#ignore the heinous quality... oh my god

[bobus]

lego style is fun

if you spot any mistakes .. nuh uh

[boymeetsweevil]

Slippery slopes ahead

Grouping: Thirsty!Reader x Confused!Jimin

Word Count: ~6.6k (NSFW)

Warnings/Themes: sad amounts of desperate thirst, BRUISE PLAY? is that real? either way its a big one. Sex. First time sex but neither of them is a virgin. Jimin thinks he knows was BDSM is and he’s wrong. for some reason every time i write jimin he has a slight panty fetish lmao

Summary: “Look at you,” he coos. “All this time I thought you were shy.”

A/N: I made a banner look :’) isn’t it beautiful, legible, and not at all ugly?? Also this shares a universe with my other fic Sleeping Bags as well as my contribution to the BSC Secret Santa project!!!!

“If I don’t sleep with Jimin on this trip, I think I’m going to die.”

Lisa is accustomed enough to your lust filled rants that she doesn’t stop packing her bags. She does, however, give you side-eye that is so full of vague disappointment that you actually feel ashamed for a fraction of a second.

“What? I can feel you judging me.” You wag your finger at her. “ But there’s nothing wrong with wanting sex. ” Your voice is slightly whiny. And it’s been whiny since you started dating Park Jimin.

Lisa merely huffs at you and folds yet another sweater before putting it in her suitcase. You stand with your hands on your hips, a pair of lacy panties dangles from your clenched fist. You look so serious that Lisa can’t take you seriously and her annoyance breaks with a snort.

“Nothing,” Lisa sighs. “It’s just the way you’re always gagging for it makes me embarrassed. For you.”

“So?”

“So this is technically a trip for the community service club and not for your 4 month-iversary or whatever.”

You sniff, opting to ignore her logic. “Well, I’ll stop gagging when he finally gags me.” You punctuate the statement with a petulant toss of the panties.

“Do you hear yourself right now?”

“Sorry, sorry. I just...” you stare into the distance. “He’s just so hot. And for what?”

If she couldn’t hear the actual words you were using, Lisa might think you were contemplating some grand theme of life. The bittersweet expression on your face is all too grave to be the result of a little horniness. Although, given how well Lisa knows you, perhaps she should give you a pass.

“You know, if this were a movie, we’d be failing the Bechdel test right now.”

“Oh, whatever. hat’s not even the most accurate measure of a film’s womanist content.”

“Look who was paying attention in class. Wow.” She adds another folded shirt to her suitcase. “If you’re dying of thirst why don’t you, I don’t know, talk to him?”

“I can’t. It’d give him a heart attack. He thinks I have, like, dick-phobia and that I probably couldn’t ever make it past third base.”

“Why the hell would he think that? Does he know know you?”

“Remember that time we went to Namjoon’s party and he asked to use my laptop to play the movie?”

Lisa’s mouth drops open with the memory. “Oh my god yeah. The thing with the porn.”

You both grow quiet as you recall the time that Kim Namjoon, a mutual friend of yours and Jimin’s, accidentally projected a porno from your laptop onto the giant screen instead of the dark comedy you and 20 other people had gathered to watch.

It had been a few weeks before the official start of  your relationship with Jimin, and you suppose he had misinterpreted your mortification. He probably thought your clammy hands and face were because you were worried people would judge you for being a fan of the video. Technically, that was what you were scared of. But only because you were worried people would judge the porno by its actors because they both weren’t 25 year old hotties instead of its quality. The video in question was of a woman with heinous lip fillers getting rawed by a man with a severely receding hairline. In truth, though, you’d learned to give the best head of your life from DSL Diana™️ and Matt Boner™️ always had great woman-friendly videos. They were a true power couple in the adult film world and only real aficionados would know that.

“Yeah,” you cringe to yourself and resume packing your own bag. “And that was before we even started going out. Since then, I can’t make any headway with him. If I try to put my hand down his pants, he stops and asks me if his fly is down.”

“Oh. My god.” Lisa balks at how easily you overshare. “W-well, maybe he’s waiting until what he thinks is the right moment to have sex.”

“I mean…I guess.” You shove more socks into your duffle. “But if that’s the case, this trip to the ski lodge should be more than good enough. For him, I mean. I’m not that picky after the other person is already locked down.”

“Actually, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. How is this trip going to work when you can’t ski?”

“How do you know I can’t ski?”

Lisa snorts.

Right as the sun begins to set, the resort comes into view from the coach bus window. It's probably a beautiful sight, but you’re more fixated on the back of Jimin’s head. The look that you’re giving him itself isn’t one that’s warm or passionate. Instead you’re wondering what’s going on in his head as he presses himself to the window to get a better look.

“I still can’t believe we actually managed to get a suite at Crystal Snow.” He points to the glimmering slopes and turns to you with an excited smile. “They import their own snow when the winters are too warm for it to happen naturally. Last year they imported 6 million tons last year.”

“Global warming. Nice.”

His smile is so bright that you can’t hold on to your annoyance. You lean forward so you can rest your chin on his shoulder and listen to him spout off more facts about the different courses and the state of the art grounds. As soon as you move into his space, one of his hands gravitates to your knee and squeezes lightly. The urge to push his hand higher up your thigh appears, but you ignore it and try to focus on the things he’s saying.

“So, are you gonna spend all vacation on the hardest one? The—what’s it called? The black diamond?”

He turns to peer down at you with amusement creasing the corners of his eyes. “How can I do that and teach you to ski at the same time?”

“Why does everyone think I can’t ski?”

“Can you?”

“I…don’t know.”

“I’ll be a good teacher, I promise.” He plants a chaste kiss on your temple.

The resort looks as lavish as it appeared on the website, and you find yourself pleasantly surprised. As a prize for beating the other community service clubs on campus for the most funds raised for that semester’s cause, you and the other club members were all awarded a trip to Crystal Snow resorts. It seemed antithetical to the clubs’ mission statements, but you all decided to go anyway because the money to pay for the trip couldn’t be donated and the tickets were non-transferrable.

The suite itself cost a pretty penny, but the package it came with seems worth it. Attendants even come to pick up all the club members’ bags and take them ahead to the suite while you browse through the resort convenience store at the base of the mountain. Jimin and the other people in the club are scattered across the resort. Some of them already unpacking in their rooms while others came with you to the store.

Wishful thinking brings you to the aisle for ‘intimate health’. If anyone asks, you’re there to buy tampons, but you’re really hoping to sneakily buy some condoms. You still haven’t choked down your pride long enough to have an honest conversation with Jimin, so you’re hoping the moment will just pop up on its own.

Another girl stands at the very end of the aisle, ambling towards the little display of makeup that stands nearby. You pay her no mind and pick up the first package to catch your eye. A tap on your shoulder startles you and causes the box to slip from your grasp.

“Oh! Sorry,” she bends down to grab the dropped box. “I just wanted to ask you if you use concealer.”

From what you can tell, she seems to be around your age, maybe a little older. You peer down at the display she’s standing by and you try to search your brain for a brand name that sounds familiar. A small tube in the corner with memorable packaging helps you out.

“I think I’ve used this one, actually. It works pretty well, but if you use the wrong product under it, it gets a little flaky.”

“But the coverage is alright?” You nod. “I see.”

“You don’t look like you need it, though. Your skin is so clear.”

She chuckles nervously and begins to play with your condoms before she gestures daintily to her eyes. “It’s for the dark circles.”

At that moment, a boy with fiery hair comes barreling around the corner, calling the girl’s name. She turns and immediately a bright smile emerges on his face. You watch as he wraps himself around her before noticing the condom box she’s holding discreetly. He plucks it up before either of you can let him know they’re yours and brings them to the light to read the print on them. She locks eyes with you, embarrassment evident, but you offer what you hope is a comforting smile. You figure it’s easier to just get another box.

“Hope the concealer works out.” You back away to give her some privacy when the guy leans to stage-whisper into her ear.

“I appreciate the thought, but I’m sadly not a Magnum guy. Trojans work just fine for me.”

“Oh my god, why are you so loud?”

“I don’t think a 3-pack would be enough either.”

“Hoseok, lower your voice. And put those back, they’re not for us. They were hers.”

The guy with the red hair has dragged the girl away to look at something else. You watch until they disappear, letting out a chuckle. A few wispy tendrils of jealousy manifest in your stomach, but you try to stamp them out with optimism. If you buy condoms of your own, maybe it’ll have the same effect as those mantras Lisa always says before a test when she’s trying to will a good grade into existence. You figure Jimin is worth the effort.

But, as you fall on your butt for the sixth time the next afternoon, you’re not certain any amount of sex, no matter how good, is worth the pain you’re feeling currently.

You hobble back upright as best you can without disturbing your skis too much. Someone skiing behind you zooms by and you can hear their sympathetic laughter fly by with them. Fuck skiing. You don’t remember why you thought going on this trip would ever be fun.

“That fall looked hard. Are you okay?”

Jimin glides up next to you with an elegance you’ll never be able to replicate. Even the snow billows out softly in a sparkling cloud when he stops. He gives you a clinical pat-down, asking you where it hurts. You can hardly feel anything through the multiple layers and puffy coat that your wearing, so you bask in the physical contact instead.

“I’m fine, Minie.”

“You sure? We could take a break. Get some tea or something.”

“No, that’s okay. You go ahead and ski with the other professionals and I’ll stay here and practice the bunny slope.”

There’s something hilarious about watching Jimin squirm so much over such a trivial thing. He stands there, decked out in his professional gear, gnawing at the inside of his cheek as he contemplates. Does he finally go off to the exciting courses where he can get as close as possible to fulfilling his dream of flying? Does he help you stay upright, an impossible and menial task?

“Okay, I got it. Maybe you practice the pizza french fry thing the instructor taught you while I go do one pass through the other course. Then I swear I’ll come back and help you.”

“Jimin, you really don’t have to spend all this time helping me. How about you go do all the run throughs you like and you make it up to me later?”

His responding smile is shy but full of joy at the prospect of actually getting to ski. He shuffles forward, careful not to interlock your skis, and kisses you softly. He tries to pull away after only a few seconds of a chaste press of lips, but you deepen the kiss. Although it was really only a sly swipe of tongue, it has Jimin looking dazed and confused when he finally pulls back.

“Did you hit your head?”

There’s a joking lilt to his voice, but his eyes narrow as he takes you in. You still look like a marshmallow in your puffer coat and you still seem just as sweet. But the kiss was suspicious.

“Go have fun,” you wave him off before he can interrogate you further.

You wait until he disappears into a ski lift before turning around and hobbling back to the top of the gradual hill. Some of the younger club members are chatting up there and you use your seniority to make them practice with you until you can’t take it anymore.

Right before your limbs lose the ability to support your weight, you trudge back to the nearest entrance. You’re grateful for the warm air blowing in the elevator and for the fact that there is an elevator in the first place. Once inside, you strip layer by layer until you reach the room you and Jimin share in the suite.

All of the rooms in the suite are separated by small hallways that lead to a chic communal space with a picturesque view of the grounds. No one seems to be present when you finally make it through the door. You’re partly grateful because you can go shower in peace without having to worry about making small talk with other club members.

True to your agenda, you gather all the things needed to aid you in seducing Jimin. It’s mainly just soap and barely there underwear. It’s not until you begin stripping that you realize there might be a few issue. The first being that your muscles are all sore and exhausted as you struggle out of your snow-soaked clothes. But the main issue is the large bruises that show up as soon as all of your clothes are gone.

It’s true, you bruise easily. But these bruises look bad even to you. You count half a dozen muted reddened blooms sprawling across your torso. In the mirror of the bathroom, you turn to look at them. It’s almost impressive.

“We’ll just do it with the lights off,” you mumble to yourself.

The shower is longer than would be perfunctory, but the return of feeling to your toes seem rather important and the heat of the water helps in undoing some of the tension buried in the muscles that you didn’t realize you don’t regularly use until today. Right as you’re pulling on some loose pants and a shirt, you hear footsteps.

“Jimin?”

“Yeah,” he calls from somewhere outside the bathroom.

“How was it?”

You emerge from the bathroom in a sweet-smelling cloud and his first instinct is to open his arms to beckon you into them. Gladly you jump into them, causing him to fall backwards with a thud. With most of his layers still on, the fall is broken and there’s no harm done.

“The hills were great.” His eyes cloud over briefly with the memories of skiing.

He pats your hip lightly and you roll over so he can start shedding his own soggy layers. You watch him shrug off his vest, revealing a thermal athletic shirt. The fabric is opaque and covers his entire torso, but it's also tight enough to mold to his physique like a second skin. Under his snow pants, the matching thermal tights he’s wearing also reveal the architecture of his sculpted thighs, though his thick socks give his feet a teddy bear quality. The planes of his slender frame and compact muscles are a sight to behold and you feel a prickling in the palms of your tightly clasped hands. You’re itching to touch him.

“You checking me out?” He smiles cheekily and stands so he can shuck off the rest of his wet clothes.

“Of course,” you breathe. Your candid answer startles a full-bodied laugh out of him.

“What’s gotten into you this today?”

“Not you” you whisper.

“What?”

“Nothing. I just said I’m still a little cold, even after the shower. Why don’t we watch a movie in the bed and I can leech some of your body heat.”

“Yeah, as soon I get cleaned up. I really worked up a sweat while I was out there. I was racing Jungkook. He’s fast but his form is just okay. Plus, he’s a dick.”

It takes you all of the time that Jimin is in the shower to pick the perfect pose on the bed. Something that isn’t too obviously thought out while also highlighting all of your assets as best you can while wearing such loose clothing. It’s times like these where you curse yourself for not having any loungewear that’s figure-friendly, but you have enough trouble as it is sleeping in pants, let alone constricting ones. You finally settle for lying on your side with your back facing the entrance of the bedroom. It puts your ass on display—especially given that you tugged you pants down a little to let the lace of your underwear peep out. With your phone in your hands, you’re certain you look like the picture of nonchalance.

At the sound of his footsteps entering the bedroom again, you deliver your lines

“Oh, how long have you been out of the shower? I got so wrapped up in my feed, I didn’t notice you were out.” You quickly refresh your email despite the fact that your inbox is very much empty.

“Just got out. Did you pick a movie?”

“No, I figured you could pick it and if I don’t like it I’ll just take a nap.”

You turn and instantly regret it. Jimin stands with the shirt he plans to put on in one hand, leaving him bare from the waist up. His face is covered by the towel he’s using to scrub at his wet hair. When he finally throws on the shirt, a small sigh leaves you.

He hops into the bed and hands you the remote before dragging you into his hold. The way his arms wrap around you means he’s pressing slightly into one of the bruises that spreads across the side of your rib cage. There’s a low twinge of pain, but since cuddling with Jimin is part of the plan, you don’t say anything. You click through the movie listing because he’s too busy with you to hold the remote.

“Didn’t you say you wanted to watch this one?”

“Yeah,” he nuzzles his nose into your cheek, “but I heard it got shitty ratings at the box office.”

“Oh. What about this one? The trailer looked really good.”

“I thought it was my turn to pick.”

He squeezes you to complement his faux-whines, pressing the bruise harder. Underneath the mild pain is a surprising layer of something else. It’s hard to decipher and registers as vaguely smoky in your senses. All you know is that it’s not actually that bad of a sensation.

“I-it is your turn. I just want to make sure that you see all the options.”

A few more minutes pass until you finally choose a movie. Jimin picke a movie about anthropomorphic vegetables because he has a surprisingly awful sense of humor. If your goal was to actually sit down and watch a movie, you’d be debating his choice. But you don’t care and instead work on subtly pulling down the collar of his t-shirt so you can get to his neck.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing. You just smell nice.” In the juncture of where his shoulder meets neck, you inhale deeply. “Right here.”

“Feels good.” He hums, eyes still glued to the gyrating broccoli stalk on the screen.

“Good.”

Starting slowly, you place tiny kisses on as much of his neck as you can reach. Your hands wander under his t-shirt and your fingers dig into a cord of muscle in his back. He lets out a small groan. You spend some time working on the spot until he melts a little further into your embrace. While he’s pliant you hitch your leg over his hip. It’s not enough to be able to grind on him, but the suggestion is there. You know he’s aware of it too because he casts a narrowed glance in your direction before giving you another warning squeeze in the same spot again. A breathy gasp leaves you like it’s been punched out and a smile spreads on your face soon after. You’re having fun riling him up.

“Be careful,” his tone is full of warning.

“Why?”

He looks at you again with sly warning in his eyes. A heavy hand pats your back before petting down the attractive curve of your spine. The warm weight of his palm only a few inches from your ass is wonderfully suspenseful.

“You’ll be in over your head, otherwise.”

“I don’t think so,” you smile up at him while smoothing the fabric of his shirt. The pitter-patter of his heartbeat feels like butterfly kisses on your palm.

“Is that so?”

You nod, tongue poking out from between your teeth teasingly.

He rolls over so you’re caged underneath him. Instantly his lips meet yours in a slow intermingling that would be considered chaste if not for the obscene amount of tongue and the cyclical pressure of his groin against your lower abdomen. You manage to wrestle your legs out from under him so you can part them. His hips easily fall into the slot you make for him. He hums lowly against your mouth as he makes contact with the warmth of your center, perceptible even through the layers of bottoms you’re both still wearing. A hand worms it’s way underneath your shirt, fingers splaying past the elastic waistband of your pants and meeting the rough texture of lace.

“No way,” he breathes to himself before sitting up on an elbow.

He lifts the waistband further to peer into crotch of your pants. There he sees the tiny pair of underwear you put on for the occasion. It’s a pretty cornflower blue color that he’s pretty sure he’s told you is his favorite. He drags his gaze from your lace-clad hips to the smug expression on your face.

“Look at you,” he coos. “All this time I thought you were shy.”

“I think that was something you made up. I’m really not shy. At least, not when it comes to you.”

You try to wrap your arms around him to bring him back to your mouth, but he resists.

“Hold on, I wanna see again.”

He slides your pants down a few inches, slowly as if to tease himself. By the time the whole garment is exposed, you’re shivering a little bit from the cool air. He leans down to press a few kisses on the skin of your stomach and pulls your pants down further. He groans and reaches down to palm himself through his pants.

“Turn over, please?”

You get onto your stomach as quickly as you can with your pants tangled around your legs. As soon as you get settled, you hear a large gasp.

“Shit!”

“How’s it look,” you ask coyly.

“Holy—Are you okay?”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

You crook your head back so you can see what he sees and suddenly you understand his strange reaction to your ass. There’s another large bruise spanning the top of one of your thighs reaching past the boundary of your panties. Since it was on the back of your leg, you must have missed it during your cursory inspection in the shower.

“We should go to the infirmary. Or maybe we should just see if we can get a car to take you home.”

“No, Jimin, I’m fine.” If you go home now, you’re certain you’ll be back to square one.

“I don’t know. It looks...angry.”

“That’s just because I bruise easily. I’m not actually injured—”

“Hold on. Where did this come from? Did someone do this to you?”

“No, no. Don’t be ridiculous. It’s probably from all the falls I had today. I guess I really can’t ski after all.” You chuckle awkwardly. He ignores your joke and glares down at the bruise instead.

“So, you probably have a lot of them, then.”

He tugs your pants the rest of the way down. The one on the back of your thigh seems to wrap around to the intercrural area. And there are, in fact, more bruises. Another one lies on your opposite calf. When he reaches for your shirt, you brush his hand away and slowly lift it yourself. The one on your rib cage is large, and he stares on in horror. Then he shifts and peers at the smaller ones on your back.

“You really want to tell me that you’re fine?”

“Yes. Because I’m actually fine.” He raises an incredulous eyebrow. “I mean it, I really am.”

“Fine. But at least let me put something on them.”

“As long as it’s not ice.”

He glares weakly at you when you rule out his first instinct. Looking through his bag for remedies ends up being disappointing. He comes back empty handed.

“Couldn’t find anything?” He shakes his head. “Sad. Maybe we should just go back to what we were doing before.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“No.”

“I’ll tell you what. Let me massage the areas and if they don’t hurt, I’ll take it as a sign that you’re okay. And we can go back to doing whatever you want. But if I find out that you’re in pain, we’re taking a rain check.”

“Deal.”

A moment later, in hindsight, you realize you may have just dug your own grave. The bruises are fairly tender though you’re not in agony. But you’re sure that even the slightest flinch will send Jimin running for the figurative hills. Although he also might just go back to the actual hills and leave you in the suite to let your blue balls stew.

Jimin sits on his heels in front of you with an unreadable expression. Despite the cold in the air, you kicked off your pants entirely so that he would have easy access to your sore muscles. He’d asked you before whether you wanted to start from the top, but thinking that your rib cage bruise was the most sensitive made you tell him to work his way up. You figured that if you could make it through the first few bruises, he might believe that they were all fine and drop the issue.

He starts with the lowest bruise which is the one on your calf. First he plays around with your ankle, rotating it and swiveling your foot to flex your calf. You bite the inside of your cheek to make sure no pained noise slip out. Surprisingly enough, even when he lightly presses on the bruise itself, it’s not bad. He works over the muscle without you making a single peep. Hope bubbles in your stomach and you wonder if tonight will be the night that you finally bed Park Jimin.

“One down, a few more to go. Although I really don’t know if you need to go through all of them.”

“It’s the least I can do for you. After all,” he says with challenge in his gaze, “you tried so hard to become familiar with one of my hobbies.”

“I’m a great girlfriend.”

“That is true.” His tone turns genuine as he switches legs and moves up your unblemished calf the same way.

With you on your back and the next bruise on your thigh mainly towards the back, he has to lift your leg to get access. Your hamstrings are always tight and the stretch in itself makes you grimace slightly. But you tamp down on it quickly and school your features into a neutral arrangement so as not to lose the unspoken competition at play.

“How does this feel?”

He presses his fingers lightly into the bruised skin and you have to twist your fingers into the duvet beneath you. It hurts much more than your calf, about the same as your rib cage. But you can also feel familiar stirrings of arousal in the pit of your belly. You take a deep breath and compose yourself.

“It feels fine. I just don’t usually stretch this part, so this position is a little tough.” The smile he gives you is mean, almost predatory. He calls your bluff.

“I see. I’ll try not to linger here too much then.”

A few inches higher up your thigh, the pain along with the arousal gets more acute. And as Jimin’s fingers move higher up and closer to your inner thigh, you’re not sure if you can take it.

“Mmfh, fuck.” You whine when he’s about an inch away from the apex of your thighs.

“Aha! I knew it.”

“Wait, no—”

“Nope, that’s it. I’ll finish breaking up any lactic acid, but after that I’m putting up a pillow wall and you’re keeping your hands to yourself until you’ve healed.”

“But I’m fine, though.”

“It’s okay. There’ll be other times. Let me finish up. I’d rather do boring stuff than hurt you.”

At that moment you want to scream out of frustration. A little pain may actually be what you’re seeking and convincing him that it’s actually what you want could take forever. You search for a solution desperately as he continues his gentle ministrations. But you’re getting tired, and at this point there’s no point in masking anything.

You sink down into the pillows propping you up, letting the mix of pain and pleasure wash over you as he tries to jumpstart the healing process in your skin. Little whines and grunts sneak past your lips as he works over you. The higher he goes, the louder and more unabashed your sounds become until he becomes confused. He stops.

“Am I hurting you? I know I’m not a professional, so we can stop—”

“No,” you clench and unclench your thighs. “Keep going.”

He’s about to continue when he notices the large wet spot on the seat of your underwear. Somehow he missed it as he was focusing on ridding the tension from you. He clears the small distance to your underwear and strokes his thumb across the growing stain. The underwear is wet enough that it’s actually started to cling to your folds and leaves a shining residue on his finger.

“Is this...because of the bruises?”

“Yeah.”

“But they hurt, don’t they?”

“Yeah. But it’s good, too.”

“I see,” he cedes after a beat.

Hooking his fingers, he pulls on the waistband of your underwear until you can kick it off your ankles. He surges forward and you take his weight with a low grunt, eagerly wrapping your arms and a leg around him so he can’t run away again. With one hand snaking down to return to your thigh, the other cups your cheek tenderly. He kisses you tentatively at first, like he’s not sure if your newfound desire is fully tangible.

“So, are you into BDSM or something?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. But this is kinda nice.”

“I guess I just don’t want to hurt you. I’m not really sure where the line would be, y’know?”

“I’m not asking you to hang me from the ceiling and flog me. We can save that for some other time.”

You meet halfway and continue making out. Jimin seems slightly emboldened and hedges his tongue across the seam of your lips. You open for him and he continues his exploration of your mouth. The way he kisses you today is different from all the other times. While he often left you with a low burning desire before, you had no idea just how much he was holding back. And though he’s not pulling away at the start of heavy petting, he’s still treating you like you might break.

“What’s bothering you, Minie?”

“What do you mean?”

“It feels like you still haven’t let go yet. I’m not that fragile.”

“But I don’t want to weird you out.”

“I really doubt that will happen.”

“Okay.”

He kisses you again, this time slightly sloppier before pulling away and thumbing at the moisture on your lips. You sit still and let him keep fondling your lips until you part them on instinct. As soon as you do, his thumb enters your mouth. You hollow your cheeks and suck.

“Fuck,” he shudders over you. “That’s it.”

You have to ignore the impulse to laugh. He just found out that you get turned on with the right type of pain—how could he ever think a finger in your mouth would weird you out? He removes his finger, gently, and fumbles with his own bottoms. You push yourself up on your elbows to get a look at his junk. You’re not sure what you’re expecting, but a first time dick reveal is always exciting. He’s only half hard once the pants are off, but that won’t be the case for long if the way he grips himself is any indication. At least, you hope he’ll be ready soon, because you’ve been dripping for what feels like forever.

This is something he also takes note of. Shifting his hips forward, you feel the blunt edge of him nudge your sticky lips. Both of you release sighs of relief at the contact and Jimin starts rutting against you, repeatedly parting your folds as he slides his length through the arousal pooling there. When his head bumps your clit, you gasp.

“Yeah?” He bumps against it again, and once you nod frantically, he starts to grind against the spot.

The way you look writhing underneath him sets something ablaze in him. Jimin lays his hand over one of your breasts, rolling the nipple. Your back arches forward and you mirror his movements on the other one. With your free hand you nudge him closer to the bruise on your rib cage.

“A-again?”

“Yeah. Just go slow.”

While grinding into your wet heat, he starts dragging his hand down your side. With each stroke of his hand, his fingers catch on the slightly sweaty bruised area. A moan builds in your chest and rips out of you when you take over tweaking your own piqued nipples. It’s not until his rhythm slips and he nearly enters you that you remember what other things you could be doing.

“Jimin, I—oh god—want you inside me. Are you ready?”

He tests his hardness briefly. “Yeah.”

You alert him of the condoms you bought earlier that day. He looks where you direct him (under the mattress) and laughs at your readiness. He laughs again at the sleepy, hungry look in your eyes as you watch him roll the condom down his length. When he crawls back to you on the bed, he’s trying to be campy, but somehow he still looks incredibly attractive.

Everything turns sweet and slow again as he leans down to kiss you. Your tongues glide against each other and he positions himself so his arms bear his weight on either side of your head. He pushes in slowly and the stretch has you biting into the meat of his nearby bicep. Once you adjust, he begins pumping into you with the same fervor he had before entering. He’s close and his thrusts are too shallow for your liking. You reach down and press on his lower back to urge him deeper. You would have released after he got the message, but the globes of his ass are so perky and firm in your hands that you can’t help but swat at them.

“What the hell!” He jumps inside of you but doesn’t stop the swiveling of his hips, cheeks coloring with embarrassment.

“Sorry,” you place an open mouthed kiss on the column of his neck as further apology. “You just have a cute butt.”

He laughs, the sound breathy from exertion. “Cute? Not sexy?”

“It feels cute.”

“Don’t call me cute while I’m inside you.”

With that he brings a hand down to search for your clit. Your breath hitches and he quickens the pace of his hips to match the speed of his fingers. The tight figure eights around the little nub have your core tightening as your orgasm approaches. You feel like a vice around him and he gasps, hips stuttering as he pours into the latex barrier.

You look ethereal beneath him with dewy skin that seems to glow, but you haven’t come yet. So despite the sensitivity from just having come himself, he pulls you forward by the hips and continues to piston into you with grit teeth. He raises your leg to hit deeper with one hand while his free hand edges under the other leg. With his fingers spread wide, he manages to press his fingers into the bruise that spreads across the the underside of your thigh and flick his thumb across your clit in a flurry.

Your orgasm hits you with an unexpected amount of force. It feels as though your lungs have stopped working and you can’t take any more breaths, but you don’t care. Your vision whites out at the same moment that a final wave of wetness trickles over where your bodies are joined.

Jimin pulls out carefully now that you’re both over sensitive. Your leg flops down with a low thump on the mattress. Right into the small puddle your organsm must have caused.

“Wait a second, did I—”

“Looks like it,” he peers down at the stain with admiration.

“Well, that’s a first. How was that for you?”

“It was good,” he trails off with a smile. “You know...you’re pretty kinky.”

“No, I’m not. You’re just vanilla.”

“I’m not vanilla,” he balks.

“Yeah, right. What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done.”

“I, uh. Hmm.” It takes him a long while to think. “Oh, one time I watched this porn with two girls.”

“Is that all?”

“No! They were wearing, like, really tricky leather outfits.” You start snickering but he continues. “They were pulling each other’s hair on purpose. And one of them was spanking the other with this...cutting board.”

“Do you mean a paddle? Oh my god, you’re so cute. To think you thought I would be in over my head.”

He stomps off to get a wet towel from the bathroom. When he returns, he’s still pouting but helps you with clean up. It takes pressing yourself against his bare back while he strips the bed and several well placed kisses to get him to stop the sulking.

“Really, though. Why did you think I would be so skittish for our first time? Is it because of movie night at Namjoon’s?”

“Honestly? It’s because of the first day we met.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I thought you were a children’s librarian.” Your head tilts in confusion. “It was probably because you were wearing a cardigan.”

“I only ever wear cardigans when I go in to the daycare to read, though.”

“First impressions can be lasting,” he nods sagely to his own words.

“So what do you think about me now?”

You sit back down in front of him so he can evaluate you. You’ve thrown on a different loose t-shirt but your legs are bare.

“The same. You’re still my ‘nice little girlfriend’, as my mom says.”

“Yeah?”

“Mmm,” he hums pensively before crouching into your space, eyes playful. “Maybe not so nice.”

[jjkfire]

me: bro don’t do it. don’t start another fic that you won’t finish. ok but imagine e2l jungkook

(don’t click if u hate unfinished fics)

jungkook // enemies to lovers // 3k words

With the rain pouring down outside, you hum delightedly as you bite into your juicy chicken sandwich that you had lathered in honey mustard. Sure, it wasn’t particularly healthy, but you could care less about that, especially when it’s 9 pm and you had just gotten off work. Not to mention the fact that you’re completely drenched seeing as you had forgotten to look at the weather app, again. At this point, you could care less. To be quite honest, you’ve become numb to everything. You guess that’s just what being another cog in the capitalist machine does to you.

It’s been over a year since you moved to the big city for a job. At the start you were a bright-eyed college graduate, ready to take on the world. Now, you’re just a shell of a human being, and one of the only things that can bring you joy is the very chicken sandwich you’re feasting on.

You like this place at this time of the night. It’s not as busy, just the soft chatter of some of the customers or rather the collective munching of all the other people who just got off work, feeling and looking exactly like you. The standing bar by the window is where all the tired, beaten down employees find solace with earphones plugged in and glazed over eyes looking out into the streets ahead. That’s your routine and just like any other night, you’re doing the same. Slowly chewing, as your mind drifts off somewhere, the music playing in your ears barely registering.

Tap.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

You see a semblance of a figure standing in front of you on the other side of the window pane, but you’ve encountered enough oddballs in all your trips to this store that you’ve learnt to ignore anyone that stands in front of the window. Most times, it’s some crazy guy, going on some rant, expecting you to care. Your eyes only refocus when the person next to you taps you on the shoulder and directs your attention to the man waving wildly in front of you. You squint, trying to make out the person’s face through the rain, but by then the person has moved on, disappeared. You only shrug at the person who tapped your shoulder, turning your attention back to your sandwich instead.

“Y/N?”

It’s soft, but you think you hear someone calling your name over the music.

“Y/N!”

You pull out your earphones, head whipping around just to make sure you weren’t going crazy and oh god, when your eyes meet his, you sure hope this is just a fever dream.

“Christ, it’s like you’re on a different planet. I’ve never had to work so hard to get someone’s attention before,” The boy in front of you says as he wipes his rain-soaked face with a paper napkin.

“Jungkook?” You mumble, confused, staring at him with your mouth hanging half opened. What was he doing here and more importantly what was he doing here talking to you?

“Yes, sweetheart,” He smiles. “Keep looking at me like that and I might get the wrong idea,” He smirks.

God, he hasn’t changed at all.

“How is it possible that every time I see you, your ego is just 5 times the size it was before?” You question. “How do you manage to find space to keep it in that tiny brain of yours?”

“Easy,” He grins. “I store it in a bigger organ,” He directs your attention simply with his eyes, looking down towards his nether region.

You swear you almost throw up in your mouth. You simply shake your head at him, placing your earphones back in your ears before you turn towards what mattered the most. Your chicken sandwich.

“Oh come on,” Jungkook chuckles, yanking your earphones out. You absolutely hated it when people do that. “That’s no way to treat an old friend. Why the cold shoulder?”

“In what universe were we ever friends?” You ask. “Acquaintances maybe, but never friends.”

“Ah, that hurt,” He groans, clutching his chest. “You mean you don’t consider all the times I chased you around school with worms in my hands, quality time with a friend?”

“No,” You answer, with a curt smile. “And just in case you’re wondering, activities such as yanking my hair, putting tadpoles in my water and double knotting my shoelaces together under the table are also other events I don’t consider quality time with a friend.”

“Shame,” The boy pouts. “I really thought we were the best of friends.”

You roll your eyes at him, though a hint of a smile shows.

Jungkook, truly and genuinely is nothing more than an acquaintance… even if, both your parents wish otherwise. See, the two of you attended the same primary school and that’s how your mother had met his. After yet another torturous day at school with Jungkook attempting to put a live frog in your bag, you had ran up to your mother in tears. She assured you that she was going to have a stern talk with this Jungkook boy. She stepped up, ready to give the boy a piece of her mind when Jungkook’s mother stormed right up, ready to fight. It was hostile at first but soon enough the mothers were laughing together. Wait. This wasn’t what you wanted. After a lengthy chat, one that basically had both you and Jungkook ready to take a nap right on the bench the two of you had been sitting on, you heard your mother making plans to have tea with his mother one day. Hold on. You definitely didn’t want that. Yet, it happened. Jungkook never got reprimanded for trying to put a live frog in your bag and as your mother became friends with his mother, and later, best friends, Jungkook would soon earn a pass to play whatever heinous prank he wanted on you. Oh, but that meant so did you and so began the war between you and Jungkook.

Though you’ll agree that you weren’t quite as creative as Jungkook when it came to coming up with disgusting pranks, you could hurt him in different ways. See, Jungkook wasn’t the most studious kid and he was abysmal at math. You’ve seen him try to hide his report card many times, yet somehow or the rather, courtesy of you, it would end up straight in his mother’s hands. Oh, you still remember the way he would look at you. If looks could kill, you would’ve been dead and buried 50 times over. In any case, whatever amount of nagging Jungkook got wasn’t your problem. If he wanted it to stop, he should spend less time collecting tadpoles and more time studying.

Your war with Jungkook continued on until you were 12. By then, you had many battle scars. You’ve had gum stuck in your hair, had your shoes dipped in sewage water, your textbook put up onto the ceiling fan, among many other seemingly ‘harmless’ pranks that your mother would shrug off. If you had to go on living like this, there’s no telling what you would do to the boy. Luckily, as the year came to a close, and all the students got their results from the national test, you receive the best news you’ve ever heard. You had almost leaped with joy when Jungkook’s mother told you which school was bound for, it was the one just a few streets away, while you, you had gotten into a private school in the neighbouring district considering that you had passed the test with flying colours.

So began the ceasefire between you and Jungkook, or so you thought.

Granted, life was better now that you didn’t see Jungkook every day but that didn’t mean he was out of your life forever. Perhaps, you thought now that you and Jungkook were at different schools, your mothers wouldn’t be close considering they didn’t get to catchup every time they picked the both of you up from school. Oh, how wrong you were. Not only did your mothers stay friends, but soon enough, your fathers became golfing buddies too. Great. Just wonderful.

The worst part about having your fathers become golfing buddies was the fact that they would have these huge get togethers with all the other golfers and their families. They were quarterly events and though the adults had great fun with their booze and chit-chat, it was almost always awkward for the kids. All the kids would be lumped together in multiple ‘kids tables’ and everyone would just sit and stare at each other, trying to make small talk. Though you hated it, the food was almost always amazing and even if you had to be seated next to Jungkook, you didn’t mind because that meant his brother was never too far away.

You’ve had a crush on his brother, Junghoon, for as long as you can remember. Sure, he was four years older but he was everything Jungkook wasn’t. He was nice, sweet and best of all, he never tried putting tadpoles into your drink, or sticking gum in your hair. In fact, you think he’s the only one that listens to you and tells Jungkook off for misbehaving. He was an angel, your saving grace, the boy you would forever be in love with. Jungkook tells you that you’re wasting your time, that his brother has been dating the same girl since he was 11 and he was 17 now. Just because there’s a goalkeeper in front of a goal, doesn’t mean you couldn’t score, you would remind him.

So, that’s how those quarterly dinners went. You dreamily conversing with his older brother while Jungkook made his moves on all the girls in the room. That is, until Junghoon started bringing his girlfriend to the events. Now, you had to sit there and watch them act all lovey-dovey while you were stuck next to Jungkook. Wonderful. Of course, it was of no help that puberty seemed to hit Jungkook like a train. He went from looking lanky and shabby to… hot. As much as you hated the boy, you couldn’t deny that he was plain attractive. If anything, the girls at the dinners, constantly trying to talk and flirt with him was a glaring reminder of how good looking he’d become. It wasn’t like you were staring but he had a well-built chest, solid thighs and of course his face that bordered between cute and straight up sultry depending on how he styled his hair. Towards the later years, he started leaning away from his favourite bowl cut, which meant it started getting harder to pretend that you most definitely thought he was handsome and if he wasn’t the Jungkook that you knew, you’d be like any one of the other girls trying to strike up a conversation with him.

Despite it all, you still looked forward to the dinners because of the delicious food, and perhaps also because you and Jungkook would sneak towards the table at the back where the bottles of wine and hard liquor were placed, often stealing a sip or two when no one was looking. As the years went by, the two of you got bolder, both pouring yourselves a generous serving of whiskey and of course pouring in some coke after that to make it seem like you were good little kids, sipping on soda. Though from afar, it may seem like you and Jungkook were friends, you were adamant that the two of you were nothing more than acquaintances. It wasn’t very easy to convince people because he often posted up pictures of the two of you. He usually looked great in them meanwhile he usually caught you while you’re placing your spoon into your mouth, or while you’re in the midst of sneezing. It was deliberate of course and you had expected nothing less from Jeon Jungkook.

Though Jungkook and you didn’t share the same circle of friends, most of your classmates knew him. With a face like that, of course they did. Of course, the fact that he was exceptional at sports didn’t help. He’d gotten close to some of your friends when he would meet them at sports meets. All the schools in the same district would often duke it out before moving on to the next level, and the next until they reached the state level and finally, nationals. Jungkook got as far as the state level when it came to swimming. Honestly, he had the talent to go all the way, but he was always too busy trying to chat up girls instead of trying to best his own record. In fact, you think he only decided to be a swimmer because he could post pictures of himself in that itty-bitty swimming costume and get all the girls to swoon. Also, yes, you’ve been forced to attend his swim meets, usually at the request of his mother and god, it was torture trying to pretend like you weren’t staring at the boy half the time. You just had to admit that you loved the fact that he had that V-line. God, what you’d give if you could just run your finger along— no, never mind, thoughts like that weren’t meant to be wasted on boys like him.

Many times, you’ve had girls in your school come up to ask you if you could perhaps introduce him to them. You would often say no, but that you could give them the next best thing and that is his number. Can’t you at least only give my number to the hot ones? Jungkook would ask you when he saw you at the quarterly dinners. You would tell him that each time you gave out his number was only revenge for each tadpole he had put into your water bottle back in primary school. God, you’re so petty, he would groan. He promised he’d get his revenge on you too.

As high school rolled on to college, Jungkook had learnt that mentioning your name to his mother gave him the all good sign to go hang out until whatever time he wanted. If my mum calls, just tell her I’m with you, he would say. Truth is, the two of you really would be together, except on the opposite end of the same club. So, you’d oblige when he would ask you to pose for a picture together. In fact, you needed to send one to your mother too because you had told her the same lie, that you’d be hanging out with Jungkook for the night. The two of you usually staged the photo, walking to a nearby restaurant, to sit down and snap a picture before heading to the club.

Back at the club, the two of you were truly acquaintances at best. A rare smile, an even rarer few shared sentences and that was it. Of course, barring the times Jungkook would send his friends your way for a neat little prank. You had caught on pretty quick though. Anytime, a boy would approach you, your go to sentence would be, if Jungkook sent you then sure, I’d give you my number but only if we split whatever it is he’s giving you. So that’s how you ended up with a few extra ten dollar bills by the end of the month. Even so, it started getting annoying, so of course, you had gone up to tell Jungkook that you’ve had enough. At that he only scoffed before telling you that each time he sent a boy your way was only revenge for all the times you had given out his number. He promised that unlike you he only sent the good-looking boys your way… because it looked like you could use a good lay. Oh, you wanted to strangle him right there and then.

After that, you got smart. You told any of the boys that came your way that you were willing to pay double of whatever Jungkook was paying if they would kick him in the balls for you. Turns out boys aren’t quite loyal and after being assaulted a few too many times, Jungkook learns to stop sending boys your way. You thought that would be the end of it, that you would be able to enjoy your nights in peace but You should’ve known better. Jungkook was hard to miss at the club. He was loud, obnoxious, and god, did he look good in a button down. If anyone looked closely, they would’ve mistaken you for any other girl, almost drooling as you watched him sip from his whiskey glass, seated on the couch with his legs spread out. He would wink in your direction, as if inviting you take a seat. Fuck, what you’d give to do just that. To grind down on him and put your hands on his broad chests that you— no, wait, thoughts like these really shouldn’t be wasted on boys like Jungkook. Of course, your mind would never really listen, so you would find one of his friends instead, giving Jungkook a full view of what could have been if he wasn’t such a dickhead.

Ignoring Jungkook was a tough task, really, and honestly if he tried anything more than harmless flirting with you, you think you would end up under him in less than a second. Which of course, is bad news. You truly had no self-control when it came to handsome men, but to be fair… look at him. Would any sane person say no? However, fortunately for you, you would get your one and only true, clean break from Jungkook. University. The two of you had gone to universities on opposite coasts and so, the two of you hadn’t seen each other in three good years. You had spent your breaks volunteering and travelling and it seemed so did Jungkook. Whenever the two of you went back home, one of you would have already left. Of course, you still knew what he was up to. It seemed like he was getting even more attention in university. It shouldn’t surprise you. Being on a university campus meant everyone was your age and equally as horny, so of course he was having fun. To be fair, so were you. In any case, you think whatever lingering attraction or rather lust you felt for the boy, had long died away. Yes, that is what you thought… until of course you find Jungkook standing in front of you after four long years of not seeing him and against all laws of nature, it seems like puberty had hit him a second time. That or your dry spell was just really starting to get to you. You reasoned that you would be okay, that this would be the one and only time you and him would run into each other in a city so big, but no, you would run into him time and time again. Then he would convince you to do something so stupid, that you believe the only explanation to you saying yes was that you were possessed. That’s the only way to think about it… because why else would one say yes to sharing a studio apartment with the devil incarnate, Jeon Jungkook himself?

click for some more secret sauce (aka my collection of unfinished fics bc i have no self control)

[lucidpantone]

Chapter 3: Visitations

Someone recently asked the tag if Sander and Robbe stayed together forever. 

Here’s a fic exploring the journey to get to that answer.

This fic takes place in two simultaneously timelines: the past and the present.

Italics is the Past. If not, it's August 15th at any point in the day I chose to drop you into.

Large line breaks are a new memory.

Read the rest on Ao3.

87  

89  

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91

The concrete stairs are overwhelming.

Sander thought to himself as he ascended them coming to a full stop outside Robbe’s apartment  door. His reflection looking back at him. The residue of sundown’s volcanic incandescence was high in the sky creating a mirrored effect on the building. It was one of those ghastly mid century modern blocks that was lathered in a matte high shine finish. Giving the entire building a sensation of reflectivity. Sander disliked these types of buildings. They felt cold and soulless. These were the kind of buildings that Robbe would defend as being functional but completely lacking in any of Belgium’s highly regarded Art Nouveau/Art Deco qualities. Of course it would be Sander’s luck that this building’s heinous exterior would be the thing that would make him recognize that he was on the right street about to knock on the right door.

Sander had only been to Robbe’s Brussels apartment once before when Robbe moved into it almost a year and a half ago. He hadn’t seen Robbe since he had checked himself out of the hospital and Robbe had driven him home. Sander was somewhat aware of Robbe’s schedule due to the frequency of his texts over the last couple months but he hadn’t told Robbe he was coming. He wanted to catch Robbe off guard. Lessen the possibility of allowing him to gather any of his usual armor to barricade himself from Sander’s charm. After Sander’s hospital stint he knew he had made a mistake. He had allowed himself to believe a false narrative that he and Robbe weren’t perfectly crafted for each other. That they both hadn’t found a way to defy the gods and find one another. During his darkest days Robbe would show up ardently. Journeying between south and north to come spend his time by Sander’s side.  During their time apart Sander was certain that a fracture would have formed. A crevasse so large that it would have cordon off each of them to their respective lives never allowing them to leap across the barrier but Sander was wrong.

During Sander’s hospital stay he caught a virus that germinated from within an undeniable appetite for Robbe. This sickness was a contagion, a gnome sequenced strait into Sander’s DNA. An ailment that percolated beyond marrow-deep, an essential function of the body. It caused a mutation in Sander’s mental state; he’d sit and sketch just Robbe all day long something he had long stopped doing. He would anticipate Robbe bursting through the door in his work clothes, kicking off his loafer, tearing off his shirt and tie.Unapologetically changing into whichever one of Sander’s t-shirt he could find rambling on about the days occurrences making himself completely comfortable in Sander’s orbit. Sander would just watch him take notes of all of Robbe’s beautiful idiosyncrasies, the way he would tilt his head from side to side whenever he lost his train of thought, the way his eyes followed Sander’s hand when he scooped his hair onto to one side, the high pitched giggle that would generate from the back of his throat whenever Sander teased him or he was slightly embarrassed, but also the other side.

You see Robbe had an innate ability. Anytime any medical staff entered their bubble he could morph from his typical bambi-eyed self into a calculated tactician operating under a didactic agenda of inquisition readily observant of negative evaluations concerning Sander’s mental health or the need to further medicate him. It always took Sander aback when he saw this side of Robbe he could be so detached, frigid, coupled with a spikey disposition. This side of Robbe’s was one of the few things he never made public something he reserved only for Sander, only for the things he was most passionate about, the things he wanted to keep safe. Over the years Robbe had surmounted a vast amount of experience when it came to how medical professionals treated the people he loved. Between his mother and Sander’s treatments Robbe had become a battle hardened mutt who’d survived dogfight after dogfight. If he ever sensed your judgement or mistreatment of Sander he could be vicious, react like a rabid animal ready to evasicarate you. Sander’s touch being one of the only things that could stabilize him. Bring him back to himself.

On the last night of Sander’s hospital stay. Robbe delivered one of his high octane good boy next door performances that managed to convince the nursing staff to let him stay pass visitation. He knew their time together was coming to an end. He would go back to his daily life in Brussels and Sander to his normal routine. So, Robbe surprised him. Sander’s episode had kept him from attending the annual contemporary art retrospect at Belgium’s Museum of fine art. Sander loved that retrospect he attended it religiously usually with Robbe by his side. So Robbe found a way to bring it to him. He snuck into Sander’s room during his final therapy session and set up a projector and his laptop up to walk through the exhibition virtually. He accompanied their private art show with one of Sander’s Bowie playlist.  

“Art, can be really feeble” Robbe sighed out as Sander and him laid on their backs looking up at the ceiling walking through the exhibition.  

“What don't you like about it?” Sander pointed his arms towards the work.

“Its a 6 foot gold toothbrush, what is artistic about that?” They both snorted at Robbe’s criticism.  

They both hadn’t anticipated the potency of the next work. It crash-landed into them like a ball of fire. It was an image of a fireworks display, but it paused at the exact moment at the end of one of those big celebratory new year’s eve fireworks’ display when they turn the sky into a pantone of colors and lingering stardust creates a mirage-like effect as the fireworks dissolve into themselves. In-turn making the ground underneath you vibrate like some sort of epicenter to a natural disaster. The artist had probably never intended for the viewer of this piece to take it in on their backs, from a ceiling, in a sterile hospital room, but this setting worked. It magnified the piece allowing its luminescence to turn the hospital room’s white walls into a colorful kaleidoscope of radiance. As they lay there staring at the work Sander turned to Robbe who was in a state of hypnosis, completely captivated, and echoed “I love you”. Robbe snapped his cheek towards Sander his beautiful doh eyes gleaming from the stained glass effect the image was transmitting around the room. Without much thought Sander took Robbe’s hand, the one that when clasped together completed the phrase they both had scribbled on their wrist.  

Sander had been longing to reach out and kiss Robbe for the past couple of weeks but he was so afraid. Afraid that Robbe wouldn’t kiss him back, that he had truly kicked the habit of their love but he scooted towards him anyway, leaped across the crevasse and closed the gap between them and placed an ever so soft kiss on Robbe’s lips. Robbe stilled for a few seconds, unsure, tentative, questioning the gesture but after a few seconds he didn’t object he accepted Sander’s invitation letting Sander slip his tongue onto his. Amping Sander up as he climbed on top of him and slid his hands under his shirt. Robbe let go of his sobriety that night, let the inertia that surrounded them collapse in on itself and create a vortex. That was the first time Robbe and Sander would sleep together since their separation. The first of the many times that would follow and taint them little by little but in that moment neither of them cared. Robbe and Sander just allowed the rain drops of the fireworks above them melt them into symbiosis.

“Sander what are you doing here?” Robbe inquired as he came hurdling out of the apartment building’s door. Just as Sander was about to buzz in. Before Sander could even respond he noticed a dirty blonde with disheveled hair standing behind Robbe. He felt a flicker of anger for a moment but he managed to divert it and turn on.

“Who’s your little friend Robbe?” Sander struck back with a self assured confidence ignoring Robbe’s initial question. Sander didn’t really care who this transient guy was he just didn’t want to miss the opportunity to make Robbe pay.

“This is David”,  Robbe said sounding a bit apprehensive.

Sander waited for Robbe to introduce him but when he didn’t so he took it upon himself to do the honors.  

“Sander”

He extended his hand out to David. Taking notice of the guy’s icy blue eyes the only thing memorable about him.  

Robbe interjected himself into their salutations.

“This is my fri--” Robbe wasn’t fast.

“Am his ex, ya know the love of his life, center of his universe, the one.” Sander really emphasized the last part as he delivered his schtick in his most casual fuck boy tone.

Robbe’s jaw dropped.

Sander had Robbe exactly where we wanted him with a cocksure grin painted across his face. Daring Robbe to say something to him.

Robbe didn’t react fast enough.

“So where’s that accent from David? Doesn’t sound local?”

The poor guy clearly confused and a bit flabbergasted by these odd exchanges between exes. Fumbled out an answer.

“Berlin”

“Oh I loooove Berlin. Robbe and I went to this sex show out there once where this girl was sho…….”

“That’s enough” Robbe cut him off in a matter of fact tone.

Sander was clearly posturing now. Enjoying every minute of this transaction.

“Robbe aren’t you gonna let me finish my story?” Sander pouted back at him.  

“Come now” Robbe grabbed his date by the arm and dragged him away.

Sander was just hotshotting now and yelled out to Robbe, “That’s what you said. Bye David”.

Robbe looked back at Sander and threw him an are you kidding me look.

Sander started counting out loud. He gave Robbe 90 seconds, tops.  

“69, 70, 71, 72……. Ah there you are?”  

“What The Fock Sander” Robbe let out in frustration but also with a tinge of glee behind his voice.

Sander was resting with his back against the doorway with one knee up and his foot up against the wall.

“What?” Sander shrugged his shoulders with a deadpan expression acting like he was utterly confused as to what he had done wrong.

“Your unbelievable, you know that?” Robbe shook his head from side to side as he walked towards him with his head down trying to hide the smile on his face.

“I wonder if he’ll call you?” Sander was clearly gloating now with a wicked grin across his face as Robbe opened the door.  

Whatever game he had initiated he had most certainly won.

“Didn’t realize you were into that whole mopey plant lover vibe though.”

Robbe gave him a smart ass remark, “I dated you for 5 years didn’t I?”.

“Touche, touche” Sander wagged his finger in Robbe’s face.

“But it was actually almost 6 Robin” Sander corrected him as he booped Robbe’s nose while he walked past him and entered the apartment building.

As they walked into Robbe’s apartment. Robbe put his fingers in his ears in anticipation.

Sander took his right hand to his mouth placing his thumb and index finger between his lips and pursed out a deafening high pitch whistle.  

All of sudden the clank of a bell began to approach them. Bowie had come to Sander on command.

“My boy!” Sander picked up that damn cat and smothered him all over his face. Worshipping him. The cat evidently loving every minute of it. Purring to no end.

Robbe walked over to the fridge and grabbed them a couple of beers. He was about to hand one over to Sander who was holding Bowie up high above his shoulders like a baby when he paused. One of his eyebrows rising towards Robbe’s direction.

“Have you..”

Robbe finished Sander’s sentence as he took a sip of his beer. “Been feeding him the grain-free stuff?”  

Robbe nodded.

“He feels heavier”

“Are you sure it’s…?” Sander probed.

“One third of a cup? Yeah. Also, can you not say that out loud? Not in front of the kid, he’s sensitive.” Robbe jokingly reprimanded Sander for commenting on their bowie’s weight.

Sander gave the cat one final smooch and then put him down on the ground. Finally taking that beer off Robbe’s hand.

The inside of Robbe’s apartment had one of those open plan layouts that was situated from right to left. Kitchen, open plan middle space which housed a dining table and living room. It had the icky new build vibe that Sander hated.  

Sander examined the apartment with his eyes and looked back at Robbe who was leaning against his dining table staring at him trying to decipher what Sander would say next.

Sander had almost forgotten why he had even come here and now that his whole plan went awry. He felt a little exposed as he had no real reason to be there.  

“So….” Robbe egged on the conversation. His eyes shifting back and forth.  

Trying to get Sander to participate but Robbe was so good at sensing Sander’s feelings. You’d swear that Sander had little thought bubbles protruding above his head storytelling his internal narrative for Robbe’s personal consumption.

“I know why you’re here?” Robbe finally said. Sounding a bit illusive.

“Oh yeah” Sander asked inquisitively.

“Why am I here?”

“You came here to do that thing we always do” Robbe said as he made a come here gesture with his hands.

Sander broke out a warm smile. Typical Robbe always saving him. Protecting him.

Sander walk towards Robbe. Placing his beer on the table behind him. He then placed both of his hands on each of Robbe 's shoulders and pressed their foreheads together as a sign of thanks for what Robbe had just done.

Pulling back and finally saying to Robbe.

“Okay, but no subtitles this time. Promise?” Sander demanded.

“Sanderrrrr” Robbe whined.

“What is it with you and all that foreign shit.We end up watching tv shows in 7 different languages” Sander jokingly scoffed at Robbe.

“What’s wrong with that?” Robbe asked offended. Thinking doesn’t everyone do that.

“Come” Sander said turning his body to face away from Robbe. Signaling Robbe to get on his back he was going to carry him to the couch.  

Robbe jumped on recalling in his mind how many times they had done this exact thing. In the years that Robbe and Sander had been together they had formed their own traditions. When Sander was hospitalized or at home not feeling very well he would lay in Robbe’s arms in bed or on the couch and just marathon shows for hours. It was strange because any other time Sander wasn’t much of a TV watcher but in Robbe’s mind those moments were some of the best of their relationship. They would just lay together for hours. Robbe would just grip Sander so hard he practically left bruises on Sander’s arms but Sander would still have to remind him to hold him tighter and nuzzle himself even deeper into Robbe’s embrace.

“Where’s your watch?” Robbe picked up his head off Sander’s shoulder to respond.

“Oh my watch broke. I think it’s the battery or something. I needed a new one anyways.”

“Do you still have it? Sander asked as they sat down on the couch together.

“I can fix it for you” Sander was always the handy one in their relationship.

“You don’t have to do that. It’s old. Just let it go.”

“No come on. I want to. I can bring it back to life for you” Sander said as he gestured spooky fingers.  

“What's going on up here?” Robbe twirled his fingers towards Sander’s hair.

“What you don’t like my platinum tips with two inch roots?” Robbe leaned over towards Sander and sweetly rustled his overgrown hair.

This touch of intimacy spurred Sander onto his next thought. He grabbed onto Robbe’s wrist as he began drawing it back from his head and asked.

“Maybe you could dye it for me tomorrow?” His focus shifted downward. As to not draw too much attention as to what he was implying.

There was a pause from Robbe. An acknowledgement of the invisible contract Sander was handing over to him requesting some sort of temporal permanence.

“Only if you cook dinner the night after?” Robbe responded back.

Sander looked up at him with an adolescent grin and leaned in and gave Robbe the most innocent peck on the lips. There was no intent behind it aside from a simple thank you.

“Are you hungry?” Robbe asked.

“I could eat”

“Are you in the mood for anything specific? Italian, French, Greek?”

“Doesn’t matter” Sander titled his head towards Robbe direction. Tacking on.

“I eat everything”

“Everything” Robbe repeated in a sultry voice.

“Yeah everything” Sander spoke onto Robbe’s lips. This kiss, not so innocent.

“Seriously stop…order please. I am starving” Robbe pushed Sander off him in a playful manner.

Sander took out his phone to start ordering but before he did Robbe grabbed him and twirled him around on the couch and brought Sander’s back up against his chest. positioning his arm around Sander's chest. Sander placed a small kiss on the base of Robbe’s thumb and continued on ordering.

“Anything but french” Robbe said as he placed his chin atop Sander’s head.

“You know how I feel about french” Robbe added as he placed another kiss on Sander’s temple.

Finally closing out the dinner conversation with “Don’t forget something sweet for dessert”.

“Something yummy,” Sander said playfully.

“Yeah, something yummy” Robbe toyed back as he pulled Sander tighter into his arms.

****************************************************************************************** Salivating... 

The silkiest organ

Swirls of sulfates

Mixing… 

As the roof of his mouth pressed onto the demerara. Brandishing it’s sugary topcoating onto his enamel. 

Relishing it. 

“Tasty?” Luc whispered into his ears as he swallowed it down. 

“It’s so good” Robbe moaned with a full mouth. 

“Don’t forget to go slow.” Luc egged him on. 

“I want you to really taste it.”   

Luc told his boyfriend. “Is it sweet enough?” Robbe took a big gulp down as confirmation.

“Good, because I wasn’t sure if you would like the raspberry sea salt flavor” Luc quibbed.

Robbe and Lucas(he preferred Luc) had now been dating roughly around 9 months and in that time Robbe was sure Luc had fed him every cake in Belgium and the Netherlands combined.

Luc had one rule, you were only allowed sugar if you burned it off and well Robbe and Luc had found creative ways to work off their glucose consumption.

They hadn’t been together long but they had already established their after sex program. Luc would always bring some decadent treat along for them to share in their post fucked out haze.

Luc was so different from what Robbe had previously experienced. A total skate head with a beach bum swagger composed of a wardrobe of cuffed up light denim, extravagantly printed socks pulled up to his shins, paisley short sleeves shirts which he hardly ever button pass one notch and an array of different colored bucket hats, caps, fedoras and worn down chucks coupled with his signature fur collar denim jacket.

Luc wasn’t an easy breezy type. That wasn’t his style, he was always a little pumped up, boombastic when at his best. Years of living his life on ledges about to drop in into bowls, half pipes or slopes had made him permanently frenetic. He’d learned to meet Robbe in the middle though and give him one slice of cake before he would eventually hijack Robbe’s tranquility and kick him out of bed to hold an impromptu jam session, go skate or find some new concrete hideaway to go vandalize.

Oh and his music taste. There was only one god in Luc’s world, and his name was Marley. BOB MARLEY. Fuck Bowie.

Just kidding, Luc loved Bowie too. He was Robbe’s favourite so he loved anything his boyfriend loved.

If Luc hadn’t impressed Robbe enough during their first meeting well Robbe was not prepared. Luc was a real life wheeler dealer, a bird of prey. He could gnar with the best of them. Play it fast and loose. Go full vertigo. Nothing got Robbe more jacked up then seeing Luc shredding up a storm on his board completely shirtless with his jeans barely hugging his hips and a quarter inch of his boxer’s on display; his washboard abs glistening with sweat. Luc tailspinning through the sky like a stick of dynamite on the path to self destruction.

Luc lived his life like he rode his board. Bitchin fast, at full voltage, bursting with kerosene, no concept of consequences. When his sponsors asked him to ease up on his on the spot celebratory make out sessions with Robbe after his winning runs. He laughed in their face and told them next time he get Robbe to blow him so the kids could get a real show. I mean that was just typical snarky Luc. A real life renegade. Take it or leave it. There was no real way to describe him, a jack of all trades, a real mad hatter, some even called him an artist.

Robbe loved it. Loved him.  

Robbe hadn’t realized how much he had missed the familiarity of a known lover. He had gotten so used to the dribs and drabs of affection that Sander schlepped out that he had just sold himself short but Luc was some unexpected pixie prince who blitz in ready to declare Robbe his. No questions asked, stick a fucking fork in it, done, over, schluss.

Luc was uninhibited too. What he felt is what he said. Luc was loyal to the soil and Robbe was his budding flower. The first time he said “I love you”  he asked for nothing from Robbe in return. Love wasn’t some sort of payment system for him. Luc told Robbe when you know, you just know. None of that mask your feelings in mystery bullshit. For Robbe it took time but Luc was the catalyst he needed to finally wash away the remnants of his past. He did eventually tell Luc he loved him and he meant it but the experience in itself was surreal. See Robbe had never even considered the possibility that he would fall in love with someone else. Sander basically took Robbe’s heart hostage from a young age and Robbe never looked back but somehow this magpie dutchman with his steely azure eyes, a bucket hat and guitar finally broke through and broke Robbe.

“Baby, you want the last bite?” Luc brought the spoon to Robbe’s mouth.

Robbe shook his head back and forth on Luc’s chest. He was too comfortable, lazily placed atop Luc, straddling him. Luc sitting up against Robbe’s headboard with one hand through Robbe’s hair and the other carefully balancing a porcelain plate and fork. As Luc went to put the plate down on the bedside table he grabbed the little bit of whipped cream left on the plate and rubbed it straight down Robbe’s nose.

“Luc” Robbe whined.

Luc immediately cupped his hands on Robbe’s face and gave Robbe a wet sloppy lick. Clearing the cream off. Stopping at Robbe’s mouth to push the remnants of the cream onto Robbe’s tongue and into him. Robbe took that as signal, intensifying the kiss and started gently thrusting onto Luc’s hips. Luc smiled against Robbe’s mouth but before Robbe could really get lost into his heat. Luc broke the soppy kiss. He was such a tease.

“Have you been thinking about what we talked about?”

Luc flashed those pretty eyes at Robbe. Robbe instantly thinking he needs to stop doing this himself. Stop peering into eyes that have the ability to dissolve him.

“Mmmmmhmmmm”

“And….” Luc coaxed him.

“Don’t you think it's a bit too soon?” Luc placed his hands on Robbe’s hips slightly squeezing them. Assuring him he was listening closely.

“I mean it's only been 9 months” Robbe said in a barely audible whisper.

“No pressure” Luc ran the back of his hands on Robbe’s cheek to ease his visible tension.

“We’ll do whatever you want. I just want to be able to wake up next to you every morning”  

“And Bowie?” Robbe added on. Pointing at the black hair cat watching them at the edge of the bed.

“Oh shit” Luc let out.

“I forgot my apartment doesn’t allow pets.”

Robbe’s hands started to feel clammy all of sudden.  

“His coming with me or I am not coming.” Robbe stated harshly in deviance.

Luc laughed at Robbe’s reply finding it a bit dramatic but then he realized Robbe was dead serious. If the cat wasn’t welcomed, he wasn’t coming.

“Ok hear me out. You move to Amsterdam and we look for a new place and come get Bowie. Do you know anyone that could watch him for a month or two?”

Yeah, Robbe knew someone….

“Is he doing better with you?” Robbe enquired tentatively. Knowing this was a sore subject.

“Oh you mean has Bowie tried to scratch my eyes out, bite my fingers off or even let me remotely close to him lately” He let out sarcastically. Knowing damn well that fur ball hated the living shit out of him. He honestly didn’t know why, pets usually loved him but this one seemed to be planning his demise.

“Anyways” Luc said in an attempt to break up the awkwardness. “Sesh time” He picked Robbe off him and headed towards their acoustic guitars resting in the corner of Robbe’s bedroom.

“I finally learned the cords” Luc let out with excitement.

“Took you long enough. I've been waiting.”

Luc hands Robbe his classic mahogany finish Martin. While Luc sports a zestier walnut burl Yamaha.

“Calling rhythm” Robbe declared as he tuned his guitar.

Luc raises his eyebrows in acceptance. Handing Robbe a black pick.

Robbe moves towards the middle of the bed to give Luc room to hop on. They sat across from one another looking at each other.

“Tempo is 1 and a 2 and a 3……” Robbe tells Luc.

Robbe presses his left fingers on the frets. His right fingers holding the pick and he mouths to Luc E add 9 and begins to strum down, up down down, up down up, down, up down down.

Luc picks up Robbe’s tune and Robbe switches out to the rhythm.

Luc continous to play the intro.

Robbe starts to move through some bar chords switching from E to G causing the steel cords to whine out gently as Robbe tabs on them through his cord changes.

Robbe and Luc sit there bobbing their heads up and down as they get lost in the music.

Luc starts to sing the intro “Here comes the story of a hurricane”

Cord change [Robbe]  

The music begins to ascend, “Cyclone…...You’re on your own”.

The strumming is starting to get heavier now.  

Robbe slides his hand down the neck of his guitar to hit some high G’s.  

His eyes are closed now. He knows this part by heart. His working the pocket.

Both men are fully swaying now. In the groove.

Luc sings the chorus. The part everyone knows.

“It was bad and I was unable to pull him inside”

Cord change [Robbe]

They’re at the bridge now.

The strumming intensifies as they hit the crescendo.

Robbe is slumped over his guitar shredding it out. Aggressively bobbing with eyes closed.

This next lyric is Luc’s favourite. He sings it directly to Robbe. Robbe opens his eyes to watch him deliver it to him.

“I could never hate you. Even If I tried”

This part is all Robbe, the pick solo.  

The music is just flowing out of them now. The pace starts descending.

Luc starts playing a little slap stick to wrap it up.

Robbe is taking the melody home.  

Both men are leaning so far back their feet are off the bed as they strum it out.  

There shoulders moving in syncopation with one another.

Robbe winds it down slowly. Not wanting to let go of the moment.

But eventually he stops and lets the music go out.

Both men look up and giggle at each other in perfect harmony and share a kiss.

“I love you” Luc says as he takes hold of Robbe’s chin and kisses him again.

“Love you too” Robbe tells him back.

As they pull away from each other. Luc whisper’s in Robbe ear.  

“I am so happy that I found you”

Robbe shudders. Lightning strikes him. An overwhelming nausea overcoming him. His body stiffens.

“Are you okay?” Luc asks him.

Robbe hops out of bed muttering something about feeding Bowie knowing that he needs to get out of room.

He runs to his kitchen sink. His body violently letting out a dry heave over the sink but nothing comes up. It's just a reaction.

He hovers over the sink for a few seconds splashing water on his face. Trying to gather himself.

He feels something massage his arm. He jumps back and realizes it's just Bowie nuzzling him. His aqueducts begin to moisten so he squeezes his eyes shut and looks up at the ceiling. Attempting to will everything away but he sees it, the white studio with the pictures on the walls. His breathing starts to even out after a minute or two.

He opens his eyes, feeling somewhat composed. Thinking he managed to keep it all at bay but little did he know the rot within had begun to permeate, a contagion that was seeping into every orifice of his soul.

******************************************************************************************

Is this where the living come to meet their death?

In the gullies of the earth.  

Where tranches of unclaimed dukedoms exist awaiting reanimation.

Oxygenless.

Still.

The soulful, arms up, reacting to the vastness in complete surrender.

Robbe feels the pressure, he moves slowly.

Unable to make out anything. In dire need to escape his holdings.

The laws of thermodynamics pushing him towards the surface.

He finally gives in. Contracting his body and propelling himself vertically upwards. Like a jellyfish moving through the ocean currents. His lungs thanking him as he reappears from his watery submersion.

Robbe’s vision takes a moment to adjust. Still in disbelief that he let Sander talk him into one of his usual clandestine expeditions of break-ins, yacht clubs and late night canal swims.

Robbe wipes the back of his hands against his eyes in attempts to wipe off the condensation clinging onto him. He can’t see anything. Its pitch black, and the canal provides no lighting. All he can see is the deck lights in the distance. Where he abandoned his clothing and all of his usual utilities.

“Sander!” He screams out in panic.

Nothing.

Silence.

Robbe starts to paddle towards the deck. He's been in the water for what feels like eternity. He’s exhausted so he twists his body towards the sky and begins to backstroke.

The moonlight is shining down on him.

He paddles lightly. Tiny waves billowing around his body. The stars surveillance comforting him.

Robbe absorbs the cosmos above him. His mind blank, calm, reassured. A baptism of the mind via compound elements.

Suddenly a creature from the bowels of the riverbed pulls him under.

He turns to face it.

Robbe and Sander are swimming across from one another. Face to face, the water encasing them. Sander swims over to Robbe. He goes to kiss him but before he can lean in, Robbe pulls up.

Ripples crack through to the surface as both men reemerge.

“Still don’t know how to swim?” Sander yells out breathlessly. Struggling to grab enough air to even out his slight panting.

“Still cheating?” Robbe taunts.

Sander paddles over to Robbe. He is so close to Robbe's face he can feel his breath on his cheek.

“Something’s never change”, Sander whispers to Robbe. His eyes glistening in the moonlight.

Like shiny emeralds looking back at him.

But Robbe isn’t swayed so easily by Sander’s charm anymore and responds.

“You know I was foolish once. The kind of kid that was impressed by breaking the law and making out in large bodies of water”

“And what about now?” Sander starts leaning in towards Robbe.

Robbe puts his index finger under Sander’s chin and moves his cheek to the side. Dodging Sander’s advances and says.

“Still foolish, but maybe not so young” Unable to contain a cheeky grin.

Robbe starts to paddle away from Sander. Then he stops, looks back at Sander and tilts his head towards one side and says.

“Come, race you.”

Sander gives him a soft laugh and paddles towards him up for the challenge.

“On the count of 3”

“1, 2 ….”

Before Sander could even get to 3. Robbe starts sprinting towards the deck.

Sander yells out to him.

“Cheater”

It seems so juvenile Robbe thinks but he feels so exposed as he stands on the deck putting his clothes back on in front of Sander. Sander has literally seen Robbe naked hundreds if not thousands of times at this point.

“Stop looking” Robbe slips out coyly. Pulling his jeans up onto his hips.

“Am admiring the view” Sander says with a mischievous smile across his face.

“Come on, hurry up.  We need to get home, Bowie needs his dinner.” Robbe checks the time on his watch. It clocks 21:21.

Sander turns around to face the Scheldt canal. His back to Robbe now.

“You know I once heard this story” Sander says. Still facing away from Robbe.

“About two boys and a beach house with a moon just like this one” Sander points up to the sky.

Robbe knows where he is going with this but he doesn’t want to hear it. Not now. Not this story. Not after everything that has happened. This story is off limits.

“Please don’t” Robbe says in a stern voice. Sander turns around to look directly at him. Knowing by the tremor in Robbe’s voice that he has hit a pain point.

“Why?” Sander challenges Robbe, annoyed at his lack of engagement.

“You used to love that story?” Sander adds on.

“I used to love a lot of things” Robbe threw back with venom.

Sander wasn’t amused by Robbe’s comment but he was prepared. He knew this moment was inevitable. So he continued.

“These two boys fell in love at the house by the beach”

“The brown haired skater boy……”

Robbe rushed him, pissed and asked again.

“Stop it, Sander. Just stop it”

Robbe pushed him hard now. Almost making Sander fall off the deck.

“I don’t want to hear your stupid fucking story” Robbe pleaded.

But Sander was relentless. Taking the opportunity to incite Robbe even more.

“Then we had the artist who fell in love with his skater boy.”

Robbe was seething now. An indescribable rage bubbling within him. Sander knew this story was hazardous. It wasn’t meant for retelling unless needed.

But Sander knew how far he could take Robbe until he broke him and he was determined to shatter him into pieces. So he went on with an almost growl in his voice.

“The artist would say that the moonlight was shining down on the skater boy and he knew.….” Sander suddenly charged at Robbe. Cupping his cheeks in his hands but with distinct force. His eyes pierced through Robbe as he slowly queued Robbe into the story while holding his face in his hands, peering down at him and asked.

“What did he know Robbe?”

Sander squeezed his cheeks even harder. It hurt Robbe a little, Sander noticed and lightened his grip up.

“Say it”

Sander’s pupils were fully dilated now. Almost black. It made him look so harsh under the moonlight.

Robbe stayed silent. He didn’t recant the story. He didn’t want to.

Sander was nose to nose with Robbe now. Still holding Robbe’s cheeks in place. Robbe was sure his heart was going tachycardic as Sander said.

“What are you afraid of skater boy? That maybe you’ll speak the story into existence.”

Sander almost violently let go of Robbe making him fall back on himself. Switching up his charm instantly into one of his nonchalant demeanours.

Then he said, “I think it's time to get you home Robbe. You need to feed my cat.”

And now….Now Robbe had had enough and he unleashed.

“He’s not your cat. So don’t come in here thinking you know what's best for him because you don’t. Oh, and just so you know. He hates that fucking diet food you buy him. He likes to be petted upwards not downwards. He sleeps on the right side of the bed because I sleep on the left and I give him half a cup of regular food because one third doesn't cut it anymore. His changed. You don’t know shit about him. You gave him away, you left him, you abandoned him and you have no right to him now.”

Robbe hadn’t realized he was so enraged until a tear rolled down his cheek.

Sander just glared at him, grinding his jaw down. His eyes squinting in a fiery veil Robbe hadn’t seen before. He said nothing as he walked towards Robbe but when they got shoulder to shoulder as he passed him. Sander stopped, looking straight ahead and said.

“I didn’t abandon him. I took him to the only person I knew would protect him.”

Sander walked off into the night. The moonlight shining above them.

******************************************************************************************

“Do we need to protect your scalp?” Genade asked.

“Nah, It's not bleach, it's just hair dye” Sander said.

“I still can’t believe you won’t be a blonde anymore.”

Sander shrugged his shoulders as he checked out his dye job in the mirror.

“Sometimes you just need a change” he said.

“I am thinking of dying my locs too. Maybe purple”

Sander scowled at that statement and shook his head.

“No don’t do purple. I hate purple”

“I love your pink locs. They stand out against your skin. Make you look even more beautiful in the sunshine”.

“Awwwww, thanks baby” Genade pressed a kiss on Sander’s lips.

Genade de Heem was a half dutch/half nigerian hippie fairy with an edge. Sander met her at his tattoo shop's grand opening. Noor had brought her along as her plus one. Sander was instantly infatuated with her. I mean it was hard not to be she was a stunner. She looked like a young Zendaya. A real life ten.

They hadn’t been dating long. It was all still very new but so far she was close to perfect for Sander. She was a wild child like him. A Bowie fan too she even knew all the b-sides. An ink queen with a huge lettering piece on the back of her arms that read Love Is Love. She meant it too. She had no reservations or premeditations about people, life or love. She didn’t push Sander for a label either. She would say, why need a label? When lost souls are meant to be they will find one another across the dunes of life. So they just existed, and they were cool with that.  

“Babe you want to go out tonight? Show off my new look” Sander asked.

Genade agreed but added on.  

“Let’s make it an early one though. Remember we gotta bake those croissants tomorrow”.

Yeah, she was an amazing cook too.

“Ok ready?” Sander asked as Genade sat in the bedroom waiting.

“Yes, show me” She said.

Sander walked out of his bathroom into the bedroom as a full blown brunette.

Genade squealed.

“You look smoking hot”

Sander rustled his wet brown hair. It was certainly different for him but like he said he needed a change. Needed to “look” more grown up.

“You know what, lets just go out now. I am in the mood” Sander said, hyped up.

The pair got moving and started collecting their shoes and jackets but as Sander put on his signature Black Doc Martens, he thought nah. In tribute to his old hair he was going to pull out the white Doc Martens. He walked over to his bed and got on his hands and knees to peer under it. Those shoes had to be somewhere in this general area.

Finally he found them but as he pulled them out a litter of other shoes came along for the ride. All tangled up via their prospective shoelaces. Sander picked apart his white Doc shoelaces and dropped the rest of the shoes on the ground as he started the usual wiggle and jiggle to get his boots on. He hadn’t even noticed Genude staring at him from the doorway.  

“Your so pretty baby” Genude said in the warmest voice.

“Oh yeah come over here and I’ll show you how pretty I can be”

There was the squeal again.

Genude dropped her bag and jacket on the spots and ran towards Sander who was sitting on the edge of the bed but as she sprinted towards him she tripped and dove past the bed. Sander tried to grab her but her hands slipped off his and she crash landed on the other side of the bed alone.

“Ca’va?”

She pushed herself off the floor and signaled to Sander that she was fine just a little embarrassed.  

She went to look at what she had slipped on.  

On the floor were some old grey vans.  

“Stupid shoes!”

“I've never seen you wear these”, Genude stated in a prying fashion. Realizing quickly those didn’t look like Sander’s size.

“I don’t wear them anymore actually. Honestly I should just throw them away.”

As Sander grab the pair of shoes to toss them in the garbage.

Genude stopped him and said, “No keep them, you know how these things go full circle and come back into fashion.”

“They’ll probably be al la mode within the next year or two”. If she only knew.

“If you say so” Sander encouraged her.  

“Anyways, lets go, I need a drink”

Genude nodded in consensus.

As Sander headed out the door, he turned back around and kicked the shoes back under the bed.  

Forgetting about them for now.  

Sending them back into the darkness.  

*****************************************************************************************

The clock dials filled up the silence.

Tick …

tock….

Tick…

tock….

It sat above Dr Meyer’s office door.

He would just sit there and passively observe it. The time, passing forward.

He was usually disengaged and uninterested but something felt different today.

His voice pierced through the silence.

“There’s been something lingering” he said with little regard to the allowance of truth he was exposing.

His hands were clammy. So he gripped his fist. Hoping it would provide some sort of comfort.

“When I was younger, I use to let people control me. Influence my thoughts and feelings. Try to tell me what I felt without really listening to me. Or noticing how I was hurting, how I was changing. It made me angry, made me say things I didn’t mean. Hurt the people I cared about."

"It made me think I am never going to find anyone, at least no one who’ll really love me.”

He exhaled.

“But I did find someone and he was great. Perfect even, but I ruined it and now I keep asking myself why?” This was an unusual admittance for him. Sparking a recollection of last night’s happenings and the nights before that.

Laying in the dark.

A bareless ceiling.

Questions left unanswered.

“Are the sleeping pills not working?” Dr Meyer asked.

“Are they having any negative side effects?”

He hated questions like these, probing ones that were an attempt to calculate the durability of your mind. He also really hated the layout of Dr Meyer’s office. It felt like it was intentionally laid out to make you feel like some sort of dance monkey being poked at to divulge some existential secret about your own reality. He was over this session, he wanted it to end. Thank god he told the doctor he would need to leave early today.

“I haven’t been taking them. I mean I have them. It’s just ...I don’t know. There is so many thoughts going on and on...”

He twirled his index fingers around his temples. A depiction of his minds’ instability.

Dr Meyer took note of that comment and wrote it down.

“Could you maybe benefit from some mood stabilizers?”

That question made him anxious. Made him press his palms together and scratch his nails on the surface of his left hand. An adolescent twitch that became an established habit after so many years of over exposure to medical professionals.

“Yeah maybe that could help, but I think before I do that, I should try to find some answers. Take care of something that has been gnawing at me.”

“I could refer you to a more senior colleague if needed. Someone that specializes in sleep disorders.” The doc suggested with a sense of empathy.

“Could you maybe come back at 4pm today?”

He shook his head back and forth and started to get off the couch.

“Sorry doc. I have to go now. I did mention I needed to leave early today. I have to be somewhere at 10am.”

He put his jacket on and looked at his watch.

“And looks like I have 19 minutes to get there now.”

He gave the doc a one hand palm up salute to thank him for his time.

He walked towards the exit and as he turned the door handle Dr Meyer tacked on.

“Oh and Robbe”

“Try to come back at 4. So we can try to help you with the sleeping.”

Robbe gave the doc a lackluster sign of acknowledgement.

He left quickly.

Ran out the office, and into the daylight.

The autumn leaves scattered all across the pavement on his route to work.

[pass-the-bechdel]

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

Yes, once.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Seven (30.43% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Sixteen.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Film Quality:

Significantly flawed, and well-known in fandom for it. Unpopular opinion? I still think it’s better than the first Avengers film.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Natasha and Laura pass in a single-line trade. It’s sooo close to not counting.

Female characters:

Natasha Romanoff.

Wanda Maximoff.

Maria Hill.

Helen Cho.

Peggy Carter.

Laura Barton.

FRIDAY.

Male characters:

Tony Stark.

Steve Rogers.

JARVIS.

Thor.

Clint Barton.

Strucker.

Pietro Maximoff.

Bruce Banner.

Ultron.

Sam Wilson.

James Rhodes.

Ulysses Klaue.

Heimdall.

Nick Fury.

Erik Selvig.

Vision.

OTHER NOTES:

Everyone talking about Strucker like we already know who he is...

The “Shit!”/”Language!” gag was funnier before they hung a lantern on it. Not least because it takes almost a full minute before Tony harks back to it (fifty seconds, actually. I checked). If you’re gonna make a Thing out of it, you gotta follow up immediately, not after fifty seconds of cutting around to different character intros and action shots and a whole lot of other dialogue. 

Urrgghh, ok, I’m going to break my standing rule about not discussing source material, because we gotta acknowledge the colossal wrongness of re-writing the Maximoff twins - canonically Jewish Romani - as willing volunteers in a Nazi science experiment. It gets worse the more you think about it. There are a few things about this movie which generated significant negative outcry, and this incredibly offensive decision is one of them.

Tony and Thor fighting over who has a better girlfriend does have a certain charm to it. If you’re gonna have a testosterone-off, it might as well be about how great your partner is.

I got a zero out of ten on this out-of-nowhere forced romance crap with Natasha and Bruce. We’ll come back to this later.

“I will be reinstituting Prima Nocta,” Tony declares, as he prepares to lift Thor’s hammer and thereby theoretically take charge of the Nine Realms. Primae noctis (believed to in fact be a myth) refers to a supposed Dark-Ages law that granted lords the ‘right’ to take the virginity of any newlywed peasant woman who lived on their land. So, this is a wonderful little rape joke from Tony (or, y’know, not so little, since primae noctis in reality would make Tony a serial rapist). Ha ha ha ha. Hilarious. Good one.

I’m really mad about the parts here that are total garbage, because mostly, the revels sequence has a nice low-key quality to it, good solid team dynamics. 

I can’t fucking believe that they played the ‘and then Bruce falls with his face in Natasha’s cleavage!’ gag. I cannot believe it. Is this a disgusting frat-boy comedy from the nineties?

Honestly, Tony, just shut up and admit that you KNEW from the get-go that it was wrong to try and make Ultron happen (that is why you kept it secret from everyone else to begin with); don’t try to defend the decision now that you’ve got a ‘murderbot’ on your hands. Take responsibility for a bad choice instead of talking shit about how you had to and everyone else is just too short-sighted, damn it! 

Andy Serkis is delightful.

The Iron Man/Hulk fight absolutely KILLS the momentum of this film. It goes for way the fuck too long (eight minutes) and has no narrative significance at all. Pro tip for action scenes: they should always be driving the story somewhere. You can pull off eighty minutes of action so long as your plot is advancing alongside/within it.

Also, Iron Man causes a huge amount of additional damage during this fight, in the service of the aforementioned pointless action. His efforts to minimise Hulk’s effects are extremely poor, and calling in his relief organisation to clean up after the fact does not negate that. 

Gotta love that throwing a wife and kids at Hawkeye at the same time as we suddenly start pushing this Natasha/Bruce thing. That’s not transparent at all. I also understand this to be a major deviation from Clint’s identity in the comics, and very unpopular with fans for that reason, but regardless; reinventing him as a family man to reset the romantic blather after baiting fans with the possibility of Clint/Natasha in the first Avengers movie is such a shitty move. I was not invested in the ship myself and would have loved to have them reinforce the just-friends relationship between Hawkeye and Black Widow, because there are not enough platonic friendships between compatible men and women in fiction, but 'they’re not interested in each other because they’re busy with someone else!’ is a weak reinforcement indeed. Less forced romances, and definitely less token wifey who exists for no other Goddamn reason at all. This comes out of nowhere, and not in a clever-surprise kind of way.

“You still think you’re the only monster on the team?” Natasha says, after telling Bruce about her sterilisation. This earned a HUGE backlash, and for good reason - despite all arguments about how what Natasha meant was that her being raised to be an assassin makes her a monster, the direct implication of her words as they are phrased and as the discussion is structured is that her inability to have children makes her monstrous, and that’s deeply offensive. It’s also completely in keeping with a narrative which is often played out against women, in which their value as people is attributed directly to their ability to produce offspring, so it’s not even like this outrageous implication of monstrosity - the corruption of what it means to be female! - is that unusual. It’s awful, but not unusual. Add on the fact that 1) Natasha’s nightmare-flashes specifically foregrounded her sterilisation over all other details of her training, supporting the idea that she believes that it’s what makes her irredeemable (instead of, y’know, all the murdering and stuff), and 2) this is Joss Whedon’s work and he is OBSESSED with highlighting the womanhood of his female characters and treating it like their defining trait while also variously punishing them for it, and you’ve got every reason to interpret this terrible fucking line as exactly the heinous thing it (presumably, unwittingly) seems to be. 

Steve ripping a log in half with his bare hands is the funniest thing in this whole movie.

Thor’s brief side-adventure with Erik Selvig is pretty out-of-place. He just...goes for a swim in a convenient magic pond that Selvig chances to know about. Seems normal.

Ultron is full of such boring, empty rhetoric. Reminds me of Loki in The Avengers, with all that sound-and-fury. 

I love Paul Bettany.

Man, they sure do find Natasha instantly. It’s almost like making a damsel-in-distress of her who needs to be rescued by the team was completely meaningless...

Breaking my no-BTS rule (since I already have done for this movie at this point) because it’s well-known how Joss Whedon ordered Elizabeth Olsen not to show exertion or ‘ugly emotion’ on her face in this film, because God forbid she compromise her attractiveness by being human. Joss Whedon is not human; he’s fucking trash. 

The final fight sure does just, y’know, get to a point where it ends. They really did not ratchet up the tension over the course of the Sokovia conflict, it just goes along until it stops (also, they say Sokovia is a country, but then they never call the city anything else, it’s just Sokovia. Is the city conveniently named after the country (very confusing), or is it a city-country, like The Vatican? I kinda assume it’s option three, which is that no one bothered to care because it’s just some fake European placeholder anyway and we’re not supposed to notice such a dumb oversight).

“I was born yesterday.” This is the best quip in this whole thinks-it-is-way-wittier-than-it-is movie.

Helen Cho deserved better than to be a prop rapidly dismissed and then just trotted past at the end for an ‘oh, she survived, btw’. 

Back when I reviewed the first Avengers movie, I said that I considered that film to be heavily overrated, so maybe it’s not such a surprise that I actually like this one better. The two primary problems I had with that first film were the overly simplistic plot, and the fact that most of the characters were OOC compared to previous films, and this movie does do better on both scores, so I feel more engaged by it, and less annoyed. That said...this movie has still got a lot of problems, and those include iffy characterisation and a plot with various holes, nonsensical complications, and conveniently ignored or smoothed-down dynamics. When I say I like this movie better than the first one, I mean just that: I like this better. That does not mean I am here to sing its praises. 

The tacked-on romance is part of the problem - for Clint as well as Natasha (but especially for Natasha). After Hawkeye was so heavily under-used in the first film (and his slightly-ambiguous relationship with Black Widow was the only human element that made him a character instead of a prop), Age of Ultron attempts to compensate by giving Clint a personal life, in the form of a magically-appearing heavily-pregnant wife and a pair of nameless children. The function of this family appears to be 1) to give Clint a reason to not be interested in Natasha, and 2) to ‘humanise’ him by giving him something to fight for and get home to, because we all know nothing legitimises a character quite like some otherwise-irrelevant dependents. Want a man to seem lovable and important? Give him a pregnant wife. That’s what women are for, anyway, right? To enhance a man’s story? In this case, to provide a man whose purpose in the story has been contested with insta-personality, because ‘he’s secretly a family man, ooh, twist!’ is way better than having to spend time on giving him something to do in the plot that is actually meaningful in some way. Great logic. Makes Hawkeye super dynamic, right? 

Natasha, unsurprisingly, is hit much, much harder. As the only female avenger and one of only two prominent female characters in a cast which has seven-to-nine male characters of equal or greater importance/screen time (YMMV on whether or not you think Fury and Vision count for that list), the pressure is already on for Natasha to be served up a quality narrative, because if she doesn’t get one, well...she doesn’t have six-to-eight alternative characters to pull the weight for her gender. The best solve for this problem would be to avoid the ‘Token Woman’ cliche in the first place, but since we missed that boat...not having the personal story of your only primary female character revolve completely around her womanhood and her catering to heteronormative expectations of a love interest would have been a good choice. This weird, forced, chemistry-free thing with Bruce Banner? Was the worst thing they could have used to define Natasha’s presence in the film. It sticks out like a sore thumb every time they have an awkward interaction, and it leads in to that atrocious ‘monstrous infertility’ element (though that particular egregious mistake could have been included with or without a romantic blunder, it...probably wouldn’t be, and we’d all be the better off). Even the Hulk-whisperer part of the relationship - while not awful on its own with all the unnecessary romance and Unresolved Sexual Not-Tension removed - serves to highlight Natasha’s female-ness by making her the soft maternal figure for the team, because God forbid one of the other male members of the team be asked to ASMR-speak to the Hulk while delicately caressing his hand. If Natasha’s presence in the first Avengers film leaned too heavily on her gender identity as a defining trait (and it did), this movie doesn’t fix that problem at all: it doubles down on it. 

The good news for most of the excess of male characters is, they by-and-large don’t feel as OOC as they did in the first film. The boorish romantic entanglement aside, Bruce Banner is still a naturalistic character highlight (all credit to Mark Ruffalo, who probably doesn’t know how to turn in a bad performance in the first place), and Thor’s dialogue is way less ridiculous this time ‘round, so he lands a lot closer to his personality from previous films simply by virtue of sounding like the same guy (unfortunately, the plot does not have the faintest idea what it wants to do with him as a character). Steve Rogers is still being written as if being Captain America is his character, which is a fundamental misunderstanding of his identity, albeit one which conveniently allows him to behave in a stereotypical self-righteously bland manner, thus avoiding the need for any nuance in his perspective or actions. This borderline fanfic-flamer ‘Captain America is my least favourite character so I’m going to write him as a boring stick-in-the-mud and then hopefully no one else will like him either!’ approach doesn’t grate quite as badly as it did in the first Avengers, and it can’t cancel out the innate level-headed charm of Chris Evans, so as disappointing as the bias is, it’s still a better balance here than it was last time. The one character who is not so flatteringly handled, however? Also happens to be the one who was arguably handled best last time, and unfortunately, he’s the one who is essentially treated as the ‘lead’. 

The big problem for Tony Stark is that this movie is not interested in digging in to the pathos of any character, it’s all-flash-no-substance on that front, and Tony really, really needed a less heavy-handed slathering of ‘afraid of what might come (feat. messiah complex)’ to motivate his actions and reactions in this film, because without any exploration he’s basically just a billionaire kid playing with matches. If this were an Iron Man film (either the first or third one, anyway), we’d get into some tasty deconstruction of Tony’s mental state and confront his hubris, etc, and - crucially, most crucial of all, it’s a mainstay of all his past stories in the MCU - Tony would own up to his mistakes, listen to the advice of those around him, and take contrite steps toward fixing the problem not just in the direct sense of ‘beating the bad guy’, but also in the personal and emotional sense of working on his own flaws and making amends with the people he hurt along the way. This movie offers none of that. To begin with, Tony’s ‘I know best and I will not be taking any questions’ approach to creating Ultron feels like a significant step backwards in his character development so far (Iron Man 3 was specifically about addressing his PTSD and associated tumultuous emotions surrounding the fear of imminent alien invasion, so his reactionary and secretive behaviour in this film feels particularly out-of-touch with a mental reality Tony has been explicitly working on for the past couple of years); Tony is actively aware that it’s a bad call and thus hides it from the other Avengers until it’s too late, and then he’s bizarrely unrepentant about his mistake. Worst of all, he actually attempts to repeat that mistake, only worse, late in the film (the fact that his idiotic ‘mad scientist’ pep talk actually convinces Bruce to help him again is the weakest character moment for Bruce outside of the aforementioned romance crap). The plot rewards Tony’s second, far worse mistake, in the creation of Vision, who turns out to be ‘worthy of wielding Thor’s Hammer’ and whatnot and conveniently provides every necessary skill to defeat Ultron in a deus ex machina so overt you could use it as a textbook example, so even though Tony had absolutely no way of knowing that he’d get a good result this time and almost every reason to believe he’d just compound the existing problem, his reckless disregard for the literal safety of the planet is treated like a good thing because it happens to work out this time, and they just kinda sweep under the rug the fact that Tony is playing God (and being uncharacteristically stupid and selfish about it - in other films, Tony is normally only reckless with his own safety, and it’s when his actions spill out into unintended consequences for others that he realises the error of his ways and cues up a positive learning curve; it’s what makes him palatable). At the end of the film, once Ultron is gone and Tony has thrown some dispassionate wads of cash into ‘relief efforts’, he strolls and quips and eventually drives off into the sunset in his expensive car, with nary a mention of, I dunno, maybe a little guilty conscience? Maybe a hint of having learned a valuable lesson? The closest he gets is just suggesting that it might be time he retires from Avenging, but neither he nor anyone else lets on that there’s a need for serious self-reflection. The Tony Stark in this movie is the nightmarish male-fantasy version of the character, the playboy with the cool tech and no limits who does whatever he wants and then...literally rides off into the sunset in the end, no muss, no fuss. He’s kinda like a complete reversion to his original self, pre-Iron Man, frittering money around and designing weapons of mass destruction while convincing himself he’s bringing peace to the world one explosion at a time, but that Tony has no business here, seven years of character development down the track.

While we’re talking iffy characterisation, we should also segue into plot, and that’s something we can do easily enough by looking at our villain, Ultron. Calling Ultron an actual character feels...ambitious. He’s a CGI robot full of empty rhetoric and, you guessed it, more of those quips that this movie has in place of any meaningful dialogue. I’d call him self-fellating, but he ain’t got nothing to fellate, so instead he just blathers a lot in a manner that sounds vaguely poetically intelligent but is, upon a moment’s consideration, just vapid nonsense (much like Loki in the first Avengers, as noted above, but at least Loki had the benefit of a flesh-and-blood actor delivering his lines with conviction; James Spader does solid work as the voice of Ultron, but trying to make a CGI robot who spouts a school-kid’s attempt at edgy philosophy sound like a genuine menace is an uphill battle). Speaking of genuine menace, I assume the reason the film is called Age of Ultron is because A Couple of Days of Ultron Causing Disturbances in a Handful of Specific Locations was too much. For all the big talk (and there is..so much), Ultron doesn’t get up to all that much trouble, most notably in the sense that he apparently has his code all over the internet and yet he doesn’t bother stirring up a single ounce of chaos with that ungodly power. Why bother including this as an element of the character if it achieves zero story? Is it purely to make Ultron seem ~unstoppable~ because he keeps downloading into new robots? Because it didn’t really land, y’all. They try to play it like a big victory for the good guys when Vision burns Ultron out of the ‘net, but in context it’s meaningless because he didn’t do anything while he was there. Pretty much everything about Ultron was all talk, little to no action - even a whole bunch of the trouble he did cause happened off-screen, with Maria Hill just popping in to let us know that ‘there are reports of metal men stealing shit’. Cheers, cool. And you know, Ultron makes a song and dance about how he’s going to save the world by ‘ending the Avengers’, but then he...does not pursue that at all. He tries to make himself a pretty body, the Avengers thwart him, and then he enacts a doomsday machine to destroy all life on Earth. Like every other aspect of the character, the whole ‘end the Avengers’ schtick is just white noise, there’s no meaning in it. Ultron is just a same-old-same ‘What if Artificial Intelligence wants to WIPE US OUT?!’ cliche, and maybe that’s what he was in the comics too, I don’t know, but it’s the job of the film to tell that story in a dynamic way, and they had two and a half hours to do it. And yet.

There should be more to this than a nondescript placeholder villain concept and a series of action set pieces that just kinda happen until they stop. At least the first Avengers had some variety in each of its action sequences, using the location and the different skills and weapons of its antagonists, whereas this one is just ‘there are robots and the good guys punched and shot them until they were all broken, the end’. Even making the city fly in the end doesn’t actually make it interesting, not least because the characters spend most of their time running around the (weirdly, perfectly stable) streets not having to deal with any consequences of being up in the air anyway, and the doomsday device is too nebulous to ratchet up any real tension about figuring out how to deal with it. The conflicts with the Maximoff twins have at least some spark of life in them, but the characters themselves are treated to an over-simplified and very contrived narrative arc that uses what they do and what they know more as plot devices than as details of actual people’s lives, leading to a cheap death for Pietro so that Wanda will be distracted enough to abandon the big ol’ doomsday button, and it’s just all so convenient. There’s no heart in any of it, and it makes the moments that try to have heart all the more embarrassing and out-of-place (don’t even get me started on what a prescribed attempt at tugging the heart-strings it is to have Hawkeye name his magnificently well-timed newborn after Pietro, because DAMN). When I said I liked this movie better than the first Avengers, I meant just that: I like this better. That’s not to suggest that it is significantly better in any sense, because it isn’t, and I can’t even argue that this one has a better story, because honestly, it doesn’t. The first film made more sense, it was just less interesting to watch, and the things about it that were contrived were contrived in different ways. The first film was weaker and more irritating on character, and character is always the most important part of a story for me, so as annoyed as I am by the major character blunders in Age of Ultron, I’m still not as annoyed as I was after The Avengers. That is damning with the faintest of praise; this is just not a particularly good movie, it makes a poor use of its cast at the best of times, delivers a sub-par action extravaganza, and the script is not half as witty as it gleefully convinces itself that it is. It comes as no surprise, I’m sure, that I am very glad a certain writer/director departed the franchise after disappointing everyone with this outing. I say I like this better than the first Avengers, but gee, it’s a close call.