#or otherwise being a giant unhappy baby

[hag-o-hags]

got my therona shot, FINALLY, after being stymied and waylaid SO. MANY. TIMES.

For the record, 1) this is the first one I've had since getting the plague. 2), boosters two and three were absolutely no big thing. But 3), the first shot left me in a feverish, sweating heap praying for a merciful death for the 12 sickest hours of my LIFE. Which leads me to 4), the flu shot absolutely kicked my ass this year in a way it never has before, and at 9 hours out from getting stabbed I think I should prepare my last will and testament.

So anyway I have an appointment with Rheumatology next week.

[aoitrinity]

Why Do I Have to Feel Like a Fucking Conspiracy Theorist -- OR -- How I Find a Semblance of Peace on Sunday Night

I’m also going to start this out with a GIANT DISCLAIMER.

I am about to theorize about what may have happened to the SPN finale. I have absolutely no insider knowledge. I am merely speculating here based on the panels and a bunch of Twitter and Tumblr posts that I have been reading over the last few days. If you are not in a good place to read such things, TURN BACK PLEASE. Go take care of yourself and your mental health. You and your feelings are valid and deserve to be handled gently right now.

Additionally, if you are here to give me shit for being unhappy with the ending, please walk away as well. I am here to reach out and share my feelings with people who might be struggling to make sense of something that upset some of us in very deep-seated ways. I am not here to bother you or critique you or tell you that you’re lesser because you liked the ending. If you felt it was good, then go enjoy it.

Long-ass post beneath the cut, everyone.

Alrighty folks...I debated whether or not to do this because I have been spiraling down the hell that is the SPN finale since Thursday. The travesty of what happened to our show--to this beloved show that seemed to have been so perfectly and precisely written for at least four years that it had basically already paved its own tarmac on which to land its plane and we all thought we knew exactly what we were going to get. And then we didn’t. We had a nigh Cas-less and entirely Eileen-less ending. We had no goodbye between Cas and Jack. We had Dean dying young after finally finding his freedom, only to ascend to heaven with no one but Bobby. We had the weird, weird, weird incest-y death scene. We had the bridge crane shot thing because...sure. You do you, Robert Singer.

It was so terrible, so truly awful, and I couldn’t seem to square any of it with anything we had known going in. I tossed and turned and cried and didn’t eat or sleep all weekend. I spent hours just reloading tumblr and twitter, going to the Misha panel, reading and reading and listening and trying to figure out what the fucking hell is going on because I needed to know exactly where to direct my anger. And after a fuckton of talking with @winchester-reload, I think we have at least a very plausible theory about what happened here--I’m laying it out below as much for my own peace of mind as anything else, because otherwise all of these thoughts are going to continue to spin around in my head for weeks and I won’t be able to do jack shit.

Now to start off, unfortunately I do think Dean was slated to die from the beginning of this season. I don’t know WHY they thought that was the best way to go, and I wish they had listened to Jensen on this one. Part of me wonders if it was an order from on high based on the discussion between Becky and Chuck earlier this season--the writers knew it wasn’t a great choice, but they were trying to signal to us that we should feel free to write our own endings to the story because they’d be better (I can wax poetic on the signs of why many of the writers probably wanted Dean to live, but that’s another post). I’m not defending that choice by any means, just laying it out there that I think they didn’t necessarily all want to kill Dean like they did.

However, what I THINK I can explain now is what happened with Misha and why we got so jerked around with Cas’s story. Consider what we know (I can’t immediately source all of it, but I did my best):

At the end of episode 15x19, Lucifer has been returned to the Empty after being killed AGAIN. He talks with Cas. Maybe harasses him a bit about Dean, idk. But then...Jack shows up. New God Jack. And he picks up Cas and pulls him out of the Empty, leaving Lucifer behind, because seriously. Fuck that guy (also leaving behind his abusive father is character growth for Jack, so yay for that).

-Misha was contracted to film 15 episodes this season. He was only in 14.

-Misha told Michael Sheen he had to go back to film 1.5 episodes after the shutdown in March. (Starts at 6:13)

-Misha was in Vancouver during filming of the finale.

-Mark P said at Darklight Con that the last scene he filmed was with Alex and Misha (and Mark P was only in episode 19).

-Misha implied that he was present for various filming moments, including Dean’s death (start at 35:15), and said that it felt like a “mini-reunion.”

-Various sources have mentioned that Jimmy Novak was supposed to be in the finale.

-After episode 18, Stands tweeted a fan who was angered and hurt by Cas's death that they could talk about the “bury the gays” issue after the finale aired.

-In episode 19 we know there were takes of the parking lot scene where the only thing fans observing could hear was Dean yelling “CAS” at Chuck (fuck I can’t find this one right now, but it’s definitely out there)

-Also in episode 19, we had a very strange, awkward montage at the end of the episode.

-In episode 20, we know there were a FUCKTON of missing scenes

-We also had no opening montage, but three other separate montages.

-Carry on My Wayward Son was played TWICE, back-to-back at the end of the episode.

-Episode 20 was shorter than normal and had surprisingly little dialogue. The pacing was VERY strange.

-The cast and crew has been almost completely silent about the finale since it came out. When they have spoken, it has been with an awkward excuse of “Uh...COVID?”

-Samantha Ferris has specifically noted that, despite the Harvelle’s being back in play and a big heaven reunion having been planned pre-COVID, neither she nor Chad Lindberg received any such invitation to return.

-Cas and Dean POP Funko figures were pictured together in a replica of Harvelle’s in 15x04.

NOW with all of this in mind (and I’m probably missing some stuff too because there is so much--feel free to add on to that list), please bear with me because here is what I think we were SUPPOSED to get POST-COVID (after it was determined that the reunion couldn’t happen because of the virus):

In episode 20, we start with our NORMAL OPENING MONTAGE, like always. It traces everything that happened during the season. We are reminded of Cas. The confession. Rowena. Eileen. Jack. Billie, God, the Empty, all of it. 

Things then follow along in the episode where they did up until Dean dies and wakes up in heaven. After his conversation with Bobby, he drives off to find Cas (who, in the script, was listed as “Jimmy Novak” in order to protect against script leaks--who wouldn’t want to do their best to avoid spoilers about the finale with the wrapping of a fifteen-year show?). He does indeed find Cas. We get Dean’s end of the confession. Hell, maybe we even get a kiss. And then Dean sets up his new heaven home in the recreated Harvelle’s. Maybe Cas even fucking moves in. 

Years pass. We get Sam having his life on Earth (still can’t explain why they cut Eileen and couldn’t even have Sam signing vaguely to the blurry brunette in the background; if anyone wants to take that on, go for it). Eventually, Cas tells Dean that it’s almost Sam’s time. Dean takes Baby and goes to meet Sam at the bridge. The cover of Carry on My Wayward Son plays during this much shorter sequence. End of episode.

But that’s not what we got. Instead, much of what I just wrote about was excised from the episode. The remnants were stitched together after shooting had been wrapped. Filler was added in the form of montages and long, unnecessary extra shots to get the episode to something approaching a reasonable length. 

But why? Why would they spend all that time and money and quarantining on Misha, only to almost completely cut him out of the finale? I struggled with why the fuck the CW would want this mammoth show to go down as the greatest queerbait in TV history when they had the chance to do something truly beautiful and monumental with it? It couldn’t just be sheer homophobia, right? Well, I think that factored into it, my friends, but here is where my head is at right now.

It was about cold, hard cash.

Now I could be wrong, but this is what I’m thinking at the moment: Supernatural is going off of the air. Supernatural, the CW’s cash cow for fifteen years. Sure there is still money to be made on blu-rays and merchandise and cons...but they need people watching their shows. They need that sweet advertising revenue. And you know what show they have about to premiere? A show that could, potentially, bring with it a chunk of that SPN revenue?

Walker.

And if any of you know anything about the original Walker Texas Ranger, you know that the show was predominantly a show about a very heterosexual white man being very excessively heterosexual. And for SOME REASON over the years, many of the execs at the CW still seem to think that this show, Supernatural, is really attractive to a lot of middle-American white men...whom they desperately want to watch this new show with this guy from Supernatural that they already know.

Now here’s where COVID fucked us. I think Destiel was greenlit by TPTB, at least in SOME form, before COVID. But then the pandemic happened, and they panicked. They got the cut of the last two episodes and watched them in their original, probably queer form. And then, the execs at CW looked at the economy. They looked at their cash cow, about to make its journey to the great beyond. And they looked at this new little calf Walker that they were so desperately worried about. And they made a choice.

They decided that it would be too risky to take the step with Destiel. They were worried about frightening off their ever-so-valuable hetero male demographic with the possibility that a traditionally masculine man in his 40s could be in love with another man in an overt way. It was homophobia mixed with greed, spun up by fear for their revenues because of COVID.

So they called in Singer, possibly Dabb, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they went straight to Singer. They told them that Destiel had to go: executive orders. And the only way to make it go in a way that removed any trace of what had been there was to rewrite what happened to Cas and cut him out from the last two episodes entirely. It was too late to reshoot anything. They had to just cut and stitch and fill with bullshit montages. 

They removed the scene at the end of 19, probably because Cas and Lucifer discussed Dean. All that was left of Misha there was his voice on that fake phone call. They may have cut other things too, but I would bet my life that they cut a scene from the end of the episode and replaced it with that very strange montage. Then they moved onto 20. They cut out every scene with Cas. And left in only two platonic mentions of him, neither made by Dean. They tried to imply that Cas might show up in Dean’s heaven at some point, but that was as far as the editors could go in the time they had. They filled in with montages, awkwardly long shots, anything they could do to fill all of those missing scenes.

And they even had to take the opening montage, because literally everything in it pointed to Cas being there at the end of it all. They wouldn’t be able to leave out his scenes, they were too critical to the season. They couldn’t cut his confession without raising eyebrows. So they cut the whole thing and moved “Carry On My Wayward Son” to one of the newly-added driving montages at the end. Which is why we awkwardly had both songs play back-to-back--again, such a strange choice unless they were out of options and couldn’t exactly buy rights to a new track or compose anything else.

And so we were left with the shadow of the finale that we deserved, that Cas and Dean deserved. We were left without resolution or happiness or words. Bobo told us the most important thing about happiness is just “saying it” and our characters were silenced without anyone ever knowing the truth.

I think the writers might have known and been given the new party line that “Misha never filmed, he couldn’t, sorry, it was COVID, no one’s fault!” But I don’t think most of the cast even knew it had happened until they watched the finale on Thursday with us (though they might have been confused why the bit from 15x19 was sliced, they could reasonably have assumed it was a time thing and also BL episodes don’t make sense anyway). Why do I say that?

Well, first of all, Misha started sending out a bunch of excited texts to fans with some old BTS pictures about an hour before the show started airing on EST. He also wanted his children to see the episode, his YOUNG children. Why would he show them such a traumatic episode if their Dad wasn’t in it? What if it was because he wanted them to witness what was going to be a monumental moment in queer television history that their DAD got to be a part of? And then that was all dashed.

Which is why I think the cast and crew went almost completely radio silent the next day. I don’t think they knew. And based on how they have been acting on social media since then, I think many of them are absolutely furious, but they have been silenced because of NDAs, because they want to find work again in a cutthroat industry, because they don’t want to bring down the hellfire of Warner Brothers Entertainment upon themselves. So the most we have gotten is a little acknowledgement from the MERCHANDISING COMPANY trying to validate our pain (god bless Shirts, she is a LIFESAVER) and a response to my salty tweet about keeping good stuff in the closet from Adam Williams (the VFX coordinator) that seemed to acknowledge the validity of my complaint.

Then there was a scramble behind the scenes, I would bet my life. Talking points were fed to the boys who had panels today, to CE, to all the cast and crew:

Toe the party line. Misha never filmed. This was always about COVID. Do not mention Destiel. Do not mention Dean’s feelings for Cas. Do not promote the Castiel Project or anything that validates the idea that this was anything less than a superb ending.

And that is why we have heard so little from the cast on this front, and what we have heard has been muddled and contradictory. That is why the writers are saying nothing. That is why we have been left adrift.

Now before I close this out, I do want to say that I really, genuinely do not think this was on the writers at all. I feel like they tried to give us the best ending that they could, in a writers room that we know is notorious for splitting along party lines about the overall story (BL and Singer, who have always been about the brothers and their man-pain vs. Dabb and the rest who always seemed to want more for them and for Cas). I think they did everything in their power to at least end with Dean and Cas happy together. If they could give us nothing else, they wanted to give us that. And then the network took it from them. From us. From everyone.

For the sake of fucking money. 

And the WORST PART OF IT ALL, for me, is that in the wake of this disaster, the fans have been left to try and figure out what happened. We have had to wade through a mire of conflicting information in the midst of all of our collective anger and grief over this garbage ending of a show many of us have loved and even relied on for YEARS, all the while wondering if we’re just fucking crazy, if we have all fallen collectively into the hole of conspiracy theories. That hurts ESPECIALLY badly because we have taken so many hits over the years from other groups on social media saying we were crazy for seeing things that weren’t there (especially Destiel), for writing meta and analyzing tropes and believing the evidence of our eyes and ears. The network has made us relive that entire nightmare WHILE processing our grief for a show we wanted so badly to celebrate and which instead we now have to mourn.

So again guys, I cannot prove that this is exactly what happened at all; this is simply my idea of what may have happened. But right now, it’s the most sense I can make from this mess, and to be honest, the act of typing it out has helped me enormously in my processing of it all. I feel like I can see more clearly, like I know where to target my outrage and where to direct empathy. I feel like just fucking maybe, I might be able to do my job tomorrow without bursting into tears at random moments. 

I really hope that this post has helped some of you to, in some small way, process this too. We get through this the way that Misha told us at his panel this morning, the way the writers have told us to do all season long...we throw out the story God gave us and we make it better. We write our characters the happy endings they deserve. 

We save them.

One last thing--if you have not already, please consider channeling your rage into a donation to one of the five causes our fandom has put together to pay tribute to our beloved show and to mourn the ending it should have had:

-The Castiel Project

-Dean Winchester is Love

-Sam Winchester Project

-The National Association of the Deaf

-The Jack Kline Project

[mendesblurb]

Three times shawn says he miss you and send a photo, one time you surprise him by coming home early

Right now I’m missing you

Shawn Mendes x female reader

Warning: fluff, a lot of emojis used,maybe grammar error and maybe some punctuation errors.

Note: Hey Anon, thank you for requesting. I had so much fun writing this one. Hope you like my attempt in writing your story idea.

First

Bzzzt bzzzt

You paused reading your script and, grabbed your phone that was on the side table. You smiled when you saw it was a message from Shawn.

It's really sweet that Shawn always miss you whenever you travel for work. Frankly, you always miss him too. This is just the unspoken thing that happen when two busy celebrities start dating. Both of you have busy schedules, and so every little sweet uninterrupted moments are more precious than ever.

Text message

Shawn: Wish you were here with me, I miss you….

You: I miss you too 😍

Shawn: I miss you most 😏😏

You: I miss you mostest 😌

Shawn: Me + U = ❤️, so Me - U = 😢

You: Can’t wait to FaceTime you tonight 😏😏

Shawn: Can tonight just come sooner…

You: Patience, my love.

Shawn: Because you’re the one asking, I will try to be patient.

You: Shawn if you can survive me friend zoning you for 5 years, you can survive this 🤨

Shawn: I hate how you’re always right.

You: It’s just in my blood 😉😉😉

Shawn: God, I just love you. Anddddddd I misssssssss youuuuu ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

You: I love you tooooo and I missssssss youuuu tooo ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Second

It’s been a long, long day.

Your eyes felt heavy. You were struggling to stay awake to finish your night routine. Just a few more steps, that’s all you needed to stay awake then you could go to sleep. Suddenly, your phone vibrates and dings rather loudly. It snaps you out of your dazed state. You proceed to grab your phone and saw a text from Shawn with an image attached.

You have been away for your new movie and wouldn’t be returning until four more weeks at the earliest. Obviously, the two of you have been continuing to message and FaceTime each other throughout the time you have been away, but you were pretty busy.

It seems the only time he’s able to get you to himself is at Goddamn one in the morning. He knew you would still be awake otherwise he wouldn’t have sent the image.

Text message

Shawn: Right now, I’m missing you a little too much.

You: You know we just FaceTimed like thirty minutes ago right?

Shawn: Yeah, But I still miss my girl 😢😢😢😢

You: I still miss you too honey..😢😢

Shawn: No amount of FaceTime or texts can stop me from missing you. I just love you so much.

You: I love you too, wish we could cuddle right now🥺🥺🥺🥺.

Shawn: The bed is just too big and I wish I can be your pillow right now, come home soon Y/N 🥺🥺🥺

You: I will baby, as soon as I can 😉😉😉

Shawn: Promise?

You: Promise Shawnie.

Shawn: pinky swear?

You: YES! Shawnieeeeeee, I swearrrr ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Shawn: Tarzan says he misses his mommy 🥺

You: Well, Tarzan. Mommy miss you too 🥺🥺

Shawn: Come home soon, we both miss you a little too much and too often 🥺🥺❤️

You: Don’t worry baby, I’ll be home soon. I promise ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Shawn: I can’t wait! 🎉😆😆😆

You: Me too!! 🥲🥲🥲🥲

Shawn: Goodnight my love ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️, have a good sleep! Call me when you’re awake!! 😍😍

You: Goodnight Shawnie ❤️❤️❤️, definitely calling you once I wake up! 😍😍😍

Shawn: I’ll definitely dream about you 😌✌🏻

You: Stop making me blush 🙄

Shawn: then stop being so cute and lovable 😛

Third

You were in the middle of hair and make up on set when the first text comes in, followed quickly by a second and the third.

Text message

Shawn: 🆘🆘🆘‼️‼️

Shawn: 🆘🆘🆘🆘‼️‼️

Shawn: Help!!! I miss you so much 😫😫😫

You: I wish I could be at New York with you right now 😢😢

Shawn: New york is just not the same 🥺🥺… I like it more last time because you and I were holding hands while exploring the city ❤️❤️

You: Shawnie… 🥺🥺🥺🥺

You pout as you look down at your phone. The two of you haven’t been able to spend much time with each other in over a month. You have been filming in london for a month while he was at New York.

All you want is his kisses and cuddles. All you want is him holding your hand right now, all you want is his clingy behaviour who won’t let you leave the bed. All you want is to sit on his lap while talking about the most random things. All you need is him right here, instead of being millions of miles away.

Shawn: I know, it’s just it’s been a long month 😭😭

You: Don’t worry, I’ll be home soon.

Shawn: How soon? 🤔🤔🤔

You: Soon, soon! 😌😌😌

Shawn: Can I know the date of your arrival?

You: Nope! 😛😛

Shawn: please! Please! 🥺🥺🥺

You: call you tonight baby, gotta do a scene 😘😘

Shawn: you are so annoying… 🙄🙄🙄

Shawn: honey, you can’t just not tell me 🥺🥺🥺

Shawn: please! Let me know when 🥺🥺🥺🥺

Shawn: 🥺🥺🥺🥺

*missed FaceTime from Shawn*

You: Calling me won’t help, love 😌😌

Shawn: ugh 😑 fine, I thought I could convince you with my pretty face 😌😌. But I guess I’ll be a good person who knows the definition of patience.

You: Good Boy 😛

Shawn: Did you just refer me as a boy?

You: maybe….. 😜😜

Shawn: Excuse me!!!!

Shawn: Hello!!!

You: Yes?

Shawn: I’m a man, not a boy 😡😡

You: says the person who literally got a tattoo saying Good Boy.

Shawn: I can’t with you 😑😑

You: Aww, I love you too Shawnie 😙😙

Fourth

Shawn woke up before his alarm again, he slowly sat up while letting out an unhappy sigh; this whole month he felt like he’s all alone, while you were working. He missed the satisfying feeling where he can just roll over and find you there sleeping peacefully next him instead of being million miles away.

Shawn let out a small sigh again as he stretched his hands and slipped on one of his ring and watch, finishing his look. He scanned over himself in the mirror once again, adjusting the sleeves of his button-up shirt.

He just kept pouting at the sad reminder. He thought about texting you but then his phone began to ring from his bed and the next thing he knew he was rushing to the studio. 

—————

"Hurry up!" Brian simpered as he grabbed his hand and yanked him as soon as he arrived at the studio.

"Is everything okay?” Shawn asked. "Please just tell me what is the emergency.”

"Just step inside," Brian said hastily, motioning towards the doors, a big smile plastered on his face.

"Brian, I swear, if this is some sort of prank..." Shawn trailed off as he turned the doorknob and pushed opened the door slowly. Shawn was half expecting a bucket of water to dump on him or a pie in the face, but none of that happened. Instead, he was greeted with a dark studio. Shawn looked quizzically at Brian, who just shooed him into the room.

"Seriously Brian, what is going on?" Shawn questioned, looking warily into the room. He felt Brian’s hands on his shoulders and pushed him into the room fully, staying behind him.

The lights came on suddenly and you stepped fully to his direction and cleared your throat, loudly announcing yourself, “Hey Shawnie, did you miss me?”

From the the looks of it, and Shawn stood stock still for a moment.

You caught a glimpse of his expression of adoration, love and surprise, before you wrapped around him like a Koala Bear.

“Oh my god, Y/N! Whe-when did you get here?”

“Went straight from the airport, baby.”

“Oh baby, I’m so happy you’re here! I-I can’t believe you’re here.” he laughed and squeezed his arms around you, never wanting to let you go. He picked you up more and spun you around a few times, Shawn was just super giddy that you were finally here with him, finally.

You too squeezed him even harder, if that was even possible, “I’m here, love, I’m here.”

He pulled back slightly, kissing your forehead. “This is the best surprise ever, I love you.”

“I love you too Shawn.”

Thank you for reading guys... feel free to like, reblog, follow my account, leave a comment and my chat is always open for random chats or requests... appreciate every single one of you... ❤️

Taglist: @monikamendes @holland-styles @bvttercupbby @lonelyreputation @badreputationlove @shawn-is-my-giant-jellybean @benito-mi-vida @swiftmendeshoran @yournameoneverypage @shawn-is-bruh @mendesbhraanth @perfectlywrongsm @imaginashawnns @smendes-forever @nervousmendes @whenyoureadyholland @shawn-youth @myboyshawn @camilalewiss @camilalewisss @theregoesmyherojd @nanijaac1 @shawnieeboyy @silverswallow

[13uswntimagines]

I Should Sleep With You More Often (Sam x Reader)

Sequel to Works Like a Charm  where Sam and Reader finally get together. It’s a very fluffy piece, with a little bit of late night breakfast making and a surprise kiss. 

special thanks to @literaryhedgehog​ cause this wouldn’t have happened without her. 

Hello?”

“Hey, I can’t sleep.” Sam’s voice comes over the phone, getting straight to the point with frustration.

“And you’re calling me about it? At 3 am. I could have been asleep you know.” You huff into the phone, pinning it between your chin and your shoulder. 

“Were you?” She asks, and you can almost see her eyebrow quirking up. 

You look down at the frying pan where you were about to pour your egg-cheese scramble. “No. But still.”

“Don’t worry, I appreciate the irony of the situation,” she says, with an attempt at humor. “can I come over?”

“Sure. You can split my omelet.” You hum, your tongue poking out as you make sure the entire omelet landed on the plate instead of the floor. 

“Omelette?” Sam asked, sounding amused. “I thought you weren’t supposed to --” 

“Eat anything after 9 pm I know, I know. But I woke up and was hungry, and couldn’t just ignore it to fall back asleep for two hours. I had to eat something or I was going to get nauseous.” You interrupted her, waving your hand dismissively. 

“What?” Sam asked entirely confused. 

“You know that feeling, where you’re like, so hungry that you get kind of nauseous?” You tried to explain again. 

“No…” She trailed off. 

“Oh, well it’s the worst. I like to try to eat something before it gets too bad because otherwise, the food won’t do anything. Anyway, I made enough you can have half of it, just let me know when you get here so I can send down the elevator for you.” You said, whipping your hands off and walking towards the door. 

“I’m actually just parking,” Sam’s voice came sheepishly over the phone. In the background, you heard the unmistakable sound of her car being locked. She always insisted on clicking the lock button twice so it would beep, like she didn’t trust it to lock the first time. 

You shook your head and left your apartment to buzz her into the building. “You’re telling me that at 3 am, before even checking to see if I was awake, you just decided to come to my apartment because you couldn’t sleep?”

“Yes?” 

“You’re insane,” you said, hanging up the phone as the elevator door opened to reveal her tall frame. 

She ruffled the hair at the back of her neck, grinning. “I knew you would be awake?”

“Bullshit.” You led the way back to your apartment and grabbed two plates from the cabinet. “You want soy milk?”

“What?” 

“Soy milk. I’ve got vanilla or dark chocolate.” For some reason, soy milk helped reduce the insomnia nausea more than anything else most days. Still, the omelet smelled amazing. 

“Um sure, vanilla please.” She shrugged, and you rolled your eyes. Vanilla was for the weak. 

You pulled out both cartons and two glasses, before cutting the omelet in half and handing her a fork. 

“Don’t I get my own plate?” Sam whined, cutting off a piece of the Omelet and popping it into her mouth. 

“People who come barging into my apartment at 3 AM have to share with the host. Unless you wanna do dishes?” You raised your eyebrow at her, pointing your fork in her direction, smirking when she emphatically shook her head no. 

She quickly changed the subject, avoiding your eyes as she ate. “So how are you liking your apartment, it’s new right?”

“Yeah, I moved in four months ago, you know when I suddenly got traded to North Carolina,” you said, a very bitter edge in your voice. How Mark could let you leave the thorns you would never know, but at least Hinkle was retiring. 

You took another bite “So why couldn’t you sleep? At camp, you’re usually snoring like a freight train by now.” 

Sam paused mid-bite, fork in the air. She looked like she was debating how to answer then, stuffed her last piece of omelet in her mouth. “I donb snowe.”

“You totally do. Rose even sent me the video evidence if you wanna see it,” you smirked, standing to go get your phone. 

“No!” Sam jumped up and you sprinted across the kitchen to get out of her reach, grinning. “You really don’t have to do that, it’s not a big deal.”

“Oh, but I really don’t mind,” you taunted, starting for your phone before Sam tackled you. Well, it wasn’t a tackle so much as a grab, but she had a good foot and a half on you, so same difference really. 

“Put me down. This is highly unnecessary,” you sputtered, laughing from Sam’s shoulder. “I’m not supposed to exercise within an hour of bed. My therapist would be unhappy with so much activity.”

“Yeah cause eating an Omelette at 3 am is totally something she would approve,” Sam rolled her eyes, as she tossed you onto your couch.

“Lies and slander. I won’t get the alleged snoring video, but seriously. Why are you here?”

Sam sighs, and slouches onto the couch next to you, dropping her head into your lap. You smile down at her, liking this new angle. While you certainly didn’t mind being the baby of the team, it was kind of nice to do the petting for once.

“I don’t know,” Sam said, furrowing her eyebrows.

“You were never a good liar. It’s why everyone catches you when you try to pull pranks. I hear it helps if you talk about it,” You murmured, using your thumb to smooth out the crease that formed between her eyes. 

“Fine, I couldn’t sleep because I kept having nightmares. It felt like, I was tossing and turning for hours, and then every time I dozed off, my brain came up with these fucked up images. Like, silence of the lambs shit. I could sell some horror film director the plotlines and make bank, I’m telling you. And since Rose and Wilma moved out, my place has felt so empty. It felt like, the panic attacks I used to have before games. When I had to always bring a bag with me to hyperventilate into before I could get my mind on the game.”

You frowned. “I don’t remember that.”

“Once you became my bus buddy I didn’t have that problem. You got me out of my own head with fun word games and stupid jokes. Remember that time you gave me the sentence ‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog?’ You kept grinning telling me to stop stressing out, it would be alright, to just guess a letter.” 

“Because whatever you guessed would be right.” You hum smiling down at her. 

 “You couldn’t take that shit-eating grin off your face, you jerk, but like, it helped me stop second-guessing myself. Sitting on the bus with you, I’ve never felt more calm going into a season. And so I just thought. It’s dumb but I hoped coming here would help.” She shrugged. 

“It’s not dumb Sammy. You help me sleep too. Why do you think all the vets insist I sit with you?” You said softly, leaning down to kiss her forehead. 

“Because you used to fall asleep literally everywhere and they hoped I could get across the aisle and catch you before you hit your head?” She giggled and you snapped her shoulder lightly. 

“Wow. Thanks.” You said in a monotone, “Or maybe it’s ‘cause you’re my favorite teddy bear.”

“If anyone is the teddy it’s you. You’re like half my size,” She giggled. 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” you muttered, playfully pushing her head off your lap. “Come on you giant.”

“Where are you going?” She asked, allowing you to pull her to her feet. 

“To go grab you a toothbrush and a fresh pillowcase for the bed.” You said, your tugging getting a little more insistent. You really wanted to get to sleep tonight. You had been so good lately (ignoring the random omelet you cooked tonight).

“Oh, um. I was hoping we could just watch television on your couch and I would fall asleep,” Sam rambled, eyes wide. “I mean, not that I mind, but I didn’t want to like, invade on your--”

“Just come up to my room. It’s no big deal, it’s large enough for both of us, and I honestly don’t think that couch is even big enough to fit you. Besides, maybe it will help you sleep to be on a mattress actually purchased in this century.”

“Hey, I like my mattress!” She grumbled indignantly, crossing her arms. 

“You flip it twice a month because it keeps forming an indention where you’ve slept!” You said exasperated. That sleepover had been a terrible idea and you stood by that. At least your bed didn’t spit out feathers when you turned over too fast. 

“Well, I. um. No comment.” you hear her say as you go to take your turn in the bathroom. 

When Sam gets back from brushing her teeth you’ve done everything except turn out the lights. You look up from your side of the bed as she pauses in the doorway. 

“Is this… Welcome to Night Vale?”

“It helps me ignore my thoughts. Can you get the lights please?” 

You had to replay the podcast the next day after Sam left. You couldn’t remember anything after “Wednesday has been canceled due to a scheduling error” because within moments you were asleep.

*****

You thought that sleeping with Sam was only supposed to be a one-night thing, but it wasn’t. One night turned into two, which turned into the two of you usually crashing at each other's places. 

If you were being honest, it was the best sleep you had ever gotten. It was nice to have someone there to hold onto, to protect you from the bad dreams. The problem was that your feelings were edging past the line of friendship, and you had no idea what to do about it. 

It started with a team party you both went to, where Sam offered to be the designated driver. After she dropped everyone else off, you told her she might as well stay the night at your place since it was already so late and she did. And you both slept great. And then you had your usual Saturday spa night the next night, and you were several shots in and it wouldn’t have been responsible to drive home. And you both slept a solid seven hours. 

Not that Sam was a magical cure to your insomnia. You still had nights where your brain was like a train running off the rails, unstoppable no matter how hard you tried. Yet, having her there helped. She made sure blue lights went off when they were supposed to, and your late-night breakfast-making was kept to a minimum. AND after the first few nights, you realized that she was amusingly clingy in her sleep. Which meant that occasionally if you woke up and tried to get out of bed, she would sleepily grab you and hold you in place murmuring about whatever was happening in her dream. Since you couldn’t get up you had to just lay there, which normally might have been boring, but with her was amusing as you listened to her rambling state of consciousness. 

You sighed, staring up at the ceiling. You really needed to get your shit together and just ask her out. But what if she said no, and you lost your cuddle buddy? That would suck royally, and if you lost your bus seat it might completely curse the USWNT. 

“Alright, I can practically feel the steam coming out of your ears, spill,” Sam groaned, rolling over and throwing an arm around your waist. 

“Isn’t it weird?”

“What?”

“Time. Like someone decided that seconds were a thing and a certain number of seconds equaled a minute and there were a certain number of minutes in a day. Like someone just decided it was a thing, and everyone went along with it and now we all have to plan our lives around this arbitrary system. I wonder if that asshole realized that people would use it to put kids in detention and force them to cram so they could regurgitate facts in a specified amount of his made-up system. And like the Romans made a Calendar and the Mayans did one too…” Your rambling was cut off by Sams’s soft lips touching your own in a quick peck before she collapsed back into the pillow. “Just blame capitalism babe.”

You stared at her for a minute, shocked, before she bolted upright. “SHIT. Sorry, I just. I forgot to ask for consent. I just forgot--”

“I consent, yes, more of this please,” you said, leaning over to kiss her again. Your hands cupped her cheeks and her fingers tangled into the baby hairs at the back of your neck. 

After a few minutes, Sam broke off the kiss, both of you breathing heavily. “Um, wow. You know, I’m not sure this is helping you get to sleep, love.”

You smirk, biting your lip and straddling her hips before you lean in to kiss her again, slowly. “You’re the one who said you needed to sleep with me more often.”

[longitudinalwaveme]

Longitudinalwaveme Reviews Some More Old Comics (and One New One), Part 3

 Batman #353, “Last Laugh”

The Joker walks into his hideout at the abandoned Tatch Hotel, where his goons are gambling. He promptly kills one of them by snakebite for disrespecting him. 

Batman scares a corrupt city council member into revealing that the doctored photos that “revealed” Batman as a crime boss came from real crime boss Rupert Thorne. Apparently, Thorne ensured that Reeves would lose the election...meaning that he wanted Hamilton Hill to be mayor for some reason. 

Also, Gordon is currently not the Commissioner---someone named Commissioner Pauling is, and Batman suspects both he and the new mayor are corrupt. 

The next day, as Bruce Wayne, he accompanies Vicki Vale to the destruction of Gotham Central Station. Apparently, Vicki was witness to an interaction between Rupert Thorne and Morton Monroe that culminated in the latter’s suicide. 

The computer being used to manage the explosions that will preserve the landmark while still clearing space for new development malfunctions has been stolen...by the Joker! 

Because Batman and the new police commissioner are on the outs, Batman hadn’t known about the Joker’s escape from Arkham, and he’s not happy about that. He does, however, quickly work out that the Joker has bought some land in the Palisades under the pseudonym of Mr. Harlan Quinn. (No...seriously!) 

Batman heads to the location in question...only to be caught off-guard by the Joker, who shoots a drugged arrow at him. When he wakes up, he’s tied to some rocks and surrounded by dynamite. 

Joker is upset that Gotham is constructing a statue for a Broadway star and not for him, so he’s going to use the dynamite and the computer he stole to create a monument of himself (and kill Batman). 

Batman manages to break free and jams the computer signal by way of a device he brought with him for that purpose. 

The story is then interrupted for a weird He-Man comic! Hi there, He-Man, Teela, Man-at-Arms, Battle Cat, Sorceress, Mer-man, Beast Man, and Skeletor! And, uh, Superman, too, I guess! Why not? 

I can honestly say I did not expect this Batman comic to contain a Superman/Masters of the Universe crossover where Superman fought Skeletor. 

And now back to Batman, who’s fighting Joker’s goons. While this is going on, the Joker shoots at Batman while his back is turned-only for the explosions to go off. It temporarily creates Joker’s memorial of himself, but it lasts for only a few seconds before collapsing. The issue ends with Joker frowning and Batman smiling in a really unsettling manner. 

The issue also has a backup story, starring Robin and Batman, the latter of whom is undercover as Matches Malone. They work together to defeat some con-men, and Dick uses an inflatable suit to dress up as Batman. It’s pretty amusing. 

Batman #355, “Never Scratch a Cat” 

Why does Catwoman own what appears to be a pet panther? 

Apparently, she’s not happy abut the fact that Vicky Vale is also romantically interested in Bruce Wayne. We then cut to the latter two on a date. 

Their date is suddenly interrupted when Catwoman uses her car to send their car off a cliff and into a river. She immediately regrets it and dives into the water after them to save them.

Bruce fights her off and makes it to the surface with Vicki himself. Two days later, she wakes up in the hospital. 

The police have been staking out Selina’s house, but so far, there hasn’t been any sign of her. 

That night, Batman leaves to track down Catwoman, telling Dick not to come with him as Robin. They have a fairly heartwarming conversation, and then Batman zooms off, leaving Dick and Alfred worried about how angry he seems. 

Batman breaks into Selina’s house...and is promptly attacked by her pet panther. They fight, and he defeats the panther. He then discovers that Selina hasn’t been home for at least 2 days. 

Batman looks through her bills and discovers that she’s rented an apartment somewhere. 

Ex-Commissioner Gordon talks politics with Mayor Hamilton Hill. There’s a petition to remove the latter from his position, since he’s connected to Thorne and Thorne was arrested for murdering his own appointee for police commissioner. Also, Hill makes him commissioner again. 

Batman tracks Catwoman to her new apartment and the two fight, verbally and physically. Eventually, though, they make up and hug each other. It’s kind of weird, but I guess it works.

Flash #324, “The Slayer and the Slain” 

The Reverse-Flash is dead! But the real horror of this issue isn’t that he’s dead or that he died attempting to murder Fiona Webb...it’s the fact that this issue will kick off the Trial of the Flash arc; otherwise known as the Arc That Never Ends! 

Some really weird nurse tells a baby the story of her favorite soap opera...only to lose her grip on the carriage, which goes hurtling towards a pane of glass! Kid Flash manages to save the baby, but not the glass. 

Kid Flash then rushes to what he believes will be the wedding of his uncle to Fiona Webb, changing into a tuxedo along the way. 

Unfortunately, when Wally arrives at the church, there’s no sign of Barry. Dexter Miles, Barry’s friend Mack Nathan, Mack’s son Troy, and Ralph Dibney, the Elongated Man, are at the church, though, as are Barry’s parents and Fiona herself. 

Before Barry’s first name was Bartholomew, it was Barrence. No, seriously. 

Fiona is naturally very upset, believing Barry stood her up at the alter. Henry Allen is less than sympathetic. “Nora and I aren’t ready to give up on our boy just yet, Fiona. And if you really love him...you’re not about to either!” Way to guilt-trip her, Henry. No wonder Barry got along better with Roscoe-pretending-to-be-you than he did with you. 

Barry and the Reverse-Flash have a fight/race around the world, Eobard yelling about how mad he is about Barry trapping him at the end of time for four years. 

Officer Frye and Frank Curtis are also at the wedding. 

Apparently the Guardians of the Universe stopped Wally from helping Barry fight Eobard for some reason. Okay...

Eobard, being Eobard, makes a giant ice sculpture of Iris in the Himalayas just so he can troll Barry. Then they fight some more as all the wedding guests wonder where the bridegroom is. 

While the two are fighting/racing, Eobard creates a big wave at Miami Beach, which Barry has to stop to rescue some swimmers from. 

Captain Frye is starting to believe that Barry’s been murdered. 

Eobard and Barry end up in Cape Carneval and take a rocket into outer space. After they return to Earth, Eobard taunts Barry by writing “Guess who’s going to kill your wife again” in the sand. This naturally makes Barry very, very unhappy. 

Equally unhappy is Fiona, who is now completely convinced she’s been stood up and is leaving the church. 

The wedding photographer pops up over thirty-five minutes after the wedding is supposed to start; conveniently already filming with his camera.

Eobard runs towards Fiona, murder on his mind...only for Barry to grab him from behind by the neck as he shouts “NO! Not again!” 

Barry tries to comfort Fiona to no avail as Frye discovers that Eobard is dead. 

And on that grim note, the issue ends. 

Batman #362, “When Riddled By the Riddler...” 

Why was Riddler working at a winery? Is it just because one of the processes involved in making wine is called riddling it? Whatever the reason, the appearance of a film crew at the winery apparently gives Riddler an idea for his next crime spree.

Batman is summoned to police headquarters, where Harvey Bullock is arguing with Commissoner Gordon. Apparently, Bullock’s working with Mayor Hill, and the Riddler has been sending Gordon puzzle boxes.

This puzzle box prompts Bullock to ask about the Riddler, which in turn prompts Gordon to tell Bullock and the reader about the Riddler’s M.O. and backstory. 

When he finishes the story, Batman finally arrives and kicks Bullock out. He and Gordon proceed to try to solve Riddler’s latest riddle as Bullock eavesdrops on them both from outside the door. The riddle seems to point in the direction of the Mother Goose Amusement Park, but Batman tells Gordon to keep thinking of other possible meanings just in case. 

Bullock plans to outwit Gordon, Batman, and the Riddler, showing an impressive degree of self-confidence (or self-delusion). 

Batman goes to the park and is promptly ambushed by a machine-gun wielding Riddler. 

Then they fight, Riddler escapes, and Batman learns that the amusement park has been closed all season, so it would have no money around to steal. 

Gordon, Bullock, and Batman reconvene to do some Bat Deducting in order to figure out the Riddler’s real plan. Because Batman’s true superpower is his ability to understand the insane ways in which the Riddler uses riddles to plot his crimes. 

Apparently, Riddler is going to steal the loot of a game show being filmed in Paradise Theater. The show in question is called “Enigma”, which is a terrible name for a show filmed in Gotham. It’s beggining the Riddler to show up. 

The Riddler actually wears a suit in this issue! That’s unusual for Riddler at this point, and it looks really good. Of course, he immediately takes it off a few panels later, but still. 

Apparently, the game show consists of getting contestants to answer riddles and...seriously, who decided it was a good idea to film this in Gotham? 

Then the Riddler pops himself out of the riddle drum used in the game show. It’s hilarious. He steals the money and walks out the door, gloating. 

Batman then appears and starts chasing Riddler, who hijacks a bus. Batman follows him and uses gas to force the bus to stop. 

Then Batman literally kicks him off the bus and captures him. 

The issue ends with Bullock deciding to drop the charges he’s managed to get raised against Gordon (after Gordon uses a riddle to threaten him). Hill is not happy about this. 

Batman #373, “The Frequency of Fear” 

The issue opens with Jason Todd having a freaky nightmare about his parents’ deaths (since this is pre-Crisis, the deaths happened at the hands of Killer Croc). 

A really stupid psychologist wants to meet Jonathan Crane so that he can analyze the effects of fear on the human mind. Unfortunately for him, Crane has been released from Arkham, because everyone in Gotham is stupid. Even the stupid psychologist thinks so! 

Meanwhile, a couple of people at Gotham University wonder if they really did see the Scarecrow heading for the old Marston House where Crane once lived. 

Julia Pennyworth, Alfred’s daughter, asks Vicki Vale for a position at Picture News (is this different than the Picture News where Iris West-Allen works?) Vicki is opposed to the idea until Julia insists she’s not interested in Bruce Wayne. 

Apparently, in an earlier issue a number of Batman’s Rogues dragged Scarecrow around while he was mostly incapacitated by fear. He’s not happy about the fact that they did this and is plotting revenge against all of them. 

A guard at the courthouse demands to know why he’s there. In response, Scarecrow uses a skull to emit his fear frequency, and the guard predictably starts hallucinating. He then continues to use the frequency to get the location of the lock-up. He’s then lead the the solitary cell of the Joker.....and then Batman shows up. 

Scarecrow proceeds to use the fear frequency on both him and on Robin, when the latter shows up. Batman manages to fight off the worst of it, but when Jason chases the Scarecrow out of the building and onto the rope Scarecrow was using to escape, the frequency overcomes him, he loses his balance, and he starts falling. 

Batman manages to rescue him, though. 

On an unrelated note, Child Services are worried about the fact that Jason keeps falling asleep in class. 

Gordon and Bullock go out for dinner and have a little chat; Mayor Hill hires a hit out on Bullock.

Meanwhile, Batman tells Crane’s backstory to Robin, who suggests that Crane might be hanging out at his old house. Batman dismisses this, which is unfortunate, since Crane is, in fact, hanging out there. 

Crane is reading his psychology textbook to his little skull head. The man is really weird. I’ll also note that his textbook does actually contain a few words I’m not familiar with, which is impressive. 

Crane then determines that he’ll have to get rid of Batman first if he wants to kill off all the other villains, and goes out to do just that. 

Commissioner Gordon calls in Batman and Robin and tells them that the Scarecrow is attacking a zoo. Batman tells Robin to go home; he thinks the case is too dangerous for Jason. 

Batman goes to the zoo, and is increasingly affected by fear. When he reaches the crocodile pit, the fear is so overwhelming that he loses his balance and starts to fall in. 

Meanwhile, Jason has disobeyed orders and gone to Crane’s old house. The Scarecrow promptly attacks him as Batman falls into the crocodile exhibit....and the issue ends on a cliffhanger. Ooof. 

Flash 2021 Annual 

SPOILERS!

Man, Wally West makes the weirdest faces in this confessional. 

Barry, Ollie, and Mr. Terrific talk technobabble. 

Good news! It turns out Wally’s not a murderer anymore! HURRAH! 

Roy is alive again! YAY! 

Barry and Ollie are also making weird faces. 

Ollie really wants to save Roy from the speed force explosion that will kill everybody at Sanctuary, but Barry says there’s nothing they can do. Ollie doesn’t like this explanation.

Also, Barry’s powers suddenly start fading. 

Wally makes another weird face as he and Roy talk. 

Hey, Savitar’s back! And looking a lot more attractive than the last time I saw him. 

Turns out that he’s been causing all the weird problems with the Speed Force in this arc. It’s appropriate for him, I think. 

Roy and Wally team up to fight Savitar, who goes on a villainous monologue about how he’s going to eat the speed force so he can become it. 

There’s some more technobabble about the Speed Force. Apparently, if they don’t cause the explosion that kills everyone at Sanctuary, Savitar’s plan to eat the Speed Force will destroy the Omniverse. 

Roy ends up setting up the necessary explosion to save the Omniverse. Good work, Roy! 

Aww, Roy and all the heroes are dead again....:(

Oh, well. At least Wally still isn’t a murderer now. 

Wally and Savitar arrive in the present, Wally decides to continue being the Flash, he and Savitar have a fight/race, Wally wins, and Savitar disappears. 

After Wally takes a nap, he and Barry have a cute talk, and Barry gives poor Ollie, who’s been through a lot, a hug. 

Wally goes home and reunites with his family. HURRAH!!!!

Heat Wave’s going to be in the next arc. It’ll be interesting to see how that goes. 

[ushijimaenthusiast]

hohohoho i did it. here’s a new ushiiwa based off a dream i had

ushiiwa on a family farm with confessions but an unhappy ending

[ao3]

The look of surprise on Hajime’s face is enough to halt Wakatoshi’s footsteps. Immediately, he’s regretting this surprise visit, wondering if maybe he should have called or not come at all. Hajime’s wide eyes and open mouth have sweat starting to build at the base of Wakatoshi’s spine, his hands going clammy. He itches to rub them off on his jeans but doesn’t want to draw any more attention to himself.

“‘Toshi,” Hajime whispers. His heart aches at hearing the nickname for the first time in years, and maybe, just maybe--

Hajime’s open mouth twists into a splitting grin, and he rushes from the stable door towards Wakatoshi and throws his arms around Wakatoshi as best he can. He’s inches shorter and smaller in more than one way, but the hug is so overwhelming Wakatoshi can do nothing but stand there. He feels like he’s on fire.

Hajime steps away before Wakatoshi can return the hug, but the smile on his face makes him seem like he doesn’t mind. Instead, his hands trail down Wakatosh’s arms slowly, little sparks firing off with every caress until they disappear right before Wakatoshi’s hands. His stomach roils at the thought of them not holding hands right now.

Instead, he pulls back and shoves his sweaty palms into his pockets, and tries to offer his own smile. He’s not sure how successful it is, but Hajime’s smile doesn’t dim.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asks, rocking back on his heels.

Wakatoshi tries to brighten his smile as he shrugs nonchalantly. “I was in the neighborhood.”

Hajime barks out a laugh, throwing his head back and exposing the long column of his neck. The lightning tattoo Wakatoshi knows is there peeks out from under the collar of Hajime’s shirt. Wakatoshi has never seen the full thing in person but knows it stretches across his chest beautifully.

“You’re about a thousand miles from home if I’m not mistaken,” Hajime says, the smile turning softer. There’s a small fluttering feeling in Wakatoshi’s stomach that moves every time that smile is directed at him. “What really brings you all the way out here?”

Wakatoshi shrugs again and forces himself to look away from Hajime. They’re in one of the family’s many stables, this one holding the older horses on the grounds, the ones unable to breed or race anymore. According to Hajime’s mother, one of Hajime’s favorite horses is in here.

“I know you’re finally on a break from tour, and figured a friendly face might be a welcome sight.”

There’s that soft smile again. Wakatoshi’s insides flip and flop and he feels like he might be sick.

“I could. I really could.”

Hajime leads him out of the stables and back towards the giant three-story house their family resides in. They have a small lunch and catch up, and Wakatoshi does his best to keep that smile on Hajime’s face. After lunch, Hajime takes him back out to the stables to meet the horses. Hajime’s favorite is indeed in the one they met in, a black Appaloosa with what almost looks like snowfall covering his entire back, named Godzilla.

Wakatoshi eyes him wearily. “Really?”

Hajime grins brightly. “We got him when I was a kid. He didn’t last long as a racer but I couldn’t part with him. He’s practically my baby.”

The horse sniffs at Wakatoshi’s hand but otherwise ignores him in favor of Hajime’s attention.

“I was gonna take him out before you showed up, but I can always do that later. How long are you here for anyway?”

“Just a couple of days.” Hajime gives a goodbye kiss to Godzilla and leads them out of the stables and back into the bright sunshine. “Your mother is letting me stay in the guest house, if that’s alright with you.”

“Yeah man, that’s fine! I’m surprised she didn’t offer one of our guest rooms in the main house.”

Wakatoshi cringes inwardly. “She did, but I didn’t want to intrude that much.”

“You’re not intruding man. You’re practically family.”

Something swells in Wakatoshi’s chest, almost choking him. Hajime doesn’t see him falter in his steps as they walk along a path leading through the property’s gardens.

They go back to easier topics, safer ones. Hajime talks about escapades that happened on tour, and Wakatoshi fills him in on their friend’s shenanigans back home.

As they walk they drift closer and closer together, and Wakatoshi has to swallow the bile that rises in his throat as he itches to wrap an arm around Hajime’s shoulders.

Hajime’s life on tour sounds so exciting and extravagant that Wakatoshi has no idea how he could compare. It doesn’t matter that they’ve labeled each other best friends, it doesn’t matter that they’ve known one another for years. They’ve drifted apart ever since Hajime’s music career kicked off. They haven’t even seen each other in person in who knows how long. Touring kept Hajime away from back home, and work kept Wakatoshi from traveling. This is the first long break Hajime has had in years, and Wakatoshi only knows about it because of Hajime’s social media. There was no actual message to Wakatoshi. If anything, he’s being a creepy stalker and could be wholly unwanted here.

He starts to sweat again as they find a small fountain in the middle of the garden and Hajime goes to sit down. He pats the space next to him and Wakatoshi has no choice but to sit close. They’re so close he can feel the heat emitting from Hajime. He wants to puke.

The sun is starting to set, casting a blue hue over everything. It makes Wakatoshi feel like he’s in a dream.

Hajime sighs next to him.

“I really am glad you’re here,” he whispers. “I know I haven’t done much to keep in contact, and I’m sorry for that.”

“You’ve been busy,” Wakatoshi defends.

“Yeah, but I still could have called or something. Seeing you again makes me realize how much I missed you.”

Wakatoshi’s eyes go wide, not sure how to take that statement. He doesn’t want to say anything in case it’ll be the wrong thing, doesn’t want to alter the meaning dancing in his mind. Hajime’s shoulders rise in a tense breath, then slowly lower as he forces himself to relax.

He turns to Wakatoshi, his lips turned into something that’s not quite a frown, but definitely not a smile.

“I’m serious, ‘Toshi. You’re the one person I’ve missed the most, and I’m still having a hard time believing you came all the way out here to see me.”

“I’d do anything for you,” Wakatoshi blurts. He snaps his mouth shut, mentally cursing his traitorous mouth.

Hajime’s lips start to upturn at the corners, but it’s still not quite a smile. “I know. I know.” he scoots infinitesimally closer, pressing their thighs together and sending sparks flying through Wakatoshi. He doesn’t know what to do, with his hands, with his body. All he can do is stare at Hajime as he twists his body to fully look at Wakatoshi, the heat of their pressed thighs burning pleasantly. “Seeing you again ‘Toshi--” he breaks off with an unhappy laugh, then runs a hand over his face before standing from the bench. Wakatoshi’s thigh is now freezing cold. “Shit.”

He’s going to do it.

Wakatoshi stands from the bench and crowds into Hajime’s space, slowly reaching for his friend’s hands before gently pulling them from his face and into the chasm between them, their fingers intertwined. He doesn’t dwell too long on how perfect they fit together, and instead waits patiently for Hajime’s eyes to rise to meet his.

I’m going for it.

When Hajime’s face is at the perfect angle, his lips slightly parted and a wide, curious look shining in his eyes, Wakatoshi leans in just enough to kiss him.

It’s hardly a press of lips, barely a whisper of what Wakatoshi wishes it was, but it’s enough. It’s enough for them to realize what exactly is happening, and it’s slow enough to give Hajime time to pull back, to reject him.

He hopes his friend doesn’t. He hopes he was reading the situation correctly, wouldn’t know what to do if this was a mistake. He knows he wouldn’t stay another night if Hajime rejected him, and knows their friendship most likely wouldn’t survive.

Hajime pulls back, sucks in a breath. Wakatoshi loosens the grip on their hands and starts to lean away, his heart breaking into a million little pieces. Hajime’s fingers slip from his. Wakatoshi has to close his eyes and focus on swallowing the bile in his throat, his mind trying to formulate an apology that his mouth can’t get out.

And then--

Then arms are being thrown around his neck and something crashes against his lips and his body is being thrown backward with the weight of another body on his. His arms fly around Hajime’s waist instinctively to keep them together and from toppling over. His mind finally catches up, and instead of being just a wall Hajime is kissing, he responds.

Hajime lets out a moan when Wakatoshi starts to move, his hands rubbing up and down Hajime’s back as he pulls the other man tighter against him. Hajime goes so far as to lift a leg as if to wrap it around Wakatoshi. He does his best to grab the muscled thigh and keep it against him, needing as much of Hajime against him as he can get.

After a full minute (or two or five) of grinding against one another, of lips biting and sucking and dancing, they pull apart panting, Hajime’s eyes closed and lips turned into a soft version of his breathtaking grin. Wakatoshi has trouble keeping his own eyes open but doesn’t want to miss a second of the look of bliss on Hajime’s face. If this is a dream, he wants to savor everything.

Wakatoshi lets Hajime’s leg drop but wraps both arms around the smaller man until they’re resting around his hips, then leans away to give them both more air.

When Hajime opens his eyes, they’re glistening.

Wakatoshi opens his mouth to apologize, to beg for forgiveness, but Hajime just brightens his smiles and leans in and gives him a quick peck on the lips.

“That was more than I’ve ever imagined,” Hajime whispers.

“You’ve thought about that?”

“Of course,” Hajime scoffs, like what Wakatoshi said was the most ridiculous thing ever. “I’ve wanted to make out with you since we first met.”

“What?”

Despite the darkening hour, they’re close enough and there’s still just enough light for Wakatoshi to make out the blush highlighting Hajime’s cheeks.

“Dude you’re like, a Greek god. I’ve crushed on you since we met. Being away from you sucked, and seeing you today just brought everything to the surface. I knew I couldn’t go another day without doing anything.”

Wakatoshi can’t breathe. There’s no way this is real. There’s no way this is actually happening. There’s absolutely no way talented, kind, amazing Hajime could return his feelings.

“This has to be a dream.”

A hand gently cups his cheek, the rough thumb tracing his bottom lip.

“This is real. This is real.”

The sincerity on Hajime’s face has Wakatoshi crumbling. He tightens his grip around the other man’s waist and tugs him closer until they can kiss again. Hajime goes willingly, opening up beautifully underneath Wakatoshi as they move together, somehow knowing when to bite or suck or run a hand over a neck or lower to cup a handful of cheek. Their moaning is loud and unabashed, uncaring for who might hear or walk by. This is something they both need, both desperately want, and nothing is going to interrupt them.

Eventually, the need to breathe comes back to haunt them, and they pull apart gasping. Wakatoshi rests his forehead against Hajime’s and just drinks in the sight of him.

He can have this? He can enjoy this? The person he’s wanted for years, the person he’s admired and adored and encouraged--

“Enough of that,” Hajime whispers. “We’ll worry about the schematics later. For now, I think we should head inside, maybe get some dinner.”

“Netflix and chill.”

Hajime laughs, his body shaking with the intensity of it. Wakatoshi can feel his cheeks heat up from the stupid joke, but seeing Hajime laugh is worth it.

“Sure, man. We’ll see how it goes.”

Their hands stay clasped together as they make their way out of the garden and back to reality. The sounds of the farm make itself known first, then they run across stablehands and even Hajime’s father. The meeting is brief and slightly awkward as they don’t let go of one another, but the old man says nothing except to wish their evening well and that Hajime needs to help around some more tomorrow.

“Maybe tomorrow we can take out Godzilla and Nosferatu for a walk. If you like riding that is. Or if not then maybe we can go into town and shop, or--there’s a diner I know of that has amazing burgers, unless you’re still a vegetarian, and if that’s the case, maybe I could just make something for you.”

“It all sounds fantastic,” Wakatoshi interjects when Hajime stops to breathe. “I’m here for a week, so I’m sure we’ll have time to try all of that. And no, I’m not still a vegetarian. I’ve found plant-based meat just doesn’t taste the same.”

Hajime sighs in relief, a smirk playing at his lips. “Good. Because I know something you wouldn’t be able to eat if you were still a vegetarian.”

His mouth falls open at the innuendo, and Hajime breaks away laughing, his form racing back towards the house.

When he’s finally able to move, Wakatoshi takes his time making his way up the path to the house, not sure if he can handle this side of his best friend. He’s heard enough dirty jokes and innuendos from his friends back home, and from his time spent in locker rooms, but it hits differently coming from Hajime. It’s… hotter. It makes his pants tight and his stomach coil and a want build in him that he’s never felt before.

Inside the brightly lit house, he follows the sound of Hajime’s laughter to the kitchen, where his mother and another woman stand cutting and prepping food.

“Hello, Wakatoshi,” Hajime’s mother calls. She’s shorter than her son, but her smile is wide and beautiful and it’s clear to see which parent he takes after. “I hope you’ve been enjoying your day.”

He nods. “It’s been pleasant. Everything here is very beautiful.”

“Aw, thank you. We try our best, but it takes a lot of work.”

Hajime steals a baby carrot from the mess on the island while his mother is distracted. The other woman slaps his hand with a spatula as he giggles his way away from them. He comes to lean against Wakatoshi’s side, the carrot half out of his mouth as he turns to offer a small tomato to Wakatoshi. But instead of just handing it off, he holds it close to Wakatoshi’s lips, staring at him expectantly.

Not knowing what else to do, he keeps his eyes on Hajime as he opens his mouth and lets the tomato slip between his lips. It’s done slow enough that Wakatoshi is able to taste the saltiness of Hajime’s fingers, feel a callus scrape against his lower lip.

Their eyes stay locked as Wakatoshi slowly chews the tomato, the burst of sweet acidity refreshing, but a part of him is craving salt.

Hajime finishes his carrot and is the first to look away, his cheeks reddening beautifully.

The other woman clears her throat and the two men turn to look at the women. “That was very cute. Now, y’all are either gonna stay and help or can go somewhere else until dinner is ready.”

“We’re gonna go,” Hajime manages to choke out. His mother laughs as he grabs Wakatoshi’s hand and bodily drags him out of the kitchen and through a maze of rooms. They reach the stairs and Hajime tugs him up to the third floor before they enter a room near the back of the house.

It’s all windows, even half the ceiling is glass. The only lights come from the lighting covering the grounds, and it’s low enough that it doesn’t deter from the brightness of the stars overhead.

Hajime pulls him to the bed in the far corner of the room until they’re sitting side by side staring out the windows.

Their thighs are pressed together, their shoulders burning points of contact. Wakatoshi starts to resist the urge to wrap his arm around Hajime but gives in after another silent second. Hajime immediately leans into the embrace, letting out a soft sigh that sends shivers down Wakatoshi’s spine.

“I can’t tell you how happy I am that you showed up,” Hajime whispers. He sneaks a hand between them and rests it on Wakatoshi’s thigh, the fingers digging into the fabric of his jeans.

“It’s like, everything clicked into place.”

“I’m glad,” Hajime scoffs, but Wakatoshi continues. “Really. I wasn’t sure how you’d take it, me showing up unannounced. Your mother assured me it would be fine, and she and your father helped get me out here. And then seeing you in the stables, I couldn’t tell if you were happy or just shocked. I was afraid you’d turn me away.”

“That’s never gonna happen.”

Hajime’s voice is so resolute that Wakatoshi can do nothing but believe him.

They lean closer together, Hajime’s head fitting perfectly on Wakatoshi’s shoulder, and his arm wrapped snuggly around the smaller man. They sit and watch the night until they’re called down for dinner.

It’s a raucous affair. It’s not just Hajime’s family that sits to eat, but any worker or stablehand still on property that hasn’t gone home for the evening. At the table, in a moment of bravery, Wakatoshi offers his lap for Hajime to sit on in an attempt to save a seat for someone else. It earns a round of laughter that has him hunching in on himself, but the chaste kiss Hajime gives him has his embarrassment floating away.

Dessert comes after, naturally, a slew of pies and cakes and even homemade ice cream. Hajime tells him it’s all because he’s back home and everyone went a little wild, that it’s not usually this extravagant. But they both sit back happily and let their dishes be piled high with sweets.

Wakatoshi can’t remember the last time he enjoyed a dinner like this. The dinners he has with his friends are few and far between and don’t feel the same without everyone there. Hajime sitting next to him just feels right and he’s loath to admit how long it took him to gather his courage and reach for this. He can’t believe how many years he missed out on being able to hold or kiss Hajime, but figures maybe, just maybe, the wait makes it all the sweeter.

Everyone cleans and stores away any leftover food, before departing to their respective places.

It’s late, and even though he doesn’t want to, Wakatoshi knows he should sleep soon. It’s been a long day, a whirlwind of emotions. He wants to take a long, warm shower before crawling into bed, but also doesn’t want to let Hajime out of his sight.

If he’s right, the way Hajime clings to him has him feeling the same.

Once everything is put away, Wakatoshi doesn’t say anything as he grabs Hajime’s hand and pulls him out of the house and towards the guest house, a quaint one-story building surrounded by flowers and ivy. It looks like something that should be in a magazine, and Wakatoshi can’t believe he’s allowed to stay in it.

They don’t say anything as they enter the darkened house. It’s almost instinctive as they cling to one another and Hajime picks their way through the darkened house to the one and only bedroom.

It’s easy to fall in bed together. It’s easy to shed clothing and wrap arms and legs around one another. The feel of Hajime pressing against him has his skin burning and tingling in all the right ways.

They don’t go past grinding against each other, but it’s the most connected to another person Wakatoshi has ever felt, the most intimate he’s ever been with someone else.

It surprises Wakatoshi when he’s turned into the little spoon and Hajime makes it his job to wrap his arms and legs around him as best he can. It should be awkward or uncomfortable, but all it does is make Wakatoshi feel loved.

Hajime presses a kiss to the base of Wakatoshi’s neck. “Tomorrow you’re gonna meet Nosferatu. He’s an ugly son of a bitch but super sweet, you’ll like him. He and Godzilla are like, best friends--”

“Is this you calling me ugly?”

Hajime shakes with laughter. “No, no man! Remember. You’re like, a Greek god, remember? Too beautiful for me.” Another kiss is placed.

Wakatoshi wiggles around until he can grip Hajime’s hand. “I don’t know how to ride a horse.”

“I’ll teach you.”

“What if I’m too heavy for him?”

“I told you, he’s super ugly. Part of that is because he’s freakin’ huge.”

“Nosferatu wasn’t that big though, was he?”

“Oh shut up, I was like, seventeen when I named him--”

“Have you even seen the film?”

Hajime shakes again with his laughter, jostling Wakatoshi. “Of course I have, you jerk. Monster classics are my jam.”

“I thought your jam was just Godzilla.”

“It’s a classic monster movie. Thus, part of my jam.”

Wakatoshi shakes with laughter now, feeling utterly happy at this silly little banter. He tugs Hajime’s arms tighter around him. He’s already starting to sweat where Hajime’s chest is pressed against his back, and there’s a kink forming in his neck where it rests on Hajime’s arm, but he doesn’t mind it. He feels totally and completely happy.

He doesn’t register it when their laughter dwindles into whispers and mumbles, or when his eyes stop opening, or when Hajime’s lips don’t move away from the back of his neck.

He just drifts off.

~*~*~

Wakatoshi wakes slowly, taking a deep lungful of air through his nose as his eyes open and he’s greeted by the blinding red glare of his alarm clock. The numbers swim together, and before he can figure out what time it is his stomach is churning, forcing him to roll out of bed and stumble to his tiny bathroom, the lid barely flipped up before he’s spewing into it.

It takes a minute until everything is out and he’s able to breathe without choking. He flushes the toilet, resting his head against the lid while his body wakes and settles.

He hasn’t had a reaction like this in ages. He’s been good at keeping everything bottled up, keeping it all under control.

But maybe it’s because he saw him on TV last night, or heard his friends talking about how lucky they are to have known him, how happy they are for where he’s gotten.

Wakatoshi is happy for him, of course. He’s happy and thrilled and so, so proud of how far his friend has come in his career. He’s able to travel and share his music with millions of people, and millions of people love him just as much as Wakatoshi does.

But that’s just the thing.

Wakatoshi is just like everyone else. He’s no one special, no one to write home about. Hajime had forgotten about him years ago.

He washes his mouth and crawls back into bed, not wanting to close his eyes again and see the images of his dream. The feelings from the dream might lend to it being called a nightmare, but there’s still a deep, dark part of Wakatoshi that cherishes the feelings. The want and need, the feeling of being loved so deeply it makes his toes curl. He wants it so badly he’d do anything to get it back. To get it to begin with.

Not like it matters, though. It was just a dream.

Just a dream.

[naferty]

I know the holidays are over with but Arthur Christmas is on Netflix and I did the mistake of watching it so this is partly inspired by that and partly inspired by @summerpipedream’s wonderful fic.

So here, tiny seven-year-old Tony wrote a letter to have a friend for yule. Thor received the letter and took it upon himself to grant Tony’s little wish and goes to him the day after to be his friend for the whole day. He goes a little further when he sees how Howard treats him and decides to give him another little gift, a tour to his father’s Midgardian workshop. The very place where Odin created the gifts to have delivered every year. 

It’s incredible to look at. Tony can’t get enough. He runs, he prods, he asks all the questions. He loves it so much he asks if he can stay. Promises to be of help. Promises he won’t be a burden, just please let him stay. 

Thor is at a loss. He brought little Tony to make him happy, yes, but it’s meant to be temporary. A small light to brighten his day before he’s taken back to his unhappy life as the child of an uncaring man, broken and ruined by the loss of his wife. Odin is no longer in charge of the workshop. That leadership went to Thor, so ultimately what he says goes. He can and should order Tony back home, but in a shocking turn Loki steps in and fights him tooth and nail to allow Tony to stay. 

As someone who grew up without his father’s love, Loki knows more than most of what Tony feels, and if he can do something about it he will. 

Thus, Tony grows up in the north pole. The old workshop becomes his home. Thor and Loki become his uncles by proxy, but it’s really Loki that stops him from losing fingers. Tony is homeschooled. The technology of Asgard his new toys and every year he pulls his weight, or at least tries to, during the holiday seasons. 

The first year in his new home he’s helping read the letters and wrap the toys. They’re tasks he takes very seriously. Menial work compared to what Loki and Thor do, but it’s work nonetheless and he’s damn proud of it. 

One particular letter gets his attention out of the giant pile. He reads it over and over, wondering if this is the old letter he had written just last year and no one threw away, or if this is another child who’s just as lonely as Tony had been. 

Steve G. Rogers is scrawled on the bottom. Messy and in red. He wants an item for his mother and a friend for himself. He’s been good all year. Has helped with chores and has gotten good grades. All he wants is a friend to have fun with. 

Tony stares at the letter for the longest time. So much so he ends up late for dinner and Loki comes up to his little office to check on him. Loki finds him still fixated on the letter. Hasn’t budged an inch. 

“Little Star?” Loki calls to him. 

Tony hums in acknowledgment but otherwise continues re-reading the letter. 

“What does the letter say?” Loki comes in and sits next to the small genius. 

“Steve wants a friend.” 

Loki reads over the letter, no doubt thinking of the similarities between this one and Tony’s previous. “What are you thinking?” 

Tony frowns. A sight to see on an eight-year-old. “I want to be his friend.” 

“What do you plan to do?” 

Tony looks up to him. Giant eyes glistening with purpose, but also with worry. Something no youngster should be feeling. “Can I go to him? Be his friend like Thor did?” 

Loki smiles at him. “You can.” 

“I’ll play with him. We’ll play tag. Hide and seek.” 

“Sounds acceptable.” 

“I’ll be his best friend.” 

“He will be lucky to have you as a friend, but Little Star, how long will you be his friend?“ 

"What do you mean?" 

"You won’t stay there forever. Your home is here in the north. A long way away from him." 

Tony’s lower lip sticks out slightly. "I can’t bring him back with me?" 

"No. Read his letter, Darling. He wishes to help his mom. He clearly loves her and she him. He won’t leave her." 

Tony looks at the letter again. Thinking long on what to do. "I’ll be his best friend for all of yule. The best he’s ever had." 

Loki holds him close with one arm. "All of yule? Every single day?”

“Yes! Every day." 

"Sounds like the perfect gift for him.” It’s funny, Loki thinks. The child wrote to santa, but it’s Anthony that will give him the very gift he wants. 

So on the first morning, tiny little Steve Rogers wakes up to gifts under his tiny tree. A little strange since they’re not supposed to be there until the twenty-fifth, but they’re there nonetheless. All of them for his mom. None for him. He’s not disappointed. This is what he asked for after all. 

He doesn’t see his gift until he walks out of his home and sees a lone kid playing with the snow surrounding their neighborhood. Steve has never seen this kid before. He’s a complete stranger, and yet the kid walks up to him like a friend. 

“Hi, I’m Tony.” The kid smiles. 

Steve smiles back. His ma always told him to be polite.  She also said not to talk to strangers, but this boy didn’t seem dangerous. “I’m Steve.” 

“Would you like to play with me?” 

How could Steve say no? 

They play together for the longest time that day. They play tag with Steve waddling around determinedly with his layers of clothing while Tony dashes through with worryingly less. They throw snowballs at each other. Build a snowman. Create snow angels. Steve’s cheeks are flushed from the cold and from the joy of having so much fun with a friend. 

When his ma calls him back hours later Steve is understandably heartbroken. He has to say goodbye to his new friend, but Tony promises to see him again the next day. Steve holds on to that promise. 

The next day Steve wakes up bright and early. He powers through breakfast, reassures his mom he didn’t catch a cold from staying so long outside yesterday and rushes through the door. He scans the area rapidly for his friend, crestfallen when he sees no sign of him anywhere. 

He immediately brightens when he hears, “Steve, over here!” 

Then brightens again the next day when he hears it again. 

Then the next day. 

Then on eve and christmas day. 

Then on new years.

But on the first of the next year Tony doesn’t come back. He doesn’t return on the second, nor the third. For the first month, he doesn’t see his friend again. The second or third month either. By the six he’s given up. On the twelfth month, he writes a letter again. Asks santa to please bring him back his friend Tony. 

On the twenty-first of december he sees Tony again and Steve has never been so happy. 

On the first of the next year, Tony is gone again but Steve isn’t sad. He’ll just have to ask santa to bring him back again. 

And Tony does return. Every year when the workshop receives Steve’s letter, Tony is there in a heartbeat. Every single year without question and hesitation. He makes sure to give Steve the best friend he could ask for. Then one year… no letter came. Tony digs through and scours the thousands of letters, but not a single one is from Steve. 

Unwarranted, Tony goes anyway. What he finds is Steve hanging out with another teen. Friendly, very close, like peas from the same pod and glued to the hip. The best of friends. 

Just like that, Steve doesn’t need a friend brought by the holidays. He’s gone and finally made his own. Thus, he no longer needed to write a letter. He didn’t seem to believe in the holiday anymore, too. 

Tony smiles at the sight. Both happy for Steve and very much sad. Steve is just as important to him as Tony had grown to be for Steve. But unlike Steve, Tony is and always has been meant to be temporary. He was, after all, only a gift from some mystical being of the north. 

So Tony returns back to the workshop and continues to grow. Being raised by Asgardians means being the best Midgardian he could be. Loki pushes his studies. Thor pushes his skills. Jarvis, the android built to be his caretaker when Loki and Thor are requested back home, pushes his mannerisms. You can be the greatest genius and you can be best skilled but you’re nothing if you’re not respectful, after all. 

Tony grows and takes over the workshop. Improves upon it. Creates the Iron Legion in order to keep the operation running with better numbers. Odin and old St. Nick might be the faces, but Tony is the operator and he has grown to handle it all on his own. 

Thor pats him proudly when he declares the northern midgardian workshop Tony’s. “Midgard is well handled with you, and there are plenty of other locations I must attend to. She is all yours, Anthony.” 

Loki gifts him with a ceremonial knife when he hears the news. “There is little danger this far north, but you never know who could come knocking behind this door. Use this well.” 

Tony keeps the place running with little issue. For years it goes like clockwork. With no distractions and no obligations outside of the workshop, memories of Steve easily fade away. They’re good memories when feeling nostalgic, but unnecessary on the grand scheme of things. 

That is until the workshop receives a letter. A particular letter that Jarvis himself hands over to Tony. 

“I believe you might want to read this, Sir.” 

And Tony does. It’s a familiar letter talking about a topic that sparks recollection of a time when he had only been, what he considers now, a baby. At thirty-eight-years-old, that time felt forever ago but the memories came back easily enough. As if it had only been yesterday. 

At the end of the letter is the familiar signature. Mature now and very much professional. 

Steve G. Rogers

Tony smiles down at the letter. “Hi to you, too, Steve.” 

[usermischief]

I think I saw something about your birthday coming up in your tags yesterday, so.... here I am.

Happy Birthday, @mercheswan !

This isn’t how Stiles planned the evening. Not even a little bit. Liam was supposed to be at Mason's for an overnight play date, however, Mason decided to eat a Play-Doh cake his sister made him, and now he's vomiting and grounded which means Stiles doesn't have the night off, which means he had to cancel the party and his date with Theo. 

Yay.

Who decided that he needed a baby brother with fourteen? Stiles begged for a puppy, instead, he got Liam. The little shithead can be lucky he's cute because otherwise, Stiles would've dropped him on the neighbour's doorstep. The old couple with their seven dogs adored Liam. They surely would've watched him the night even though they hated Stiles, who, apparently, is too defiant and has behavioural issues. The dislike is mutual, though, hence he’s not all too bothered about not getting candy on Halloween. Liam doesn’t like them all too much either. It has less to do with brotherly solidarity than the fact that their house smelled. Well, and that they made him help clean away dog poop. Which is rich coming from a boy who wears diapers at night. 

The doorbell rings and Liam whips his head around. “Pizza!”

Stiles huffs out a breath. “Watch your movie,” he tells him, still annoyed at the fact that all his friends can go to a party tonight while he’s babysitting his little brother. They need a babysitter they can rely on, which Stiles told his dad, but what does he know, right? He’s just a teenager. This household will collapse the second Stiles moves out to go to college. 

With a sigh, he crawls out of the giant blanket fort spanning over half the living room. A blanket fort Stiles will have to clean up by himself in the morning because he’s seventeen and Liam is three and the world is unfair. His mood is freefalling when he snatches the money their dad left him for dinner tonight. Before he rips open the door, Stiles tries to remind himself that the delivery guy is the last person who’s at fault for his current situation. He rips the door open. “Finally, you’re fuc-” Stiles cuts himself off mid-sentence and stares at the figure in front of him. 

Theo raises a brow. “Yes?” 

“I thought you’re the delivery guy.”

“Ah,” Theo says, tapping a finger against the strap of his gym bag. “Well, I only brought myself, but I can threaten the delivery service if you want.” 

Stiles snorts out a laugh. No matter how much Theo hates his parents, he will use their status as lawyers whenever possible. The Raekens have quite the reputation in Beacon Hills for multiple generations. They’re old money, stuck up, and exceptionally unhappy with every decision Theo has made ever since he’s able to make his own decisions. Dating the sheriff’s son is about as traitorous as wanting to major in biology. They even went so far as to deny Theo his college fund. He turned around and secured himself a football scholarship.

And Stiles is mad about having to babysit his little brother. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks, pushing the bill in the pocket of his jeans. “Didn’t you get my texts?”

Theo grins and steps closer. “Can I get a kiss before I answer?” 

Sighing dramatically, Stiles curls his arms around Theo’s shoulders. “I don’t know… do you deserve one?” 

With a roll of his eyes, Theo kisses him, curling one hand around the nape of his neck like he always does. His slightly possessive streak never ceases to make Stiles’ whole body tingle with excitement. Theo deepens the kiss, pulling Stiles closer by the hip. If he had the chance, he would drag Theo upstairs and have his way with him. However, Liam is watching a movie in a blanket fort Stiles built. It might end up being the best thing he ever did, or it’ll be a hazard. 

He presses his mouth firmly against Theo’s before he pulls back. “So? What are you doing here?”

Theo kisses the corner of his mouth. “I’m spending the night with my boyfriend and his little brother.” Grinning, he kicks the door shut with his foot. Despite being exclusive for a bit over a month now, Stiles’ insides still turn to mush whenever Theo calls him his boyfriend. He doubts he’ll ever get used to it. 

“And the post-game party?” Stiles asks.

“There will be another one,” Theo tells him, walking past him and down the hall. “I’d rather see that magnificent blanket fort you built because I still have my doubts.” Looking over his shoulder, he winks at Stiles. 

Rude. 

"A little more faith, please?" Stiles follows him into the living room, hearing a mock-impressed whistle. 

Liam pokes his head out of the fort's questionable entrance. "No pizza?"

"No, Squirt, just me."

"I'm hungry," Liam whines, crossing his arms over his chest with an impressive pout. Great. That's exactly what's missing this evening.

Theo throws his gym bag on the only arm chair that's not included in the fort and turns to Stiles. "How long are you waiting?" He fishes for the menu still lying on the coffee table and pulls his phone out, eyebrow inquiringly raised. 

"I don't know. Almost an hour, I think." 

After pecking him on the lips once more, Theo walks out of the living room, phone already pressed against his ear. Stiles watches him until he's vanished around a corner. That's somewhat endearing, even if a little over the top. But Stiles isn't going to complain, especially if the pizza arrives in the very near future. Liam is the worst when he's hungry. 

Stiles crawls back into the blanket fort glancing around. Yeah, Theo should easily fit in here. They probably just need a third pillow in case he decided to stay over.

Crinkling catches his attention. Liam is fumbling with a bag of Oreos. Quite unsuccessfully, one might add. Stiles still snatches it out of his hands. "No sweets before dinner."

Liam's bottom lip trembles precariously, and he seems to be about ready to wail loud enough that the whole neighbourhood will hear what a terrible brother Stiles is. Luckily, Theo pokes his head in the fort. "Ten minutes," he announces, "and it's on the house."

Stiles rolls his eyes, but he can't stop smiling. "Thank god for your lawyer parents."

Theo purses his lips, and Stiles kisses him. 

"No!" Liam grabs Stiles by his shirt, pulling him away with surprising strength - especially for someone who couldn't open the Oreos a second ago - and climbs onto his lap. "My Stiles," he adds, pressing his cheek against Stiles' chest, and continues to watch his movie. 

Theo chuckles. "How very protective."

"Shut up and get in the blanket fort."

Laughing, Theo slips through the narrow gap and drops onto his side. He fits perfectly on the blanket Stiles laid out for himself. Maybe, this night isn’t going to be so disastrous after all. Maybe even waking up with sore bones from sleeping on the ground will be worth it. Plus, Stiles surely can persuade Theo to help him clean this mess in the morning.  He smiles at him. "Thanks for coming over."

Theo pushes himself up and kisses Stiles’ shoulder. "Always."

[justcafewriter]

thank you for the request bby! I actually only receive 3 characters for HCs but I will make an exception for this one ❤️.

Kita Shinsuke

(I couldn't find his gif 😭)

Kita is the sweetest boyfriend you could ask.

He knows your desire to be a great figure skater and he will support you to reach your dream, mentally and physically.

He will constantly asking how's your practice and when you have a competition coming, he will make sure to watch it and to support you.

His conversation with you will also including the sweet words of, "Please take care and rest well after your practice. i love you ❤️." and also "I know that your performance gonna be good and I'll be there to watch it. good luck, ❤️."

He even will learn about massage because he knew that you could injure yourself when practice. He'd come to your house while holding a massage certificate and told you that he'd treat you if you ever injure your muscles.

"Shin-chan, how could you think of this?" You were in awe when you saw the certificate which Kita holding.

"I've seen in the internet that you could have a minor injure of pain back, ankle or wrist sprains. I mean that doesn't mean I want you to experience that no, I mean.." Kita was flustered as he tried to reasoning his action and you couldn't help but to fall deeper at his cuteness.

You move your head near his before you cup his face and kiss nose down to his lips. It was a short kiss, more like a pecks but it was enough to make Kita become a messy ball of shyness.

"I really am lucky to have you as my boyfriend, Shin-chan." You said to him as he caressing your cheek lightly.

"That goes with me too. I love you, sweetheart." He responded before he lean in and took your lips with his.

Haiba Lev

LEV IS A SO DAMN CUTE AND SWEET BALL OF BOYFRIEND. fight me if you think the otherwise

The first time he know about your passion toward figure skating, his eyes will light up and he will enthusiastically supporting you.

This giant baby will come to your practice whenever he has a time. He and his sister will come to your competition, he even will ask his volleyball teammates to come and support you.

Lev will also rewarding you for all the hard work you put. He will treat you to your favorite restaurant/cafe, he will bought you your favorite dessert and he will even help you with your practice if you ever need help.

But, he will be very sad if you become too hard on yourself especially when you starve yourself because you said you look big (which is not!).

"Baby, I don't know how you could do that to your beautiful self. I.. I'm sad because you need to starve yourself like this and you look unhappy because of this "diet" you talk about." You could see tears gathering inside Lev's beautiful eyes, it makes your heart feel pain yet warm at the same time.

"Lev, I'm sorry, I- I don't mean to starve myself, I.. I just want to look beautiful." You said, your tears already left your beautiful eyes which Lev wiped with his thumb.

"I hope you can see what I see. I hope you can see how beautiful you are to me and how I admiring you and your passion. You're so beautiful especially when you skate and you look so happy, so graceful yet so powerful." He speak softly yet his words giving you so much strength.

You cry at his remark and Lev hug you tight. He calm you down by patting your back and kiss your crown, and it did things. You finally calm down and you feel loved once again, the feel that you almost forget but you're lucky to have Lev remind you of it again.

Akaashi Keiji

This man will makes you feel like you're the most loved person in the world.

He will showered you with affection through a small action of his.

He knows about your desire to be a figure skater, he even will come to the skater shop only to buy you the dream shoes that you eager to have.

When you accidentally sprain your ankle and feel disappointed of yourself, he will be there to raise your moral and your motivation up. He's a great listener and he will listen to your rumbles for hours without even complaining.

He will ask you about your progress after you tell him that you will enter the local competition and will accompanying you if you even have a late night practice.

He will bring you food too, he will reasoning that the food he bring is safe for your diet and you won't need to starve yourself because that's the opposite of what diet means.

When you ask about his opinion on your moves/dance he will be really honest with you because he know that it was what you want to hear.

He will tell you if he think you can jump higher, he'd praised you when your moves looks so elegant. He totally give you a honest feedback.

When you suddenly feel crappy about yours he will be there for you, like.

"I know that to jump higher you need more power and balance to it, and I know you can do it." He will tell you one day when you talk that you haven't make your moves/dances to 100% because you can't jump higher.

You're inside his brace as both of you lying down on his bed. His hands wrapping your body tightly to his.

"How can you feel so sure about it?" You asked.

"Because it's what I believe. I believe that you can do that." Akaashi words are simple but it makes a big impact to you. It makes you want to believe on his words too.

"Well, I think I can do that." You said as you look up to him. "Especially if you give me kisses now." You said playfully and you could see a pink color start to creep on Akaashi's cheeks.

He look at you before he said, "Well, if you insist." Then he cup your face as he kiss your lips ever so tenderly.

Sugawara Koshi

Suga is a supportive boyfriend and he will extremely boast your moral and confidence.

He will always looks at you with awe. He will praise you when you did a good job or when you pull out a difficult moves.

He will always make time to watch your performance or to just seeing you practice.

He's the sweetest okay.

After you finish your competition, he will always prepare something for you. Either it was a bunch of delicious home made cooking, or a comfortable movie night or your favorite, a cuddle.

It was one of the day when you just finish your competition. You failed to get the first place because your balance a bit off after your jump. Suga knows that deep inside you feel frustrated but you didn't want to show it in public.

So once both of you arrived at your share house, you excuse yourself to sleep. Suga help you with your things and told you to rest.

Not long after, he will come to the bedroom, he'd find you in curled up position. He will walk to the bed and invite himself to join you.

"Baby, you want a cuddle?" He asked softly.

You didn't answer him, instead, you move and rolled around so your face facing Suga's chest. You put your arm around his slim waist, then you pushed yourself closer to him, inhaling his scent after that, a comfortable scent which always makes you relax.

You feel your head being patted lovingly by Suga, his other hand embracing your body tightly. It feels like he tried to get your broken pieces together, he tried to fix the disappointed you have for yourself.

No words exchanges between you too but both of you know that your mutual feelings being spoken to each other, and both of you feel grateful to have each other in that moment.

[jammylittlefingers]

My adorable giant 2 month old is already 15 lbs! 😭 15! Lbs! I’ve been forced to retire all her 0-3 month clothes. I can squish her into them okay still actually, but being in clothes that are tight at all makes her unhappy. And nobody wants that. Having a tiny baby was stressful, w extra check ups and feeding pressure, but man having a big baby is saaaaad. I feel like things are moving in fast forward. E didn’t hit this size until 6+ months. I’m not prepared. Emotionally. Especially unfair to be zooming along like this w a last baby. I want to savor all this stuff! I’m really trying to get on team “just two babies and we’re done”. At least, logically, even if my heart might always feel otherwise. Just say no to the possibility of morning sickness, right? And all those pregnancy aches and pains. Not to mention the stress and pain of labor and birth. I hate cooking and cleaning, I do not need to add any more of that. And I like to read and craft and be alone sometimes, and that will all be in very short supply until everyone is much bigger. Plus, airplane tickets, and Christmas presents, and paying for college. Yikes. Two. Two is good. It is not just one, and that was my main goal. Right? Right.

[papermoonloveslucy]

LOOK! TV: TURN ON OR TURN OFF?

September 7, 1971

The September 7, 1971 issue of LOOK Magazine (volume 35, number 18) dedicated their entire issue to the medium of television. Inside, there is a feature titled “Lucille Ball, the Star That Never Sets...” by Laura Bergquist on page 54. 

The photograph on the cover is slightly distorted to give it the look of an image through a TV screen.  The shot was taken by Douglas Bergquist in January 1971. 

The issue presents a variety of viewpoints about the state of television. Is it ‘tired’ or is there an infusion of new energy to take it into the new decade? John Kronenberger writes an article that asks if cable television is the future. Hindsight tells us that it was not only the future, but is now the past. 

“Lucille Ball, the Star That Never Sets...” by Laura Bergquist. 

Bergquist first interviewed Lucille Ball in 1956 for the Christmas issue of Look. 

The photograph is by Douglas Kirkland, a Canadian-born photographer, who not coincidentally, also took the photograph used on the cover. This shot was taken in the garden of Ball’s home in June 1971.  At age 24, Kirkland was hired as a staff photographer for Look magazine and became famous for his 1961 photos of Marilyn Monroe taken for Look's 25th anniversary issue. He later joined the staff of Life magazine.

Bergquist launches the article talking about her friend Sally, who is besot with watching Lucille Ball reruns, preferring Lucy over the news. Under the headline, she sums up the purpose of her interview: “Sorry, Sally. But Lucy is a serious, unfunny lady. So how come she’s a top clown of the fickle tube for twenty years, seen at home 11 times weekly and in 77 countries?”  

LUCILLE BALL: THE STAR THAT NEVER SETS...

(Lucille Ball’s quotes are in BOLD. Footnote numbers are in parentheses.)

My neighbor Sally, nine, turns out to be a real Lucy freak. Though she likes vintage-house-wife I Love Lucy best, she'll watch Lucille Ball 11 times a week, if permitted. That's how often Madame Comedy Champ of the Tube, come 20 years this October, can be caught on my local box. Ten reruns, plus the current Here's Lucy on Monday night, CBS prime time. Friends, that's 330 weekly minutes of Lucy, which should be rank overexposure. Did you know that even the U.S. man-on-the-moon walkers slipped in ratings, second time around?

Quel mystery. Variety last fall announced that old-fashioned sitcoms and broad slapstick comedy are passé, given today's hip audiences. With one big exception - Lucy. When the third Lucy format went on in '68, reincarnating Miss Ball as a widowed secretary (with her real-life son, Desi Jr., now 18, and Lucie Jr., 20), Women's Wear Daily said not only were the kids no talent, but the show was "treacle." "One giant marshmallow," quoth the Hollywood Reporter, "impeccably professional, violence-free, non-controversial . . . 100% escapism." 

Miss Ball: "Listen, that's a good review. I usually get OK personal notices, but the show gets knocked regular."

So why does Sally, like all the kids on my block, love slapstick, non-relevant Lucy? "Because she's always scheming and getting into trouble like I do, and then wriggling her way out of it." A 44-year-old Long Island housewife: "Of course I watch. I should watch the news?" When the British Royal Family finally unbent for a TV documentary, what was the tribe watching come box-time? Lucy, over protests from Prince Philip. (1)

"I've been a baby-sitter for three generations," says Miss Ball briskly. "Kids watch me during the day [she outpulls most kiddy shows]. Women and older men at night. Teen-agers, no. They look at Mod Squad. Intellectuals, they read books or listen to records.... You know I even get fan mail from China?" MAINLAND CHINA? "Hong Kong, isn't that China?" No. "Where is it anyway?"

The Statistics on the Lucy Industry are numbing. In recent years, she has run in 77 countries abroad, including the rich sheikhdom of Kuwait, and Japan, where, dubbed in Japanese yet, she's been a long-distance runner for 12 years. Where are all those funny people of yesteryear - Jackie Gleason, the Smothers Brothers, Sid Caesar, the Beverly Hillbillies - old reliables like Ed Sullivan, Red Skelton? Gone, all gone, form the live tube - except for reruns dumped by sponsors, out of fashion, murdered in the ratings.

Even this interview is a rerun. Fifteen years ago, I sat in Miss Ball's old-timey movie-star mansion in Beverly Hills, wondering how much longer, oh Lord, could Lucy last? She has a different husband, a genial stand-up comic of the fast-gag Milton Berle school, Bronx-born Gary Morton, 49. He replaced Desi Arnaz, her volatile Cuban spouse (and costar and partner) of 20 years, who lives quietly in Mexico's Baja California, alongside a pool shaped like a guitar, with a second redhead wife. "Ever been here before?" asks Gary, now her executive producer, who's brightened the house decor. "Used to be funeral-parlor gray, right?"

Otherwise, the lady, like her show, seems preserved in amber. Though newly 60, she could be Sally's great-grandmother. Of a Saturday, she's unwinding from a murderous four-day workweek. Her pink-orange-fireball hair is up in rollers. Her black-and-blue Rolls-Royce, inherited from her friend, the late Hedda Hopper, is parked in the driveway. But in attitude and opinion, she comes across Madame Middle America, despite the shrewd show-biz exterior. Good egg. Believer in hard work, discipline, Norman Vincent Peale. Deadeye Dickstraight, she talks astonishingly unfunny - about Vietnam, Women's Lib, about which she feels dimly, marriage to Latins, books she toted up to her new condominium hideaway in Snowmass, Colo. "Snow" is her new-old passion, a throwback to her small-town Eastern childhood. For the first time in family memory, this lifelong workhorse actually relaxed in that 9,700-foot altitude for four months this year, learning to ski, reading Pepys, Thoreau, Shirley MacLaine's autobiography, "37 goddamned scripts, and all those Irvings" (Stone, Wallace, etc.). She had scouted for a mountain retreat far away from any gambling. Why? Is she against gambling? "No, I'm a sucker. I can't stay away from the tables."

From yellowing notes, I reel off an analysis by an early scriptwriter. Perhaps she comes by her comic genius because of some "early maladjustment in life, so you see commonplace things as unusual? To get even, to cover the hurt, you play back the unhappy as funny?"

Forget any deep-dish theorizing. "Listen, honey," says Miss B, drilling me with those big blue peepers, "you've been talking to me for four, five hours. Have you heard me say anything funny? I tell you I don't think funny. That's the difference between a wit and a comedian. My daughter Lucie thinks funny. So does Steve Allen, Buddy Hackett, Betty Grable."

BETTY GRABLE THINKS FUNNY? "Yeah. Dean Martin has a curly mind. oh, I can tell a funny story about something that happened to me. But I'm more of a hardworking hack with an instinct for timing, who knows the mechanics of comedy. I picked it up by osmosis, on radio and movie lots [she made 75 flicks] working with Bob Hope, Bert Lahr, the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges - didn't learn a thing from them except when to duck. Buster Keaton taught me about props. OK, I'm waiting."

Well, I hedge, I caught Miss Ball in a few funny capers on the Universal lot this week. Like one day, in her star bungalow, she throws a quick-energy lunch in the blender - four almonds, wild honey, water, six-year-old Korean ginseng roots, plus her own medicine, liver extract. "AAAGH," she gags, then peers in the mirror at her hair, which is a normal working fright wig, "Gawd," she moans, "it looks as if I'd poked my finger into an electric-light socket!" No boffo line, but her pantomimed horror makes me laugh out loud. Working, she is fearless - dangling from high wires, coping with wild beasts. She talks of animals she's worked with, chimps, bears, lions, tigers. "I love 'em all, especially the chimps, but you can't trust their fright or panic. Like that baby elephant who gave a press job to a guest actress." (2) What's a press job? "Honey, once an elephant puts his head down, he keeps marching, right through walls." Miss Ball puts her own head down, crooks an arm for a trunk, and voila, is an elephant. Funny as hell. So off-camera she's no great wit, but then is Chaplin?

Four days a week, through the Thursday night filming before a live audience, she labors like some hungry Depression starlet. Monday a.m., she sits at the head of a conference table, lined by 12 staffers, editing the script. Madame Executive Tycoon in charge of everything, overseeing things Desi used to do. Also the haus-frau, constantly opening windows for fresh air and emptying ashtrays. She wears black horn-rims, three packs of ciggies are at the ready. "Do I have to ask for a raise again?" she impatiently drills the writers, "I've done that 400 times." "QUIET!" she yells during rehearsal, perching in a high director's chair, a la Cecil B. DeMille. "Isn't somebody around here supposed to yell quiet?" She frets about the new set. "Those aisles - they're a mile and a half wide. What for?" The audience is too far away, she won't get the feedback from their laughs are her life's blood. (Once I hear Gary Morton on the phone, in his British-antiqued executive office, saying: "We need your laugh, honey. Go down to the set and laugh; that's an order.")

That physical quality about her comedy, a la the old silent movies or vaudeville - which were the big amusements of her youth - seems to transcend any language. (A Moscow acting school, I was told, shows old Lucy clips as lessons in comic timing.) So what did she learn from that great Buster Keaton?

"At Metro, I kept being held back by show-girl-glamour typing. I always wanted to do comedy. Buster Keaton, a friend of director Eddy Sedgwick, spotted something in me when I was doing a movie called DuBarry - what the hell was the name? - and kept nagging the moguls about what I could do. Now a great forte of mine is props. He taught me all about 'em. Attention to detail, that's all it is. He was around when I went out on a vaudeville tour with Desi with a loaded prop." What's that? "Real Rube Goldberg stuff. A cello loaded with the whole act - a seat to perch on, a violin bow, a plunger, a whistle, a horn. Honey, if you noodge it, you've lost the act. Keaton taught me your prop is your jewel case. Never entrust it to a stagehand. Never let it out of your sight when you travel, rehearse with it all week." Ever noodge it? "Gawd, yes. Happened at the old Roxy in New York. I was supposed to run down that seven-mile aisle when some maniac sprang my prop by leaping out and yelling 'I'm that woman's mother! She's letting me starve.'" What did you do? "Ad-libbed it, and I am one lousy ad-libber."

After 20 years, isn't she weary of playing the Lucy character? "No, I'm a rooter, I look for ruts. My cousin Cleo [now producer of Here's Lucy] is always prodding me to move. She once said Lucy was my security blanket. Maybe. I'm not erudite in any way, like Cleo. But why should I change? Last year was big TV relevant year, and I made sure my show wasn't relevant. Lucy deals in fundamental, everyday things exaggerated, with a happy ending. She has a basic childishness that hopefully most of us never lose. That's why she cries a lot like a kid - the WAAH act - instead of getting drunk."

Aha! Is Lucy the guileful child-woman, conniving forever against male authority - whether husband or nagging boss - particularly FEMALE? ("None of us watch the show," sniffed a Women's Libber I know, "but she must be an Aunt Tom." Still, I ponder, hasn't that always been the essence of comedy, the little poor-soul man - or woman - up against the biggies?)

"I certainly hope so. You trying to con me into talking about Women's Lib? I don't know the meaning of it. I never had anything to squawk about. I don't know what they're asking for that I don't have already. Equal pay for equal work, that's OK. The suffragettes rightly pressed a hard case - and when roles like Carry Nation come along, they ask me to play them, perhaps because I have the physical vitality. But they're kind of a laughingstock, aren't they? Like that girl who gave her parents 40 whacks with an ax? Didn't Carry Nation ax things, was she a Prohibitionist or what?" (3)

She'd just said nix to playing Sabina, in the movie of Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth. Why? "I didn't understand it." She turned down The Manchurian Candidate for the same reason. "Got that Oh Dad, Poor Dad script the same week and thought I'd gone loony." If she makes another movie, she'll play Lillian Russell in Diamond Jim with Jackie Gleason, "a nice, nostalgic courtship story that won't tax anyone's nerves." (4) 

Is Miss Ball warmed by the comeback of old stars in non-taxing Broadway nostalgia shows like No, No, Nanette? (5)

"Listen, I studied that audience. I saw people in their 60's and 70's enjoying themselves. That had to be nostalgia. The 30's and 40's smiled indulgently, that Ruby Keeler is up there on the stage alive, not dead. For the below 30's, it's pure camp. I don't put it down, but it’s not warm, working nostalgia, but the feeling 'Ye gods, anything but today'

"Maybe I'm more concerned about things that I realize. I told you politics is definitely not on my agenda - I got burned bad, back in the '40's signing a damned petition as a favor. (6) Just say the word 'politician,' and I think of chicanery. Too many subversive angles today. But I must be one of millions who are so fed up, depressed, sobbing inside, about the news...the atrocities, the dead, the running down of America. You can't obliterate the news, but the baddest dream is that you feels so helpless.

"I was sitting in this very chair one night, flipping the dial, and came to Combat! There were soldiers crouching in bushes, a helicopter hovering overhead. Nothing happening, so I make like a director, yelling, 'Move it! This take is too LONG!' It turned out to be a news show from Vietnam. That shook me. There I was criticizing the director, and real blood was dripping off my screen... That drug scene bugs me. It's ridiculous, self-indulgent. We're supposed to be grateful if the kids aren't on drugs. They're destroying us from within, getting at our youth in the colleges. OK, kids have to protest, but how can they accomplish anything if they're physically shot?

"One of the reasons I'm still working is that people seem grateful that Lucy is there, the same character and unchanging view. There's so much chaos in this world, that's important. Many people, not only shut-ins, depend on the tube, too much so - they look for favorites they can count on. Older people loved Lawrence Welk. They associated his music with their youth. Now he's gone. It's not fair. (7) They shouldn't have taken off those bucolic comedies; that left a big dent in some folks' lives. Maybe we're not getting messages anymore from the clergy, the politicians, so TV does the preaching. But as an entertainer, I don't believe in messages.

"Some Mr. Jones is always asking why am I still working - as if it were some crime or neurotic. OK, I'll say it's for my kids. But I like a routine life, I like to work. I come from an old New England family in which everyone worked. My grandparents were homesteaders in New York and Ohio. My mother worked all her life - during the Depression in a factory."

What does she think of the new "relevant" comedy like All in the Family? "I don't know... It's good to bring prejudice out in the open. People do think that way, but why glorify it? Those not necessarily young may not catch the moral. That show doesn't go full circle for me."

Full circle?

"You have to suffer a little when you do wrong. That prejudiced character doesn't pay a penance. Does he ever reverse a feeling? I'm for believability, but I'm tired of hearing 'pig,' 'wop,' 'Polack' said unkindly. Me, I have to have an on-the-nose moral. Years ago, the Romans let humans be eaten by lions, while they laughed and drank - that was entertainment. But I’m tired of the ugly. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing, that's my idea of entertainment. Anything Richard Burton does is heaven. Easy Rider scared me at first because I knew how it could influence kids. But at least that movie came full circle. They led a life of nothing and they got nothing. Doris Day, I believe in her. Elaine May? A kook, but a great talent. Barbra Streisand? A brilliant technician."

On her old ten-minute daily interview radio show, (8) she once asked Barbra, like any star-struck civilian: How does it feel to be only 21, a big recording artist and star of the Broadway hit Funny Girl? "Not much," said Barbra. "That cool really flustered Lucille. It violated everything she believes in," says cousin Cleo Smith, who grew up with Miss B in small-town Celoron, N.Y. "For her, nothing ever came easy. She didn't marry until she was 30, or become a really big star until she was 40. She's still so hard on herself, sets such rigorous standards for herself as an actress and parent. She honestly believes in all the old maxims, that a stitch in time saves nine, etc. She's literal-minded, a bit like Scarlett O'Hara. Does what needs doing today, and to hell with tomorrow."

Her self-made wealth a few years ago was reckoned at $50 to $100 million. After her divorce, she reluctantly took over the presidency of the Desilu studio and sold it six years later to the conglomerate Gulf & Western for nearly $18 million. Does that make her the biggest lady tycoon in Hollywood? (The 179 original I Love Lucy reruns now belong, incidentally, to a CBS syndicate; her second Lucy Show, to Paramount. She owns only the current Here's Lucy - OK, go that straight?)

"Hah! Like Sinatra, I owe about three and a half million bucks all the time. That figure is ridiculous. All my money is working. I lost a helluva lot in the stock market last year and haven't recouped it. It's an illusion that people in show biz are really rich. The really filthy rich are the little old ladies in Boston, the old folks in Pasadena, who've had dough for years and haven't been seen since."

The divorce from Desi Arnaz can still set her brooding. "It was the worst period of my life. I really hit the bottom of despair - anything form there on had to be up. Neither Desi nor I has been the same since, physically or mentally, though we're very friendly, ridiculously so. Nobody knows how hard I tried to make that marriage work, thinking all the trouble must be my fault. I did everything I could to right that ship, trotting to psychiatrists. I hate failure, and that divorce was a Number One failure in my eyes... Anything in excess drives me crazy. He'd build a home anyplace he was, and then never be around to enjoy it. I was so idealistic, I thought that with two beautiful babies, and a beautiful business, what more could any man want? Freedom, he said, but he had that. People don't know what a job he did building that Desilu empire, what a great director and brilliant executive he was yet he let it all go....Maybe Latins have an instinct for self-destruction..."

Was that the conflict, a Latin temperament married to an old-fashioned American female? "It has a helluva lot to do with getting into it and getting out. The charm. But they keep up a big facade and don't follow through. No, the machismo didn't bother me, I like to play games too.

"Desi and I had made an agreement that if either of us wanted to pull out of Desilu, the other could buy. I wanted to go to Switzerland with the kids, anywhere to run away, but he wanted out. The I found out that for five years, our empire had taken a nose dive, and if I wanted to get my money back, I had to rebuild it first. For the first time in my life, I was absolutely terrified - I'd never run any show or a big studio. When I came back from doing the musical Wildcat on Broadway, I was so sick, so beat, I just sat in that backyard, numb, for a year. I'd had pneumonia, mononucleosis, staph, osteomyletis. Lost 22 pounds. Friends told me the best thing I could do physically, psychologically, was go back to work, but could I revive Lucy without Desi, my old writers, the old crew?"

You didn't like being a woman executive? "I hated it. I used to cry so much - and I'm not a crier - because I had to let someone go or make decisions I didn't understand. There were always two sides to every question, and trouble was I could see both sides. No one realizes how run-down Desilu was. The finks and sycophants making $70,000 a year, they were easy to clean out. Then during the CBS Jim Aubrey regime, I couldn't sell the new pilots we made - Dan Dailey, Donald O'Connor, Ethel Merman. I couldn't sell anything but me." (9)

Was it tough to be a woman bossing men? "Yeah. It puts men in a bad spot. I could read their minds, unfortunately, wondering who is this female making this decision, not realizing that maybe I'd consulted six experts first. I'm all wrong as an executive, I feel out of place. I have too many antennae out, I'm too easily hurt and intimidated. But I can make quick surgical incisions. I've learned that much about authority - give people enough rope to hand themselves, stand back, let them work, but warm them first. Creative people you have to give special leeway to, and often it doesn't pay off. Me, I'm workative, not creative. I can fix - what I call 'naturalize.' I'm a good editor, I can naturalize dialogue, find an easier way to do a show mechanically.

But I didn't make the same marriage mistake twice. Gary digs what my life is, why I have to work. We have tranquility. We want the same things, take care of what we have."

She shows me Gary's dressing room, closets hung with shirts and jackets - by the dozen. "My husband is a clothes and car nut, but it's a harmless vice. Better than booze or chasing women, right?" (His cars include a 1927 Model T Ford, a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL, an Astin Martin, a Rolls-Royce convertible.)

"Anyone married to me has an uphill climb. Gary and I coped by anticipating. We knew we should be separated eight, nine months a year, so he tapered off his act, found other thing to do - making investments, building things. He plays the golf circuit, Palm Springs, Pebble Beach, and tolerantly lets me stay at Snowmass for weeks. Sun just doesn't agree with me. He didn't come into the business for five years. I didn't want to put him in a position in which he would be ridiculed. I could tell that he was grasping things - casting, story line. I said, 'You've been a big help to me. You should be paid for it.' "

On a Friday night, I dine with the Mortons. Dinner is served around 6:30, just like in my Midwest hometown. Lucille is still fretting about this week's show - "over-rehearsed; because there were so many props, the fun had gone out of it." Gary, just home from unwinding his own way - golfing with Milton Berle, Joey Bishop - asks if I'd like something to drink with dinner? Coke or ginger ale? "No? I think we have wine." No high living in this house, but the spareribs are superb. "Laura asked me an interesting question," he tells his wife. "Like isn't there a conflict when a husband in the same business - comedy - marries a superstar? I told her I'd never thought of it before."

They met the summer when Lucille was rehearsing Wildcat, and he was a stand-up comic at Radio City Music Hall, seven days a week. "We both came up the hard way," he says. "I got started in World War II, clowning for USO shows. I've been in show biz for 30 years and can appreciate what she goes through. Lucy can't run company by herself. Maybe with me around, when she walks on the set, her mind is at peace. I pop in from time to time, on conferences, rehearsals. I can tell from her if things are going well, if the laughter is there. She's a thoroughbred, very honest with me, a friend to whom I can talk about anything. She never leaves me out of her life; that's important for a man. Do you know how many bets were lost about our marriage lasting? It's been nearly ten years now, and I've slept on the couch only once."

Past dinner, we adjourn promptly to the living room, and a private showing of Little Murders. It's not a pretty movie of urban American life, and Lucy talks back indignantly to the screen. (10) The flick she rally like was George Plimpton's Paper Lion, with the Detroit Lions, which she booked under the illusion it was an animal picture. "At the end, 12 of us here stood up and cheered, and I wrote every last Lion a fan note. You know that picture hardly made a dime?"

On a house tout, I'd noted the Norman Rockwell and Andrew Wyeth albums in the living room, and a memo scotch-taped to her bathroom wall: "Get Smart with N.V.P."

N.V.P. Is that Norman Vincent Peale, her old friend and spiritual mentor? "Yes. He marred me and Gary. I still adhere to his way of thinking because he preaches a day-to-day religion that I can understand. Something workable, not allegory. Like how do you get up in the morning and just get through the day?

"Dr. Peale taught me the art of selfishness. All it means is doing what's right for you, not being a burden to others. When I was in Wildcat, he dropped around one night saying, 'I hear you're very ill, and working too hard.' 'Work never hurt anybody,' I protested. But he reminded me I had two beautiful children to bring up, and if I was in bad shape, how could I do it? I've learned you don't rake more leaves than you can get into the wheelbarrow. I've always been moderate, but I was too spread around, trying to please too many people. You don't become callous, but you conserve your energies."

What about her kids? Passing a newsstand, I'd noted a rash of fan mags blazoned with headlines about Desi Jr., something of a teen-age idol, and at 18 a spitting image of old pop. (A rock star at 12, he'd recently garnered very good notices indeed for a movie role in Red Sky at Morning.) "Why Lucille Ball's Son Is So Bitter About His Own Mother," read the El Trasho covers. "Patty Duke Begs Desi Jr. To Believe Her: 'You Made Me Pregnant.' " Does the imbroglio bother this on-the-nose moralist?

"I worked for years for a quiet personal life and to have to personally impinged on, with no recourse, is hard. I brought Patty to the house, feeling very maternal about her, saying look at this clever girl, what a big talent she is. Now, I can thank her for useless notoriety. She's living in some fantastic dreamworld, and we're the victims of it. Desi being the tender age of 17 when they met, she used him. She hasn't proved or asked for anything. I asked Desi if he wanted to marry her and he said no. My daughter helped outfit the baby, which Patty brought to the house, but did she ever say thank you?

"Desi's going to CIA this fall." Not the CIA? No, the new California Institute of the Arts, where he'll study music. "Yes, he's very much like his father, too much sometimes - I just hope he has Desi's business acumen. I'm glad he didn't choose UCLA or Berkeley or a school full of nonconformists. Lucie just now wants marriage and babies - maybe she'll go on to college later.

"I took the kids out of school deliberately. Desi was at Beverly Hills High, Lucie at Immaculate Heart."

Why? "I didn't like the scene - it was the usual - pregnant girls, drugs." That goes on at Immaculate Heart? Sure. "A lot of girls who boarded there were unhappy misfits, and Lucie was already working in the nunnery. All the friends she brought home were the rejected. I'm that way myself."

Did they mind, well, your stage-managing their lives? "No, they were as sick of that weird high school scene as I was. I made them a proposition - told them to think it over for a month, while I was in Monaco. Do you want to be on the show? I told them the salary would be scale, that most would be put in trust. They'd be tutored and not able to graduate with their classes. They both thought they were going to the coast, but working with a tutor, they really got turned on by books for the first time. They wanted to be in show business, and I wanted to keep an eye on them."

Of course her show is nepotism, she grants. "Cleo thought a long time before becoming the producer, wondering if it wasn’t overdoing family. Nobody seems to be suffering from it, I told her." Thursday night show time is like a tense Broadway opening night. Gary Morton, in stylish crested blazer, warms up the audience, heavy with out-of-town tourists. "Lucy started out with another fellow, can't remember his name.... What is home without a mother? A place to bring girls." Lucille bursts out onstage, exuding the old MGM glamour, fireball hair ablaze, eyelashes inches long, in aquamarine-cum-rhinestone kaftan. "For God's sake," she implores, "laugh it up! We want to hear from you... Gary, have you introduced my mom?" Indeed he has. Loyal, durable, 79-year-old Desiree "DeDe" Ball, her hair pink as Lucille's, has missed few of the 409 Lucy shows filmed to date, and is on hand as usual with 19 personal guests. Gary also asks for big hands for Cleo, and her husband Cecil Smith, TV critic for the LA Times, who has also appeared on the show. (11) 

One day Desi Jr. wanders on the set, just back from visiting his father in Mexico. He'd gone with Patty Duke and the baby. The young man does have Latin charm, and apparently talent. I ask him a fan-mag query: Is it rough to be the spin-off of such famous show-biz parents?

"Well, I grew up with kids like Dean Martin, Jr., and Tony Martin, Jr., and we had a lot in common." What? "We all had houses in Palm Springs." Any generational problem with Mom? "She's found the thing she's best at, and sticks to it. As long as she has Snowmass, she has an escape, some reality. I realize she lives half in a man's world, and that must be tough on a woman. My father - he worked hard for years, and then he'd had it. This is silly, weird, he felt. He aged more in ten years than he had in 40. I'm like him. I feel life is very short. He's had major operations recently, and he's changed a lot."

Patty Duke is six years older than Desi Jr., paralleling the six-year age gap that separated parents Lucy and Desi. "Patty is a lot like my mother, the same drive, and strong will, a perfectionist...But I'm never going to get married. Marriage is unrealistic, expecting you to devote a whole life unselfishly to just one person. Do you know people age unbelievably when they marry? From what I've seen, 85 percent of married couples are miserable; 14 percent, just average; one percent, happy." (12) 

His mother's own childhood, in little Celoron, an outspring of Jamestown, N.Y., was oh-so-different from her kids'. "She was always a wild, tempestuous, exciting child," say Cleo, "doing things that worried people, plotting and scheming, though she knew she'd get in trouble." Interesting, because that's one basic of the Lucy format, Miss B forever finagling second bananas like Vivian Vance into co-trouble. "One summer, she conned me into running away. It was only to nearby Fredonia, but in her sneaky way she really wanted to catch up to a groovy high school principal who was teaching there. He played it very cool, calling Mom and telling her we were staying overnight in a boarding house. On his advice, when we got home, DeDe acted as if we hadn't been away. That devastated Lucille, no reaction, nothing."

The classic Lucy story line also has her conniving against male authority, whether husband or boss, now played by Gale Gordon. "I need a strong father or husband figure as catalyst. I have to be an inadequate somebody, because I don't want the authority for Lucy. Every damned movie script sent me seems to cast me as a lady with authority, like Eve Arden or Roz Russell, but that's not me.

"No, I don't remember my own father," says Miss Ball. "He was a telephone lineman who died of typhoid at 25, when I was about three. I do remember everything that day, though. Hanging out the window, begging to play with the kids next door who had measles... The doctor coming, my mother weeping. I remember a bird that flew in the window, a picture that fell off the wall.

"My brother Fred [who was born after her father's death] was always very, very good. He never did anything wrong - he was too much to bear. I was always in trouble, a real pain in the ass. I suppose I wasn't much fun to be around." To this day, says Cleo, Lucille suspects Fred is her mother's favorite, even though DeDe has devoted her whole life to this daughter.

Family ties were always fierce-strong. After her father's death, "We lived with my mother's parents, for a while. Grandpa Hunt was a marvelous jack-of-all-trades, a woodturner, eye doctor, mailman, bon vivant, hotel owner. [And also an old-fashioned Populist-Socialist.] He met my grandmother, Flora Belle, a real pioneer woman and pillar of the family, when she was a maid in his hotel. She was a nurse and midwife, an orphan who brought up four pairs of twin sisters and brothers all by herself. He took us to vaudeville every Saturday and to the local amusement park. When Grandma died at 51, all us kids had to pitch in, making beds, cooking.

"Yeah, I guess I am real mid-America, growing up as a mix of French-Scotch-Irish-English, living on credit like everyone else, paying $1.25 a week to the insurance man, buying furniture on time. But it was a good, full life. Grandpa took us camping, fishing, picking mushrooms, made us bobsleds. We always had goodies. I had the first boyish bob in town and the first open galoshes.

"My mother then married Ed Peterson, a handsome-ugly man, very well-read. He was good to me and Freddy but he drank too much. He was the first to point out the magic of the stage. A monologist came to town on the Chautauqua circuit. He just sat onstage with a pitcher of water and light bulb and made us laugh and cry for two hours. For me, this was pure magic. When I was about seven, Ed and mother moved to Detroit, leaving me with his old-fashioned Swedish parents, who were very strict. I had to be in bed at 6:30, hearing all the other kids playing outside in the summer daylight. Maybe it wasn't that traumatic, but I realize now it was a bad time for me. I felt as if I'd been deserted. I got my imagination to working, and read trillions of books."

The adult Lucille, talking to interviewers, used to go on and on about her "unhappy" childhood, little realizing that she was reflecting on her mother, to whom she is passionately devoted. "Just how long do you think you lived with the Petersons?" asked DeDe one day in a confrontation. "Three YEARS? Well I tell you it was more like three weeks."

"I left home at 15, much too early, desperate to break into the big wide world. Looking for work in New York show biz was ugly, without any leads or friends or training other than high school operettas and plays and Sunday school pageants. I was very shy and reticent, believe it or not, and I kept running home every five minutes. I got thrown in with older Shubert and Ziegfeld dollies and, believe me, they were a mean, closed corporation. I don't understand kids today who get easily discouraged and yap about doing their own thing. Don't they know what hard work is? Where are their morals? I always knew when I did wrong, and paid penance."

Yet she was venturesome enough to sit in on some recent Synanon group-therapy sessions for drug addicts. "They wanted me to raise some money, and I wanted to find out what it was about. The games were fascinating, wonderful, until I couldn't take it any more. The other participants kept bugging me: What are you here for? Are your children drug addicts? I had to start making up problems."

For two decades, she's been risking her neck in those murderous ratings, outlasting long-ago competitors like Fulton Sheen, and now up against such pleasers as pro football and Rowan and Martin. (13) 

Suppose the ratings drop, what would she do?

No idea. "Might take a trip on the Inland Waterway form Boston to Florida. In my deal with Universal, I can make specials, other movies, TV pilots. I wouldn't have to ski 'spooked' at Snowmass." What's that? "Honey, I have to be careful. If I break a leg 500 people are out of work. (14) I'd be happy in some branch of acting with some modicum of appreciation. Listen, it never occurred to me, in life that I'd fail ever, because I always appreciated small successes. I never had a big fixed goal. When I was running Desilu, it drove me wild when people asked, 'Aren't you proud to own the old RKO studio where you once worked as a starlet?' What $50-a-week starlet ever walked around a lot saying, 'I want to own this studio'?

"I don't know what you've been driving at, what's your story line? But it's been interesting, talking."

FOOTNOTES: HINDSIGHT IS 20/20

(1) This refers to a rare 1969 BBC documentary about Britain’s royal family that gave the public an inside look at the life of the Windsors. In one scene, the family was watching television, and on the screen was “I Love Lucy”, much to the chagrin of Prince Philip. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were mentioned on the series, especially in the episode “Lucy Meets the Queen” (ILL S5;E15).  

(2) Lucy is referring to a 1967 episode of “The Lucy Show” titled “Lucy The Babysitter” (TLS S5;E16) in which Lucy Carmichael babysits three rambunctious chimps for their parents, played by Jonathan Hole and Mary Wickes. In the final moments of the show, Wickes reveals a fourth sibling - a baby elephant!  The animal went wild and pushed Wickes (what Ball described as a “press job”) into one of the prop trees. The trainer had to physically subdue the elephant to get it away from Wickes, who injured her arm. The final cut ends with the entrance of the baby elephant.

(3) Lucy is conflating (probably intentionally) the stories of real-life prohibitionist Carrie Nation (1846-1911), who famously hacked up bars and whisky barrels with an axe, and Lizzie Bordon (1860-1927), who famously hacked up her parents with an axe. (Photo from the 1962 TV special “The Good Years” starring Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda.) 

(4) There was never a film version of Thornton Wilder’s play Skin Of Our Teeth which was on Broadway in 1942 starring Tallulah Bankhead as Sabina, the role offered to Ball.  There were several television adaptations; one in Australia in 1959; one in England the same year starring Vivian Leigh as Sabina;  one in the USA in 1955 starring Mary Martin (above) as Sabina; and a filmed version of a stage production starring Blair Brown as Sabina in 1983. Although it is possible that Lucille Ball might have been considered for the role of the sexy housemaid Sabina in 1955, the article says that the role was “just” offered to her, so it probably refers to a 1971 project that never materialized. Wilder’s story tracks a typical American family from New Jersey from the ice age through the apocalypse. 

(5) In 1971, there was a popular revival of the 1925 musical comedy No, No, Nanette on Broadway. The cast featured veteran screen star Ruby Keeler and included Helen Gallagher (playing a character named Lucille, coincidentally), Bobby Van, Jack Gilford, Patsy Kelly and Susan Watson. Busby Berkeley, nearing the end of his career, was credited as supervising the production, although his name was his primary contribution to the show. The 1971 production was well-reviewed and ran for 861 performances. It sparked interest in the revival of similar musicals from the 1920s and 1930s. The original 1925 cast featured Charles Winninger, who played Barney Kurtz, Fred’s old vaudeville partner on “I Love Lucy.” In that same episode (above), they sing a song from the musical, "Peach on the Beach” by Vincent Youmans and Otto Harbach. Like the revue in the episode, the musical is set in Atlantic City, New Jersey.  

(6) Lucy is referring to her 1936 affidavit of registration to join the Communist Party.  Lucille said she signed it to appease her elderly grandfather. The cavalier act caught up with Ball in 1953, when zealous red-hunting Senator Joe McCarthy tried to purge America of suspected Communists. Although many careers were ruined, Ball escaped virtually unscathed.  

(7) The popular big band music series “The Lawrence Welk Show” (1955) was unceremoniously canceled in 1971 by ABC, in an attempt to attract younger audiences. What Lucy doesn’t mention is that four days after this magazine was published, the show began running brand new shows in syndication, which continued until 1982. Welk, despite not being much of an actor, played himself on “Here’s Lucy” (above) in January 1970. 

(8) “Let’s Talk To Lucy” was a short daily radio program aired on CBS Radio from September 1964 to June 1964. Most interviews (including Streisand’s) were spread over multiple installments.  

(9)  To showcase possible new series (pilots) Desilu and CBS aired “Vacation Playhouse” (1963-67) during the summer when “The Lucy Show” was on hiatus.  This would often be the only airing of Lucy’s passion projects. “Papa GI” with Dan Dailey as an army sergeant in Korea who has his hands full with two orphans who want him to adopt them. The pilot was aired in June 1964 but it was not picked up for production. “Maggie Brown” had Ethel Merman playing a widow trying to raise a daughter and run a nightclub which is next to a Marine Corps base. The pilot aired in September 1963, but went unsold. “The Hoofer” starring Donald O’Connor and Soupy Sales as former vaudevillians aired its pilot in August 1966. No sale! 

(10) Little Murders (1971) was a black comedy based on the play of the same name by Jules Feiffer. The film is about a young nihilistic New Yorker (Elliott Gould) coping with pervasive urban violence, obscene phone calls, rusty water pipes, electrical blackouts, paranoia and ethnic-racial conflict during a typical summer of the 1970s. Definitely not Lucille Ball’s style of comedy!  Paper Lion (1968) was a sports comedy about George Plimpton (Alan Alda) pretending to be a member of the Detroit Lions football team for a Sports Illustrated article. 

(11) Cecil Smith appeared in “Lucy Meets the Burtons” (HL S3;E1) in 1970 playing himself, a member of the Hollywood Press with a dozen other real-life writers. The casting was a way to get better coverage of the episode (featuring power couple Dick Burton, Liz Taylor, and her remarkable diamond ring). The gambit worked and the episode was the most viewed of the entire series. 

(12) Desi Jr.’s 1971 views on marriage did not last. He married actress Linda Purl in 1980, but they divorced in 1981. In October 1987, Arnaz married dancer Amy Laura Bargiel. Ten years later they purchased the Boulder Theatre in Boulder City, Nevada and restored it. They lived in Boulder with their daughter, Haley. Amy died of cancer in 2015, at the age of 63.   

(13) From 1952 to 1957, Catholic Bishop Fulton J. Sheen hosted the inspirational program “Life Is Worth Living”, winning an Emmy Award in 1953, alongside winners Lucille Ball and “I Love Lucy.”  “Here’s Lucy” was programmed up against “Monday Night Football” on ABC and “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” on NBC.  Instead of ignoring her competition, Ball embraced them by featuring stories about football and incorporating many of the catch phrases and guest stars from “Laugh-In.” 

(14) Lucy spoke too soon!  Just a few months after this interview was published Ball did indeed have a skiing accident in Snowmass and broke her leg. With season five’s first shooting date approaching, Ball was faced with either ending the series or re-write the scripts so that Lucy Carter would be in a leg cast.  She chose the latter, even incorporating actual footage of herself on the Snowmass  slopes (above) into "Lucy’s Big Break” (HL S5;E1). 

Elsewhere in the Issue...

“This Was Our Life” by Gene Shalit includes images of Lucille Ball in the collage illustration. 

A week after this issue of Look hit the stands, the fourth season of “Here’s Lucy” kicked off with guest star Flip Wilson and a parody of Gone With the Wind.  Three days later, Ball guest-starred on his show. 

Not to be outdone, LOOK’s rival LIFE also devoted an entire issue to television, on news stands just three days later.  

Naturally, “I Love Lucy” didn’t escape mention!  I’m not sure why the show’s run is bifurcated: 1952-55, 1956-57.  Actually, the show began in 1951 and ran continually until 1957. 

Click here for more about Look, Life and Time! 

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

Dear Yuletide writer,

I’m 100indecisions on AO3. just based on numbers of requests/offers in the signup summary, it seems fairly likely that you matched with me on Avengers Academy, but it’s also slightly possible it was Silent Hill 3 or The Bifrost Incident. numbers also indicate nobody else requested or offered my other two fandoms, but I’m including them here anyway in case you or anyone else wants to take a stab at them. (there’s also this post if you want a little more info about why these fandoms are cool and where to find them.)

regardless! the important thing as always is that you have fun writing the fic, and for the most part everything that follows is just a suggestion. whatever you come up with, I’m sure I’ll love it.

I feel like…most of the fandoms I requested aren’t too likely to lead to fics with my major DNWs, probably. I wouldn’t want to see dubcon or significant manipulation in a relationship that’s supposed to be positive and healthy, for instance. I’m not opposed to explicit sex scenes of any kind, although I often end up skimming them because I’m the type of ace person who is just Not Interested in most of the physical aspects, so…you’re welcome to write sex scenes if it’s relevant but you absolutely don’t have to feel like you need to.

in general, my biggest DNW is unhappy endings. I’m thrilled to see my favorite characters go through all kinds of hell to get there, so for most of these I would be very happy to get something tagged Crueltide, but I also like things to be okay or at least hopeful by the end. if canon is the unhappy part in one way or another, I’m always happy to read fix-it fics. Between post-canon fix-its that could reasonably happen in the future and canon-divergence AUs where things are okay now because of some mid-canon change, I have a slight preference for the former, but both are good.

as for stuff I like, well, the other thing implied by my main DNW is that I do often enjoy fairly dark fics, as long as they end okay. I also like Loki a lot, as you can probably guess from my requests. if you ended up matching me on Avengers Academy Loki or Bifrost Incident Loki, and/or you want to take a stab at one of the other Loki-centric requests, the Loki fics I’ve actually written are pretty representative of stuff I like in my Loki fics, which basically boils down to “sympathetic interpretations always, with loads of angst and/or whump on the way to a reasonably happy ending”. I tend to take a somewhat lighter tone in general with my Avengers Academy fics (I’ve written several of those and only one of them doesn’t involve Loki at all, so…yeah I have a one-track mind where Loki is concerned), although I did also write a pretty damn whumpy fic for AvAc Loki. I’m very invested in the relationship between Thor and Loki as brothers, although Thorki is usually a personal squick. for things that aren’t necessarily Loki-related, I like found families and deep friendships, sibling bonds, stories about characters reclaiming their own agency from some outside force and/or figuring out how to take control of their own narratives, and probably plenty of other things that aren’t coming to mind at the moment. I’m equally good with plotty fics and little slice-of-life or introspective pieces. I will always always always be happy to see queer characters, especially asexual ones.

more detail about my specific requests, basically just expanded versions of what I wrote in my sign-up:

Silent Hill 3 (Heather Mason). I love this game and that’s mostly because of Heather–she’s resourceful, brave, and incredibly tough, and the game is essentially all about her reclaiming her agency (in a very literal, physical way) from people who used her for their own ends. Anything that gets into Heather’s head would be great, whether it’s a missing scene of some kind during the game or something afterward that explores what she does next, how she recovers from a frankly massive amount of trauma, and how she reconciles the various layers of her identity. The ways in which Heather, Cheryl the child, and Alessa both are and are not the same person are endlessly fascinating to me, and it seems like she probably has a lot of weird memories bouncing around in her head at this point--and possibly some extra trauma from Alessa’s memories of things Heather never physically experienced, as if she doesn’t have enough to deal with already. I would also really love to see something involving Angela and/or Maria from Silent Hill 2; I’m not sure how the timelines would line up (although realistically, considering the setting, that part would be trivial to handwave) but the way Heather basically said “fuck you, you don’t own me” to the cult makes me want to see other female characters find their own agency as well, and it would be really awesome if Heather found a way to help them do that, either by helping them directly or just by influencing the way the town operates. in general, I love these games for their atmosphere and symbolism, so anything you can do along those lines would be great.

Avengers Academy (Loki, Thor). I still miss this game. I especially miss Loki, who was a snarky little bastard but really not a bad dude. Mostly I’d be thrilled to see anything that focuses on him (or her, I super loved Loki’s canonical genderfluidity) developing actual friendships at the academy, with any characters who might be relevant (Steve, Natasha, America Chavez, Nebula, Union Jack, Angela, Jane Thor, really anybody). Working things out with Thor and/or the rest of his family is always good too; Loki’s Frost Giant storyline didn’t involve Thor at all, for instance, probably because it was written long before Thor was added to the game, so I’d be interested to see how things went when he found out his brother was a Frost Giant. I’m also always happy to see crossovers of some kind with other Marvel universes, especially considering AvAc was an interesting patchwork of film and comics canon; meta stuff where characters are aware of their multiverse counterparts is always fun (again, my own AvAc fics are pretty representative of what I like…and if you wanted to build off anything in those, I’d be thrilled). and hey, if you want to pick up or expand on any of the plot threads the game never really got around to, like more about the Academy’s supposed mole, the actual nature and origin of the timefog, or other worldbuilding-related stuff, that would be awesome. random slice-of-life stuff is also fun; so is expanding on any of the event plotlines or digging into in-world reasons for various gameplay decisions (way back during the Civil War event, for instance, Loki was one of the characters who could do stuff to earn points for Team Cap even though this didn’t come up in dialogue--it was almost certainly because they needed another non-event character to round out the rosters, but it would also make a fun premise for a fic). I’d also be happy to see something post-canon, showing what characters are up to now or doing some kind of reunion. I’m realizing somewhat belatedly that last year I only requested Loki because that’s the character I wanted most, and this year I requested both Loki and Thor even though my actual wishes haven’t changed, which...I’m not sure if that’s a potential matching problem or not. But just to be clear, the only character I require is Loki, and everything else is basically a suggestion. If there’s a character I haven’t listed but Loki had an interesting interaction with them, or they never spoke but you think they’d play off each other in fun ways, go for it.

The Bifrost Incident - The Mechanisms (Loki, Thor, Sigyn). I...need a fix-it. Like, for these characters specifically, but also for the universe in general, because the premise of this album is absolutely fascinating but I can't deal with tragedy, so--I need somebody to fix it. Somehow. I mean, I would also be very interested in pretty much anything about Loki and Sigyn, backstory or otherwise (especially if there’s Loki whump due to cosmic horror in general or Odin being a dick specifically, because...I am who I am), or Loki’s relationship with Thor, or...yeah, pretty much anything Loki-centric? But also I am a baby who cannot deal with tragedy so I gotta have like...at least a hint that things are going to end up differently than in canon. Or if you really don’t want to do that, speculate on this universe’s version of Valhalla or something, I don’t know. And yes, even though this isn’t a Marvel universe, I would also be very happy with some type of crossover/fusion with the MCU or another Marvel universe.

Loki: Where Mischief Lies - Mackenzi Lee (Loki). I had a lot of issues with this book and I’m not sure how much of that is just me not appreciating what the author was doing with an unreliable narrator (in part because I’m already pretty attached to certain interpretations of Loki) and how much is the author not quite doing it right, but I’d love to see something that would…make it make sense internally in terms of Loki’s motivations and actions. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a fix-it, although I’d love one of those too, with Loki reuniting with Theo and/or actually reconciling with his family. A giant crossover that includes this Loki with other major versions of Loki could be fun too. I’ve been planning for a while to write up some kind of actual review to articulate what about this book didn’t work for me, and I’ll update this post with a link when I do that, although…again, I know nobody else offered or requested this one. (if you think it sounds fun or you just want to read this book in general, my library actually has the ebook on Hoopla, so it’s worth checking to see if your library does too.)

What If... Thor Was Raised by the Frost Giants? (Loki, Thor). This is such a great little AU and I need MORE. Slice-of-life stuff with Thor and Loki growing up (and Laufey being an abusive bastard to Loki)? Fix-it where Freyja survives or somehow gets brought back? Post-canon fic picking up immediately after the end of the comic? Far-future speculation about what the present-day Marvel universe might look like with this change in its history? Literally anything post-canon about Thor and Loki tentatively reconciling? YES PLEASE. As always, biggest DNW is unhappy endings.

[caffeineaddicted-tragedies]

A Second Coming

The world was on fire, and God was drinking her tea.

           Jasmine Green Tea, with a droplet of honey and just a small squeeze of lemon for emphasis and taste. The boy sitting across from her, with messy brown hair and a broad nose and, she had to say, the ugliesteye color she had ever seen, was, to the contrary drinking a straight black cup of coffee. No cream, no milk, no sugar, just crushed beans and water. She refrained from commenting on it, needing to keep a good impression, but honestly, black coffee? Nothing sweet? He couldn’t have been much older than 13, and yet he was drinking coffee, of all things.

           The world continued to burn.

           “Some weather we’re having, huh?” Time finally spoke, taking a small sip of the disgusting bean juice.

           God hummed in agreement and took one of her own drink. “Not like it wasn’t forecasted, though,” she said, thinking about the chanting fates and the whispers spoken, echoing through the halls of heaven and hell, thousands of years before. “Still can’t believe it came so fast.”

           “Yes, indeed.”

           Two more sips of the still hot drinks.

           They looked outside, in to the endless silence. Or, it was silent now, neither having anything to say. Even the fire, a bright blue sulfuric monstrosity, was silent in its burning. Time started humming an old song, and God frowned. “Really?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

           “What?”

           “The apocalypse is happening right outside our door, and you’re singing that song?”

           “Burn, baby burn,” Time continued, “Disco inferno.”

           “Stop.”

           He sighed, but paused the song, and fiddled with snowy white hair that replaced the former brown. “You’re no fun,” he said, a slight pout gracing his timeless (no pun intended) features. He finally looked up as the hair (which it suddenly occurred to God could have a mind of its own) morphed into longer curls, which barely brushed his shoulders. “I suppose we should address the elephant in the room.”

           “The what--”

           “It’s a saying, never mind.” The snowy curls shook with Time’s head. “It means something big that nobody is discussing or avoiding.”

           She nodded. “Yes, I suppose there is an elephant in this room, then,” she said, taking a long sip. “Heisn’t here.”

           “If he was here, then they would have stopped screaming.”

           God looked outside. “Yes, they would have when the fire started. It’s taking too long without him.”

           The world was on fire, and no one was dead. Apparently, this didn’t make God, who had always constantly preached peace, and love, and acceptance, was unhappy with this. There is a too badly lack of it, She had said, when the two had asked some time (yes, also no pun intended) before, I will give them time to correct their mistakes. Maybe take the best of them, the kindest, most moral abiding and bring them up there and rebuild with them.

           It had been a swell plan, really it had, it was sure to work.

           Except for the fact that hehad hated it.

           Hehad told them at least twenty times, complaining about any possible thing that could go wrong. “You tried that last time, remember,” hemoaned, as hemassaged the bridge of his nose. “With the giant flood? Paper work for decades!” or “It didn’t even work! People are still sinning!”

           This would have been fine, if hewasn’tan integral part of the plan. God started the fires, Time sped it up so they wouldn’t have to actually sit there and watch as nearly several billion people and animals and anything living burned right outside their door, and hemade sure everyone died relatively quickly and not in too much agony (even God had a heart apparently). However, now hewasn’t here, and now they had to deal with the aftermath.

           Without hishelp.

           “We could check outside,” Time finally suggested, finishing his coffee. “He might have gotten caught up in one of the fires.”

           “You wantto go outside in thatmess?”

           “I was talking about you, Almighty Creator!”

           Bickers and insults went back and forth between the two immortal and (despite their infinite knowledge) considerably childlike beings, and the barista behind the bar cowered, watching the exchange and praying--wait, she couldn’t do that (also, she couldn’t believe Ariana Grande was right: God was a woman). She hopedthat neither noticed her, and if they did, it was for another drink, and not asking her to go outside and fulfill the task that neither wanted to do. Of course, she was also busy trying to figure out who the other was. The woman was God, based on the title of “Almighty Creator”, however the one with the white hair, who apparently liked incredibly bad disco music, remained a mystery. Him being human was off the table, humans weren’t supposed to be able to change their features at a moments notice (and more importantly they weren’t supposed to change on their own whim), so he couldn’t be a time traveler or someone who had gotten incredibly lucky. He didn’t look like the Devil or a demon. Maybe an angel? But weren’t those supposed to be beautiful? Which he was, but by God, those eyes—

            A loud slam interrupted her thoughts, and she dove back behind the bar. “Are you kidding me?!”

           Slowly, the barista peered over the bar and looked at the Almighty Creator, the One who had flooded and set the world ablaze, tipped back into Her chair wheezes that could barely pass as laughter escaping her throat. “What is it with the eyes?!” Time groaned into the table, which his forehead rested on with his hands threaded together and on top of his head. “They. Are. Brown. Just brown. What is so wrong with that?”

           Electing against joining in on the laughter coming from the other, the barista listened quietly as the boy ranted, his hair growing longer and darker, his skin changing to fit the second as well. His eyes remained the same. “It’s soridiculous—honestly, thisis what you find so funny, oh Mighty One?”

           The roars of laughter which had shook the coffee house only moments before changed to small giggles. “Yes, indeed. I find it to be quite hilarious.”

           The boy pouted silently as finally all sound from God vanished, as she only shook her head and wiped tears of former laughter from her eyes. “You’re finally done?” He asked, with a slightly raised eyebrow. He finally finished up his drink, and said, “Back to the issue at hand. They’re still not here.”

           As he said that, God’s face became serious. “Yes, they’re not. It’s an issue.”

           “Oh, you don’t say. Where could he possibly be?” He tossed the cup away over his shoulder and the barista snatched it from the air before it hit the wall, quickly setting to work on a new cup of coffee. “And if he isoutside, which one of us is going outside to find them? Hint: it’s not going to be me.”

           “For My sake-“

           “Don’t you start-“

           A voice rang out suddenly, “You could both go!”

           Both heads turned over to the voice over at the bar just as the barista clamped her hand over her mouth, realizing a fraction of a second what she had said too late. It quickly occurred to her that she should drop to her knees and start profusely apologizing and begging for forgiveness, and hope that the Bible hadn’t exaggerated how forgiving God was. But some small part of her stopped, as She asked an incredulous, “What?”

           Gulping, the barista squeaked out a small, “You….you could both go outside. Together. And….and look outside for that….that person, that you’re looking for….?”

           The boy’s skin and hair shifted again, changing from one look to another once or twice before finally settling on brown hair, closely cropped to his scalp this time, and skin so pale that it seemed to shine as it clung closely to his bones, his former bulky figure now jaunt and (dare she say it) near sickly. He blinked several times, as though the suggestion was hard to process. “Go out. Together.”

           Nodding quickly, the barista dropped back behind the bar as God made a sudden move with Her hand, but, to her gratitude, she wasn’t smited instantly. There were a few quiet murmurs between the two (Two with a t?) before there was a shuffle of feet and a booming, commanding, “Rise.”

           It wasn’t a question of if rising meant that she would join the others outside or not, because her body seemed to move without her permission, her joints wincing as she moved, with small crackles and pops, to stand up. The boy began to walk toward her, investigating his nails and pushing some dirt out from them nonchalantly, looking almost like another customer. It suddenly occurred to her as he got closer that he was really was spectacularly short, even for someone his age (or, the age he looked like, she had no idea how tall immortals were supposed to grow to be).

           Finally, he was standing right in front of her, and now, he was looking directly in to her eyes. Was this an intimidation technique? Some way of terrifying her and making sure she knew her sin before landing right at Hell’s throne? A way of getting back at her for accidentally commenting on his eyes, by making sure they were the last thing she saw?

           He spoke.

           “Coffee.”

           The barista (that’s right, she reminded herself, that’s what she was) blinked rapidly, keeping her contacts in place after staring for so long. She reached out to the side, feeling the heated cup in her palm, and handed it to him. He grabbed it staring into the dark brown, nearly black without cream or milk, coffee, and for a moment she thought he was going to splash into her face. But he didn’t. “Thanks for the drinks,” he finally said as he walked to the door, followed closely by God, “And the suggestion.”

           The latter nodded, but otherwise said nothing, as She filled her cup up by Herself, using some amazing divine powers, most likely outside the realm of mortal comprehension. She stirred it as She walked, spreading the honey evenly, and waved over Her shoulder as the barista finally called out, “Come back soon.”

           The door closed, but they didn’t burn up in the fires still raging outside, moving in an instant to appear in the sky as they flied in search of their missing “friend”. The barista didn’t really think that they were “friends”. In fact, she highly doubted it. She would know.

           The barista gave them a moment or two to make sure that they weren’t coming back for anything and that the café was outside of God’s mind before hopping over the counter and making a beeline for the door. The locks moved quickly, all 7 of them, and with a snap of a finger, the windows changed, the fires lowering, changing from a violent, sulphuric blue to a softer, yet oh so vibrant collaboration of rose, periwinkle, camellia.

           Customer service had always been quite frustrating, and it apparently had applied to both living and dead customers. Too many had been so damn infuriated about not making it to heaven, or, even worse, loved ones hadn’t made it to heaven. The latter had always raised hell outside of Earth, and she had been asked one too many times to speak to a manager and, when begged from help from Her Royal Highness, been met with the typical “yikes” face and a shrug that had said that She was not getting involved.

           So Death truly believed that God deserved this. Just a little bit.

           Pulling out the shears, from the top shelf, Death hummed quietly. Her Highness had never learned about the garden, too busy constantly tending to her own or dealing with issues that arose on the ground level. Death estimated that it would take Her a century, maybe two to figure out where it was, and in the time that it took to find her, She would probably fix the little burn-the-world-down issue through some mass miracle. Then maybe Death would come out and hope she wasn’t smited.

           Until then, she could lay back and catch up. Sitting down in the cushy swing chair and setting down the shears on the table right beside it (for later, Death promised herself), she opened the lengthy book and rested her head against a pillow, and began to read.

[ssromanogers]

Taking in Strays

To: http://sleepygrimm.tumblr.com/

@sleepygrimm

From: http://mysteriousangstninja.tumblr.com/ (Sideblog, sorry!)

“What do you mean someone already picked him up?” Despite all of her training, years of learning to push back emotion and continue on anyway, Natasha felt her heart sink to her stomach at the words. “You were meant to be keeping him here until I returned.”

It was only by virtue of the toddlers babbling to each other in a playpen nearby that Natasha didn’t raise her voice.

The babysitter – retired SHIELD Agent, Natasha thought with grave annoyance – almost winced. “You never said that it was restricted just to you! You said he was staying a few overnights, I wasn’t told he couldn’t be picked up by someone else on his emergency list.”

She clenched her hands at her side, inhaling slowly and trying to get the image of her strangling the woman out of her head, “Who took him, Alice?”

“Wanda Maximoff. You’ve always had her on the list of emergency pick ups, and you didn’t say otherwise.”

“When?”

“Two days ago.” Alice answered sheepishly taking a step back. “Before Germany made the news.”

~-~-~

It started in the ruins of Sokovia. In the parts of the city that were broken beyond repair, but hadn’t made their way into the air.

Where the remaining Avengers worked with first responders, and eventually neighboring military forces, to dig out the dead and dying, the miraculous survivors, and account for every person they could possibly find.

Where Steve’s hearing picked up heartbeats behind rubble no one would ever think to look behind, and his strength had him moving entire slaps of concrete where they wouldn’t dare try to bring machines in.

He heard it first, the faint unhappy whimpering noises coming from a building that was little more than rubble.

A whimpering, whining noise he rarely heard outside of television.

“That’s a baby.” Steve said aloud, staring up at a half collapsed building, brick and rubble surrounding it from a hole in the side that cascaded it’s destruction outwards.

“No way a kid survived that.” Natasha answered immediately. There was no way anyone could have survived what looked like a building collapsing onto a second, smaller building.

“I can hear it,” Steve shook his head, “There’s a baby in there.”

Natasha eyed the crumbled walls, shattered brick and glass. “How sure are you?”

“Certain.” Steve took careful, measured steps forward to the building, testing his way inside. The front door had given way to a giant hole, letting them at least get inside easily. Even if moving brought down more dust. The stairwell door he had to shove open, creating an ominous rumbling noise through the building, brick and boards shifting and creaking. “I think I can get up there.” Steve grabbed the handrail for the stairs above where their path was blocked, and started to pull himself up. The moment he moved the noises started again.

“No, you’re heavy, and big.” Natasha nudged him aside, staring up into the stairs that ended abruptly in night sky only a few stories up, “You’d fall through the floor, or bring down the roof behind you. Gimme a boost.”

Steve eyed her cautiously, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’ll be easy.” She rolled her shoulders and gestured for him to move closer, “Like playing the floor is Lava with the Bartons.”

“Only slightly more chances of being impaled.” Steve moved forward anyway, bending down on one knee and cupping his hands to work as a boost.

“Slightly less chance of stepping on a Lego though. I’d ask for a kiss for good luck, but you’re coated in dust and this country probably isn’t up to code with carcinogens and asbestos in buildings.” Natasha brushed the bottom of her boot against the back of her gloved hand to try and clear anything sharp from it before stepping onto Steve’s hands, one hand on his shoulders to balance herself as he slowly stood, carefully pushing her upwards until she could easily grab the railing and pull herself over. “However you owe me at least one kiss - about six showers and a bubble bath from now.”

“Fair trade,” Steve nodded, “Be careful.”

“I’m always careful. Left or right?”

Steve closed his eyes for a moment, listening closer to the sound, “Left, sounds like it’s west side of the building.”

“Got it.”

The stairwell had mostly held together it seemed, at least so far as the stairs, the walls were a little more pockmarked than they were meant to be, she was sure.

The hallways though…

They were marked by debris from the building breaking, from people trying to leave in a hurry.

By bodies that she checked for a pulse, even though Steve hadn’t mentioned any other heartbeats or breathing in the building. She noted their location as precisely as she could over the com system, waiting for a reply from Clint that he’d marked them down before moving on.

Steve’s hearing was beyond what any normal humans could dream of having. She knew that, they all did, yet still he managed to surprise her on a regular basis with it.

It took two floors, and a door before she heard the whining noise Steve could hear so clearly from outside the building.

There were bodies in the living room, obviously long dead, taken out by what had broken the building so thoroughly.

The fussing had almost a despondent tone, more pathetic and hopeless a noise than she’d ever heard Lila make as a baby. Probably beyond certain that no one was coming for it. Had it been crying for two days? Hoping that anyone might come and take care of it?

Natasha had to put a bit of force into getting the door open, listening to something on the other side scraping on the floor as she forced it open.

A collapsed dresser, she noted without much interest, now covering the floor in clothes and wood shards.

What was interesting was the crib. The whole room was a display of broken bits of ceiling, broken furniture, bits of glass, but the crib? It was as if all the debris had perfectly encircled it, leaving it untouched.

“It’s okay, kid,” Natasha took measured steps across crumbling floorboards to the crib, “You’ll be okay.”

The crib was untouched inside, the sheets still a pretty mint color.

It had to do, Natasha was certain, with the fact that the fussing baby it held was currently engulfed in a little bubble of blue light.

“Huh.” Natasha reached out slowly, finding her hand passed through the energy, whatever it was, easily, and touched the baby’s cheek. Poor kid was freezing cold, but it’s eyes snapped open at the touch, it’s arms flinging out to the side, the bubble moving outwards and making her hand tingle as if it had gone to sleep. “It’s okay, sweetheart, you’re okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”

As if it were desperate for human contact – which Natasha was certain it was after being alone so long – the bubble seemed to pop at her words, dispersing into the air around it.

“Let’s get you somewhere safe, okay?” Natasha carefully scooped the baby out of the crib, cradling it against her shoulder, grabbing a blanket from the crib to cover it a little more from the cold, from anything falling from the ceiling, “It’s going to be okay.”

~-~-~

He wasn’t at the New York safe house. No one was.

The backpack that served as his bugout bag was gone, as was the money hidden beneath the floor, and Wanda’s fake passport.

So she had taken him, and she had gone with him. Clint had been with them, obviously, he had to have been since Clint and Wanda were together in Germany at the airport.

After they’d taken off with her son. Steve’s too, she had to admit, but he wasn’t the one who’s taken him. They might have done it at his request, but there wasn’t any way he’d ask them to do it, and then not tell her. There was no reason to take him.

Sure they were on different sides when it came to government interference, but taking her child because of that? That would be beyond low, beyond cruel.

Steve wasn’t cruel.

He wasn’t in their apartment, or the D.C. safe house either.

It took three states and four days to figure out where he had been moved to.

~-~-~

The blue bubble didn’t return while Natasha held him, only showing up again when she tried to lay him down for someone else to look at. Something that led to the doctor trying to examine him getting a nasty shock from it.

The grumbling from the Sokovian doctor had politely been translated by a UN nurse as ‘you didn’t warn me he was enhanced’.

Enhanced. Whatever the HYDRA infiltrated version of SHIELD had been up to here, it hadn’t been great. She was worried enough over how young Wanda had to be; finding out there was at least one enhanced infant was enough to make her want to rage. But she couldn’t.

“Doctor thinks he’s around two months old,” Natasha told Steve when the soldier dragged himself into the small jet the Avengers had taken over as their brief living quarters, courtesy of Fury. “That’s pretty young to be injecting someone with any version of the serum, isn’t it?”

“Too young to survive.” Steve set his gloves down on a now empty crate, freeing his now moderately clean hands to touch the baby’s hand. The boy didn’t stir, too content to bother with anything now that he had a clean diaper, and a full belly for the first time in at least two days. “Far too young.”

“So you think this is natural, some gift he was born with randomly or…?”

“Or his parents were enhanced, at least one of them.” He let his helmet drop by the gloves, “You going to leave him with the red cross?” The look on her face must have been evident enough of what she thought of his opinion because he laughed quietly and nodded, “Right. Enhanced means he should probably stay with us until we figure out if he has any relatives to go to. Obviously.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, letting his temple rest against the top of her head, peering down at the baby.

“Obviously.”

—-

There were no missing persons reports for a baby that young. No one looking for any infants, no hospital records – surviving anyway - for a baby that fit his description, no certificates of birth. Not completely out of the norm for a war torn country, but what cemented him fully in their minds as an orphan was Wanda.

Wanda who stayed at the compound with them in the first few days, watched them and the baby. Wanda who took one look at his chest while Clint helped Natasha change him into a romper, eying the dark mark across his ribs. “Is that a bruise or a birth mark?”

“A birthmark. Might get lighter as he grows, might not. A lot of kids are born with them.” Clint placed his hand between the baby’s torso and the zipper when he tugged it up, into place.

“Huh.” Wanda leaned against the back of the couch, “You said he was blue? Very bright, yes?”

Natasha turned towards her, resting the baby against her shoulder, “As bright as your magic… please tell me he’s not yours.” Wanda was already young and taken advantage of, Natasha could see the way Clint stiffened, looked a little murderous.

“No. He might be Selene’s.” Wanda gave half a shrug, “They took her baby away. He was noisy, and he had a mark on his chest. Also on the back of his head, like a strawberry. My… Pietro said he’d heard a mark on the front like that was bound to be a sign of greed.”

“Yeah, well the only thing he’s greedy for is another bottle,” Clint joked in that same dad voice he used on his kids, making Natasha roll her eyes.

“Who’s Selene?” Natasha asked instead of giving in to talk about marks, baby happily resting against her shoulder.

“One of the people they were testing on. They took many of us,” Wanda hesitated, “Only Pietro and I survived more than a few weeks. She had him after they injected us. When she died they took him away. She called him Ilya, if that helps.”

—-

It took two weeks to set up for the baby to be tested by anyone. After Ultron Steve was hesitant to let Tony near the baby in any way, and Natasha didn’t protest the idea.

But it meant two weeks of him staying with them. Two weeks of late nights and endless bottles, diapers.

Of seeing Steve sprawled out on their couch late at night with the baby laying across his chest, watching the TV and talking to the little guy to 'entertain’ him while Natasha was meant to be catching up on sleep.

After two days she didn’t want to give him up, by his appointment at two weeks the idea of handing him off to anyone was painful.

About as painful as Ilya found his physical to be, given the way he squealed, his hands balled up into fists, face scrunched up in fury at even being looked over by anyone else.

It wasn’t a doctor technically, Maria Hill had explained, but apparently Dr. Simmons was the best biologist SHIELD had, and wouldn’t be put out by dealing with enhanced challenges.

Something that stood out when the attempt to take a small vial of blood from Ilya ended in a rapid appearing blue bubble that sent the woman stumbling backwards, caught by a prepared Maria.

“Is it bad I really want to just throw things towards him now and see what he blocks?” Maria asked, leaning against the table watching Natasha soothe the baby enough to where Simmons could draw blood with only minor electrical interference.

“Clint said the only thing stopping him from doing it was a little voice in his head telling him I’d kill him.”

-

Their apartment was a slight mess. Well, a mess as far as Steve’s sensibilities.

There were books piled neatly on the coffee table, a stack of sketchbooks on the kitchen island, a few boxes along the hallway.

Things that were meant to be in his hobby room.

A room where currently faint music was playing.

“What the hell…” Natasha shifted Ilya in her arms, letting the fussy baby lay against her chest instead of her shoulder. His loud complaints and subsided to occasional grumbling behind a pacifier about the time they left the building Maria swore wasn’t a hidden SHIELD office, not in the least.

The room had been cleared out and cleaned. Against the wall leaned a large white cardboard box with what looked like a crib printed on the side of it, along with a few grocery bags tied at the top like a knot.

“Uh, Steve?”

Steve looked up from where he knelt, carefully painting what looked like Donald Duck in a border, three smaller half painted creatures walking behind him. “What?” his voice was muffled by another paintbrush held between his teeth. He removed it carefully, swiping yellow paint across his cheek in the process, “It’s not like we were gonna return him.”

~-~-~

The farm was silent as she drove up to it. None of the alarm systems she’d helped set up cued off, at least not that she could see. Laura didn’t call her burner phone on the way to the house. No one was out front either.

Cooper’s bike was leaned up against the porch, Laura’s car was in the drive. The front door wasn’t broken open.

But it was unlocked when she tried it.

The house alarms didn’t go off either. The coats weren’t hung up by the door, and the kitchen floorboard had been pulled up, the go-bags stashed inside taken out.

“Shit.” In a crisis she was supposed to help them, keep track if possible, but they’d gotten out first. Probably when Clint left.

The only thing left behind was a piece of paper on the kitchen table. It held very little information, but it did settle some of her anxiety.

'R, He’s with mine, B’

Laura had him.

Laura, wherever she was, had Ilya with her children. That was both a relief and more worry inducing. She knew one or two places Laura might go, but with Clint as her husband, they probably had more she didn’t even know about.

With Clint in prison she had no ways to contact him to try and find her son.

She tried one more time on the numbers she knew they might us, burners that might be active, but got no reply, no answer. Some didn’t even ring.

The one that did ring and cut short, being sent to voice-mail had her clenching her hand, listening to the beep meaning it had begun recording.

“If I don’t get him back, and soon, you’re going to be very, very sorry.” She spoke clearly into the phone, not raising her voice in the least, keeping it as level as she could before ending the call with a click, shoving the phone back into her pocket.

There were more places to check, to catch up to the ones who thought she sided against them.

~-~-~

Continuing life with a baby around wasn’t as hard as they expected it to be.

Most training sessions Ilya was off to the side in whoever wasn’t working’s arms, and the times they worked as a team he was most happy to lay in his swing, suckling on his pacifier while they worked on practicing working as a team, perfecting what feats they needed to rely on each other for.

They found out quickly that he adored Wanda, tolerated Sam and Rhodey, and cried at Vision being near. The crying wasn’t funny, but the way his little fists would be swallowed up in tiny blue energy crackling around them was.

“You trying to threaten the mean ol’ Android. You’re older than him, you know,” Steve teased Ilya, sitting cross-legged in front of his swing, playing with his tiny fists. “You’re meant to look out for the younger guys, that’s how it works.”

“Nah, you defend yourself against anyone who’s mean to you,” Sam disagreed, crouching down next to the swing, catching Ilya’s attention with his movement. “You may be little, but I bet you got a hell of a south paw. Huh?” He tapped Ilya’s nose with his fingertip, making the baby go crossed eyed briefly, blinking and refocusing.

“He’s gotta learn to balance on his own before he can manage that mean right hook,” Steve disagreed, unfastening Ilya and climbing to his feet, plucking the cheerful boy from his spot. “Huh bud?”

“Yeah, might need to discover he has feet before he can plant them for a proper punch,” Sam conceded, following after Steve out of the gym, giving a sarcastic farewell salute to Rhodey who looked rather resigned to his role of practice dummy in Natasha’s lessons to Wanda on taking down bigger opponents.

“He knows he has feet!” Steve protested. He glanced down at the baby, “You know you have feet. Don’t you?”

If the four month old had any answers, he wasn’t sharing them.

Steve shook his head “He’s aware of his feet he knows when they’re cold.”

“He knows he’s cold, that doesn’t mean he’s aware he has feet,” Sam made a face at Ilya that had the baby making a chuffing noise.

Steve stared down at his son, “Do that again?”

“Do what?” Sam blew a raspberry at Ilya, receiving the same noise in reply.

“That.” Steve shifted Ilya so the baby was watching Sam fully. “That face.”

Sam rolled his eyes, “Your Daddy thinks I’m an on cue comedian, doesn’t he?” But still he made a face, blowing a raspberry at Ilya again. This time the chuffing noise came with waved hands, a high pitched breath out at the end. “Oh. Oh shit, did I just make him laugh?”

“No. No you did not. That did not happen,” Steve decided after a minute, “You heard nothing and neither did I. Nothing has happened until Mommy sees it.”

“Like the feeding him orange juice incident. Got it.”

—-

Ilya’s first shots at two months old, after the blood, led to a shrieking baby and a dazed scientist with a nasty bump on the back of her head.

At four his screaming anger at shots had a dent in a wall, and Maria threatening Steve via text about having to catch scientists on her own.

So when his six months shots came up, they were prepared ahead of time, with Steve bracing his arm around a stuttering brunette who tried to keep her focus on the now distrustful baby.

A distrustful baby who shrieked as if he’d been betrayed, tears rolling down his face, hand clenched in pain.

Steve had counted on having to block poor Simmons from being tossed backwards again, that was easy enough.

He’d counted on Ilya’s crying, a needle hurt when you were an adult, of course it’d be a horrible pain as a baby.

What he hadn’t counted on was the way his heart broke at Ilya’s face, screwed up in pain, in the pained, betrayed sobs that came from his poor innocent son.

“Hey, no, no, it’s okay, you’re okay.” Steve scooped him up the moment Natasha had a bandage over the two tiny injection marks. “You’re okay champ, I’ve got you.” He cradled Ilya to his shoulder, bouncing him lightly, “You’re okay. I know, I know, that was so cruel. That was mean and terrible, I’m so sorry.” he didn’t notice the amused look Natasha gave him, or the way Maria pulled out her phone, pointing it at them, all he cared about was Ilya’s slowly quieting cries, “I’m sorry, buddy. I know, but I promise you that jab’s a lot better than polio.”

“I don’t think he cares about what he’s avoiding, hon,” Natasha’s amusement was evident in her tone, obviously trying not to laugh despite how much she had been nervous about his getting his shots. “He’s just mad we poked him.”

“That was a horrible betrayal, he should be mad. And he should care! Whooping cough is horrible. I had it, it wasn’t fun. We don’t like stuff that isn’t fun, do we buddy? No, no we don’t.”

—-

“Nat. Nat,” Steve nudged the bed lightly with the side of his leg, “hey.”

“What?” Natasha blinked to clear her eyes, looking up at Steve stood by their bedside, baby in his arms. “What’s wrong? He can’t sleep?”

“He’s sleeping fine. Too fine. Clint said babies are up crying all night after shots and get sick and aren’t well but he hasn’t even woken up for a bottle” Steve sat down next to her on the bed when she tugged on the hem of his boxers to make him, “No bottle, no waking, and he’s warm.”

Natasha sat up enough to touch Ilya’s face, his hands, “He’s warm but he’s not hot.”

“Warm is bad for a baby, it could mean something is very wrong,” Steve pointed out.

“Or it could mean it’s September in New York, he’s wearing footie pajamas, and you don’t sleep so instead you stay up and obsess listening to him breathe,” Natasha scooted backwards on the bed, nudging Steve to lean back on the pillows and relax. She plucked Ilya from his arms, settling herself back against Steve’s shoulder instead, baby on her chest. Ilya was a bit warm, but no more than he normally was when sleeping in full body pajamas. He wasn’t flushed, or breathing hard.

“He could be really sick,” Steve covered her hand on Ilya’s back with his own, “What if he is? He always wakes for a bottle, this could mean–”

“That we start getting full nights worth of sleep again, and he’s tired out from the day. If you really want me to I’m sure I can wake him up for you,” Natasha offered, entwining her fingers with his, and moving so both his arms were around her and Ilya. “Or you can obsess over his breathing and rest with us for a while.”

“I don’t obsess,” Steve defended himself with remarkably little conviction, “I monitor.”

“Uh huh. Sleep, he’s fine.” Natasha rested her head on his shoulder, letting her eyes close, “I promise.”

~-~-~

The Montana safe house. had obviously been used, but it hadn’t been emptied of supplies. The signs of life there were subtle. While bed was made up neatly, they were crinkled and obviously had been used, not just tucked in hospital corners.

The dishes were in the cupboard neat and clean, but the few that were up there held no dust on them at all, recently used and washed.

Two of the towels hanging up to dry in the bathroom had been used and hung back up again.

More telling than anything though, was something Natasha was certain was deliberate; tucked just behind a pillow on the couch was a tiny pair of light blue socks, decorated with little versions of Captain America’s shield.

Ilya.

Tony and Sam found it hilarious to send them everything Captain America or Black Widow they found baby wise. He had so many outfits and toys of the avengers it was unreal, enough that she’d started sending them to Clint for Nathaniel to wear too.

So they’d left New York, Natasha reasoned in her head, took Ilya with them, somehow got him to Laura on the way to wherever they were going pre-Germany. Laura who went into hiding as well, with two children, and two babies with her.

She owed Laura at least one bottle of wine after this. Wanda and Clint owed her more.

Steve could take a full weekend babysitting the Barton children if he’d organized this on his own.

Natasha checked her phone when she finally settled down, content that the security system was in place and working.

The wait for the burner to power up was agonizing, and her heart leapt when she saw she had a message in return.

“For what it’s worth,” Steve’s voice rang through clear, “I’m already very sorry.”

~-~-~

October brought two snuffling, lingering colds, dreary weather, and more Halloween costumes than Ilya could ever need.

Which meant most days poor Ilya found himself dressed in some set of Halloween pajamas or zip up rompers.

It was both cute and a sad to watch a red cheeked baby in a zip up dragon romper sneeze himself backwards on a playmat.

Steve tried to veto superhero clothing, but somehow found his kid in mimics of their outfits, along with the occasional superman onesie. He drew the line at capes, all they were useful for was an emergency spit rag. Occasionally capes that didn’t even belong to Ilya’s outfit.

October brings Halloween, a day that Natasha had planned out as early as of the 1st of October. A day of candy, Halloween movies, and even taking Ilya trick-or-treating around a few approved places.

There were matching costumes planned out from mid October onwards; even a set that made sure Sam and Wanda had to participate.

Except instead of hanging out with their son on his first Halloween, Steve and Natasha found themselves in a shitty, rundown hotel room outside Madrid, keeping watch for an illegal sale of HYDRA weapons.

Weapons that had been the source of devastation and chaos in the past, and would do even less good in the hands of the unstable extremists that sought them out for their own agenda.

“It’s just Halloween, one of many Halloweens. He’s too young to even realize it’s Halloween. And way too young for candy.”

Steve tried not to smile at Natasha’s mutterings over the comms, eyes scanning the street. “Are you trying to convince me or you?”

“You. Obviously. Why would I care about missing such a minor holiday? Even if it’s his first ever Halloween.”

“Exactly. You’ve lucked out, now you don’t have to dress up as Wonder Woman,” Sam piped up with easy amusement, “There’s a bright side.”

“I don’t think she sees it as a bright side,” Wanda interjected, “Because now we don’t get to see Superman Steve.”

“Aww, that’s disappointing. No Cap in tights? God why don’t you just ruin a guy’s year?”

Steve snorted, “Can we focus on the mission and not turning Ilya into Batman please?”

There was silence across the comms for a few minutes, the occasional update on what they saw on the street, various things that might work out badly.

Then finally Wanda had to break the silence, “If Ilya becomes Batman, would that make Sam Alfred or Robin?”

“Alfred,” Steve replied instantly, “No one wants to see that much of Sam’s legs.”

“Hey, I got great legs! But I ain’t no one’s sidekick.”

“Sure thing, birdman.”

“Leave the sidechick alone, we’ve got incoming.” Natasha scolded them lightly.

—

November brought them road trips, and a very unhappy Ilya.

Between his nine month shots (suffered much better than him than Steve, who looked like he might cry himself when Ilya burst into tears), and teeth beginning to make their way through, he was already an angry little grouch, but when they added in a flight on the Avengers’ Quinjet, he was a downright menace, his tiny fists waving, coated in that same blue energy that had been there before, but this time setting off alarms in the plane.

With Natasha as pilot it was a little hard to console the baby whose ears were now popping as well. No matter the faces Steve made, he cried – no matter how he sang or rocked, Ilya refused to be consoled.

That was until Wanda intervened, tapping a lollipop to his lips. The surprised baby jolted, watching her as he opened his mouth reflexively, tongue darting out. His eyes lit up at the new taste, his feet kicking as he watched her. “Yeah? That worth not crashing us over?” Wanda asked, holding it up and letting him touch his tongue to it. “Worth not throwing a fit? I’d like to live, please.”

Ilya apparently found the deal worth it, feet kicking, hands waving, reaching out towards Wanda and the newly discovered treat.

Steve shook his head, handing his son to her, “I didn’t give him it, I can’t get in trouble for this.”

“Give him what?” Natasha called back, barely glancing to where Wanda now sat cross-legged on the floor, Ilya on her lap happy slobbering over a lollipop.

“Nothing, darling.”

—

Neither Cooper or Lila could have cared any less about their new honorary baby cousin, not when Wanda was there and could move things with her mind, and when Sharon could name every Pokemon off the top of her head at Lila’s prompting.

Laura gleefully took a turn holding Ilya though, swapping Steve easily for baby Nate, “Oh my God he’s even cuter than the pictures. Hi, buddy! Oh look at you,” Laura beamed over Ilya who looked slightly bemused behind his pacifier, but okay so long as he could see his mommy nearby. “He’s tiny, isn’t he? Or are my kids just fat? My babies might just be oversized.”

“He’s 'dainty’,” Natasha conceded with amusement, “But we’re assured he’s perfectly proportional, and healthy as can be, just small. And also your babies are fat.”

“Well, Nate is a boob monster.” Laura grinned as Steve turned at the words, leaving the living room to go find Clint. “Is he easily embarrassed or does he just not want to think about me having boobs?”

“You’re Clint’s wife, any thoughts of any of your body that’s typically covered by clothing, willing or unwilling, are punishable by death.”

—

Steve wasn’t sure who hated the other more, Ilya or Nathaniel.

Ilya had been interested in the baby, until Natasha held him. And then the baby was the worst creature ever to exist, even worse than the mean doctor who gave him injections.

He didn’t turn blue, or do anything but stare with this look of betrayal, crying at the obvious rejection and horrific slight that was his mommy holding another baby.

A sentiment returned by Nathaniel when he spotted Laura holding Ilya and started crying, despite being held by his father.

They sat staring at each other across the playmat, Ilya sitting up on his own, worrying his teeth on a stuffed rabbit’s ear, while Nathaniel sat in his bumbo chair, gumming at his pacifier.

“You know, I never figured it’d be your kid my kid would hate,” Clint offered cheerfully, sprawled out on his side next to Nathaniel, entertaining him by jingling brightly colored fake car keys.

“Which kid did you figure on yours hating?” Steve watched Ilya, trying not to be reminded of a small dog at the way he grumbled around the toy.

“Stark’s, or that ass Martin from the PTA.”

“That ass Martin?” Steve laughed, “Are you feuding with the school?”

“No, just Martin. He thinks his kids are the best thing to ever grace this earth, while we know that Tommy’s a dirt eating icky head, Polly needs to stop stealing the good crayons, and that baby of theirs is bald still so they’re so not all that.”

Steve blinked, scoffed, “This is retirement?”

“Oh no, this is the battle I fight when I’m not saving the world. We’ve been feuding since Tommy pushed Cooper off the slide in Pre-K and Cooper shoved dirt down his shirt. What? My kids fight back.”

—-

“So in a few years I may be feuding with that ass Martin with the PTA.” Steve could feel Natasha trying not to laugh where she lay next to him on the air mattress, Ilya sprawled in his pack & play next to them.

“What?”

“Clint doesn’t like some guy named Martin, or his kids.”

Natasha did laugh quietly at that, “I’ve heard about Martin, and the evil icky kids. Why would you be feuding with them?”

Steve gave a half shrug, “Cause apparently dads feud with PTA dads, and go to soccer practice in cargo shorts, and stand around poking burgers on a grill while holding a beer and calling everyone 'champ’.” “You call Ilya 'champ’.” Natasha changed positions, moving around so she could lay her head on his chest, half draped across him, not that he minded.

Steve rested his hand on her back, watching the ceiling where glow in the dark stars twinkled, “I don’t typically drink 'bud light’ while doing it.”

“Clint drinks IPA, not Bud light.”

“I don’t own cargo shorts.”

“No, but you do own skinny jeans,” Natasha offered.

“Only because you bought them,” Steve countered. He sighed, tracing random designs on her back with his fingertips, “He says I have to buy a football jersey with ’#1 Dad’ on the back or I’m not a real dad.”

“We’ll get you a baseball jersey instead, much more your speed.”

“Please promise me you’ll never use the words 'boob monster’.”

“Well, not in relation to Ilya at least…”

—-

Thanksgiving day had Wanda playing an enhanced game of soccer out front with the kids, Ilya happily tucked into his sling against her chest so he could see everything.

With Ilya outside with them, the men out back playing around with turkeys and deep fryers, and Nathaniel asleep, the kitchen was actually quiet.

Sharon and Natasha had both been forbidden from touching the stove top by Laura who wielded a wicked wooden spoon. Natasha had joined them when she got bored of hanging around the deep fryers, and the two men debating how far Steve could boost someone into the air, planning to avoid any possible oil burns from attempted acrobatics.

“Vision and Stark still terrified of Ilya?”

Natasha scoffed, “Stark’s debating a civil lawsuit against Ilya for befouling a suit that costs more than a car. So he claims. He’s also been fiddling about with a car seat that he swears will keep any baby inside from feeling the 'slightest of movement’.”

“Aw, he likes him.”

“Or he likes interesting new projects. He also likes to send us as many outfits as he can with his face or Steve’s face on it. Which reminds me, I brought Nathaniel a few outfits I’m so never putting Ilya in.”

“Oh, did I tell you what Aunt Peg thought about Ilya?”

Natasha tried not to make a face, instead digging into the fridge to steal one of Clint’s beers, “Nope.”

Neither had Steve beyond 'he’s cute’. She wasn’t jealous in the least of him taking their son to meet his ex-girlfriend.

His only ex who was only his ex because he ended up frozen in the arctic for a few years.

She was relative certain she could take the 94 year old in a fight.

Relatively.

“Oh what’d Nana have to say?” Laura lit up at that, “She called Nathaniel ‘chunky’ and said he was 'marginally’ cuter than my Uncle James as a baby.”

“When did your Grandmother lose her filter?” Natasha made a face, “Don’t most people only say nice things about babies?”

“She’s always said what she thought, she just occasionally kept it inside until the person she wanted to comment on was gone.”

“She thinks he’s cute,” Sharon told her, snuggling Nathaniel to her shoulder, “And 'positively tiny’, much like Steve before Howard got hold of him. Also she expected a much ornerier child from 'That Romanova girl’. How badly did you annoy her?”

Natasha rolled her eyes, “I never did a thing to her. Not once. She was retired when I joined SHIELD. It’s all Clint gossiping, he gives me a bad reputation.”

~-~-~

The apartment in Calgary looked undisturbed at first. The counters were a little dusty still, and the floorboards were in place still.

But there were pressure marks on the living room floor, the kind left by a playpen. When she did pull up the floorboard the cash that was normally stored there was gone, in it’s place a sketched postcard.

Natasha frowned over it, turning it over in her hands. On one side was a hand drawn image of a hotel, complete with neon sign out front, a few cars that even had license plates on them. Plates that marked them as not American, most likely European, without additional research.

“Wish you were here XOXO ” was all that was written on the back. It was Steve’s handwriting, Steve’s artwork, and most likely the only clue she was going to be given to where she was meant to meet them.

Smart man.

~-~-~

Christmas was big and exciting, and Ilya couldn’t seem to care about it beyond the lights.

Big tree? Uninteresting.

Ornaments? Pass.

Pretty stockings hung up? Boring.

But those twinkling lights decorating the windows and railings at the compound? Oh those were the most important thing in his little life.

So important that Tony had made a little device to project the little lights around his playpen as well, so they could actually set him down without him screeching to get back to the lights.

It didn’t help his temperament in regards to missing his dad, but it was a distraction.

Steve and Sam were only meant to be gone a few days at most, and yet somehow they were still gone, still radio silent, in the days leading up to Christmas.

If they weren’t back in the next few days Natasha was going to go after them herself. Rhodey was spending time with his family, The Vision was with Tony 'learning’ all about the festivities, which left Natasha mostly alone with a baby and a teenager.

Steve missed Ilya’s first visit to Santa, but she made sure to get multiple photos of the baffled baby on Santa’s lap, a feat she only managed by convincing Wanda to get in the photo with him. She sent a copy to Clint when they got home, receiving a heart emoji in reply. Sap.

He missed Christmas shopping last minute for things she’d missed before, and on baking cookies that Ilya couldn’t eat anyway at his age, and watching old Christmas movies while Ilya hung out in his elf pajamas.

Natasha refused to be upset by it. It was part of the job. God knew how many holidays she’d miss in the future, or what reasons she’d have for missing them. He was young enough the day didn’t matter to him, they could do Christmas in July and he wouldn’t notice.

But it did bother her a little when the house was silent on Christmas eve, with Ilya sleeping peacefully in his crib, tucked up under his Captain America blanket, and Wanda curled up on the couch fast asleep.

With a quick text to Clint about pretending to be Santa, she went to bed herself, not very hopeful for the morning.

—-

It wasn’t a loudly complaining baby wanting his breakfast that woke her, but heavy footsteps in the hallway, her bedroom door being pushed open.

“If he hasn’t woke up yet, did I still technically miss Christmas?” Steve half joked, dropping his helmet and gloves next to the laundry basket.

“Not technically,” Natasha flipped on the light, climbing out of bed to look him over. “You didn’t check in.”

Steve started to smile then stopped as it pulled at a cut on his cheek, “Yeah, things got a little messy.”

A little messy was probably an understatement, given the marks on his hands and face. She gently swatted his hands away when he went to undo his uniform jacket, doing it herself instead, “A little? Where’s Sam?”

“Dropped him off in DC, he’s gonna surprise his mom with a Christmas visit.” Steve winced when he shrugged the jacket off, “I didn’t protest.”

“Did you manage what you set out to do?” she frowned when his shirt came off, studying the bruises on his skin, some of which were already fading.

“You’ll be happy to know that there is no more threats of a nefarious takeover in Adelaide. That country’s more deadly than its’ bad guys, did you know that?” He’d left his boots somewhere before reaching their bedroom, meaning it was easy enough for him to shimmy out of his uniform pants, nudge them aside with the other parts of his uniform, “I really don’t say it often, but I need a nap, and at least three protein shakes and a sandwich.”

“You need a shower first, soldier boy.” Natasha wrinkled her nose, “And a look over with a first aid kit. Let’s go.”

“You gonna join me? Thought we had company on the couch,” Steve joked without protest, already headed for their private bathroom.

“We do, which is why you’re not quite as lucky as you think you are. I’m just pretty sure you probably can’t lift your hands over your head to wash you own hair right now, and you might pass out on the shower floor.”

—-

Tony and Ilya held an easy peace between them. Tony brought him embarrassing outfits to wear, occasional high tech toys like his Christmas light projector and car seat, and refused to pick him up at any time.

Ilya for his part would happily blow bubbles at Tony and play peek-a-boo for hours on end, so long as he didn’t attempt to take him out of sight of his parents, or Wanda.

When Ilya wasn’t feeling well however, all his tolerance was gone.

It was only a few hours they were meant to be watching him, and Wanda was the one watching him – really. Tony and Rhodey were just hanging out, casually at the compound like always. Shooting the breeze with Sam, fun night all around really.

Fun enough, even though Wanda paced around with Ilya, talking to him in a combination of languages, swaying in place while the poor boy fussed, rubbing at his ear til it was red. Teething, Sam had explained to them, meant Ilya’s nose was running, he had a fever starting, and his ears hurt.

It made for a very irritable baby, 'so don’t take it personally’.

“Tony.” Rhodey nudged his oldest friend, “Go poke him.”

“What? Why?” Tony eyed the baby. His fists were tinged with blue where the one tugged at his ear. “You think he’ll launch me too?”

“I think I wanna see if he can launch the suit, and yours is much shinier and prettier to look at than mine to a baby’s point of view,” Rhodey nudged him again, “We know he can fling humans, think he can fling an Iron man?”

Tony paused, watching Ilya chew on a frozen teething toy, “$500 says he can’t toss me.”

Rhodey grinned at that, “I got five says he can.”

“You two are both completely screwed if you do that,” Sam warned them, “That being said, I’ll put five down that not only can he throw you, but you make it through the wall.”

—-

“Hey, be nice to the birthday boy, okay? We just repaired the walls he threw you through,” Steve warned Tony, pointing at him as Tony moved to put a wrapped present down on the table with the others.

“He did not throw me. He pushed me and then my boots mysteriously started on their own which propelled me.” Tony defended himself, “Sam lies.”

“Which means he won’t poke the baby again. Where’s the birthday boy?” Pepper greeted him cheerfully.

“He’s gaining massive applause by showing off his newest skill in the rec room,” Steve gestured her down the hall and didn’t feel the least bit offended when she didn’t stick around to chat. Ilya was cuter than him, after all.

“King fu? Electro shock? He levitate yet?” Tony guessed.

Steve chuckled, “No he’s learned to pull himself up to his feet and balance without anyone holding onto him. For short, short periods of time.”

“I’m officially uninterested. Let me know when he’s controling Vision’s mind or something cooler.”

Steve rolled his eyes, “Yeah, yeah. Learning to stand on your own two feet is a very valuable skill.”

“I’m sure. Say, are you really, really sure the kid’s not yours?” Tony nudged past him into the kitchen.

“What?”

“Like didn’t spring forth from the font of freedom?” Tony wiggled his eyebrows, opening the fridge. “Didn’t come out of mother Russia?”

“Very. Don’t be crude.”

“I’m just curious is all,” Tony gave an innocent look Steve’s way, popping the top on one of Sam’s hidden Pepsi’s. “I mean, his birthday’s fantastic.”

Steve frowned, “Why? It’s just an estimated date.”

“Yeah, but you know what that day is?” Tony asked with a giant grin, “The reason everyone’s got plans on it so we’re doing this like a week early?”

Steve’s brow furrowed in thought, trying to connect in his brain whatever it was Tony was going on about. After a moment it clicked, “Aw… son of a bitch.”

“Who picked it?” Tony asked eagerly, “Because I’m ashamed I didn’t notice until FRIDAY pointed it out to me.”

“I think Nat did,” Steve rubbed at his temple, “Jesus.. At least it’s not the 4th of July.”

“No, we’ve gone for the non-American pride. God, Captain America’s son, our little Caplet, the mini soldier, born on Saint Patrick’s day. Can you get any more Irish when you’re adopted with a questionable ethnicity from a war torn European state?”

“I hate you.”

“You don’t. You will when the first 'Kiss me I’m Irish’ shirt gets put on him, but you’ll tolerate me til then.”

-

“You didn’t warn me.” Steve complained lightly at Natasha once the party was over, when it was just a few of them hanging out in the rec room, watching Ilya alternately tear up wrapping paper, and plaster his dark curls to his head with more bright yellow frosting.

“Warn you about what?” Natasha made a face at Ilya, handing him another piece of paper to tear, causing him to break into giggles once more.

“His birthday.”

Natasha gave him a look, “The party you just attended? I think I gave you notice.”

“No, not the party, his birthday. See, there it is! There’s that smirk.” Steve pointed in as much outrage as he could manage, “How could you?”

“It was a tough debate between the 17th and the 15th, and Saint Patrick’s day seemed more fun than The Ides of March.”

“You could have gone with the 16th.” Steve grabbed Ilya’s sippy cup when he reached for it demandingly, watched him try to sort out how it worked once more.

“That just wouldn’t be interesting at all, why would I do that?”

Steve shook his head, trying not to smile, “Next time point things out to me before Tony does, that’s all I ask.”

“Like what things? Oh, like how Captain America’s son literally has an Uncle Sam? That kind of thing?”

“Uh-oh,” Ilya mumbled to himself, knocking his sippy cup off the coffee table and onto the ground, wriggling his toes as the milk inside leaked out on them.

“Yeah,” Steve answered faintly as Natasha lifted Ilya into the air, cheering him on for the word, “Like that kind of thing.”

~-~-~

The hotel wasn’t actually European, but based in South Africa, Natasha had learned with a bit of research online, a little prodding at sources with license plate numbers.

It took two hours of hanging around the hotel before she was approached. Surprisingly not by Steve, but by a very cheerful looking Sharon who linked her arm in Natasha’s, “Walk with me.”

“Where’s Ilya?” Natasha asked though she did lean in against Sharon, walking casually as if they were just old friends.

“With Steve, who had absolutely no idea what dumb plans other people stirred up. Dumb plans which have already caused them to receive many, many lectures.” Sharon smiled, “Many lectures. Laura used her mom voice. It was impressive.” She gestured Natasha to a rather dirty, beat up looking car, climbing into the driver’s seat.

Natasha followed, settling in the passenger seat, tossing her back into the back, “What exactly was their goal in taking him? Were they trying to piss me off or gain leverage?”

“I believe the thought process was that Tony’s a dick, and the Government was getting real mad at most of us, and Ilya being alone in New York made him an easy target for Ross or Stark. Laura didn’t know, no one did, it was Clint and Wanda’s idea on the way out of New York, not a conspiracy. I promise.”

“Where are Steve and Ilya?”

“At the house.”

~-~-~

May brought too much heart ache and memories. It brought the anniversary of Sokovia’s destruction, of Pietro’s death, and of Ilya’s adoption.

It brought a fuck up in Lagos like they hadn’t ever anticipated, and more government digging around in their affairs.

It brought news of the death of one of the two surviving people he had left who knew him from before he was frozen, and Natasha siding with the government.

“You really want them registering us? Keeping tabs on us, controlling what we do, when we act? They’ll register anyone who’s enhanced, you know that. What does that mean for Ilya?”

“If we get ahead of this now, get a hold of what’s going on while he’s young, it’ll hopefully mean we have control over all of it by time he’s old enough for it to be an issue. Steve, this isn’t a problem we can punch our way out of, this is one we have to take the quiet route on.”

“You think they’ll let him wait that long?” Steve scoffed, “They’ll have him mark an X before he’s even aware what the pen he’s holding is used for. This is the Government we’re talking about.”

—-

“When they arrested us,” Bucky spoke up from the back seat, legs stretched out as much as they could be in the back of their borrowed beetle, “The man in the armor mentioned your son. You have a kid?”

“Yeah, I… I do.” Steve nodded, glancing into the rear view mirror at Bucky.

“That wasn’t in the museum, and I don’t remember it. How old?”

“Almost fifteen months.”

“Oh.” Bucky’s face scrunched up like he was doing mental math. “Who’s the mom?”

“Remember the redhead you shot when we chased your ass on a highway?” Sam spoke up, shifting in his seat a little.

“Vaguely. Oh, oh shit, did I shoot a pregnant woman?” Bucky sat up at that, slightly alarmed,

“No, relax.”

“Not that time, I can’t vouch for others,” Sam answered at the same time as Steve.

Steve rolled his eyes, it was worse than Nathaniel and Ilya’s glowering contests. “Ilya’s adopted, you didn’t shoot a pregnant woman or anything like that.”

“Ilya. Russian.”

“Sokovian, but yeah.”

Bucky nodded, “So… if you’ve got a little boy to take care of, why’d you leave him to help me?”

“Because I’m helping him too. He’s like us, Bucky. He’s just a little weird, with some powers that aren’t quite accepted by the general public. I let them treat you like this, let the world treat us like this, then I can’t say what they’ll do to him. And if those Super Soldiers get out, they start anything… How can I look my kid in the eye when I can’t say I did the best I possibly could to protect him?”

~-~-~

The house turned out to be a vacation home on the beach. A beach she could see two familiar little kids running around on, playing tag with another familiar figure with red hair.

“It’s amazing the access you get to things when you have our skills,” Sharon parked the car, climbing out herself, “Ilya’s been a bit of a menace lately, which is totally their fault. Won’t sleep more than a few hours at a time, he’s forsaken any food but formula, and he’s been biting again.”

“I wonder why.” Natasha grabbed her bag, heading for the house, “Tell Clint I’m going to kick his ass later.”

Sharon gave a salute, heading down towards the beach instead of inside.

Inside the house was cooler than outside, but much noisier. It made her heart hurt to hear Ilya whining and fussing, obviously distraught. She dumped her bag on the floor, tossing her jacket over it, and hurried after the noise.

She found him in the kitchen, Steve in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt rocking in place, trying to comfort Ilya as the microwave whirled, heating up water for formula.

“Hey.” Steve’s greeting was hesitant, like he expected to be yelled at, but it got Ilya’s attention.

Ilya who turned, and upon seeing Natasha let out a shriek, trying to throw himself out of Steve’s arms towards her.

“It’s okay, I’m here, sweetheart,” Natasha cradled him close, pressing a kiss to his head as Ilya buried his face in her neck, clinging.

“Mama!” he cried loudly, nails scratching against her shirt where he clung to her so fiercely. “Mama!”

“Yeah that word started in Montana,” Steve told her, “He’s been uh pretty angry he couldn’t find you.”

“Who’s fault is that?” She wanted to be angrier at him, but Steve looked beyond tired, like he just wanted to rest awhile.

“Clint’s. I had no intention on moving him, I figured if you thought he was in danger you’d make Fury grab him. If it makes you feel any better he’s been shocking Clint when he comes near him, and he’s bit Wanda twice.”

“Slightly.” Natasha hummed, kissing Ilya’s head again, rocking in place like Steve had. “I need a shower, and a nap,” She listed, “And at least one coffee before I start yelling at you for this.”

“This is a rental place,” Steve perked up,“ One of those winter rentals to show off to your family. It has a jacuzzi tub.”

“The yelling might be lesser just for that. You want a bath, baby boy?” Natasha bounced Ilya lightly in her arms. Steve looked almost like a kicked puppy, standing there watching them, so she extended a hand to him, pulling him into a hug he seemed to need as much as her, even if it did make Ilya grumble. “How long are we staying here?”

“The plan was to stay as long as it took to get you to us, and figure it out from there. Wasn’t gonna leave until you got here, no matter what. Then we’d go from there.”

“Oh sure, now you wait for my opinion. Don’t think waiting earns you any brownie points, or that you’re forgiven, we’re still going a round or three later,” Natasha warned him, “When I don’t have a baby in my arms.”

[qqueenofhades]

I was (?) a Lyatt shipper who loved Flynn since S1 bc I love a good bad boy. I've been sympathetic to him since the 70s (ha!) when we found out about his wife and kid being murdered. So I found your blog and was loving all the Flynn stuff but I wasn't into Garcy. Thought "ew"--isn't he more like cool young uncle material for her? Fast forward to today and I have read every Garcy ff you have written and have fallen completely into the trash can. I know you prob hear this a lot lately...(1)

(2) but I wanted to thank you so much for writing The Tangled Web of Fate. What a masterpiece! You make the storyline in the same tone as canon somehow. You really have Flynn’s emotions and voice down pat. So good. Makes me believe in Garcy. In fact, makes me want Jessica and Logan to figure out their crap and that way everyone can be happy bc at this point I don’t want Jessica to be unhappy or go away either. Anyway, I went from Garcy sounds gross to GIVE ME MORE. So thanks?

(3) sorry. I feel panicked that we are running out of time (unoriginal pun) and might only get 5 more episodes and Flynn won’t get the full character development and happy ending he deserves. If it were up to you, would you give him a redemption arc and a happy ending or would you keep him as garbage boss? Also, dude is a full head taller than the industrial fridge in the bunker and they need to find a couch he can be comfy in. He looks like a giant living in a tiny house. My poor baby.

Ahaha. This delights me to no end, ngl. My powers are groooowing. And you have given me a lot to talk about here, so thanks. :)

Honestly, the people insisting on reading Garcy as familial/platonic/theorizing that Flynn is somehow Lucy’s son/they’re otherwise related are… very confusing to me? To say the least. Though to be totally frank, it’s often clearly by people who have an agenda in discrediting Garcy as a viable alternative to Lyatt (which they… probably don’t need to do, I mean for better or worse, the writers have made their preference/narrative direction clear. Alas). I obviously have no problem with people shipping whatever they want in whatever way they do, but… yeah, Garcy’s vibe ain’t platonic or familial (and if for some wild reason they DID end up Magically Related, like Flynn was somehow Lucy’s long-lost brother from an alternate universe or whatever, I wouldn’t stop shipping it, or even writing smut for it. I’d be like, “well writers, you got yourself into this with this far-fetched and illogical forced plot twist that does not fit with anything that has been written or acted beforehand, so I’m going to just go for Time Traveling Flowers in the Attic. Ooops?”) I’ve had plenty of posts with the way Flynn looks at/acts around Lucy (just saying, if my uncle looked at me like that, I would make sure never to be alone with him at family events) and the way she’s started to look back at him. And Goran Visnjic has straight up said that Flynn is “infatuated” with Lucy and we’ve had a lot of teasing about “does Flynn have a thing for Lucy” re: 2x06 that makes me wonder if we’re going to get some kind of more explicit confirmation of the way he feels about her. Goran has also encouraged us to read between the lines, so people can want it to be just a friendship (because they prefer another romantic partner for Lucy, and again, that’s fine, whatever) but he’s consciously acting it as a pretty romantic fascination. So yes. We aren’t just making that up.

Also, just saying, we KNOW who Flynn’s mom is, she’s a named and identified character, she appeared in an episode, Rittenhouse was originally sending Rufus, Lucy, and Assassin Goon to kill her in 1x15 with the aim of erasing Flynn from history. So “Flynn is Lucy’s son” is just… did you guys not notice Maria Thompkins? Who was awesome and I love her? Besides, if Flynn was Lucy’s son, she wouldn’t NEED time travel to meet him, and we know the journal is connected to new time tech (traveling on your own timeline). He couldn’t be anything less than her grandson and that would still be ludicrously complicated, as it would require Lucy to have Maria at some point while traveling in the past, then… straight up abandon her, then go back to her own timeline, then wait for Flynn to grow up, then travel back to meet him…. etc. It’s a mess. We know Flynn’s parents’ names (Asher Flynn and Maria Thompkins); hell, we know more about his family than we do about Wyatt’s. Why is no one theorizing that Wyatt is secretly Flynn and Lucy’s son? (I kid, I kid. But still. It makes about as much sense, if not more, which is to say it doesn’t.)

Anyway yes, I always felt like that was a pretty transparent attempt to make Garcy a non-romantic option in order to remove it as a shipper threat, but that doesn’t mean people can’t ship it as a friendship/brotp. I’m just saying, however, that it has been (at least certainly on Flynn/Goran’s end) played as a romantic thing, even if latent and unspoken and complicated. (Also, he went really quickly for the “honey…” and “what my wife failed to mention” lines in 1x11 and 2x04, so even if Flynn won’t admit it, he instinctively sees Lucy in some way as his wife.) So yes. Making them related would be a COMPLETELY illogical stretch, but… if they did that, yeah, I’d probably still ship it. (Shrug emoji.) Because I would recognize that the council had made a decision, but given as it was a stupid-ass decision, would elect to ignore it. (Insert Nick Fury gif here.)

Next, I am obviously glad that you are enjoying my fic and it has converted you to one of us. I started writing the Wyatt/Jessica stuff before she arrived back on the show and am rather pleased with how nicely it fits. Wyatt in canon needs a serious reality check, which I am hoping he gets. I obviously forgave Flynn for being a total fuckup and hurting everyone, I am absolutely willing to do the same for Wyatt, but he needs to have the “well shit I’ve been a selfish ass and am going to substantively make up for it” moment first. I hope the big finale moment is him finally owning up to his dickish behavior and putting everyone else first and otherwise reversing course. Because yeah. I’m judging.

Lastly, I WORRY ALL THE TIME ABOUT US GETTING CANCELLED AFTER THIS SEASON BECAUSE IT WOULD BE A TRAVESTY. A TRAVESTY. The short season has always hurt us narratively, though of course it’s great to get it, but then to cut it off there with no more space at all… god. It gives me the shudders just to think about. And one of the reasons is yes, give me my full redeemed-antihero Garcia Flynn redemption arc. Goran has talked a lot about how we’re seeing more of his real nature this season, and just yes. We saw throughout season 1 that Flynn hated to do a lot of what he was doing, but he did it anyway in the larger purpose of bringing down Rittenhouse (and nobody has yet acknowledged that he was right all along about them…we need more conversations/authentic character moments, guys, NOT SOAPY RELATIONSHIP DRAMA. JUST SAYING). He never really WANTED to be a garbage disaster, but he loved his wife and daughter more, and he was dedicated to taking Rittenhouse down to the point that he thought he couldn’t return to them even if he did save them. So no, he was not a character who was just out there burning shit down for the fun of it (though he does enjoy it in some ways, because… he’s a disaster). But Flynn’s character file in canon has him fighting in a lot of small-scale liberation wars (Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo, etc) against occupying/oppressive regimes, and that’s basically what he’s doing with Rittenhouse. He is a good man with a very strong moral code, but also a very grey one. He has correctly identified the overall enemy and is dedicated to destroying them, but he won’t be the hero wringing his hands over it because “it’s not right” to use violence. Which the Time Team is leaning on themselves (they basically left Flynn in 1934 to be a hitman, so… no more judgey remarks about “he’s a killer” would be nice, guys. You know he is and you’re using that because you need it.)

So yes. Flynn doesn’t WANT to be a garbage disaster, so it would be cruel to keep him as one. He is sassy as hell, but he also seems happier working with the team than he ever really did alone (as Goran has also discussed). Again: MORE CONVERSATIONS!!! Did Flynn just see it as business in trying to take out the team before, since they were trying to stop him from taking down Rittenhouse, and now that they agree on who the threat is, he’s happy to work with them? Is Garcia “why do I even delegate” Flynn really trusting them (at least aside from Lucy, who he clearly does) to do what’s needed, or does he essentially think he still has to do it himself? DEVELOPMENT PLEASE!

I wanted Flynn to permanently join the team ever since 1x10 (as that episode threw me down the dumpster in SO many ways) so obviously, I want that to keep up. The 2x07 pic of him and Rufus clasping hands made me hella emotional (also: we still haven’t had a Flogan scene since Flynn arrived in 2x03 and Wyatt stormed out in a hissy fit…still judging for skipping the Messy Boys Trip in 2x05). I want him to be developed and integrated more into the team and made a part of them, because I’m a hopeless sucker for villain becomes weird family member and redeemed antihero and found family and enemies-to-lovers/enemies-to-friends. So yes. Please don’t screw it up, guys.

(Also yes. Yes, I noticed him being taller than the god damn fridge at the end of 2x05. He’s HUGE and it’s ridiculous.)

[hudsonespie]

Rainforests of the Sea: Why Kelp Could Help Save the Planet

[By Emma Bryce]

When we think of forests, we mostly think of tree-filled landscapes. But the ocean also holds emerald stands of trees so vast, they line one-quarter of our coastlines. “The area is probably equivalent to about the size of the Amazon rainforest, if you add it all up,” says Karen Filbee-Dexter, a marine ecologist doing a research fellowship at the University of Western Australia. These are kelp forests – one of Earth’s most beneficial ecosystems.

Kelps are a type of seaweed, or macroalgae, made up of roughly 33 genera and 112 species — though there remains some disagreement over what constitutes a kelp. What makes them unique amongst other seaweeds is mainly their large size – giant kelp (from the genus Macrocystis and the biggest of the kelps) can reach heights of 45 meters. They tend to grow in cooler waters, where they create lush habitats rich in biodiversity. As ecosystems, they are as important as coral reefs and mangrove forests to the overall health of the ocean. And as Filbee-Dexter points out, it’s also “really important to understand the benefits that these ecosystems provide to humans”.

As a nursery and refuge for many marine animals, they support our fisheries. They store carbon in their photosynthesising fronds, and their wave-buffering bodies are the surest defence some coastlines have against violent storms. They also clean up our waste: kelps can rapidly absorb nutrient pollution caused by fertilizers running off from farmland into the sea. They use it to fuel their own growth and this averts the development of algal blooms which are so harmful to other marine life. In addition to all this, kelps have immense cultural value for many coastal communities.

(Illustration: Ricardo Macía Lalinde / China Dialogue Ocean)

But the world is losing kelp at an unprecedented rate. Water pollution, off-kilter predator–prey dynamics and the warming waters brought by climate change are driving marine deforestation and eradicating some kelp forests altogether. Meanwhile, just a fraction of these forests is protected. In the northeast Pacific Ocean, where some of Earth’s largest kelp populations occur, only four percent of the area covered by giant kelp falls inside marine protected areas.

Now though, an increasing number of researchers, conservation organizations and governments believe we need to better protect and restore our ocean’s once-mighty oases of kelp. Otherwise, we risk losing a significant carbon store, and a foundation of food security – a loss that many compare to the deforestation of the Amazon.

Ignored for too long

Part of the reason kelp forests have not received the attention they deserve is that more “charismatic” marine ecosystems, like coral reefs, have become synonymous with ocean biodiversity, and thus the focus of conservation, says Filbee-Dexter, who studies how climate change affects kelp populations in Norway, Australia and the Canadian Arctic.

She explains that, with rising temperatures, expanding layers of warm water are beginning to develop at the ocean’s surface. This is a problem, because warmer water contains less oxygen, and it’s also more buoyant than the nutrient-rich cold waters below – as the warm layers thicken, there is less mixing of oxygen and nutrients between deeper layers and the surface, where these ingredients are needed to fuel the growth of kelps, as well as other marine organisms.

Warming may also be contributing to kelp bleaching, which disrupts their ability to photosynthesize. At points along the coasts of mainland Australia and Tasmania, Mexico, the United States and other countries, marine heatwaves and other anthropogenic impacts like pollution have already permanently wiped out whole forests.

Despite this, kelp forests have been left off the priority list for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which began in January 2021. “In the oceans [section of the Decade’s website], they talk about coral reefs and mangroves. But there’s not a single mention of kelp, despite it being one of the largest coastal ecosystems,” Filbee-Dexter says.

Another reason kelps have been ignored is perhaps the historic lack of research into the ecosystem services they provide. Scientists know they can sequester huge amounts of carbon thanks to their large biomass and high productivity – giant kelp can grow 45 centimeters a day. It’s been estimated that wild seaweeds (of all sorts, not just kelp) sequester about 173 million metric tonnes of carbon each year when they die and get buried in sediment on the ocean floor. But definitive calculations are difficult to make, because wild seaweed is always on the move. When kelp dies or is torn off the rocks by storms, it breaks loose, carrying its carbon store out to sea. Without knowing where all this loose kelp ultimately goes (it could end up rotting on a beach and discharging its carbon, or be buried forever in the deep sea), it’s difficult to calculate the carbon locked away by an individual forest.

The benefits of farming seaweed

Seaweed farms offer a more stable environment for researchers. In China, as well as Japan and Korea, seaweed aquaculture has been practiced for centuries. There are thousands of farms along China’s long coastline, where seaweed is grown for food, and for use in pharmaceuticals and biofuels. “We have seven types of cultivated seaweeds in China, but kelp is the major one with the highest yield. It accounts for two-thirds of all China’s seaweed yield,” says Jiaping Wu, a professor of marine science at China’s Zhejiang University.

Wu is interested in how seaweeds’ ecological and commercial value combine in this farming context. His research shows that farmed seaweeds can significantly offset agricultural pollution, removing phosphates and nitrogen that spill into coastal waters and fuel mass algal blooms. Such blooms strip oxygen from the water and create dead zones devoid of marine life. In another study, Wu calculated that at their current growth rate, China’s seaweed farms would remove 100% of phosphorus pollution from the country’s coastal waters by 2026. “Seaweed is a perfect solution to marine eutrophication,” he says.

Traditional seaweed farming in China’s Fujian province, where species such as Saccharina japonica (konbu) are grown on ropes hung between bamboo poles in tidal areas (Image: Alex Berger / Flickr, CC BY NC 2.0)

Research is also ongoing to show the role seaweed farms could play in mitigating climate change. An organization called Oceans 2050, which Wu is part of, is leading an effort to definitively calculate how much carbon farmed seaweed locks in, based on a survey of 23 farms around the world.

When the unharvested parts of farmed seaweed die, they fall to the bottom directly below the farms, locking their carbon in the sediments in an easy to measure way.

“The farmer, by controlling the location of the farm, can control where the carbon ends up,” explains Carlos Duarte, distinguished professor of marine science at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, author of several papers on the carbon-storing potential of macroalgae and principal investigator of the Seaweed Project at Oceans 2050.

Farming could gain recognition for seaweeds in programs like the UN Blue Carbon Initiative. This organization raises awareness about the carbon-trapping potential of mangroves, seagrasses and salt marshes, but has historically excluded seaweeds because of their unpredictability in the wild.

Eventually, the goal is to incorporate seaweed farms into carbon accreditation schemes, because seaweed farming is “scalable and accountable," Duarte says. “I think Oceans 2050 is going to deliver the first robust science to underpin the inclusion of seaweed farming in blue carbon.” Duarte adds that seaweed aquaculture also provides jobs, as well as social mobility for women, who make up the majority of seaweed farmers worldwide.

Optimism for wild seaweed

Filbee-Dexter believes that the growing interest in farmed seaweed “is also translating to [wild] seaweed forests”. This is important, she says, because the enthusiasm for seaweed aquaculture shouldn’t override the importance of protecting and restoring natural ecosystems, especially kelps.

Wild kelp forests are worth more than the carbon they lock away. This has become increasingly evident in Tasmania, where 95 percent of the giant kelp that used to line its shores has been wiped out by warming waters, taking with them the rich fish stocks upon which local fishers had long relied. But for the past two years, Cayne Layton and Craig Johnson – marine ecologists at the University of Tasmania – have been trying to revive these once-great forests by breeding some of the few kelps that survived after warm waters swept through during the 2015-16 El Niño event (a climate phenomenon that research suggests is intensifying with climate change).

Believing these species might be more resilient to warming seas, Layton and Johnson began in 2019 by culturing samples of reproductive tissues from the remaining kelp stands, from which they bred baby kelp. In 2020, they planted these “saplings” out in the wild on 100-meter-squared plots off Tasmania’s coast. Out of three test sites, two grew successfully. Now, ten months on, the duo’s hypothesis has proven correct: several hundred resilient kelps are thriving on those plots, Layton says. “Perhaps most encouraging was that despite our warmer than average El Niño summer, our ‘super kelp’ seemed to withstand the warm temperatures, and looked healthy and had nice dark pigmentation, with no bleaching or necrosis,” he says. “This was in contrast to the natural giant kelp, which was shabby, bleached and pretty unhappy.”

Although seaweed breeding has a long history in countries such as Japan, Layton thinks this may be the first time kelps have been bred explicitly to withstand climate change. The discovery could aid other restoration projects, and possibly provide a solution for kelp farms that struggle with climate-related declines in the future. “We’ve demonstrated the potential to use selective breeding to ‘future-proof’ restoration efforts,” Layton says.

Conservation and protection

But climate change isn’t the only threat kelps are facing. Many forests are under attack from kelp-eating sea urchins, which have thrived with the decline of their natural predators, like sea otters. Along the southern coast of California, a local NGO called the Bay Foundation has taken a simple but highly effective approach to tackle this threat: they’ve partnered with fishers who cull the urchins by hand, and have managed to restore 23 hectares of forest to its former glory. This simple approach has also brought back hectares of kelp forest around Japan’s Hokkaido island, thanks to voluntary divers schemes, while the reintroduction of sea otters in Norway has helped kelps regain a foothold there once more.

Others are pushing kelp conservation in a new direction, not by restoring seaweed forests but by creating entirely new ones. In China, Jiaping Wu is involved in the development of 150 floating “marine ranches” that span the length of the coast, where multiple species of seaweed – including kelps – are being cultivated without any commercial intent. “The requirement is to restore seaweeds primarily for ecological conservation. The ranches are never harvested,” says Wu. The goal is ultimately to incorporate these carbon-sequestering, biodiversity-supporting life rafts into China’s climate mitigation plan, he explains. “We’re thinking of all kinds of ways to capture carbon.”

Carbon sequestration is, of course, not the only ecosystem service kelp provides. But developing more sophisticated measures of wild kelps’ sequestration potential could be a good way of getting these ecosystems the protections they need, says Filbee-Dexter. Along with colleagues, she’s now developing models to precisely map where kelps end up in the ocean when they break loose, to try and reliably account for the amount of carbon individual kelp forests lock away. “If we don’t account for ecosystem services, then often there’s less of a push to restore and protect, and people care less what happens to these ecosystems,” she says.

Alongside this, there are small but positive signs that kelps are beginning to receive more protection. In Australia, giant kelp forests were granted endangered status in 2012 – a world-first for macroalgae. Earlier this year, US President Joe Biden’s executive order on tackling climate change mentioned the protection and restoration of wild kelp forests as a priority. And now, researchers from the University of Queensland are embarking on a pioneering project to comprehensively map the planet’s kelp, so we know what we have, and where marine protected areas might better safeguard these ecosystems.

“There are very large areas of kelp forests that have no protection, no monitoring, and haven’t even been seen by a human eye. From a global standpoint, we’re far away from any similar knowledge that we have about forests on land,” Filbee-Dexter says. But things are changing. In research circles, there’s an argument that “we should stop calling them ‘kelp beds’,” she says, because it minimizes the magnitude of what these ecosystems do in our oceans.

In other words, it’s time to start seeing seaweeds – and their giant mascots, kelps – for what they are: the rainforests of the sea.

This article appears courtesy of China Dialogue Ocean and may be found in its original form here.

from Storage Containers https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/rainforests-of-the-sea-why-kelp-could-help-save-the-planet via http://www.rssmix.com/