#or maybe he gets kinda uneasy from that but just cope with it by running around faster

[italoniponic]

this is kinda awful to say I guess but it's just a random thought bc I watched Snow White (1930) theses days and I was recalling somethings that inspired the ch5 overblot scenes.

what if Vil has this... strange, not exactly out of nowhere but very crawling fear of vultures? Maybe not a phobia like Jamil has with bugs but whenever Vil spots a vulture near by he gets so uneasy for no reason

because, you know, the Evil Queen fell off that very unstable part of the mountain, a huge rock crashed her and the vultures... yeah, follow her down...

like always, idk why i'm sharing this

fast edit: this could really be a thing among other characters as stated in the tags! feel free to put your hcs here too

[aphee-sheiz]

hi im just new to your blog ^^. do you read fics? if ever, what fics that made you cry or sad? thanks.

Eeeeek welcome!!!

I do read fics, but for I'm relatively new to the fandom and don't do it that often, please don't expect much hehe. I cry pretty rarely, so no fic has made me cry yet. Sad though? Oh yeah. Thanks so much for this ask! I know I've taken my sweet time to answer, got carried away and wrote a lot, hope you don't mind!

Some clarifications/explanations before I get to the point - 1)I have a memory of a goldfish so I have probably forgotten 2/3 of the fics that made me feel pain 2) Many sad fics actually gave me consolation, kinda, so although they're no wholesome highschool!au coffee shop fluff, I won't be listing them here. Let's say, "sad smile" fics don't make it into the list, while "excruciating pain" fics do. 3) We're talking levihan fics, right? I mean. Just in case. 4) I state my opinions as if I knew what the author had in mind while writing the fic. I obviously don't, everything below is my subjective view. Anyways, The ratio of @tundrainafrica's fics in this... I love Sav's angst, can never grow tired of it ~

I suggest we start with a headshot. The Breeze from an Airplane by @halcyonstorm aka Simone You know how those post-132 fics are. Hange is remembered. Hange is spoken of. Levi will meet her in the afterlife, that we know - and so does he. Maybe he visits her grave and talks to her, and even if the author doesn't tell us that directly, we know she hears him. In other words, Hange is... alive. In The Breeze from an Airplane, Levi, too, speaks to Hange in his mind. The reader is even offered the idea that Hange is somewhere out there, because Levi "felt a gentle breeze pass by him, caressing his face" and instantly thought it was Hange. But Simone made sure we learned damn well Hange is no more. She uses everything to demonstrate that. Colors are dull, dialogues are awkward, weather is gloomy, and Hange is a body. And you can't miss the fact that she is. Not after reading about the words unspoken, the dreams unfulfilled can we believe that our beloved Commander is "there". I like the very beginning for its effect on the reader, too. It feels uneasy on some deeper level. We casually get a description of Levi's domestic life, and how inconvenient it is that he received the news over his tea. It's not Levi's thoughts, we know that. It's there to unsettle us right from the start, prepare our minds for the rest of the story. Also, Hange speaks. Kind of. "And I pray That never used to happen before" (c) ~

You can take Hange's life, but you can't take her spirits away. She will always be the cheerful mad scientist that runs crazy experiments and sets her lab on fire. Don't want her to? Cry harder. Unless you're Sav the Angst Queen ForeststeppeinAmerica of course. Then the stage is all yours. You can make it run like clockwork. Clockwork by @tundrainafrica aka Sav Hange is selfless. Everyone knows that. Also, with Eren going nuts, the world is turning upside down, and it's not the best time to be weighed with such a huge responsibility as being the commander of the Surver Corps. Yet here our Hange is, burdened with something she never asked for. Using these well-known facts about the character, Sav explores her state of mind further, and it seems almost inevitable for Hange to either consciously fight her curious, ever shining side, because that is synonimous to being selfless for her, or to genuinely lose interest in things that kept her going, that were to some extent a part of her. And when we lose what we are, we are no more than walking mechanisms who exist rather than live. Right? Hange thinks it's a good thing... And if we feel sorry for Hange, how do you think Levi copes with the drastic change in the person he loves the most? With the change that made her a shadow of her past self? "Those days are all gone now but one thing is true When I look and I find I still love you" (c) ~

A Brief History of Reluctant Heroes by RockSaltAndRoll "What is this one doing here?" Is this the question that popped up in your head? How could this fluffy vet fanfic ever make someone sad? It can't, right? Well, it's all about the ending and what follows that ending canonically. Last chapter reminds us that nothing lasts forever, that some memories remain just that - memories - till the end of our days, for they can never be relived. What's worse, we get this idea from Hange's point of view. And while Hange's concerns are about Erwin's and her own promotion, we also know that Mike will face his dreadful death relatively soon, later it will be Erwin, and then, years later, Hange. We also know that Levi will never forget, but this time, it's not consoling. While most of the time Surver Corps veterans are all about nostalgic past, A Brief History of Reluctant Heroes makes us look at this past as at a loss, and suddenly it doesn't feel warm anymore. "This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us Who wants to live forever Who dares to love forever" (c) ~

Coastal Lights by @tundrainafrica aka Sav Wait, this one is about ghost Hange, right? So it's, like, a sad smile kind of fic? Maybe. I don't feel devastated reading this, that's for sure. I feel serene, but it's... An uncomfortable kind of serene. Death serene. In Coastal Lights, things happen that normally call for dynamic in actions, emotions, words. None of that happens. Sav describes post-war life of Levi, Onyankopon, Gabi and Falco in a very calm manner no matter what happens in the plot, and it's perfect for the new world they find themselves in: deserted, flattened, filled with grief, and so lonely. It could have been a sad smile fic for me for sure if the ending didn't decide against it. Yes, Hange is there. But is she really? And does it matter? Is Levi and Hange's unbrekable bond that battles death the only good thing about this fic? Hell no. Read it for Sav to paint beautiful, colorful sceneries clearly right inside your mind, as if you see what the characters see yourself. Read it to learn how Hange figures out how to interact with the world of the living. Just read it. "If you have longed to tell me something, then say it Any sound is deceitful, Silence is scarier" (c) ~

waking up without you is my worst nightmare by @theythemdumbbitch aka Jaxx ...Or "Levi is a broken man". It's a hurt/comfort fic (that's how Jaxx himself tagged it), but the count of hurt and comfort aren't equal. Hurt wins. You submerge into cute levihan interactions after Levi wakes up from a nightmare. Jaxx puts you through this cycle three times, and then, during a comfort part, when you don't suspect a thing, he slaps your face with just one phrase that Hange says. Hange was always there, and now she is not. To show that, Jaxx decided to catch us unprepared. Levi's feelings in this are everything! Also, his nightmares do look like what our brains do to us at nights: surreal, illogical, digging into his fucked up mind, searching for the deepest fears and most painful memories, thus connecting him from the world of dreams to the cruel reality nevertheless. "I'm crying Missing my lover I'm standing alone, no way Calling out your name" (c) ~

Everglow by guess who It starts off with Levi suffering. Sav makes sure we suffer with him. Not a single bit of pain that Levi feels will slip away. It takes so long for us to read through the first scene. It's not that much of text, really, it's just suffocative. Levi isn't just injuried. His whole body is a mess on the inside and on the outside, and there's no rest for him any time soon. Seconds are outrageously long for him in this state, and for us, the readers, they are too. Levi feels Hange's presence. Levi thinks it makes him happy. It doesn't. The notion of Hange being out there somewhere is not a gift but a curse. While life still goes on, for Levi, it never does, until acceptance forces itself onto him. And of course Sav chooses the most poetic way imaginable to describe what Levi feels thinking of Hange. The man becomes such a romantic under her quill. And it is so, so sad. "And for two thousands years has the war lasted, The war for no particular reason, A war is for the youth, A wrinkle-defying medicine" (c) ~

That would be it for today. Maybe once I remember or discover more fics, I'll add more to the post! Thanks for reading!

[nightshade-anura]

Rachel, Bianca and Octavian never really did anything wrong, so please stop hating on them for one second.

(Although it's nice to see white characters getting hate for just existing rather than poc characters, for once.)

Rachel:

You have no clue how much this one annoys me, and it's amplified by the fact that 90% of Rachel hate is from Annabeth stans. She literally just had a crush on Percy, then went out with him?! Y'all Annabeth stans get crushes on Percy all the time, then hate on her when she does? If you can't stand on one side of a line, then don't draw it in the first place. It's that simple.

In addition, when you look at her relationship with Annabeth, Rachel rarely (hell, maybe not at all) is the one to start arguments or insult her. Rachel seems pretty chill in her relationship with Percy, and then when Annabeth starts dating him instead, do you know what she does? She gets on with her life. Considering the amount of hate Annabeth gave her for dating Percy, she 100% is entitled to do the same, but she doesn't. She knows when a fight isn't worth having. And it's not like she doesn't like Percy, anymore, either. The way she acts suggests she doesn't really get over him until toa, meaning she goes more than an entire series suppressing the urge to bite back.

Bianca:

The main reason people give Bianca hate is because she 'abandoned' Nico to join the hunters. First off, let's be real, 90% of us would've done exactly the same thing. Joining the Hunters of Artemis is an opportunity she probably would've never gotten again, and she wasn't exactly given much time to think it over. She clearly wanted it, too. A younger sibling weighing you down shouldn't be the reason you deny your dreams (no matter how much of an avid Nico stan I am).

Because she was a few years older than Nico, Maria's death would've had a lot more of a negative impact on her, and not knowing who she was mourning would've made it ten times worse. From the way she acts before she joins the hunters, she was genuinely still mourning her, but suppressing it for Nico's sake. It's little details you can pick up on such as the fact that she is very quite and a little uneasy around people besides Nico. By comparison, Nico is very excitable and enthusiastic. When Greek mythology is mentioned, Bianca becomes very uncomfortable and is very quick to deny it's existence. I suspect this triggers her memories slightly of Hades, and she obviously would not like him very much after he essentially abandoned them when Maria died (that's what abandonment actually looks like). I like to think that Nico hadn't completely registered the fact that his mother was genuinely dead before their memories were wiped, hence why this doesn't affect them.

Bianca probably is going to try to isolate herself from her parentage, and one of the quickest ways of doing this is to join the hunters. If you're an older sibling like me, then you'll also know that a younger sibling's very existence can be embarrassing at times. Of course she'll want to isolate herself from her entire family. Not to mention the fact that she has been single parenting Nico since Maria died, again, thanks to a Greek God, the likes of which she already doesn't want to associate herself with. Before you complain that Artemis, too, is a Greek God, her whole thing is not needing men? Oh, would you look at that: the whole reason Maria is dead is because she fell for Hades, and Zeus was a dick about it. Joining the hunters is most definitely going to help her cope with the fact that Hades and Zeus are arseholes (Hades not so much, but Bianca will see him as more of one, considering she was essentially betrayed after Maria died).

Lastly, Bianca wasn't abandoning Nico. They had both just been told if a safe place they could go due to their parentage, and therefore Bianca had just been told that Nico would be safe. She wasn't to know that he would run away. Whilst he had a kinda valid excuse, it was still on their hands. Bianca had no control over that. It's not like she wasn't looking out for him, either; she literally went out of her way to collect the Hades statue for them, which was penultimately the reason she died (sorry). She knew the risks, and outright sacrificed her life just to make Nico happy.

Octavian:

You're all going to hate me for this one, I know. Just hear me out.

The only reason you all hate him is because he stabbed Percy's pillow pet, and was a bit of a dick to Hazel. Whilst neither Percy nor Hazel should've had to put up with this, when you consider what we can assume about his past, and that it actually makes sense. Straight away, he's a year round camper, so there is a high chance that he's lost one or multiple parents (remember that he's a descendant of Apollo, not than a child of Apollo). He probably hasn't had much of an opportunity to grieve them, strikingly similar to Nico's reaction at the end of ttc, particularly when you consider how strict Camp Jupiter is. Not to mention, it's been proven time after time again that if someone can't control their own life, they will put extra emphasis on what they can control, the two major ones being their eating and the people around them.

That last bit brings me onto my second point. You get the impression that he has been through quite a lot, so of course he tries to control the people around him as a means to cope. He becomes so engulfed in this desire to control everyone that he doesn't consider how it might affect others. From his perspective, why should he? No one seemed to care about him. It doesn't occur to him that blackmailing Hazel is- well- blackmail. He becomes so determined to prove himself, despite not being a child of a Roman God, but a descendant. As you can imagine, when he first joined, the camp probably looked down on him quite a lot.

In fact, he seems to be so aware of the Camp's protocols, there is a high chance that he, like Jason, has been there most of his life. When you consider it's principles, it makes sense that his main goal would be to reach the top of the pecking order. That is the way that they are taught; they're Roman demigods, after all.

Before you start on the killing of Percy's pillow pet being unfair, I'd just like to point a few things out. Yes, it was a bit if a dick move, but Percy had just waltzed into a camp, been claimed as a son of a major (although frowned upon) God, and threatened his authority. Octavian was genuinely scared of him. He was probably 100% aware that stabbing his pillow pet would do nothing, but did he look like he cared? Not only was he trying to back up his authority in doing so, it was essentially sending a message to Percy of "if you dare threaten my position, you'll face a lot worse than this. Whilst it may have been a bit of an overreaction, honestly, fair enough.

[slightlymore]

Pride | Part 3

Pairing: CollegeStudent!Doyoung, Y/N, CollegeStudent!Johnny  Genre: Series | Smut | Angst | Crack | Prob fluff if you wear magnifying glasses Warnings: Swearing | +18 in general | I was evil laughing the whole time while writing, beware of that lol | maybe a little cliché  Words: 4K

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |  Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 |  Part 8 THE END

The last place Johnny expected to see Doyoung was the gym. 

It was a gloomy and wet day and he was feeling like shit. He dragged his body around the weights racks and eyed the cardio corner where Doyoung was. He wasn’t doing anything extreme, just running on the treadmill, eyes focused on nothing, ears made busy by some music. Johnny didn't want to approach him, or talk to him, or look at him, but his eyes continued to dart into his direction nevertheless. 

He wondered what type of person Doyoung was. Was he funny? Was he really that thoughtful? Was he even that handsome? What made you start to like him? What did he have? Johnny looked away. He wasn’t so clueless - he was jealous. But he couldn’t understand why was that happening. He thought he was over you. He definitely had no right to feel that way, he knew it, he was the one to make you both meet, he knew it. A part of him was excited to see you finally with someone but a part of him he didn’t know existed, hated it. He called you that night after you abruptly went home from the McDonald’s. You had a very strange voice. It was weak, feeble, small.  “Are you still feeling that bad?” he asked. It was strange to see Doyoung mention your cramps as you’ve never had such severe pain before. And he wasn’t blind. You came crying out of that bathroom after talking to Doyoung and Johnny doubted it was because of menstruations.  “No, I’m fine now. Don’t worry” you replied. Johnny hummed.  “Is Doyoung kind to you?” he asked after a moment.  You went silent for a split second as if unsure. “Yes. Why are you asking?” you said.  Johnny didn’t like that pause. “Is he there with you? Can he hear our conversation?” he questioned you again.  You went quiet again. “No. I’m home already. Johnny, what’s wrong?” you asked.

Johnny felt a lump in his throat he couldn’t understand. He was invasive and rude and he didn’t like but he couldn’t stop himself. “Did you sleep together?” he asked on a whim. He regretted it a second after opening his mouth. “No, don’t tell me. I’m sorry” he added quickly after. “Listen,” he breathed in, “just be careful okay? Tell me if he’s hurting you or something. That’s all” he added. “Damn, John” you chuckled as if surprised. “Doyoung’s a good person. Why would he hurt me? Don’t worry about it” you reassured him. It was a fake laugh. He has seen you do that so many times and you’ve even joked about it before. He was worried.  Then you stopped texting him as you used to do. The following week you were busy all the time, you couldn’t make it to lunch for 4 times, you wouldn’t sit with him during class and barely looked at him during it. Did he hurt you in some ways? He confronted you once. He blocked your way and he hated how you looked around for an escape. “Y/N, what’s going on?” he asked. You finally looked at him. “Did I do something?” he asked. Your eyes widened slightly. “What are you talking about? No” you replied shooking your head firmly.  Johnny stared at you as if trying to read into your soul. “Y/N, talk to me. What’s wrong? You can tell me everything” he reassured you. “Why would something be wrong? I’ve been a little absent because I’m busy - if this is what you’re talking about” you smiled. “I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you” you added, playfully hitting him with your elbow.   But you were uneasy. Johnny wanted to push you into opening up. “Are you sure?” he asked for the last time. “Definitely” you smiled again. Johnny crossed the gym. He could see how Doyoung noticed him approaching, thanks to the reflection of the window in front of him and saw how he stopped himself from sighing. He didn’t look particularly pleased to see him coming. Johnny couldn’t understand if that was just his personality or if Doyoung actually hated him. Maybe it was just a projection of his own feelings. He couldn’t stand Doyoung either. “Hey,” Doyoung said taking off one of his earbuds. He didn’t bother to look directly at him. “What’s up?” Johnny replied stepping on the machine and starting to jog lightly. “Nothing much,” replied Doyoung. They both ran for a while in silence, each with his own thoughts. Then Johnny spoke again. “Hey, I wanted to ask you something,” he said. “Yeah?” Doyoung replied, not that interested.  “I know I kinda pushed you two together, but what are your intentions with Y/N?” he asked. Doyoung finally looked at him. Johnny looked back with the corners of his eyes. The rain was pouring, hitting on the window glass as a thousand fingers. A group of noisy people walked behind them, making it difficult to continue the conversation. It’s not like Doyoung had a quick answer anyways. What are my intentions, really? Doyoung thought. “I’ve got no intentions” he replied after a while. And it was the truth. He might have had intentions before, but not anymore.  Johnny’s face was a mask Doyoung had difficulties to figure out.  “You mean you don’t like her?” he asked. His voice was calm and collected and Doyoung knew it wasn't a good sign.  Doyoung sighed. “I mean she doesn’t like me” he answered. Johnny furrowed his eyebrows as if the other was lying.  Doyoung wouldn’t have been able to be that honest before because it would have hurt his pride a lot. But lately Doyoung understood that having too much pride meant to just have a big ugly ego. And he hated that. Seeing you so eager to deny your feelings for Johnny just to not look pathetic or weak taught him that he was doing the same. In all departments of his life. Doyoung wanted to be honest and proud of that.  “But do you like her?” Johnny asked again, not letting the conversation die as Doyoung hoped.  He stared at him. “Are you worried about something?” he asked, already irritated for the interrogatory. He thought better than starting some kind of fight with Johnny but Doyoung couldn’t stand all of those questions.  “I just think that if you’ve got no intentions with her then just get off her” the other commented. Johnny didn’t mean to be that rude. He planned to just go there and ask a few questions and maybe kindly intimate the other guy to stop messing with his best friend. Okay, he wanted to be rude.  Doyoung couldn't help himself to not snort at the other’s words. Then he opened his mouth as if wanting to say something, then he then laughed again, incredulous.  Johnny looked at him not expecting that reaction. God, he wanted to punch him so badly.  “What does that mean?” Doyoung asked, in the end. “Why shouldn’t I be allowed to be her friend?” “I mean, it’s not like you could have a healthy friendship if you like her and she doesn’t,” Johnny said, as if obvious. “If you actually like her though” he added.  “You mean, I couldn’t have your type of friendship?” Doyoung asked without being able to stop himself from being shady. He was angry. He was laughing but he was fuming inside.   Johnny rolled his eyes.  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “That she likes me” he added. 

Doyoung stopped the treadmill. 

“You know” he simply said. It sounded like an accusation. Johnny continued to jog. He shook his head. “It’s not true” he commented. In most delirious states, Johnny also thought that maybe, only maybe, you actually liked him. But he had to wake up from that. Doyoung just stared at him, as if in shock. Or as if controlling himself from beating him up. Johnny stopped his treadmill as well and grabbed the towel to pat his face. “I thought she was in love with me too,” he said afterwards. “But she’s not. She said that herself” he added. Seeing Doyoung silent he chuckled. “What?” he asked. Johnny sighed and drank from his water bottle for a few moments leaving Doyoung to his realizations. It was during the last months of high school. You were in Johnny’s room, sprawled on the carpet, snacks all around you, chatting with your friends. “What? No fucking way” Johnny heard you laugh. He was behind the door, the tray of drinks slightly shaking in his hands. He didn’t have to stop and listen to you that way, but he knew you were talking about him and he couldn’t help but eavesdrop.  “He’s like a brother to me” you added at the others’ disapproving. Johnny gulped. His throat was suddenly very dry.  So that was it, huh, he thought.  Johnny never thought about you that way. Okay, not true.  Johnny thought about you a lot. But he thought he didn’t like you. At the same time, there was no real reason to not be in love with you, he liked hanging out with you, seeing you every day, text you as often as possible. But that was it. He enjoyed the way your relationship was and didn’t want to change that. Or so he thought.  Because now, hearing you say that with your own mouth - the fact that you would never like him in ways beyond friendship - was like opening his third eye. He did like you, he understood. He was a little ashamed to admit even to himself, but he had been tempted multiple times to just kiss you on the spot, to push you on his bed and just make out with you. But he stopped himself every time. Because he was nervous. Because he didn’t have the courage.  Now, standing there, balancing the tray on his palms, he was glad he didn’t try. He was glad to have maintained your friendship that way. It would have been too embarrassing. His pride would have been devastated. 

Johnny would often forget about you. Not in a bad way. It was his coping mechanism to just stop thinking about you so much. He started to see other girls. He expected you to do the same. He waited patiently to see you get a boyfriend. He knew that in that exact moment he would finally be at peace. He flaunted his relationships. He talked about other girls. He wanted a reaction. Was it possible for you to actually not care about him at all?

When he understood that Doyoung was interested in you, he didn't expect much out of it. He was just another guy Johnny tried to set you up with. He was digging his own grave with setting you up with men but so far no one worked for you and a little devilish part of himself, was full of joy every time you talked badly about someone. Maybe this is how your relationship had to be. 

But then he saw you at the party. Doyoung was shirtless and followed you into Johnny's room. What were you doing together? Were you trying to find an empty room? He saw how you panicked and for a split second, he thought the natural thing to think: you were embarrassed to see him that way. Maybe you were shocked. Maybe, just maybe, you were actually jealous for once. But then Doyoung came in and Johnny changed his mind. Were you actually embarrassed by the fact of being found out trying to hook up with him? 

Then when he got downstairs he saw the way you were talking to him. He saw how Doyoung looked at you as if no one else was around besides you. Johnny felt something weird. He complimented you and said how well you matched. You smiled back at him as if happy. 

That was it. It was over. You were with another man and Johnny was with another woman and it was fine. You were both fine. 

It was fine. 

He continued to repeat that to himself the whole night. It's fine. Doyoung was a good guy, he was taking you home. There was no need to worry. Johnny tried to gulp down the weird emotion he was feeling with his mantra. It's fine. 

Fuck. He wanted to take you home by himself. No. He wanted to take you upstairs on his bed and tuck you in and maybe watch you sleep for a little while before getting ashamed of being so creepy for no reason and leave. But he snapped out of it. Wouldn't that just eliminate the whole progress he did? He was your friend. Just a friend. Doyoung could be something more. He should take care of you and he was doing it. Amazingly.  In fact, Doyoung was so great that he couldn't stop himself from taking away some of his attributes when he called and saw you so eager to dismiss Johnny's actions in favour of Doyoung's ones. He hated himself and regretted saying that already while saying it, but he couldn't stand to see you consider Doyoung a more important man in your life so easily. 

He beat himself up over that the whole day and night. He was a jerk. He was a selfish jerk that hated to see you in love with somebody else. This is not what he wanted to see himself like. He had to do something about it. 

He told you he was dating that girl. And it was true. He had some feelings for her. Was he in love? Probably not. Was she in love? Also probably not. Would it be a long-lasting relationship? Johnny doubted that. But it came at the right moment. He would be fine afterwards. That was his plan. 

Everything was fine. 

But then he saw you hold his hand and he lost it. 

God, he hated that. I'll take her home, he wanted to say. Why did you tell Doyoung about that and not me? 

He wasn't worried that Doyoung did something to you. In reality, yes, it could be a possibility but it wasn't the whole problem. He did find weird that he saw you crying and he immediately thought it was Doyoung’s fault. But he was also jealous. He was so mad. 

When he saw him at the gym he wanted to take him down the treadmill by the collar and punch him. Was he playing with your feelings? He knew that Doyoung probably wasn’t. He was a good guy and that made him even angrier - because he had no real excuse to hate him besides his own selfish reasons. 

You didn't text him and wouldn't answer his calls. Were you already so in love with Doyoung that now you didn't even want to be friends anymore? Were you texting Doyoung instead? Did he lose you so easily? 

But then Doyoung said it wasn't the case and Johnny felt so shocked that he had to stop himself from laughing. If you weren’t in love with him, if it wasn’t Doyoung’s fault, whose fault was it? What was going on? He needed answers and he needed them now. 

When you opened your front door and saw Johnny you thought about the small part inside of you that was absolutely thrilled to see him. But Doyoung was right. You had to put a stop to that. Only you knew how hard it has been the past week, to not read his texts and not pick up his calls. It wasn’t the best thing to do, but you weren’t ready to just talk to him. Not so soon. You were afraid that you might end up saying the opposite of what you needed to say - that you love him and want to be with him and maybe beg, be pathetic, ask him embarrassing stuff, mortifying yourself and him as well. But Johnny didn’t want to wait. He brought snacks and drinks. You sat on the floor of your living room. He was weirdly silent and you couldn’t bring yourself up to say something either. “I spoke to Doyoung in the gym today,” he said after a little while. “Oh really?” you replied, glad that he started the conversation but also a little scared of what that conversation was about.  You couldn’t lie and say that you weren’t afraid of Doyoung spilling all the tea about your feelings to Johnny. But the scariest part was that you somehow hoped that he would do it. It couldn’t worsen the situation, would it? You reached a point in which your friendship wasn’t as before and it was all your fault. You thought that you would be able to get over your own feelings for the sake of that friendship and now you were slowly destroying it. You were tired. You didn’t want to see Johnny for a while and you were tired to hide.  But would it be better to see Johnny suddenly distant as well? He still called, he still texed, he was in your house in that exact moment, trying to salvage your relationship. Would he do the same if he knew? “He told me that you don’t like him” Johnny revealed. You breathed in and out. You expected him to say that Doyoung told him everything. That the reason why you didn’t like Doyoung was that you liked him instead. “Is it true?” he asked.  You wondered what to say. “Yes” you said, honestly after a little while. Johnny hummed. “Is he bothering you in some ways because of that?” he asked again. You puffed. “Come on, you’re still onto this?” you commented. “He’s not bothering me” you explained, stuffing your mouth with the hot-dogs Johnny brought, hoping to have more time to answer his questions if chewing. He rolled his eyes at how you almost spilt ketchup on your shirt and handed you a napkin. “Y/N” he said after a few moments of silence. You hummed back. “I have feelings for you” he added. You choked.

Doyoung was sitting at his desk, the only light was the lamp on it and the computer screen. He knew that Johnny was probably talking to you at that right moment and he couldn’t concentrate. Johnny was so worried about you not talking to him and so sure that it was Doyoung’s fault that he almost told Johnny that you loved him. You would have hated him a lot. Or maybe thank him. He wasn’t sure. But what he knew was the fact that he couldn’t stand the situation anymore even if it had nothing to do with himself. His eyes kept staring at the silent phone until he got exasperated and had to get up and walk around. His back felt a weird shiver and a dark awareness painted his thoughts. As if something bad was about to happen anytime soon.  What was he so worried about? 

You imagined this moment many times before. It was either random, as you were playing videogames, or romantic while walking on the beach, or wordless, said only with a kiss. 

But you never thought that you would feel this way. You didn't anticipate the aftermath. Your mind couldn't imagine what was going to come next. It stopped right into that moment and you never adventured into more. You never dared to. 

So it felt almost ridiculous when the first thing that popped up in your mind after hearing Johnny's confession was Doyoung. 

Just that. 

Doyoung. 

Maybe it was a case similar to when you're about to die and your mind makes you think about the most random thing ever, like that time your grandma made you lasagne or what Timmy said to you that day in the middle of the 2009's summer. It wasn't the most important thing to think about as you're dying, is it? So maybe Doyoung was just that. A coping mechanism your mind used to shelter itself. 

"I have to process that" you commented after a while. 

What would Doyoung say about this? What would his opinion be? Would he be glad? Would he be happy? It was the right thing to feel, right? Happiness. You were finally loved back by your crush. Everything you've ever wanted was happening right at that moment. 

Yet you were drifting away. 

Johnny looked at you for a little, giving you space and time but then he couldn’t stay silent anymore. “I’m sorry if it’s making you feel uncomfortable” he added. You shook your head. “What, no” you managed to say in a whisper. “I’m just...shocked. I’ve never thought you would like me back” you explained not being able to find the right words.  Johnny’s eyes widened. You returned the look mirroring him. “You didn’t know?” you asked in a feeble voice. “You really didn’t realize?” you asked again. Johnny opened his mouth as to talk but no sound came out of it. He cleared his voice.  “You told the others that I’m like a brother to you and that you would never like me” he managed to say. “Remember? The last year of high school?” You frowned. 

It was during your high school days, yes, you remembered. You were hanging out with your friend group at Johnny’s home. He went downstairs for a while and the others started to mock you for having alleged feelings for each other. “Don’t be ridiculous” you commented. “He would never like me back” you explained.  “Tell him how you’re feeling, Y/N” someone said. You shook your head.  “I think he has a crush on you” someone else said as well.  “No fucking way” you laughed, embarrassed. “He’s like a brother to me” you added.  Not because he felt like a brother to you. But because he treated you like a little sister. You knew you couldn’t stand a chance with him. He was so popular. Every girl in your school liked him.  But your friends’ words made you think.  You decided to swallow your pride.  That night, after everyone left you lingered on his bed for a while watching him playing videogames. You looked at the back of his head, and the line of his shoulders.  “There’s something I have to tell you, Johnny” you whispered.  “Me too” he replied turning to you.  You both looked at each other for a little while. Your heart was beating very fast and your palms were sweating. Impossible, but what if...? “You know Kelly from that time we hung out at the mall? I’m thinking of asking her out. What do you think?” he asked. 

“God, Y/N” Johnny said. “I was trying to make you jealous” he added. “I’m so sorry,” he said and held you even closer to his chest. You were on your unmade bed, Johnny’s legs intertwined with yours, his arm around your waist, his fingers drawing light circles on your bare skin. You chuckled. “Stop thinking about that already. We sorted everything out, didn’t we?” you commented. You couldn’t recall how you ended up sleeping together. Everything felt like a dream and you were still immersed in that. One second you were looking at Johnny’s eyes and the other one he was kissing you, lifting you up into his strong arms, freeing you of your clothes, making you mumble his name. Some phone started to ring. It was yours. As you tried to move to get it Johnny held you even tighter and whined. “Ignore it,” he said. You smiled and turned back to his hug and tried to fall asleep. Doyoung didn’t know what was he thinking when he left his apartment. Was he really going to your place for no reason? 

He felt obnoxious. 

He stopped in the middle of the road and turning around he walked a few steps, meaning to go back home. 

Then he stopped again. 

He breathed in and out. He thought about you, probably crying after Johnny talked to you. You probably sorted things out and you had to watch him saying how sorry he was, how he still loved you as a friend, you had to watch the pity in his eyes seeing you so devastated. 

It made Doyoung feel sick with pain. 

So he turned around again and walked into your direction. What if he was naive? Or stupid? Or pathetic? He loved you.  He loved you a lot. He loved you so much that he just wanted to see you happy. He didn’t care if you loved him back or not. He wasn’t loving to receive. He just loved because you deserved it. He just loved. 

He loved you. That was his last thought as his eyes got suddenly blind by a bright light while crossing the road. He brought his arm up to shelter his gaze as a reflex.  His mind suddenly remembered one time he saw you while you were in class. He was walking in the hallway and stopped in front of your classroom, creeping in through the glass window, hoping no one would see you. You were talking to one of your friends, smiling, your eyes almost closed, your teeth showing, a strand of hair fallen out from your hairdo. You looked bright and kind.  Why was he thinking about that? It took him a second to realize what was going on. A loud thud accompanied the smell of burnt. He felt cold and nauseous. Then the world collapsed. 

[alpha-centari27]

The Thoughts and Reflections of Someone New to Reylo and the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy

This is a really, really long post and contains spoilers.

Please be polite and respectful if you choose to comment and / or reblog.

Ok, so before I get too heavy discussing my thoughts and reflections there are a few things I want to make absolutely clear.

- People can ship whoever they want.  And it is perfectly fine for people to disagree and have differing tastes and opinions.  Obviously some ships are better supported by canon than others.  And there are shipping relationships that are toxic, but people ship it anyway.  I think a great non-Star Wars example is Harley Quinn and Joker. 

- I have delved deep enough into the reylo tag and other related tags to get the sense that anti-reylo are claiming a moral high ground.  “As a ship reylo is wrong and therefore anyone who ships reylo is a horrible person.”  And my simple rebuttal to this is--no, that’s not how this works.  If someone ships reylo this by itself is not sufficient evidence that someone is a horrible person.

- Based on everything I have read about TROS Ben Solo’s story arc and character development could have been so much more than what it was on screen in TROS.

- Having said that a lot of other characters were short changed by whoever was pulling the strings and making the decisions: Rose Tico, Poe Dameron, Finn and Rey and arguably Leia, Luke and Han were short changed by some of the decisions made in TROS and earlier in TLJ and TFA.

- Being part of a fandom should be fun, so can we all agree to chill out, relax and be civil?

Moving on...now that hopefully I have cleared up any preconceived assumptions.

I am relatively new to reylo and the sequel trilogies.

The first time I watched The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi was only a few weeks ago.  Some of the cable channels have been doing Star Wars marathons to get people pumped and nostalgic to pay for a movie ticket to The Rise of Skywalker.

One of the cable channels was doing yet another Star Wars marathon last night, so I again sat down to watch The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, but this time I watched the films with more awareness of the various critiques, criticisms and elements that have been deemed problematic.

I also went to the trouble of jotting down some notes.

This post is kinda all over the place, but I am going to go over my notes and observations and a main topic I want to look at is:

How Rey’s relationships and interactions with Finn and Kylo Ren differ and what sort of implications does this have.

Since stepping my toe into the reylo tags and other related tags I have NOT been able to fully articulate where I stand on whether reylo is toxic, Kylo Ren / Ben Solo is abusive, whether Kylo Ren / Ben Solo is worthy of redemption and to what degree Kylo / Ben being abused and manipulated excuses his actions.

I have to confess that the more parallels and similarities I see between Kylo Ren and Anakin / Darth Vader the more uneasy I feel about shipping reylo.

Regardless of my opinion people are free to do what they want.  If shipping reylo makes you happy, who am I too badger you into doing otherwise?

Me, writing out this long post is an attempt to flush out my thoughts at the present.

Watching the movies again I was struck by how different Rey’s interactions were with Finn and Kylo Ren.  There is a sequence in The Force Awakens between Rey and Finn that reminds me of the throne room sequence between Kylo Ren and Rey when Kylo offers his hand and asks her to rule beside him.  ((Please pardon me for paraphrasing and not having all the lines of dialogue memorized.))

Rey and Finn

At Maz’s place when Han, Rey and Finn are trying to arrange transport for BB8 to the resistance and / or get another ship to avoid detection by the First Order.

Maz looks into Finn’s eyes and remarks that he looks like someone who wants to run away.  Maz tells Finn that there is a way out.  That there are some beings that will arrange transit to the outer rim and exchange for work.

Finn approaches the beings and tells them not to leave without him.

Rey is frustrated by this.  How can he just leave?  What about BB8?  What about the resistance?  I believe this is when Finn comes clean that he is not actually with the resistance.  That he is a stormtrooper and he is not going back to the First Order and wants to stay as far away from them as possible.

Finn asks Rey to come with him.  To join him.  Rey says no.  And I believe Finn tells Rey to take care of herself.

There are no hurt feelings on Finn’s part.  He doesn’t try to persuade or manipulate her to change her mind.  He simply wishes that she takes care of herself.

Here are a few other bullet point items I want to highlight.

- Kylo Ren force pushing Rey into a tree and Finn coming to her aid and kneeling beside her reminds me of Anakin choking out Padme on Mustafar and Obi-Wan Kenobi going to Padme.

- Finn’s main motivation for going to Starkiller base was to rescue Rey.

- Rey clutches & hugs an unconscious Finn who fought and lost to Kylo Ren.

- After Starkiller base is blown up and Rey, Finn and Chewbacca are in transit.  Rey plants a kiss on Finn’s forehead as he lies unconscious.

- When Finn wakes up in The Last Jedi the first thing he says is, “Where is Rey?“

- Finn’s motivation for trying to get away in an escape pod is basically keep Rey safe.  Finn thinks the fleet is doomed.  If Finn can to an escape pod and reach safety, Rey will be able to find him and she will be safe.

- I want to say that there is another time that Rey hugs Finn.  Maybe this is when Han, Finn and Rey first find each other on Starkiller?

Finn is not a perfect person.  He does lie to Rey about being part of the resistance.  In terms of being an honorable, moral and ethical person I think it is quite clear Finn is a better person than Kylo Ren / Ben Solo.  

But in real life and in fiction people can be attracted to and fall in love with horrible people.  ((I suppose right here my own words are a damning statement against reylo.))

Some observations I made from watching The Last Jedi

- When Kylo Ren and Rey have their first force skype call.  Kylo’s first reaction is confusion.  And his second reaction is to reach out with the force to try to manipulate Rey to bring Luke Skywalker to him.

- When Rey pushes Kylo Ren to explain why he killed his father, Han Solo--I find it curious that Kylo deflects the question and starts talking about Rey’s parents and how they threw her away.  Given the plot twist in TROS this now makes Kylo look like a manipulator and a liar.  In the best case scenario Kylo was telling a version of the truth that is incomplete.  I suppose in a way Kylo does indirectly answer Rey’s question by saying, “Let the past die.  Kill it if you have to.  That’s the only way to become what you are meant to be.“  This could be read as manipulative and an attempt to push Rey to the dark side by killing Luke.

- I’m still not sure what to make of the 2nd force bond scene.  The connection is terminated and Kylo Ren is wiping his face with a gloved hand and we see...water?  Kylo Ren’s tears on his glove?  There is a wave of water crashing against some rocks in front of Rey just before Kylo is seen wiping his face.

- When an unconscious Kylo Ren wakes up in the throne room.  It is just Kylo Ren and Hux.  It’s quick, but it looks like Hux reaches into his coat to draw a weapon and shoot Kylo Ren.

- What did Rey tell Chewbacca to tell Finn?  I’m sure someone knows, but I just need to do some more digging online.

- Kylo Ren vs Luke Skywalker.  Near the very end of the fight Kylo Ren says, “I’ll destroy her [Rey] and you and all of it.“

- Overall I’m just surprised how often Rey is brought to tears throughout these movies.  It’s understandable because of what she is going through and what she has been through.  Someone must have counted how many times Rey cries and how many times it was with X or Y character and what they were talking about. 

Rey and Kylo Ren: The Throne Room

Ok, so let’s sum up the events leading up to Kylo Ren’s proposal.

Rey is brought before Snoke who tortures her for information about Skywalker.

When Snoke gets the information he wants AND it becomes clear that Rey is a true Jedi who will not serve him, Snoke then orders Kylo Ren to kill Rey.

Kylo Ren spares Rey and kills Snoke.

Kylo Ren and Rey fight off the guards together.

Kylo gives his speech about letting old things die.  What stands out to me is Kylo does NOT specifically mention the First Order.  Snoke, Luke Skywalker, the Sith, the Jedi, the resistance all need to die, but not the First Order.

Rey pleads with Ben not to do this.  Not to go down this path.  Which is reminiscent of what Padme said to Anakin on Mustafar.

Kylo / Ben says, “You’re still holding on!  Let go!”  ((Holding onto what exactly?  The resistance?  Hope?  The Jedi path?  The light side of the force?))  And once again Kylo / Ben talks about Rey’s parentage.

“You’re nothing, but not to me.  Please.”  For a while I have interpreted this as Kylo Ren / Ben Solo being honest and blunt to a fault, but seeing and listening to this again in it’s full context this does read as Kylo Ren being manipulative. Breaking Rey down, she comes from nothing, she is nothing, she has no place in this, but hey why don’t you join me and have a seat right next to me on the winning side. 

Final Thoughts:

- At the very least Kylo Ren’s conduct and behavior are red flags.  Regardless of the extent that Kylo Ren was manipulated and abused his behavior and his interactions with Rey in the TFA and TLJ are troubling to say the least.  There does come a point when someone cannot use the excuse of being abused to justify their abusive behavior.  “Ok, so you were abused and learned some bad habits and coping mechanisms, but here is the thing your actions are causing real harm to another person and that is not cool.”  It’s hard and it’s difficult to change those habits and people will slip up on the road to recovery.  I think we also need to recognize the complication that Rey and Kylo Ren are at war on opposite sides. 

- I think there was descent chemistry and a connection between Rey and Finn, but I feel like that gets de-railed at the end of TLJ when Finn is tending to Rose and Rey is interacting with Leia. 

- I think Rey and Finn is a lot less problematic than Rey and Kylo Ren / Ben Solo.  Just compare the throne room scene to the interaction between Finn and Rey at Maz’s place.

- Do I still ship reylo?  Here is how I will answer the question for now.  As flawed as Kylo Ren / Ben Solo is I do like him and find him to be a character I can relate to alongside Rey.  I have not seen TROS in theaters and don’t think I will waste my money going to see it.

I would have LOVED to see a happy ending for Ben Solo instead of a variant of Darth Vader’s redemption and death.  This has already been done, why not do something different?  Isn’t this ending more hopeful?  You know instead of Han, Luke, Leia dying in vain to save Ben. 

I would have LOVED if the people making TROS put more careful thought and consideration into Ben’s story arc and character development.

Fitting with the theme of: finding the balance, not everything is black and white, there are a lot of grey areas / ambiguity, etc.

I would have been fine with some sort of ending where Ben faces some sort of punishment for his crimes and he is neither condemned to death or is completely pardoned without consequences.

I am very curious to know what political scientists and psychologists would say about sentencing someone like Kylo Ren / Ben Solo for war crimes.  In the comics that have been released so far it seems like Ben Solo is much younger when he is turned to the dark side and taken in by the First Order.  I think in TROS it’s revealed that Ben’s current age is 30 and he was 23 when he joined Snoke and the First Order.  At age 23 Ben Solo is considered an adult, he is not a child soldier.  “But he was being manipulated before he was even born.“  I hear you...unfortunately I don’t know how or if that would factor into Ben Solo’s being charged with war crimes.

Right now, I am in favor of ignoring the mess that is TROS and replacing it with fanfiction where Rey and Ben Solo are able to live a health and happy life.  And perhaps some day they will rebuild a new Jedi order that strives to accept and learn from the mistakes of the past.

- Is Kylo Ren / Ben Solo worthy of redemption?  I think in order to answer this question we need to ask, what does it mean to be redeemed?  What does someone have to do in order to be redeemed or atone for their wrong doing? 

I think the short answer is it’s complicated and everyone has different opinions.  Some people are probably of the opinion that Kylo Ren / Ben Solo is beyond redemption.  There is nothing he can do.  He can never do enough to make up for what he has done.

I think the more complicated answer is it’s a long process and not everyone will forgive you--heck maybe no one will forgive you. 

And whether you are punished or not punished is an entirely different matter. 

There are things Kylo Ren / Ben Solo has done that he can never take back.  Kylo Ren cannot bring Han Solo back from the dead or any of the hundreds or thousands of people he has cut down.  The fact Kylo Ren has murdered even one person is probably reason enough in the eyes of some people for why he can never be redeemed.

Kylo Ren / Ben Solo turned toward the light and toward Rey.  In my opinion I think this action could be considered an act of repentance, but falls short of redeeming / atoning for all his past sins.  I think full redemption / atonement is a much more lengthier process.

Ultimately, I think this is a question worth pondering for ourselves.

[captainrogers-ass]

Save Me - Chapter 2

Pairings: Steve Rogers x Reader, multiple MCU characters

Word Count: 2482

Summary: Y/N has finally landed her dream job as a lifeguard on Midgard Beach, but how well will she fit in with the team and how will she cope after grabbing the attention of the blue-eyed captain?

***Masterlist***

A/N: I’ve had a lot of free time recently so I’ll try to post as quick as possible. For some reason it’s not letting me add line breaks so I’ve just put asterisks where a line break should be. I’m really enjoying writing so far so I hope you all enjoy it as well xx :))

“Hi,” the new girl spoke up, raising her hand to wave at the group.

Bucky leaned closer to Steve’s ear, whispering quietly so the rest of the room couldn’t hear, “She’s kinda cute.”

Steve chuckled to himself as he shook his head; of course that was Bucky’s first thought about their new coworker.

“I thought you were dating that redheaded swimsuit model?” Steve whispered back, causing Bucky to laugh quietly.

“Hey, what’s wrong with acknowledging beauty?”

“You’re impossible,” Steve smiled.

“She’s kind of small to be a lifeguard, don’t you think?” Clint whispered to Natasha

“That’s what you said about me when I first started,” Natasha responded.

“That’s because you were small. Are small I should say,” Clint laughed as Natasha playfully punched him.

“I can still beat your ass old man.”

“I didn’t know we were getting a new member,” Peter exclaimed to Tony.

“That’s because you don’t read Fury’s emails,” Tony laughed, watching as Peter dropped his head in embarrassment.

“Well it’s not my fault he sends so many!”

The room was lulled back to silence from a single stare from Fury, grabbing everyones attention once more.

“I want everyone down at the beach in ten minutes in your gear. I’ll leave you to get to know Y/N,” Fury said, turning on his heals as he exited the way he had come.

***

You pleaded for Fury to come back as you watched him walk away, his strides long and quick as he carried himself out the door, leaving you alone with a group full of strangers. When his presence had left the room all eyes returned to you once more.

The silence was deafening.

“I guess I’ll introduce myself first then,” a redheaded woman spoke up, getting up from her chair to shake your hand. “I’m Natasha.”

“It’s lovely to meet you,” you replied, flashing Natasha a friendly smile as you took her hand in yours, grateful for the break in the awkward silence.

Natasha went around the room one by one, introducing everyone to you. None of them bothered to get up and shake your hand as Natasha had done, simply opting  to stay where they were and wave or nod at you in acknowledgement instead. All of the new names became overwhelming as you tried to remember everyone. You had always prided yourself on your exceptional memory, however it was really being put to the test as each new name was presented.

Before Natasha had the chance to introduce the last person, he spoke up instead, “I’m Steve.”

Without a moments hesitation the large blonde-haired man stood from his seated position on the couch, making his way towards you with an outstretched hand. As your eyes met his you were suddenly a bit star-struck, the sharpness of his jawline and the kindness of his smile causing you to swoon internally.

“Pleasure to meet you,” you responded as he returned to his seat, his eyes never leaving yours.

“How long have you been a lifeguard for?” A voice spoke up, making you severe your eye contact with Steve. You turned to face the man who had spoken; Tony, if you remembered correctly. He was watching you with one eyebrow raised, his face void of emotion.

“Oh pretty much all my life,” you responded. “I was in a junior lifeguard program when I was in high school and then when I graduated I just took any lifeguard job that would have me.”

You began reminiscing about your many years away from your hometown, packing nothing but your board and a few clothes as you chased the summer all around the world. Hawaii, South Africa, Indonesia - you went anywhere that would take you. The coasts of Australia had been your favourite; the suffocating heat mixed with the multiple death threats of the land ensuring that your time there had been full of crazy adventures. You had longed to go back the second you had boarded the plane home. However you knew that the nomad lifestyle had been taking its toll on you for years, finally deciding that a full-time job back home was the best way for you to begin a new chapter of your life.

You conversed with the team for a few more minutes, being asked various questions about your lifeguarding experience. The questions came in rapid succession, each one catching you off guard as you scrambled to think of answers, becoming more uncomfortable by the minute.

“I reckon it’s about time we head down to Fury,” Steve spoke up, standing from his chair without another word.

A few groans escaped the room in acknowledgment of the fitness test that they were all about to be subject to, whilst others began trash talking each other once more. As the team began heading down to the beach you clung close to Natasha’s side before Wanda joined the two of you. Being the only girls on the squad meant that a bond of camaraderie had already been formed between you and the other girls. You chatted idly with them as you walked across the sand, watching as your other coworkers talked quietly among themselves, glancing back at you periodically.

“Everyone here looks so intimidating,” you spoke up, motioning to the tall and muscular figures of all the men.

Natasha threw her head back and laughed, “I wouldn’t worry about them. They may all look big and strong, but it takes stamina and determination to win these fitness tests.”

You took that in mind as the team met up with Fury, beginning to take off their various forms of warm clothing to reveal their swimsuits underneath. You, Natasha and Wanda all wore matching red one-pieces that had LIFEGUARD in big bold letters on the back whilst the boys simply took their shirts off, already dressed in their red board shorts.

You couldn’t help yourself as you looked around at the various handsome and half-naked men surrounding you. Steve, however, was the one to especially capture your gaze as your watched his back muscles in action as he took his shirt off. Natasha smirked next to you as she followed your gaze.

Dumping your clothes and towels in a pile on the sand, everyone stood at attention, waiting for Fury’s instructions.

“Ok everyone!” His voice boomed, trying to combat the howl from the vicious breeze whipping around you.

“I know you’ve all done this a handful of times, but for Y/N’s sake I’m going to walk you through the test. You will start off with an ocean swim. You must swim up to, and go around, the first buoy, swim across to the second one, and then swim back to shore. From there you will grab a paddle board and paddle through the same course that you swam. Once back on shore you must run up and around the three flags I have placed along the beach. You will then repeat the course. Once the first person crosses the line, the rest of you will have five minutes to cross the line or else you’ll be disqualified. If you do not pass this test you will not be qualified as a lifeguard. Do I make myself clear?!”

“Yes, sir!” The team shouted back.

Fury’s words had seemed to strike a cord among the group. The trash talking had come to a halt as everyone now became serious. You looked around at the others as you lined up along the shore, their faces stoic as they took deep breaths to calm their nerves.

“Pace yourself,” Steve whispered from next to you. You hadn’t noticed him as he had stepped in line next to you, your nerves calming significantly as you met his piecing gaze. You nodded in acknowledgement and thanks as you flashed him a grin before turning your head back to the ocean.

“On your marks!” Fury roared. “Get set! Go!”

The entire teamed rushed forward as Fury began the time on his stop watch. As your feet touched the water a chill ran up your spine at the temperature drop. It was still early morning, and the sun hadn’t had sufficient time to warm the water yet.

Having gotten to a deep enough spot in the ocean you dove head first, submerging yourself under the waves as the cold water encompassed your entire body. Like always, as soon as you were submerged a calming feeling washed over you, allowing you to forget about the race and your competition around you. It was now just an early morning swim; one of countless you had completed before.

As you swam along, letting your mind wander, you couldn’t help but think back to Steve and his God-like muscles. Wanda had informed you of Steve’s position in the group as the Captain. It didn’t surprise you; he seemed to have an authoritative presence and by the way he interacted with the group it was clear no one protested his command. Well, except for maybe Tony.

The quick-mouthed genius was the longest running member of the squad, as Natasha had informed you. He had saved countless lives, his quick thinking and expert problem solving leading him to be one of the best members on the team. His onslaught of questions back at the tower had made you a bit uneasy. But by the way he interacted with his coworkers - constantly bantering with them whilst maintaining his easy-going attitude - you could tell he was a good man.

Before you knew it the drag of the waves had began aiding you as you swam back to shore, pulling you out of your thoughts. You couldn’t quite remember when you had passed either of the buoys, knowing that your body must have instinctively taken you in the right direction. You let the waves do most of the work as you glided back onto the sand. Climbing out of the ocean, you started off in the direction of the paddle boards before a wave of confusion washed over you.

Each paddle board stood still and untouched where Fury had left them by the shore.

“Wait…I’m first?” You mumbled to yourself, looking out back at the ocean to see your team mates all still on various stages of the course. You watched as Steve was the next one to emerge from the water, looking at you with confusion as he saw you standing motionless on the shore next to your paddle board. The look  brought you back down to earth as you quickly got back into action, grabbing a board and dragging it back down to the shore.

You had been in your element during the swimming portion of the trial, however it became more and more clear to you that you were now currently in Steve’s element as you felt him get closer and closer to your board. You were neck and neck as you rounded the first buoy, him gaining momentum and easing ahead as you rounded the second. He reached the shore before you, dragging himself and the board out of the water with ease.

Dumping your board next to his, you ran off down the beach after him.

***

The rest of the trial went by in a blur. For the most part you and Steve were constantly competing to inch in front of one another. There were points where he’d start to ease ahead of you only to be overtaken by you a couple of minutes later. Nat nearly overtook both of you as she ran across the sand with ease, whilst Thor, Tony and Clint trailed closely behind her. The rest of the team were constantly shifting positions. Bucky and Sam too busy trying to beat each other to care about the placements of the rest of their team mates.

You had made sure to be more focused during the second ocean swim, pulling ahead as far as you could before you reached the paddle boards again. Racing out of the water you began to feel the effects of the strenuous exercise. You were now breathing quite heavily and your legs and arms felt quite fatigued due to your increased pace in the water. Nevertheless your plan had worked as you noticed your lead in front of your competition had grown significantly.

You gave him a cheeky wink as you passed him with your paddle board under your arm.

He was quickly on you as you paddled though the water, his strokes long and powerful, propelling him further ahead with each stroke. You weren’t surprised when he eventually passed you, reaching the shore further ahead of you than you’d like.

It was now the last stretch.

You could see Fury standing next to the flag that signalled the end of the course, holding the stop watch in his hand as he eyed you and Steve clearly battling it out for first place.

Sand running had never been your favourite past time, a trait you now wished you had practiced more considering how much your calves were burning. Steve was watching you from the corner of his eye as you slowly caught up to him. You could see the effects that the course was having on him; his forehead was covered with a mixture of sweat and ocean water and his mouth hung open, panting heavily. Knowing you mirrored his tired expression you tried to push the pain in your calves and lungs to the back of your mind. You knew Natasha couldn’t be too far behind you, and with how fast you saw her travel along the beach, you knew you needed to keep up your pace.

The finish line was so close now and with a newfound burst of energy you began sprinting, Steve followed your lead and upped his pace to match yours. You were nearly there, Steve inching ahead before you pushed in front of him. It was neck and neck and Fury couldn’t help the smirk that spread across his face as he saw your determined expression mirroring the Captain’s.

With one more burst of energy Steve surged forward, crossing the finish line only moments before you. As soon as your legs crossed the line you toppled over, laying down on your back as you gasped for air.

“Five minutes!” You heard Fury yell, notifying the other team members of their impending timeframe.

One by one, each member crossed the finish line, each one panting for breath as they congratulated Steve on his win, not bothering to congratulate you on your victory in getting second place. It hurt you just a bit as each team member ignored you, instead making their way over to Steve. Everyone made it across the line well before the timeframe was up with Peter, the junior trainee, coming in last due to his inexperience.

The sound of the team’s heavy panting filled the air as you all began to make your way back to the tower.

[ask-secretagentsquad]

Witherstorm's Rest

Orion had holed himself up in his own chamber in the base to tend to his wounds and try and get a bit more comfortable. He was sat on the edge of a light blue bunk, his wounded arm resting in his lap. He reached back up around his neck and pulled down his ponytail, running his fingers though his hair messily to undo the tight hairstyle. His hair fell over his face and against his neck as he blew out a soft sigh, even the slightest bit of loosening bringing relief.

He took a moment to breathe before deciding that the biker uniform he was still currently wearing was too tight, most likely stuck to him because of the blood against the slick leather. He unzipped the jacket, pulling it off carefully and wincing as he twisted his arm in an odd direction in order to pull the wet sleeve from his skin. Eventually he peeled the jacket clean from him, leaving all of the visible wounds clearly exposed.

He pushed himself to his feet, cradling his wounded arm in the other as he sauntered messily to the mirror. Catching a good look at the damage, he groaned through a sigh and didn’t even try to conceal a disappointed look. He’d have to postpone the project yet again.

His torso was covered in cuts and scrapes, and he had a few massive bruises around his midsection. Too large and too dark already for a simple bruise. This was mass internal bleeding. Something he wouldn’t be able to fix on his own. Mixed in with the dark bruises was the still fresh blood coming from his bullet wound and many other gashes and scrapes. Then there were the few burned marks into his scarred back from the taser darts, of course. He was visibly a mess, and even he couldn’t deny he was in terrible shape.

He tugged off the rest of the leather suit and folded the stained and glossed clothes neatly as to not make further of a mess. He decided against redressing yet, instead heading to the bathroom and grabbing a towel, wetting it to clean the fresh blood off of his skin. He cleaned over each cut and gash, working extra carefully around the bullet wound in his shoulder, and held the wet towel over the wound to help block more blood from escaping. Luckily the wound was a clean shot, and the bullet had gone right through. There wasn’t much to do for it besides patch it up and hope for the best, but he had no doubt he would be fine. He’d survived much worse, after all. He knew the medbay in the base would be able to help him fine, which is where he was planning to head after he’d gotten somewhat cleaned up.

Though, there were some questions dancing in the back of his mind. He’d noticed something was off with Lukas, and it’d left him a bit uneasy. The more time he got to think, the more little details he could pick out from the past couple weeks that formed even more questions. He was worried for him. What was prying at the poor man’s mind? Orion never thought to ask. Perhaps that was something he should do, check in on him, make sure he was alright. Their mission did take a rattling turn, after all. Perhaps he was simply shaken from recent events. It would be best to ask at least.

Orion moved the now bloodied towel away from his wound, which had expectedly not done too much to halt the bleeding. He set the towel back on the counter and sighed, watching the fresh blood that had seeped into the fabric slowly coat the metal. Whenever Orion was injured, it always brought some sort of realization to him.

He bleeds.

With all of the wounds, the beatings, the burns, the miraculous survival through explosions and mechanical failures; it felt normal to be in pain. He’d grown used to it. It felt so normal that sometimes, he forgot that it made him bleed. He forgot that it was dangerous, that death was real. However, even though it brought such a powerful realization, it also reminded him that he was stronger than that. He’d cheated death, fought it off by hand and will successfully each time. He was stronger than death, and he wouldn’t let it overtake him.

So, he powered through it. He bandaged his shoulder just enough to hold until he got to the medbay, and he slipped into a more comfortable outfit of a black t-shirt and blue sweatpants, something similar to sleepwear. A bit of his bandage still stuck out from under his sleeve, and his lips were still wet with blood from the lightly pulled stitches, but he did all he could to look not so much a mess, even if it was still obvious. He fixed his hair a bit using his good arm before leaving the bathroom slowly as to not hurt his already pained midsection further. He left the room and started making his way down the hallway, trying to keep his commander demeanor through each struggling step.

Eventually, he stopped, just hesitating outside of Lukas’s bunk. He heard nothing inside. Perhaps he wasn’t there.

Orion lifted his hand until it was hovering just a few inches away from the door in a fist. He didn’t want to intrude— yet, he was worried, so he led by his worried brother gut and knocked on the metal door.

~~~

“You excited for you next trip up to PAMA?” Trevor asked Ranger as they both sat in the control room. They’d been silent for too long, and Trevor was getting antsy from the silence. Each of them were sat in their respective chairs, Bullet and Toaster curled by their feet.

“I am, yeah! I love going up to Norway. The trip takes a while, sure, but it’s really calming. Yknow, some time to myself— I pass over a few nice reefs too,” Ranger responded more cheerfully than Trevor expected.

“It must be a nice trip- How’s PAMA been doing?”

“Same old same old really. Some minor glitches in Aiden’s connection though, probably nothing too hard to fix. PAMA’s been reporting a third presence in Aiden’s mind. It’s kinda weird but I’m sure it’s just some sort of interlinked connection, maybe a glitch in the streams. I’ll take care of it when I get there,” Ranger brushed off the situation as simple, but Trevor didn’t find it so minuscule.

“That sounds like an issue, don’t you think-? Who’s that third presence?” he asked, trying to pry a bit more information into the open.

“Can’t tell- could be anyone. It’s probably just another one of the Hacked accidentally mixing streams with Aiden’s. He’s been a bit glitchy since he’s been under for so long. Don’t worry, bro, I’ll fix it when I get there,” Ranger assured him.

“Fine, fine. But be careful anyway. Those CIA, FBI, whatever they are could be out there still,” Trevor sighed and leaned back into his seat.

“If I come across them I’ll gladly shoot them down- I’ll just leave with my weapons actually loaded, no biggy.”

“You seem awfully relaxed-“

“It’s my way of coping. Everything’s fine-! We’ll all be fine. Leader’s pulled through a lot worse, and our subs are crazy fast and really powerful. We do also have the advantage of hidden, familiar turf, radio static, and an entire creature out there somewhere that Leader's trying to weaponize-“

“Oh, Gargantuine?”

“That’s it’s name?”

“Yeah, Gargantuine is what I called it a while back and Leader adopted it. Gargantuine was the thing that destroyed the Witherstorm before us.”

"I think Leader's recorded something about that thing getting even bigger."

Trevor and Ranger shuddered simultaneously at the thought. The creature lurking in the depths was just another horrible problem. All they could do was pray that Orion's improvements to the base could hold it off. And- hope whatever system he's creating to control the beast would be a success, and not a horrific life or death situation.

"He's trying to weaponize the thing either way. Hopefully that'll keep it off our backs--" Ranger finished, subconsciously rubbing Bullet's belly with his foot. Bullet seemed to be in bliss.

"Yeah, hopefully. That should make your leave easier too, huh?" Trevor asked lightly, looking on the bit more positive side.

"It should, yeah, since the thing always manages to get in the way somehow. If Leader has it distracted, then maybe I can slip out unseen. We know it can't follow outside the field, or-- well. It never has. But I don't see any reason why it would change its decisions now- so once I'm out I should be free sailing."

"I sure hope it goes that way. I'll be stuck here though, having to take up your dumb duties on top of mine, as usual-" Trevor scoffed and threw a crumpled slip of paper at his brother's forehead. It bounced off and landed in his lap.

"Oh come on, it's not like my stuffs too hard, just make a couple of the Hacked do it. I'll be doing all of the routine checks from my sub, as per usual," Ranger replied, letting his playful snark slip through his tone. He picked up the paper ball and threw it back.

For a few minutes, the two tossed the ball back and forth to each other, focused on catching the slowly falling ball instead of talking. Until Trevor spoke up again.

"Do you think Leader's gonna be okay?"

Ranger looked lightly shocked by the question.

"Of course! He always pulls through-! He's Leader- he's.. Unstoppable!" Ranger choked out almost half-heartedly.

"He's just been making this a thing lately-- Coming back mortally wounded, and all.. I'm just worrying about him a lot more.. Like what if he brushes off something serious--"

"Trev," Ranger cut him off, "Orion knows what he's doing.. Sure he seemed a bit more open when we got back today, oddly sentimental, but that doesn't mean he's not gonna be okay. He could just be relieved-- he IS almost done with his project- and it's been years. I'm sure he knows when things are too much for him-- and if anything, no worries, he's got ol Green to take care of him."

"Ah, Green. A stubborn one, huh.. I've never seen anyone speak to Leader the way he does.." Trevor answered unsurely to the comment, still not really sure what he thought of Green.

"Personally, I don't trust him. He looks WAY too similar to that Lukas agent guy that we have record of. And the way he is with Leader-- I don't like seeing Leader's guard lowered like that.. It gives me chills." Ranger threw the crumpled ball one last time, throwing it past Trevor and onto the monitor behind him.

"I'm not really partial.. He saved my life, after all- Twice, I think-- I can't exactly be too skeptical of someone like that.. Maybe he's just-.. Special? Who am I to say? If Leader trusts him, there must be a good reason why," Trevor finished strongly, leaning into the armrest of his seat.

"I guess that's true..." Ranger fiddled with his own armrest, clearly restless.

Trevor noticed and snapped to Toaster, causing the black lab's head to shoot up with his ears perked high in response.

"You know, I think we've got some last minute routine checks to do before we're done--" Trevor glanced up to Ranger, who still looked lost in thought, "I'll race ya, first one back here and finished wins. Loser has to wash the dishes for a week."

Ranger's head perked up for a moment, and Trevor grinned, leaping to his feet. He shouted his countdown as he was already heading off down the hall, followed by a stumbling Ranger.

"1 2 3 GO!!"

[pigstepmp3-moved]

the writers really did buck dirty in s01e02

its the post you’ve all been waiting for—my Aggravated Analysis Of Everything That Makes Me Mad about the Therapy Scene tm, now featuring some things that show just how emotionally and mentally fucked buck is. now, i know we All hate that scene with all of our hearts (buck deserves to have a Good experience w therapy for once, but thats just my opinion), but i wanna go into detail about what exactly makes me SEETHE about that scene, complete w gifs and screenshots so i can better explain myself. im putting it all under the cut bc its kind of A Lot, so click that “read more” if you wanna read my angry complaining

alright, lets set the scene (i know we’re all aware of the situation behind this scene, but i think its important to remind you all of it). season one episode two. bucks still very much a Huge horn dog. buck has also very recently suffered his First loss on the job and its taking a huge toll on him. i think what’s most important to talk about before we get to the therapy scene itself is the scene where abby’s watching him on the news with carla.

(not the greatest quality, but that doesnt matter). he very clearly looks uncomfortable just talking about what happened in such a Casual, No Pressure setting. he says, “i was just doing my job. i’m happy we were able to help the people we helped and i’m really sorry about those we couldn’t save.” he stutters a few times as he says it, looks and sounds very uneasy, which seems very out of character for him. he’s usually super confident and chill, but as he’s asked to talk about this (most likely) traumatic thing, he kinda clams up, yknow? theres also something in his voice that reminds me very heavily of the way My voice sounds when Im trying to force back tears, but that might just be The Way He Talks

another thing that he says that really stands out to me (i dont know if this is necessarily important to the topic at hand, but i wanna talk about it so whatever) is, “. . . um, i’m sure they’re just turned on by the uniform. you know, i don’t know if they would feel that way if they saw me out of it.” ignoring the more sexual connotations to what he’s saying there, let’s talk about what he most likely meant by that particular statement. he still sounds a little nervous as he says it and kind of avoids the reporters eyes. it sounds to me like this is a rare moment of buck’s insecurities being let loose. “i don’t know if they would feel that way if they saw me out of it.” this implies, i think, some insecurities about like.. every part of himself. it almost seems like, in this moment, he thinks his only redeeming quality is the uniform. which might actually be what he’s thinking right then, ‘cause he’s still trying to figure out how to cope with his first loss. i think theres some part of him, somewhere behind that overly confident persona, that has a lot more insecurities than he shows, but thats a conversation for another day.

now, let’s move on a little from that. what i think is very important and notable about that scene is some of the things abby says after watching buck on the news. first thing she says that stands out to me is, “i’ve been thinking i might want to call him to see how he is.” she’s worried about him. i think she’s probably been worried about him since the first time he was on the news, earlier that episode. and for good reasons, i think, because later on, she says, “. . . he needs help, you know? i mean, he’s got so much pain in his face. everybody’s treating him like a hero. he doesn’t feel like a hero. as far as he’s concerned, the guy that he was trying to save fell.” like, wow, just tear my heart out and stomp on it a bunch, why dont you? its such a wonderful and apt summary of what buck’s going through. to put it rather simply, he’s fucking distraught, and for good reasons. plus, that quote is one of the Big things that influenced my headcanon of buck having depression, and i could probably analyze every single scene bucks in in this episode that have added onto that head canon of mind bc there are at least a couple different things i could blather on about, but that’s some analysis for another post (if you’re interested in me talking about that tho, definitely feel free to let me know)

now, let’s move on a little further to the Dreaded Scene (i’d totally go into the scene that immediately follows the last one i talked about, where buck and abby are speaking on the phone, but i think i’ve emphasized my point of buck going through some shit in this episode to the point where that isn’t strictly necessary). for the rest of this post, i’m gonna kind of analyze every single little thing that buck does and says in the therapy scene bc pretty much all of it contributes to my burning hatred of that therapist.

like, yeah, no SHIT, honey!! as far as we, the audience, are concerned, this is the First time he’s EVER been to therapy. in my own personal experiences, my first time going to therapy was SO uncomfortable. and just looking at buck right here makes me feel uncomfortable, too—he’s fidgeting with his hands, looks to the side, looks down, looks up at her for a moment before looking away again. this boy looks nervous as hell, and for good reasons. he confirms that he is in fact uncomfortable, and then the therapist says, “well, that’s not unusual. you’ve been through a trauma. that’s why you’re here—to deal with those feelings.” remember that, because i’m not gonna go into the importance of that quote just yet.

the next thing buck says is, “uh, yeah, i’m, uh, i’m not really into feelings.” he kind of avoids looking at the therapist as he says this, though not as much as he did in that last gif. but his voice is like... uncharacteristically quiet as he says it.

more!! avoidance!! he keeps averting his eyes, looking anywhere that ISNT his therapist. and at the end of what he says here, he clenches his jaw a little. a nervous tick, maybe? i don’t know. as he talks here, though, his voice is, yet again, very quiet. he sounds just about broken right here, and it makes my heart ache so bad for him

after a brief break to check out what athena and michael are talking about, his therapist says, "i treat a lot of first responders—people who run toward danger—but maybe there's something you're running from as well? what is it about discussing your feelings that scares you?" the answer buck gives her? a very defensive, “i’m not scared.” if youre not scared, then why are you avoiding talking about your damn feelings like the fucking black plague? and when i say that he says it defensively, i mean, like, way too defensive to Not be suspicious

we don’t get to hear anymore about that particular question because next, we’re checking up on athena and michael again, and then we’re talking about something else. the therapist says, "you lost somebody. that's hard."

as he says this, he sounds fucking SAD. he sounds completely and utterly BROKEN. throughout this whole clip, he sounds entirely broken. the therapist asks if this was his first time. he responds with, "i mean, i've had calls where it was... too late, but, uh, but i've only been doing this not even six months. now, i... i just can't shake the feeling that this one didn't need to go down the way that it did." again, he sounds like he’s hurting really badly. this loss is really taking a huge toll on him and that is Very clear. she then asks him if he thinks there was something he could have differently. he doesnt respond, just looks up at her like this:

his eyes are a little red, and it looks like there are some tears in his eyes. like wow, you could murder me and it would hurt less than seeing buck like this

now, the next snippet is about where everything Starts Going To Shit (this is also the part where i start sobbing like a dumb baby, but thats neither here nor there). 

you see that shit right there?? if you listen hard enough, you can hear my heart breaking into a million pieces. from this point on, buck is CRYING. honest to god fucking CRYING. he looks like he’s hurting so badly, especially at the end of that gif, when he furrows his eyebrows. it looks kind of like he’s trying to keep himself from straight up Sobbing. i’m sure it seems almost like i’m dwelling on this for a little longer than necessary, but i think emphasizing how emotional he is in this part is very important to understand just how much the end of this scene makes me fucking SEETHE. this next little bit is where i start to transition from Sadness to absolute Rage

you see that? this is the start of my slow deterioration into madness. up until this point, everything about this therapy session was completely and entirely professional. but home girl decides, hey, yknow whats a good idea? waltzing my happy ass across the room, sitting down directly in front of my PATIENT, and resting my hand on said PATIENT’s arm. i dunno about you guys, but this seems terrible on so many levels that it isnt funny.

now, yknow what happens next? some classic avoidance from our boy. she calls him mr buckley, so he says, "it's, um... it's actually just buck." (after VERY AUDIBLY SNIFFLING by the way, but i digress). he then deflects even FURTHER by asking her if she friended him on facebook. 

“i thought you looked familiar,” he says. he’s no longer actively crying at this point, but there are most certainly still some tears in his eyes.

now, do you know what happens next, after a brief break to check up on athena and michael? the worst thing that could happen happens! i know it, you know it, little miss unprofessional sleeps with buck! and yknow what she says Immediately afterwards? “i can’t believe i just did that. i am so sorry.” like.... no! saying “sorry” doesnt change the fact that you TOOK ADVANTAGE of someone who is CLEARLY not in the right frame of mind to consent to something like that. yknow what he was doing the last time we saw him? crying. bc hes in a very vulnerable place in this episode. and yeah, sure, i guess you could make the argument that he was seducing her a little, but that doesnt change the fact that this is fucked up. now, side note about me, i’m only in high school and i’ve never had any job before, so i dont quite know the ins and outs of the professional world. but i do know a thing or two about common sense, so its pretty easy for me to assume that shit like this is awful on like a million different levels. i think the power imbalance is super clear to anyone who has any number of brain cells.

now, buck being as emotionally stunted as he is, says that she made him feel better (probably just for a few minutes, but thats neither here nor there). and yknow what she says? “you should go.” remember that quote from earlier? the one that i said was important and that i was going to go into later? “well, that’s not unusual. you’ve been through a trauma. that’s why you’re here—to deal with those feelings.” yknow what buck Didnt do? deal with those feelings. he talked about his feelings for maybe ten minutes, and that’s assuming that, during the cuts to athena and michael, the session was continuing and that it wasnt a matter of like, oh, this stuff is happening At The Same Time.

and all that is just During the session. we dont ever see the aftermath of it, we dont ever see buck talking about that session or anything along those lines. and we most certainly dont see him trying to go talk to a different therapist. the rest of what im going to be talking about this post is purely speculation, but i think its highly probable that this could all be canon. like i just mentioned, as far as we know, buck hasnt gone to another therapist after that shit show. additionally, we can also assume that buck really hasnt talked to like....... anyone about the shit he’s gone through, both past shit and shit that was brought up from this first loss of his. so as far as we’re concerned, he’s never properly worked through it all. he’s also probably never gotten any proper coping mechanisms to deal with any further losses. it seems a little too morbid to think that bucks just gotten used to the feeling that comes with losing someone, so i think its pretty safe to assume that, after every single loss he suffers, he gets like..... super fucked up, purely because he never talked about (a), the reason why hes scared to talk about feelings, or (b), how to deal with said feelings, especially when they’re bad. and thats not fair to him!! that loss clearly took a huge toll on buck, Most of the description of that episode is talking about the roller coaster and bucks feelings, but he never got to heal from it. if buck doesnt get something akin to a redemption arc, where he gets to see a therapist to properly work through all of his issues, i’m going to riot

anyway. thats all i have to say on the matter. i’ve been working on this for most of the day because i have so many thoughts and feelings about the way buck was treated during this episode. i will die mad about it. but i think i’ve said pretty much all i have to say on the topic now, so i hope my frustrated rambling was interesting or whatever to read. so, thanks for reading! ♥

[mystic-messenger-writing]

Hiiiii~ I came across your blog awhile ago and have loved it so much ever since then and I love all of your headcannons!! My request is the RFA+V+Saeran (if you want, of course) reacting to an MC who gets easily frustrated/upset with herself/others (and it maybe getting worse when they try to comfort her or not, up to you). You don't have to do it at all if you don't want to! I get that way frequently and I hate it ;-; so I was curious of your take on it! Thank youu

So for this one, I kinda made it how the RFA and friends would comfort MC rather than her getting upset with them. I really wanted to write something more fluffly so I hope this is okay! Thank you for the request and I hope that you enjoy! ^^

Yoosung

Being a busy college student dealing with the loss of his cousin means that Yoosung knows all too well what it’s likes to become easily upset

But seeing you constantly stressed out makes his heart breaks, he wants nothing more than to comfort you

Yoosung knows though that you need your personal space during these times so he’ll make small gestures

Cooking your favorite meals, adjusting the house’s temperature to your liking, and making sure your pillow is fluffed to its fullest so you’ll have the best night sleep are only a small number of things he does for you

All of Yoosung’s gestures help alleviate your flustered state, reminding you just how luck you are to have a boyfriend as kind and considerate as him

Zen

Zen rarely found himself flustered or upset (unless he was dealing with Jumin) so seeing you becoming easily flustered made him upset

He wasn’t exactly sure how to help you at first, that last thing he wanted was to get in your way so he kept to himself for a while

But then, Zen realized it only made him lonely so he cautiously started to try and help you

He would hum relaxing tunes, gently play with your hair, and even have you rest next to him so he could hold you close to him

Zen could tell that you would become more relaxed when you were around him boosting his ego making him happy

All of Zen’s efforts truly helped you get through anything that made you upset, another reason why he was simply the best

Jaehee

This girl knows a thing or two about getting easily flustered thanks to her cat loving boss

So Jaehee knows all kinds of tips and tricks to help you once she notices you becoming more upset lately

She’ll give you a shoulder massage, bring you your favorite warm beverage, and even tell you all the weird habits she learned about Jumin to make you laugh

Jaehee smiles as she sees some of the tension leave you and while she does try to give you affection to help de-stress, she also gives you plenty of alone time which she knows is important as well

You finally feel yourself starting to become calmer thanks to Jaehee and all of her help, remembering to always be there for her when she needs it

Jumin

The research this boy did when he found out how easily flustered you could get is more research than he’s ever done for any car project

Jumin knows how to keep his emotions in check so he isn’t quite sure how to help you at first

The first thing he does is give you Elizabeth to cuddle with when you’re upset since it always helps him when he feels uneasy

He’ll also make you step away from whatever is upsetting you, softly reminding you how much he loves you until you feel at ease

Your incredibly thankful for Jumin being so understanding and kind, having him to lean on whenever you feel upset makes you the happiest in the world

Seven

Working for a top secret hacking agency is enough to make any person easily flustered, especially someone with Seven’s past

So Seven notices right away how you get easily upset and is determined to help you

He’ll give you some Honey Buddha Chips, crack some cringy but funny jokes, and hold you close as he gives you calming breathing techniques

Seven will do anything to make you happy and won’t leave the matter until he knows that you’re 100% better

It’s these kinds of gestures that make you incredibly happy to have Seven in your life, the two of you continue to support and love each other through all stressful times

V

This angel of a man can easily detect when you’re feeling upset and right away he’s there to comfort you

V is always patience and listens calmly as you vent out your stress to him

He’ll give you rational advice and loving words of encouragement to help you

And if you’re really feeling down, V will show you a special photo album he made of peaceful photos to help you feel at ease

He’ll give you personal space if you need it, but he’d rather cuddle up close to you and hold you tight until the tension leaves you

V is the most caring man you know and with his help, your days of being easily flustered are lessened

Unknown

Saeran didn’t think that anyone could become as easily flustered as he was until he met you

It makes him uneasy when he sees you upset, his heart aches but he isn’t always sure how to help you

He’ll start out with small gestures like lightly running his fingers through your hair or hacking your phone so you get encouraging messages

Saeran will eventually find the courage to give you small kisses and random hugs as he mumbles helpful words to you

His gestures touch your heart as you and Saeran learn ways to help each other cope with upsetting events and over time, you both become more calm and happy people

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

So I’ve been kinda snide about the GoT finale, and that’s -- not entirely fair, because it was, I mean, fine.  It was fine, for what it was -- for what the show wanted to be, which it turns out was, “Will the Stark Kids make it out of these troubled times okay?”  And they mostly did, and it was fine (sorry, Robb).

And just so I don’t feel like the last living human without a Hot Take on Game of Thrones, I thought I’d take a shot at why, in spite of having a number of strengths and being sometimes pretty great, the overall arc and particularly the ending made me unhappy as One of Those Annoying Book Fans.  (I’m going to say all this like it’s Objectively True, which surely we all understand nothing is, so insert all the relevant in-my-opinions and all that.)

So I *love* the books, the books were a life-changing revelation for me when I started reading them back in 1997 when I was a slip of a 21-year-old lifelong fantasy fan.  And yeah, I know the reputation now is “ooooh, aren’t you a grimdark edgelord, so impressed with your gritty fantasy faux-realism,” but -- uh, I’m not sorry.  Because the thing is I wasn’t reading for “realism” in the sense of “this is like reality” -- I like *narrative,* which reality unfortunately noticeably lacks, and ASOIAF was very clearly a crafted narrative that was trying to say extremely specific things *about narrative* and about the cognitive dissonance that arises when narrative-loving human brains have to cope with narrative-indifferent reality.  That may seem like slicing the distinction pretty fine, but I think it matters.  The books weren’t just a bunch of shit happening because “in real life, that’s what would happen, just a bunch of shit.”  The specific shit that happened, and its ramifications and the way people processed said shit according to their distinctive needs and perspectives and hang-ups, was all extremely deliberate, and aimed straight at a Serious Thematic Point, which is that fantasy novels are obsessed with exactly the most irrelevant shit possible, and maybe that’s a problem.

These are books that revolve around a crisis in succession and legitimacy of kingship, like practically all high fantasy does (even more so back then, but it still seems pretty common).  An usurper sits on the throne and two legitimate heirs are in exile, and there’s this constant sense of unease, because from the perspective of our main viewpoint character, that’s -- good?  Because even though the Baratheon dynasty took over illegitimately, Robert is a better king than the last one, and Ned supports him.  Only Robert himself is uneasy and paranoid, his reign totally dependent on the goodwill of a family of rich assholes he hates and constantly haunted by the idea that the Targaryen children might come for their revenge, which by the cultural logic of Westeros, they’ll pretty much deserve.  So here you have all this palace intrigue and political skullduggery, and it’s immediately interesting because instead of being about restoring the Rightful King, it’s about propping up the guy who had the Rightful King killed, because he’s not great but the first guy was worse.

But the deeper you get into it, the more you start to realize that above and beyond the “subversive” flipped script of the idea of royal legitimacy, there’s a second and *far fucking better* subversion happening.

The point of the books is that IT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER who sits on the throne.  That the entire “game” is not just flipped in the sense of “you thought this person should be the king, but really it was a different person who should be the king” -- the game itself is illegitimate, and destructive, and fundamentally absurd, a bunch of assholes wreaking limitless chaos out of their fixed ideas about cosmic order, which are, every single one of them, wildly wrong.

It happens on two prongs simultaneously -- first, the Iron Throne doesn’t matter because *whoever* is “in power” is immediately hamstrung.  They can’t actually do anything of any significance, because they’re 100% occupied from the moment they step into the bullseye with fending off eight hundred other assholes who want to be king of the hill, so no succession in the entire series can happen in an “orderly” or “legitimate” way -- every one of them is bedeviled by uprisings and invasions and civil wars and assassination attempts and legal challenges, and the point is that this will continue to happen forever, while the world just kind of trudges on.  The second arm of IT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER is the long game, because Winter Is Coming, and not one person on the entire planet is remotely prepared to put their personal bullshit aside in order to figure out what to do with an ice zombie invasion.  People are just going to keep offing each other for imaginary honors and getting knocked off in their turn, and one day they’ll wake up and realize they rule a world that’s uninhabitable and NONE OF IT FUCKING MATTERED.

That was the point of ASOIAF to my reading, and that’s what I loved about it.  Its “realism” was that it drilled down hard into the brutal reality that we saturate ourselves in stories about how great it’s going to be when the Good Leader is on the throne at last, but *that’s never going to happen,* because leaders are regular humans who run the gamut between “pretty all right” and “just the fucking worst,” but they change pretty regularly, and waiting for the Good Leader to fix it all is a sucker’s game anyway, because people don’t just show up and save the world and establish The Good Times and then the story is over.  That’s *not a real thing,* and maybe we should tell at least the occasional story that doesn’t end that way, so we won’t all be so goddamn obsessed with pinning our hopes on saviors who don’t pan out.

The thing is...I don’t know how you end a story like that.  I more than a little bit suspect that GRRM also does not know how you end a story like that.  When the whole point is that politics is an endless game with no real winners and that even the putative winners aren’t really capable of stopping the tides of history, when do you ring the curtain down?  I actually have no idea.

What I was not hoping for was a final season that is entirely, uncritically, about making sure we all feel good about who gets to be kings and queens and who doesn’t.  That -- DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER.  I mean, I almost love having Bran take the throne, because there’s this weird subtextual kind of “lol, who cares, have that guy do it I guess” baked into the meaninglessness of Bran, who doesn’t want anything or, mostly, even feel anything.  But all the literal and figurative chair-shuffling at the end of the episode about who’s going to serve on the council and who’s in charge of what, I just....  It seems like the writers really thought that was the payoff.  That what we all needed to know about the Game of Thrones is who ends up winning it.

And that’s such a baldly, drastically, jaw-droppingly bad payoff for the ASOIAF that I loved.  The suggestion that the realm will be brought to some kind of peace now that the Correct, Better Dynasty is enthroned in the allied Six Kingdoms/North is completely ass backwards from the entire point of the books.  Winter coming and going harmlessly, the Others (White Walkers, whatever) dispatched in one single-night battle, just betrays the source material so audaciously that it feels like it had to be deliberate.  That was the whole goddamn story!  That Winter Was Coming!!!!!  And then the show just -- didn’t do that, and instead built its climax around A Good Leader dispatching A Bad Leader, whereby the realm is saved, yay.

Only the point was that power operates systemically, and power itself takes in the people who would wield it, and power replicates itself in the forms that are familiar, and that the problem isn’t that we need to keep searching for the Rightful King, because *power doesn’t suddenly become benevolent when it’s invested in someone with good intentions.*  I know there are still people who will argue with me about that, and -- I mean, fine, that’s a matter of differing political philosophies, but Team Great Man Theory of History can rest assured that basically every other epic story will back up their worldview, because that worldview makes for better, more satisfying stories.

ASOIAF was written for the rest of us.  It was a big, rich, plotty, absorbing epic story about a world where people were only human and things were only ever going to get put right to the degree that the world has ever been put right, which is...not especially.  But still, the characters were *human,* and what they chose to do mattered.  At least, it mattered to exactly whichever degree you personally believe that the things people choose to do matter, and it kind of challenged you to answer that question for yourself: if you knew you were never going to win the game and never going to save the world, because it’s not that kind of a world, what would you do?  Would you still try to be a hero?  Would you take the world for everything you could get?  Would you just keep your damn head down?  Would you just chase what you loved instead of the fate of nations?  Would you try all those things at different times, as seemed right to you in the moment, and then live with the consequences?

I don’t know how the hell you make that into a tv show, or if it’s even remotely possible.  I just know that the show they made needed an ending, and the one they went with just felt a lot like every book I’ve ever read in my life *except* these books.  Which might have been inevitable from the beginning, but it’s still disappointing.

[natsthinkitythinkthinkthonk]

Mental Health in Anime - Rant + Vitamin (Manga) - Thoughts

Sorry for the random capslock. I do that when I’m really livid.

Trigger warning: This post mentions mental illness including depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and eating disorders. It mentions suicide and assault that may make some readers uncomfortable.

I wanted to keep this safe for the guidelines, but I also didn’t want to shy away from these topics because I know how hard these things hit sometimes, and I don’t want to shy away from things like these anymore. These topics all have a huge place in my life which I advocate for, and I wouldn’t want to downplay it.

For the first time in a VERY long time, I read a manga series. Series meaning three chapters. I have commitment issues. Lots of them. Anyway, I read it thinking, “I want to read a series that addresses mental health in a more realistic way”. Why do I say that? Well, for now, I’m going to rant about anime and mental health as a whole. After that, I will get to the manga I just read. It won’t be a review as much as it’ll be the thoughts I had on it.

Well, shounen anime I’ve watched and the stuff that’s directed towards me definitely doesn’t touch mental health often. You can see below that shounen manga will do ANYTHING ELSE BUT THAT. Usually, it’s shoujo manga that gets into emotional territory, and sometimes, I watch it for stuff like that. I don’t want to watch something that tells me to man up all the time or that friendship is everything or that I can have superpowers and be admired by people out there all the time. When it comes down to it, sometimes I want characters that I can relate to on a more intimate level. I want to feel like I can have a heart-to-heart with them without someone out there laughing at me. I don’t want to cry tears that are laughed at. But even then, a whole lot of the time, I don’t see mental health interpreted well in anime.

Well, let’s see... as a general overview, let’s see what I’ve seen in depictions of shounen and shoujo anime/manga:

Shounen manga: 

CHILDHOOD TRAUMA IS NORMAL. DEAL THE F**K WITH IT. HAD YOUR PARENTS KILLED? ME TOO. BEEN MURDERED? ME TOO. I’M DEAD. IN FACT, I’VE MURDERED PEOPLE. Mental health? They can barely keep their regular health in order. The only treatment you need is friendship speeches and training montages. Trauma makes you stronger even if it breaks you with no one there to help you. It’s alright until you’re dead.

Examples: - The entire cast of Naruto ~ Yeah, Naruto’s an orphan, his village hates him, he was bullied, he made through his childhood struggles by making it through mischief. Sasuke had his entire family killed by his brother. I can go on. - BNHA Class ~ Attacked by villains? Who gives a f**k, you’re aiming to become heroes. Please, we already spent the budget on those costumes. No one needs help. Hell, we spent our health budget on Deku’s bones. No complaints.  - Mirai Nikki ~ I know it’s like all other manga where they give it the excuse that it’s the point of the series, but we all know both Yukki and Yuno are not healthy.

Shoujo manga: 

Your beloved what’s-his-face will come running in to save your butt because we know that real help is an illusion. Issues can be solved if you fall in love... obviously.

Too many examples to list. Let’s move on.

Bad Examples:

This is just my opinion. Maybe you think this series interpreted it well, but for at least the first part of the series, all of these did not.

Soul Eater: Death the Kid

I know it’s supposed to be funny, but come on, the guy needs help. No one addresses it. It bothered me the whole time I was watching the show. I think you can make me laugh without making fun of OCD. 

I think you can leave Crona agender WITHOUT forcing pronouns onto them. Seriously, some people think that Crona’s gender is a joke. I’m still not over the fact Funimation thought that “he/him” was the most gender-neutral they can get.

Literally Watamote’s existence

It’s about a person with social anxiety? See? It’s funny. Because... they’re socially awkward... and anxious... I don’t get it.

The Beginning of Watashi ga Motete Dousunda

NOW, THIS. THIS IS THE REASON WHY I DIDN’T WANT TO EVEN TOUCH THIS ANIME.

How is “losing a ton of weight randomly” healthy? Or even more beyond that, her dreams come true once she does? Uh... for a comedic reason? Hmm... that’s not a very good reason. I think we ought to deal with eating disorders in a better way than this.

Bungou Stray Dogs: Osamu Dazai

There are many reasons why I was uneasy with Bungou Stray Dogs for a while. Dazai was practically the sole reason. I get that Asagiri (the creator) wanted to dodge the interpretation of real-life Dazai’s suicidal tendencies but his anguish came from literal turmoil and struggle. We learn that Dazai’s does too, but it’s portrayed in such a superficial way, and while I do that too as a coping mechanism, I completely understand when people say they will never touch Bungou Stray Dogs because Dazai sets a bad precedence. I personally do not like the way that they chose to go about this. It’s one of the reasons why I actually don’t like Dazai as much as others do.

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei

I understand that this is a weird Studio Shaft series, but joking about suicide to this extent made me find it a bit distasteful. 

Good/Better Examples:

These ones tried and did a slightly better job than the ones before. I didn’t comment on the ones I haven’t watched.

A Silent Voice

This story is about a depressed and suicidal man who tries to atone for his past deeds and sins. It’s a beautifully adapted movie, an arguably better manga, and it’s just a masterpiece.

Yuri!!! On Ice

The main force working against our protagonist is himself, or more specifically, his anxiety. As an older figure skater, he has a tough time with his self-image, handling his nerves, etc. I relate.

School-Live!

Yuki lives in a lie and has problems facing the truth about her reality. This is arguably played off as a horror trope, but I found it pretty well-done.

Your Lie in April

The character deals with past trauma with the abuse of his deceased mother. 

Tsuritama

It properly and accurately interprets social anxiety as a kid who keeps moving has to introduce himself over and over again. He feels like he’s drowning and gets pulled up into fishing with his friends as he tries to learn how to handle his stresses with the people around him.

Anohana

The cast has a ton of problems dealing with their past trauma and has no choice but to face it by all means necessary. They didn’t get proper help even though they should’ve.

Monster

Orange

March Comes in Like a Lion

This boy overcomes past trauma and stress by relying on those close to him.

Psycho-Pass

Fullmetal Alchemist

This deals with everything from our characters’ past trauma to post-partum depression (the first time I have ever seen it interpreted in an anime and a SHOUNEN anime at that). 

Vitamin - Thoughts (BELOW)

I read this manga knowing that it contained content to do with mental health, and honestly, I don’t think it had enough time to fully flesh out its capabilities. Its THREE-CHAPTER run was super fast. And it was heavy. And I mean HEAVY. The art was done powerfully. The contents of the story weren’t filtered; it wasn’t held back.

We deal with a character who’s on top of the world with friends, a boyfriend, good studying habits, but it spirals out of control fast.

This anime deals with many untouchable topics such as the risk of suicide, mental illness, (I swear I’m gonna get flagged) s**ual assault, eating disorders, drug abuse, and probably a few other things that I missed.

This hit me and had me having feelings like the little bitch I am. Holy cow cakes. I was reading this with my mom in the same room just trying to not look like the little poop I am. That stuff hit so hard and so close to home. 

You think it’s too out there to really be true, but I don’t think so. At my old school, we definitely had stuff like that.

The growth of this character was rushed, and even if it’s slightly exaggerated, I empathized and felt her pain because bro, I’ve kinda (not to that extent) been there too. It dealt with her attempt, drug abuse, assault, bulimia, and everything. It was blinding, hurtful, and it tears open wounds like no tomorrow.

This isn’t even this mangaka’s first time at it. She has written quite a bit of heavy shoujo stuff.

The ending felt so satisfying. This manga wasn’t eye-opening in ways that it might be for some people. I have been to places like those. I know how it feels. I know other people have been there too, but to see it so rawly interpreted into a manga-format for people to read, that was unexpected. Overall, it was a really well-done manga. In a way, I wish it was longer so it would be a bit more realistic in some ways, but at the same time, I’m not sure how much longer I would’ve lasted. 

[multiphandomunnies]

Blackpink reacts: S/O joining the military (Angsty Ending)

Requested:  Can you make a blackpink reaction where they got a news where their s/o died because of the military?

Admin: Heather

A/N: It’s a second ending to Blackpink’s S/O in military. I wasn’t sure if you meant for it to be a separate story or another part, but I put it in my small universe. So Blackpink is in love with Y/N, but they are not together anymore. If you want a version with Blackpink and Y/N being together, all you have to do is ask and I’ll happily write another one! Hope you all enjoy this piece of angst. (I’m kinda proud about it)

Jisoo

Three months after the breakup Jisoo was doing fine. She was planning to quit her current job and start working in a nearby library. Her friends were very supportive and tried to set her up on a couple dates, but she always politely declined. Right now, she wanted to focus on her life and find happiness on her own. That was the official version for everyone. Of course Jisoo wanted to build a life, but a couple months wasn’t enough for her to forget about you. She didn’t blame you for anything and was happy that you two ended things like grown-ups. Sometimes the memories would come back, like when she was drinking your favourite coffee or walked around the park near your apartment, but it was always a nice and nostalgic moment. Right now Jisoo was organising her books. She always had an obsession to keep them sorted by authors in alphabetical order. You used to be marveled by her dedication and always said that she should make a living out of it. Now was finally the time for her to follow your advice. A loud ringtone interrupted her moment of peace and she reluctantly picked it up, a little surprised by the name on the screen. “Byul?” It has been a while since she talked to her friend as she was always busy. “Do you know Y/N Y/L/N?” Moonbyul asked immediately. Jisoo blinked in confusion. “Yeah, why are you asking me that?” They weren’t close enough for Moonbyul to know about your relationship. “We were in the same team in military.” she explained and cleared her throat. “Do you know her well? It’s important.” Jisoo didn’t know how to answer that. Your relationship status was complicated. “We were... we are in love.” Moonbyul gasped a little and fell into silence. “I should have known. We found a picture of you under her pillow.” She admit quietly. Something was definitely wrong. “Byul, is everything alright with Y/N?” Moonbyul didn’t respond at first, but after a while she started talking. “Our base got ambushed yesterday. I wasn’t there, but I heard that it was a massacre.” Jisoo’s heart was beating fast and she almost didn’t hear her friend’s words. “She died, Jisoo. They all did.” The phone was dropped on the floor and Jisoo slid on the wall right next to it. She was staring into space frozen and didn’t pay attention to Moonbyul’s concerned voice. You were gone. You will never come back and live your life. You will never hold her in your arms again. You will never smile at any joke. She was okay with you not coming back to her, but not coming back at all? She will never be okay with that.

Jennie

Working with people was a therapeutic experience. Jennie had no time to focus on your failed relationship. Well, maybe the relationship itself was not a total disaster (it wasn’t at all), but your last moments together were the worst minutes of her life. She wouldn’t her you see her break down, but right after you left she burst into tears on the floor. It hurt as hell to even think about losing you and you were standing in front of her, announcing that you might not be back. Jennie felt angry, betrayed and confused. She knew it wasn’t your fault, but she couldn’t forgive you for disappearing like that. It meant changes in her life too and it didn’t seem fair that she had to abruptly rearrange her daily routine and everything. Finding a way to cope was a priority. When Nayeon saw how devasted she was, she found her a job in a coffee shop she was working in. Jennie didn’t want to tell her about the relationship and Nayeon didn’t pressure, but she knew her friend needed help. And there she was, making coffee with a group of awesome girls and finally felt like she could get through life. Even though her heart stung a little when she saw her coworkers Irene and Wendy exchanging shy looks, she believed that it was only temporary. She will move on and maybe even find a girlfriend someday. “Jen, can you take this order to the customer?” Nayeon called from another room. Jennie put down the cup she was washing and moved towards the counter. She scanned the room and noticed that only one customer didn’t anything on his table, so she moved towards him with a smile. He thanked her and moved his hand with a groan. “Excuse me, do you need anything?” Jennie asked politely. “It’s nothing. An old wound from the front.” “Oh, you’re a soldier?” She asked curiously. He seemed very young. “Yeah, got shot two weeks ago. I got better, but my friend Y/N didn’t make it.” His words made Jennie’s blood run cold. “Y/N? She didn’t make it?” The man nodded sadly. “It was a sudden attack, she jumped in front of me and pushed me away. I only got a minor wound, but she had no chance.” “That’s brave.” Jennie whispered and the man smiled a little. “Y/N Y/L/N was definitely brave. You know she dumped her girlfriend before the service? She said she’d rather have that girl hate her than grief if she died.” He stopped and frowned. “It’s sad that it really happened.” Jennie couldn’t say a word and the soldier seemed to notice something was off. “Are you alright? Did you know her by any chance?” he asked and Jennie wiped her face from any emotion. “No.” she whispered, pushing the tears away. “Never heard of her.”

Rosé

Sitting and reading in a café became one of Rosé’s favourite things to do. Maybe because of the great beverages, quiet venue and great service. Or maybe because it used to be your favourite spot to hang out in the afternoons. It felt right to sit there by your favourite table and slowly go through chapter after chapter. Rosé could swear she felt your presence when she spent time here. Almost as if you were sitting next to her and reading the same lines. Maybe it was just the way your minds and souls were connected even if the bodies were so far apart. That’s why she kept telling people that she was taken and couldn’t go on a date with them. Rosé came here almost every day to read and patiently wait for any news from you. One day she got to the café soaking wet and freezing. Rain was pouring heavily and she missed the bus. “I guess you didn’t have a great day?” inquired Sana, her favourite barista and the sweetest person alive. “Could be better.” Rosé admitted and smiled a little as she saw Sana already preparing her favourite tea. “You’re an angel, do you know that?” she said seriously and Sana giggled a little. “That’s sweet, but you still have to pay.” she answered and winked at Rosé. “Sit down and get warm, I will bring you your tea when it’s ready.” She didn’t have to tell her twice, Rosé took her usual spot and started looking for the book in her bag. In the meantime Sana brought her drink and turned up the TV to hear the news. “Two soldiers were killed in the explosion that occurred in the morning. Kang Daniel and Y/N Y/L/N unfortunately didn’t make it.” Rosé choked on her drink and glued her eyes to the screen. You couldn’t be gone. She was sure you two could reunite. It was meant to happen. You were meant to happen. Tears were streaming down her face as she struggled to breathe. How could she when all air just got sucked out from her lungs. What even was the point of waiting? What was she waiting for? That was exactly what you were warning her about. That you could never come back. The tea didn’t taste warm anymore. It felt like acid on her tongue, but she forced herself to swallow it. Every sip, bite or breath would be painful from now on. “Chaeyoung?” she heard Sana’s voice and suddenly she was sobbing into her apron. The girl was holding her, but didn’t say anything. It’s not like Rosé would hear her. She couldn’t even hear her heartbeat. Maybe because of the stress. Or maybe because her heart just died.

Lisa

The music stopped and Lisa struck a final pose. She was practicing a new routine and it was far from perfect. Joining a dance group was the best decision she could make, but it required a lot of work. They still had two months till the performance, but Lisa didn’t even think about stopping before she was satisfied with the results. She promised herself that she would never leave any matter unfinished. Last time she did that was when you parted ways and it still bothered her to this day. Lisa thought that not saying goodbye would be better for both of you. At first she was assured it was a good decision as she didn’t feel any pain from the official break up. After a couple weeks the emptiness came and started swallowing her daily life. No amount of work, fun and hanging out with friends could fix that. Even the busiest day ended with her coming back to the empty apartment and trying to ignore the silence hanging in the air. Lisa didn’t realise earlier that no goodbyes meant no last memory to hold on to. Lack of closure made everything worse as it felt as if you could just walk through her door and join her on the couch. But you didn’t and she had no idea if you ever would. Your relationship was technically over, but she still felt uneasy when other people tried to flirt with her. The unsolved issue between you two made her dangling and chasing any stability. Only thing that kept her grounded was her dancing, but now her muscles were burning which meant it was time to take a break. Lisa looked at her phone and started answering the texts from her friends. A couple party invitations, reminders about schedule and casual messages. But one notification made her curious. It was from the news website she subscribed a long time ago. The post was about a car accident near some airport. Apparently a group of soldiers died in the crash and a few others were injured. Lisa winced at the graphic description, but then she scrolled the photos of the victims and froze. There was the face she knew too well. Your face with your name below. She frantically scrolled back to see if maybe you were just injured, but it was very clear that you died in that accident. Lisa’s legs were already tired from practicing and now she collapsed completely, but didn’t really care. She didn’t even try to stop the tears from streaming. Your face staring at her from the screen was like a painful reminder that she won’t be able to forget. You two will always be unfinished business.

[loveisinthe-aira-blog]

Iwaoi physical contact headcanon:

Well, this is probably my fluffiest headcanon ever, so keep close a mug of pitch black coffee to gulp down all the sugar. Here we go:

Ever since childhood, Oikawa and Iwaizumi have been skinship buddies. For them, greeting each other with an embrace, holding hands while walking to and back from school, falling asleep together or giving a kiss on the cheek as a thank you, were the most natural things. Being children, their mothers thought that was sweet and never felt the need to stop them, so they grew up always being casually and innocently in contact. (Thank you, okaa-sans.)

Autie Oikawa still treasures an old photo of an accidental smooch, and everytime their families gather at Oikawa’s place, said photo of cute Tooru and little Hajime pops out, causing the parents to crack up and the sons to sulk in embarassment.

Nevertheless, over time some of their habits have slowly slipped away (holding hands and kissing were definitely abandoned), but a sort of closeness remains between them.

Now, as third year high school students and leaders of their team, they try to put up a cool senpai façade. But still, there’s a huge difference between what they think is a decent behaviour and what their teammates have to actually face everyday.

For example, during volleyball practice, Oikawa has the habit of leaning with an elbow on Iwaizumi’s shoulder, either when gathering with their teammates, or when he’s softly talking to his friend about tactics and/or teamwork.

If that was all, nobody would complain, but Oikawa also likes to tease Iwaizumi, and sometimes gives him a loud and totally pointless encouragement spank. No need to say that Iwaizumi always waits for the perfect moment to repay the favour ten times harder. Some say that if you listen carefully you can still hear Oikawa’s surprised cry echoing in the gym.

“Iwa-chan, have you seen my killing serve just now?”. During practice, Oikawa always searches for his friend praise and Iwaizumi is willing to give it. When Oikawa approaches him, clinging on his shoulder, Iwaizumi welcomes him and listen to his ramblings with a lopsided warm smile, while resting a hand at the curve of his back. Then, when he thinks it’s time to go back to practice, he gives a little shove, and there Oikawa goes, all smug and happy.

Oikawa tends to underestimate stretching, but Iwaizumi never lets him. Whenever he tries to get up before anybody else, Iwaizumi grabs him and force him back down, and then “helps” him to stretch, pushing with all of his dainty weight. To do that, he invented some very interesting positions.

Once or twice during official matches, Oikawa’s uniform shirt slipped out from his shorts after his aforementioned killing serve. Noticing it, Iwaizumi went up to him during the following time-out, and tucked the shirt back into his pants, earning an ungrateful “Thank you, mommy~”. Of course Iwaizumi got pissed, and to get back at Oikawa he drew completely out the shirt he just put in place, unintentionally giving the watchers a good peek on his friend’s torso. Oikawa’s fangirls presence during matches increased after that.

But it’s in the changing room that they have no shame at all. They’re so comfortable about being nearly naked around each other that they talk and casually touch like they have no care in the world. The other members of the team always pray that Oikawa would not do something stupid (like trying to squeeze a lone pimple on his friend’s back), because they know it would eventually lead to a serious tickling punishment session by the merciless Iwaizumi. And to ignore two warm bodies laughing and wringing against each other is no easy task.

Seijo’s players have no luck neither when one of them is sleeping. Especially, when Oikawa falls asleep on the coach, leaning spontaneously on his friend’s shoulder or lap, Iwaizumi tends to absent-mindedly play with his hair, while looking outside the window and listening to his own music. Then, when the coach starts to enter school’s ground, Iwaizumi wakes Oikawa with a gentle squeeze, but he always tries to resist his call, whining and snuggling up to the crane of his neck to block out the light. Knowing he hates it, Iwaizumi ruffles his hair, and so Oikawa gets up, all grumpy and shaggy. He then force Iwaizumi to wait patiently for him until the window’s reflection tells him that his heartthrob appereance is restored. Sometimes, when he’s in a good mood, Iwaizumi would set in place a last, forgotten strand of his hair, under Oikawa’s struggling offended glare and Matsuhana’s exaspered ones.

Speaking of them, Hanamaki and Matsukawa have kinda gotten used to their behaviour, but at the beginning both of them were like “Do they even know the meaning of decency?”. Now, in time of need, Makki simply produces a phone out of nowhere and shows Mattsun a “The Office stare” gif.

But there’s another way the meme duo likes to cope up with the situation. Whenever something aforementioned happens, Hanamaki or Matsukawa gives a tap on Kindaichi’s shoulder and nod towards the pair of lovey dovey dorks. The reason is simple: since the beginning of their third year, Matsuhana ultimate form of entertainment has become giving heart attacks to pure maiden Kindaichi, who is definitely not used to have the two outrageous lovebirds as his captain and vice, even after middle school. Then Makki would say something like “Why don’t they fuck, already?” and Mattsun would reply with a “Maybe they already do?”. And that would be the end of Kindaichi, may he rest in peace.

The other first and second years actually don’t care so much as Kindaichi, even if they all agree on finding them embarassingly touchy-feely. That, and also some sort of uneasiness at the thought of approaching their captain and vice on the matter, always restrained them to try and change the situation.

One day, however, while watching Kindaichi being mocked by Matsuhana for the nth time, Kunimi decides to give his two cents: “If you can’t get used to it even after all these years, why don’t you do something about it? Try to talk with Iwaizumi-san. He’s the most reasonable of the two, he’ll definitely listen”.

Initially, Kindaichi gets all flustered by the idea, but Hanamaki and Matsukawa strongly support the suggestion, mostly thinking of their own amusement. Also, Watari gives a thumbs up and Yahaba encourages him too – he has no complaints, especially if it leads to a result - while Kyotani doesn’t give a damn, because the boy lives by instinct and physical contact is okay with him. So Kindaichi is driven to have an embarassing talk with reasonable Iwaizumi-senpai.

Iwaizumi is indeed a reasonable senpai, and after some problems at understanding the meaning of Kindaichi’s blabbering, he grasps the situation but is taken aback, since the problem never occurred to him. Nonetheless, he spends the day thinking about it, and in the process ends up becoming somewhat self-conscious and colder towards Oikawa, especially during practice.

Obviously Oikawa cannot stand it, and when they’re finally alone he’s more then ready to start the engine of his inner drama queen. After a quarrel full of pouts and eye rolling, they reach the compromise to try and behave a little, at least in the club rooms and during matches.

And to everybody’s surprise, they do behave. If Seijo team had known that a simple talk could set some limits, they would have persuaded Kindaichi’s maidenhood to act sooner. But at least now they can finally breath a sigh of relief, and so can Kindaichi’s pure heart. Only Hanamaki and Matsukawa can’t fully appreciate the unhoped for result, and that’s not because now they can’t make fun of Kindaichi anymore… but because something unpredictable happens, and being Iwaoi’s friends even off the court, they’re the only ones to witness it.

Being forced to stay apart, Oikawa and Iwaizumi start to feel uneasy. So much that, when they’re not near innocent children that can be shaken, Oikawa starts being a lot more clingy and Iwaizumi acting a lot more cozy, like they need to recharge for the time they had to restrain themselves. The touching that was casual and diluited during the day, now condense thightly in the short free time from volleyball.

That’s no problem when they’re alone at home, watching Godzilla or Ancient Aliens with their legs tangled on the sofa. But it surely is when they’re eating lunch with Matsuhana on the school’s rooftop, and Iwaizumi bluntly snatches a bite of Oikawa’s sandwich from his effing mouth. And it surely is, also when Oikawa ends up cleaning the sauce from Iwaizumi’s lip with his effing thumb, thumb that then, of course, he licks off nonchalantly. Makki.exe has stopped working and doesn’t want to restart.

The honeymoon is short lived, though. Soon enough their need to stay close reaches a point where they themselves can no longer shrug it of as simple skinship.

Oikawa realizes how much he yearns for Iwaizumi’s touch when one day, before practice, he finds his friend alone in the changing room, right after he took off his shirt. As soon as he sees Oikawa, Iwazumi cranes his neck to take a look outside the room, to be sure that nobody is trailing behind him. Then, calling him with a gesture of his hand, he open his arms, inviting him in for a quick embrace before anybody arrives. That day, the warmth of Iwa-chan’s naked skin keeps Oikawa’s thoughts so busy that all of his services go flying outside the court like splendid homeruns.

Iwaizumi understands that thinking stubbornly Oikawa is just his best friend cannot work anymore when one day, going back to the school building after morning practice, a running student bumps into Oikawa’s shoulder, nearly causing him to lose his balance, if not for Iwaizumi’s ready catch. Steading himself on his arm, Oikawa mutters not so kind words in the kid's direction, but then smirks towards his friend: “Thanks, Hajime. Nice receive”. This blows Iwaizumi’s mind so much that he returns to his classroom like an android and the math teacher has to call him and repeat the question four or five times before anything else aside that little, rare “Hajime” can stand a chance to reach his ears.

After realizing their feelings for each other, things becomes so very awkward. Neither one of them has the slightest intention of confessing any damn thing, too scared that doing that could ruin their friendship. But they’re so bad at hiding things and telling lies to each other that their touchy feely moments now become filled with stolen glances, blushings and nervous gay laughters, all with their hands tucked deeply into their pockets – they don’t know what to do with them anymore. (But I have some suggestion, if I might.)

In the end… well, they have finally realized the meaning of decency, only to become too cheesy to bear. And Mattsun has found another “The Office” gif to match with Makki’s favourite:

(I apologize for the grammatical mistakes, but I really wanted to share this. Hope you enjoyed it!)

[2x4swrites]

Tango+Cash angst???? hhhhaaaa im posting this at 12:30 at night it is what it is

It was just hard sometimes, you know? Just... hard. Rough to deal with. Not fun. Gabe isn't sure how to describe the situation outside of that. After everything, when he'd asked Kiki if she was really into him- because he may not have been into her, but she was sweet and pretty and he could've seen settling down with her -she'd told him no. She was gay. Which was cool, because he got to respond with "no shit, I'm gay too," and they'd promptly formed the first official 'gay but we haven't told Ray' club. Which was sort of fun, but mostly just sucked.

Not Kiki, mind you. Kiki definitely didn't suck. She's probably the funniest person Gabe's ever met, with the prettiest smile, and he just knows Kiki'll make some gal the happiest in the world one day. When she's not living with Ray anymore, because her overprotective, overly stiff brother would flip his shit if she brought home a man, let alone a woman. He'd probably drop dead from shock, and as annoying as Ray can be, Kiki doesn't want that.

Gabe's problem, however, is that he likes Ray. Like-likes him. Like, Gabe would probably do anything Ray asked, would happily marry him, and maybe thinks about Ray when he jacks off. It's that bad, and it's killing him, because Ray is gorgeous and charming and genuinely funny when he loses the stick up his ass. Add to that the fact that Gabe spends ninety percent of his time around Ray between work and hanging out with Kiki, and Gabe's ready to drop off the face of the earth. 'Goodbye, world, it's been nice, but you really fucked me over with this one and I'm kinda done.'

He guesses he can put up with it, though, because Kiki is a goddamn miracle worker when it came to confidence. The whole disguising himself as a woman to escape thing had ripped open a door Gabe hadn't even known existed, and it had been Kiki who'd finally talked him into buying himself something- first lipstick, then a pair of pantyhose, up until they just kind of started shopping for dresses together. Let it be noted that Kiki has really, really good taste and Gabe definitely owes her a big one for all her help, and all the fun evenings her expertly selected outfits had lead to.

See, Gabe had thought he was coping with the whole huge crush on his aggressively heterosexual partner thing pretty well, until he'd accidentally moaned Ray's name while he was getting fucked. Which was uncomfortable for everyone involved, and lead to Gabe getting sent home to take a shower and rub one off where he can moan Ray's name without offending anyone. That evening was kind of a problem, and it just kept being a problem, because yeah, it was casual sex, no one gave a shit if you thought of someone else, but Gabe still found the conscious effort it took not to gasp and moan Ray's name out loud really pulled him out of the moment. Raymond Tango is ruining is goddamn sex life.

He explains this all to Kiki, who is thankfully beyond understanding- they share a laugh about how he's ruining both of their sex lives, and Gabe feels relaxed for the first time in a while. Then, she gives him advice he hadn't even considered an option. She says to take a break. Get some time off work, stay home, and don't think about Ray. Cut the exposure and relax. Gabe tells her that's exactly what he's going to do, thanks her about twenty five times, and hangs up to call the chief of police. He bargains his way into two weeks off with promises to take double shifts when he's back, and when it's all settled Gabe begins to go about relaxing.

What that winds up entailing is multiple six packs of beer and a constant, mild drunkenness that leaves him feeling warm while he lays on his sofa and does nothing. It's fucking fantastic, until Ray, ever the stiff and the worrywart, calls him. Once, on his third day out. Once the next day. Twice, two days later. Gabe ends up taking his phone off of the receiver because the phone ringing is stressing him out, and he really doesn't want to talk to Ray. His mild drunkenness is progressing towards somewhere right on the edge of blacking out, thanks to Ray. At least that problem's taken care of, and at least Gabe stocked up on booze.

It takes a whole five more days before Ray shows up, physically, at Gabe's apartment. Gabe's pretty sure it's Kiki that held Ray at bay for so long, and Gabe writes a note reminding himself to thank her when he sobers up enough to not sound like a giant idiot. He leaves it pinned to the fridge. When Gabe hears the buzzer, he groans. He doesn't want this, but, wordlessly, he lets Ray up. Fuck it, he's drunk and annoyed and if Ray wants to deal with him, so be it.

Ray comes in to berate him about dickholeish-ness and leaving right before they started a big bust, and Gabe, drunkenly, tells Ray to fuck off. Ray spits right back at him that Gabe is acting like an even bigger idiot than usual, that Ray had expected better behavior even from a lug like him. That Ray can't even believe Kiki would ever be interested in an obnoxious, drunken, dirty fool like Gabriel Cash. Which is what really set Cash off. He sputters, trying to find the right words to say, to rebuff Ray's oh-so stinging critiques. Gabe settles on glaring and stating, angrily, that he's gay.

Gabe slurs out that he's "fucking gay, you asshole" and he doesn't "even like Kiki like that, fuck you!" He downs the last of his beer, tossing the bottle to the floor and letting it shatter. Ray just stares at him, blankly, and that really only pisses Gabe off more.

"I was interested in you the whole time! But now I guess I know what you really think, huh? You fucking dickface." Gabe surges forward to grab Ray's collar, clumsily, stepping on the broken glass as he does. It stings like a bitch, but Gabe's running entirely on anger and beer and it doesn't really register. When Ray doesn't reply in a satisfactory time, Gabe tugs him down into a sloppy, equally aggressive kiss. It's unpleasant but Gabe refuses to back off, until Ray's hands plant firmly on his chest and shove him back. His foot lands back in the broken glass, and this time tears start to prick at the corners of Gabe's eyes. Just because of the glass. It's just that.

Not the way Ray looks at him coolly, distantly, like regarding an insect. Not the way Ray tells him, voice flat, that he's straight, and even if he wasn't he'd never be interested in someone like Gabe. Ray turns, leaving Gabe to clean up the mess left behind. Vision clouded with tears, from the glass, Gabe cleans up the broken bottle and pulls the two shards from the bottom of his foot, bandaging the cuts. He wipes his nose on the back of his hand and drinks until he blacks out.

Gabe stops spending time with Kiki. She calls him a lot, which is nice, and she makes sure only to call him when Ray's out of the house. He appreciates it. She asks if he'd like to meet for coffee sometime. He suggests pizza and a movie at his place, so they can really talk. Kiki agrees, and Gabe can hear the smile in her voice. Gabe really loves her. He just wishes he loved her the same way he used to love her brother.

At work, Gabe transfers to a different division, starts taking only late shift. It's easier that way. He's on patrol, away from Ray, and he starts to find his groove again. Starts to feel like a real person. It's nice. Not that he doesn't miss the big busts, the excitement, but... Gabe knows this is better. For everyone. Gabe never asks about Ray, and as far as Gabe knows Ray never asks about him. Which is good. It's good. Really, this is what's best, it is.

Gabe goes back to cruising, shit he hasn't done since he was young, fresh out of college. He mostly just stuck to the bars, but he's feeling adventurous. Everything else in his life is getting revamped, why shouldn't he change this up too? Sure, Gabe knows it can be risky- he hasn't forgotten those poor kids who got murdered, including that author, and the cop who escaped trial. Gabe knows what can happen. He also knows what places get searched most often. He can avoid getting arrested and have a good time somewhere other than a motel or alley.

He comes into work one day with a split lip. Technically there's a black eye too, though he covered that up with makeup. His uniform hides the rest of the bruising. No one really asks about it, Gabe came in a lot with weird bruises or shit like this. The only one who'd recognize Gabe shouldn't have gotten the busted lip on the job is Ray. Unfortunately, Gabe's early arriving and Ray's late leaving. It's the first time seeing his old partner in a month, and Gabe begs god to call down some lightning and blow Gabe out of existence.

No lightning comes. Gabe ducks his head, silently grabs what he needs, and seats himself at his desk. He stares pointedly at the files in front of him, not really reading but still refusing to look up. If he makes any more eye contact with Ray, Gabe'll throw himself out of the window. Thankfully, Ray leaves after a minute of staring. Gabe thought he was going to lose his goddamn mind. He doesn't get much paperwork done that night, and when Gabe finally crashes into bed, he can't even fall asleep. Gabe settles on pouring himself a drink and forgetting.

He could say it all ends well. That eventually they reach an uneasy truce that turns into love and it's all sunshine and smiles and happily ever afters. Gabe fantasizes about that, sometimes. Daydreams about what it would've been like to marry Ray Tango. They're just daydreams, though, and Gabe can't live in them forever. After almost a year of avoiding Ray like the plague, Gabe gave in. Resigned from the force, packed his things up, and put down the rent on a little apartment on the other side of the country. The last time Gabe say Raymond Tango was when he stopped by to give his tearful goodbye to Kiki. She'd told him never to forget her, and he promised. Said that he loves her. She nodded, cupped his cheek, and told him she wished he could've found happiness here. Ray's gaze is cold. He stiffens at her words. Gabe nods, hugs her again, and leaves.

Gabe gets a job on the police force in his new city, working traffic. It's nothing like before, but it's just the change Gabe needed. He moves up in the ranks, makes new friends, and saves up the money to adopt a dog. He's got a good thing going. Still, sometimes, Gabe wonders what Ray's doing. Imagines him, happily married, with a wife, two kids, and a dog. White picket fence and everything. Happily heterosexual. Imagines Ray coming home from work to a cold beer and a hot meal, little daughter and little son excitedly telling him about their day, how school went. Gabe can picture it perfectly. Gabe lays down in bed, his dog next to him, and tries to picture something else. Tries not to hate himself.

In reality, Raymond Tango? Wonder cop and brother to the only other person Gabe ever loved? Ray's not happy either.

No one is.

[benjikarofsky]

Just the Three of Us || Para

WHO: Benji Karofsky (@benjikarofsky), Franco Del Rio (@southsidefranco), and Topher Pierce (@topherxpierce​).

WHERE: Benji’s apartment

WHEN: 8th June 2019 (backdated)

NOTES: In need of a way to finally cope with all the tragedies that had been bestowed on him in the last couple of weeks, Benji decides to recover in the best way he knows: getting wine drunk with his fiancé and his boyfriend. However, in true Tophjico fashion, a few drinking games quickly dissolves into something more dramatic.

TRIGGERS: Polygamous themes

BOLD: Benji

ITALIC: Topher

NORMAL: Franco

WORD COUNT: 8692

Benji came back into the house, a few bottles of wine in a reusable grocery bag. He had really been trying to pick more creative ways of dealing with this giant tragedy that had been bestowed upon him, but after his fight with Kurt and his argument with Marley added more fuel to the fire, he had run out of other ways to cope. He needed to get a little drunk. And he needed to do it with the two people he loved. 

 “Guys? I’m back from the store,” he called, sitting down on the sofa slowly in an attempt not to hurt his bruised stomach further. “Can someone grab cups and someone else pick a show?”

"I call picking a show!" Topher answered from his room as he finished writing up a short story and made way for the living room. "I know you specified shit TV in the text, but does Brooklyn Nine-Nine sound alright? If not, then I imagine that we can find some ridiculous reality show to make fun of or just have as background noise. Whatever we want to call it," he rattled off once he'd gotten close to the coffee table and picked up the remote. 

 The former Serpent took a seat in his favorite chair and allowed himself a few moments to completely relax. Hopefully, things would go well or as well as they could go with everything considered. "All in favor of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, say aye. Those opposed, say nay and list the show of your choice."

Franco had been sitting in his bedroom thinking about the last few days. In a perfect world, the three of them could live in harmony. In his perfect world, he would have used the heroin hidden in one of his drawers and gone and pretended it was OK but that's not how this was going to work and he knew it. 

He sighed as he was called, grabbed the beer he'd been drinking, and walked to the lounge, "Brooklyn 99 is fine" he said, taking a seat in an armchair and swinging his legs over the side, "I'll watch whatever. I'm mainly here for the drinks anyway" he said, a little bit quieter then normal. This was the first time he'd be spending a night in with whatever this relationship was, and he was concerned.

"Aye," Benji responded, "I know you're the odd man out, Toph, so B99 definitely works for me." He got one bottle of wine out of the bag and set it on the coffee table, then got up to grab cups and a wine opener. "Franc, since you didn't pick a show, cups were technically your job, Baby," he teased as he sat back down, his mind a bit too preoccupied to notice how his fiancé was feeling. 

He poured himself a glass of wine, then poured one for Franco as well. He downed his glass and started to refill it as he turned to his best friend. "Toph, you sure you don't want any? I definitely bought enough."

"Thank you both," Topher simply responded as he got the show started up. His gaze flicked between Benji and Franco for a few moments as uneasiness settled in once more. Sure, he'd been in relationships before, but those had been in attempts to play straight. Plus, he may have been on board with the idea from the get go, yet that did nothing to eliminate the feeling that he was on uncharted territory. So, the 18 year old let his attention drift to the TV and Brooklyn 99. 

Then Benji's voice brought him right back and he gave a light wave of dismissal. "Thank you very much Ben, but I'm fine. Besides, I'd rather not discover what effect wine has on me. If beer turns me into a flirty drunk, who knows what the hell wine will do?"

Franco took the glass of wine of the table and drank it in two quick gulps, bringing the glass back down and pushing it over to Benji, "Then  drink beer" he said, raising an eyebrow at Topher, "Being sober is going to get boring real quick" he said. He fidgeted with his hands and stared at the television, "Maybe if we call play a drinking game or something, get to know each other better?"

"You can do whatever you want, Toph. Don't feel pressured," Benji stressed, refilling Franco's glass and sliding back over to him. He downed one more glass himself, refilled it, then leaned back, content that that was enough for him to get a buzz. With two glasses down, he was ready to take smaller sips throughout the night just to keep himself tipsy--he had already promised Topher that he wouldn't get too sloppy. "Drinking game sounds fun, what do you say, Toph? You can drink water or soda or something but still play?"

"Yeah, let me get a Pepsi and we can get the fun started," Topher answered as he stood up in order to head for the kitchen. On one hand, maybe Franco had a point about how being sober would end up boring? On the other, he had more than enough combined first and second hand experience with drinking to immediately put him off of it. "Maybe later in the night, I don't know," he remarked over his shoulder as he grabbed a bottle of Pepsi from the fridge then opened it as he headed back for the living room. "But what drinking game shall we be playing tonight, gents? There's a whole wide world of them."

Franco laughed and shook his head, "Well, I'm not going to get to know you playing Ring of Fire am I?" he said. His mood was confusing for even him but he knew he had to bite his tongue and try this, "Never have I ever.... We get to find out some real interesting things about each other".

Benji fake gagged at the word 'Pepsi'. "You're lucky I love you, otherwise I wouldn't even let you keep that in the house, Toph," he said casually, stretching out on the sofa since everyone else had opted for chairs. At the mention of 'Never Have I Ever', he clapped his hands. "Hell yeah! If you've done it, one sip. If you're the only one who's done it, three sips. That's how we play on campus." He paused to think, then continued, "I'll go first: Never Have I Ever kissed a girl."

Topher jokingly flipped Benji off as he fired back, "You and I both know I don't have the fanciest palate around. But you're right, I'm so damn lucky to have your love in my life." Then when the question hit his ears, he opened the Pepsi and took a sip of it. "Real quick disclaimer, it was back in high school and I was trying to play straight back then."

Franco rolled his eyes and took a sip of his wine, "Of course I have kissed a girl.... Not the first party I've been at guys" he said looking to the floor and clearing his throat, "Never have I ever had sex with a girl" and he smiled, he'd been close with an old friend  but it just never happened.

Benji laughed, giving a small smile. "Platinum Star Gay, thank you. Not even close." He set his cup down on the table, then turned to Toph, both to see his reaction and to hear what his first 'Never Have I Ever' would be.

"Yeah, no." Topher tapped the armrest of his chair as he considered his question for a few moments then a Cheshire Cat grin crossed his features. "Never have I ever given a stranger a fake phone number," and with that, he took a sip of Pepsi.

Franco watched Topher drink and raised an eyebrow, "Better not have been me" he warned, a half joke to his tone before he drunk his own drink and nodded, "Some girls can be crazy".

Benji took a large gulp of his drink, then laughed. "That one I've definitely done a million times. The joys of being the 'type' of every creepy gay from here to Greendale." He took another sip for good measure, then gave his next prompt. "Never Have I Ever played a sport. A traditional one, I guess. Dance, Krav, and Free-Running aren't like... sports your whole team goes to championships for. Well, you kinda do for dance. But it's different." He could tell by the rambling that he was already getting tipsy. Maybe two cups to start was a little too much. ...Had he eaten today?

"I don't recall giving you a fake phone number. But I've definitely given one to around five girls and three guys," Topher addressed Franco then gave his Pepsi another sip when Benji's question got his attention. "Soccer and ice hockey. Dance too. Band if you count that," he rattled off then took a moment to set his Pepsi down and lightly stretch. He didn't want to fall asleep too soon and bring the night to an early end, plus he just generally wanted to move around a bit.

Franco drank his drink and nodded, "Boxing. Always has been. Used to box all the time" he explained. He thought for a moment about his next one, so many good ones bringing back memories he'd rather forget, "Never have I ever smoked weed" he asked, downing the rest of his drink and watching the other two.

Benji hesitated, but then took a gulp of wine, already a little too tipsy to better pace himself. "I've never smoked weed, but I've definitely... y'know, partook," he started to laugh at himself and his odd wording, then took a sip again, not remembering if he already had. "But only once. And never again."

Topher gave a light chuckle as he shook his head. "Never have and never will," he answered then gave his next question a few moments of consideration. "Okay, here's a zinger. Never have I ever snuck into a party. Just for the sake of it, school dances from back in the day also count."

Franco raised an eyebrow, "You really think that's a zinger? Sneaking into a party?" he asked. If they thought that was a zinger, then they were very wrong, "I don't even need to drink cause I never needed to sneak anywhere".

Benji gave a confused look as well. "I mean, I've definitely needed to sneak places, but a party? Like, you weren't invited but came anyway type thing? I've never actually wanted to go to parties in high school. Being one of the only Southsiders going to Riverdale High... those guys were dicks." He waved off the thoughts of high school and leaned back as he thought of another question. "...Never have I ever gotten a lap dance?"

"What can I say? Don't really get out much and I don't mind forking over money for a ticket or as an entry fee," the former Serpent fired back as he gave a shrug then shook his head once again. "Again, I don't really get out much and have never had that sort of opportunity pop up, if that makes any sense whatso-fucking-ever. C'est la vie, guys, c'est la vie."

Franco smirked and bit his lip, drinking a large amount of his drink and looking back up, "I would have done you all the favour of lying about it but you know, Benji would have known if I was" he said. He couldn't believe he'd said it and he dipped his head, not wanting to the looks on the boys faces as they cottoned on to what he said. He thought about his question, "Never have I ever, had sex in a car" he asked, before drinking more drink

"Baby, shut up!" Benji replied quickly, lightly swatting at Franco. "It was one time. I had just come back from a party and I was a little tipsy. ...For someone who hates being in charge, you sure liked it. That's all I have to say," he added, taking a sip of his wine before he realized what he had let loose. "Errr, I meant--...I'm kinda drunk already," he slurred.

"And that is my cue to leave," Topher remarked in a semi-joking tone as he pushed himself out of his chair once again. "By the way, not actually walking out of the house. Just going to the kitchen because I'm hungry." Not a complete lie, he'd been feeling rather peckish for the last few minutes. "Never have I ever lied about myself in order to get a date," he called then took a drink. Again, trying to play straight during high school.

Franco laughed and bit his lip, "Hey, you were asking for it" he said once Topher was out the room, "I only insinuated what happened, you went for it big style". He heard the question called back and took a drink, "I lied to you by saying I wanted to wind up".

Benji laughed harder--if he wasn't already laying down on the sofa, he probably would've fallen over--"I didn't mean to! I'm drunk! You know how ramble-y I get when I'm drunk." When Franco spoke again, he shrugged. "That's barely a lie. You came clean as soon as I tried to go on a Tinder date with someone else. ...Doesn't matter anyway, the stupid app kept deleting itself from my phone. Glitchy piece of crap," he murmured, sipping his wine.

As Topher walked back into the living room with a container that held some of his grandma's chocolate chip mini muffins, the Tinder comment caught him off guard and he had to stifle some chuckles. He'd forgotten all about his multiple covert operations of deleting the app in question from Benji's phone. "But hey, do you guys want to take a tiny break to snack or do you want to keep the game going?"

Franco shrugged his shoulders, "I'm not all that hungry if I'm honest" he admitted, his appetite had been lacking recently, "I think I'll just drink and watch some TV". He still hadn't felt comfortable, the game not really relaxing him at all.

"Muffins!" Benji shouted, sitting up from the couch to grab a handful out the tin. He started to eat them, far too gone to notice any of the tension in the room. Still chewing, he leaned back onto the sofa, a smile plastered on his face. "We can just talk if you want!" He grinned, "I love you guys... you both drive me wild. I'm glad we're trying this whole thing out, but if it doesn't work, just tell me, okay? I don't want anyone unhappy."

Topher gave another light laugh as he sat back down in his chair and answered, "Love you too Ben. I think we're off to an alright start so far, but I'll keep you posted if anything changes. Don't want either of you to be unhappy either." As he took a few moments to eat a muffin, then a second one, his thought process started to drift. 

"But I do believe that I promised you guys some apologies and the first one is sorry that I couldn't have picked a better time. But I do want to make a blanket one from the bottom of my heart. I'm incredibly sorry for my past dickish behavior. I wish I could explain away what happened, but the truth is I honestly don't know and you guys might have differing opinions for why I did it. All the same though, I do mean what I'm saying right here and right now. I want the best for you both and even though I'm far from it, I'll do my best to bring something to the table with this whole poly deal."

Franco tried to ignore the 'I love yous' from the other boys but he had to take a deep breath as he did, "I said I would try didn't I? Give me a chance to try" he said, a grumpy tone to his voice. Franco scoffed at the apology, "Pretty sure the thing you were meant to apologise for was punching me in the face? You know, when you gave me a bloody nose". 

He paused before adding, "You want to know something Topher, it isn't easy being with me. I'm an ex addict, I get mood swings and cravings and I can be nasty when I do. I have night terrors from the time I was kidnapped, which you know all too well about cause you were there when it all went down... You can't react by punching me in the face every time".

Topher rubbed the back of his neck as he listened to Franco then took a deep breath as he started to choose his words very carefully. "And I'm sorry for that, I'll forever be sorry for that. We're all learning here in different ways and at different paces. But I'm more than willing to put in the work to help us all come together. I'm more than willing to have your back, continue setting aside past differences, and adjusting to the present." 

"I'm a real rat bastard when I want to be, that punch was more than enough proof of that. I can't turn it off completely, but it can be focused elsewhere so I can work on making things better between us. I do want to make things right, starting here and now. So you have my word that I'll learn better ways to handle things and once again, I'm sorry for punching you."

Benji was still drunkenly eating the last of his muffins during Franco outburst, but by the time Topher had responded, he had finally finished, swallowed, and started to sit up so he could look both of his roommates in the eye. "This is good," he said, trying his best to be a mediator, but the slur in his voice made it difficult. 

"If we wanna move forward, we need to air all of this out. It's the only way we can discuss ways to address everything that's happened, grow from it, and make sure not to do it again. ...Does anyone wanna air anything out about me? We're not gonna move on together until it's all out in the open, y'know."

Franco scoffed, "No, I don't have anything to say about you babe, cause you are the one who's dealt with my shit for too long now". He turned his focus back to Topher, "You knew what I'd been through Toph, you knew the hell I endured when I went missing. You know I've never fully recovered. Physically I'm fine but mentally, I'm fucked. Punching me in the face, cause I was freaking out... Not cool dude. You know the nightmares I had over that shit?". He paused and pushed himself upwards, "I can't do this right now" he said, tears filling his eyes, "I need a cigarette and five minutes to myself" and he headed to the front door.

"I also don't have anything bad to say about you Ben," Topher responded in his usual calm tone then managed to nod in understanding way as he listened once again. A few thousand more reassurances loaded themselves on the tip of his tongue, but he could barely muster up the courage. Finally though, in a low tone, he added, "Again, I'm willing to learn from my mistakes so I can handle things better down the road. It won't happen again." "And you can hold me to that. Both of you," he remarked as he pulled his sweatshirt hood up over his face.

Benji frowned--he wasn't expecting their first interaction as a trio to end up like this--especially with him too drunk to properly mediate. However, what's done was done now. At this point, the best thing the three of them could do was recover from this bump as smoothly as they could manage--in Ben's mind, they was they moved from this moment would be a great indicator of whether they were all wasting their time trying to get this relationship to work. 

 "Okay, Baby. Take a quick smoke break. We'll be here to talk more when you get back. Don't take too long," he said softly, turning to face Topher. "Don't cover your face," Benji reprimanded lightly. He already had a plan on how to try to give Topher a crash course on how to deal with Franco when he gets like this.

"Why shouldn't I?" Topher simply inquired, yet he pulled the hood down just a hint all the same. He was torn between remorse for past actions and annoyance that apparently, he couldn't do anything right. "I'm in territory that I shouldn't be in," he muttered under his breath as his blue eyed gaze trained itself on Brooklyn 99 once more. His mental gears were already turning and it was taking all of his resolve to take off for his room like a little kid.

Benji sighed, sitting up so he could look in Topher's eyes as well as possible given how off-balance all the drinking had made him. "Listen... Franc is a really tough egg to crack, but once you do, he's just the sweetest little cuddlebug you've ever met with just the perfect amount of sass mixed in," he waved off that comment--he was getting off topic. "He's been through a lot. Parts of it I know, parts of it I'm still finding out. And it makes him act out and hold grudges. But you've also caught him at a weird time because he's just started therapy a few weeks ago, so he's learning how to use different coping things, just not in the... 'most ideal' order. Like what just happened. A month ago, he would've never spoken so clearly about what was upsetting him. Before, he'd either just shut down or purposely try to rile you up. So it looks and feels harsh to you, but it's actually a good thing. And I promise that if he didn't want to actually give this relationship the try it deserves, he wouldn't've addressed what was making him angry so eloquently. I've only ever seen him do that with me as of now, so keep that in mind. You're not nearly as far in the shit as you think you are." 

He leaned back as he continued, "Secondly, Franc keeps grudges. For what feels like forever. And when he reverts back, he brings them up. You saw it with the handcuff thing that got you into your mess. It's how he copes. Is it the most ideal thing in the world? Of course not, but everyone has flaws. The best thing you can do is be aware that he does that and if/when it happens, instead of getting upset, just remind him that you've already apologized and that what he's doing isn't fair. Eventually it'll work. And lastly, the best thing you can do for Franc is to just be there as much as possible and constantly remind him that you're there for him.Acknowledging that you wanna improve and learn from your mistakes is nice, but that's more my Love Language than it is Franc's. Franc wants attention, Franc wants affection, and Franc wants to know that people aren't going to leave him. He's... kinda like a kid that way--" he shrugged. He felt bad using the comparison, but with as drunk as he was, he couldn't formulate a better one--"In fact, sometimes I swear he brings things up and picks fights like that because they're subconscious tests he does to make sure we're not gonna decide he's too much and leave him one day. ...Or maybe not. I'm about 3/4ths through a bottle of wine at this point, so who fucking knows." 

He sighed, then stared down at the cup in his hand for a second. He probably shouldn't drink the rest of that, right? He shrugged, gulped it down, then continued: "My main point is this: shower him with love and affection whenever you can. Start with verbal until he's ready for something deeper, then know that the first time you cuddle him, he's never gonna want you to let him go. Do that, work through the hiccups and the tests as calmly as you can, and you'll be surprised at how much love he gives you back once he's ready to. He's my little muscle lovebug. I wouldn't change one thing about him."

Topher nodded along as he listened to what Benji said and did his best to save those mental notes about Franco for later. After all, this was a learning experience, like he'd said. The former Serpent was all about learning new things, absorbing information and always trying to get it from all sides of the story when the moment called for it. But at the same time, his fucked up self esteem just had to crawl out from the back of his mind and twist everything around. 

That Franco and Benji were better off without him among many other similar, colorful remarks. Instead, he just took another deep breath then pulled his hood back up again as he responded, "Thank you for the info. I'll be sure to keep it in mind for the future. Don't know if I've said this before, but if I have then fuck it, I'm going to repeat myself. You are one of the sweetest people I know, Benji Karofsky, and I hope you never lose that quality because it's something that I will always love about you."

"I love you too," Benji whispered, leaning in and cupping Topher's cheek, pulling him into a kiss.

Topher returned the kiss and for a just a few moments, allowed his mind to drift to much better things.

After a few moments, Benji pulled back, looking lovingly into Topher's eyes. "I can't believe I actually get the best of both worlds. I've got to be one of the luckiest guys alive," he whispered, giving Topher another soft kiss.

"I do declare that we both some of the luckiest guys alive," Topher answered before he gave a soft kiss of his own. "Don't know what I'd do without you and all that related, sappier than maple syrup business."

Benji playfully rolled his eyes. "You're so cheesy. But I love it." He kept his hand cupped around Topher's cheek for a second or two longer, then let his hand finally fall, laying back down on the sofa. "I think this relationship is gonna be great once it really starts going. I can just feel it."

Topher plopped back in his chair and gave a light smile of gratitude. "Love you too and I couldn't agree more. I do have a touch more hope for the near future than I did at the start of the night, I'll be the first to admit that. Fingers crossed that once things are on the fast track to getting better, great things will start happening."

Franco had sat on the steps outside, smoked 3 ciggerettes to calm himself. His hands were a little shaky but he knew it was his bodies way of coping with things. He didn't know how to be a little adult about this? How do you watch someone you love, love someone else. 

 He re entered the apartment and gulped, "Look. I ain't saying that I'm gunna jump into this and throw myself into a heap of upset and hurt, cause that's just not me. I want to make this work. I can't change who or what I am or what happened to me in the past and I can't help how I cope with that shit either". He turned to Topher and walked towards him, "You gotta understand, you saw me after what happened. You came to the hospital when I was laying there with broken bones and didn't look a thing like I do today. You watched me recover and then watched me fall to pieces, so you gotta give me time yeah? My life seem to give up" he said with a pause, addressing both men in the room, "First I'm kidnapped and left for dead, then I'm saving Dares life when I was still injured, then I'm a junkie who has to go through withdrawal and now this... it's a lot to take in a few months. So give me time yeah". 

 But it didn't matter, his speech didn't stop his body reacting and within seconds, he was at Tophers side, smashing there lips together.

Topher had started to formulate a response after a new round of attention-confirming nodding, but the kiss from Franco totally caught him off guard. It was fine though, more than fine because he'd honestly run out of things to say without repeating himself. Plus, this was part of the whole poly thing that they were trying out. Twice the amount of kisses, twice the amount of just about everything. Although the latter part was just a theory that remained to be confirmed or denied. Everything aside though, he returned the kiss.

"Wooo!" Benji shouted, giving the boys a round of applause. Obviously his alcohol consumption had made his reaction more comedic than normal, but this didn't change the fact that this happening was exciting for me. At the end of the day, he wanted the three of them to be together and happy; this was a great start, albeit a little out of nowhere.

Franco pulled away from the kiss and nodded, feeling pretty damn proud he'd tried. He stepped backwards and took a deep breath, "I told you I would try" he said to Benji, "And I'm trying to be a man of my word babe".

"And like I said, I'm more than willing to do my part as well. After all, team work makes the dream work," Topher chimed in. He held a hand out to Franco then the other was offered to Benji as he added, "I've got both of your backs, no matter what."

"Alright. You guys are having too much fun without me. I'm coming in," Benji teased, taking Topher's hand and pulling himself into the middle of Topher and Franco, wrapping his arms around both of them and pulling them into a close circle. He gave them each a dramatic kiss on the cheek, smiling brightly.

Franco took Tophers hand, and then turned to kiss Benji as he joined them, "It's the closet thing your gunna get right now to working on it" he said, "You might wanna warn him about me though babe".

"Don't worry," Topher started then trailed off in order to return Benji's kiss. "And you both should know that no warnings will stop me and whatever lessons there are to be learned, I'll take them into account."

"It's gonna be a bumpy ride, but we'll work through it." Benji said with a smile, still holding them both close. "I love you, Franc. I love you, Toph."

Franco stiffened slightly when Benji said he loved Topher but he took a breath and loosened his shoulders, "I love you too Benji and I like you Toph" he said, trying to show his changes, "Excuse me boys, I just need to..." But he slid out of the hold and started walking to the bedroom.

"Love you too Ben and like you too Franco," Topher answered then watched as the latter slipped out. He cast a slightly confused glance at Benji before he whispered in the lowest tone possible, "I know you probably just covered this, but do we follow or what?"

Benji looked at Topher for a second, then at the doorway Franco had just left through, then back to Topher. "I'm... gonna be honest," he answered, equally as quiet, "he definitely wants someone to go after him. And I'm, like... spacing out-levels of drunk. So, want your first real test?" he offered.

"In that case, off I go," Topher replied then leaned over to press a kiss to Benji's forehead. He pushed himself out of his chair one more time and headed off after Franco. "Yo, Franco, wait up."

Franco had climbed onto the bed when Topher caught up to him, "Sorry man but he said I love you and that is just, a little too far" be breathed out. His hands were shaking and he knew drinking and his past was the cause, "I wanna love you Toph but I just can't".

"It's alright," Topher responded as he took a few more steps into the room and sat down on the bed. "I know that I sure as hell haven't made it easy to love me recently, but you've got nothing to worry about in that department. Whatever happens, I will respect your decision and I mean it."

Franco sighed as Topher sat on the bed, "Toph, you know being with me is a rough ride. I'm not easy to handle, I act out and I can be horrible when I'm not getting what I need. Drugs are in my past, but I have urges and desires and if I'm caught wrong, I'll do whatever I can to get out to get them... Can you even handle that".

"You underestimate how much I'm willing to walk though what might be basically hell for the people who matter most to me or those affiliated with said people," Topher fired back, although his tone lacked any evidence of a real desire to start an argument. "I've got your back just like Benji's got your back, simple as that. Through the good, the bad, and in between." He held an arm out in an unspoken invitation for a side hug.

Franco shook his head, "You don't get it do you" he breathed out, "I'm not a good person. Benji deserves so much better and now he's got it, what hope do I fucking have" he spat. He knew he was being harsh but he couldn't handle this, "I might as well give up"

"Franco, dude, please try to slow your roll. You and Benji have been together longer, okay? You have more romantic history with him and you two are fucking engaged. Logic dictates that if it came down to it, you have a better chance than I do," Topher stated in his usual even tone. "You're a far better man than I am in a variety of other ways. I'm not walking away and I'm not backing down from this stance."

Franco raised an eyebrow, "Says the man I actively encouraged him to keep away from by convincing him you were straight when I knew different. He was majorly in love with you and I fooled him into believing you were off limits".

"And I'm willing to move past that. Hell, I've already moved past that," Topher started as he changed tactics and held a hand out to Franco instead. "I'm not asking you to love me right off the bat, okay? I understand that I've made more than my fair share of dick moves recently and it might take some time to move past it. All I want is to work on building trust with you again, building a friendship. Your lead is the one I will follow, just like Benji's. I will listen to you guys and won't walk away just because things hit a bump in the road. I've already said I've got your backs, so please give me a chance to follow through on it." "You won't regret it," he simply added a few beats later.

Franco moved forward and took Tophers hand, "OK so you gotta not say you love him in front of me right now, I can't handle it and it's like I'm watching him fall out of love with me". He took a breath and sighed, "Toph, one day I'll love you but there is so much you don't know about me".

Those few words felt like someone tossed a few darts into his heart in rapid fire style, yet Topher gave a light nod of agreement. "Alright and it's okay. I'm willing to wait, willing to learn, willing to do all that. However long it takes," he answered. With that, he gave Franco's hand a light squeeze along with a small smile.

Franco nodded, "You can say it when I'm not there, cause I know you love him but it's just super hard for me to hear it" he breathed out. He bit his lip and nodded, "Look dude, go back and have fun yeah, I'm just gunna chill for a minute".

"Yeah, gotcha," Topher responded as he stood up. "I mean, if you'd prefer me heading back then that's cool. But before I go, are we cool? Like, we're on the path to making things better between us and all that slash you won't be upset if I go back to the living room?"

Franco nodded, "Dude we are fine I just want five minutes to chill out before I come back. Why don't you go give him a kiss or something? Whatever it is you guys do".

"Alright, I'll go do that or something similar. Think I'll just chill and watch a bit more of B99," he remarked then gave a light yawn. "Then after that, it is off to bed for me."

Franco nodded, and waited for Topher to leave before jumping up and darted over to his chest of drawers, rummaging for his supply and clutching it in his hand. He didn't need to use it, just needed to feel it was there.

As luck would have it, Topher had just reentered the living room when he realized that he'd carried his Pepsi back into the bedroom. So he made his way back, only to stop right in his tracks when he spotted Franco. "I'm kinda frozen to the floor here, can you hand me my Pepsi please?"

Franco's eyes widened and he shook his head, "No...It's.... Shit Toph, it's not what you think it is" he said, quickly hiding it in his jacket. This was not going to go well for him, "Toph, please do not... Just... Fuck, pretend this didn't happen".

"Not what I think it is, huh?" Topher inquired once he finally found his voice again. He leaned against the doorframe as he crossed his arms and arched an eyebrow at Franco. "Look, I imagine that we're all tired here so I'll just drop it and grab my Pepsi then walk out like everything is normal. But I do want to talk to you about this as soon as possible, okay?"

Franco took a deep breath and nodded, walking over to the bed and grabbing the drink, handing it to Topher and leaning in a little close to him, "You gotta not fuck this up for me Toph, I can't handle this right now" he breathed out, fear coursing through his body, "Please Toph" he begged.

"First, thank you," Topher stated as he accepted the Pepsi then listened and his features softened just a hint. "Second, please don't make me regret giving you the benefit of the doubt. Ben's got enough on his plate right now and I want to make things work with you, that's why I'm not screeching like a banshee. But I want to talk to you about this later and I want to help you get past this whole using drugs thing." He started to leave, but then decided against it. "On second thought, do you mind if I stay here?"

Franco took a breath, "I'm not using drugs, I just have them" he explained quickly, "And I'm not stupid, I know you want to stay here so you can go through my stuff. All I have is what's on me right now" he breathed out, "Nothing more, nothing less".

"I'm not going to go through your stuff," Topher promised as he held up the hand that held his Pepsi bottle. "Got no free hands for that and even if I did have one, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt, remember? Besides, I hate it whenever people go through my stuff and that risk is what makes me jumpy when someone asks to borrow my phone or laptop. Long story short, I get it."

Franco raised an eyebrow, "Then what the hell do you wanna stay in mine and Benji's room for?" he asked, confusion on his face. He shrugged his shoulders, "Fine, you know, do whatever you want. Not like I got anything to hide in here any more" he said simply, turning on his heel and leaving the room.

"Mostly to keep an eye -," he trailed off when he noticed that Franco had walked out. Topher gave a sigh as he followed him out then headed for the living room. "And there goes progress," he remarked under his breath as he plopped back into his favorite chair and proceeded to tap his fingers against the armrest in order to expel some nervous energy.

By the time Topher had made his way back into the room, Benji, in all his drunken glory, had managed to fall asleep. However, his best friend plopping down next to him managed to shake him awake. "Huh?" he questioned groggily, slowly sitting up as he started to rub his eyes. "Toph? Where... where's Franc?" He yawned. "Did you guys make up?"

"Yeah, we made up and we're hopefully on the fast track to making things better. But I'm pretty sure I just set progress back either a bit or to square one," Topher answered. "Franco? You still in the house?" Then as he carded a hand through his hair, he addressed Benji once again, "I promise you that I'm trying to go with what you told and learn as I go. I'm just a chronic idiot when it comes to stuff that isn't book smarts."

Franco walked back into the lounge and smiled a fake ass smile, sitting in his previous seat and looking at the floor. He did not trust Topher right now and gulped, "Yeah just needed a moment. Thought I could handle it.... couldn't" he said playing with his hand.

"But hey, now I know what to do in order to ensure smooth sailing," Topher replied with a soft smile. He had no intention of making things worse and planned on keeping his mouth shut. But after a good night's rest, there were more problems to be tackled, which was what he definitely wanted to do as soon as possible.

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Toph. I'm sure things are fine," Benji replied sleepily, curling back into a ball on the sofa. He stayed silent for a moment, then finally processed what Franco said. "...couldn't handle what?"

Franco narrowed his eyes at Topher and shook his head, "Just you two babe. I kissed him so I'm trying but I couldn't handle seeing it. You know me, a big old pathetic let down" and he stared directly at Topher as he said those last words.

Topher had been the middle of yanking his hood up once again because there was no way he was moving from this chair, even if his bed was much more comfy. But Franco's words caught his attention and the hood fell right back down. "Franco, that couldn't be further from the truth. Neither of you are a let down and even if it takes me a thousand encouraging words to convince you of that, I've got all the time to say them," he responded in a meaningful tone.

"Franc, if you don't want to do this, you can say no. I don't know how many times I can stress that, Baby." Benji sighed. "Maybe I integrated things a little too fast. We'll be a little more private about the affection for a while. But the same's gonna go for you and me, y'know. It's only fair," he explained, hoping that would be a good compromise. As he re-closed his eyes, he couldn't help but smile lightly at Topher, happy he was trying to kill Franc with kindness like he suggested.

"Whatever you guys think will work best," Topher remarked before he yawned and stretched in the chair a little as he did so. "Sorry guys, but I'm going to call it a night. But I believe tonight was an alright first step and things can only get better from here as long as we keep hashing things out, making progress, all that." Another yawn escaped then he murmured, "Night Benji, night Franco. Stay cool, but not cold."

Franco scoffed at Topher and stood up, "I think I'm gunna head outside for a bit and have a smoke" he said, almost testing the other man, "I'll see you in the morning... Where are you staying tonight Benj?"

"Night, Topher. Good job tonight. Hit the showers," Benji teased, starting to sit up when Franco spoke again. "Uh. No you're not. You just had a smoke. Come on, we're going to bed too." At Franco's question, Benji couldn't help but make a face in reaction. "...I'm staying in my bed. Just like every night. So c'mon."

Franco sighed and shook his head, "I wanna smoke babe" he said, clenching his jaw a little. He saw the look on Ben's face and nodded, "OK, you'll stay with me tonight... But soon you won't? How am I meant to handle that? I'm trying Ben, I even kissed him but it's just... It doesn't matter"

"Franc, don't you get it? I know you need me to fall asleep. I'm not sleeping anywhere but my bed with you." Benji rolled his eyes, then sighed. "Maybe we should just call this off, huh? You're not handling it well and it feels like it's putting a strain on us. There's no point in doing a relationship this complicated if it's not healthy, Baby."

Franco nodded, "I don't need you... I just wouldn't sleep" he tried to defend himself. He rushed over to Benji and shook his head, "No baby, I don't want to call this off, I'm just scared and worried and I don't know how else to deal with his other then acting out babe"

"Not being able to sleep is exactly why you need--" Benji started, cutting himself off in surprise when Franco rushed towards him. "What is there to be scared and worried about? Our relationship hasn't changed. We've talked about this over and over." He sighed, "Franc, If we're gonna keep this arrangement, it needs to be healthy--which means we need to be able to talk things through openly and rationally. You don't get to act out every time you get negative feelings. It's not fair to Toph. And it's not fair to me either, although it's my fault for humoring it as much as I have been."

Franco shrugged his shoulders, "It's just in my head babe that I might lose you or something and it freaks me out cause I'm just getting shit back on track". Franco sighed, "I know babe but I'm really trying. People who are in recovery shouldn't even have relationships and here I am trying to juggle two of them... It's hard and I need space to breathe every once in a while"

Benji couldn't help but rub his temples in annoyance. He loved Franco, but dealing with this over and over was getting tiring. "I don't know how else to say this: this poly relationship is not something that would make you lose me. For the millionth time." 

 He turned to look at Franco, "Yes, it's hard. I understand. But I give you space to breathe every time you need it, multiple times a day. Do you think this is easy for Topher either? Of course not. But he doesn't have a temper tantrum every time you and I interact with each other." He sighed. He really didn't want to open up this can of worms, but playing nice was showing to be ineffective. He tried to choose his words carefully as he continued, "I understand that there will be bumps, but there's a difference between a road having bumps and acting like the road's made of gravel."

Franco shook his head at the words, "I don't think it's easy for him but he's used to it. He wasn't in this relationship the whole time we have been" he breathed out. He took a deep breath and shrugged his shoulders, "I'm trying. I kissed him. I spoke with him. I'm sorry that my brain struggles to comprehend everything that is going on".

Benji pinched the bridge of his nose, struggling to keep his annoyance from being too obvious. "Let's just... go to bed, okay? We've done enough tonight."

Franco sighed, "You go and I'll meet you in there" he spoke out, "I just really need a cigarette right now"

Benji threw his hands up in defeat and stood up. "...Fine," he murmured, turning and starting to head for his bedroom.

Franco sighed and went down to smoke. He needed to hide his drugs again and somewhere different. He finished up and went back upstairs, nudging Topher, "Hey, you gunna come to bed" he asked, knowing he needed to play nice, "You can come with us but I get the middle" he offered.

One of Topher's eyes opened then both when he heard Franco and felt the nudge. His sleep addled mind didn't want him to move anymore from his favorite chair, but he also knew that he'd regret it if he didn't. Plus he wanted to help make this work, didn't he? So Topher gave an understanding sort of nod as he pushed himself out of the chair and headed off for the bedroom.

By this time, Benji was facing his dresser, changing into a pair of pajamas. "Hey, Baby." he said to the sound of footsteps, not bothering to turn around. In the back of his mind, he knew he needed to stop babying Franco at some point, but he also knew that that day wasn't going to be today. "Cuddle time?"

Franco had walked through to the bedroom with Topher and pushed him in the direction of Benji, "Cuddle him" he'd breathed as he'd made his way to the bed, laying down in the middle, shurugging of his clothes and dropping them on the floor until he was only in his boxer shorts

Topher lightly stumbled, but managed to recover his footing then started to rest his head on Benji's shoulder before he second guessed himself and just leaned against the dresser. "Fair warning to you both, I talk in my sleep," he remarked in between yawns. "Feel free to roast me for what I say or don't. Whatever."

"Toph?" Benji questioned, turning around when the head on his shoulder felt different than what he was expecting. "You're sleeping with us? Awe, this is perfect," he said happily, wrapping one arm around Topher and starting to drag him towards the bed. "Franco in the middle," he stated, clamoring onto the bed and opening his arms for both Topher and Franco to climb into.

Franco was already in the middle of the bed, "Yeah I thought he might not wanna sleep on his own tonight so invited him in with us" he said and then gave a small laugh, "Of course I'm in the middle and, if this works out, then I'm always in the middle".

Topher's tired mind almost made him jump when Benji started to lead him toward the bed and he almost started to voice the obnoxious amount of potential concerns, yet his mouth remained closed. He shuffled over to the empty side then climbed into it. "This might sound weird, but hell with it. Thank you both."

Benji smiled softly, moving the boys so Franco was cuddled into him and his arm was wrapped around Topher’s back. “I’m sleeping well tonight,” he whispered, squeezing them both close.

Franco felt a little out of place but kept himself wrapped into Benji, "Clean slate" was all he breathed.

"The cleanest slate possible," Topher sleepily mused before he drifted back to sleep once more.