Dee."
"Yeah, sure, you're okay...if you're okay, I'm the director of S.H.I.E.L.D."

You roll your eyes and snort, giving Daisy a gentle nudge and realizing only then that the Inhuman is still wearing the collar that blocks her powers.

"Bobbi, can we get it off without hurting her?"

You turn to the blonde, and when the latter shakes her head, you tighten your lips, thinking how much you'd like to put a good bullet through Whitehall's skull.

Noises outside the door alarm you and you waste no time in grabbing a broken chair leg to use as a weapon.
"Oh, that's scary."
"Better this than air."

You stick your tongue out at Daisy, and for a few seconds you think you are safe, perhaps on the couch, sitting between the women you love most in the world as you watch a few movies on one of your movie nights.

Then, three gunshots cause you to take a defensive stance, putting yourself in front of Daisy to protect her just as the door to the closed cell you are in is smashed open and falls to the floor with a thud.

Bobbi doesn't lose sight of the entrance, but when she recognizes the silhouette of the person standing in the knocked-down doorway, a smile breaks out on her face and her shoulders relax as she lowers her gun.
"Did I step on your moment?"

Natasha smiles and runs toward you and Daisy, squeezing you in a hug before exchanging a pat on the back with Bobbi.

"Good entrance Romanoff, I see you still like to show off."
"Oh Morse, you know me well. My ego comes first."

Natasha presses the earpiece she has in your ear, looking at both you and Daisy relieved to see that you are both okay albeit with a few bruises and some blood.
"Jem, Wands...yes, I found them, they are fine. Whitehall escaped but we will find him."

...............................................................…………..

The journey to the Zephyr is silent, methodical and full of bullets lodged in the heads of Hydra soldiers. When you arrive on board, you are greeted by a warm, smothering embrace from Jemma and Wanda, and even Bobbi cannot escape it. And then, as was bound to happen, Jemma drags all three of you to the infirmary.

"Come on Jem, I'm fine. Really." you grumble as the biochemist wipes the crusted blood off your face, ignoring your protests.
"You're not fine, you used your powers and you shouldn't have. It was stupid and reckless, so let me do my job."
"That lunatic injected who knows what into Daisy, I couldn't stand by and do nothing Jemma! You would have done the same. All of you would have, don't lie."

Jemma shakes her head, casting a glance at Daisy before moving to the front of her crib.

"Oh, don't start with me. Think y/n."

Daisy gives you a dirty look, one of those that a brother gives his sister after the latter has ratted you out, and you amiably show her your middle finger. You two really love each other only you have a strange way of showing it, that's all.

The biochemist tilts the Inhuman's head, looking closely at the tiny little hole the syringe has left in Daisy's skin.

As Jemma drains Daisy with at least two vials of blood, you approach Bobbi and brush her arm with your hand.

"Hey, are you okay?"

You whisper and Bobbi nods, sighing so softly you almost heard it.

"You went too far, it could have been bad," the blonde whispers and clenches her jaw. You look away, doing anything to avoid meeting her eyes," she could have killed you and I couldn't have done anything about it. Do you understand that y/n? You cannot jeopardize your life like this...your life is not worth less than my life or Diaisy's life."

You shake your head and flinch away from Bobbi, drawing the attention of the other two girls in the room.
"I had no choice, you know how fixated Whitehall is on Daisy and her mother!"

Bobbi remains silent, she probably would have done the same thing in your place but the fear she felt at almost losing her best friend a few hours earlier still grips her stomach.

"Y/n, Bobbi is right. My life isn't worth more than yours and I don't want you to do shit like that ever again."

Daisy gets off the crib and walks over to you, taking your hands between her own and drawing circles on your skin.


"Yeah, I'd say we have enough stubborn, reckless people in this relationship already."

Natasha says, entering the infirmary at that moment. Behind her, Wanda crosses your gaze, turning a small smile.
"Honestly-and happily-I still don't know how you are all unharmed considering you never think before you do anything."

Jemma shakes her head and emphasizes a sigh of exasperation to let you know how much you stress her out.

You smile and the tension that seemed to hover in the room before quickly dissipates. Jemma picks up the tablet next to the crib Daisy was on, looking at the results that the fast S.H.I.E.L.D. machines have sent her.

"Well, then Dee looks like Whitehall was telling the truth. I don't know if it was water but it didn't alter any of your values so at the moment I'm satisfied...Not that you're safe from any future tests in the days to come, let's be clear."

Daisy snorts and Wanda hugs her to comfort her, unsuccessfully holding back a smile. After Jemma finishes observing your test results, the biochemist clears Bobbi for any substantial damage, simply giving her a palliative for a nasty bruise on her shoulder, and then, after long and careful consideration, decides it is time to remove Fitz's device.

She has you lie on the crib, though your protests are anything but feeble, and then hooks you up to a million machines. Heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, CO2--everything.
"Bobbi come here, Wanda stand by in case your intervention is needed."

You feel like that crib is your bedside, with all the people you love around you and wires poking out of your body everywhere. Jemma lifts up your shirt, gluing the two electrodes one above your left breast and the other under your right armpit.
"Oh Jem, I don't think we should do this right now," you whisper, pretending to be scandalized as Jemma pats you on the shoulder. The whispered word "idiot" and the laughter that follows make your heart warm.

Daisy, Wanda, and Natasha remain silent as they watch Jemma slowly and carefully detach the electrodes on your temples, also slipping off the iron tube behind your neck.


"How do you feel?" Bobbi says, watching the monitors and checking your vitals, noting a gradual increase in your heart rate.
"Simmons, heart rate 95 and BP 130/85 and rising."

Jemma runs to one of the drawers; you can't quite make out her movements or the faces of your girls despite the fact that they are inches away from you. Your vision is blurry and you're pretty sure your nose has started bleeding again and profusely too, considering the concern-laden tones of voice of the girls around you.
"Shit y/n, stay awake," Bobbi says to you, slapping your face a couple of times when she sees you squint.

Natasha is dabbing your nose with all the paper she can find, and her face contorts more and more from worry with each blood-soaked handkerchief she throws on the floor. And then, in the general chaos, while Jemma is injecting you with drugs for hypertension and to try to lower your heart rate, Daisy does the only thing that makes sense to her: she takes the electricity absorber and puts it on you in the exact same way it was just moments before. And everything disappears, your vitals return to normal and stable, and the nosebleed stops.

In your regained lucidity, you rub your suit sleeve under your nose, trying to get the crusted blood away.

"Well, Fitz really did a good job."

A small smile curls your lips as Jemma leaves a kiss on your cheek, breathing a sigh of relief.
"You're going to kill me one of these days, really. And anyway, you're going to stay on this crib until I'm sure you're okay, and we've got to find a solution to this," the biochemist taps you a couple of times against Fitz's jaw-dropping invention.
"We'll probably force you to stay there for life, considering the heart attacks you're giving us" Wanda giggles, wiping away tears she hadn't been able to hold back.

"I agree" Natasha leans over, leaving a kiss on your lips and being immediately followed by Daisy.
"Not bad for an agent without a degree, is it?"
"You're an idiot."

"Daisy Johnson, you know you're not just a stupid piece of paper to us. You don't-" "Jeem, I was joking. Chill."

You shake your head as Jemma continues to rail at a poor, helpless inhuman who nevertheless deserves every single word the biochemist is saying. Ah, they are so cute when they bicker. You love them.

Thanks for reading! I know it's been a long time but hey, at least it's a very long chapter come on. Comment, share and tell me what you think. If you want to support me, this is my ko-fi link☕️ and as always: have a great day!

Taglist: @wandanatsbaby @bioquaked @bioquakeweek @daisyjohnsonx @wandanatsgirl @chaekhan @station19 @resilientpendragon @so-no-kissing-then @thearchpitbullmx @ashadash0904 @kingshitonly @alwaysgoodnight @callistic @xjule @yuleni18 @simpforwandanat @alexxislexi @mrsdanversromanoff @coollemonsaresour @hushed-woodsman @razorscooteer @eponine-xx @maniacallinc @michelle170 @classyig @elenaguarnieri @scarletwidow @tati3001 @cristin-rjd @your-my-mission @mr-nicely @hi-i-1 @anniethurs @ktstwice @scarlet-raccoon @maria-403 @goldfishthegr8 @wandanatfan @looiegirl-blog

[killersfool]

I Want You | ELIJAH HEWSON

PAIRING : elijah hewson x original f!character

GENRE: fluff, friends to lovers

SUMMARY: dahlia jenkinson, josh’s sister is asked to fill in as photographer at his bad’s concert. her plan is to ask him out by the end of the show as she’s been crushing on him for ever. what she doesn’t expect is that one of their songs was written about her—and she’s right there when he confesses it.

WORDS: 5.6k

WARNINGS: smoking, drinking, kissing

Friday. Underground. London.

I run through the station passing the endless people, posters and children's screams. My brother, Josh, had asked me yesterday to help out at his band's concert. He'd told me that their photographer had gotten COVID so he needed someone to fill in.

I dragged my roommate along with me as my moral support, seeing as she's heard me spill every secret in my mind about the band's lead singer, Elijah.  I've been helping Josh with his band's endeavours for years and have also had to condone countless sleepovers. I've had the sound of drumsticks crashing together engrained in my head by this point. Robyn has always told me to 'stop being a pussy and ask Eli out on a date' but honestly, I'm terrified I'll ruin everything. This photography thing has really helped to get me new jobs and more exposure.

"So, you still crushing on Eli?" Robyn asks. She's been glancing over at my phone for the past few minutes. I've been texting the band group chat that I've been added to. They usually kick me out randomly. This is the longest period of time I've been in it without having an argument. I'm pretty proud.

"Shut up." I scoff. "If you dare say anything to any of of them, I will kill you."

"I wouldn't," she laughs. I give her a look. "I'll try not to..."

"You and your big mouth."

"I can't help it."

"I shouldn't tell you things."

"Who else would you tell?" She grabs at my phone, noticing a message from Elijah pop up.

It reads: "Missed you. You've always been the better Jenkinson." I try to contain my smile at the stupid message. It's just a couple words beneath a name on a screen and I'm getting all nervous. It's pathetic. God, this is getting bad.

"That's cute," Robyn says and is about to start writing a message back until I snatch my phone back. Who knows what kind of bullshit she'd start sending. She'd surely send some terrible pictures of me. That's happened on many ocassions. I've learnt my lesson to never trust her with my phone.

"Cringe." I type back, although the smile on my face is betraying the words on the screen. I stare at his profile picture for a few seconds. It's a selfie of me and the band. I look half asleep, probably drunk. Eli's hair is all over his face and Josh is squeezing Ryan's cheeks. Bobby is just angrily staring at the camera. He definitely didn't want to be in that photo. It's sweet that Eli has kept his profile picture that way for so long. We haven't seen each other in months. I send another message, "Well you're not my favourite Hewson."

He sends an angry emoji. "Who is then?"

"Bono, course."

He sends a few more angry emojis before spamming the group chat. There is already some kind of argument happening. Robert seems to be late and they're all asking where he is. I switch my phone off, sliding it into my pocket. Robyn's been unusually quiet.

"What have you done this time?" I ask with a subtle tilt of my head. She's chewing on some haribos she'd bought moments ago. She then smirks to herself, "Nothing."

I'm a little worried but decide to brush it off. We leave the train station and I'm struck by the freezing air. I sometimes forget how cold England is. Having moved from Ireland over a year ago, I feel like I should've acclimatised. But, why is it always so cold? I hold my jacket closer to myself to try to warm up.

We pass at least ten people with 'I love London' shirts. Sounds of street sellers are familiar along with the hustle and bustle of late London nights. I see the London Eye twisting in the distance. Big ben is tolling. The venue comes into view a few streets away. I'm dreading it slightly. I feel as if I'm not going to cope this time seeing that ever-so-familiar face. It's as if with each passing month, he gets better looking. It should be crime. I'll probably melt when I see him.

I instead focus on seeing Josh and my excitement for seeing the gig. They've all really improved over the years. They really know how to put on a good show. Adrenaline rushes through my veins. It'll be fine. Surely.

"You're nervous, aren't you?" Robyn takes notice of me fiddling with my earrings. It's become some nervous habit. I find a comfort in twiddling the crystals between my fingers.

"A bit," I say. Honest. "What if he finds out? We'll surely get piss-drunk. What if he only wants to be mates?"

"Lia, darling, you've got to stop overthinking it. After hearing all these stories you've told me, it sounds like he likes you a lot," she says, grinning. "I'll tell you if I see any looks passed or anything suspicious, okay?"

"You're the best." I give her a hug, forgetting for a moment about the crowded streets around us. Robyn hugs are always too good to be true. I sometimes forget how unbelievably short she is and how she tries to suffocate me with her arms.

Just as we're about to continue down the endless streets, I see someone running past us. I barely even realise he's passed me until Robyn points him out. I see long, curly hair and a massive case swung over his shoulder. Bobby. Then, he turns to face us. Blue eyes catch me off guard then a massive grin. He seems to question whether he should stop or get to the venue. He's very late.

"Is that the bassist?" Robyn wonders. "Robert?"

"That's me," he says, retracing his steps. His mullet has gone all messy in the autumn wind. He's trying to swipe away a few stray hairs from out of his face. "Hey Dally. Who's this?" He points towards my friend with a lazy smile.

"This is Robyn. My roommate. She's the one who accidentally stepped on a pigeon."

"Ah." He then turns into his bird lover mode. "How could you do that to a poor, helpless bird? How could you? Can't believe you're called Robyn. That's a disgrace. Wish I was called Robyn. Or sparrow. Or some kind of bird. God, do I love birds—"

"Okay, Robert. We get it," I interrupt with a finger in the air. He crosses his arms over his chest, pouting. Robyn is laughing at his angered demeanour. He always puts on this irritated-sarcastic face in moments like this. He looks like a child after stepping on lego.

"Aren't you late?" Robyn asks the blue-eyed boy. His phone has been pinging with notification throughout the few minutes they have been walking together. He seems to be a little stressed. I have to almost run to keep up with this speed of impossibly long legs.

We approach the venue. It's a huge, pretty rundown building which strikes out in stark contrast to the fancy buildings around it. The words 'Inhaler:tonight' are written on a chalkboard beside the entrance. The place really matches the band for some reason. There's a queue of fans outside. A lot of them are sat down on the pavement. They scream at the sight of the bassist, piling around him. Phones are being held up to take pictures of him.

"Sorry guys, I've got to get inside. Thank you for coming," Robert mumbles.

Robyn and I act as body guards, preventing anyone from getting too close. Banners have been dropped onto the ground, passersby glance over in confusion. There's colourful cowboy hats covered with jewels everywhere. That music video really drove the world crazy. It definitely drove me crazy. I probably make up at least half of the views.

The majority of the crowd continue to take photos. Some say 'Oh my God, that's Josh's sister!' I give them a smile whilst simultaneously pushing Robert forwards.

We finally get to the back door. The gathering give up after a while. They go back to the queue, attempting to slot in to their previous place.

"Well, doors haven't opened yet so you can't be that late," I remark. The front doors are still locked.

"I'm missing sound check though."

I hear music booming quietly through the walls. I open the door, pressing down on it with fingertips. It creaks open to a long corridor with white plastered walls. It smells of fresh paint. The light is barely even attached to the ceiling. It looks like some horror film scene. Creepy.

But then Josh comes around the corner. His guitar is slung over his chest and his face lights up to reveal a huge smile that I've always adored. He's taller than the last time I've seen him. He runs straight towards me, engulfing me with his arms. I'm uncomfortably pressed against his guitar but I couldn't care less. I'm so glad I came. I missed him so much.

Robert slides past us and Robyn awkwardly stands in the doorway. I introduce her to my brother. He gives her a hug as well. She seems to enjoy this whole situation a lot. She's getting all loud and giddy.

The rest of the band are still playing through songs. They're running through 'Dublin In Ecstasy'. Elijah's voice is echoing through the entire building, sliding it's way through my skull. There's a part of me that wants to turn back. I could just make my way back to my apartment, have a cup of coffee and stalk Twitter accounts of people who went to the show. I definitely haven't been doing that for the past few months. I'm not that insane. Or obsessed.

"Do you want to listen to sound check or hang out back stage?" Josh asks us. He's been talking to Robyn, getting to know her and she seems to like him, thankfully. It'd be downright awkward if she hated his guts.

"I'll follow you," Robyn says to Josh. She starts to traipse down the corridor. I watch her curls bounce from side to side as she jumps with every step. She suddenly realises that she's left me behind. "You coming?"

I groan, staring at the door. "Yeah. Fuck it."

I pick up my camera in preparation. I've been using the same one for years. It's got stickers all over it. Some of random bands, some from different countries and little letters spelling out my name. Elijah had bought me a few pages of letters of the alphabet as a birthday present when I turned 15. I still remember that day. We were all huddled inside my living room after being drenched by a sudden storm. There were about fifteen of us, including the band. The fireplace before us was the only source of light in the darkened room. I think I was dating Ryan at that point. That was a strange time. He was sweet. It only lasted a couple of weeks. Elijah had a girlfriend too. Younger me was very jealous. I think that's what made me realise I liked him.

Now, fast forward eight years and my heart is beating in my ears like I'm a teenager all over again.

I allow Robyn to go first. I trail behind. Josh has left us to our own devices and we try to figure out where exactly we're supposed to go. We decide to follow the sounds of music booming. Closer and closer. We go down a staircase, open a door then we're right at the stalls, just beneath the stage. The door crashes so loudly that all of the band stop playing. They all peer down at us.

The band name 'Inhaler' is upon the wall and coloured lights paint the stage. This room is a lot nicer than the exterior. There's a standing area then seats up along the top. The walls are painted a deep shade of crimson with gold lines intricately painted everywhere. It's too good to be true. It feels so weird being at one of their gigs again. It feels even weirder to see all of them in the same place at the same time.

I trace my gaze along the stage. I take a quick glance at Josh who is tuning his guitar, then Ryan who's staring at us with wide eyes. I shift my eyes a little further to see Elijah. He's dropped his mic at the sight of us. I take notice of the length of his hair. It's falling over his eyes, a mess of curls shrouding his face. He's wearing a white vest top and a bulky blazer which is holding onto his shoulders for dear life. I can't see him very well from here. What I can see is the complexity of his gaze. The way he's looking at me is making me nervous. I take a deep breath.

"Dahlia?!" Ryan calls out. He drops his drumsticks similarly to Elijah.

"Surprise?" I say. I thought Josh had told them I was coming. "Wait, did Josh not tell you?"

Elijah picks up the microphone from the ground, not taking his eyes away from mine. "Josh, you gobshite. I thought she was coming next week," he says into the mic, words jumping through my ears. I hate how warm his voice is through those speakers. It's sickening.

"Well, I'm not complaining." Ryan jumps down from the stage, giving me and Robyn a hug. It's a group hug where we're all squashed together. He's grinning from ear to ear.

"You're still short," I say. I can still look down on him, especially with my chunky boots. He rolls his eyes.  "This is Robyn." I introduce my roommate to both Ryan and Elijah.

"Nice to meet you," Elijah murmurs as he jumps off the stage. He's left the mic on the stand. He's pushing his hair from his face.

Robyn gives me a look, raising an eyebrow in the direction of Elijah. She's got a malevolent smile. What's she going to do? Maybe I shouldn't have brought her.

"I've heard all about you." Robyn gives Elijah a little wink. I kick the back of her leg .

His lip raises the slightest bit. I find myself staring at his mouth for far too long. There's stubble lining his chin and a splatter of freckles on his cheeks. "Have you, now?" His low voice drifts through the air. He's maintaining eye contact with me. I'm trying to evade his gaze.

"She's exaggerating." I assure him, trying to stop myself from giving Robyn another thwack.

"Eli! We have like 5 minutes until door opens and Dublin In Ecstasy is a mess. Get up here. You can swoon later." Robert is already playing the introduction to the song. Ryan and Josh join in.

"Swoon?" Eli shakes his head with a grin.

"We're just that amazing," Robyn whispers to me.

I hold up my camera, taking a picture of the three lads on stage. Then I point it at Elijah. I take a few of his confused face before he leaves us to sing along to the music.

"He's whipped." Robyn watches as he climbs back onto the stage. "Likes you so much he can barely even function-" She points out how he can't even plug his guitar in. He's been trying to shove the lead in for a while but his eyes are wandering elsewhere. "You've got to say something to him. He's leaving tomorrow, isn't he? Maybe tonight.."

I breathe in. "Alright. I'll try."

Robyn and I hum along to the tune. Elijah's rough vocals make my mind go cloudy. He sounds so much crisper in person. I think back to the cuts and bruises vinyl on my shelf. Robyn had bought it the day it came out. Josh sent me every version possible. Robyn went on about supposedly being 'the first person in the world who bought it'. She said she saw the record in HMV and instantly thought of me. We had stayed up late that night to listen through each track. Eating popcorn, drinking alcohol, talking about random shit. That was when I told her everything about Elijah. From the schoolgirl crush, to the trying to forget him then to the full-blown infatuation. She enjoyed listening to every detail I had to offer.

Elijah continues singing. I'm holding my breath, my palms are sweaty, I feel my heart pulsing at my throat. Robyn is swaying to each beat of the drums. Elijah won't stop looking at me.

Then the song ends and we all tun backstage, in an attempt to evade the incoming fans. I hear shouts echoing in the distance. We've gathered in a little room backstage. Josh is showing me some fancy chocolates he bought in Rome. I'm taking pictures of the band members. Robyn keeps photobombing. I rest my head upon the armrest of the sofa, closing my eyes. It feels nice. Calm. Until, someone settles beside me. They grab my legs so that they can properly sit down. The hands are cold and fingertips are calloused. That someone is Elijah. "Excited for the show?"

He's got his pre-show drink in one hand and his phone in the other. I close my eyes once again.

I shift around in the soft cushion attempting to get into a more comfortable position. He scoffs and pulls my legs up by the ankles to rest them over his thighs. "I know you're tired," he says. He takes a sip of his drink. "But if you dare fall asleep during the show, I will throw my guitar at you." I move my legs around his thighs then actually raise my head to look at him. I take a picture as he makes a stupid face. I don't know how he can do that whilst still looking pretty.

"Is this comfortable?" I ask. He's been very still. "I can move if you want."

"It's nice... fine," he mumbles as he scrolls through messages on his phone. "Reminds of that music lesson. Must've been our first year of secondary school. You fainted after some practice test we did. We were sat in this exact position for at least an hour. I think my legs stopped working."

I try to bring my head back to the memory. He was so different back then. Shorter hair, insanely asthmatic. He only knew me as Josh's twin sister. Somehow that was enough for him to stay there with me and keep me safe. After that, he had some complex where had to look after me with his life. It was charming.

"I had to kick you about nine time because you feel asleep, " I recall. My mind is wandering through moments I can barely even remember. "You were so strange."

"I could've left you there in the practice asleep. You should be thanking me for saving you from embarassment-"

"Why, thank you. Oh how you've changed my entire life. I owe you all that I have."

He shakes his head, squeezing the skin at the bottom of my ankle. He then rests his hand there. As if it's normal. He's still reading through messages, biting the top of the plastic cup.

"When do you lot go on then?" I ask everyone.

Robyn has started drawing eyeliner onto the other boys. She just pulled it out of her pocket randomly and asked if they wanted her to do it. They've filed into a queue. She's done some graphic liner on Bobby with little stars that makes his bright eyes pop out all the more.

"Ten minutes." Ryan is putting some hair gel through his hair. He puts some music on using a bluetooth speaker they placed in the corner. Lover, You Should've Come Over by Jeff Buckley comes on. I'm trying to stop myself from falling asleep but it's getting harder with each passing second.

"I'm so excited," Robyn says as she does Josh's eyeliner. She's made his more smudgy and messy. It suits him a lot.  "Elijah, should I do yours? Or Dahlia can do it?" She passes the tube towards me. There's some malicious intent behind her eyes. I narrow my eyes down to the black contraption, taking it uneasily between my fingers.

He lays down his phone and drink. He's trying to push all the hair out of his face to give me some access to his eyes. I kneel down on the sofa beside him. I grab a hair bobble from my wrist then tie the top half of his hair up. He groans as I pull some strands way too hard then relaxes into my touch. He smells like cigarette smoke and cologne.

"How should I do it?" I wonder out loud. I've opened the tube and I'm trying to figure out the best way to go about this. He looks like his teenage self with his hair like this. His eyes are maintaining a hard eye contact as I near him. There's a warmth rising to my face.

Robyn pulls out her phone and shows me a picture of Rodrick Hefley. I snort. "Try it like that," she says.

Elijah closes his eyes as I begin to draw little lines then smudge. I've grabbed his chin to keep him in place. I can feel the sharp stubble poking at my fingers. He opens his eyes every now and then. They're half-lidded, watching. I poke his eye by accident. I scold him for opening his eyes. He decided to instead keep them closed.

I admire my work once I've done. It's not my best liner but it's alright. The other boys gather around to get a look at him. His hazel eyes come into view and he smiles widely at the sight of us all. "Does it look good?"

"Looks class," Ryan says as he grabs a mirror. The other boys nod along.

Elijah looks at himself. He seems to not know if he likes it or not. He smiles at me and says, "Thanks, love."

I just smile back, pulling out the bobble from his hair. An unruly splatter of curls cascade across his forehead. There's something about him wearing eyeliner that's stopping me from thinking straight. It's different. I'm still sat half on top of him, one knee resting on his thigh and the other on the sofa. He helps me off of him then stands up.

He ruffles his hair as he says, "Let's get going lads."

The four boys grab everything they need for the show. Water bottles, instruments, drumsticks, their sanity. They all give each other a group hug. It must be some pre-show ritual because they all down their drinks at the exact same time. If that wasn't planned, it was uncanny.

"Good luck." I wave them off and they travel down the corridor in a straight line. As each of them walk out, I take a picture. Elijah is the last to leave. He stops in the doorway, still holding his plastic cup. He raises his lip to reveal his white teeth as I take the picture. He really enjoys making the strangest faces.

"If you don't get our best angles, I'll have to think about firing you." Elijah warns me just before he turns around. He then disappears down to another asylum-like corridor before I can get a chance to insult him. I let out a breath.

"That went well, right?" Robyn's trying to figure out what's going through my head. I can't even comprehend anything that just happened. The feel of his hand still lingers at my ankle. "That whole time you were talking to Josh about those chocolates, he was staring you down. It was pretty creepy, to be honest." She laughs. "Don't even get me started on the eyeliner. All of us felt like total third wheels."

"Sorry," I say. I play around with the bobble at my wrist. It had been wrapped around those glorious curls only moments ago. "God, I'm so in love it hurts."

"That's how I felt when I started liking Emmy. Literally all I could think about was her." Robyn is in a daze, eyes glued to the wall. "You need to do something before it's too late."

"After the set, I will tell him." I finally accept my fate. I could possibly not see him until next year. Or the year after. Who knows how busy I could get?

"Good," Robyn says. "I'm tired of hearing Elijah this Elijah that. Girl, I get it."

"You had an Emmy this Emmy that phase. Don't even start."

She frustratedly sighs. "Come on. I think they're going on."

I hear the crashing of drums reverberating through every wall, every floorboard. Slowly, we approach the main room. The bodyguard lets us through to the wings of the stage. I can see all the crowd from this angle. There are phones, cowboy hats and banners littered through the crowd. Some of the audience are people we had seen when Bobby was surrounded. They're screaming at the sight of the band.

The first song they play is These Are The Days. I keep my camera handy through every song. Elijah takes notice of us standing there. He steals a glance at us when he has a chance to breath. He's singing a lot stronger than I'd ever seen online.

Then they play through a few more songs on the new album. I sing along, I dance, I try not to get blinded by the flashing lights. Then all of a sudden they've finished playing Love Will Get You There and he turns to look right at me.

"This next song..." His words are pretty slurred. He's drunk. "This is an old one. I wrote this when I was about 17. There was this girl at my school who I just liked so much— I couldn't even focus in class. I played it to her once we'd got it perfect and she had not a single clue that it was about her. She still doesn't. It's been six years and I've never told her." He pauses and looks at me. "This is for you."

I'm overwhelmed by emotion. I raise an eyebrow at him. He just starts strumming along with his guitar. That's when I realise he's playing I Want You. They'd played that song to me in Elijah's garage. I asked him who it was about. He lied and said it was about his ex-girlfriend. I never thought twice about it. I never listened to it because it made me sick to my stomach that it was about her. A girl who I had been so jealous of.

"You got your lipstick on..." He starts singing. He's literally pointing at me. The crowd looks confused. They can't see me.

"Oh, Jesus," Robyn exclaims. "Oh, wow. I can't believe this. He's fucking confessing! Dally, I'm so happy for you right now. What the hell!"

Robyn is just as shocked as I am. We're both slack-jawed, wide-eyed yet caught in a silence as the song goes on. The crowd sings along with each and every line. The other members of the band have caught on with what is happening. They all seem to be pretty proud. Especially Josh. He's smiling so big it's making me smile too.

The truth is, I don't want the song to end. Or the show. I just want this moment to drag on forever. It all feels too good to be true.

The song finishes, the lights switch off, the crowd screams. I'm left in the darkness. Robyn is holding onto my side for dear life. The only thing illuminating the world around us is a tiny light bulb above us. My eyes start to get used to the darkness. I see a figure approaching.

"Can you come with me?" It's Elijah. His cheeks are tinged a shade of bright red. There's sweat lining his throat and his chest. He's taken off the blazer and has slung it over his shoulder. The eyeliner has bled down a little.

"Yeah..." I'm exasperated. My throat is raw from singing so much. My brain can barely process what is happening around me. My hands want to reach out and hold him close to me.

He grabs my hand, pulling me down through a corridor. We're both running towards the back door. I'm trying to match his pace but his longer legs give him an unfair advantage.

We finally reach the exit. He opens the door for me, allows me to pass through then shuts it. I'm met by London streets. Brick walls, crooked alleyways, a rubbish bin. It's not particularly romantic. But, with him standing there in front of me, it becomes the most romantic place on Earth.

"It wasn't supposed to happen like that," he admits. "I just couldn't stop thinking about you when you left. I was going to tell you at the airport when you were about to leave Dublin. So that you could think it through without us seeing each other every day. Then I got fucking terrified."

"I was going to tell you then too." I press my back against the wall. He's pulled out a packet of cigarettes. He offers me one. I let it rest between my lips. "I had plucked up some courage after I went to the toilet but then I sat beside you and forgot the whole script I'd planned out in my head. That was a pretty awkward five minutes. Felt like a century."

"We're idiots, aren't we?" He says as he lights his cigarette. "Josh has always known. I don't know how he never told you. He's great at keeping secrets. Six years of keeping his mouth shut. I don't know how he has that much self control."

"Six years?" I blow out a puff of smoke into the air. My eyes wander across the star covered sky. The moon is looming and watching us.

"I know." He's blushing again. He's trying to keep his distance from me, leaving a slight gap between us. "I'm pathetic."

"I liked you for longer."

"What?"

"Eight years. Since the day you started dating the blonde girl." I feel stupid saying it out loud. He's laughing at me.

"That's class."

We stand there in silence just looking at each other. I can hear ambulance sirens and birds calling. The brick walls is hard against my back. My shoes are covered in water from standing in a puddle. I can imagine that there's a camera above us. This could be a scene straight out of a film.

"Are you going to kiss me then?" Some sudden burst of confidence brings those words from my lips.

He's taken aback. His eyes fall down to my mouth. He then takes a step closer. I can feel his breath at my cheeks.

"Do you want me to?" His voice goes all low and his accent gets thicker. His hand reaches up to cup my cheek. Metal presses against my cheekbone. His thumb lazily draws a line across my bottom lip. His words hang in the air. "Dahlia, my love. Do you—"

I press my lips to his. I can't hold back anymore. I can taste the smoke on his tongue. His mouth is minty and his lips are soft. I've imagined this moment countless times. In a bookstore, in a train station, in the garage. But, this is perfect. Perfect.

My fingers sink into his hair. He groans into my mouth as I pull a few strands at the back. His thumb is sliding across my cheekbones. He's dropped the cigarette to instead use his other hand to clutch my waist. My hands are at his chest. His heart is beating incredibly fast. He holds me tight against him until I feel his chest rise and fall. Up and down. Breathing in and out.

We hear voices behind us. He pulls away quickly. We both turn to see a group of fans. They're teenagers and they're all dressed in bright outfits. They didn't see anything but they seem rather suspicious, whispering.

"Eli! Oh my God!! Can you take my BeReal please?" One of them shouts over.

Elijah runs his fingers over his lips. His ears are a pink shade. He slides his hand away from my waist.

"Yeah, sure!" He approaches the three girls with a small smile. He's trying to act normal. "I love your hats." He points at the 3 cowboy hats which spell out the word 'Inhaler' when they're all stood side-by-side.

"Thank you so much!" The darker haired girl passes him her phone. "Your eyeliner looks so good. You should do it like that more often."

"I had a grand makeup artist." He winks. I roll my eyes.

"Could Dahlia be in it?" The girl with glasses notices how I've awkwardly shifted to the side.

"Course she can," Elijah says.

I stand in the frame next to Elijah as he holds up the phone. His lips are red after being stained by my lipstick. I drop my head onto his shoulder and close my eyes. He nestles his face into my hair as he takes the picture. We're both giggling like lunatics.

I'm so glad it happened like this.

[pink-sparkly-witch]

The One That Got Away - Chapter Six

Warnings: tw: child abuse, tw: physical abuse, tw: verbal abuse, mentions of therapy, heavy angst, language, self-loathing.

Word Count: 1.9k

Pairing: Firefighter!Dean Winchester x Female Reader

A/N: There are TRIGGER WARNINGS in this part - please heed these, and if you think you’ll be affected by any of them, please do not read.

A/N 2: And so here is the next part that made me cry as I was writing it. Have tissues at the ready... and maybe some ice-cream to soften the blow, and know that I am giving you a big, squishy hug at the end 💖

You can catch up here!

 My Masterlist AO3    Ko-Fi

My dearest Dean,

My therapist gave me this exercise to write letters to the people in my life - the good and bad. To get things off my chest that are weighing me down and need to be said. She said I could send them if I wanted, but as it stands right now, I don’t know if you will ever read this. This is the first of five I plan to write. You, your mom, Uncle Bobby, and my father. He will never see his, but there is a lot of shit I need to get off my chest about him. I also need to write one to myself. Give myself forgiveness or some chick-flick bullshit! 

Dean let out a chuckle as he read her opening words.

That’s right… you read that right! It does say therapist! I know you always told me to go. Told me that it’d help. But you know me, stubborn to the core and will go out of my way to do the exact opposite of what I’m being told to do just to piss everyone off! Trust me, some things will never change! But I guess what I’m trying to say is… you were right.

I fought it and fought it, but when the nightmares got worse, and I started seeing him all over campus, at the bar I work in, the coffee shop I study in, the grocery store… You get the picture. I knew I had to at least try it, and… it’s working.

It’s such a relief getting everything out in the open. Knowing that I really, honest to God, did nothing wrong and didn’t deserve any of it. I know you never judged me, and you never would, but there were always things running through my mind that I never told anyone. Not until now, at least.

It was always swimming around in there that it was somehow my fault. That life would’ve been much simpler if I’d died that night. Maybe my father was right. He and Mom could’ve had more children and softened the blow.

I dreamed of a better life every night - at least when the nightmares stayed away. My dreams would show me what life would be like if Mom survived. Sometimes I had a little brother. Sometimes it was a sister. We’d spend weekends playing in the yard or baking cookies together. I’d run down the sidewalk to meet my father on his way home from work, and he’d pick me up and swing me around and around. He’d lift me onto his shoulders, and we’d walk home together laughing, and I’d feel like I was on top of the world!

But then I’d wake up, and the world around me was so cold and dull. He’d be passed out on the couch again, and I’d have to make myself breakfast and get ready for school. Those mornings, I honestly wished I were dead.

More tears leaked from Dean’s eyes as a sad smile overtook his features. He wished she’d had the life she dreamed about. If the spark was still there between them, he swore to himself that he’d make sure any kids they might have in the future had a life exactly like the one in her dreams.

I know you always told me that none of it was my fault, and I know deep down in my heart that it’s true, but there has always been that nasty voice telling me I’m not good enough, that I’m a waste of space and I deserve to be treated like shit. The voice that would whisper: ‘Stop complaining. People have it worse than you.’

You know it’s one thing for the people who love you to tell you that the voices are lying, but it doesn’t sink in until an outsider tells you that. So, thank you, Dean, for babbling on endlessly about going to therapy. Without it, I’d never have thought about going, and I’d have given in to the destructive ways I began using to drown it out.

I’ve wanted to call you so bad, but it wouldn’t be fair to keep putting my shit onto you. I was the one who left you. 

Dean knew more tears were streaming down his face now. He knew all eyes were on him, but he couldn’t care less. All he could think about was that he’d somehow failed her for having such negative thoughts and never fully believing it wasn’t her fault.

Before therapy, when things got too much, I coped the only way I knew how. Well, the only way I’d been taught - I drank. I also developed an unhealthy relationship with sex to feel something… anything that wasn’t pure hatred for myself. I let men use me in any way they wanted to. I might as well become the filthy little slut my father always told me I was, right? Of course, it didn’t work. Not really. It only made me hate myself more.

It shames me to tell you all of this because I know it makes me a stranger to you. It turns me into someone you no longer know, but as therapy goes on and I’ve stopped using those harmful coping methods, I realise I’ve changed. For better or worse, those experiences and getting treatment have made me a different person.

He dropped the letter from his gaze and sobbed again. He wept for the girl who was taught to drink away her problems. To the girl whose father’s words had cut so deeply into her skin that she became the thing he’d always accused her of being.

Memories of the first time she told him her father had accused her of having sex with him, and he’d called her a filthy little slut crawled to the forefront of his mind. She was only twelve years old.

Sam’s hand on his back brought him back to the present, and he huffed a loud exhale before picking up the pieces of paper and continuing.

I’m mentally and physically stronger now (thanks to kickboxing and self-defence!) I have more confidence in myself, more self-esteem, and more self-belief. But I know that underneath all that, I’m still me. I’ve found the girl I was before I lost my sparkle and before her crown slipped.

I’m becoming a whole new woman, and I need you to know that you started to build her, Dean. Your love gave her the solid foundation and supporting walls she needed to soar skyward. The structure was shaky for a little while back there, and I didn’t know if it would all come crashing down, but I had your voice in the back of my mind telling me that you loved me, that you’d always love me. And it stopped the world from shaking and the structure from crumbling.

You laid the foundations for me, and each supporting wall you built is at the core of the new me. Because of you, I found the strength to open up and start the healing process. Because of you, I was brave enough to leave and start a new life. Because of you, my colours, which started as dull shades of grey, became soft pastels and are now neons, shining brighter than ever. Because of you and your unconditional love, I’ve grown my wings, and I’m finally learning to fly without a safety net.

Thank you for not asking me to stay, Dean. Because I don’t think I’d have taken this time to fix and heal myself if you had.

I love you. I always have, and I always will. And I miss you every goddamn day. I need you to know that, and I need you to believe that. I hope that one day I’m strong enough to come home and tell you this face to face, but that’s still too far out on the horizon. 

There’s still so much building I need to do to solidify myself, and I promise I will do it. I’m gonna be that little girl who was your best friend again. I’m gonna be that young woman you fell in love with again. I’m gonna make you, Uncle Bobby, and my mom proud. I won’t end up like him; I’d rather die than make his words true.

As I read back, it feels like this is a goodbye, and I guess it is, in a way. It’s a goodbye to that frightened and sad little girl everyone once knew.

I hope with all my heart that we meet again someday, Dean. I hope you get to see the woman I’ll become. I hope she makes you proud, and I get to tell you she’s here because of you.

All my love, always and forever,

Y/N xx

Dean wiped furiously at his eyes, cleared his throat, and huffed loudly. He hugged Mary tight and whispered an emotional ‘thank you’ that was only heard between mother and son.

“I would’ve dropped everything and gone to Chicago if I’d read this back then,” Dean said.

“I know. And so did Y/N. It’s why she told me to wait until the time was right,” Mary pulled back from his embrace to look into her son’s eyes. “And it wouldn’t have ended well for either of you. Y/N needed to heal and grow. If you’d gone to her, she’d have given up therapy, sacrificed her healing for you.

“What you had was special, there is no doubt about that, and it could be again, but with her fragile upbringing and your unconditional need to protect her all the time, it could’ve only ended in two ways…” Mary stopped, and Dean nodded his head.

“Either she’d have lost herself completely, swallowed up in my shadow, or I’d be in prison for murdering her father,” Dean finished for her.

“Exactly. Y/N knew that, too, and she didn’t want either of those futures for you. She wanted to grow and learn how to take care of herself. Stand up for herself. Fight back. She could only have done that alone. She had to become someone you didn’t need to protect,” Mary said.

“I’ll always protect her. I’ll protect everyone I love,” Dean countered, and Mary smiled.

“I know you would, Dean, and we are so proud of you for that, but she’s a lot stronger than you give her credit for, and there’s a big difference between needing to protect someone and wanting to,” Mary cupped his cheek and gave him a soft smile before she moved to sit at the table.

“So, what happens now, son?” John asked. “I know you still love her.”

“I’ll always love her, but I’d like to find out if I’m still in love with her,” Dean replied.

“It’s clear that you are, Dean,” Sam added with a smirk. “I don’t think you ever stopped.”

“Yeah, maybe. But that letter is at least ten years old, and Y/N talks about being different. Shit, I’ve changed too. Who knows if that means I still love her, feel nothing but platonic love or will fall in love with her all over again?”

“I don’t think she’ll have changed as much as you think, Dean!” John said with a soft smile.

“I hope not,” Dean smiled. “Still, I don’t wanna get too excited. She might not be in love with me anymore. Plus, she’ll have a lot on her plate with moving back, settling into a new job, and a new life. Her dad is dying-”

“Dean, you can’t put off seeing her,” Sam insisted.

“I won’t. But I won’t force myself back into her life when everything’s already in the air for her. I’ll let her settle, and then if she agrees, we’ll meet and talk.”

Next Chapter >>

Tag list: @deans-baby-momma @deans-spinster-witch @leigh70 @stoneyggirl2 @hobby27 @candy-coated-misery0731 @iprobablyshipit91 @twinkleinadiamondsky @mrsjenniferwinchester @spnwoman @snackles87 @perpetualabsurdity @hoboal87 @synmorite @nancymcl @trannydean @nic-kolas @jc-winchester @winchestergirl1720 @globetrotter28 @nelachu2423 @kayleighmeister @venicesem @ladysparkles78 @roseblue373 @suckitands33 @tristanrosspada-ackles @silentbutscreaming @lacilou @sandlee44 @kmc1989 @chriszgirl92 @ashbatz @k-slla @jamerlynn @waters-2567 @kazsrm67

[jackmercerenthuiast]

☆Number - Jack Mercer x Reader

☆ idc Jack Mercer doesn’t have enough fanfics so I’m here to serve justice.

☆Would recommend listening to ‘You Can Be The Boss’ by Lana Del Rey

Content: Mentions of drugs alcohol, suggestive language, mentions of gang violence

~و✧…彡☆ - btw pretend Jack survived x

彡☆ 2005          19:36PM

‘This job is honestly ass’  I said to my most common customer, and closest friend, Sofi. It was true, I hated my job, it was a fucking shithole, I mean it was a dingy bar in the rough parts of Detroit, a little girl’s dream clearly.

‘Aye (name) don’t be so silly, it pays the bills, and plus, you get a lot of guys working here.’ She wasn’t wrong, I mean it did pay the bills after all but the amount of guys that I didn’t want? Uncountable.

‘I know Sof’, but they’re all ugly most of the time, plus, when they’re that pissed out of their minds, ‘no’ doesn’t compute easy, they got determination I’ll say that. Gets me a few tips I suppose.’ I laughed, cleaning the nearby table where Sofi sat. ‘Speaking of guys, can’t believe you’re seeing that Angel Mercer again!’ I asked, sitting next to her and nudging her shoulder.

‘I don’t like the way you said ‘Again’ but at least I have a man. Though, how old are you now?’ She asked, smiling at the ground when she answered about Angel, absolutely smitten, is the only words I could describe her.

‘Twentyyy... one?’ I questioned myself as I pulled out my ID, just double checking I was actually 21. 

‘You really think that checking your ID is going to help? How many fake IDs did you have when you were 17 to get cigarettes?’ Me and Sofi go back to when I was 17 and freshly moved to America, she lived in the apartment next to me and we’d been best friends since she welcomed me into the new apartment.

‘Shut up girl, this is a real one, and I am right I’m 21.’ I laughed, smacking my ID on the table.

‘Okay okay, anywho, Angel has a brother, Jack who’s the same age as you, and he got shot recently, he’s getting out of hospital today and a little birdie told me him and his brothers are coming here in an hour or so to celebrate.’ She suggested, walking over to the bar.

‘Oh yeah? Well from what you’ve told me the birdie is actually quite big.’ I smirk as I pour myself a pint from the tap, Sofi hit me on my arm, telling me to shut up in Spanish. I love Sofi but she loves to overshare about her sex life, but it’s fun to mess with her about it. 

…彡☆      19:54PM

A few moments passed, as me and Sofi just talked about random things, about how crazy it was that Victor Sweet had finally been killed, what Sofi wanted to do career wise etc. When all of a sudden, a bunch of loud men burst through the door, as I recognise a very familiar face.

‘Jerry!’

‘(Name)! What’s goin’ on baby?’ He said as he approached the bar, politely shaking my hand, Jerry was like a big brother to me, always nice and fair.

‘Nothin’ much, your wife know you here? I can call her right now if she don’t.’

‘Nah she knows, I’m truthful to my lady, and seeing as I’m so truthful, can we get a few rounds free?’

I laughed and nodded saying as long as I got tipped I’d give them whatever.

‘Bullshit Jerry, we all keep secrets here.’ A bloke in leather, with a goatee sort of thing going on says, laughing and hitting his back.

‘Man shut the fuck up before I woop yo’ white ass. (Name), these are my brothers Bobby, Jack and Angel, I guess you’re already acquainted with Angel here.’

‘Yeah man, it’s hard not to know who Angel is when all I hear in my apartment is those two getting it on.’ I say, lighting a cigarette whilst directioning my hand to Sofi and Angel.

Then I looked at Jack, and all I thought was ‘Damn he’s fine’.

‘So you lovely ladies want tables or are you gonna keep me company and sit at the bar?’

‘I think the guys are alright with sitting at the bar, right guys?’ Jerry said, asking his brothers, they all nodded and agreed as they took seats at the bar.

‘Can I get a beer?’ The one who I assumed was Bobby, asked.

‘Can you be specific, Guiness? Heineken? A pint? Half-pint? And I don’t know maybe a please?’ I chuckled, directioning to the amount of beers there were to choose from

‘She had you on that one Bobby, she’s very passionate about her alcohol.’ Angel said. 

‘And why’s that, you an alcoholic or somethin?’

‘No, I don’t know if you can tell from the accent but it’s just from being English really.’ I could see Jack’s eyebrows raise slightly, he was really cute.

‘Ah, I don’t know man just give me a bottle of Guiness.’

‘Please?’

‘Please.’

…彡☆           20:20PM

About half an hour passed before I finally talked to Jack, I slid down the bar, making my way to where he sat, leaving the rest of the brothers and Sofi to do whatever.

‘You’re Jack I take it?’

‘Yeah and you’re.. (name)?’

‘Indeed it is, what drink you want Jackie?’

‘I don’t mind really, can I get a cigarette? The hospital wouldn’t let me bring ‘em in.’ He laughed, god damn his laugh. I’ve known this boy for 45 minutes and I’m whipped

‘Yeah sure and I’m sorry to hear that you got shot by the way, you ‘re lucky you survived love.’ I could see him the try to hide the fact me calling him love got a reaction out of him, it’s not particularly uncommon for me to call customers love, but it’s usually older customers, just out of respect, though for him? I just said it to get a reaction.

‘Thanks, how long you been working at the bar?’

‘Not long really, few months? I’ve only been in America for a couple of years, I think four years.’ Passing him a cigarette and a lighter whilst taking a puff of my own.

‘Ah cool, how come you moved?’

‘I don’t know really, I suppose to just be with my mum, seeing as she wanted to just get away.’

‘Your parents split?’

‘Yeah but it was probably the best choice they collectively made.’ I laughed, pouring him a drink.

‘Fair enough, you do anything else other than be the only good-looking bar tender in Detroit?’ Um sir? 

‘Don’t flatter me Jackie, but yeah actually, I play the bass here and there.’

…彡☆ Jack POV  …彡☆

‘Don’t flatter me Jackie...’ Man, I haven’t even known her that long and I can’t help but want to take her out. 

‘Ah bass? That’s cool man, I play the guitar, before I moved back to Detroit I was actually in a band, believe it or not.’ Flicking my cigarette ash in the nearby ashtray, when I had an idea. I asked her for a pen and she handed me the one in her shirt pocket.

‘I certainly believe it, but anywho I can’t concentrate on your pretty face all night, I’ll serve some other customers and I’ll be back soon.’ She said winking at me, I felt my face go so warm, Sofi definitely knew I was going red, and to my misfortune, so did Bobby.

‘Woah Jackie, did the bullet knock the fairy out of you or what?!’

‘Shut up man, you probably haven’t been flirted with in the last 10 years.’

‘Sure fairy whatever you say.’

…彡☆    22:17PM     your pov

‘Okay boys we’re gonna leave now, because for some reason I got designated driver duty so come on! You too Sofi vámanos!’ Jerry yelled, dragging Sofi and Angel by the collars of their shirts, I laughed to myself as all of the brothers continued to leave in a drunken mess, the night was full of brotherly love, teasing and intense flirting between me and Jack, as he had more drinks he got more bold with how he spoke.

I was absolutely whipped, and as Jack left, he gave me a cigarette and said, 

‘Don’t light it right away.’ with a drunken but genuine smile, I responded, ‘Don’t worry Jackie I won’t, see you soon.’ and I pecked him on the cheek as I left for the room where I kept my coat to close up my shift, taking the cigarette with me.

Later in the night I was certain there was something I had forgotten to do, and then it hit me, I probably was meant to look at the cigarette or something, and then I thought, ‘Where’s the cigarette?’, and I trudged to my sofa and grabbed my coat, luckily the cig was still in my pocket.

I twizzled it in my fingers, when I saw numbers written on one side, and a note saying, ‘Call me - Jackie’ with a heart next to it on the other, that smooth motherfucker. I unravelled the cigarette, putting the nicotine in a spare pouch and attached the note to my fridge with a magnet with the intentions to call him in the morning.

…彡☆     The End!

Please let me know if you liked this, if so I might write a part 2 to it or just continue to write Jack mercer fics seeing as there just aren’t enough! Love ya x

[lover-of-mine]

#anyone want to hear my season 7 buddie spec that has no basis besides the voices in my head? sdoaksoaksokasokasoak yes ! me i always like to read your metas and what you have in mind

thank you for the support oaksoaksoaks

okay, I'm gonna start this off by saying this whole thing hinges on whether or not the show is gonna keep mirroring Buck and Eddie's personal journeys and this is mostly about Buck, I have no idea what they're gonna do with Eddie lol. First of all, @aziraaphales made this set back when the finale aired about the similarities between Buck and Taylor and Buck and Natalia and that illustrates it beautifully, the whole she came back, they seem happy, are they really? and that's a point against Natalia lasting in my opinion. But the thing is, I think Bucktalia also mirrors Eddiana, and that's when things start to get interesting in my brand of insanity. You have Buck treating Natalia's hand, you have Eddie treating Ana's, Ana and Natalia being reduced to their jobs, the first date in broad daylight in a cafe of some sort, a second date at home being interrupted by the rest of their lives (if you push a bit and think about Kameron's pregnancy, both dates are interrupted by their children even if the baby isn't Buck's on the ways that matter), you have the picture-perfect ending at home after a near-death experience, so the parallels are there too. And that means one important parallel, Buck holding on for the wrong reasons the same way Eddie did, which could doom that relationship further, but also leave Buck spiraling. Because if we're comparing personal journeys, Buck is in a state that's a mix of season 4 Eddie trying to be happy through the trauma and outside looking in/fear-o-fobia Eddie. I think we can even directly parallel some stuff, like, I truly believe the cemetery is the way Buck would handle the outside looking in kitchen talk if that went the other way around.

But the thing is, Buck needs to deal with the shit that happened to him before getting together with Eddie so I'm choosing to look at these as fuel for my Buck Breakdown beliefs. Unlike Eddie, Buck actually died, so that changes the dynamic a little bit, there's also the way that Buck doesn't care about his own life enough to break over dying, but while Eddie's PTSD has many triggers, the thing that actually breaks him is the knowledge that he didn't save the people he thought he saved. So my grand theory here is something happening to Maddie, Bobby, or Christopher that makes Buck lose it. I don't really think they would do something to Chris, but using him would have a similar effect if it wasn't for the fact that it would also break Eddie. Eddie himself doesn't count in this situation unless is both Eddie and Chris, because Buck would be forced to keep it together if something happened to Eddie for Chris' sake. Or maybe if they like, killed off the Buckley parents and forced Buck to deal with that grief. But Maddie or Bobby, dangerous situation, close call, hospital stay, honestly, something that would leave them in enough danger to trigger Buck, low-key don't think you need much to trigger that man. But trigger, Buck losing it, Eddie talking Buck down (how would Eddie find out Buck is losing it? I don't know, plot convenience, I like the idea of divorced-era Buddie and Eddie storming the loft because he's tired of Buck's bullshit and finding him, or maybe someone from dispatch calls Eddie because there's been a call from Buck's address, I don't know, they can get creative there), Buck working towards working his own shit out. But we're in this weird season 4/season 5b mix, right? How do we end s4? Near-death experience that calls back to a previous trauma, big revelation, aborted love confession.

One thing I refuse to compromise on is the fact that Eddie had his oh! moment during the shooting (it's my truth I am not letting it go) so you can probably see where I'm going here, right? A Buck in a better mind space almost dying by chance, getting saved by Eddie, and realizing something. You see the vision? Current vision goes back and forth between equipment malfunctioning, Buck falling, and Eddie being the only one close enough to get to him, this usually goes around a cliff, a bridge, and Buck falling into water (I know the truck bombing is not technically equipment malfunction but equipment did try to kill him, and water is Buck's worst enemy lol), or Buck and Eddie stopping to help someone, and shit going to hell, this vision usually goes with Buck and Eddie seeing a car crash of some sort, again someone drove off a cliff or off a bridge, they go to help, Buck gets trapped in the car, Eddie needs to save him (trapped under a vehicle, water) or just straight up having them drive of a bridge. Because something really big about the shooting is the way that, one it happened by chance, two they weren't supposed to be there, three Buck didn't have anyone he trusted there so he did the saving alone, and four by having Eddie get shot, you're bringing up why he left the army. So with Buck, if they stick to this pattern, you need to drown him or trap him under something, or both. And you have the way the lightning parallels the well and the shooting, and the well triggered something for Eddie, you have the whole you need to keep fighting, find your own way out, the suffocation aspect for both of them when you realize Eddie is about to drown and Buck's lungs are not working, and also the way Buck is supposed to learn something during his coma that could lead to a conversation similar to the will reveal. This is when the vision gets cloudy. Because ideal world, the reveal is Buck's feelings and we don't have an aborted love confession, we have a plain old confession, but the aborted route is always a possibility with a see you in season 8 thing.

But yeah, Buck breakdown, Buck starting to deal with his shit, near-death experience, Eddie having to save him alone, tense conversation after. I'm also slightly obsessed with what could happen in a scene where Eddie is dragging Buck out of the water, cpr, mouth to mouth, "you're not doing this to me again", Buck coughing up water while sitting up, Eddie catching him, "I got you, I got you". The possibilities are ENDLESS. Just put Ryan's emotional power to work. All those fun things oskaoskaoskoaksas

Also, this mostly hinges on Buck doing something to change their relationship because considering Buck tripped into 4 relationships, he needs to start this one. I'm a firm Buck needs to do something first believer. Buck's endgame relationship needs to start with him making a move. Also, my whole Buck needs to choose thing is all about Shannon saying that Eddie keeps making all the choices, so Eddie needs to let go of control and Buck needs to go for what he wants.

[midweastindigo]

i have covid and watched ella enchanted for the first time in years. here's how a buddie au can still win

buck isn't a people pleaser by choice - he just doesn't know it. his parents prayed and pleaded with doctors, nurses, with gods, and witches, and the universe itself, to save their eldest son daniel. and so the universe gave them evan buckley. he was able to save daniel, but it wasn't enough. daniel buckley still died. and as curses, or gifts, or forces of good versus evil, go, they went wrong. evan buckley's purpose was to save his brother and he was unable to fulfill that purpose so the buckleys wanted to give him back. but the goddess that gave them a second son does not go back on their gifts, so a deal was struck. how dare they question the motives of a force of nature? how dare they try and return such a perfect gift? they shall keep the child, and that child will listen to them. a pink mark on his face to forever haunt the buckleys of their choices, and.

a most obedient son, indeed.

now, evan wasn't told of this gift, or curse. the only other person who even knew about it at all was his older sister of 6 years, madeline. and she was never to utter a word to her baby brother, lest she be cursed with the same misfortune, or so the buckleys say.

so, evan cannot say no. children exploited it without knowing. teachers made an example out of him. evan's second home was the emergency room.

he leaves, but it is because he is told to 'get lost!' by his father. not because he chooses to escape his prison.

evan buckley is lost when he stumbles into the fire academy, and from the ashes comes buck. and robert nash sees this. when he fires him on the rooftop, bobby finally understands. 'it's like. i don't-bobby, wait. bobby, like i couldn't say no! i've never told anyone 'no' my entire life!'

bobby knows what it sounds like. buck is cursed.

bobby knows cursed people because he is one. in fact, he prides himself in recruiting people who are cursed, whether they know it or not. buck clearly does not.

'buck,' he says. 'i think you're cursed.'

'cursed? like in fairytales?'

'yeah but in real life. i'm not going to fire you, i think you belong on this team.'

'because i'm cursed.'

'precisely. everyone here is. i'll reintroduce you, c'mon.'

and so there are the introductions.

henrietta, cursed to never be on time by her ex who was never satisfied with how much time they spent together. 'sometimes they aren't so bad. the worst was when i was late to my wedding. karen damn nearly called it off!'

howard, cursed with always having love slip right through his fingertips, just out of reach. 'the one who cursed me said it could be broken with true love's kiss. seems i haven't found it yet.'

and bobby, cursed with knowing that everyone he loves will die by his hands. 'my in-laws did not think my punishment of living every day without my family was enough.'

'and me?'

'buck, we think you're cursed to obey.'

'no, all of this is just bullshit, you can't really think-'

'stop talking.' buck stops.

chim says, 'ooh, do the chicken dance!' hen hits him over the head as buck does what he's told.

'you can talk again.'

'- i'd actually believe.....'

the team agrees to never demand anything of buck, even captain's orders are phrased like a choice. buck learns to live with his curse, and is better off for it now he knows what it is.

until abby. abby never figured it out. so when she said 'stay at my place. keep it waiting for me.' she didn't know he would. that he'd have no choice. it took the power of the whole team commanding buck to come to the station for him to leave after four days. even longer, a 'call me' written on a note for buck to stop waiting for abby to come back.

he wanted her to come back, is the thing. he knows the difference between wanting and being forced, and he wanted, hoped, begged abby to return to him. but she didn't. 'no true love's kiss to break this one, huh, chim?'

and then bobby recruits eddie diaz: cursed to never lie.

he's found ways around it, though. fought hard against the gift given to him by a distant relative that thought it would do the diaz family some good. eddie's father taught him that skewing the truth did not equate to lying. and if there was a bit of truth within, eddie could get away with only a minor headache.

or a child and a marriage he was not prepared for.

so instead of having to share all his truths, eddie runs.

and he ran straight into the 118.

bobby, now curse-free thanks to his witch of a new wife, athena, sees eddie at the academy and recruits him. not because he's cursed, though, that's a bonus. eddie is a damn good firefighter. and his curse only aids in his abilities.

his bluntness is no match for buck.

and when he says, 'you can have my back any day,' he means it. it is not forced out of eddie just because it's the truth. and there is no skewing the fact that he will trust buck with his life again. over and over.

he doesn't yet realize how deep that statement shall run. eddie, not yet knowing of buck's curse, presents him with an option. a choice. not an order.

buck wants to have his back. there is no force behind it.

'or, you know, you could have mine.'

[sammyxme]

Imagine comforting Sam when he’s depressed (part one).

Pairing: Sam x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Depressed!Sam, Suicidal Thoughts, me projecting onto Sam, soulless Sam. TW don’t read if you’re struggling and can’t handle angst atm. My dms are always open to chat.

It had been a while since Sam had gotten his soul back. As his girlfriend, you were really concerned about Sam's mental state. He did so many terrible things while soulless. But it wasn't him. It didn't seem to matter to Sam. You noticed he hadn't been eating much over the past few days, and not to mention he's always plagued with nightmares. Sam was sitting on the motel bed, head in his hands.

"Sammy? You really should eat something, baby."

His head jerked up, realizing your presence. The way you stood in front of him, eyes filled with concern. You took notice of his red rimmed eyes, as well as the lack of sleep.

"Sorry, I just need some air."

He tried to stand from the bed, but fell back down. It must be affecting his body at an unhealthy level, if he couldn't even sit up without falling.

"Sammy, I know how it feels when you think everything is your fault. I know the world is pretty dark for you right now."

You sat next to him on the bed. Your hand finding its way through his hair.

"But you need to eat and drink and get some exercise. This isn’t healthy.”

Sam didn't know what else to do. He hated it when you got like this. Usually, he would have no problem telling you that he was fine, then leaving the room and going back to hunting. But he can't bring himself to do it today. He felt like giving in.

"Sam?"

Your soft voice snapped him out of it. He looked up to see you frowning. His face softened, seeing you worried. Your arm snaked around his waist, pulling him closer to you. You rested his head against your shoulder and began rubbing slow circles on his lower back.

"Hey. It's okay, Sam."

He looked at you, seeing tears pooling in your eyes. He quickly wiped them away before they could fall.

"I love you so much, Sam. Everything will be okay. None of this is your fault, okay?"

He felt guilty, knowing that he hurt you. He never wanted to be the cause of pain to anyone. He remembered the day he first came back, soulless. He had hurt you badly after getting in an argument. Sam had hurt himself over it multiple times, one cut, one bruise for every time he hit you. But it still wasn't enough, though the scars remained. You didn't know about his self destructive behavior yet. And he intended to keep it that way. What you don't know won't hurt you.

"Sammy?"

His gaze snapped back into focus.

"Hey, look at me."

He reluctantly met your eyes. You gently caressed his cheek, making sure he was looking you in the eye. You brought your other hand up to cup his chin.

"Don't ever blame yourself again. Okay? And tell me when you're struggling.”

You smiled at him, kissing his forehead. He leaned forward and gave you a hug, pressing your bodies close together. It was all he needed, to feel you close to him. Even if it made him feel slightly pathetic. You held onto him tightly, running your fingers through his hair.

"I don't deserve you, (Y/N)."

The words slipped from his mouth before he realized what was happening. You instantly pulled away, confusion evident in your expression.

"What are you talking about? Why do you think that?”

"I'm sorry. It's nothing...really."

You placed a hand on his shoulder.

"You can tell me, Sam."

You stared expectantly at him, waiting for an answer. It took a minute, but finally he decided to confess.

"It's just...I know it's selfish of me to say this, but I don't know if I should want to live anymore. I've done such horrible things to you, to Bobby, to Dean. I'm poison, (Y/N). I should’ve been left in the pit.”

"And how do you figure that? Because you're a monster? A soulless demon? That's bullshit, Sam. You aren't any of those things. Sure, you have your bad moments, especially lately. And sure, you make mistakes, like I know I do. But you're you again, Sam. And I love you."

Suddenly, Sam got up and excused himself. He didn't deserve this. He couldn't get too close to you.

"Yeah, um. I'm going out. Gonna go hunt for that Shapeshifter."

He grabbed his jacket and left, slamming the motel door behind him. He didn't want to let you see him breaking down like this. So he tried to hide behind a cold exterior and denial, to cover up his sadness. He hoped that it'll help him. And he'd take whatever he had.

(A/N: damn hit me right in the feels TT anyways hope you cried- I mean liked it.)

[queenofbaws]

hello hello my friends!!! just a quick little update from yours truly - and a few snippets, of course ;)c

things continue to be strange and chaotic here, and as a result, my brain has decided to be...strange and chaotic :P i've been trying to stick to one project at a time and just soldier through, but said chaos is making that rough, so i'm trying to just get words down as they occur to me, regardless of what project they're for. so, much as i'd like to say "keep your eyes peeled for an [x] update soon!" the reality is that i have...no idea what's going to hold my attention for the next ten minutes, hahaha.

what i will say is i currently have three ongoing projects that are priorities, and those are like wringing blood from a stone, of mummy men & bathtub soup, and the tale(s) of the champion - so i've included little teaser snippets of those below! as always, thanks for your patience, your well-wishes, and for reading!!! i hope you and yours are doing well, and that you're being extra kind to yourselves now that we're entering the winter months <3

like wringing blood from a stone

“Holy smokes, you sure take ‘protect and serve’ seriously out here, huh? Thirty minutes or your arrest is free—is it that kinda thing?” His head was spinning too fast to make a lick of sense out of that; luckily, Diane wasn’t having the same problem. “Believe it or not, he was already here. Kaitlyn, this is…” she paused just long enough to meet Chris’s gaze, but he couldn’t for the life of him read what he saw there in her eyes. “…uh, well, meet Sheriff Hackett.” “Sheriff Ha—oh.” Then, with more feeling, “Oh. I…huh, wow, really? I don't think I would've guessed that.” Chris shrugged. “We get that a lot. Turns out there were only enough handsome genes for one sibling in this family.” “Yeah,” Diane sighed, “and it’s a crying shame it’s Bobby who got ‘em all.” That broke the tension instantly. Chris and Travis both whirled to stare at her, expressions incredulous. Gently nudging Kaitlyn’s shoulder, Diane nodded towards them. “See?” she asked. “Now you can tell they’re related.” “Wow, you’re not wrong! Weird.”

of mummy men & bathtub soup

“Oh good God, Alex. This is obviously some kind of dumb joke—” “Did you find something?” Ashley asked suddenly, looking up from the table. “Something that felt like it was…I don’t know, um, hidden? Not just lost or left behind but actually hidden?” Even knowing it was bullshit, Conrad had to admit…Brown had been well cast. A finger of dread slid down his spine in a lover’s caress, making him shudder; Alex and Julia, less sure of the truth behind this whole debacle, did a little more than that. Fuck, he watched the color drain from JJ’s face like she was some kind of cartoon character, and Mr. Big Bad Med School Bro wasn’t doing a whole hell of a lot better, by the looks of it. The spell broke when Julia whirled on Alex. “Did you say any—” she froze, turning on him then. “You told them! You told them, didn’t you, you little shit weasel?!” Chris sat up straighter. “Shit weasel?”

the tale(s) of the champion

“Which one,” she repeated. “It’s the first thing Varric said during his questioning, did you know that?” The smile in her voice made its first appearance, quirking the corners of her mouth into a shape subtle enough that the Inquisitor felt as though the two of them were in on some secret joke together. “Cassandra asked him…well, demanded of him, I suppose, that he tell her everything he knew about the Champion. And he responded by asking her—” “Which one.” She watched Leliana’s smile grow. It wasn’t by much, but it was there all the same. The sense of being in on a joke grew right along with it. “Now, she probably thought he was poking fun at her…and in all likelihood he was, but of course we know now that there was so much more to it, don’t we?” Leliana rose from her table with the grace of a ghost, each fluid movement reminding her in no uncertain terms that, spymaster or not, agent of the Divine or not, the woman opposite her was, at the end of the day, a bard before all else. “Cassandra is skilled in many, many areas, Inquisitor, as I’m sure you’ve come to learn. Certainly she’s without equal on the battlefield, but when it comes to…reading people, let us say…” Again that inscrutable smile grew. “Well…suffice it to say an answer like that would’ve caught my attention, had I been the one questioning him.” “But you weren’t.” The last word came out strangely choked—she hadn’t been able to decide whether or not she’d wanted it to be a question.

[ravenadottir]

are you ready for some controversy vena? in your honest opinion, rank the li’s from each season from most attractive to least attractive 👀

pshhh, alright girl! first, various disclaimers here:

attraction to me goes beyond looks. i'm pan romantic and demisexual so you know personality and connection weight in more than looks for me. if you didn't, well, now you know. i can't discern attraction without those things, that's just how i function.

just because i don't find someone attractive, or less attractive than others, it doesn't mean they're butt ugly. it just means i don't want a taste, and that's ok.

it's MY list. feel free to do one yourself if you couldn't live vicariously through this one. also, i don't take criticism, this is the most subjective it can get.

i can see the bobby stans reaching for the keyboard. DON'T BOTHER, i don't care. that goes for lottie apologists too. drop it.

alright, let's begin!

~season 1~ the driest when it comes to numbers and quality because levi is so dull and tedious.

7th. levi. i can't stand the guy. yes, he's supposedly very attractive but i can't deal with the whole romeo thing, the very empty eyes, interchangeable personality... ugh, nah. 2/10

6th. mason. i feel like there's multiple dialogues he shares with levi, but he's waaaay hotter. like, waaaaaaaay hotter, and that's because he's a drummer. that's it lol the toby thing is so dumb and i can't take either him or levi seriously. 4/10

5th. tim. because he's so funny and endearing. i don't even rate him as an li, and often steals him from jen because he deserved better, but i still prefer him over levi and mason. 6/10

4th. allegra. i really thought, despite her whole shpeal about the jealousy, that she would have a better reason to act like that, and i was right. as an li, i feel her trope is not explored enough. plus, the way she acts all shy during the reunion is just... realistic. i like her. 7/10

3rd. jake. don't get me wrong, i love the guy, i really do, but waiting 46 days to say something? 46?? when we had just been through cherrygate?? nah my guy, i need you to know what you want, and fast. yes, he's very hot and a chef, which adds 6 points for me, but waiting that long??? nope! still, better than levi. 8/10.

2nd. talia. she's the best li on season 1 in my opinion, and that's all because of her personality. her appearance is a damn nice bonus. she doesn't let anyone get away with lying/pretending, can't stand the bullshit and will call people on their bluff. besides, there's a tender side of her that she only shows with mc, and she's flirty at times and it's the most fun you have during her route. also, her, as a whole. 9/10.

1st. rohan. HE JUST DOES IT FOR ME OK??? after that first impression, and just how sweet and flirty he is, i can't just NOT be angry about the fact that he wasn't an li during the season. it was such a waste! he's so caring, always worried about mc, always asking what he can do. granted, other people do it, but rohan is just so interesting, so fucking hot... his kissing scenes are the best, his story about the empty banner tattoo, just how much shit he goes through during the season. LIKE- my boy deserved better. 10/10.

~season 2~ there are too many li's in this season and we didn't need all of them le'ts be honest.

jakub. by a landslide, the worst. there's a bunch of reasons for me to dislike the guy, but the main one is just how messy he is. let's not count the quirks they added to him, just focus on the fact that he fucked someone on day 1 from casa amor, proceeded to dump her, get with someone else, make her believe he was gonna bring her, only to stay "loyal" to hope and pretend none of that happened. why does this guy has stans is beyond me. -15/10.

lottie. here's why. she's a damn hypocrite and self righteous, always butting in people's business, never owning up to what she does. i only include her in my answers because i indulge the people that follow me, otherwise you would never see her name in my blog. physically? HOT. as a person? HOT MESS. -10/10

hannah. the lack of maturity really turns me off. she was way better on days 1-3 because she was being herself. the cringiest thing i can think for someone to do is to fake their confidence and pretend they're fine when they're CLEARLY NOT. if you know you're the shit you don't have to announce it, people know it. -5/10

felix. HE'S ANNOYING. -2/10

elijah. they made him continuously flirt with chelsea behind mc's back. then again, casa guys, because of the inconsistencies, will be rated low in this list. we are talking about game personality, not headcanons and such. 3/10

priya. she's immature as fuck. hot? yes. messy? unfortunately YES. i can't help but think about the way she threw the PRIVATE CHAT noah had with her on hope's face, in front of everybody. that really turned me off a lot. it's all besides the things she had done before, like operation, slime challenge... i don't know man, i want to believe she matured but... meh. yes, the hottest girl, physically, but not the best female li by a long shot. not even close. 4/10

kassam. i like him, i really do, but i prefer the 'constructed by headcanons" version i have of him. realistically there's not a lot to go from, the game didn't give us nearly enough. they did all the casa guys dirty, and particularly my favorites: kassam, arjun and carl. we get glimpses of who he is, what he does/likes, but to me it wasn't enough. also, kassam is not my type if we're talking body. 5/10

arjun. HE'S JUST SO DAMN HOT, physically, but the yoga story? oof, that was rough. granted, i do like his chat, particularly the one we have during brunch. if you go along with his goofiness, there's so much hidden below that mustache... but still, afterwards, just like the others, he becomes the same person as the og's. in my opinion, top 3 anime betrayals of all time, he also deserved better. appearance? 10/10. route/personality? 5/10

carl. aaaaaaaah. i have a multichapter post-villa story for him and still, he's gonna be pretty low in my list. WHERE'S THE ORIGINAL STORYLINE? WHERE'S THE COMMITMENT ISSUES BEING WORKED ON? WHERE IS THE WORKAHOLIC ANXIETY BECAUSE HE'S WORRIED ABOUT HIS COMPANY?? 6/10.

marisol. eh. it's complicated for me to talk about her because i don't really... care for her as an li. not because of her, but because of her route. as a person? i wish she was more confident in her choices. she says that graham trying to make her jealous is a bit childish but isn't that what she's doing by bringing him back? fusebox just really fucked marisol up and i hate them for it. appearance? 12/10, i think she's so damn hot, but overall? meh, 6.5/10.

bobby. yeah, yeah, i know, you love him. good for you. i can't stand impressions, and that's like 80% of his sense of humor. i think bobby, as an li, is fine. there wasn't anything thrilling in his route so his looks don't really matter to me. i find him cute and dependable, but i don't think cute does it for me. i like troubled people, you know? going through some shit, discovering things about themselves, growing, maturing, the whole thing. bobby is really an interesting guy, and he's really cute, i just don't find him appealing enough to make me fan myself. plus, he gets away with operation rather quickly and i don't... HMMMMM, i don't know... seems like there was a lot of double standards going on, you know? he doesn't make my heart race and at the end of the day, that's what attraction really means to me. as a person? 10/10. looks? 10/10. overall? 7/10.

noah. ah, my guy, shit or get off the pot. i do find noah EXTREMELY attractive, partially because of his looks, but also that warm personality and the way he talks about everything. to me he's fucking dreamy, absolutely tender and endearing, accidentally funny, and really sexy. i love him, i do, BUT the indecision my guy, holy shit. that takes away so much of the person he actually is. looks? 100/10. those eyes are sooo fucking hot! like, him, as a whole, holy shit. i reckon someone like him is the type of person that go viral every five years or so on facebook, and everyone is fainting when seeing him. that's how GOOD he looks. but like... not making up his mind? really drops the heart rate for me. 8/10.

rahim. fucking boy really got every single stan on their toes during the season, didn't he? NO ONE SAW THAT SHANNON FOOTAGE COMING. he was already really hot and gorgeous, but after he brought shannon, then dumped her for jo? THE AUDACITY?? 10 times hotter. he really said "oh, you think i'm harmelss? alright. watch me." i was like "alright, boy, pop off. do your thing. i'm gonna steal you anyway." and i did. and you know what? no regrets! i love his route from the beginning, i love his personality, i love his looks, i just wished they gave him a better night outfit, but that's not his fault. ibrahim to me is the second most underrated li in the game, and the fact that he can solve the rubik's cube, blindfolded, while doing crunches? BITCH, HE DOESN'T GET ENOUGH CREDIT. just for that, he should've been received by a red carpet made of panties. he's a solid 9/10 for me on every topic and 10/10 on looks.

elisa. now listen, disregard the "gossip sneezer" hiccup, elisa is not only accomplished being so young, she's unapologetic about her opinions, HELLA SMART, hard working, extremely sexy and just overall really attractive to me. here's the thing, they really tried to make us hate her because of the whole ordeal, but do you remember how sweet she is when she's trying to hide the fact that she's into mc? she's all clumsy, talkative, stuttering. she doesn't know where to look or what to do. i love that. she's super confident in herself but she kind of loses the floor when she sees mc, and i don't think there's anything cuter than that. i'm rating her high because she knows what she wants and she goes and fucking gets it, but not before going through an anxiety spiral and having to calm herself down. RELATABLE. the fact that she's so nervous, and really waits around for mc, is fucking cute. i like her, like i genuinely like her. she's not my type because i usually prefer thiccccccc, but she's still one of my favorites, and i wished her route was a bit longer. sneaking around with her, before we get a chance to couple up, is also really sweet. she gives a lot of reassurance, way more than other li's ever do. solid 10/10

henrik. i have the softest spot for him. i didn't care for him at first, not gonna lie. to me he was really goofy and just... too much. like, high energy. but after a couple of times just noticing what he was saying, the way he talked about love, connections, people in general? i was hooked. i love him, i really do. there's just so much tenderness to go around, he's so thoughtful and sweet, besides being quite quirky, but in a way that doesn't come across as trying hard. he's humble, smart, hot, cute, warm. i just really don't understand why he doesn't have more stans. yes, he brings blake back, but the imagery of him running towards mc, flipping his hair on jakub's face is just... ideal. he's a puppy, the good kind, and soft and unintentionally funny. AND HE HAS LONG HAIR. 10/10

gary. he's corny at times, but he has a good heart. i think he's funny without trying, has no shame in asking for a cuddle, is super massive body wise, which i honestly find so attractive. i could do without the brows but we make it work. besides that, he's a really simple guy, in a way that he doesn't need much to be satisfied. not everyone needs to be awarded or celebrated, and he gets it. he understand that he doesn't need to go long lengths to feel confident and appreciated. he just wants to live a nice life with a girl, have some kids, work, see his friends, his family. gary just wants to be happy and that comes through his route multiple times. besides all that, as a person who was invested in mc, he's charming as fuck. like- he just knows what to say and when to say it. i like his intimate scenes more than some of the li's combined. his looks, personality, storyline, dialogues, thunder thighs, tiddies. he's a solid 11/10 for me.

lucas. are we surprised? he's the most attractive because of everything that comes out of his mouth, and how. he's just out here, looking at us while we talk, giving smirks and fucking eyes, not caring if he makes us flush/feel warm. to him the more the better. he knows what to say, when to say it, how to say it and you know what? i can't help but loving him. he wants his freedom, he travels, he enjoys life but also wants to take care of the next one. he cares about the things that i care about, which is being a good person, learning how to be better, enjoying the opportunities that come, not give a shit about what people think. he's living his best life and it doesn't matter if he's villa! or returning!. i love that for him. and not to mention, i do think he's the hottest guy in all seasons. he doesn't wait around to give his opinion but he's not giving it if no one asks him, he's self aware. and despite being all that, he's still vulnerable at times, very noticeable when he feels a bit lonely, and yes he made mistakes, but everyone did. lucas is just the most attractive because he's authentic, unapologetic and fucking hot as hell. solid 12/10.

ugh, now... season 3. i genuinely hate the season it was too short i was bored and the only good thing to come out of it besides tai was... wait, there wasn't any. besides, say what you want, the li's weren't as interesting and the fandom is doing fusebox' job with headcanons and fanfics. don't be angry at me for telling as it is.

bill. AWFUL DESIGN. this one, indeed, is butt ugly. bill stans, if you find a faceclaim that DOESN'T look like the most ordinary fucking man you've ever seen, i'm sorry, that faceclaim does not apply. the guy has absolutely nothing going for him. no looks, no interesting personality, disgusting mayo talk, and he's kind of a douche. he might be RIGHT THERE with jakub for me, not gonna lie. actually, he's in the very bottom with jakub and dylan from s4. hate the guy.

ciaran. oh my god, just shut up about ireland and dogs already. here's the thing, ginger man are ATTRACTIVE to me, but where's the rest?? they did him really dirty and if he was supposed to only get a personality on boat party (if he ever got one) i didn't have the patience to wait for it. it's kind of like "you have to keep watching this show, it gets really good on episode three." I DON'T HAVE TIME OR ABILITY TO FOCUS FOR THAT LONG, DUDE, GIVE ME THE GOOD STUFF RIGHT AWAY OR PERISH, and that's ciaran for me.

rafi. meh. i do like his looks a lot, even though i feel they chose to make rafi as far from arabic as possible (as a person of color, who's a product of many ethinicities fucking each other, i know how that sounds. and i know egyptian people can look like a lot of ethnicities because mixing and all that, but i feel just a LITTLE BIT of apprehension from the company regarding his looks, and i can't stop thinking about it ok??? it's like this my guy, if rafi looked more like arjun and less like himself, would fusebox give him a butt storyline? MOST LIKELY. that's the thing. i feel they would've given him a really bad characterization, maybe even a harmful stereotype if he looked "more arabic" it's what i'm saying, but that's a conversation for another post). regardless of that, rafi is hot, yes, but he talks about his brother once, and then presses the "douchey actor button" on him and becomes a stereotype. i can't, y'all, i hate it.

camilo. OH MY GOD. they dismissed nicky as an li for these dudes? bill, ciaran, rafi, camilo? it's a no from me dog. camilo calling mc mamacita told me everything i needed to know: they were catering to clueless people that aren't latinx/hispanic/spanish and you can't change my mind. 'mamacita' is cringe as fuck. "ah, vena, that's not his entire personality." what is then? can you give me his character sheet? 'cause fusebox certainly didn't.

lily. MEH. next.

aj. SHE'S ADORABLE, don't get me wrong, but i've said many times before, i can't be attracted to her. i don't know why, i just can't. maybe it's how much energy she has and i couldn't keep up even if i tried...? maybe it's because she looks a bit... what's the word i'm looking for? GULLIBLE. that's what it is, she looks gullible. not dumb nor ignorant, just a bit too innocent. as an li? not interested. but i can say aj is objectively really beautiful and hot, i'm just not attracted to her. i feel protective over her.

yasmin. hot and a musician, and they still managed to not give her enough lines to save her life. during the season i noticed she barely had any screen time if she wasn't the li. granted, when she was, that stayed true too. not her fault, the game's. she had the most potential with me because guess the fuck what?? I LOVE CUTE GIRLS THAT ARE MUSICIANS, WHO DOESN'T?? but the lack of everything, the lack of time, of dialogues, back story, the detailing... i need more.

harry. here's the thing. the whole anger management thing was a very interesting storyline. did they do anything with it? no. did they ever touch the subject again? once, brushing it off rather quickly. do i think harry is hot? NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST. he looks so young to me! like... not young like some asian actors and singers do, no! he looks 14-16 to me, and that's the biggest "it's a no from me dog" ever. there's no fucking way i could ever think of him that way.

tai. COME ON, YOU KNEW THE RANKING OF SEASON 3. it had to be tai, he's borderline perfect to me. from design to personality. granted he didn't have any... twists in his storyline, BUT, his charm makes up for a lot of the mistakes they made in the season (in his route, that is, let's not get it twisted, i have no idea how much screentime he has out of it). tai is really about the personality they gave him, the one we can capture during the season, because DON'T GET ME STARTED ON BOAT PARTY. i don't know what that was and i pretend it never existed.

season 4. *insert disgust sound here*

read my words: NAJUMA, WILL, CORA, ANGIE, THABI, VALENTINA AND OLIVER FOR THE WIN. i don't even know who's a li besides najuma, will, angie and oliver to be honest, but i don't care.

kobi and james look so boring to me it hurts. none of the other men look remotely interesting, pretty, cute, handsome or hot. none of them have awaken anything in me that wasn't anger about their designs, which i hate with a burning passion.

i didn't play season 4 but i'm sleeping TIGHT knowing fully well i didn't waste my precious time.

i don't need to eat chocolate with pork to know it's gonna taste like the devil's anus, so for that reason, i have zero intentions of playing it. unless i can profit from it somehow, but until then, it's another no.

and those are my ratings.

NOW, if i could do a top 10, and choose just based off looks, this is my list, in whatever order because they could all rail me into oblivion:

lucas

gary

priya

tai

oliver

najuma

jake

noah

will

henrik

didn't mean to go in so deep but... rankings are hard for folks like me. everything counts and i can't objectively just say "hey, this person is hot" without knowing anything about them.

recognizing aesthetics? sure, but that's not what attraction means to me.

and this is not even counting people that weren't li's, 'cause you know shannon and hope would be part of this list, along with sammi (s1), seb, genevieve, elladine and nicky on s3, and possibly some people from s4 that i'm not sure if were li's.

alright, enough blabbering! those are my rankings jay lol

[bewaretheidesofmarchyall]

18, 34 and 48 for the qsmp ask game :D

18. Favorite side character/non island residents (This does not include eggs)

Oooo I have to go with Elena on this one. I love a good morally gray scientist, and the recent revelations about her backstory are very Repo: The Genetic Opera.

(Were it not for my lack of drawing abilities and complicated compelling art, artist probably a creep feelings about Repo I would love to make a short animatic of her with part of one of Nathan's songs from that opera)

But if we're allowed to include the Purgatory 2 cast members under a very stretched definition of "non-island residents", my answer changes: Condifiction. 100%. Would be incredible if he could be added to the main cast one day.

34. Free space to talk about anything QSMP related :D

can i talk about qQuackity's tormentous nightmare i want to talk about qQuackity's tormentous nightmare

(by which i mean that time he had a near death experience, toured a Hell of his own making, and then was the first guy on the server to get resurrected during the story [always a landmark in this kinds of stories])

like my thoughts are a bit scattered but. oh my god. it is so rare that we get a direct window into a character's head, and when we do i pounce on his like a starving tiger presented with a meat pumpkin

His hell nightmare version of Tilín telling him he doesn't deserve heaven

The way that he fails every test (doesn't earn Tilín's forgiveness, neglects Richas like he feared he was doing in life, can't make himself let go of the idealized and imagined life he could have as Tallulah's stepfather and probably as Tallulah's father's husband [choosing artifice over the inevitable way he'll ruin something real])

and it's unclear how much of that is him genuinely failing, Oscurucho setting him up to fail to torment him, or his dying mind just deciding failing is what he does, proving to him that he really does deserve Hell

And yeah, I'm reading into it all, sue me. I'm enriched.

SPEAKING OF READING INTO IT, something about qRoier's absence in these streams has possessed me. Because I spent all of the streams just like. Roier today? Vision of Roier in qQuackity's Hell today please? Please he could absolutely kill the role of a guy's dying brain demons. But no. No dice. No Roier :[

Which I then immediately started reading into ASJSJSJ because when only one character in a pattern is missing, that starts seeming notable. And every single one of qQuackity's list of loved ones appears in his tormentous nightmare. except Roier

That's weird, right? He's the only person qQ can't see being in Hell. /probably not the intention but feasible interpretation

Which kind of makes sense? Roier's succeeded at so many points that qQ's failed. Finding love. Walking down the isle. Being a good parent to his own son. Being a better parent to Quackity's kid than Quackity. And then, when Bobby started losing lives, it was never neglect, it was a code attack and an adventure gone wrong. And then, when Bobby was dead for good, Roier didn't go around trying to steal other people's children and threatening murder and any of the various bullshit Quackity did when Tilín died. That fucker grieved better than him.

(obviously this is all just qquackity's knowledge of roier- god knows roier's really had his more morally dubious and heartbreaking moments)

But anyway. The one time Roier appears in Quackity's vision of Hell, he's just text messages in the QSMP server chat. He's not only not shown in Hell, he's not in Hell. He's alive, he's on the island.

And Quackity tries to send messages to him, ask him for help, and they don't go through. He can't do a thing for him, and it's not even his fault. He just doesn't know what's happening in Hell. He's a whole fucking plane of existence above Quackity, thriving and living and unreachable.

dammit i switched into writer mode. anyway, this is my overanalysis of whatever qQuackity's deal is with qRoier

TLDR: I love katabases so so much I think every character should have to take a quick tour of their personal Hell sometime

48. Has the QSMP inspired you to learn new languages? If so, which ones and what have you done to do that so far?

It's definitely inspired me to want to learn new languages- I want to learn Portuguese and French and Spanish and Korean and and and- but I haven't been able to make much progress aside from a frequently broken duolingo streak in Portuguese and then taking Spanish classes. AP classes are kicking my ass right now, but I hope to do more language practice during the summer.

[positivelybeastly]

Thinking back to that email to Wanda during Beast’s X-Force era from Strange Academy

Like Hank asking Wanda to visit Krakoa to see if she was mutant enough to get through the gates. It was really friendly, which (given Hank’s behavior at the time) probably means he was either being devious and underhanded or the SA author didn’t know he was evil but I’ve kind of taken it to mean that even at his lowest, hanks still got a lot of affection and respect for Wanda. At the very least, he recognizes her value as an ally in ways Xavier clearly doesn’t

"It's a poor spymaster that reveals his hand while it's still in play."

This comes from Strange Academy #5!

So, it's a weird one, because we know for a fact that editorial have NOT been doing their due diligence on making sure that X-Force Beast's villainy is being reflected in other books. This comes to mind.

Shoutout to my girl Rainbow Rowell, once again showing off her knowledge of Beast lore and sticking up for my guy. She's consistently been his best writer for the past, like, five years, even in books that he's not in.

But yeah! This was 2022, this was post-Terra Verde, Kurt knows that X-Force Beast slaughtered a small country - but he's still on first name basis and recalling cute bits of gossip that Hank's shared with him. Editorial didn't seem to care about catching that and pointing it out.

Which means the Wanda email here is . . . interesting, especially since it comes from a non-Krakoan email address (notice that Erik's email is specifically a Krakoan domain here), indicating that it's Hank's old, personal email. Now, that could just be a sign of X-Force Beast using every trick up his sleeve to try and lull Wanda into a false sense of security, but . . . I don't know, I kinda don't think so.

The way I write X-Force Beast, he remembers, ACUTELY, who fucked him and who didn't. Scott, Jean, Bobby, Warren, on the shitlist, same with Logan, same with Ororo, same with Kitty/Kate - he remembers their infractions against him like a bank remembers overdraft. He doesn't pretend to be nice to them, because as far as he's concerned, they haven't earned that. They get all of his vitriol. But Wanda?

Wanda never has. Wanda's always been good to him.

My personal version of X-Force Beast maybe wouldn't be this nice - "dearest" isn't a word he'd use except in simpering sarcasm - but I do think he'd be scientifically interested enough in the answer, and warm enough to Wanda, that he'd be at least polite. All that Pretender cult bullshit that Exodus peddles probably pisses him right the fuck off, too, so that's even more incentive to be nice to her.

[otdderamin]

How Spoiler Alert and Bros Challenge Romance Movie Norms

Spoilers for Spoiler Alert (2022) and Bros (2022)

Thinking about how the romanticized cultural narrative we have about love is that two people meet, some spark connects them, and once they have the courage to let themselves be together, everything is just good forever.

And obviously that's bullshit or there wouldn't be so many breakups and divorces. But we rarely write stories about those. We want our stories to live in the limerence of new relationships where anything seems possible before the complexity of reality sets in.

The audience for allocishet normative media has very strict and often formulaic expectations for romance films. Guy meets girl, they fall in love, all obstacles are overcome through the power of love, and they live happily ever after. That audience really only supports that story.

Queer media comes from a vastly different and more complex tradition of romance. There is almost always a backdrop of the world trying to intervene. Even Big Eden (2000) in all its softness had this. There's a much greater love of messy relationships. There are no guarantees.

Bros flouted the heteronormative love story formula by being about two guys with commitment issues who often project their fears on each other and are sometimes even right. Bobby and Aaron have ideas about what they need to prove in life to show they're fulfilled & can't see past that.

It's a complicated journey to figuring out if they even want to be together. If all the baggage they're carrying can fit with them. And the end, parodying Hallmark endings, is simply an attempt, and not an answer. No pressure that it has to last forever.

Spoiler Alert is about a 13 year relationship that was an audience know from the begging will end in loss. The first act is short. They find each other, they connect, sometimes it's weird and awkward but they know very quickly they want to be together.

It's the middle that makes it profound. Where we flash forward and see the relationship after more than a decade. The complacency, the repeated mistakes, the hurt they've caused each other. Wondering if things have run their course.

And then the illness. The realization that they may not get to choose the end. That under the calcification of little built up resentments are all the reasons they still loved each other. Letting go is also no longer getting in your own way.

There was a realness to that. Things weren't just magically fixed. In many ways it's not sentimental. It's built on all the small moments that make you understand that you are alive in three constant presence of someone else because they've overall made your life better.

Both these films are about love without certainty that doesn't have to last forever to mean everything in its time. They are so deeply, inherently queer beyond being about gay men. They're about deeper realities in relationships normativity pushes aside but we need to talk about.

Either one of these films coming out this year would have been a good year in queer cinema. Both together—the spectrum of romcom and sentimental tragedy—are a landmark distillation of the last century of our media culture. I think both will join the canon of must see queer films.

Before I got into queer media, I would have told you I hated romance movies (even when I thought I was allocishet). If always felt forced worth nothing new to say. Turns out it's because allocishet media is culturally invested in saying nothing new about relationships and love.

But queer media inherently is about love that challenges norms. Love that has to be meaningful enough to risk loss for it. Love that's truely freeing instead of conforming to stale expectations. And so the stories we get to tell are far more interesting and real.

[matan4il]

Okay, first of... I adore you and your metas and just ❤️❤️❤️

But also, two things. I'm re-watching and I realised that, even though Eddie knows as early as s2e01 that Buck was left by his gf, he somehow never knew Abby was a 911 dispatcher? At least according to a scene in Powerless. I mean... the Abby topic might be a sore one but surely, they would have had at least one convo about her. And a big part of who she was and how she came into Buck's life is her being a dispatcher.

Which leads me to the conversation Buck and Abby have at the end of What's Next? and how Abby says that she was a person whose life revolved around other people's problems and that she had "no identity" other than the people she helped. And that she left to figure out who she was. Part of which was leaving Buck and never looking back.

Isn't that what Eddie is going through as well, figuring out who he is, i mean. How cute would it be if the end of his journey, of him finding his identity, would be to be with Buck.

Sorry for the weird, and possibly already discussed, braindump ❤️❤️❤️

Awwwww, Nonnie! Thank you SO MUCH for the lovely words and I hope you can feel just how big I’m hugging you right now!

Oh, the talk they have in the truck on the way to the hot air balloon call in 317. I always assumed that Buck has told Eddie all about Abby and how she hurt him (Eddie already knew the gist of it from Chim in 201, clearly heard even more details by 204, and then 318 makes it clear he knows everything hurtful about Abby and her r/s with Buck), I wouldn’t think he’d leave out her being a dispatcher. So based on that, I believe I wrote in the 317 back in the day that Buck probably didn’t wanna upset Eddie by bringing her up, so instead he just says, “I heard dispatch gets...” without specifying who at dispatch filled him in. Eddie at that moment has more than one option, since Buck has a sister who works there, through which he has also befriended at least one other dispatcher, Josh. Both are more current fixtures at the end of s3 in Buck’s life than Abby. So Eddie goes for the most likely option, Maddie. Buck denies, but he’s also very awkward about it. We don’t get a cut back to Eddie’s face after that, but I always assumed if we did, we’d see him serving one of his patented, “I know when you’re bullshitting me, husband, but I’m gonna let it slide until you’re ready to tell me. 'Coz we both know you will.” Basically, Buck doesn’t wanna bring up Abby, Eddie doesn’t wanna press, but that doesn’t mean Eddie doesn’t know Abby is one of the contenders for who said that stuff to Buck.

YEEES! The difference between Abby and Eddie as Buck’s potential soulmates is glaring with that one, isn’t it? ‘Coz Abby needed to find herself and she didn’t come back. We always knew Eddie would. But then she doesn’t come back because she eventually chooses to walk away from being a first responder, she feels drained by helping others and realizes she can’t continue to do it anymore. I wrote in the 318 meta post that Buck is the opposite of that, he IS that guy who WANTS to run into burning buildings to save others. And the thing is, so is Eddie. Ali chose to walk away from the first responders life, Abby did as well, but Eddie didn’t really want to. He felt compelled by what he heard from Chris. He was going through a lot, so he overreacted and quit instead of communicating with his son, but he never actually wanted to be away from saving others, which is why even before he’s resolved all of his issues, he goes to Bobby, wanting back in. Even when quitting, he still found a job that was firefighting-adjacent, one that allowed him to still help and save people, like we saw in 511. The things he has to figure out aren’t going to change this about who Eddie essentially is, on the contrary, they’ll only reinforce that this is who he is, a guy who cares a lot and wants to help others. Just like Buck. Which is precisely why yep, Eddie will ALWAYS choose to be with him. The way these two are so compatible, I AM WEEPING.

Thank you so much for the ask, Nonnie! And I’m so sorry if my own ramble is weird and unhinged, but they make me feel things. Have a great day! xoxox

(I got an influx of asks, I WILL answer all of them, but it might take a sec. If anyone wants to check whether I've already answered theirs or to read my replies, here's my ask tag. Thank you! xoxox)

[nonchalantee]

Ooooh, all of those asks look good, but I'll go with BTS for 'not strong or brave' please!

ooo hmmmm this fic is so long :'D it's hard to pick a scene, but i'm gonna go with a dan & lucy one, the morning after they help maddie come down from a panic attack.

They got home late which Dan takes for granted means they’ll sleep in late, but Lucy is up and moving way before a reasonable hour. He watches her dig through her side of the closet and through her drawers, throwing together an outfit more formal than her typical wear: gray suit pants and a matching vest over a white blouse with an exaggerated bow at the neck.

i do like the costuming a lot in this show. lucy's usual clothes are super casual, very comfortable, with a slightly sporty flair. this kind of outfit is more like armor, i think. WASP armor.

“Do you have a job interview you didn’t tell me about?” he asks, sitting up in bed. “Bobby’s gonna be heartbroken if he just got you and is gonna lose you right away.”

what i like a lot abt this is that dan immediately picks up on lucy doing something sus; he's coming in with a joking tone, but this is a query for more information coached in non-confrontational tone. dan's thing is being supportive, so he does try to avoid confrontation as much as possible.

Lucy rolls her eyes. “I didn’t tell you this last night because you needed to sleep,” she says lightly, conversationally. “But I promised your parents I’d take them out for breakfast. It was the only way they were gonna leave without making some kind of fuss.”

lolol lucy knows danny's reaction is gonna be bad. she comes in super casual when she knows the other person is gonna have a big response. there's something else going on with this, too; the night before, dan asked lucy to take care of the parents. it was a pretty big ask and dan wouldn't have made it if maddie wasn't literally having a panic attack in front of him and wasn't literally just about to give birth.

lucy took care of the situation and dan didn't ask any questions - he should have - and this little information bomb is lucy's mini payback for that whole thing. she's not actually mad at dan (or even at maddie), but that whole situation was bullshit and she's still annoyed about it all, her patience is short, and she's not willing to have a long conversation/debate on this. she was asked to handle it, she handled it, and she's still handling it, stay out of her business, etc.

“Uh, no,” Danny says. “We aren’t seeing them-“

“Yes, you’re right, we definitely aren’t seeing them.” Lucy goes into the ensuite but leaves the door open so he can still hear her. “You’re staying home. Or going into work, or whatever, I actually don’t care. I’m going to breakfast, alone.”

“Lucy, come on.”

i don't rly buy into the idea that every relationship dynamic has a boss and a follower. that being said, in this relationship dynamic, lucy does tend to win when they have disagreements. she just has more practice at it as the youngest in a very large family. dan's family ignores or runs away from fights, so he has less skill in that department.

he also just really doesn't like arguing. he's a very big guy and he's always aware that when he gets mad, it has a different vibe than when anyone else gets mad. so when he gets into arguments, he's always kinda hobbled by the control he has to keep over his emotions. he is pissed off here, but because he keeps a tight lid on it, it just comes off as exasperated/annoyed. it's hard for your side of the argument to come across as strongly as you want it to when you can't show the true emotions/depth of emotions. not saying lucy would be scared of dan if he did show all his emotions, but just that this is a very ingrained control habit for dan at this point; he almost always dulls the presentation of his more negative emotions.

She pokes her head out of the bathroom to give him a deeply unimpressed look. “Do you think I want to do this? Do you think any of this is fun for me? Don’t make it harder by fighting me on it. I said I’d do it, so I’m doing it.”

lucy coming in with a mild guilt trip. it's not great, but i wouldn't call it toxic. she's rly feeling the whole "back off now" emotion and dan catches the brunt of it.

“I’ll go with you, then.”

dan rly doesn't want his parents around lucy. it's kind of a knee-jerk protective instinct; he got too used to seeing his parents hurt buck, the other person he feels most protective over. consciously he knows they won't hurt her/are incapable of hurting her in a real way, but he still needs to shield her from them.

“Yeah, no.” She goes up to the head of the bed and kisses him on the cheek. lucy understands this protective instinct immediately lol. she thinks it's sweet but unnecessary. “The only thing worse than giving them something they want is giving something else they want even more. And the only thing even worse than that is hurting you. Stay the fuck away, or else I’m ratting you out to your therapist.” now this is lucy being protective. there isn't a lot out there that can actually hurt dan. mostly it's just his family and himself. here she's protecting him against both.

Dan grabs her hand. “Lucy, you really don’t have to do this. They break promises all the time. It’ll just be a small bit of karmic justice if you don’t show.”

i wanted the physical details of them making small contacts in this fight, like she kisses him, he takes her hand, etc. even when they're in disagreement, they can't stop from making conciliatory gestures to each other - seeking connection, showing affection. it's not a big thing, it's just ingrained. it's like bedrock of their dynamic, almost unconscious, so those things always need to be peppered in. as soon as the hostility falters even a little, one or both of them is reaching out to give the other a small gesture of love.

“Just because they act that way doesn’t mean I get to,” Lucy says. Her code of honor has been invoked.

lucy is the most heroic character type in this fic, in like the classic sense. she's chivalrous. she stays true to herself and to her personal code of conduct at all times.

Dan shuts his eyes and groans, defeated. dan is aware of this, and knows there's no swaying her, no matter what he says or does or who he invokes.

She kisses him on the other cheek, and he lets her go so she can finish getting ready. When she comes out, she’s put on heavier makeup than she usually bothers with and she’s braided part of her hair and put it all in an up-do, something that looks fancy and complicated that Dan has seen her perfect on the heads of half a dozen nieces. Princess hair, they call it.

again i just rly like the idea of dan paying such close attention to her that he can tell all the little differences and knows what they might mean.

“Are you trying to impress my parents?” he asks, not knowing exactly how to feel about that.

“Is that your way of saying I look nice?”

“It’s my way of saying you don’t look like yourself.”

Lucy grins. “You got me.” She does a little twirl. “But I look good, right?” she's trying to deflect him haha. there are some things dan doesn't understand about being a woman and he'd listen if she wanted to tell him, but she's not that interested in talking about it since it isn't often a big part of her life. she has a work uniform, and outside of work, she 99% of the time only wears the things she wants to wear. this is the 1% of her life where clothing matters in a way he's not gonna rly get, and she's honestly fine with him staying oblivious.

“You always look good. But you don’t have to look good for them. Seriously, just throw on a trash bag, maybe they’ll be too embarrassed to be seen with you.” dan understands nothing. he's cute but yeah.

“Yeah, I’m not doing that.”

A bolt of inspiration strikes, then. “Why don’t you give Chimney a call and invite him along? Make it an in-law breakfast. Means you’re not alone with them.” dan is actually very good at compromises. he's like, ok, i can't be there to be a human shield, but i can throw another person in the mix to be a human shield!

hmm the fic also hasn't rly gone into the dan & chim dynamic. they are on good terms - they vaguely knew each other for a few years before buck showed up, just by dint of various lafd things in the city. when buck was 118's probie, dan vetted them a bit tho. chim clocked what dan was doing and talked a little bit about how hard it is to have a brother in the service, and they had a good bonding moment. dan visited him in the hospital with the rebar incident and donated some sick days to the recovery pool for chim.

it got a little weird when maddie showed up, though, because maddie & dan took a while to reestablish contact. chim was obviously instantly team maddie and felt a little indignant on her behalf every time dan snubbed her, though she always said it was justified; but after the doug incidents, they were more or less all happy families. dan feels comfortable trusting chim to have lucy's back, which is actually one of the highest compliments he can give someone.

Lucy pauses. “That’s actually not bad,” she says. lucy is actually not a masochist. she will take any non-dan, non-buck, non-maddie human shields she can get her hands on. “I will call him on the way out there. He’s a guy, your type can get ready in like five minutes, right?”

“I don’t know, Chim can be kinda vain. Maybe give him ten.”

“Good looking out.” i just like it when they banter, i think they're cute

Dan gets out of bed to walk her to the door, and he catches her hand before she leaves. “Hey, you look pretty,” he says, mostly just to see if she’ll blush. dan's the kind of guy who likes to compliment his wife just 'cause

She doesn’t. She winks, forgets her hair is up and tries to toss it, then laughs. “I know.” lucy is a goofball. she covers it up with being badass and hyper competent, goal oriented, whatever, but also underneath all that she's a goof. it only rly comes out with dan tho; her big silly moments tend to be around/with him.

He watches her drive away, then closes the door and walks to the living room and lies down on the floor. He hates this so much it feels like his soul is leaving his body. He hates that his parents have been in town less than a week and already they’re edging their way back into his life. He meant it when he told them he was done with them. But he knew, even back then, that they meant it when they said they weren’t done with him. dan has lived under this particular doom ever since he went no contact with them. it's been a constant dread lol.

They’ve just always loved him too much. Loved him to the point of monstrousness. dan's problem is he does understand his parents and he does love them too. it's just that he doesn't think it's an excuse for the things they've done. he can understand someone and not forgive them - this is the main big diff between dan and buck. buck forgives people once he understands them; dan doesn't. He knows that love is in him, too; that capability. It’s part of why he fights so hard for control, and here is where dan is like eddie! haha, they both loooove to be in control, and are always chasing control/clinging to it. in eddie's case, he doesn't trust the outside world; in dan's case, he doesn't trust his interior self. they both have such a focus on control that it is a basis for how they relate to one another, actually, not that they'd exactly put it in those words. for moderation. He knows what it turns into when love has no limits. dan really doesn't trust himself. i think i've hammered that fact down really hard for most of the fic, esp in the convo with frank, but it is the core of his personality. he doesn't trust himself, he thinks of himself as a monster, he thinks of himself as complicit in abuse, he thinks he's a risk to be an abuser in the future. he has a lot of repressed self-hatred and a fairly bad self image. the way he thinks of himself would horrify anyone who loves him, honestly. he doesn't forgive so he can't forgive himself, it's a whole thing.

why i wanted to commentary this scene in particular is bc i think it's one of the only scenes where lucy and dan actually argue with each other. i wanted to show how they navigate that kind of thing, what discord looks like between them, and what comes out in each of them when they're in conflict. they both get manipulative in slightly different ways. lucy tends to go to an "obviously things are x way, have you only just noticed?" as a rhetorical weapon (you see her deploy it in another disagreement with dan later on), which is p obnoxious and feels very youngest sibling of her. dan would rather lose a fight than show a negative emotion he isn't 100% in control of.

i just also feel like u learn a lot about characters when they do things they don't normally do. so lucy & dan don't normally fight, but when they do, u learn more about their base personalities, their reactions, how they navigate their way out of the fight and back to status quo, etc. so i thought this scene did interesting things and i had fun with it, and it also helped me with writing their later scenes as well bc i felt like i had a better handle on their emotional sides.