#ive been practicing on it lately en MAN

[ink-for-dinner]

I hope the quality isn't that shitty

ANYWAYS HAVE SUM MARPUNZEL FROM @wildkratts99's DISNEY AU SJFJJHD THIS TOOK SO LONG LMAO BUT IM HAPPY CAUSE ITS LIKE THE FIRST BIG DRAWING IM MAKING ON PHOTOSHOP SO YEAH ENJOY

[picturetoburnnn]

Maybe | bucky barnes x reader

warnings: lots of language, angst, fluff

category: angst with a happy ending

word count: 2.7k

summary: when bucky acts standoffish for too long, will the resulting argument be the end of it all?

a/n: this is my first time posting anything ive written since february of 2020, and my first time writing for bucky, hope you guys like it. beta'd by my internet best friend @cxddlyash, I love you sm

“Buck, please talk to me,” she practically begged, watching her once-loving partner shove past her like another obstacle. “How was your day?”

“It was fine, doll.” He spun and quickly pressed a short kiss to her forehead, but it felt like an afterthought. “I’m tired,” he grunted. “I’m gonna take a shower and go to bed. Don’t wait up.”

Before she could get another word in, he gently closed the bathroom door. Just once, she wanted him to slam the door, yell, fight. Just once, she wanted him to get mad and in her face. Anything but this god-awful polite avoidance he was giving her now. In a huff of annoyance, she plopped herself down on their supposed-to-be-shared bed.

Was it something I said? Did I do something to make him mad, and that’s why he’s been acting like this?

It had been literal weeks since this started though. She thought he would be mature enough to have brought it up by now if that were the case. Insecurity after insecurity, bad thought after bad thought swirled through Y/N’s mind as she contemplated the circumstances.

Everything was fine until he started making those amends. In an attempt to reconcile with the pain he caused as the Winter Soldier, Bucky had been making an effort to find the people he had harmed as the soldier and apologize for the wrongdoing. The first few, he had been fine with. Taking out corrupt politicians felt like just another day on the job, even if it was some altered version of himself that put them into office. It was when he got to the latter half of the list that things got hard. Innocent bystanders, honest cases of wrong place, wrong time -- that’s what started rocking the boat.

It rocked and rocked until he started drowning. And no matter how hard she tried to help him, no matter what flotation device she sent out, he always ignored it with a hardened glare and a grunt of annoyance.

Now, he came home, said a few words (maybe, on a good day he would press a kiss to Y/N’s hair), and scurry off to some isolated area and shrink inward on himself, and snap if she came near.

She knew it was selfish to think, but Y/N just wanted her Bucky back. The one who brought her flowers on their first date, who smiled shyly when she touched him. She wanted her boyfriend to be okay, to come back from this hardened shell of the man he was.

So when the door to the en suite bathroom opened, she shot upright, catching his eye.

“What am I to you, Buck?”

He froze. “What?”

“What am I in your life right now? Because as of late, I’ve been feeling like I’m nothing to you.” Her chest heaved in anticipation.

“You’re my girlfriend, Y/N,” Bucky sighed as he pushed past her, for the second time. Opening the drawer to find his nightclothes, he added, “I thought you were aware of that.”

“You snap at me like I’m constantly annoying you,” she argued. “It’s hard to feel loved when you feel like a bother.”

“I’m sorry I made you feel like that.” The words were painfully insincere. Spoken as if out of habit, not out of intention.

“Sorry doesn’t just fix everything, Buck,” she huffed. “I know things have been hard for you and I want to help but I can’t if you keep just pushing me out like this. Even if you don’t talk to me, you have to talk to someone. Sam is there for you, I’m here for you, you have a support system, use it!”

“Maybe I don’t want to!”

The words hung in the air like a death trap. His shoulders shook as the dam finally broke. “Maybe I want to figure this out my own damn self, and maybe you asking me every twenty fucking minutes if I’m okay is the bane of my fucking existence. Maybe I need space from you, and maybe that’s why I sleep on the floor. Maybe you drive me fucking insane, and I push you out so I don’t hurt your precious feelings. Maybe that’s it.”

Y/N stood back, stunned. Tears started to gather in her eyes as the words hit their marks like the daggers he loved to polish.

“Well,” she said through a shaky breath. “If that’s how you feel.”

“Yeah,” he said, eyes hard as stone. “That is how I feel.”

She nodded slowly as she looked around the room. Memories of what she thought was a treasured love flooded back to her and broke in her mind as she realized just how he must have been faking. “Then I will leave,” she said quietly.

Bucky said nothing, just eyed her up and down. At his lack of protest, she nodded again and began gathering her stuff.

~~

“He pushed me away, so I left. I didn’t really pack much of anything. I’m sorry for imposing, thanks for letting me borrow this,” she tugged on the sleeve of the oversized shirt she wore as she finished recounting the story.

“Hey,” Sam chided, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You’re not imposing. I may be Tin-Man’s closest thing to a friend, but you come first. You’re more family than he is.”

“I appreciate it, Sam.” She smiled up at him sadly.

Neither one of them mentioned the phone that was buzzing loudly on the table, nor the twenty texts that went unanswered. If he wanted space, Y/N would give him space. In her mind, he was calling her out of guilt, out of obligation to ease her hurt, rather than a sincere need to apologize.

She literally couldn’t be further from the truth.

Bucky had torn the apartment apart when he realized what he’d done. In a moment of anger and frustration, he had accidentally targeted Y/N, and every hateful thing he had never meant to say came spewing out like venom.

“Fuck!” He yelled in frustration as the ninth call went to voicemail. “Baby please,” he sniffled as soon as the tone rang. “Y/N please, please, I need you. You’re all I need, please doll come home, come back to me. I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean any of it. Just tell me you’re okay. Tell me how to fix it and I will. I don’t feel that way, please doll, just come back and we can talk. Please.”

Tears sprung to his eyes as he ended the call, sending yet another message to your phone. His attempt at deep, calming breaths quickly turned into hyperventilation. He got his phone out again to call the only other person he could think of, the only other person that might possibly listen to him.

Sam’s phone rang, and surprise littered his features. He angled his phone away, careful to keep Y/N from seeing the caller ID. “I’ve gotta take this, it’s Sarah.” He internally cringed at how unconvincing the lie was. “Are you okay for a few minutes?”

“Yeah, of course,” Y/N wiped away a tear and plastered on a smile. “Go, talk to your sister. Tell her I miss her.”

Sam nodded and quickly walked out of the room before answering. “What the hell, Bionic Man?” he hissed into the phone instantly.

“Please tell me she’s with you,” Bucky immediately breathed.

Sam stopped for a moment, taken aback by the amount of raw emotion audible in the other man’s voice. “She’s safe,” he conceded. “You didn’t answer my question, Barnes. What. The. Hell?”

“I didn’t mean it, any of it.” Sam could hear shuffling on the other end.

“Metalhead, if you even think about coming here after the shit you just pulled--”

“I’ll be there in twenty.” The line went dead before Sam could even respond.

With a sigh, the Falcon walked back into the living room to find Y/N asleep on the couch. With a sad smile, he gently shook your shoulder. “Y/N, c’mon let’s get you to the guest room, it’s more comfortable.”

~~

A heavy pounding pulled Sam from his thoughts in the kitchen. Opening the door, he was face to face with a wall of muscle and self-hatred.

“Please, Sam I need to see her.”

“No.”

“I have to tell her I didn’t mean it.”

“She’s finally asleep after crying her eyes out for a fucking hour, man. Y/N may be strong, but she isn’t limitless. She needs time.”

Before Bucky could shoulder his way into the house, Sam put both his hands out in front of him. “Why don’t you come in and sit down, and talk with me until she wakes up?”

~~

Quiet voices dragged Y/N from a restless sleep. Sam was right, the guest bed was more comfortable to lay on, but the fact that it was wide enough for her to feel the empty space beside her brought on another wave of sadness.

Curious, Y/N shrugged off the blankets and followed the gentle sounds to the kitchen, and stopped dead in her tracks. There, sitting across from Sam, was Bucky, nursing a cup of tea. Even now, with everything he had put her through, she couldn’t help but admire him, how the sunlight gently reflected off the artificial arm.

Her gentle gasp of surprise was enough to alert both men to her presence. Sam looked at her with a mixture of sadness and pity as he stood, ready to defend either of his friends from the other.

The only look Bucky had in his eye was relief. He looked at Y/N and saw his saving grace, his future, if only he hadn’t gone and said what he did.

“Doll…” he breathed.

“Sam,” Y/N mumbled, not taking her eyes off of Bucky. The Falcon could read enough emotion on her face to know that she wasn’t ready for this. Wasn’t ready for Bucky.

“I think you should go, Barnes,” he said quietly, stepping in between the pair. He faced the 106-year-old, crossing his arms defensively. Bucky tried to look over his shoulder, to catch another glimpse of her, but she was gone. The hope faded from his body as he looked back down at the ground, dejected. Sam had half a mind to force the two of them in a room together, at seeing his friend look so broken.

Without another word, the former Winter Soldier sulked out the door, defeated.

~~

A week had passed, a slow week that Bucky had mostly spent laying on the floor of what was supposed to be home to both of them. Sometimes a bottle was in his hand, sometimes it was shattered against the wall before he got up to get another one. All the experimentation done decades ago had ruined any chances of him being able to be drunk again, but that didn’t stop him from trying to find ways to numb the pain.

Little did he know, Y/N was in quite a similar situation. While Sam had been incredibly gracious to offer her the guest room, he was going to lose his goddamn mind if she spent another day pretending like everything was fine and ignoring the problems. Any time he tried to bring it up, she creatively dodged the question.

“You need to talk to him, Y/N,” Sam scolded.

“No, I don’t,” she sighed, placing another marker on the Battleship board. “F3.”

“Miss. You can’t just pretend nothing happened. At the very least, give him closure and officially tell him you’re over. D9.”

“Miss. You are entirely too bad at this game,” Y/N teased. “J6.”

“Miss. Stop avoiding the situation. If I get one more hit before you do, you have to text him. Deal?”

“Fine,” she agreed teasingly. “You’re shit at this so there’s no way.”

“G5.”

Y/N’s jaw fell open. “Okay, that’s just not fair.”

“You win some, you lose some, kiddo. Time to text him.”

~~

6:30 tonight. where we had our first date

The words lit up his phone, and Bucky had never gotten ready faster. Within minutes, he was dressed in fresh clothes (he hadn’t changed since that day at Sam’s), brushed his teeth, and out the door. Part of him wonders if she didn’t mention the name specifically because she didn’t think he remembered, or cared enough to remember. But he remembered absolutely everything about their relationship, and about her.

It was only two in the afternoon when she sent the text, but he was seated at the diner at 2:30. He wondered if she would remember that this was actually the exact booth they sat in that day too.

By the time 6:30 rolled around, he was certain the waiter was ready to kill him. He’d ordered nothing but water and had sat there for four hours, insisting on waiting and prepping everything he would say to Y/N. The server looked like he was getting ready to kick him out, metal arm be damned, when Y/N walked in. A shirt he’d never seen before, and pants much the same, he realized at some point she’d had to have made a shopping trip.

Her eyes scanned the restaurant until they landed on him. God, he missed her eyes.

She sat in front of him and smiled at the waiter, ordering a soda and a plate of fries before meeting Bucky’s eyes again.

“I have a couple questions.” Y/N breathed, and Bucky then realized it was her voice he missed the most.

“Yeah,” he answered eagerly. “Anything.”

“When did you stop loving me?”

His heart fell to his feet, and all the air was sucked out of him. With six words, everything he had been preparing to say was swept from his mind.

“Doll, I never stopped loving you.” His heart ached at the thought.

“Don’t call me that if you don’t mean it.” She wiped at her eye, catching the tear before it even fully formed. She had already spent days crying over this man, she’d be damned if she cried to his face.

“I’ll always mean it,” he tried, reaching for her joined hands on the table. She snatched them away before he could react. “I know I hurt you. And I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that. You deserve so much better than I can ever be. But, doll, I need you. I didn’t mean a word of it, you have to know that. I shouldn’t have said any of it, but I did, and I can’t take it back. No matter how much I want and need to. I will spend the rest of my life regretting what I said to you, but, if you’ll let me, I will spend it trying to fix it too.”

Y/N sat in stunned silence. She fully expected to be met with move-out demands and eviction notices. Hearing him say that was everything she had wanted to hear for the past week. It was too much at once. This had to be a joke, a prank, something.

“I think you should go home,” she mumbled.

“I already am home,” he whispered as he grabbed her hand with both of his, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “Anywhere you are, that’s where I want to be. That’s where my home is. It stopped being a place the moment you walked into my life.”

Y/N breathed a shaky sigh, trying to hold in tears.

“Doll, what’s wrong?” Bucky’s eyes widened as he saw the water gathering in her eyes, afraid he crossed a boundary but unable to let go of her hands, lest she disappear on him again.

“Can… can you please just hold me for a minute?” she all but whimpered into the loud diner atmosphere.

Even though he swore he hated public displays of affection, Bucky was immediately making room in the booth next to him. She quickly scooted over to him, pressing her body against his as he wrapped his metal arm around her shoulders.

This. This was where he belonged. Next to her, in a ‘50’s themed diner, as the waiter placed her cola and fries in front of her. He pressed a kiss to her hairline, closing his eyes and savoring the moment.

“I have loved you,” he whispered into her hair, “since the day that I met you.”

Masterlist Found Here

[le-roi-des-bulgares]

Voltaire writes back to Frederick...

... whom he hasn’t been in regular contact with for more or less four years.

Frederick had refused Voltaire’s asking for permission to go back to Potsdam in late 1753; avoided writing to him directly but let Abbé de Prades take up the correspondence; wrote and published a satirical ‘Portrait of M. de Voltaire’ in 1756.

Despite all the name-calling (fou, méchant, ~extraordinare~, etc.) to third parties, all the prayers to heaven that Voltaire never comes back, on Jan 19th 1757, Frederick wrote a ‘tender letter’ to Voltaire, days after Russia declared her entrance into the war.

At some point in summer 1757, with Frederick’s first major defeat at the Battle of Kolin, his mother’s death, the Prussian retreat from Bohemia, he fell into a deep depression (a haunting representation painted by Menzel) and meditated suicide. Either encouraged by Wilhelmine or voluntarily, he wrote to Voltaire, thus virtually reopened their regular correspondence.

The letter hasn't been found since (as the Jan 19th one, & many others from this period), but those survived still help construct a sense of it, as well as the brief personal warmth shown between Voltaire & Frederick - both said they couldn’t care less.

Here is a collection of some extracts which I like and hope can serve to paint this exchange of letters between F & V, with Wilhelmine as their mediator, in a somewhat clearer light. These are from letters written from July to December 1757 by Voltaire, Wilhelmine and Frederick. All originals are taken from Edition Garnier & Œuvres de Frédéric le Grand. Translations are mine. Emphasis in texts are made by me. my english and french are both not so good, but i try;; so feel free to critique my usage of words etc.! 

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Frédéric au marquis d'Argens, (Leitmeritz), 19 juillet 1757.

Mon cher marquis, regardez-moi comme une muraille battue en brèche par l'infortune depuis deux ans. Je suis ébranlé de tous côtés. Malheurs domestiques, afflictions secrètes, malheurs publics, calamités qui s'apprêtent : voilà ma nourriture. Cependant ne pensez pas que je mollisse. Dussent tous les éléments périr, je me verrai ensevelir sous leurs débris avec le sang-froid dont je vous écris.

My dear marquis, see me as a wall breached by two years’ misfortunes. I am shaken on all sides. Domestic misfortunes, secret afflictions, public misfortunes, looming calamities: these are my food. Do not think that I have given away, however. Must that all elements perish, I will bury myself underneath their debris, with the cold-blood with which I am writing to you.

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 [Frederic wrote to Voltaire at some point in mid-august 1757, sent to him at Les Delices in Geneva via Wilhelmine.]

De Margrave la Baireuth à Voltaire. Le 19 août.

Je suis dans un état affreux, et ne survivrai pas à la destruction de ma maison et de ma famille. C’est l’unique consolation qui me reste. Vous aurez de beaux sujets de tragédies à travailler. Ô temps ! ô mœurs ! Vous ferez peut-être verser des larmes par une représentation illusoire, tandis qu’on contemple d’un œil sec les malheurs de toute une maison contre laquelle, dans le fond, on n’a aucune plainte réelle.

I am in an awful state, and I will not survive my house and my family’s destruction. This is the only consolation left for me. You will have handsome subjects of tragedies to work on. O time! O morals! You will perhaps make tears pour down by an illusory representation, while people contemplate on the misfortunes of a whole house with a dry eye against that which, deep down, they do not have any real pity for.

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  Voltaire à M. le Maréchal Duc de Richelieu. (a vous seul.) [Août 1757.]

Le roi de Prusse s’est remis à m’écrire avec quelque confiance. Il me mande qu’il est résolu de se tuer, s’il est sans ressource ; et madame la margrave sa sœur m’écrit qu’elle finira sa vie si le roi son frère finit la sienne.

The king of Prussia started to write to me with some trust again. He tells me that he resolved to kill himself if he is without resource; and madame la margrave his sister writes that she would end her life, if the king her brother ended his own.

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  Voltaire à M. le Comte d’Argental. Aux Délices, 12 septembre.

Les affaires de ce roi, mon ancien disciple et mon ancien persécuteur, vont de mal en pis. Je ne sais si je vous ai fait part de la lettre qu’il m’a écrite il y a environ trois semaines : J’ai appris, dit-il, que vous vous étiez intéressé à mes succès et à mes malheurs ; il ne me reste qu’à vendre cher ma vie, etc., etc. Sa sœur, la margrave de Baireuth, m’en écrit une beaucoup plus lamentable.

Allons, ferme, mon cœur, point de faiblesse humaine.

The affairs of this king, my old disciple and my old persecutor, have gone from bad to worse. I do not know if I had told you about a letter that he wrote me about three weeks ago: I learned, said him, that you were interested in my successes and my misfortunes; it only remains to sell my life dearly, etc., etc. His sister, the margrave of Bayreuth, writes me a much more lamentable one.

Go, harden up, my heart, nothing of human weaknesses.

[note: the last line is a quote from Molière’s Tartuffe, Act IV, Scene III. vendre cher sa vie means to kill a number of enemies before one’s own death.]

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 Voltaire à Madame la Margrave de Baireuth. Aux Délices, 29 août 1757.

Madame, j’ai été touché jusqu’aux larmes de la lettre dont Votre Altesse royale m’a honoré. [...] me sera-t-il permis de mettre sous votre protection cette lettre que j’ose écrire à Sa Majesté le roi votre frère ? [...] Je voudrais qu’il fût persuadé de son mérite personnel : il est au point que beaucoup de personnes de tout rang le respectent plus comme homme que comme roi. Qui doit sentir mieux que vous, madame, ce que c’est que d’être supérieure à sa naissance !

Madame, I was brought to tears by the letter Your Royal Highness honored me. [...] Will I be allowed to put this letter under your protection, which I dared write to His Majesty the king your brother? [...] I would like that he be persuaded of his personal merit: he is at a point where many people of all ranks respect him more as a man than as a king. Who would feel better than you, madame, what it is like to be superior to one's birth!

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 Frédéric à la margrave de Baireuth, Naumbourg, 9 (septembre 1757).

Ma chère sœur, viens de recevoir votre lettre du 6, avec l'incluse de Voltaire. [...] Je vous prie de vous tranquilliser l'esprit; vos inquiétudes me sont précieuses, certainement j'y suis sensible, et je vous regarde comme le seul exemple d'amitié parfaite dans ce siècle corrompu; mais, en s'inquiétant, on ne change pas le destin, et dans des circonstances où l'on doit s'attendre à tout, il faut se préparer à tout événement.

My dear sister, [I] just received your letter of the 6th, with Voltaire's enclosed. [...] I beg you to reassure your mind; your worries are dear to me, certainly I am sensible of them, and I regard you as the only example of perfect friendship in this corrupted century; but, one does not change destiny by worrying, and in the circumstances where one must expect everything, we must prepare ourselves for all events.

[last time Frederick wrote ‘this corrupted century’ to Wilhelmine was in 1730, from Cüstrin.]

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 La margrave de Baireuth à Frédéric, (15 septembre 1757) 

[note that the letter F wrote to V, which Wilhelmine speaks of, was a reply to V’s late august response, likely dated around September 9th, sent in the same package to Wilhelmine.]

Mon très-cher frère, votre lettre et celle que vous avez écrite à Voltaire, mon cher frère, m'ont presque donné la mort. Quelles funestes résolutions, grand Dieu! Ah! mon cher frère, vous dites que vous m'aimez, et vous me plongez le poignard dans le cœur. [...]. Votre sort décidera du mien; je ne survivrai ni à vos infortunes, ni à celles de ma maison. Vous pouvez compter que c'est ma ferme résolution.

My dearest brother, your letter and that which you wrote to Voltaire, my dear brother, have almost made me dead. What fatal resolutions, great God! Ah! my dear brother, you say that you love me, and you plunge a dagger into my heart. [...] Your fate will decide my own; I will survive neither your misfortunes, nor those of my house. You can count on this being my firm resolution.

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 Voltaire à Frédéric. Octobre 1757.

[...]; je vous ai appartenu, mon cœur vous appartiendra toujours.

[...]; I belonged to you, my heart will always belong to you.

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 Voltaire à Frédéric. Octobre 1757.

Vous voulez mourir ; je ne vous parle pas ici de l’horreur douloureuse que ce dessein m’inspire.[...] Écoutez contre ces sentiments votre raison supérieure ; elle vous dit que vous n’êtes point humilié, et que vous ne pouvez l’être ; elle vous dit qu’étant homme comme un autre, il vous restera (quelque chose qui arrive) tout ce qui peut rendre les autres hommes heureux : biens, dignités, amis.

[...] Je suis bientôt dans ma soixante et cinquième année, je suis né infirme ; je n’ai qu’un moment à vivre ; j’ai été bien malheureux, vous le savez ; mais je mourrais heureux, si je vous laissais sur la terre mettant en pratique ce que vous avez si souvent écrit.

You want to die; I do not speak to you here of the painful horror this plan inspires in me. [...] Listen to your superior reason against these sentiments; it [would] tell you that you are not at all humiliated, that you cannot be; it would tell you that being a man, like any other, there would remain for you (whatever happens) all those things which can make other men happy: possessions, dignities, friends. 

[...] soon I will be in my sixty-fifth year, I was born to be sick; I only have a moment [more] to live; I have been very unhappy, you know that; but I would die happy, if I left you on earth putting what you had so often written into practice.

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 Frédéric à la margrave de Baireuth, Buttelstedt, 8 octobre 1757

J'ai ri des exhortations du patriarche Voltaire; je prends la liberté de vous envoyer ma réponse. Quant au stoïcisme, je crois en avoir plus que lui, et quant à la façon de penser, il pense en poëte, et moi comme cela me convient dans le poste où le hasard de la naissance m'a placé.

I laughed at the exhortations of Voltaire the patriarch; I take the liberty to send you my response. As for stoicism, I believe myself to have more than he does, and as for the way of thinking, he thinks in poet, and I think as suited to the post which the accident of birth placed me in.

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 Frédéric à Voltaire, (Buttstedt) 9 octobre 1757.

Croyez que si j'étais Voltaire, Et particulier comme lui, Me contentant du nécessaire, Je verrais voltiger la fortune légère, Et m'en moquerais aujourd'hui. [...]

Believe me, if I was Voltaire, /and private person like him, /content with necessities, /I would see frivolous fortune flutter, /and make fun of it right at this moment.

[you send him an epistle, and say he thinks like a poet. fair enough]

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La Margrave de Baireuth à Voltaire. Le 16 Octobre.

Accablée par les maux de l’esprit et du corps, je ne puis vous écrire qu’une petite lettre. Vous en trouverez une ci-jointe qui vous récompensera au centuple de ma brièveté. Notre situation est toujours la même : un tombeau fait notre point de vue. Quoique tout semble perdu, il nous reste des choses qu’on ne pourra nous enlever : c’est la fermeté et les sentiments du cœur.

Overwhelmed by the ills of mind and body, I can only write you a little letter. You will find one enclosed [Frederick's letter from Oct 9th] which will reward you a hundred times more than my brevity. Our situation is always the same: a tomb makes our destination. Although all seems lost, there still remains for us things which cannot be taken away: firmness and sentiments of the heart.

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 [Frederick won the Battle of Rossbach on November 5]

Voltaire à M. le comte d'Argental. Au Délices, 19 novembre.

[...] Luc n’avait pas vingt-cinq mille hommes, encore étaient-ils harassés de marches et de contre-marches. Il se croyait perdu sans ressource, il y a un mois ; et si bien, si complètement perdu, qu’il me l’avait écrit ; et c’est dans ces circonstances qu’il détruit une armée de cinquante mille hommes. Quelle honte pour notre nation !

Luc had no more than twenty-five thousand men, also they were exhausted by marches and counter-marches. He believed himself to be lost without resources a month ago; and so wholly, so completely lost, as he wrote to me; and it's under these circumstances that he destroyed an army of fifty thousand men. What shame for our nation!

[Luc: cul: ass. i.e. Frederick.]

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 Voltaire à M. le comte d'Argental. 2 décembre.

Serait-il possible qu’on eût imaginé que je m’intéresse au roi de Prusse ? J’en suis pardieu bien loin. Il n’y a mortel au monde qui fasse plus de vœux pour le succès des mesures présentes. J’ai goûté la vengeance de consoler un roi qui m’avait maltraité ; il n’a tenu qu’à M. de Soubise que je le consolasse davantage.

Is it possible that people imagined I am interested in the king of Prussia? Good lord, I am very far from that. There is no mortal in the world who wishes more for success for the present situations [of France]. I tasted vengeance by consoling a king who had mistreated me; it only depends on M. de Soubise that I console him more.

[if we make him cry more i get to hug him more. O sweet vengeance!]

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[Frederick won the Battle of Leuthen on December 5]

Voltaire à M. le comte d'Argental. Lausanne, 20 décembre, au soir.

Quand les Prussiens tuent tant de monde, il faut bien aussi que je vous assassine de lettres, mon cher ange. Il est difficile que vous ayez su plus tôt que nous autres Suisses la nouvelle victoire du roi de Prusse, près de Neumarck en Silésie. Ce diable de Salomon est un terrible Philistin. La renommée le dit déjà dans Breslau ; mais il ne faut pas croire toujours la renommée.

When the Prussians are killing so many people, I must also assassinate you with letters, my dear angel. It is difficult for you to know sooner than us Swiss, about the new victory of the king of Prussia, near Neumarck in Silesia. This devil of a Solomon is a terrible Philistine. Legend says he is already in Breslau; but legend must not always be believed.

[in the 18th century philistine is perhaps used to say someone is merciless & bloodthirsty.]

----------------------------------------

I had chosen not to include a sub-plot in which Voltaire tried to connect Marechal de Richelieu with Frederick to negotiate peace between France and Prussia - which was fruitless.

[jbuckyb-wintersoldier]

Untitled

Pairings: Bucky x fem reader, Steve x fem reader (unrequited)

Age of Ultron era

Summary: You’re a researcher working for Tony Stark who doubles as a medic for The Avengers. You could often easily detach yourself from your work, however, after meeting one Avenger in particular, you developed a soft spot for the old man.

Warnings: eventual smut (+18 plz), swearing, mentions of violence, mentions of blood.

Word Count: ~3,200

Part One

You are sitting at your desk focused intensely on your most recent project. It was long past the end of your workday, the lights of your lab having dimmed long ago. Damn Tony and his self-efficient light systems. However, this didn’t deter you from relaxing into the darkness with your eyes squinting into the bright light of your desktop screen. Your fingers danced over the keyboard with lightning speed. It seemed that nothing could distract you from your work and you could feel how close you were to finally figuring this out.

Two months ago, you found Tony leaning against the entrance of your lab with that look on his face that told you he wanted your help with something that was far out of your scope of practice. You remember rolling your eyes when he begged for your help on decoding an encrypted file found during one of his missions.

You feel your eyelids starting to become heavy as you reach a shaky hand towards your cup of coffee that had cooled hours ago.

A loud crash can be heard from the hall, followed by indistinct yelling. This causes the cold cup of coffee in your hand to fall to the floor, shattering, as its contents splash onto your heels and pants.

“Fuck,” you hissed, jumping up from your chair. “My shoes.” You say with a whine which is quickly replaced with anger. Those damn boys always fucking up your night with their antics. It was a Saturday night thus you assumed that one of the boys had gotten too drunk again.

“Lights on, Jarvis.” Your lab floods with light that blinds you for a moment. As you inspect the damage, you hear a ragged voice call your name. Pain and fear are the only words that come to mind when you try to identify the source of the voice. Your previous feelings of anger quickly turn into concern as you rush into the hallway to see what happened.

Once into the hallway your gaze meets Steve’s. He’s struggling to hold someone up. Both of them covered in cuts, bruises, and blood.

“Thank god, you’re up.” Steve’s voice sounds strained as his face contorts into what you can only describe as anguish. You rush to him and the unknown man he’s holding and help them into the medical room. Steve sets the unconscious man down on the examination table and sinks to the floor. You drop to your knees next to him.

“Steve, what the hell happened?” You question as your hands come up to cup his bloodied face. Steve had been a dear friend of yours since the Avengers came together. He’s breathing heavy, exhaustion clearly taking over him.

“Y/n, don’t worry about me. Please, help Bucky.” He looks into your eyes, his pleading voice sending a request to help the man lying on the examination table above you.

“Bucky? You finally found him?” Your voice shakes slightly, knowing Steve has been trying to locate his oldest friend for the last year. A pained smile comes across Steve’s lips.

Mission accomplished.

You jump up then, beginning to tend to Bucky’s wounds. You quickly hook him up to an IV and begin to carefully clean the rather large gash above his left temple.

“What happened?” Your gaze follows Steve as he slowly begins to get himself up from the floor.

“He didn’t recognize me, y/n. He didn’t even know who I was.” Steve’s voice trembles and you feel tears of empathy pricking the corners of your eyes for your friend.

You blink them away and quickly turn back to Bucky’s form. His long brown locks stuck to his forehead in a mixture of blood and sweat. You reach a hand towards them, tucking the sticky strands behind his ear as your fingertips slowly ghost over his bruised cheekbone. You felt hypnotized by him, something refusing to stop your hand from caressing his chiseled jaw.

What pulls you out of your stupor is the sound of Steve’s voice after returning from having cleaned himself up. You jump back, nearly dropping the washcloth in your hand. Quickly attempting to compose yourself.

“How’s he doing?” You blink rapidly at Steve’s question trying to collect your thoughts. “Uh, he’s doing better.” You quip.

“It’s getting late, I can take it from here. You seem exhausted.” Steve grasps the cloth you’re still clutching in your hand. You chuckle, “I could say the same about you.”

“Seriously y/n, I’ve got this.” Steve’s head rises to meet your eyes. A stern look taking over his handsome features. “Steve,” Your voice trembles slightly and you’re unsure if it was caused by the intense look he’s giving you or the multiple cups of coffee you’ve consumed in the last two hours. “I haven’t been able to sleep properly since Tony gave me that file. So, it’s not like I’d be sleeping otherwise.” You pick up your discarded washcloth again and go back to cleaning Bucky’s wounds.

“Y/n.” Steve’s warm palm closes over your hand that holds the bloodied washcloth. “He’s dangerous and I don’t want you around when he eventually wakes up.” Your eyes meet his pale ones again. Something about them is begging you to leave.

“Okay. Okay, fine.” The grip you held on the washcloth finally loosening. “But just so you know, I won’t be sleeping.” Steve chuckles at this, shaking his head as he looks towards the ground. His eyes meet yours again. “Sure, y/n. I’ll know where to find you if I need you.”

This time it’s your turn to chuckle, knowing that Steve is more than capable of handling himself if needed. You give him a soft smile before turning on your heel and heading back to your lab.

-

The next morning you wake with an awful ache in your neck. You slowly begin to sit up and take in your surroundings. As your eyes focus, you realize that the strain in your neck was a result of you falling asleep bent over your desk.

“Ah, finally. You’re awake.” A voice pulls you from your confused state. “Banner, what are you doing in my lab?” You ask, watching Bruce toy with the random mechanics on the desk sitting parallel to yours. “Come on, y/n. How many times do I have to tell you? This is OUR lab. As in, we share it.” He lays the object in his hands back on his desk and makes his way over to you. “You know, I was really beginning to think you were dead over here.”

Ignoring his last statement, you speak. “I’m honestly surprised you remembered where the lab is even located. Seeing how you spend most of you time in Tony’s.” You lean back in your chair and stretch out your cramping legs. “What time is it anyways?”

“Five thirty-eight. In the morning, you know, when normal people start their days.” Bruce laughs at his own joke. “Waking up that early is hardly normal, Banner. What are you doing here?”

“I told you, this is my lab too.” You raise your eyebrows at him in question. “Okay, fine. I wanted to see how close you are to figuring out that encryption. Tony’s addiment on thinking that it could help figure out our Ultron problem.”

“I’m almost there. There are a few more firewalls to get through but I think the rest will be pretty easy after that.” You sign, standing up and flattening out your wrinkled clothing. “Well, that’s good to hear. Tony has been driving me insane about it.”

“Anyways, I guess I should actually go to bed.” Bruce gives you a soft smile. “I know how you get with your work. Just because Tony is going mad attempting to figure everything out, doesn’t mean you should. Don’t work yourself too hard, y/n.”

You make your way over to Bruce and place a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks Banner, but the faster I get this done, the better chances we have at stopping Ultron before something horrible happens.” Bruce smiles again, this time though, it doesn’t extend to his eyes. “Oh come on, Bruce, I’m fine. See?” You open your arms wide in a failed attempt to show that you weren’t completely exhausted. However, the bags under your eyes tell another story.

“Okay, how about this?” Bruce strides towards your desk. “You take today off and get some form of actual sleep and I’ll work on the encryption today.” You sign and a grin takes over your features. “Oh, Banner that would be amazing. Honestly, thank you.”

“No problem. Now go get a shower or something. You reek of sour milk.” You frown and look down at yourself, realizing that the pants you were wearing are still stained with the coffee you spilt just hours before.

Once in your room, you toss your bag on the bed and make you way to your en suite bathroom. You slowly peel your shirt and pants off as the exhaustion begins to take its toll on you again. With your eyes falling closed you climb into the shower and turn on the water. The initial coldness jolts you awake but soon after, the hot streams of water cascade down your naked form. You close your eyes in bliss as the water heals your aching limbs. Your mind drifts to the events of last night. Images of Steve’s panicked face fill your mind and how he could barely drag his unconscious friend into the medic chambers.

Bucky.

Images of his strong features fill your tired mind. Even while covered in blood and bruises, you couldn’t ignore how attractive he was. God, you think to yourself, what is wrong with me? The man was nearly dead and all you could think about was his handsome appearance. Chalking it up to your lack of sleep, you finish washing yourself, get out of the shower, and crawl into bed.

-

When you wake, it's dark outside. Jolting up quickly, you look at the clock sitting on your side table. The arms read seven thirty. You decide that there isn’t much point trying to do anything else today, so you pull on some sweats and head towards the kitchen.

While trying to figure out what to eat, you hear someone enter the kitchen behind you.

“Hey y/n.” Whirling around, you meet Steve who is leaning against the doorframe. “Hey, how’s Bucky doing? Has he woken up yet?”

Pushing himself from the kitchen entrance, Steve makes his way over to you. “Yeah, he’s awake. Hasn’t said a word yet but awake.” He signs. “Do you think he remembers?”

“I’m honestly not sure, y/n. The glare he’s been giving me tells me no.” Steve scoffs. He reaches above your head to grab a box of cereal from the top shelf and pours himself a bowl. “Don’t you think it’s a little late in the day to be eating cereal, Steve?”

“What do you mean? Is cereal only a breakfast food?”

“Usually, I guess.” Is all you say as you pour a bowl for yourself and sit next to him. “Say, what is in this stuff? It tastes like pure sugar.” Steve asked as he lifts another spoonful to his mouth.

“Come on, Steve. You really can’t be complaining about the modern world’s creations while you’re simultaneously enjoying them. Cereal is meant to be sugary.” You laugh as you also taste the excessively candied chunks.

“I want to see him.” You blurt out before you can even think about it. Steve lowers his spoon and turns towards you. “I don’t know y/n. I told you, he’s dangerous. I don’t want to put you in harm’s way.”

“You don’t think I can handle myself? I’ve had my fair share of missions. Ones that even you needed my help for. I –“ You begin to state all the reasons why you know you can take care of yourself but Steve cuts you off. “I’ll let you see him,” you silently cheer in triumph. “but not yet. All of this is going to be a lot for him to understand and I don’t want to overwhelm him.” There’s a moment of silence before Steve starts to speak again. “Plus, he’s currently in solitary. I have no idea if he remembers who he is and I can’t take the chance on him getting out and hurting more people.”

“Hurting more people?” You question. Despite Steve being one of your closest friends, he had been pretty quiet when it came to his efforts in finding Bucky.

“Look, y/n, Bucky’s not himself right now.” Steve speaks slowly. “And what does that mean?” You’re starting to get irritated with Steve’s vague responses. Steve has a habit of treating you like a child, always claiming that it’s for your own protection. However, you get tired of his antics pretty quickly. Steve sighs, sensing your dismay. “Remember a while back when the Winter Soldier helped infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D?” You nod your head in understanding. “Yeah, some ex-military sergeant was brainwashed into becoming this super soldier assassin. I was with you on most of those missions.”

“Yeah, but not all of them. Bucky is the Winter Soldier. I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure how you’d react.” You furrow your brows. “Why would I react poorly? Steve, how many times do I have to prove to you that you can trust me?” Steve sighs realizing he’s made you upset. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I hid it from you, honestly.” Your frustration gets the best of you, and you lash out at Steve.

“It’s fine. Your best friend killed thousands of people, if not more. I wouldn’t want to plaster that around either.” You pick up your forgotten bowl of cereal, dumping its contents into the trash. “Oh, come on, y/n. That’s not fair! He didn’t have a choice.” Steve’s voice raises slightly. His own frustration beginning to peek.

“Like you didn’t have the choice to just tell me what was really happening all this time!? This isn’t about Bucky. Seriously, I’m so tired of you keeping things from me! I’m not a child that needs protecting. God! Haven’t I proved that after all these years?” You drop the empty bowl into the sink with a clang and whirl around to face Steve again. “Y/n, it’s not like that.”

You shake your head and laugh. “Of course not.” You turn to leave but Steve tries to stop you. “No, Steve. When you want to start telling me the truth, then come find me. Until then, I’m done talking.” You leave the kitchen and decide to make a stop at your lab.

-

As you walk the halls of the tower you admire the intricate designs covering the steel walls. You hear a ragged sob from one of the rooms you pass by. You stop dead in you tracks. For a moment, all you can hear is the quiet buzzing of the lights above, then another pained sob can be heard from the room to your right.

You reach a hand towards the door that is separating you from whoever is concealed inside. Slowly you turn the knob and quietly push the door open. As you slip through the half-opened door, your gaze falls upon the man you meet the night before. He’s trapped in what looks like a glass chamber. Large steel panels are wrapped around his chest and neck. More panels are holding his arms and legs in place, trapping him. Your gaze travels to his face. His eyes are squeezed shut, teeth bared, and beads of sweat coat his forehead causing his hair to stick to his skin. What surprises you are the tears that are slowly falling down his face.

“Bucky?” Your voice is barely above a whisper as his name falls from your lips. Bucky focuses on you with a startled expression occupying his features. “You don’t know me. I’m a friend of a friend.” He looks scared and confused, as you slowly approach the chamber. Panic begins to take over and Bucky tries his hardest to break free from his restraints.

“Hey. Hey, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.” You’re close enough that you can see Bucky’s nostrils flare as he breaths heavily. “Do you remember anything?” Your hopeful that he does. However, for what feels like hours you are only met with silence.

Finally, he speaks up. “Bits and pieces.” His voice cracks and you assume this is the first time he’s spoken since being brought to the towers last night. “Do you know who Steve is?”

“Not really, but I know that he was someone important to me. Before –“ Bucky stops himself as if it’s too painful for him to continue.

“You’re safe here. I won’t make you talk about it if it’s too much.” Against your better judgment, you place one of your palms on the glass that is separating the both of you. The pain in Bucky’s eyes starts to fade. The door opens behind you, causing you to jump back from Bucky. Turning around you meet Steve, his eyes trained on the person behind you. Without having to say a word, you know that he is furious with you. Specifically, because he had asked you to wait before meeting Bucky. Steve brushes passed you, stopping in front of the chamber.

“Hey, Buck. How are you feeling?” Despite his composure, you can feel the anger radiating from Steve’s body. Choosing to ignore his dismay with you, you turn to look at Bucky again. He’s features are hard, and he keeps his mouth glued shut. “You’re going to have to talk to me eventually.” Steve signs. He turns on his heel and grabs your wrist, pulling you out of the room.

“Y/n, what did I tell you?” Steve asks once the door is closed behind you. “I’m sorry, I just kind of stumbled upon him.” You respond sheepishly, know that is the truth. “Stumbled upon him? I know you better than that.”

“Seriously! I did!” You exclaim, throwing your arms in the air. “You know, maybe he isn’t talking to you because you have him caged up like an animal!”

“Y/n, I’m getting tired of this. You know he’s dangerous. It’s for everyone’s safety, even his.”

“He’s terrified! He can barely remember a thing! His best friend has him shackled up and confined in a box! What do you expect from him? He’s a human being. Treat him like one.” You can’t stand to speak with Steve any longer or to listen to his construed ideas of righteousness. Steve sighs, allowing his back to press against the wall behind him.

“You’re right. He shouldn’t be locked up like that, but you didn’t see him when I found him. Whatever Hydra put in his head is still there and they could use it any second to make him turn.”

“Well, let’s figure out how to get it out of his head.” With that, you head towards your lab leaving Steve alone in the hallway.

__________

Part one is complete! This is my first time writing, so give me pointers xx

Thank you for reading! (I will continue this drabble if ppl want more, let me know!)

- Lex

[justheretobreakthings]

Remember Me - Chapter 14

(First Chapter) (Previous Chapter) (Next Chapter)

Word Count: 5,504 (Total Word Count: 57,367) Read on AO3

Story Summary:

It was strange enough for the paladins of Voltron to have found another human this far from home, locked in a Galra prison. But it was stranger still when this human insisted that he knew them, and even that he was the former red paladin of Voltron.

That couldn’t possibly be true, could it? After all, if this Keith was actually a part of the Voltron team, then why does nobody remember him?

Chapter Preview:

“Keith,” Allura snapped. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

“Saving the stupid mission, what’s it look like I’m doing?” Keith shot back.

“You were supposed to stay on the bridge with Coran!”

“Whoops,” Keith said drily. “Guess I forgot. Lance, on your eleven.”

“On my - hey!” Lance yelped, veering Red away as Keith sped by mere inches from her port flank. “Watch where you’re flying!”

“How’re things looking, Pidge?”

“Well, the intel holds true. We’re definitely getting readings in line with the ones the rebels sent us.”

“And you’re sure it’s quintessence?”

“Either that or the most bizarre new form of static cling ever discovered.”

Allura sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as she frowned up at the screen where imaging from the Green Lion’s viewport was being projected back into the bridge, where the other paladins stood gathered, watching intently. “Pidge,” Allura said, “What have I told you about being sarcastic when reporting to base?”

“Hard to say, princess, I tend to tune you out when we get onto that topic.”

“Pidge,” Shiro said, tone scolding.

“Sorry. In any case, there’s definitely readings of quintessence on this ship, but it’s also definitely… different.”

“Different how?” Allura asked. “Different like the quintessence the Blade’s been trailing?”

“No, see here.” The view on the screen switched to Pidge’s helmet cam, and she pointed to a readout on her dashboard. “There’s no pattern to the energy surges. The quintessence that the Blade found in connection to Lotor had different energy readings than the ones we have on record from that druid lab we found way back when, but they were still regular. This stuff here, though, it’s like - it seems… unstable.”

“Maybe it’s because you’re moving around in Green,” Lance suggested. “Like, you know, you’re getting closer and farther to the ship, so the reading’s weird?”

“No, Lance,” Pidge sighed. “That’s not it.”

“Well, we can’t know that for sure until - ”

“Yes, we can. Distance doesn’t affect how Green picks up quintessential residue. She releases a signal toward a pre-calculated epicenter on the targeted area that remains completely static regardless of - ”

“Never mind,” Lance said. “I just decided you know what you’re doing.”

“Oh, goody, I feel validated.”

“Could whatever’s creating the quintessence energy be being actively altered right now?” Shiro asked. “Perhaps there’s a working lab in that ship?”

“Doubtful,” Coran spoke up. “Not with that make of ship. It’s a cargo ship, for one thing, but beyond that, it looks to be modeled after the Galra’s old Lexell-N-13 ships. Wonderful stability in the engine room, but notoriously terrible at maintaining internal gravity levels. A dreadful place to be doing precision lab work.”

“So, what are we looking at, then?” Allura asked.

“Transporting supplies, no doubt,” Coran answered. “Whatever’s leaving the quintessence traces may be what’s being experimented upon.”

“Not sure if that really gives us the greatest well of answers as to what the druids have been up to,” Keith commented from the back of the group. “Not if we don’t get access to their process in action, I mean.” This was the first he had spoken since Allura had told them about the signal the rebel group had picked up. Amid their wormholing to the coordinates and sending Pidge out in her cloaked Green Lion to scout out the ship the rebels had come across, he had remained quiet, intently focused.

“Perhaps not the greatest,” Coran replied, “But still useful. We can certainly glean information from whatever is being transported, both the cargo itself and inventory logs, and if they’re keeping travel records, we could use those to find out where the ship is coming from and where it’s going - two other locations that would be immense resources to us.”

Shiro nodded. “All right. Princess, your call: are we looking at an infiltration mission here?”

“That would probably be the best course of action,” Allura answered.

Lance lifted his hand in question. “Should we go for hijacking the ship while we’re down there? I’m just thinking, if this stuff important to Witch Lady, probably would be helpful to keep it from getting to checkpoint B, right?”

“Not in this case, no,” said Allura. “If we’re able to get information about the ship’s docking points, we’re going to want to be able to go investigate them afterward. As long as we’re stealthy and don’t impede the ship’s route, they won’t know we’re coming. If we interfere with them though, or if they’re able to send off any communication that something’s gone wrong en route, they’ll have time to clear the evidence. And if that prison was anything to go by, it seems that’s something at which the druids are quite adept.”

“All right,” Shiro said with a brisk nod. “I could join Pidge, and we can go down in Green and try and make our way into the ship.”

“Sounds good,” Allura said. “Lance, be on standby in Red in case they need help making a quick exit. Hunk and I can ready Blue and Yellow in case any shots start firing, and we can regroup once you’re either finished, or if a battle situation erupts.”

“What should I do?” Keith asked as the others started toward their ziplines.

Allura paused mid-step. “What - what should you do?”

Keith nodded. “Yeah. Should I ride down with someone, or do we have any cruisers to spare, or…?”

“Right. Right.” Allura cleared her throat. “Well, actually, er, it - it would probably be very helpful to have an extra set of eyes here on the bridge to, say, keep an eye on - ”

“Uh-huh,” Keith cut her off, and Lance could practically see him physically deflating. “Yeah, I’m sure that’ll be helpful.”

Allura sighed. “Keith, this isn’t a matter of you not being helpful, it’s - ”

“I just figured, you know, this is sort of my mission too, isn’t it?” Keith asked. “I mean, we’re - we’re looking into this ship because it’s a lead on, um, my - my, uh, my whole… deal, with Haggar, and I thought - ”

“Keith - ”

“And like I’ve already told you, I’ve got experience with infiltration missions, so I know what I - ”

“Keith,” Shiro said. He had doubled back toward him from his path toward the zipline, and he set his hand on Keith’s shoulder, turning the smaller man slightly to look him in the face. “I promise you, this isn’t anything personal. I’m sure you’d do just fine on a mission. But right now, we just need to do this quickly and efficiently, and that’s going to be more difficult if there’s an unfamiliar element in the mix, you know? We’re, ah, used to the current Voltron dynamic, we know how to work off of it.”

Keith bit at his lower lip for a moment before dropping his gaze and nodding. “Right, sorry,” he mumbled. “I hadn’t thought of - I’ll, uh, stay here with Coran.” Shiro smiled and patted his shoulder before moving away.

“Oh, I’m honored to have the companionship!” Coran said, brightly and just a little too loudly to be perfectly natural, before throwing his arm around Keith’s shoulder and tugging him toward the mission control screens. “Don’t know how many of these instruments you’re familiar with, so let me give you a quick rundown!”

He began an enthusiastic tutorial of the various monitors and buttons, and the other paladins took the opportunity to start toward the ziplines again. Lance shuffled over to walk beside Shiro. “You know,” he whispered. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Do what?” Shiro asked.

“Like, give Keith a whole speech if he doesn’t like an order? I know you’ve never been big on pulling rank, but, I mean, you and Allura are in charge, right?”

Shiro shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt anything. ‘Specially when he’s still not in the greatest state mentally and all.”

“He’s a lot better on that mark lately. It just doesn’t seem - ”

“Gotta split up here, Lance,” Shiro said, gesturing toward the zipline entrances.

Lance huffed out a breath. “Right,” he grunted, parting ways with Shiro and moving toward his own zipline. He could let the matter drop. It wasn’t as if he actually cared about whether Shiro was coddling Keith too much. It just had seemed worth a mention.

That’s all.

He slid down the zipline and into Red’s waiting cockpit, and from there he flew out of the hangar to wait, and it was easy to put any concerns about how Shiro was handling Keith to the back of his mind. Red had a way of keeping him focused during a mission. Lance wasn’t sure if it was just the thrill that came with being in the pilot seat, or if the Red Lion’s own keenness and confidence were contagious. Probably the latter, if he were to be honest. And it was something he wouldn’t trade away for the world.

He waited for the others to get their places situated; Allura and Hunk were flanking Black on the way down so Shiro could move into Green for the infiltration itself, and keeping the lion covered until Shiro could return to the pilot’s seat. Once Shiro had made his move, he tailed Green along back toward the Galra ship, keeping his distance.

“Found what looks to be a good entry point over beneath this wing,” Pidge said into the comms. “I can keep Green’s cloaking on and dock her. Lance, keep an eye out on the exterior and be ready in case we need to use a different exit point.”

“Roger,” Lance said. He started Red on a wide swingaround to the other side of the Galra ship, keeping his eyes peeled all the while for any activity.

“You got any schematics you can send my way, Coran?”

“Got some for the old Lexell-N-13,” Coran answered. “Not sure it will be precisely the same as this ship, but should give you a good guideline.”

“Pass ‘em over,” Pidge said. “Long as an access point to their security network’s in roughly the same place, I’m good to go.”

Lance kept his position in the air, and the others were quiet over their comms as they waited before Shiro said softly, “Disembarking Green now.”

“Got you on my radar, Shiro,” Lance said, pulling up the thermal imaging scope on Red’s dashboard and focusing onto the entry site Pidge had pointed out earlier, where two bright blurs indicated Shiro and Pidge’s presence. “Think your coast is clear.”

“All right, I’ll make my way toward security,” Pidge said. “Assuming that these schematics are accurate?”

“I’m eighty percent sure that they are,” Coran said.

“Good enough. Okay, Shiro, quintessence reading’s mostly centered farther back along the cargo bay toward the aft fuselage. Start heading that way, I’ll monitor you?”

“Already on it,” Shiro said.

Lance watched as the two blurs from their heat signatures parted and took off, tracking them until they started overlapping with others on the ship in connecting hallways. At that point he minimized the thermal vision on his dashboard and brought Red around to monitor from behind the cover of one of the ship’s elevons.

“At the security bank,” Pidge said after a few doboshes, “How’s everyone holding up?”

“Hunk and I are holding steady out here, Pidge,” Allura replied.

“Same here,” Lance said.

“Think I’m gonna need a hand, actually,” Shiro said. “Door’s not responding to my arm.”

“Shit, hang on, I don’t see any alarm raised or anything, so what did - ”

“It didn’t light up red or sound an alarm, it was just unresponsive. Seems like it’s turned off.”

“All right, hang on, let me get that powered back up for you.” There was quiet for a few moments before Pidge said, “Uh, Shiro, what door are you trying to open?”

“The cargo bay entrance? Why?”

“Well, I’m looking, and I can’t find any entrance to the cargo bay.”

“What?”

“Like, there’s definitely a cargo hold here on the ship, got official schematics here in the security bank, but I can’t… figure out how to get there.”

“Could you send those schematics my way, Pidge?” Coran asked.

“Sure thing.”

“Pidge?” said Shiro. “If this isn’t the entrance to the cargo hold - ”

“Hold on, let me find you on the monitors… yeah, looks like you’re trying to access a liquid hydrogen tank.”

“Then how do I get to the cargo hold?”

“I’m looking…”

“Don’t forget, Pidge,” Coran said. “You’re also looking for access to transport records and inventory logs.” In the background, Lance could hear Keith’s voice softly ask, “Can I look at the schematics?”

“Yeah, yeah, I didn’t forget,” Pidge said. “I’ve got two hands, Coran, I can only type so much at once.”

“So what should I - ” Shiro started.

“Lay low for sec,” Pidge answered. “Look, I’ll - I’ll keep an eye on the cameras while I work my way into their records, Coran can start trying to figure out a way into the cargo hold.”

“I don’t think there is one,” Keith said.

A pause, then, “Come again, Mullet?” Lance asked.

“Well, I mean, there is, technically, but it’s not - look, I recognize these schematics, we infiltrated a ship with this exact same layout once when I was with the Blades, must have been the same model of - ”

“Now, Keith,” Allura sighed, “We have been over this. You were never actually - ”

“No, okay, whatever, I wasn’t actually a Blade, but I swear, I know this ship! And you’re not gonna be able to get to the cargo hold, not from inside.”

“What are you talking about?” Pidge asked.

“It’s an added security measure to ensure that only select people have access to whatever’s being transported. You can’t get to the cargo hold from inside, not unless you go completely smashing through some walls. The only way to get to the cargo is through the exterior bay doors, and they locking mechanisms and key codes aren’t connected to the ship’s internal network, so Pidge won’t be able to hack them from where she is.”

“Aw, isn’t it so sweet how much the Galra all respect and trust each other,” Pidge muttered. “So what, we’re gonna have to go try to get into the cargo bay from the outside?”

“Nothing doing, short stuff,” Lance said. “I’ve got the exterior cargo bay doors in my view. Windows all around, right in the line of a laser turret just off the starboard wing, no place to dock Green… there’s no way in Hell you’d ever be able to get in there without being spotted.”

Keith let out a little grunt of frustration before saying, “Well, then, forget about the stealth, and you can just - ”

“Absolutely not,” Allura said. “Remember, if we give away our activity, we give them the opportunity to clear out evidence wherever the ship is intending to go.”

“But - ”

“Sorry, Keith, but Allura’s right,” Shiro said. “For now, we may just have to forego the cargo and focus on Pidge’s info download.”

“...Fine.”

“Well,” Pidge said. “The good news is, that shouldn’t take much longer. Think I’m just about into their primary drive, so if we - ” A sudden blare sounded into the comms, making Lance wince and put a hand over his ear. “Fuck!” Pidge spat.

“What happened?!” Shiro cried.

“Pidge, did you trigger an alarm?!” Hunk asked.

“No, no way, I - ”

Whatever she said next, Lance didn’t hear. His eyes widened as one of the turrets on the ship rotated toward him. A nudge from Red kept his surprise from freezing him in his tracks, and he had time to grab onto the steering and pull away before a laser blast came shooting his way.

“Crap!” Hunk yelped. “They’re shooting!”

“You don’t say?!” Lance grunted. “Sorry, Pidge, they spotted Red, think that’s what triggered the alarm!”

“Shit,” Pidge muttered. “Woulda been nice for you to wait a few minutes more before making your grand entrance, Lance!”

“Hey, Red is a gigantic robot lion in the sky, there’s only so much I can do to keep her from being noticed!”

“Paladins, please!” Allura said. “This is not the time! Pidge, Shiro, get back to Green! I’ll escort Black around so Shiro can make the transfer. Hunk, you’re on defense, get to Lance and stave off any attacks. Coran, prepare the castle for me to return and make a wormhole for us.”

A chorus of ‘right’s and ‘roger’s sounded through the comms as everyone hastened to comply with the orders. Lance dove out of the way of another blast from the ship before sending one of his own back through Red’s open mouth.

“Hey,” Keith said. “As long as your cover’s been blown - ”

“Not really a good time, Keith!” Lance shouted as he narrowly dodged another blast.

“But we can use whatever’s in the cargo hold!”

“Keith, we don’t have time,” Pidge said. “I don’t know how long it will take to figure out the locking mechanism on the bay doors, and we can’t - ”

“Then forget the locking mechanism, you can get through the doors by force!”

“If we wreck the doors or the cargo bay, we’ll no doubt also destroy the cargo,” said Shiro.

“If you’re careful about where you hit, there will be enough left intact to at least get something! Bring one of the Lions close enough, and - ”

“Even if that is the case, they’ve got weapons mounted right outside the cargo bay,” Lance pointed out. “You try to get into it, you’ll get shot down easy.”

“Not if you’re fast and you dodge!”

“Enough!” Allura said firmly. “We’re cutting our losses now, and that’s that. This is not up for debate.”

Keith let out a growl of frustration, and Lance heard a thump in the comms before Coran said, “Keith, where are you - ?” He paused, then, “Think he left to cool down.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Shiro said. “We’re at Green, boarding her now. Allura, ETA?”

“Within the dobosh,” she answered.

“On the bright side, least this wasn’t a total wash,” Pidge said. “Managed to get those transport records opened up before the alarm sounded, so I’ve got coordinates on hand now.”

“Those coordinates certainly would have been more helpful if we’d been able to maintain stealth, but I suppose they’re better than nothing,” Allura said. “We’ll have to - ” She stopped as a beeping sounded over the comms, followed by a thoughtful “Hm” from Coran. “Coran?” she asked. “What was that?”

“Erm, nothing, princess,” Coran answered.

“Coran - ”

“Allura, we’ve got visual on you and Black!” Shiro interrupted. “Moving in for transfer now.”

“Right, right,” Allura said.

“Feel free to hurry,” Lance said as Red sent another blast of flame toward the ship, “Sooner we get that wormhole opened, the better.”

“We’re all more than aware of that, Lance,” Allura said.

“Hey, guys? Looks like they have reinforcement coming in,” Hunk said.

“Quiznak, you’re kidding me!” Allura said. “What are we looking at here?”

“Just a small cruiser on my six o’clock, but I don’t know if more are intending to follow.”

“You and Lance hurry and take care of them.”

“On it,” Lance said, moving Red so that Yellow was blocking the ship from her before turning to face the new threat.

Just as he was preparing a beam, though, his comm crackled and Keith’s voice sounded into his ear. “Wait, wait, don’t shoot, that’s me!”

“Keith?!” Lance cried. “You’re their reinforcements?!”

“Wha - no! This is one of the castle’s cruisers!”

“Keith,” Allura snapped. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

“Saving the stupid mission, what’s it look like I’m doing?” Keith shot back.

“You were supposed to stay on the bridge with Coran!”

“Whoops,” Keith said drily. “Guess I forgot. Lance, on your eleven.”

“On my - hey!” Lance yelped, veering Red away as Keith sped by mere inches from her port flank. “Watch where you’re flying!”

“I know what I’m doing, Lance,” Keith growled.

“Like fuck you do,” Lance muttered as he turned to watch Keith speeding straight toward the ship. “Hey dumbass, you do realize that’s where the lasers are coming from, right?!”

“I’m aware,” Keith answered, dodging one even as they spoke, not letting up on his speed for a moment.

“I’m heading back toward the castle, wormhole to follow shortly,” Allura said. “What exactly are you - ?”

“I told you,” Keith said, “You wanna get into that cargo bay, you gotta use force.”

“Keith, you’re gonna get shot down before you get within a mile of that cargo!” Lance shouted.

“No, I’m not!”

“Yes, you - oh, for the love of - ” He hastily turned Red to fire at the turret that had been aiming for Keith’s cruiser. “See?! That thing just almost took you out!”

“But it didn’t!”

“Yeah, and you got me to thank for that! Now would you just - ” A crash echoed over the comms, and Lance’s jaw dropped as Keith rammed diagonally right into the exterior cargo hold door, leaving a massive dent in its wake.

“Keith!” Shiro shouted. “Stop that, you’re going to wind up hurt!”

“I already said I know what I’m doing,” Keith said. He started making a wide turn away from the ship, getting back into position to start careening toward it again.

“I hope you’re aware that the castle’s healing pods aren’t quite as good at healing corpses,” Allura said.

“Noted,” Keith replied, right before another crash, louder still than the one before it, and this time Keith’s cruiser managed to get through the cargo bay door, the tail end of the ship left sticking out of the vaguely cruiser-shaped hole in the metal.

“... Keith?” Shiro said. “Keith, come in! Keith!”

“Oh my God, is Keith dead?!” Hunk squeaked out.

“I’m fine,” Keith groaned. “Just… just a little winded.”

“Keith, are you hurt?” Shiro asked.

“I’m disemarking for a moment.”

“That doesn’t answer my question!”

“Hang on, there’s - shit,” Keith spat. Blasts started coming through the comms, and when Lance squinted, he could see small flashes of light in the edges of the hole not currently blocked by the cruiser. “What the hell’s going on in there?” Lance asked.

“I don’t think the cargo hold likes visitors…” Keith said.

“Then get the fuck out of there!” Pidge shouted. “Guess the locking mechanism’s not the only security on that cargo.”

“I know, I’m going, I’m going,” Keith said, and a few ticks later, the cruiser moved, backing out of the cargo door. A couple of small laser blasts followed him out, narrowly missing the cockpit.

As the cruiser made it out of the ship and started moving away, Lance kept half an eye on it. The vehicle didn’t look to be in the same shape it had been before its crash - only natural, he supposed - and Keith was no longer flying nearly as smoothly as before. The cruiser kept slowing and speeding, and repeatedly lurched to the side before being pulled back onto its course.

“Keith, I don’t think you’re ship’s in a good state to be in battle right now,” Shiro said over the comms before Lance could say anything. Seems he wasn’t the only one who noticed the erratic flying.

“It’s nothing,” Keith replied. “Just some dents.”

“It looks like a hell of a lot more than some dents. If you can’t fly it - ”

“I can fly it just fine, it’s just a little - ” He broke off to let out a small cry as a shot from the Galra ship caught his starboard wing, leaving him spinning out for a few ticks before managing to find equilibrium again.

“Just some dents, huh?” Pidge asked.

Keith was silent for a moment before hesitantly replying, “I, uh… I might need some help.”

“I’ve got him,” Lance said, resisting the urge to tear his eyes away from the battle long enough to roll them. “Hunk, cover me.”

“Roger that,” Hunk said. Yellow made a wide turn to fly between Red and the Galra ship, and Lance sped to where Keith’s little cruiser floated to scoop him up into Red’s mouth.

“Thanks,” Keith grunted.

“Uh-huh,” said Lance. “Now, what have we learned today about crashing ourselves into bigger ships and expecting to fly off unscathed afterward?”

“That you’re too chickenshit to try it?” Keith asked, his tone gratingly innocent. Lance scowled and grabbed a joystick on the dash to make Red shake her head back and forth. “Hey!” Keith yelped. “What are you doing?!”

“Sorry, Red had an itch,” Lance said.

“The lions don’t get itches.”

“And you would know that how, exactly?”

Keith went quiet, and Lance had to grimace to himself a little. Admittedly, that remark had been a bit of a low blow. He opened his mouth with the intent to say as much, but lost his trail of thought when the castle’s wormhole opened up in the sky before him.

“All right team, moving out,” Shiro said, and Black led the way through the wormhole, Red and her catch bringing up the rear.

The universe around Lance went eerily quiet as it always did when they went through a wormhole, that sudden transition away from the noise of battle always leaving a ringing in his ears. The silence was soon relieved by a buzz of conversation on the comms, appraising what they’d gotten from that mission and asking what was to be done next.

“Keith, are you going to need a pod?” Shiro asked as Lance neared Red’s hangar.

“Uh, hard to say,” Keith replied. “Think my ship’s more banged up than me, to be honest.”

“Well, it wouldn’t hurt to check just to make sure. Coran?”

“Right-oh, Number One,” Coran said. “I’ll meet you boys in the hangar!”

“Thanks,” Keith grunted right as Red touched down. Lance lowered Keith’s cruiser to the floor delicately, taking care not to jostle it as a silent apology for knocking him around earlier.

Keith was struggling out of the cruiser as Lance descended from Red’s jaw, and the latter let out a low whistle at the state of the smaller vehicle now that he could get a better look at it. A chunk of the starboard wing had been torn off from that blast it had taken, and the crash had left the forward bulkhead half caved in. “Damn,” Lance said, “If this is what you consider ‘dented’, I’d hate to see your idea of a wreck.”

“It’s… probably mostly cosmetic damage,” Keith said, and Lance turned to him. This was also first time getting a look at Keith, since their communication had been entirely over the comms rather than any video feed, and Lance raised his brow at the other’s appearance. Keith had at some point outfitted himself in a thick, boxy armor and helmet, silvery-white save for pale blue accents on the joints and above the visor, a color scheme Lance recognized as that belonging to the old Altean military uniforms in the castle’s storage. Keith finished exiting the ship fully, pale face grimacing as he planted himself on the metal floor of the hangar. His left arm was tucked into his abdomen, his right arm wrapped around it, and he tilted as he found his footing.

Lance frowned. “Your ability to assess your ship’s damage doesn’t give me much faith in your whole ‘I don’t need a pod’ thing.” Keith just sighed.

The door to Red’s hangar opened then with its electronic whir, and Coran marched in with an authoritative stride. “All right, let’s see what the damage - good gracious!” he said as he approached and got a look at the ship. “That looks like - ”

“Yeah, I know,” Keith said. “I’m sorry. It can be repaired though, right?”

“Nothing’s ever beyond repair,” Coran replied. “But it certainly won’t be a quick job.” He tutted as he stepped in to examine the ship more closely. “You’ve got Hunk and my work cut out for us, haven’t you.”

“Sorry,” Keith said again.

“Well, what’s done is done.” He shook his head before turning back to Keith. “Now, boy, this ship’s not the only thing that took a beating, correct?” He gestured toward Keith’s abdomen. “Come now, let the Coranic have a look.”

Keith slowly moved his arm away, and Lance winced when the left hand came away covered in a splattering of scarlet. Coran pounced immediately, tutting away as he moved Keith’s arms aside and examined the injury himself, so Lance had to step around and crane his neck to see the blood seeping through a seam in the plackart.

“Dear dear,” Coran said. “I assume this was from that little crash?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Keith said. “Kinda wound up thrown into some dented part of the ship’s dashboard. I, uh… there was a little, um, I felt a crack.”

“A rib may have broken through the skin,” Coran remarked. “Let’s see about getting this armor removed, yes?”

“Is everything all right?” a voice called. Lance looked up to see the others at the entrance to the hangar. Shiro was at the front of the group, making his way briskly toward them, and he hadn’t even so much as removed his helmet before coming to check the damage, just having rolled up the visor instead. “Keith, are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” Keith answered as Shiro stepped in to hover over him at Keith’s side. The others, as they joined, hung back, giving Keith some space.

“Okay, my ass,” Shiro said. “You’re bleeding.”

“Well, I’ve had worse,” Keith said. “It’s not like this is the first time I’ve ever crashed a ship.” He squeezed his eyes shut and sucked a breath between his teeth as Shiro carefully peeled the chestplate from him. “And this one wasn’t even so bad. Yeah, I got thrown, but - but normally I hold up better than this, I swear.”

“Where did you get that armor?” Allura asked, frowning at the chestplate.

“Uh, in the armory?”

“Why did you select this armor?”

“It - it looked like it would fit? Why?”

“Because, this is infantry armor,” Allura answered. “It’s no wonder you got hurt. This armor’s not designed to hold against the sort of impact that would come from a full-bodied high-speed collision.” She lifted her gaze from the armor to Keith’s face, eyes narrowed. “You’re awfully lucky you weren’t hurt worse.”

“Good,” Keith muttered. “‘Bout time I got some good luck.” He gasped as Shiro gently probed at the underarmor an inch above the spot where the skin had broken.

“Definitely going to need a pod,” Shiro said grimly. “Keith, honestly, you gave us all a scare with that stunt of yours. If you want to go on missions with the team, you can’t just - ”

“Hey, that stunt got us quintessence, didn’t it?” Keith snapped.

The others paused, all holding still and staring at Keith in silence. “Um… what?” Shiro said.

“The quintessence. Snatched some before whatever security was in the cargo hold started firing on me. It’s in the cockpit.”

Immediately Allura turned and climbed onto the ship, clambering into the cockpit and stretching past the caved-in parts only to soon slide back out. Her eyes were wide as she gazed at the two clear tubes in her hand, each filled nearly to the top with a glowing, pale-yellow liquid.

“Well,” Shiro said softly. “I’ll be damned.”

“You’re welcome,” Keith said flatly.

Allura sighed. “Keith, regardless of whether or not you managed to - ”

“So sorry to interrupt, princess,” Coran said. “I’m in total agreement that Keith’s in need of a nice long lecture, but perhaps it ought to be saved until after he’s had his time in the pod? Shouldn’t be more than a varga or two.”

“Fine,” Allura said. “Get healed up, then we can discuss your… conduct. I’ll take charge of these in the meantime.” She gestured with a tilt of her head toward the vials of quintessence in her arms.

Keith nodded to her as Shiro slid his arm around Keith’s shoulders in preparation to walk him to the med bay. “Coran and I will get that taken care of,” Shiro said. “You three, go ahead and wind down; we can debrief once Keith’s out of the pod.”

The others nodded, and the group made their way out of the hangar. Beyond the door, they separated, Allura off to the bridge, Shiro and Coran balancing Keith between them en route to the med bay, and the rest heading off to the living quarters.

“All right, I’m just gonna say it,” Lance said as soon as Keith was out of earshot. “Anyone else starting to think New Guy is kind of an asshole?”

“Maybe a little bit,” Pidge said with a shrug. “But even you have to admit, he was pretty badass out there today.”

“Badasshole,” Hunk commented, and, at the looks the other two sent him, added, “Sorry, continue.”

“I’m just saying,” Lance said. “Hey, you guys don’t think Allura and Shiro are actually going to let Keith start joining us on missions and stuff, do you? I mean, yeah, he’s all eager for it, and okay, sure, he can pilot, but after that crap he was pulling, can’t imagine he’s much when it comes to, say, following orders and, oh, not almost killing himself.”

“Hard to say,” Pidge replied. They turned the corner into the hallway housing their bedrooms. “Guess it’ll be their call. If nothing else, having him along for missions will definitely make them, um… exciting.”

Lance rolled his eyes as he made his way to his own bedroom. “And isn’t that just what Voltron needs,” he said drily as he opened the door. “More excitement.”

[boymeetsweevil]

blue, not blanc - nsfw

Grouping: Reader x Jimin, SMUT wow

Word Count: ~4.5k 

Warnings: straight up sex, fingering, panty fetish perhaps? breathplay if you squint?? DEFINITELY NSFW

Based off the following prompt :) 

1.5 months before

Jimin was cooking dinner, like the good fiancé he was. You slid into a seat at the breakfast bar and sighed, hoping he would turn around to see what you needed. When he merely hummed in greeting you were forced to cut to the chase.

“I have a favor to ask you,” your sheepish tone finally made him to look up from the red sauce he had been painstakingly simmering, “I need you to be my date for the black and white investment dinner. I’m letting you know now so you can’t say you already made plans.”


“How do you know I don’t already have plans?”


“Jimin, please. Its a month and a half from now and we know you don’t plan that far ahead.”


“Maybe I should start.” He stuck his tongue out at you before turning back to his precious marinara.


“You can start by making sure you have a suit. And it has to be white.”

“Why does it have to be white? Isn’t that too...Las Vegas or something?”


“Its white because the firm chooses the color scheme. This year the investors wear black and the firm employees wear white. It’s an annual thing. Please.”


Jimin sighed, but didn’t argue further. You came as his date to all the horrible holiday parties they hosted every year at the newspaper. You even bought an ugly sweater the year he had been trying to suck up to his boss for a promotion. To this day he’s convinced that heinous wool article is what got him his current position of junior editor.

“What color should the tie be?” He walked over to your spot at the kitchen table, one hand cupped beneath the wooden spoon he held in the other. You leaned in to try it before flashing a thumbs up when it didn’t seem to be lacking any specific ingredient.


“The tie doesn’t have to be a specific color as long as it goes with your suit and my dress,” you froze mid sentence, “Shit. I need a dress.” You were quiet for a few beats as you watched him hunt around for the chili pepper flakes before calling his name sweetly. Too sweetly.


“What is it now?”


“I have such a bad migraine that if I so much as look at another screen tonight, I’ll cry. Do you think maybe you could possibly buy the dress for me after dinner? From that French store where you bought that scarf you got me?”


“Sure.”


“Great. I’ll send you the links. Oh, I need their no-show underwear too. It’s better than going commando, I swear,” you said cheerfully as you pulled out your phone.


“I thought your head was going to explode if you looked at another screen.”


“How else am I going to send you the links, Minnie?”


He raised an incredulous eyebrow and put a steaming plate in front of you.

“So, do I have to buy them tonight or can it wait a little. I’m waiting on a call from Taehyung about the parts for that vintage coffee maker I’ve been working on.”


“Well,” you chewed your noodles thoughtfully, “I guess as long as you don’t wait longer than 2 weeks. Everything always sells out of that shop really fast so you have to be quick about it, especially the underwear. I would buy it myself but my boss has been working me to the bone with reviewing these new manuscripts.”


“Leave it to me.”


24 days following

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,” he muttered to himself.

Jimin felt anxious sweat begin to prick at his hairline as he read your messages over and over again. He checked his calendar and grimaced when he saw that there were less than 3 weeks until the dinner and he still hadn’t ordered your clothes like you’d asked him to.

Once his order was called, he took his drink and sprinted out of the coffee shop he had been working in to drive back to his apartment where he’d left his laptop.

Your warning about items selling out and customs holding packages for an extra long time haunted him as he scoured his texts for the links you’d sent a little less than a month ago.

Jackpot.

He opened your laptop and carefully typed in the name of the dress you had bookmarked and sent to him. It was a nice dress, he noted, as he clicked on the drop-down menu and scrolled through the color available color options. When his cursor landed on the color IV (for ivory, as detailed in your text) he said a small thank you to the forces of the universe above. He added the dress to the cart and went to the search bar again to find the underwear. He blew out another breath of relief when he saw that the famous no-show panties weren’t all sold out. 

He searched for ivory again but he couldn’t find it. Is it sold out? How could it be sold out? All that’s left is BL. What’s BL. BL...for blanc because its french for white and ivory is white. I’m a genius. he pat himself on the back as he put the underwear in his cart and entered his card number. He had to grit his teeth when he saw the large chunk of change it would cost him to expedite shipping, but he supposed it was a meager price to pay for almost missing out on buying your dress after you’d asked so far in advance. 10 days later, Jimin received the package and called you to let you know that as soon as you finished your last manuscript you should hurry over and try on the dress to see if it needed any alterations. You swung by one morning later in the week to try on the dress in his en suite on your way to work. 

“Does it fit,” he asked in a half yawn as he leaned against the bathroom door. He nearly fell on his face when you swung the door open and handed him the haphazardly folded dress because you were running late.


“Yep. See you back here Friday! Make sure your suit is ready,” you shouted before swinging his door closed.


The day

Friday rolled around too quickly for comfort. You had barely gotten 2 days to rest from non-stop reading and editing before you had to commute to Jimin’s immediately after work. 

“Who the fuck schedules a gala at 7:30 on a Friday”, you had fumed to yourself earlier during rush hour.

Currently, Jimin was brushing his teeth in the bathroom frantically, dress shirt still half open, only briefs, and tube socks adorning his lower half. He was thinking about whether he would need to waste time styling his hair, seeing as the humidity from his shower was causing it to wave gently, when he heard a shout from the bedroom.

“Wha happeth? Ah you hut?” He panted around his toothbrush.


Nothing seemed to be wrong. Half your hair was in curlers and you still had your towel on as you stared down into the box where the dress and underwear were stashed away.

“I told you to order white underwear. Look at this,” you pulled the panties from their wrapping to reveal that they were in fact slightly lighter than Tiffany blue. “Minnie, didn’t you check the color before you selected it?”


“I dih--” he ran to rinse out his mouth and replace his toothbrush before coming back. “I did. It said it was white, it had a little BL and everything. For blanc. Because its French,” he trailed off. You squeezed your eyes shut.

“The site settings were in English, Jimin. I can’t read French. BL is blue,” you said quietly.


You picked up the receipt and handed the slip to the confused man.

“It says BL for---for blue.”


“Yeah,” you said lowly as you began to pull on the delicate underwear.


“I-I’m sorry. I really thought I picked the right color.”


“It’s alright, Minnie. It was a simple mistake, I shouldn’t have gotten so worked up in the first place. You were only helping me.”


“At least it’ll be covered up by your dress, right?” 


“At least there’s that,” you gave him a shaky smile, “Are you done with the bathroom? I’ll just go finish up in there and meet you by the door.”


“Alright.” He ran a head through his hair nervously, mussing up his bangs slightly. 

As he spun his car keys around, Jimin wondered whether the clothing would put a damper on the rest of the night when the sound of your shoes approaching shook him out of his musings.

The ivory of the dress looked against your skin was amazing and the way it molded itself to your figure took his breath away. But he could tell by the way your lips were drawn that you were still upset.

“What’s the matter?”


“The dress its...see-through. You can see the blue. I’m going to be the laughing stock of the whole company.” Jimin’s eyes dipped down and he saw that the blue stood out through the sheer, satiny material of the dress. 


“How about you call in sick and skip it. There’s no use in being uncomfortable all night for no reason.”


“I can’t. I volunteered to handle the jewelry auction. And my promotion is practically contingent on my being there. I have to go.” Frustrated tears welled up in your eyes.


“Well, you look beautiful. I almost don’t regret picking the wrong color,” he said while shrugging off his white suit jacket, “You can use this as a cover. It was making me feel too Vegas anyway.”

The joke fell flat when you simply spread your hands over the skirt one final time and took the jacket. You mumbled a quiet “Thank you.”

Much to his chagrin, the dress did put a damper on the whole evening. More specifically, on your evening. Jimin had a relatively good time. He had 3 free Shirley Temples and a shameful amount of gluten-free mini quiches. But even on the car ride home, your disappointment towards having to wear a jacket over such a beautiful dress all evening was palpable. When you arrived home, both of you seemed to release breaths you didn’t realize you were holding.

Immediately you began to strip out of your attire, exhausted from the gala. Jimin couldn’t help but watch you peel off the dress in your haste to get ready for bed. Because you were wearing a towel earlier, he hadn’t gotten a look at the delicate garments you had on underneath.

“Those are pretty on you,” he ventured quietly, ”The color is good.”


“Thanks. I can’t wait to go straight to sleep.”

 You removed your bra, threw on a sleep shirt, and hiked some sweatpants over the blue underwear.


He nodded and got ready for bed as well, all the while the image of you in blue burned bright on the backs of his eyelids while he waited for you to finish cleaning your teeth and washing your face. 

When Jimin felt the mattress dip with your weight, he waited a bit to gauge your mood. With your back to him and the way you lay close to the far edge of your side, it seemed you were still upset. But you weren’t the type to hold grudges and if you did linger on anything, you tended to internalize it, even if it was someone else’s fault. He reached a tentative hand out pat the curve of your hip.

“Not tonight, Jimin. I’m not in the mood right now.” You shifted to shrug his hand off.


“I really wasn’t trying anything. How do you know I’m not in the mood either?”


You turned to look at him over your shoulder and give a small laugh despite yourself. “You’re always in the mood, Minnie.”

“Hey, now,” he shuffled closer, sensing a lightening of the atmosphere, “I’m not always in the mood. You just looked especially good tonight.”


“How could I have looked good with your stupid jacket on. No one even got to see my dress.” 

Your voice was small, but it didn’t quite sound sad and he took a leap of faith by sliding the hand that was resting near your hip to snake underneath your sleep shirt and press to your stomach, pulling you in flush to him.


“That’s everyone else’s loss. But it doesn’t mean you didn’t look good”. He nuzzled his nose against the curve of your neck and let his hand knead lightly at the skin of your side. “Plus, I feel like we have a little secret since I was the only one who got to see you in that dress.”


“Well, I didn’t do that on purpose. Better you be the one to see those horrible underwear ruin the dress than my boss.” You closed your eyes and let the feeling of Jimin’s fingers gliding underneath the waistband of your sweats soothe you before you realized what he was doing. “Jimin!”

“What? I’m just touching you. Is that no longer allowed? Am I on probation?” He pulled the sagging collar of your shirt down and peppered soft, wet kisses across the parts of your neck the he could reach. It tickled and you barely held in a laugh.


“Yes, that’s exactly what this is. You’re on probation.”


“Okay, so let me probe a little bit,” he said with a mischievous lilt in his voice before yanking your sweatpants down unceremoniously. 


“Park Jimin,” you shouted when the colder air of the bedroom hit your skin, “That’s not even what probation means, you’re so--what is it?”


You peered at his face only to follow his fixed gaze down to the vibrant blue cloth covering your pelvis.

“Nothing, it’s just pretty,” he said almost to himself, his tone distracted and light. He smoothed a hand over the material, marveling at how smooth the fabric was. “You know my favorite color is blue.”


“Are you saying you did this on purpose?” You tried to scoot away experimentally but his hold remained firm. 


“I already told you it was an accident. But I’m realizing now it was a happy one.” 

“Yeah?” Your own voice sounded dreamy and far away as you basked in all the attention. He only hummed in response before making his move.

Now that you were somewhat pliant, Jimin wedged his other arm under you so he could further envelope you. One hand remained where it was, caressing the silken fabric without doing anything too risky. The other hand, however, quickly made its way over to your breasts. He massaged them gently, at first, until your nipples began to brush more firmly against his palms. He began to tweak them and pull, knowing it was the fastest way to get you squirming.


You arched your back in response and ended up pushing your hips back against his, accidentally grinding on him. You could feel his hardness through the double layer of the barely-there material of your panties and his boxers. Coupling this with the feeling of his hand traveling under your shirt to continue its ministrations on your nipples and the creeping sensation of his other hand as he fingered the intricate laser-cut designs above your mound. It was almost too much and you felt like you were being bombarded. You tried to sneakily tug the waistband of your sweats up as you distracted him as best you could by rubbing up against his front, but he caught onto your plan. His hand left the confines of your shirt quickly to grip at your throat and force you to lengthen your neck obediently.

“Just let me see, baby. I just wanna see.” His voice was lower than his normal speaking tone, and noticeably rougher. He turned his mouth to suck at the spot on your neck where your skin felt the softest and placed a warm hand over yours. 

He guided the hand you had holding the sweatpants down teasingly slow. There was something erotic about the movement that made you whimper quietly. He must have heard the sound because soon he was shushing you softly and finished pulling down the sweatpants as far as he could. You kicked them off the rest of the way before realizing your hands felt awfully empty. You tried to turn to face him, but he wrapped a tight arm around and simply plucked at your nipples a little rougher, nipped at the skin of your shoulder a little more harshly. 

“Jimin.” You felt too warm with the heat he was radiating at your back and even with the sleep shirt you had on bunched up at your underarms.

“I know what you need,” he said in a voice that pretended to be thoughtful and selfless. 

His free hand finally passed your mound to press between the apex of your thighs. The angle was a bit awkward with his arm winding around your torso, but with coordination he was able to circle his fingertips around your clit. At this point, you still had too much lucidity and were worried that he would ruin the expensive underwear and stain it irrevocably with your arousal.


You started to protest but he seemed to read your mind and give your throat a warning squeeze with his free hand. With the other, he shifted to swipe a few fingers near your clothed entrance. He made a pleased sound when he brought his hand back up and the tips of his fingers caught the low lamp light and glistened.

“Open.” He held his fingers up before your lips, his grip on your neck loosening so you could move to suck them into your mouth. 

You made sure to graze his fingertips with kitten licks before popping them out your mouth when you knew they were clean. Jimin nudged at your cheek with a slightly damp hand until you turned enough for him to kiss you, wanting to chase whatever was left of your taste. He groaned at the feeling of you licking into his mouth and you felt him throb where his groin was pressed against your ass. You kissed slowly for a long moment, all the while his other hand continued to rub figure eights around your clit before circling back down to the now sopping material covering your entrance. 


The onslaught of sensation was enough to have you gasping and breaking the kiss. You let out a long, broken moan as he hooked his fingers underneath the material to feel the wetness without a barrier, although it left little to the imagination at this point.

“I wanna be inside you badly right now,” he mumbled shakily. The tremors in his voice sent another wave of excitement through you. You loved when he got overwhelmed.


“Please, oh my god. I need it.” 

You breathed heavily out your nose to keep quiet while he shoved his boxers off. He pressed against you with renewed vigor and you both groaned at the feeling of his overheated skin pressing against yours. You moved to pull your panties off but he stopped you.


“Keep them on. I want you to slide them to the side and hold them like that while I fuck you.”


“How do you want it,” you asked as you stretched your hand out to reach for the condoms that lived in a bowl under the bed. You nearly threw the condom in his face when you finally grasped at a foil packet. He rolled it on and inspected it briefly before grabbing at the meat of your thigh to lift your leg and bring it to rest over one of his own.

“Like this. On your side, from the back. I want to be able to see you in these panties.”

Pressing a hand over your lower belly, he pulled you flush against him once more to line up his swollen head with your entrance. He bumped against you a few times to coat himself with your slickness. At the feel of the initial stretch you grit your teeth.

“You feel so good,” you sputtered when he finally bottomed out. His girth was one of the things you gave thanks for most. You felt perfectly full and the slick smoothness of his entry had your head spinning. He pressed his forehead to your shoulder and began to rock into you, shallowly at first.


“So do you. God,” he let out a whine when you clenched around him as he went deeper, “You’re so fucking wet.”


He shifted to plant a foot on the bed for leverage and so he could maneuver his hand back in between your now more open thighs. His fingertips bumped yours where they pulled the crotch of the panties up and to the side. You felt him grab your hand and move it slightly higher and more inward. It became clear what his motives were when the fabric caught on your clit with the force of every thrust. You grip on the fabric tightened as your back bowed, pressing yourself more firmly against him. Jimin moaned at the fresh wave of arousal you coated him with.

“Jimin,” your voice was tight with need and nearly drowned out but the slick sounds his thrusts made. 


“Harder?”


“Yeah,” you breathed, feeling your orgasm start to build. 

He cursed when you tightened up on him once more and rewarded you with a sharp smack to the globe of your ass. He began to fuck you in earnest.

“Arch your back, baby” he grunted. 

But before you could blink through the fog of your impending orgasm to comply, he brought his free hand up to cup your throat and pull you back how he wanted you. He squeezed a little for good measure and you felt an almost electric shock in your groin. You let go of the underwear in favor of tending to your clit with your own fingers at the same moment that he began to truly plow into you. Your toes started to curl and you marveled through your hazy consciousness at how your orgasms started the same way.


It started tonight, like it always did--with a pin-prick of pleasure that had you squirming. Then it turned into white hot waves building from the soles of your feet upwards. As the feeling reached your belly, the pleasure became molten and pulled every muscle in your body taut. You could feel your limbs shaking but you were too far gone to signal to Jimin that you were about to come, your breath leaving your mouth in increasingly small choked gasps. The pressure that had been building steadily in your abdomen snapped and you fell off your precipice screaming.

Watching you fall apart was always one of Jimin’s favorite pass-times. As you trembled before him, he tried his best to keep his eyes open so he could see you. But the way your walls gripped him tore his attention away. He squeezed his eyes shut and rutted up into you to chase his own high. It rippled through him faster than he was expecting, forcing him to tighten his grip on you to ground himself.

You calmed down first and listened to the sounds of his labored breaths in your ear. Luckily, you were on your side, so you didn’t have to worry about him collapsing on top of you or having to balance from on top of him to your side of the bed. Your back felt too sweaty though and you frowned at the thought of getting up again to take another shower before being able to sleep. When he eventually got out of bed to dispose of the condom and start the shower you grimaced at the feeling of cooling perspiration and tugged off your sleep shirt in hopes of dabbing at the moisture. 

“You coming,” Jimin asked when he came to lean on the doorframe of the bathroom.


You nodded and got up carefully, not wanting to overestimate the leftover strength in your knees and fall. You discarded your panties and he watched you hobble past him to the toilet with a smug expression. 

“I bet you’re not still upset about the underwear now,” he smirked at you while sliding open the door to the shower and stepping in.


“I bet you were never really sorry about buying my underwear late,” you countered over the sound of the water. You flushed the toilet and smiled softly to yourself while your washed your hands and he screamed at the momentary change in water temperature. 

He stuck his head out of the door as he waited for the warm water to return. “How did you know I bought it late?”


“You bought them on my account. I got the order confirmation and the email, it just got buried because I was swamped with work. But I saw while I was checking my phone in line for the women’s room at the gala.”


He had enough sense to give you smile that was 40% apology and 60% cheekiness.

“These are nicer than ivory,” he said with an exaggerated snobby accent.


“How? Because you got to play the white knight and lend me your suit jacket?”


“No,” Jimin trailed off. He stuck a hand out to pull you into the shower with him. “They’re nicer because they’re the underwear I fucked you in.”


“How charming. You know, the ivory could have been that pair too.”


“I don’t know. Nothing gets me in the mood faster than a nice blue. Why do you think its my favorite color?”


“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Maybe so,” he stepped aside to let you have a turn with the water.

“Wash my hair? Its the least you can do.”


When you both finished showering, you could tell that it was way past your bedtime but you had to wait until Jimin changed the sheets. You were so tired you would have gladly slept on them, but he had a thing about post-sex sheets.

You blotted the ends of your hair with an old t-shirt and watched him make the bed with a neatness you’d only seen in hospitals. A spot of blue caught your attention and you realized you left your panties on the floor. You pinched them by the corner daintily and moved to put the garment in his laundry basket.

“Wait,” he said and plucked the panties out of your hands before shoving them in the back pocket of his sweats.


“What are you gonna do with those?”


“I don’t know. Save them for a rainy day, probably.” He gave you a wink before returning to fluff the pillows one last time.

[triscribe]

“MERLIN!” Everyone looked up as Arthur entered, a furious expression on his face as Aithusa chirped and clung to his shoulder.

“Erm, yes?” The young Dragonlord answered, looking distinctly nervous. “What’s wrong?”

“Your dragon,” Arthur spat out. “Seems to keep insisting on calling me ‘prat’!”

“Prat-prat!” Aithusa agreed, flapping her wings.

“Well,” Merlin said slowly with a grin. “Maybe that’s because you are one?”

Arthur growled, and started marching around the table to get to his manservant, who hurriedly backed away in the opposite direction while the rest of their friends and the council watched with amusement.

“This is all your fault, I know it is!”

“Oh come off it, Arthur, she’s got little pet-names for everyone!”

“‘Prat’ is not a name, it’s an insult!”

Jumping off of Arthur’s shoulder, Aithusa flapped her way over to the nearest calm person. “Gise?”

“Yes, little one?” Gaius asked.

“Prat-prat mad’a Mermer?”

“I’m afraid so, but he’ll get over it in due time.”

The dragonling hunched in on herself, tail wrapping around her feet. “M’fult.”

“No, not your fault Aithusa. It’s just that the king’s been under a great deal of pressure lately, and Merlin goes out of his way to make him upset. Stress relief, I believe he calls it. Do you understand?” Gaius smiled as the baby bobbed her head up and down. Meanwhile, Arthur had sped up to the point he was practically running after Merlin, who continued to circle the table and let out one mild insult after another.

Abruptly, Aithusa leapt up and flew back to Arthur. “King Prat!” She happily announced. The blonde man nearly stopped out of shock, whereas Merlin did come to a halt in order to double over laughing.

“Well, at least she got one thing right,” the king grumbled. Stalking up to his servant, he swatted the younger man on the back of his head, and then called the council meeting to order.

---

“I know you can do it, little one.”

“Per-per!”

“That’s right, now come on, just add that ‘ss’ sound to the end.”

“Per... Pers-pers?”

“Better, Aithusa. Can you add the ‘vv’ sound next?”

“Pers- pers-vl!”

“That’s good! You got the el in too!”

“Pers-vl! Pers-vl!”

(Everyone was astounded the next day when the little dragon arrived at the training fields, saw her large friend, and shouted a perfectly pronounced “Percival!”)

---

“Come on now, you did it with Percival. Come on, say ‘Gwaine’.”

“Win?”

“No, Gw-aine.”

“Win.”

“Don’t be like that, I know you can say it properly! Gwaine. Gwaine. Gw-aine. Gwaine.”

“...Gwin?”

The man sighed in defeat. “Close enough.”

---

“Lin!”

“I do believe that’s a female name, little one.”

“Lin?”

“Two syllables. I’m sure you can figure them out - you did with Percival.”

“Percival!”

“Yes, him.”

“Le-en!”

“Yes, that’s right. Two sounds. Lee, on.”

“Leon?”

The Head Knight blinked. And then smiled. “Perfect, Aithusa.”

“Th’nks, Leen!”

“...You do that on purpose, don’t you?”

“Mm.”

“Do you actually know how to say Gwaine’s name, then?”

“Gwaine, Gwin, Gwinny.”

The smile turned into a smirk. “I don’t mind you still calling me ‘Leen’ if you keep calling him ‘Gwinny’.”

---

“Now, I know you know this is a sword.”

“Sw’rd!”

“Un-huh, and this is a warhammer.”

“Wer-himm’r?”

“Very good, and that’s a normal hammer.”

“Himmer!”

“Mm-hm, better. Here’s my forge-”

“Elyeen’s forge?”

“That’s right, you said forge perfectly! Excellent!”

“Elyan’s forge!”

Quite a few people passing by the smithy paused in confusion when the dual, happy shouts of ‘Elyan’s forge! Elyan’s forge!’ rang out from the building for nearly a whole hour.

---

“Do you want me to tell you a story, Aithusa?” Merlin asked as he walked through the forest, herb pouch by his side and dragonling on his shoulder.

“Story, story!”

“Alright then, anything in particular you’d like to hear about?”

Aithusa settled into in a considerate pose, thinking over her options. “...Lins-lot?”

“Y- yes, I’ll tell you a story about Lancelot. How about the first time I met him? I was out picking mushrooms one night, when all of a sudden this huge gryphon came out of nowhere...”

---

“Arthur.”

“Prat.”

“Arthur.”

“Prat.”

“Arthur.”

“King Prat?”

“Argh...

“Arthur, are you still trying to get her to say your name?”

The king looked up guiltily. “No. Of course not.”

“Well,” Gwen smiled, bending over to scoop the baby dragon into her arms. “If you were, I’d say you should go the same route that Percival did. Aithusa, what’s my short-name?”

“Gwen!”

“Very good, aren’t you such a smart girl? Now, what gets added after that part?”

“Gwen-iv?”

“Perfect! And one more sound at the end...”

“Eer! Gwen-iv-eer! Guinevere!”

“That’s right, you did it! Good job, Aithusa.”

“Alright, fine, I get it, take small steps,” Arthur grumbled from his seat. “But I swear to you, Merlin’s trained her to never say my name, no matter what!”

“Arthur.”

Both humans snapped their heads around to stare at Aithusa, who looked rather smug. A moment later, the king jumped up with a whoop. “HA! She said it! She did! She said Arthur before Gwaine! Ha-ha!”

Gwen shook her head as the ridiculous man dashed from the room eager to go rub this victory in his most irresponsible knight’s face. She then sent a suspicious glance down at Aithusa. “You’re never going to say it when anyone more than he or I are around, will you?”

The smug look increased. “King Prat.”

---

“Gaius,” Aithusa murmured as she curled up to go to sleep that night. “Percival. Gwaine. Leon. Elyan. Guinevere. Arthur. Merlin. Mine. My Per-per, my Gwin, my Leen, my Elee, my Gwenny, my Prat, my Mer-mer-merly. My Lord. My flock.”

(The story these excerpts belong to can be found here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12353306/1/Back-Again-and-Again-and-Again-and )

@fireboltinsky4! I decided to just post the lot rather than emailing them to you. Hope you don’t mind! -Tri

[vitalmindandbody]

Two American Dreamings: how a dumbed-down society failed view of a great theme

As Clinton and Trump prepare to debate next week , noble principles are overwhelmed in a culture where most Americans do not know what is real anymore and the dream of equal rights is just a fantasy

Every child had a pretty good shot

To get at least as far as their old person got

But something happened on the way to that place

They hurled an American pennant in our face.

Billy Joel, Allentown

Its one of the greatest inventions of all time, and just like it says on the dollar bill novus ordo seclorum it generated an entirely new prescribe in human occasions. After millennia of pharaohs, lords, monarches, kings, sultans, caesars and czars, with all their attendant aristocracies and locked-down social structures, a country was founded where birth and lineage didnt trouble so much better, where by application of your expertises, power, labor and willingness to play by the rules, you could improve your material slew in living and achieve a measure of financial security for yourself and their own families. Boors and proles could aspire to more than mere existence. Progressive!

We know it today as the American Dream. The now-obscure historian James Truslow Adams coined the period in his volume The Epic of America, defining the American daydream as TAGEND

a dream of a social order in which each man and each girl shall be able to attain to the fullest prominence of which they are innately capable, and be recognised by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of delivery or position.

Adams was writing in 1931, but the fantasy was there from the start, in Jeffersons pursuit of happiness formulation in the Declaration of Independence, pleasure residing in its 18 th-century gumption of prosperity, thrive, wellbeing.

Nobody ever came to America with a starry-eyed dream of working for starvation compensations. Plenty of that offered in the old country, and thats accurately why we left, escaping serfdom, peonage, tenancy, indenture all different iterations of what was essentially a rigged plan, to put it in current political verbiage that channeled the profits of our proletariat upstream to the Man. We came to America to do better, to self-assured for ourselves the liberation that financial defence makes, and for millions chiefly white males at first, and then slowly, sputteringly, women and people of color thats the practice it used to work , no less than a revolution in the human condition.

Upward mobility is indispensable to the American Dream, the notion that people can rise from implemented in order to middle class, and middle to upper and even higher on the example of a( imaginary) Horatio Alger or an( actual) Andrew Carnegie. Upward mobility across classifies peaked in the US in the late 19 th century. Most of the benefits of the 20 th century were achieved en masse; it wasnt so much better a phenomenon of great numbers of people emerge from one class to the next as it was standards of living rising sharply for all castes. You didnt have to be exceptional to rise. Opportunity was sufficiently broad that hard work and steadiness would do, along with implicit buy-in to the social contract, faithfulnes to the system continuing on the assumption that the system was basically fair.

The biggest increases happened in the post-second world war era of the GI Bill, inexpensive higher education, strong labor unions, and a progressive tariff system. Between the late 1940 s and early 1970 s, median household income in the US redoubled. Income inequality contacted historic lows. The median CEO salary was nearly 30 hours that of the lowest-paid hire, compared with todays gold-plated multiple of 370. The top excise bracket ranged in the neighborhood of 70% to 90%. Conceded, there used to be far fewer billionaires in those dates. Somehow the society survived.

America is a dream of greater justice and opportunity for the average “mens and”, if we can not find it, all our other achievements amount to good-for-nothing. So wrote Eleanor Roosevelt in her syndicated line of 6 January 1941, an apt lead-in to her husbands State of the Union address later that day in which he listed the four democracies essential to American republic, among other issues freedom from want. In his Country of the Union address 3 years later, FDR expanded on this notion of freedom from want with its own proposal for a Second Bill of Rights, an economic greenback of rights to offset what he viewed as the growing oppression of the modern financial tell TAGEND

This Republic had at its inaugurating, and changed to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political claims among other issues the right of free speech, free press, free hero-worship As our commonwealth has grown in size and stature, nonetheless as our industrial economy has expanded these political rights have proved inadequate to assure us equality. We have come to a clear realization given the fact that true personal freedoms cannot subsist without economic its safety and independence.

Political claims notwithstanding, discretion sounds excessively hollow when youre getting nickel-and-dimed to fatality in your everyday life. The Roosevelts recognized that payment peonage, or any organisation that inclines toward subsistence level, is plainly inconsistent with self-determination. Survival is, by definition, a restricted, frantic district; ones horizon is necessarily limited to the present day, to getting enough of what the body needs to make it to the next. These dates a minimum wage work in New York City clocking 40 hours per week( at$ 9 per hour) pays $18,720 a year, well for the purposes of the Federal Poverty Line of $21,775. Thats a scrambling, uneasy existence, narrowly bounded. Close to impossible to decently feed, robe, and shelter yourself on a wage like that, much less a family; much less buy health insurance, or save for your teenagers college, or participate in any of those other good American circumstances. Down at peon rank, the endeavours of merriment is just like a bad gag. Its called the American fantasy, George Carlin cracked, because you have to be asleep to believe it.

Necessitous mortals are not free men, said FDR in that 1944 State of the Union speech. Beings who are thirsty and out of a occupation are the stuff of which totalitarianisms are see. A grim statement, demonstrably true-blue, and especially unsettling in 2016, a point in time when the American Dream seems more viable as nostalgia than a lived phenomenon. Income inequality, abundance dissemination, mortality rates: by all the necessary measures, the average individual that Eleanor Roosevelt celebrated is dropping. Extraordinary parties continue to rise, but overall mobility is sluggish at best. If youre born poverty-stricken in Ferguson or Appalachia, risks are youre going to stay that channel. Ditto if your early remembers include the swimming bath at the Houston Country Club or ski lessons at Deer Valley, youre likely going to keep your roost at the upper part of the heap.

Income inequality, gross the gaps in abundance: were to say daily, incessantly, that these are the necessary the effects of a free market, as if world markets was a army of quality on the order of weather or tides, and not the alone manmade fabricate that it is. In light of recent history, blind credence of this sort of financials would seem to require a firm commitment to stupidity, but gives premise for the moment that its genuine, that the free market exists as a universe unto itself, as immutable in its workings as the laws of physics. Does that universe include some ironclad convention who are in need of inequality of opportunity? Ive hitherto to discover the lawsuit for that, though doubtless some enterprising thinktanker could manufacture one out of this same free-market economics, together with gusts of genetic determinism as it pertains to qualities of penalize and character. And “it wouldve been” bogus, all such cases. And more than that, vile. That we should allow for wildly conflicting openings due to accidents of birth “ve just got to” strike us as international crimes equal in brutality to child abuse or molestation.

Franklin Roosevelt:[ F] reedom is no half-and-half affair. If the ordinary citizen is insure equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal rights in the market place. The hypothesi croaks deeper than sentimentality, deeper than programme, deeper even than adherence to equality and the endeavours of joy as set forth in the Declaration. It cuts all the way to the nature of democracy, and to the prospects for its continued existence in America. We may have democracy in its own country, wrote supreme court of the united states right Louis Brandeis, or we may have enormous money concentrated in the mitts of a few, but we cant have both. Those few, in Brandeiss judgment, would inevitably use their influence to subvert the free will of the majority; the super-rich as a class plainly couldnt be trusted to do otherwise, a thesis thats being starkly behaved out in the current period of Citizens United, Super Pacs, and truckloads of dark money.

But the client for financial equality goes beyond even equations of dominance politics. Democracys premise remains on the idea that the collective wisdom of the majority will prove right more often than its incorrect. That given sufficient opportunity in the pursuit of pleasure, your population will develop its knacks, its ability, its better judgment; that over duration the national capacity for discernment and self-correction is likely to be increased. Life will improve. The way of your solidarity will be more perfect, to acquire a word. But if a critical mass of your population maintained in peonage? All its vigor spent in the excavations of day-to-day existence, with scant opportunity to develop the full range of its modules? Then how much poorer future prospects for your republic will be.

Economic equality can no more be divorced from the functioning of republic than the ballot. Jefferson, Brandeis, the Roosevelts all remembered this home truth. The American Dream has to be the lived world of the two countries, not just a reasonably legend we tell ourselves.

I have always gotten much more advertising than anybody else.

Donald Trump

Then theres that other American fantasy, the numbed-out, dumbed-down, make-believe world-wide where much of the national consciousness resides, the sum concoction of our mighty Fantasy Industrial Complex: movies, TV, internet, text, tweets, ad saturation, celebrity obsession, boasts infatuation, Amazonian sewers of porn and political bullshit, the entire foray of media and messaging that strives to separate us from our brains. September 11, 2001 bombed us out of that reverie for about two minutes, but the reverie is so elastic, so all-encompassing, that 9/11 was rapidly absorbed into the the matrix of FIC. This exceedingly complex event horribly direct in the result, but a swamp when it comes to causes was stripped down and binaried into a reliable fantasy narration of us against them, good versus villainy, Christian against Muslim. The week after 9/11, Susan Sontag was practically executed for pointing out that a few smidgens of historical awareness might help us understand how we came to this phase. For this modest recommendation , no small number of her fellow Americans bid her dead. But if united followed her conduct if united done the hard work of delving down to the roots of the whole horrid thing perhaps we wouldnt still be fighting al-Qaida and its offspring 15 years later.

An 11 -year-old girl wears Trump socks at awareness-raising campaigns occurrence for the Republican campaigner at the Trump International Hotel in Washington DC. Image: Mike Segar/ Reuters

Heres a hypothesis, ugly, uncharitable, but yielded our recent biography it begs research: most of the time most Americans dont just knowing that real any more. How else to clarify Trump, a billionaire on an ego trip capturing a major partys nomination for chairman? Another blunt-speaking billionaire tried twice for the conference of presidents in the 1990 s and used to go in flames, but he made the mistake of extending as himself, a recognizably flesh-and-blood human being, whereas Trump comes to us as the eventual beast, and indisputable maestro, of the Fantasy Industrial Complex. For much of his job until 2004, to be exact he harboured status in our lives as a more or less normal celebrity. Large than life, to be sure, cartoonishly lofty, shamelessly self-promoting, and reliably hateful, but Trump didnt become Trump until The Apprentice debuted in January 2004. The first episode depicted 20.7 million viewers. By similarity, Ross Perot received 19,742, 000 votes in the 1992 general elections yes, Im likening election totals with Nielsen ratings but Trump stopped sucking that robust 20 million week after week. The season finale that time reached 28 million viewers, and over the coming decade, for 13 more seasons, this was how America came to know him, in that weirdly intimate lane Tv has of delivering celebrity into the extremely middle of our lives.

It was this same Trump that 24 million viewers a record, of course tuned in to watch at the first Republican debate last year, the glowering, blustering, swaggering boardroom activity person who made every hope of shredding the pols. One thinks if Trump would have ever been Trump if there hadnt been a JR Ewing to pave the way, to show just how dear and real a dealmaking TV crook could be to our centers. Trumps performance on that night did not disappoint , nor through all the debates in the long progress that followed, and if his reference for the truth has proved more erratic even than that of professional legislators, we should expect as much. In the realm of the Fantasy Industrial Complex, reality happens on a slithering magnitude. The reality is just another possibility.

I is talking about password primeval.

I would give the sign of republic ;P TAGEND

By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms.

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

In nine days Trump and Hillary will take the stage for their first face-to-face debate. There is likely to be blood. The spears are going to be out, and the ratings are bound to be, need it be said, yuge. The American Dream will no doubt be invoked from both platforms, for what true-blue patriot was ever against the American Dream? And yet for the past 30 times the Democratic candidate has worked comfortably within a party organisation thats battered the working and middle classes down to the bone. The brand-new Democrats of the Clinton era are always strong for political claims, as long as they dont disturbed corporate Americas bottom line. Strong for ethnic and gender equality, strong for LGBT privileges( though that took experience ). Meanwhile this same Democratic establishment assembled with the GOP to push a market- and finance-driven financial guild that fertilizes the already rich and leaves the rest of us sucking wind.

Thats the very real feeling Trump is speaking to , no imagination there. Bernie as well; small-time amazement their constituencies overlapped, though Trumps declared devotion to the common man stumbles over even the simplest proofs. On whether to raise the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, Trumps moral compass has revolved from an connoted no( wages are already too high ), to imply yes( wages are too low ), to weasel word( left open up to the states ), to yes and no in the same breath( I would leave it and raise it reasonably ), and, eventually, when pressed by Bill OReilly in July, to yes-but( parent it to $10, but its still best left to the states ). All this from presidential candidates whos securely in favor of abolishing the estate tax, to the great benefit of heirs of multimillionaires and none at all to the vast majority of us.

Meanwhile, the Fantasy Industrial Complex is doing just fine such elections season, thank you. Pronouncing at a Morgan Stanley investors meeting in March, one of the leaders of the FIC, Leslie Moonves, the chief executive of CBS and a man whose 2015 compensation totaled $56.8 m, had this to say about the Trump campaign. It may not be good for America, but its damn good for CBS. The coin rolling in and this is fun this[ is] about to become a very good year for us. Sorry. Its a cruel situation to say. But bringing it on, Donald. Keep going.

Read more: www.theguardian.com

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