#her relationship with luke never comes close to replacing that for better or for worse

[marrissacooper]

I was rewatching the chris and rory scene in the revival and I don't understand how people can watch it and go "this conversation foreshadows that rory will raise her baby alone" like they both look so sad... they made chris say it happened the way it was meant to be but it's obvious he regrets it (plus he contradicts himself every second like first he says he chose not to get between lorelai and rory, then he says no one could've made lorelai change her mind... but that's a conversation for another post) and rory doesn't look much better. again, it's obvious that a part of her will always wish things were different. that her dad had been a better man, that he'd been in her life more. and chris keeps saying he loves rory but she doesn't say it back, it's tragic. why would she want to put her own child through this? it makes no sense

[boldlyvoid]

Wheels Up

Characters: Spencer Reid, Reader (Y/N), Aaron Hotchner, David Rossi, Derek Morgan, Savannah Hayes, Emily Prentiss, Elle Greenaway, Tara Lewis, Jennifer Jareau, Matt Simmons, Luke Alvez

Summary: JJ goes on maternity leave, Spencer falls in love with her replacement that he's supposed to be mentoring, Emily Prentiss and Elle Greenaway work a case together that brings Simmons and Alvez in for help...

Warnings: Genius!Reader, mutual pining, idiots in love, drinking, star gazing, lots of fluff, mentions of past assault, grooming, drug addiction, spencer's trauma, Abductions, Rape, Murder (typical canon violence)

word count: 9.4K

a/n: this is for @starry-eyed-spence and @simmonsmilf CM fanfiction week, Day One: Favorite Character... only I couldn't pick just one.

To say Spencer fell in love at the least opportune time was a bit of an understatement. Everyone he’s ever come close to admitting his love to has either left him or died. Now he’s stuck with loving someone in secret, keeping it to himself and hoping that one day she’ll love him back.

He fell in love with a co-worker once again… which wasn’t the worst thing, office romances happen and it’s quite frankly all Rossi’s fault that they even had to worry about fraternization policies. The part that makes liking Y/N so difficult is that he’s supposed to be her mentor, he’s 5 years older than her, and if he was to ever make a move she would feel inclined to reciprocate in order to keep her job because that’s the unfortunate truth behind office relationships with significant differences in positions.

And worst of all… she doesn’t like him that way at all. She’s called him the brother she always needed, a best friend, the best mentor ever. She wasn’t interested in him in the slightest.

“And why would she be?” He’s said this to everyone who knew about his crush on her. “I’m old and boring and she’s so cool?”

But he didn’t get it. He didn’t understand that every time she asked him to hang back to help her file something, or when they would buddy up in hotel rooms to discuss cases all night and end up down some star trek rabbit hole instead, every time he talked to her she was falling in love with him right back.

It once again all circles back to Rossi, if it wasn’t for him, Spencer wouldn’t even know her. She wouldn’t have ever been introduced to the unit, he wouldn’t be attached to her at the hip and he probably wouldn’t be as happy as he is with her in his life. Even if she wasn’t his girlfriend.

He’ll never forget the day Rossi asked him to meet her, to help her settle in…

“Spencer, can I talk to you for a minute?” Rossi called him into his office.

He sighed, putting his book down and walking up the stairs to his office. He closed the door behind himself and smiled awkwardly, “what’s up?”

“Sit,” he gestures to the chairs in front of his desk, where Spencer pulls one out and proceeds to sit down, anxiously. “As you know, both Kate and JJ will be out of the field in the next few months to have their babies and we need to bring someone in to fill the void until they return, so I reached out to the academy to see if they have any up and coming Dr. Reid like agents that they could loan us.”

“Why?” Spencer laughs at the choice of words.

“Well, honestly, why get new 2 agents when we could have two Reid’s? JJ will be back after a month or 2, it’s better to have more brains than brawn.”

“So they found someone and you want me to be their chaperone?” Spencer clues in. “Who are they?”

“Y/N Y/L/N, she’s a wonderful agent, but she’s pretty quiet, I don’t know much about her personally.” Rossi prefaces. “She’s a genius, high IQ like yours and just a plethora of knowledge inside that mind of hers. You’ll like her.”

“Alright,” he nods. “When do they start?”

“When JJ’s water breaks, but I’d like you to meet them and maybe even have them shadow you for a day?” Rossi asks, “I’ve actually arranged for you both to get dinner at a friend's restaurant?”

“Is this an arranged date or purely business? Don’t send me in there blind,” he worries. “I need at least a week's prep before I go on a date again.”

“It’s not a date, kid,” Rossi laughs. “She's just a lot like you were when I met you, and I know from watching you all these years that it’s not easy to do it alone, so can you just walk them through it?”

“Of course.”

That first dinner Rossi set up for them was more exquisite than either of them prepared for.

They spent the whole night discussing dissertations and their independent journeys through becoming a genius. He understood perfectly why Rossi and the Academy would think she was a lot like him, she was a genius, but she was awkward. It took a while for her to break out of her shell and open up, but by the end of the night, he already knew they were going to be friends.

“So,” she smirks, “would you mind telling me honestly how hard this job is?”

“Why?”

She sighs, “I’ve heard a lot about Thee Doctor Reid and how you were the youngest hired to the BAU and all the shit you’ve been through.”

“What are the rumours these days?” He awkwardly smiles back, rolling his eyes slightly.

“That you were brain dead in a cemetery from an overdose and yet you’re so smart you came back from the dead to kill the unsub and escape…” she looks more and more disappointed in the rumour as she tells it.

His tongue hits the roof of his mouth as he opens it to speak, making a tsk noise as he shakes his head. “Well, I did OD but it was the unsubs main personality that resuscitated me.”

“Holy shit,” she whispers.

He nods, “what about you? I’m sure you have a reputation based on a rumour?”

She presses her lips together the way he always did, just as awkward. She sighs, huffing the air out of her nose and looking fed up. “I was groomed and assaulted by an older boy who then told kids I had a stalkerish crush on him so if I was to ever tell anyone what happened, then no one would believe me.”

“I’m so sorry,” Spencer knows the words don’t make up for what happened. “I’m guessing that’s why you wanted to get into profiling?”

She nods, “I got away with some PTSD and trust issues, most girls go through much worse… they deserve someone who gets it to look into their cases.”

Spencer nods. “That’s how I felt after my kidnapping too. It took a while for me to look at crime scene photos and not think about how they felt, and wonder why I lived when so many die?”

“I’ve never been a religious person,” she prefaces. “But I do believe we are here for a reason. Whether you choseto be here after your last life or this is some learning opportunity, or God is actually real? And you’re supposed to do good.”

“In narcotics anonymous, they reference god a lot, it’s helpful for the addicts, but I never get into it,” he opens up with her more than he’s ever opened up with any friend. “If my Devine purpose is to suffer in order to relate to those I’m supposed to help that’s a load of bullshit… honestly, I can get pretty angry thinking about why I’ve gone through what I’ve gone through doing this job, but it’s not as bad as what happened to me growing up, and it leads me to believe that I probably wouldn’t have had an easy time no matter how I live.”

She nods, “I know, I get that.”

“Sorry,” he snaps out of it. “I didn’t mean to trauma dump on you.”

“It’s exactly what I asked for actually,” she reminds him with a soft smile. “If you can still come to work every day, after all that, you must be incredibly strong— and if I’m anything like you the way people say I am, I guess I can do it too.”

He had no idea she would end up being his best friend.

She shadowed him just once in the office, picked up everything right off the bat and immediately made a name for herself in the unit. Derek tried multiple names on her before one stuck, and they knew it stuck when even Hotch called her Baby Genius.

She brought a different knowledge base to the team, similar to Spencers but visibly younger. She fit in with the crowds of kids they had to interview, she understood why kids reacted the way they did to trauma and abuse, and she was still a kid at heart. It was the reason Spencer fell for her.

She allowed him to feel free again. They went out together outside of work, going to events he always wanted to go to with a partner but never had a chance. She loved all the same things as him, and she takes him to places he’d never imagine enjoying before her.

Like laser tag… that was an afternoon he’ll never forget with her.

When JJ went into labour, that’s when Y/N started full time and Hotch hired Tara Lewis in the same week. The team barely had time to adjust to being undermanned before they were restocked.

Joining Spencer every morning for every case, she waited out front of her apartment for him to pick her up most mornings, sticking to his side throughout the long days and nights until he drove her home again. Even at work, they were partnered up for everything: heading to the M.E. together, bouncing facts back and forth at the precinct, playing good cop bad cop with perverts, and her personal favourite… Making the geoprofile.

And Spencer liked doing that part with her as well. Because it typically meant they were completely alone in a room, spreading out a map and leaning in close to each other as they placed every sticker and marker. Brushing hands, bumping shoulders, longing glances as they made connections… he also just liked to watch her hands move.

She was delicate and careful and precise… and he was falling in love with everything about her as the days went by.

Everyone on the team had noticed. It was really hard not to when they’ve all known Spencer for almost 11 years now. He was so different with her in his life, he was happy and giddy and dressing even better than before. His hair was perfect and he was glued to Y/N’s side. Or she was glued to his.

Even though they were mentally similar, physically they were polar opposites. Y/N wore all black and was a lot more outgoing than they expected. Rossi thought she’d be quiet… But she was constantly talking. To Spencer, to other officers, to witnesses, she never stopped talking and starting conversations, and thank god she did because she’s cracked 4 cases that way.

The biggest surprise the team learned about her happened on a case in Florida, a shooting in a local park in broad daylight with lots of witnesses meant the whole team was on the boardwalk asking questions. She went out to do her thing, talking to the local skaters, asking them if they knew anything but they didn’t want to cooperate.

They were too cool for the feds.

“Can I see your board?” She asks, “if I do some tricks will you answer some questions for me and Doctor Reid?”

“Knock yourself out,” one of the boys laughs as he hands her his board.

She hands Spencer her gun and shoots him a wink before taking off to do a few tricks. The whole team watches in awe then as Y/N showed off. Cruising along the halfpipe effortlessly like she was a professional.

“Okay Tony Hawk,” Morgan teases her, “where did that come from?”

“Skateboarding is easy, it’s just physics,” she shrugs. “I can figure skate too…”

“What do you want to know?” The boy takes his board back. “We always see some sketchy guys around here.”

Morgan pats Y/N on the back with a smile, applauding her ability to get anyone to open up before leaving her to take the statement.

“Agent?” One of the girls pulls her aside just before they are about to leave, “how did you do that kickflip? I’ve been trying to learn and the boys won't help me.”

“Sure thing,” she takes the girl's board and demonstrates a kickflip first.

“So, you see as I start the kickflip I bend my knees?” She shows her another kickflip all while explaining it. “Much like the with an ollie, I’m building pressure so I can apply it to the tail, making the board pop. The one thing that makes this trick different from the ollie is that instead of sliding my foot up, I just flick my toe out to the right of the board, by doing this, the board flips in a 360-degree motion.

She demonstrates again and it’s another flawless kickflip, and a huge smile on her face as Spencer watches her.

“How fast the board spins depends on how much force I put into it when I flick it out. As soon as the board flips in a full 360, your feet should connect and drive the board back to the ground.”

She hands the board back to the girl, “your turn.”

She takes a deep breath and shakes her nerves out before taking off on her board, looping around and carefully bending her knees, she follows every step and it’s a flawless kickflip.

“Flawless!!” Y/N claps. “Those boys better watch out, you’re a natural.”

“Thank you,” she wraps her arms around Y/N and gives her a hug, “it’s taken me so long to be able to do that, you’re so cool.”

“You’re welcome,” she smiles. “Good luck out there.”

She waves as she takes off on her board, leaving Y/N with a smile as she turns to Spencer. “I miss being that age and thinking everything is so cool.”

“You are really cool,” he agrees. Smiling softly as a blush fills his cheeks. “You’re always surprising me. Is there anything you can’t do?”

She laughs, “yeah the one thing I want to do the most.”

“Which is?”

She sighs, “maybe I’ll tell you someday.”

—

He’s sitting beside Penelope and Savannah, watching Derek and Y/N get drinks for what’s left of the group as the night drags on.

“When are you going to tell her?” Savannah asks.

“What?” Spencer pretends he doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

“You have a crush on the new girl…” she pokes his cheek as he blushes and gives it away. “Tell her, what’s the worst that can happen?”

“She could feel forced to say yes because I’m a supervisory special agent and she isn’t and she wants to keep her job so she feels like she needs to,” Spencer worries. “I want her to like me back because she fell for me and I want her to initiate it because then I’ll know it’s not just a power dynamic issue.”

“Have you tried asking her, genius?” Penelope teases. “Because if you asked her then you’d know she has a crush on you and she’s afraid you’ll turn her down because you’re an SSA and she isn’t.”

“When did you hear that?”

Penelope pretends to lock up her lips and throw away the key, making Savannah laugh loud enough to get Derek's attention at the bar. When he and Y/N return, that’s when the questions start.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” Spencer gets up and leaves the booth, walking out towards the smokers' exit at the back of the bar, getting a moment of semi-fresh air to think about what Penelope said.

“Spence?” She calls to him from the door, “are you okay? Can I come out here?”

“Yeah,” he nods. “Sorry, I needed some air, it’s nothing.”

“Do you need a hug? I read it helps the most when people are stressed out,” she plays it off with a shrug.

“So you do have a crush on me?”

“She told you?” Her face lights with fury, “what the fuck, Penelope?”

“She didn’t mean to,” he tries to cover it up. “It was only brought up because I have feelings for you as well.”

Her eyes widen, her brows raise and her mouth slowly opens as she freezes.

“Y/N?”

She blinks a few times and shakes her head, “impossible. There’s no way.”

He laughs, “I’ll take that hug now?”

She lunges for him and wraps her arms around him so tight. Breathing him in, her hands wander his back as she takes in every second if it and he does the same. He can’t believe she’s that close to him, her hair smells nice and she’s so soft in his arms.

It’s quiet outside, they can hear the music behind the door, the people in the ally talking and the crickets in the night. It’s just them outside, holding each other in the smoking section with smiles on their faces, amazed that it’s finally happening.

“Can we keep this between us?” She whispers into his ear. “Just for a bit? I don’t want to go through all the paperwork and have to separate in the field if it doesn’t work out?”

“Wait,” Spencer pulls back. “Are you asking me to be your boyfriend?”

She nods, “well yeah isn’t that what happens when two people have a mutual crush? They date?”

“Okay,” he smiles, staring at her lips and then flicking his gaze back to hers with a blush. “I have more than a crush on you, I really, really like you.”

“Prove it,” she teases, “let's go on a real date soon?”

“You know what, let’s get out of here. I have something I want to show you,” he takes her hand and waits for her to nod.

“Take my lead okay? You don’t feel good and you’re going to wait outside while I say goodbye,” she has a plan right away

“After you,” he holds the door open for her and lets her inside first.

—

“I’m taking Spencer home, he’s not doing well,” she’s a much better actress than Spencer expected, patting his back and watching him leave the bar before her like she asked him to do. “He’s really anxious?”

Penelope looks worried, “oh no, I fucked up. I told him you like him.”

She just shrugs, “if he didn’t know that already then I guess he’s not as smart as he pretends to be.”

“See,” Derek looks at Savannah. “I told you everyone else also thinks he’s faking being that smart.”

“Shut up,” she shoves him and turns her attention back to Y/N. “Go make him feel better, he’ll like your company.”

“I’ll see you guys at work on Monday,” she waves them goodbye, surprised they bought it as she rushes her way back outside to Spencer.

He’s already in his car, engine running and waiting for her with a smile. “Come on,” he hurries her inside and is taking off down the road before she even has her seatbelt on yet.

“What’s the rush, Spence? It’s only 1 in the morning I’m sure tones of places are open still?” She teases.

“You’re going to like this, I used to go here all the time when I started with the bureau,” he explains, leaving the main road to take a back root, and eventually they’re driving on gravel.

“If you’re taking me here to murder me this is a dumb way to do it because they all know I left with you,” she teases. “At least when you go to get rid of me, do yourself a favour and dig 6 one-foot holes instead of one 6 foot hole…”

He laughs, “would you really give your murderer tips?”

She nods, “my goal would be to piss him off so much he either lets me go or murders me quickly. I don’t want to go through all the pain.”

“It’s not fun, that’s for sure,” he shrugs it off but she knows it hits too hard.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, reaching her hand out for his to hold by the gear shift. “I think you’re like the strongest guy in the world, you know that, right?”

“Why?” He asks as if that's a preposterous thing to say.

“I think if I got kidnapped and tortured at 24 I wouldn’t still be working in the FBI,” she admits. “I barely made it through the academy, I know this job is intense but I don’t think I could handle being in that situation.”

“If it’s up to me,” Spencer squeezes her hand tighter and brings it to his lips for a kiss. “You’ll never experience anything like that.”

He’s so good at making her feel safe that she almost believes he has the power to do that. He would do anything and everything to move fate for her safety.

He turns down another back road then, around the edge of a lake and towards a clearing. He follows old tire tracks and parks by the dock. “I found this spot one night on a random drive to clear my head.”

“I thought you hated driving?” She quizzes him.

He shrugs, “I like to drive at night when no one else is on the road because then I don’t really have to worry about anyone else. I hate driving because I can’t always anticipate other drivers' movements. If I could read minds, then I’d drive more.”

“Valid,” she nods, “now why is this such a special spot that you needed to show me right away?”

“Well, I have a telescope and it’s been in my trunk for the last 13 years so that every time I come here, I can look up at the moon…”

“You brought me here to look at the moon with you?” She swoons, “that’s so cute.”

“You think?” He looks like his heart is doing the same swelling as hers.

She gets out of the car before she can lean over and kiss him the way she wants to. In his trunk, he does have a telescope, and a blanket, which they set out on the dock and sit upon.

The sound of the lake, the loons in the distance, frogs and crickets and music travelling from somewhere down the lake. The moon was big, the stars were amazing, and this was the closest she has ever seen them. It's amazing, and of course, it was Spencer showing her everything.

He was everything to her.

And it didn’t take long for him to become everything to her either.

Joining the BAU was a dream to many at the academy, but Y/N never thought that she would get the job, overjoyed that she did. They were a family unit; they got the job done, they protected each other, and it was a wonderful environment to be a part of. She obviously liked Spencer the most out of everyone. He took her in, he made her feel comfortable and safe and she opened up more with him than she has with anyone she’s labelled a “best friend” in the past.

She liked everything about him. The way he talked with his hands, how his sweater, vest, shirt and tie always match, his gun looks a little out of place on his belt, like it’s too big for him, but it’s cute. His hair’s been getting longer too, sometimes he wears glasses and sometimes if she’s lucky, he doesn’t shave every day.

She can’t take her eyes off him when he’s busy and won't notice, just to then move her focus away when he stared at her. She only wishes she could see the way he stares at her in awe, because if it’s anything like how she looks at him, he must love her.

She keeps her hand in his, trading the telescope back and forth in turns, her face was close to his every time they switched and she kept getting bolder with each exchange. Letting Spencer look, she kept her face close to his, kissing his cheek softly as soon as he was busy peering up at the moon.

He turned to her with a gasp, “what was that for?”

“You’re cute,” she shrugs. “I’ve wanted to kiss you for a while.”

“How long?” He teases, leaning in closer and kissing her nose to make her laugh.

“Since you dropped me off at my house after that first dinner…”

“So this is me,” she nods out the window, “thank you for the ride, I appreciate not having to be in an Uber all by myself.”

“Anytime you need a ride, you can give me a call?” He asks. “Seeing as we’ll be going to the same place anyway.”

She nods with a smile, “I’d love that, do you live close to here?”

“Just up the street,” he nods. “So we could carpool?”

“I can drive some days if you want?” She asks, “I know you mostly take the subway, and I know that because I’ve seen you reading on there before.”

He can’t help but smile, “so you never thought to say hello?”

“No,” she shakes her head, “you looked peaceful, and I’m sure you don’t get many moments like that in your line of work.”

He sighed, knowing she was right. “If it ever gets to be too much for you, please never feel like you have to pretend to be okay? None of us expect you to be stone cold, none of us are either. The job gets to us, just tell me if it gets to be too much?”

She looks from his lips back to his eyes and over again, “thanks, Spencer.”

He does the same to her, “anytime. Should I walk you to your door?”

She shakes her head, “that’s okay you’ve done enough for me tonight.”

“Fair enough,” he laughs. “Have a good night Y/N.”

“You too, Spencer,” she smiles before she exits his car, smiling at him from her porch before he drives away.

“So it’s been mutual this whole time?” He shakes his head at the absurdity. “I’ve been so lonely for so long and then I found you and you make me feel like I don’t need to be alone anymore.”

“You complete me too,” she makes one more comment before connecting their lips.

It’s like the world stops then. It’s silent and serene and everything she thought kissing Spencer Reid would be.

She pulls back with a smirk, “oh no.”

“What?” He worries.

“I’m going to want to kiss you all the time now…”

“Good,” he mumbles the words against her lips before reconnecting them.

—

At work on Monday, it’s very hard for them to look at each other without remembering that they’ve kissed. Spencer’s practically glowing with admiration for her that he gives it all away. He’s overly happy, offering to do things for others, standing way too close to her and bringing her coffee all morning.

“Okay, pretty boy,” Derek takes him by the scruff of the neck and redirects him into his office. “What’s going on with you today, I know you’re not this happy for JJ’s return?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you get laid or something?”

Spencer laughs, “no, you know I don’t get laid. You actually remind me of that fact quite often.”

“You’re so happy I’m worried you’ve moved to crack,” he says it. “Okay, you were acting weird on Friday, you missed brunch on Sunday and now you’re waaay too happy.”

“I’m not on drugs again,” Spencer assures him. “I’m just letting myself enjoy my time with Y/N, if she falls in love with me in the meantime that would also be nice.”

“Oh, so you’re doing this to get laid,” Derek teases him again. “That’s good, I’m sorry if I triggered you by asking, but I had to make sure you’re okay.”

“No, no,” he places his hands on Derek's shoulders, “thank you for caring.”

“Always—“

“Guys!” They hear Hotch yelling from the bullpen, cutting the tender moment short, saving Spencer from spilling the truth.

Rushing back, he sits beside Y/N at the briefing room table. “We have a bad one,” Emily Prentiss of all people walks in the door, followed by Elle Greenaway.

“We’ll have time to mingle in a minute, right now there is a woman who needs our help,” he announces.

Spencer quickly reads over the case files, recognizing Elles handwritten notes, she was a private investigator now. “With Penelope’s help, I’ve been able to set up alerts in College chatrooms in the area so that I can help to missing and assaulted women right away.”

“She’s alerted when someone reports a missing woman and she has advertisements for people to reach out to her for help,” Penelope explained.

“I’ve been working on these cases for the last 9 years,” Elle announces. “This morning Aasia Desai called me saying her sister Bahni never showed up for lunch and it’s not like her, we know she went clubbing last night and so far Penelope’s tracked her down an ally and then she’s gone.”

“Her parents are British diplomats so Interpol has asked me to join, luckily I was just in Ontario so it was a short trip over,” Emily adds. “JJ will be here in half an hour for her first day back, and we will celebrate when we can, but I see we have some new faces here?”

“Special Agent Y/N Y/L/N,” she waves, still glued to Spencer’s side. “I’ve heard a lot about you both from Doctor Reid.”

“Doctor Tara Lewis,” she stands and shakes Emily’s hand, and then Elles.

“So it says here that the first missing case was in 2006 just after you left the BAU?” Spencer changes the subject before anyone can pry into why he would be telling her about the women who worked there before her.

“I did,” Elle nods. “I was too late for her, by the time her parents realized she was missing and called me in the case was cold. I started this as a way to get ahead of it.”

“How long has she been missing?” Tara asks.

“She was last seen at 1:07 this morning,” Elle confirms. “We have 25 hours, maybe, to beat the odds.”

“Reid,” Hotch cuts in, “I would like you and Elle to go check out the street she was last seen on, find any private cameras or anyone who might have seen something.”

He turns to Y/N who just shrugs in silence; “it’s fine.”

“Tara and Derek, I’d like you to interview Aasia when she and JJ get here, Garcia can you do a deep dive into Bahni’s spending and academic records?”

“Sure thing,” she starts clicking away on her computer immediately.

“And Y/N,” Elle looks at her. “I need you to go over the footage of the man who followed her to the alley and get familiar with his face. We’re using you as the face of the investigation to hopefully draw the unsub out.”

“How would she be able to do that alone?” Spencer gets defensive, a way he used to with JJ when she was the media liaison.

“If she goes on the news and makes Bahni seem like a person while describing the unsub as someone who can help solve the case, it will draw him out,” Emily explains for Hotch, who is glaring at Spencer for second-guessing the plan already.

“And she’s college-age,” Elle adds. “If that’s who he’s been going after all this time he will want to come in and talk IF he can talk to her.”

She places her hand on his leg under the table, “it’s a good plan.”

“It is,” Hotch agrees.

“What do you not have a saying to replace wheels up when they stay in town?” Elle teases him.

“Wheels away?” Emily joins her, “that works?”

“just get to work,” Hotch tries not to smirk at them.

Spencer stands up to leave with Elle, “can I just talk to Spencer before he leaves?” She carefully asks Hotch.

“Make it quick,” he agrees reluctantly and lets her follow him down to his desk.

Spencer rests his hands on the back of his desk chair, holding it tightly in an attempt to calm himself down.

“I’m going to be fine,” she assures him. “I don’t think the guy on the tape took her, we’d see him leave if he did.”

“Unless he lives in the alley,” Spencer combats. “Can you ask Penelope to do a background check on all the cars coming in and out of the campus and that street between midnight at 2 am?”

She nods, placing her hand on his gently. “Good luck out there, okay?”

He nods, “it’s been 2 days they’re going to know by the end of the week.”

She laughs, “so be it.”

He says fuck it right then and there, wrapping her up in a hug and kissing the top of her head as the team watches in the briefing room. “I’ll see you later.”

“Yes you will,” she smacks his side as he lets her go. “If you’re going to make a scene at least give me a real kiss.”

“Hmm,” he teases. “No cause then I’d have to sign some paperwork and I’ve got to go…” he starts to back away.

“Coward,” she teases.

He just shrugs, meeting Elle by the door and heading towards the elevators in silence.

She doesn’t ask, not even when they get to the garage or inside the SUV. They’re driving down the road for maybe 2 minutes when Elle finally brings it up. “So—”

“What do you want to know?”

“It's that easy now? What happened to you?” She teases. “You’re so different from the baby Spence I left.”

“Well you missed my drug problem, my dad being a possible child molester, getting shot in the knee, getting shot in the neck, my girlfriend dying, and now my mom might have Alzheimer's so you know… I had to grow up a bit,” he lays it all out for her to ask any question she wants.

“Why don’t you ever call me? I would have been there for you through anything,” she reminds him.

“I know that,” he reaches over for her hand, “thank you. But I was a big fan of suffering in silence… and now I have Y/N and she makes me feel normal?”

“That’s good, you deserve some fraction of normal in your life and she’s really cute,” Elle smiles back at him before returning her focus to the road. “How old is she?”

“27,” he smiles. “She’s the best.”

“You love her,” Elle notices it.

He presses his lips together to fend off a smile as he nods, “I think I do.”

“Tell her, you deserve to hear that someone loves you back.”

—

She’s anxiously tapping her foot as she waits for the elevator to arrive with the suspect, Rossi standing just behind her. Only 15 minutes after being on the news, the man that was in the security footage contacted them. Making his way over for a voluntary interview.

He looks Y/N up and down with a smile, “I heard you were looking for me.”

“I sure was,” she plays along with it, smiling and making him think she’s interested as well. “I knew you’d get the message, we just need all the help we can get right now.”

“Of course,” he has his ego stroked so well that they can roll with it.

“Would you mind coming with me and Agent Rossi to talk about everything you saw?” She batts her lashes at him, really selling it.

“Sure,” he follows them down the hall.

Rossi opens the door and lets them in first, letting her get him settled and a glass of water. “So you can tell me everything from that night?”

“Sure,” he nods, explaining his taxi job, his run for the night and his alibi.

“So why did you step back into the doorway?” She asks as she sits in front of him. Straight-faced as she catches him off guard.

“Excuse me?”

“You stepped out of the way to let her pass and then followed her, she made no motion to say she wanted your services, so I’m just wondering why you would follow her before she disappeared?”

“Huh,” he suddenly feels played and his personality switches. “I thought this was just a chat?”

“I’m simply asking you questions? If you don’t have answers that makes you suspicious. An innocent person would have given me an answer,” she fights back.

“She’s right, you got very defensive very fast,” Rossi finally speaks up.

He shakes his head with a huff. “I was going to ask if she needed a ride, she looked pretty messed up. And then some guy came over and wrapped his arm around her and they walked off. They seemed to know one another. I thought she was safe in his hands.”

Only his tone doesn’t match the words. He sounds jealous— It’s not like she would have been a large tab, he wasn’t jealous because he lost a customer. No, he’s jealous like someone stepped in and prevented him from snatching an easy victim.

“Fair enough,” she pretends to believe him. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

“I can go now?” He changes right back to confused.

She nods, “I’ll escort you down if you’d like?”

“Thanks,” he stands and follows her to the door where Rossi stops her.

“Are you sure?”

She nods, “I’ll be back up shortly.”

She catches up with him by the elevators, “did you have to drive far to get here?” She makes small talk.

“Not really,” he shakes it off. “I like your necklace.”

She touches her necklace and her face drops, “thanks.”

“Necklaces are my favourite.”

“You don’t wear any?” She notices in the form of a question.

He shakes his head as the elevator opens at the ground level. “I think they’re nice gifts.”

She nods along, pretending that didn’t set off every ret alert and alarm in her mind, “well here you are. Thanks again for all the help.”

“No problem,” he goes to leave, turning to stop and block the doors from closing. “If you want, later tonight I can show you everything I saw at the alley?”

“Yeah, sure,” she agrees with no plan to go.

“8 pm? At Cafe Linda?”

“See you then,” she agrees and he steps back letting the door close and then she loses her cool.

Feverishly smashing the floor 6 button, and begging to make it back up to Hotch to tell him everything. But she also just wants to cry but she holds it in as she makes it to their floor matching past Rossi and right into the briefing room.

“He may not be our unsub but that man is a creep,” she announces. “He not only complimented my necklace but he asked me to come to the alley tonight so he can walk me through what he saw.”

“You’re not going,” Hotch announces.

“I didn’t plan to,” she snaps. “I think we need to look into him because he’s either giving little girls necklaces to keep them quiet or he’s taking necklaces after he kills women.”

“Kathy’s parents said she was in a necklace when she went missing,” Emily adds. “His connection to this case and being at NYU right before she went missing gives us enough probable cause for a search warrant.”

Hotch sighs, “fine. I’ll call a judge, you and Y/N can go and search his place.”

“So shouldn’t we arrest him before he leaves the building?” Morgan asks.

“He’s still in the garage, I’ve let the security know to stop him and arrest him at the gate,” Garcia adds, listening in and planning in advance.

“Thank you,” Hotch smiles at her, “you’re always reading my mind.”

Garcia smiles back at him, “always, sir.”

“Okay, let’s go,” she looks at Emily and waiting for her to turn to leave the room.

“Let’s,” she motions for Y/N to take the lead and follows.

The drive to his house is so weird… she doesn’t quite know how to talk to Emily, knowing only slightly about her and her knowing nothing about Y/N.

“So how long have you and Spencer been dating?” Her first question just gets right to the point.

She laughs awkwardly, “3 days…”

“Oh…”

She hums as she nods along, looking out the window and avoiding Emily’s eye contact. “It’s new, we’re both pretty infatuated with each other but we’re taking it slower than most people because I’m afraid to let my feelings change how I do the job.”

“Makes sense,” Emily replies. Her voice is so sweet, she has an aura of calm that follows her and lets Y/N feel safe. She gets why Spencer said she was his best friend on the team before her.

“The necklace comment… why did it make you so wary of this guy?”

“When I was in middle school a guy gave me a necklace while he was grooming me,” she whispers. Looking out the window and pretending it doesn’t bother her now. “It’s fine, I don’t have it anymore, but I knew this guy had that same vibe.”

Emily put her hand out, letting Y/N interlock their fingers and hold it. “I know I just met you, but you’re family now. I’m here if you’re ever suddenly not fine with it anymore…”

“Thanks,” she smiles. “Let’s get this fucker.”

—

By the time the warrant went through, Spencer and Elle had joined them to search the first suspect's house while Emily left to help the rest of the team with suspect two. Tracking all the license plates in the area like Spencer suggested lead them to a Chinese food delivery driver in the area.

That didn’t stop Y/N from destroying her suspect's house. They tore the house apart, searching every nook and cranny for any answer that would make sense. She was tempted to lift the floorboards up, call in SCSI to run ground-penetrating radar and search the fucking walls if they had to.

But then she found it.

A small metal box in the laundry room contained some tools and when she lifted up the fake bottom, she found 5 necklaces.

“Elle!!” She yelled through the house.

They both came running down the hall to her, “is this Kathy’s necklace?”

“Oh my god,” she whispered with a nod.

“I want to kill this guy,” she mumbles under her breath as she places the necklaces back in the box and closes it up.

“Spencer doesn’t need another girl he has a crush on to murder someone and get kicked out of the bureau,” Elle teases.

“What?” Y/N asks.

“Way to go,” Spencer nudges her.

Y/N stands up with the box and slides it into a large evidence bag before taping it up. “I guess he has a type then.”

“I don’t,” Spencer tries to cover up. “I mean, if I do then it’s people who are nice to me…”

She smiles at him, unable to even pretend to be jealous or mad. “It’s hard to be mean to you when you’re so cute.”

“Ew,” Elle announces her disgust as she leaves the room.

“Let’s get out of here before I end up kissing you in a murderer's laundry room,” Spencer teases, taking her hand and leading her out of the house as the rest of the forensics team takes over the bagging of evidence.

“Guys,” Elle rushes back to them with her phone pressed to her ear. “We have a bigger problem than we thought with Bahni.”

They rush into the SUV, putting the team on the speaker to hear the most unthinkable. “So I did what Y/N suggested and searched every single driver coming in and off-campus and the last street she was seen on,” Penelope explains back. “And I came across a man who was delivering Chinese food under the name Tom Larson… and it’s ironic his name is tom because he has a plethora of peeping offences and general creepiness alongside a metric shit-ton of abuse from his dad and dead mother.”

“Okay?” Elle follows.

“Tom Larson lives near Bahni,” Emily explains, “I was just at his house where I found him and his father had been murdered.”

“So we have not 1 but 3 creeps in this case, and none of them are who took Bahni?” Spencer rubs his eyes. “Please tell me we know who was in Tom’s car last night.”

“That’s where it gets tricky,” Penelope says with the doles tones of keys clicking behind her words. “We were just contacted by the fugitive Taskforce because they believe one of the murderers they’ve been tracking took Bahni… but he has ties to a much larger scale global sex trafficking ring.”

Elle flies through the streets with their lights on, pulling back into headquarters and right up to the security check. “So who is this guy?”

“Once you get back up here, Agent Simmons and Alvez will explain everything,” Hotch confirms. “I’m taking Derek to see Cruze, we need to tell him what’s going on.”

“Sounds good,” Elle hangs up and throws the SUV in park.

Y/N hesitates, staying put and taking a few breaths as Spencer watches. Elle’s left the car and is already on her way to the elevator. “What’s wrong?”

“Can I just have a hug real quick?”

“Yeah,” he wraps his arms around her and holds her close. “Are you okay?”

She nods against him, “yeah it’s just good to have at least 8 hugs a day.”

“Hug me whenever you need to,” he whispers against her hair, kissing the side of her head before she pulls back.

“Kisses are helpful too?”

He smiles, leaning in and pressing his lips to hers, mumbling against them, “how many?”

She hums, “10?”

He pecks her lips 10 times and counts each one, making her giggle, it takes so much effort to hold her smile back to keep kissing him but she feels much better.

“Thank you,” she beams and she can swear Spencer's eyes sparkle as he smiles back.

She pulls him into another hug, “I hate that we have to go catch a killer right now.”

“Come on then, as soon as we get him we can go on another date somewhere?”

She shakes her head, “after this case I think we should take a nap together… I’m exhausted and I don’t want to let you go.”

Spencer shakes his head in amazement, “you really like me?”

“Yeah, maybe I do,” she teases him. “You should get used to it because it’s only going to get more intense and I will smother you with love.”

He just shrugs, “it’s about time—“

They’re startled with a knock on the window, “we get it you’re in love, can we go now?”

“Sorry!” Y/N calls back with a giggle, pulling him in for one last kiss before getting out. Spencer follows with a deep blush that everyone will see when they get back upstairs, but it looks cute on him.

Luke Alvez has been trying to catch one criminal for the last 2 years. Simon Garrett has been a pain in the ass for the FBI, the CIA and DEA. He first showed up on their radar when his DNA was found on 14 women’s remains, all of who had been missing for at least 5 years.

His DNA was then traced to his son in the foster system, who’s been off the radar for the last 10 years. Everette Garrett.

“Now he’s interesting because I’ve been investigating his sex trafficking ring between Canada and the United States,” Matt adds. “All 14 women his father's DNA was found on were thought to be in his ring, which means when they get too old he hands them to his father to take care of.”

Y/N shakes her head as she listens, “so if you’ve been looking for them for this long what makes you think we can find them in time to save Bahni?”

“We’ve been tracking him for a while, we knew that he had a new girl on his radar and when we heard it was Bahni Desai we knew it was time to get you guys,” Matt explains.

“So far we know that she has to be taken to this warehouse in Alexandria before she goes any further, we’re going to intercept them before they make it to the warehouse and then use their car to gain access to take the whole thing down,” Luke rolls out a map of the facility then.

“We need to have the place surrounded for any runners, SWAT is getting prepped, we’re going tonight at 3 am,” Matt adds. “Morgan, Hotch, Prentiss, Alvez and Myself will be running a team at each of the 5 exits. Once inside, each team's swat unit will deploy gas to carefully knock everyone out, from there we need someone to cuff everyone at least until we know who is a victim and who is working there.”

“We’re taking everyone alive?” Spencer makes sure he hears them right.

“We need to know what the step after this warehouse is if we want to rescue more victims,” Luke’s voice is gentle yet stern as he explains. “I’ve seen this man take too many women from good homes and ruin their lives, I’m not letting him slip out of my fingers.”

“We’ve had this planned for months, we just needed to wait for the next confirmed drop-off.”

“Who’s driving?” Y/N asks, having a feeling it was her and Spencer.

“He’s Reids age,” Hotch announces from the door as he walks in with Cruze, “so we’ll replace Everette with Reid and Bahni with Y/L/N.”

“Rossi and Elle will be there to apprehend Everette, we’re setting up a fake traffic spot to irritate him and inhibit him from running. You two will be in a duplicate car arriving at the warehouse at the arranged time,” Emily confirms. “We just have to prep SWAT and then we can leave.”

“Alright, let’s get ready.”

—

Pretending to be kidnapped in the back of a car driven by her boyfriend was possibly the weirdest way to spend a Tuesday morning. Driving the exact make and model as their unsub, her heartbeat was loud enough to cover the sound of the engine and distract her from the long drive. She was overly anxious, and rightly so, it was her first sting.

And she was doing it all without coffee. Tired but full of adrenaline, she wanted to close her eyes and drift off but she knew she needed to be ready to apprehend the men at the gate with Spencer.

She feels the large bump, indicating they just went over a speed bump and she knows what that means. The car slows and she can hear the muffled talking before swat steps in, soon enough Spencer is cracking the trunk open and reaching in for her.

“Are you okay?” He helps her to her feet and makes sure her bulletproof vest is on right before handing her, her gun and watching her clip it on.

“Yeah, what happened?”

“The guards are down, Swat moved in as soon as we arrived, now we have to stand here and wait for them to clear the building,” Spencer explains as they walk to the front of her car.

She draws her gun and keeps it pointed low, guarded as they watch the front entrance for anyone to escape. “Do you know if Bahni is okay?” She whispers towards him.

He nods, “they radioed in that they got her, she’s being airlifted to the hospital with JJ right now.”

She nods with a deep breath, “okay good.”

“It’s going to be fine, we have enough SWAT here to take the government,” he tries to joke, getting a laugh from one of the officers… very strange to see someone laugh while holding an assault rifle.

One of the swat side steps towards Spencer, “I’m hearing on the line that they’ve cleared every room. They’re cuffing everyone, you’re free to enter.”

“Thanks,” Spencer replies.

The high-pitched screech rubber gripping asphalt in an attempt to stop draws their attention backwards. Elle and Rossi jumping out with their guns drawn, ready to join even though the exciting part is long over.

“No runners?” Elle asks, holstering her weapon. “Aw man, I was excited.”

“Not a one,” Y/N adds, watching the front entrance for the rest of the team to start funnelling out with the unsubs.

Luke exits first with a big smile on his face, Simon Garrett cuffed and barely stumbling out the door in front of him. He finally got him.

“well done,” Elle congratulates him. “Let me help you get him in SWAT van.”

“I think she has a thing for Luke,” Rossi leans into Y/N to gossip. “she wouldn’t stop asking about him on the drive…”

“Ooo,” Y/N teases, getting more and more tired as her adrenaline drops. Her eyes are heavy and Rossi can tell.

“Why don’t I bring you and the good doctor home, I don’t think they need all of us for the wrap-up,” Rossi pats her back. “You’ve had a long night, kid.”

“Thank you,” she smiles, holstering her gun and turning with him towards the SUV. “I’m so exhausted.”

“Well you’ve been on the job for almost 24 hours now, you’ve officially made it through your first overnight sting op,” Rossi congratulates her like he’s her grandpa.

She turns back when she doesn’t hear Spencer following her, “Spence? Are you coming?”

“Um,” he has something to ask as he follows then but he doesn’t say it. “Yeah, sorry.”

“It’s okay, come sit with me in the back?” She asks, sliding in beside him and resting her head on his shoulder as soon as their seatbelts are on.

“Did you still want to have a nap together?” He whispers, feeling her nod against his shoulder before she pulls back.

“Come here,” she tugs him in against her chest, snuggling in as best as she could in their sitting position. Holding him close and feeling him drift off in her arms. She has no problem following suit.

When she wakes, Rossi is parked outside of her apartment, “here you go, Y/N.”

She hums as she comes to, shaking Spencer awake too, “Spence, come on, let’s get to bed.”

“He’s going with you?”

She nods, “don’t tell Penelope. She’ll have a field day, I just want a nap.”

“You better get more than a nap,” Rossi orders. “You guys need to actually rest before you come back to work on Wednesday.”

“Thanks, Dad,” she teases him. “We will.”

“Bye Dave,” Spencer whispers as he gets out of the car. “Thank you for the ride.”

“Anytime kid,” Rossi waves them off, waiting for them to enter the building before driving away.

“Finally,” she sighs, dragging Spencer down the hall and towards her apartment. “I’m so fucking tired.”

“me too,” he barely says.

He follows her inside like a lost puppy, taking off his vest and shirt, slipping out of his pants until he’s in an undershirt, boxers and his mismatched socks. She’s amazed by how comfortable he is with her, but she has known him for 3 months, it’s enough time to fall in love with someone… right?

She’s loved him since she started working with him. When she realized he valued her opinions, he looked at her as a person and he genuinely loved her company. She felt a real connection with him, not just childish infatuation. He was everything to her.

She slides into bed beside him and snuggles in, wrapping an arm around his middle and resting her head on his chest.

“I guess I really can do everything,” she smirks.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

She pokes his chest and giggles away the awkwardness, “the thing I wanted to do most, the thing that I couldn’t do… that was to fall in love with you, but I did it anyway.”

“Well, then I guess I can do everything too.”

She pulls away to look at him, “I love you, Spencer. I don’t know if it’s too soon, but I’ve loved you for a while.”

He pulls her in for a kiss, shocking her as he breathes her in and holds her there. “I love you, more Y/N.”

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[writella]

Touch

Pairing: Luke Patterson x reader

Summary: Luke’s spirit is brought down by the pain he has caused his parents as well as the hardships that come from adoring you, a lifer. He craves your touch but his ghostly form keeps him from getting the thing he most desires to recieve.

Word Count: 1.7k

A/N: First fic! Sorry that it's kind of long. I don’t know if this would be considered “angsty” but it is kind of sad in the beginning but trust me it becomes really sweet at the end!

Julie and the Phantoms was such a good show. I loved how the writers and Charlie showed that despite how positive Luke was, he was harboring a lot of pain inside when it came to how he left him mom that he didn’t show anyone. This piece touches on that point a little bit more. If you would like to leave a review, that would be super appreciated. I’m sure there are a bunch of grammar errors anyway.

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Luke came to you after he left Julie at his parents house. He told you about the song to his mom, about how his parents still celebrated his birthday after all these years. He told you about the grief he felt and how he felt like he had no one. You told him that he had you, and Julie, and the guys most importantly, that you were sure they missed their family members too. He admitted to you though, that both Alex and Reggie avoided talking about their family, it was one of the only things that they weren’t being honest about with each other. He said he couldn’t be the one to bring it up.

“I’m the strong one!” He explained. “If I don’t push them forward, they’ll fall apart. I have to be happy, I have to be okay so they-“

“It’s okay not to be okay all the time, Luke,” You interrupt him, then you send him a sympathetic smile as you come to a realization: “I didn’t know you put all this pressure on yourself... I’m sorry. Come here,” without thinking you motion him forward, arms reaching to grasp his back, only catching handfuls of air.

Luke gives you an exasperated laugh, in the heat of it all, he almost forgot for a second himself.

“Well, this is a strange little relationship we have, isn’t it?” Tears swipe down his cheek.

“Luke...” you didn’t know how to respond, you cursed yourself for making the situation worse.

“I’ll see you tomorrow. Or whenever. Alright?” His words were short as he forced a smile and disappeared from your sight.

You woke up from your haze and caught your eyes staring out the window, looking at the boy you were just thinking about. He sat on an old brown chair right next to the garage door. Julie took some down that hung from the garage ceiling a few nights ago for him. She said she got tired of seeing Luke crouching down on the concrete like a sad lost puppy.

“Why don’t you just stop avoiding him and finally go down there?” Julie sighs. “Maybe you’ll have better luck than me.”

“Than all of us.” Alex chimed in.

You were hesitant but as Julie pushed you to the door it seemed as if you had no choice.

“You’re our only hope.” Reggie said with a sad smile, echoing a quote from his favorite franchise.

As you walked toward Luke, his gaze on the night sky never faltered.

“You don’t have to say anything... Just want to be with you. Alright?” You said softly as you sat down on the chair next to him. You decided you were only going to keep him company, not dwell on what happened. You remembered what he said about always having to be the strong one, you guessed that’s what you were trying to do now.

He only slightly nodded, not wanting to look you in the eye. He was surprised you’d finally come. Everyone, Reggie, Alex, and Julie had come to sit with him from time to time, getting nothing out of him. He sort of wished you finally would show up but now that you’re here, he couldn’t say anything despite how much he wanted to. He tried to urge the words to his tongue but his apprehension kept them stuck inside his brain. He bounced his knee, his frustration as well as your closeness was getting to him.

He knew he shouldn’t have been ignoring you, you must’ve felt as bad as he did but he needed some time to think. Maybe just a day, he reasoned, just to go through the motions by himself and then wake up going back to his easy going self again the next morning. This is what he told himself, yes, but then a day became another, and then another.

It surprised him, how out of it he was. Usually, it was so easy for him to find the courage to remain optimistic but right now he just felt like a disappointment. He was usually able to thrive upon this fact, a 90s misfit, nowhere to go but up. He loved the idea that one day his band’s talent would shine so brightly everyone would have no choice but to see their beauty. And it didn’t come from anger, Luke was never a resentful person, it came from a place of purity. He wanted his music to make people feel connected; understood, just like it had for him. Or like it has for him up until now. He hadn't been able to play in days.

The bittersweet melody of Unsaid Emily became the mantra that invaded his brain this past week. Every time the song came to an end, his mind replayed the lyrics again, and again; an endless loop. And with that came the images of his parents, blowing out a birthday candle with misty tears in their eyes, thinking of their boy they believed they lost forever. And then there was you, of course. The prettiest girl he’d ever seen, who laughed at his confusing metaphors, and built him up when he was feeling down which was something he usually had to do for others. Ever since he met you, you were there for him in a way no one else had been. The thought almost relieved his pain. Could this truly be love? He had dated around before but never had he been in a real relationship. After finding the guys, the band was all he thought about, the only connection he felt he needed. Plus, he just had to prove to his mom that he could make it, and that took all of his attention. Another mistake, he thought.

Once again he revisits the memory of your arms going through him. Not only could he never apologize to his parents but he couldn’t even love one of the only people on Earth who could actually see him the way he wanted to. Never had he felt so completely helpless. He wanted you to know that he didn’t want to give up. He needed you to know that you were enough, but he was fearful to try anything despite how desperately he wanted touch. He even counted the ways he could do it in his head: perhaps he’d lightly stroke your knee, softly rub his thumb on your intertwined hands, maybe brush your hair behind your ear with his fingers lingering till he felt the last strand of hair slip away. Or maybe, just maybe, he’d even give you the softest kiss. One so pure and light, because while he was a ghost, he thought of you as an angel and he believed an angel deserved a touch just as delicate, but he couldn’t. He was dead.

It had been an hour of you two sitting in silence. You stared at him and sighed. You thought he was beautiful. You could go on endlessly about the physicality of that beauty but what really tugged on your heart was what was inside. His mind, his body, his soul, that was bound in optimism. You’d never seen anything like it. Right from when Julie met him, she told you, he put the realization of being dead, of being a ghost, behind him just to help her become a part of the music program again, giving her the words of encouragement, it’s a closed door, but you’ve gotta bust it open!

You felt terrible that you were a part of the reason why his spirit was currently crushed. You desperately wanted touch. You wanted him to know you were there for him but you knew words weren’t enough.

Screw it, you thought. You were going to try again and even if it didn’t work you were ready to tell him that you didn’t care, that seeing was all you needed to be with him. You wanted him to know that you weren’t giving up. You needed him to know that he was enough, fear wasn’t going to stop you.

You reached for his knee. Trying to touch the tips of his hand that laid there with yours, ready for the sensation of air to swoosh between your fingertips but then, just then, you... felt. First it was the tips of nails, then fingers, and as he turned his hand, eyes bulging wide, you felt his palm. You held it there for a second, soon sliding your palms together, you intertwined your fingers with his. You were actually holding hands.

Luke’s mouth went agape and you met his eyes, sharing the same look of disbelief. Seeing a tear roll down the right side of his face you realized your emotions mirrored his as one dripped down on the left side of yours. He wiped it away with his thumb, gripping your face a little more roughly than he intended to, the excitement apparent in his shaky hands.

He soon loosened his grip, now caressing your cheek, creating friction as he rubbed back and forth, replacing the chill of the night air on your skin with warmth. His fingers, then moved to your chin, then he poked your nose, brushed his fingertips against your eyelashes, till he finally rolled them against your lips, slowly. He couldn’t believe he felt you. The feeling was something even a dream couldn’t conjure up, something that even he couldn’t describe in a lovely song lyric; this was perfection; this was, indeed, love.

This revelation brought with it courage and with that he finally willed himself up off that chair and yanked your arm that was connected to your still intertwined hands with it and at once you became one with a hug. One so fierce and tight you couldn’t breath, his arms crushing your shoulders, his hands caressing your head, his fingers falling on the strands of your hair.

With one arm still around you, he moved one of his hands against your cheek once more, connecting his forehead to yours. You both relished in the closeness, breathing each other in.

“If I ever cross over, I bet this is what heaven feels like,” he said in a soft whisper, finally breaking the silence, but only adding to the moment’s loveliness. “I think you’re connected to my soul.”

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Thank you for reading!

[imagineyourworld]

Misunderstanding

Echo x Genderneutral!Reader

Summary: After the war Echo runs into you and Rex, who he mistakes for your husband and the father of your children 

Warnings: Mention of death and war

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The moment Echo saw you a thousand memories came rushing back: Your soft hands on his cheek. Your lips on his lips. Your lips on his skin. How your skin tasted under his lips. Your careless laughter as he carried you home after one too many drinks. That time you showed him how to brew the perfect cup of calming tea. The way you said his name and how your voice sounded when you told him you loved him. The happy smile when the two of you reunited after his supposed death. And the sad smile when you told him that you couldn’t go with him.  That had been almost three years ago now. At first both of you had made an effort to talk every day, then, as the war got busier, every other day until it was every week, once a month and then, a little more than two years ago, the two of you had said your last goodbyes.  But now here you were, looking not a day older, and even more beautiful, than the last time Echo had seen you.  He took a moment to just look at you. Your hair was a bit shorter, maybe a shade of two darker as well, and your style had changed. During your relationship he had mostly seen you in your scrubs at work or sweats at home, now you looked more comfortable in your clothes, more like yourself.  Too late, only after he had already called your name and you had turned around, did Echo notice that you were holding the hand of a little girl. Her curious eyes looked him up and down before turning to you. She said something Echo couldn’t hear, but he did see the smile that lit up your face as you walked closer, pulling the girl along with you.  “Echo, I can’t believe it. What are you doing here?”, you asked.  You still said his name the same way, your smile was the same and your eyes lit up like they always did when you looked at him, but all Echo could focus on was the little girl, who was staring at him. Was she yours? The daughter you had with someone else? Someone who had replaced Echo in your heart? He should have known this would happen, it had to eventually, but that didn’t help the pain, not when Echo himself had thought of you ever day for the past three years, when he never stopped loving you.  “I... I decided that it might be time for me to settle, and since most of my brothers have made their lives here on Coruscant I thought I would do the same.”  Echo didn’t add that there had also been the small hope that you might still be living on Coruscant.  “So you’re gonna stay here? That’s amazing, we’ll have to catch up some time soon”, you said, the smile on your face growing with every word. Echo just nodded. What else was he supposed to say? Luckily he didn’t have to say anything else, because the girl took the opportunity to insert herself into the conversation.  “Who are you?”, she asked, her expression both curious and vary.  You looked down at her with a stern expression but fondness in your eyes.  “Leia, you could’ve asked a bit more nicely. But this is Echo”, you told her. Your eyes went away from the girl to focus on Echo. “He’s... and old... friend.”  Yes, the words stung, but Echo understood that it was probably the best way to introduce your daughter to your ex boyfriend.  “And Echo, this is Leia, sh-”, you started, but were soon interrupted by a small voice calling out the girl’s name.  Another child, a boy, appeared, with a big smile on his face and a paper bag in his hand.  “Guess what I have!”, he said with a grin, holding the bag out for the girl to peek into.  Echo was now looking at the boy. He didn’t seem to be older or younger than the girl, so maybe he wasn’t another child of yours but Leia’s friend. Though they did look somewhat alike.  “Luke, you can’t run off like that”, a familiar voice called from behind Echo.  He refused to turn around, as long as he didn’t see who was coming up behind him, who clearly belonged to you and the children, a childish part of himself told him that it wouldn’t be true. But your words confirmed his fear.  “Rex, it’s fine”, you laughed. “Luke’s safe, he was only ahead of you by like a meter.”  Echo now looked at his brother. He looked a bit older than the last time he saw him, probably due to their rapid aging, but other than that he didn’t seem to have changed at all, still caring and commanding and loving. Echo closed his eyes for a moment, he couldn’t bear to look at you and Rex and your children, because from the way the four of you interacted he could tell that you belonged together.  Of course he had known that you would move on, though a small irrational part of him had hoped that you might wait for him to come back to you someday. But why did you have to move on with his brother? And not just any brother, one he had always been close to. And how could Rex do this, he knew more than anyone, other than Fives at least, how much Echo had always loved you.  Of course Echo knew that he should be happy for you, and part of him was, but seeing you and your family, seeing your happy smiles and the love in your eyes, just killed him.  “Echo, vod, it’s so good to see you. How have you been?”, Rex asked as he put a hand on Echo’s shoulder and squeezed affectionately.  Before Echo could answer you interrupted him with an apologetic smile. “Rex, we have to meet Padmé in 10 minutes, we better hurry. But Echo, how about you come by our apartment around 7 this evening and we’ll catch up?” 

-------

Echo had debated whether to actually go and see you, but in the end he decided that he might regret it more if he backed out. Plus Hunter had basically pushed him out the door and left him no other choice.  So here he was, in front of your apartment, which was only a couple of blocks away from the one you had lived in during the war.  His fist had barely touched the door when you already pulled it open and ushered Echo inside.  For a moment the two of you just stood in the hallway, looking at each other and not saying anything.  “Rex just went to buy a bottle of wine, he should be back shortly”, you said as you lead Echo further into the apartment.  He soon found himself in a larger room, which served as both living room and dining room, with the kitchen attached and only separated by a kitchen island. As he looked around he recognized most of the furniture from your old apartment, the one he had spent countless hours in, as well as photographs both old and new with many familiar faces in them. A couple were just you and Rex, but most of them had General Skywalker, Commander Tano, General Kenobi or Senator Amidala in them, along with many of his brothers. He also spotted his favourite picture, the one had had carried a copy of wherever he went, of him kissing your cheek while Fives enveloped the two of you in a hug. He was surprised to see it hanging in your living room. But what surprised him even more was how clean everything was. You had always been a tidy person, but he had suspected that children would still leave the place a bit messy. Speaking of...  “Are Luke and Leia going to join us?”, he asked.  A surprised look crossed your face before you shook your head.  “They’re with Padmé and Anakin.”  Echo nodded. Maybe it was for the best not to have the children around, the dinner would be awkward and they might only make it worse.  “How nice of the General and Senator Amidala to babysit.”  You stopped pouring water in your glass and looked at Echo in surprise.  “They’re not babysitting, the twins are their kids. Rex and I were the ones who were babysitting this morning.”  It was safe to say that Echo had not been expecting this revelation. He had been so sure that you and Rex were the parents. But his little moment of relief was cut short when he realized that this didn’t change anything. You and Rex were still a couple, you still lived together and had a life together, a life Echo had no place in.  “Are you planning on having kids then?” The question was out before Echo could stop himself. This was none of his business, it might even be better if he didn’t know. But he just had to know, having children was the one thing about your future the two of you had never talked about, had never dared to even think about in the middle of a war, but that hadn’t stopped Echo from hoping to one day raise a family with you, and he had to know if his brother was now living that unspoken dream.  “I’m not opposed to the idea, but who would I have a child with? I’m not really fond of the idea of doing this on my own”, you admitted with a nervous laugh.  Echo tore his eyes away from the plate he had been fixating on to look at you. Try as he might, he couldn’t read your expression.  “With Rex, of course. He’s your”, he started before stopping for a moment to scan your fingers for a ring, when he didn’t find one he continued. “Boyfriend. Rex is your boyfriend.”  Saying the words out loud hurt, more than Echo would ever want to admit, but it was your laughter that actually broke his hear, and your words that mended it again.  “Rex is not my boyfriend, he’s my friend. Probably my best friend and maybe more like a brother, but most certainly not my boyfriend.”  After everything he had been through there wasn’t much that could render Echo speechless, but this confession could. It took him a moment, and a thorough scan of your serious expression, for him to formulate his next sentence.  “But the two of you live together”, he finally said.  For a moment you didn’t say anything. Then you took his hand, your skin still as soft and warm as he remembered, and led him over to your couch. Softly you pulled on his arm to get him to sit next to you, closer than he would have sat while still thinking that you were in love with his brother, but not as close as he really wanted.  “Rex and I are friends, nothing more. We live together because no matter how much some politicians try, clones still have little rights and it was easier for him to move in with me than to get his own place. But Echo, I never, ever, though about Rex in any romantic way, nor he about me. I... There has only ever been one person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, one person I wanted to marry and have children with and grown old with, and that person is you. Echo, it’s always been you and it always will be. I loved you ever since you carried Fives into the medbay with his broken leg and I never stopped, not when I though you were dead, not when you went away with the Bad Batch. And seeing you again only showed me how much I missed you, how much I don’t want to let you go again. But of course I understand that you’ve probably moved on.”  There were a million things Echo might have said, but for now he decided to forgo any explanations. Instead he put one of his hands on your waist and the other behind your head. Slowly he leaned closer, giving you every chance to pull way, but instead you leaned forward and pressed your lips against his in a gentle kiss.  “I love you. Always have, always will”, he whispered against your lips before you reconnected in another kiss.  The two of you were so busy with kisses and declarations of love that you didn’t notice the door opening and closing and Rex telling you that he’d spend the night at Cody’s to give the two of you a bit of privacy.  But you didn’t notice and you didn’t care. All that mattered was that you were together again, you still loved each other and the galaxy was at peace, giving you time to rebuild your relationship and relishing in your love. 

-------

This is short and unoriginal and corny, but after today’s episode I just had to write something about Echo and the idea of him misunderstanding your relationship with one of his brothers just popped into my head, and due to Echo’s obvious love for and trust in Rex in this episode it just had to be him 

[caramelcal]

Songwriting and Fake Dating {3}

Word Count: 2.2k

a/n: hey guys! hope you all enjoy this one as you enjoyed the last one...

this is dedicated to charlie’s mustache. rip :(

also thanks to the person who originally requested this, legend behavior hahah :) hope you guys are having a wonderful night lovelies x 

disclaimer: I do not condone the use of my work/writing without my permission. The only place this has been posted is on my (rosemoonmist) tumblr account. This has not been posted on any other platform either. If you see any plagiarism of my work please let me know! <3 People work hard on their fics, so don’t steal them ty.

taglist:@gia-kerks​ @phantompogues​ @thesweetestsinner​ @honeyheartzz​ @ifilwtmfc​ @hoechx​ @merceret​ @katrin-okay​ @diosa75​

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Another line is drawn right through the words he tried to write. Luke wants to throw his notebook at the wall. He can’t think, or write, the words just aren’t coming to him anymore. He claws at his hair as if pulling on the strands will allow his brain to breathe and come up with the lyrics he had been trying to write for the past two hours. It used to be so easy but he knows why it isn’t working. It wasn’t rocket science.

The words came easy when he was with you, maybe it was the excitement of having someone to write with, or maybe it was the emotions that you both pulled from. It just wasn’t the same anymore. It’s almost like you were the inspiration, the lyrics, and now that you were no longer there, the lyrics weren’t either. Even if you guys didn’t know each other that long and you weren’t the closest, you guys seemed to click and you wrote so much better with each other.

Maybe he just needs a breather. That’s what Luke banks on, that once he goes outside and caught wind of the fresh air, the words will come back. He places down his guitar and his pen and sets out for outside.

Before long, he finds himself sitting on the back porch, one knee up next to his chest and the other splayed in front of him. His eyes are trained upon the dark sky, watching the stars. He barely hears the quiet footsteps that approach him but he sees them sit down beside him, knees up to their chest, hugging them.

“Carrie,” Luke acknowledges, not even looking towards his step-sister when he breaks the silence between the two.

“Luke.”

They fall back into another silence for a few moments, simply watching the stars together. However, Luke’s attention isn’t really on the stars anymore as he thinks about the girl beside him. He remembered when his mom first told him that she was getting remarried and that he was going to get a step-sister. He remembers when they met, and Carrie was just a little too entitled for his taste, and Luke was a little too “street” for hers. They didn’t exactly get off on the best foot, and there were times that there was still some friction in their relationship which certainly wasn’t helped when Luke joined Julie and the Phantoms, but there were times that they were okay; when they shared a sibling bond.

It was hard for both of them to get used to each other, and their parents getting married. For Luke, it had been just him and his mom for a while, so he couldn’t help but feel apprehensive for this new life, not only for him to have a new step-dad and step-sister, but in case this man hurt his mom too. Yet, for Carrie it was different, it had always just been her and Trevor after her mom died during labor. She didn’t know what it was like having a mom, and she didn’t know if she wanted it. Arguably, she was scared; scared that her dad would no longer have time for her and would be spending it all with Emily but that definitely wasn’t the case.

Actually, everything worked out quite well, and soon enough Luke and Emily were moving into the Wilson’s household. It was a strange experience for Luke like he was invited into a whole other world. They came from very different backgrounds, Luke and Emily had never been well off, but Carrie never had to worry about not being able to pay the bills or anything to do with that, so their personalities were quite different. Yet, over the past few weeks, they had become significantly closer and spent more time talking to each other. Luke would show Carrie the songs you guys wrote, and Carrie would show Luke the choreography that you guys had been working on.

They knew exactly why they had become closer, they weren’t stupid. It was all because of you, you were their common ground. You brought the two siblings together.

“You miss her,” Luke comments, breaking the everlasting silence as he glances over at his sister. She isn’t facing the sky anymore and is instead looking down at her legs. It’s been two weeks since you and Carrie fought, where Carrie kicked you out of Dirty Candy, and she hadn’t spoken to you since.

Carrie is quiet for a few moments, almost as if she is battling herself on whether or not she should answer Luke, but she does, quietly, “Of course I do, she’s my best friend.”

A silence fills the air yet again, and Luke doesn’t know whether or not to answer Carrie. The girl has never actually opened up to him before, so for her to tell him that she was missing you was something that was new territory for the both of them. He knew that she missed you, you would have to be insane not to and he was pretty sure this was the longest that Carrie had ever gone without talking to you, so it was like life had been shifted entirely.

“You miss her too,” It’s a simple statement that Carrie makes, but it makes Luke sigh. He does, of course he does. He can’t even write without you.

“She won’t pick up my calls,” Luke says, ducking his head down as he traces the patterns on the ground of the porch. At this rate, he’s probably called you like twenty times in the last week but he always gets sent to voicemail. He knows it’s intentional, but every time he picks up his phone and presses the dial button, there’s a part that hopes you’ll pick up; that you’ll come over and wrote songs with him.

“I won’t pick up hers either,” Carrie admits, biting her lip as she continues to watch the sky, “The dirty candy girls have been bashing her, for putting the band in second place. I just want to scream at them to stop.”

“You should, it isn’t y/n’s fault. She was on her way to the studio that day but I dragged her up to my room. She lost her best friend for just helping me out with a dumb song.”

Carrie knows that Luke feels guilt for all of this. All three of them are miserable without each other and they all know it. Yet, they’re all filled with too much pride to apologize, or even to pick up one another’s calls. They know that they can’t go on like this, because as it goes on they all just feel worse and worse, but no one seems willing to make the first move.

“She always goes out her way to help others, huh?” Carrie says, reminiscing on the number of people that you have helped in the time that you guys have been friends. She remembers the way you give the Dirty Candy girls your water and snacks when they forgot theirs, meaning that you would often to without, helping old people cross the street and just being generally helpful.

You were always so eager to help anyone and everyone, no matter who it was, and that was something that Carrie always admired about you, “Most helpful person I know.”

After Luke’s statement, they are enveloped in another silence, both watching the sky peacefully before a shooting star flies overhead. They don’t speak of it, simply enjoying one another’s company which isn’t something they often find themselves doing. Deep down, they both like each other’s company, and each other, but they never say anything, both too stubborn to do so.

After a few more minutes, Luke gets up, lightly patting his sister on the shoulder, “You should answer her calls, Car.”

. . .

Being a waitress was actually surprisingly fun for you. Normally, you enjoyed serving customers, interacting with people and it was a way to get some extra money. However, right now you wanted nothing less than to be out of here, despite having hours left of your shift; in fact, you had just started.

Normally, customers were respectful and nice, but this one...this one was testing your limits. What made it worse, was that it was none other than Kayla, Carrie’s replace best friend for you and she was shouting, trying to embarrass you in front of not only the customers but in front of your colleagues as well. She’s with a few other friends, but Carrie isn’t there.

Passing you a smirk, she wipes her hand across the table, purposefully making the cutlery drop, “Pick it up, waitress.”

The rest of her group snicker as you try to hold the embarrassed blush that rises to your face. Closing your eyes momentarily, you sigh, “Kayla, I know I haven’t been the best band member but-”

“I don’t think you get it, y/n,” Kayla cuts you off, standing up and walking right in front of you, “Carrie has already told you that you’re done. I hope you would at least have a bit of dignity and to accept that instead of coming begging to me after Carrie didn’t pick up your calls.”

After she says that, Carrie obnoxiously chews on her gum, the other girls snickering. Looking around at them, their eyes on you as they laughed let you clearly know that you were no longer friends with any of the Dirty Candy girls. They were only friends with you to get in with Carrie and it makes you feel dumb that you didn’t realize that beforehand.

“Pathetic,” Kayla spits, looking up and down at the sight of your ducked head.

“Hey, watch it would you Kayla? I think you forget that even though Carrie is annoyed at y/n right now, as soon as she gets over that y/n will be right where she belongs in Dirty Candy again and as Carrie’s best friend,” Julie speaks up from the booth beside them, eyes squinting at the girl, “I think you’re letting this all go to your head too much.”

“You have no idea what Carrie is like, Julie. Plus, even if you told her that I was being a bitch to y/n she won’t listen to you,” Kayla snorts, rolling her eyes at the other girl.

“She’ll listen to her brother though, and we all know that he’ll believe me over you,” Julie responds sassily, Alex and Reggie who were beside her sharing glances. Often, they didn’t like to get involved in drama, and Julie didn’t either but just hearing how these girls were treating you made them feel horrible.

“Whatever,” Kayla says, rolling her eyes again before standing up, “Let's go girls, there seems to be a loser convention going on in here right now.”

Kayla doesn’t seem to be embarrassed, but you know well enough that she is getting out of there before she shows it. The girls are quick to follow behind her, all brushing you off and acting better than you as they pass.

Yet, you don’t pay attention to them for long as you turn towards the girl, giving her a small smile, “Thanks, Julie.”

“No problem, y/n,” Julie smiles, turning her head towards you sweetly. Noticing Alex and Reggie looking at you, you give them a shy wave and a smile before your attention is turned back towards Julie, “Can you do me a favor?”

“Of course, what’s up?” You’re prepared to take Julie’s order, considering that is what you expected her to want you to do but what she says next surprises you.

“Don’t be too hard on Luke, he really didn’t mean to get in between you and Carrie. And we just wanted to say that even if you don’t get back in with Dirty Candy, our band will always be open for you.”

. . .

It’s much later in the night, the café empty apart from you, humming softly a tune from a song you can’t remember the name of. You’re dancing a little as you give the tables one last wipe down before making your way behind the counter again. It was your turn to lock up for the night, the other waitresses already away home but you actually liked it when it was like this.

You didn’t even have the lights on as you took of your small apron-like thing and hung it up. Reaching for the keys, you stop when you hear the bell ringing, signaling that someone had entered the shop. Could they not read the closed sign?

“Sorry, we’re closed right now-” You say, whirling around and meeting hazel eyes, voice cutting off when you saw who was standing there. Clearing your throat, you shift awkwardly between two feet, “Luke.”

“Hey y/n,” Luke says softly, his hair is messy under his navy colored beanie, but you know you can’t talk, yours probably looks a lot worse. He takes a step towards you before speaking again, his voice still soft, “We need to talk.”

[helbertinelli]

I wanted to see the new Jedi Order AND the New Republic in the sequels. But no, instead we got A New Hope 2.0, Luke 2.0, and Darth Vader 2.0. This is so disappointing.

Yeah, the sequels were disappointing. There were so many better ways to continue the story of SW (although personally I think they shouldn’t have continued it), but they chose to go about it in the worst way possible. They had no idea why SW was loved and they focused on the absolute worst things and then switched to new things when the first thing didn’t work rather than to try to fix the thing that didn’t work.

Like they were for sure that people loved SW for Vader so they gave us a guy who wore a costume that looked similar to Vader’s, but the character himself had no personality, he had some lame motivation to join the dark side, and he wanted nothing more than to stay evil. People didn’t like Kylo and then they were like okay, well Palpatine was in all 6 films, they have to like him. And then they brought back Palaptine.

But they missed the fact that the people loved Star Wars for the story. That the characters in SW were just characters without the story to tie them all in.

Everyone loved Luke saving Vader and Vader wanting to be redeemed. The sequels tried that story with Rey and Kylo, but 1. There was no reason for Rey to want to save Kylo. He wasn’t her father, he had no relation to her other than the fact that he killed Han in front of her and he tortured her and her friends. 2. Kylo didn’t want redemption. Every time he was offered the chance to do something good he turned it down and it was like 2 or 3 times that this happened. Vader didn’t. Yes, he didn’t accept Luke’s help at first, but he did in the end. And after Palpatine died, Vader wasn’t like “Okay, I’m taking his place now. Join me or you’re nothing to me“ to Luke. Vader did want to rule the galaxy with Luke right after he found out he has a son, but he gave up on that and realized that he needs to come back to Luke rather than to have Luke joining him. He realized he needs to make the right decision because his son is important to him and he can’t lose his son. Rey wasn’t important for Kylo. She was literally no one to him. They had no relationship at all, except what Kylo said: “My grandfather worked for your grandfather so we’re a dyad” (I legit had to pause the movie because I couldn’t stop laughing... they even ripped off Space Balls omg). Maybe the sequels would have been better if the two were related (either siblings or cousins). But they were just strangers and Rey just decided one day that she wants to save Kylo for some reason and then she decided that she’ll go back to trying to kill him and they kinda switch back and forth between that and it’s just a complete mess and doesn’t even come close to the story of Luke redeeming Vader that they were trying to rip-off from the OT.

People loved Vader being mysterious and intimidating and they loved the idea of this powerful Sith lord wearing a mask (like the Sith of the Old Republic did). And the sequels tried to copy that aesthetic, but then they reveal Kylo’s face right away and he’s not intimidating at all and the whole mystery around his identity behind the mask goes away too. And his entire thing is to be whiny and throw a tantrum when things don’t go his way and destroy everything around him. I guess they were trying to copy Vader choking people with that, but the scary thing about Vader was that he would choke people but he’d put no energy into it and he’d stay calm and it was kinda unnerving how calm he was when he was choking the life out of someone. This is why Vader was intimidating and menacing. He didn’t lash out like a spoiled child and destroy his toys. He was in control even when he wasn’t and he was calm and made it seem like taking someone’s life was no issue to him.

Anakin’s backstory is loved by people. The way someone who was a Jedi and good became a Sith and took down the entire Jedi order and basically destroyed everything his world was about in the process was extremely complex and well-written and Anakin is somewhat of a sympathetic character because a lot of people can see that he made the wrong choices for all the right reasons (he just wanted to save his wife and their unborn child... children as we later find out). Kylo’s turn to the dark side is just he was contacted by Snoke, who whispered bad things to him about Luke, and for some reason Luke decided that the only way to deal with this is to for some reason kill Kylo in his sleep??? (yeah I also don’t understand why the guy who spent 3 movies trying to redeem Vader and refused to fight Vader and was about to let himself get killed by the Emperor because he was convinced his Sith lord father was actually good and would save him, is now like “You know, my nephew has to die. He can’t be redeemed.”). And then Kylo’s immediate reaction to this was to kill everyone else in Luke’s temple because I guess they also needed to rip-off Order 66 (out of all things that happened). Kylo isn’t sympathetic in this way because 1. He had a loving family and a good support system with Han and Leia and even Luke to some extent. He wasn’t like Anakin who never had anyone to talk to and who had to keep his life a secret from the Jedi and who grew up a slave and who was desperate to save the only family he had left. Kylo’s life was good and they said it was good in the sequels too. 2. He got threatened by Luke and his very next choice is to go kill a bunch of innocent people. He never showed any ounce of remorse for his actions. At least with Anakin, we see that he’s torn apart when he’s pledging himself to Palpatine and he’s basically hurt and haunted by his actions starting from then on. Kylo just killed a bunch of people and he’s going around like “yep, just another Tuesday...“

And aside from just doing a bad rip-off of a story that was already presented in the same universe, they also messed up with other characters that were beloved.

Luke, who never gave up on his father and who even abandoned his training (I think) to go save his family, is now the guy who wanted to kill his nephew at the first sign of the dark side and then his solution was to leave his family behind and never see them again.

Han is a deadbeat dad who left his wife when things got hard and went away on a road trip with Chewie to avoid any responsibility.

Leia is always sad and she desperately wants to forgive Kylo (they basically gave her Padme’s personality for some reason, when she’s more like Anakin). Like I can see Han forgiving Kylo (because he does have a big heart despite his rugged exterior), but giving what we know about Leia’s character, she wouldn’t forgive Kylo. It took Leia a long time to come to terms with forgiving Anakin and she wouldn’t even talk to his Force Ghost when he came to apologize, even though she knew he’d never see him again. There’s no way that she sees Kylo basically turning into Vader 2.0 and she’s like “there’s still good in him.“ Like he destroyed an entire system of planets, that had to bring back some painful memories for Leia. She actually had to watch Alderaan be destroyed. And he killed Han. I know their relationship was ruined in TFA, but TFA also made it clear that Leia and Han were still in love. There’s no way she would have forgiven Kylo or thought he was still good after he killed his dad and her husband. And he tried to kill her too if I remember correctly. He fired on her ship, which made her float out into space. Leia isn’t like Luke or Padme. It would be difficult for her to forgive Kylo for basically turning into her worst nightmare and taking her family away from her and killing so many other people too.

And then they bring back Palpatine too because I’m guessing their thought process was “well he was in all 6 movies that people loved, we do need a good villain.“ And it made no sense. Palpatine died like twice in ROTJ. He got destroyed by the reactor that Vader threw him in and then the entire Death Star exploded into tiny particles. There was no way for the Death Star to be crash landed on Exegol since it basically blew up in all directions in the middle of nowhere in space. Bringing him back basically invalidated all of Anakin’s story because him dying to bring balance to the Force was for nothing. He didn’t balance anything, Palpatine was never defeated. They really didn’t need Palpatine to be the villain of TROS. You could replace him with any other random villain and nothing changes. They only brought him back to make a reference to the old movies and have people watch their movie for nostalgia. But I honestly don’t know who was nostalgic for Sheev.

Anyway, it’s embarrassing that they had a good story that they tried to rip-off and they still managed to fuck it up. Like how hard it is to rip-off Star Wars and still have a good story? Didn’t Disney actually accomplish it before in a Phineas and Ferb special? I don’t know why they couldn’t do it this time around too.

But for real, they should have showed the New Jedi Order and the New Republic and show us how Luke and Leia were changing the world for the better and how they were fighting to keep the world a better place rather than to give us a watered down version of the First Galatic Empire vs Rebels but with worse characters and a worse story this time around.

[rickriordanfandam]

opinions on riordanverse ; my edition

a lot of people have been doing this so i decided why not right. probably gna lose some followers or smth but anyways. pls respect my opinions! if u disagree, thats fine, but please be polite. unless any of my opinions strikes u as morally wrong then pls point it out to me respectfully. thanks!

- i actually liked drew. im so sorry to everyone who hates her but full offence, why. think about it this way ok, first of all drew became hc because silena died. silena was the traitor, the one who betrayed chb, yet after she died campers celebrated her as a hero? and then drew suddenly has to replace her and live up to idk that legacy she left behind,, when all of a sudden this girl named piper swoops in and takes her place. idk abt u but i wld be salty abt that too. not only that, but as an asian, the chances of drew having faced racism/bullying as a child is pretty high (she studies at brooklyn academy). which means that when she finds out shes a demigod, and arrives at chb where most of the campers are white (this is an assumption btw), she’d obviously be scared of being bullied for her skin color right?? so the first thing she wld do before the campers get to bully her is to bully them before they can do so. (sentence structure here is wack i apologize) ofc this might not even have happened, drew could have had a perfect childhood && was a b1tch for no reason, BUT EVEN THEN HER ROLE AS A BULLY WAS PRETTY VITAL BECAUSE THAT FURTHER SHOWED THE CONTRAST BETWEEN HER AND PIPER,, HIGHLIGHTING PIPER AS A HERO//GOOD CHARACTER,, AND THEREFORE MAKING READERS LIKE PIPER MORE. anyway stop hating on drew please. ALSO WHY IS THIS SO LONGA SDFJHG

- jason isnt bland, the fandom just kinda erased his backstory (thanks to @pjohoo-memes for the phrasing lol)

- reynabeth wouldnt have lasted/would have broken up several times. idk i just see them as two extremely powerful characters who have firm opinions and will definitely clash at some point. in a platonic relationship,, i can see them as really good friends but as lovers? idk i just think theyll break up

- PIPABETH

- i dont really like jercy,, i see them as better friends than lovers. also idt jason and percy were that close..?

- the dam and not my type jokes are srsly cringey and were never funny. ik that seems hypocritical since my username literally makes use of the dam joke but honestly i dont actually like the joke. its not funny to me and has never been funny

- the seven were not best friends. they definitely argued,, and honestly probably werent as close as the fandom makes them seem. like ure dumped with 6 other people, out of which u only know a few. my introverted ass would have jumped off the argo 2 quicker than leo valdez could bomb camp jupiter up. also leo was a dick to frank. so what if frank is bigger sized?? thats not a valid reason to tease him

- the fandom needs to stop hating on octavian while worshipping luke. if u hate luke and u say u hate octavian too, then okay. but if u tell me ure a luke stan but u despise octavian?? imma disagree w u. luke was worse than octavian im sorry. first of all, octavian being a dick was kinda justified. hes been after the praetor position for so long, and everyone keeps saying to “wait for jason” when suddenly this dude, whos a son of NEPTUNE (neptune wasnt liked much by romans), and the camp decides to make him praetor?? dude i would be pissed off big time. and then afterwards, he finds out that greek demigods are real and the dude they made praetor is greek. AND THEN GREEK DEMIGODS COME TO CJ AND ONE OF THEM BOMB IT UP?? octavian has been told all his life that greeks are scum and this dude called leo valdez attacks cj. sure it was an accident, but did octavian know that? no. so it was honestly justified that he was such a salty prick im just saying. also some of yall be hating on octavian for cutting a teddy bear open and thats the funniest shit ive ever heard i swear 

- luke didnt go to elysium

- travis and connor stoll r way too underrated. the two have been head counselors of the hermes cabin since luke was revealed as a traitor, can u imagine the stress? luke, the person they probably looked up to as a brother, betrayed them. and they didnt even have time to process this when they were  thrown the roles of being hcs. that would have been so stressful and i would probably have broken down if i were them. the stoll brothers taking turns to wake up at ungodly hours because a new camper is crying and homesick and terrified, the stoll brothers having to comfort and take care of new campers, having to deal with the amount of people in that cramped space because not enough campers are being claimed fast enough. having to resolve issues between campers in the hermes cabin all the time. the stolls arent just comedic relief, and we need to stop treating them as such

- tratie shldve been canon idc idc

- demigods of the demeter cabin arent talked about enough and i love the fact that meg was demeters kid. like she isnt the child of one of the big three yet shes so powerful.

- we need to hype clarisse up more her character arc was phucking amazing 

- rachel is overhated. sis found out greek gods exist and regularly come down to earth to fuck around and went “ok cool”. queen shit behavior methinks

- the floor 19 crew of mcga is srsly underrated. like do u even remember halfborn gunderson, mallory keen, tj, etc??? bc i feel like we only remember samirah, magnus, alex, and sometimes blitz and hearthstone

- sadie (tkc) was kinda annoying at first. i like her more now tho but i rmb not liking her for a phat while

- tkc and mcga need more love

- carter kane and jason grace arent boring. theyre just really sweet boys who are too good for this world and yes yes yes 

- hazel and frank (especially frank) need to be hyped up more. i hardly ever see anything about them. also yall seem to forget that frank was literally made praetor and that even hecate admired hazel and was willing to fight beside her because of how powerful she was

- frazels age gap is kinda sketch but i still think theyre really cute

- nico definitely had trauma from going to tartarus on his own

- GROVER IS PERCYS BEST FRIEND

- annabeth isnt smarter than leo but neither is leo smarter than annabeth. ive seen a lot of discussions about who is smarter and heres my hot take on it: neither. theyre equally smart, just in different ways. leos a genius mathematically speaking. he has no issues solving math problems meant for people much, much older than him. annabeth on the otherhand, is great at strategies etc. she can make an army of 1000 more powerful than the enemy, even if theyre outnumbered. so in my opinion, both are equally as smart//u cant compare their intelligence, because their talents lie in two different areas.

- while i do agree rick riordan isnt a god and that hes bound to make mistakes,, AND that hes given us a lot of representation,, if the representation offends the people its sposed to represent, then theres a problem. im talking about piper as a poc and wearing feathers in her hair. im not a poc, so i cant speak for them on whether or not its wrong, because i dont know either. HOWEVER, i have seen multiple posts BY pocs talking about how they didnt really like rick’s representation of piper, and thats an issue. pocs have been and are still oppressed and discriminated against by many. as a white cis man, we cant really blame him for not knowing (tho he could have done a research,, asked some pocs,, idk), but by representing pocs in that manner, hes influencing impressionable kids/teens into thinking “oh pocs wear feathers in their hair all the time” etc, which isnt true. the pjo/hoo series is extremely successful, and kids who read the books will probably start forming inaccurate opinions on pocs. the amount of fan art that depicts piper with feathers in her hair dont help either. “but rick said so in the books, so its canon” yeah well rick isnt a god and he can get some things wrong at times. im not saying we should cancel him, im saying we should start educating ourselves and not spread false info like pocs wearing feathers in their hair all the time. also that snake song shit where she sang Summertime was just- yeah. bc heres the thing you can be racist, and still include minorities, but portray them in a racist way. And even then, ignorance isn't a thing to admire. Getting those facts wrong still has a major impact. It continues to perpetuate racist stereotypes.

“ With the feather thing, I looked it up myself; it takes less than five minutes to figure out that Cherokees don't braid feathers into their hair. I didn't grow up in the country where my parents are from. I have many other first/second generation American friends who have also been through that, with a bit of a disconnect from their culture. But something that most of us have in common is that when we didn't know something, and when our parents weren't that big of a help, we looked it up. We sought out resources online and through other people from our culture to be able to connect more with where we came from. Some of that took a Google search. So I find it hard to believe that Piper, a girl who Rick's trying to portray as someone who is attempting to connect with her culture and is totally against racist stereotypes, wouldn't know that eagle feathers aren't supposed to be braided into your hair casually. She may be disconnected from her culture, but she's also shown to want to connect back to it. Piper wouldn't be casually braiding feathers into her hair while also telling off people for being racist. It makes no sense.” - reddit thread (down below) 

for those of yall who wanna know more please please read this, it has a lot of things i wanna add in here : https://www.reddit.com/r/camphalfblood/comments/gy3gl2/piper_mcleans_portrayal_is_innacurate/ 

as well as https://finding-my-culture.tumblr.com/post/189422373260/maxie-ratties-and-cattie-finding-my-culture 

i will be posting screenshots of these in future posts so if ure viewing this on ig and u dont have tumblr,, dont worry 

- the fact that most of the strong female characters in the series refuse to be “girly”, and ngl i dont really like that. just because ure girly doesnt mean u cant be strong. 

- piper would have been a great way for him to start making the strong characters act girlier, but instead he went with the “I’m not like other girls” trope which is quite obnoxious to hear constantly, and I don’t think it’s necessarily great for younger girls to read that idea growing up.  the closest we've ever had to a strong female character who was also into "girly" things was Silena. when I was younger I admired Piper's "I'm not like other girls" thing, but then I got older and realized that the whole mentality of "not like other girls" is super obnoxious, and a little bit toxic

i have a heck load more that i cant rmb rn but yeah feel free to add more 

[fortheloveoffanfic]

Put Me In a Movie

Keanu Reeves x reader (A/n-sometimes, I look back on this series and think about how this did not go the way it was initially planned. And then I just write more angst and make it worse. Flashback in italics)

Summary Prologue  1   2   3  4  5  6 7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15

Warnings- Angst

Chapter 16- The Best Part of Me Was Always You.

5 Months Ago Salty tears rolled down her cheeks and they didn’t really do anything to quell the heat in her cheeks. Y/n couldn’t believe that she’d let herself fall for Keanu, even after she’d seen the red flags so, so many of them. They were there from the very start. But still, he was…...enigmatic, charming and daringly handsome. He made it easy to love him. He was making it easy to hate him too. 

Even as Y/n hustled through the lobby, intent on her room, ready to pack up and get her assistant to change her flight, she couldn’t help but let his words replay in her head. You’re not my girlfriend. It was her fault, Y/n was the one who’d built up this perfect idea of him in her head, she was the one who’d held onto the flimsy threads of hope, wishing that at some point, Keanu would come to return her feelings. But Y/n had to grow up, realize that he wasn’t the one that was going to be the one that stuck around to the end, he had the affections of a gypsy after all. 

Her head was down, and Y/n’s leather jacket was held closed by tightly balled fists and her the thin heels of her stilettos clicked on the marble floor, drowning out everything else. She was so distracted with her tumultuous thoughts, that Y/n didn’t see the person getting out of the elevator, just as she was trying to get in, consequently walking straight into his hard chest. “Oh!” He grabbed her shoulders, trying to steady her, surprised when she finally looked up at him, smeared, running make-up skewing her beauty, eyes red and lips quivering with quiet sobs, “Y/n?”

“Luke,” embarrassed, she hastily swiped at her eyes and sniffled, knowing that no amount of damage control could rectify her appearance, “Hey, I didn’t know you were staying here.”

“It’s just for tonight,” his frown was deep and his hold on her shoulders didn’t waver, “Are you okay? Why are you crying?”

Wiping her face again, Y/n tried to dismiss his concern, “I’m fine.” Desperately, she tried to slip out of his hold, growing a little annoyed when he wouldn’t relent, “It’s nothing okay? Why do you care anyway?”

Her words seemed to sting, still Luke put on a brave face, his warm, rich eyes soft, as they’d always been with her. Why couldn’t Y/n have just fallen in love with Luke? He was good and safe. He put her needs before his and put up with so much to be with her. “Because I care about you, Y/n,” he cleared his throat loudly, “Even if you’re with Keanu now.”

At the mention of his name, a choked sob  broke through her lips, and in an instant, without even knowing the reason for her break down, Luke was pulling her in, hugging her tight and shushing her in comfort. “It’s okay,” assured, kissing the top of her hair, “It’s okay, I’ve got you. Whatever it is, you’re gonna be okay.”

Now The billboards seemed to dominate Los Angeles, and the adverts were plastered everywhere too; at storefronts on the street and in the malls, in magazines and on the internet. There wasn’t a place that Keanu could go without seeing her face; Y/n, the newest face of Everwood. When he’d heard the news, after it had made its way through whispers and rumors around Hollywood, he almost couldn’t believe it. Just over five months ago, Y/n was sitting at brunch saying that she didn’t do things like that; model for popular fashion houses and parade their brands as if she were their messiah. But there she was, and Keanu could still barely wrap his head around it. 

With her induction to the fashion world, had come other rumors. People had started to speculate that she and Luke had started going around again, she was working for his mother after all. It was something he’d avoided thinking about, Keanu couldn’t stand the thought that she’d managed to move on when he felt like he’d be stuck wallowing in their break up forever. And for the most part, Keanu had closed himself off to anything involving Y/n, he dismissed the topic when people asked what it was like to work with her and actively avoided more than a glance at the pictures of her that seemed to be painted on every corner. 

At first, it was easy, L.A was huge and people weren’t often listening when you were talking anyway, always in search of the next new high. But then it happened, the day that reminded him that he couldn’t ever truly escape her came, right when he wasn’t expecting it. Los Angeles was big, but it wasn’t that big. She was wearing a sundress, a pale pink one, and at first, he thought he was hallucinating. What were the odds that on the very same day that he’d taken his mother to brunch would be the same on that Y/n would drop by at the very same restaurant, with a table on the other side of the cushy establishment, to share a meal with an older woman and Luke. 

“Who are you looking at?” Keanu’s mother interrupted his taunting thoughts, trying to match his gaze; see what he was seeing. “Oh!” Her eyes light up in recognition, “That’s Delilah Everwood! You know her,” Patrica reached over the small table to slap his arm lightly, “She’s the founder of the design house,” squinting her eyes, she continued, “That must be her son, the photographer, and isn’t that the girl you worked with a couple months ago, Y/n?”

“Uh,” thank heavens for the insane alcohol content of bloody marys, “Yup,” his stiff, wooden reply was delayed, and like a fool Keanu couldn’t tear his gaze away from the scene several feet away. Even if it hurt like a punch to the gut when she leaned into Luke’s side after planting a kiss to his jaw. She’d met his mother, they were having brunch, like a happy little family.

Keanu had never even thought of letting Y/n meet his mother.

And now? The greatest love of Keanu’s life, the best part of himself, was wrapped up in the arms of another. Like life was some kind of sick, practical joke.

“Don’t you want to go say hi Ke?” His mother, always so polite, “I’m sure she’d love to see you again.” She used to love him. “Come on,” already she was moving to stand.

“No!” Hasty and ready to put an end to the matter, startling his mother, “I mean,” he forced a strained smile, “It’s been so long since we’ve spent some time together, just the two of us. Let’s not go through all of that, okay?”

She didn’t seem to believe him eyeing Keanu suspiciously before once again resigning to her wicker chair, “Okay,” she matched his smile, hers more genuine, “Whatever you want sweetheart.” Even as she sat, Keanu could tell that his mother hadn’t completely let the issue go, and was probably going to bring up his behavior on the ride back to her place, but until then, he’d be inclined to pretend that what he’d seen wasn’t real. Because if it was real, then Y/n was never coming back to him. 

He was always hard to miss, even though Y/n knew that Keanu preferred to simply blend in, he always stood out. She'd seen him from the minute he walked in, pulling out a chair for an older woman; his mother. It was funny, the fact that they dated but the only reason Y/n knew his mother was because of the internet. For the minute, after the two had taken their patio table, Y/n held her breath for the moment where another woman would appear, her replacement. There hadn't been anything in the media that said Keanu was seeing someone else, and he'd seemingly stayed true to his word, holding onto her space in his life, but Y/n knew better than anyone that Keanu could hide a relationship if he wanted to. 

It stung, the thought of someone else laying with him at night, safe in his arms, listening to him talk about his day. For months, Y/n had longed to be that person, his one and only, his forever. But the odds weren't in their favor and though he'd apologized and though she missed him with everything in her, she'd still gotten back with Luke. Y/n hadn't meant for it to happen, but his mother's people had adamantly lobbied with her people, and by the end summer, she'd signed on as a spokesperson for his Delilah's brand. Getting back with Luke had been collateral damage after that; he'd been in charge of a few of the photo shoots and during editing, they'd gotten closer than they were before, Y/n had found herself letting him in in a way she hadn't when they were together, and it certainly helped that he was the one that had gone out of his way to help her through her break up with Keanu. Being with him after that seemed easy, like it was the right thing to do. 

At least, it did, until she saw Keanu. In an instant, the memories came flooding back. How his lips worked with hers when they kissed. His arms felt when they embraced and how his board, his chest and his beating heart felt against her back. How he smelt and tasted and simply everything about him. Keanu was a stain on her memory, embedded in her skin and sometimes, when Y/n would pick up something she’d worn in his company, she could swear that his musky aroma had still clung to the fabric. Maybe he was meant to stay with her forever, in a different kind of way. In the memories they shared. Maybe they just weren’t meant to be.

At the thought, Y/n’s shoulders fell and her gaze dimmed. For some reason, even though she’d processed their break up, she hadn’t really thought of the fact that she might go on with the rest of her life having not reconciled with the one man who she’d love above all others. “You okay?” Luke affectionately squeezed her shoulders, her spaghetti strap not a real barrier from the warmth of his palm.

Forcing a smile, which inevitably faltered, Y/n turned to Luke, trying hard to suppress thoughts of Keanu. But she couldn’t, it wasn’t as easy as she’d like it to be, and then, more than ever, she realized that she might have never felt for Luke what she felt for Keanu, even if she was too stubborn to take him back. “Yeah,” not wanting him to press the matter, she reached up, pecking the side of his jaw, paying mind to Keanu seated across the room, his dark eyes trained on her. 

For a moment more, though never directly looking in his direction, Y/n observed him; he looked a little different. His beard was bushier than she remembered and his shaggy mane a bit longer. Part of her ached to get up and go say something, but Y/n knew herself well enough that if she even got there, there was no telling what would happen. So instead, she just stayed, cuddled against Luke, trying to enjoy their habitual Sunday brunch with Delilah, occasionally stealing glances at Keanu and hoping no one would notice. 

“Well,” his mother was sitting shotgun, handbag discarded in her lap with her hands clasped over the top and dark tinted sunglasses guarding her knowing expression.

With one hand stationed on the wheel, the other balled in a loose fist on his jean clad lap, Keanu kept his eyes trained forward, navigating the busy Los Angeles street as he headed for his mother’s place, “Well what?” He knew exactly what she was asking about, but really wasn’t in the mood to talk about Y/n, especially after he’d seen her all wrapped up around Luke, the sight just another crushing reminder of every mistake he’d made over the past few months. Mistakes were costly, and boy was he learning that the hard way. So much for thinking he’d lived enough to learn enough. “What are you talking about?” There was an unnerved twinge in his tone, and nervously, he tightened his grip on the wheel.

“Well what happened between you and Y/n?” Patrica turned to him, pushing up her sunglasses so when Keanu stole a glance her way, he’d be met with her ‘I already know, so just tell me’ look, penetrating his hardened exterior. Mothers. “She’s a little young for you, don’t you think?” She continued poking when he didn’t respond the first time, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that, at least you two could’ve had a baby-”

“Mom!” With a frenzied state, Keanu cut her off, almost jerking the wheel impulsively as he turned to her, only to find a mischievous smirk tickling her lips. Of course, she’d say anything to get him to talk. “There’s nothing between me and Y/n. She was…...a co star.”

“So you look at all your co stars like they just punched you in the gut?” When Keanu simply rolled his eyes, Patrica sighed heavily, “Sweetheart,” she began again, tone softer, “You’re my son, I know you. And I know when you’re lying to me; I saw the way you were looking at her,” reaching over, she squeezed his shoulder in a display of motherly comfort, or at least, as much as she could offer while he was driving. “If you feel something for her, then maybe you should tell her.”

“Its not like that,” Keanu shook his head, hoping his unwillingness to elaborate would override her built-in need to mother him and ask way to maybe questions. But alas, it didn’t, and if anything, his mother just seemed to expect more, so, with an exasperated huff, he continued, “We were…..” gesturing wildly with his free hand, “You know…..in a…”

“Relationship?” She finished with a raised, questioning brow, “You were together!” Patrica gasped, clearly offended that he’d neglected to mention such an important bit of information.

“Yes,” cringing, Keanu cringed at the word ‘relationship.’ That was what Y/n had wanted, that was what he’d offered, though only when it was too late, “But also…...no? Its complicated.”

“I’m sure its not that complicated dear. What happened? You obviously aren’t together anymore.” Obviously.

As if he hadn’t gone over it in his head enough. Cried over it, lost sleep over it, and everything in between. All while Y/n was perfectly fine and totally moved on. Shrugging as he turned into her street, it took all of Keanu’s will to not absolutely press all his weight on the gas just so they’d get to his mother’s house quicker and consequently drop the topic, “We broke up, sort of.”

Licking her lips, Patrica shifted in her seat, trying to get a good, long, accusing look at him, “What did you do? And why’s there all this...vagueness?” Furrowing her brows, she huffed, annoyed by his apparent disinterest in telling her the truth in its entirety, “Just tell me what happened.”

And so, with every ounce of reluctance in his weary bones, Keanu told her; the more pg parts of the good and a summarized version of the ugly. Even after they reached her house, his car parked at the top of her long, winding driveway. When he was finished, they sat in tense silence for a minute, and while Keanu had prepared himself for a lecture, he was certainly not prepared to be swatted on the back of his head. “Ow!”

“That’s for what you did to that poor girl,” scoffing, his mother shook her head, “I can’t believe you’d treat her like that! You need to apologize.”

“I did,” Keanu sighed heavily, both hands still on the wheel as he started down into his lap, “It clearly didn’t work. And now she’s gone.” She’s really gone, over him and everything, while he was sitting in his mother’s driveway, sulking.

“Then get her back,” grabbing his shoulder, Keanu’s mother reached over to turn her face to him, “What, you’re just going to wait around and hope she changes her mind? You need to pick yourself up and give her a reason to change it.”

“And how do you suggest I do that?” It wasn’t like Keanu hadn’t given it his best, and he definitely wasn’t going to grovel any more than he had. 

“Well first,” while a light smile, she fondly dragged her nails through his beard, peppered with a bit more grey than usual, “I suggest you shave,” at that, Keanu tilted his head and rolled his eyes, quelling yet another exasperated sigh. “And after that,” she chuckled, patting the side of his face, “You have real talk with her. You’ve fought already, so now just….talk.”

Taking a deep breath, Keanu nodded, already debating whether or not he should even go for it. On one hand, they would start press junkets at the end of the month, and the last thing he wanted was three weeks worth of awkward interactions between grueling interviews, but on the other he didn’t want things to end the way they had the last time; with both of them hurt beyond comparison. There was one thing Keanu did know for sure though; and that was that he only had two weeks to figure out what he was going to do. 

*******

Tagging- @harrisongslimited​  @paanchu786​  @thesadvampire​  @fanficsrusz​  @fickensteinn​  @ladyreapermc​  @babygirltaina​  @septimaseverina​  @snatchedbylele​  @omg-imagine @21stcenturyyfoxx​  @magnificentclodpiebanana @allie1804-fan @keandrews  @greenmanalishi  @rdjloverxxx​ @danceoftwowolves

[calpalirwin]

Heart Wins

Summary: Single dad Michael hires a babysitter for his son.

A/N: Not the collab! Ha! Could you imagine?

Word Count: 2.4k

And away, and away we go!

__

“So, I would just need someone to watch him during the day so I can get some studio time in,” Michael told Maya. “I mean, he’s pretty lowkey. Likes to swim in the pool, watch cartoons, basic little kid stuff. I’ll try to keep my schedule as regular as possible, but there might be times I’ll ask you if you can stay later or even help me out on weekends if that’s okay.”

“Yeah, that’s not a problem,” Maya smiled. “And the studio is where?”

“Here, mostly. We try to do what we can at our own places before paying out the ass for ‘professional’ studio time. And since I have Tidus, we usually work here. I just can’t be focused on working with them and watching Tidus at the same time. I mean, it’s not glorious or anything on your end. But, like I said, the kid’s pretty lowkey. And you’ll have the run of the place, so feel free to do whatever. But yeah… any, uh, questions?”

“Um, no I don’t- oh! What happens when you go off on tour?”

“I double your pay?” Michael laughed. “Honestly, I’m not too sure. I’m not set to leave anywhere for about another four months, so if you haven’t run for the hills for something better we can discuss it more then?”

Maya nodded, looking around the house wondering why on Earth she would ever want to give up a sweet ass job like this. “Works for me.”

“Alright,” Michael said, clapping his hands against his thighs and standing up. “I guess I’ll just show you where Tidus is, and leave you guys to it.”

She followed him through the house, up the stairs to a bedroom that had been converted into a playroom. A little boy of no more than 3 or 4 sat in the middle of a comfortable looking couch, his attention held by the cartoon playing on the large television. “Ti,” Michael got the boy’s attention. “This is Maya. She’s gonna watch you for a bit. Can you say hi?”

“Hi,”

“Hey, bud. Whatcha watchin’?” she asked, moving around to sit beside him.

“Pokemon!”

“Oh, cool! I love Pokemon. Who’s your favorite?”

“Pikachu.”

Michael smiled. “Alright, Ti. Maya’s the boss.”

“‘Kay.”

“I’ll be in the basement if you need me for anything,” Michael directed the statement at Maya. “Other than that, make yourself at home.”

“Thank you, Michael.”

~~~

“Maya,” a small voice whispered. “Psst… Maya!”

“Mmm? Wha?” Maya asked, yawning and opening her eyes to find a pair of light green eyes peering back at her under a cloud of soft yellow hair. “AAAHHHH!” She retreated to where her bed met the wall. “Tidus, are you tryin’ to kill me?!”

The six year old laughed. “Sorry… Dad said I wasn’t supposed to wake you…”

“But why would you do a silly thing like listen to your dad?” she questioned with her own laugh.

“Exactly! He’s not the boss of me. You are!”

“Nice save, kid.” She threw back the covers and sat up. “You want pancakes don’t ya?”

“Yes, please!”

“Alright. Your dad in the studio with your uncles?”

“They were there all night!” Tidus told her dramatically as they walked downstairs to the kitchen.

She frowned as she tried to remember what time her phone had said when she finally heard Michael’s footsteps on the stairs and the close of his door. Close to 2 am she was sure. And he’d probably only slept for a few hours before heading back down. He probably hadn’t eaten since yesterday morning, too close to a break through with the newest album to focus on much else. “Do you think they’re hungry?��� she asked the boy.

“We’re gonna have to make the whole box,” Tidus giggled.

“Then let’s make the whole box.”

“Can we make a bunch of different kinds?!”

“Of course we can!”

“Whoohoo!”

A half hour and at least six different types of pancakes later, Maya and Tidus made their way to the basement studio. Tidus carefully carried the stack of plates while Maya held the platter of assorted pancakes, a bottle of syrup tucked under her arm. “Knock knock!” they yelled loudly. “Special delivery!” Maya kept up with it as she let them into the room.

The four adult men turned their heads at the intrusion. “That’s a lot of pancakes,” Michael spoke first, stepping forward to help Tidus with the plates before he dropped them.

“Yeah, we went a little overboard,” Maya responded, setting down the platter on the little table in the room. “Figured you guys must be starving.”

“You figured right. Thanks.”

“Oh, I just made the food. Was Ti’s idea.”

“Ti…” Michael said sternly to his son. “I told you to let her sleep.”

“But you said Maya was the boss. You never said I had to listen to you, too.”

Ashton, Calum, Luke, and Maya snickered into their hands as Michael’s green eyes went wide for a second. “What are you? An elephant?”

Tidus put his arm against his nose like a trunk and made his best elephant noise.

“Well in the future, Elephant Boy, you should listen to me, too. I am your dad after all.”

“10-4, boss man!” the boy chirped.

“What in th-?” Michael chuckled, looking over at Maya.

“No idea, boss man,” Maya laughed back. “Well…” she gestured at all the food. “Dig in!”

~~~

“So,” Calum asked, wiping away the last traces of sticky syrup after Maya and Tidus made their way back upstairs. “How long has Maya been watching Ti?”

“Uh…” Michael thought quickly. “‘Bout two years.”

“Mhm… And how long has she lived here?”

“She moved in right after the first tour, so a little over a year.”

“And she’s good with Ti?”

“Oh, she’s great with him. I’d be lost without her.”

“So, you’ve known her for two years. She’s lived with you for one. And she’s great with your kid,” Calum recapped.

“Yeah… That’s what I just said.”

“What Cal’s trying to say,” Ashton cut in, “is have you slept with her yet? And if not, can he?”

“What the fuck?!” Michael screeched at the same time Calum shoved Ashton with a “That is not my question!”

“Is too! Maybe not the sleeping with her yourself part. But the first part’s true. We’re all wondering, mate,” Luke piped up.

“What the fuck?!” Michael repeated, looking at his friends, slack jawed. “What kinda question is that? No, I haven’t slept with her!”

“Why not?”

“She’s Ti’s babysitter!”

“So?”

“So I’m basically her boss, you nitwits! I’m not fuckin’ the babysitter,” he growled.

“Alright, alright,” the other three held up their hands in surrender.

“And neither are any of you lot!” Michael added.

~~~

“Hey, Maya?” Tidus asked as they watched cartoons.

“Yeah, bud?”

“My dad goes on dates, right? To find me a mom?”

She blinked. She had been expecting him to ask if they could go swimming,or play with Legos, not have the Mom conversation. “Uh… well… yeah, your dad goes on dates. But he’s not trying to replace your mom.”

“No, I know that. But like, he’s trying to find someone that would love us like a mom would. Right?”

“Right. He just wants someone who’s gonna love you as much as he does.”

“So, why doesn’t he take you out on a date?”

Maya choked. “Uh… it’s not that simple, bud.”

“Well, why not? I mean, you’re here. And you don’t get mad at me when I wake you up to make pancakes. And you take me swimming, and watch cartoons with me. And you help in my classroom like all the other moms. Is it cuz you don’t love me?”

“What?! Of course I love you, you goof!”

“So, why can’t you date Dad and be my mom?”

Maya sighed. “It’s not that simple, Ti. Your dad and I have a different relationship.”

“Oh… Will you still stay if I do get a mom?”

“Of course I’ll stay!” she told him, even though she really had no way of knowing. She supposed it would depend on what the new woman did for a living herself, and how comfortable she would be with Maya staying in the house.

“Cool. Cuz me and Dad really like you here.”

“Dad and I,” she corrected absentmindedly.

“Dad and I,” he repeated. “Do you like being with us?”

“No place I’d rather be,” she grinned at him.

~~~

Michael’s head swam with his conversation with his bandmates. Yes, him and Maya got along with each other. Yes, Michael had come to view the woman as not only an integral part of his life, but also as part of the family. Maya had been there for every moment him and Tidus had over the last two years. And she was pretty in a way that often left him breathless, whether she was in a tank top and pajama bottoms with her hair slightly ruffled from sleep, or totally dolled up in a way befitting of magazine covers. But this wasn’t some friendship that could handle a little awkwardness. There were so many ways things could go with too many options for how it could end, each one worse than the last. And to risk it all over a maybe crush? No. It was far better to keep his mouth shut.

Unbeknownst for Michael, Maya’s own head had been swimming with her own equally conflicted thoughts that matched his own. “Hey, Michael,” her soft voice greeted him in the dark hallway.

“Shit!” he whisper-screamed, hand flying to his chest. “Fuck… didn’t see you there.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare ya…”

“Nah, it’s…” he shook his head. “Did I wake you?”

“No,” it was her turn to shake her head. “Was just about to turn in.”

“Oh… well, night then.”

“Night,” she murmured, feeling his body brush past hers. “Hey, Michael?”

“Yeah?”

“Um… can we talk a moment? Ti said something earlier that you should probably be aware of.”

“Yeah, course. C’mon, we can talk in here.” He led them both into his bedroom, flicking on the light. “Is everything alright?” he asked as he sat on the edge of his bed, patting the space next to him.

“Oh, it’s not bad! Just… curious,” she told him as she sat beside him.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, he mentioned you dating.”

“Aw, shit… I guess I didn’t explain that to him as well as I thought I did…”

“No, no,” Maya shook her head. “He understands. Well, as much as any six year old can anyway. It’s, uh… well he brought up something that I just can’t seem to shake.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah… um… and I’m not asking to put you on the spot or anything. It’s just…”

“Curious?” he supplied.

“Yeah. Um… what happens when one of these women becomes your long-term girlfriend or wife? Like… what would that mean for me?”

Michael leaned back on his arms. “Shit… Tidus came up with that?”

“Well, he asked if I would stay. I sort of filled in the rest.”

Michael nodded. Then, “What would you do? If it weren’t for this, what would you be doing?”

She shrugged. “Probably teach. I don’t think I’d have it in me to get invested in another family like I am with you guys.”

He nodded again. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to see you go.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He smiled before laughing. “Aw shit. That explains a lot actually.” He kept laughing.

“I’m sorry?” she asked, not getting the joke.

“I’m the single dad with a live-in babysitter. No wonder all my dates end horribly.”

“Oh geez!” she laughed with him. “Sorry, I don’t mean to laugh. That’s just…”

“Utterly ridiculous?”

“That’s terrible. Like this is my job. Sorry it’s ruining your dates.”

“Nah, it’s not your fault. Guess some people are just immature. Like I couldn’t possibly resist the temptation of having a beautiful woman in my home.”

“Beautiful woman?” she blinked, turning her head to look at Michael with his flushed cheeks.

“I- I didn’t mean it like that,” he rushed. “I mean, you are. Beautiful. But I- no. I should stop talking now.”

“No. What were you gonna say?”

“Well… I mean I pay you to be here. It’s not like you’re here because you want to be. I mean, maybe you do now. I hope anyway. But, like you’re here because you’re doing a job. If I wasn’t paying you I doubt you’d stay.”

“Well I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t pay me because I already feel bad enough you let me live here rent free. Not because I don’t want to be here.”

“Well, I appreciate the sentiment. But, this is all hypothetical. I need to find a girl who won’t run away once she realizes what my life really entails first.”

Maya brought a finger to her lips in thought. “Hmm… yeah, good luck with that one.”

Michael laughed. “Yeah. So if you have any friends who are understanding like you, lemme know.”

She laughed with him. “Sorry. Just me, I’m afraid.”

“Bummer…”

“Ouch!” She swatted his arm playfully. “You’d be lucky to have me.”

“I am lucky to have you,” he corrected. “But… we…” he pointed back and forth between them. “It’d be stupid.”

“Terribly stupid,” she sighed in agreement. “Or at least that’s what I told Tidus when he asked. Well, I said it wasn’t simple. But same thing.”

Michael choked. “He asked you what?”

“He asked why you didn’t take me out. Since how you’re trying to find a woman that loves him as much as you do.”

“Shit… how’d that kid get so smart?”

“No idea,” she joked. “Must be his babysitter.”

“Can’t be me, that’s for damn sure. If I was smart, I’d know what to do right now.”

“What's your brain saying?”

“To shut up, go to bed, and to keep trying to make it work with other women the way it already works with you so I don’t fuck up a good thing.”

“And your heart?”

“To take the risk anyway because at least then maybe I’ll have a clear answer.”

“And which are you gonna listen to?”

“No idea.”

“That makes two of us.” Maya patted his leg as she stood up. “G’night, Michael.”

“Wait,” he said, his fingers wrapping around her wrist. “Two of us? You feel this way too?”

“Course I do. But that doesn’t matter. Does it?”

“Fuck it,” he muttered to himself, tugging on her wrist so she fell down on his lap. “Heart wins.” His fingers stroked gently up her cheeks as he cradled her face in his hands, his lips brushing against hers.

She sighed into the kiss, tangling her own fingers in his soft hair, changing positions so she was straddling his lap. “Heart wins,” she agreed against his lips, as she started to pull away. “We can figure out the rest later.”

“Agreed,” he nodded frantically, green eyes shining brightly. “Fuck, c’mere.”

__

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[criminalminds-hc-hq]

Worry

Word Count: 1,189

Warnings: Mention of physical assault and injuries (including blood).

Author’s Note: I wrote this to try to pull myself out of my writer’s block. It’s not great but at least it’s something

You wait for the car to finish pulling out of the drive and start making its way down your street before approaching the house. You slowly walk up the steps and ring your own doorbell. You can hear Roxy walking quickly toward the door and bite your lip out of habit. The jolt of pain brings you back to yourself and your anxiety goes into overdrive. It’s not that you’re worried about Luke’s reaction really. It’s more that you should have known better. You’re dating and living with a freaking FBI agent and still you’re in this situation.

Before you can work yourself up any more, Luke opens the door. You can see the surprise spreading on his face already, but thankfully he still hasn’t replaced the lightbulb on the porch and can’t get a good look at your own face. “I’ve been trying to call you for an hour. You’re never late. Is everything o--” Luke cuts himself off as you walk into the house and he finally gets a look at you in the light.

“I’m sorry. I--”

“What the hell happened?” Luke asks with shock in his voice. You start to walk away when his gentle but firm hand on your upper arm stops you. Roxy weaves her way between the two of you and you reach over to scratch her ears. You take comfort in the pup’s love while Luke looks over your array of injuries. Your split lip, hurting--and probably bruised--eye, and scraped up cheek aren’t really at the forefront of your mind when you can still feel your pulse in your ankle as you stand in the middle of the doorway.

“Luke,” you say with a sigh, “let me get in the house before the interrogation starts.” Luke’s still staring at you in shock while you close and lock the door and drop your coat on a hook next to it. “Are you okay?” Luke asks seeming to hold back a stream of questions while he follows you into the kitchen.

“I haven’t looked in a mirror so I don’t know how bad it is, but I assume I’ll be fine,” you say while pulling out an ice pack from the freezer. Your sarcasm is normally a healthy part of your relationship with Luke, but he isn’t putting up with it tonight. He grabs the ice pack from you and sits you down at the island without making his usual qip. He also grabs your first aid kit from the cabinet by the sink.

You sit down with a sinking feeling in your stomach and stare at your hands. They look filthy sitting on the clean countertop and remind you of your altercation tonight. Luke moves so he’s standing next to you at the island and he tilts your head up so he can get a better look at your injuries. He gently wipes at your lower lip with his thumb and it comes back covered in your blood. For a second, neither of you say anything. Luke seems upset and your heart is pounding in your chest.

“So, are you going to tell me what happened now?” Luke asks. His voice is soft and full of concern. It feels impossible to start the story, but you know you have to tell him. “I was walking to the subway after I got off work and this guy came out of nowhere. He--”

With a voice you’ve never heard him use before Luke grinds out “someone did this to you?” At that you notice both his clenched jaw and fists. “I thought you were in an accident. I didn’t think some asshole did this to you.” His anger is barely restrained, but you know he’s trying to hold it in so he doesn’t upset you.

“Well, I did fall down at one point,” you try to joke. “I assume that’s where the skinned cheek happened.” You point at the wet spot you feel on your right cheek and Luke’s eyes instantly soften. “Stop trying to turn this into a joke and tell me what happened,” Luke says as he starts pulling out the gauze and antiseptic wipes.

“He came out of nowhere and demanded my purse,” you say, pausing to wince at the feel of the antiseptic on your cheek. “I gave it to him and then he wanted my jewelry. And I know it’s dumb. I know I should have just given it to him, but you gave me that necklace.” Luke continues cleaning your injuries for a second before pulling away.

“All of this for that necklace?” Luke asks with frustration lining his tone. “I can always buy you a new one.” Tears spring to your eyes at this. How can you explain to Luke that you know? That you knew better? But you still did the stupid thing that everyone knows not to do. “I-I’m sorry, Luke. I know better. The girl obsessed with true crime podcasts, the girl dating an FBI agent still did the wrong thing. I’m sorry,” you say before Luke can get a word in. Luke sets down the antiseptic and wipes away your tears. “Hey. Hey. I’m not blaming you for what happened. It just seems so stupid I could have lost you over something replaceable.” He kisses your forehead and wraps his arms around you. “And people don’t think in these situations. They just react. It’s not your fault. It’s an instinct.”

After a moment, Luke goes back to fixing you up as you continue your story. “I called the cops and they took a statement. They took some photos of my injuries too. And then Officer Bryant drove me home. Now I’m here.”

“Why didn’t Officer Bryant call me? I would have come to get you. Why didn’t anyone take care of you at the scene?”

“I told her not to,” you say while finally putting the ice pack on the right side of your face, obscuring your view of Luke’s frown. “I know, Luke. But I didn’t want some random police officer explaining what happened. And I really didn’t want you charging in like a bull when this isn’t a big deal.”

“You come home scraped up after being mugged and it’s not a big deal?” Luke asks as he sits down next to you at the island. You grab his hand with your free one and stare into his eyes. He’s an amazing, sweet man and you feel lucky to have him, but you can’t believe he doesn’t realize the irony of his words. “I’m pretty sure you’ve come home with worse,” you remind him. Luke rolls his eyes at your words. “Okay, when you become an FBI agent I’ll let you come home banged up without freaking out.”

“You do realize this is how I feel when you get home from cases with injuries, right?” you can’t help but ask. “I know it’s part of your job and your job’s part of who you are. But I still worry and I still want to beat up whoever beat you up.”

“Well then, let me worry about you for once,” Luke says.

[wolfpawn]

I Hate You, I Love You, Chapter 160

Chapter Summary - Life continues for Danielle and Tom as the world processes their news, some good, some bad and some plain ugly.

Previous Chapter

Rating - Mature (some chapters contain smut)

Triggers - references to Tom Hiddleston’s work with the #MeToo Movement. That chapter will be tagged accordingly.

authors Note - I have been working on this for the last 3 years, it is currently 180+ chapters long.  This will be updated daily, so long as I can get time to do so, obviously.

Copyright for the photo is the owners, not mine. All image rights belong to their owners

tags: @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog @jessibelle-nerdy-mum @nonsensicalobsessions @damalseer @hiddlesbitch1 @winterisakiller @fairlightswiftly @salempoe @wolfsmom1 @black-ninja-blade

Those who were interested in the life of celebrities and those that called themselves critics and/or fans of Tom erupted in joy, revulsion, despair, anguish, excitement and several other emotions at the news of the engagement. Twitter was awash with comments, both from well-wishers and begrudgers. Celebrities who worked with both Tom and Danielle wishing congratulations, as well as the behind the scene crews from both of their different projects. Rumours became rife, theories began immediately. As like several times before, Danielle was accused of being pregnant, that they had to rush down the aisle before the baby came, others that she had his testicles in a vice on something and she was forcing him to do it, then there was those who believed it genuine, posting pictures of them at the Infinity War premiere, him looking at her lovingly as she gave him a nervous glance, the film footage of them with the Cumberbatch's at the South Bank Sky Awards, smiling and looking at each other happily, picture of them from different times, all showing the same expressions, content and love of one another.

A lot of people discussed the situation with Taylor, how she would react, many saying she couldn't care less, others that she would be seething, people tried to analyse her latest movements as that could give an indication as to her thoughts on it. Everyone had an opinion it seemed, from the celebrity news to social media, all swooping on the story to see if they could get something more from it.

Luke kept Tom posted on the general consensus but for the most part, he simply responded to the friends and family that contacted him regarding the announcement and many wanting to know the date for the ceremony. He explained that it would be the following year and promised to keep them informed, noting that to include even just close friends and family would make it a notable sized affair.

For her part, Danielle was harassed/deafened by Nacelle screeching excitedly down the phone at her at the announcement of her news via Viber beforehand as well as being given more than a few congrats from her extended family, including a very excited Siobhan who informed her that Laura was delighted for her, but their mother had seen Danielle's announcement as a form of “one-upmanship” on her cousin and that she was going to try and embarrass Laura. Laura knew this was not true and that her cousin was actually in a longer relationship and had known her fiance longer, not to mention, Danielle would never embarrass Mattie and Bridget in such a manner. Instead of being upset, Laura was actually asking Danielle to check the cost of dresses she had seen online that were apparently cheaper in Britain, she confirmed that they were and two dresses for a one-year-old were bought and sent to Ireland for Caoilfhionn with a note from Danielle that they were “her treat”.

When Danielle went to her office to get her paperwork sorted, she was startled to see a large bouquet of flowers from her workmates and a bottle of champagne on her desk, as well a smiling face on Helena, Amelia's replacement as she had indeed been sent to the US office on her request with a glowing letter of recommendation from Danielle.

She dealt with her paperwork with considerable ease before dealing with the countless phone calls she had to make.

“Danielle, I see congratulations are in order.” Waters declared down the phone. “It’s somewhat peculiar to see my wife open a magazine and see you and your fiance at a premiere but to see it make the front cover of the damn thing, I don't think I'll ever get used to that. I mean, a partner in our firm, front page news.”

“You must be thrilled with the publicity.” She scoffed.

“Well, it's not exactly bad for Safeguard to have you and our business name always put together. But in all seriousness, I'm delighted for you and Tom, he seems to actually have his head screwed on, for an actor. And he's very much mad about you.”

“I find myself concerned as to what the two of you discussed while I was on the phone that day at lunch.”

“He simply made it clear we don't treat you right and that come hell or high water, he's choosing you over everything. Having worked with actors for the entirety of my career, I can honestly say, Danielle, you two are different to most.”

“Thank you, Lucas. Now about the situation on set you were talking about.”

*

After work, Danielle went to an appointment she made without telling Tom, knowing he would fret. She spoke to the physiotherapist regarding her shoulder and was instructed how to tend to it. Her shoulder was also put in kinesiology tape to aid it to recover. She knew Tom would see that so she sighed and thanked her physiotherapist before heading home.

When she arrived, there was a smell of cooking wafting through the house. The mud on Mac's paws as he came towards her to greet her caused her to pause and cock her head slightly before she walked forward. “Tom?”

“Out the back.” The playful laugh in his voice caught her attention. When she walked out, she found her eyebrow raise.

There, in the garden was a children's paddling pool and in it, splashing around like a lunatic was Bobby, yapping and jumping at a floating tennis ball excitedly.

“Hello.” Tom smiled, looking proudly at her. “Do you like my purchase for the boys?”

“Not as much as Bobby does.” She leant up and kissed him. “What made you get this?”

“They looked so miserable in the heat and I googled what people are doing to help their dogs in this crazy weather and it's quite common apparently. Mac sat in it for a minute but Bobby will not leave it.”

“Good, that's great. It's the first time he has went fifteen seconds without panting since this all started.”

“How was work?”

“Boring, paperwork and phone calls mostly, but a lovely bouquet of flowers and a bottle of champagne were waiting on my desk.”

“Really?”

“Yes, and Lucas was congratulating us too on our phone call. Apparently, you're a sensible man….if such a thing exists.”

Tom growled playfully at her for her jestful comment. “How dare you. Here was I, making the beautiful lady a dinner and not only do you attack me but my entire gender.”

Danielle gave a slight noise and kissed him again. “I'm sorry, my sexy fiance. I am mean.”

Tom could not help smiling and looking at her hand to the antique ring he had placed there as a symbol of his love of her. “Well, when you call me that….”

Danielle laughed for a moment before leaning towards him and kissing him again. “I better get changed and put this paperwork away and after that, I can be all your again.”

“That sounds like a good deal to me.” He beamed and went back to the back door to ensure Bobby did not accidentally drown himself in his attempts to play with the ball.

Danielle returned to the kitchen shortly after and checked on the food to make sure the water was not running low. When she heard Tom walk up behind her and snake his arms around her waist, she smiled. “So, dare I ask the occasion?”

“Occasion?”

“You don't cook this unless you are in the best of moods, so what has you chirpy?”

A light chuckle passed Tom's lips. “You are so observant.”

“I know, it's sort of my job to be.”

“I am have completed my interviews with different women regarding the MeToo movement.”

“That's good, I mean, you know what I mean. How are you after it all?”

“It was exhausting just listening to them, so I find myself wondering how exhausted they are for talking about it and holding it.”

Danielle put her arms around his. “You are a strong man, Tom and you are so good to do this for these people.”

Tom pressed his lips to her shoulder for a moment before sliding his hands up and rubbing them. A moment later, Danielle hissed in pain and moved away. “What…?”

“My shoulder is a sore.”

“Oh, I'm sorry Darling. What happened?”

“Just a swollen muscle, it will be fine,” she dismissed.

Tom swallowed, worried about Danielle's health but knew better than to force his opinion, which was for her to step back from her training, on her. He watched as she moved the arm again and walked over to her backpack and removed the meals she had brought to work with her to keep to her diet and placed them by the sink. “You should consider going to a physio.”

“If it gets worse, I will,” she promised. “So what is your plan now, after everything with the movement?”

“I am not entirely sure, I will play it by ear. All I know is that it's opened my eyes to a lot, hearing how some women are treated, I was so blind to it all as a person. God knows what I never realised about those around me.”

Danielle nodded and mmhmm'd in agreement but unconsciously chewed the inside of her cheek as she washed out the empty containers.

[zoryany]

send me ficlet prompts – optionally include characters 73.  You’re putting an awful lot of trust in them.

Her boots were planted firmly on the ground just below her shoulders, arms folded across her chest in a way that maintained a delicate quality without diminishing her strength. Everything about her seemed to grow tight as her jaw clenched, her brow knit – ever so slightly – and the air in her lungs could be released as either a sigh or a growl.

The twins were in disagreement.

Luke hated when they didn’t see eye to eye. It made him feel distant from his sister in a way he hadn’t even felt during his first days as a member of the Alliance. It wasn’t often that they disagreed, but when they did, the Force itself seemed unsettled, as though the galaxy was out of alignment. somehow. These days in particular, it took significant matters to divide the Skywalkers, but if there was one surefire way to sunder their partnership, if only temporarily, it was to broach the subject of Vader. No greater source of contention existed between them than their own father.

Leia would never forgive him. Hell, she’d hardly forgiven Luke for forgiving him. But this wasn’t a matter of forgiveness – this was a matter of trust. Leia trusted him implicitly, the same way he trusted her, and he sincerely hoped he wasn’t taking advantage of that by asking this of her.

“I know you don’t like this.” He was stating the obvious, but he felt it only fair to her for him to acknowledge it.

“You have a talent for understatement, Luke.” It wasn’t malice in her voice, but a vein of irony wove its way through her words that teetered dangerously close to disdain. “I absolutely despise this. You’re putting an awful lot of trust in them. Especially considering they only respect us in the first place because of Vader.” If her voice wasn’t malicious before, it was positively dripping with venom as she spat out their father’s name.

Luke winced at her tone, making it a point to choose his words carefully. If he was going to convince Leia to see his point, he would have to appeal to her sense of reason. His sister was intelligent – smarter than him, he would gladly admit – and her sharp mind allowed her to carefully construct her arguments and decisions. She was, however, still human, and as subject to her emotions as any other human.

“I know how you feel about this – about him. But I’m not asking you to change that. I’m only asking you to consider the strategic possibilities that this could open up for us.”

“Luke, don’t,” she snapped, but she’d lost a bit of her previous acidity. “I’m fully aware of the strategic advantages an alliance with the Noghri could give us, but I do not trust a species that’s been loyal to the Empire for over two decades.”

“But they weren’t loyal to the Empire.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“They weren’t loyal to the Empire, Leia, they were loyal to Vader,” he insisted.

“That’s even worse.”

He could sense her anger building back up, her voice growing colder and her eyes growing harder, and he knew he had to act quickly. During the war, Leia had been known as the ‘Angel of Mercy.’ It was her sense of mercy for beings who were suffering that he was banking on, now, and he could only hope for that sense to override her hatred for their father.

“I’ve been to their homeworld, Leia,” he said, speaking slowly and putting weight into his words. “It was ravaged at the end of the Clone Wars. The planet is desolate, and only very little of it is habitable. The reason they were loyal to Vader -- want to be loyal to us -- is because he discovered them and worked to restore their world.” She knew this already, and the impatience grew on Leia’s face as he spoke, but he had to say it again, had to reiterate it to make the impact of what he was about to say next hit with the right amount of weight. “I’ve been looking into it, though, and after this long, they should have made more progress. So why is so much of the planet still suffering?”

Leia’s brows knit in thought, the wheels turning in her head and shining through her eyes. Confusion and thought replaced anger and irritation on her face. “What are you trying to say, Luke?”

“I believe the Empire’s been poisoning the crops in order to keep the Noghri loyal to them.”

“What?” Leia gasped.

Chewing his lip for a moment, Luke considered his words carefully. Leia would agree with his point, but how he presented it could very well make all the difference. “Vader discovered the devastation and set the restoration in motion. That’s why they consider him a saviour. But it doesn’t add up. After this long, why is only a sliver of land habitable? I got my hands on one of those probes and… Well. It confirmed my suspicions.”

After a moment, the words sunk in, and Leia’s eyes grew wide with horror. “Of course. Why offer genuine assistance to a world in need when you can enslave its inhabitants instead,” she spat, her lips curling in disgust.

“Exactly,” he said, nodding. “Think about it, though. That has Palpatine written all over it. That’s what he did with Vader. Saved him, gave him the means to survive, gave him power and strength, but kept him from recovering fully so that he’d have to rely on his master for the rest of his life.”

The look on Leia’s face suggested she knew exactly where he was going with this, and he could see her searching for arguments to counter Luke’s points. He decided to jump back in before she had the chance to find them.

“Father, if he was aware, would not have agreed with The Emperor,” he insisted, refusing to flinch at the fire that flared in Leia’s eyes when he said Father instead of Vader. “He was a slave his whole life, and while there’s no denying that he was complicit in the continued existence of slavery under The Empire, he would not actively participate in it.”

“You don’t know that,” she countered, but it was clear that, reluctant as she was, he was winning her over. “But… maybe you do. And if that’s the case, then… Luke. Thrawn’s been using them.”

“I know.”

“He’s been lying to them!”

“I know!”

Her brows furrowed in that way they did when she was on the verge of an epiphany. “We have to tell them the truth.” There was fire in her eyes, a righteous determination that told Luke that she’d come to the same conclusion he had. “We can liberate them and Thrawn will lose his personal assassins!” She paused, a moment, pressing her lips together and drawing in a deep breath through her nose. “I still don’t… like how they came to trust us. But… I am glad you trusted them. Because I trust you, Luke, and I think this gives us an opportunity to earn their trust based on our own merits.”

Admittedly, Luke agreed with Leia in that regard. He was not ashamed to be associated with their father, but he didn’t want his life to be defined by him, either. Being Vader’s children had gotten the Noghri to listen to them, but it would be their own actions and intentions that would win and maintain their loyalty.

“You’re right, as always,” Luke said. If he’d learned one thing about Leia in the time he’s known her, it’s that she’s much more likely to be persuaded into something she’s initially against if she ends up thinking the whole thing was her idea all along.

The gears in her head were turning as she formulated a plan. Now that she’d been convinced of the value of allying with the Noghri, she would not rest until she knew precisely how they were going to go about it. “I think, since you’ve visited the planet and made more direct contact, you should return and propose the alliance.” She did not mention Luke’s relative willingness to play up their relationship to Vader, but they both knew it was part of it.

As much as it made sense, he was hesitant to agree to it, however. “You’re putting a lot of trust into my limited diplomatic abilities.”

Raising a brow, Leia breathed out a soft, short laugh. “You really aren’t giving yourself enough credit. You’re a Jedi, Luke. More than that, you’re kind and charming and don’t talk down to people. You inspire people, and they listen to you.” She smiled at him in that way that conveyed her complete and utter faith in him, and he felt his cheeks warm as he turned his gaze towards the floor. She reached for his face and tilted his chin back up, her brown eyes deep and warm. “You can do this, Luke. I can’t think of anyone better suited for this mission than you.”

Part of him wanted to protest that she was somewhat biased in that regard, being his twin sister and all, but the sincerity in her expression told him that she wholly believed what she was saying. “Alright. I’ll start making preparations and then head to Honoghr. The sooner we cut their ties with the Empire, the better.”

“Agreed. Take care, and may the Force be with you.” She touched his cheek once more and turned to leave, but paused in the doorway and smirked at him over her shoulder. “Oh, and Luke? Don’t think I don’t know what you were doing. You’re not as subtle as you think.”

Well. She’d figured him out. But, that she agreed anyways meant that he’d done something right, and that was good enough for him.

[galaxysedginess]

Counting On Tomorrow

Pairing: Han/Leia

Rating: G

Summary: Post ROTJ; Han and Leia discuss the next move

By the time the fire simmered, the events of the previous day, week, month, year, decade seemed to collide all at once. The alcohol and the music simultaneously curved the mood from jubilant and thrilling to warm and lulling. Slowly and surely, partiers peeled themselves away from the action (some alone- some not) in favor of well-deserved rest. Each knew that when morning came, their fight was not over, only repurposed. The remnants of the Empire would persist and still outflank them. They were still the scrappy rebellion, but they'd managed to scrape away at the most imminent threat. They did the impossible, but then again, the odds never really mattered when the results lie in front of them. 

The sky was clear and promising, not a single planet-killer in sight. 

The hope that Leia had gripped onto with white knuckles seemed finally warranted after many years of touch and go. There had been celebrations across the entire galaxy reaching as far as the outer rim and beyond- each system overjoyed with the end of Palpatine's sinister reign. She'd felt each applause, each dance, each firework plundering into the night sky. She felt it in her bones as she had felt Alderaan's demise years ago. This almost felt like justice. 

Almost.

Try as she could (she wouldn't), but nothing could really fill the planet-sized void in her chest. At the very least, however, she rationalized their failure did not come without an even greater victory. The lives lost were met with an uncountable saved. It didn't bring them back, but it didn't make the sacrifice meaningless. 

A soft smile graced her lips knowing that everyone previously enslaved by this cruel Empire would go to bed a little easier tonight. She was even further emboldened by the idea that the perpetuators of such cruelty would not. She wasn't foolish enough to believe they were even close to ending this Civil War in their favor, but they were closer than they were yesterday and for the first time, she could see the future clearly without guessing. 

"So, what's next?" A gruff, but familiar voice asks from over her shoulder.

Han Solo didn't possess the force on any level, but God, did it freak her out how he could climb into her mind like that. 

She gives no indication of her surprise. As per usual, she is quick with a response- always ready to feed into their little game that they play. She wonders if it was one she would ever grow tired of. Despite the intense levels of exasperation he could bring her to, she never seemed to grow tired of him, so maybe that was a positive start. That, and he looked very good in lowlight.

"That's a pretty terrible seduction tactic, you know."

He smirks and steps away from the doorframe he was leaning on. If Leia felt tall in the Ewok village, which was truly saying something, Han must have felt like a giant. And poor Chewie had to sleep on the Falcon because he couldn't fit any of the beds in the village. Unsurprisingly, the wookie did not seemed upset by this given how transfixed the Ewoks were with grooming him. Leia thought maybe Chewie was afraid of being held hostage on Endor forever. If anyone ran that risk the most, it was Threepio. He likely wouldn't mind either. This was the best treatment he'd received in likely ever. Artoo was definitely over it.

All thoughts about rebellion, height requirements, and divine misunderstandings fizzled from her brain as Han drew closer. His face was uncharacteristically soft, but then again, he always seemed to look at her like that now so maybe this was his character when she was in front of him. Even if her days of battling her feelings for him were long over, newfound vulnerability still pricked old chords that she had to learn to ignore, because she loves him and she needs to deal with that. It is much easier to do so with his very distracting face leaning into hers until they meet and she realizes it may truly have been just a stupid pickup line.

For that, she was ready to be onboard with, until he pulls away and gazes into her soul and says, "You know what I meant."

She sighs, "I find it very unlikely that Palpatine didn't have a contingency plan set to go in motion in the event that he died. If he really is a crazy force tycoon like Luke insists, this is even more likely. We'll need to gather our best intelligence to try and-"

Han, being the bastard that he truly could be, has the nerve to laugh. 

She doesn't hide her annoyance, because their relationship has never involved pulling punches. She crosses her arms and gives him a familiar defiant look that he should know better than almost anyone. It says, "If you don't shut your trap I'm going to kick you off of this balcony".

"You're always in motion, aren't you?"

"I hope you can keep up." She challenges back, not quite appreciating the lack of explanation for his outburst.

"I didn't mean for the rebellion, I meant... Well..." Did he look nervous? 

“Loth-cat got your tongue, Flyboy?” It’s so easy to tease him and she isn’t sure if it’s healthy how much this makes her heart race. 

He scowls. “I figured your newfound force powers would make you a little more intuitive to what I’m trying to say.”

Because Leia excels at nothing if not compartmentalization, she is able to fire back a response without addressing the ever-growing burden of her recent lineage update. 

“All the superpowers in the world wouldn’t help me with deciphering your neanderthal logic.” 

He doesn’t have a parrying response for that and Leia internally cheers at outwitting him, even if she usually wins. He’ll catch her off-guard occasionally, but she likes that about him. He will never cease to surprise her.

And likewise, it seems, because he deflates in defeat against the railing. It also happens to make it much easier to read his face from an eye-level perspective.

“I meant about us.”

"Oh, I never thought about that."

It's too honest and she knows it, because she can see his flinch even in the ambient glow of the lantern lighting. She's quick to catch herself, though, because she doesn't want him to think she never thought of a future for them, since that wasn't entirely untrue.

"I didn't mean it like that." She corrects.

"It's okay if you did." Though he doesn't do a very clean job covering the hurt. 

She briefly wonders how he ever won a game of cards in his life. He sucked at lying. 

"Really, I didn't. I just meant that I haven't had the luxury to really dream of what a post-Empire world would look like for me on a personal level. I didn't want to have done that and... Well, lose." 

This seems to reassure him, but he still cocks his head to the side in equal parts confusion and concern. She knows he gets it. Han doesn't speak much on his life before her, but you don't become a cynical smuggler without having a few dreams of your own dashed and prematurely taken. She guesses everybody in the rebellion has this to some extent. Some dreams are broken all at once like a planet shot into oblivion. Others are chipped away through stacked losses. She isn't sure which is worse. 

He takes her face in his hands and steadies her while looking into her eyes. "We didn't lose."

"No," She says softly. "We didn't. It's not over yet-"

"We're going to win." He cuts her off and for once she isn't mad.

She gives in to what he's trying to do and grins. "So, what is next, General?"

"Well, it’s been a while since Chewie and I have had a home that isn't the Falcon."

"Funnily enough, me too." 

He smiles and there isn’t a hint of sarcasm or smugness to it. It’s about as pure as a man like Han Solo could be and proof that hope and peace were still in reach for someone like him. She hopes she can be that for him the way she knows he can for her. A home.

It wouldn't replace Alderaan, because it wouldn't have to. It would be something else entirely.

He kisses her and she more than lets herself be wrapped up in him- be wrapped up in this moment, because like the billions across the galaxy, this is her victory too. Her parents fought hard for it and passed that battle onto her with trust and care and she followed through. And with that, she can not only hope for a greater tomorrow, but count on it and build upon it. Force willing, she'll get to hold onto it for as long as she lives. 

[ilovemygaydad]

No One [part 1]

from the friends in dark places au

pairing: toxic roman/oc

summary: someone from school makes an insensitive joke that sends Roman spiraling into some old memories of past trauma

WARNINGS: (none of the sexual elements are explicit, merely mentioned and implied) non-consentual sex, sexual assault, date rape drugs, drug usage, implied underage sex, blackmail (in the form of cp), transphobia, transphobic slurs, forced coming out, misgendering, food mentions, rebellious behavior, insensitive comments, crying, physical assault, PTSD, and possibly something else

tag list: @hufflepuffgirl01 @cocobearthe4th @cas-is-a-hunter @band-be-boss-blog @theunoriginaldaisy

a/n: jsyk, it’s totally okay to ask for a modified chapter if you need it or if i need to add tags! i get it, and it’s no problem for me to quick edit a chapter or whatever :) also, feel free to send requests or questions that you have!

a/n 2: hey so this story is super dark and shitty, so please read with caution! i’m happy to summarize for anyone who needs it!!!

first of main plot - companions

consider buying me a coffee (please)

-

October 19, 2016

Roman shut the door to the practice room silently. He knew each nook of the choir room, including which doors were particularly loud. His back hit the door with a soft thud, and his tears softly dropped onto the carpeted floor. He slid to the ground and let out a choked sob.

Luke. Luke knew that what he said was terrible and awful.

“You could pat Roman Patrick on the head, and he’d accuse you of sexual assault.”

“Ro? Mrs. Taylor told me that you’re in here… Are you okay?” Patton’s muffled voice asked from the other side of the door.

“I’m fantastic, Patton! I just needed a few minutes of quiet before I tried to traverse the parking lot to grab my costume from Hannah’s car.” Roman tried to insert as much of his normal flare into his speech, but he knew that it fell flat.

“Roman, let me in.”

The crying teen begrudgingly stood up and flung the door open. A worried Patton stood opposite him, and Roman was well aware that his puffy eyes and wet cheeks did nothing but make his friend more upset. He sighed, gesturing for Patton to come inside.

After the door was closed, Patton spoke up again; his voice was very quiet. “Was it Luke?”

“Yeah,” Roman admitted.

“What did he say?”

“‘You could pat Roman Patrick on the head, and he’d accuse you of sexual assault.’”

Patton paced the small room. “That douchebag! Are you fucking kidding me? He can try to ruin my life, sure, but making fun of your abuse in front of you when he knows how easily it triggers you is just too far!”

“Patton, it’s fine—“

“No, it isn’t!” Pat cried, throwing his arms out in fury. “It’s terrible! He knows what happened to you, and he is in no place to be talking about falsely accused sexual assault!”

“It’s in the past…”

---

June, 2014

Roman quietly slid through his cabin’s window into the quiet night. He normally wasn’t one for this level of rule-breaking, but he was in love! He’d do almost anything for Ethan, and that meant a lot.

Two of his fingers were kept over the head of his flashlight as he made his way to the pier, only allowing a small sliver of light to shine out so that he could avoid twigs. Roman was so excited to have found someone who liked him back that he didn’t care about the consequences. He was going to be a freshman, after all, so it would make sense to begin to have relationships, right? Ethan was kind, caring, and funny—everything Roman wanted in a guy.

“Roman! Oh, good. I thought you weren’t going to show up,” Ethan whispered, a smile creeping on his face.

“Of course I’m here! What do you think of me? I’d never leave you hanging, dearest.” Roman gave Ethan a deep kiss. When they pulled apart, Ethan held up a finger to signify for Roman to wait, bringing a tiny thermos from behind his back.

“Salted caramel hot chocolate. I know how much you said you like caramel.” He passed it over, untwisting the lid as he moved. Roman took a huge sip, the cold of outside already sleeping through his pajama pants and shirt.

Ro coughed at the intense salty flavor. “Jeez, E, that’s really fucking salty. Good thing I’m really cold, or this would completely go to waste.”

Ethan smiled brightly, though Roman couldn’t quite place the emotion he got from it. They chatted for about twenty minutes before Roman began to sway on his feet. He was so tired and dizzy. He blinked a few times, shaking his head to try to collect himself.

“I, uh… I think… I think I’m gonna…” Roman mumbled, trying to get the slurred words he was thinking out of his mouth. He couldn’t seem to control his movements, and not a second later, he felt the hard ground hit his side. The last thing that Roman saw was Ethan’s evil smile as he drifted off to sleep.

---

Roman woke up with a foggy mind. What had happened last night? He remembered going to meet Ethan and drinking hot chocolate and then… Nothing. He couldn’t remember a single thing that’d happened.

The teen blinked a few times, trying to make some sense of his surroundings. They were bright, that much was obvious, and he was still wearing his binder. Someone stepped up to him, gently placing a hand on his arm. He flinched back from the touch. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t want anyone touching him.

“Hey, sweetheart, I’m sorry. It’s Nurse Elizabeth. A few campers found you by the pier drugged to hell in just boxers and a t-shirt, and from the looks of the campsite, I think you were sexually assaulted last night,” said the young woman in front of him, frowning deeply.

Roman wanted to throw up. Ethan had used him. Someone he thought he could trust. Someone he loved. And Ethan probably knew his secret, too. Oh, god.

“Hey! It’ll be okay. Just get some rest. You can answer questions later.” Elizabeth made her way to the door of the infirmary, turning at the door. “Someone’s been waiting to see you since the news got out. Would you like me to let him in?” Roman nodded half-heartedly. He heard a person greet the nurse before heading over. Ro didn’t look up to see who it was, preferring to pick at his fingernails instead.

A rough hand clasped at his face and ripped his gaze up. A muffled scream escaped Roman’s mouth as he locked eyes with Ethan, who had intense fire in his eyes. “You’d better not tell a soul that it was me, or your little secret will be let out, tranny whore!” Roman fought against Ethan’s grasp, but he was still too weak from being drugged. “I hope I’ve made myself clear. If I hear a word about this little exchange, either, I have some pretty outing evidence to show the camp. You’re my bitch now, Patrick.”

Ethan tore his hand away from Roman’s face and stormed out of the infirmary, leaving a panicked Roman in the bed. Oh no. This was worse than he’d thought. He had two options: he could tell everything to Elizabeth and subsequently be outed as trans to everyone in the camp, or he could do whatever Ethan said and keep his gender identity a secret. Neither was good. Roman shoved his face into the thin pillow and cried himself back to sleep. Maybe he could wake up from this nightmare.

---

January, 2008

Roman toyed with his hands a few times before stepping courageously into his parents’ office. He could do this. He swung his ponytail over his shoulder and adjusted his cargo shorts and T-shirt.

His mom was the first to notice his appearance. “Oh, Rosie! What happened to your dress?”

“She’s just changed, honey. She probably didn’t want to wear it anymore,” his father said, typing away at his computer.

“I wanted to talk to you and Mom about something important, Daddy. I… I, uh… Never mind, it’s stupid.” Roman turned back and started out of the office, but his mom stopped him mid-step.

“Rosalina, you can tell us anything; you know that. What’s wrong, honey?” Mrs. Patrick clicked her laptop closed and prompted her husband to do the same. Slowly, Roman turned to them; the sound of his sneakers squeaking on the wood floor was the only noise for a few moments.

“I’m a boy!” Roman blurted out. “I don’t want you to call me a girl anymore. I want to be called Roman, not Rosalina or Rosie. And more importantly,” Roman pulled a pair of kitchen shears from one of his many pockets and raised them, hacking his entire ponytail off and letting it fall to the floor. “I don’t want to look like a girl anymore. I am a prince, not a princess.”

His parents sat with astonished looks on their faces. Oh, Roman had messed up. He had taken his dramatics too far for once. His parents were going to be angry at him, and he’d never be called what he was. He’d be Rosalina forever.

“Alright, Roman. Welcome to the family.” His mother smiled brightly at him. There was no malice in her eyes, nor in his father’s.

“You know, Ro, I’ve always wanted a son. And you’re strong; you’ll be so good in the boy’s gymnastics league.” Mr. Patrick stood and scooped his son into his arms, hugging him tightly.

Thus, Roman Patrick had been born.

---

Roman had been so excited to go in to school on Monday to tell everyone that he was a boy and that his name was Roman. He was practically bouncing out of his seatbelt on the ride there. He ran into the school, barely saying goodbye to his mom, and skidded into his second grade classroom.

“Good morning, Rosie! How are you doing?” Mrs. Zander, the second grade teacher, greeted warmly.

“Actually, my name is Roman now, and I’m a boy!” Roman sat in his normal seat, but taped a piece of paper with “Roman” drawn on it in red crayon over his “Rosie” nameplate. Mrs. Zander looked at him, confused, but nodded. She went to her phone and made a few calls, looking quite serious, before going to everything in the room with “Rosie” on it and replacing them with a “Roman” label.

Students began to file in, many commenting on Ro’s new short haircut, to which he’d always respond, “I’m Roman now ‘cause I’m a boy!”

They looked at him as if he’d grown another head, but moved on without further comment. With each child, Roman’s enthusiasm lessened until he finally just gave up. Mrs. Zander made an announcement about Roman, and the kids just laughed. They got scolded, sure, but that didn’t actually stop them.

“Look at Rosie just wanting to get closer to the boys!”

“Rosie you can’t just decide to be a boy! You’re always gonna be a girl!”

“I don’t want to be friends with you anymore, Rosie. You’re a liar!”

The harmful comments continued for weeks. Finally, Roman couldn’t handle any more, and he begged his parents to take him out of school. Within a few days, they’d transferred him into an elementary school an hour away and moved into a temporary apartment nearby.

Roman walked into his new school nervously, taking his time to get to his new locker. It was nearly five minutes before he finally entered his new classroom.

“You’re new here, aren’t you?” a student asked. He wore a black polo and thick-rimmed glasses. It was the textbook nerd look.

“Um, yeah. I’m Roman,” he replied. Then, as if to clarify, he said, “I’m a boy.”

“Alright. My name is Logan, and I am also a boy. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” And then Logan walked off.

(Roman totally had a crush on the nerdy second grader, but he wouldn’t realize it for a long, long time.)

The rest of the day went by smoothly. Correct name and pronoun usage by everyone and new friends left and right. It was amazing! He didn’t get the opportunity to talk to Logan any more that day, and little did he know that he’d become too intimidated by the cute boy to talk to him, but he was still grateful for his first “friend.”

---

Summer, 2014

Roman spent two more months bending to Ethan’s every whim to protect his skin. It didn’t feel much like protection, though. He was disgusted with himself, but he couldn’t go through the rejection and hatred that followed telling people that he’s transgender.

Slowly, he withdrew from most of his camp friends. It started with not allowing them to touch him, and then simply not talking to them. Each time Ethan’s fingers found their way across Roman’s bare skin, he felt like throwing up.

It’s better this way, he told himself.

It wasn’t.

No one found out. No one ever knew. No one felt the pain.

No one except Roman.

part 2

[lacktastrophe]

I always wanted to write about this sometime earlier this year when ‘High Expectations’ and Mutual Assurance was being released. Now I’ve given myself the chance, let’s go back and talk about how good this chapter was for Paulo.

Six months waiting for the girl of your dreams to come back to you only to find after so many years of trying and six whole months of anguishing over her sudden disappearance, she doesn’t reciprocate your feelings at all and she’s only interested with hanging out with some other jerk-ass loser, and “Heh” is the only thing you find you can say. And immediately minutes after, instead of lashing back or letting the situation pass over with someone who took out their anger and frustrations on you, you instead take an initiative and apologise for pushing them to a breaking point and losing their cool.

There’s something to be said - if there ever was a time to become a fan of Paulo, it was at both of these crowning moments where the results of Paulo’s numerous trials and errors over the last few years could be properly showcased - having started out as an immature kid with an insecurity of their softer side, who was mean and violent to others - to having reached a point where he was not afraid to be able to hug and beg for forgiveness from someone who he envies, and also once considered a rival for Lucy’s affection.

Suffice to say, none of it would’ve been truly possible if Lucy didn’t take her leave of absence. Her absence allowed Paulo to develop in so many different ways. It��s not to say it couldn’t have happened without her; their reunion in ‘After you’ would help Paulo develop further in consolidating the last few remaining lessons in the problems he still faces. But Paulo would’ve never have been able to get to the place he appears to be at now without meeting new people and going on a spiritual journey towards developing a sense of maturity, something he just didn’t have at the start of the comic, progressively building up an understanding of what it truly takes to be a real friend as the story unfolds.

Paulo has shown some powerful character development in his darkest time.

Why stop at just those two chapters?

Welcome to the Paulo Masterpost - Where we explore Paulo from the start of their journey to where we are now.

This has taken two weeks of on and off writings between train trips to and from work. It’s by far the largest sub-project I’ve undertaken. 

I’ve played with a number of different ideas in how to explore Paulo’s development, and I’ve settled on adapting ‘The 12 stages of the Hero’s journey’ to explain it. 

If you haven’t heard of this structure before, it’s a very popular storytelling formula for character development.  You’d find the most prolific examples employing this structure in most literature and movies like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. The general premise of the formula consists of characters moving out of what would be considered their normal life, going on a journey, encountering some crisis, and coming back renewed with some sort of knowledge or awakening. 

As an example using the two examples I alluded to above; Luke and Frodo become aware of a higher purpose, both have a mentor, both leave their home in pursuit of this purpose, both meet all sorts of new characters who may join them on their journey (some we can call friends), encounter trials and return with some experience that changes them. 

You can see an example of the 12 stages in the image below.

The magic of this formula is that it can be adapted to most narratives even if it wasn’t a forethought originally. Certain events in the story mark certain stages in the above graph. 

But these events are all up to own own perspective, which is why this formula is very adaptable. For example, in the case of Bittersweet Candy Bowl, depending on how we choose to look at it; the Call to Adventure could be the kids as they make their way through high school. It’s something they all have in common. On the other hand, the kids going to school could be the Ordinary world, the call to adventure could well indeed be for an object or a person; be it Lucy, or even Tess, Jasmine, Rachel. It all depends on your perspective.

There may be a point where the hero chooses to refuse the call. Like in StarWars when Luke goes back to his farm, only to find it razed to the ground.

Mentors include best friends with unwavering loyalties, thresholds include new environments, challenges are friends or new ideas, there is a dark period for our characters, but some of them will come back changed from these events, for better, or worse.

Keep in mind this is not a comprehensive guide to all-things-Paulo. It’s not possible to analyse everything that happens. Instead, we are only going to be touching on significant events that we know have had an effect on Paulo, pushing him ever more forwards towards his goal, whatever that truly is.

Let’s get started.

We’re first introduced to Paulo as early as in Chapter 1; he’s introduced as a young orange-furred Somali who appears to have one thing going in his life; his affection for Lucy. He’s known for his playfulness, boldness and his boyish-charm...

But we come to know Paulo more through the negative traits he possesses; he’s rude, crass and condescending to people around him, he’s particularly violent to Mike. Most importantly, Paulo is a womaniser. He will seemingly pull the moves to charm any female (bar a select few such as Daisy, Sue or Amaya). Compared to most of his friends and the kids around him, Paulo comes off as being rather immature. There’s no need to sugarcoat this piece of knowledge, every bit of anguish and tragedy that will befall Paulo will generally be the result of his immaturity, and it would continue to plague him well into the comic.

Daily life for Paulo appears to revolve around appearing cool, masculine, and being a real charmer to girls. He can get nearly anyone....

...But just not Lucy, someone he has a strong affinity for, who are also somewhat abrasive to his advances. In fact, a lot of Paulo’s advances on Lucy are reciprocated with violence. This is par the norm happening time and time again. Even when he’s chasing other people, he’ll always go back to Lucy. It becomes an obsession. 

Despite such an introduction into what would appear to be a very troublesome character, we are met with a juxtaposition early in the comic. We learn quickly in ‘The Burden of Parenthood’, where the kids tasked with nurturing a mechanical baby, a different side to Paulo; a softer more caring side which appears to exist out of compulsion for caring for a mechanical baby. This different side to Paulo manages to achieve him the highest mark in the class.

There is an irony that exists behind Paulo’s development throughout the comic, and this makes it all the more tragic; for a brief period before the start of the comic, Paulo is capable of displaying more maturity than a lot of his kids in his year (as seen in BCI comics like “Baby Blues” ). We learn more about Paulo in later chapters, we learn when he first moves into Roseville he starts out no different from any of the other kids. While initially becoming interested in Lucy having met her for the first time, he lacks the confidence to speak to her. His eagerness to overcome this first hurdle results in receiving ‘Confidence Lessons’ to gain the needed confidence to speak to Lucy by an older kid who’d later be known as Alejandro, and being influenced to believe that girls are dead-crazy for masculinity. This sets Paulo’s character foundation for the majority of Volume 1, with his softer effeminate side becoming an insecurity he feels uncomfortable sharing. Time and time again, Paulo’s immaturity puts others and himself at certain risks, and routinely butting heads with people of whom he cares about. 

Without looking too deeply into Paulo, we really initially put in a position where it feels his place in this story is to act like the third wheel in this love triangle between Mike and Lucy. We believe on this initial read, Paulo’s real goal is Lucy.

This isn’t the case; Paulo’s real journey is about growing up and attaining a sense of maturity.

With this hypothesis we can assume perhaps the refusal in the 12 stages is Paulo’s reluctance to continue exploring his softer side as seen in ‘The Burden of Parenthood’.

Paulo is not alone in this adventure, one of Paulo’s closest friends since moving to Roseville is Daisy. Despite being originally paired with Lucy in “The Burden of Parenthood”, she would become his replacement partner. She would be the first to become acquainted with Paulo’s softer side.

We would assume that Daisy is this mentor as per the 12 stages. These mentors are people who form a close, supportive relationship with the main character, and their dedication towards them are unwavering. We know that this is the true state of their relationship through their interactions, and how they both support each other in and outside each other’s company throughout the comic.

For example, in the below, Daisy supports Paulo’s caring capacity having saved a bird in “Helping Hands”, telling him girls are attracted to the same caring attitude he showed during “The Burden of Parenthood”.

Could you imagine how things could’ve panned out had he listened?

When talking about relationships, Daisy tries to convince the other girls that a softer side of Paulo exists.

Daisy chooses Paulo’s side of the events against her then-boyfriend.

This relationship isn’t one-sided. 

Paulo gives support to Daisy about an insecurity she has with her appearance.

Paulo is still supportive about Daisy’s happiness even if it means restoring the relationship she had with a person he himself can’t bring himself to accept.

And the consolidation of Daisy’s constant support to Paulo observed in his thoughts in ‘After you’, in the very presence of the girl he believes he mindlessly loves.

It’s kind of a shame neither of these characters just get together, they’re admittingly perfect for each other. Unfortunately, this wont come to pass since neither of them can admit their true feelings for one another. Paulo thinks of Daisy like a sister, it’s the reason why he simply wont pull the moves on her or simply pop the question.

But there’s also a problem from Daisy’s side that needs to be addressed that may prove to be an inhibitor:

But let’s get back to Paulo.

Paulo’s character development really starts to kick off as soon as the kids become freshman in Highschool, officially reaching a point in the 12 stages called the ‘threshold’ - where the characters are put into a different environment and come against challenges that question, or reinforce their values. Here, Paulo starts encountering numerous Trials in the form of people and concepts that challenge the beliefs he grew up with. Such early trials for Paulo includes Tess; a girl he finds himself interested in, who wont take him. This relationship is played with often, particularly throughout volume 2. At times it’s hinted it might be because she’s not going to be around in their final year. But ultimately, it’s because she finds him too immature. 

Paulo also faces interpersonal challenges with his friends, even clashing against ideals with Daisy who’s now struggling with an inferiority complex about her inability to find a romance and her appearance. 

One of the more significant events includes when Abbey, an acquaintance Paulo doesn’t get along with, enters a relationship with Daisy. With Daisy’s attention going to her new boyfriend. Paulo no longer has the close support he once had. Now he’s on his own.

Added complications to the challenges these trials possess, are the temptations which seek to divert the hero from their goals. What these temptations are comes down to your own interpretation. In BCB, I feel these are other people at their school. In fact, characters can be all of three things in this context; trials, temptations, and goals. For example; Tess is certainly a Trial for Paulo, the result at the end of the rainbow could be either Tess’ love, or deeper understanding into himself. But she is a temptation from Paulo’s supposed original goal; Lucy. But goals also shift, so it may have been possible Tess could have been an end goal realised for Paulo, had he been able to fulfill requirements to succeed.

Certainly, a lot of potential for different outcomes and ways to interpret BCB. You might be wondering then why settle on maturity, but this can only be answered much later.

In context with BCB, many of these trials don’t have resounding conclusions. As per the title of the comic - they are often bittersweet, as is the case with the majority of Paulo’s. Because of this, some of the hard lessons in the chapters are not put into practice until much later in the comic.

It’s worth noting Paulo’s first ‘victory’ (depending on your viewpoint), is when Paulo chooses not to sleep with Lucy during ‘Another shoulder’, choosing not to take advantage of the situation in the state she exists in having confessed to Mike and having her feelings rejected. 

Despite having Lucy right on his doorstep, something he’d been wanting all this time, Paulo proves he’s not a scumbag who’d use her weakest moment to his advantage. 

Paulo’s interaction with David afterwards however sets Paulo up for consecutive and significant failures when Paulo’s insecurities are called into question. Paulo’s ‘are we/are we not in a relationship?’ with Tess is already on rocky ground and is being pushed to its limits every time Paulo goes to chat up other girls. The final straw almost immediately when Paulo is used by Jessica and Rachel to get revenge on Tess, angering both Tess and Lucy. The trial with Tess is forever lost when Paulo consigns himself to another temptation; Jasmine, causing him to abandon (temporarily) his quest for Lucy.  The lessons learned from Tess’ trial will not be recognised for quite some time.

 Around this period, Paulo’s character development stagnates while with Jasmine. Despite a loving, friendly, non-sexual relationship, it’s an easy going relationship with no real challenge to Paulo’s character. But it’s far from perfect; cracks start to develop when Jasmine’s penchant to be involved in extra curricular activities draws away the time they can both spend together. When Paulo confronts Jasmine about this, the results are not pretty.

It simply comes down to both of their needs, but Jasmine takes this the wrong way and goes straight for one of Paulo’s insecurities. Leaving in a huff, this gives time for Paulo to rethink what he really wants in life. Paulo resolves to terminate the relationship and go back to just being friends if she just can’t manage to make time for him. Jasmine would end up resolving this by giving up her violin lessons, but having spent the following whole day babysitting Lucy with a bus trip gone wrong moments prior, Paulo begins to rediscover his affinity for Lucy. Eventually, these feelings become realised and Paulo concludes it’s unfair to keep stringing Jasmine along. After consulting with Tess, Paulo displays the needed maturity to decide to break off his relationship with Jasmine, setting him back on his quest. It comes to naught as the time lost from the diversion comes at a great cost — his quest moves away. 

Any chance to have these two get back together is immediately marred by certain events one after the other, first by a fit of jealousy...

and Paulo allowing another person to be all over him immediately, even if it wasn’t intended.

To rub salt in the wound on their breakup, Jasmine reflects on their time together.

Jasmine’s good at finding those insecurities. These two could’ve gotten along forever had Paulo been able to display some patience and maybe some empathy. But the damage was done long before, Paulo had determined there was someone else.

~

With Lucy gone, this seems like lowest point in Paulo’s life.

Paulo encounters Mike, his supposed rival for Lucy hanging out by the old Tree in the park, and he takes out his frustration on him.

These two are not the best of friends. They have never really quite gotten along and frequently Paulo has used Mike to his own advantage; such as convincing him to buy him drinks on the supposed chance Paulo can win him a bike. Deep down, Paulo is envious of Mike, he’s the opposite of Paulo in a lot of areas he’s insecure with; he’s intelligent, and all the girls like him without having to try as hard as Paulo does. More importantly, Lucy would always hang around Mike, even when she couldn’t stand him.

Expecting the worst, Mike prepares for a beatdown. Paulo had done so earlier whenever he became so agitated with Mike. Instead, Mike witnesses the unexpected for him; Paulo uncontrollably breaking down in front of him, spilling his feelings onto the floor. 

Unable to bring himself to Daisy, who is now spending more time supporting Abbey, Paulo has no means of accessing direct support like he used to. While it’s possible he could have gone to someone, he feels there’s no one else, there’s no comfort zone anymore.

He confides his feelings with his rival, and Mike, even without needing to owe anything, shows sympathy in their darkest times.

Despite this brief moment, Paulo is still too insecure with his softer side to allow any strong support from another male at this time. His values towards masculinity keeping him at odds with Mike. 

This moment is significant. It’s a direct contrast of where we ended up in Mutual Assurance. Lucy’s disappearance marks the point where Paulo undergoes some rapid and progressive development. 

Paulo is not without help during this otherwise dark period. As per the 12 stages, by this time the hero receives some form of critical help, whether it’s friends or items that helps them on their quest. For Luke, this was the Rebel Alliance, or for Frodo, the group of races forming the Fellowship of the ring in LOTR. 

In Bittersweet Candy Bowl, this helper character turns out to be Rachel, who Paulo runs into by coincidence after splitting off from Mike. Paulo somehow finds himself in her bed and quickly in a relationship with her.

Not to confuse anyone, but it could be argued even at this stage going back to what I said much earlier about the events around the 12 stages, it’s entirely possible to look at this moment and suggest that Rachel is the mentor that Paulo was destined to meet, and not Daisy. It’s certainly appropriate, she doesn’t shy away from telling Paulo when he’s done wrong to his face.

Regardless of either option, this relationship serves as a ‘friendship with benefits’ in more places than one; the biggest benefits of Rachel for Paulo are the people she surrounds herself with; Matt, Jordan, Jessica and Madison, all of them a year older than Paulo, wiser, and are able to lend their experiences and help define and re-evaluate Paulo’s sense of values. Like before these lessons come in the form of trials, as the result of Paulo’s actions up to this point start meeting breaching points between old and new friends.

We stay in this period of new trials between friends and enemies for quite a while. Furthermore, this period is defined when, seeking advice for that stage of their relationship; Daisy pops the question to Paulo what it was like when he lost his virginity.

This event marks the period of reflection for Paulo. While it’s a long and slowly drawn out process, Paulo slowly starts to make considerations of his actions and their consequences through interactions with his and Rachel’s friends, leading up to Lucy’s return.

With Lucy gone and no safe space to head back to. All that Paulo can do is search for another meaning to live for.

And Paulo struggles to accomplish this. There was only Lucy. He has nothing else.

Tensions begin to rise in the group following Lucy’s disappearance with the blame game being shifted around and friendships are pushed to their breaking points. Paulo is not immune to these trials, in fact, almost becoming central to them, as they begin to appear to pit him against his friends. Worse still, these chapters really push Paulo as nothing appears to really go his way. 

Paulo takes out his frustrations on his friends, is grilled by them in return, and makes critical decisions that will affect relationships in the future. Nothing appears to go right. And unchanging, like before; these trials end on such a bittersweet note where Paulo is neither the winner or the loser.

We only learn upon review of BCB chapters during this point aren’t so much about Paulo against his friends or the world in general, but Paulo against himself. As sad as it is, the results of these trials do not have an immediate effect on Paulo. But they’re there, and slowly redefining his sense of values and character as time goes on.

An example of such understanding can be observed in Critical hit. 

Critical Hit was one of those chapters where it felt like nothing was attained by the conclusion. Even at the end of Sue and Paulo’s fight, it didn’t feel like there was a resolution. Despite the mean things Sue and Paulo said to each other, their friendship was neither improved or diminished. It was all an argument, a misunderstanding. 

 Looking beyond the fight and to the last page, we only begin to understand the devil in the details once everything was said and done:

After explaining his reasons for only dealing with the problems he wants to, Paulo comes to realise upon staring back at the black picture the error with the words he said to Sue; If you only pick and choose which problems you want to face, the result might not be what you really want.

There was some sense in the words that Sue said to Paulo; if he wasn’t so scatterbrained and kept his attention on Lucy, maybe he’d have gotten what he really wanted. Paulo lacked discipline.

Other chapters contained a lot of important life lessons for Paulo.

Paulo found his sense of humour put him at constant odds with his friends. Even David in this scenario wasn’t laughing when Abbey was hurt in Happy Hour.

Some things heal with time.

Paulo found him putting aside his selfish hatred of Abbey for a close friend’s happiness, even at the cost of his own.

You need to put yourself in someone else’s shoes before you can judge them.

One of Paulo’s defining moments is meeting and getting to know Matt. Similar to how Lucy confided in Zachary - an outside observer about her relationship with Mike. After mistakenly encountering him as a threat to his relationship with Rachel, and then later taking out his anger and frustrations on him due to his friendly and welcoming character, Paulo opens up to a stranger about his insecurities and the feelings he suppresses. The result is knowledge and reassurance that he’s got plenty of time, and he’s already on the right track by being able to admit when he’s wrong.

Despite all this acquired knowledge and different perspective to challenge his own over the past few months, Paulo still makes frequent mistakes and shows no sign of changing. In fact, Paulo still acts like he does years before; he acts without thinking, he says stuff without meaning it. Paulo has yet to make giant steps towards change for himself. Paulo does not show the fruits of the experiences he’s undergone.

Something crucial is missing.

At this point in the comic Paulo starts displaying interpersonal issues; Paulo tries to avert his own change. He does not take the need to change well especially when he feels he’s the only one changing and his friends are not. Paulo is deathly envious of his friends who are both academically well off than he is. Paulo has the knowledge on how to fix his problems, but Paulo can’t bring himself to simply do this like how everyone else does. Instead, Paulo relies on his old behaviour to make up for his inadequacies.

But this will not stand for long.

Paulo has been avoiding a few notable trials which are reaching boiling points, such as staving off serious tension between Daisy, Abbey and himself. After Abbey assaults Paulo in the bathroom during “Guest of Honour”, Paulo is particularly evasive around Daisy. Unable to bring himself to talk to Abbey directly or seek assistance from someone else about this problem (Paulo is far too prideful to victimise himself), Paulo attempts to appear distracted when Daisy tries to talk to him by chatting up other girls. This callous behaviour having multiple repercussions across all his friends. It causes Daisy to feel isolated and alone, causing Abbey to uphold his misconception that Paulo is nothing but a bad person, and more importantly, his attitude is starting to rub against Rachel’s friends, particularly Madison in a very very bad way. As far as she is concerned - Paulo and Rachel are in a relationship even if Paulo considers it a FWB friendship. 

Madison calls out this behaviour.

Madison sets up probably the biggest lesson to Paulo yet, which also happens to be the missing thing from earlier; Paulo lacks empathy - Paulo is unable to understand and regard the feelings of those around him, particularly how his actions affect those around him. Paulo found himself as the odd one out when Abbey was hurt at Rachel’s party. He’s unable to bring himself to regard Rachel’s feelings. By extension, he’s unable to understand exactly why Abbey harbours such a deep hatred of him. He’s not even able to realise how Daisy feels when he ignores her.

Lucy will come to consolidate this point when she returns and the two go onto a date by letting Paulo know that Abbey doesn’t have it all out for him, and sometimes his actions are the cause his own grievances. Paulo never once considered things from Abbey’s perspective - the same mistake Lucy made with Mike from her ribbing, and look where it got her?

-

In the same chapter where Madison cooks Paulo, we learn Lucy has returned back to Roseville. 

In the 12 stages, at some point the hero has to go into ‘the cave’, a point towards the end of the journey where the hero faces an interpersonal crisis’ or a terrible danger. (Death Star battle in Star Wars, or Mordor/Shelob’s Lair - LOTR).

We are at that moment, and this cave is dark - Paulo is lost as fuck. Nothing is sacred, friendships and relationships are on the line as Paulo encounters his harshest trials of yet.

Immediately after, Paulo will need to face the Ordeal, the physical test Paulo has to win against in order to survive. (Trusting in the force - Star Wars. Separating from the ring - LOTR)

Lucy is that Ordeal. The remarkable progression Paulo has made is threatened with Lucy’s return. Paulo displays the same behaviour he did in Volume 1 in her presence.

To Paulo, Lucy represents familiar ground - something from the past that doesn’t challenge him. Nevermind the fact that in the six months where Lucy had disappeared from Roseville, she made no attempt to keep in contact with any of them in that time. Paulo is looking to look past this, for them to be together again.

There is a deeper meaning to this relationship that Paulo cannot overcome, and it is indeed appealing to him; tired with being the only one forced to have to change, and faced with an opportunity to have things go back to the way things used to be, Paulo is willing to go all-in for a taste of nostalgia. 

However this is temporarily impeded when Sue intervenes and stops him from following Lucy outside during Lunch that same day. Nothing else is sacred to Paulo at this point, after taking his frustration out on Mike having suspected he is the reason for her avoidance of the group, he then takes it out on Daisy, angering Abbey. When Abbey demands Paulo apologise to Daisy, Paulo reveals Abbey assaulted him in the bathroom at the con. Faced with choosing a side, Daisy chooses to side with Paulo, and Abbey ends their relationship.

It’s a bittersweet moment, a long standing issue is dealt with, but only at the expense of Daisy’s happiness. It’s only out of sheer coincidence since their relationship was already on troubled waters already that this would be for the better. 

On the following day, Paulo is still giving Daisy the cold shoulder. Paulo feels the need to blame Daisy for a lot of the hardships he’s been facing. Daisy finally lets Paulo know how she feels.

Whether or not Paulo is justified in thinking this, Daisy doesn’t want to break off their friendship. Paulo is her closest friend, she admires Paulo too much. And deep down, Paulo doesn’t want to break off this relationship either. He feels so upset at himself for getting between her happiness, they really shouldn’t be friends. But Daisy won’t have that. Daisy’s happiness is by being friends with Paulo. 

Feeling sorry for Daisy, and maybe understanding her feelings a little better, Paulo promises he’ll see about changing his shift so he can attend her birthday.

But then there’s another problem that needs to be dealt with, someone else’s feelings are at the breaching point. 

Paulo has a chance to fix this but unfortunately, time runs out on this relationship.

A very bittersweet end to this trial. It is a question at this stage whether not this breakup needed to happen in the first place, or if it was in vain.

Having missed his chance to talk to Lucy personally the previous day, Paulo is desperate enough to skip a class in order to catch her around her house.

He invites her to a date at the carnival that evening, and Paulo can’t contain himself.

Paulo is more than happy to throw everything away. The only thing he ever wanted in his life was Lucy, everything else was secondary.

Things are going well, until they start talking about Daisy and Abbey’s relationship. Paulo starts feeling some guilt over Daisy’s happiness.

We get from the following pages that there are some some issues in Paulo and Daisy’s relationship.

Paulo is very caring deep down inside and is willing to go beyond for his friends, having helped Daisy time and time again with her relationship. In the same while, we understand it’s Daisy who is the reason Paulo relents against change. Indeed, Daisy has had little reason to change over the last few years despite her obsession with Mike. And that’s grating to Paulo. 

On the Ferris wheel, Lucy cannot keep up this charade, while embracing Paulo, Lucy finally reveals to Paulo there was never any intention on coming back to Roseville.

Lucy reveals it was her idea to leave Roseville, only staying around because she didn’t want to ruin the year for Sue, and she was only trying to win Paulo - maybe as an excuse to get back to Mike or to at least have someone who had fond memories of her. Lucy doesn’t feel she’s any better than Jessica, but Paulo is willing to look past that.

Without considering his relationship to Rachel for even a second, Paulo tells Lucy he’s waited, but Lucy is with the belief Paulo is cheating himself out of his own happiness by having to for her. 

Lucy starts dropping hints by telling Paulo that she feels she had played with his feelings. Even despite making out backstage during the play, Lucy reveals that even if she didn’t leave during January, she never would’ve taken Paulo.

Paulo cannot bring himself to agree to this revelation. He is reluctant to believe there is nothing between them. Lucy is forced to be blunt with him.

He’d been chasing a dream, they would never get together.

A question for the ages.

We are not out of the cave, nor done with the Ordeal yet.

Before they part, Lucy demands Paulo go to Daisy’s party, not for Lucy, but for both Daisy and himself. Sadly, karma is not without a sense of humour as Paulo’s past decisions....well....

Paulo reflects during the party by himself for a while, before Daisy, his childhood friend and/or mentor finds him, and they talk.

It’s a lovely reunion, especially when their ex’s bring each other’s ex’s to the party. It’s followed by a heart to heart.

Time will tell if this reunion will bare its fruits.

-

In High Expectation, despite Lucy telling Paulo that Abbey doesn’t have it out for him, Paulo begins to freak out during lunch after being stared down by him. Paulo begins to fear that there will be a retribution.

Having too much of his own personal problems reaching the boiling point, Mike starts reaching his threshold and tells Paulo to knock it off. Out of character for Mike to suddenly act this way, Paulo inquires about his problems. Mike doesn’t walk to divulge, Paulo being Paulo takes his phone away and tells him his real thoughts about Sandy...

It earns him his face into the table. When Mike runs off, Paulo refuses assistance from Daisy and runs outside, still having an inability to display ‘weakness’ to those around him.

Outside, he runs into Augustus and Lucy. Things do not work out well at all, as Paulo tries to search for the logic behind this encounter.

Despite Paulo’s best attempts, but Lucy does not offer him an explanation.

Consider these pages from Paulo’s perspective; none of this is making sense: Lucy chose to hang out with him at the carnival where they talked about what happened in her absence, she allowed him to come close, before...suddenly changing and breaking off the relationship for good. Paulo is trying to understand why she doesn’t hang out with them anymore, and Lucy offers him nothing, just more questions. 

Things start to click and Paulo begins to break down amidst the realisation from the date before.

These revelations really lift the lid on how much of a shortsighted selfish man-child Paulo can really be at his core, particularly when it concerns Lucy. Paulo has the audacity to state that he gave himself to her even though he was still dating Rachel in her absence, even if you want to consider that Jessica, Rachel and Jasmine were mistakes, Paulo is willing to throw anyone under the bus, so long as they can be together.

While these selfish desires are aired, so too are his real feelings for her. Indeed, why did you come back if you didn’t mean to be with me?

It’s a desperate, but vain effort.

Edit: Felt the need to return to this after months having been corrected that Lucy did indeed have sex with Paulo in the dressing room shedding a different perspective on the whole part of this chapter. It’s understandable why Paulo is upset having realised he’d been taken advantage of by the girl he actually loved. 

Finally understanding everything that Lucy meant on the ferris wheel, but unable to come to terms with his broken heart right there to continue to seek answers to the questions from earlier, Paulo abandons them, and leaves.

It’s possible to believe that the Ordeal is still on-going, but I have a feeling it might as well be over:

When we next find Paulo we find him at his locker talking to Daisy, we expect he’s still going to be in tears, we expect that for someone after YEARS of chasing this person, it’s hard to let go. For someone like Paulo, an immature kid, how is he going to move on, only having acting like the way he did just before?

But instead there’s a revelation...

An eye opener, none-the-less.

We’re not done however.

Without looking too deeply into Paulo’s revelation we easily suspect when Paulo comes across Mike again, we expect he’s going to take out this frustration on him, for Lucy, and for earlier just like when Lucy first moved.

But instead, we’re met with a surprise, he embraces him.

We’re now met with an imposter, this isn’t Paulo. This Paulo is able to show empathy and consideration.

It’s a turning point.

Well, I suppose we can’t quite expect that Paulo will become a new person all in one day. But maybe one day, Paulo will get over that insecurity.

The page ends with two once would-be rivals showing solidarity in their friendship. 

-

I’d want to think the old Paulo who refused to change died back on the sports oval when Lucy finally told him the truth(?) for a second time. The Paulo who clung to Lucy like he did in Volume 1 may be as good as over. Time will only tell.

We don’t know why Lucy is acting in the way she’s acting. Is it because she believes the people she hung out with aren’t really her friends, is it possible she’s trying to protect them from Alejandro and Toby because of her association to Augustus, or is it because Lucy saw that she was a catalyst for the problems in her circle of friends? 

The answer could be one of these, it could be all of these.

I want to feel that Lucy was ultimately trying to do Paulo a favour by breaking off the relationship for good; Paulo could not grow up without her leaving and discovering that he has more to live for than her. Even in Lucy’s presence there was nothing but a feeling of ownership and entitlement that plagued him and Lucy couldn’t help but notice it. She could have refused to date Paulo back when he offered to take her to the carnival, but I suspect Lucy began to recognise such regressive behaviour particularly when Paulo boasted about having skipped a class to beat her to her home. Paulo does not regard his education, and by extension, his future. 

Lucy needed to know if Paulo had changed at all in her time away, she wanted to learn more about what happened when she left and whether or not she made the right decision deep down. This is why she put up with him until the ferris wheel, the signs were all too obvious. Paulo needed other things to look forward to. Paulo still needed to grow.

The face Lucy shows near the end of their confrontation makes me want to believe that she saw an affirmation in her decision when Paulo exploded the way he did. There wasn’t a consideration in what Paulo said that ever indicated there was a thought for what was good for Lucy, it was only what was good for him.

There are hints in some of Lucy’s expressions that may give an impression that Lucy is initially against what she’s doing, that she may be lying about this whole thing in order to protect or really urge Paulo to try and live for himself for a change, and not for her.

They may well indeed be guilt instead. We just don’t know at this stage.

-

Lucy struggles the entire way, but the shock after hearing Paulo ask ‘Then why the fuck did you come back’ is a realisation that Paulo did not grow in the time Lucy was gone, and the harsh decisions she’s been making are the correct ones to her.

Paulo can not grow while there was but the slimmest chance they would be together. It’s what Paulo ever wanted from as far back as Volume 1. There have been times where Paulo has displayed the ability to grow, but it was only when other potentials, particularly those more mature than him came into the picture; Tess being the earliest example.

When Lucy returned to Roseville, every volume 1 trait of Paulo came back with it. Paulo was more than prepared to throw everything under the bus, even continue giving Daisy the cold shoulder for a chance to be with Lucy, although Paulo’s own feelings prevented this from happening.

Lucy did not want to be responsible for Paulo’s refusal to grow. Lucy does not want to deal with the same turmoil Tess had to put up with from Paulo himself. Lucy recognised she is a symbol of nostalgia to Paulo. Having had nothing to chase when Lucy moved away initially, Paulo went on a journey of self-discovery which challenged him over and over again. But constantly failing over and over again and experiencing multiple heart-breaks has its toll. When Lucy returned to Roseville, Paulo saw his out, and he went for it. If he were to have her, then there’s no more reason to change, he can be absolved. 

Lucy needed to end it. And she did, maybe at the cost of her own happiness deep down. Time will tell.

-

For Paulo, the ending of that chapter made it evident that Paulo likely expected this turn out from the beginning. This is why Paulo isn’t crying by the locker scene. Paulo knew the truth as far back as Acapulco. He was more than aware, he just needed it to be beaten into him. There was but a slither of doubt in his mind from that one time back in the play, he just needed it confirmed.

Maybe he’ll thank Lucy one day, but who knows for sure?

Paulo has now exited the cave having encountered the ordeal, whether he succeeded or not is anyone’s guess. But from that darkness he has returned with a gift; some semblance of maturity. We know it’s maturity because Paulo has already displayed the fruits of his labours; repairing his friendship with Daisy and regaining his mentor, and friend. And instead of showing violence and frustration to his would-be rival, Paulo has instead displayed empathy and begged for forgiveness from him. Mike is no longer his rival, Mike is his close friend. 

Appearing to be over Lucy once and for all, Paulo really appears to be a free man - He’s been seemingly reborn. We can only wonder what he will do with this gift. Paulo’s next stage in the 12 stages will be the road back, but back to where? Where will it take him? Will we go back to exploring the Burden of Parenthood again where Paulo’s deeper talents lay? Or will we go off on some larger journey?

Paulo is not infallable at this stage; he’s still a kid, he may yet struggle with his newfound knowledge and understanding. There are still trials and repercussions Paulo’s previous behaviour that still needs to be accounted for. Paulo appears to have been resurrected but is there another resurrection in the future? Maybe Paulo is still not complete as seen in Mutual assurance. 

Indeed, what about the Elixer the last stage promises, may there be a possibility that Lucy and Paulo will get back together again, or Paulo will see the biggest gift to him was in his best friend from the start?

We can only wait and see where we go from here. Time can only tell.

[kalinara]

It’s interesting to scroll back through character tags.  I found one for Stranger Things from a while ago that basically argued that “from a story perspective” Billy Hargrove should have gotten Steve Harrington’s redemption arc because it would have been interesting to see him overcome all of his obstacles in life.

It’s stuff like this that make me realize that a lot of fans don’t understand how character redemption actually works.  

There is no such thing as a redemption arc.

This is not to say that a character cannot achieve redemption.  But it’s not a matter of an “arc”.  It is not a closed off plotline that starts off with a vile human being and has him travel from point A to point B, to magically become a good person at the end, end of story.

I feel like a lot of fans treat redemption like some kind of modular attachment that they can attach to the character of their choice.  Heck, that character doesn’t even have to WANT to be redeemed, some other character like Steve, or Rey or Princess Leia can somehow DRAG them from point A to point B and it will somehow still work.

But if we look at the times when characters have genuinely redeemed themselves, it becomes apparent that redemption isn’t some sort of separate modular plot device.  It’s simply one potential aspect of character growth.

Since the post I’m vaguing about mentioned Steve Harrington, let’s look at Steve Harrington’s general story arc.  Steve starts off as a boy who is self-centered, shallow, and seemingly has very few interests outside of having fun with his friends and his girlfriend.   He is oblivious to the fact that his girlfriend has just lost her friend, and reacts in a selfish and cruel way when he thinks she’s cheating on him.  He says some truly hurtful things to both Nancy and Jonathan and allows his friends to behave badly as well.

Afterward, Steve regrets his actions and, unprovoked, decides to take steps to atone.  He makes genuine apologies, he works to repair the damage: cleaning the paint, replacing the camera.  And he also learns that there’s more going on than he thought when he helps face the demigorgon.  In season two, Steve continues to grow.  At first he tries to deny/ignore everything that happened, and then he takes proactive steps to help these weird kids.  By the end, he’s somehow a third surrogate parent.

And that’s why Billy getting Steve’s “redemption arc” is a ridiculous idea.  Because Steve didn’t really have a “redemption arc” per se.  Steve is just a character that kept developing throughout the course of the two seasons.  There’s no indication that he ever consciously said “I don’t like who I am, I want to change.”  He just gradually became a more self-aware, empathetic, considerate and altruistic person as the series continued.

This was a very organic growth that had its roots in who Steve was at the start: Steve was self-centered and shallow, but he wasn’t malicious.  He was sweet and funny to Nancy, and made her laugh.  He was friendly to Barb, and until the scene with Jonathan, we never saw him act intentionally cruel.  And therefore it was believable that he grew in a positive direction.

Let’s look at another example of a redeemed character: Prince Zuko from Avatar.  Now, unlike Steve, who was at worst an inconvenience and an obstacle, Zuko was a legitimate adversary and he’d done some nasty things to our lead characters.  Over the course of four seasons, we see how he is pulled back and forth between them, how he makes good decisions and bad.

Unlike Steve, we can pinpoint a specific time where Zuko decides that he wants to change for the better and he begins to act accordingly.  Leaving the Fire Kingdom, joining the team, earning their trust.

But I personally wouldn’t consider this a “redemption arc” either, because it really isn’t self contained.  It was a logical development from the very beginning, and we could see the roots in his confused motivations and conflicting impulses.  And we could see it in the way that Zuko generally tried to conduct himself honorably.  He was occasionally childish and angry, but he valued his uncle’s guidance.  There were lines that he wouldn’t cross.  He was never a torturer or a murderer.  He was never deliberately abusive or cruel.  Zuko’s “redemption” with the team was less about turning Zuko into a good guy and more about Zuko figuring out his own path.  His redemption was just one part of that journey.

It wouldn’t make sense to give Ozai Zuko’s story arc, because Ozai is not a child, he’s not lost, and there are definitely lines that he’s willing to cross: including hurting his own children.

So let’s look at a legitimate monster.  Someone who IS a murderer and torturer and has crossed almost every line available: Darth Vader.

This one is a bit more controversial, because, understandably, not everyone agrees with the idea that Darth Vader has done enough to redeem himself.  And certainly there’s truth to that argument...if you’re looking at it in terms of a “redemption arc.”

Vader didn’t have a redemption arc.  He made ONE non-evil choice at the end of twenty years of atrocity.  And then he died without ever having to follow up on it.

Whenever I look at Vader’s redemption, I try to do it from the perspective we would have had when it originally aired: namely what was established in the first three movies.  No slave backstory, no unhappiness with the Jedi Order.  Those were all inventions after the fact meant to help explain and expand on what happened in the original movies.  So let’s look at the original movies.

The interesting thing about Vader’s arc is that it definitely wasn’t planned from the very beginning.  So there really aren’t any roots to be seen in A New Hope, there isn’t much of anything to be seen there really.  He seems vaguely interested in Luke’s force potential,

In Empire Strikes Back, he’s different.  He goes from being vaguely interested in Luke Skywalker, to being fixated.  He stalks him, terrorizes his dreams, captures his friends, tortures them, all to bring Luke to him.  Then he makes him an offer: power and an alliance.  Ruling the galaxy together.  Luke refuses.  And then in Return of the Jedi, Luke comes to him, trying to convince his father to come back to the Light.  Vader seems more hesitant, regretful, but still gives him to the Emperor.  It is only when Luke refuses to kill him, and the Emperor is killing him, that Vader chooses to act.  And he does.  

This one act doesn’t begin to make up for Vader’s atrocities.  It doesn’t bring back the lives he’s destroyed or the people he’s killed.  And Vader never even apologizes for them.  As a redemption arc goes, well, that’s not one at all.

Vader’s choice saved Luke and it proved him right: there is “some good” left in his father.  And thanks to that choice, Anakin Skywalker was able to rejoin the Light.  But nothing is fixed.  Nothing is repaired.  And except for Luke Skywalker (and maybe Leia, in some universes), no one alive will see him as anything but a monster.

And of course, he’s dead now.  So it’s a moot point.

Vader’s choice has its roots in Empire Strikes Back, possibly even in A New Hope, if you’re willing to stretch your interpretation a little.  The contrast in Vader’s behavior between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back is the difference between a man who thought that he’d lost everything that mattered a long time ago, and a man who discovers that that’s not the case.  Vader, in Empire Strikes Back, is a man who genuinely does want a relationship with his child.  But he’s become so twisted and evil that he can’t conceive of this relationship except in terms of power, betrayal and alliance.  And because Luke won’t join him under Vader’s terms, Vader starts to very slowly be more receptive to Luke’s.  He goes from angry and forceful in ESB to weary and resigned in ROTJ.

But, he can’t make that leap until the Emperor almost kills his son.

This is the dynamic that people keep wanting to recreate with Kylo Ren.  And that doesn’t work.  Vader was a man whose character development took him from a dispassionate mechanical monster in ANH, to a very human monster in ESB, and then finally to a regretful and weary old man in ROTJ, which finally enabled him to make a choice.  

Now, Steve, Zuko and Vader aren’t the only characters with a lot of growth and development.  Billy, Ozai and Kylo have gotten their own share of development.  The problem is, so far, their development has gone too far in the opposite direction. 

Billy starts off being cruel to a child, threatening (hopefully jokingly) to run over children while creating a dangerous scenario, and escalates to the point of attempted murder.   Ozai has become even crueler and more power hungry.  And while Kylo hasn’t necessarily gotten worse (it’s hard to get worse when you START with mass murder of innocents), but by killing his father, he specifically and deliberately rejected the redemptive choice that his grandfather made.  He wants more power and is intentionally going deeper into the dark to get it.

I’m not going to say that these characters can’t ever develop in a direction to make redemption a feasible part of their story arc, but I don’t really see it as part of their current trajectory.  Sometimes villains just continue to be villains.