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all-things-are-nothing-to-me · 3 years

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The New Nihilism

It feels increasingly difficult to tell the difference between—on one hand—being old, sick, and defeated, and—on the other hand—living in a time-&-place that is itself senile, tired, and defeated. Sometimes I think it’s just me—but then I find that some younger, healthier people seem to be undergoing similar sensations of ennui, despair, and impotent anger. Maybe it’s not just me.

A friend of mine attributed the turn to disillusion with “everything”, including old-fashioned radical/activist positions, to disappointment over the present political regime in the US, which was somehow expected to usher in a turn away from the reactionary decades since the 1980s, or even a “progress” toward some sort of democratic socialism. Although I myself didn’t share this optimism (I always assume that anyone who even wants to be President of the US must be a psychopathic murderer) I can see that “youth” suffered a powerful disillusionment at the utter failure of Liberalism to turn the tide against Capitalism Triumphalism. The disillusion gave rise to OCCUPY and the failure of OCCUPY led to a move toward sheer negation.

However I think this merely political analysis of the “new nothing” may be too two-dimensional to do justice to the extent to which all hope of “change” has died under Kognitive Kapital and the technopathocracy. Despite my remnant hippy flower- power sentiments I too feel this “terminal” condition (as Nietzsche called it), which I express by saying, only half-jokingly, that we have at last reached the Future, and that the truly horrible truth of the End of the World is that it doesn’t end.

One big J.G. Ballard/Philip K. Dick shopping mall from now till eternity, basically.

This IS the future—how do you like it so far? Life in the Ruins: not so bad for the bourgeoisie, the loyal servants of the One Percent. Air-conditioned ruins! No Ragnarok, no Rapture, no dramatic closure: just an endless re-run of reality TV cop shows. 2012 has come and gone, and we’re still in debt to some faceless bank, still chained to our screens.

Most people—in order to live at all—seem to need around themselves a penumbra of “illusion” (to quote Nietzsche again):—that the world is just rolling along as usual, some good days some bad, but in essence no different now than in 10000 BC or 1492 AD or next year. Some even need to believe in Progress, that the Future will solve all our problems, and even that life is much better for us now than for (say) people in the 5th century AD. We live longer thanx to Modern Science—of course our extra years are largely spent as “medical objects”—sick and worn out but kept ticking by Machines & Pills that spin huge profits for a few megacorporations & insurance companies. Nation of Struldbugs.

True, we’re suffocating in the mire generated by our rule of sick machines under the Numisphere of Money. At least ten times as much money now exists than it would take to buy the whole world—and yet species are vanishing space itself is vanishing, icecaps melting, air and water grown toxic, culture grown toxic, landscape sacrificed to fracking and megamalls, noise-fascism, etc, etc. But Science will cure all that ills that Science has created—in the Future (in the “long run”, when we’re all dead, as Lord Keynes put it); so meanwhile we’ll carry on consuming the world and shitting it out as waste—because it’s convenient & efficient & profitable to do so, and because we like it.

Well, this is all a bunch of whiney left-liberal cliches, no? Heard it before a million times. Yawn. How boring, how infantile, how useless. Even if it were all true... what can we do about it? If our Anointed Leaders can’t or won’t stop it, who will? God? Satan? The “People”?

All the fashionable “solutions” to the “crisis”, from electronic democracy to revolutionary violence, from locavorism to solar-powered dingbats, from financial market regulation to the General Strike—all of them, however ridiculous or sublime, depend on one preliminary radical change—a seismic shift in human consciousness. Without such a change all the hope of reform is futile. And if such a change were somehow to occur, no “reform” would be necessary. The world would simply change. The whales would be saved. War no more. And so on.

What force could (even in theory) bring about such a shift? Religion? In 6,000 years of organized religion matters have only gotten worse. Psychedelic drugs in the reservoirs? The Mayan calendar? Nostalgia? Terror?

If catastrophic disaster is now inevitable, perhaps the “Survivalist” scenario will ensue, and a few brave millions will create a green utopia in the smoking waste. But won’t Capitalism find a way to profit even from the End of the World? Some would claim that it’s doing so already. The true catastrophe may be the final apotheosis of commodity fetishism.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that this paradise of power tools and back-up alarms is all we’ve got & all we’re going to get. Capitalism can deal with global warming—it can sell water-wings and disaster insurance. So it’s all over, let’s say—but we’ve still got television & Twitter. Childhood’s End—i.e. the child as ultimate consumer, eager for the brand. Terrorism or home shopping network—take yr pick (democracy means choice).

Since the death of the Historical Movement of the Social in 1989 (last gasp of the hideous “short” XXth century that started in 1914) the only “alternative” to Capitalist Neo-Liberal totalitarianism that seems to have emerged is religious neo-fascism. I understand why someone would want to be a violent fundamentalist bigot—I even sympathize—but just because I feel sorry for lepers doesn’t mean I want to be one.

When I attempt to retain some shreds of my former antipessimism I fantasize that History may not be over, that some sort of Populist Green Social Democracy might yet emerge to challenge the obscene smugness of “Money Interests”—something along the lines of 1970s Scandinavian monarcho-socialism—which in retrospect now looks the most humane form of the State ever to have emerged from the putrid suck-hole of Civilization. (Think of Amsterdam in its heyday.) Of course as an anarchist I’d still have to oppose it—but at least I’d have the luxury of believing that, in such a situation, anarchy might actually stand some chance of success. Even if such a movement were to emerge, however, we can rest damn-well assured it won’t happen in the USA. Or anywhere in the ghost-realm of dead Marxism, either. Maybe Scotland!

It would seem quite pointless to wait around for such a rebirth of the Social. Years ago many radicals gave up all hope of The Revolution, and the few who still adhere to it remind me of religious fanatics. It might be soothing to lapse into such doctrinaire revolutionism, just as it might be soothing to sink into mystical religion—but for me at least both options have lost their savor. Again, I sympathize with those true believers (although not so much when they lapse into authoritarian leftism or fascism)— nevertheless, frankly, I’m too depressed to embrace their Illusions.

If the End-Time scenario sketched above be considered actually true, what alternatives might exist besides suicidal despair? After much thought I’ve come up with three basic strategies.

1) Passive Escapism. Keep your head down, don’t make waves. Capitalism permits all sorts of “lifestyles” (I hate that word)—just pick one & try to enjoy it. You’re even allowed to live as a dirt farmer without electricity & infernal combustion, like a sort of secular Amish refusnik. Well, maybe not. But at least you could flirt with such a life. “Smoke Pot, Eat Chicken, Drink Tea,” as we used to say in the 60s in the Moorish Church of America, our psychedelic cult. Hope they don’t catch you. Fit yourself into some Permitted Category such as Neo-Hippy or even Anabaptist.

2) Active Escapism. In this scenario you attempt to create the optimal conditions for the emergence of Autonomous Zones, whether temporary, periodic or even (semi)permanent. In 1984 when I first coined the term Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ)

I envisioned it as a complement to The Revolution—although I was already, to be truthful, tired of waiting for a moment that seemed to have failed in 1968. The TAZ would give a taste or premonition of real liberties: in effect you would attempt to live as if the Revolution had already occurred, so as not to die without ever having experienced “free freedom” (as Rimbaud called it, liberte libre). Create your own pirate utopia.

Of course the TAZ can be as brief & simple as a really good dinner party, but the true autonomist will want to maximize the potential for longer & deeper experiences of authentic lived life. Almost inevitably this will involve crime, so it’s necessary to think like a criminal, not a victim. A “Johnson” as Burroughs used to say—not a “mark”. How else can one live (and live well) without Work. Work, the curse of the thinking class. Wage slavery. If you’re lucky enough to be a successful artist, you can perhaps achieve relative autonomy without breaking any obvious laws (except the laws of good taste, perhaps). Or you could inherit a million. (More than a million would be a curse.) Forget revolutionary morality—the question is, can you afford your taste of freedom? For most of us, crime will be not only a pleasure but a necessity. The old anarcho-Illegalists showed the way: individual expropriation. Getting caught of course spoils the whole thing—but risk is an aspect of self-authenticity.

One scenario I’ve imagined for active Escapism would be to move to a remote rural area along with several hundred other libertarian socialists—enough to take over the local government (municipal or even county) and elect or control the sheriffs & judges, the parent/teacher association, volunteer fire department and even the water authority. Fund the venture with cultivation of illegal phantastice and carry on a discreet trade. Organize as a “Union of Egoists” for mutual benefit & ecstatic pleasures—perhaps under the guise of “communes” or even monasteries, who cares. Enjoy it as long as it lasts.

I know for a fact that this plan is being worked on in several places in America—but of course I’m not going to say where.

Another possible model for individual escapists might be the nomadic adventurer. Given that the whole world seems to be turning into a giant parking lot or social network, I don’t know if this option remains open, but I suspect that it might. The trick would be to travel in places where tourists don’t—if such places still exist—and to involve oneself in fascinating and dangerous situations. For example if I were young and healthy I’d’ve gone to France to take part in the TAZ that grew around resistance to the new airport—or to Greece—or Mexico—wherever the perverse spirit of rebellion crops up. The problem here is of course funding. (Sending back statues stuffed with hash is no longer a good idea.) How to pay for yr life of adventure? Love will find a way. It doesn’t matter so much if one agrees with the ideals of Tahrir Square or Zucotti Park—the point is just to be there.

3. Revenge. I call it Zarathustra’s Revenge because as Nietzsche said, revenge may be second rate but it’s not nothing. One might enjoy the satisfaction of terrifying the bastards for at least a few moments. Formerly I advocated “Poetic Terrorism” rather than actual violence, the idea being that art could be wielded as a weapon. Now I’ve rather come to doubt it. But perhaps weapons might be wielded as art. From the sledgehammer of the Luddites to the black bomb of the attentat, destruction could serve as a form of creativity, for its own sake, or for purely aesthetic reasons, without any illusions about revolution. Oscar Wilde meets the acte gratuit: a dandyism of despair.

What troubles me about this idea is that it seems impossible to distinguish here between the action of post-leftist anarcho-nihilists and the action of post-rightist neo-traditionalist reactionaries. For that matter, a bomb may as well be detonated by fundamentalist fanatics—what difference would it make to the victims or the “innocent bystanders”? Blowing up a nanotechnology lab—why shouldn’t this be the act of a desperate monarchist as easily as that of a Nietzschean anarchist?

In a recent book by Tiqqun (Theory of Bloom), it was fascinating to come suddenly across the constellation of Nietzsche, Rene Guenon, Julius Evola, et al. as examples of a sharp and just critique of the Bloom syndrome—i.e., of progress-as-illusion. Of course the “beyond left and right” position has two sides—one approaching from the left, the other from the right. The European New Right (Alain de Benoist & his gang) are big admirers of Guy Debord, for a similar reason (his critique, not his proposals).

The post-left can now appreciate Traditionalism as a reaction against modernity just as the neo-traditionalists can appreciate Situationism. But this doesn’t mean that post-anarchist anarchists are identical with post-fascism fascists!

I’m reminded of the situation in fin-de-siecle France that gave rise to the strange alliance between anarchists and monarchists; for example the Cerce Proudhon. This surreal conjunction came about for two reasons: a) both factions hated liberal democracy, and b) the monarchists had money. The marriage gave birth to weird progeny, such as Georges Sorel. And Mussolini famously began his career as an Individualist anarchist!

Another link between left & right could be analyzed as a kind of existentialism; once again Nietzsche is the founding parent here, I think. On the left there were thinkers like Gide or Camus. On the right, that illuminated villain Baron Julius Evola used to tell his little ultra-right groupuscules in Rome to attack the Modern World—even though the restoraton of tradition was a hopeless dream—if only as an act of magical self-creation. Being trumps essence. One must cherish no attachment to mere results. Surely Tiqqun’s advocacy of the “perfect Surrealist act” (firing a revolver at random into a crowd of “innocent by-standers”) partakes of this form of action-as-despair. (Incidentally I have to confess that this is the sort of thing that has always—to my regret—prevented my embracing Surrealism: it’s just too cruel. I don’t admire de Sade, either.)

Of course, as we know, the problem with the Traditionalists is that they were never traditional enough. They looked back at a lost civilization as their “goal” (religion, mysticism, monarchism, arts-&-crafts, etc.) whereas they should have realized that the real tradition is the “primordial anarchy” of the Stone Age, tribalism, hunting/gathering, animism—what I call the Neanderthal Liberation Front. Paul Goodman used the term “Neolithic Conservatism” to describe his brand of anarchism—but “Paleolithic Reaction” might be more appropriate!

The other major problem with the Traditionalist Right is that the entire emotional tone of the movement is rooted in self-repression. Here a rough Reichean analysis suffices to demonstrate that the authoritarian body reflects a damaged soul, and that only anarchy is compatible with real self-realization.

The European New Right that arose in the 90s still carries on its propaganda—and these chaps are not just vulgar nationalist chauvenist anti-semitic homophobic thugs—they’re intellectuals & artists. I think they’re evil, but that doesn’t mean I find them boring. Or even wrong on certain points. They also hate the nanotechnologists!

Although I attempted to set off a few bombs back in the 1960s (against the war in Vietnam) I’m glad, on the whole, that they failed to detonate (technology was never my metier). It saves me from wondering if I would’ve experienced “moral qualms”. Instead I chose the path of the propagandist and remained an activist in anarchist media from 1984 to about 2004. I collaborated with the Autonomedia publishing collective, the IWW, the John Henry Mackay Society (Left Stirnerites) and the old NYC Libertarian Book Club (founded by comrades of Emma Goldman, some of whom I knew, & who are now all dead). I had a radio show on WBAI (Pacifica) for 18 years. I lectured all over Europe and East Europe in the 90s. I had a very nice time, thank you. But anarchism seems even farther off now than it looked in 1984, or indeed in 1958, when I first became an anarchist by reading George Harriman’s Krazy Kat. Well, being an existentialist means you never have to say you’re sorry.

In the last few years in anarchist circles there’s appeared a trend “back” to Stirner/Nietzsche Individualism—because after all, who can take revolutionary anarcho-communism or syndicalism seriously anymore? Since I’ve adhered to this Individualist position for decades (although tempered by admiration for Charles Fourier and certain “spiritual anarchists” like Gustave Landauer) I naturally find this trend agreeable.

“Green anarchists” & AntiCivilization Neo-primitivists seem (some of them) to be moving toward a new pole of attraction, nihilism. Perhaps neo-nihilism would serve as a better label, since this tendency is not simply replicating the nihilism of the Russian narodniks or the French attentatists of circa 1890 to 1912, however much the new nihilists look to the old ones as precursors. I share their critique—in fact I think I’ve been mirroring it to a large extent in this essay: creative despair, let’s call it. What I do not understand however is their proposal—if any. “What is to be done?” was originally a nihilist slogan, after all, before Lenin appropriated it. I presume that my option #1, passive escape, would not suit the agenda. As for Active Escapism, to use the suffix “ism” implies some form not only of ideology but also some action. What is the logical outcome of this train of thought?

As an animist I experience the world (outside Civilization) as essentially sentient. The death of God means the rebirth of the gods, as Nietzsche implied in his last “mad” letters from Turin— the resurrection of the great god PAN—chaos, Eros, Gaia, & Old Night, as Hesiod put it—Ontological anarchy, Desire, Life itself, & the Darkness of revolt & negation—all seem to me as real as they need to be.

I still adhere to a certain kind of spiritual anarchism—but only as heresy and paganism, not as orthodoxy and monotheism. I have great respect for Dorothy Day—her writing influenced me in the 60s—and Ivan Illich, whom I knew personally—but in the end I cannot deal with the cognitive dissonance between anarchism and the Pope! Nevertheless I can believe in the re-paganaziation of monotheism. I hold to this pagan tradition because I sense the universe as alive, not as “dead matter.” As a life-long psychedelicist I have always thought that matter & spirit are identical, and that this fact alone legitimizes what Theory calls “desire”.

From this p.o.v. the phrase “revolution of everyday life” still seems to have some validity—if only in terms of the second proposal, Active Escapism or the TAZ. As for the third possibility— Zarathustra’s Revenge—this seems like a possible path for the new nihilism, at least from a philosophical perspective. But since I am unable personally to advocate it, I leave the question open.

But here—I think—is the point at which I both meet with & diverge from the new nihilism. I too seem to believe that Predatory Capitalism has won and that no revolution is possible in the classical sense of that term. But somehow I can’t bring myself to be “against everything.” Within the Temporary Autonomous Zone there still seems to persist the possibility of “authentic life,” if only for a moment—and if this position amounts to mere Escapism, then let us become Houdini. The new surge of interest in Individualism is obviously a response to the Death of the Social. But does the new nihilism imply the death even of the individual and the “union of egoists” or Nietzschean free spirits? On my good days, I like to think not.

No matter which of the three paths one takes (or others I can’t yet imagine) it seems to me that the essential thing is not to collapse into mere apathy. Depression we may have to accept, impotent rage we may have to accept, revolutionary pessimism we may have to accept. But as e.e. cummings (anarchist poet) said, there is some shit we will not take, lest we simply become the enemy by default. Can’t go on, must go on. Cultivate rosebuds, even selfish pleasures, as long as a few birds & flowers still remain. Even love may not be impossible...

#hakim bey #Nihilism #t.a.z.#anarchism

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what-kinda-fuckery · 4 years

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Hey so, I was one of the star struck falsettos stans that spent the forty dollars for the webinar, and I took notes (like a weirdo). So I decided I would share my funny moments and updates from the cast here!

- Host: Everyone should be keeping their audio off.

Christian: Oh alright!

Host: nO Christian not you

- Christians in Manhattan and his hair is back and he’s wearing a Superman t-shirt.

- Brandon is with his parents in NJ

- Stephanie and Brandon still love each other

- Brandon: Meat should be cooked just right

- Betsy: Stephanie are you in maple wood?

Stephanie: Well thank you for telling everyone where I am (she’s in NJ)

- Stephanie: Are you fucking kidding meee!!!

- Tracie is in LA, she looks like she’s in Costa Rica and I love her dog.

- Anthony’s VOICE IS LOW EVERYONES FREAKING OUT

they’re all talking about Anthony’s clear skin

- Andy Randy is in LA with a fresh haircut his boyfriend did it and he’s watching too much TV

Andrew: I’m watching this is America

Stephanie: SO GOOD

Andrew: SO GOOD

- Everyone’s having hard days

- Christian is acting out tracies dog’s pathetic bark and everyone’s like WHAT are you doing bc it looks like he’s about to throw up

- BETSY IS A WEEK AWAY FROM HAVINGA WHOLE CHILD

Betsy: What else do you do during a pandemic? Have a baby!

Andrew: Can I toss out another baby name? Celery.

Literally everyone: Goodnight Andrew goodbye!

- Christian is living with a girl (?) and playing board games instead of watching television

HE COOKS NOW EVERYONES PROUD OF HIM

Christian: yesterday I made pork filet en croute

Stephanie: I MADE PORK WITH SAGE AND APPLES ON WEDNESDAY

Stephanie: In mean girls they wear pink on wednesdays. In falsettos they make pork.

- I can’t get over Anthony’s voice

Again everyone returning to his literally perfect skin

- Stephanie: When watching four jews in a room in the beginning who’s in China?? I know the answer I just want to hear someone say it.

Andrew, with a thick accent: It was Bryna, in China, with a torn miniscus

- Christian: Did anything interesting make it on to the telecast between me and you? Andrew? Actually I dont remember I need to do my research.

Andrew: There’s been some strange comments about Christian and I- (AT THIS POINT IM WHEEZING)

HE MENTIONED THE TONY BONY

HE SAID IT WASNT A THING

HE DIDNT HAVE ONE

Andrew: No that’s not a thing that happened

Brandon: Andrew i want you to know that it’s okay if it was. It’s a safe space just the seven of us. (Lol)

- Bill Finn would take two steps into the room: “WROONG”

Stephanie: he wanted me to sing the end of I’m breaking down up the octave and I said #notmytrina

Brandon: #NOTMYTRINA

- Tracie what did you do during act 1

Tracie: Betsy and I sat in that dressing room for like an hour and a half

Andrew: You SANG the WHOLE SHOW TRACIE

- Betsy watched parts of the first act to feel like she was there

- Betsy sprained both her ankles at one point during the run and was a trooper anyways

Brandon reenacting Betsy limping during look look look look

Everyone dies laughing

Christians LAUGH makes me SO HAPPY

- Betsys screen is frozen like this: 🤨

Andrew: What if she went into labor??? (This is a common thread throughout the zoom)

- Anthony: I’m getting a lot of glitching so Stephanie is just like “HUH UH UH UH”

- Betsy comes back and everyone is like

YOU GUYS ITS COMING!!!

- They bought Andrew an ice cream for his birthday from the vending machine at rehearsal

- Andrew: The Hawaii crop top

Betsy: I would give anything to have that

- Tracie: it was very hard. Very precise bringing the blocks together

Brandon: Trying to be like oh my god we’re going to a funeral

Andrew: MY DEATH IT WAS MY DEATH

- fan question: What did the blocks weigh?

Stephanie: They were like thick yoga blocks. Not heavy but awkward shaped

Andrew: Significantly heavier when Anthony sat on them

Anthony: I just realized how much I got thrown around

Stephanie: Anthony were you proud of yourself? #proudofyou

Anthony: The one moment I was cringing was father and son

Christian: HERE WE GO *SLAPS TABLE*

Betsy: Anthony’s like BLAH BLAH BLAH blah my line BLAH BLAH BLAH my line BLAH BLAH

Christian: I LEAVE THE PAUSE IF YOU CANT GET IN THATS ON YOU

Anthony: I was blinking in that number like constantly

Christian: THE WHOLE THING LIKE A SALAMANDER

Oh Anthony.

- Andrew: I HAVE A STORY ABOUT CHRISTIAN BORLE. Tech for what more can i say. He was laying on me. We were shirtless in underpants under the blankets.

Christian: SLOWER

Andrew: he leaned over; He sniffed his armpit and said “I hope you like France”

EVERYONE DIES LAUGHING INCLUDING ME

Christian: i haven’t worn deodorant in 10 years true story

- Christian: i seem to remember holding our pillows and blankets pretending like we were partying on fyre island and Andrew said:

Andrew: WHATS YOUR NAME???

Christian: No no it was something like:

WHAT HOUSE ARE YOU STAYING IN??

Andrew: WHAT HOUSE ARE YOU STAYING IN???

Betsy: James lupine I feel like we’re ruining this show

- Andrew: The shenanigans were real but so was the sadness

Stephanie: We’re real and we’re funny what you gonna do

- Andrew talking about how hard the show was to do: Finding some liberty, It’s a hard world to live in all the time. It was a hard time especially for Christian. I would sometimes go home and cry for no reason

Brandon: Building up emotion with nowhere to put it

Betsy: then Lesbians come in and provide all the levity

Stephanie: Although Dr. Charlotte brings in horrible news

Tracie: Everything’s beautiful at what more can i say and I’m like not so fast

- Tracie always had a funny thing to say

- Who broke character the most on stage?

Anthony Stephanie and Christian

Anthony: it was when I said “I don’t want a bar mitzvah” and I spit in your face a lot and you went like *puts arms up* and someone at stage door was like very condescending like it’s not professional

Christian: Oh my bad we’re people sorry

- Stephanie wrote a line in the show “YOU HAVE PAINTINGS OF DICKS”

- James wanted her to cut off her finger during I’m breaking down

And turn around with a bandaged bloody finger

- Betsy’s nose bleeding during something bad is happening

And Tracie was like something BAD IS HAPPENING

Tracie: Christians throwing up right now

Betsy: Bloody Kleenex up the nose THE SHOW MUST GO ON

- Fan question: Stephanie how do you belt with a banana in your mouth

Christian: Practice practice practice

Stephanie: just shove it in your cheek. But Really that wasn’t supposed to happen

Anthony’s nickname in the rehearsal room was little bananas because he had to gather up all the pieces of stuff after Stephanie shoved the table over with her rear. Sometimes he didn’t have enough time to put it somewhere so he would just put the pieces of banana in his mouth and that’s where it came from

That’s why

- Andrew: Stephanie your glasses are very chic

Stephanie: Oh my gosh thank you *shocked*

- Betsy: Bill was like I’d rather DIE than change lyrics for the pbs special

FLaT aS a LaKe

- Cue everyone accidentally talking over each other and saying what at each other for 30 seconds

Christian: what? what? what?

Who is it?

What’s going on?

- If you could play anyone else in the show who would it be

Anthony said Mendel

Tracie said Mendel

Brandon said Trina

Andrew said marvin

Betsy said whizzer

Stephanie said Mendel

And I honestly couldn’t hear if Christian said anything whoops

- Brandon: If someone could at some point explain to me the Mendel eats dirt meme? People have been Asking me if Mendel eats dirt? I don’t think it’s about Trina Trina is not the dirt. I was overwhelmed. Can someone in the Q&A explain this? *A few seconds later* oh It was from a meme generator?

Christian: Greaat.

Brandon: It’s a fan fiction about Mendel eating dirt and getting aroused by it

Everyone: WHAT

- They still get fan art

Someone recreated the whole soundtrack 8bit and also with KAZOOS

- Brandon: CONGRATS CHRISTIAN ON LULOS WIN FOR LITTLE SHOP. If you haven’t seen Christian in little shop it’s revelatory I’m not just blowing smoke up your ass I have not laughed that hard in a while at the theatre

- Christian talking about little shop

Christian has a 12 inch Batman toy in his dressing room and he misses it

- Ticket prices were getting out of control before corona everyones hoping this will make a difference

Brandon and everyone think it should get more accessible

- Brandon: Hear hear I need a refill

- Stephanie: Your hair looks incredible Brandon (it did)

Christian: She’s been waiting to talk about it for 53 minutes

- Andrew: Well Betsy what I’m wondering is have you crowned yet??

Proceed everyone dying

Brandon, taking a picture of the screen: This moment will go down in history as When Betsy was asked if she was crowning

- Everyone mimicking zoom freezing by starting a sentence and freezing halfway through

- Christian: What new Steven sondheim musical are you excited about Anthony *devilish grin*

Anthony having no idea what Christian is talking about

Christian: Come on Anthony you know the answer. Ugh. The minds of the young. You’re smoking pot now aren’t you??

Christian: We have a lot of fun

- Andrew: I’m trying to get people to pay attention to me

- Christians pretending to be frozen

Cue a lot of yelling: Stephanie BRANDON STEPHANIE

NO CHRISTIAN

Everyone accusing each other of being frozen

NO YOURE FROZEN

- Andrew: Let’s all act like we’re frozen

Steph: I see Andrew acting like hes frozen

Betsy: Watching you do that is killing me

- Listening to the cast recording for the first time together

Stephanie: Why was I the a-hole that couldn’t be there???

Christian: That’s a question only you can answer

- Betsys husband came in everyones like BETSY LOOK OUT

Christian: that scared the shit out of me

- What is marvins last name and what was his line of work

Christian: we definitely said it at some point right? (They didnt) but he was in advertising. What was the last name? Gardens? O’Malley?

- Andrew: Betsys gone oh no

Betsy: I’m right here!!!

Andrew: She’s giving birth (again)

Stephanie: Betsy Wolfe is a ceiling

- Brandon: Welcome back Anthony. You’re here now.

Anthony singing merrily we roll along over Betsy trying to tell a story

Christian: STOP SMOKING POT IN YOUR BEDROOM ANTHONY

- Betsy: Steve (Steven Sondheim) comes to the door I call him steve

Into the woods is the reason Betsy is in theatre

- Betsy: Andrew was nervous singing at the tonys for Book of Mormon and he got dry mouth he sang like 😬I BELIEVE and he licked his lips so much during the song.

Brandon: Did you have a boner then too?

Andrew: GUYS DONT BE DICKS

Stephanie: It’ll be like dry mouth, boner

Andrew: BETSY YOU FUCKIN BITCH ITS ACTUALLY NOT THAT BAD

Stephanie: Bets maybe we should wrap it up

- Brandon sings MARRIAGE PROPOSAL

EVERYONE TELLING HIM TO STOP SINGING I took a video it was beautiful might post that later

- “Tracie Thomas from Lent!”

Tracie having stage fright

Tracie: Billy porter said “oh child we all forget the words” and walked away

- Anthony said WHO SHAT THE BED in four jews once

Anthony: That’s my contribution. Steph got her line, I got who shat the bed

- Steph: We lost andrew oh no

Christian: Um, we lost andrew ten minutes ago. Yeah when Brandon started singing

- Then Betsy sang a song by Bill Finn beautiful

- Steph: Wear your masks and eat pork on wednesdays

That was it!! I hope you enjoyed and people who were there if I got anything wrong that’s my human error it was hard to note everything I wanted to. Smooches! Byee

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the-signs-of-two · 4 years

Note

Do you think there are still hopes for season 5? A lot of articles claim that there is no future for sherlock holmes and that we should give up our hopes of season 5. Thoughts?

Ouf.

Tough one. And a long one to answer. But I want to be truthful and thorough.

Based purely on advertising and how keen people are to keep audiences invested, I don’t think they’re allowing us much hope. It’s been almost four years and they’ve done very little to maintain any kind of hype or interest, perhaps with the exception of keeping the escape room going. The sad truth of it is that a show will rarely get picked up for a new series if the majority of viewers have moved on. And they’ve done very little to keep their viewers excited about the prospect of a series 5.

Then, of course, there’s the elephant in the room, whether you’re a hardcore TJLC’er or a casual viewer: the fact that series 4, on a surface level, was just... not very good. It looks and feels disjointed and very different from the previous series and casual viewers don’t want to spend hours and hours trying to figure out if it was actually better than its surface narrative. That sort of thing - taking a long hiatus, hyping a new series by saying it’ll be television history and then delivering a somewhat lukewarm product - drives viewers away. And like I said, if most viewers no longer care, chances are it won’t be picked up for a new series.

That’s one way to look at it. But what about the actual story?

The show is called Sherlock. And I think, putting my Johnlock-glasses to the side, you could actually argue that Sherlock does come full circle. In series 1, Sherlock is driven almost entirely by his logic. He’s arrogant, cocky and he makes a show of being disdainful and unfeeling, even if you get small glimpses showing that that isn’t actually who he is. With every series, Sherlock has moved further away from that and become a softer, more emphatic version of himself - a version of himself who cares more about making his close ones happy than about making himself look cool and mysterious. Series 4 does seem to complete that narrative. They made Eurus into the synthesis of everything Sherlock was and tried to be in the beginning of the show and turned that against Sherlock - and I actually really like that. I think it works. When Sherlock says that they’re “experiencing science from the perspective of lab rats”, we’re reminded of the time when he would do something similar: when he would pretend to be Ian Monkford’s friend to get information from his wife, when he would scare/traumatise the already traumatised headmistress to get information on two missing children, when he would compliment Molly’s hair to convince her to show him two bodies. In each instance, it was to do good, to get ahead in a case, but it was also a coldly calculated piece of manipulation, one which Sherlock showed zero regret for. The way he acted in first couple of series hurt other people - sometimes you wouldn’t feel any remorse for them, but sometimes it was Sherlock’s closest. Let’s take the most obvious example: locking John in a lab after (as far as he knew) drugging him, then providing him with sound effects and watching what would happen on the monitors. Don’t you think John experienced science from the perspective of a lab rat then? Sherlock is a different person now, but TFP also forces him to come to terms with the consequences of his previous behaviour. He has to confront logical problems - kill one man or three men, kill one man or two people will die, save Molly’s life etc. - but he has to face the emotional consequences of those logical decisions. He can’t just look away as he used to do. Seen in that way, I actually think TFP does provide a poignant culmination of Sherlock’s character arc. When Lestrade says that Sherlock is now a good man rather than a great man, it does feel earned.

However. Then there’s... well, everyone else. I’m pretty sure I could tell you what John’s character arc was all about in HLV. If this is the end, I no longer know what his character arc was. John makes horrible decision upon horrible decision in series 4. A cynical reading would be that he’s “stupid for the plot”. They needed to drive a wedge between Sherlock and John for TLD, so they didn’t care that John’s decision to blame Sherlock for Mary’s death in TST makes absolutely no sense. Then there’s the morgue scene, which... To be fair, it has actually been foreshadowed that John is a violent person. That he has very bad aggression issues and that he deals with a lot of anger in a physical manner. Sherlock isn’t perfect, but John certainly isn’t either. And I actually think the morgue scene could work in that light. Hear me out. Sherlock has done bad things to John, he really has, and all those things have been in line with his character and a reflection of his flaws. John beating Sherlock up could work in the same way. But it HAS TO BE ADDRESSED. When Sherlock does something morally reprehensible and psychologically scarring, it’s not presented as acceptable. When Sherlock locks John in the lab, you FEEL that what he did was unacceptable. John calls him out for it and it’s discussed. And this happens a number of times and each time, Sherlock shows more and more regret for his actions. He begins to apologise. He begins to try to change. If the morgue scene is going to work as a low point in John’s morality which prompts him to feel regret and try to change, it needs to be presented that way. It needs to be presented as bad (it is), it needs to be presented as a low point (it is), but it also needs to be presented as unjustified, unacceptable and inexcusable. No matter how you feel, beating up your best friend is never okay. Just as no matter how badly you need to solve a case, experimenting on your best friend by subjecting him to a terror-indusing drug and locking him up to examine the effects is never okay. But John isn’t called out for this and it’s never discussed. That leaves John with no incentive to change, no moment of remorse and regret, no need to make amends. So, in a way, the series leaves him at his absolute lowest. Which isn’t a character arc, friends.

Then there’s Molly. After the most heartbreaking betrayal of all time, the series just... ends. Like, she’s there at the end and it’s all fine. The part where the man she loved told her to tell him that she loved him FOR AN EXPERIMENT and then she took the opportunity to make him say it in return, clinging on to those three words like her life depended on it... yeah, that happened, but he presumably told her that he had to do it and it was all fine. No lasting emotional damage or mistrust there.

You could argue that Mycroft does come full circle too. In TAB, he decides to relinquish control over Sherlock and instead tells John to take care of him in his place. In TFP, he goes all the way and decides to die to let John live. In doing so, he acknowledges that Sherlock needs John more than he needs Mycroft, but also that John is better for Sherlock than Mycroft ever was. After a lifetime of controlling and watching over Sherlock against his will, he finally decides to let Sherlock go live his own life and make his own decisions. And he proves his love by being prepared to die to give Sherlock happiness with John.

So... yeah. I think some character arcs did actually come full circle, while others definitely didn’t. I just took the most obvious examples here.

As a background story for the Holmes family, I don’t really think it works. To me, it doesn’t explain why Sherlock and Mycroft are the way they are - and it certainly is weird that their parents seem so normal and unconcerned about the whole thing. Buried trauma is definitely a thing, but there doesn’t seem to be any obvious correlation between what happened with Eurus and who Sherlock was at the beginning of the series. As for Mycroft... I honestly don’t know how he feels about Eurus, apart from the fact that he’s scared of her.

Then there’s the part where John flat out tells Sherlock that a romantic relationship would complete him as a human being. This goes completely unresolved. Are we meant to assume that Sherlock called Irene after this conversation and they got together? 1) Why should we assume this? And 2) effing straight culture, let him be gay, because he is.

To summarise... I don’t think TFP works as a conclusion. Some things are resolved, some are not. I think there’s so much story and plot left unresolved that a series 5 would definitely have story points to work with. Also, once you’ve said that a character needs a romantic relationship, you need to go through with that or it turns into a major hole in said character arc.

Getting a little more tinfoil hat-y, I think the television history, gut-punch moment could be a recreation of the circumstances around The Final Problem. The Final Problem seemingly finished the Sherlock Holmes stories by having Sherlock die. People were outraged and deeply upset. It took ten years for ACD to undo it and reveal that Sherlock had actually survived. Trying to recreate the atmosphere surrounding a beloved piece of literature in 1893 - that sort of thing has never been attempted before and would be television history. And in that light, it would make sense that they aren’t encouraging the rumours surrounding series 5. They need to make people think that Sherlock is “dead” if they are going to resurrect him. That’s the tinfoil hat speaking, but I can’t help but find it an intriguing idea. And I would be DOWN.

Still, they didn’t need to make series 4 bad for this to work. They could have just made it end sadly. Series 4 being bad and difficult to understand lost them a lot of viewers. And sadly, viewers are what make shows happen. In that sense, I think it could backfire very severely if that is their plan.

So there you have it. I haven’t lost hope. I think there’s still story and plot and characters that would make series 5 worth making. And of course I’ve only discussed surface narratives in this post. If some of the theories proposed by us (EMP) should turn out to be correct, it could fix a lot of the problems with series 4 and make for a fantastic gut-punch moment in series 5. But I will admit that I’m concerned it won’t be greenlit because people have lost interest. If it’s no longer likely to have a large audience because series 4 was bad, they may not be able to make it even if that was their original intent. Or they may need to really amp up the hype when and if they make series 5.

I hope this long ramble answered your question.

#Sherlock #BBC Sherlock #S5 #my thoughts #anon asks

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ayamari-no-goshi · 3 years

Text

Eidolon 10 | (T)

ff.net | AO3

Fandom: Danny Phantom (DP)

Summary: AU: What started off as the result of a simple act of rebellion ends up causing his life to spin out of control. How will young Danny cope with the results as well as a past that has a strange habit of coming back to haunt him.

Warnings: rated T for violence, mentions of death, kidnapping, and various other things

Parings: hints of Danny/Sam much later on

Notes: originally uploaded to Ff.net. Cross-posted to AO3 and tumblr

10. Aftermath

"So… What do you think he is?" Tucker asked her as they made their way to the kitchen to grab some lunch. It was about noon, and since Danny was still not awake -or showed any signs of waking, he had decided to put food on the top of his priority list. "Don't get me wrong. I'm thankful Danny went all glowy and beat that thing, but something that weird… And you got to admit, it was pretty weird…. Couldn't have come from a human."

"'Glowy'?" Sam asked while trying not to laugh. Oddly enough, it did help to lighten her bad mood brought on by exhaustion, fear, and paranoia. After Danny had somehow magically transported them back to her front yard and passed out, she and Tucker managed to sneak back into her house while carrying him and make it into her room undetected by her parents. Tiring as that and the chase from earlier was she was unable to convince herself they were safe and began constantly checking the window for any signs of the creature. Needless to say, by morning, she hadn't been able to fall asleep.

He just shrugged as he opened the large kitchen door and allowed Sam to pass through first. "I don't know what else to call it. I guess 'luminous' could work, but it doesn't really fit either."

"And 'glowy' does?"

"Probably not, but at least it's specific."

Though she would never admit it out loud, he did have a point. When Danny had taken a stand against the monster, ghost… whatever it actually was, it almost looked as if tendrils of greenish-white energy was wrapping around him. As it became more noticeable, it gave his body the illusion it was actually glowing. Even more startling was the change in his eyes and hair color. His eyes changed to a toxic shade of green which shouldn't exist in this world, and his hair had become a brilliant shade of white with a silvery sheen. After Danny had passed out, the white color seemed to seep out, leaving behind his naturally black hair after a couple minutes. Hopefully his eyes had returned to their natural color too.

"Anyway… what do you think we should take up to Danny?" By the time he spoke, Tucker had already started putting together a rather impressive lunch meat and mayo sandwich on one of the white marble counters. While Sam could not even look at the growing monstrosity, she was impressed by the knowledge he had of her kitchen. He had been over way too many times.

She thought for a moment as she searched one of the polished mahogany cabinets for some supplies of her own. "Well… probably bland foods like toast or rice would be best. Since he tends to get sick after anything weird happens to him, those are the only types of food that shouldn't cause any problems…"

"I didn't… even think about that…" he replied between chews, much to Sam's dismay. "Whatever that power… or weirdness is, it really seems to do a number on him."

"Yeah… and let's just hope it doesn't kill him in the process."

This particular episode had been particularly bad for Danny. Before carrying him into the house, she had checked his vital signs only to find no sign of life. His pulse was nonexistent, his breathing had ceased, and his body was freezing to the touch. Both of them had begun to panic and tried to remember what they could of CPR. Luckily for Tucker -what was it with guys and CPR? - Danny let out a shaky breath even before they got a chance to start.

Unsure what to make of the situation, they just stood there, dumbfounded, for a moment before deciding to take the seemingly unconscious and not dead boy into the house. If it was any other person, she would have called an ambulance without a second thought, but there was no way such strange events could be explained or probably even treated by a doctor. Besides, if he seemed fine now, it was unlikely a doctor would be able to do anything. Originally, they decided whoever woke up first would make sure Danny was still among the living, but with her being unable to sleep she checked on him regularly. His breathing and pulse seemingly remained steady, but his body, though a little warmer, still remained very cool to the touch; Combined with his naturally pale skin kept causing her to compare him to a cadaver.

An awkward tension filled the air for a moment while they made their lunches. Unnerved, Sam was about to say something, but a strange look from Tucker stopped her. "What's wrong?"

"Sam… this might sound weird, but what if that's the point? What if this power that's taken hold of him really is going to kill him?" he asked as he put his sandwich down and looked her in the eyes. "Didn't Danny say something before about how the ghost you two saw in the cemetery said that he didn't belong to this world? And didn't it also suggest he didn't have a lot of time left? And didn't that thing that chased us last night call him 'Ghost Child'…. I don't know about you, but it just seems like, if you think about it, everything's suggesting he's going to die."

"Tucker, how can you say something like that?" she snapped while trying to prevent any emotion, save for anger, from crossing her face. During her vigil, similar thoughts had crossed her mind, but she tried to completely ignore them. She had noticed Danny always seemed drained and weak after the power manifested, almost as if his 'energy or' life was its power source. It seemed quite possible it could kill him if it continued, but the cryptic hints they kept getting suggested maybe that was what the power needed.

No! She wasn't going to think like that! Nothing as horrible as that was going to happen to Danny. They were going to somehow figure out how to help him, and she didn't need such terrible thoughts floating around her mind. She cringed as she once again tried to suppress them. Having the idea be said aloud seemed to somehow confirm it, even with absolutely no proof. "Let's just focus on finishing so we can get back to Danny. I wonder if he's awake yet…"

"If you say so… but before we do that, can you please explain why your toaster's floating?"

Sam had to chuckle as she watched Tucker begin to panic and quickly put space between him and unassuming yet levitating toaster. Glancing at it to make sure it was actually plugged in and in use; she shrugged and moved over to retrieve its contents. "It's from Denmark. This usually happens."

"Wait… what?"

….

Surprisingly, when they returned to Sam's room, Danny was awake and sitting up on the deep purple bed. He looked terrible. His blue eyes were dull, and the dark rings under them attested to just how tired he really was. His body was also incredibly sore and stiff, but nothing more seemed to be wrong with him. Sam couldn't help but be relieved. As she watched him thankfully accept the tray of food, it seemed as if there would be no lasting problems from the night's events.

After finishing his light meal, Danny hesitantly asked what happened the previous night. Unsure where to start, she looked to Tucker for some help, and within a few minutes, the combined effort of the two got him up to speed. He accepted it silently, though Sam did notice he kept looking down at his hands. It was almost as if he was checking to make sure they still looked the same. It unnerved her slightly, but she tried to push it aside as she suggested a good break from all the weirdness would be a monster movie marathon. Both Danny and Tucker gave her looks suggesting they questioned her sanity, but after a few minutes of persuasion and a mention of the room sized television in the entertainment room, they happily changed their minds.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

It was official. The best way to recover from a mysterious paranormal fight was to sit and watch movies in Sam's gigantic theater. Not only did Danny get to relax in some of the most comfortable chairs he had ever encountered, but the ability to laugh with his friends as they poked fun at the terrible effects further alleviated the stress weighing down on him. Surprisingly, they were able to get through three movies without being interrupted.

After glancing at fancy clock hanging from the wall, he realized it was almost dinner time. "Hey, I should probably be getting home soon. Knowing Winston, he'll be getting worried."

"Do you think you're up to walking home?" Sam asked as she gave him an appraising glance. "You're welcome to stay another night."

A chuckle escaped him as he thought about her parents' reactions to the suggestion. Although he had only briefly met them, something told him the couple was already not too fond of him. "I think I can handle it." That was an obvious lie. His body still felt as if he had been put inside of an industrial dryer on spin mode, but how else was he going to get home? He didn't want to impose on Sam, Winston would start asking questions, and he certainly didn't have the money to call a taxi. "Besides, the walking might help with the stiffness."

"Or it could make it worse. Seriously dude, you should be taking it as easy as you can. Kicking some serious butt can be really tiring." Tucker's tone was playful and encouraging, but Danny knew he was trying to hide his own concerns about the strange event. Judging by how Sam and Tucker were acting when they entered the room after he woke up, the two most likely had a serious conversation about what happened. Though they tried to make him feel as if nothing was wrong, he could sense their worry.

He was about to start arguing but Sam quickly cut him off. "If you really think you should leave, at least I can do is to have my driver give you a ride home. I mean, you did save our lives."

"Thanks… but are you sure..? Wait, you have your own driver?" he asked, unsure if he had heard her correctly.

Sam fidgeted for a moment before answering. "Well, he's technically one of the drivers for my family, but I'm on better terms with him than my parents…. So, he's kinda unofficially mine."

"There's more than one…? Never mind." He cut himself off after a moment. "I don't want to know the specifics." The lives of the rich were hard to comprehend.

…..

After about a half an hour, the three of them were in the back of a stretch limo complete with its own mini bar stocked with several foreign drinks. Neither Sam nor Tucker actually needed to come, but they refused to let him go home alone. Danny just figured it was their way of showing concern. Though he didn't really need it, he didn't mind as their presence made the short ride more enjoyable.

When he arrived home, he was expecting a quite scene. Winston's silver Chevy would be sitting in the driveway, and while Winston himself would either be tending his modest garden or doing some paperwork in the study. But, instead of normalcy, chaos greeted him.

Yellow police tape had been placed around the perimeter of the yard and across the open front door. Several police cars were sitting, not only in front of the house, but also in his and the neighbor's driveway. A few officers were standing in the yard talking to each other while wearing serious expressions. Another was entering the house along with a couple people in white uniforms. Before the limo could even come to a stop, Danny jumped out of it and ran to the house, only to be stopped by some of the officers.

"I'm Danny, Winston's charge," he nearly shouted after one of the officers grabbed him while trying to explain he could not enter a crime scene. "What happened? Where's Winston? Does he know? Is he alright?"

"Wait, you're Wolf's kid?" another office asked as he approached. "We put out an alert saying you were missing. So you weren't in the house last night?"

"No, I…"

"Excuse me, Sir," Sam interrupted as she and Tucker ran over. "Danny was with us last night. He was staying over my house."

"He's not in trouble, is he?" There was a noticeable shiver within Tucker's voice, but he was doing his best not to show any other sign of nervousness. "Because we can totally vouch for him! We were with him for most of the day yesterday."

The officer held up his hand as a signal to let him talk. A trouble look crossed his face as he removed his hat and ran his free hand through his graying hair. After collecting himself, he held his hand out for Danny to shake. "I wish we could have met under friendlier circumstances, but I'm Sergeant Ross. We were called to your house after one of your neighbors called in some concerns about the safety of your dad. They thought they had heard gun shots last night but shrugged it off until they realized they never saw him leave the house today. We even received a confirmation from his work that he never arrived."

Danny bit his lip as he listened quietly. Winston almost never missed work, even if he was very sick. So, knowing that, something had to have gone seriously wrong, and Danny wasn't exactly sure if he was ready to find out what.

"I hate to say it, but it was a good thing we did decided to check on him," Ross continued as he looked him in the eye. "Your dad's currently in J. Marley Central Hospital and is being treated for several severe injuries from… what we think was a home invasion."

"No... That's impossible…" Danny stuttered after a few confused moments. "Winston's an ex-marine… He would have fought back. No one could have done that much damage…"

"Son, take it easy. This isn't the time for this…"

"You don't understand! Winston can take care of himself! There's a gun under his mattress for goodness' sake! He's always been prepared for something like this to happen! Some lame burglar couldn't have put him in the hospital!"

"Wait… did you say that Wolf owned a gun?" Ross asked carefully. "What kind was it?"

"I'm not exactly sure…. It's not like I saw it every day or anything," he replied gruffly as he tried to keep his feelings quelled long enough to try and answer the question. It wasn't like the officer had anything to do with Winston being hurt, but he certainly didn't want to be answering any questions. "I know it's some type of hand gun…. Maybe it's a .28… The box of bullets was sitting in the shelf on the study."

A concerned expression crossed the Sergeant's face as he called over to another officer. "Have any of the men found a firearm in or around the premises?" When the man shook his head, Ross' expression became grim. He then told the man to grab a couple of the other officers and search the area again, as well as finding a record of Winston's gun registration. After the other officer left, Ross turned back to Danny. "Well, I can't say I'm pleased by this new information… But I'm glad you mentioned it." He gave the boy a searching look before he spoke again. "I'm going to need to take you down to the precinct so you can give your official statement and maybe answer a few questions. Then we're going to need to go through your house and see if anything has been stolen."

"Wait… now?" Danny half demanded, half choked. "You're not going to let me see Winston first?"

"He's in the hospital…"

"You told me that, but you haven't told me anything else!" He had to fight to keep his voice and hands under control. Something in the back of his mind told him the officer would not appreciate it if he started waving his hands around while he was agitated. "Winston's all I have! I need to see for myself just how bad it is. I'll answer any question you have afterwards, but please, please let me see him first!"

"I can't let you do that."

"Why? Wait… I know what's going on… You think I did this." His eyes narrowed as he pointed at the officer. "I can't believe you! You're supposed to be trying to find whoever did this to Winston! Instead, you're wasting your time looking at me. I wasn't even home last night!" He took a breath to try and calm down for a moment as Tucker put his hand on his shoulder in a comforting gesture. With each breath, he could feel himself shaking in rage. "If anything, you should be looking at that Masters guy…"

It was the officer's turn to be suspicious. "…You don't mean Vlad Masters, do you?"

"I think so… He and Winston don't seem to get along…"

"And don't forget! He's the one who snuck into your house that one day!" Tucker added as he gave a shudder. "That's the day we heard Mr. Wolf yelling. No offense dude, but he's really frightening when he's mad."

"Tell me about it…"

"Back up a minute," the officer interrupted while rubbing his eyes. "You're telling me, Vlad Masters broke into your house. What business does someone like him have in your house?"

Could this officer be any more irritating? Danny had to bite back a sarcastic reply as he answered the officer. "He said he was checking up on Winston since he had to reschedule a meeting… with I guess one of his assistants. According to him, our front door was open, and he went inside to make sure everything was okay." As the officer wrote down something on a little tablet that was pulled out of his pocket, Danny decided he had enough. "Look! I'll answer any of your questions later, but I'm not doing anything else until I get to see Winston!"

….

After a twenty minute standoff, Danny finally got his way. An irritated Sergeant Ross had escorted him to the hospital after finally realizing he wasn't going to get any answers. After the two stepped into the waiting area, he ran to the nearest available teller and practically demanded to know where Winston was being treated. After an agonizingly slow few minutes, he finally got an answer.

In retrospect, running as fast as he could through the halls was probably one of the worst things he could do in the hospital, but he really didn't care. He easily managed to avoid any obstacle he encountered. Who knew there would be so many movable computers, monitors, and people in those maze-like hallways? When he finally reached Winston's room, he was met with a wall of people. Several doctors all wearing dark expressions seemed to be deep in discussion as they blocked the only door into the room.

Unsure how to interrupt the doctors, he was happy to realize Winston's room had a window. Peeking in, he felt his breath hitch as he realized just how serious the attack on his guardian had been. Winston was unconscious and hooked up to a respirator. Several monitors were hooked up to the man, and two IV bags, one of blood and one of clear fluid, were also put in place. What little bit of skin was not covered by bandage or machine looked bruised and swollen. The overall image made Winston look like he was fragile enough to break if he was touched. Danny had to try and hold back tears as he wondered who could have done such a thing.

"How the hell did you get here so fast?" an out of breath voice asked from somewhere behind him making him jump. He turned around to see a rather winded Sergeant Ross giving him a searching look. "I couldn't go more than a few feet without out running into something."

Danny didn't say anything as he turned back towards the window. He didn't want to have Winston out of his sight for more than a few minutes. He just had this feeling something terrible would happen if he did.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but are you part of Winston's family?" A person wearing a white coat came into the periphery of his vision. Curious, he turned to see a young female doctor extending her hand to him. "I'm Dr. Sabo, and I'm currently in charge of managing him while he's here."

He hesitantly took her hand and explained who he was. "How… how is he?" Even he could hear the unease in his voice.

"That's the big question, isn't it?" Dr. Sabo frowned as she looked towards the window. "I hate to say it, but it's hard to tell at this point. Winston received several odd wounds from the attack."

"Odd…? How so?" the sergeant asked, surprising both Danny and the doctor.

She bit her lip as she tried to find the words to describe her thoughts. "It's the first time any of us have seen wounds like that. They almost seem to be large bullet wounds, but the edges of them act more like burns. And, to make matters worse, we were unable to locate any residual bullets there might have been. We're really at a loss for what happened to him."

"Will he be able to answer any questions?"

"I'm not sure. Winston, although stable, is in a terrible condition. He's going to have to be watched very carefully over the next several days. We're going to do our best to see that he heals, but it will be up to his body to make sure he recovers. From what I can see of him, he appears to be in very good shape for his age, so we're hopeful… but, you can never tell."

The world started to spin as Danny listened to the doctor go into more details about Winston's condition with the sergeant. He allowed himself to slide down the wall and sit as he tried to get some sort of grasp on the situation. He never thought he would be in this situation. He had once joked that Winston was too strong to ever be taken down by anything other than a renegade bus, but this had shown him Winston was human, just like everyone else.

Danny couldn't take it anymore. In an uncharacteristic moment of weakness, he buried his face in his hands and allowed the tears to come. It was a small comfort, but if he was going to have to deal with the police over the next several hours, he was going to need to be as strong as possible.

=======================================

Anyways, a couple things:

J. Marley Central Hospital is not a real place… at least I think so. I named it to keep in line with the ghost theme of the show. Jacob Marley was the first ghost who appeared to Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

Dr. Sabo and Sergeant Ross aren't all that important. They're really only there for this section.

And, can I just say that hospitals are the most confusing things on earth? Cuz, they are. There are at least fifteen hospitals within an hour and a half of my house, and all of them are mazes. The floor plans are ridiculous. You can't walk through them without encountering workers, movable computers and/or other medical devices, and let's not forget the robots. Don't ask about that last one. It is really funny to see them having a Mexican standoff though.

#Eidolon #fanfic #fanfiction #danny phantom #danny phantom au #dp #dp au #danny fenton #sam manson #tucker foley #vlad plasmius #vlad masters #supernatural #paranormal #fantasy

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earnestly-endlessly · 4 years

Note

have any recs for canon divergent fic?

(Post-movie AU.) On a beach in Cuba, Charles manages to talk Erik down from the edge. But even after the missiles have been diverted, compromise is impossible. There are two different futures to build, and Erik and Charles will always be separated by their principles. But when Charles is kidnapped and the X-Men can't find him, Erik will get him back no matter the consequences.Meanwhile, trapped alone in his mind for the first time in his life, Charles comes face to face with the truth about what and who he wants. When convictions stand in direct opposition to the heart, which will prevail?Oh yes Anon, I have plenty of canon divergent fics. Many of these are probably familiar favourites, but I tried to list a wide variety of different fics. Some of these are fix-its, but I plan to make a different list with fix-it fics.

I hope you Enjoy!

Cherik - Canon Divergent Fics

Us – Pangea

Summary: “Charles,” Erik says, and if his voice hits a pleading note then who can really blame him, “Charles, it’s me.”

It takes several longer moments before Charles musters up the strength to answer, breath stuttering horribly as he tries to breathe. He’s shaking, entire body trembling.

“Erik,” Charles says, his voice cracking, “Erik, I want to die.”

Time to Grow – zarah5

Summary: In which you’ll find chess dates which aren’t dates (or maybe Charles is wrong about that). – Based on First Class, this turns (slightly) AU during the beach scene.

Took Me By Surprise And Then – Thehoyden

Summary: After the second surgery in New York, Charles doesn’t anticipate anyone keeping vigil by his bedside — and certainly not Tony Stark.

Lucid Dreaming – Listerinezero

Summary: Magneto finds himself in 1962, on the morning they go to Cuba, in the bed of the young Charles who’d spent months letting him think they were in love before breaking his heart. But he is not the same man he was forty years earlier, and as he gets to know young Charles again, he discovers that things might not have been exactly the way he remembered them after all.

Anger, serenity, and the spaces in between - appleseed

Summary: After Cuba, things are going to change - at least if Charles has any say in the matter.

The Virtue to Which We Aspire - varlovian

Summary: Nine months after Cuba, Charles is found by Erik’s Brotherhood in the smoldering ruins of an abandoned CIA base, exhausted but alive. As the only known survivor of the CIA’s vendetta against mutants, recovering Charles’ memory of the incident—which he admits to having forgotten—just became paramount.

But the harder they push, the closer Charles gets to breaking point. When he finally cracks, the X-Men and the Brotherhood will learn the truth, but it comes with a price…

Some doors, once opened, cannot be closed.

Some minds, once broken, will never be the same again.

Lay down beside me (so still and so soft) – C-Gracewood

Summary: A different take on the events of the film

Not Half As Blinding – keire_ke

Summary: Cuban beach AU. Charles discovers that death does, in fact, solve everything.

Needles – Skull_Bearer

Summary: AU where everyone’s born Dominant or Submissive. Once a Dominant and Submissive pair is born, they are linked to each other, no matter how far apart they are. This link doesn’t actually tell the Dom or the Sub each other’s thoughts, but it does allow them to know how the other’s doing and serves as a reassurance that there’s someone meant for them out there. Another one of the reasons that Erik hates Shaw so badly is because Shaw managed to break Erik’s link to his Sub. Now Erik doesn’t even know if his Sub’s alive because breaking a link like that can kill a Submissive. Meanwhile, Charles hates himself for not yet having telepathy strong enough to contact and help his Dom, especially after feeling the pain his Dom was forced to go through. He truly believes that his Dominant is dead. Hopes it, some nights when he remembers how his Dom was forced to suffer. It’s better than to think of his Dom still being forced to bear that pain.

And then Charles pulls Erik from the water

TL;DR: Erik and Charles (respectively) are a Dominant and Submissive pair that find each other after thinking the other is dead.

The Tower and the Hurricane – dreamlittleyo

Summary: (Post-movie AU.) Five years after Shaw’s death, Erik’s predictions prove painfully accurate. Violence rages on both sides of the human/mutant conflict. In a world ravaged by war, it doesn’t really matter who’s more at fault. Charles struggles to teach his students a better way, but what choices will he make when peace really isn’t an option?

Blood and Steel and Miles Between – dreamlittleyo

Summary: (Post-movie AU.) On a beach in Cuba, Charles manages to talk Erik down from the edge. But even after the missiles have been diverted, compromise is impossible. There are two different futures to build, and Erik and Charles will always be separated by their principles. But when Charles is kidnapped and the X-Men can't find him, Erik will get him back no matter the consequences.

Meanwhile, trapped alone in his mind for the first time in his life, Charles comes face to face with the truth about what and who he wants. When convictions stand in direct opposition to the heart, which will prevail?

Burn the World to Ashes – nixajane

Summary: Movie Ending AU. Erik is merciless after Shaw is dead, taking out Moira and sending the missiles back at the ships that fired them. Charles refuses to join him and they go their separate ways, but he keeps getting in the way and Erik can’t allow him to interfere with his plans. More importantly, he can’t allow Charles to be hurt.

Forward Momentum – AsYouWish

Summary: Six months after Cuba, Charles and Erik find themselves thrown fifty years into the future, where they meet their older selves, the Avengers, and a world that’s very different from their own. Faced with the pieces of their broken relationship, an unparalleled adversary, and dealing with Tony Stark on a daily basis, Charles and Erik do their best to adapt while trying to find a way back home – and to each other.

No Yesterdays on the Road – pocky_slash

Summary: It’s been two months since Cuba and things are settling down for Charles, Erik, and the beginnings of their mutant school. Right up until Charles disappears, that is. Faced with the possibility that a bitter Emma Frost has kidnapped Charles, Erik is forced to team up with Moira to hunt down the remainder of the Hellfire Club. From there, they hope to locate Frost and retrieve Charles, without killing each other along the way.

(Or: Erik and Moira Drive Across the Country and Talk About Their Feelings.)

Divergence Day – Manic Intent

Summary: The room that Charles is held in is simple, and underground, a concrete bunker of a place hewn into a cube, with a simple white cot for a bed. There’s a small black and white television set, plugged to the wall within hand’s reach of the bed, and an ensuite bathroom attached to the chamber. They’re somewhere in the Nevada desert, as far as Charles dimly remembers, one of Erik’s many boltholes. There’s no one else in the entire facility, and Erik’s mind is closed to Charles from the helmet. The silence is both blissful and excruciating.

It’s like one of us woke up – kaydeefalls

Summary: “You came here for me,” Charles said, meeting Shaw’s gaze levelly. “So let’s not waste any more time.”

Canon!AU in which Charles and Erik do find Shaw in Russia.

It’s All Coming Back to Me – Regann

Summary: When Erik hears that Charles died on the beach where he left him, there’s only one thing left for him to do: take the world down with him as he crashes and burns in his grief. But maybe the world will get its reprieve before he goes too far.

Shared Custody – smilebackwards

Summary: “I would like to date your sister,” Azazel tells Charles after he makes a particularly fine point about Descartes’ Discourse on the Method for which Azazel has no rebuttal.”

A Hundred Visions and Revisions – kaydeefalls

Summary: In which the CIA and FBI indulge in some inter-agency snooping, Erik hates Cerebro, a new mutant is found, and Charles is very distracting.

Enigma – Yahtzee

Summary: Written for the following prompt: Erik dies, or finds a reversey-time mutant, or a magical time travelling device, and wakes up in the past. This time, though, it’s before he ever met Charles - in fact, it’s before his mother died.He can save his mother that one time (thanks to his mastery over powers carrying back), but what does Erik do after that? Does he stick around, or escape and run to find Charles again (and hope everything doesn’t go wrong)?

Five Bullet Points – Sperare

Summary: It was supposed to be Erik locked away in a prison one hundred stories below the ground.

Charles was never supposed to be there with him.

The Winter of Banked Fires – Yahtzee

Summary: Charles Xavier has returned from the dead – but is lost within his own mind. Rogue has cast aside her own power and doesn’t know where she fits in the world any longer. The production of synthetic Cure means mutantkind itself is newly at risk. And Magneto, turned human against his will, is in despair until the day he feels a familiar consciousness tugging at his own –

Set after X-3 (with much desperate fix-it applied), during XMFC, and every time in between.

When We Two Parted – nekosmuse

Summary: At the end of X3, a still depowered Erik travels back in time to meet 1962 Charles. Cue angst, desperate kissing and happy endings for all. Written for the x-men kink meme.

The Burden We Long to Carry – arcapelago (arcanewinter)

Summary: When mutant-supporter and ally President Kennedy is assassinated and all pro-mutant progress is dismantled, Charles is no longer so confident that he’s on the right side, and extends his hand to Erik after a year of animosity. They settle tentatively into their old partnership, but not everything is the same as it was–and not everything can be. When Hank develops a metal frame to move the lower half of Charles’ body for him if he wants it, Erik offers the use of his mind and his ability in order to make it work. Both find out what they’re willing to do for each other, and neither knows if it’ll be enough to keep them together.

Take the First Option – ShowMeAHero

Summary: When Erik becomes unbalanced, Emma presents him with three options: go back to Charles for three months and learn to deal with whatever he has going have going on, lose his Brotherhood, or let Emma control his mind.

He really only has one choice.

When an Unstoppable Force Meets an Immovable Optimist – ToriTC198

Summary: “You are always trying to save me, Charles.” Erik mused aloud. “Ever since you dove into the ocean and dragged me out. Did it ever occur to you that I might not be worth saving?”

A genuine smile broke out on Charles’ face as he brightly answered, “No, my friend, not once. I have every confidence you are well worth saving. But, I never truly believed I could save you. You are not the sort of man who someone saves. The choice to be a better man has always been yours to make and I hold no illusions that I can make that decision for you. I simply have faith that one day you will save yourself. I only hope I am still at your side to witness it.”

- What if Erik and Charles had been able to find a middle ground in the end?

#cherik #fic recs #asks #cherik fic recs

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ineffably-good · 4 years

Text

There’s A First Time For Everything

This is my submission for the 2020 Good Omens Valentines Day swap, written for @eveningstarcatcher. Enjoy!

“Dearest,” Aziraphale said, rolling over in the morning light to run a hand up Crowley’s back. “You know what next Friday is, don’t you?”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Uh… a Friday?”

“Anything else?”

Crowley thought. He thought some more. He came up with nothing. “No,” he finally said, admitting defeat. “I really don’t. What is it?”

Aziraphale smiled encouragingly at him. “It’s our first Valentine’s day since we officially became a couple.”

“Oh… Oh angel, no,” Crowley groaned. “You have to know that demons don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day. It’s pretty much not allowed. That’s all about your side – angels and cherubs shooting their tiny, adorable arrows into someone’s posterior. We mostly just stay home and get drunk on days like that.”

“I thought we didn’t have sides anymore,” Aziraphale said a little sadly.

“We don’t! We don’t! It’s our side for sure, angel,” Crowley said, backpedaling. “It’s just – old habits die hard and the day kind of gives me the creeps. All that forced happiness and fake romance.”

Aziraphale’s smile faltered a little. “So – so you don’t want to do anything to celebrate?”

Crowley rolled over onto his side to face the angel. “I didn’t say that! I want to celebrate being with you. I love you, you know that. I just don’t want to do it on Valentine’s Day. I want to do it every day. Besides, did you know he’s the patron saint of epilepsy, too? It’s not like we’re going to go have a seizure in his honor, are we?”

“I did not know that,” Aziraphale sniffed, “and no we aren’t.”

“Plus, really, the truth behind the legend is just gross, angel. He wrote a letter to a woman who’s sight he had restored and signed it “from your Valentine” right before he was beaten to death with clubs. Beaten. To Death. That’s hardly romantic, is it? And he was just signing his name, anyways.”

Aziraphale rolled out of bed and pulled on his tartan dressing gown. “It certainly is not,” he said distantly. “You’ve made your point, my dear.”

Aziraphale made his way into the bathroom, and a few minutes later Crowley heard the bath running and caught the scent of the vanilla bath salts the angel preferred lately. He smiled, happy to have settled that argument in his favor, and threw on some clothes to go out and get the angel some pastries and a coffee.

“Heya, angel,” Crowley said, the shop door jingling behind him as he returned. The angel was sitting at his desk working on something. “Brought you a coffee and a chocolate muffin.”

“Thank you my dear,” the angel said with a smile, taking the offered sweets and turning back to his work. “You’ll pardon me, I hope, but I just have to get started on the new inventory.”

“Oh,” the demon replied, surprised. “I thought we were going to the park.”

“I’d love to, but a new shipment came in yesterday, and you know I’ve been trying to keep the records more up to date.” Aziraphale straightened his bowtie. “I’m afraid I have to get this done while it’s still fresh in my mind or I’ll mix up all the details.”

That, Crowley knew, was a lie. Aziraphale never forgot the slightest detail about any book in his collection. Sometimes he liked to play a game where he wandered around the shop at random and pulled a book out of some obscure corner and asked Aziraphale some obscure fact about its printing date, number of pages, where he bought it from, or what it was worth – and honestly, the angel had never missed once. Not once. He knew that even if the angel put the new shipment in a corner for the next hundred years, he would never lose track of any of the info he needed to know.

Crowley plopped down on the couch and observed the angel through narrowed eyes. What was he up to? He took a deep sip of his cappuccino and contemplated. Could it have been the epilepsy comment? Was that insensitive to sick people?

“You know,” Crowley said casually, “I have nothing against epileptics.”

Aziraphale turned and gave him a strange look. “What a relief,” he said acerbically.

Crowley met his gaze in confusion. “Well – yes,” he sputtered. “I didn’t want their to be any confusion.”

Aziraphale shook his head the tiniest amount, then turned back to his desk and picked up his pen.

Crowley, unable to take the odd and rising level of tension in the shop, eventually fled, pleading “demonic errands,” and instead went down to his favorite local pub for a whiskey and a talk with his friend Diana, the bartender.

“So,” Diana said, leaning forward on the counter. “What’s got you in here at two in the afternoon?”

Crowley ran a hand through his hair. “It’s Aziraphale,” he admitted. “He’s being weird.”

Diana looked around and noted that her only other customer seemed quite contented with the pint in front of him, and settled in for a talk. “Weird how?”

“I dunno, it’s like maybe he’s upset with me about something? But I haven’t done anything and I don’t know what it could be.”

“Anything unusual happen this morning?”

“We were talking about Valentine’s Day,” he said.

“And?”

“And I told him that my people don’t celebrate that, and that Saint Valentine was in no way the patron saint of romance, and he got horribly butchered, and it’s a sappy holiday for suckers.”

Diana stared at him flatly, her dark brown eyes flashing. “Can’t imagine what might be bothering him,” she said heavily.

“What?”

“It’s your first time in a couple in a long time, isn’t it?” she asked with a smirk.

“So what if it is?” Crowley realized his voice sounded a tad defensive.

His friend reached behind the counter and poured them both a shot of something. He sniffed it suspiciously, decided he didn’t care what it was, and downed it in a single shot.

“Listen up,” she said, fixing him with a strong look. “You might not think Valentine’s Day is important, and that’s all well and could, but what if he thinks it’s important?”

“He’s an –” he started to say ‘ethereal being’ and stopped himself by the skin of his teeth. “He’s a sophisticated, urban, educated person. He’s never shown any interest in this kind of thing in all the years I’ve known him. And I’ve known him for a long, long time.”

Diana thought for a moment. “In all of that time you’ve known him, has he ever been in a relationship on Valentine’s Day before?”

Crowley thought. “You know, I don’t think so.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And so –”

“And so? Spit it out, woman.”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s his first one. You’re newly in love. Perhaps he’s gotten a little caught up in it.”

Crowley felt the blood drain from his face.

He was a fool.

He was a bloody, enormous fool.

Of course Aziraphale was excited about it. Aziraphale loved rituals and holidays and got excited about each and every one of them. And of course he’d never had an opportunity to have anyone make a fuss over him on a romantic holiday before. And he had rained all over the angel’s happiness about it with his morbidity and jadedness.

He dropped his face into his hands. “Oh, for the love of – “

“You’re an idiot,” Diana supplied helpfully.

“I am,” he said agreeably. “What do I do?”

“Well,” she said, “you just have to figure out some way of showing him that he’s special. You can figure it out.”

“How did you get so smart?” he groused. “And pour me one more, will you?”

“Comes with the territory,” she said, reaching for the good stuff.

“So,” Crowley said that night as they were watching a film and working their way methodically through a takeaway curry or two. “I was thinking about that Valentines thing you brought up this morning.”

Aziraphale kept his eyes on the television but raised his eyebrows in curiosity. “Were you?” he asked.

“I think I may have spoken a little rashly,” he said.

“Oh,” the angel said, dismissively, still following the action, “no you didn’t, really it’s fine.”

Crowley waved a hand and paused the screen. “Listen to me,” he said, “I’m trying something new here.”

Aziraphale turned to him, uncertain. “And that would be what?”

“I’m saying – you’ve never had a Valentine’s Day before. I’ve never had one either. Maybe it would be fun to do something.” He swallowed. “You know. Since we –” He made a hand waving gesture that somehow encompassed the room, the shop, the two of them, and, he hoped, his feelings.

Gestures, he thought, could say so much.

Aziraphale gave him a tiny, knowing smirk. “Oh, well, when you put it that way,” he said slyly.

Crowley rolled his eyes. “I’m saying I’m game for Valentine’s Day,” he said. “Let’s make it a good one, okay?”

Aziraphale smiled happily. “Well if you’re sure,” he said.

“Leave the planning to me,” Crowley said. “I’m on top of it.”

He was not on top of it. But he would, he decided, figure it out.

“What are we doing tonight?” Aziraphale asked the following Friday. “You haven’t actually told me.”

“It’s a surprise,” Crowley said. “Just wear something nice and be ready at eight for me to pick you up.”

He went home to Mayfair and worked hard on an outfit and double checked his plans on his mobile. Dinner reservations were all set. He straightened his tie in the mirror and set out with a jaunty swing to his step to go get his angel. He had even chosen a new CD from a shop earlier in the day, something old-fashioned and croony that he knew the angel would like, and he unwrapped it quickly, snapping away the plastic, and put it in the stereo at a low volume as he made his way across town. If he was lucky, they’d make it through most of the night before it reverted to Queen.

Besides, he thought, if inside he was pretending it was just an ordinary date night, it was no one’s business. He didn’t need bloody February 14th to be romantic; he was Anthony J. Crowley and he could be romantic any time he wanted. But if it was important to his angel, he was going to do his best to show him a good time.

He stopped at the door of the shop, thought for a minute, and knocked instead of entered.

It took a few minutes for Aziraphale to answer the door. He looked surprised when he did. “You knocked?” he asked. “Why didn’t you come in?”

Crowley took a moment to appreciate the angel in his nicest cream-colored suit, one he usually only wore to weddings and other special occasions. Unlike the rest of his clothing, this outfit had the advantage of being both made in the current century and also being more form fitting that most of the heavy layers he usually wore, revealing his shape nicely. He’d paired it with a pale blue tie that matched his eyes almost perfectly.

“Ngk,” he said, then cleared his throat and started again. “I wanted to pick you up at the door for our date. You know. Old-fashioned, like.” He held out an arm to Aziraphale.

Aziraphale gave him a deeply dimpled smile and took the offered arm, allowing Crowley to escort him to the passenger seat.

“You look nice,” he added on the way.

“So do you, my dear.”

Later that night, after their dinner at a quiet, intimate Italian place, after a walk in the park during which the moon was somehow more full and brighter than any weatherman had expected, after a late night gelato at a local shop that unexpectedly had no other customers and all of the angel’s favorite obscure flavors, they wandered back to the bookshop and nuzzled together on the couch.

“Did you have a nice night, angel?” Crowley said. “I’m sorry the restaurant was so loud, and that the cocoa powder on the tiramisu made you sneeze, and I hope the duck incident on our walk didn’t –”

“My dear,” Aziraphale said, “what on earth are you talking about? Tonight was perfect. Just perfect.”

“But the duck took the – right out of your -- ” Crowley spluttered.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale cut in more firmly. He took the demon’s hand and all but forced him to be silent. “Listen to me. It was lovely, and romantic, and perfect. No one has ever made such an effort for me before. It meant the world to me.”

Crowley made a strangled noise in his throat and, finding speech impossible, decided to focus instead on simply not bursting into flames. He thought cooling thoughts. Water. Ice. Hailstorms. Freezer sections at the grocers.

Aziraphale, seeing his conflict, leaned in and gave him a slow and tender kiss. “Happy Valentines Day, my love. I hope we have many more.”

“We will have all of them, angel,” Crowley mumbled, before kissing him back. “Every single one.”

#goloveday #good omens #good omens fanfiction #aziraphale x crowley #valentines day #ineffable husbands

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for-a-flower · 4 years

Text

Worst Nightmare

(WARNING! This part contains violence, death, and blood. Because Flowey being Flowey and things...)

Flowey pushed up through the rock where Asgore once stood and gave Frisk a condescending smile. "You idiot. You haven't learned a thing.” Frisk scowled as deep anger came over him. Six colored souls passed him on their way toward the flower. Frisk’s glare vanished and he glanced over his shoulder. The containers had been broken.

"What?" he whispered. His brown eyes darted back to Flowey.

The thing still peered up at him, smiling. But as Flowey spoke again, his face distorted into a terrifying, soulless grin while his voice slurred lower. "In this world . . . it's kill or be killed!" The six souls began circling around his petalled head. Flowey’s following laughter sent chills down Frisk’s spine. The small child retreated as the human souls spun around the plant faster and faster. Blinding light concealed Flowey as his laughing echoed in the large cavern. Frisk lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the light. As the glow faded, silence enveloped the area. Frisk turned his head to look around but couldn't see anything in the dark. For a second or two, he wondered if he was dead. Yet he could feel rock beneath his boots, which meant he wasn't. Nervous tension threatened to take hold of Frisk’s mind, but his determination was still going strong.

A yellow light appeared before him. Frisk reached out, but the light warped and twisted into a blood, red color then vanished. Alarmed, the child reached out with a hand, attempting to summon it again. His tries yielded no results. Flowey's voice spoke from the darkness in front of him. "Howdy!" Frisk’s gaze shifted to focus on the shape of a Golden Flower ahead. Oddly though, Flowey himself flickered briefly like a lifeless projection. Slowly, a narrow beam of light lit the ground ahead, revealing what seemed to be an old television. It was on, an image of Flowey on its otherwise dark screen. Frisk stared at the screen with confused suspicion. Surely this was some trick. Maybe the real Flowey had left a decoy and ran off with the souls.

Flowey smiled back. “What is it? Don’t recognize me? It’s me, Flowey! Flowey the Flower,” he said. “I owe you a huge thanks. You really did a number on that old fool.” Flowey giggled a little. "Without you, I never could have gotten passed him." Flowey's face on the screen distorted into a mimic of Asgore's. "But now, with your help . . . he's dead."

Frisk narrowed his eyes. "Flowey, what's going on?" he asked.

The Flower grinned. “Are you blind?! I've just taken the human souls! They’re mine! All of them!” He laughed to himself. “Boy! I've been empty for so long. It feels great to have a soul inside me again." He stuck out his tongue and snickered. "Hm . . . I can feel them wriggling." Flowey’s beady eyes glanced over Frisk. "Aw, you must be feeling left out."

The child shook his head and stepped back. "A-actually, no."

"Well, that doesn't matter. After all, I only have six souls. I still need one more . . ." Flowey's voice changed. Its pitch shifted lower as he continued with an eerie, fanged smile. "Before I become even stronger! And then, with my newfound powers . . . monsters . . . humans . . . everyone!" Flowey's face flickered and turned darker, nearly disappearing from the screen, though his grin remained clearly visible. "I'll show them all the real meaning of this world." When loud cracking echoed from the dark, Frisk stepped back in alarm. The ground trembled around him. Flowey’s voice and face returned to normal. "Oh, and forget about escaping to your last save. It's gone forever," he said. Frisk's eyes widened. "But don't worry . . . your old friend Flowey has worked out a replacement for you."

Frisk frowned at Flowey’s projection. He didn't like the sound of this. "Re . . . replacement?"

Flowey's fanged smile returned and as he spoke, smaller sharp teeth grew in. He spoke with a threatening, twisted voice. "So . . . you refused to kill anyone, huh? You didn't listen when I explained how things work in this world. And now . . . I've got all the power. So, guess what I'm gonna do?! I'll save over your own death." Flowey stuck out his tongue between sharp teeth with the most bloodthirsty face Frisk had ever seen. "So you can watch me tear you to bloody pieces . . . over . . . and over . . . and over . . ."

Frisk was shuttering fear as he listened. His feet were glued to the cavern floor. He knew what he was hearing but he couldn't believe he was hearing it. Sure he was scared, but he still didn’t want to die. The child summoned his courage and stepped forward as the ground shook around him. "I'll . . . I’ll still find a way to survive," he said.

Flowey paused, his head tilted sideways. His image on the screen flickered. "What? Do you really think you can stop me?" He smirked and laughed to himself. The flower gave Frisk a brief pitiful smile. "You really are an idiot." The screen went completely white. Flickering red light flooded the cave as three giant, fleshy tubes grew from the sides of the television. Frisk’s mouth dropped open. He forced his shaking legs to take a step back. A large human-like mouth lined with teeth grew out sideways from the screen’s lower half, tilting it upward. The mouth inhaled deeply, giving life to a horrible creature that seemed to be growing from the television. A nose and eyes grew between the mouth and screen, while the fleshy tubes curved around to form three loops on either side. Two nearly human eyes opened within the middle loops.

Between bright flashes of red light, lots of skinny fleshy ropes shot up from the growing mass toward the cave ceiling. Frisk managed to back several steps further away as those growths were joined by others that wrapped around them to strengthen their hold. Tiny leaves grew out from the back of the screen as it was lifted from the ground. Two large vines shot out from either side of the creature, punching into the rock above it. As the cave continued to shake, other vines split the ground in front of the barrier, completely blocking it from view. From the creature grew two thick fore limbs, resembling cacti in texture but with three giant red claws on the ends. Finally the shaking ceased as full light returned to the cavern.

Frisk found himself staring up at a horrifying monstrosity. A smiling face resembling Flowey’s appeared on the white screen. Its dark eyes opened sideways, revealing red pupils as his smile became a grin. He peered down at Frisk, as the human trembled. Flowey roared in laughter, the volume of it shaking the entire cavern. That was it. Frisk bolted for the gate out as fast as his little legs could take him. Before he could reach it, several vines shot up, stretched across the gate, and blocked it entirely. Frisk skidded to a stop, heart racing. There was nowhere to go.

He spun around, shook his head, and closed his eyes. “This can’t be real. It’s too freaky. This is a dream. It has to be a dream,” he muttered.

“Oh, I assure you . . .” A vine grabbed Frisk by the leg and dragged him back toward the monster. “. . . it’s very real.” Flowey laughed. "And you can’t escape it." He snatched the child in a clawed hand and squeezed, easily crushing him. Everything went dark. Frisk fell through shadows nearly paralyzed with fear. He tried to reach out for the light. If only he could return to his last save, he could avoid this awful fate.

Asgore’s voice spoke to him from the darkness. “This is all just a bad dream.” The voice switched to Flowey's distorted one and added, "And you're never waking up!” Flowey burst into laughter which continued for several seconds before fading.

Frisk took a deep breath, suddenly opening his eyes. He stood before Flowey's terrifying monster. The child looked up, fear in his eyes. Flowey grinned back. "Hee hee hee . . . I hope you didn’t really think I was going to be satisfied killing you only one time."

Frisk frowned. He held up a small hand, his arm shaking. "Wait, please!" Flowey swung a large vine at him. Frisk jumped back into a flurry of pellets. The first spread knocked him to the ground followed by others that continued to strike. Frisk screamed, struggling to get to his feet and out of the line of fire. Already badly injured, he fled as Flowey threw larger, spiked pellets in his direction. Frisk dodged from side to side, but there were simply too many. Three struck him on the chest, knocking him back down. The human gasped in pain, looking up at the looming creature. "Why?!" Frisk shouted. Flowey lifted a clawed hand then slammed it down on the child.

A red light flashed in Frisk’s vision when he woke up yet again. Flowey grinned down at him. "Pathetic . . . now you're really gonna die!"

Frisk opened his mouth to beg for mercy, but Flowey grabbed him with a vine and tossed him into the dark air. He raised a hand and ignited a magic flame to throw fire at Frisk. Intense heat swept over the child as Frisk dropped, air rushing by his face. He hit the ground and rolled to smother flames on the back of his shirt. Flowey hit a fist to the ground. Frisk cringed as flames coated the floor. He peered up through flickering yellow and orange light as Flowey simply laughed. Frisk couldn’t stand the thought of burning to death so he charged for the next attack Flowey made, running directly into a spread of pellets. The child collapsed in a lingering fire.

Yet again Frisk appeared in front of Flowey. "Hee hee hee . . . do you even realize what will happen if you defeat me?" he asked. Frisk shook his head. "I didn't think so. Because it's impossible! You can't!" Flowey shot several spreads of pellets. This time Frisk turned and ran around the huge creature as projectiles flew by on either side. Flowey giggled, thoroughly enjoying himself.

Frisk had no idea how he was going to get out of this. Convincing Flowey to stop killing him wasn’t an option unless he could figure out why he was doing this to begin with. Fighting him was definitely something Frisk wouldn’t regret, if only he could get close enough to strike. Flowey let the human child run out of breath before swinging a clawed hand at him. The sharp claws cut into the skin on Frisk's left arm, drawing blood and slicing through the fabric of his shirt. Frisk grabbed the injury, wrapping his fingers around the deep cuts. Panting hard, he stopped and looked up at Flowey with a pitiful expression. "Why? Why are you hurting me like this?!" the child asked. Flowey didn't respond. He struck again, slashing the human across the head with a deadly blow. Frisk’s life left him.

Full Chapter List

#undertale #fan fiction #undertale spoilers #neutral ending #flowey #photoshop flowey #frisk #six human souls #violence #death #blood #part three #frisky business #foraflower au #i practically rewrote this whole scene #the original was so badly written

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twilight-deviant · 5 years

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So I never saw the Timeless movie but enjoyed your feedback on the show while it was in progress and agreed with you much of the time-- is the movie worth watching ? I'm scared it's going to be rushed, sloppy, and ly@tt garbage

First of all, thank you for valuing my opinion enough to ask. I haven’t rambled about Timeless in awhile, but I’m flattered you enjoyed and remembered my feedback when I did. ♥

Sadly, I have to report that Timeless finale is a movie disliked by Garcy fans, Riya fans, and gen fans alike. Pretty much the only way to like it is if you’re the target audience: Lucy/Wyatt shippers. Or maybe if you’re a very, very casual fan.

Full disclosure: I have not actually watched the Timeless movie. Like you, I feared it would abandon everything Timeless stood for, everything we loved, to waste its last moments on Lucy/Wyatt fan service. Aaaaaand I was right. Good call me on not watching it live. It might have broken my heart. I got the information later through friends and research. And tbh, hearing everything second-hand was actually hilarious. Yes, it was upsetting, but the writing is SO BAD, I actually laughed. Out loud. I may have cried laughing. It’s just… so bad. XD

I spent months dreading a worst case scenario for the movie, and when the time came, it was every bit that. (And then some? Somehow?) But when it got here, all of my fears turned to hilarity. I was RELIEVED. After months of being afraid, I finally felt free. I thought “This is what I was afraid of?” Because toxic shippers in the fandom got everything they wanted, just the way they wanted, but it is HORRIBLE! Because what they wanted was BAD. It watches just like the badly written fanfiction they demanded. Which is ALL this movie is: badly written fanfiction.

To quote Claudia Doumit when she read the script: “It feels like a fan wrote the movie.” Perhaps she means that in a positive way, but if a professional is writing “like a fan,” spoiler alert, it’s never a positive thing. It’s a “basic” thing.

Timeless movie is SO BAD that it is the least rewatched episode of all Timeless. Delayed returns on it are borderline embarrassing. Few people except Lucy/Wyatt shippers wanted to subject themselves to it a second time. Not to mention that support for Timeless and a third renewal fell into steep decline after the premiere. It seems not many people want more if this is the “more” we might have to look forward to.

imo, Future television writers should study this movie for direct examples of what NOT to do. It’s every worst case scenario, presented to you at breakneck speed. You barely have time to get over one absurdity before the next one hits. Not gonna lie. I’ll give kudos where due. I am legitimately IMPRESSED that writing managed to get every single thing wrong. Do you know how statistically impossible that is?!?!

Timeless movie really sort of took all the negatives, low points, disproportionate focus on romance, and bad writing of S2 and ran with them. That’s what it is. Concentrated S2, minus any good parts.

Basically, if you are a fan of Flynn, Lucy, Rufus, Jiya, Jessica, Emma, Connor, Denise, good writing, feminism, no plotholes, Riya, Garcy, or TIMELESS, please do not watch the Timeless movie. Save yourself. If your first (only?) priority is Wyatt and Lucy/Wyatt, go right ahead. It was made just (only?) for you.

Though obviously, I can’t/won’t stop you from watching. You may still want to form your own opinion, and if so, you have my full support. I hope that you find something appealing to make it worth your time. I especially hope that if you don’t, it doesn’t ruin Timeless for you, as it has other people. I still may watch it myself one day. I may. But not for entertainment purposes. Really just to mock it from a more informed standpoint. I’ve considered live-blogging the event. lol.

As is though, I basically know the entire movie through aforementioned friends and research. And I will summarize below the cut on the ways this movie failed Timeless and its fans. (PS: This is by no means everything. There’s just SO MUCH and I got tiiiired thinking about this monstrosity! Anyone is free to add on whatever I didn’t cover.)

[Spoilers]

Future Lucy gives the journal to Wyatt, the writer’s attempt to take something that has always been Flynn/Lucy’s thing and make it a L/W thing. (Somehow, we’re supposed to ignore that this Lucy already would have given her journal to Flynn in 2014. Conveniently, illogically, she has it again. So she can give it to Wyatt.)

Future Wyatt announces that Jessica was lying about being pregnant. Right out the gate. Great. Now, they get to kill her. Don’t worry, writing will strip away her entire character first so we don’t feel guilty when an “evil Rittenhouse agent” dies. It’s fine to kill a woman who was brainwashed from childhood, but let’s not kill a baby. We’ll just erase it instead. That’s different because reasons.

Writing introduces a new stipulation that people can coexist with time travel, but staying too long will kill them. This will come in handy later.

Also the new, updated Lifeboat will conveniently be able to do whatever the plot needs. Coexist? Sure. Autopilot? Suuuuure. Able to jump multiple times on one charge as if it had a nuclear core like the Mothership? Why not?!

If you thought Rittenhouse wasn’t scary anymore in S2, well hold onto this writer’s beer. Gone is any intimidation or purpose they once stood for. Now that Emma is running things, all that matters is stealing art and money from the past. Caution: Never go full two-dimensional evil.

Wyatt decides Jessica has to die and he’s the one who has to do it. But after half an argument from the team, he gives in and agrees not to. FLYNN will clean up Wyatt’s mess instead! Because suddenly, all that matters is he loves Lucy. Not his family. Not stopping Rittenhouse. No, he has to do this so that Lucy can be with Wyatt and Rufus can be alive.

Flynn tells Lucy that the journal can be unreliable. Despite this, he goes to 2012 and dooms himself because he believes, without a doubt, that Lucy’s heart will always belong to Wyatt, something he, ya know, got from the journal. And that neeeeeever changes. I mean, some guy said it was unreliable, but his name escapes me right now.

When 1x06 first aired and we heard the story of how Jessica died and how it was very much Wyatt’s fault, painting him in a negative light, I thought to myself (almost three years ago), “Wow. If we ever get a flashback of that night, writing is going to retcon all of that so hard so that it doesn’t look like Wyatt’s fault.” And lo! It’s Jessica’s fault now. She made Wyatt get jealous on purpose. She made him drink too much. She MADE HIM let her out of the car, per text orders of Rittenhouse agent. Poor Wyatt, what a victim. (Periodic reminder that Timeless hates women.)

Writing in the scene with Jessica’s death is so bad that we’re actually left with no alternative BUT to believe Wyatt was the original killer that night. Rittenhouse agent tells Jessica to get out of the car. This saves her life. No other person is seen on this road (save Flynn later) that could be the killer. And what’s the other course (the original timeline)? Without instruction, Jessica would have stayed in the car. And died. Wow, I can’t believe Wyatt killed Jessica in a drunken, jealous rage, but also I can. Also also writing just told us he did. If Rittenhouse wanted to make sure she was okay, they would tell her to stay in the car with her soldier husband, no matter what. That would save her. But what do they do instead? Hmmmm…….

Flynn kills Jessica and hurries to the Lifeboat, feeling the effects of coexistence taking affect. Set course for any time but this one, am I right? Wrong. Nah, better just die. Flynn sends the Lifeboat back to 1848 for the team and stays in 2012 so he can see his family one last time and then die. Because true character development is letting your five-year-old die violently two weeks before Christmas when you still have the life and power to prevent it.

Why does all of our correspondence end the same? Reply, reply, and then *crickets* Notice me, senpai. TToTT

For some reason (I mean, I know the reason. It’s bad writing by an idiot), dead Flynn’s fingerprints do not pull up when police find a John Doe on the beach. Despite the fact that he worked with the NSA and his prints would be on file.

I can’t with this woman:

Anywaaaaaaay, Rufus returns in a way that breaks all time travel rules thus far established in the show. Even though the team was traveling in 1848 with Flynn, suddenly it’s reset so that Rufus was there the entire time. Which, even if writing wants to claim that’s SOMEHOW possible, is still illogical because to overwrite that timeline, the characters’ memories would have also been overwritten. However, they remain perfectly intact with everyone remembering Rufus died. (Except Rufus, of course.)

Flynn dies because he stayed in the past too long. The writer would then go on twitter and pretend the matter was out of her hands, even though she’s the one who set the condition. She WROTE the rule that killed him, SO she could kill him. (This was previously not going to be a condition on coexisting time travel. Source: Interviews in which it was suggested that had Timeless been renewed for S3, Future Lucy and Wyatt may have stuck around for a few episodes.)

Arika would also say on twitter that, in her opinion, Flynn didn’t deserve a happy ending, to the uproar of many.

Writing tries to claim that Flynn was always the person who killed Jessica in 2012. Deer lord at the plotholes.

And the holes keep comin and they don’t stop comin. ♫

It’s Christmas now. For some reason. When the team returns to the bunker, there are Christmas decorations everywhere and we’re told that it’s Christmas in present day. Even though it was May yesterday.

There are more than a dozen ways to save Flynn at this point, but Arika doesn’t like him and just wants Lucy/Wyatt to bang. So you can bet none of them will be used. Also because she’s an idiot, the woman claimed on twitter that Flynn can’t possibly be brought back because he died while time traveling. Uh-huh. First off, what? He absolutely can be saved. Secondly, tell me how Rufus died again?

The characters acknowledge Flynn for a minute (in a toast give by WYATT, of all people) before promptly forgetting he ever existed until the end of the movie. When they need him again.

When Rufus wants to get intimate, Jiya tells him that she suffered some form of abuse while stranded in the past. That’s it. We will never talk about this again. Forget it ever happened. They brought it up just to scar Jiya even further and then ignore it. Anyone who tells you Timeless loves women is lying. Timeless wants to torture and torment women. FOR NO REASON!

Emma is the only person who cares Jessica is now dead. Because it sure as shirt wasn’t going to be her husband who like two days ago was desperately trying to get her to come home to her “family.” (Remember kids, women are just baby makers. If there’s not a baby in there, she’s garbage, and a minute spent mourning is a minute you’re not banging the next lady.) Emma plots revenge on the team, and honestly, by this point, I say let her do it. They’re horrible people.

Lucy boldly says she won’t be Wyatt’s second choice. So she can forget she said it in 10 minutes, when she’s suddenly fine with it.

Rufus is alive again, but all of his memories after 2x03 are conveniently erased. In his timeline, Lucy/Wyatt have been together this whole time, and he’s their biggest fan. He actually, canonically, verbally says that he’s “Team L/yatt.” That’s great because otherwise we’re left with a Rufus whose last words on the subject are:

“You are so worried about your stupid Lucy-Jessica soap opera that you forgot that there are other people here. Who matter to each other. Who love each other. If anything happens to her, Wyatt… I don’t think I can ever forgive you.”

Yeah, we can’t use that in the Lucy/Wyatt movie. Better erase the black man’s memory since he’s no longer serving his purpose: head cheerleader of the white couple!

Because Rufus’s memories are gone, all S2 development in the Riya relationship is gone with it. Damaging them even more after Jiya spent 3 years in the past (becoming hardened and almost a different person) and then watched him die. Don’t worry, writing will address none of this.

Rufus compares Lucy/Wyatt to Aragorn/Arwen. As a Tolkien nerd, I’ll throw down over this alone. IN WHAT WAY?!

There’s a pregnant woman in labor because leave no cliche unturned. Wyatt delivers the baby because what did I just say about cliches.

Lucy’s hormones go all a-twitter when she sees Wyatt holding said baby. Outside? In weather they admitted earlier is deathly freezing? (I mean, the mother might want to hold her own baby, but no. She has to get in line. Lucy absolutely HAS to have an epiphany that she needs Wyatt’s babies.)

Lucy decides that since Wyatt’s mistreatment of her was technically from another timeline, she can let go off all self-respect and tell herself he didn’t mean it. Also almost everyone else is dead or has their memories erased, so only they will know. Now Lucy can be with Wyatt and no one will judge her? Yay?

Despite Emma’s big speech in 2x10 about abandoning the pillars of “old Rittenhouse” and striking out on her own, she still backs down immediately when Denise makes Benjamin Cahill tell her to knock it off and surrender.

Emma dies at the hands of some deus ex machina random sniper. Letting us know the writer could no longer pretend she cared about any of this and just wanted to make Lucy/Wyatt bang. Are they banging yet? Bang now! Will this convenient and corny mistletoe move things along? Are they banging yet?

So Denise saves the day. In the most anti-climatic way. Meaning Rufus was never actually necessary and could have stayed dead. Actually, none of the team was necessary. Nothing in these episodes was necessary. All it took to end Rittenhouse was Denise and Ben. Roll credits.

Lucy decides NOT to save her sister Amy. Even though it’s what she has been fighting for since episode 2. Her reasoning? She says that trying to save the people they love has negative effects. (Let’s get one last jab at dead Flynn by saying, “Look at all the awful things that Flynn did in the name of saving his family.”) This is said in spite of the fact that Amy is SUPPOSED to be alive, and leaving her erased IS an alternate timeline, carrying the potential of being more catastrophic than SAVING HER and setting the events right.

PS: While in the past, Lucy JUST SAID, “What’s the point of saving history if we don’t save the people in it?” And then saved a stranger that was supposed to die. Writing for this movie does not care about consistency, only what’s relevant in the moment. And clearly the writer wanted Amy to stay dead.

Leaving Amy dead creates this lovely paradox:

Writer is too ignorant in time travel to understand that current timeline is erased, Lucy is now with Noah, and that is our endgame. Movie proceeds with Lucy/Wyatt ending.

The Mothership is dismantled for no reason. So now the team is stuck with ONE time machine for any future situations. Remind me again. Remind me. Why… did we have the Lifeboat in the first place? Oh yeah, Connor kept it in case the crew of the Mothership was ever stranded. And it came in handy after the Mothership was stolen. Right, who needs two time machines? Scrap her, boys!

In a flashforward to 2023, we see that Lucy is teaching at Stanford again. And she just got tenure! Which is a throwback to the Pilot, but completely ignores that it is not what Lucy wanted for herself, only what Carol influenced her into doing. Lucy’s dream job was to teach at a small college in Ohio. (Source: 1x14 conversation with Lindbergh.) But who CARES WHAT LUCY WANTS?! Certainly not a writer who barely knows the show upon which she is the showrunner.

Lucy is a thoroughly horrible fake feminist now. At her job, she teaches a general history class, but only talks about women in history. When a male student brings this up, Lucy says, “I meant to get to the men, but we just didn’t have time.Maybe in the spring, okay?” So he gets to sound sexist for valuing his education. Oh, wow, thanks. Feminism isn’t about ignoring men and acting like they’re not important. It’s about EQUALITY! Label your class as “Women’s History” if that’s all you’re going to teach. Also what if they don’t HAVE YOU next semester, Lucy?! They’re going on to their next classes completely unprepared. Remind me again how this woman got tenure? Because she didn’t get it in the Pilot due to her unconventional teaching methods. Somehow not adhering to your own course description is the secret to success?

Lucy and Wyatt have two twin girls named Flynn and Amy. There are so many bad fanfiction cliches I want to cry. TToTT Why are you making me cry? Never. name. the. second. generation. after. characters. that. died. It’s. THE. corniest. thing. Petition. to. stop!

Jiya and Rufus started “Riya Industries.” That’s right! They squeezed not one, BUT TWO fandom ship names into this nightmare. If you needed further proof no one was taking this movie seriously, here ya go.

2023 Lucy does take the journal to 2014 Flynn in the bar in Sao Paulo, but everything about it is wrong. Not only do Rufus and Wyatt accompany her, but the conversation leads to Lucy telling a man who just lost his family that he can change the past but will never save his family. Also he’ll die. And he should just accept all of that but still do what she says and sacrifice himself to save a world that hates him. And the entire conversation takes place in about a minute. I mean, people had a hard time believing Flynn would buy into Lucy’s story and do what she said after 2x08 premiered. Now? NO EFFING WAY!

A clip (deleted scene from Pilot) of 2016 Flynn at the end shows him about to raid Mason Industries and start us over again. In other words, he is stuck in Hell loop for eternity. His family will die in 2014, he will do horrible things he hates to save them and the world from Rittenhouse, and he will die unnecessarily to save the world. Then Lucy will go back in time, give him the journal, and start him on this quest all over again, knowing full well that he is a good man and this will destroy his soul. But she doesn’t care (actually smiles as she approaches him) because he “did bad things” and the writer thinks he deserves this. Even though Lucy is the one who set him on this path and one can EASILY argue it is all her doing and Flynn was nothing but her tool. Don’t worry, she gets her happy ending.

The movie closes on a young girl designing specs for her own time machine. Motives unknown, other than general interest, same as Connor in the beginning. The writer thinks this is an AMAZING open ending, leaving plenty of groundwork for more Timeless when fans get it renewed for a third time. (It is not. No one cares. You killed Timeless and flew all its plots into the ground.)

In conclusion, yes, worst case scenario on every single plot point. Timeless does nothing to prove or even suggest it deserves a third chance. I personally am left wishing it had never been renewed after the initial cancellation following S1. Let it stay dead now. Forever. It has done nothing to deserve yet another chance.

RIP Timemess.

#hopefully-happy #Ask #TD Reply #I hope you don't mind I published this publicly #I obviously had a lot to say #^__^;#In conclusion: It bad #And I would gladly meet with Arika in a Denny's parking lot #She ruined my favorite show #And then she came back with this movie and DESTROYED IT!#Also she hates logic and I love logic #She is my arch nemesis #I ranted way too long about this movie but if there's one thing I have in abundance #it's an opinion #Hahahahaha #Timeless

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reddieandgoodnight · 5 years

Text

@tinyarmedtrex, here’s that #12 kissing prompt I promised you! With the trailer today, my mind kept returning here and to how I wish things could be. *sigh* Enjoy, y’all. <333

12. a hoarse whisper “kiss me”

“Here! Here, have some of this!” Eddie screams, shoving his arm into and triggering his aspirator straight down It’s throat, down into its black, degenerate core, where all the evil, vile things of Derry live. Then comes the sudden, horrendous pain as Its jaws snap shut. His arm — it’s gone, ripped right off a bit below his shoulder.

It hurts so bad, he can’t even scream, can’t do anything but collapse to the floor, spraying blood into the dank water around them. Everything feels far away and unimportant as his life seeps from him into the Derry sewers, everything washing away like rubbing dirt off of grimy windows, until —

“—Eds—"

Eddie Kaspbrak’s eyes snap open. His breathing sounds ragged in his ears, sweat sliding down his temples. For a horrible moment, he has no idea where he is, just how bad his arm —

His arm.

He lifts his head to look down at his right arm. Or…where most of his right arm had been. Now there’s an empty space. Just…nothing. A few inches of skin below his shoulder. And then nothing.

Eddie lets his head drop back to the pillow. He’d been so sure he was dead. How could someone feel that much pain and not be dead?

He carefully sits up, using his left arm to push himself to a sitting position. He winces at the terrible stinging ravaging his right shoulder, clearly unhappy to have had its accompanying limb taken away and then to have him moving about.

The room he’s in is plain, only containing a desk, a bookshelf, and the bed where he sits, swaddled under a thick quilt. The wooden walls tell him nothing of where he is.

He can hear a television somewhere beyond the room, volume quiet as though whomever is watching doesn’t want to wake him. “Hello?” he asks. No answer.

Slowly, so slowly, Eddie pushes back the blanket and swings his feet to the floor. A strange heat rushes through him, wanting to drag him back down into the darkness. He blinks black spots out of his vision. Goddamn, if it can just stop hurting a little, that would be great…

He stands, hating the way his legs shake under him. But he has to know what’s happening.

The trip to the door and then into the hall feels like the longest few minutes of his life. He’s never thought anything of running, jumping, dancing (if Myra had felt like putting a Barry Manilow record on), or anything of the sort — at least, not since he was younger and stopped worrying about such things. But now the tiniest of movements makes him feel faint. He supposes that’s just what happens when a person loses a limb. At least for a while.

He pads slowly down the hall, toward the sound of the television. The hall opens up on a living room. And on the couch, facing away from Eddie, sits Richie Tozier.

“—Eds—”

Eddie stumbles a little, pressing his left palm against the wall for balance.

Richie startles, turning around to fix Eddie with a worried gaze. His dark hair is a mess, frizzed up around the back of his head where he’s been leaning against the couch. The dark circles under his eyes look almost black, deep and bruised looking enough to stand out even around his thick glasses.

He looks so tired. Eddie’s heart hurts to see it.

“Eddie,” Richie breathes. “What are you — Do you need something? You shouldn’t be out of bed!” He jumps up. “What do you need? Food? You haven’t really eaten anything… I mean, besides that shit at the hospital, but it doesn’t even count if it’s coming through a tube. You should probably take more of your meds, too, damn —”

“Richie?” Eddie whispers.

Richie shuts up at the sound of Eddie’s voice, just looking at him with that distressing worry.

“I’m — what happened? Where are we?” Eddie asks. He feels a little dizzy. He blinks, noticing Richie is suddenly standing next to him. When did that happen?

“Hey, come sit down,” Richie murmurs, a gentle hand against Eddie’s back. He helps Eddie sit on the couch, sinking down next to him. “We’re at Mike’s. He and Bill went out for some stuff, should be back in a bit. Audra’s in the other room.”

“Oh,” Eddie says. Bill and Mike. “How…how are we at Mike’s?”

Richie peers at him. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“My arm…losing my arm…”

Richie blanches at his words.

“But…wait.” Eddie feels so fuzzy, but this is important. “What about… Where—?”

“It’s dead.”

Eddie looks up at him, at the way Richie’s jaw clenches. At the slight stubble on his pale face. “…for good this time?”

“For good.”

Eddie nods, a terrible relief rushing through him.

“We carried you out,” Richie continues, staring down at his scraped-up hands resting in his lap. “Me and Ben. It…It ripped your fucking arm off, Eds.” His hands clench. “I thought you were going to bleed out. Bev managed to…stop the blood. At least until we got you out of the sewer to the hospital.” A pause. “The whole town’s gone to hell, you know? Like a fucking bomb went off. Main Street just fuckin’…split open. Like a mouth or something. It’s…shit, man. I don’t even know.” He rubs at his forehead, like a headache is brewing.

“I’m not surprised,” Eddie says. And he isn’t. Derry was always made of monsters. It’s poetic in a way that one of its monsters, the biggest of all, is the cause of its essential death.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Richie murmurs, looking up at Eddie. “I’m just…I don’t know what I would have done —”

Eddie only has one hand. The best thing he can think to do with it is to take Richie’s into his own.

Richie’s voice cuts off immediately. And then he grips Eddie’s hand so tightly, Eddie’s pretty sure it’ll bruise.

But Eddie doesn’t mind at all.

He marvels a little at the feel of Richie’s hand in his. It’s rough, callused. And it feels so much better against his than Myra’s ever did.

Myra. He winces at the thought of her.

“What’s wrong?” Richie asks. He’s always been perceptive when it comes to Eddie; now is no different.

“I’m just…thinking about Myra,” Eddie says. He notices Richie stiffen next to him.

“Do you miss her?” Richie is trying so hard to sound like he doesn’t care. Eddie can’t help but smile, just a little.

“No, I…I’m thinking about divorce papers.”

“…oh?” A bit of hope.

“If it was up to me, I’d never talk to her again,” Eddie says. He hesitates. “Does that make me a terrible person?”

“Well, why don’t you want to talk to her?”

“…because she’s just like my mother.”

Now that their memories of Derry have returned, Richie doesn’t have to ask what that means. He frowns, looking at Eddie. “Then I completely understand.” His sudden grin makes Eddie laugh.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” Eddie says. “It was just…easier.”

“Yeah, well. I think we’ve all made some pretty stupid mistakes when it comes to matters of the heart. Or of the body. Sex, I mean.”

“Jesus, Richie, I know,” Eddie says, shaking his head a little ruefully.

He gazes at their still-linked hands, liking how Richie’s is a little bigger than his.

“Did you ever want to get married?” he asks suddenly.

“Nah.” The answer comes at once. “No one was ever really right, you know? Or maybe…no one else really compared. Even if I didn’t know why.”

Eddie’s mouth feels dry as Richie looks up to stare at him. His hand tightens around Richie’s fingers, and Richie grips his back.

“Eds, I’m sorry,” Richie whispers.

“For what?” Eddie doesn’t know if it’s the proximity or the pain medication making him feel faint.

“I didn’t mean to forget you. It just…happened, I guess.”

“I know. It’s not like any of us meant to.”

“I just needed you to hear it,” Richie says, voice plaintive. “If I could have remembered even just one of the Losers…I would have chosen you.”

Eddie nods, throat tight. He thinks about all the glances he and Richie had been sharing over these past several days in Derry. Those ones that made him wonder if Richie could maybe see right into his soul.

Sometimes Richie would lick his lips a little as he stared, and Eddie thought death would come from the sweet heat rushing through Eddie’s veins. The heat of recognition and longing.

And now, Richie looks at him again. But it’s somehow more than before. There’s something so heartbreakingly sweet in Richie’s big brown eyes. That look makes him feel so small, but then…maybe Richie feels that way, too.

“I wish I’d remembered you, too,” Eddie says. He smiles at the tears in Richie’s eyes. They’re in his, too, after all. He laughs — a sad, wet sound. “Maybe you could have kept me from marrying my mother.”

Richie barks a laugh at that. “I dunno, my boy. Nothing stands between a boy and his mother. Except for an Oedipus complex, of course.”

“Beep beep, you asshole,” Eddie says, rolling his eyes. He’s smiling, so the words sound more like something else.

He leans more heavily against the back of the couch as another wave of dizziness sweeps through him.

“Are you all right?” Richie asks, concern lacing his words.

“I think I’m just tired.”

“Come on. Let’s get you back in bed. Bill and Mike will kick my ass if I let you actually die. And Ben and Bev, too. They’re at the hotel, but they’ll know.”

But Eddie tightens his grip on Richie’s hand before Richie can stand up. “Wait.”

“What is it, Eds?”

“Is this…is this all in my head?” he asks.

Richie gazes at him. “Eddie, of course it isn’t. It never was.”

“I love you, Richie,” Eddie murmurs. If a few tears run down his cheeks, Richie has the good grace not to say anything for once.

“And I love you.” Richie says it so earnestly; it can’t be anything but the truth. “I think… I think I always did, even if I couldn’t remember. I was serious when I said all the girls — and some boys, let’s be honest —”

Eddie smiles, knowing.

“None of them compared to you, Eds. Not a damn one of them.” Richie grins, and it’s like coming home.

“Richie?”

“Yeah, babe?”

“Kiss me?” he whispers hoarsely.

Richie’s gaze softens to something so warm, Eddie could melt from it. And when Richie leans forward and down to press their lips together, he does.

The kiss starts off light and tender, like butterfly wings, but soon deepens to fervent and intimate. Richie tastes a bit like cigarettes and candy, and it’s as perfect as Eddie had imagined it so many times when they were kids. The sweet, clean smell of Richie’s skin. The feel of Richie’s hand cupping his face, thumb lightly tracing lines between his freckles, the other hand still gripping Eddie’s.

Richie is gentle as he licks into Eddie’s mouth — and Eddie lets him, cherishing the velvety feel of Richie’s tongue against his.

Eddie is breathless when Richie pulls back to lean their foreheads together.

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” Richie says, panting just a little as they rest against each other.

“I missed you,” Eddie whispers when he feels like he can talk again.

“I missed you too, Eds. So, so much.”

“Will you…stay with me?”

“Always.”

#reddie #eddie kaspbrak #richie tozier #reddie fic #ash writes

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diarrheaworldstarhiphop · 5 years

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I Don't Wanna Grow Up (And Neither Can You)

You can't show women being hurt. You can't show child abuse. You can't show rape. You can't show incest. Pedophilia, self-harm, intimate partner abuse, necrophilia, violence against children; if you're going to so much as talk about any of these things you need to do so at a 5th-grade level and behind the dual firewalls of safe, pastel-colored animation and explicitly education-based presentation. The art has to show you in painstaking detail the exact way in which to behave. Even then there's no guarantee it won't provoke a public outcry, doxxing, death threats, and even campaigns to strip artists of their jobs and livelihoods.

The idea that by depicting an act an artist is endorsing that act seems baked into the minds of certain left-leaning sets of younger people, particularly teenagers and early twentysomethings. That they have such deep concern for the safety and social equality of their traumatized peers and the traumatized in their own ranks can only be admirable, but more often than not the form it takes is mass harassment and scapegoating targeting not institutions or major studios but independent creators, many of them marginalized themselves. If the whole thing sounds, with its zeal for censorship and its self-righteous hate campaigns against the disenfranchised, a little like the American Family Association with a glittery coat of paint, well, that's kind of what it is.

The usual arguments about internet anonymity and the horrible deformities it breeds in human interaction all apply here, and there's much to be said of the young age and unformed personalities of the people perpetrating the worst of it, but even older, more experienced art aficionados aren't immune to the fervor for purity in art. There seems to be a much deeper affection in these circles for corporate art -- for the Marvel cinematic universe and its bland, calculated inoffensiveness, say -- than there is for art made by artists. Movies like Wonder Woman and Captain America: Civil War are evaluated with a generosity of spirit that borders on delusion, cults of enthusiastic acclaim forming around actress Gal Gadot's onscreen thigh jiggle and the "subtle homo-eroticism" of Thor: Ragnarok.

Corporate art exists to please. It exists to reaffirm the status quo and to build affection for and loyalty to corporations. From the callous Islamophobia of the Iron Man movies to the US Air Force and CIA-approved wokeness of Captain Marvel and Black Panther, the whole enterprise is bent on saying as little as possible while looking as socially conscious as it can. Fandom's fixation on finding gay themes and subtext in these blockbuster juggernauts was more understandable when independent gay art was harder to find, but today you don't even have to brave a convention-- you can dig it up with a quick search on Etsy or Gumroad. When independent artists release material featuring actual deviant sexuality, though -- from gay content to incest -- the reaction from these same people is overwhelmingly prudish. There is little to no desire among them to interact with adult work created by adult gay and trans artists. That art -- small art, created for personal reasons -- is too dangerous to touch, too full of moral imperfections and frightening images.

But what's left in art once you scour away the things that make you uncomfortable? What's left for the people who make their living and/or maintain their sanity by approaching our own suffering from a place of skill, assurance, and safety? What's left for readers and viewers trying to grow as people, to find empathy for those they've been taught to despise, to understand their own sexual shame and fear? What's left for people struggling with the isolation of abuse who have no support and no words to help them name it? Art is the lifeblood of human connection and introspection. It is the foremost way in which we can confront our own weaknesses and failings. Sanitized and focused solely on the comfort and entertainment of its audience, it's no more meaningful than a halfhearted handjob from an indifferent lover.

The idea that depiction equates to endorsement has been pedaled in our society virtually since its inception. Its modern proponents range from anti-violent video game morality groups to the Westboro Baptist Church's unhinged campaigns to remove television with gay content from the airwaves. Imagine a world where Debbie Dreschler never made her autobiographical comic Daddy's Girl, one of the most scorching, hideous things ever committed to paper. How many people would never have seen their own experiences with parental incest reflected in her work, and thus felt able to finally break themselves open and process their deep pain? When a subject becomes taboo we lose our ability to process the pain surrounding it, to talk about it openly, to understand why it happens.

Another core pillar of this movement is the expression of outrage toward sexual kinks based around transgression. Surviving rape, abuse, and other traumatic incidents is never an easy thing, and it's never clean. You'll carry the marks of it in your sex life, in your sense of safety, in your beliefs about the world until the day you die. In Nancy Friday's My Secret Garden, a 1975 collection of women's anonymously submitted sexual fantasies, multiple Jewish women who had survived the Holocaust wrote with deep shame of their need to sexualize that experience, to relive it with their partners in a safe and loving environment. It's a relatable sentiment for anyone whose sexuality has been shaped by trauma, which can force shame and need against one another until they grow together inextricably. A close friend of mine was attacked as a "vicious anti-semite" for quoting the book.

The same friend was attacked en masse for her erotic comics featuring gay and bisexual men, comics which depict those men with complexity, heart, and loving attention to detail. The argument was that as a straight woman it was fetishistic for her to portray sex between men, a position so mind-bogglingly dense that I'm hard pressed to find a way to fire back at it other than "really?" It's difficult to parse until you realize that the targets of these little brigades of loudmouths and scolds are always, always women. For all that they're marching under the banner of social justice, the people they feel most comfortable threatening with harm and emotionally brutalizing are women. Men both in the independent art scene and in the mainstream make violent, hateful art every day, but screaming at men doesn't satisfy the misogynistic impulses beaten into us by a culture that sees women as weak, stupid, and venally evil.

What you have in the end is a movement which in practice enforces a sort of neoliberal social conservatism, demanding the sanitization of art produced by women and labeling existing art degenerate with the same verve the Nazis displayed in putting the torch to centuries of Europe's artistic history. It's a small, impoverished way to understand the purpose of art and it's fueled by deep, repressed misogyny. If we pretend everything is good, if we act like Marvel will fix racism and sexism if we just give them another four production cycles, if we make our branded dollies kiss and claim it's because the movies portray them in a symbolically homo-erotic context, OBVIOUSLY, then we don't need to look at ourselves or see what we're doing to the people around us. We can close our eyes and slip into the lukewarm water of purposeful mediocrity.

There's nothing wrong with escapism. There's nothing wrong with not wanting to or not being able to engage with art about horrific things. The problem begins when you look at the people who can, who need to, and decide that they can't either, that they're going to have to bend to your worldview or you'll call them pedophiles and nazis and incest apologists and run them out of town. And what then? When you've crushed the hopes and dreams of every woman writing dark erotica or making beautiful, sensual comics about love and loss, what's left but staring at each other in a creative wasteland and waiting for one of your own to show the tiniest sign of weakness so you can recapture the thrill of moral outrage by ripping them apart. It's a cannibalistic cultural dead end where corporations are our friends and other human beings are the enemy.

I stand with sex workers, with pornographers, with artists of all kinds struggling to make something hot, something vulnerable, something raw and sickening and terrifying. If they fuck it up, well, at least they're a person, not some faceless sea of suits trying to get their arms down my throats to pull out my organs. Enjoy your popcorn movies, your Steven Universe and your X-Men comics, but ask yourself, what are you immersing yourself in by not reaching beyond those things? What is prolonged and overgrown childhood doing to your mind and to your moral sense of the world? Growing up is painful, yes, but if you want to learn to love, to open yourself up to others, to touch the deepest, rawest parts of your psyche and your sexuality, you're going to have to suffer.

From: https://www.patreon.com/posts/25994657

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soobadnoonecanstopher · 6 years

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Only the One you Love, Part 9 (A Kyungsoo Series)

Genre: Angst / Romance / Smut / Fluff

Characters: You X Kyungsoo

Warnings: Graphic Smut, unprotected sex, some tense strawberries meant for human consumption, a mighty thirst, your author breaking the 4th wall, and omg two Y/Ns collide. Those who have read all three series in this universe (All His, I Give Up, and 2am) will find parts of this chapter particularly significant.

Only the One you Love[M]: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9

There is power in panic.

Panic makes people stupid.

Mass panic has the ability to turn a single rational human being into an animal incapable of rational thought -- when panic is introduced into a group of people; formerly rational human beings are capable of trampling over each other to reach the exit of a burning building. Panic makes a once smart person, a damn imbecile.

Panic has the ability to take what you thought would be a reasonably dealt with situation like oh, an accidental kiss on the lips -- something that could be just a slip but definitely nothing to lose your mind over. It could have been something to be absolved with an apology — oh, sorry I drank a little too much and got too excited; sorry I lost my mind for a moment; sorry it felt so normal and comfortable, I forgot who you were for a second, I don’t know what came over me — when panic takes ahold of that situation, sometimes things can get much, much worse.

You swear to god, you used to be normal.

But panic had turned you into a dumb, instinctual animal and they were all watching you with their shocked faces and Kyungsoo...Kyungsoo was absolutely frozen with it. The shock of it.

You had just kissed him on the lips after winning a stupid drinking game and you did it with witnesses. S.M. employed managers were here. Staff members loomed along the edges of the room with drinks in hand and thoroughly scandalized looks on their faces — mouths agape in unison like a television church choir silenced by the mute button. They were watching and they were forming their conclusions and oh christ you were done for. Their conclusions would be the end of you. There would be an investigation. There would be lawyers. There would roll your head along the wooden platform after the guillotine was pulled to the ground by the gravity of this mistake.

You felt the fear course through your chest and — oh god oh god — was that the taste bile on the back of your tongue?

Somewhere inside your panicked mind, in the same space that clawed and shoved bodies out of the way as flames licked and climbed the walls behind your back, sat your imagination pouring through the books searching for the solution to this mess — oh god, you would be fired. You would be sued. You’d never get to keep another dime of your own paycheck and you’d be blacklisted from any and every translating job you ever applied fo — somewhere inside the panic grew a plan. A terribly stupid and horrible plan.

Inappropriate personal relations with idol group members.

Personal...personal.

The panic was powerful. You were out of ideas. You’d remove the personal part.

If Kyungsoo’s eyes had been huge when you pulled your lips away from his, they nearly fell right out of his head when you clapped your hands in front of your face in faked, over the top, vomit inducing celebration of winning that stupid game, his eyes, they shook and trembled in confusion when you spun away from him and grabbed the nearest human body that happened to occupy the space of earth beside Kyungsoo. This new person, another member of your inept band of idiots hereby assembled and crowned as the winners — another member of the Singles, with his eyes unblinking and his face frozen in genuine surprise — you pulled that boy down, your hands yanked on warm cheeks until your lips made contact with his lips and you smacked loudly and dramatically before you shoved him away, a maniacal laugh bursting from deep within your lungs.

You sounded possessed. Perhaps you had been. Jongin gasped and fell down onto the couch behind him and covered his mouth with the flat of his palm.

Sehun stood beside Jongin and he watched your approach. You didn’t have time for reservations. You didn’t have time for the furrow of Sehun’s eyebrows or the hard-line set of his lips at watching you whirl around the room placing your lips on whoever the hell crossed your path.

This was a farce. You were halfway through with it and then you could die in peace and Sehun resisted so much less than Jongin did. Sehun, for the love of god, he actually leaned into you and you felt the slightest purse of his lips against yours when you did it; when you kissed him — you were a fool. You hadn’t meant it. You were an asshole. You knew it was wrong. You knew it was the worst sin against him with how you knew he felt about you and yet, you were desperate. You pushed against the warm firmness of his chest and you felt the grip of his hand over yours. You opened your eyes to see his own brown eyes searching yours for an explanation.

“This is how we celebrate a win...the uhh European way, ha ha ha—” you lied through your teeth with a bright and cheerful smile on your face. If you smiled widely enough, would he believe it? Would they all believe the bullshit you served?

You didn’t even want to turn and look at any of the others, least of all Kyungsoo, who was a witness to the spectacle you were causing. You didn’t want to move on to Chanyeol who had actually taken a step forward with his arms extended and a cheeky smile on his face — he waited for his kiss. He welcomed it and your body resisted — actually resisted that step into him. Your stomach felt queasy and your hands were beginning to tremble as voices began to speak up behind you.

“That surprised me! I was wondering what the hell was going on.”

“But I guess that’s how Europeans are.”

“It’s a different culture after all.”

“They even have nude beaches in France.”

Oh, the lies upon lies. Oh, you hoped they would just buy it and move on while simultaneously never ever, ever mentioning it to you or anyone else ever again. Ever.

Chanyeol’s smile was too wide and he invited too much for you to give in comfortably. Not on the lips, you just… hadn’t you done enough? He was a member of the Singles team. He was part of this joyous celebration in which you reveled like a maniac. You wondered if you could get away with a swift high five for him when he leaned in and puckered his lips with a giggle. You could smell the liquor coming off his breath with the laugh and you aimed low, hitting the tip of his chin with your loud ceremonial smack and you were pushing him down roughly in mock laughter. You didn’t care about the look of mild disappointment that flashed across his face as he sat down hard on the sofa beside Jongin who only stared off into space with a shell-shocked expression on his face.

Oh god, sorry Jongin -- Your guilty mind screamed at you -- He was a casualty of your lies. The room was spinning and your head was overheated. The party crowd had erupted into a noisy brouhaha; half accepting of your weird celebratory ways, half peppered with murmured disagreements on how you should behave while living in Korea, regardless of the other places you had been and it seemed like maybe, just maybe this group was drunk enough to blindly accept your rouse.

You wanted to run. You wanted to hide away forever and so you grabbed your empty drink glass for an excuse as you bolted -- a mumble about getting a refill tossed toward anyone who might still be paying attention to you. Your glance around the space was met with two pairs of deep brown eyes who indeed seemed to be paying very close attention to you.

You wanted cold; You wanted all of the cold everything you could have. It felt like your entire head was on fire. You wanted ice.

You also wanted a shovel and a deep hole, maybe even a heavy rock to set on top so you never ever had to come out again in this lifetime.

Inside the kitchen, you found the fridge and opened the top freezer compartment and you leaned your entire head deep inside. The chilly air coming from the freezer felt like salvation and you could feel its spindly fingers touching lightly along your burning cheeks. The cold felt amazing enough to let out a low groan into the empty space of that hotel room freezer. Soon enough, your groaning turned sour as your short-term memory flashed your most recent public disaster like movie replay and you wanted to die all over again. Not even the cold of the freezer could help this. What a disaster you were! You had just kissed 4 members of Exo; well, 3 and kinda Chanyeol, in front of everybody and they were no doubt out there still talking about what a goddamn mess of a human being you were. You stomped your legs hard into the floor below you and wished for this night to be over.

“Well…” The deep timbre of a familiar voice spoke behind the open freezer door, “that was...different.”

“Shut up,” you moaned into the cold empty space, “I want to die. Oh my god.”

“Chanyeol was into it,” Kyungsoo teased behind the door and you pulled the freezer closed tightly around your head, aiming to block out the noise or possibly suffocate yourself to death with it.

“Oh my god...Chanyeol…”

“Jongin’s face though--”

“Oh my god...Jongin...”

“Anyway they’re starting another game. You wanna go back out there? I think there might be some members of Exo that you haven’t kissed yet.” His tone was playful but it was also dark. And you definitely sensed a bitter flavor just under the layers or his jokes.

“Kyungsoo, do me a favor,” you spoke from well inside the freezer, where you considered taking up permanent residence. You felt the contrast of the heat of his body as he leaned against your flank, having rounded the fridge to stand close to you for super secret whispers about the multitude of sins you had committed in this life.

“Hmm-” he hummed a response against your ear. Was he crawling into the freezer with you now? Would he join you in hell’s fiery furnace?

Was he upset that you had kissed nearly all of Exo? Would he tease you about this for the rest of your lives? Would he bring this up at random moments like during an anniversary dinner in a quiet restaurant — would he laugh at you for permanently scarring Jongin? Would the best man’s speeches all mention the time you tried to hide your relationship by drunkenly smooching everyone in the room?

“Smash this freezer door against my head until I lose consciousness.”

He didn’t laugh at your attempt at assisted suicide but you felt the softness of his hands connecting to your body at the waist; slowly slipping a pathway up your sides and his fingertips brushed too far forward; brushing against both sides of the cups of your bra. What was he doing at a time like this? How could his touch be so liberal after everything that had just happened? You dropped your arms some but still refused to extract your head from the freezer.

“I would do anything for love,” he cooed into your ear; his words fighting through the hum of the freezer compressor that clicked on and worked overtime to cool the entire kitchen now for as long as you had the door opened. There was something strange brewing the slowness of his hands and in the deliberate path they took as he touched you in a way that was definitely inappropriate for this party filled with so many people.

“But I won’t do that,” just as soon as the second line was out of his lips, his hands attacked as round determined fingers hooked under your armpits and sunk in with curved and pointed digits, aiming to tickle you out of your frozen hiding spot.

It worked. You curled in, jumped, and squealed in surprise at the sudden attack and your elbows were flying as he quickly wrapped his strong arms around you, pinning your arms to your sides and embracing you into a tight back-hug in the process.

It was shocking. It was very, very close contact and while there were no other party-goers in this kitchenette right now, this wasn’t exactly a private space to be playing around quite so physically with him like this. You heard his rapid and labored breathing mixed with the staccato giggles that vibrated through your back and you stopped fighting for retaliation as soon as his arms encircled you.

The surprise of the embrace cooled any fiery response you had to his tickling attack and you stilled your bones long enough for his laughter to quiet and for his posture to change and shift into you as he leaned himself against your back and inhaled a breath from somewhere beside your ear.

“I can’t believe you did that,” he whispered into your ear and the warmth of his breath brought with it the lightest scent of alcohol as it passed by your nose. You turned your head toward his words, too transfixed by the closeness to push his hands down from where they held you, a band of muscles and bones and skin just below your breasts. “How many times will you have to kiss me to make up for kissing all of them?”

This felt unfair. The whispers. His hands were warm and he opened his palms over your ribs as the edge of his thumb ran lightly over the bottom band of your bra.

What was the alternative? You fess up and lose your job and every bit of respect you had earned in this industry. Behind you, where he leaned against, you felt the concentrated warmth that collected and pooled just behind the curve of your ass and he didn’t even try to hide it by angling his hips or shifting himself away from you.

Besides, you didn’t see him coming up with any grand schemes to clean up that mess back there. He was just as frozen and shocked that it happened as you had been.

Yes, yes. You know. It was your fault. You were the goddamn fool who kissed him in the first place, but was he really going to hold onto you in the kitchen like this? Was he really breathing that way into your ear and inhaling, too slowly and too deeply, the smell coming off your hair like that? When you felt the tip of his nose brush lightly along the nape of your neck, you were certain that a spark of electricity jumped along the molecules in between. The cells of your skin jumped and vibrated with the jolt and the residual tingle left you feeling chilled enough for goosebumps to form on your limbs. Nearly every bit of skin pulled and tightened and reacted to him and your body reacted too. Warmth spread and danger built. You had to stop this. This was unsafe. This was the kind of reckless behavior that would destroy lives.

You gave a little shove with your shoulders and his grip around you gave immediately. His arms slid down and away at a suspiciously languid pace and you took a single step away from his body heat. You did a half turn, not quite ready to commit to this and face him head-on.

You placed your palms flat on the countertop in front of you and caught his eyes that watched you without a word spoken on his parted lips. His breathing though, you could see the evidence of it, labored and heavy as his chest moved up and down and he was watching only your face. You felt on fire again, except this had nothing to do with embarrassment.

You honestly didn’t know what to do. Aside from pushing his arms away from you; from breaking the contact of his skin to yours so the electric current could no longer pass between your bodies, you were out of ideas on what your next move should be. What you were certain of, was that you were in some sort of definite and immediate danger of falling back into his arms again; if your footing wasn’t sure and careful, you might just trip and he would be the one to catch you.

You wanted to blame the alcohol, but your drinks had been well watered down all night. Kyungsoo had made sure of that. Perhaps he was drunker than he let on? Why else would he be acting this careless?

“Kyungsoo, we can’t be doing things like this here,” you exhaled through gritted teeth and laid a palm over your chest in an attempt to calm the racing heart you felt inside your chest.

“Things?” He angled his shoulders parallel to the counter as you were and lifted his hands to rest his palms flat over the countertop surface just as you did. “What things are we doing? I’m not doing anything. Is there something you are doing?” as he said it, his eyes finally left yours and he looked around the kitchen space. The sounds of the party goers around the other side of the wall grew noisier as someone laughed at something and someone else complained noisily.

It was a tactic. You knew this much from experience, yet you couldn’t just let him stand there and deny putting his hands all over you and sniffing your neck the way he was. Plus there was the other thing that you felt happening down south. The whole game he was playing made you roll your eyes and you turned to face him with your eyebrows raised and a challenge on your lips.

“Really? You weren’t doing anything?” You advanced and lifted your hands to lightly roll wandering fingertips over his chest and he took a step back with a light gasp for air. When you leaned in closer to him, close enough to feel the warmth of his face against your cheek you breathed in deeply, taking in the smell of his skin through your parted lips and you had to close your eyes as the light fragrance that he wore danced along your senses and made you lose just a little bit of the nerve you had gathered for this challenge. God, he smelled good.

Well.... this was a mistake. You felt more affected by this than vindicated and when you opened your eyes to look at his face his eyes were open and he was watching you with a darkness inside his irises that followed every little movement you made with your face. When you licked your dry lips his focus fell down to watch your mouth move and when your eyebrows trembled and shook, his eyes followed the dance they did; each time returning to look into your eyes, each time bringing even more heat to the surface of your skin than you had there before.

“You must be very drunk,” you said softly. Were you talking to him or to yourself? You didn’t feel that drunk but you were struggling with your self-control immensely. You wanted to be able to blame it on something outside of yourself. You could at least pretend.

“I’m not drunk at all,” he said softly, “but I’m having a very hard time keeping my hands off of you right now.”

Another loud sound erupted from the other side of the kitchen wall where the group was and you turned your head to look behind you. It was laughter again and you knew it was only a matter of time before someone had a reason to come into this kitchen for something. You knew it was only a matter of time. How long had you both been in here? Ten, fifteen minutes at most?

Long enough, that was for damn sure.

The coast was clear. The noise was just laughter and something sounded like it fell in the other room but you couldn’t see any signs of anyone coming. This was bad ideas all around. You had to either leave this party or return to it, but whatever you did it had to be away from Kyungsoo because the temptation was too great for you to resist without causing yourself some sort of bodily harm. You’d made up your mind, steeled your resolve and turned around to face him again.

Only this time, you were even less prepared than he had been when you felt the warmth and the wetness of his mouth cover over your lips. You were a marble statue; frozen in time in vivid detail, even the waves of your skirt carved into stone by expert hands and you began to melt when his lips moved and he inhaled a breath of air from inside your parted lips.

More than alcohol, you tasted him; the softness of his lips molded into yours and the hard outline of his teeth sank into your bottom lip and pulled, coaxing you, begging you to come into him, making your once lucid mind go soft and blurry until an outside sound caught your ear and made you close up your mouth, step away from his lips and his demanding traveling hands and that sound -- shit, who? -- that sound made your eyes pop open and you spun like a top. A guilty caught red-handed top of shame and sin and humiliation.

“Haven’t you caused enough trouble tonight? Seriously...” The words were spoken through a harsh hushed whisper and there it was again, the burning in your skin that seemed to be your general trend tonight.

“Baek--” Kyungsoo exhaled and lifted a hand to wipe wetness from his lips.

“And Sehun?” Baekhyun’s face was pink and his eyes were hard with anger. He had his index finger lifted and he pointed it toward where you stood trying in vain to blend into the pattern of the hotel kitchen wallpaper. “Who’s going to tell Sehun about this snake?”

It took you only seconds of his hard glaring eyes to realize he was speaking only about you with his unrestrained anger.

“Just how many of my friends are you fucking around with?” His anger was surprising and you flinched when he slammed an empty glass down on the countertop nearly hard enough to crack the glass.

“Byun Baekhyun.” Kyungsoo’s harsh voice called out as a stern warning and your view of Baekhyun’s scowl was blocked by the black of Kyungsoo’s hair as he stepped in front of you.

“Speak to her that way again and I’ll knock your teeth down your throat,” he growled at the drunker, angrier man standing in front of him in this tiny kitchen. You had to crane your head to see around Kyungsoo’s head and when he caught your movement from the corner of his eye he shifted to block you further with an extended arm.

“You and I need to have a talk.” When Kyungsoo moved again it was Baekhyun’s turn to flinch and you caught the surprised whimper as Baekhyun was dragged by the arm rather roughly from the kitchen to the bathroom that sat just off the entryway to the living area and heads turned in curiosity to see the two men shove through the doorway together and close the door behind with a click.

You wrung your hands together, surprised to find them shaking. That look in Baekhyun’s eyes had held so much anger, so much disdain at the mere sight of you, what in the world had been on his mind to find you in this situation with Kyungsoo. How could he have jumped to so many conclusions about your character with so little information to go on. He obviously had very little to work with. He knew about Montserrat. He knew you and Kyungsoo had hooked up then, but nothing beyond that? Every single time you had visited Korea to see him, Kyungsoo had kept you at his home alone. You didn’t socialize with any of his friends. You didn’t meet anyone outside of Sunny, the dog walker. Hell, you hardly even saw the natural sunlight when you were there. The man had kept you sealed inside a tomb of secrets. Even meals were delivered; left outside the door with payment made through bank transfer as if a delivery man catching glimpse of your face would be the end of his entire world.

No wonder Baekhyun had been in the dark. Baekhyun must have thought horrible things about you; sleeping around with whichever high profile idol you could sink your teeth into; accepting favors from the youngest, most impressionable member of the group. The job promotion, the little treats and the gifts he gave you. You had been taking Sehun’s heart for a joy ride as you still, what? Used Kyungsoo for sex whenever you felt like it?

Baekhyun had no idea about the months of dating. Baekhyun didn’t know about the love. Baekhyun didn't know how he broke your heart. He didn't know how fragile you felt inside when you thought about the possibility of letting Kyungsoo back inside, where the vacuum created by his absence had pulled and pulled at the edges of your soul until the walls were so worn away, so thin that only a small gust of wind was all it would take to cave you in completely.

Baekhyun didn’t know shit.

You wished you could be inside that bathroom right now and hear the excuses from Kyungsoo’s lips.

You’d made it three steps toward the door, your curiosity building when the shaking in your hands had finally settled down and you wondered how much you would be able to overhear with your ear pressed up to the door when you heard your name from the opposite direction of the bathroom.

Sehun called you. Sehun’s face was pink and bright and he wore a nervous smile on his lips and he held a half-finished drink in his hands.

You’d long given up on your drink. You had no prop to hold in front of you for security. All you had was that nagging feeling in your mind and the dryness in your throat that you cleared away with a look down from his eyes that searched yours.

“Uhh--” Sehun scratched the back of his neck and set his drink down on the kitchen counter. You wish he’d keep holding it. Sehun reached for your hand and you felt your own pulse quicken when he did it. It was something he did often, yet the ghost of Kyungsoo’s hands still left their impressions on your skin and you wanted to pull your hand out of Sehun’s warm grip.

“Did you need something, Sehun?” You compromised with a single squeeze of your hand against his before releasing and you pulled your own hand out of his. A half-empty plastic water bottle that sat abandoned on the countertop was your excuse and you grabbed it, claiming it as your own and using that as your excuse.

“I was just, umm--” Sehun was fidgety. His hands wrung themselves together in front of his waist and he had a shift in his stance that couldn't seem to make up its mind as he rocked on his heels in front of you and didn’t actually continue speaking. Instead, he ran his hands through his hair and rubbed over the back of his neck again with a restless hand as he made a face that wrinkled his nose and furrowed his eyebrows over his eyes that closed up tight for a second.

A feeling was dawning. This was…

Sehun was nervous to speak with you and you could feel something coming. It felt like the moment of stillness in between; when the winds simply stopped and every speck of dust in the air drifted and settled to the ground right before they started back up in a new direction.

“I just wanted to know if you had a moment, I wanted to talk to you,” Sehun finally whispered and his fingertips had found the hem of your top. As he spoke, he kicked the toe of his foot lightly on the floor underneath himself and kept his eyes down on his fingers that rolled the fabric of your shirt between his thumb and index finger. “I have something I think I have to tell you.”

The dawning feeling grew into something greater and you received enough of it to identify and name it. This was dread. You watched the flood of pink in his cheeks as the dread flooded your mind and you physically shook your head in an attempt to dissipate it. It didn’t budge.

“Sehun, you don't...have to--” You must have just been terrible at this. There were no words coming that could help and Sehun took a step closer. You took one back and a wall was there.

“I think I’m in love with you.”

Oh no. Not now.

You felt blackness then. Just cool, cold blackness that shadowed over your thoughts and your mind and -- and, no. No, Sehun. No, you can’t. You mustn’t.

The blackness in your mind had taken your words, what little you had left, and tossed them into the ocean. He’d finally looked up from his fingers and stilled the kicking of his foot and he looked into your expression which must have looked frozen in disbelief.

“No.” You whispered though it was under your breath. He was close enough to you to hear it and there was another tug at the fabric of your shirt. “You don’t,” you added -- whether it was just your own denial, or if you were trying to convince him of this, you weren’t sure, but your response made him inhale a breath and lift his head for a look around the room with no actual focus.

Your eyes traveled as well and you caught the curious glance of a few of his group members in your direction. Chanyeol met your eyes for a second and quickly let go. Junmyeon looked twice and took a sip of his drink for something to do. Were they all watching this? Did they put him up to it? Had they fed him the drinks and the courage to do it?

“Not think,” he said again, a little bit louder than he had spoken before, “I don't think it. I’m sure I’m in love with you.”

His certainty made you scoff the smallest laugh. There was no humor in it, but it escaped from your body and puffed out through your nose and you still shook your head back and forth.

“No, Sehun.” There was a frown on your lips as you said it and the frown was a reflection of the sudden and overwhelming sadness you felt inside your chest. You couldn’t help that, you felt sad. “You can’t.”

You reached for his hand, at last, pulling it off of the hem of your shirt and he looked into your eyes with his own dark brown ones that looked to be so full of determination and questions.

“Can’t I?” The question peppered out of his lips in a swift burst and his mouth hung open after the words were out and there was no trace of humor or amusement on his face. “Why can’t I?”

The questions were rhetorical. His eyes were watching you closely when you dropped his hand and he let it hang to his side.

“Why can’t I? Y-You don’t like me?” This question was much smaller and you saw the blue tint of hurt reflected in the brown irises of his eyes. “I thought -- I mean, we already get along so well, and maybe you could give me a chance?”

You’d never had trouble talking to Sehun before. The conversation flowed freely and easily like you had known him your entire life and had been friends for as long as you could remember. But this, telling him this -- this monumental secret of yours that wasn’t just your secret to keep but also Kyungsoo’s secret. Yet the pain in his eyes as he doubted his self-worth as if he wasn’t the most amazing, sweetest, kindest human being that you’d ever known in your life. You couldn't stand it. You couldn't let him think that he was somehow not enough for you. You needed something. You had to speak.

“Sehun, I’m in love with someone else.

“And that’s not going to change. It’s not fair to you. You can’t love me because I can’t return your feelings.”

He took only a moment to absorb this. And like a sponge, he soaked in your words and even seemed to grow just a little more from what he had learned. He lifted and he straightened when he spoke.

“Well, who is it?” His posture had shifted with this new information and he narrowed his eyes in your direction. You still recognized that look of determination on his face and you wished he would turn that down just a little bit here, this wasn’t a new choreography he was trying to master or a fast rap he was learning, this was your life. You weren’t something that was so easily figured out no matter how many hours of practice he put in.

“Does that matter?”

“Of course it matters, what if he sucks? What if he works too much or drinks too much and doesn’t appreciate you. What if he’s not good enough for you? Why haven’t you ever mentioned him to me? You’ve told me so many things, how could you be in love with a whole entire person and not have mentioned him once? Does he really exist? Are you making someone up to let me down easy? Sorry, no room in your heart for Sehunnie, it’s already filled with whoeverthefuck.”

The embarrassment of the confession seemed to have passed because Sehun was going now. His words flew easily and comfortably from his lips like they usually did when you both got to talking and you watched his face as he asked his many questions that you had absolutely no intention of answering. There was a moment though when the focus of his eyes caught on something behind you and turned your attention to meet what he saw.

The bathroom door was open and a suspiciously quiet Baekhyun walked away from the doorway. He looked uninjured at least.

“I can’t really tell you much, Sehun. It’s...it’s a difficult situation to explain.”

Kyungsoo’s focus was moving over the faces of the people at this party and he turned toward where you stood talking with Sehun before he lowered his chin and dropped his eyes. And he was walking now, moving to where you stood without watching you. You were familiar with this sort of body movement. He was coming to you without it being obvious that you were his destination.

“Wait a minute. You didn’t get rejected did you?” This question flew over your head with your focus on Kyungsoo as it was and your silence must have made Sehun assume your response.

“What kinda goddamned idiot — now I’m worried, honey, is he—” he raised a hand to wave over his own face, “is he...you know...okay? Like does he have something wrong inside his brain or maybe he’s blind?”

Sehun’s expression looked quite serious as he asked you this ridiculous question and it brought a small chuckle of surprise from your lips.

“He has his moments, Sehun.”

“Who does?” Kyungsoo had reached Sehun’s side and looked up at the taller man who sported a deep frowning pout on his face when he saw Kyungsoo approach him.

“Hyung,” Sehun whined, “I got rejected.”

Oh god. He wasn’t about to tell him, was he? You felt a very sudden and definite need to change the subject immediately but you were too slow. Kyungsoo lifted an eyebrow and his eyes pulled in your direction, landing squarely on your face for a good five seconds before he looked back up into Sehun’s face.

“Did you?”

Sehun was nodding his head in big dramatic sweeps and you kinda wished Sehun hadn’t had as much to drink as he did because he seemed to have forgotten that you were still standing right here.

“She says she loves somebody else. Someone with really bad eyesight.”

This had Kyungsoo fighting a smile and you bit down on your lip to keep from laughing outright and Sehun looked in your direction for a moment, his eyes on you but his gaze never quite reaching deeper than a superficial glance. After a moment his focus sharpened and he inhaled a short breath. It was a gasp, a small one.

“Stop me if I’m just...drunk, but that friend of yours, the one with the ex that wasn’t...that wasn’t you was it?”

All traces of the smile you battled left your face and Sehun’s eyes widened when he noticed the change.

“Wait a minute so that means…” he extended a finger at you and held the point before dropping it to scratch lightly at his temple. There was a little head shake before he turned to Kyungsoo with a sharp inhale of breath.

“Do you know who it is? Maybe you met him at the eye doctor. She won’t tell me anything — what if he’s terrible — I have a bad feeling—”

“You drank a lot, Sehunnie,” Kyungsoo raised a hand to place over Sehun’s shoulder and began to rub slow pacifying circles over his back.

“I guess you don't know anything,” Sehun mumbled and his eyes closed for a moment as the alcohol seemed to catch up with him, “you would tell me if you knew anything. I know I can trust you, Hyung.” Kyungsoo’s hand paused its rubbing and you noticed the clench of his jaw as he looked away from Sehun’s eyes. Sehun did not notice the pink tint Kyungsoo’s ears took on. Sehun did not notice shift and the fall of Kyungsoo’s focus as he closed out the light and he did not say a single thing to Sehun that resembled any kind of real honesty about this whole mess and Sehun’s blind faith in his friend remained untested, for now.

“Them.” Sehun came back to life suddenly and his eyes were wide as he lifted a finger to point across the room to the sofa where the other members of Exo seemed to be lost in a heated debate that involved sharply pointed fingers and some intense whining and foot stomping by Kim Jongdae as members laughed and clapped their hands. “Those jerks told me to confess and now look what happened. I was rejected and things will get weird.” Sehun turned his head to look back to where you stood behind him and you lifted your hand to rub over his back beside where Kyungsoo’s hand was rubbing.

“Nothing will get weird, Sehun. You can still come to my office anytime you want.”

“Can I come to your office anytime I want?” Kyungsoo was mumbling sarcastically and under his breath and you kicked your toe forward to hit the back of his knee, making his balance give for just a second, he stumbled and recovered in a single step and didn’t turn his head to look back to see the glare you shot in his direction.

The three of you were moving and Kyungsoo steered Sehun toward the group of men howling in laughter on the couch. As you moved closer to the group you could hear bits of their discussion and Jongdae seemed to be defending his honor vehemently. Or was he defending his dishonor?

“I am not a prude!” He stomped again and his fists banged against his thighs. He was standing in the center of the room and Minseok had a drink raised in his direction. He waited for him to take it after all the stomping was done.

“What is this? I’m not drinking this. I have to stay awake to call my girlfriend tonight.”

“Oh for the nightly bible sessions?” Chanyeol joked and Jongdae’s face whipped around in his direction.

“Don't mock my faith,” he warned and Chanyeol snickered into his hands. “We don't have bible sessions. We have a very normal, healthy, adult relationship.”

“Ahhhh -- I don't want to hear this,” Minseok said noisily and he pushed Jongdae’s hand up toward his mouth. Jongdae listened and took a sip of the drink Minseok had given him. He swallowed and winced as it went down and then looked back at a laughing Minseok with wide scandalized eyes.

“How much did you put? Is this all booze?”

Minseok was laughing too hard to answer but nodded his head and held on to his belly as he fell back into the seat he occupied, too drunk and too amused to respond with words.

Jongdae huffed and set the glass down on the coffee table in the center of the room, clearly in protest of something.

“I won’t drink it. I can’t be the biggest prude in the room. Kyungsoo is standing right there he hasn’t even gotten to talk.”

“Sehun either,” Minseok piped up and you were a bit lost about what exactly this new game’s rules were now that you had actually stepped into the room.

You noticed the party was now completely comprised of the members of Exo with the addition of yourself now that most of the staff and managers had called it a night.

“What’s happening right now?” You leaned your head down to Jongin who was sitting in an armchair closest to you and he flinched hard and leaned away from you on instinct. He must have not seen you there and you nodded your head with an innocent smile to let him know you came in peace this time and not for his lips.

“Ahh, we’re talking about who is the least experienced… sexually. It’s Jongdae because he’s waiting for marriage, but he doesn’t want to admit it. So now there’s a punishment just because he’s being stubborn. Ummm--” Jongin was looking around the room now as he squinted at each member’s face, recalling their stories from earlier.

“--Baekhyun says he’s done it in a game arcade, but the arcade was closed to the public so it doesn’t really count and it was just a blow job so that’s kinda...you know...easy.”

“Like an arcade for kids, Baekhyun?” Sehun sat forward and looked judgingly at Baekhyun with his question and Baekhyun lifted his hand to count out on his fingers.

“Okay, like I said. The arcade was closed...so no kids. And two, it was just a blowjob and she swallowed … so no mess.”

The group of men groaned out loud with this new addition of way too much information and even you found yourself reaching for a freshly poured drink from the coffee table to hide the grimace on your face.

“And Chanyeol has a list of hotels. Just a bunch of hotels. He knows the dates and the names of the hotels and probably even the room numbers, so we all know he’s legit. Still...not very exciting,” Jongin said; his finger lifted to point at the next in line of the group.

“Umm, Me. I’ve done it in the dorm. Most of us have, for obvious reasons. Junmyeon too -- dorm.”

“Yixing isn’t around much but he’s not exactly quiet when he is, so...dorm,” Minseok was speaking again from the sofa, “I mean, it’s you, Jongdae.”

“What about Minseok?” You asked, suddenly curious as to why he was not in the list of possible suspects.

He heard his name and he turned to look in your direction.

“The kitchen pantry at my parent’s house during a dinner party. Party guests, my entire family, and some members were present.”

Someone was coughing in the room. Minseok spoke his piece with such a calm expression on his face that you found yourself gasping and staring at the audacity of the quiet man sitting across the room stating such facts without a bother in the world about it. Someone had choked on their drink and was trying hard to get the liquid out with bits of words thrown in between the hard hacks.

“Wait--Wait,” Sehun held his hand to his chest and sat up straighter to try and recover from swallowing his drink the wrong way. “The dinner party I attended? The one where you punched that guy in the face?”

Minseok did not answer with words but lifted his drink into the air with a single lift of a perfectly sculpted eyebrow and a tiny smile on his lips. He then took a sip of his drink and turned his focus on the two newest additions to the conversation.

“So...Sehun and Kyungsoo. Wildest places you’ve had sex. Otherwise, Jongdae drinks it.”

“Mine’s dorm too,” Sehun said with a glazed look over his eyes, “but, I mean, I guess I haven’t gotten my story yet, right? I wonder when I’ll get my own.” He looked straight ahead, still in that daze and you didn’t quite understand what he meant by his little question to himself.

He sounded drunker than he did before but most of the room was in a similar state by now.

All eyes turned to Kyungsoo who sat on the arm of the sofa beside Sehun, sporting a relaxed posture with his arms over his chest and an unbothered expression on his face.

“Kyungsoo?” Minseok called his name and Kyungsoo’s eyes sharpened on the older man who sat across the living room, clearly waiting for his answer.

“Look, he’s gone quiet,” Jongdae said quickly and you could hear the hope in his voice.

“He’s got nothing...maybe less than nothing. I’ve at least done some things...but Kyungsoo --” Jongdae’s wishful rambling was interrupted when Kyungsoo opened his mouth to speak.

“Movie theatre,” Kyungsoo said. You couldn't stop the reaction your body had to the words he spoke and the memories of that night with him flooded through your mind the second he said it. You felt hot all over. You felt cold too. It was a strange and simultaneously unexplainable contrast of feelings. You lifted your hands to cover tightly over your own closed eyes and you wished you could close out the world for the night. The inhale of air he took told you that he wasn’t done talking and you kept your hands over your eyes to keep the world dark for a little while longer. “Uhh...open for business, during a regular showing of a movie. Empty house, but...uhh...a public place.”

“What the fuck,” Jongdae cursed out loud and the room grew light again when you uncovered your face. Mouths were open and eyes were glued to the man who had finally stopped talking, thank God. Kyungsoo was staring ahead of himself, not looking at anyone specifically and you, like the others, watched his face in shocked silence.

His face was passive and he was motionless until you saw his eyes move and he looked up and to the left, to where you sat, staring at him in disbelief. Kyungsoo looked into your eyes and he securely held the eye contact with you. You felt like someone had lit an enormous fire inside of this hotel room and that fire had swallowed up all of the oxygen. You could not seem to make yourself breathe with him looking at you like that and the longer it went on the dizzier you felt.

After a spell, someone slowly clapped their hands. It was Chanyeol. He gave a small round of applause and their faces were changing as they shook their heads and celebrated this ridiculous game that didn’t even have any damn rules to it.

Jongdae was reaching for the drink on the table and he downed half of it with a loud cough and gagging sounds before inhaling again to down the rest of it.

“It’s always the quiet ones,” he mumbled between drinks and the interest in the game vanished with the last swallows of the alcohol in Jongdae’s glass.

You watched the drunken men grouping off and many of them hovered around a whining Sehun who complained about you rejecting him. You thought it probably wasn’t very polite for you to be standing right beside him when he did it, so you got up and wandered out onto the balcony of the suite which was accessible through the bedroom.

Much to your astonishment, you were quickly joined by a single member who you hadn’t at all expected to be the one to follow you out.

“Hey, uh...could we talk for a moment?”

You spun in place to face him and you could see that he had closed the sliding glass door behind him when he came out. He didn’t make any moves to where you stood though and even lifted his hands in place with a small yet sheepish wince on his face.

“I think I owe you an apology,” Baekhyun began with a steady and level voice and you gripped the balcony railing with both of your hands as you looked out over the night lights of the city. There was quite a bit of sincerity you could hear on Baekhyun’s voice and you were finding it hard to keep up the eye contact as he spoke to you. “I misjudged you. I jumped to conclusions about you that were uneducated and unfair and I just wanted to say that I’m sorry.”

It was odd. The wind was blowing and it was cold on your skin and you had to wrap your arms over your stomach to keep from shivering and it was odd -- this man, apologizing to you with such a clear and level tone; such carefully selected words, they held so much power and you found yourself feeling the chill of that wind just a little less with each new word from his lips.

“I didn’t know...that he...that he broke your heart, like that. I didn't know any of it,” he said in a whisper and you bit down lightly on the inside of your cheek when you looked into his eyes. “I hope things work out,” he added with a small smile on his face and a puff of a tiny laugh. He lifted his fist into the air, giving a little shake as a salute of his positive wishes for you.

“Alone...or together with Kyungsoo… whatever you decide to do -- I hope things work out for you.”

“Thank you, Baekhyun.” The sincerity in your words was a reflection of the warmth you felt inside your chest and you saw his smile widen when yours did. It was amazing really, how quickly this person seemed to change in front of your eyes and suddenly you felt that much lighter. Baekhyun knew the truth. Baekhyun believed in you. He might even be on your side every now and again. Kyungsoo had told him everything and suddenly, and remarkably, the air inside your lungs felt lighter. The breeze that chilled you before, refreshed you now and you inhaled deeper as your smile widened.

“Or even, Sehun,” Baekhyun said suddenly and you could hear the laughter on his voice. “I mean, he’s just got the most ridiculous crush on you, you know I had to mute your name in the group chat because he just--” His eyes widened and he lifted a hand into the air, making a blabbering mouth with his fingers to mimic the way Sehun must have gone on and on about you to his members.

You laughed and shook your head. “I’ll have to talk to Sehun,” you said with a little bit of that sadness from before surging through your heart at the thought of coming clean to one of the greatest and most genuine friends you had ever had the pleasure of knowing. You hoped and wished that his faith in you wouldn’t be destroyed. You prayed that the hurt of concealing this from him would not run too deep into his beautiful heart.

Baekhyun’s phone was ringing somewhere inside his pocket and his smile vanished as he searched his pants for it. When he found the phone you watched the smile reappear and multiply and reach his eyes as he quickly swiped and put the phone up to his ear.

“Baby!” he shouted -- actually shouted into his phone and you jumped at the volume of his excitement. “Oh, sorry, sorry,” he immediately whispered when the response of the caller must have chastised his noisiness.

“Ohhh, is she asleep?” he asked, his voice much quieter now. “I didn’t wake her did I?-- Oh good. Can we switch to video? I want to see her.”

Baekhyun pulled the phone away from his ear and his eyes were glued to his screen with the most genuine look of pure elation you had ever seen on his face. After a second you saw him reach up to cover his parted lips with the palm of his hand and his eyes sparkled as they reflected the light of his phone screen.

“I can’t believe this. She’s so beautiful, I love you so much. I can’t believe we have a baby now. You know, I actually think she looks like me.”

A...baby? A what? The reflection of the phone made the wetness in his eyes shine and as if he suddenly seemed to notice you standing there beside him, he jumped when his eyes found yours, but his smile did not falter or shrink any. The happiness you saw on his face was meant to be shared.

“Look,” he breathed out through his parted lips and turned the phone around for you to see the screen. “Baby, this is my friend. She’s the Exo translator I told you about, actually...no I told you some bad things, but she’s cool now. I just didn’t know the whole story. It was Kyungsoo’s fault, don't hold it against her.”

On the phone screen, you saw the smiling face of a woman who held something small, cradled in her lap. Something small and something furry. It was a baby, but not the human kind. She was running her fingers lightly through the hair of a sleeping puppy who kicked and twitched as she dreamed and you waved a little hello to the woman who, if you really looked closely, bore a striking resemblance to yourself. Perhaps you were just imagining that.

It was a bit awkward meeting someone for the first time over a grainy cell phone video call so you gave your genuine support and congratulations on the couple adopting a brand new puppy to raise together and wished everyone the very best. Baekhyun gave a quick handwave to you as you left him to his phone call with his girls and you returned to find a way to get back to your hotel room for the night without attracting too much attention for yourself.

Your arrival back into the party did not go entirely unnoticed. A single pair of brown eyes caught ahold of yours the moment you stepped foot through the bedroom doorway and they did not let go of you even when you kept walking past where he sat on the arm of the sofa with his hands fisted together in his lap over his extended legs with ankles crossed. Someone behind him was playing music on a phone and a few munched on snacks set out on the tables.

You remembered the busy day and how you skipped lunch for work. Remembered how you made it back to your room only to be called away again as soon as your shoes were off and all at once the thought of leaving this place without having grabbed a bit of any of the food that had been ordered for the afterparty made you feeling just a bit empty.

Displayed out on the dining table was a spread of little sandwiches. Adorable triangles with colorful fillings and trays of assorted fruit too. Your hotel room could wait. You were hungry and the food was only half consumed by so late at night. You were sure it would only be thrown out if you didn’t have a bit.

You grabbed a plate and looked closely at the sandwich triangles, wondering what that bright pink stuff might be and whether or not you would be judged for disassembling it if you didn't like it. The fruit was safe. It was easy to load up onto your plate and you grabbed a single sandwich to at least smell closely.

While you busied yourself, you could feel it. The eyes of someone watching you. You knew if you looked up you would only become even more aware of it, yet the pull was so strong you could hardly even take spooning bits of melons and strawberries onto your plate without spilling any of them.

The feeling nagged and annoyed and you had to, you just had to give in. when you looked up, your suspicions were rewarded and justified in an instant when you found Kyungsoo watching you closely from his stubborn spot in the living room.

It appeared that he was waiting for you to look up because the moment you did you saw his hands move. He lifted a palm and rubbed it over his own belly and he frowned his lips dramatically for effect. Then he lifted both of his hands together and lifted his shoulders. It was a plea. Feed me too, please, I’m so hungry, boohoo…

It was so adorable, you wanted to spit in disbelief but you just rolled your eyes instead. And still, you turned back to the food and loaded up more sandwiches and fruit. Plenty to share.

You had failed to bring a second fork and your oversight was obvious the second you sat down and speared a strawberry. You felt the warmth of a human body that sat down beside you; resting his arm over your arm and he leaned in close to you with a casual parting of his own lips. And he waited.

“Are you serious right now?” you mumbled as you eyed the fruit on your fork. He did not move except for the twitch in his bottom lip that told you that yes, he was serious and he wanted that strawberry.

“This one is mine though. Look at how red it is. It’s the sweetest one I just know it.”

“You don't want to give me the sweetest one?” he asked softly with a definite pout on his lips and you looked from his face back toward the bright red berry that had tempted you so. The power in his pout was immeasurable. All you could do was shrug and sigh in disappointment and you leaned the fork toward his face. He could have it. There would be other strawberries.

Kyungsoo opened his mouth and the fork went inside and you watched as he used his teeth to bite into the big strawberry, carefully leaving a good solid half of it on the fork. He was chewing now and you felt his hand around your own as he pushed it back to you.

“You’re right, it’s very sweet,” he said and you looked around the room for witnesses to this. Minseok and Jongdae were singing a song. Baekhyun was gone; still outside on the phone probably. Sehun was asleep on Chanyeol’s shoulder and Chanyeol was texting on his phone. Jongin and Junmyeon were both gone as well and you could hear the sounds of a video game in the bedroom.

You popped the fruit end of the fork in your mouth and enjoyed the sweetness of the moment that you had shared with him. The rest of the meal was shared in silence.

But it was a silence that had a bit of heft to it. You found yourself drawn to him whenever he moved. When he bit down or when he chewed you watched his lips move, his jaw move on the side of his face or you would catch the moments when his tongue would dart out and lick his lips. He seemed to be eating slowly. As if he were somehow aware of your weird fixation on watching him eat and he was drawing it out for you. You had to be crazy. Maybe you were. The thought brought a tiny laugh to your lips and you covered it with a little cough.

He glanced at you when you did it and you quickly swallowed down the sandwich you had just taken a bite of with as innocent of a look on your face as you could manage.

The calm exterior was difficult to maintain when he lifted his thumb to brush over your lip, pulling away some bit of filling from the sandwich you had just bitten into and you held your breath when he stuck his thumb inside his own mouth to clean away the mess with his soft lips and his wet tongue and not a trace of a bashful blush or a nervous smile on that pretty face.

You couldn't even taste anything anymore. You ate just to fill your hungry belly and when you felt the first signs of fullness you pushed the plate away, giving him full access to finish every bit of food he wanted and you were standing up from that spot in your own little fire pit of hell in favor of the much safer kitchen for a fresh bottle of water to quench your thirst.

Kyungsoo followed you into the kitchen and you could see the abandoned plate of food left behind on the countertop as he passed you by. He hadn’t touched any more than you did after you left and you watched from the corner of your eye as he opened the fridge for a bottle of water; the same as you had done.

While you tried your best to avoid his eyes as you sipped, Kyungsoo was the opposite; and so very brazen about it. He uncapped the bottle and tossed it away to clatter along the granite surface. He lifted the bottle to his lips and pulled the liquid inside his mouth. His adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed and all the while he watched you. All the while you burned on the inside and the water you drank didn’t touch it one bit. You tried, you really did. But it was impossible to keep your eyes off of him.

“Are you ready to leave yet? I could walk you to your room.” He had come closer, just enough for the low whisper to reach your ears. You felt your cheeks burning and you wondered how much of a mess you looked. You certainly felt a bit of a mess when you paid close attention to the reaction your body was having to his closeness. Closing your eyes didn’t help it. The deep inhale of air you took into your lungs didn’t help it either.

“What’s that face for?” He was looking at you too closely and must have noticed something about your shakey self-control. “I’m going to my room, and you are going to your room. We’re just going to our separate rooms, right?”

Sure. Right. That’s exactly what was happening right now. Just a couple of people heading to their hotel rooms for an uneventful night of sleep and deep relaxation and not a bit of sexual tension or longing looks or tempting inner doors with locks on them that could be opened with the easiest of flicks of the wrist. Hell, you were positive his lock wouldn't be locked at all. The door was probably still wide the fuck open and all you had to do was open your door and suddenly those separate hotel rooms weren't so separate and how on earth would you survive this?

Did you want to?

Ugh. Fuck.

Fuck it.

Just fuck it.

Fine, if he wanted to go to sleep then you would go to sleep too.

Let’s all go the hell to sleep.

“Yeah, sure. Let’s go.” you forced a casual tone to your lips and took several large steps from the kitchen, around the long counter and the wall that had given the illusion of privacy so many times tonight and you shouted out a quick goodbye to the three conscious people who were still around. They gave little waves and Minseok bowed his head at your departure. Kyungsoo grabbed the overcoat he had arrived with and slipped a face mask over his ears and hardly a goodbye to the group members who were really just like family to him by now.

“Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol shouted as he made his way through the suite, “don't forget we’re doing the aquarium tomorrow. You said you wanted to come too,” he prodded and you heard a quiet agreement from behind you and you were gone. Your feet carried you swiftly down the hallway, away from that door, away from the group of people you had been working very closely and very stressfully beside for many days and you settled into a pace that had no effect on the mood that coursed through your body.

Kyungsoo fell behind; following the same hallways and pathways as you did and even stepping into the open elevator beside you when you waited with the button pressed to hold the doors and his eyes stuck to you like super-glue, watching you silently and refusing to drop even when you failed to keep up the intense level of eye-contact that he did.

In front of your room, you found your door key and placed it into the lock of your door. Kyungsoo had his inside his hand and did the same and you watched your lock turn green at the same time as his did.

“Goodnight Kyungsoo,” you said with your hand on the door handle. You’d already pushed the door open and stuck a foot into the space but something inside of you still lingered back. His lips pulled into the smallest grin with your farewell greeting and he did not say anything. He hadn’t even pushed his door open yet and you wondered if he would have to unlock it again.

“Will you be going right to sleep?” You weren’t quite sure what the point of this little talk was, but there was a war happening inside of you and your sense of propriety and decency was fighting the lust and desire that had been having its way with you since the kiss in the kitchen.

He didn’t answer with words but slowly, he shook his head back and forth and the smallest puff of air left his chest through his nose. It was the sound of mild amusement at the ruse you put up.

“No, baby, I’ll be up,” he finally said and you could hear the lock of his room engage again with a click.

“Oh.” Was all you could say. So many functions of your brain had stopped working.

“You let me know if you need me.” He added and he’d already pulled the key out again to unlock his door, pushed on the handle and was through the door without another word spoken to you out in the exposed openness of that hallway.

You pushed through your own room door and stood in the dark silence that awaited you on the other side of the click of your lock.

You were aflame. Your skin burned and prickled and you couldn't shake it with any of the self-calming exercises you tried while standing in the dark in your hotel room with the biggest temptation hidden somewhere deep inside your room and hardly any reasons at all to even attempt to resist it.

Was he waiting for you to open your door?

Despite the damage to your own sanity, you kept up the facade and you turned on your lights and puttered around your room getting ready for bed. A quick shower and teeth brushing. Changing into your comfiest oversized sleep shirt and even taking the care to follow your simple skin care routine and you found yourself sitting on the edge of your bed with your eyes glued to the closed door.

That closed door.

It had a voice of its own and it had been calling to you for the entirety of your nighttime routine.

You recognized the seriousness of your next move tonight. You understood what opening that door would mean.

And you sat with your spine straight and every one of your fears and apprehensions laid bare in front of you on the floor below your feet. You deliberated and chewed over them and they laid there rather lifeless and flat and after a half hour of genuine consideration, you began to bargain and compromise with yourself.

He loved you.

You loved him.

The fear of reliving that pain had once been the strongest and deepest wound and now…

He loved you and you loved him.

The fear was cracking around the edges. It had been for a while now but you avoided looking at it head-on for fear of its sharp talons scraping against you again.

But now that you sat down and considered it, it seemed to have lost a lot of its bark. That pain that had been so all-consuming hadn’t killed you. On the contrary, it seemed to have made you stronger. You learned to stand up for yourself a bit. You didn’t just take it when people called you bad names or said things about you and you never once had to go it alone. You had friends who you loved and who were on your side.

Maybe being scared to love again was something worth overcoming. Maybe you deserved to feel loved and to give your love to the person who you wanted.

Your empty bed had a force of its own and it practically repelled you from it. The pull to that door was stronger than anything you had ever attempted to resist in your entire life and your legs pushed you up and forward without hardly any effort at all to move your body.

Your hands found the door handle and your fingers flipped the lock. The sound was noisy and felt like a warning called out to the heavens that you had lost this battle. You had given in to the pull of his heart against yours.

It took you another moment of deep breathing to steady yourself enough to turn the handle and when you pulled the door open you recognized the look of the black hollow that existed on the other side of your door when there was no other door closed; there was only the open invitation to his room. There was only the blind acceptance of whatever you chose to do and he hadn’t even knocked or texted you to coax or convince you to move in his direction. He merely left his door wide open and waited for you to come to him when you were ready.

You pulled your door open and your eyes took a second to focus on what you saw on the other side; in his room. It was not completely dark. The bathroom light was on and the door left ajar. There was just enough light for you to catch his movements. He was seated in a chair and it faced the door you had just pulled open.

And when you did it, when you pulled the door open you saw him pull his head up from where it had rested somewhere within his hands. He had been hunched over himself as he waited. Wishing, or praying, or merely testing every ounce of patience the man had inside of himself; you had no way of knowing, but he sat up and looked at you when you pulled that door open and then he was standing.

He hadn’t said a word, but his legs moved his frame and he closed the distance between your bodies. He took the steps and he reached for you with his hands. You felt the warmth of those strong arms when he wrapped them around your shoulders and he pulled you into his chest with a firmness and a desperation that mirrored the feeling that was surging through your entire body.

“Do you mean it?” He said against your ear and your hands cling tightly that to the fabric of his shirt. He pulled against you, lifting your face with his hands on either side of your cheeks and his eyes searched yours for your answer.

“I need...I need you to mean this. If you don’t mean it then turn back around and close your door.”

Your body felt out of your control and you watched his lips as he spoke. He held onto you so tightly and you felt like without the strength of his body you might just collapse on the ground.

“Baby, tell me you mean this. I’ll be okay if you don’t. It’s okay, I can wait for you — please say something. I need you to mean it.”

“Kyungsoo,” you found his name with your tongue and it tasted sweeter than any silly fruit you had ever tasted and his eyes dropped to your lips when you spoke. He was breathing hard through his lips and you could see the shaky resolve he held himself back with. It was cracked and broken and yet it still held.

“Soo,” your words were sticky and he was too close to you to make out his features clearly. His dark eyebrows, the flush of his cheeks and the darkness of his eyes, “Kyungsoo, I love you.”

The temptation he faced had been so great; you felt the softness of his lips, the lightest brush of them against your bottom lip when you said it and you gripped his shirt tight enough to rip the fabric if he dared to leave your arms right now.

“Tell me you mean this,” he breathed against the wetness he left behind with his lips on your mouth and you breathed in for the air to say it.

“I mean it.” And his mouth was on yours. The grip around your shoulders slipped and fell to your waist and tightened and he slipped a hand below your hips to pull your legs up and around him. His legs were moving and you were moving backward through the doorway that joined your two worlds and he carried you through the space until the softness of your mattress; the plush hotel bedding and pillows met your back and his mouth did not leave yours as he merely breathed the air he needed for his own life straight from your lungs.

Kyungsoo kissed you deeply and completely. Your reality had shifted from the upright you once knew and you fought between wanting to keep your eyes open to look at him and needing to close your eyes to feel him.

He moved over you and fingertips were pulling off layers of clothing until the heat from his skin sent electric currents directly into your own skin and he was everywhere at once. He touched you greedily; his soft fingertips not stopping in the same spot for longer than a few seconds he felt like a surveyor desperate to chart every square inch of your skin and his lips, the plush gentle kisses that peppered over your neck; pressing harder below the curve of your earlobe and the wet warmth of his tongue that sought out bits of goosebump covered skin to taste.

You felt too out of control; too affected by his every touch. Your whines and whimpers were the only sound in this entire room. In both rooms, the echo of the sounds that you couldn’t stop from escaping your lips bounced back to your own ears, an echo of yourself, reminding you again and again how good it felt to have him touching you like this.

His tasting journey over the expanse of your skin brought him southward and your hazy memory of Kyungsoo’s love habit was jolted awake when his teeth sunk hard into the soft flesh of your inner thigh. You gasped out loud and his teeth gave way to his mouth that sucked just as hard as he had bitten, leaving behind what you were certain would be a deep purple bruise that would stay on you for days.

The sting of the bite lingered and you had hardly a second to catch your breath when you felt the push of his hands against your knees, coaxing you to open your legs for him. You’d been bitten once and had closed on instinct, yet the strength in those hands was convincing and you heard a soft hum of approval from his chest that reached your ears when you finally opened. The sound pulled your eyes open; you had to look at him.

And his eyes, they feasted just as his mouth and his tongue had. He was looking at you with lazy blinks of his eyelids as his fingertips brushed lightly over the surface of your skin, he was touching, he was watching the way you reacted to his touches and when you squirmed below his touches, the corners of his lips pulled into a satisfied grin. It was maddening. He was only touching, he was being slow and patient as he did it and each sweep of his hand up your thigh brought his fingertips closer to the spot between your legs where the warmth had pooled and begged for something -- anything, why was he only looking, why would he tease so much when you already felt like you were on fire?

Couldn’t he just fuck you already and play with you later? You whined and you reached down to him with your fingertips, you found his short hair and your eyes met his dark ones and he watched you squirm with that same smirk on his face.

“What do you want me to do?” He said in a low voice that made your skin pucker and you groaned at this part. You always did. He wanted you to tell him what you wanted. He wanted to pull the words from your reluctant lips and you wanted him to just get on with it, but with the way he was watching you, with the way his fingertips left off just millimeters away from your most sensitive parts, you knew he was waiting for your words.

You knew it had to be torture for him. You could see and you could feel against your leg when he moved, the stiffness of his erection and with the way the tip reflected the bit of light coming from your bathroom, you knew he had only a few moments to last once he got inside of you. The build-up had already been too much.

“Please, Kyungsoo.”

This wouldn't do. It wasn’t enough for him, yet his eyes dropped from yours and slid down the length of you, past your heaving chest, your stomach, the space below your belly button where the unbearable warmth began and lower -- he looked between your parted legs and you saw him move lower -- seconds before you felt the tip of his nose bump against the mound of flesh and he pulled in a deep breath as he slipped the tip of his tongue out once, just once, to bump against your clit.

You opened your legs wider and you angled your hips down and he exhaled a hot breath from within his lungs - it flooded over the wetness between your legs and warmed you. Like he fogged up a window with his breath, he exhaled, again and again, refusing to go any deeper with his tongue no matter how much you writhed below him.

“Say it,” he whispered between your legs and you closed your eyes and opened your lips, too desperate now to hold back.

“Taste me, Kyungsoo. Eat me -- make me cum with your mouth,” your bravery was rewarded quickly but not before you pulled your eyelids open to see the satisfied smile on his face.

“Good,” he breathed out, and the tip of his tongue was slipping between your folds, “girl,” he said between the licks. “You are such a good girl.” he praised you quickly before his mouth opened up and you felt him lick the length of you, lapping up wetness and making such a sinful sound echo into your ears you would have blushed if there were any other sensations left for you to experience. As it was now you were already on fire.

“Look at how wet you are for me, my love. Do you want me to suck on your clit? You know I would do it for you if you asked me to. I’d do anything you asked me to do.”

“Fuck, Kyungsoo.” it was too much. It was already too much. His fingers had slipped into the wetness between your legs already and you were having a hard time keeping any coherent thoughts active inside your mind, let alone being able to form any actual sentences like he was doing.

“You’re so beautiful when you beg me. ”

His fingers were inside, massaging and tracing patterns and you inhaled a breath and nodded your head quickly, an answer to his question.

“Yes, please, suck on my clit, make me cum, please.” Your words were short and staccato bursts and you lifted your hands to cover your face and most importantly your mouth because the sounds you could not help making were too much for your ears. What if, what if the neighbors complained? What if someone knew how much of a wreck you were in his hands?

“Don't cover yourself,” he said sternly and you knew it wasn’t a request. You dropped your hands to your side and gripped the fabric of bedspread beneath you and he dropped quickly down between your legs, placed his open mouth right over your center and you felt the brush of his bottom lip before you felt his tongue against your clit. And he pulled.

The suction of his mouth sent a surge of electricity through you and paired with the flicking movement of his tongue had your legs shaking and your hands in his hair. You squeezed and pulled, desperate to keep him there and you felt the build m-up in your spine; in your thighs; in your abdomen. You felt the surge as your nerves reacted and he didn’t quit; he didn’t let up and his mouth pulled with a purpose and you lost yourself to him. You lost all thought and you lost the desire to keep quiet.

When your legs fell down onto the bed and you loosened the tight grip of your fingers in his hair the tight connection of his mouth to your clit ceased and there was a scatter of wet kisses along your thighs. Your breathing was ragged and the world was dizzy and Kyungsoo was moving around the bed as you closed your eyes and savored the afterglow.

You lifted a hand to run over your face and found stray strands of his hair stuck between your fingers. Your breathing hadn’t a chance to recover when you felt his warmth beside you. You felt his hands on your face and he gripped you with that look of pure fire in his eyes.

“You,” he said and you felt his hand move down your neck, he reached your breast and squeezed down hard, “taste,” his eyes roamed a wild path over your face, “so fucking good.”

He leaned into you then; placing his open mouth over yours and you pulled his bottom lip inside your mouth and you tasted -- you tasted everything he meant for you to taste and he pushed his tongue deep inside your mouth; it brushed against your tongue and you swallowed until you no longer tasted yourself. You swallowed until you tasted only Kyungsoo’s kiss and he rolled onto his back, bringing you along for the ride, you found yourself on top of him where he laid, pressed into the pillows of your bed.

The position brought you in line with him when you straddled his waist and he sat up and griped you tightly around the waist and lifted, just enough; just high enough to adjust himself. Your legs were still weak and shaky from the orgasm moments before, but his grip was strong and tight on you. The trembling you felt must have been from you.

“I’ve got you, baby, shhh,” he cooed into your ear.

You must have whined. You must have shaken enough for him to notice how dizzy and how weak you felt because he wrapped both arms around you and lifted higher, bringing you up and over and you felt the tip of him, upright and needy, he slipped into your entrance and you fell onto him, giving in to gravity and to the unparalleled force of him. He filled you completely and the sounds he made when he did it were magic.

You found a rhythm. You found some strength in your thighs and he wasn’t usually one to make too much noise when he fucked you, yet there was something desperate that had built here. You heard the soft sounds he made, the grunts and groans and his eyes were closed as he pushed his hips up, pulling you down hard over his lap, he fucked into you with his lips hung open and that beautiful face transformed; he experienced you completely; with his eyes closed and his mind switched off, he was feeling everything you did and his eyes would open occasionally to look into yours and they rolled shut again when the sensations were too much. Because they were, everything was too much. You had been so spent already and yet you felt another chasm growing inside of you.

You gave in and moved your hips again, urging the feeling to crest. His hands gripped your flesh hard and fingertips dug into your flesh and the way he was trembling below you was telling. He was close.

“Oh god, baby, you’re making me feel so good,” he whined against your ear, “I need to cum inside of you.” His hands were firm around the back of your neck and he squeezed down as he pushed into you from below. “Will my sweet girl let me cum inside. Hmm, baby, please let me see that pretty pussy filled with my cum?”

You were too gone to answer and you got through half a head nod of agreement when you felt yourself losing control again. Your legs were shaking and you tightened around him so much that you heard a gasp and a growl escaped his lungs and you were pushed; you were rolled over onto your back and he was on you without leaving you, he was pushing into you harder with stronger hands pushing your knees far apart as he fucked you.

“...so fucking pretty,” he said between pushes and your skin burned. The stimulation was already too much and you screamed as he shook and trembled between your legs and you felt shaking and heard the yell from his lips as his pace staggered and faltered. There was a burst amidst the tremble and you felt the spasmodic bursts inside of you as a new warmth flooded inside.

There was a pause in his breathing and you held your breath to match. His screwed together eyes and his blissful face and those lips that held so much power and after a second you saw the movement of his eyes below his closed eyelids and his eyes opened and bounced from your face down and he was pushing up and off. He had a purpose in his movement. Your entire world was spinning and he was pushing off of you with his focus down to where your bodies still connected.

You felt the movement of his hips and he watched as he slowly pulled himself out of you and in the seconds where his breathing stopped again he watched and bit down on his lip with his heavy breaths still raging through his body. You felt it, the liquid leave you. You watched the look on his face as he saw and he gripped the spent tip of his dick and pushed again, a gasp and a wince on his face and it was all too much. The sight of yourself, filled with him. Filled with the evidence of the sex. Dripping out and spilling onto the bed below. He reveled in it and had his fill of the sight and it had consumed him just as it had you.

Kyungsoo was as overwhelmed as you were and you watched him sink with it, falling into the bed beside you. You reached for him and he reached for you and there were no more words spoken out loud.

There were small kisses and sweet touches and then he rested his cheek over your chest to listen to your heart; using you as a pillow of warmth and comfort. It felt so perfect and you would have wept had you not been so exhausted. There was a heavy sleep whose thick blanket was coating the both of you as your limbs tangled, heartbeats and breathing joined each other in a perfectly steady pace, and you let yourself drift. You let yourself give in to the love and security you felt inside his arms and you closed your eyes when you heard his breathing change.

You didn’t have to compromise or bargain or fight about any of it. You just closed your eyes and let it happen. You let yourself sleep and you let yourself love him.

Only the One you Love[M]: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9

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douxreviews · 5 years

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The Handmaid's Tale - ‘Unfit’ Review

"I've never seen anyone so devoted."

Like the Canadian story line, the flashbacks in this show are often a welcome relief from the horrors of present day Gilead. This time, not so much.

Let me start by saying that Ann Dowd is absolutely awesome as the fearsome Aunt Lydia, and a flashback to her past should have done more to explain her character. Instead, even in her past, Lydia was taking children from their mothers while pontificating about her good intentions. She is just as conflicted and confusing as she always was. Maybe there's just no explaining people like Lydia. Or anyone who fits in Gilead.

Lydia Clements was a fourth grade teacher who used to work in family law. She went from judging Noelle, a poor young mother with a bad job, to helping her financially and giving her emotional support (which was lovely), to initiating legal proceedings that successfully took Noelle's son Ryan away from her. A remarkably bad thing that followed a remarkably good thing, and note how Lydia's clothing and hair style changed from loose, comfortable and attractive to a Gilead-like shapeless outfit and restrained bun.

This was tied in to Lydia's possible new boyfriend, Principal Jim. Lydia and Jim seemed so well matched: both were single again with careers in education, and clearly religious since they both quoted the Bible in casual conversation. Jim even said grace in the karaoke bar before they ate. (Karaoke "Islands in the Stream." Too cute, and adorably out of character for Lydia.)

Why would their aborted lovemaking on the couch push Lydia over the edge into such overwhelming shame, into violently destroying her own image in a mirror? Was it because she finally allowed herself to acknowledge her own sexual needs, and being rejected was too heavy a blow? For that matter, why did Jim stop? His wife died three years ago. Was it really too soon for him, or did her aggressive move on the couch turn him off? And why did this incident make Lydia turn on Noelle? Because Noelle had encouraged her to date again, had given her makeup?

Tying this into our lead character, we've all been wondering how June is still alive considering how badly she's been acting. I think June is too angry right now to be frightened of what could happen to her. Maybe Aunt Lydia sees June the way she saw Noelle, as someone she would try over and over again to push in the right direction – until she didn't. This doesn't bode well for June.

I enjoyed the three gossipy aunts around a table matching Handmaids to Commanders more than the flashbacks. This was background that we needed. Aunt Lydia complained about June's misbehavior, but then she talked about June being misled. "We never had issues with Ofjoseph before the Waterfords. A problem household, to say the least. And she was there for all that business with Emily." Aunt Elizabeth added, "And Lillie." It's an explanation for why June is still alive and undamaged. Not a great one, but an explanation.

During the almost comical testifying scene in the gym, June did acknowledge that Frances' death was June's fault, and that Hannah would suffer for what June did. And then June took that opportunity to turn on Ofmatthew, saying truthfully that Ofmatthew didn't want her baby. We learned that Ofmatthew thought her baby was going to be a girl this time, and she didn't want to bring a daughter into Gilead. I so can't blame her.

During their shopping trip to Loaves and Fishes, June smiled as Ofmatthew snatched the guardian's gun and went on her desperation spree, and then she nodded when Ofmatthew was aiming the gun at her. I think June was ready to die. When Ofmatthew changed her target to Aunt Lydia, I was yelling, "Kill her!" Sadly, no. The death of Ofmatthew and her possibly female fetus, along with the death of Ofandy's baby girl, felt like a metaphor for the murderous sickness of Gilead's culture.

Racism in Gilead

This is the second episode in a row that featured the horrible death of a black woman. It's also the first time race was so much as mentioned. During that fascinating scene with the Aunts and the sherry and the files on the lazy susan, Aunt Lydia said that one of the Commanders didn't want a Handmaid of color. Racial prejudice exists in Gilead, but it is kept on the down low. Under the table, pun intended.

Critics of this show talk a lot about intersectionality, how jarring it is that Gilead is all about the misogyny while racial issues don't seem to exist, and really, I totally get that. It's a major change from Atwood's book. In reality, a fascist, misogynistic society like Gilead would almost certainly be deeply racist as well. I initially thought I understood why the producers made this decision. They wanted the focus of this fictional dystopia to be the oppression of women, period. There is also the practical consideration that if they had adhered more faithfully to the source material, the entire cast of this series would be white.

While I was thinking about what I would write about this episode, I realized that I hadn't thought through that assumption. They could have kept Gilead logically racist by having Handmaids of color while all of the Commanders and Wives were white. White slave owners in the past often raped and impregnated their black slaves, didn't they? And of course, June could have still had a black husband and daughter. I wonder why they didn't go that way? It would have made a lot more sense.

More glowing comments about the photography

As usual, the photography in this episode was spectacular. I was particularly struck by the from-above shot of Handmaids circling Ofandy with comfort and hugs, June in the snow with a red umbrella on her way to Loaves and Fishes, and the camera attached and moving with Ofmatthew's gun. The most striking was the line of red blood on white tile as Ofmatthew's body was dragged out of the store; it reminded me of the red ropes they use for hanging.

And the flashbacks were so pretty that they often looked unreal – the diffused lights on the Christmas tree, the sparkling clothing and hangings at the nightclub, the New Year's Eve glitter. I'm sure that was on purpose. The unreality, I mean.

Do they celebrate Christmas in Gilead? Has it been mentioned? It seems unlikely. But I didn't think they would have dancing, either.

Bits:

— The name of Hannah's Martha wasn't mentioned in the previous episode, but here, the very first scene started with June talking about Frances, and what an ordinary life she led before Gilead. Much like Lydia.

— Janine was kindness itself toward Ofmatthew, and when Ofmatthew lost it in Loaves and Fishes, she beat the crap out of Janine. It would have made more sense if Ofmatthew had attacked June, instead.

— During the birth scenes and the testifying, the Handmaids were acting a little like a bitchy high school clique. "Crybaby! Crybaby! Crybaby! Crybaby!" actually made me laugh.

— June told Joseph Lawrence that he wasn't protecting Eleanor, he was suffocating her. Lawrence didn't take the bait. I'm starting to think the Lawrences are in danger. Gilead turns on its own on a regular basis. No one is safe.

— The Lydia/Ryan twenty questions scene that opened the flashback began with Ryan asking, "Am I alive?" I wonder. Is he?

— Gold acting stars for Ashleigh LaThrop, who played Ofmatthew. I wish we'd known her character's real name. Maybe we'll find out what it was at the beginning of the next episode.

Quotes:

Aunt Lydia: "Tell your friends to cool it." June: "I'm sorry, Aunt Lydia. I don't know what you're talking about. You want to take my tongue out? Burn my arm? Better hope they don't need me on TV again for Nichole."

June: "How did that rhyme go? The one we'd jump rope to? Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief. A game to tell what our children would grow up to be. The list is a lot shorter now, especially if it's a girl. Martha, Jezebel, Handmaid, Wife." What about "Aunt"?

Noelle: "You're a fucking coldhearted bitch!" Lydia: "I forgive you."

Aunt Lydia: "Sometimes it's the apple, and sometimes it's the barrel." Aunt Lydia has decided it's the barrel this time. She wants to transfer June to another household. Uh oh.

June: "I hurt her. and I enjoyed it. The wives and aunts, too, grieving over Ofandy's dead child. And Lawrence. They all deserve to suffer. It's an acquired taste, seeing others in pain. Like that smoky scotch Luke got as a gift once. I grew to like that."

June: "I finally know how Oflgen felt, what made her put on that bomb vest. […] And I know how Emily felt, right before she stuck a knife in Lydia's back." Again, it sure sounds like June is ready to die.

This is the second episode in a row that I didn't much like. Two out of four smoky scotches.

---

Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

#The Handmaid's Tale #June Osborne #Aunt Lydia #Serena Joy Waterford #Fred Waterford #The Handmaid's Tale Reviews #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews

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spongeekat · 5 years

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[Rewrite] The 6 Months Peter Parker was Dead Chapter 1

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Summary; Peter is forced to fake his own death to save the lives of his fathers, as well as his boyfriend Wade and the rest of the Avengers. Now living as his secret identity of Spider-Man, he must cope with the pain he's causing his friends and family, while adjusting to the lonely life of a full-time hero. It's not easy when his decision keeps finding ways to haunt him, and it seems his identity is even harder to hide when he's 'dead.'

“Peter, please. Just look at me. You don’t want to do this. You don’t want to hurt Tony, or Steve, or anyone else that cares about you. You’re so young.”

Bruce’s pleading was wasted breath. His uncle’s voice was distant, barely audible over the pounding of blood in his ears. Peter’s mind throbbed with unease. The burning embers kissing the windows and door frame were pulsing brighter than the rest of the world, and when he tore his gaze down to his arms he saw the crimson burning his skin and up the expanse of his shoulder. Fire Trucks blared deafeningly close, yet he didn’t so much as wince. Men and women were screaming at the rescue teams to help. It all sounded so far away. When he looked up at the fire consuming the burnt mansion, dripping with hunger and malintent, the blistering heat scorched his body. Sweat gathered on the edges of his hairline, and for a moment he felt he was breathing in pure charcoal and ash. His logical mind, though hardly present, told him this was a terrible decision, and he should stay clear of the collapsing building. He felt a hand firmly grasp onto his shoulder, before it drug his limp form around to face Bruce. Peter caught sight of calm eyes staring back down at him, though the usual composure of the scientist before him had broken. Blood dripped steadily down his cheeks, and Peter was aware of wires of a bomb strapped to his uncle’s chest creeping up from under his shirt. They served as a grim reminder of the consequences of his actions, if he chose not to go through with the plan being forced onto him.

The splintering crash of another room caving in on itself pulled him from his mystified haze. His senses slowly started to return, the deluded shrieking now hitting him in stereo. Glancing back at the horrifying scene, the mansion was standing on its final legs. His window of opportunity was running short. There was a tunnel in the basement open only for so long, and Peter would lose his chance to disappear into it if he didn’t make quick decisions.

A man howled for help from the second story. Peter wasn’t sure if he was a pawn placed there by Harry, or if he was an actual tenant of the home that had been ambushed with his arson. Either way, the fire truck's ladder wasn’t operating, and the man had no method of escaping. Peter’s urge to rescue him was making his stomach churn in agony. He knew Harry was watching, and any aberration from the scheme would result in negative outcomes for everyone involved.

“Don’t think about me for a second.” Bruce’s voice was soothing, and much closer to Peter this time, his hands desperately anchoring him in place to keep him from making a move towards the flame-engulfed house. “Think about yourself. It would be better for me to die than you. Remember your fathers. Remember New York. All the people that love and depend on you. The people that would be devastated.”

Who? The thought made Peter’s throat constrict. He couldn’t deny Tony and Steve would be left in shock- and childless- but thinking logically, both of his previous sets of parents and the one girl he’d ever loved were already dead. Superheroes lost people all the time. In the overall scheme of things, did his life really matter…?

But Bruce. Uncle Bruce was someone Peter had vowed to protect. He glanced shortly up at his worn face, the abuse he’d been dealt taking form in dark bruises on his jaw and a fractured nose. The Green Goblin had been the mastermind behind this all.

Harry Osborn had made his appearance at the science convention Bruce and Peter had gone to that afternoon. Peter had originally been invited by Tony, but his Dad hadn’t been up to attending the event and sent Bruce in his place. The look of disbelief on his Uncle’s face when Peter had shot out a web to defend them was cemented in his mind. Peter fought hard. He hadn’t won. Harry had baited them out of the convention center to a parking garage rigged with electric traps, and he’d stupidly ignored his spidey-senses until it was too late. Static shot through the room, currents cutting through his body until he was debilitated and had passed out. The horror he felt waking up to Bruce, beaten, bloodied, and covered with explosives, had felt grimly similar to watching Gwen fall to her death 2 years ago. He couldn’t go through that again. He couldn’t watch another person in his life die because of his double-life.

Windows shattered behind them, glass shards dropping to the sidewalk and causing onlookers to take steps further back to avoid the spray. Peter was pushed into Bruce from the momentum of the crowd, though Bruce wound his arms tightly around him. Peter could feel his unwillingness to let go. He wished he could stay that way with him, even if just for a minute longer. He may have resolved himself to his death, but that didn’t make the fear any less harsh.

“I know you think it’s your only option. But Peter, you have so much more to live for besides just being Spider-Man. You can’t lose your family. You can’t lose Wade.”

Wade. He would be devastated. He and Peter had agreed they would end each other’s lives when it came down to it, because neither wanted to survive alone. His promise ring was heavy on his finger. Peter slowly reached down and slipped it off with trembling hands, pressing it tightly into Bruce’s palm. “Keep it for me.” Peter’s voice ruptured through his chest, searing his lungs. His body ached, like he would have a break down any moment. However, he didn’t feel the immediate need to cry. He felt... numb.

Harry hated Peter. He didn’t have to scream it at him a thousand times to get the point across. He could see it in the spiteful eyes of his ex-best friend. He could see how Peter had broken him with his refusal to be the experimental drug for Norman. He had promised to do what he could to help the man he’d grown up with, but Norman had taken matters into his own hands and was too far gone for Peter to save him in the end. And then there was the night Norman had killed himself in a horrible accident, impaling himself on his glider when he had tried to take out Spider-Man. This fueled Harry’s inexplicably strong animosity, and Peter had no way to convince him that he hadn’t caused the loss of his father. In his eyes, while he knew it was horrible mistakes leading up to this, he accepted the blame for ruining his friend.

“You don’t deserve your dads.”

Peter had been electrocuted to the point he felt the shaking wouldn’t stop, sweat dripped down his face, and burn marks charred his arms and legs. He was in no shape to attempt an escape from the Goblin, especially with Bruce covered in explosives and unable to mutate to the Hulk. He wouldn’t risk his life in a gamble.

“Little Spidey wants to take away my father, my future, and still wants to pretend he’s the good guy! All we wanted was your goddamn blood !”

“Harry, this isn’t you.” Peter had seen Harry’s darkest days - through every disagreement with his family. Yet, despite the pressure of his Dad and the fate that awaited him, his fire had never burned out. Now, it seemed only black voids filled his eyes. “Let me help you. I-I promise, I’ll do everything I can-”

“No, that offer has expired. Sadly enough for you!” Another bolt coursed through his spine and spread down to his fingertips. Peter collapsed to his side on the floor, his body spasming excruciatingly as he tried to catch his breath and his heart threatened to give out. “You’re on my terms now. And that is somewhere you don’t want to be.”

Harry had given him an ultimatum. He cackled sadistically from behind his deranged mask, hovering over Peter’s broken frame on the floor still his twitching from another round of electrocution. “I won’t kill you. I want you to kill yourself. Peter Parker will die from this world either way.”

Peter was too disoriented to respond, and trying to pick himself up off the floor only left him dazed and in a heap once more. His limbs seemed to stop obeying him entirely.

“So I have a choice for you, Spider-Man.” A single, deformed finger blinded him, his brain engorged with electric sparks and hardly able to take in the details of it wavering in his eyes. “I’ll blow Banner’s brains out like a firework , reveal your identity to the world, and just as you return to normal life with Dear old Dad’s and your family of super-freaks, I’ll come for you. You won’t know where I am. But I’ll take a person from your life one by one, rip them to shreds and send you videos to commemorate, until you end your pathetic existence yourself.”

“Don’t listen, Peter.” Bruce croaked, though his prompting didn’t eliminate the weight of the Harry’s threats.

“Two.” Another green finger dug into Peter’s forehead, pushing sharply at his temples to make his neck arched painfully back. “You will leave your life as Peter Parker, and your Dads will be childless. You are a part of the Avenger’s now, aren’t you? Do you have fun being Spider-Man? Running around pretending not to sleep under the same roof? Is it easy to lie to them? I hope so, because Spider-Man is all you’ll ever be. You’ll kill yourself- or at least, they’ll think you’re dead- on television so everyone can see just how weak and pathetic you truly are. And you’ll suffer each day watching them in pain, knowing they couldn’t save you. Your Hulk will live. So long as you trust him to keep a secret.” He paused, tauntingly, and withdrew his fingers from the teen’s forehead. Peter stared in disbelief at the floor in front of him, a shuddering taking over his form. He couldn’t do that to Steve and Tony, or the rest of his family. Either choice was a terrible punishment for them; they’d lose a friend, a team member, and suffer the publicity of Peter’s identity reveal and the murders that followed; or they’d lose their only son, while he played observer to the aftermath right under their noses.

“Don’t make me wait all day, Spider-Man, the choice is clear. Make your decision by the count of three, or I’ll set off my boom-toys and kill Banner now.”

Before Harry had even reached 2, Peter’s voice shot out in utter panic. “I’ll do the second one! I’ll pretend to die!”

Peter could see the heartbreak on Bruce’s face. He knew he was selfish. He knew he couldn’t do this to the people he held most dear, but he couldn’t risk lives that weren’t his. He couldn’t put people in danger who had never agreed to be in harm’s way in the first place.

“Be careful. Get the bombs off as soon as possible.” Peter brushed away Bruce’s arms from his body, taking a few steps backwards. Worry spiked in Bruce’s eyes, but Peter had his back facing him before he could say another word. He ducked under the police tape at the front lines. A fireman squawked to his right and made to grab him,, but Peter was quicker and evaded his grasp. He sprinted towards the home before anyone had really noticed he’d broken through, but when they had, there was an outcry of concern from the crowd. His steps tapered off at the front door and he slowed to a stop. The furniture and walls just inside the doors were blackened from the flames, sweltering smoke pouring through the frame. He could smell the petrol that had fed the fire, which was now spilling down the stairs at a rapid pace. He had a minute, maybe less, before the entire front room would be consumed by the blaze. Sweat collected on the arch of his eyebrows, and for a moment he was left petrified on the porch. There were civilians screaming at him to stop, and training his ears, Peter knew one of the first responders was dashing towards where he stood, his footsteps slamming against the asphalt. Despite the dread of entering the tomb that stretched in front of him, he couldn’t let himself get stopped. If he were interrupted by an officer he wouldn’t get a second chance to finish what he had started. His eyes locked onto the cameraman from their local news gawking at him from behind police lines, and before concerned bystanders could get in his way, he had ducked in the doorway and out of sight from the public.

Before he had even taken 5 steps away from the door, an explosion sounded behind him, nearly catapulting Peter into a half-destroyed piano from the force. Peter threw arms over his head as dust and debris sprayed his way, varnishing his face and hair with ashes. The side of the house closest to the stairs had begun collapsing, beams creaking before plunging through the weakened ceiling and splintering against the ground. He navigated his way towards the kitchen, the furthest point in the house from the source of the fire, purposefully orchestrated by Harry. He knew he was watching him, executing perfect timing as to prevent Peter’s plan from getting hindered. This also meant Peter was given no chance to go back on his word, once it was set into motion. His way out had been barraged chunks of burnt wood and drywall, and there was only one escape point remaining; the basement.

The roof groaned with strain, and the snapping of wood caught Peter’s attention. A tingle of warning ran up his spine, and his arms straightened above him on instinct to catch a burning beam that was hurtling down towards him. It easily outweighed him and was painted black with fire. The flames scorched the skin on his hands, but his adrenaline-induced high distracted him from the pain. He managed to throw it aside back towards the living room, side-stepping the cavern above him in case another piece of the frame decided to give out. He sucked in a sharp breath to look down at his palms, bits of the skin burned away to reveal pink and bloodied skin, but there wasn’t much to do about it now. The sooner he got out of this house, the less trauma he’d have to worry about later.

He trudged his way down the staircase that led to the under structure, the air growing thinner and easier to breathe. Peter hitched his backpack off his shoulders and dropped it to the floor, yanking out his suit. Despite the rush he was in, he faltered when he looked at the fabric, as if it was his first time seeing it. He didn’t feel like he was in a hurry this time to don the costume. After today, it would serve as his prison sentence. He wasn’t able to take it off and return to his life as a student, son, and Daily Bugle employee. Peter Parker, in this reality, was dead.

He tore off his current clothing, dropping it to the ground beside him. It was difficult to pull the spandex over his damp skin, but he eventually was zipping it and fixing his mask in place. Feeling his breathing obstructed by the suit was what finally made it all seem real. He wouldn’t be returning that night from his trip with Bruce to a warm bed and a kiss on the forehead from Steve. He wouldn’t spend his night listening to Tony trying to prove why it was a pointless convention made for less competent scientists to prove their theoretical intellect. There’d be no family movie night like every Saturday, and Natasha wouldn’t tease him and Wade endlessly when Wade snuck in once Tony and Steve went to bed. He wouldn’t go out for his nightly patrol, and he’d never again return at an unholy hour to rush to hide his new bruises with concealer and long-sleeve shirts.

Peter was really losing his entire life.

He twisted to locate the crudely carved tunnel leading out of the basement and up towards the back yard. Harry had told him it would be there as his means of escape, and it seemed just barely big enough for him to crawl through. With a faltering confidence he shoved his backpack in far enough to fit his body, then grabbed hold of the walls of the dirt path to pull himself in as well. His toes poked around for a growth in the dirt, and when he found it, he gave it a light tap and withdrew his foot. A weak bomb went off and the end of the tunnel collapsed, the light fading out of the space in seconds. Harry hadn’t been lying about the detonator to prevent his route from being found. He really had planned this revenge meticulously. Peter grabbed hold of his backpack and pushed it up further along the steep angle, using his feet to climb up after it.

Trapped in utter darkness in a tunnel that led Peter to god-knows-where, he crawled towards the beginning of a new kind of hell he wasn’t emotionally prepared to face.

“Now being called a Reckless Hero; How the adopted son of Tony Stark lost his life in an attempt to save politician Jamison Morre last Tuesday when he was trapped on the fourth floor of his burning home. The Manhattan Arson and Explosives team has just concluded their investigation on the case of a house-fire that left two dead earlier this week. Firefighters received the call about this massive fire at about 4:30 PM. When they arrived on the scene they discovered Morre was still inside the home, unable to escape his bedroom before the fire had caused the stairs to collapse. 20 Year old Peter Parker-Stark was spending the day with a family friend when the young man supposedly passed by the scene and heard the cries of the homeowner as he yelled for help. Despite all of the first-responders best efforts, they were not able to extend their ladder due to faulty equipment. It was then Stark decided to take matters into his own hands. He ran into the half-demolished building to try to reach him, but a gas line exploded just as he entered. Police say they found a body that was badly burned and crushed under the rubble, but it had been concluded to belong to Parker-Stark. We talked to the fire chief that was on the scene at the time.”

“It was an unfortunate incident that my men were not prepared to deal with. Our truck ladder wouldn’t extend, and we couldn’t reach the man through his window. The kid ran past us and it took too long for any of us to realize he had gotten through. It’s something sad that we have to deal with when heroes like Spider-Man and Captain America run around and try to save people all the time. Normal people want to be heroes, too. All of our trucks are being tested to be sure this won’t happen again, and the parts that failed are being looked into.”

“We’ve received no comment from Tony Stark on the incident. More details to come as they’re uncovered.”

The TV clicked off, the screen shutting down to black, and Peter was once more basked in the silence of his empty apartment. He drew his legs up to his chest, resting languidly against the arm of his couch. After a couple of nights taking refuge under the bleachers of his old high school, Bruce had gotten him settled into a rented furnished studio apartment, at least for the time being until he figured out the next steps he would take. It had been surprisingly difficult adjusting to life on his own. Despite his roots of living primarily with Aunt May and Uncle Ben in an aged, single-family home, he had grown quite accustomed to life in Stark Industries and the luxuries that came along with it. Of course he was also never completely alone in the tower. Even when his 5-or-so family members were away on a mission, he still had Jarvis, who was decent company. But now he was left isolated on the other side of town.

Bruce hadn’t come to visit Peter yet. At least not when he’d been home. He’d left a new phone, clothes from his room, his laptop, his promise ring, and cash in a box on his counter while Peter was out. He also texted him updates about upcoming Avenger’s meetings, though all official activity had been postponed until further notice. Peter hadn’t heard anything about Steve and Tony’s state yet, though he figured that was for the better.

The depression of losing his family had hit him quite hard. Rather than crying to mourn his losses, he just felt... empty. His life had been shattered apart by the man he used to consider his best friend, his relationship had been ripped prematurely away, and he was left a captive to his superhero persona. He hadn’t brought himself to move from the couch since he’d moved in, much less go out for patrols. Besides, the temptation to burst into his old home and reveal that he had never really died and beg for forgiveness for lying to them would overwhelm him. He wasn’t strong enough for it yet.

On his new phone he navigated to the social media sites his family had kept up for him, all now switched to a remembrance page. Several people from highschool and college that had barely even known his name when he was ‘alive’ had posted tribute statuses. Even his professors had reached out about the unfortunate death of their student. The name that stood out most viciously on the page was Flash. He was, according to his post, torn-up by Peter’s death, wishing he had been given the chance to apologize for his misbehavior all those years ago towards Peter. The fact that his death may have actually done good for a person made him want to laugh at the sour irony.

There was still the intrusive thought that overall this may be a benefit to those he’d left behind. After all, how many of his family members had he seen murdered, or close to it, because of his genetics and powers? It was hard to ignore the fears when they were the only thing keeping you company during the day.

Peter’s police scanner buzzed on low volume next to him on the cushions, and the words ‘Masked Red Man’ and ‘Shooting.’ immediately caught his attention. Wide-eyed, his fingers fumbled to turn it up.

“ 612 we’re requesting response cars because we have squads tied up with this shooting. Unable to move inside. 5 suspects have been spotted with firearms, and approximately 24 people are still inside the mall. Masked man is now out of sight and has appeared to have entered through the fire exit. Shots have been fired. Where did this guy go? Were those swords?”

Apparently there was a hostage situation in the mall, and Wade was getting himself involved. The fact had Peter on his feet in a second. Wade had been kill-free for a year and half since joining up with the Avenger’s alongside Spider-Man, and had been very proud of that fact. Peter was really hoping that streak hadn’t been broken. No, he had to be sure Wade wasn’t going to hurt anyone. His chest ached as he pulled himself from the couch and tumbled over to his suit that laid out on his counter, holding it up before him.

No more moping. He was going to have to face this head on. He was doing this to protect those he loved, and he couldn’t give up on saving the city and the people in it just because he was grieving. So he pulled the zipper open and ripped off his shirt, trying not to let his mind linger on the anxiety of seeing Wade again.

Spider-Man landed stealthily on the glass roof of the Manhattan mall, but he still heard an eruption in the crowd gathered to watch the scene, supposedly noticing him. He braced his fingertips against the slippery panes and crawled silently, eyes scanning inside for where the hostages were. He’d heard from the report that the shooters had been spotted near the electronics store on the second floor through a window. As promised, when he reached that area, he saw a man standing with a loaded gun in the center of a broken escalator, with a group of a dozen people kneeling behind him. There were bound to be more shooters in another section, which Peter had to be careful not to alert, as to not risk any of the individuals’ lives.

He carefully gripped onto and pulled one of the glass panels up as warm air rushed out at him, calculating his strategy. Yelling below him indicated someone was on the phone, likely with the police, in one of the hidden stores. The hostages seemed to all be alive at least, though Peter was sad to know there had already been at least one casualty. He picked the angle at which he could quickly web the gun with one hand and grab the gunner with the other, which would hopefully be silent enough that he could then land in front of the hostages and body-block them until he’d taken out the three other gunman.

Peter adjusted so that he’d have room to jump down once he’d webbed the man, extended his wrist, and braced himself to ambush his target.

“Who the fuck is that?!”

The faint sound of boots hitting tile drew his attention to a maintenance hallway. His vision locked in on a man making his way towards the gunmen with a frightening ambiance, shrouded by the crimson emergency lights flashing rhythmically. His katanas were dragging on the ground, sparks leaping off the tips , and nothing about this man seemed friendly or hopeful like Peter had come to know him. His heart swelled in his chest upon seeing the familiar suit, a sharp pain forming in the back of his throat. Wade. His presence brought in an instant happiness that threw him completely off guard, though the grief overshadowed it in a moment when he’d realized that it meant nothing. Wade had no idea who lied behind the mask. They were still stuck miles apart.

“Stop walking towards me or I’ll kill one of the kids!” Peter was torn back to the situation at hand. His eyes darted to look for the other gunmen, and he could see the barrels of their machine guns poking out of the door of one of the stores. He counted 3 present at the scene, which meant one was still missing.

Deadpool’s heavy steps didn’t falter at the threat, and Peter’s ears picked up on the clicking of a gun safety. It was time to make his move.

A child screamed when Peter descended down on them, which distracted the man aiming at Wade long enough that his blades had the chance to scrape together. Peter turned in horror, expecting a maimed body lying on the floor, though he was met with the sight of a halved gun and the man bleeding from his nose after taking a hilt to the face. Thank God. The criminal was injured, but alive.

The whizzing of a bullet entered his ears and he instinctively side-stepped it, and several other shots. His wrists darted out, web fibers solidifying and sticking onto the strap of one of the rifles. He ripped it out of the hands of the gunman, pulling the magazine out and discarding it before the body clattered to the floor. Peter shot another two webs at the man’s arms and drug him forward, digging the heel of his foot into his forehead to disorient him. Deadpool was beside him without hesitation, sliding under a bullet’s path and yanking the shooter’s feet out from under him. Peter noted that Deadpool was dully silent compared to his normal banter and… Peter would give anything to hear just a hint of laughter in his voice. Peter turned his head at the hostages, pointing towards the exits. “Go to the police. You should be safe.” He said, calmly, to keep them from panicking and trampling one another. His voice disguiser he’d invested into when he’d gotten invited to the Avenger’s buzzed softly in his mask, distorting his voice deeper and leaving it unrecognizable.

Peter cemented two of the criminals to the floor. He used his knee to anchor another, wrapping web around his wrists to subdue him, and Deadpool seemed to be taking care of the other gunmen. His heart rate had picked up to a rapid pounding due to the close proximity of Wade, and he struggled to find something to say. There was an uncomfortable tension draping them, and Peter knew he should break the silence. He straightened up ever so gradually, studying Wade’s mask, though the mercenary seemed to notice and refused to return his gaze. His body language echoed the tenseness he seemed to feel, his quivering hands using more force than necessary to rip at the shirt fabric of the knocked out man to tie his hands. Peter wanted to hug him. It hurt so terribly to be this close, to see him looking so defeated, but unable to do anything about the fact. Nothing else felt as important in that moment as comforting Wade did.“Deadpo--”

“I have to go.” Deadpool stood from his work, looking over at the computer store. Peter followed his eyes, slowly, every fiber in his being not wanting to look away from Wade, to see the last of the men cowering behind a desk. “You can take care of him, right, Spidey?”

Wade sounded drained. Peter swallowed down the remorse that took over him as he nodded. “I-Uh- Yeah” Wade braced to walk away, but panic erupted in Peter’s chest. He didn’t want him to go. “Um, We should talk!... Sometime. Like we used to.” He said awkwardly, with urgency, unsure why he had made the offer knowing that he absolutely could not risk giving his identity away.

The mercenary hesitated, his blades, still dirtied with blood and gunpowder, being shoved away into their holsters on his back. “Yeah, maybe .” Wade returned half-heartedly, and it was clear he had no intention of accepting Spider-Man’s offer. He didn’t say anything else, picking his way over the bodies and dragging his feet back towards the exit.

And all Peter could do was watch him walk away with the other half of his heart. His promise ring sat heavily on his finger, under the glove.

He was broken. There was no other way he could describe the torment that had crushed his spirit. Wade was hurting, that much was clear by his shortness, and Peter knew it was entirely his fault.

#spideypool #superfamily #spiderman #deadpool #iron man #captain america #fanfic #my fic #spongeekat

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