#i also think maddie asked him about it again during his coffee coming out scene - asks buck what he thinks about the hot pilot now

[buckevantommy]

buck looking back on things with a new perspective once he realises he's bi. like the night tommy went against orders and flew them through a hurricane to land on a capsized cruise ship to save their friends. maybe at the time he was impressed and thought it was cool and glad tommy was helping them, but after that kiss? well. after the kiss buck looks back on that night and thinks it's hella hot.

[libraryofloveletters]

Prompt: Buck and Reader are dating (maybe even engaged) before buck joins 118. Buck doesn't tell about reader at anyone in the station. Eddie could already be part of 118. And then buck gets hurt or something and they meet reader. Athena loves her and then can we have a scene of buck&reader with the fire kids.

Emergency Contact 

Evan Buckley x Reader 

Warnings: fem!reader, mentions of hospitals and injuries, a mention of pregnancy 

Category: Angst and fluff

Word Count: 3.3k 

Author’s Note: Italics is a flashback :) 

---- 

A house fire, a normal occurrence for the 118. They arrive, Buck and Eddie make their way through the house whilst Hen and Chim tend to the others. The family that lived there, the Smiths, couldn't find their daughter outside and figured she was still inside so they had gone in to find her. 

Buck and Eddie had spilt up when they got inside, Buck going left and Eddie going right. Eddie had found the little girl and managed to get her out of the house, her parents were grateful that he brought her back to them. 

“Where’s Buck ?” Bobby turns to Eddie. 

Eddie glances around, unsure as to where his friend was. “I thought he was right behind me, I swear I saw him on the stairs” 

Bobby radioed, “Buckley, come in” 

Before they could get an answer, there was a loud crash from inside the house. Eddie and Bobby run back in to see Buck on the floor of the kitchen, the ceiling had a massive hole in it and he was covered in dust. Buck tries to sit up a little too fast but falls onto his back. It seems like the floor had given out under him and he had fallen through. 

“Buck?” Eddie calls to him, checking his pupils. “Yeah, definite concussion,” he tugs on Buck’s coat, feeling his abdomen area. “At least 2 broken ribs, if not more.” Eddie looks up at their captain, his hand still gently feeling Buck’s abdomen.

Bobby comes over, grabbing Buck’s feet as Eddie sits Buck up carefully and loops his arms under his. The two men carry him out, Chimney rolling a stretcher over to them. From that point, Hen and Chim took over, checking his vitals and if they had missed any other fractions or broken bones. The ambulance pulled off first, Chimney in the driver’s seat and Hen in the back with Buck. The firetruck followed, both vehicles headed to the hospital. 

---

“Did anyone call Maddie ?” Hen breaks the silence filled waiting room. Bobby looks up at her, Hen speaks again, “she is his emergency contact, isn't she?” 

Something about that didn’t sound right to Bobby. He hadn’t been there when Buck started as a probie but he had gone over everyones forms when he became captain. He can’t remember who Buck’s emergency contact was but he didn’t think it was Maddie. 

“Does anyone have her number ?” Bobby asks, no one answers. “I’m gonna head back to the station, I'll give her a call and come back. If anything changes, let me know?” Eddie answers with a yeah and Bobby heads out. 

Once he arrived back at the station, he searched through the drawers of files - which truthfully, should be organized better, but that was a problem for another time. Once finding the file, his finger runs down the page. Maddie’s name was on the form but as a secondary contact. y/n l/n was the name listed as primary contact so he called this mystery woman. She answers after the first 2 rings. 

“Hi, is this y/n?” 

“It is, who’s this?” 

“I’m captain Bobby Nash with the 118.” 

“What can I do for you, captain ?” 

“You’re listed as Evan’s primary emergency contact.” there was a pause in the conversation, the line had gone silent. 

“Yeah, is he alright ?” the woman’s voice returns. 

“He fell through the floor during a call today. He has a concussion and a few broken ribs- one of the ribs seems to have punctured a lung and he’s in surgery now. I was calling to notify you, we’re at the hospital if you’d like to join us” 

“Thank you for calling, I'll be there soon” and with that, she hung up. Bobby still had no idea who this woman was or how she knew Buck. The lack of emotion in the call didn’t help him gauge who it might be. He pushed the thought from his mind and called Maddie - surely whoever this y/n woman was, was obviously important to Buck if she was listed before Maddie but Maddie was his sister and she deserved to know so he called her anyways. 

When Bobby returned back, Buck was still in surgery. He sat down just as Athena arrived. A box of donuts in one hand and one of those huge containers of coffee in the other, Bobby got up and helped her, not before pressing a kiss to her cheek. 

“You didn’t have to come by,” he tells her as he sets the thing of coffee on the table in the middle of the room, she gives him a small smile. “Buck might be trouble but he’s still one of ours. I’d show up for any of them, you know that” she nudges him with her shoulder softly, he smiles at her once more. Everyone gets up, helping themselves to the coffee and donuts that Athena brought- they all thanked her as they all know the horrors of hospital food. 

A woman walks in, she’s at the nurses desk which is across from where the team sat. She’s asking for Evan Buckley and the nurse points her in the direction of the team in the waiting room. She approaches, her hands shoved in her sweater pocket- rather Buck’s sweater pocket. Bobby had seen him show up to work in that very sweater a few days before. 

“You must be y/n” Bobby stands, his hand stretched out to her. 

“I am, you’re Bobby, right ?” your hand comes out to reach his, shaking it. It didn’t take long for Bobby to notice the large diamond on your ring finger. Your hand lets go of his, returning to its spot in your pocket. Bobby gives you a small smile which you mirror. 

“Everyone, this is y/n. Buck’s- sorry, I didn’t ask. How do you know Buck?” Bobby asks you, you glance around the room. Everyone's eyes were on you. 

“I’m Buck’s-” 

“Y/n!” a woman calls for you. Turning around, you see Maddie approaching you. “Mads!” your arms open as she gets closer. She embraces you in a hug, your hand rubbing up and back her back. 

“Did you hear anything yet ?” she asks you, letting you go. Shaking your head, “I just got here” 

“You know her too ?” Chimney pipes up from his chair, Maddie looks over at him. “Yeah, obviously. She’s Buck’s fiancee” she tells him, the entire room goes silent. 

You look over at your sister in law, “they didn’t know that yet Mads” chuckling, you pat her back before taking a seat across from a woman in a police uniform. Maddie’s eyes went wide, her mouth slightly opened in shock. “Sorry! I thought you told them” she says, sitting beside Chimney. “I was about too but you called for me” 

Everyone’s attention is on you, the woman sitting across from you speaks up. “Well, it’s nice to meet you” she says, “I’m Athena, Bobby’s wife” she introduces herself. 

“Ah, so the whole family’s in law enforcement huh ?” you smile, Athena chuckles. “Seems like it. What do you do ?” 

“I’m a nurse over at General” 

“I thought I had seen you somewhere before” Athena smiles.

The room goes back to quiet, the team talking amongst themselves. Maddie sat beside you and on her other side was Chimney, you had seen him for the pictures Maddie showed you when she started seeing him. Beside him was a woman, she wore glasses and had a friendly smile- Hen. Buck had told you about her and her wife, they seemed like nice people. Sitting beside Hen was a man, cute with somewhat of a resting bitch face- that was Eddie, Buck’s best friend. Buck practically lived at his house when you worked night shifts and you had also seen a million and one photos of his son, Christoper, who was the sweetest little boy on the planet from what you had heard. 

Your hand rested on your lap, your thumb pushing and pulling the engagement ring on your finger back and forth. 

“He must really love you because that’s one hell of a rock” Athena was pacing the room and was now beside you, her hand reaching for yours to take a closer look at the ring. You laugh, “it is, isn't it?” 

“I have to ask, how long have you two been engaged ? Because he’s never mentioned you.” 

“Oh I know,” you hum, “we like to keep things low key but um, it’s been 2 years since we got engaged. We aren't really in a rush to get married.” you tell her. 

“2 years? That’s a long time to keep a secret like that” 

“Yeah, it’s been a challenge- but it’s not like he didn’t want to tell you guys. He just didn’t know how. Oh you know how he is- actions over words.” 

You and Athena talk a bit more, she tells you how Bobby proposed to her on Christmas Eve. She showed you a picture from when they got married- her own massive ring adorning her finger. You told her about how Buck proposed to you. 

“Babe! The pancakes are going to get cold!” you shouted for your boyfriend from the kitchen of your apartment. 

“I’m coming woman! Calm down” he shouts back, his footsteps coming closer with each step.

Buck had the weekend off and so did you- a rare occurrence for the two of you. You decided that instead of going out to get breakfast like you normally would, that you would cook instead. Hence why you were up at 10:15 on a Saturday morning and why your boyfriend’s shirt that you were wearing, was covered in flour and eggs. 

Buck’s arms wrapped around your waist, your attention on the stove. His hands coming ups under your shirt to feel your bare skin, he was busy peppering kisses down your neck. You nudge him with your shoulder, “go sit down, I'll bring the pancakes over in a minute” you tell him and he hums. Pressing one more kiss to your neck, he untangles himself from you and goes to the table. 

The layout of your apartment was a bit strange, the kitchen was by the front door but the kitchen didn’t have much space so your table was closer to your living room than the kitchen and there was a wall blocking you when you were in the kitchen so you weren’t able to see the table. 

Now heading to the table with a plate in each hand, you were focused on not dropping the plates. That went out the window when you entered the room to see your boyfriend down on one knee with a velvet box in his hand. 

“Buck” you breath 

“Y/n, you are so amazing, you just- god, this is so cheesy but you really do take my breath away. Last night, I was laying beside you and I had this perfectly rehearsed speech that I was going to give you but it just doesn't make sense now. From the moment I met you, I knew you were special. You stood by my side and didn't complain when I worked long hours or didn't have time because I joined the fire department. You are the woman of my dreams and I would do anything for you. So I hope you would do me the honour of being my wife ?” 

“Yes, oh my god yes” you lean down to kiss him. Buck smiles, “baby?” 

“Hm?” 

“You gotta put the plates down” he chuckles, you hadn't realized you were still holding the plates. Setting them down, Buck gets up. The ring that was in the box was now in his hand, he slid the ring on your finger. Holding your hand up, you admired the ring. 

“I think this deserves a proper breakfast” 

“I don’t think there’s anything better than this” he pulls you in for a hug. 

Athena laughs when you tell her, “he ambushed you when you were making him breakfast ? This kid has no sense of the right time” you chuckles at her comment. “It was perfect. I don’t think I would have it any other way, you know?” 

The doctor comes in, he asks for Buckley and all 7 of you stand. “Wow big group. Okay- we were able to patch the hole. He’ll need to be off work for the next 3-4 weeks before he can even consider going back but he should make a full recovery.” a few breaths of relief were let out around the room. “He’s in recovery now, I can take you in one at a time. Who would like to go first ?” 

Everyone's looking at you and you glance over your shoulder. “Do any of you want to go ?” you ask, no one answers you. 

“Maddie ?” 

“I’m gonna get some air and some coffee and then I'll be there. Give him a hug for me” she gives your hand a squeeze, you smile at her. Following the doctor down the hallway, you pass multiple rooms all with different families and people with different injuries. That’s one of the things you enjoyed about the hospital- if you looked past all the sadness, there were so many success stories, so many happy families. 

Room 276 at the end of the hall was his. Buck was asleep, a few wires and such were hooked to him. Pulling a chair up to his bedside, your hand reached for him, holding it gently as your thumb rubbed the top of it. Your eyes drift to his monitor by his bedside, steady heartbeat and blood pressure. There was nothing to be concerned about yet you couldn't look away. 

“y/n,” a faint whisper left his lips, you glanced down at your fiancee, his eyes barely opened. 

“Buck,” you smiled, your hand coming up to touch his face. He nuzzled closer to your hand, turning his head ever so slightly to press a kiss to the palm of your hand. 

“Can I- water?” you let go of him to get the glass from the counter. Pouring some water in it, you stick the straw in the cup before holding the straw to his lips. He sighed and looked at you as you set the cup down. “I guess the secret’s out ?” he smiles, you nod. 

“Maddie let it slip, but I was about to tell them so it’s fine” you kiss his forehead. 

“Is everyone here?” 

“Yeah, in the waiting room. They all thought you’d look horrendous so I came in to check, lucky me right ?” you joke, Buck lets out a weak laugh before his hand comes up to his chest. 

“Ow, don’t make me laugh” he pouts, you smile at him. Sitting at the edge of the chair, your hand finds his hair, brushing it back softly. 

“Surgery isn't a good look on you” 

“Hey, I always look good” he pouts once more. 

--- 

The few weeks go by a lot quicker than expected and Buck is set to return to the 118 on Monday. Athena had helped you plan a little surprise get together for Buck but you had just told him that you were headed over to Bobby and Athena’s for the day because you were going shopping with Athena. You left home around noon and helped them set up all day and you called Buck around 6. 

“Hey babe, how’s shopping going ?” 

“It’s alright, we’re back at the house now. Bobby was saying that you should swing by, we could all have dinner together”

“Hm yeah, that sounds good. I’ll be there soon”

Now you wait. The entire team was already there, everyone scattered amongst the living room, waiting for him to arrive. He knocked on the door, Athena shouted for him to come in. He walked in, everyone waited for him to round the corner, the surprise evident on his face. 

“What’s all this?” he smiles, he makes his way down the stairs. 

“Welcome back” Bobby goes over to give him a hug. Buck makes his way around the room, saying hello to everyone. Eventually, he finds you in the kitchen with Karen who says hello to him and then leaves the two of you in the kitchen. 

“So did you really go shopping ?” he asks, his arm over your shoulder and your arm wraps around his waist. 

“Yeah but for party supplies” you smile at him, he leans down and kisses your head. Chris, Denny and Harry all come into the kitchen on the hunt for sweets that you previously heard Eddie, Athena and Hen all telling them that they weren't allowed to have. Of course they assumed that if they sweet-talk Buck that he would give them, and he did, he never said no to those boys. 

All three of them made themselves comfortable on the couch as Buck returned with a plate of cupcakes for them. Buck sat beside them, pulling you onto his lap. 

“Do you have any scars from the surgery ?” Denny asks him, looking over at Buck. “Yeah, do you wanna see ?” Buck asks, the 3 boys nod eagerly. You smile at them, Buck unbuttons the top of his shirt, pulling it to the side to show the boys the scar from the surgery. It was fairly tiny but still noticeable. 

“Woah that’s cool!” “Can I poke it?” “That’s weird looking” 

You and Buck laugh at the responses- boys will be boys. The 3 boys ask a few more questions and Buck shows them a couple other scars that he had gotten over the year, eventually they get bored of Buck and his stories and go off to find someone else. You leave Buck in the living room as he was talking to Maddie and Chimney. 

Now in the backyard, you and Athena were talking about when you'd actually go shopping when someone bumped into your leg. Looking down, you see Nia beside you, you pick her up and hold her, Nia sitting comfortably on your hip now. The two of you go along with your conversation and Nia cuddles into your side, you glance down at the little girl who was smiling at you, you give her a smile too. 

Buck’s arm wraps around your shoulder, he presses a kiss to your temple. “Hey,” he smiles before leaning forward to take a peak at Nia, “Hey kiddo” he reaches out to hold her hand, she smiles at him. 

“You 3 look comfortable together” Hen says as she makes her way over with Karen. Buck laughs. 

“If you’re open to babysitting, feel free to take the kids anytime” Karen jokes, you smile. “I might take you up on that. It’d be like to have an actual kid around rather than just Buck” you laugh, Buck pouts. “Hey! I’m not that bad” the 3 women all give him looks. Athena pats his shoulder, “that’s what you think Buckaroo” 

“Having the kids around would be good practice” Your fiancee thinks out loud. 

“Practice for what, darling?” 

“You know, one day maybe we’d have kids” 

“Oh not now? Not a fan of the whole pregnancy glow thing ?” 

“Oh I am, I do it right-” “don’t finish that sentence” you laugh, leaning up to give  him a kiss. You had a feeling that your fiancé’s family was about to become yours too. 

--- 

taglist: @ssa-volturi @advicefromnixxxx @dralexreid @keenmarvellover @beth-winchester21 @fernandaweasley2 @yikesyikesyikes95 @hotchsdarling @venusrosepetal @luke-alvez  @caitsymichelle13 @averyhotchner

[avaritia-apotheosis]

Phantom Children Ch. 8

What's this? An update! Massive thanks to my betas for helping me get through this chapter <3

In Which: A few answers are given to the family and Danny is rudely awoken

[Side note: If you wanna know the general ages of the batfam, its listed in the AO3 version. I also talk about katanas in the end notes ^-^]

AO3 | Prologue | 7 | [ 8 ] | 9 DAMIAN INFORMED TODD—and Drake when he arrived on his bike sometime later on—that the boy whose face is plastered across the monitor was neither a picture of himself nor of Father.

Drake took one glance at the monitor and sighed, pressing his fingers against the bridge of his nose. “Just when I thought this day was getting better.”

“What, did that café on 5th finally let customers supersize their drink?”

“God that would be the dream, wouldn’t it?” Drake sighed wistfully. “Nah, but I did get a lead on where some of that stolen Cadmus tech might’ve ended up. I was gonna spend the night following up on it, but I guess we have to deal with,” he gestured to the monitor, “whatever this is.”

Todd leaned against the edge of the computer, arms crossed over the red bat insignia on his chest. “What are we dealing with this time, brat? A clone? An alternate universe counterpart? Magic shenanigans?”

Maybe. Perhaps. All of those were perfectly valid conclusions for the enigma that was Daniel James Fenton. (Why Fenton and not al Ghul? Or even Wayne?)

Damian, too, was a genetic experiment; a ‘test tube baby’ as Drake put it at times. Damian was born for greatness, created to be perfect. The perfect soldier. The perfect assassin. The perfect heir. Was this boy—Daniel—like him as well?

A failed one, then. Perhaps the precursor to Damian’s own existence. But that would not explain why the boy was allowed to exist for so long. His grandfather demanded perfection, especially from those of his own blood. If the boy was a failure, he would have been eliminated immediately, not sent to live with some eccentric scientists in the Midwest.

Damian was not naïve enough to think that his mother and grandfather did not keep secrets from him. On the contrary, he expected it. The League of Shadows dealt in secrets as often as it did in death. Certain information was worth its weight in gold, whether it was given or buried away.

But he could not help the sharp pang in his chest. A lightning strike, quick and electrifying at the notion that they kept secrets about their family from him.

His father’s face flashed in his mind. The shock turned into a slow, dawning horror. That flicker of light, of recognition, as he scrutinized the contents of the flash drive and cross-referenced it with a public database.

And grief.

Damian recognized the grief.

Alfred, too, nearly dropped his tray of fresh-baked cookies when he stepped in front of the monitor. His usual unflappable demeanor was momentarily broken at his father’s whispered “Sixteen years. Alfred— he’s sixteen years old.”

His father knew of the boy. He was allowed to know of Daniel when he was not allowed to know about Damian.

------

Grayson returned to the cave with a distinct lack of energy in his step. His mask dangled off the tips of his fingers, chin angled downwards and covered largely by his hand. For a split second, their eyes met. Grayson shifted his gaze away, scratching the back of his neck. Father told him, then. Damian wondered how much Father revealed to his favorite son.

Damian clucked his tongue and buried himself deeper into the chair, arms crossed and pointedly looking away. If it was not for his accursed ankle, he’d have headed out to the training ring to take his frustrations out on the dummies.

“Oh, thank god you’re here, Dickface. Damian’s completely out of it.”

Damian shot him a look. “Shut up, Todd.”

“Leave him alone, Jay. Is Tim back yet?”

Drake emerged from the changing room in a dark green shirt, a fresh cup of coffee in hand. He took one long sip before exhaling. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“O-kay…” He pressed his hands together, mouth thinned into a grim line. “Uh, hey Tim, glad to see you back safe. Bruce is coming down soon to explain some things.” He let out a deep sigh, carding a hand through his hair. “This kind of thing would probably be better with the girls around, but I—god, I don’t know.”

Todd raised an eyebrow. “Don’t know whether to call Steph and Cass in Hong Kong, or don’t know what’s going on?”

“Yes.”

------

When Father arrived, Pennyworth following dutifully behind him, it was with an aching slowness in his gait. His steps measured and precise, preternaturally quiet as he made his way to stand by Damian’s chair. Damian sat up straighter, shoulders squared and back an inch away from the backrest. The rest, even Todd, stood at attention; an ingrained habit among Robins and an amusing instinct even among the senior heroes of the Justice League when it came to facing the Batman.

His father kept a steady hand on Damian’s shoulder, and Damian, shamefully, leaned into the touch; his head inclined towards his father’s hand so much so that he could feel the ends of his hair being pushed up slightly as he brushed against his father’s forearm.

He spoke with his usual monotone, as if he was heading a Justice League meeting as opposed to unveiling the secrets surrounding that boy. He brought forward the few photos they obtained from the flash drive. “A few weeks ago, we were alerted of suspicious movement from the League of Shadows in Amity Park, Illinois. Their objectives are, as of now, unclear, though it appears to be tied to the death of Amity Park resident, Daniel Fenton.”

One photo was a standard ID picture people get for their driver’s license, the lighting deliberately horrible so that any attempt to look decent would always end in failure. Another photo was a little better; a candid scene of him chatting with two others his age, a Caucasian girl in gothic-style clothes and an African-American holding a sleek, but still very outdated PDA. His blue eyes crinkled at the corners, hand reaching up to his face to stifle a laugh. There were other photos like this, some candid, others posed. At the forefront of each, a boy that looked too much like his father, too much like Damian.

His father glanced at the photos. He shut his eyes and when he opened them again, he fixed them on some distant stalactite in the Cave. “Around six months ago, Daniel was pronounced dead in a vehicular accident. A body was present, but according to police reports, he was identified via his driver’s license as opposed to any kind of DNA profiling.” He leaned over Damian’s chair to pull up a profile of Masters. “Our source—Vladimir Masters, mayor of Amity and a friend of the Fenton family—indicated his belief that Daniel is actually alive. I am inclined to agree.”

“He’s your son, isn’t he,” Drake said, more of a statement than a question.

Father gave a curt nod. “I cannot say for certain until I can perform a DNA test, but I highly suspect that to be the case.”

“First the demon spawn, now this. Great.” Todd made a hand motion towards the screen. “You know, Bruce, not knowing you have a kid once might be a coincidence, but twice? How do you do that?”

“As of three hours ago, I was still under the impression that my son never made it to term.”

“What?”

“Over sixteen years ago I was involved in a mission that put Ra’s and I on the same side. During that time, Talia and I entered a relationship that resulted in a pregnancy. Though initially ecstatic, she eventually led me to believe she miscarried the child and pushed me away. For what ends, I do not know, but trust me Jason, if I knew—” He paused, the hand that was not on Damian’s shoulder curled into a tight fist.

Father pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why she hid it from me then doesn’t matter. Why Talia wants him back now is important. Judging from Daniel’s records, he was adopted into the Fenton family as an infant and has since lived a seemingly normal life as a civilian. His adoptive parents, Jack and Maddie Fenton, are brilliant scientists and engineers focused on the field of paranormal studies. Eccentricities aside, they have zero connections to the League of Assassins or any other concerning parties.”

“So why now?” Dick asked, shifting his concerned gaze from Bruce to the static picture of Danny’s tired smile. “Why, after all this time, decide that now would be the best time to recover him?”

------

Danny’s experienced plenty of rude awakenings before, but waking up at the ass-crack of dawn to avoid his kidnapper-slash-assassin-slash-biological-mom launching a surprise attack takes the fucking cake. He can’t believe he’s saying this, but thank god for all those late night ghost attacks that conditioned him to be a light sleeper. And, of course, the League’s insistence that everyone be in optimal condition regardless of how little sleep you actually got.

Danny kicked Talia off of him, ripping his blanket away before scrambling to his feet. Seriously, if the universe decided to spontaneously give him powers again, he’d really like an upgrade to his ghost senses, please and thank you. Something that works on humans and not just ghosts. Like spidey-senses. He’d really, really like some spidey-senses.

“Your reaction times have improved considerably,” Talia said.

He eyed the katana sheathed beside his bedroll. “Thanks. Who could have guessed that constantly challenging someone to a spar in the unholy hours of morning would make them paranoid to sleep too much? Really, how am I supposed to grow taller at this rate? ” If he could just get it--

She smiled, taking a step forward. “Prepare yourself.”

“Heh.” Danny stepped further away from Talia, keeping his back to the mouth of the cave. One hand stretched in front of him and the other, coated in a green light, was kept hidden behind his back. “Am I actually gonna get some answers today?”

“Let us make it interesting. Last 10 minutes against me and I shall tell you more about your brother.” Talia twirled her blade. “If you happen to draw blood, you may ask any one thing of me.”

“Anything?”

“Within reason.”

His face caught between a grimace and a smile. He’d rather be sleeping right now, but if he had to be awake, then he’d better make the most of it. “Deal.”

Talia’s smile dropped. She veered her body to the right, barely dodging the streak of bright green that whizzed from behind her. The ectoplasmic energy that surrounded the katana bled away as the handle connected with Danny’s outstretched hand.

She quickly glanced back at Danny’s bedding. Beside it lay an empty sheath. “You have telekinesis?”

He shrugged. “It comes and goes.” Yeah, no way was Danny gonna admit that seven-out-of-ten-times he forgot that he had telekinesis. Besides, that shit was hard to do when he wasn’t Phantom.

“A surprise attack from behind is a sound strategy, Daniel. Though it’ll take a lot more than that to harm me.”

Danny pointed to the side of his cheek. “Are you sure about that?”

Talia frowned. She reached up to her face. Her fingers brushed against her cheek and came away with a thin streak of blood.

Danny grinned, pointing his blade at his opponent. “First blood goes to me.”

------

Fact: most fights don’t last long. An average street fight could last anywhere between 25 to 40 seconds, and sword fights rarely last over a minute. Like Talia said, the goal of a fight was to end it with as few injuries to oneself as possible. Humans, even the most skilled ones, can rarely last long in a fight. Prolonged combat is suicide; it makes you tired, makes your muscles heavy. It’s nothing like what Hollywood would have you believe.

Even with Danny’s own enhanced stamina and Talia holding back, he couldn’t last a full ten-minute spar. If Talia didn’t finish him within twenty-five seconds, then he’d fall by his own human limitations.

But the goal wasn’t to spar continuously for ten minutes.

He only had to last that long.

Danny sprinted out of the cave. The sun barely peeked out of the horizon, a thin line of deep orange breaking apart the wide expanse of blue-black sky above. He couldn’t see shit; great news since that meant there’s a good chance Talia couldn’t either, but that doesn’t fix the fact that he can’t see.

Nearly stumbling on the ice, Danny veered to the left. The edges of the lake stopped at towering rocks twice Danny’s height, leaving little room for cover. Though if he remembered correctly, there should be a few crevices here and there to hide in.

“You’ll have to be faster than that, Daniel.”

Shit—

Danny stopped. He brought his sword up to parry Talia’s strike and twisted away, putting distance between them.

Well, so much for just avoiding her for 10 minutes.

He adjusted his grip, keeping his sword steady and eyes trained on Talia as they circled each other. Danny lunged with an overhead strike. Talia used one hand to block the downswing by gripping his wrists. She thrust her sword forward, the tip harshly poking Danny’s abdomen.

“Less than three minutes.” Talia let his wrist go, Danny’s arms slumping to his sides.

He sighed as he sheathed his sword. “Damn, I thought I’d last longer than that.”

“You made a good effort,” Talia assured him. “Putting as much distance between us at the beginning was a good strategy. You recognized the win conditions immediately and attempted a battle of attrition.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “I am very proud of you habibi, especially as you managed to draw first blood.”

A warmth grew in Danny’s stomach at the words, heating his cheeks. Sheepishly, he scratched the back of his head. “I wasn’t entirely sure that would work, honestly.”

“It was clever; half a second later and you might have even killed me. You are an al Ghul through and through” She brushed his hair out of his face. “What would you like as your prize, then?”

Danny’s heart clenched. He frowned, dropping his arm to his side. If I was such an al Ghul, then why didn’t you keep me? The question lodged itself in his throat, stifling his thoughts. It was something he’d been wondering for a while, actually, in the moments of solitude he had at the compound. Talia, during their training, would always remark at his potential. How talented he was, how adaptable he was, how much greater he would have been if he had been trained at a younger age.

Well then, why wasn’t he? Why did she give him up?

But each time he tried to ask, his tongue would turn to lead and the moment would pass, the question still left unsaid and simmering at the back of his mind. A Pandora’s Box that held none of the world’s evil but all of Danny’s possible shortcomings.

He could ask the question now.

He could.

He didn’t.

“Why did you take me?”

Talia tilted her head. “It is because you’re my son.”

“No. Not that. It has to be something more than that. You had sixteen years to come back for me—or, hell, you could have just never left me.” His breath hitched, fingers mussing his hair and hiding his eyes. “Why else did you take me?”

“It is true that there was more than one reason why we decided to retrieve you from Amity Park. One of which is because you are my son and an heir of the Demon’s Head.” Talia stilled. The dark skies of dawn made it impossible for him to read her. “The second reason was to protect you.”

“You kidnapped me…to protect me?”

“Knowledge of the ghosts of Amity have spread through the more insidious parts of the world. There are many out there who would pay exorbitant fees to study one of you or to use you.”

Use him? What did she mean by—

Oh.

Ghosts—Amity Park’s brand of ghosts—were a new element that the world had to contend with. Amity Park might have a crime rate of zero but that wasn’t the case everywhere else. Theft, assault, murder; the world was rampant with crimes and criminals clawing their way to the very top. Having ghosts, even ones with the most basic powerset, would be a huge advantage.

“There’s no way that would work,” Danny insisted. “Most ghosts just want to be left alone, and the ones that want to wreak havoc would never work with humans. The only reason they even work with halfas like me at times is because they still consider us as ghosts.”

“If my sources are to be believed, ghosts might not even get a choice.”

Danny’s blood curdled in his veins.

No.

Someone’s found a way to control ghosts.

[milazka]

Distraction — Drew Starkey.

image found on pinterest

summary: the one where the quaterback of the football team helps you forget about your bad grade.

request: yes

content: fluff & smut

author’s note: it’s my very first story about a member of the cast of outer banks! i would like to clarify that all this is fictional, i only use the looks and the names of the actors and actresses. my masterlist will be linked at the end of this story if you feel like reading some other fics. this one is for my babe cort ( @pogue-writings ) because she is drew’s soulmate.

warnings: most of my stories may contain mature themes such as swearing, underage drinking, substance abuse, sexual language and scenes, fights and more. also, i do not intend to be offensive towards anyone who reads this blog, if anything written can be perceived as hurtful to any community or person, i apologize, it was never my purpose while writing it.

word Count: 1957.

The campus library has always been her favorite spot to study. It's quiet and the atmosphere is always soothing, the exact opposite of her dorm room where her roommate seems more interested in experimenting the male anatomy than studying it in her textbook. A few weeks ago, after catching her once again during the act, she had decided to find a new place to study. She had walked around the campus and eventually found this spot around one of the large hardwood tables that stand between the bookshelves full of old books about psychology. The perfect place to set her in a study mood. 

For the past few hours, she has been sitting in her usual place, her textbook open in front of her eyes and her black notebook on her right. She only has one midterm left in two days and it will cover all the topics seen in her subconscious psychology course, which is one of her most interesting courses, but also the one that requires the longest hours of study in order to pass the exams. 

The sound of a chair gliding on the floor makes her look up and she’s surprised to see Drew, a boy from her psychology of the subconscious class, sit on the chair in diagonal to her. Normally, the library is almost empty at this time of the night and she never saw him here; he seems like the kind of guy who spends more time on the football field than he does in front of his textbooks. They’ve been in the same class for four months, but she never really paid attention to him, except when he is disturbing the class with the two other musketeers, Chase and Rudy. She smiles nicely at him when their eyes meet and he raises his coffee cup which he pretends to drink all at once while they both laugh silently, hoping not to be warned by Mrs. Jones, the librarian who looks strangely similar to Roz from the movie Monster inc.

She tries to put her nose back in her book, trying to focus on the pages suggested in the study guide and highlighting important sentences from a passage about Freud and his discovery of psychoanalysis, but she can't help but look up discreetly at the boy. He is wearing a navy flannel shirt which, half-buttoned, reveals a white shirt that moulds his muscular chest. His trademark cap, which he always wears backwards, rests as usual on the top of his head, still letting a few strands of hair slip out of the hat. She particularly lingers on his muscled arms covered by the navy blue cloth, it's not surprising that he's the quarterback on the football team. The  studious look on his face and the way he’s chewing on the tip of his pencil while frowning makes him look cuter than usual, she can’t deny it. 

When she sees the lateness of the hour, she delicately puts her books back in her red bag, not noticing how intensely the boy is staring at her. He simply can't help but admire her sweet angelic face, her tired-looking little eyes, the thin, shiny layer of lip balm covering her lips that he would dream of kissing; he likes everything about her and cannot help but smile foolishly. 

“Hey Y/n,” he whispers, catching her attention. “Me and the boys are throwing a party friday night, you should come.” 

“Oh, yeah, of course!” she smiles at him, noticing his blushing cheeks and the little spark in his gaze.

“Great! Good luck on your exam.” 

“Good luck to you too. I’ll see you friday.” 

─── °• ❀ ───

The room goes from purple to blue, then from blue to pink, courtesy of the spotlights that change the colour of the room's luminosity along the rhythm of the music. The parties hosted by the university football team always do justice to their reputation, no matter what’s the occasion. It's not the first time she attends one, but it's the first time she’s been invited by the quarterback. Her mind did not stop playing back the memory of the little sparkle in the young man's eyes when she had accepted his invitation. Maybe it meant nothing, but a part of her wants to believe it didn't. Plus, she really needs to take her mind off things after receiving her mediocre grade from the last exam. She knew her teacher was strict, but not this strict. 

As she makes her way through the dancing crowd, an arm slips around her naked shoulders, making her startles. She's used to being approached by boys at parties, but she hates it when they think they can do anything and touch her even if she doesn't want to. Looking up, she loosen up when she sees Drew's familiar face smirking at her and she's glad it's not a drunk who's asking her to blow him.

“I'm so glad you came,” he says to her as he hands her a red cup filled with beer. “How did your exam go?”

She pouts, taking a big sip of the golden liquid that tickles her throat.

“Really bad.” 

“That sucks,” she raises an eyebrow at the boy as when he takes back the cup that he just gave her and drops it on the countertop behind him. “C’mon, I have the perfect remedy for a bad grade.” 

Drew takes her tiny hand into his big one, guiding her to the backyard where several tables are set up to play beer pong. Small lights illuminate the yard where games have already started. People cheer each other up and yell like crazy when someone manage to get the ball in a cup. She recognizes Rudy’s familiar blond hair when he jumps into Jonathan's arms and she deduces they just won their game against Madison and Austin. Everyone laughs when the two boys lose their balance and crash into the grass, grunting at each other. Her hand is still holding Drew's firmly when he walks up to Chase who is sitting in a chair close to the fire pit with his girlfriend on his lap, grilling and eating marshmallows. 

“Yo Chase! Me and Y/n vs Maddie and you?” Drew challenges his friend, wiggling his eyebrows. 

“Game on, baby!” Chase exclaims as they both stand up and follow them to the table.

She and Drew make a fire team, throwing a series of winning shots and gradually getting Madelyn and Chase drunk. All the way through the game, she never worries about her bad grade, it's like it never existed. The alcohol in her bloodstream seems to be opening her eyes to Drew's attractiveness. The girl never really paid attention to how he is totally her type of guy. She bites her lower lip, obviously checking him out when he pulls off his hoodie and his shirt comes up, revealing the prominent V-shape above the hem of his pants. 

“Like what you see, don't ya?” he teases the girl, an irresistible smile on the corner of his lips. 

She blushes up to her ears, making Drew laugh, and he just adds to her embarrassment by putting his arm around her shoulders before throwing the last ball who lands directly into the last standing cup. Maybe it's the emotion of the moment for her, whereas he's been dreaming about it for months, but their eyes meet each other and suddenly their lips collide. The kiss doesn't last long, not long enough in his opinion. The flight of butterflies in the young woman's belly doesn't disappear when their lips separate, she needs to kiss him again, to feel him touch her. 

“I need you, Drew.” she whines close to his ear, making his heart skips a beat. "God, Y/n," he breaths out, pulling her closer to him. "Do you know how long I've been dreaming about you saying that to me?”

She just winks at him and grabs his hand, pulling him toward the front door as he pinches himself on the arm, not believing that this is really happening. He throws a murderous look at Rudy and Chase who make fun of him by pretending to make out sensually. They pass through the living room which is still full of people swinging their bodies to the rhythm of the music and climb upstairs where Drew guides them to his room. He slams her against the door, his hands grabbing her hips as he kisses her again. She bites his lower lip, making him growl against her mouth. Drew starts to place open mouthed kisses on her neck and she tiltes it to give him full access to her burning skin. He leads her to the bed, pinning her on the mattress and he removes her short as he is now hovering over her half naked body. His hand slides down her thigh, making her squirm under him as he gets closer to her core. He plays with the waistband of her panties, smirking against her lips.

“Drew,” she moans, looking at him with her eyes filled with desire. He grabs her waist and flip them over so she is now straddling him. She unbuttons his khaki shirt, slipping his hands over his muscular chest. She starts to grind down on his lap, making him whine and dig his fingers into her buttcheeks

“It's not about me tonight, I'm not the one who needs to be distracted.” he whispers to her ear before  flipping her over again so that he is now hovering over her. 

She lets out a few muffled moans as he leaves a trail of kisses between her breast and on her stomach. He sucks and nibbles at the skin on her inner thighs, only increasing her desire to feel him on her already wet womanhood. 

“You’re so pretty, all wet and spread out like this, just for me.”

“Drew, please…” she begs, but he cuts her short by placing a kiss on her clit, slipping her underwear off. He places an open-mouthed kiss just above her wet folds, making her buck her hips up. 

“So eager, baby, I like it.” he hums just above her bundle of nerves, sending vibrations on it. She runs her fingers through his light brown hair, pushing him closer to her heat. He finally licks a full stripe through her folds, making her back arch to the so desired feeling. 

“Oh fuck,” she groans as he inserts one finger in her, his tongue sucking on her clit. His hands are  firmly wrapped around her thighs to keep her spread open for him. She clenches the sheets between her fists, her eyes close under the wave of pleasure that runs through her body when he replaces his fingers with his tongue. His nose rubs up against her clit as he moves his face, pumping his tongue in and out of her.

“Fuck I’m so close, please don’t stop,” she moans, making him pumps his tongue faster. A few profanities mixed with loud moans leave her lips as she reaches her high, legs shaking on his shoulders. He licks her folds a few more times to clean her up, sending electric jolts through her body when he touches her sensitive nerves from the orgasm. He lies down beside her, pulling her towards him with his arms wrapped around her body.

“What about you? I’m no the type of girl who doesn’t give back,” she starts but Drew shushes her with a quick kiss. “I’m sure you’re not, but tonight it’s about you and only you.” 

“Fuck, you’re perfect, y’a know?” 

“It was about time you figured that out!” he mocks her and she giggles, burying her face further into the crook of his neck. 

─── °• ❀ ───

mila’s masterlist

taglist (send me an ask if you want to be added)

@milaonthemoon @spilledtee @pogue-writings @thebutterflyonhischest @ilovejjmaybank @bananasfromtarget @drewstarkeyobx @void-maybank @prejudic3

[myemergence]

The Only Reason

Pairing: Ruckley, Russley, Jevan (Josh Russo/ Evan Buckley)

Series: 911 First Kiss Week

Rating: Teen

Summary: Lately, Josh has been celebrating every single ridiculous holiday. It started with Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Day and has quickly progressed into multiple holidays being celebrated each week. Buck finds himself going along with each celebration, until National Fried Chicken Day.

Buck has ideas about which holiday he’d like to celebrate with Josh instead.

Read it on AO3

@nurse-buckley thanks for the beta, love!

*

“I’m here! Dinner can begin,” Buck announced once he stepped inside Maddie and Chim’s, ignoring the way that Maddie rolled her eyes as he made his way past her.

“Contrary to what you might think, we weren’t waiting on you to start dinner,” Maddie said.

“Ouch, you wound me.” Buck pouted, holding a hand to his heart as he spotted Chimney on the couch with Jee-Yun. “Thankfully there is at least one person here that’s happy to see me.”

“She’s too little to know better, Buck.” Chim waited until Buck took Jee-Yun from his arms before joining Maddie in the kitchen, and Buck trailed behind them.

“Jee loves her Uncle Buck.” Chim smirked at Maddie and she let out a small laugh, then opened the oven to check on the chicken. Buck frowned at their obvious teasing before looking down at his niece. “Don’t you, sweetheart?” She cooed up at him, and Buck smiled at her.

“I honestly don’t know how either one of you gets anything done with this adorable little face to look at.”

When neither one of them responded, Buck looked up and found both of them watching him.

“What?” Buck asked with a pinched brow.

Chimney grinned. “She has you wrapped around her finger already.”

Buck rolled his eyes, then spotted several pies on the kitchen island. “Um, Jee hitting the sweets already?”

“No, those would be courtesy of Josh. Didn’t you hear that he has been celebrating everything lately?”

Buck pressed his lips together. “What do you mean by everything, Mads?”

“It started with Applesauce Cake Day, then the other day was Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Day. He made half a dozen for dispatch, and we only finished two of them. If you couldn’t tell that already by the number of pies that are on the counter, I brought the leftovers home… and you’re not even seeing the one that Chim polished off last night.”

“Well, I’m not gonna complain because they’re delicious,” Chim commented, as he finished preparing the salad.

“Maybe, but it’s also the reason that dinner tonight is so vegetable heavy. He should be celebrating National Vegetable Day instead.”

A short while later they finished up dinner, and Buck was helping Chim with the dishes, while Maddie got Jee-Yun ready for bed, feeding her in the living room.

“So, do you know if Josh is joining us later?” Buck asked casually, wiping down the plate.

Chimney tilted his head to the side a little to look at Buck more completely, holding another dripping plate. “Any particular reason you ask?” Buck shrugged, trying to go for casually interested but knowing he’d been utterly failing at it lately.

“I just wasn’t sure if I was going to be taking just your money, or his too.”

“You won’t be taking anyone’s money, because we know if Maddie is playing that she’s going to slaughter us all.” Buck laughed, knowing that Chimney was right, as he added the plate to the pile on the counter. “And to answer your question, he said he’d be over around 8, so you’ve got 5 minutes, give or take.”

Josh arrived a few minutes later, and Maddie met him at the door before leading him inside. Jee-Yun had already been put to bed, much to Josh’s disappointment. “I can’t believe you put her to bed before I got here.”

“Well next time get here earlier,” Maddie said with a roll of her eyes.

“I was busy, Maddie.”

Buck couldn’t help the teasing smile that spread across his face. “Were you baking more pies?”

“No,” Josh said, “it’s not Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Day anymore.” He raised an eyebrow.

“So you’re saying if we finish these off that you’re not going to make more?” Chim asked.

“That is exactly what I’m saying,” Josh replied with a laugh.

“Sorry, Chim.” Buck glanced over at his brother-in-law who sat beside him at the table, pouting. “I tried.”

“Howie!” Maddie scolded, smacking his arm lightly with exasperation. “I swear I’m going to make Buck take all of the leftovers to his place.”

And if Josh made them, Buck really wouldn’t mind.

*

Buck walked into Josh’s house and was immediately hit with the overwhelming aroma of coconut. Josh had been planning to host a spa day at his place for a week now, with both Buck and Maddie coming over to reap the benefits of yet another celebration day, but Buck hadn’t been prepared to be hit by a wall of coconut.

Buck hated coconut, the smell and taste of it— but even more than that, the texture of shredded coconut was enough to gag about. Thankfully he was just there for a spa day, so he wouldn’t need to worry about that at least.

“I, uh, brought over some sliced cucumbers, even though Maddie said you didn’t need anything for today. She always uses these when she does a mask.”

“Too bad she won’t be here to benefit from them,” Josh said ruefully, to which Buck raised his eyebrow. “She had to bail, said Chimney had to work, and Jee had an appointment that she couldn’t miss.”

“She—” is a liar, Buck finished in his head, fighting off a frown. What the hell? “She’s really gonna miss out, huh?”

“Yeah, I mean I really catered today around things I know Maddie likes, but…” Josh trailed off with a sheepish smile and shrugged. “I hope it’s not a total waste.”

“I’m sure everything is perfect.” Buck paused, glancing around to see if he could tell what Josh had set up. “So I smell coconut, what is that from?”

“Everything,” Josh answered with a laugh. “It’s National Coconut Day. So naturally, we’re celebrating with everything coconut. Follow me.”

Coconut. Everything.

He was going to kill Maddie.

“I just finished making some pina coladas if you want one?” Josh offered, adding a pineapple wedge to the rim of two glasses before holding one out to Buck.

“A little fancier than my usual beer, but I think I can be a little adventurous today.” Buck chuckled, taking the drink from Josh’s outstretched hand. He ignored the jolt that he felt when Josh’s fingers brushed against his. “Thank you.”

Josh grabbed a drink of his own before casting a glance in Buck’s direction. “I don’t think that being adventurous is really a stretch for you.” Josh paused, then added. “I seem to remember more than one rescue, particularly the ones that Maddie was freaking out about because they were risky.”

Buck shrugged his shoulders, wearing a sheepish smile as he followed Josh towards the living room. “That’s my job.”

Josh laughed, sitting down on the couch and shifting his body so that he was angled towards Buck. “So are you saying that it’s more adventurous for you to drink a pina colada than to rush into a burning building, or rappelling off the side of a cliff?”

Buck laughed lightly, feeling his cheeks warm, while his mind was on an endless loop of I hate coconut. Maybe it hadn’t exactly been adventurous of Buck to drink the pina colada, but for the effort that Josh had put into the day, he couldn’t let him down by telling him he hated everything coconut. He brought the drink up to his lips, taking a small sip before answering, trying not to react to the sudden taste flooding his tongue.

“Jumping into action at the scene when someone needs to be saved, that’s just instinct kicking in,” Buck explained, setting his glass on the coffee table, letting his gaze settle on Josh.

“That’s because you’re a hero,” Josh stated, setting his own glass down. “And heroes deserve to be pampered.”

“Josh, I’m not a hero,” he argued.

“I seem to remember watching you, trapped under a fire rig just doing your job and responding to a call, then in the months that followed you fought with everything you had to get back out there. Saved hundreds of people when you were off-duty during the tsunami. I could go on,” Josh said, “if you want.”

“Um,” Buck cleared his throat, running a hand over the back of his neck as Josh explained why he thought Buck was a hero. He shook his head a little. “That won’t be necessary.”

“In that case, I’ll be right back. Make yourself at home.”

Buck tried not to let his mind linger too long on how the atmosphere at Josh’s felt different today, more intimate without Maddie’s presence. She was always there, as a buffer, keeping Buck from making a fool of himself in front of Josh. Yet today, there was nobody to save Buck from himself.

Josh came back a few minutes later, setting a round container on the table and the sliced cucumber beside them. He told Buck to go wash his face before they got started, and when Buck returned, Josh set a pillow on the couch.

“Lay down,” Josh instructed.

Buck hesitated for a moment before laying down, resting his head on the pillow. “You know, we could do yours first—I know this is more your thing with Maddie, and I—”

“Anybody ever tell you that you’re argumentative?” Josh looked down at him, mouth turned up in amusement.

Buck rolled his eyes, watching as Josh grabbed the pouffe to sit on, his expression turning more focused as he moved the coffee table closer, making sure that what he needed was in reach. “Usually they just tell me I’m a terrible listener.”

“Close your eyes and relax.” Buck hesitated as he looked up at Josh, watching as Josh’s smile turned into a grin. “You know, they’re not wrong.”

“You always invite guys over and then call them argumentative and bad listeners?” Buck asked, finally closing his eyes.

“And they say I’m the dramatic one,” Josh teased. Buck heard him shuffle around on the table, then a moment later Josh’s voice again. “I’m going to put a warm washcloth on your face first. Just relax with it for a minute.”

The heat from the washcloth felt soothing against his skin, and Buck felt himself relaxing more, despite how this afternoon came to be just him and Josh having a spa day at home. Josh’s fingers brushed against his forehead a minute later, removing the cooling washcloth from his skin.

“So, what’s your skin regimen like anyway?”

“Uh,” Buck laughed softly. “Usually just soap and water. I don’t really have a skin regimen.”

“Well that’s offensive.” Josh’s eyes widened comically as he looked down at Buck. “First of all, that’s so bad for your skin, especially given that you deal with smoke exposure on a regular basis, not to mention the sweat. Second of all, it looks like you take great care of your skin… which is unfair, given that you absolutely do not.”

“Are you going to convert me into a skin care enthusiast?”

“I see that sarcasm is definitely a Buckley family trait.” Josh glared at him playfully. “I’m going to apply the mask now. It’s just avocado, coconut oil and some nutmeg. It’s supposed to be great for anti-aging and really moisturizing, not that your naturally flawless skin needs it.” Josh’s gaze flickered away from his, grabbing the container from the table, collecting the paste onto a brush before moving closer.

“I was really not expecting a green mask. You’re going to make me look like Maddie all those times I teased her when we were growing up,” Buck said.

Josh laughed, beginning to spread it over Buck’s skin, making Buck close his eyes again. It only took a minute before Buck’s face was thoroughly covered and Josh moved away with the container.

“Just relax for about fifteen minutes, and then we’ll get you cleaned up,” Josh said. He returned a few seconds later, setting something cool over each of his eyes, which Buck could only assume were the cucumbers.

Buck became more conscious of his breathing as the minutes passed by, the quiet of Josh’s home surrounding him. “15 minutes up yet?” Buck mumbled, not even sure if Josh was still in the room.

“Uh, just about,” Josh answered. “I’ll get you cleaned up in just another minute.” There was another stretch of silence until Buck heard the shutter of a camera, quickly followed by rapid tapping.

“Josh?”

“Just a second, Buck.”

“Josh, what are you—” Buck removed the cucumbers from over his eyes, finding Josh standing not too far away with a mischievous smile on his face. “You can’t take a picture of me like this.” Buck gaped at him.

“I mean, I already did,” Josh said with a little laugh that lit up his entire face. “And I might have accidentally sent it to your sister.”

“Accidentally?”

“Maybe intentionally.”

“You have no idea what you’ve done. I’m never going to hear the end of this. She’s going to show Chimney, and it’ll circulate around the firehouse. Hell, Chim and Hen will probably blow up the picture and post it all around the station,” Buck finished dramatically, groaning as he sat back.

Josh smirked but didn’t say anything else, although his expression made it clear that he had plenty to say. He tapped out another response on his phone before he slipped the phone into his back pocket.

“We should go get your mask cleaned off, before your face is stuck like that permanently.” Buck’s hand shot up to his face and touched the mask, and Josh snorted at the appalled expression on Buck’s face.

“You know, I think my sister has influenced you way too much for your own good.” Buck followed Josh towards the bathroom, stepping into the room and turning on the warm water. Josh grabbed a clean washcloth and handed it to him. Josh disappeared from the doorway, leaving Buck to clean the thick green mask from his face.

Buck looked at his reflection and grimaced. “I can’t believe there’s a picture of me like this floating around,” he muttered. He tried to clean the mask off of his face and to not make a mess but this was… way messier than Buck expected. “Oh my god.” Green sludge covered the sink and the counter, and it was dripping off of Buck’s face like something out of a horror movie.

“Buck? You doing alright, you’ve been in here for—” Josh’s voice broke off with laughter. “Oh… wow. What is happening here? You—wow. This is a sight.”

“You keep saying that,” Buck said, cutting a glare in his direction, resulting in a green-tinted water dripping onto the counter.

“You are a disaster, Buck. Sit down.” Josh laughed, directing him away from his position in front of the mirror until he was sitting on the closed toilet lid. Josh grabbed a hand towel to wipe at the excess water dripping from Buck’s chin, first. Josh cupped Buck’s chin, gently tilting it until he was looking up at him. Buck swallowed hard as they held each other’s gaze, and the laughter disappeared from the room, replaced instead by a tension that Buck couldn’t quite explain, but made his heart race.

Josh took his time, patting off what was wet enough to wipe from Buck’s face. He worked silently for a few minutes, stopping to rinse off the wash cloth with warm water every so often before focusing his attention on cleaning Buck’s face.

“You know I could do this myself, Josh, I—”

“I don’t mind,” Josh said softly, and tossed the dirty washcloth in the sink before grabbing the clean hand towel he’d laid out before. “Let me just make sure we’ve got it all.”

Buck couldn’t find it in him to look away, mesmerized by Josh’s focus as he cradled Buck’s face, then the way he gently tilted it to the side from where he held Buck’s chin.

“Ah, missed a spot,” Josh said.

The feeling of the warm washcloth being wiped across his brow made his eyes flutter closed. Without his vision, Buck felt like he was suddenly more aware of everything else. The way that Josh smelled, and the fact that Buck could reach out and wrap his arms around the other man due to their closeness. Josh’s fingers still gripped Buck’s chin, moving the towel lightly over Buck’s skin, and dried off the last remnants of water.

“Think we got it all,” Josh whispered into the deafening quiet.

Blinking his eyes back open, he caught Josh’s gaze when they opened. Josh smiled at him, then his eyes settled on the spot just above Buck’s eye, rubbing his thumb over the skin there . In the past, Buck had been self conscious about his birthmark, hating how it made him stand out. But at that moment, as Josh studied it with such intent, Buck was glad to have it. Josh brushed his thumb over the skin a few more times, until their eyes met again. It’s like something clicked into place at the moment their eyes met, yanking Josh out of the intimacy of the moment, his jaw dropping open the tiniest bit as he took a small step back, putting some space between them.

“Well, your skin is perfectly soft now.” Buck forced himself not to frown at the loss of Josh’s touch, his stomach twisting as he fought the desire to reach out and tug Josh closer. “Not that it wasn’t before,” Josh added.

“Thank you for that experience. And for, uh, helping with the clean up,” Buck said. He stood up from where he was seated. “Definitely went above and beyond.”

“It was my pleasure,” he said.

“Well, now it’s my turn to return the favor.” Buck smiled at Josh, trying not to let the way that Josh made him feel when he cradled his face and studied his birthmark like it was some work of art. “But I can’t promise it won’t be an even bigger mess.”

Josh laughed, and the tension between them that had been there for only a few moments dissipated. “I’d expect no less.”

*

After National Coconut Day, things felt different between Josh and Buck, like somehow their relationship was no longer held together by Maddie. They began to talk regularly as the days passed, they texted and made plans to get together soon. Josh, of course, had another celebration day in mind—and after how the last one had turned out, Buck couldn’t find it in him to necessarily discourage it.

Until he’d learned that it was another food-centered celebration: National Fried Chicken Day. Josh was very invested, sending Buck links to different food blogs and recipes that he’d found on Pinterest to try: a classic southern fried chicken, buttermilk fried chicken, and even a KFC copycat recipe.

The intimacy of their home spa day played on repeat in Buck’s mind, the moment when Josh had cleaned Buck’s face, brushing his thumb tenderly over Buck’s birthmark. He’d thought Josh was going to kiss him, had even hoped that he would. In the minutes that stretched on afterwards, he’d felt disappointed, but shoved that feeling aside to unpack another day. And Buck had decided that maybe today was that day.

Buck sighed, looking at himself in the mirror one last time. He opted for a casual shirt and jeans since it was meant to be a low-key celebration, and grabbed his keys off of the counter on his way out.

Within twenty minutes he arrived at Josh’s door. Josh opened the door in an apron, which was certainly a look. “You’re just on time. I was about ready to get started.”

Buck smiled as he followed Josh inside, back towards the kitchen. He watched as Josh set a pan on the front burner of the stove, then moved fluidly to grab the bottle of the oil.

Now or never, Buckley.

“Step away from the oil, Josh,” Buck said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“What? How am I going to make fried chicken without the oil?” Josh turned his head to look at Buck, who had moved closer now, standing beside him next to the stove.

“You’re not.”

“Buck,” Josh drew his name out slowly, thankfully having not yet turned on the burner, his full attention now on Buck. “We’re here to celebrate National Fried Chicken Day—”

“But your arteries are pleading with you to not do that,” Buck explained. “We could celebrate something else today.”

Josh frowned at Buck’s words. “Like what? You couldn’t have mentioned this days ago? What could we possibly celebrate that we just happen to have everything for?”

Buck trapped his bottom lip between his teeth, then dared to catch Josh’s gaze again. “It’s International Kissing Day.” Of course the only reason Buck wanted to celebrate that with Josh was for the betterment of his health.

“…and how would we celebrate that?”

“The only logical way that I could come up with is that we could kiss.”

A nervous laugh shook out of Josh, and a flush colored his cheeks. “Buck, I’m not going to let you kiss me just because you don’t want me clogging my arteries.”

“Well,” Buck swallowed past the nervous anxiety bubbling in his chest. “What about letting me kiss you because I like you, and this is all just a poorly crafted excuse to kiss you, masked as concern for your arteries?”

Josh’s eyes flickered to Buck’s lips, then back up to his eyes. “I-I think I’d be okay with it, if that were the case,” Josh whispered.

The corners of Buck’s pulled up into a smile, though his heart didn’t stop racing. “That’s good to hear,” Buck murmured, stepping forward to close in the little bit of space between them. He reached out, cupping Josh’s cheek as he looked down into his face. “Because I was really hoping that was what you would say.”

Buck leaned in as Josh’s eyes fluttered closed, and their noses barely brushed as he pressed his lips to Josh’s. The kiss was soft and sweet, like Josh, not frantic or urgent, and the tenderness made Buck’s heart swell. Josh’s hands ghosted against Buck’s sides before they settled at his waist. Finally, Buck dropped his hand away from Josh’s jaw, studying his features when he did.

“I hope that was okay,” Buck whispered, not able to tear his gaze away, as he cringed at his words.

“It was great, but…”

“But?” Buck asked.

“But I don’t think you can classify one kiss as a celebration,” Josh explained, a smile tugging at his lips.

“It would be like celebrating Strawberry Rhubarb Pie day with only one pie.”

“A travesty,” he murmured, sliding a hand to the back of Buck’s neck, pulling him back in for another kiss.

Buck decided, maybe he wouldn’t kill Maddie after all.

[buddiewho]

What’s it to you?

*Long post ahead

There is something on my mind. It’s called Occam’s Razor. The definition I know is, or rather the interpretation in my head is, it’s a gray area, a fine line. So for example, when it comes to Buck and Eddie, I do believe they play right on the Occam’s Razor. The fact that they could be this or they could be that, riding that fine line, which one is true? 

Picture this and imagine you’re seeing jealous Buck:

Option 1: Jealous Buck idea pushes the razor to the more romantic, buried feelings thing we Buddie clowns are thinking about. 

Option 2: If you don't view it that way, you could then simply see Buck maybe panicking because of his abandonment issues. For example, Buck’s reaction face becomes more like heyo Eddie doesn’t just get to so easily partner off with another firefighter outside the 118 like that [in this case being him or Hen as Eddie’s only option Buck accepts] until they finally ease into helping the 126 with these fires, Buck himself even. 

Option 3: We’re speculating our asses off no matter if you believe in option 1 and/or 2, and we do not yet know what’s going on in this scene...

Therefore we’re split down the razor’s edge. Then I also think of this video. The fact that Buck and Eddie fall under the “just let the bromos be homos?” category. They have the cooked up potential for something more and not to just remain a “healthy male friendship.” When we have proper queer representation in combination with “healthy male friendship” then we can talk about the latter. I’m trying to rack my brain for healthy male friendships, but I come back to that video and the laundry list of mlm couples in the just let the bromos be homos category. My brain wanted to say FinnPoe from Star Wars as a healthy male friendship, but then that’s still part of the same category and all I can hear is Oscar Isaac praising the notion that these two characters could be falling in love during wartime...but apparently Disney/the world isn’t ready for that...? 

The problem is I cannot think of any representation for healthy male friendships. I keep thinking Shawn Spencer and Burton “Gus” Guster from Psych, but even then there were definite issues surrounding their friendship...if you watched that show. Now, with that show I did believe that Shawn Spencer is bisexual, but I don't headcanon that his awakening happened with Gus. It just happened and he’s known about it for most of his life (like since 18 probably) and Gus knows it too. But again it’s never explicitly made so, it’s always hinted at though. Also, don't get started on Teen Wolf if you’re thinking about that one. I don't pay any attention and maybe it’s because I may not be seeking it out...but I cannot think of a single thing I’ve watched with healthy friendships, save for perhaps in Thor Ragnarok the trio that is Hulk/Banner, Thor and Valkyrie when they’re not fighting each other. Though, there is the case of Gary and Miranda in the BBC show called Miranda. They could’ve had a good run as just friends, but clearly it wasn’t unheard of to think of a hetero pairing starting off as just friends to become more, obvi. Back to 911...

As we teeter this Occam’s Razor, all I ask for is explicit admittance from Buck that he is bisexual. Just for him to say it to close friends and family.  For him to feel okay with the fact that he likes boys too. So yes, he has little or no experience, but he can’t help but feel attracted to men as well. Banking on the South America exploration/runaway to expound on this some more. That yes, Buck has known about his bisexuality and does know how he truly feels, but for whatever reasons he’s not ready to show/tell those true feelings to anyone else. For whatever reasons he had to build/hide behind the chaotic sex addicted punk persona that he named Buck 1.0. 

I also don't believe that everything needs to be boxed into a corner. 911 was the show that sparked a procedural TV drama to life and thus it created 911 Lonestar as a way to probably showcase a different state and how they handle these emergencies/fires. Who the hell knows, perhaps it’s just for more money? It’s just I don't think it’s a matter of 911 is the mostly “hetero show” whereas 911 Lonestar is “the show for the gays” because it has the canon gay couple. Well, for the record 911 also has a canon lesbian/gay couple; Hen and Karen. What I mean to say is that irl there are LGBT+ folk everywhere, therefore more of them can appear as characters in 911, or even in Lonestar as well. LGBT+ people live in CA and TX; sometimes 911 did the peripheral gay couples who found themselves caught in an emergency situation (the boy with the crush outside the coffee shop, that couple in which one of them had tapeworm and Buck nonchalantly just yanked that thing out...and then of course the older couple who were so graciously paralleled to Buck…). Oh, you can’t forget Josh in 911, who also seemingly thought Maddie was once setting him up with Buck. Also note it wasn’t written as Buck denying Josh on that thought. He just ran with it, no qualms, and we didn’t have some unnecessary “no homo” backlash which leaves room for us to say wait, a gosh darn minute? Are we still leaving room for Buck figuring something out and/or coming closer to accepting himself? Ps. It also wasn’t written for Maddie to decline the notion either. She of course jokingly said her brother wasn’t good enough for Josh and honestly, I think we got {Oliver playing} Buck as a bit offended by Maddie doing that. 

Buck is also a double edged sword. So is Eddie. You have two men presented as so strong, so masculine that the instant it’s thought they might like men, it’s damaging to their masculinity somehow. That’s called toxic masculinity which is something Buck and even Eddie occasionally fall into. I think they’ve definitely grown out of that with the help of others and each other even, but I think this is why us crazy shippers wanting Buddie and/or Buck revealed as bisexual is so jarring to others- Toxic masculinity? Fragility? The fact that if men like Buck and Eddie are viewed to be gay/bi then it hurts this notion of what it means to be a strong man. But let’s box it into a corner because 911 Lonestar is the gay show and thus we think less of the characters TK and Carlos because they are gay- not all equivalent in strength to the “healthy male friendship” that is Buck and Eddie? When in fact the four of these characters have similarities? TK and Buck are so very reckless, dive in no questions asked kind of thing and it seems to me that Eddie and Carlos would be the take orders kind of men. They will fall in line with the occasional reckless decision...so therefore they have more similarities than just the four of them belonging to the LGBT+ community...or regardless of if they do all belong in that community together- the whole point is that in real life the Buck and Eddie dynamic of a friendship (or the possibility of something more, as one or both characters coming to terms with their sexuality) exists in the same world with relationships that are similar to TK and Carlos’. So the two supposed bromos (just friends) exist in the same world as the homos...therefore unboxing the shows from their corners entirely.

Another thing that I think this thing around Buck is falling prey to, is that bi guys are just faking it. It’s one stop on the way to figuring out that “they’re actually just gay.” Except no that’s not the case with bisexuality. For some people, it could be, but from what I see with Buck it’s not that at all. He’s bisexual, that’s that. 

Also, most everyone thinks those who ship Buddie want Buck revealed as bisexual to only be with Eddie and to see two sexy men get it on. Honestly, 911 Lonestar did provide sufficiently with that, because them TK and Carlos scenes are downright drool worthy, but that’s not all I came for. Anyway, I clocked Buck as possibly bi in season 1- the full moon ep, where yes he’s getting closer to Abby, but damn does he get on well with that gay guy who had tapeworm. Well, shit. Then after Eddie’s introduction they go on to parallel Buck to that older gay couple...anyhow, it’s just why keep putting Buck in a queer space and then not run with that? Yes, sure there are strong straight allies to the LGBT+ community, but Buck doesn’t read heterosexual ally to me, it feels more like the LGBT+ community is where he belongs. I’d say Eddie Diaz belongs there too, but he’s like a mystery on this front. I think he understands his feelings/attractions towards men and he’d respond like yeah, sure, they’ve been there, but I haven’t done shit about them and I haven’t labelled them [gay/bi]. What’s it to you? And if eventually this involved Buck, he’d be like yeah, so I’m head over heels for that smart and lovable reckless idiot, what else do you want me to say?

[haddonfieldproject]

1.1.2 HALLOWEEN NIGHT, SAME TIME

<<PREVIOUS ⏺ <<CONTENTS>>

2️⃣

Haddonfield, Illinois

Chelsea Keane heard a noise downstairs. She was pretty sure it was a door slam, although it was so far away in this big huge house that it was hard to tell. She took one more long pull off of the joint and stubbed out the roach in the ashtray that sat on the little wicker table in front of her. Beside the little ceramic disc decorated in scenes of Tijuana—now covered in soot, and the remains of her joint, sat her purse. It was a bag really, one of those reusable shopping bags from McNary’s Supermarket, covered in floral prints and little orange and yellow suns, birds, and bees, and little green leafy vines that formed letters which read: Earth Day 2014.

Chelsea rummaged in the bag, around tampons and makeup cases, the occasional lipstick, chapstick, selfie-stick, and ladies speedstick and found what she was looking for. A stick of Wrigley’s Gum. She unwrapped the foil, popped the piece in her mouth, balled the wrapper up between her fingers into a nice neat silver ball, and flicked it across the space in front of her where it landed between a hot water heater and the Centra-Vac system.

She returned to her purse, retrieving a small glass cylinder bottle of Dimension, the new perfume by Jennifer Love Hewitt, and bathing herself in the baby powdery aroma, thinking to herself of a Halloween, perhaps almost twenty years previous, when she had sat on this very couch and watched the actress run screaming across a square-shaped television screen while being stalked by a hooded man with a hook for an arm. Chelsea brought a DVD case out of her purse/bag. Ripe Blood. She turned it over and looked at the screenshots on the back…and the rating. Rated R for Graphic Violence.

Haven’t come much far sense my VHS copy of I Know What You Did Last Summer, she thought. Well, at least the picture quality would be better.

Hell..it’d be a lot better.

Ellen had her own theater.

Complete with a fifteen foot by nine foot screen, reclining seats, surround sound, and even a little kitchenette to nuke some popcorn and retrieve a few ice cold pops.

Lifestyles of the rich and famous, she mused.

Well, definitely rich, but only famous if you’re into watching people have sex on camera.

And there were plenty of people who were, and they paid good money for it.

What can you say? Sex sells.

And didn’t Chelsea know it too. Hell, if she hadn’t let Zeke Yates knock her up in the VIP room almost eighteen years ago, she’d probably be doing just as good as Ellen.

Well…probably not.

Chelsea tossed the DVD case back in her purse/bag and stepped toward the door at the far end of the room, careful to stay on the plywood flooring that designated Ellen’s “Smoking Loft” from the rest of the attic.

Ellen had been the smartest girl Chelsea had ever known. Chelsea presumed she would have ended up like her older sister Deborah, who also got her start in life as a dancer at the Rabbit-in-Red, although, perhaps not quite like Deborah. She didn’t see her son turning into a psychopath anytime soon and she didn’t see herself blowing her head off in the forseeable future either. Like her sister Deborah however, who was actually her half-sister, and nearly twenty years older than her, she had commited the Cardinal Sin of the biz.

“Don’t lapse on your birth control,” Deborah had told the young Chelsea and Ellen as they stood behind her on their first day at work, watching her attach fake lashes in the dingy mirror in the back haunts of the Rabbit-in-Red. “Better yet..don’t fuck the customers at all. VIP is for dancing, not fucking.”

She had pointed a picture of her kids, taped to the mirror then. “See those.”

The girls had nodded nervously.

“That’s what I got for fucking a customer.”

Chelsea had made the mistake, which hadn’t been such a big mistake afterall. She of course was quite fond of her son Joshua, but it was safe to say that the nine and a half pound baby had tanked her stripping career and any possibility of moving into the Adult Film Industry. Chelsea had packed on over a hundred pounds during her pregnancy, and post-baby had only been able to shake twenty of it. So she had settled down with Josh’s father, gotten married, enrolled in Illinois Central College, and got her bachelors degree in Communications.

Lou Martini, the owner of Rabbit-in-Red industries had hired her back—as an editor. That, combined with the few bucks her husband Whitey made around town doing the odd handyman job here and there had afforded them a decent life, with a decent house, another child, a beautiful daughter, and an overall pretty damn fine life for herself.

Chelsea stepped out unto the landing and pulled the door shut to the attic behind her and then descended the stairs toward the common room on the third floor. There was a white leather couch and a coffee table. A mini bar sat in the corner of the room with liquor that probably hadn’t been touched in years and a few pieces of modern art on skimpy end tables that probably hadn’t been properly looked at or analyzed in the same amount of time. The room was just for show, just like a giant, lifesize poster on the wall behind a thirty inch flatscreen VIZIO. Ellen in a bikini too small for her surgically enhanced breasts, sprawled on some exotic beach, sand on her knees and elbows.

Ellen was smart.

🎃

“So who is this person?” Penny Cornell asked, popping her bubble gum loudly before she spoke.

Josh looked at her in the soft light of the poolhouse. She was dressed as Velma from Scooby Doo, and he had gone as Fred, only they hadn’t bothered to get wigs or color their hair, so she ended up being a blonde Velma and he ended up being a Fred with black hair, which, in actuality totally ruined the ensemble and had in fact led to many of their peers on the streets that night during their Trick-Or-Treating run to ask, “So..what are you guys again?”

While Josh searched the cabinets in the pool house kitchenette for a proper shot glass for the Captain Morgan he had stowed away, from a mini bar that saw quite a bit more action than the one on the third floor of the main house, Penny circled the Pool Table, the stained glass lamp casting bright and blazing hues on the side of her face as she looked at the pictures on the walls.

Plenty of pictures of a certain blonde woman in lingerie. Some in a bathing suit. Some wearing nothing at all but a properly placed palm frond, or towel, in one, the handlebars of a motorcycle. Many had the blonde woman with various celebrities. Kid Rock, holding her by the waist, holding a cigar and smiling. There was one with Charlie Sheen, another with Myley Cyrus, and an older one, faded a little, starting to yellow, with future President of the United States Donald Trump. Penny’s face as she beheld these pictures was expressionless, her unassuming eyes taking it all in like a pediatrician examining the X-Ray of a kid who just broke his arm in two places.

“She’s known as Misty Dawn.” Josh said, finding a suitable shotglass, this one featuring the skyline of Charlotte, North Carolina. “She works for Rabbit-in-Red Industries. She’s a model.”

“I can see that,” Penny said, popping her gum again. Her eyes didn’t deviate from the pictures.

“She’s been in some movies too.” Josh added, unscrewing the top of the rum, “X-rated movies. Also done some webcam and stuff.”

Penny sighed and leaned against the pool table. “I see.” She said yawning, her pink wad of bubble gum visible in the corner of her mouth. “Porn must pay pretty well to have all this.” She said, waving her hand across the room to indicate that by “this” she meant this particular poolhouse as well as the mansion and the grounds beyond.

Josh poured a shot and held it out to her. “She’s kind of a star.”

Penny grunted and took the shot glass. She downed it, winced, coughed, and held it back to him. “And your mom knows her from work?”

Josh took the glass and poured another shot. “She and my mom grew up together. They were best friends in high school. Her real name is Ellen.”

Josh took the shot. He also winced and coughed.

The sound of heavy metal filled the room.

It was Josh’s ringtone for his cellphone. He pulled it from his pocket, looked at it, and then looked at Penny frowning. “It’s my mom.” He said and hit the green button on the screen.

“Yeah?”

Penny pulled her own phone out to look at it. Josh replaced the cap on the Captain Morgan and went about replacing the bottle into the minibar and the shotglass into the cabinet from whence it came.

“We are back mom,” Josh was saying, “Penny and I are outside. You probably heard Maddie, Dylan, and Cammie come in.”

Josh rounded the bar and took his girlfriend’s hand, pulling her toward the sliding glass door that led to the pool deck.

“Yeah mom, we’re coming right now.”

He hung up the phone and slid the door shut behind them. Penny was looking at the pool and the adjacent spa.

“I wanna get in that hot tub.”

Josh put a hand on her butt. “I wanna get in there with you.” He smiled wryly.

“Shoot, it’s hot enough to get in the regular pool.” She said as they started toward the main house.

“You’re telling the truth.” Josh replied.

🔪

“You’re gonna fall and bust your head if you don’t stop running around with that sword!” Cammie Cornell, age eight, dressed like a bumble-bee, complete with clip on wings, said, standing cross armed on the hearth.

Dylan Rawls, age thirteen and dressed like a ninja, was chasing little Maddie Keane, age five, dressed as Princess Elsa from the animated Disney film Frozen. Dylan had a plastic sword and was waving it at Maddie as she ran away from him in a circle, laughing and screaming and all the while making motions with her hands in an effort to use her “powers” to freeze Dylan in ice like her character would have been able to do in the movies.

Dylan, despite having already started puberty, was not a very mature boy. This could have been due to a lack of attention given to him by his mother, or as some psuedo-scientists would have suggested, it could have been due to a diet high in processed foods and high fructose corn syrup. His mother had never had him tested for mental defficiencies, mostly due to a nagging worry that he would fail the thing. Dylan wasn’t mentally challenged, that wasn’t quite right. He had been tested for and diagnosed as ADHD by the time he was seven, but then again so many kids were and his mother hadn’t really believed in it or the medication that was supposed to, and probably would have, helped her son. Dylan was in ways a very bright child, better at all the household electronic devices than his own mother, but in other was he was just plain immature. Chasing around a five year old in a living room with a plastic sword dressed as a Ninja after acne was beginning to pop out on his face and sprouts of hair was beginning to pop out on his balls was just case in point.

Dylan stopped and glared at Cammie, about to display another example of his immaturity.

“Don’t tell me what to do, this is my house.” He said between panting breaths.

Maddie stopped and collapsed into the brown leather sofa that faced the fireplace. Her face was red and her breath was heavy, but the smile didn’t leave her little face, nor the brightness in her little brown eyes.

“Aren’t you a little old to be playing like that?” Cammie shot back.

Dylan was about to reply when they all heard a voice from behind them.

“Cammie! Get down from there.”

It was Chelsea, she was descending the stairs holding her cellphone in her hand.

“Maddie, off the furniture please.” She said.

“Yeah Cammie, get down!” Dylan added.

Cammie jumped down from the hearth and stuck her tongue out at Dylan. He returned the gesture.

“Where is all your candy?” Chelsea asked.

“We put it on the stove.” Dylan said, pointing toward the open kitchen with his sword.

“I see.” Chelsea said, her eyes beholding the three large hulking pillowcases.

“They got quite the big haul didn’t they.”

It was the voice of Josh. He and Penny entered the room from the opposite side.

“They certainly look like they made out.” Chelsea said, placing her cellphone in her pocket. She reached into her purse/bag and took out the DVD case and held it out for her son.

Josh snatched it up. “No way! Ripe Blood!? It hasn’t even stopped running in the theaters yet.”

Chelsea smiled, “The Rabbit uses the same packaging and distribution company as the company who made the film..Danger—something or other..”

“Dangertainment.” Josh corrected and passed the case to Penny who looked interested.

“Right,” Chelsea said, putting her purse/bag on the stove next to the three pillowcases full of candy. “Well they give all their clients some freebees as promotional items. That arrived this morning.”

“Are we gonna watch it?” Josh asked, eyes wide and bright.

“You better your ass we are,” Chelsea answered.

“In the theater upstairs?” Josh asked.

“Um…yeah.” answered Chelsea.

“I’m scared.” Penny frowned.

“You can’t be afraid of scary movies if you’re gonna date my son,” Chelsea said, “Joshua loves a good horror flick. He gets it from his mom.”

Josh hugged his mother. The sentiment surprised her, but she appreciated it.

“Can I watch it?” Dylan asked.

Chelsea shook her head. “It’s too scary for the younger kids Dylan. Why don’t you go upstairs and play with Maddie and Penny’s sister…” she looked to Penny, mind scrambling to remember the girl in the bee costume’s name.

“Cammie,” Penny corrected.

“That’s right, Cammie,” Chelsea continued, “until it’s time to go to bed.”

“You guys wanna see my playroom?” Dylan asked. “I have an Nintendo WiiU, a ballpit, a bouncy house, even some laser tag!”

“Yeah!” Maddie and Cammie replied in unison. The kids began to ascend the stairs.

Penny and Josh read the back of the DVD case together while Chelsea opened the fridge, looking over their snack options in regard to their theatre experience.

As Dylan, Maddie, and Cammie reached the top of the stairs, Maddie asked him.

“Can I take a turn at your Wii Dylan?”

Dylan looked back and smiled. “You can, but Cammie can’t!”

“Why not?” Cammie whined.

“I don’t let fat girls play!” Dylan replied, in another epic display of immaturity.

With their eyes on the DVD case, and her head in the fridge, Penny, Chelsea, and Josh didn’t notice or hear Cammie descend the stairs fighting back her tears and exit the front door of the home

NEXT>>

[fuhrmana]

An Incomplete List of Fics I’m Not Writing (Pt 2/?)

I would come up with a title based on Texas and LA (Slight AU, set around the time of the Halloween episode in s3)

Probably when Captain Strand was recruiting, Buck got an offer (c’mon, you know that Owen would have a soft spot for a man fighting to not let an illness keep him from firefighting)

Buck probably turned it down initially, because he was convinced that the lawsuit was going to work, and his family would accept him back with open arms

Then Buck gets back, and it’s off. Eddie’s closed off and mean, Bobby keeps punishing him, and Hen and Chimney keep making jokes that Buck doesn’t get, and that, that’s even worse than them being mad at him. He missed so much, and he feels so left out, and it’s hard to jump in and stay positive when the two feelings he gets from work are “begrudging hostility” and “you’re third wheeling on the greatest friendship in the house”

Buck starts worrying that the lawyer was right, and maybe he should have taken the money

That’s when Buck reaches out to Captain Strand and asks if he can come and formally interview

Buck usually thinks things through, but this time he’s pretty impulsive and he requests a week off 

(note, I don’t know how firefighter interviews go, but in this case he’s doing a few shifts with the team to see how they fit)

Bobby signs off on it

There would be panic from the 118 except they think he’s doing Spring Break in Texas and there is some good natured teasing going on in one of the group chats, not one Buck is a part of

(Well this got aggressively long)

Buck fits in even better than he thought he would

TK and Captain Strand’s respectful and loving Father/Son relationship is #goals af, and Buck basks in the reflected light of it

Marjan Marwani (who Buck has 10000% watched youtube videos of) is possibly the coolest firefighter Buck has ever met. They bond over videos of them doing amazing rescues, and no one at the 126 treats her like she’s an idiot for jumping into danger to save people

Meanwhile, Mateo is hanging with them, watching all of these videos, and Thriving. Buck is so happy to have someone who looks up to him? It’s what he thought he was going to get when Eddie joined as a probie

Paul looks at Buck for three minutes on the first day, and says seven insightful things about Buck

Buck frantically googles “are psychics real” on his phone 

Judd doesn’t know how he feels about Buck, but hell, he’s always liked dogs, and Buttercup and Buck are pretty similar 

Buck loves being liked, so he considers them fast friends by the end of the first shift 

TK and Buck bond over shared hospital trauma, and TK ends up taking Buck to the gay bar with Carlos and Paul

Paul looks at Buck while they’re in the car and says “I guess I’m the token straight again”

Buck blushes but does not deny it

Buck watches TK and Carlos a lot

It makes him. Think about. Things.

There is an ambiguous scene where Buck maybe goes home with someone

Buck goes on two more shifts

There are some funny calls

Some serious calls

And one call that makes local news 

And picked up by national news

Buck gets a pinged in the group chat about how funny it is that he has a lookalike in Texas

Austin Texas

Where he’s on vacation

Wait a minute that’s not a look alike

Buck why are you riding with the 126?

Buck leaves them on read 

Halfway through his final trial shift, Buck is drinking a coffee out of a truly magical device, when Marjan, Mateo and Paul drag him over to some couches, and shove him up next to Buttercup

Judd spots them across the firehouse and walks in another direction 

Owen and TK are at the chemo place

It’s kind of an intervention 

Buck has been pretty chatty about his current team, and they’re all confused as to why he’s thinking about leaving 

Marjan makes at least one joke about not wanting to share the spotlight with him

Buck tries to explain, but he’s stumbling over his words and he ends it with 

“You’ve known me for five days, but you asked me to explain myself. My team’s known me for years, and they would have told me what I was thinking. I’m worried I can’t. Grow with them. And that’s why I left Pennsylvania”. 

Buck looks stricken after he says this and gets up walks away

Paul sighs

“He’d be a good fit here, but I don’t think he’s going to accept the offer. 

At the end of the shift, Captain Strand says “we can make it work for you to join us, but I need an answer within a week.” 

Buck shakes his hand, tells Captain Strand that he’ll be letting him know as soon as he’d had a chance to talk to his family

This is mostly referring to Maddie, but...

Buck gets back to LA, and finally responds to all of the messages he’s gotten since the lookalike kerfuffle 

“Haha, yeah that was me. It’s kind of a funny story, I’ll tell you all tomorrow during the shift.”

He shoots a different text off to Maddie

Hey, can I see you? Just got back from the airport

He ends up at Maddie’s place, explaining how the whole week has been, and how he doesn’t want to abandon her in LA after she moved there for him, and that he feels stupid because he sued to get his job back and now he’s thinking about leaving, and probably both of them cry

Buck probably sleeps there (for old times sake)

In the morning, before he heads off to work, she stops him and says “Don’t stay for me. But see if you want to stay for yourself”

Buck goes into the firehouse, and Bobby does the breakdown of the day, and then looks at Buck and says “we’re all waiting to hear how you ended up helping the 126 during your vacation”

And Buck laughs nervously and says “Well, so I was actually doing a trial week with them” and there is a Ruckus 

Chim is upset because of Maddie, but also Buck

Eddie is furious because of Eddie reasons 

Bobby had kind of assumed it had to be something like that, but it Hurts to have it confirmed

Hen looks conflicted. She’s thought about leaving this job before, but never to transfer somewhere else, and she needs a minute to think it through 

Buck frowns and says “I really liked working with the 118, but they aren’t my family. I don’t want to leave another family, but I need to know that you all want me here too”

Bobby is starting to wonder if he should call out his whole team and do emergency therapy 

Buck is kind of hoping the bell will go off so it can end here

The bell does not go off

Bobby starts talking, but trails off before he finishes the sentence and restarts

“Athena told me I either had to let you do the job or go somewhere where you could. Buck, I want you here, and I’m sorry I haven’t shown it. I don’t think this can be fixed overnight, so maybe we should talk about your timeline

the bell rings right after this

Bobby gets dramatic timing better than Buck does

When they get back from the call, Buck and Bobby and the spirit of every sponsor and therapist the two of them have ever had have a conversation about what Buck needs at his job

And the fact that Bobby is willing to make a few concessions and admit that he was in the wrong about a few things

Buck leaves the office to find that the rest of the team has divvied up his time to talk through why exactly he was leaving and why he shouldn’t

Chim is blunt, Hen is supportive of whatever decision Buck needs to make and Eddie glares at Buck and tells him that they’re meeting at Eddie’s house after the shift

Buck wants to see Christopher, but he’s hoping that Eddie isn’t going to use Chris as the reason that Buck should stay 

Buck gets to Eddie’s house after shift, only to find out that Christopher isn’t... home that night

Buck is uneasy

Eddie sticks Buck on the couch, shoves a beer into Buck’s hand and starts pacing 

Eddie and Buck both aren’t great at words

Eddie starts and stops for an eternity (three minutes)

Finally Eddie sits on the couch, takes the beer he gave Buck, takes a swig and hands it back 

I have to stress, there is only one beer

Eddie got Buck one, but not himself

Eddie finally settles on a sentence 

“I finally started seeing a therapist”

Buck doesn’t say anything and neither does Buck

Eddie continues

“He thinks I’m projecting. Like I’m mad at you for what I was doing, and I think he’s right.”

Buck opens his mouth, but Eddie holds his hand up. 

“I want you to know that I don’t want you to leave, but I won’t be angry at you if you leave, and I’ll make sure we stay in contact.”

Eddie won’t be mad at Buck, he’ll finally get mad at the person who deserves it

(that’s himself, just fyi)

Buck very carefully takes a sip of the beer.

It doesn’t seem like Eddie has anything else to say, so Buck finally speaks

“I don’t think I’m leaving. I fought to come back to you for a reason. If we’re all ready to work towards each other, I’m not going to bail. 

There’s silence for a little longer. Buck hands the beer over to Eddie and continues. 

“I think it was good that I tried it though. I think I needed to see how other houses work to see what I should be asking for.”

Buck wants to talk about some of the other things he’s seen but it feels like too much

Instead they play video games

Buck calls up Captain Strand and volunteers for any temporary help they may need, but nothing permanent. Bobby and Buck continue working on their relationship. Slowly Buck becomes a part of the inside jokes of Chim and Hen again. Eddie and Buck continue to spend time together, and Buck continues talking to the 126 for a while. 

This is probably where this particular story ends

[minaminokyoko]

Godzilla: King of Monsters: A Spoilertastic Review

To get straight to the point for some of you, yes, thank God, this movie is better than Godzilla '14.

For one, the title character is not only in the movie for a decent amount of time, they don't constantly cut away from the action and the film is properly lit so that even in night scenes and scenes with heavy rain, our lizard boi is fully visible. He also is kicking some ass and taking some names, and that's what we came here to see. Thus, it's immediately better than its predecessor.

However, a big problem with the movie is the humans. Not the supporting Monarch team, mind you, but the "family." This is one of the most poorly written families I've seen in a while. It's just baffling. They are very, very unlikable people. You don't really get to know them much, and moments where you do, you just don't like them. They are not easy to root for. It's a very similar problem to a lot of other disaster movies, where they pick a bunch of high strung, angry, selfish people as your leads to the point where you're kind of rooting for the disaster to get them, and that's sadly the other half of this film.

In short, they do the kaiju stuff well, but the humans drag the movie down a couple of enjoyment levels, if you ask me. Let's get to it.

Overall Grade: C

Spoilers ahead.

Pros:

-Godzilla and the other monsters look and sound great. They truly feel like their title: Titans. The movie does a good job of offering scale and giving you different perspectives to understand the size and scope of these creatures, and it's very cool to see some of them in the flesh while others are just named. They name-dropped Kong three times that I counted, but he's still Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Movie, which is irritating, but I also think that's for two reasons: (1) they need to build the hype train and sadly this movie is not on track to do well, as evidenced by my theater only having about eight people total in it opening weekend, and they need all the help they can get if they truly want to turn this into a franchise (2) they want to give him and Godzilla an entire rivalry film to themselves instead of just making him an extra here in this movie. Give them the room to breathe and be rivals in their own film rather than just shoehorning Kong into this debut of the other kaiju. But back to my point, the monsters all feel corporeal and intimidating. I really liked Mothra's design in particular. She looks gorgeous and is kind of the Ugly Cute variety of monster. I very much enjoyed seeing these creatures with some good effects given to them (although there are a few spots where it could look better, but WB struggles with this a lot, I've noticed) and the sounds they make are tremendous and impressive.

-The monster fights are pretty solid. I do admit that Pacific Rim kind of raised my bar for kaiju fights even though I know it's not the same story, but that to me is the perfect balance of human characters who are actually likable and useful versus giant monsters. I think it just should be a good blueprint for how to run the show if you're advertising giant monsters blowing up shit and beating the stuffing out of each other. I think the monster fights in King of Monsters are paced well and you can mostly understand where they are in relation to each other and how evenly matched they are. There were also smaller, neat details like seeing Mothra in her larva state then evolve into her adult form. That's very cool and creative and I enjoyed that little detail. The final smackdown with Godzilla and Ghidorah was a good monster mash, and I appreciate them giving it time and not cutting away. Godzilla's finishing move was 100% badass. Kudos to the big Lizard Boi, and kudos to Mothra for coming to help her lizard boyfriend as well against Rodan.

-The Monarch team is dicey at best, but the humans actually did more than just following him around like in Godzilla '14. It was actually a smart idea to introduce the ORCA and the concept of trying to at least either soothe or summon the monsters. I liked it a lot, and it was relatively realistic. We as a species are stupid and would of course try nukes first, but once they learned that these things actually feed on radiation and it makes them stronger, then they would be forced to find alternative options. It allowed the human characters to finally be truly relevant and not just dumb, wide-eyed spectators (although, God, there was a lot of that in this movie) and it gave the whole thing a sort of story.

-Just like the previous movie, Ken Watanabe gave a performance this movie did not deserve. He's just one of those actors where he's so seasoned that even though God knows this movie's script is not fucking Shakespeare, you could still tell that he cared a lot about the project and was easily the best actor hands down.

-I'm glad Emma dies. Fuck her. Thank you for having the teeth to not try and give her some shitty redemption that she wouldn't have deserved anyway. Thank you for sticking to your guns and doing just like Deep Blue Sea and letting the person responsible for all that death take the final bow for her shitty fucking actions.

-This has nothing to do with the canon, but I had a really cool idea: what if Last Action Hero Bad Guy is Tom Hiddleston's character from Kong: Skull Island? Wouldn't that be fucking neat?! It just occurred to me that since Hiddleston's character was probably in his 30's during the 1970's, he'd be in his 70's during this film and he's a tall, thin British dude. I would love it if we got some kind of backstory reveal that something happened that caused Hiddleston's character to turn against Monarch. Wouldn't that be a good idea for a second Kong movie? Seeing the hero turn to the villain for the sake of saving the planet? Man, I like that idea a lot, but that's me.

-I was glad to see Ziyi Zhang return to a big screen movie. I liked her and felt bad about what happened to her career, so it was cool seeing little bits of story, especially about how Asian cultures do in fact consider reptiles to be helpful and not hurtful. That was a neat little mythos thing for me.

Cons:

-As mentioned above, I hated this fucking family. This family is just unbearable. I know the film is ham-fisted in its attempts to deal with loss and tragedy and a broken home, but there is a way to do that. There is a way to write characters reconciling and putting aside a rough history to come together. This is not the way. It's so sloppily written that I was throwing my hands up in exasperation at certain points. They are so unlikable. You see so little of their home life, first off, that there is no real connection to get to know them. This is a common problem in action movies these days, too--they don't know how to set the stage and just rush into action. It's true we come to action movies for action, but that doesn't mean we don't also want to enjoy the characters we're spending time with. We know it's fully possible to have action packed movies with well-written leads. It's been done for decades, so this movie has no excuse for why the three family members are aggressively terrible. Emma is a selfish, thoughtless bitch and her motivations make zero sense. Mark is just an angry ex-alcoholic who just barely is relevant enough to be in the story. Madison is damn near a blank slate daughter archetype with little to offer except to be something to rescue. Even with one brief flashback of when they were happy, we're not given a reason to root for them because you never get to know them and the few character traits they do display are just awful. For that reason, we're gonna give Emma her own bullet point to explain why she is just the worst.

-Emma's motivation is completely ass-backwards. Going the eco-terrorism point makes no fucking sense for what happened to her. Hear me out. I can see what this movie was going for, and I know it's kind of an odd comparison, but what they ended up with is basically blonde Thanos. Fuck this woman. Fuck this woman for deciding that she's right and millions of other people need to die because she thinks she is right about something, and she was fucking wrong. 100% fucking wrong. It made no sense that because Godzilla killed your kid, you're gonna slaughter tens of thousands of other kids to "restore the earth" and make it some kind of utopia. You're gonna subject innocent lives to torture and death and trauma in the hopes that titantic animals you cannot at all control and barely understand will raze everything to ashes and then shit can grow again. This is some deeply white people shit, too. Sorry to pull that card, but yes, this is a full-on white people mentality of doing something that will hurt everyone else BUT YOU and thinking you have the right to make that fucking decision. She and Maddie were somewhere safe, and she told her ex-husband to go somewhere safe too, and then she pulled a trigger that killed millions of fucking people whose only crimes were existing. That environmentalist message was utter shit. Is the earth overpopulated and polluted? Yep. But the fucking solution is not to kill half the goddamn population. The solution is to work together and overthrow the corrupt people keeping us from finding realistic ways to solve the problem, not wiping out half of humanity while you sit in a goddamn doomsday bunker sipping coffee and congratulating yourself. The crazy thing is this blonde Thanos bullshit did not need to happen. Last Action Hero Bad Guy was perfectly fine in this role of basically the kaiju version of Ra's Al Ghul. It made sense for him to be like, "ay, fuck y'all for killing the earth, let's let the monsters have it back and then clean up afterward." All you had to do was keep it the way it was presented to us: he kidnapped her and the kid and forced them to help wake up the monsters. There was no need to for this idiotic Deep Blue Sea nonsense of her agreeing with him and somehow setting it up. Which, by the way, made no goddamn sense because he kills all those innocent scientists in the lab at the beginning of the movie. Did she know he would do that? If so, fuck her. Fuck her in the ass sideways for killing her own teammates. She could have met him somewhere else. What was with the guns and shit if she's the one who came up with this dumb idea? I hate everything about this character and I am glad she died in the end because she was as much a fucking monster as King Ghidorah.

-The dialogue in this movie is atrocious. Look, I get it, it's a generic action movie. But come on. There were seriously points where I just rolled my eyes or threw my hands up in exasperation because there were just so many Captain Obvious comments or unfunny one-liners thrown back and forth. It's painful to endure some of this shit. The "humor" in particular really hurts, because you can see they put pauses after certain lines where they think the audience is laughing, and trust me, no, we were NOT laughing. Stupid shit like telling a character to "hold on" as a fucking maelstrom is trying to blow them away or just other dumb filler dialogue that makes me wanna slap my forehead. It's egregious.

-The Monarch team is still kind of as stupid as the last movie. Not completely, but they were reaching hard in certain cases and they still felt useless. One example that drove me insane was when Godzilla went back to his bachelor pad to recharge, they then say this is where he comes to heal...and then proceed to nuke that shit. And I'm like...bitch, whatchu gon' do now if he gets hurt?! You're just gonna find him and nuke him every single time he's hurt?! What the fuck kind of plan is that? I get that the movie writers wanted a sense of urgency, but that was such an idiotic way to accomplish something needed for the plot. They introduced a cool concept and then eliminated it immediately. Oy. Another example is Mark's dumbass screaming for Maddie like she can possibly hear him at Fenway Park with fucking Ghidorah and Godzilla literally fighting right on top of the stadium. Are you kidding me? My God, Mark is stupid. He did the same thing when he ran into the base with a fucking pistol screaming her name and letting the armed mercs know exactly where the hell he was. I am shocked his dumbass didn't get immediately picked off. Moron.

-Sarigawa's death was some full-on nonsense. Fuck you for killing the only credible actor in the entire movie, and what's worse is that it very much feels like a person of color dying for the sake of some goddamn white people. Because, yes, folks, I'm sorry, this is a white woman's fault. All this shit is because a white woman wanted to be Thanos and now this awesome dude has to sacrifice himself. Fuck off. I hate this point in the story, even though bless Watanabe for giving us the only credible emotional scene in the entire movie.

-Even though she was barely a character, I disliked Sally Hawkins biting it randomly in the first third, and not getting much reverence. No, we didn't know shit about her, but it felt like the movie just said "fuck it" and moved right along like it was no big deal. I don't know why they even bothered.

-How in God's name did they somehow "sneak" Ghidorah's whole ass head out of fucking Boston with no one noticing? It's a giant dragon head! How did you fucking do that and no one saw you bring it all the way to Mexico? I swear to God, this movie is filled with plotholes. I'm fine with them setting up Mecha Ghidorah or just cloning him all over again, but why couldn't it just have been in Boston and they just snuck in during the dead of night and moved it somewhere nearby? That thing is gigantic and it's a hard pill to swallow that they just left without anyone noticing it.

EDIT: A fan corrected me that this was the head that Godzilla ripped off before the end fight, so the above point is invalid. Nice catch! Thank you! 

-Nitpick: Did Mothra die? That was unclear. I hope not. She's the Queen. I'll have to ask some Godzilla fans to explain what they thought happened after Ghidorah blasted her in the final fight.

-Nitpick: Good God, these human characters survive shit that would easily kill a normal person and it is a little bit grating on the nerves to suspend your disbelief this hard.

-Nitpick: I hate it when monsters the size of fucking buildings somehow notice tiny ass humans enough to bother giving them their attention or even their ire. "An ant has no quarrel with a boot." I hated it in '98 Godzilla and I still hate it. Something on that scale should not even vaguely bother with one tiny human being, but that's me.

I know I have some very heavy criticisms, but this is still a decent flick if you're just going to shell out for a matinee showing. The monsters are great and entertaining and there's plenty of fighting to go around that is worth a peek, especially the end fight with Ghidorah and Godzilla. It was pretty cool to see in IMAX as well, but I leave that up to you folks if it's worth it.

Kyo out.