#maybe anna (michaels wife) as well?

[lamentationsofasinner]

okay so we all know how david tennant is an absolute fucking cutie, an extremely talented actor and my imaginary husband, but can we please please PLEASE talk abt ty tennant as job's son????? like that man CARRIED that episode due to three minutes of iconic camp behaviour and a rly cute tunic???? like look at the pose here, he is a god on earth

and what also made me laugh so hard is that in that episode, there was peter davison (david's father in law and the fifth doctor who) playing job and david's son playing job's son, like that will never stop being funny to me

keep it in the family ig

david rly brought the family on board

[onionjulius]

Alright so, ER rewatch is happening, but I'm swamped with work and so I'll have to wait for episode posts. For now, an initial inventory of my remembrance of the main characters/my opinion of them:

Love: Carol Hathaway, Mark Greene, Susan Lewis, Kerry Weaver, Abby Lockhart, Luka Kovač

Really like: John Carter, Doug Ross, Peter Benton, Elizabeth Corday, Lucy Knight, Jing-Mei Chen, Greg Pratt

Like: Jeanie Boulet*, Cleo Finch, Michael Gallant

Unlikeable but not devoid of complexity: Robert Romano, Dave Malucci

I remember your existence: Neela Rasgotra, Anna Del Amico

I don't remember your existence: Sam Taggert, Ray Barnett, Archie Morris, Tony Gates, Simon Brenner, Cate Banfield

*Jeanie's on the cusp between Like and Really like.

I'll be curious to see if my opinions change much watching this show 15-30 years after it initially aired. No doubt there will be cringe "Oh wow that aged poorly" moments, but hopefully also some that hold up well. It'll also be interesting to watch a pre-Prestige TV critical hit post-Prestige TV (and yeah, nostalgic, I'm getting quite nostalgic in my old age). And I'm wondering how my impressions of the characters will hold up in a close watch; I think I'm much more analytical now, and I'm pretty sure my opinions reflect the characters at their best without necessarily accounting for them at their worst. Although maybe that's not a bad thing as long as it's consistent.

More character recollections, some quite spoilery:

Mark's death slew me. It was so protracted too, he was suffering so much and his family was fraying at the seams and I just remember him trying so hard to handle things the best he could with that understated irony of his and just feeling so terribly for him. There was that thing with the guy in the elevator that he just let die, I don't remember what became of that ...

I love so much that Mark is really just Some Guy trying to do his job well while having normal Some Guy things like a wife and kids and basketball breaks. He's smart, decisive, dedicated, compassionate, a good teacher, and truly a deserving leader.

I know that Jeanie had at least one great story, which of course is the HIV story. I'm actually struggling to recall much before that, so that'll be fun.

I just ... I remember having such complex reactions to Kerry, and all these years later that has registered in my memory as love. I love Kerry, warts and all. You could feel so bad for her while simultaneously hate what she was saying or doing, and I do think she learned things over time. She was an outsider, a party pooper, ambitious and career-driven, a disabled lesbian, oil to Doug Ross' water. She was not easy to love, and so I loved her. Also, she was ER Mom. Love you, Mom!

I also loved Kim/Kerry. They felt so real and human and not simply an "issues" story. I find myself not recalling much of her relationship afterward, so looking forward to seeing if it is a worthy follow-up.

I loved Mark/Susan. They were such easy friends, so natural and believable together, so bright and breezy and (mostly) supportive and wonderful. I think they would have made a fine endgame, it was so easy to want good things for each of them, and what an unforgettable, lovely and bittersweet moment when she left Chicago on that train.

For all that though, I liked Mark with Elizabeth. It's true there wasn't the same will-they-won't they (and I remember feeling like her thing with Peter ended rather abruptly) but their domesticity was very sweet and she was a kick-ass character, strong and funny.

Romano was ... Problematic ... but his bond of some sort with Elizabeth was probably the best thing about his character.

I remember feeling that Peter was shafted, but that said he did last 8 years and I remember some good stories with his mother and sister, work vs parenthood, the custody battle, and of course (of course) his evolving dynamic with Carter.

Seriously though. Benton/Carter.

And on the topic of BroTPs: Mark/Doug!

There's something about the two most ambitious characters being Peter, a black man, and Kerry, a woman, that I kinda love.

Upon reflection, it seems to me that at least some of my affinity for Susan and Abby have to do with their family stories--particularly, having to deal with flawed family members, walking the line between loving and enabling, battling the desire to hope because of the need to protect against disappointment. It's ... interesting? ... because I don't have any deadbeat family members or family members who refuse to take responsibility for their illnesses, but something about how they use sarcasm to deal with life resonates with me, even though Susan in my head was a sunny character while Abby was a little black raincloud.

I loved Abby. Abby was a hot mess, a human disaster, a trashfire. Abby was strong, but also a coward. Abby was full of contradictions, Abby mistook self-abnegation for independence, Abby was only happy when it rained. Abby was hard to love, and so I loved her.

There was something about Abby/Luka that I found compulsively watchable. Something probably having to do with being really messed up and dysfunctional and full of maladaptive habits, but nevertheless wanting love like any other human being. There was a brooding intensity and understatedness to them that I remember just eating up. I was an undercover emo kid, what can I say.

That said, there was a phase in which he was truly insufferable (which I know was them taking a page out of the Doug Ross book ... but he isn't Doug Ross, even though he was brought on as a direct replacement). I'm curious if, on my rewatch, it will feel like an organic arc given how sweet, patient, gentlemanly and sensitive I recall him being at the start. Oh tragic little meow meow.

The final scene between Carol and Luka is so etched in my brain. "Because I'm still in love with him. I've been in love with him since I was 23 years old. He's everything to me. I feel complete when I'm with him and I feel empty when we're apart. He's the father of my children, and he's my soulmate." Yes, Doug was a manbaby and yes I was so hurt on Carol's behalf that he left her for Seattle, but really Doug/Carol were the Truth. You bought their connection so thoroughly and George Clooney's chemistry with Juliana Margulies was critical to that.

I remember thinking that Peter/Cleo's chemistry was nothing in particular to write home about (you know, not bad, but not special) ... but hell if they weren't beautiful together. Michael Michelle was just so stunning.

I really thought that they were heading for a lot of yummy Carter-denying-his-feelings-for-med-student-Lucy angst, which I was so there for. But I can't deny that what ended up happening (you know ...) was unforgettable television.

On that note, Carter was never the same after That. There's such a sad lost innocence about his character, given how earnest and caring and even hapless he was at the start. That's not necessarily a bad direction to go, narratively speaking, but one would hope for some eventual hard-won optimism for him all the same.

And yeah, at some point ER became darker and soapier, but I honestly have good memories of a few of those years, before becoming bored.

Like, another scene seared into my brain is Maggie Wyczenski turning on a dime and going postal right in the middle of the ER, screaming "I'm leaving! I'm leaving! I'm leaving! Iiii'm leaving!" and "You're my daughter you bitch!". God did Sally Field earn that Emmy or did she earn that Emmy. I wouldn't want to have missed out on that story, for all that it was such a downer.

Apparently Sam, Ray, Archie, and Tony came on more or less when Neela did, but she's the only one I remember. How'd that happen? Though I can't say I remember her stories, so there is that.

I remember watching with my sophomore year roommate the night that Romano freaking lost his arm to a helicopter. It was crazy. And I really thought it couldn't get any crazier, but then, as you know ...

The look of the show really changed from beginning to end, which, given that it lasted fifteen years, is probably to be expected. But I remember most the constantly moving camera in so many of the medical emergency scenes, and I hope that doesn't go away.

Mark's daughter and Peter's son were impossibly cute. Impossibly cute. So so cute. So so so so so cute.

Speaking of Chicago in the 90s, goddamn do y'all remember how incredible the Bulls were? I don't know why I'm putting that in this post, but I guess I am.

Carter/Jing Mei were such great friends, they never stopped being competitive with each other but they nevertheless grew up together and I love that the show never hooked them up.

I don't recall quite why but I feel like Doug and his dad were reminiscent of Riker and his dad from Star Trek. I don't know.

Okay yeah that's all for now.

[farfromstrange]

Chaos Theory | Michael Kinsella x Reader

Chapter 2: I Know That You Feel Like A Piece Of You’s Dead Inside

Masterlist ° Chapter List

Pairing: Michael Kinsella x Barista!Reader (she/her)

Summary: Your day goes a little less ideal when someone very dear to you messages you after breaking off conversation for a while, and it triggers memories you swallowed for a long time. That evening, Michael stands in front of your door like you agreed on, but he's not okay and he needs to channel his emotions into something else - into you. You just hope you can find a way to talk like adults sometime, but you and he are eerily similar when it comes to hiding your past away from prying eyes and pity.

Warnings: Angst, mentions of child abuse, parental trauma, mentions of death and violence, SMUT, choking, oral (f!receiving), unprotected p in v, praise kink, Michael Kinsella Begging, hurt/comfort (18+ MINORS DNI)

Word Count: 5.3k

A/n: Don't be like Mikey, find healthy coping mechanisms! This is written mostly from Reader's POV. This is about you and your day. The next chapter is going to be about what happened during Michael's day that ultimately lead him to the decision he makes in the end. So it'll be his POV next. Also, can you tell how I make my chapter titles?

You wouldn’t consider your past particularly dark. You don’t want to say it was traumatic because when you look at Oliver, who lost years of his life in prison for a mistake he made when he was a teenager, or Michael, who struggled to accept himself and other things he has yet to tell you about; he lost his wife, he went through hell, he went to prison and he has to live with the weight of the blood on his hands for crimes he committed in the same of his family. He lost custody of his daughter and he struggles to get it back. Whatever else he’s hiding, it must be equally as traumatic if not worse. It changed a lot inside of him, you can tell. It would be weird if it hadn’t, to be honest.

Trauma changes people. 

You don’t want to know about the nightmares, how the pictures of his wife’s death haunt him. What he experienced in prison must be haunting him just the same. But there is something else about him, something he isn’t telling you. 

Your thoughts switch to his daughter. He didn’t say if she was present when the shooting happened. If she was, the poor girl must be traumatized too. How old must she be? They said in the papers that she was just a young girl then, so maybe she is a teenager now, or on her way to becoming one, anyway.

She’s staying with her grandma, and the woman is surely not thrilled that Michael is out of prison, nor would she be thrilled that he is fighting to get custody of his daughter again. It must be so confusing for Anna – that is if she even knows that her father is back – and for Michael as well because he doesn’t know how likely it is that he’d get her back. He knows the chances are slim, but he doesn’t know how slim, and then there is the fear that Anna might not even want to see him. 

He’s troubled and he is lucky that you came around or he would have collapsed under the weight on his shoulders. 

So no, you wouldn’t say you’re traumatized because compared to him, you got lucky. 

Your dad isn’t a drug mule, he just never liked you that much. Over time, you grew used to getting disappointed, so you started trying as hard as you could to make the people in your life stick around. You wanted him to be proud of you.

But you didn’t grow up in a crime family and you never learned how to hurt someone the way Michael did. You can live with your father not liking you; you got used to it. What bugs you though is that after choosing to chase your dream of becoming a writer, you lost what little you had left of the family members who liked you – and now you doubt that you’re making them proud anymore. 

The thoughts didn’t come up without reason. You’re on your lunch break, checking your phone when a message pops up.

A while ago, before you moved all the way across the ocean (and by all the way you mean just a little, considering Ireland is right next to England), you gave your sister, who had just freshly turned twelve, your number. You wanted to keep the lines open if she ever needed anything.

She’s sixteen now, a teenager.

Your sister has always clung to you in one way or another. Even as a baby, when you used to babysit her, you had a certain connection. You were the person she could always count on. The more it hurt you and her when you chose to leave.

The lack of support from your family brought back memories and you had to remove yourself from the narrative to find yourself and learn how to be happy for once in your life because the life you were living back then only made you feel worse. 

The message pops up and you frown. She hasn’t texted you in a while, and part of you figured she might not want to be in contact with you anymore, which made you a little miserable, so you are surprised when her name shows up on the screen.

It is a simple ‘hey’, but it triggers all kinds of alarms in your head. 

You choose to answer the same thing. 

She’s a mystery, that one, because she reads your message, but doesn’t answer. Something in your gut tells you that something isn’t right. You hesitate with pressing the call button. Maybe she accidentally texted you and doesn’t want to hear from you. Maybe you surprised her with your reply because you, as well, didn’t put effort into maintaining the connection. 

Your thoughts are interrupted by Sarah. “Hey, we have a whole bunch of tourists coming in,” she says. “Can ya cut your lunch break short? Oliver and I could use the help.”

You purse your lips before turning off your phone. “Sure,” you say because saying no is not something you are physically capable of. 

She taps the door frame. “Thanks, darling.”

You would call your sister later, you tell yourself. Or maybe she will text you back and you can talk about whatever her dubious text message meant without dancing around it. You just hope she isn’t in any imminent danger or you wouldn’t be able to forgive yourself. 

The workday drags on. It is Sarah’s turn to close up, so you get to go home early. When you drive down the street that leads to your apartment, you pass the gas station that you have learned to avoid; it has a large tendency to get robbed – and now, after learning about Michael, you’re sure it’s just a front for illegal activities.

As you approach, traffic slows down and you find yourself staring at the bright blue lights of several police cars. There is an ambulance, but no one is moving. It’s then you catch a glimpse of the coroner’s car. 

Shit. 

As far as you know, in the past robberies, people only got hurt, not killed. And now someone is dead. You see them rolling the gurney with the body bag out onto the street and into the car. 

Your blood runs cold. 

You want to assure yourself that it’s fine, that it’s none of your business, and that Michael’s family has nothing to do with it, but there is a slight possibility that the Kinsellas could be responsible, and you hate the thought of that. 

The police coordinate traffic and lead you down a different street. It adds a few extra kilometers, but you don’t mind. You just want to get home. 

There are no parking spaces reserved for the residents, which sucks because that means you have to park on the side of the street and sometimes, the only spaces left are a very long way away from your apartment. You still take the five-minute walks; you have no other choice. 

Although when you walk from the starting point of the street to the end where your apartment complex is, your heart starts beating faster. What if you’re being followed? You’re paranoid, you know that, but your optimism goes out the window when you think about the fact that a literal murder has taken place not far from your home and that perhaps, the situation is more dire than you first thought. And you’re not talking about Michael this time. 

He doesn’t once cross your mind as you walk faster, your keys clutched tightly between your fingers. It’s not just the fear of a psychopath roaming the streets (you’re not even sure what happened), it’s the fear of being taken and stripped of your dignity in other ways, and that’s just something you, as a woman, have gotten used to. Still, it makes you shiver when you think about it. 

There is a deadbolt at your door, which had always felt very American to you before and unnecessary, but today, as you step through the door, you shut your door and put the deadbolt in place, locking your front door twice before you even think about taking a breath. 

What did you get yourself into? And what is wrong with you that you now suspect evil in everything that surrounds you? You’re really not sure if it’s because of your sister, the gas station, or Michael. You fear it’s all three and it makes you wonder if Sarah was right with what she said. 

"Promise me that if you smell even the slightest whiff of danger, ya'll walk away?”

You promised her, but you can’t walk away. You can’t run. You’re not even sure if you want to. You like him, you’re curious about where your relationship could go, and he is trying to be better. For his daughter, maybe even for you.

He’s a good guy. He made mistakes, but he told you he wasn’t responsible for his wife’s death and the people he hurt before were sacrifices he made for his family. He hates himself, but you don’t, and the fact you’re so easily falling for him makes this so much harder to think about. But you do. 

The question irks you, is the danger worth it? Are you ready for what’s to come? Do you want to face it? Or do you want to live in denial? 

Man, this sucks. 

But you don’t want to leave, so you’re not going to. You can’t, not even if your life depended on it. You are hopelessly devoted to Michael Kinsella, and the inner conflict the knowledge about his past elicits in you is scary as hell, scarier than falling in love with a man who desperately needs it.

You’re not sure what to say when you call your sister and the line clicks. She whispers a simple, “Hey,” but she sounds so vulnerable now. 

You have a cup of hazelnut coffee in front of you – on ice because you feel that better fits your mood; cold and dead inside – but it doesn’t soothe the act in your chest like it usually does. 

“Hey,” you answer. “It’s been a while… how are you?”

There’s a beat of silence. You imagine her shrugging. “I’m alright,” she lies. You know it’s a lie. 

“Maya, what happened?”

“Dad–”

“Did he hurt you?” Sadly, this is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about him. 

It shouldn’t have to be like that.

She’s quick to reply, “No! No, he didn’t. He wouldn’t–” she says, but cuts herself off. 

He hasn’t hurt her, he never has, but he hurt you, and saying that he wouldn’t isn’t the full truth. He would, just not with her. He loves her.

At first, that made you jealous, feral even, but you are several years apart and she’s just a kid. You’re almost like another parent to her, not just her sister. That’s the curse of being the oldest child, but you took the responsibility the moment she was born and you try to do right by her, always.

Well, you’ve been failing at that lately, and you ignored the nagging feeling in your chest that told you that you were being just as awful as your parents – no, your father.

You didn’t want to be neglectful, but navigating your life isn’t easy, and part of you still lives in denial about everything. You avoid conflict, so you avoid your family. It’s only natural. In your case, at least.

“I snuck out a couple of days ago,” Maya admits quietly. “I didn’t climb out of the window or anything. I told Mom and Dad that I was going to hang out with a friend. But they figured out I lied.”

You know what that’s like. You tried to be the perfect daughter in the past, especially after the first time your father lost it when you went to a party instead of studying. But there is more to it, you can hear it in her voice. 

“I lied and Dad– He put this spyware on my phone–”

“Oh boy,” you mutter under your breath. 

“He told me he wouldn’t pay for this field trip my class has planned and he took my phone for a couple of days,” she says. “But I managed to find it so I could call you. I needed to call you.” Her voice cracks and you can hear she’s starting to cry. Her soft sniffles fill your ears and poison your heart. 

“I’m so sorry,” is all you can say to that. 

That’s why she called; you’re the only one who understands. 

“I didn’t know who else to turn to. I feel so violated…”

“I know what that’s like.”

“I just… I feel so alone. They don’t understand and I–” she breaks off with a sob. “I’m sorry I haven’t called or texted, but I didn’t want to bother you.”

You call her name softly, stopping her right there. “You could never bother me,” you say. 

“But–”

“No buts.”

“Your job and everything, I just thought… never mind.”

“Don’t worry about that. I just wish I could help you.”

The distance makes it hard to comfort her, even though you want nothing more than that. 

“It’s okay, I guess I just needed to hear your voice. I miss you.”

I miss you. It breaks her heart to hear her so hopeless. You want to hug her, pull her out of this hole, but you can’t. She needs you and you can’t be there. You’ve been so busy trying to be happy that you abandoned the one person in your family who cares about you, and who needs you more than anything because you understand what it’s like to have him as a father. It’s vile that you’re here and she’s over there, the distance too wide and the world too big. 

“Yeah,” you murmur, “I miss you too.”

“Thank you. For answering my text and calling back, I mean,” she says. 

“Always.” You pause before making a decision. “Listen, I have some money saved,” you tell her. “It’s not a lot, but if you tell me how much your field trip costs, I can send you the money so you can go.”

You can hear her shake her head against the phone. “I can’t accept that.”

“Yes, you can. You’re my sister. I’ll live.”

Truth is, you’re barely making ends meet, your rent being higher than ever after the latest raise and you need your saving, but she is your sister. You might need to pick up a few extra shifts and do overtime; you can get your money back like that. 

“Thank you,” she sniffles. 

“You’re welcome.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too,” you say before bidding your goodbyes. “Call me if you need anything else.”

“I will,” Maya says. 

“Good.”

One of these days, you will buy her a plane ticket and take her in because you can’t let her stay where she is now. She doesn’t deserve it. 

There is a knock on your door. You forgot to text Michael that you were off early, so you don’t exactly expect to see him when you open the door. You were wrong. He’s standing there, his hair disheveled as if he’d run his hands through it a million times. He’s carrying a small back and a scowl on his face. 

This can’t be good. 

How you’ve become the address for everyone who needs emotional support, you’re not sure, maybe it’s your helpful nature that draws emotionally damaged people in, but as soon as you see his face, you stop thinking about what you need and focus solely on him. 

It doesn’t matter much now, anyway. 

“Hey,” you say softly. 

He looks up at you with his puppy dog eyes. Looking at him you could easily compare him to a puppy who has been kicked to the curb and left there. When his eyes fall upon your face, something switches in him. His bag drops to the floor just at the entrance and he pushes you into the apartment with full force. 

You gasp when he slams the door shut, pushing you up against the wall, and then his lips find yours in a passionate embrace. 

You push against him. “Mikey,” you breathe against his lips, “What’s wrong?”

This doesn’t feel right. His eagerness to kiss you, to have you. You shouldn’t indulge him, but God, he is such a good kisser, and his hands… They wander over your body and you swear you’re on fire. 

“Doesn’t matter,” he says. “I need ya, pet.”

And the tone of his voice says now. 

“You’re not yourself,” you try to argue, but your body betrays you. 

He pauses, his eyes finally meeting yours, and they seem almost black. “I know,” his voice is raspy, and the heat of the moment dissipates when he leans his forehead against yours. 

You bury your hands in the hair on the nape of his neck, closing your eyes. You don’t quite understand what he needs because he doesn’t talk, he simply stays like this with you for a moment. 

“I need ta forget,” he whispers then. 

Your eyes soften. “Forget what?” you ask. 

“I’m gonna tell ya later, but I need you. I need ya so bad, love. Please.”

He doesn’t touch you though, not without your permission, and that says a lot about the kind of man he is. 

“This is a bad idea. You shouldn’t use sex as a coping mechanism. I–”

“Say you don’t want it and I’ll stop. Right now. But I’m beggin’ ya. Please.”

He begs. Shit. 

His hand cups your cheek. “Please,” he begs again. 

You go weak in the knees. He sounds so wracked already. You can feel him against your inner thigh as he presses his leg between yours, keeping you pinned to the wall with all his might. He’s incredibly strong. 

“I’m–” 

You need him. It’s a voice in your head that screams, and your body yearns for his touch. His hands are still on your hips, and it reminds you of the night you first slept together. He’s good at what he does. And you need him just as badly as he wants you right now. 

“Okay,” you cave. 

“Okay?” he asks to clarify. 

“Yes.”

He exhales. “Thank you.” 

He turns into a needy mess as he bunches your dress up around your waist and gets on his knees before you. Oh, that sight… It’s almost enough to make you come. You’re dripping at this point. It only takes a single touch from him and you can’t help it, your body reacts instantly. 

Michael grabs your thigh, placing it over his shoulder before he simply pulls your underwear aside – he doesn’t waste time taking them off, he doesn’t have the patience for that and to be quite frank, neither do you. 

You throw your head back into the wall when the tip of his tongue circles around your clit. 

“Jesus,” he moans against your slick cunt, “Yer fuckin’ drippin’.”

Just a few seconds ago, he was begging to touch you and now you are the one whining at his words, begging him to give you what you need. 

His tongue flattens over your folds and you moan softly. 

The way he buries his head between your legs looks almost graceful from your point of view. He looks like he is praying, almost, your cunt the altar he worships at. It is wrong to think that way, sinful even and you know you’re going to hell for thinking about God in that context, but you’ve never been the religious kind anyway. 

His moans reverberate. He parts your folds just to dip his tongue into your hole. You clench around him and he moans even more. It vibrates and sends shockwaves through your entire body. The pleasure he gives you is overwhelming and yet you need more. And he does so without asking. 

His tongue grows rapid with its ministrations. He licks at your entrance before moving back to your clit, sucking it into his mouth. He memorized the motions that drive you crazy. It’s muscle memory. 

You reach down to tangle your hand in his hair. Moans tumble from your lips like a symphony. “Mikey,” his name is only a whisper on your lips. 

He lifts his head and looks up at you. “What?”

“You’re too good to me.”

He shudders at the subtle praise. “Let me make ya come, yeah?” And then he turns the tables with a simple comment, “You deserve it.”

“Oh, God–”

He dives back in, and he licks at your pussy with new vigor. He’s desperate, playing with your nerves like you’re a piano and he knows all the keys. Your moans and whimpers are the melodies, and they sound oh-so-sweet. You don’t care anymore about being vocal, and he seems to enjoy it. 

“Good girl,” he growls. “So fuckin’ good–”

Your moan echoes through the apartment. “Mikey, please!”

“Yeah, that’s it. Yer so close, aren’t you?”

“So fuckin’s close,” you answer breathlessly. 

You’re almost there. He drives you higher and higher and higher and–

With a loud cry of his name, your muscles contract, and the orgasm shatters your entire world. It’s intense; your toes curl and you almost lose balance. He holds you up, but you’re shaking like a leaf. Your thigh that’s on his shoulders tries to somehow connect with your other leg to trap him against your cunt, his tongue still relentless in eating up everything you give him. 

Eventually, you push him away. “Too much,” you say. 

He presses an almost tender kiss to the inside of your thigh before setting it back down. You quiver. Michael catches you with his arms around your waist. “You okay?” he asks. 

You nod, holding onto him. 

“Such a good girl.”

You meet his lips halfway, tasting yourself on his lips. 

“I–” He cradles your cheek, but the words he planned to say die before he can utter them. 

Your needy hands struggle with getting his belt open. “What?” you ask. 

“Nothin’.” He helps you get the buckle open and pulls it out of his jeans before his lips are on yours again. 

Michael encourages you to jump into his arms, and he lifts you almost effortlessly. 

“Is this comfortable?” he asks.

Your heart swells. He doesn’t act like he’s about to fuck you against the wall; he’s caring, and you can’t help but get flustered. 

“Yeah,” you breathe, “Just fuck me.”

He would never hesitate to comply with your request. You help him get his cock out of his pants. The position is a bit complicated, but you manage to wrap your hand around his shaft and line him up with your entrance. He sinks you down on him and you drop your head into the crook of his neck. “Fuck,” you moan. He feels too good to be true. 

“Such a fuckin’ good girl,” he says as he starts thrusting up into you, “Take my cock.”

You cling to him as he sets a ruthless pace. It’s no less passionate than the first time, but his cock drives into you harder now. He hits that spot inside of you just right every time, and you can’t help but cry out in ecstasy. His lips part and he lets out a soft grunt. 

He sounds so sweet when he moans. The sound alone makes you clench around his cock, causing him to twitch and change his angle to hit even deeper, and you completely lose it. 

The sounds you let out are lewd, his name tumbling from your lips over and over again like a mantra. The feeling of him inside of you is now etched into your brain. You can’t live without it. You got a taste and now you’re addicted, and you get your fill every time he touches you. 

His hand finds its way around your throat, not choking but simply holding you there. Your hand wraps around his wrist in return. You know exactly what you need. 

“Choke me,” you say. 

He lifts his head only momentarily. “What?” he stutters. 

“Choke me.”

“Ya want me to choke ya, pet?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck!” He feels your pulse jump under his fingers when he finally squeezes, cutting off your air supply and pushing you straight to the precipice. 

“You like that, huh?” He groans into your neck. “Ya like bein’ fucked like this? Chokin’ you, feelin’ my cock in your needy little cunt?”

Who would have thought that his mouth could get any dirtier? 

Your pussy grips him like a vice and the moan you let out resembles a gurgled scream. The wall feels harsh against your back, sweat dripping down your body and making the dress you’re wearing stick to your body. 

Michael sucks your bottom lip into his mouth. The kiss is sloppy; you wouldn’t call it a kiss but rather a desperate fight of lips and tongue, and you clash in the middle. 

You can feel the knot in your stomach tighten. It spreads through your cunt, making you light-headed, and the finish line comes closer and closer and closer–

“Fuck, Mikey, I–” You clench around him once again. “I’m gonna come.”

His fingers dig into your ass cheeks as he lifts you a little higher, allowing your clit to bump against his lower abdomen with every rigorous thrust and you can’t hold it back anymore. 

You come undone around his cock, and your heart jumps out of your chest. 

He grunts, biting down on your shoulder. He’s close too, you can feel it in the way he’s holding onto you, and his cock twitches inside of you. 

He moans your name when he comes, and it’s certainly something else to hear him say it like that, so beside himself and lost in pleasure. 

“God,” he groans. 

You couldn’t have said it better. 

“Fuck,” you return. 

“Pet, what are you doin’ to me?”

You’re not sure what he means by that. 

“I’m fuckin’ addicted to ya.”

Oh. 

“Sorry,” you murmur. 

“No, don’t apologize. I just need to have ya, always, all the fuckin’ time.”

Michael gently sets you down. His cum trickles down your thighs. It’s a feeling of belonging to him that consumes you. 

“You have me,” your voice is barely above a whisper. 

“Yeah,” he smiles, “I do.”

You brush a loose strand of hair out of his face. “You wanna talk now?”

He shakes his head. You expected that. But then he opens his mouth anyway and his question catches you off guard. “Can I stay here?” he asks. “Just for a few days, I– I can’t stand bein’ at home. Alone. My head… it just won’t fuckin’ stop thinkin’.”

But it does with you.

“Will you tell me what happened?” you ask, your eyes holding an incredulous look.

“I– It’s not tha’ easy. I can’t just tell ya tha’.”

“You can try to explain it to me.”

“I get why ya don’t trust me in your home, but–”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, I– I trust you, a lot, actually, but I’m… Yeah, I don’t know what I am.” 

You pull away from him. He doesn’t like to admit it, but Michael is scared. Scared of losing you, scared of scaring you away; he doesn’t want to be someone you’re scared of, but you seem so damn uneasy. 

He reaches out to grab your hand. You let him. With your back turned to him, you try to keep the tears at bay.

It’s too much, you realize, always caring for everyone but yourself, but letting him stay… it is less about him than it is about you. You’re weary. It’s not because of his past – you’re overwhelmed by the feelings you’re having, the changes in your life, and what it means for you. 

You’re scared, but not of him. But how do you tell him that without giving yourself away? It’s stupid, but you have gotten used to keeping things to yourself.

You are the sunshine, the light in everyone’s lives and he needs that version of you, not the one that often gets overrun by darkness. You can’t help him when you’re like that, and you want to help him, you have to, you need to, it’s a natural response at this point. For that, you can’t let it get to you. 

Though the truth and the anxiety that grips you remind you of the past. Perhaps that is the biggest reason you find yourself scared. But you’re not even sure anymore. You’re not sure of anything except that Michael belongs here; he belongs with you, in your arms because that is where he is safest. 

You’re scared of losing him, too. The way he talked about his family and the past… You don’t want him getting dragged into it again, let alone lose him to a stupid mistake, maybe the bullets from a gun– You can’t allow yourself to think like that. Today has been a lot, but it’s not his fault. 

You can’t lose another person you care about. 

“Ya don’t have ta let me stay,” he says quietly. “I could check into a hotel for a night or two ta get away.”

With a soft shake of your head, you turn back around. “Can you be honest with me?” you ask him instead. 

“Can you?” His brown eyes bore into yours. 

You want to tell him that it’s not that easy, and that’s when you realize that it’s the same thing he said and you are no better than him when it comes to keeping your feelings to yourself. 

Your voice breaks the tense silence, “Stay.”

He sucks in a sharp breath. “You mean it? I don’t wanna impose on your privacy if that’s wha’ ya need. I’m not that kind of person. I’ll live.”

How are you so alike and yet so different at the same time?

“Just stay,” you whisper, “with me. Here. For as long as you need to. It’s just… this is all new to me too, even if I don’t seem like it most of the time. I’m sorry I made you feel like I didn’t trust you. It wasn’t fair. Of course, I trust you, but there are things… I don’t usually share my space with anyone.”

He gets that.

“But I haven’t been fair this morning, and I am sorry for that. You didn’t do anything wrong, and you don’t have to prove yourself to me. This is on me.”

It’s as good as it gets. You don’t know what else to tell him. 

Michael takes a step toward you. His hands find your face and he strokes his thumbs over your cheekbones. Your close your eyes, leaning into the touch. 

He pulls you even closer, his breath hitting your forehead as his lips hover above it. He sighs, or maybe he’s smelling you, you’re not sure, but you can tell he’s fighting an internal battle that he hides behind a cage he doesn’t have the key for. The feelings. memories and thoughts come in, but nothing manages to come out. It’s tricky. You know what it feels like. 

“What did I ever do to deserve you?” his voice cradles your fragile heart. “Yer too good fer me, love. Far too good.”

He leans down to press the softest kiss to your forehead. 

Just minutes ago, you were fucking wildly against the wall, and now? Now he’s kissing your forehead and looking at you like you are the most precious thing he has ever seen, and the pain you felt before dissipates.

Your hands move to his biceps, resting there, stroking them through the fabric of his shirt. His muscles are tense, but his eyes are closed and as he holds you, he looks a little less like the kicked puppy who knocked on your door before shamelessly taking you in the only way he needed you then. 

You sniffle. You don’t want to cry. “Let’s take a shower,” you say. 

He wipes the stray tear from your cheek and nods. “Yeah, sounds grand.”

“And then you can stay.”

“Okay.” The light in his eyes tells you that he is grateful, and you are determined to keep that little flicker of hope alive.

And you truly mean it when you say it; you don’t mind having him around. It’s not just the pleasure. You are drawn to him even more than before. 

But you are playing a dangerous game. There is a reason parents tell their children not to play with fire; they’re going to get burned. 

Tagging: @bellaxgiornata @shouldbestudying41 @your-not-invisible-to-me @glowstick-lesbian @ms-murdockswift @acharliecoxedfan @loveroftoomanyfandoms @mattmurdocksscars @roseallisonparker @1988-fiend @norestfortheshelbywicked

[frozen-snowflakesandsunflowers]

Frozen 3 and 4 in the works!! (This is not a drill!)

Cover created by me

That's right Frozen IV (4) is happening people! Jennifer Lee and Bob Iger visited the new World of Frozen in Hong Kong's Disneyland and Iger made this announcement:

“Well, I'll give you a little surprise there, Michael. 'Frozen 3' is in the works and there might be a 'Frozen 4' in the works too... But I don't have much to say about those films right now. But Jenn Lee, who created 'Frozen,' the original 'Frozen' and 'Frozen II,' is hard at work with her team at Disney Animation on not one but actually two stories.”

Songwriters:

Kristen Anderson-Lopez also shared a tweet (or an X) indirectly confirming the husband - wife duo as the songwriters for the fourth installment too - more hit songs to come!!

---

---

Returning cast/ characters:

Kristen Bell re-posted an article and video of the Frozen 4 announcement and Idina's indirect confirmation on her Instagram story, indirectly confirming her voice of Anna again.

Idina Menzel did the same but as a post, confirming her return as Elsa:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Idina Menzel (@idinamenzel)

Josh Gad re-posted Idina's post on his story with “👀” which means he's back as the lovable Olaf.

Jonathan Groff's confirmation isn't out yet as far as I know or have seen but I'm assuming he's on board too.

As for Santino Fontana aka Hans, I think now he has a very high chance of returning. There's no way they are expanding the franchise without him, ignoring some of the Hans fandom's plea and that with redemption too. But while we wait for confirmation on the entire cast (which might be a while away), we'll just keep hoping for Santino to give us hints. I know he's staying quiet on purpose.

Santino Fontana we got our eyes on you 👀

Release date:

No confirmed release dates are announced for 3 or 4 yet but in some files there are two release date slots for the middle of 2024 and one on 26 November 2025. I don't think Frozen 3 will be out next year because I'm sure we would have gotten some more Info on it by now and most importantly I think Zootopia 2 is coming out in November 2024. Som that leaves Frozen to have its regular date on 26 November in 2025.

As for leaks of the first looks, the earliest leak we got for frozen 2 was in December 2018 so my eyes are peeled in a year's time.

What this all means:

Frozen 4 may seem frustrating for some for the reason that Disney's just calling for more money and they might not take care of the story and cheering us fans but though it looks like that, it may not be entirely true. Jen Lee has said earlier that she's very excited about the idea for Frozen 3 that she was given to by Marc Smith, an animator in WDAS, though the director is unknown as of yet. She's expressed a lot of excitement about it which I have quoted in this post linked. And what's different about it is that we all know how production for Frozen and Frozen 2 went. Frozen had a last minute plot and character change and Frozen 2 had songs and plot changes too as we can see in the documentary on Disney plus. But this time it seems that everything is going smoothly and really really well. That's what gives me hope about the future of Frozen. And yeah I know some of you aren't too fond of Jennifer Lee and though she's managing the projects that doesn't mean she's going to be directing it. She's like the producer. Some one else will be directing it which is yet to be announced. After all Jennifer will be there in the team as she's the one who made Frozen in the first place. She knows the characters well so it's given she'd be looking over the movies' production.

I'm sure some of you are familiar with the news of the fourth installment and saw it coming when a few weeks back Jennifer also shared in an interview that she had found a new strategy upon making more Frozen films. Her strategy was that if they feel there's more to tell for the story or maybe if we the fans feel it then they'll work on making another movie. But none of us were expecting it to be announced so soon.

Based on this announcement I believe that Frozen 4 is a second part to Frozen 3 in the same way we had Avengers 3 and 4 and Fast and Furious X and 11 and into and across the spider-verse and other movies doing the same. If it's in parts it means the story, the events going down are big making Frozen 3 end in a cliffhanger. They are probably in the process of writing it or early production and they realised that this story needs two parts because the story is of a big event. This new film strategy really works in some of these movies so I'm hoping for the same for Disney. Either way, I'm glad they're expanding the well deserved franchise and realising its true potential. Frozen is the first animated trilogy to be produced by WDAS and then the first to become a quadrilogy to be a Disney Animation movie. Movies like Avengers and Toy Story are from Marvel and Pixar despite Disney owning them or some of their movies but Frozen will be a full on Disney franchise to become a quadrilogy. Frozen just making history 😌

Conclusion:

I'm scared and excited, as we all are but all we can and should do is stay positive and hope for the best. I personally believe Frozen 3 and 4 will be great given the positivity coming from Jen Lee and Bob Iger. I believe in Frozen's potential and in sure Disney does too hence the two new movies announced. But if I can't convince you to believe this is a very good thing for the franchise then maybe Isaac Carlson, who explains Disney theories and opinions on YouTube can. He explains it well and highly recommend you go watch and listen to his video. He originally didn't like the way Frozen 2 went as I did but upon seeing and hearing different perspectives of it he and I too gained a new way to see Frozen 2. Isaac also wanted more films after Frozen 2 time the ending and I think now that Disney is doing just that I think we could be feeling a whole lot better than where Frozen 2 left off at. Trust me Frozen 2 ending haters need to see his video. I'll explain more about the way I see it all in an upcoming Frozen 1, 2 and the shorts breakdown which I'll pin as soon as I post it.

[docrotten]

XTRO (1982) – Episode 266 – Decades of Horror 1980s

“Stay in the car. …  Stay In The Car! … GET BACK IN THE CAR!!” No one ever follows directions in horror movies. Join your faithful Grue Crew – Crystal Cleveland, Chad Hunt, Bill Mulligan, and Jeff Mohr – as they check out more of Lucio Fulci’s innovative deaths in Xtro (1982).

Decades of Horror 1980s Episode 266 – Xtro (1982)

Join the Crew on the Gruesome Magazine YouTube channel! Subscribe today! Click the alert to get notified of new content! https://youtube.com/gruesomemagazine

Gruesome Magazine is partnering with the WICKED HORROR TV CHANNEL (https://wickedhorrortv.com/) which now includes video episodes of Decades of Horror 1980s and is available on Roku, AppleTV, Amazon FireTV, AndroidTV, and its online website across all OTT platforms, as well as mobile, tablet, and desktop.

An alien creature impregnates a woman who gives birth to a man who was abducted by aliens three years ago. The man reconnects with his wife and son for a sinister purpose.

Directed by: Harry Bromley Davenport

Writing Credits: Iain Cassie, Robert Smith; (story by) Harry Bromley Davenport, Michel Parry; Jo Ann Kaplan (additional dialogue “Americanized”)

Produced by: 

Robert Shaye (executive producer)

Mark Forstater (producer)

James Crawford (associate producer) (as James M. Crawford)

Music by: Harry Bromley Davenport

Cinematography by: John Metcalfe

Special Effects by:

Tom Harris (mechanical effects / special effects supervisor)

Francis Coates (Creature Effects)

Selected Cast:

Philip Sayer as Sam Phillips

Bernice Stegers as Rachel Phillips

Danny Brainin as Joe Daniels

Maryam d’Abo as Analise Mercier

Simon Nash as Tony Phillips

Peter Mandell as Clown

David Cardy as Michael

Anna Wing as Mrs. Goodman

Robert Fyfe as Doctor

Katherine Best as Jane

Robert Pereno as Ben

Sean Crawford as Commando (credited as Tok)

Tim Dry as Monster (credited as Tik)

Susie Silvey as Woman in Cottage

Arthur Whybrow as Mr. Knight

Anna Mottram as eacher

Robert Austin as Van Driver

Vanya Seager as Paula Phillips

Xtro (1982) is one of those movies. Either you love it… or you say, “WTF?” Or maybe both! Luckily, the 80s Grue-Crew are joined by guest host Dirk Rogers, an Xtro fan, to help sort out the mess and to point out why he likes it so much. It took a while for the crew to get the finer points, so you’ll have to check out the episode to see if any of Dirk’s teachings sink in. 

The film depicts an alien impregnating human women with a “plunger” appendage and giving an eleven-year-old boy the power to bring anything he can imagine into reality. How could one expect anything but a five-ring circus?

At the time of this writing, Xtro is available on physical media as an all-region import Blu-ray formatted disc from Second Sight Films. 

Every two weeks, Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror 1980s podcast will cover another horror film from the 1980s. The next episode’s film, chosen by Bill, will be Death Ship (1980)! Co-written by Jack Hill (Spider Baby or, The Maddest Story Ever Told; 1967) and starring George Kennedy, Richard Crenna, Nick Mancuso, Sally Ann Howes, Kate Reid, and Victoria Burgoyne. Yo, baby!

Please let them know how they’re doing! They want to hear from you – the coolest, grooviest fans – so leave them a message or comment on the Gruesome Magazine Youtube channel, on the Gruesome Magazine website, or email the Decades of Horror 1980s podcast hosts at feedback@gruesomemagazine.com.

Check out this episode!

[mara-xx217]

Okay so I've been wondering about this for a hot minute, but how do you think some of the killers (your choice ^^) would react to a survivor who has a babyface or was relatively cute? Would they go easier on them or treat them like the rest of the survivors?

*cracks knuckles* M'kay, sooo...

Would a baby face save you? Nah, no... Hmm... well... maybe? But- yeah, no, probably not. Will it occasionally make trials easier for you? Uhhh suuure but no, but kinda yes? Results may vary.

Evan Macmillan/the Trapper

👀 You've certainly caught his eye...

Cute? Yep. Smol? Yep! Young looking? Hmm... wife material...

Will he go easy on you? If you mean he'll crowd you until you 'accidentally' step in a bear trap, kill your friends, and then try to hide you away from literally everyone else in the Entity's realm (including the Entity, herself), then yes, he'll go easy on you.

As long as you behave...

Philip Ojomo/the Wraith

Really, really likes to creep on all the new people, regardless of who they are or what they look like.

You are a treat to watch. All the survivors called you 'the baby' of the group, even though you were similar in age to most of the other survivors. They treated you differently, as though you were made of glass...

It's so much fun scaring you. Watching you jump out of your skin, screaming, sometimes even crying, all with that cute face of yours...? Simply precious.

Maybe you're lucky that he likes watching and chasing you as much as he does. You're terrified of him, and though you haven't thought of keeping track, he hasn't hooked you. Not yet, at least...

Max Thompson Jr./the Hillbilly

Uh oh... He thinks he might be in love...

Are you an angel? You're so tiny... Fragile and sweet looking and... *sigh...*

He knows it's bad if he doesn't sacrifice you but... It makes him sad to see you scared and hurt! Maybe he can just... chase you a bit and leave it at that...

And if your nice back? He hears wedding bells...

Michael Myers/the Shape

*Mikey head tilt*

He's probably killed someone actually younger than you are...

Now you're his favorite victim. Congratulations, you're now in hell.

"Go easy on you?" HA! In your dreams, sweetheart.

Herman Carter/the Doctor

Ohhh a new test subject! And one that is cute?! His lucky day!

My, my... you do look young! What kind of faces will you make when you're in pain? In ecstasy? Will your eyes shine with hope? Or dull with despair? He can't wait to get his hands on you...

He will not go easy on you. You're gonna be tormented until you break into a hundred little pieces.

And when you do break? He's just getting started...

Anna/the Huntress

You make her motherly instincts go off the charts!

Will 100% try to abduct you and not let you leave the Red Forest.

Aww look at the dirt on your face! *smudges it off* Are you hungry? Shall mama feed you? Now, now, the rope isn't comfortable, but it is for your own good, you know! Mama knows best, you know...

She becomes obsessive and possessive of you. Good luck trying to get away. She'll steal you every chance she gets.

Bubba Sawyer/Leatherface

?!Cute?!

He doesn't want to attack you... You're so small... Wait, you're nice too?!

Too shy to get anywhere near you. Will flee on sight.

I guess this counts as him taking it easy on you... So congratulations?

F.J.S.J./the Legion

Whoa! Another person their age?! Cool.

Frank and Julie absolutely don't take it easy on you. Frank likes being a prick, and Julie thinks she needs to remain rough and tough.

Joey does what he usually does, sees your cool, and just... kinda lets you slip away? But only some of the time. Susie will straight up let you go, as long as you try to befriend her.

Results may vary. Frank and Julie's attitudes may or may not change, depending on how you interact with them.

Danny Johnson/Ghostface

Oh no.

You're gonna have a bad time.

Do I really need to go through why or how this asshole will make you miserable?

You're his new favorite toy, you unlucky bastard.

Pyramid Head/the Executioner

Cute👏 Aggression👏

Decent person? Also tiny and fragile? Hmm...

Can you say ✨corruption kink✨?

Are you tormented? Yes. Is it his intention? Yea- n-no? Yes... No? Maybe...

@prettycutebunny @gore-loving-whore @kennbb @cherrysodalite @dead-bxtch-walking @space-arsonist

[fandom-lover20]

"It's Your Choice"

Criminal Minds Masterlist

NCIS Masterlist

Three years. Three years you have had a crush on your boss, Leroy Jethro Gibbs. And just over three years you’ve worked for NCIS. And two years you’ve had a crush on FBI agent, Aaron Hotchner, the unit chief of the Behavioural Analysis Unit.

The two teams have joined up on multiple occasions. Everyone has an almost copy on the opposite team. Hotch and Gibbs. Rossi and Ducky. Morgan and Tony. Emily and Ziva who’s… not here anymore. No one on either team took her death very well and it was not easy on them at all. Penelope and Abby basically are copies of each other. JJ and Bishop. And then of course Spencer and McGee.

Then you and Jimmy Palmer were always hanging out. You weren’t copies, if anything you were the complete opposite but that’s what made you two so close. You both liked and had done some of the same things but the two of you wouldn’t have it any other way. You were each other’s person. You had been the only person he told about Agent Lee and he was the only person you told about liking both leaders of the teams. Believe it or not he can keep a secret when you ask him too.

“What am I meant to do?” you asked, worried as you and Jimmy walked to the bullpen, him on the left which was the reason he saw that the BAU was working with your team,

“Stop talking because the BAU is here.”

You immediately stopped talking, smiling as you saw the other team who some members came over and hygge you including JJ, Spencer and Rossi who had also kissed your cheeks. I only count five, I’m assuming Penelope is with Abby that leaves Hotch.

“I’m here.”

Hotch came up the same way you and Jimmy had, reminding you of the way Gibbs did the same.

“Hey,” Hotch leaned down and gave you a hug before accepting the file Dave was holding out for him.

“So what’s the case?” you asked, now accepting the file that Tony was handing you.

“Someone’s killing marine’s partners. All the marines have brown hair and blue eyes and are all from either Pennsylvania or near the border of Pennsylvania.”

“Okay, I hate to point this out but Gibbs;” you turned to your boss. “You’re from Pennsylvania and you had brown hair and blue eyes when you were still in the marines.”

“And all the marine’s are gunnys,” McGee added.

“But not all the partners look like Shannon or Kelly,” Gibbs told us that not all the pieces fit.

“No, they look like every other wife you’ve had,” Rossi spoke up before getting Bishop to pull up each victim. “Victim one, Michael Scott looks like Diane with the red hair and brown eyes.

Victim two, Anna Watson looks like Rebecca with the ginger/blonde hair and blue eyes.

And finally victim three looks like Stephanie, Katherine Hale has red hair and brown eyes as well.”

“You noticing a pattern here? I mean Director Shepard had red hair too,” Jimmy spoke up, earning a head slap from both you and Gibbs.

“Jimmy, I love you but shut up.”

“Sorry,” Jimmy gave you a small smile, rubbing the back of his head.

“When did you two get together?” asked JJ.

“We’re not.”

“But you just said--”

You cut Derek off. “As a brother.”

“Oh.”

Throughout the following 24 hours, you had built a small part of the profile and there had been no new victims. Possibly because they were based off Gibbs’ other wives and he only had the four. No one thought the UnSub would kill a mother and a daughter or father and son, thankfully he hasn’t. There wasn’t any major leads yet until Reid had found something out.

“They all went to the exact same marine ball that’s going on all of this week.”

“Were they there every night?” you asked.

“No. The Scotts went there on the first night, which was Friday, they were killed at around 2AM Saturday morning. Then on Saturday the Watsons went and they were killed around 2AM Sunday morning. And finally Sunday night the Hales went but they were killed around 3AM Monday morning. Last night and this morning there was no one killed.”

“So maybe he’s waiting. For whoever his endgame is,” Hotch suggested, leaning on your desk with Rossi and Dinozzo on either side of him.

“Which if we’re following Y/L/N’s theory, would be me,” Gibbs spoke up, capturing everyone’s attention.

“Well, you’re not going alone,” you told him. “One, it wouldn’t fit his victimology and two, it’d be suicide. He would know it’s a trap.”

“So what are you thinking?”

---

“How did you convince him to let you do this?” Jimmy asked as he watched you do your make-up in the bathroom mirror, your hair already done so that the hair up to your ear was pulled back with a hair tie and your were in a black floor-length dress with a slit going up to your mid thigh as well as black heels.

“I honestly have no clue,” you finished the small eyeliner that Emily had taught you to do ages ago when she had gone undercover in a bar once just as Ellie came in.

“I have your red wig,” Bishop smiled as you put it on. “You look like Natasha Romanoff.”

“Thanks,” you turned back to the mirror, handing the eyebrow pencil to Jimmy as you let Bishop sort through your make-up and put it back in the bag before she added the pencil Jimmy handed over. You fidgeted with the wig a little before deciding you were okay and the three of you headed up to the bullpen.

All or you had paired off into groups. You and Jethro were the most important part, the two the UnSub wanted. Emily and Hotch, JJ and Spencer and Ellie and McGee were your back-ups. If something went wrong or they spotted something they’d help and let you know. Dave and Tony were going to be waiting outside to be safe. One would be at the main entrance and one would be at the back door while Abby and Penelope would be staying in Abby’s lab, watching on the monitors and Jimmy and Ducky would probably be with them or in the autopsy.

When you entered everyone looked at you, shocked. Hotch and Gibbs especially.

“You’re sure about this?” asked Gibbs, sorting his cuffs as he walked over to you.

“If it means we catch the guy then yes.”

“Then let’s go.”

When you were starting to follow, someone grabbed onto your waist holding you back.

Hotch towered over you, even in heels. “Can we talk for a second?”

“Yeah, ‘course,” you nodded.

Hotch nodded at Dave who was waiting. Half of the group were taking the elevator and the other were taking the stairs.

“What is it?”

Within what felt like a second, Hotch’s hand rose to your jawline and his lips were on yours. Your lips moulded together as your arms reached up and wrapped around his shoulders.

“We should have done that ages ago,” you whispered when you pulled apart.

“I know that probably wasn’t the smartest idea, considering you still haven’t chosen between me and Jethro but--”

“When did you know?” You knew better than to pretend you didn’t have feeling for your boss. Hotch is a profiler for god’s sake and Gibbs is; well… Gibbs.

“A couple years ago,” he shrugged, not making a big deal of it.

“And Jethro?”

He nodded. “About the same time as me. We were both dropping hints that you liked the two of us all day and we finally clicked.”

“So, what are your conditions?”

“We don’t have any.” Hotch shook his head, one hand remaining on your face, the other pulling you closer by the waist. “It’s your choice, if you don’t want to pick then we’ll accept that. If you can’t pick, that’s okay too. If you pick one of us, you’ll still have the other. You don’t have to worry about losing a friend. Or more.”

Your right hand landed on his left cheek, you thumb caressing it as you leaned up and kissed his right cheek at the last second.

“Thank you.”

---

“Remember, roughly 6 feet tall, well built and not all muscle like Derek. Well looking but so good looking he’ll capture attention and you will know him. He supposedly knows Gibbs so...” Emily ran though the profile. They weren’t really able to get much from only three victims. At least not these three.

“Got it,” you turned your head to face Gibbs so that it looked like you were talking to him.

“We’ll keep an eye out,” he added. “Ooh.”

Gibbs grabbed two glasses of champagne, handing you a glass.

“Since when do you drink champagne?” you asked.

“Well, I need something to drink,” he shrugged, getting you to smile.

You itched the back of your neck, keeping the smile plastered on your face. “You feel that?”

“Yep,” he spoke into his glass as you took a sip of yours. “We’re being watched.”

Throughout the evening the team was able to narrow it down to two guys. Hotch came over and made it look like it was a work thing he was talking to Gibbs about while you stood there waiting until he walked away.

“What?” you asked.

“Let’s dance,” Gibbs took your hand in his, pulling you to the dancefloor where a slow song had been playing for just under a minute. “Look over my shoulder. How long has he been looking at you tonight?”

When you looked you saw an older man, just over Hotch’s age, still good looking as well and he was looking at you with a smirk. You made it look like you were trying to see past him where you knew Ellie was. The guy looked behind him seeing the blond and watching her wave at you before having a slightly angry look on his face before concealing it and taking a swig of his drink.

“Nearly all night. I thought it was just a couple random glances.”

“Well, it’s not.” Gibbs didn’t sound mad that you hadn’t realised. If anything he sounded worried.

“Boss, Y/N,” McGee’s voice came through the comms. “Whisper in her ear then pull her out through the back. Y/N laugh and look behind you as if you’re making sure no one is looking.”

“You want us to pretend we’re leaving to make out like teenagers,” Y/N summarized, looking at Gibbs.

“Yeah.”

Gibbs leaned down and whispered “It’s your choice. Don’t feel pressured.”

You smiled up at him, before he started pulling you away from the party, towards the back door. You laughed, looking behind you seeing the guy from earlier watching you as you scanned the room, everyone was in position and no one else was looking.

Tony was stood at the back door, his gun raised, trained on the door waiting for the UnSub to follow you out.

“I still don’t recognize him,” Gibbs whispered getting you to giggle, knowing it would get him to follow you out.

“NCIS!” Tony yelled, the UnSub stood in the doorway with Derek and Bishop stood behind him, Emily a few steps further. “Hands up!”

The UnSub glared at the two of you before his hands raised and Bishop grabbed his wrists handcuffing them behind his back.

“You’re under arrest for the murders of Michael Scott, Anna Watson and Katherine Hale. You have the right to an attorney, if you cannot afford one, one will be appointed for you. Anything you say can and will be held against you in the court of law,” Bishop read the rights before leading him to the SUV she had driven here.

The rest of you tidied up the scene, checked everything in the dance was okay and started to leave but Gibbs held you back.

“I meant it,” he said. “Don’t feel pressured, take your time. We’ll both still be here for you.”

You sighed through your nose before looking him in the eyes. “Rule 12.”

“I know,” he nodded. As if he already knew that’s what you were going to say.

“I wish you didn’t have rule 12,” you gave a small smile and a shake of your head.

“If rule 12 is the only reason you’re choosing him, don’t choose him.”

“It’s not,” you shook your head. “I love you, Jethro but I love Aaron. And no matter what I feel for, I will never un-feel for him. I just can’t.”

“As long as you have a good reason, it’s okay,” he leant down and kissed your cheek before opening the passenger door for you.

---

Next thing you knew you were standing in Hotch’s apartment building, knocking on his door. Normally you would laugh at the confused and surprised look on his face but right now you just couldn’t do anything. Except:

“Hi,” you said.

“Hi.”

“Can I come in?”

“Jack’s already in bed--”

“I know. It’s you I want to talk too.”

Hotch stepped back, holding the door open until you were inside.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Us. The choices.”

“It’s your choice, Y/N,” said Aaron, brushing a finger against your cheek. “Whatever you decide, I’ll handle. I’m sure Jethro will too.”

“What if I already made my choice?” you ask. “What if my choice is here with you and your son?”

“Then, here, I am going to be the happiest man alive,” Hotch leaned down so that you could feel his hot breath on your face, your mouth to be specific. “and tomorrow morning it will be my son. Our son.”

“Would he be okay with it?”

Hotch let out a happy sigh, practically slamming his lips against yours. “I love you,” he murmured between kisses.

---

You gasped slightly as you sat up before reaching your hands down to your hips were there were clear bruises from Aaron’s grip last night.

“Fucking territorial bastard,” you muttered before grabbing his shirt off the floor and checking the bruises in the mirror. There were plenty of hickeys but buttoning up the shirt covered them enough that if Jack were to see any of it he would either think they were from work or just wouldn’t really care.

When you walked into the kitchen you saw Jack sitting at the small island in the kitchen and Aaron going back forth between the bacon, eggs and sorting out the sausages that he was just about to put in the oven when he saw you.

“Hey, you,” he smiled.

You smiled back. “Hi.”

“Hello, Y/N!” Jack slid off his seat before wrapping his arms around your waist, you had to contain a wince so he wouldn’t see. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too, buddy.” You lifted him up so that he could sit on the island while Aaron continued sorting breakfast.

“You sleep alright?” he asked when he came over with a big plate.

“Yeah,” you nodded, kissing his lips.

---

When the two of you walked in later that morning after dropping Jack off for school. When you walked out the elevator however you saw Gibbs talking to some blond.

“Hey, who’s she?” you asked Jimmy when he came up to you.

“The new psychiatrist.”

“He’ll be fine,” you and Aaron nodded before joining the rest of the team.

[imaginesbymonika]

“Until they discover what a mess I truly am.”

Pairing: Pete Davidson x reader

Warnings: Angst, mentions of depression, fluff at the end

As a writer for SNL Y/N knew a bunch of famous people, she worked with almost everyone since she had started in 2013. The young woman began writing at the age of 17, being the youngest female writer in Saturday Night Live history. On the one hand, it was super fun, the thrill of working among people such as Seth Meyers or Lorne Michaels filled her with pride. At the same time, it was intimidating and occasionally mentally exhausting. It felt like she frequently had to prove herself to everyone, prove that she was worthy of being a writer for SNL at such a young age. She constantly had to work twice as hard.

The first person that looked at Y/N as an equal writer was John Mulaney. John treated her like an adult and whenever she happened to be in the writers' room with him, he always wanted to hear her ideas and opinions on scripts and previous shows.

He explained that he saw a piece of himself in her, and he knew exactly how tough the first year could be without having at least one friend.

To this day still, Y/N was incredibly grateful for him.

Over the years she had met a lot of writers, some of them grabbing her attention more than others. But at the end of the day, none of them seemed to be 'dateable'. John always wanted to set her up with one of his friends, but she always declined saying he was her friend, not her dating service. Until Y/N met Pete Davidson.

„Sorry, I’m late.“, he announced after entering the writers' room. He sat down on the opposite side of Y/N and flashed her a quick smile, before leaning back in his chair.

„I saw how you stared at Pete this morning.“, John later said as the two left the SNL building. She simply rolled her eyes and turned her head away from her friend, humiliated that her cheeks were burning up.

The very first-time Y/N realized she had developed quite the crush on Pete was after his proposal announcement.

He held up Ariana’s hand, while a huge smile played on his lips: “WE‘RE GETTING MARRIED!“. She could see the little tattoo behind his ear and sighed.

She could feel her heart breaking, but when his eyes met hers, Y/N smiled softly and nodded her head at him. Forming the word „Congrats“ with her lips.

From that moment on, she tried her best to get over him. Dating guys and having one night stands- Y/N did everything to keep Pete of her mind. She hardly saw him, during the time of his engagement, which was a miracle. But after the engagement was canceled, he was around more often. They sometimes made eye contact in the writers' room or at an after-show party. But Y/N kept her distance, knowing that once they would start talking again- her old feelings would resurface.

„Pete asked about you again.“, John explains while handing her a cup of coffee. „Thank you.“. Making her snap out of her thoughts: “Are you alright?“.

She simply nods: “Yeah, I’m fine.“.

„Did you hear what I said? Pete-.“.

„Yeah, I heard you.“, Y/N interrupts him, a bit more cold than she intended. She takes a sip before looking at her old friend apologetic: “John, you know how I feel about Pete- I don’t want to get my hopes up. He’s out there dating these supermodels, I just don’t-“, she pauses for a second: “I just don’t fit into that picture.“.

John, confused and a bit overwhelmed by her words swallows thickly: “Okay, wow. I never expected you to think that little of yourself-.“.

„Pete’s too good for me. Hell, he’s too good for anyone, really.“, she explains: “Let’s not talk about him. Please.”.

„That’s exactly what he said about her.“, Anna, John's wife, exclaims after Y/N left their apartment: “We need to do something about this mess.“.

„I don’t know.“, Pete says, holding a cigarette in his hand: “I mean, it’s not like I don’t find Y/N attractive... she’s really pretty, but I feel like she deserves more- better than this.“. He makes a hand gesture, pointing at himself.

„But Pete-.“.

„Look, I appreciate your concerns but - it’s always the same. I like a girl, we date then she gets to know the real me- like the real me. You know how fucked up I am. She breaks up with me.“, Pete explains: “And I don’t know, I can get it when they’re famous- like Ariana or Kaia...but a normal girl like Y/N? That would probably break my heart.“.

Anna and John exchange a look.

Y/N who walks into her office turns on the lights. One hour earlier she received a weird text message from John saying:

Sorry to text you this late, there’s some trouble at the office considering the sketch for tomorrow. Would be great if you could go there, rehearse it and look it over. Anna and I have our date night, so it would be you with another writer. Thanks. Love you.

„Hello-?“, a voice asks and Y/N lets out a high-pitched scream. She quickly turns around and sees Pete Davidson standing in the door frame.

„Oh my god, Pete.“, she says and runs a hand down her face. She can hear how he chuckles slightly. “You scared the living shit out of me. Don’t ever do that again!“.

„What? Say hello?“, he smiles and Y/N just rolls her eyes in response.

„I guess, it’s just you and me.“, Y/N points out and hopes that John was mentally preparing himself for what’s going to happen the next time they see each other again: “John said there’s some sort of Sketch, waiting here...but I can’t find one.“

„John texted you too?“, Y/N asks and her eyes widen: “Maybe he made a mistake?“.

„Nah, I don’t think so.“.

An awkward silence falls upon the two and after a few seconds Y/N walks over to her computer: “Maybe he sent me the script via E-Mail, let me check.“. Meanwhile, Pete sits down on the little couch and watches her.

„You should get a bigger couch.“, he exclaims and when Y/N looks up from the screen, he smiles at her. It makes her cheek blush and she quickly hides her face beneath the computer.

„Now... how’s life treating you?“, Pete asks and lays down, he stares at the ceiling.

Y/N sighs: “It’s okay, I guess. What about you? I heard you’re currently dating this actress. Kate. How’s that working out?”.

„No.“, he replies: “I’m not, we- well, she broke up with me a month later. I feel like they all think I’m a great guy until they date me and discover what a mess I truly am. Or maybe it’s the fact that Ariana said my dick is huge so- they want to check that out themselves. I don’t know.”.

The young woman stops typing and looks at Pete again, she leans back in her chair: “I hope you know, that’s not true.”.

“How do you know? I never showed you my dick. Or did I? If I-.”.

“Pete, you’re not a mess, you just have some mental health issues. If these women can’t 'handle' you that’s not your problem but theirs. You are a great guy and every girl would be lucky to have you by their side... I can’t seem to find an email, I’ll call John.“.She gets up from her chair and leaves the room: “I’ll get myself a cup of coffee afterward, you want some?.“.

Pete, speechless by her words slowly sits up straight on the couch. He never expected someone to say something so kind about him. He gets up and leaves the room. At the end of the hallway stands Y/N, slightly slapping the coffee machine.

„I can’t reach John, and this stupid machine isn’t working-.“, she says, frustration audible in her voice.

„Did you mean what you just said?“,he asks and Y/N looks up.

She stares at him for a few seconds: “Yeah, why-?“.

„This might sound ridiculous.”, he starts, crosses his arms, and leans against the wall:” But... did John talked to you about asking me out for a date?”.

As soon as the words leave his mouth the color on Y/N’s face disappears. She can feel how her mouth runs dry and her hands start to sweat.

“Because he talked to me about asking you out. And-.”.

“What did you say to him?”.

He wrinkles his forehead:” Of course, I said no.”.

“Oh.”.

Y/N can feel it. She can feel how her heart is breaking in ways she didn’t know were possible. If dying of a broken heart was a real thing, maybe now it would happen to her.

“Of course.”, she repeats his words and scratches her eyebrow.

“Yeah, I mean- you wouldn’t date me either. That’s probably what you told John.”, Pete chuckles but stops when he sees Y/N’s facial expression. His eyes widen:” Shit, no.”, he says, almost like a whisper.

Y/N rushes past him into her office before the tears are falling. She didn’t care. Not now.

“Y/N- I...”, he starts but the girl shakes her head.

“Go Home, Pete. I’ll call John and tell him I didn’t find the script.”.

“I just assumed we were on the same page.”, he says, ignoring what she just said:” Like, look at you and look at me- I’m too much of a jerk for someone like you!”.

“Excuse me?“, she replies, her voice growing louder with every second passing: “Since when do you decide what’s best for me?“.

„I don’t want you to get hurt, I’m difficult. Fuck, Y/N, you know that. We’ve been working together for such a long time now. If we would get together, I don’t know if I could survive you thinking the same way these girls think about me now.“.

Y/N sighs and crosses her arms in front of her chest, as if she was trying to protect the last bit of her heart: “You’re right, we shouldn’t get together.“.

„W-what?“.

„Pete.“, she slowly takes his hand, her voice breaking: “You need to work on your mental health, you can’t just jump from one relationship into the next. That’s unhealthy. But... I will help you. I will be there for you until you’re truly ready to date again.“.

A soft smile spreads on his lips: “That sounds good.“, he leans down: “One kiss, though?“.

„Sure.“, she replies:” You can get more than one..”.And when their lips meet, it feels better than she could have ever imagined.

[jackiequick]

COMIC CON WITH MARVEL RP CAST

Kevin Smith: Welcome everyone to the panel! Today is going to be fun since we the Avengers today with us! *the crowd cheers and screams* Please welcome to the stage James Mcavoy, Anne Hathaway, Dylan O Brian, Jennifer Lawrence and the rest of the cast!

*Everyone dancing out and take their seat waving the audience as they screaming and shout*

Kevin Smith: Wow they love you guys! How is everyone’s experience at the Comic Con so far?

Dylan O Brian: So fun! Someone proposed to me the other day? *smirks looking at the crowd* And I said yes!

Kevin Smith: *jokes* Can’t wait for the wedding! How is everyone else doing?

Anna Hathaway: It’s fun like always the fans for so great and full of energy!

————————————————————

Robert Downey Jr and Alex Lange: *comes out dancing to Michael Jackson throwing roses at the crowd and the cast*

Kevin Smith: RDJ and Alex Lange everybody! How is it like being here at comic con?

Alex Lange: I love it! We were taking photos with fans earlier and I was photobombing everyone.

Robert Downey: All i know is that we got a kickass movie coming real soon for you guys!

—————————————

Fan: Hi! I love you guys is there anything you want your charcters to do in the future?

James Mcavoy: *jokes* Turn Professor X into a woman. I don’t wanna speak too early and jinx it but I think it could be my Oscar. 

Jennifer Lawrence: I already got my Oscar hanging up in its full glory.

—————————

Female Fan: Is there any love interest happening in the near future?

Richard Madden: I don’t know about love interests but I’ll love to take you out. You free Saturday night?

Female Fan: *laughing and blushing* Maybe I’ll just being going to Nerd HQ.

Richard Madden: Then I’ll be your date. *winks* Pick you up at 7 sweetheart.

———————————

Kevin Smith: *laughs* A marriage proposal, a date what’s next? A pregnancy announcement?

James Mcavoy: *jokes* Well me and Anne are adopting a child and calling it Xavier Strange.

Anne Hathaway: *keeps the joke going* Yeah it will be all over the news tomorrow! The comic con baby!

Jennifer Lawrence: Yeah I will be the fun aunt and Robert is the rich uncle that buys all the cool toys.

——————————

Male Fan: What’s your favorite thing about filming these movies? Also Jennifer Lawrence is my wife!

Jennifer Lawrence: Hi husband!

Dylan O Brian: My favorite thing is joking around of set with these guys! I sometimes bump into this idiots on set and pull pranks.

Alex Lange: We’ve be pulling pranks all everyone and playing games. Especially when we have Renner, Mackie, Evans and Hemsworth with us.

——————————

Male Fan: Ok first Richard my wife loves you!

Richard Madden: I love her too! *the cast laughs with the audience*

Male Fans: What was your favorite movie to film? And favorite line?

Richard Madden: Uh favorite line is “Can I retire now?”. Cause it’s funny and makes sense i guess. Favorite film uhhhh guys?

Jennifer Lawrence: My favorite is this one cause our characters act more like good friends than strangers.

Anne Hathaway: Winter Soldier was good cause we met Mackie and Sebastian.

Dylan O Brian: *jokes into the mic* Plus you got to kiss Evans.

*The whole crowd and cast laugh joining along with the fun*

—————

Robert Downey Jr: You know how Marvel always has the next thing up their sleeve and so uh you know we got Thanos!

Josh Brolin: *walks would holding the Infinity Gauntlet as the crowd screams*

—————

Keep it going: @msrochelleromanofffelton @ethan-brekker @meirafireshield @teddyaillard @gaminggirlsstuff @hanlueluver @gcthvile @sherloquestea @rooster-84 @charlesxavier24rpblog and etc.

[love-bokumono-fics]

Fresh Crops! Week of August 23 - August 29, 2021

This week’s newest chapter updates and fics posted on AO3! Stumbling Out of the Shadows - by AccidentallyTheWholeFanfic; WIP, 28/?, 251k Rating: Mature; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: M/M Fandoms: Animal Parade Relationships: Kasey the Farmer/Toby, Chase/Renee, Anissa/Jin; Characters: Kasey, Toby, Chase, Renee, Anissa, Wizard, Luke, Owen Additional Tags: Friendship, Romance, Adventure, Slash, Family, Slice of Life, Eventual Sex, Alternate Take on the Bell Quest, Basically Things Are Quite Different from the Game Summary: Moving to Castanet with hopes of coming out of his shy, introverted shell and doing something worthwhile with his life, Kasey Manatos finds himself roped into saving an endangered land from itself. But in his absolute willingness to help out and prove himself, his recklessness may wind up causing its own problems, as well... M for later. The Botanists Wife - by Thefallen1986; Complete, 1/1, <1k Rating: Explicit; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town Relationship: Pete/Anna; Characters: Anna, Pete | Jack Additional Tags: **some tags redacted to keep post sfw** Cheating, Older Woman/Younger Man, Kissing, French Kissing, Lust Summary: Anna invites Pete over for some intimate time… Hold My Hand Tight - by SometimesJo; Complete, 1/1, 1.1k Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: M/M Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town Relationship: Gray/Pete | Jack; Characters: Gray, Pete, Saibara Additional Tags: Harvest Moon blue feather, Marriage Proposal, Mineral Town, Anxiety, Angst/Comfort, this is the first time i've ever written fanfic please be kind, doesn't help that i haven't played this game in six months Summary: Pete's been running his farm in Mineral Town for a few years, now. It's a far better life than he ever had in the city. And with Gray around, he'd like to do what he can to make the situation permanent. Lagu Kenangan - by kurohimeNoir (Noir_Lightroad); Complete, 1/1, <1k Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M; Language: Bahasa Indonesia Fandom: Back To Nature Relationship: Ann the Innkeeper | Ran/Pete | Jack; Characters: Pete | Jack, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran Additional Tags: Romance, Fluff, During Canon, Canon Compliant Summary: Lagu yang senantiasa disenandungkan, di dalamnya terdapat sebuah kenangan. [JackxAnn. Just fluff. Drabble 100 kata.] Sugar and Spice - by Chibimiie; WIP, 21/?, 35k Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings; Category: F/M Fandoms: Animal Parade Relationships: Chase/Molly the Farmer, Angela/Luke; Characters: Molly | Hikari, Angela the Farmer, Chase, Luke Additional Tags: first fic, Slow Burn, at least molly and chase are, oh god how do you tag fics, beginning is kinda rough, angela chapters tend to be shorter, mentions of eating disorders, ya girl was making it up as she went along, alternating povs, Friends to Lovers Summary: Wanting to get away from past hurts of the city, sisters Molly and Angela decide to respond to a flyer advertising an abandoned farm on the faraway island of Castanet. Leaving behind their closest friends and brother Kasey, the two take a chance and move to the tiny island hoping for a new chance at life Pot-Puri - by Sakrovishte; WIP, 5/?, 14k Rating: Mature; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town, A Wonderful Life Relationships: Pete | Jack/Popuri, Muffy | Muumuu/Pete | Jack; Characters: Popuri, Pete | Jack, Muffy Additional Tags: First Love, Love Triangles, Jealousy, farm struggling Summary: Reposted from Fanfiction. Chickens and chicken eggs were all Popuri knew. She knew a simple way of life. A good life but there was always that little voice that cried out inside of her. The Affair - by Sakrovishte; Complete, 1/1, 1.6k Rating: Explicit; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town Relationship:

Anna/Pete; Characters: Pete the Farmer, Pete | Jack, Anna Additional Tags: Extramarital Affairs Summary: Anna never meant to cheat on Basil. The pleasure was more than she could deny. Winter’s End - by ModernTsunami; WIP, 44/80, 229k Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: F/M Fandoms: Friends of Mineral Town Relationships: Claire the Farmer/Cliff, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran/Cliff, Claire the Farmer/Doctor Trent | Torre; Characters: Claire the Farmer, Cliff, Ann the Innkeeper | Ran, Carter the Pastor, Duke, Manna, Doctor Trent | Torre Additional Tags: Slow Burn, Grief/Mourning, Slice of Life, Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Pining, Found Family, Eventual Romance, Love Triangles, Cliche, especially in the beginning, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags Summary: Cliff’s life in Mineral Town changes with the arrival of a new farmer in need of guidance. As his relationships grow more complicated throughout the year, he finds himself grappling with the doubts of his past and present. His Blossoming Trail - by Juliko; Complete, 1/1, 7k Rating: Teen And Up Audiences; Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings; Category: Gen Fandoms: The Tale of Two Towns Characters: Cam, Kamil, Laney, Howard, Original Male Character(s), Original Female Character(s) Additional Tags: Homophobia, Bigotry & Prejudice, Slurs, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst and Feels, Sexual Confusion, Confusion, Happy Ending, Bad Parenting, Abusive Parents, Flowers, Male Friendship, Friendship, Backstory, Fanon Backstory, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Toxic Masculinity, Critique of toxic masculinity, Coming of Age, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Healing. Gender Roles, Critique of Gender Roles Summary: Cam is a boy who loves gardening and planting flowers, and he's fine with that. His parents, however, don't feel the same way, and their attitudes chip away at his self-esteem. Can he break away from his toxic environment and find that special place where he can be himself? Written for the Writers' Anonymous Forums Transition Challenge on Fanfiction.net Play Nice - by here_have_a_sedative; WIP, 24/?, 81k Rating: Not Rated; Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings; Categories: F/M, M/M Fandom: Trio of Towns Relationships: more as story progresses - Relationship, Wayne/Yuzuki, Hinata/Female Farmer, Ludus/Kasumi; Characters: Hinata, Kasumi, Yuzuki, Komari, Ludus, Siluka, Iluka, Wayne, Ford, Lisette, Female Farmer, Ensemble Additional Tags: Cynicism, Cynical, Self-Harm, Suicide, Musical References, Tsunderes, Fluff, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Crossover Pairings, Crossover, Mutual Pining, Not Beta Read Summary: Elanor moved here to become a farmer. As the roads open up, she meets a certain merchant from Tsuyukusa. Light of Love - by SpiritWolfStar; Complete, 1/1, <1k Rating: General Audiences; Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply; Category: Gen Fandom: Harvest Moon Characters: Mike, Cyril, Gabriel, Original Child Characters - Character, Original Characters, Edmond, Gus, Sofia, Michael, Nova, Sam, Melanie, Bastian, Elise, Carol, Dean, Sabrina, Jeanne, Soleil, Naomi, Sally, Doc, Michelle, Shirlock, Gareth, Tabitha Additional Tags: Harvest Sprites - Freeform, Pets and farm animals Summary: Cute couples and kids doing cute things. Also a bit of information of hair and eye colors and animals and maybe some clothes is in there, but only once for each person and animal.

[ckneal]

So, I’ve covered in an earlier post why I think Castiel was not particularly close to Michael and Lucifer in the time before Lucifer fell, and Chuck went and told everyone that it was Michael’s destiny to one day tear their evil brother limb from limb. Lucifer’s first interaction with Castiel in season 5 and Castiel’s one-on-one conversation with Michael in the bunker in season 15 both support this. 

But curiously enough, you know who I think may have actually been close to Michael, potentially, before Lucifer went bad, Chuck went away, and Michael turned himself into a monster to keep everyone in line? 

Uriel.

And I’ve already written a whole thing about how Michael twisted himself around in order to do what he thought was the right thing, through his demented lens, where I suggest that when Michael killed Anna, he was actually trying to scare Uriel back onto the straight and narrow, knowing that Uriel was questioning their father’s Plan, but what I’m getting at with my assertion that Michael may have been looking out for Uriel a bit more than the rest his siblings, is actually rooted in three instances across the series. 

They are as follows.

In season four, we are introduced to Uriel as a specialist, who, in the past, has “purified a city.” Supposedly, on God’s command. And there is certainly room to speculate that he’s referring to Sodom, where Lot and his family were chosen to be saved, but his wife looked back at the destruction and was turned to salt. 

Later, in season 11, Chuck makes his return to the series and reveals himself as God, which leads Dean to some very complicated feelings, because he has thoughts about Chuck, and thoughts about God, and the world, and he doesn’t really know how to say any of these things because he doesn’t want to “turn into a pillar of salt.” A sentiment that when shared, Chuck interrupts to specifically say “I didn’t do that.”

Chuck didn’t order Sodom’s destruction. Who did? You can make an argument for Michael. He was in charge after Chuck left, but--and just saying, personal interpretation--Michael’s not really a think-for-yourself type. And we don’t really know how extensive of instructions Chuck left Michael with, if any, but Chuck said he didn’t ask for this. And if Michael thought whatever was going on in the city was worth obliterating it, why didn’t he ever make that call again? Unless. . .well, we know Uriel did it. And we know how he feels towards humans. And hell, we know he wasn’t alone in feeling that way. Zachariah and Ishim are both shown to express similarly disparaging sentiments about humans over the course of the series. 

What if what we had here was a case of restless angels sitting around, shooting the shit, working each other up like, I don’t know, a bunch of adolescents from broken homes, who lacked the guidance of caring a parent, primed to act out with wanton destruction, not unlike what Lucifer, Amara, and AU Michael all dish out when they one by one hunted down specific individuals they thought Chuck would care about--but on a much less laser-focused scale. What I’m getting at is, what if Uriel, in the heat of the moment, talking about the unfairness of God seeming to prefer humans to angels, with some like minded individuals on sight to goad him along, took things too far, and destroyed a city. No warning, no set up, it just happened. Maybe Lot and his family were already on the road somewhere when it happened, or. . .

Heaven had a weapon capable of turning an angel’s vessel to salt. We see Balthazar use it on Raphael in season 6. And isn’t it interesting that, as the story goes, Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of that very mineral for disobeying orders by looking back at the city. But what if Lot’s wife wasn’t actually the one being punished for acting out? 

And I want to make sure emphasize this is just my personal headcanon, cooked up just for fun. I feel weird even nodding to an actual bible story since I usually try to look exclusively at the Supernatural canon, but. . .What if that particular story, in Supernatural, about a city that was so bad it had to go, where a woman was seen killed (or at least, the witnesses thought was killed, the witnesses being mere humans) and assumed to be another survivor fleeing for her life. . .was a cover up? Michael hints in season 15 that he had a hand in crafting the stories that eventually went into the bible. He knew about Sodom, his position in Heaven means that he definitely knew that Chuck didn’t order it, and the fact that Michael was known to take a very terrifying position when it came to siblings stepping out of line (see Anna here). . . I personally see some question marks hanging around this particular event. And I wonder if maybe it might have been an instance in which an older brother caught his younger one red handed doing something awful, his cohorts having run off, and recognized what had happened. And maybe made the mistake of thinking that he could just reframe it all and make all the negative aspects of the situation go away, not knowing that to those cohorts, it would look like he was condoning their actions, on the DL?   

I don’t know. It’s just a thought.

[red-hood-vigilante]

hbo spn storylines, drabbles, ideas, thoughts, wishlist, whatever you may call it. it’s messy, nothing makes sense and pretty sure a lot of these contradict each other

more of sam at stanford with jessica/flashbacks. jessica potentially lives but is revealed to be a demon (but she developed actual feelings for sam and really did come to care for him because a demon falling in love with a human would be SO interesting) OR she lives but her memory gets wiped like dean did to lisa OR she dies like she did but she is a ghost that haunts sam (he welcomes it but eventually he lets her go -> character arc). he still dreams about her though and he has her keepsakes with him wherever he goes, her rings, her favourite book, anything that was left of her from the fire

you have to be extremely careful when making deals with demons because they are cunning and evil creatures. they will follow the rules of the deal but will find loopholes to put some sadistic twist on the terms. you want money? of course, too bad you’ll be arrested for fraud before you can use any of it and spend the next ten years in jail before i drag you to hell. you want a perfect husband? sure he’ll love you. in fact, he’ll love you so much he’ll keep you locked up in the basement to keep you safe etc etc. saving a person often becomes the person that causes or leads to your death.

the creation of jack: after s5, when lucifer is trapped in the cage again lucifer fuses his own soul with a human soul to create jack, who escapes to earth to find sam and castiel. i have a longer post about this saved in my drafts

lucifer is trapped for good in the cage after s5 but if he was to return again, dean would kill him while sam would kill michael - this would be nice parallels and a sort of fulfillment of the “one brother must kill the other” prophecy because one brother DO kill another brother, just not their own

more azazel and how he came to the plan of how to free lucifer; opening a hell gate earlier, more experimentations with the demon blood etc

mary was infected with the blood when she was a baby, sam is the first and only second generation special child (longer post about that here)

personally, i want to see more and know more about john and mary’s relationship. when mary died, john and mary had fulfilled their destiny (having sam and dean) so does that mean that his love and dedication to mary post her death was falsely fabricated by the angels to ensure sam and dean would grow up in ideal conditions to become hunters? or maybe, after mary’s death, john wakes up from the spell with two kids he doesn’t recognize and a wife he thinks he loved, but the memories of the past years of his life are like a fever dream; he never wanted to live in a town like this nor was he interested in having kids? but here the house is, and here are his kids, but now he’s alone and empty and with no answers. (idk i just find john and mary and their relationship very fascinating) if the latter, if john and mary see each other again it’s like the spell activates again and they become blindly in love with each other, but once gone, they return to their confused and hazey state of mind, like just woken up from a coma

i do like mary coming back but i love how in s5 when she wasn’t found in heaven it was hinted that she was just discarded because she had fulfilled her “purpose” and i think this adds to the whole notion of how heaven and angels can be really cruel AND how mary is this mythical, religious figure to both sam and dean and we only get to know her through their lenses, like religion and faith

ruby is present for a longer amount of time to make the reveal even more shocking. at one point or another, dean does actually trust her and they all work together on cases for a while. ruby’s backstory as a witch is more explored. i like her death in s4 because she’s in this total state of euphoria and has achieved a goal only she was entrusted with, and she is so convinced sam will understand, until sam holds her down while dean carves her heart out. so we either keep that or she serves lucifer for a while (until he kills her which she is happy about because of her blind loyalty to him, could again mirror dean and john/castiel and heaven) or she serves lucifer and like crowley she realizes lucifer will kill demons after humans (redemption arc, but i don’t really like that, let her be evil!!)

dean and sam helps bela out of her deal and she becomes their go-to person when they need a magic item or book. she doesn’t like it but she owes them. regularly hooks up with jo.

angels are really hollow soldiers - they only follow orders and don’t understand the concept free will or choice or individuality at all. they are extremely righteous and strike without warning often on a whim, often very bloody (explosions a la castiel in swan song). if something fall into what they consider justice they will kill it. no concept of love, attraction or gender. real form can’t be perceived by humans unless they want them to, which leads to eyes melting (pamela) or breaking a person’s mind (in 5.16 zachariah actually says that sam and dean sees him in his vessel bc they’re ‘limited’. so.)

castiel, anna, maybe uriel and some others are exceptions to this, but only becomes so after longer exposure to human’s world. even then, they don’t change their violent whims, just the reasoning and where their loyalty lies

hbo spn is s1-5 stretched out for 8-10 seasons with the aesthetics of s1-2. i’m cutting out demon dean, purgatory, the mark of cain, the men of letters, the alphas, leviathatan, god being the real villain all along and the other worlds because it was just too much and far remived from the roadtrip aesthetic. keeping kevin, charlie (she is introduced via ash bc they’re hacker friends), the trials, rowena, uuuh the angels falling is such an interesting concept but idk if it would fit. maybe metatron? but his motivations are different. soullessness + the concept of souls might be kept if it’s explained better. i’m torn on whether or not to include the campbells

hell, heaven and purgatory are explained but only seen in glimpses, keep these ideas ambiguous and up to interpretation outside of what we hear. remember the line ‘hell is...well, it’s like hell. even for demons’? leave it at that. the exception is 5.16 bc that episode fucks so hard

if we end on swan song and let the show be the tragedy it is, i want to keep the ambiguous ending. is that sam or lucifer? if it’s sam, will he contact dean or walk away? we will never know! there is also no ‘the world is ending’ more than once, it really lost its impact after the second or third time.

idk how i feel about the men of letters - it is logical that there would be organized hunting and an established network and system on how to do things, but for the sake of keeping it hbo-style and grounded, there are no networks beyond the roadhouse and singer’s salvage yard.

i want sam and dean not have a permanent home except the impala, motels and impala ONLY. the bunker had potential but it was just for the sake of convenience it was there with all the lore and answers they needed when it was necessary. maybe eventually they do stop travelling so much when it becomes more about the Big Stuff instead of the episodic cases that requires driving all the time but it will be like an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere. i want sam and dean to never have a physical house as a home but they scrape together whatever they have make something similar to a show

as the show progresses, sam and dean become pretty hated by other hunters because they’ve started apocalypse and have an increasingly shitty reputation. and john was an infamous good hunter but also a dick. everybody knows that people who work with the winchesters often end up dead, that one brother will sacrifice anything and anyone to save the other and that they frequently work alongside demons. even the ones they DO work with (jo, ellen, bobby, rufus, bela) are hesitant to be involved with them

sam’s powers are strong but after killing lilith and the truth revealed to him, he represses the powers in shock and fear of how blinded he was by them and the rush of power they gave him. a little more about how sam fears what the lust for power and strength did to him. he continues to repress his powers, often to a dangerous point where he will be on death’s door as a result of not using them. when meeting jack and mentoring him in using his powers, jack asks him about sam’s powers after sensing them. sam eventually decides to lead by example and embraces his powers again, but remains extremely careful about using them (this also fulfills dean’s arc of having to let go of the holy-innocent-pure-ideal-not a person but an idealized version of sam-little brother sam he has put on a pedestal for so long)

bobby is viewed as a father figure by sam and dean but bobby makes it clear he doesn’t want that burden or relationship in his life after his wife died. he makes this clear to them too, but sam and dean have fucked up perceptions of parental figures so they don’t think bobby means it (they just latch on to whatever parental figures they can find)

we see more of sam’s relationship with the side characters; sam and jo hunt together on occasion, he hangs out with ash and talks hacking when visiting the roadhouse. he and ellen loves playing poker together. if anything, dean is the one who’s isolated - he only ever really cared about mary, john, sam and cassie, and never really had any friends. sam is way more well adjusted and sociable after spending time at stanford where he’s had conversations that didn’t only revolve around dead bodies and lore. 

this could also feed into dean’s extreme abandonment issues and isolation he feels and how this would affect his psyche

sam and dean are both unknowingly prepared to become the perfect vessels; sam loses his humanity by becoming more and more like lucifer (defying his father and his will) while dean becomes prepared by doing what michael did; casting his brother away in his time of need (blindly following his father and his will). very much like in s4 but even more intense and brutal (i love angst :))

we see different hybrids; demon/human (antichrist), human/(arch)angel (nephilim) and demon/angel (???), but none of them are all powerful bc narratively that’s really boring. they’re strong but have very specific powers that affects them and/or their surroundings in catastrophic ways (but no other worlds bs, we stick to the road trip aesthetic, keep it grounded). i want the only all powerful character to be god but he doesn’t show up at all, he’s the ultimate absent father. is it chuck? we never find out!

powers would for example include giving people diseases, force anyone close to them to tell the truth (not consciously, it’s just the air around them), read minds, create storms, light things on fire when they’re angry, make people hallucinate etc. like fucked up shit but not things that are too grande because again - that’s really boring

abbadon, the princes of hell and the four horsemen are more fleshed out villains instead of the one season reign the each had. 

being a prince of hell is a title that is inherited - after azazel dies, sam gets the title because he is the one with azazel’s blood in him OR meg does, but idk if that would be as interesting (if she actually was his daughter)

it remains a horror show throughout, lots of gore and blood

the moral code and ethics of the brothers are the opposite of the beginning; dean thinks in black and white, sam sees shades of grey and individuals instead of what they are. however, as the show progresses, their train of thought becomes opposites; dean becomes more open to how people are true evil and how monsters are often victims of their circumstance while sam becomes harsher and less forgiving after ruby’s betrayal along with finding out the truth of his existence and how there’s been demons around his entire life. eventually they’re on the same page and they see the circumstances. 

on the other hand; i also really fuck with the idea of dean maintaining his black and white morals on that all monsters=inherently evil, humans=inherently pure and good, but he is the only human on team free will. sam is half demon, castiel is an angel, jack is a nephilim, rowena is a witch, garth is a werewolf, mary is a zombie etc

demons become demons in hell by agreeing to become the torturer and thus giving up their humanity to be free of pain, does that mean they could become humans again by regaining some humanity? by doing good deeds? (potentially this is confirmed with jessica and how she came to love sam; genuine love and care for a human could reverse the demon process?) this also means dean was a demon in hell but was purified/turned back again when castiel raised him. this also plays into dean becoming like michael; in trying to absolve himself from what he did in hell he becomes ruthless, unforgiving and righteous to evil, much like the angels, regardless of his personal connection to a person and what he would consider “evil”

dean and pacifisim: after dean is cured from being a demon/the mark of cain/is made aware of his blind righteousness that he used as an excuse to kill, he becomes firmly determined to reign in his anger and violent tendencies by becoming a pacifist (like sam in s11) as a way to redeem all the blood he’s spilled. of course in his profession and true dean fashion he won’t be able to do it 100% so he decides to only act in self defense, and he only goes batshit violent on the offense when it’s about protecting sam

OR. dean’s self righteousness becomes his own downfall; the belief that all evil must be eradicated, refusal to see the circumstances and the shades of grey is what pushes him to lose his humanity and become a demon and therefore, in a potential ending the ruler of hell, because i think it would such an interesting journey from a to b, that dean starts out human, revels in his holiness, executes and kills in the name of his own holiness in the belief that he’s becoming the ultimate angel, the ultimate hero when it’s doing the opposite. if this happened then sam would take the opposite route; starts as a human, becomes more and more demonic, stops himself and returns to his hopeful and optimistic self, has faith and humility and that is what makes him ascend from abomination to purified and holy (trials). 

this could be a perfect 10 season structure as well: s1-5 are when sam and dean start off humans; dean becomes holy and as close to an angel a human can be, while sam drinks the demon blood and almost becomes one to gain the freedom and power he wants, but begins to turn it around to send lucifer back to hell. s6-10 is when dean becomes the unholy and sam becomes the holy even though neither realize because now there’s no grand master plan - this is who they are, who they choose themselves. don’t know how this ould end though; either as normal humans again (but there wouldn’t really be a ”normal” after everything) or they really go off the rails with sam like ruling heaven (not as god though, just as a good and just man) and dean ruling hell. castiel is human and stays on earth with jack.

the gothic americana aesthetic is kept throughout the entire show and is only shot on film

after s5 castiel returns to heaven to help restore order, and he takes charge for a little while, but eventually returns to earth after trying to introduce democracy to angels who didn’t get it. in his place, anna takes over and she rules heaven well (after trying to kill mary when going back in time she isn’t killed by michael, but narrowly escapes and remains in hiding to heal until castiel reaches out and finds her)

when finding out they are The Vessels and will be brought back regardless of what they try, sam and dean explore what this means more. dean throws himself into dangers and to protect others. he is burned, blown up, stabbed, electrocuted, beheaded and eaten, but wakes up the next morning in his bed without a scratch, without any pain and memories of his deaths. he revels in this untouchability. sam kills himself over and over only to be resurrected again and again by lucifer. he remembers the pain and blood.

that being said, while dean is like angel royalty, sam is demon royalty. the demons don’t go after him, they don’t hurt him. some even offer up themselves to be drained of blood, even after lilith’s death. it makes it really difficult to stay clean but he pulls through with dean and castiel actually supporting him. to help sam get through his addiction, dean stops drinking alcohol and they go through their withdrawal together

the angels almost worship dean as the michael sword and have an open disgust towards sam for being lucifer’s vessel - they always answer dean’s prayers and calls for help, they follow his orders if need be and don’t hesitate to heal him if he needs it. sam could pray until his vocal chords bleed or call out for help while holding his guts in his hands; none of the angels would come to his aid. the only one who answers sam’s prayers is lucifer as a voice in sam’s head or a hallucination. sam could call demons to help him out but he refuses

sam isn’t the first hunter to drink demon blood, to try to enhance his own abilities using the supernatural as a means to get there - there are hunters who have altered themselves with parts from werewolves and vampires to become better hunters, like the styne family (the guys from s10), blurring the lines again of what’s good and human vs what is evil and inhumane

if angels can’t find a vessel to volunteer, they will force them to say yes - the how is not important, only that the ‘yes’ is said, whether its meant or not, any verbal yes will do. the angels never sleep and they never eat, which is disturbing to sam and dean who are exhausted all the time and eat scraps whenever they can

castiel, like all other angels, is taught to despise and not care about sam winchester at all, but the more castiel gets to know sam, he becomes fascinated with him, how lucifer’s ultimate vessel, starter of the apocalypse and destroyer of god’s creation can be so kind and gentle, so full of faith, acceptance, optimism and hope. in dean castiel sees a good man, yes, but also a man who’s bloodthirsty, rages, revels in war, resorts all problems with violence, loves conditionally and expects unquestioned loyalty. sam too, has a darkness and bloodthirst in him, but it only comes out in glimpses. castiel thinks it’s funny, how sam turns out to be the opposite of lucifer while dean is so alike michael

[justforbooks]

Fifty Great Classic Novels Under 200 Pages

We are now end of February, which is technically the shortest month, but is also the one that—for me, anyway—feels the longest. Especially this year, for all of the reasons that you already know. At this point, if you keep monthly reading goals, even vague ones, you may be looking for few a good, short novels to knock out in an afternoon or two. So now I must turn my attention to my favorite short classics—which represent the quickest and cheapest way, I can tell you in my salesman voice, to become “well-read.”

A few notes: This list will define “classic” as being originally published before 1970. Yes, these distinctions are somewhat arbitrary, but one has to draw the line somewhere (though I let myself fudge on translation dates). I did not differentiate between novels and novellas (as Steven Millhauser would tell you, the novella is not a form at all, but merely a length), but let’s be honest with ourselves: “The Dead” is a short story, and so is “The Metamorphosis.” Sorry! I limited myself to one book by each author, valiantly, I should say, because I was tempted to cheat (looking at you Jean Rhys).

Most importantly for our purposes here: lengths vary with editions, sometimes wildly. I did not include a book below unless I could find that it had been published at least once in fewer than 200 pages—which means that some excellent novels, despite coming tantalizingly close to the magic number, had to be left off for want of proof (see Mrs. Dalloway, Black No More, Slaughterhouse-Five, etc. etc. etc.). However, your personal edition might not exactly match the number I have listed here. Don’t worry: it’ll still be short.

Finally, as always: “best” lists are subjective, no ranking is definitive, and I’ve certainly forgotten, or never read, or run out of space for plenty of books and writers here. And admittedly, the annoying constraints of this list make it more heavily populated by white and male writers than I would have liked. Therefore, please add on at will in the comments. After all, these days, I’m always looking for something old to read.

Adolfo Bioy Casares, tr. Ruth L.C. Simms, The Invention of Morel (1940) : 103 pages

Both Jorge Luis Borges and Octavio Paz described this novel as perfect, and I admit I can’t find much fault with it either. It is technically about a fugitive whose stay on a mysterious island is disturbed by a gang of tourists, but actually it’s about the nature of reality and our relationship to it, told in the most hypnotizing, surrealist style. A good anti-beach read, if you plan that far ahead.

John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men (1937) : 107 pages

Everybody’s gateway Steinbeck is surprisingly moving, even when you revisit it as an adult. Plus, if nothing else, it has given my household the extremely useful verb “to Lenny.”

George Orwell, Animal Farm (1945) : 112 pages

If we didn’t keep putting it on lists, how would future little children of America learn what an allegory is? This is a public service, you see.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) : 112 pages

A people-pleaser, in more ways than one: Sherlock Holmes, after all, had been dead for years when his creator finally bent to public demand (and more importantly, the demand of his wallet) and brought him back, in this satisfying and much-beloved tale of curses and hell-beasts and, of course, deductions.

James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1933) : 112 pages

A 20th century classic, and still one of the best, most important, and most interesting crime novels in the canon. Fun fact: Cain had originally wanted to call it Bar-B-Q.

Nella Larsen, Passing (1929) : 122 pages

One of the landmarks of the Harlem Renaissance, about not only race but also gender and class—not to mention self-invention, perception, capitalism, motherhood and friendship—made indelible by what Darryl Pinckney called “a deep fatalism at the core.”

Albert Camus, tr. Matthew Ward, The Stranger (1942) : 123 pages

I had a small obsession with this book as a moody teen, and I still think of it with extreme fondness. Is it the thinking person’s Catcher in the Rye? Who can say. But Camus himself put it this way, writing in 1955: “I summarized The Stranger a long time ago, with a remark I admit was highly paradoxical: “In our society any man who does not weep at his mother’s funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death.” I only meant that the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game.”

Juan Rulfo, tr. Margaret Sayers Peden, Pedro Páramo (1955) : 128 pages

The strange, fragmented ghost story that famously paved the way for One Hundred Years of Solitude (according to Gabriel García Márquez himself), but is an enigmatic masterpiece in its own right.

Italo Calvino, tr. Archibald Colquhoun, The Cloven Viscount (1959) : 128 pages

This isn’t my favorite Calvino, but you know what they say: all Calvino is good Calvino (also, I forgot him on the contemporary list, so I’m making up for it slightly here). The companion volume to The Nonexistent Knight and The Baron in the Trees concerns a Viscount who is clocked by a cannonball and split into two halves: his good side and his bad side. They end up in a duel over their wife, of course—just like in that episode of Buffy. But turns out that double the Viscounts doesn’t translate to double the pages.

Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899) : 128 pages

I know, I know, but honestly, this book, which is frequently taught in American schools as an example of early feminist literature, is still kind of edgy—more than 120 years later, and it’s still taboo for a woman to put herself and her own desires above her children. Whom among us has not wanted to smash a symbolic glass vase into the hearth?

Leo Tolstoy, tr. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886) : 128 pages

Another classic—Tolstoy can do it all, long and short—particularly beloved by the famously difficult-to-impress Nabokov, who described it as “Tolstoy’s most artistic, most perfect, and most sophisticated achievement,” and explained the thrust of it this way: “The Tolstoyan formula is: Ivan lived a bad life and since the bad life is nothing but the death of the soul, then Ivan lived a living death; and since beyond death is God’s living light, then Ivan died into a new life—Life with a capital L.”

Richard Brautigan, In Watermelon Sugar (1968) : 138 pages

Brautigan’s wacky post-apocalyptic novel concerns a bunch of people living in a commune called iDEATH. (Which, um, relatable.) The landscape is groovy and the tigers do math, and the titular watermelon sugar seems to be the raw material for everything from homes to clothes. “Wherever you are, we must do the best we can. It is so far to travel, and we have nothing here to travel, except watermelon sugar. I hope this works out.” It’s all nonsense, of course, but it feels so good.

James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912) : 140 pages

Another early novel on the subject of passing—originally published in 1912, then again under Johnson’s name in 1927—this one presented as an “autobiography” written by a Black man living as white, but uneasily, considering himself a failure, feeling until the end the grief of giving up his heritage and all the pain and joy that came with it.

Thomas Mann, tr. Michael Henry Heim, Death in Venice (1912) : 142 pages

What it says on the tin—a story as doomed as Venice itself, but also a queer and philosophical mini-masterpiece. The year before the book’s publication, Mann wrote to a friend: “I am in the midst of work: a really strange thing I brought with me from Venice, a novella, serious and pure in tone, concerning a case of pederasty in an aging artist. You say, ‘Hum, hum!’ but it is quite respectable.” Indeed.

Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962) : 146 pages

If you’re reading this space, you probably already know how much we love this book at Literary Hub. After that excellent opening paragraph, it only gets better.

Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man (1964) : 152 pages

Isherwood’s miniature, jewel-like masterpiece takes place over a single day in the life of a middle-aged English expat (who shares a few qualities with Isherwood himself), a professor living uneasily in California after the unexpected death of his partner. An utterly absorbing and deeply pleasurable novel.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, tr. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, Notes from Underground (1864) : 154 pages

Probably the best rant ever passed off as literature. Dostoevsky's first masterpiece has been wildly influential in the development of existential and dystopian storytelling of all kinds, not to mention in the development of my own high school misanthropy. Maybe yours, too? “It was all from ENNUI, gentlemen, all from ENNUI; inertia overcame me . . .” Actually, now I’m thinking that it might be a good book to re-read in pandemic isolation.

Anna Kavan, Ice (1967) : 158 pages

The narrator of this strange and terrifying novel obsessively pursues a young woman through an icy apocalypse. You might call it a fever dream if it didn’t feel so . . . cold. Reading it, wrote Jon Michaud on its 50th anniversary, is “a disorienting and at times emotionally draining experience, not least because, these days, one might become convinced that Kavan had seen the future.” Help.

Jean Toomer, Cane (1923) : 158 pages

Toomer’s experimental, multi-disciplinary novel, now a modernist classic, is presented as a series of vignettes, poems, and swaths of dialogue—but to be honest, all of it reads like poetry. Though its initial reception was uncertain, it has become one of the most iconic and influential works of 1920s American literature.

J.G. Ballard, The Drowned World (1962) : 158 pages

Only in a Ballard novel can climate change make you actually become insane—and only a Ballard novel could still feel so sticky and hot in my brain, years after I read it in a single afternoon.

Knut Hamsun, tr. Sverre Lyngstad, Hunger (1890) : 158 pages

The Nobel Prize winner’s first novel is, as Hamsun himself put it, “an attempt to describe the strange, peculiar life of the mind, the mysteries of the nerves in a starving body.” An modernist psychological horror novel that is notoriously difficult, despite its length, but also notoriously worth it.

James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room (1956) : 159 pages

Still my favorite Baldwin, and one of the most convincing love stories of any kind ever written, about which there is too much to say: it is a must-read among must-reads.

Willa Cather, O Pioneers! (1913) : 159 pages

A mythic, proto-feminist frontier novel about a young Swedish immigrant making a home for herself in Nebraska, with an unbearably cool and modern title (in my opinion).

Françoise Sagan, tr. Irene Ash, Bonjour Tristesse (1955) : 160 pages

Sagan’s famously scandalous novel of youthful hedonism, published (also famously) when Sagan was just 19 herself, is much more psychologically nuanced than widely credited. As Rachel Cusk wrote, it is not just a sexy French novel, but also “a masterly portrait that can be read as a critique of family life, the treatment of children and the psychic consequences of different forms of upbringing.” It is a novel concerned not only with morals or their lack, but with the very nature of morality itself.

Herman Melville, Billy Budd, Sailor (1924) : 160 pages

Bartleby may be more iconic (and more fun), but Billy Budd is operating on a grander scale, unfinished as it may be.

Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) : 160 pages

Everyone’s gateway to Pynchon, and also everyone’s gateway to slapstick postmodernism. Either you love it or you hate it!

Franz Kafka, tr. Willa and Edwin Muir, The Trial (1925) : 160 pages

Required reading for anyone who uses the term “Kafkaesque”—but don’t forget that Kafka himself would burst out laughing when he read bits of the novel out loud to his friends. Do with that what you will.

Kenzaburo Oe, tr. John Nathan, A Personal Matter (1968) : 165 pages

Whew. This book is a lot: absolutely gorgeous and supremely painful, and probably the Nobel Prize winner’s most important.

Djuna Barnes, Nightwood (1936) : 170 pages

In his preface to the first edition, T.S. Eliot praised “the great achievement of a style, the beauty of phrasing, the brilliance of wit and characterisation, and a quality of horror and doom very nearly related to that of Elizabethan tragedy.” It is also a glittering modernist masterpiece, and one of the first novels of the 20th century to explicitly portray a lesbian relationship.

Yasunari Kawabata, tr. Edward G. Seidensticker, Snow Country (1937) : 175 pages

A story of doomed love spun out in a series of indelible, frozen images—both beautiful and essentially suspicious of beauty—by a Nobel Prize winner.

Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) : 176 pages

This novel, Rhys’s famous riposte to one of the worst love interests in literary history, tells the story of Mr. Rochester from the point of view of the “madwoman in the attic.” See also: Good Morning, Midnight (1939), which is claustrophobic, miserable, pointless, and damn fine reading.

George Eliot, Silas Marner (1861) : 176 pages

Like Middlemarch, Silas Marner is exquisitely written and ecstatically boring. Unlike Middlemarch, it is quite short.

Muriel Spark, The Girls of Slender Means (1963) : 176 pages

The girls of Spark’s novel live in the May of Teck Club, disturbed but not destroyed by WWII—both the Club, that is, and the girls. “Their slenderness lies not so much in their means,” Carol Shields wrote in an appreciation of the book, “as in their half-perceived notions about what their lives will become and their overestimation of their power in the world. They are fearless and frightened at the same time, as only the very young can be, and they are as heartless in spirit as they are merry in mode.” Can’t go wrong with Muriel Spark.

Robert Walser, tr. Christopher Middleton, Jakob von Gunten (1969) : 176 pages

Walser is a writer’s writer, a painfully underrated genius; this novel, in which a privileged youth runs off to enroll at a surrealist school for servants, may be his best.

Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) : 179 pages

Read for proof that Holly Golightly was meant to be a Marilyn.

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1958) : 181 pages

A powerful, clear-eyed, and haunting novel, which at the time of its publication was transgressive in its centering of African characters in all their humanity and complexity, and which paved the way for thousands of writers all over the world in the years to follow.

Leonard Gardner, Fat City (1969) : 183 pages

Universally acknowledged as the best boxing novel ever written, but so much more than that: at its core, it’s a masterpiece about that secret likelihood of life, if not of literature: never achieving your dreams.

N. Scott Momaday, House Made of Dawn (1968) : 185 pages

House Made of Dawn, Momaday’s first novel, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and is often credited with ushering in the Native American Renaissance. Intricate, romantic, and lush, it is at its core about the creaking dissonance of two incompatible worlds existing in the same place (both literally and metaphysically) at the same time.

Chester Himes, If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945) : 186 pages

Himes’ first novel spans four days in the life of a Californian named Bob Jones, whose every step is dogged by racism. Walter Mosely called Himes, who is also renowned for his detective fiction, a “quirky American genius,” and also “one of the most important American writers of the 20th century.” If He Hollers Let Him Go, while not technically a detective story, is “firmly located in the same Los Angeles noir tradition as The Big Sleep and Devil in a Blue Dress,” Nathan Jefferson has written. “Himes takes the familiar mechanics of these novels—drinking, driving from one end of Los Angeles to another in search of answers, a life under constant threats of danger—and filters them through the lens of a black man lacking any agency and control over his own life, producing something darker and more oppressive than the traditional pulp detective’s story.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925) : 189 pages

All my life I have wanted to scoff at The Great Gatsby. Usually, things that are universally adored are bad, or at least mediocre. But every time I reread it, I remember: impossibly, annoyingly, it is as good as they say.

Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin (1957) : 190 pages

Still one of my favorite campus novels, and short enough to read in between classes.

Charles Portis, Norwood (1966) : 190 pages

Portis has gotten a lot of (well-deserved) attention in recent years for True Grit, but his first novel, Norwood, is almost as good, a comic masterpiece about a young man traipsing across a surreal America to lay his hands on $70.

Philip K. Dick, Ubik (1969) : 191 pages

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and A Scanner Darkly have more mainstream name recognition (thank you Hollywood) but Ubik is Dick’s masterpiece, filled to the brim with psychics and anti-psis, dead wives half-saved in cold-pac, and disruptions to time and reality that can be countered by an aerosol you get at the drugstore. Sometimes, anyway.

Clarice Lispector, tr. Alison Entrekin, Near to the Wild Heart (1943) : 192 pages

Lispector’s debut novel, first published in Brazil when she was only 19, is still my favorite of hers: fearless, sharp-edged, and brilliant, a window into one of the most interesting narrators in literature.

Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1962) : 192 pages

This novel is probably more famous these days for the Kubrick film, but despite the often gruesome content, the original text is worth a read for the language alone.

Barbara Comyns, Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead (1954) : 193 pages

Comyns is a criminally under-read genius, though she’s been getting at least a small taste of the attention she deserves in recent years due to reissues by NYRB and Dorothy. This one is my favorite, permeated, as Brian Evenson puts it in the introduction of my copy, with marvelousness, “a kind of hybrid of the pastoral and the naturalistic, an idyllic text about what it’s like to grow up next to a river, a text that also just happens to contain some pretty shocking and sad disasters.” Which is putting it rather mildly indeed.

Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) : 194 pages

In 194 pages, Janie goes through more husbands than most literary heroines can manage in twice as many (and finds herself in equally short order).

Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome (1911) : 195 pages

To be honest with you, though it has been variously hailed as a masterpiece, I find Ethan Frome to be lesser Wharton—but even lesser Wharton is better than a lot of people’s best.

Joan Lindsay, Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967) : 198 pages

The mood this novel—of disappeared teens and Australian landscape and uncertainty—lingers much longer than the actual reading time.

Angela Carter, The Magic Toyshop (1967) : 200 pages

“The summer she was fifteen,” Carter’s second novel begins, “Melanie discovered she was made of flesh and blood.” It is that year that she is uprooted from her home in London to the wilds of America, and it is that year she comes to term with herself. “It is often the magical, fabular aspects of Carter’s stories that people focus on, but in The Magic Toyshop I responded to the way she blended this with a clear-eyed realism about what it was to live in a female body,” Evie Wyld wrote in her ode to this novel. “In a novel so brilliantly conjured from splayed toothbrush heads, mustard-and-cress sandwiches and prawn shells, bread loaves and cutlery, brickwork and yellow household soap, the female body is both one more familiar object and at the same time something strange and troubling.”

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[bleachanimefan1]

Oblitus Part 35

Brother My Brother

28 Days Left Until Extermination...

Michael was now sitting on the couch in the lobby. He had finished eating his sixth sandwich that Anna had made for him.

"Can I have some more?" he asked. Anna laughed.

"You know, there are other kinds of food besides sandwiches."

"Maybe later then?" Michael suggested.

"Maybe," Anna smiled. "So, how did you make my parents have me when they couldn't?"

"Your parents are still your parents. I just helped give them a little nudge," Michael explained. "I gave them a blessing and here you are!"

"So, is that an angel thing? To give blessings?" Alastor snickered as he leaned against the couch beside Anna.

"I wouldn't be laughing if I were you," Michael smirked. "If I recall, your mother had the same problem as well." Alastor immediately froze. Michael continued, thinking. "Judging from your expression, I've must have hit something. What was her name? Oh, it was Rose Hazbin! So, unfortunate how she died. That would make you her son, correct? Your real name is Alastor Hazbin! You're the serial killer in Louisiana, that was killed in the 1930's due to an unfortunate dog accident!"

Anna's eyes widen as she looked at Alastor. She knew that Alastor really did not liked to talk about his past. Michael was crossing very thin lines at this moment. But, she couldn't help but find it strange that Michael only mentioned Al's mother and not his father. Was he not in heaven with Alastor's mom?

Alastor's eyes began to glow a deep shade of red as he stared at the angel with a strained smile on his face. How dare this charlatan talk about his mother?! He growled, clenching his fist tightly that his nails drew blood as he did. Anna grew tense when noticed a look in Alastor's eyes. She knew that look anywhere. He looked like he wanted to rip the angel sitting beside her in half.

"So, how long does the blessing take for the hotel?" Anna interrupted, sliding in front of Alastor, blocking himself from Michael.

"It'll take a couple of days," Michael replied.

Suddenly, the group heard the front door close. They turned their head to see Charlie walking in, along with her father. As the two of them approached, Lucifer froze when he saw Michael sitting on the couch. Michael gasped as he saw him.

"Luci!" the angel got up from the couch and made a beeline over to him, to hug him. Lucifer stepped to the side and stuck his cane out, tripping the angel instead, making him fall on the floor face first.

"When my daughter said that she had an interesting guest," Lucifer said. "I didn't think she was talking about you. What are you doing here?"

"I suppose, Charlie, told you what happen, right?" Michael groaned, as he sat up from the floor. "It seems our other brother has gotten the wrong idea and thinks that your secretly raising an army to overthrow dad." he explained.

"So, when are you gonna leave?" Lucifer growled.

"I can't on the account of my damaged wing," Michael replied. "Once, it is healed and I give my blessing to the hotel-"

"No, you're not!" Lucifer spatted out, angrily, as michael stared at him with wide eyes in shock. "I don't want any of that shit around my daughter!" Michael cringed as Lucifer continued to curse at him.

"Dad!" Charlie stepped in. "He's trying to help with my hotel program. Why can't you accept that?"

"Oh really? Then where was his help when your grandfather cast me and the others out? Where was he when your grandfather left me and your mother stranded in exile? Hmm?!" Anna and Alastor, who had an amused look on his face, watched as the two went back and forth with each other, arguing.

"Luci, I know anything that I say won't change the past. But, you have to let it go," Michael replied, calmly. Then he looked at him, defiantly. "But, you have to live with your actions. It was you who chose to upset father! It was you who decided to rebel against him! You have no one to blame but yourself!" The next thing, Lucifer slammed Michael against the wall, by his hand on his throat.

"Dad!" Charlie shouted.

"If it wasn't for my daughter standing here right now, I would kill you," Lucifer growled. Then he released Michael from his grip and he fell to floor, coughing as he rubbed his throat. "But, I also don't want to start a war, not with my family is in danger. So, go ahead put up your silly little protection spell. But, stay away from, Charlotte." Lucifer's eyes glowed bright red, angrily as he stared down at Michael. "Do we have an understanding?"

"You're as crazy as ever!" Michael shouted. Lucifer ignored his brother's outburst and turned to everyone else who was in the room, who had come running in to see what the yelling and shouting was about.

"I also have another announcement to make," Lucifer said. "To celebrate my daughter's hotel program, for redeeming half of the clients, we shall have a party! What do you have to say about that?"

Anna stared at the king with an puzzled look. He yells at his brother then decided next that he wants to throw a party? This guy is a loony tune. However, Alastor noticed that there was an suspicious look in Lucifer's eyes for a second as he looked at him then glanced over towards Anna.

Just what was he up to?

It was later on that evening, that the party was held inside of the hotel. Everyone was gathered inside of a large ballroom completely dapper and dressed up. Some demons and clients were dancing and chatting with each other. Niffty and Baxter were dancing with each other. Charlie was talking to her mom, while Angel was wearing an non revealing chest dress for once, to everyone's surprise. He had claimed that he wanted to wear something different for once, but Husk noticed that there was something going on that Angel wasn't telling everybody. But, decided to drop it for now.

Anna wearing the same dress that she wore to sponsor Niffty. She was resting after finishing her last dance with Alastor and was now talking to Michael.

While everyone else was doing their own thing, Alastor was leaning against the wall, looking around the room, watching. Waiting for something to happen. Lucifer decided to approach him as he stood next to him.

"I don't know what you're planning, but-" Lucifer laughed.

"But, nothing Alastor," he smiled, wickedly. "My plan's already in motion."

Alastor's eyes widen when he noticed that Lucifer's pet snake, that was on his hat, was missing.

Where's the snake?!

He saw Lucifer smirk and turned his head in his direction to where he was looking at. Alastor felt everything froze around him as he saw the purple snake, slithering it's way over to where Anna was standing. It opened it's jaws and bit into Anna's ankle. It slithered away as Anna fell backwards collapsing onto the floor. The whole room went silent as everyone gathered around her some screaming while some yelling wondering what had happen. Alastor ran over to her, leaving Lucifer behind who had an evil smirk on his face, as no one noticed it.

"Take her to the infirmary!" Charlie ordered.

A few minutes later, Anna was lying on a bed as everyone gathered around, to hear some kind of news that she would be okay. Baxter was examining her and checking her pulse.

"Is she going to be okay?" Niffty asked, worried.

"Her pulse is weakening and her heart rate is slowing down," Baxter explained. "And her skin feels cold like death."

"But, she's going to be okay, right?" Vaggie asked. "Can't you come up with something to wake her up?"

"I can't if I don't know what caused her to collapse in the first place!" Baxter shouted, frustrated.

"Well, you better think of something quick, Look!" Angel pointed out. Everyone looked back at Anna to see that her skin was turning more sickly, becoming more and more pale to the point it was almost turning to a lighter shade of grey.

"Shit!" Baxter cursed.

"I'll figure out something to slow the process," he told them, walking out of the room to grab more medical supplies. "In the mean time, find out what happened before the accident."

Charlie nodded and everyone left, while Alastor and Lucifer stayed behind. Alastor glared at the fallen angel standing beside him, as they did. Just as the door shut, Alastor pinned Lucifer against the wall.

"What have you done?!" he demanded. Lucifer smiled.

"I've done nothing. That was all you, my dear boy." He smirked evilly. "I just gave a little nudge to speed up the process."

"I swear, if she dies, I'm going to disembowel you!" Alastor threatened. "What do you want?"

"Stop, hotel's program, like we've agreed to. No more of this silly redemption nonsense." Lucifer explained. "In return, I'll give you this-" he pulled out an small apple shaped vial with some yellow colored liquid inside of it. "I'll give you the cure to save her. Do we have a deal, radio demon?"

"And what if Charlie finds out that it's you, or your wife!?" Alastor argued. "And when they do, how do you think they're going to take it? Knowing that you betrayed them, by going behind their backs!"

"They're not going to find out. Because if they do, then I'll just destroy the only thing that can save that woman, lying on her death bed, right now."

"Clock's ticking, Alastor," Lucifer laughed.

[xmxisxforxmaybe]

49. You caught me doing something dangerous and flipped out — Baxter please darlin 💕

Angst, full steam ahead! 

* * * * *

Your cellphone was clutched so tightly in your hand that your fingers had gone numb. Your leg was bouncing up and down, and your eyes were glued to the television.

“The fugitive was apprehended in the area of the Flier Truck Stop on Midway Boulevard by U.S. Marshals, LAPD detectives, and LAPD SWAT. The apprehension of Michael Manchoone ends a five-day, cross-state manhunt. Manchoone is linked to three murders and was considered to be armed and dangerous. While it is confirmed that gunfire was exchanged between Manchoone and Officers, it is unknown if there are any injuries.”

Your thumbnail was worn away by the time the news anchor finished his update and you yanked your hand away from your mouth as you checked your phone again.

Any word from Baxter? your best friend, Anna, who was also married to a detective on the force, texted.

No. Anything from Vin?

No 😔

With a growl of frustration, you made your way to the kitchen. You set your phone on the island, double checking to make sure the volume was on and maxed. Flexing your fingers, you walked to the cupboard and pulled down a glass, but before you made your way to the fridge, your eyes settled on Baxter’s coffee cup in the sink.

Your lip trembled and you turned away from the cup and looked up at the ceiling, willing yourself not to lose it. Worrying about him never got any easier, and you had no idea he was even in on this bust until Anna had texted you a few hours ago—Vin had told her that morning he had been pulled to assist.

Sometimes, you wondered just how much longer you could do this. Just how much longer you could play the empathetic wife when Baxter was so into his job that he either forgot completely about you or that he pushed you to the bottom of his priority list.  

Blinking away your tears, you pushed your glass into the water dispenser. You hadn’t realized how thirsty you were until you drained your glass and filled it up again.

As you were drinking your second glass, your phone trilled. Nearly choking, you hurriedly swallowed and rushed to the end of the island, grabbing your phone.

We got him! Should be home by midnight. Love you!

The wave of relief that swept over you was almost enough to make you dizzy, but that relief was quickly swallowed by anger. You sent a quick text to Anna, then went upstairs to finally change out of your work clothes.

True to his word, at 11:50 pm, Baxter’s key sounded in the front door.

You listened as he kicked off his shoes and opened the hallway closet to put them neatly inside.

He must’ve noticed the light on in the living room, because he quickly appeared, his eyes instantly connecting with yours.

Bax looked good, showered and in his dress clothes, his hair neatly slicked back, his eyes wide and a slight smile on his face. It was clear he was still running on the adrenaline from the apprehension, which made you feel even worse than you had before you’d seen him walk through the door.

“Hey,” he greeted, his voice quiet with its usual melodic depth.

You didn’t reply for fear of what might come out of your mouth. Instead, you shifted in the chair, tucking your legs under your body as your hands twisted together. Your thumb that had escaped your earlier gnawing rubbed over the worn edge of its mate, giving your eyes a reason not to look back up at your husband.  

“Everything okay?”

You couldn’t stop the derisive snort as you shook your head, a wild grin spreading across your face.

“I know—” he began, reading your mood.

“You don’t know any fucking thing, Baxter!” you snapped, your eyes shooting up to his face. “You sure as hell think you do but you don’t.”

Baxter took a deep breath as he clearly tried to stop the adrenaline that had given him a happy high from turning into a much, much darker energy.

“Why don’t you help me understand?” he said as he moved to the sofa and sat down, catty-corner from you.

“What’s there to understand? If you don’t know what this shit does to me by now, you’ll never fucking get it.”

“That shit is my job. Something you said you could handle when I asked you to marry me.”

“There’s a difference between me handling the everyday dangers that come with your job and me finding out you were exchanging gunfire with a murderer from the fucking television!”

As quickly as Baxter had sat down, he stood back up, “Oh! Okay, Y/N. Let me just—” Baxter pulled his phone from his pants pocket and held it up to his ear. “Yeah, murdering fugitive? Hold on a fucking second. I didn’t clear your pursuit with my wife. Don’t be fucking ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous? I’m being ridiculous because I didn’t know anything about this! YOU didn’t think to tell me anything about this?”

“Again, what am I supposed to do?”

“Vin made time to tell Anna.”

“Oh, I get it,” Baxter said, his face now twisting into a wild smirk. “This is about Anna knowing something you didn’t. This is so typical of you—so singularly minded!”

Baxter paced to the back of the sofa, crossing back and forth behind its length twice before he stopped and leaned forward, resting both of his hands on the frame.

“What do you want from me, Y/N?”

You didn’t answer. You were so upset you weren’t even sure you could form words, especially the words needed to describe the intensely complicated feelings whirling through your mind.

“Answer me!” Baxter yelled, his voice booming loud enough to make you jump.

“I can’t do this anymore,” you blurted out, Baxter’s anger provoking a gut response.  

“That’s not an answer.”

“I—I think it is. I can’t be the lowest priority on your list, Baxter,” you said slowly as you unfolded your legs, your bare feet settling on the hardwood floor.

Baxter’s fingers flexed over the frame of the couch as he bowed his head.

“What do you want me to say? I’m sorry? I am sorry I made you worry. I am sorry you have to sit back and just … wait. But I’m not sorry I take my job seriously, even if that means compartmentalizing my personal life.”

Baxter’s words hurt. Not just because they contained a truth you didn’t want to hear but because it was a truth you could understand. He needed to be able to push you aside to do his job, to save lives. He needed to be able to prioritize the safety of others and of himself over your feelings.

Maybe that was just what you couldn’t take anymore.

Maybe what you needed was someone who could love you, really love you, all the time.

“I’m going to my sister’s.”

Baxter’s features changed from angry to frightened in an instant. In another situation, it would have been comical how his eyes widened and his mouth fell open, how his brow softened and the way his fingers let go of the couch as if it had suddenly become too hot to touch.

“I’m sorry I yelled—I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”

“You’re still not sorry for any of the right things,” you said as you stood. “And I don’t know if you’ll ever be, or ever even should be. I just need some time to think.”

Baxter rushed from behind the couch to stand in front of you, his hands grasping your shoulders until you looked into his eyes. He moved his hands to cup your face, his thumbs twitching nervously across your cheekbones.

“Don’t go.”

“I need to.”

“No—you don’t. I fucked up. I see that now. If Vinny found time to text Anna, I could’ve found time to text you. I just … I just want to keep you here. Here in this space where it’s safe, where I’m safe. I hate thinking of you when I’m surrounded by …” Baxter trailed off and his eyes slipped shut. You watched him, your own eyes filling with tears.

“When I’m surrounded by death and violence and danger. When I walk through that door, our door, and I see your face, this face,” Baxter said as he ran one of his thumbs over your brow and the other over your lips, his eyes pooling with tears in a mirror of yours, “I leave all of it out there.”

When you blinked, a tear rolled down your cheek and along Baxter’s warm hand.

“Your love is a privilege, Y/N. And I carry it with me in such a sacred place that sometimes I push it too far away because I’m so scared of losing it—of coming home and seeing you look at me the way you did tonight.”

Baxter’s eyes roamed over your face and you reached up and grasped his hands. As you pulled them away, you kissed his palms before you threw yourself into his body, hugging him tight.

He wrapped his arms around you and squeezed, almost enough to hurt but you didn’t care.

He was home.

He was safe.

And at the end of the day, that’s all that mattered. Those other things, the little things … well, they could wait.

You pushed back and this time, you took his face in your hands as you angled to kiss him, deep and full of the love he needed.

He kissed you back, deep and full of the love you needed.

[ziracona]

What are Anna’s thoughts on the rest of the survivor crew besides Quentin Min and Nea after the escape? Any specific bonds or friendships she makes?

Anna is closest to the people her kids see most, so Nea, Claudette, Nancy, Alan, and Ace. Philip too, though that would have happened anyway because she already loved him. Also Laurie, Michael, and David. David takes a while, becuase of that time on the highway in 600 Seconds (😬), but after she gets enough language in common and understanding period of what is happening, Quentin explains thoroughly why, and she forgives him. Takes some real time for the knee-jerk anger to go away, but he’s so good to her kid and just such a decent dude period, she gets over it and likes him again. Also Meg probably, and Kate. Kate becuase she visits a lot, Meg becuase she wants so bad to be Anna’s friend. Anna also likes Susie: tbh, Anna has a big soft spot for all the younger girls.

Also, it’s like a fkn joke how weird the family setup is after. Like Anna is Quentin and Min’s mom, and Alan is Quentin’s dad, Ace is Min’s dad, bc Nea is married to Min, but Dwight is also kind of team dad, and he’s married to Jake and they live with Adam so Adam is like complimentary + older something??? And Nancy is dating Quentin, but Philip and Claudette live with them, but also with Claudette’s parents, who also take care of Sally, who hangs out with Benedict the rest of the time, who lives with Jane. And Laurie is Quentin’s sister and Michael his brother, and David is with Laurie, and they’re both hanging with Kate 24/7 so she’s family, and Meg gravitates to everyone’s house regularly like a damn commet caught in orbit, and she’s with Susie, who is kind of adopted by Meg’s mom, Tapp who is kind of Meg’s dad, and also kind of Jeff, because she visits him a ton and her friends who he adopted come stay with her, and Anna loses track long before this point and just be like “they are to be...all my kids??? All my something???” And just tries to go with it. She loves it though, because she never had a sense of community before ever.

Overall, I think Anna grows to like them all. She’s closest to the ones she sees most/her kids see most, but they all kind of see each other all the time, so she likes them all pretty well. Greatly enjoys the ones she considers her kids especially though (which would be Quentin, Min, Laurie, Michael, Claudette, and to some extent she is confused on bc dating or wife, Nancy, David, and Nea), and Philip, who was her first friend like. Ever. Or friend is not maybe the term. First human adult to be kind to her since her mom. She is exceedingly proud of her family. ^u^