#she was like lets walk back to chinatown and I was like sure then your husband can pick you up

[llycaons]

I met my third bumble acquaintance and this time I really think we hit it off. first time was a bit awkward, second one I liked a lot but I don't think she liked me much back, and this third time I had to reschedule but she brought me cupcakes she made, we chatted about work, walked around, went back to my place and I showed her my cql book and she's a heritage Chinese speaker so she told me like 'this is an interview with wyb's voice actor' and she read the little pamphlet and we chatted a lot about the show and about other mxtx books. and it was so nice to talk to someone about something I love this much without fear of judgement and knowing she likes it too 😭 she talked pretty openly about reading hardcore yaoi as a young teenager so I don't think anything really surprised her. I even told her about the bad fanfic. lmao. it was such a nice evening and we're making plans for hotpot in december!

[cameronspecial]

hii! I really love and enjoy all of your writings, you are so amazing and talented!

I checked just to be sure before I ask if you could write about rafe being/having casual dominance towards a clumsy!reader but she doesn’t really notice she’s clumsy or a bit reckless?

i’m so sorry if this doesn’t make sense my english isn’t that good but it’s okay if you don’t want to this, I love your work anyway! thank you so much!

Clumsy Princess

Pairing: Rafe Cameron x Reader

Warnings: N/A

Pronouns: She/Her

Word Count: 0.5K

A/N: You are so sweet, thank you!

Masterlist

Rafe knows how to control his body. He is aware of every movement he does and how it affects and is affected by his environment. He is practically Spider-Man. Y/N, on the other hand, is the completely opposite. She bumbles around the world like a baby doe on freshly born legs. Her depth perception is severely lacking and it has led to a variety of bruises all over her body. However, ever since she started dating Rafe, the number of her accidents has dwindled.

———

The couple walks hand-in-hand around the aquarium, taking their time to look at the different exhibits. Rafe booked out the whole place, so they didn’t worry about other people being in the way. The first place she has wanted to go is to look at the turtle and they have been making their way to the animals for five minutes now. They finally spot the hard-shelled sea creatures and her face lights as bright as a star. She rushes to the tank while dragging him behind her. As soon as they get to the tank, he places the back of his hand against the glass around her height. She can’t question what he is doing because before she can, the momentum of her hurry to get to the glass causes her forehead to hit his hand. Her left hand reaches up to rub where a bump would have been forming if not for Rafe and she turns to him with a thankful smile. “Thank you, Baby.” She rises on her tippy toes to place a kiss on his lips. 

———

Her hand is looped into his as they walk down the street after leaving the aquarium. They are heading to Chinatown to get something to eat. “And I told her that she was being mean…” The words Y/N is saying fade away from Rafe’s ears as he sees the street lamp coming up and he has a fortune-teller moment. He nods with a smile, pretending to listen. As they pass the lamp, he is sure to tug her to his side. She narrowly misses walking into the pole, yet she doesn’t notice and she continues on with her story. “She said I was the one at fault.” Rafe can now focus on his girlfriend’s words because there are no dangers in sight. 

———

They get back home and she can’t wait to get to their room to watch Coco like Rafe said they could. He holds her hand whilst she stumbles over her shoes as she takes them off, but she lets go of it as she runs to the stairs. Rafe is right behind her. She rushes up the stairs and feels his hands on her waist. As he predicted, she was going too fast and would’ve missed the first step, which would’ve caused her to face plant right into the steps. She straightens up and looks at him with a sheepish grin. He returns the smile and rests his hand against her lower back to help her upstairs. 

Taglist: @winterrrnight @loves0phelia @thelomlisrafecameron @wickedlovely121 @thepatriarchykeychain @drewsmusee @starkowswife @maybankslover @forstarkey @loving-and-dreaming @magicalyoura @rubixgsworld

[nolita-fairytale]

don't want to walk alone | carmen 'carmy' berzatto x fem!reader | epilogue: november

summary: sugar has her baby marking the beginning of a new chapter for the berzatto family.

warnings: husband!carmy who comes with a warning label of his own, swearing, lots of tooth rotting fluff, marriage, no use of y/n, second person pov, she/her pronouns, the end

wc: 1300

listen to: 'lean on me' -- bill withers & 'chinatown' -- bleachers (because it's so make my heart surrender au coded) on the official don't want to walk alone playlist

a/n: well, folks! this gets us from here to the carmy as your baby daddy au. BUT i think it's time for me to let these two ride off into the sunset and go on their merry way. i have loved this story, these characters, this world since it filled my brain with a story that begged to be told, and forced me to write it because i couldn't stop thinking about it. i wrote something quite sappy in the a/n a few chapters ago, so i'll spare us an encore performance of it and just say this: thank you for reading. thank you for being a part of this story. thank you for being a part of their journey. i will pop into this world and perhaps maybe write oneshots from time to time, but... it's time, my loves. :) would anyone be interested in a behind the scenes look at this world like i did with 'burn your life down?' let me know!

part five | masterlist

November

After sixteen long hours, Sugar’s baby comes: a perfect, rosy-cheeked, healthy baby boy that sends you and Carmy rushing to the hospital. Sugar hadn’t wanted you to come till she was ready to push, and by the time you got the text from Pete, you’d sped to the restaurant, ready to drag Carmy out of there, regardless of how busy it had been. 

Besides, everyone knew what was going on – on the edges of their seats, phones at the ready to hear any and all news about the new member of the family, and more than happy to support so that you and Carmy could show up for Sugar. 

“Carm?” Sugar asks for her brother, as you and Pete hug it out in the waiting room. You can’t even tell that the man’s been up all night; the excitement and joy in his eyes overshadowing any and all fatigue. 

Carmy excuses himself from you and Pete’s congratulatory embrace, making his way into the hospital room where his sister lays, propped up on her bed, baby in arms. 

So much has changed for the both of them: his sister, now a mother, and he, an uncle. Carmy takes cautious steps forward, the reality of it all beginning to hit him. 

“Hi,” she smiles, in complete awe of her new baby. 

“Woah,” Carmy says, though completely incapable of hiding the smile that begins to form over his face. “You made that.”

“I made that,” she chuckles with an eye roll, glancing from the baby, to her brother, then back to her son. “And he’s the most perfect thing in the world. Baby boy, I want you to meet someone. I want you to meet your uncle.” 

Carmy carefully sits in the chair right next to the bed, turning his attention to the baby. 

“Can you say hi to your Uncle Carmy?” Nat coos, shifting so that she can properly introduce her son and Carmy. 

“Oh my goodness… look at you,” Carmy says, his eyes full of wonder as the sleeping baby shifts in Sugar’s arms. 

He’s not sure what to say, the words caught in his throat. He can feel it – that this is something momentous – but it’s as if he doesn’t know where to begin, lost in the magnitude of what’s happening right now. 

“Hey, little guy,” Carmy finally manages to get out, his voice stuck in his throat. 

Sugar chuckles again, letting out an exasperated sigh. 

“How ya doin?” Carmy asks, looking over at his sister this time. 

“Great. Just great,” she replies dryly, earning a laugh from Carmy, because it really has been one hell of a night. 

When she opens her mouth to answer this time, her words come out much more genuine and soft as she adds, “I am though. Really. I’m great.”

Carmy nods in understanding, his eyes searching his sister’s face for any more of a reaction. But he knows that this is a dream come true for her -- that being a mother had always been the plan. Carmy chooses to focus this time on the sleeping baby, who’s tucked his head into her chest, seeking out warmth and comfort in this strange, new world. 

“Bear?” Nat asks, as Carmy lifts his head to look at her once more. 

There’s something urgent in her voice that grabs his attention and he’s not sure what she’s going to say next. 

“Yeah?” he asks back, his eyes wide. 

“So I want to talk to you about something,” Sugar says, his voice softening even more as she looks down at her baby boy. Carmy nods once, letting her know that he’s ready as Nat continues. “I uh… well, Pete and I have been thinking a lot about this. And… I wanted to talk to you about it before we move forward with it.”

Carmy swallows, leaning in this time. 

“After we found out we were having a boy, Carm, we talked a lot… about what we would name him and… with his due date being in November… I don’t know. And look at him now, meeting him... it just feels right,” she begins, emotions welling in her voice. “We-, well, we want to name him Michael. If that’s okay… with you.”

Carmy has to stop for a moment, frozen in time as he hears the name. It’s not like he gets emotional about these kinds of things very often, but then again, this is all new to him – new to the little families they’re building; a new generation of Berzattos. 

“Uh,” Carmy croaks out, his voice stuck in his throat as he realizes he’s much more moved than he expected to be. “Uh yeah, Sug. I… it’s okay with me.”

“Are you sure? Because I didn’t know if you wanted to use the name or-,” Sugar begins to explain. 

“No, it’s-, it’s okay,” Carmy is quick to interject. “If it feels right. I mean we haven’t even-, you know, we’re not talking about… yet….” 

Sugar nods in understanding, because she knows that you and Carmy have only been married for two months now. Hell, she's your best friend; she'd know if either of you were talking about having kids.

“So,” Carmy says, his eyes suddenly feeling watery. “Guess there’s a new Michael Berzatto then?”

He takes another look at his baby nephew, joy and grief both trapped inside his chest. Carmy's overwhelmed by it all: hearing his name, what this means for the Berzattos, this new beginning. He thinks back to what you said to Sugar on your wedding day -- that this could be the start of a new chapter for all of you -- the reality of your words reflected back to him now, all in one tiny package of new life.

"Welcome to the world, buddy," Carmy manages to say, his voice soft and full.

And it's as if every single thing that's led to this moment, and every single possibility that the future may hold rush before his eyes.

“Welcome to the world, baby boy,” Sugar whispers, suddenly overwhelmed with emotions.

*

Wanting to give Carmy and Nat time alone together, you spend the first part of your hospital visit with Pete in the waiting room, as the teary-eyed man recounts the intensity of the last eight hours. You can see it in his eyes, hear it in the way he speaks, that this is a dream come true for him – becoming a father. 

Soon enough, Pete is ushering you into the hospital room, more than eager to introduce you to your new nephew. By the time you and Pete join her and Carmy, the new Berzatto is fast asleep on her chest, while Carmy sits quietly next to her. There’s an energy between the siblings, something you notice right away, and you can only imagine that this is emotional for the both of them on so many levels. 

“Hi,” you grin, looking from Sugar to Carmy, as you join him by her bedside.  

“Hi, sweetie,” Sugar greets you. Carmy smiles at you, as your hand comes up to rub comforting patterns over his shoulder and back. 

“Pete,” Nat begins again. “Carmy and I were just talking… about his name.”

“Oh yeah?” Pete asks, smiling hopefully as he exchanges a look with his wife. 

She nods, a full conversation happening between the new parents with just one look. Pete lets out a heavy exhale, smiling at his wife as Nat answers with:

“Yeah."

Carmy clears his throat, his arm closest to you squeezing you closer to him, gently leaning his head against your side in search of comfort. 

“What’d you decide on?” you ask curiously, the air seemingly tense with feeling. 

“Michael,” Sugar answers, exchanging a look with her brother this time. Carmy squeezes your hip, and as you search his face for a reaction, you can tell he's holding back tears.

“His name is Michael.”

[sgiandubh]

A tale of two brands

Sophie Mancini's Departures paper on S in NY started a flurry of comments even before the whole content was made available on blogs. That people - mostly in Mordor - jumped in to add their two booing cents on the matter, based on two or three Instagram Story screencaps only, is a testimony to Tumblr's community deep interest in S's slightest PR/sales move and the easiness with which people like *urv managed to push their own agenda, in the process, to her unsuspecting, bicep-loving crowd.

Many of these comments asked just one question, more or less kindly and more or less openly: who are you, Sam Roland Heughan? Some of them, more along my alley, took a different angle: who are you talking to, Sam Roland Heughan?

Let me count the US crowds: the Wall Street yuppie crowd? the old money, WASP Knickerbocker / Colony Club crowd? Tribeca's sophisticated, culture-ish snob crowd? the UN international crowd? the laid-back (-ish) brownstone Brooklyn crowd? the DC politico types? the Boston Brahmin crowd? the Silicon Valley Bitcoin crowd? the Florida Latino crowd? the Bible Belt crowd? the Deep South charmingly old-fashioned crowd? the yee-haw, witty and ambitious Texans? the gourmet, nature-loving Seattle crowd? I am sure I am missing some (it's been a while I haven't traveled to the States and I have to say I miss all 50 of them, plus and perhaps above all my beloved DC :), but you get the idea. And the problem, or rather its first layer.

The second question this very poorly written article prompted is: what are you talking about, Sam Roland Heughan? I mean, what destination are you trying to promote? Scotland, through your Scottish gin, which I truly believe is exceptional? The Big Apple, like a counterpart to Sting, you know - a Scotsman in New York? That's not very clear, since that superficial girl just whirled you to a couple Chinatown speakeasies, rat pitter-patter included (bye-bye, Knickerbocker crowd right there) and that's pretty much it. New Zealand, that you mention at length, Maori tattoo story re-hashed, just because the book comes out next Tuesday? Ha-wa-wee, perhaps in a belated attempt to mitigate Tunagate? California, even, because it takes you back to humble beginnings? Granted, the Frisco one, not LA: that would be a horrible faux-pas, in a NY centered paper, much like me whimsically and idiotically mentioning Istanbul (instead of Constantinople), in a conversation with my Greek friends.

My head spins. And then let's add to that a ladle of recycled talking points, yours and C's altogether, like this gem:

Aspirational. Mmmhm. She said that. You said that. Multiple times, in multiple contexts that probably didn't even call for it. This is *** PR right there. I am not JAMMF. I am not Claire. But we aspire to that. Stop thinking we are these characters. No sane fan ever did: the insistence is unnecessary and has a real backfire potential. Stop thinking, period. But let it be my shipper sin, then, not to believe an iota of it and stubbornly think you people are, by now, way past the aspirational stage.

So, I took a long walk down memory lane today, while driving, trying to understand what the hell your personal brand is. Once upon a time, things were clear: you and C were a single brand. S&C - the fresh-faced, candid, witty and funny and oh, so in love new kids on the block. The spark was real and it was strong (it still is, only dampened and muted by PR-prompted shenanigans) and OL's audience was under its spell. People loved you, both of you, and some of us still do. You showed us as much as you could and for a while, it seemed to be convenient for just about everybody. That created expectations, but at the same time, you could have sold us land concessions on the Moon and we would have bought them, no questions asked.

And then, things happened. We know what: IFH, EFH, Remarkable Week-end. The spell was broken for many, who left in droves. Fans turned into bashing other fans. The S&C brand was progressively compromised and along with it, your Barbour Ambassadorship (for different reasons). Let's stop a bit at this point, in fond remembrance: that was the perfect pitch, for the perfect kind of corporate brand, for the perfect niche, for the perfect guy. A guy who had a credible, authentic story to tell, with a really strong potential to attract people outside of OL's crowd. Image and message perfectly aligned. Best case scenario.

So, with ***'s and your own PR benediction, what once was your solid gold starting point was ridiculed, trampled, shot to shambles, in a (failed) attempt to be sent to complete oblivion. You then had to think of something and try to branch out of both the blessing and curse of it.

MPC suddenly became more important than just any other charity project, of which there were a few (Cahonas Scotland comes to mind, the blood cancer one, as well). Cue in Sam the Athlete, Sam the Healthy Living Evangelist. The project was turned into a lucrative business, with a strong charity side. People bought subscriptions, people changed their eating and lifestyle habits, people lost weight - but really, I shouldn't write 'people', but 'women'. This was a women-oriented endeavor. A problem, again, on the long term.

Ha-wa-wee 1 happened, to more scandal and shrieks (that, I believe, was the reason you lost the Barbour project, another gold opportunity squandered because ten Internet bitches knew better). Then we were told another avatar was born: Sam the Entrepreneur. With a genuine, carefully curated, labor of love first alcohol product that clearly used the discarded S&C brand: The Sassenach and believe what you want, but just buy it. Mommies obliged. Antis obliged. Shippers obliged. All wallets are created equal, as I (often) use to say. And then COVID-19 came, putting a very real, very dangerous logistic strain on it.

Yet, you still had to somehow mitigate delays and losses. The Sassenach went exotic, with that limited edition tequila that probably won't be remembered by many outside OL's fandom, and that is a pity and a shame. The reason it won't be remembered is that you almost did not promote it, spare one or two Tick-Tock and Instagram clips. Does that justify the investment, the trips to Mexico, the very expensive retainers and commissions your tequila friends took for their trouble? I very much doubt it. That was, until being proved completely wrong, a flop. It brought absolutely nothing in terms of personal branding, spare perhaps a new faction in this paranoid cesspool of a fandom: the Gay Crowd, fueled by the image of a Lonely Bandana Cowboy, instead of the intended Sophisticated Traveler and Connoisseur. Yes, people are stupid, like that. Your PR and Sales team, too - and this comes from a place of deep understanding and appreciation.

We are now talking gin and boy, am I glad we do! This is perhaps an opportunity. Finally, a more democratically price-tagged, carefully tailored (again) drawing card product. But who is selling it to me? The California Boat Party Host? In that case, I won't buy it, but never mind me: maybe the fun-loving California Millennials would (we know the Smuggling Mommies would do it, anyways). The Sophisticated Traveler and Connoisseur you tried to show us again in Mancini's abysmal Departures paper and who is invited to important events, in recognition of his efforts?

You can't have the two of them, Sam, whatever those incompetents told you. You're either a 43-years old midlife crisis-stricken and shirtless clown or an Old World Industrious Thespian, with a stature and a status to match. A real Entrepreneur, not a cartoon scuba diver/beach boy Influencer. Eye Candy vs. Brain Power: after all, you are a '3x NYT best selling author', aren't you? Your pick, not mine. Stop the Sri Mataji-style Hugging and Booze tours: it's nonsense and that geriatric crowd is nowhere near what you need to make your dream come true. Do some real soul searching and stop listening to clueless 28-year old journalists, who tell you tacky rings are fun: they aren't. They make you look like an ageing Atlantic City Sinatra wannabe:

Sam Roland Heughan: currently at crossroads, trying to not choose between two opposite personal brands. Tricky position and an even trickier context, with the strike still lingering on and the pressing need to find an after OL strategy.

I promised you a tale of two brands and I think you wonder, by now, what happened to C, the other half of the primary SC brand?

The answer is, I honestly believe, not much. She has no personal brand, so to speak. Until now, she is just an Enthusiastic Dilettante. Book Club - started, unfinished and with that, farewell to any fan engagement. Cinema production rights - bought and then silence. Botanical Gin - first batch released (?) with no promo, no interviews (mentioning it in a podcast does not count), no reviews. Then teasing, then crickets again: a bit late, now, for the end of year celebrations. And I have to say I miss her or the part of her I never witnessed in real time (is such a thing possible?). I miss that starry-eyed, funny and witty girl. That girl was somehow completely swallowed by an Acrid Matron, who thought it was intelligent to yell at an Internet nobody, on Christmas Day, 'I am not married to Sam!' (ok, you aren't, but you're still lying). And I honestly don't know which one is best (or worst, for that matter): try to build something and make mistakes and try again until you hopefully find your way, or say nothing, do nothing and of course, never be controversial.

Now I am really interested to see how is she going to promote her gin. But you know what, I am not holding my breath, for some reason.

[backtothefanfiction]

The Angel In The Garden of Evil | Epilogue: Not Another Envelope

Summary: We say goodbye to our favourite couple in a similar manner we said hello to them, with an envelope on the dining room table, a secret hidden inside.

Warnings: 18+ Only, genre typical content, references to the demise of characters in previous chapter, fluff, a surprise, implied smut, daddy/mommy kink (if that doesn't give away the surprise I don't know what will)

Word Count: 1.3k

A/N: The final authors note *begins weeping*. This is it, the end. I have had the most wonderful time writing this series and sharing it with you all. A big thanks to @sincericida and @tarzinnia for your continued support and reblogging and leaving your thoughts all over this series, they honestly kept me going and helped so much. Another big thanks to @liz-allyn if it wasn't for your Sugar + Vice series inspiring me, Angel would never have happened. I hope this Epilogue ties up this series in a nice bow for everyone and we can all go away with a fuzzy feeling in our tummies with hope for the future. I will be having a Q & A session to wrap up any final questions and talk further about all our favourite bits in the series, so be sure to fill up my inbox with your Q's and best bits. And before anyone asks as we haven't come back to him in a bit, Miles is doing good. His leg healed and Angel moved him to work more on F.E.A.S.T operations full time. He is very happy and healthy. Anyway, let's say goodbye shall we.

EPILOGUE

She hadn’t felt this nervous since she had first walked back into this house 10 months ago. Her stomach turned as she tried to breathe deeply and keep calm. ‘I can do this,’ she thought to herself, as she crouched down to check the food in the oven for the 5th time in the last 10 minutes.

“Come on Pete, where are you?” she muttered as she tapped her foot absentmindedly on the harlequin tiled kitchen floor.

After everything had happened there had been quite a few changes. They had left Hobie in charge of cleaning up as they went on a well needed second honeymoon. Peter had hired a yacht for them to sail around the coast of Italy for two weeks; of course stopping off in the little town she had lived in for the near three years they were separated, so that Angel could introduce her husband to Maria and her magic meatballs.

When they came back Peter signed the entire business over to Angel. There was a small amount of teething room, Peter playing mediator between allies as he announced the change in management; but given her family history, most of them were satisfied with the change.

With Angel now in charge of the business, Peter started going back out in the suit. He’d occasionally help out with paperwork or running certain errands, especially when it came to the Huntsman and F.E.A.S.T, but mostly spent his days patrolling the city and helping keep it crime free (well apart from his wife’s business that was).

They had sold her Father’s old house and everything inside it for a hefty amount, which they donated to the city to help with the clean up after the explosion down in Chinatown. They also gave payouts to the local businesses that had been affected as both a thank you for helping during the blast; but also apologise for the inconvenience of it all. The new centre had been reopened two months ago, with a special ribbon cutting from the city’s one and only Spider-Man, and had been thriving again ever since.

Peter had been worried about donning the suit again. Worried what everyone would think after all this time. But if the gang fighting had provided one thing, it was the city’s need for a hero. A need to hope once more. And nothing said hope apparently like a guy in red and blue spandex swinging through the city- much to George Stacy’s dismay.

They had started going to couples counselling once a week so they could talk through all their lingering issues. The Felicia thing. Their issues with her Dad. The forced three year separation. There was still a long way to go, but talking about it with a mediator helped.

Harry’s body was found in a freezer inside a storage container that was offloaded in Belfast Ireland three months after the night at the warehouse. Toomes’ body, which had been dumped in the river, was never found.

She checked the oven again as she chewed on her lip. She wasn’t even sure she was gonna be able to stomach this, despite having spent the last hour and a half cooking it. There came a thud from upstairs. He was home. She closed her eyes, taking one last deep breath in, before she began to take the chicken out of the oven.

“Mmmm, smells good Mrs Parker.” his voice rang out as he ran downstairs. 

“You better not have just left your suit dumped on the floor up there.” she chastised as she began plating up the food.

“Of course not.” he said with a sheepish grin as he came and wrapped his arms around her from behind, placing a kiss on her cheek. She knew him too well.

“Can you put the cutlery on the table?” she asked as she turned her head to give him a kiss on the lips, her stomach doing butterflies, she thought she might vomit.

“Yeah of course, no problem.” he said, patting her hip before he moved to slide open the cutlery drawer, humming to himself as he went.

She braced herself against the edge of the counter as she heard him make his way over to the table. There was the sound of metal hitting the wooden table as he began to place the cutlery down, still humming away, until he wasn’t. There was a pause before he spoke.

“Baby, what’s this?” he said, lifting an envelope off of the table. Peter grew nervous, the moment feeling all too familiar.

“Sit down.” she said, as she finally turned to face him, the food now sitting forgotten on the counter.

Peter didn’t move. “Baby, what is this?” he pressed her. He saw the frozen look of terror on her face and his stomach lurched as he raced to open it, fearing the worst. He pulled out the paperwork inside, scanning over it confused. “Angel, what is-”

“I’m pregnant.”

Peter stared at her. The longer the statement hung in the air, the more confident she grew as she slowly stepped across the room towards him. “You’re?” Peter couldn’t even say the word. He tried but it didn’t feel real on his tongue. She just nodded as she reached a hand out to his hip, the other pointing at a particular box on the page that said ‘positive’.

“I’ve known for a few weeks now.” she tried to explain. “I didn’t want to say anything until I’d had it confirmed by the doctor. I didn’t want to get my hopes up.”

“That really bad food poisoning you had. I thought it was from the Thai food we had, but I ate the same thing and I was fine and-” he rambled as he tried to put all the signs together he knew he should have gotten.

“Pete?” She said his name tentatively.

“And then last Sunday when you fell asleep on May’s sofa in the middle of the afternoon. I thought you were just tired from work-”

“Peter.”

“Oh and when we went out for breakfast the other week, you had mushrooms on your breakfast. You hate mushrooms-”

“Peter!”

“What?”

“Does this mean you’re okay with it?” she asked sceptically.

“Okay with it? Okay with it. Why wouldn’t I be okay with it!” He beamed as he suddenly wrapped her in his arms. “We’re having a baby!” He said excitedly. “I’m gonna be a Daddy- oh!” he said as a realisation hit him. “This means I get to start calling you Mommy.”

“No. Nope!” she squealed and giggled as he held her tightly, turning his head to gently gnaw at her skin like he was trying to eat her.

“Fine, fine.” he said as she finally broke free of his arms. “But I know you’ve been itching to call me Daddy for years.”

“Noooo.” she giggled, but she knew he had her pegged.

“Yeeesss.” he dragged out the word with an exaggerated smile.

“I’m not gonna say it.” she giggled as he began to chase her round the lower section of the house.

“Oh yes, you are.” he joked, stalking her as she moved around the kitchen island.

“Pete, the dinner.” she tried to reason.

“I don’t care. Not until you say it.”

“Noo!” she squealed as she made a run for it, narrowly slipping past him and running into the living room.

“Oh you’re gonna say it.”

“No.”

“Say it!” he called out as he lunged for her, wrapping his arms around her and wrestling her gently to the floor, pinning her with his body. She laughed. “Say it.” he said again as he looked down at her.

“Fine.” she huffed in defeat. “Can we go eat dinner now Daddy?” she cooed in her most sultry voice.

He moved his head from side to side as if he were thinking about it, before saying, “I don’t know what you’re talking about Mommy, my dinner’s right here.” He gave her a devilish smile before shimmying his body down so his face was the same height as her crotch.

“Noo! Peter!” she squealed in delight, pretending to push him away as his fingers reached for the waistband of her trousers, her giggles ringing out throughout the house.

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

Thank you so much for reading The Angel In The Garden of Evil. If you have enjoyed the story don’t forget to tip me like you would your waiter by reblogging and leaving feedback and letting me know what you think! By reblogging you also help to keep this story alive for just a little bit longer allowing new people to keep finding it for days, months, weeks and years to come. Whenever this story find you, I hope it brings you joy.

@scmdsblog @angiexsv @thef1nalgirl @did-someone-change-my-name @sincericida @tarzinnia @liz-allyn @blacksoul09 @humxncrxvings @sunnycolors @suicide-sweetheart636 @ahryi @ms-wild-card-56

[astoldbyaja]

The Blossom surrounded by Fire - Ch. 32 (Warrior AU- HBO MAX)

Long Zii had called me to his home before I could get settled in mine. I was escorted to their large dining room. Mai Ling stood behind him and Li Yong took his place a few feet in front of them. I bowed at Long Zii but did not speak.

“Amaka, I hear you had trouble in town today. There was a fight between the Fung Hai and Hop Wei.” he said. I wonder who had told him this. News can spread easily, but in regard to me, it was different. Li Yong was with me, so I knew he didn’t inform Mai Ling or Long Zii. I nodded.

“Yes sir.” I replied. He hummed and nodded.

“I heard Father Jun’s son managed to get you out of harm’s way with the Fung Hai.” he said. How did he hear this? I didn’t glance at Mai Ling, but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone from the store told her and then she told her husband.

“Yes sir. I was cornered in one of the stores by both Fung Hai who were trying to kill Young Jun. He talked the Fung Hai into letting me leave the store unharmed.” I told. Mai Ling nodded.

“The Fung Hai wouldn’t have hurt you due to our business with them.” she told. Long Zii nodded in agreement.

“Due to some past aggressions starting with us breaking the treaty, I want to ensure that we can still maintain peace after the boxing tournament that will take place next week. You are allowed on Fung Hai territory and the Hop Wei do not bother you when you must move through their territory. I would like you to visit either Father or Young Jun and thank them for looking out for you. Then I would like you to go to the fan tan tables and thank Zing for allowing you to leave the fight unscathed. I would like you to offer your services, only one time, to both tongs on behalf of the Long Zii. I know you have taken care of both tongs before joining my own and I am sure they would be grateful for your help.” he said. Both Mai Ling and Li Yong looked at the elder different emotions swimming in their eyes. I was used to being given orders like this, so I didn’t let my look of disgust play on my face.

I leaned forward and bowed some.

“Yes, Long Zii, I will do this.” I replied. He nodded, appeased.

“Sooner rather than later.” he instructed. I nodded and turned and left the room. I decided not to go to them today. I needed to get my ingredients sorted and take inventory of what I needed.

The next morning, Li Yong escorted me through Chinatown. I was in one of my older dresses that I wore with Chao, my cloak tied around my body and my hood already on my head. He was quiet, his face distant.

“You are upset.” I replied. He didn’t look at me.

“I promised you that you’d never be a slave, and now our tong is whoring you out.” he said. I shook my head.

“I knew this tong was no different than the others, I knew this was a possibility-”

“Then why would you agree to join us?” he asked finally stopping to look at me. I looked around some trying to ensure no one was in real ear shot of us.

“Because in this tong, there is a kindness in both you and Mai Ling, that I would never have gotten from the other tongs. What I have now, I wouldn’t have with any other tong. I am very grateful to be with your tong, and I want to serve Long Zii just like you do.” I replied. He sighed and looked away before nodding.

“Zing will not ask for healing services.” he said. I nodded.

“I know. But no matter what happens, my heart and my body will always be yours.” I replied lowly. He gave a gentle smile before nodding and we continued our walk. Once we were at the brothel, I saw Ah Toy standing at the front smiling as she saw us.

“Ah just in time, Nellie should be here shortly.” she replied. Li Yong looked at me and dipped his head and I returned it before he turned and smoothly retreated back into the crowd.

“How are you doing in the Long Zii tong?” she asked. I nodded.

“I made the right choice being in that tong.” I replied and she nodded.

After a few minutes, Nellie appeared with a smile for us both.

“Good morning to you both.” she said. The two women took each other’s hands briefly before Nellie looked at me. “Are you ready Amaka?”

I nodded.

“Yes.” I replied and the two of us were off. I walked a few inches behind her, the pond already in sight.

“So Amaka, you’ve been in Chinatown a while?” she asked. I nodded.

“Yes.” I replied.

“Well, where are you from?” she asked leisurely. I wasn’t sure if I felt comfortable answering her question, but I did.

“Tennessee.” I replied. She looked at me stunned.

“You are a long way from home.” She replied. I nodded.

“Thank God.” I replied. The pond was alive and busy. Women in nice dresses were talking to each other, men were discussing the government and news. I noticed colored men in black suits and matching bowling hats with white gloves carrying boxes of shoes and clothes behind white women. Some of them glanced at me and I kept my head down.

“How long have you and Ah Toy been friends?” I asked. She gave a coy grin.

“For a while.” She replied.

“How did you two meet?” I asked.

“Well, I was on a war path trying to liberate women who were forced to sell their bodies in brothels. I have a vineyard where I take them to be truly free. I have rescued many women from horrific brothels, but Ah Toy well she was different. She cares for her girls and never fought against any who wanted to leave.” she replied. “I showed her my vineyard and well our… friendship grew.” I nodded not asking anymore questions.

“Tell me are you free, Amaka?” she asked suddenly. I winced some glancing at her. I could tell she was trying to figure me out, figure out how I came to be where I was now.

“I am free from the man who did this to me and many others.” I replied only gripping my hood. She looked at me with saddened eyes but nodded.

“I am happy you are free as well. If… you ever need support my vineyard is open to all women.” she said. I smiled and nodded.

“Thank you.” I replied.

I could tell many eyes were starting to stare at us with distrust and Nellie caught this.

“Amaka, you may have to remove your hood for a bit. It seems people are getting suspicious… you are with me, so they probably see you as my maid.” she said lowly. I sighed and glanced around noticing more attention. So, I nodded, and gently removed my hood. Now I was fully exposed, and I hated it.

“No one will bother you while you are with me… I’ll make sure of it.” Nellie said firmly as we walked. Men and women who passed us were immediately looking at me with wide eyes, whispering and pointing at my head. We needed to hurry. We made it to the familiar Lawrence Flower shop. I approached Lawrence himself and gave him the list. He nodded and turned and went back behind a door behind his counter.

A blonde woman approached Nellie and I kept my head down.

“Miss, where did you get this woman. Her ears are so different! Are there other coloreds who have pointy ears like hers! I would love to have some maid servants with ears like that!” she gushed. I looked at Nellie who looked at her stiffly faking pride.

“She is the only one of her kind, born of an ancient royal African tribe. Only she will have ears like that. You can’t find any other woman like this.” she said. I had to refrain from giving her a uncanny look. The woman gasped.

“A real royal tribe from Africa!” she asked. Lawrence appeared back and smiled.

“Thank Ah Toy for her business for me.” he said handing me my goods. I nodded.

“Thank you.” I replied.

“How much are you paying her, I could double it!” the woman said. Nellie looked her up and down.

“You can’t afford her,” she said before glancing back at me, “Come.”

I nodded and followed her, leaving the woman whose mouth was agape clearly offended.

“Ancient royal tribe?” I asked lowly and she chuckled.

“If we are going to make up a good back story for you so that you aren’t bothered, might as well be a good one.” she said. I couldn’t help but chuckle and nod as we walked on. As we blended back into Chinatown, I looked at Nellie.

“Thank you for going with me.” I replied. She shook her head.

“It’s my pleasure. Ah Toy means a great deal to me, and I could tell you mean a great deal to her too.” she said. Did I? I knew she trusted me because of Chao, but I didn’t think she cared for me like she cared for her girls. But then again, in some way I am like her girls. Nellie took my hands and gave them a gentle squeeze before we separated. Now it was time to get another task out of the way. I made my way through Hop Wei territory, looking at the different stores and homes I passed until finally, I was standing in front of Hop Wei’s headquarters.

Two men in black suits approached with suspicion and I just nodded at them with a nervous smile.

“Is Young Jun around?” I asked. The two looked at each other before looking me over before motioning me inside. I followed and stood in the large atrium waiting. A familiar face walked passed.

“Amaka?”

I looked over and smiled.

“Ah Sahm, hello.” I replied and he approached with a nod, behind him was a man in brown rags with short black hair and long beads down his chest.

“Hi. What are you doing here?” he asked. I just smiled.

“Just running errands. I see you have a new onion.” I replied looking at the man who just looked at me wide eyed. Ah Sahm nodded.

“Oh yeah, fresh off the boat. This is Long Zii’s personal doctor, Amaka, she has the respect of Chinatown and the tongs. Amaka, this is Hong.” he introduced. I blushed at the introduction but nodded at Hong.

“Hello.” I responded.

“You are gorgeous!” he gushed. I slowly smiled at him and Ah Sahm nudged him quickly.

“Okay, don’t let Bolo or Young Jun hear you say that. Ever.” he replied.

“Don’t let me hear what?”

We all looked over to see Bolo approaching and when he saw me, he paused for a brief moment. 

“Amaka.” he said. I gave a respectful smile.

“Bolo.” I replied as he approached immediately before glaring at the other two.

“Get lost.” he commanded and Ah Sahm raised his hands in defense before backing away. Hong just waved at me.

“Bye Amaka!” he said. I tilted my head at him.

“Uh, bye Hong.” he said giving a goofy grin and leaving with Ah Sahm. That man sure is… different. Now I faced Bolo, and he moved closer to me, slowly closing the space between us.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I came to see Young Jun on Long Zii’s orders.” I replied. He looked me over.

“What orders?” he asked. I took a step back.

“That is between Young Jun and I.” I replied. He scoffed.

“He whoring you out to the Hop Wei or something? It was only a matter of time.” he said. I frowned.

“And if he did tell me to sleep with any Hop Wei member of my choosing?” I asked. Bolo’s eyes flexed.

“Wait he’s giving you a pass?” he asked, the hint of desperation in his voice. I scoffed.

“No Bolo. I am just here to thank Young Jun for helping me. That’s all.” I replied. Bolo looked me over some, jaw tight as he looked away.

“I’ve been thinking about you lately.” he said. I glanced at him looking him over.

“And what exactly have you been thinking about related to me?” I asked. He takes my hand and steps closer, his face suddenly pressed into the side of my head. I tensed not expecting such an action as anyone could catch him.

“I miss you.” he said into my ear, his hot breath making me shiver.

“You miss fucking me.” I said.

“I do. I also miss just talking with you.” he said. I feel his teeth suddenly bite on the tip of my ear and I gasp taking a step from his hold.

“Bolo stop it. Like I said I am not your whore.” I said lowly.

“I never saw you as a whore. I- Look I can’t explain it, but everything about you calls to me.” he said.

“We will talk about this another time.” I said.

“When is that time?” he asked aggressively. However he took a step back as Young Jun walked down the hall, a big smile spreading over his face as he sees me.

“Wow pray for some good sticky and God delivers!” he said, and I gave him a look as he approached with a few men behind him. “Amaka, I heard you were looking for me.”

I straightened up and nodded.

“Yes, Young Jun. I just wanted to come and thank you for defending me yesterday. You didn’t have to, but you did. Long Zii heard what you did and so he has permitted me to offer you a onetime medical service. If you or your men are ever in a scrap and you want my help, you need only ask.” I replied. He bit his lower hip rolling his eyes over me.

“A onetime service huh, I would much rather have you perform a different kind of service.” he said. I chuckled some.

“Craving more from our first time I see.” I replied.

“Oh, so much!  Good pussy is hard to come by and you are very much at the top of my list of women I love fucking.” he said. My eyes flexed at how blunt he was.

“Well, I cannot speak to that type of service, but if you ever need me, you have me for one service.” I said. He nodded slowly.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” he said with a purr. I bowed and smiled before glancing up at Bolo and turning from them. “Hey, you gonna be at that boxing tournament coming up?” I looked at him and nodded.

“Yes, are you?” I asked. He nodded.

“Of course, gotta show you Long Zii cunts whose top dog around here.” he said. I grinned with amusement.

“Then I guess I’ll see you there.” I purred as I looked between both he and Bolo and left the building. I finally let out a sigh of relief happy to be out of there.

“One down, one to go.” I said.

[her-love-language]

Jeremy’s Best Friend

Jeremy, a 22-year-old software engineer, was driving a rusty, red Toyota Corolla with Michelle, a 29-year-old graphic designer, sitting in his passenger seat. He held her hand, out of habit, and she held his, out of politeness from the path of least resistance. He was thinking how pretty she looked, and how she has not aged a day, but he did not say it out loud. Instead, he said,

“I’m getting a new car, a better one, in a month or two. Do you like BMWs?”

“I used to,” she said.

He couldn’t help but wonder whether she was still attracted to him after 3 years; perhaps she’s moved on, but she hasn’t told him to stop holding her hand or kissing her. He decided not to ask these questions.

Jeremy parked the car two blocks from the Dragon’s Cavern in Chinatown.

“Does your friend know I’ll be joining?” Michelle asked.

He nodded. “Tommy is a really nice, laid-back guy. I have to warn you though, he’s really tall, over 6 feet, and a little clumsy.”

Michelle smiled and suddenly forgot what her next question was going to be.

As they approached Dragon’s Cavern, there was a large plastic sign on the floor that read,

“Mai Tais $8”

As they walked through the bar and the flood of drunken tourists, Michelle removed her coat and applied her rosy cherry lip gloss.

They reached the back of the bar, where, on a black love seat, sat a gentleman of 24, dark wavy hair, cocoa eyes and feathery lashes, wearing black cargo pants and a white t-shirt that hugged his chest like it wanted to marry him. When he stood up to greet his visitors, a group of three little women in matching shorts looked at him and giggled. Michelle thanked the Lord that she had already fixed her hair and makeup in the car. She was too alarmed to look Tommy in the eyes.

“My guy! What took you so long?” shouted this shockingly handsome Chinatown bar hopper.

“Hey, I want you to meet my favorite person, Michelle. Michelle, this is my best friend, Tommy.”

Tommy scanned Michelle’s face. “Oh my God…it’s nice to meet you.”

She reciprocated his greeting and tried to look away as much as possible.

“Come sit!”

She looked at the two-person couch already occupied by the two men.

“Where am I supposed to sit?”

“On my lap,” they both said.

Tommy looked at Jeremy and laughed. “I’m just kidding, man!”

Michelle sat down gently on Jeremy’s lap, but she was careful to never give him any sign of being in love. She ignored Tommy as well, most of the time, or at least she tried.

After 30 minutes of chatter with his best guy, Tommy seemed to have slowly lost his balance and had suddenly placed the back of his hand on Michelle’s thigh. She noticed right away but pretended not to notice. What if he removes his hand?

Ten minutes later, Jeremy shouted, “Hey bro, bottoms up!”

To Michelle’s surprise, Tommy used his other hand to raise his glass and chug the rest of his Mai Tai.

“What are you drinking?” Tommy asked her.

“Oh, I’m not drinking right now. Already had a beer at dinner.”

“Well, how about another one? What’s your favorite?”

“Corona.”

“May I get you a Corona?”

She smiled. “Sure, why not.”

As Tommy walked to the door, the three little women looked at him again with sparkling eyeballs and wet lips while whispering to each other.

He handed Michelle the bottle of Corona but wouldn’t let go of it.

“Stop it,” she said.

“You stop it. Trying to hold my hand?”

The scrunch of his eyebrows was startling perfect.

Jeremy and Tommy dived into a 20-minute discussion about Adam Sandler and his choice of clothes while Michelle zoned out, slowly sipping on her beer.

“Hey! Where’s my Corona?” Tommy said to Michelle.

“You can have mine, I’m done with it,” she said.

“Wait, you’re leaving?!”

“No, I’m just done drinking.” She handed him the beer. “Take it, you can have the rest.”

He grabbed it from her and took a long swig. After another few minutes of roasting Adam Sandler, he handed the bottle back to Michelle, half-full.

“I don’t want it anymore,” she said.

He leaned in close to her ear.

“But you must put your lips back on it. That way, it’s like we just kissed.”

[fantastickkay]

Album Review of the Week: Nancy Sinatra - Sugar (1967)

I have always been a lowkey Nancy Sinatra fan and over the years I have acquired an album here and there. The more albums I had the bigger a fan I was! I definitely consider her one of the original pop girlies. The album (besides, Boots, of course) that solidified that opinion is 1967's Sugar.

The cover is immediately striking, in a time where just a few years earlier bellybuttons were banned on television (maybe that is why this cover is so grainy?) here she is in a pink bikini - with cleavage! I also love that the cover is so unapologetically pink which feels like a rarity for the time.

In what seems like a contrast from the visuals, this album is full of 1920s standards. I wish there was more information online to see what the production was like for this album! After proving herself to be the hippest chick around, what made her want to go back in time?

The opening track, Sweet Georgia Brown, really showcases her vocals and introduces that roaring 20s sound with some big horns. We definitely get that vaudeville feeling right away! Vagabond Shoes follows with a very similar sound, although still lots of fun!

Oh, You Beautiful Doll differs from the original in that Nancy's vocals are quite sultry. We still have the roaring horns but they do sound more like they are out of the 60s, creating a marriage between the two decades. I cannot get over her vocals here, they are absolutely enchanting!

Hard Hearted Hannah is a really fun track with some sassy lyrics and more expert delivery. We have gone through the vaudeville stage to the back room for some saucier entertainment!

All By Myself opens with that whiny 20s trumpet and goes into some plucky instrumental paired with even more soft and sultry vocals.

Coastin' is the most 60s track yet and seems like a story progression from the last track, really! It is quite a sharp vibe change but enjoyable nonetheless!

I generally recoil at media referencing cheating in relationships, so Mama Goes Where Papa Goes isn't my favorite for that reason, although if you forget about all that - it still sounds fantastic! The spoken word verses are delivered with just the right amount of sass.

Let's Fall In Love is another one with odd lyrics, but it is a bonafide classic that has been covered many times (even by Lady Gaga, although with the title Let's Do It). I did notice in this one, Nancy's timing is way off during the first chorus - a little jarring. I once saw a comment saying she has her father's [Frank Sinatra] timing, funny but true! Although the very end's call and response is hilarious!

What'll I Do is a timelessly classic ballad. This is not her best vocal performance I will be honest, seems like she is trying too hard to convey something that isn't quite hitting. Although I love the muted horn during the little instrumental break.

Limehouse Blues brings us back to that vaudeville feeling! I'm sure it would be considered problematic these days as it references Chinatown a lot, but the sound of the song itself has a lot of energy and fun.

Sugar Town is the big hit off of this album, famously covered by Zooey Deschanel for (500) Days of Summer - a fantastic choice for her, by the way. It is cutesy, fun track! Good for a morning walk in the springtime to get you going for the day.

Button Up Your Overcoat has always been one of my favorite "pre-1950s" songs. I just love how cutesy and wholesome it is! She also injects some humor into the lyrics with small asides here and there.

My Buddy was the only mention of this album I could find on Nancy's Wikipedia page. They were discussing her work entertaining troops in Vietnam and mentioned that this is an antiwar song. I really love the gentle instrumental, the little guitar string picks, the soft bass, when the brass kicks in.... wonderful!

Overall, this is one of her strongest albums from beginning to end. Boots cannot be beat but if that album didn't exist this would be my favorite Nancy album by far! For now, it will have to settle for close second.

[martialwriterr]

Where The Trains Go

I looked at myself in the mirror. Fixed my hair. It was short. Close to the scalp, and I let my side burns grow. I got closer to the mirror. Showed my teeth. Licked my teeth. Pulled my right cheek down with four of my fingers to see how white my eyeballs were. I'm not sure why I'm doing this. When do we ever see ourselves this close.

I stepped out from the bathroom holding on to one of the protruding cylinder rails that stick out from the walls of trains. The train rocks back and forth simultaneously violent and calm. I sit down, put my hood up, and stake my foot in the chair in front of me. I lay my head on the window watching the long messy lines of light and smeared faces.

Trains. They are somehow the most isolating, yet most public places. In fact I would say that all of public transportation gives off an isolating feeling. I believe the cause is because we are collectively, mutually, headed towards a destination yet we are all menacingly kept to ourselves. I see passengers  placing their bags on empty seats just to avoid contact from another human being. Are we all hunting for some solidarity?

LAST STOP. NEW YORK. ALL PASSENGERS OFF.

I let most of the passengers get off before me preferring to be one of the last ones. A couple of young adults that stunk of weed and alcohol walked passed. A pair of black men with sagging pants that also stunk of marijuana and a sweet vanilla scent. A homeless old man crawling on his feet. He smelled very bad. A bald man dressed very nicely. He smelled exquisite, fancy, and serious. A bunch more uninteresting passengers lead out. I dug my hands in my pockets. Kept my shoulders shrugged and walked out. The air outside was a comfortable kind of cold. Cigarettes butts, condom wrappers, torn pieces of newspaper.

I walked up the steps with my head down. Hands in my pocket. I am reminded of all the times we made trips to the city. And for a moment I smiled and lift my head up. But, she is not here. She is somewhere where we wonder of. Some call it heaven. Some call it the afterlife. Some call it total oblivion. I decide to keep my head up. That what she would've wanted. Fix your posture, she said, it makes you more handsome.

I remember holding hands with her coming out of the Penn station. I told her that when I was younger I was enamored by the city because the movies made it seem like this was the only place dreams come true. All the handsome men and beautiful women were here. They made movies out of this place, I told her, there is a spectacle on every corner of this city. Look over there, there's music being played, and over there is delicious food, and look at all these lights, I told her. She said you can make dreams come true anywhere.

Chinatown and it's soup dumplings. That’s where we liked to go. I get on the subway. A homeless man asked me for a dollar and I gave him five instead. I hoped that the five dollars would get him somewhere tonight. Maybe a bagel, or one of those gyros made by those nice middle eastern men. But most likely will get himself whatever kind of alcohol or a cozy cigarette anything to numb himself from this cold. I find myself on the train again but this certain demographic at this time of the hour is different. It's just people of New York, and you can tell that they're from New York by the way their faces looks. Anybody who's been in New York knows what I am talking about.

I step outside the train out into Manhattan. The cold hits my face a bit harder this time. Small coffee, please, I ask. I use this cup of coffee mainly to warm my hands. Time was moving too fast for me. Just an hour ago I was at my parent's house in New Jersey. I decide to sit down with my cup of coffee next to a black man playing the trump. Don’t you wish you were comfy in bed? There is soul in the way he plays his trumpet. His face contorted to the sound of his music. Good stuff, I think, I too once played an instrument. I throw a dollar in his trumpet case and he nods in appreciation. I close my eyes for a little while with the cups warmth radiates in my palms. I listen to the steps of hundreds and hundreds of human beings. I'm reverting back to old habits. The one where I stay and maintain in solitude. Like the cricket you hear on a summer night. But I fear this solitude is morphing into a sort of isolation. I said thank you to the black man playing the trumpet.

I spotted a young girl with a t shirt and fishnets. An asian man adding to the eerie vapor of Chinatown with his cigarette.  He had a thin jacket on and one of those restaurant hats that look dorky but are to be taken serious. I saw that young woman cross the street again with her fishnets and flimsy t-shirt. She looked to be about my age. 

I got to her favorite restaurant and immediately was greeted by a pimply asian woman about half my size. I'd like to order soup dumplings. No problem, she said. The door chimed as I let myself out to wait in the cold. Everywhere were the circular ember colored shapes at the tips of their mouths. And the way they sucked on their cigarette made it seem like their cigarette tasted toasty, and comforting like a warm cup of hot chocolate. I hid my chin underneath my coat. Laid my back up against the wall. Asked myself the question. Why am I here? The door chimed again and out came the little asian lady. Thank you, I said. I can smell the fat from the pork coming out of the bag. So steamy. Soup dumplings. They're these little balls filled with savory, fatty, juice but make any sudden move with them and the delicate doughy dress comes apart.

I think, for tonight, there is nothing else to live for other than these little soup dumplings, and the amount of faces I have seen in this city, and the music that I've witnessed, and this cold air. I'm reliving memories. This is all I can do for now. I head to the train station. I took a 15 minute nap on the stairs waiting for my train. Once on the train I ate the soup dumplings. Slowly. That's what she told me to do. Eat your food, slowly. As I ate I looked out the window. We went under the tunnel where you see the pitch blackness in motion. Then the silhouettes of tree branches and houses. Every now and then I saw a stray window with the light on. I wonder what the story was going on in there. Making love? Heartbreak? Maybe some drugs? Maybe incredibly sad? Or, maybe, simply, someone forgot to turn the light off. As the train got closer to home the night started to get lighter. The runes of Elizabeth and Newark. You can tell we get closer to nice towns by the looks of their houses. Enter suburbia. I was close to home now. Exhausted I felt. Somewhat heartbroken. We passed through a deer that laid out next to the tracks. I felt even more heartbroken. The train came to a halt. I saluted the conductor. Outside it was cloudy, the air smelled cleaner, and there was a light rain beginning. The drive back home was quiet. Not a single thought in my head.  I didn’t bother to turn on the wipers. The dogs came out to greet me. I gave them both a kiss, let them go outside, and ran back in. I took off my clothes, and invited the dogs to come sleep with my. They made their selves comfortable snuggling in between my covers. I closed my eyes, and tried to count the number of raindrops that hit my window.

[emilixthefox]

Hi.

Page 1

It had been a long night, well why wouldn't be with all the singing and dancing. Oh, it had been a long night especially when her eyes or the feeling of eyes meeting hers. Helena Adams could paint a picture of the things around her, with sound. So when she heard him Helena’s back felt a heavy and cold stare, but oddly she didn't feel scared. So she continued to sing and spin through the music. After getting off the stage she changed into her school uniform and headed back on the bus to the dorms.

 ‘Nothing good comes from gangsters or mafia and that stare was surely one of those or something like that.’ Helena signed all alone in the bus taking her to the dorms. Passing through ChinaTown and Eversleeping Town to get to her school. Helena began leaning down on the window of the bus, listening to the sound of buildings go by, people walking by.

 ‘The world just keeps going, never stopping in its steps. Too bad I can't see the colors of the world.’ what were colors anyway colors meant nothing to Helena, she was blind after all. Signing again she listens to see if they were coming up to the dorms of the school. ‘-_-’ nope still away from the dorms, leaning back and closing her eyes, 

“Please go faster, bus.” The whisper was so quiet even the driver couldn't hear it. If on cue they turn over by the dorms and stop. Sitting looking up, 'Thank you kind fate.' paying in her head, Helena jumped up from her seat taking her bag and cane with her. Speed walking to the bus doors, jumping out of the bus, and running to the dorms hoping not to be caught. 

Running over to the wall she crouched down hoping not to be seen by the headmistress cat. Breathing slowly, listening to see if the cat is coming. After waiting for a minute she heard nothing, ‘All clear, let us do this!’ Helena stood up ready to run to the dorms without being caught- “meow.” stumbling forward and spinning around behind Helena there was the cat. ‘Dang, that cat’ Helena already knew she was caught by the headmistress even if she wasn't her in person. The headmistress and her cat somehow had a bond that was like it should belong in a fairytale. So even if she ran to her room it wouldn't change anything. She signed putting her head down in shame in not hearing the cat get behind her.

“Helena Adams, running off to that theater to sing.” emerging from the darkness the headmistress holding her candle staff. Stopping in front of Helena frowning at her for her incompetence for sneaking out so she could sing and make money. “Miss Adams, what do you think would happen if your father found out what you’re doing, hm?” she continued to scold Helena for seven minutes, “well then I hope you learned your lesson. After all, your father wants you to become a 'miracle'.”  

Turning around motioning to come inside with her. ‘Why me…’ Helena’s thoughts and dreams of being an architect and songwriter shattered with the reality of having no word in her life. Walking with the Mistress back to her room she couldn’t stop thinking of what her father said to her when she was nine years old.

(‘Helena! How did you do that!” Father grabbed my shoulders yelling at me. Was I in trouble? I must have done something bad if Father is raising his voice at me. “Helena.'' Why is Father’s voice softer now? “mh, Father? Am I in trouble?” I kept my head down, I was scared, I’ve never been in trouble before. “No, you're not. But what you just did was a miracle in itself!” he hugged me. What? What did he mean? Pulling out of the hug to look at me, “Helena I’m going to make you the greatest miracle that has ever lived.” Huh, what did he mean? All I did was write. The greatest miracle, what is that?)

‘It means I don’t get to live my life how I want to.’ Helena signs as she walks to her dorm and opens her room door to a plain room. Well, it was plain to her. She can't see colors after all. Closing her door and walking to her closet to get her Pjs to change into. She pulls out a pink nightgown and white lace at the ends. After changing Helena walks over to her bed and pulls the covers over her after getting in bed. Unknown to her that her life would be in danger for the next year and a half.

…

The sound of footsteps could be heard approaching the school in the middle of the night. Fan Wujiu had followed the small singer back to where she lived. ‘How odd. She is a student at a school, but she is a singer.’ He wasn't sure what made him follow her, maybe it was about her song? No that wasn’t it. Could it be that the way she looked at him in the theater when she was singing? Or maybe the fact that she rarely opened her eyes? Yes, that was the reason. She never opened her eyes all but once, and that’s when their eyes met. 

Helena had caught Wujiu’s interest and when something had caught Wujiu’s interest he never let go. “AHAHAH!” Wujiu throws his head up laughing like crazy. His laughter rang through the sleeping town. But it didn’t wake anyone up, ‘I guess that’s why it’s called Eversleeping Town.’ Turning around and walking away but not without looking back at Helena’s window. “I’m sure we’ll see each other very soon, little doll.” Disappearing into the darkness of night, as the wind blows cold. With a smiling moon and hand of power holding the strings. 

Questions?

[ghostedgwen]

ache in you | p.parker (part two)

note : So this was a trip to write. I washed dishes, made toasts and did my laundry in between writing this and I also put myself through the torture of watching nwh again to get the dialogues right. Fun fact - I'm part Filipino (mother side) so typing out Lola's dialogues was easy and I got flashbacks during her scenes bc my Mom scolds me the same way she does. The "kalat dito, kalat doon" was a mantra I heard throughout my life. Enjoy more angst bc you guys like crying I guess <3

warning/s : grief, death, mentions of blood, gun-shot wounds, robbery, pure angst, self-deprecating thoughts and some self-loathing sprinkled in there, language (?), canon events following nwh, angry Peter (?), just sad stuff

request :Omg I love your recent fic, sad, but I love the writing anyways. What if you can make a part 2 but it takes place in NWH where Andrew!Peter he meets the other (y/n) who is best friends with Tom!Peter and MJ. He feels guilty as he looked at them and he decided not to let history repeat itself after what happened to (y/n) who also died in his world after what happened in part 1. (you can determine the cause of her death)

Losing you so soon after Gwen felt like the end of it all to Peter. He never saw it coming and he didn't know what to do after - and now here he is in another universe, confronted by another version of you. words : 5k

Peter feels so lost. He pushed you away because he couldn't see you anymore, all he could feel was the regret and the blind hope whenever you were near, and in the end he lost you too.

In the attempt of keeping you away, he wasn't there in time to save you when you needed him most. He wasn't around to save you - and Gwen's sacrifice felt somewhat wasted in the end.

His world collapsed around him when Gwen died. He held her lifeless body in his arms and felt like he was being ripped apart inch by inch and time went on. It continued to move around him and people moved along.

While he stayed stuck in the very moment he shot that web while she fell in slow motion. He's still there, in that very moment - feeling that free fall and rapidly approaching the ground, only he never landed.

He's there suspended in the air, left to watch her slowly descend into the darkness where he can't follow.

He stayed that way for 5 months until he saw you again. Months after the funeral and you looked so different, you must've changed your hair - it was like a slap to the face that so much has happened and he didn't even notice.

He visited her grave every day for all those months and failed to recognize the world around him until he saw you again. Bearing the evidence of time passing, and he wasn't sure what to feel about that.

It didn't help that meeting you again was bittersweet. He missed you - his best friend but he also couldn't afford to look at you long enough without letting his thoughts wander to the dark corners in his head.

This heavy and groggy voice that would chant at him every time you came up in his mind - a dark voice that would tell him it was supposed to be you. And he tried to shrug it off every time.

It wasn't right to think that way and he knew that but when you met again - that voice won. He couldn't stand to stay long with you and see you alive and well while Gwen is six feet under. So he left when he still had so much to say.

And you didn't see him for weeks after that.

One night, on your way back from grief group, you thought to treat yourself to some Chinese food in Chinatown and you actually had your fill - had a great stay but on the walk back to your car -

You pause in your tracks, clutching your purse tighter around your arm and frowned at the man who blocked your path. You subtly look around and realize the streets are now empty. You curse under your breath for staying out too late.

"Can I help you?" You ask cautiously, already reaching for the pepper spray you had in your bag.

"Give us everything you have," the man with a croaky voice said. "And no one gets hurt."

You widened your eyes, did he just say us? You look behind you and sure enough there are two more guys slowly approaching you and all the alarms in your head went off. You took the strap off your arm and tossed it to him.

You were given a choice, your money or your life and you'd rather give them everything else just to make it out of here.

He caught the purse and smirked at you, beginning to shuffle inside and you could feel the single bead of sweat make its way down your forehead - your heartbeat ringing in your ears. You feared for what could happen next.

And Peter was on the other side of town, stopping robberies and high-fiving police officers, he could feel his blood pumping from the thrill of just having stopped yet another bank robbery when his senses went off again.

He was quick to act on his instincts, shooting webs and swinging around skyscrapers to head where his senses lead him and he ended up in some dark and isolated street near Chinatown, he heard the loud sound of a gun go off before he landed.

He was swift, taking the three guys down with minimal effort and immobilizing them with his webs before turning to the person on the ground. He ran towards them and he felt his blood run cold when he recognized you.

Holding you in his arms, he scanned you for injuries and found a hole in your stomach area - you were bleeding out, and he looked at your face to see you blinking hazily at him. You had your lips parted and a faraway look in your eyes.

"_____? ______!" It felt like déjà vu, and the worst kind. He tried pressing on the wound, it didn't matter if his suit was getting soaked in your blood. He can see you slipping in and out of consciousness.

"Peter?" You managed to choke out, it was barely above a whisper and he almost missed it. He pulled his mask off, his tears were suffocating him under the mask and you could feel him. He was warm and he was shaking.

His entire body was trembling. He never wanted to experience this again - god, why him?

"It's me," Peter threw a quick glance at the three criminals that are knocked out and then back at you. "Hey there, pretty girl."

You smiled despite the taste of copper in your mouth. You missed him calling you that - he called you that to tease you after you got so flustered when Gwen called you pretty. It soon turned endearing, and then he stopped.

He called you by name again during her funeral and then walked away, never to be seen for months.

"Peter - miss. . .you." You couldn't even understand the words coming out of your mouth but he understood well enough, he nodded.

"I missed you too," He cracks a grin and then looks down at his hand pressing on your wound. "You're gonna be okay."

But you knew you're not. You give him a sad smile which he recognized and shook his head. He pressed harder on the wound, a futile attempt at keeping the blood from gushing out when you've already lost enough.

It's a wonder you're even still awake and able to process somewhat coherent thoughts while lying in his arms. "No - no, no," Peter shook his head, tasing his salty tears on his tongue. "No."

With your trembling lips and weak hand - you spoke while reaching for his face. Using the last ounce of strength you had left in you to wipe the blood off his cheek and smiled sadly. "See you later."

You didn't say goodbye. You promised to see him again soon and then you were simply gone. One moment, you were smiling at him and then the next, you were gone. Just like that, you felt heavier in his arms and the light in your eyes died down.

He couldn't even find it in himself to scream this time around. He felt like he also died, right along with you and it wasn't until the sounds of sirens came that he was pulled back to reality. He abruptly put the mask on again and hesitantly parted with your body.

That was two months ago.

He started going to grief group - the same one you used to go to and it was quite a shock to everyone when they heard about you. It's almost funny in a way that you attended before and now you're the reason someone is attending.

He almost sobbed when he ate those brownies - you were right. They are worth every visit, and he didn't miss the way Marie paid special attention to him. Watching him when he would listen to the others speak.

He remembers his first visit - he was hovering by the door. Awkwardly greeting everyone who came in while he hesitated, getting one foot through the door before heading back out to catch his breath.

Having stopped actual villains before, he found it nearly impossible to go inside. It's just a room with a bunch of people who understood his pain but he felt so hesitant - like he'd die if he stepped in there but he also had to.

"Are you Peter?" A woman's voice caused him to jump. "I'm sorry for scaring you, my name's Marie."

"Yes, how - how'd you know my name?" Peter asked with a frown.

"From _____, she mentioned you only once and I recognized you from her lock screen - why are you here?"

Peter felt the words get stuck in his throat. This Marie woman knows you, and was close enough that you even mentioned him to her and she has no idea about you - about what happened and he felt like throwing up.

He could feel the bile creep up his throat and threaten to spill over but he gulped it down. He bit his lip, unable to get the right words out and she understood - tears brimming in her eyes when she realized.

"Oh." Has never sounded more heartbreaking when she said it, her voice cracking and her tears falling down her tan cheeks.

She pulled him in for a hug and it felt so warm and welcoming. Peter returned this stranger's embrace and allowed himself to also cry - he felt understood in her arms and in a way, he felt like you were comforting him through her.

He attended for a month after that, every visit did not take away any pain but he understands you now. It didn't magically make everything better but he did feel less alone, Marie was the kindest and warmest soul who offered him brownies every time.

He didn't expect brownies to be his comfort food, but it's become his go-to whenever he would feel sad, and that was every day.

Going to grief group made him feel less lonely but it didn't give him clarity. He had two people to mourn now and he felt lost - what now? He knew exactly what you and Gwen would want and that is for him to move on but how can he?

He felt like he will never be whole again after being broken beyond repair, but something happened a month later :

He sat in front of his computer, typing away while he looked for jobs he could apply for when he got a ping. He received an email and he frowned when he saw it came from you. He watched that notification until it went away.

Stunned in his seat and taking a whole minute before processing what he just saw. He checked the email right away once he recovered - fingers shaking while it hovered by the mouse and he didn't make a mistake. It really was your email and this was sent just now -

Hey there Pete,

I'm typing this in my very messy study table 3 days after you left that morning. It's been five months and I thought I had enough time for myself to gather my thoughts and rehearse what I was going to say to you when we meet again but I came up blank. I was caught off guard and shirtless so all the practiced speeches just poof'd.

I am making it so you received this in 3 months, when I'm out of New York and off travelling all over Europe. Just staying here isn't good for me, I'm gonna go and see the world like Gwen wanted for me and maybe I'll tell you all about it when we meet it again?

I'm really sorry if you're only finding out now that I'm long gone and probably sipping overpriced apple juice somewhere in France, but it's for the best. I know what you think of me, of the whole thing and I honestly don't blame you.

I understand and I swear, there's no hard feelings - or at least, there won't be after I'm done healing during the trip. I will miss you, I don't know how long it will take until we meet again but I can't wait to tell you all about my adventures.

How are you? I hope you're staying healthy, I plan on visiting Gwen right after typing this out. Who knows? Maybe we'll finally run into each other or I will barely miss you.

Enough rambling! I still have to plan the trip and I'll take two weeks preparing and then I'm off for a new adventure. I hope you also begin healing from this, I know Gwen would've wanted us to be happy.

That's all for now, I might think of sending another email while I'm off walking the streets of London.

I'll see you later.

He felt empty after reading that - he remembered your last words to him, how you smiled in an attempt to comfort him as you feel yourself slowly slip away. You assured him that you would meet again.

How? He didn't know but he held onto that promise, you've never broken your promises before, so surely he would see you again someday like you told him. And he can't wait for the day to come.

Fast-forward to three years later - and currently somewhere in another universe :

"Still nothing?" MJ asks you and Ned, looking over her shoulder and turning away from the TV.

"Nope." You let out a huff of disappointment.

"No." Ned says with a shake of his head, putting his phone down and MJ gets up to sit next to you.

She sits down drawing a long sigh, massaging her temple and her gaze landed on the metal box in front of you. You frown, exchanging looks between her and the metal box.

"MJ?" You ask, raising a brow.

"I'm gonna press it."

"What? No!" Ned disagreed, perking up from his seat.

"Peter told us to wait - " MJ cuts you off.

"I'm gonna do it." She says with a firm nod.

Ned crinkles his nose and began throwing his arm around in frustration. "I just wish - I just wish that we could see him."

You turn your gaze to the tiny sparkle in your peripheral vision - all three heads turn collectively and you feel the shift in the air.

"Ned." MJ called out.

"Yeah?"

"Do that again."

"Yeah." You encouraged, and watched as Ned tries to do it again.

"I just wish we could see him."

Now all three of you get up from your seats, facing the forming portal with anticipation. Ned fixed his posture and posed his hand -

"I just wish we could see Peter."

Then the portal finally opened - you peer through to find it's some dark alley and someone - guessing it's Peter - in his suit is slowly turning around.

"Salamangkero." You hear Ned's lola exclaim in surprise.

"You're right. I am magic." You managed to crack a grin at Ned.

"Is that him?" MJ frowns and peers through the portal as well, tapping Ned on his arm and all three of you tilt your heads in varying degrees to try and get a better look of the approaching figure.

"Yeah, yea. It has to be."

"Peter!" You called out first and the other two began calling out as well until he jumped through and you frown - that doesn't look like Peter's suit. When did he have the time to change?

You turn to Ned's lola screaming in fear, throwing a pillow at the Spider-Man while he tried to plead his case of being a good guy, you step back cautiously - something was off about this person and you're not sure what.

"I'm a nice guy!" He then takes his mask off making you frown deeper. "Okay. . ."

"Who the hell are you?" MJ asked before you could.

"I'm Peter Parker."

"That's not possible."

This was making your head hurt so you began turning away, walking out to head to the kitchen and began pouring yourself a glass of water. May is dead, Peter is off somewhere hurting all alone and now there's another Peter out there.

You really didn't know what you were signing up for when all you wanted was a babysitter job - this was not how you imagined your life would be. You steered clear from superhero stuff for as long as you've known aliens actually exist when they came flying around New York - and now here you are.

Tangled up in this mess because 5 years ago you needed a job and ended up being Peter's babysitter.

Awesome!

After drinking 2 full glasses of water and feeling your throat was a whole lot less dry - you begin making your way to the living room to find there's another stranger added to the group now and Ned's lola is scolding the cute guy from earlier.

"Ikaw ha nagkalat ka nanaman!" She pointed her finger in a scolding manner. "Linisin mo lahat ng mga basura mo dito."

You hold back your laughter despite not being able to understand her, you figured that older women scolding is a universal language anyway.

"At ikaw, gusto ko yung bahay natin maayos pero tignan mo: dumi dito! Dumi doon."

"My Lola's asking if you could clean up the webs that you just shot."

Younger Peter turned to the old woman with a sheepish look on his face. "Oh, sorry, Lola."

"Yes, of course." Older - Peter? - nodded.

"I'm going to bed." The old woman announced with a lazy wave and then began walking away.

"Goodnight Ned's Lola." MJ called after her and you all watched her disappear from view.

You then turn to younger Peter began fixing his mess from earlier and felt inclined to help him, walking over to put the condiments back up while the older Peter began talking behind you two.

"Oh - thanks - " He lifts his gaze and he felt as if the world stopped.

He blinked in surprise, seeing your face again after what felt like forever. You smile at him, your eyes wrinkling the same way it always did when your lips would curl ever so slightly upwards and the way your eyebrows would twitch a bit at the action.

He drank you in - your hair was way longer than he remembered and you kept it neat in a braid, a few loose strands framing your face and those eyes - they're so refreshing. To see them so bright and alive again.

"Nice to meet you." You grin at him, offering your hand, which he hesitantly accepted. "My name is ______."

He parted his lips, unable to say anything as you lightly shook his hand and he's willed back to reality - head turning on instinct.

"I just had this sense that. . . that he needs my help." Older Peter spoke.

"Our help." Younger Peter corrected, still holding your hand. MJ frowns at you two and you shrug - you have no idea why he's still holding it but whatever.

"He does," you nod at Older Peter. "I'm ____, by the way."

"We don't know where he is." Ned.

"And uhm - honestly, we're all he really has left." MJ said solemnly.

You turn to find the younger Peter is looking down at you with a weird look on his face. You raise a brow at him and he abruptly drops your hand, you're thoroughly confused by him but you shrug it off.

"Well, is there some place that he might go that has meaning to him?" Older Peter asks. "Like uhh- a place where he would go to just - "

"Get away from everything?" Peter next to you finished.

"For me, it was the top of the Chrysler Building."

"Empire State. Better view."

"That is a sweet view."

"Yeah," MJ nods after her realization. "Yeah, I think I know exactly where that would be."

You stare down at the stone, her name carved in it and you could feel your heart crack at every letter. It was too soon, and she was too young - she didn't deserve what happened to her. You couldn't even look her Mom in the eyes when she comforted you earlier.

She lost her daughter and still tried to comfort you. You, who she had no idea, were the reason her daughter is dead.

You turn away to find Peter and May right beside you. She had her arms around him as she sobbed, he was crying quietly. His face flush and cheeks wet from the salty tears.

You wanted to walk over there and comfort him as well -

The people began leaving and it was only the two of you left. He stood right in front of her tombstone, hands in his pockets and you hesitantly approach him.

"I'm sorry about Gwen - " you stopped.

He turned to you and you could swear you saw a stranger. That wasn't Peter. He looked down at you with his brows furrowed, and you almost saw hate in those brown eyes of his that were formerly warm and inviting.

He looks so cold and so unrecognizable.

"Peter?"

"You should go, ____."

Your lips part in shock, blinking in confusion and you reached your hand to place it on his shoulder which he shrugged off. Taking a step back and sending a glare your way.

"I said you should go."

You didn't know what else to say or do so you did as told, hesitantly turning around and began walking away. Feeling another set of tears come as you feel a wave of excruciating sadness wash over you like a powerful current.

After the whole confrontation in the roof, everyone headed to the lab and on the way - you put an arm around Peter, your Peter, and ruffles his already messy hair. You didn't interrupt earlier and let him have his moments.

One with his best friend and girlfriend and the other with - himselfs? Ned and MJ walks ahead, you followed right after them with Peter and he chuckles at the gesture.

"Good to have you back on track, kiddo." You coo at him and he crinkles his nose at the nickname.

"Yeah - thanks for coming along, _____. I know you don't like superhero stuff."

You give him a wide grin. "Anything for you, kid."

Entering the lab, the three Peters discuss what they're going to do and you've decided to treat your Peter's wounds before he got any work done. You've done it countless times before so why not again?

"Wait - I get that she's the girlfriend and he's the bestfriend," Older Peter spoke, pointing at MJ and then at Ned before pointing to you. "Who are you?"

"I'm his babysitter." You shrug and dab more alcohol on the tiny cut above Peter's eyebrow, making him wince in pain.

"Ow! Former babysitter, you quit because I'm too old to have one."

"You had a babysitter?" Older Peter frowned.

"Yeah, my uncle died when I was young and May needed the extra help - for when she's not around to watch over me." Peter shrugged. "You guys didn't have one?"

"Nope." Older Peter shook his head 'no'.

"Uh - no." Younger Peter replied and you turn to him - he's still looking at you weirdly, and you can't help but get the feeling that he has something he wants to say to you.

"I guess I'm the only ____ in the multiverse." You shrugged, saying it to gauge the reaction of Younger Peter and there you saw it. A brief look of shock in his eyes and you got your answer, he knows you.

"Can you please cool it with the cotton pad? I feel like you're hurting me more than healing me," Peter whined, avoiding your hand and you mutter apologies. You got too distracted that you forgot you were treating him. "What's up?"

"I just got a feeling, brb," you nod at MJ. "Take over for me, will ya?"

She accepts the cotton pad you offered and began treating Peter in your stead, sitting in front of him and lightly dabbing his wounds with it. You turn to find younger Peter watching them with a faraway look in his eyes, putting down his equipment and turning away.

Then you watched as he quickly slipped out the door and followed right after him, trailing after as he draws out a long breath, leaning against the glass cabinet displaying many trophies the school accumulated and tried to calm himself down.

"Are you okay - woah, I'm sorry." You didn't mean to make him jump, you raise both hands up in mock defense as he puts his hand down when it was previously pointing at you. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"It's fine - sorry, I just needed some air."

"Yeah, must be weird having two other you's."

"It's kind of fun, actually." He shrugs and you frown at him.

You take in his appearance - so much different from your Peter, who you practically watched grow up. This one was way older, probably around your age, but like the other Peters - he had dark brown hair and matching brown eyes.

You wonder if there's a blonde Peter somewhere.

"That story you told on the rooftop, about Gwen, I'm sorry." You figured that's why he looked at the kids weirdly when they were having their moment. You watched his glossy eyes fixate on you and you couldn't read the expression on his face.

"Yeah, I'm sorry too."

You let a few moments of silence pass by. Reveling in the bliss of ignorance before you found the courage to ask the question : "Do I exist in your universe?"

"I told you I didn't have a babysitter." He forced a humorless chuckle.

"That's not what I asked, Peter."

He couldn't hold your gaze - it was too painful. He looked away and averted his gaze elsewhere, while yours remained on him, watching his reaction and recognizing the same look your Peter had just moments ago.

Grief.

You had no idea how but you understood but you did - just from his reaction to a simple question and you felt sorry for him. You slowly approach him, placing a careful hand on his shoulder and leaning against the wall.

"It's okay if you don't wanna talk - "

"Yes, you were my best friend." Peter nods and you smile at the thought. Taking note of the word 'were' even though you already knew from his reaction earlier. "And I lost you, right after I lost Gwen."

"That must've been so hard on you, I'm sorry." You didn't know how to feel - knowing you died in another universe felt weird and it just brings up the fact that you're also gonna die on this one someday.

"Don't be, it's - it's all my fault - both of you I couldn't - "

"Hey, you got that whole loveable dorky and stupid hero complex my Peter has," you interrupt him with a smile. "So surely your ____ has the same stupid ability to forgive that I do."

"I don't deserve it - not from any version of you."

"Shut up," you tell him and he purses his lips on instinct. "Don't keep punishing yourself for things beyond your control. I'm sure I didn't die for nothing and you can't save everyone, as depressing as that sounds, you can't save everyone."

"But I still have to try."

"Yes, you do," you nod. "But you have to learn to forgive yourself for those that you don't. You owe it to yourself for every life you've saved."

"You talk just like her, it's kind of insane." Peter managed to chuckle despite the tears already trailing down his flushed cheeks, and he wiped them with the back of his hand.

"I guess I'm amazing in every universe." You joked and tapped his shoulder lightly, retrieving your hand, and crossing your arms.

"Yeah, you were."

Another short moment of silence passed you two by, you just stared at him and he did the same. He wanted time to stop so he could just live here, right in this very moment where you're standing in front of him and you're just at arm's reach.

He could keep replacing his previous memories of you with new ones. Gone is the night he held you in his arms and you felt so heavy and cold, and here you are chuckling and tapping his shoulder so warmly.

He could feel his chest tightening, but not in the same way as before - before it felt like his lungs were collapsing on itself, but right now, it felt comforting and oddly warm - you were warm.

"I wonder how many versions of me exist out there." You interrupt his train of thoughts, and he chuckled at that.

"I hope there's enough for every Peter out there," he nods and you crinkle your nose at the compliment. "We could really use a _____."

"I'm still sorry you lost yours."

"Well, it's comforting to know that somewhere out there. There's a universe where I didn't lose you."

"And I'm sorry - yeah not to blame myself," he chuckled when he saw you glare at him. "But I still need to say it at least once so I can feel a little better. Please?"

He pouted and fluttered his lashes animatedly, making you laugh and give in with a nod, gesturing with a flick of your wrist for him to proceed and the laughter died down.

"I'm sorry. It was wrong to blame you and apologizing for turning you away during the funeral was the first thing I should have done that morning. You were an amazing friend and I understand why Gwen did it, I would have done the same and I was too taken by the grief to see the real you under all the anger." 

You stared at him, quietly listening in despite not knowing the context of this long apology. You stayed still even as he reached his hand out to caress your cheek lovingly, looking at you with tears brimming in his eyes again.

"You deserved so much better and I just wish it could've been me. I'm so sorry and I will forever be sorry for you and Gwen - but I promise to do the healing, like you asked."

You smile at him - it's so weird. It's like catching up with a friend you haven't seen a long time only this is a stranger, one you've never met your entire life and he shares the identity of the boy you used to babysit.

"And thank you for keeping your promise, pretty girl."

You raise a brow at that nickname, a promise? You rarely give those out because you believe promises should be kept and therefore cannot be broken at any point. You didn't wanna break promises, so you barely gave those away.

Peter knew it wasn't the you from his world but he felt satisfied. To have finally said those words and be given a chance, even in another universe, to apologize for the things he did and didn't do. 

It's almost funny how even with the impossible like the multiverse - you were able to fulfill your promise to him. Like you always did because that's who you were, and how he'll choose to keep knowing you.

Not the 'what-if's and the 'maybe's. Just you.

You decided against asking, you only pushed yourself off the wall you're leaning on - his hand leaving your face -and gestured to the lab door. "They're working - you should probably also do that."

"Yeah." He nods.

You offer him your hand and he didn't hesitate to accept it. Pushing himself off the wall and walking back into the lab with you. This time, he only saw you. Not the life he could've had with Gwen if she didn't save you, and instead he just saw your hair in a neat braid and your bright eyes focused on him.

to be continued back in his universe : part three | masterlist

[theycallme-thejackal]

Prompt: Midge and Lenny and a quiet, starry night.

Pairing: Lenny Bruce & Midge Maisel Rated T Warnings: Mild Sexual Content

Part 1 | Part 2

After their night together, he stayed.

Midge woke before him, letting him sleep off the copious amounts of liquor he’d consumed the previous night, and headed for the kitchen, feeling pleasantly sore as she buttoned his shirt around herself.

She made breakfast. They ate together in the kitchen and then had sex again, this time forgoing the walk down the hall for making it right there on the kitchen table, her limbs wrapped around him as she shook her way to another climax.

He’s still here, which is surprising but certainly not unwelcome. Ethan and Esther are in Chinatown for a couple more days, and Mama and Papa come back tomorrow, leaving Midge and Lenny to enjoy a quiet night together.

It’s the longest amount of time they’ve ever spent in each other’s company, and she’s relieved to find their banter flows as easily at twenty-four hours as it does at twenty-four seconds. They sit out on the fire escape, sharing a cigarette and looking up at the uncharacteristically starry Manhattan sky.

Late autumn has descended, and she shivers in the chilly night air, prompting him to shift, sitting next to her and wrapping an arm around her. She curls into him gratefully, happily, and that unspoken agreement they had fades completely as he kisses her hair.

“I never thought the Upper West Side would be my scene, but this is…it’s really nice,” he admits as his fingers trail tenderly over her upper arm.

“And you haven’t even left the apartment,” she points out.

“That’s what’s nice about it,” he counters teasingly, dragging his cigarette.

Midge gazes up at him as he exhales smoke, his face silhouetted by the lamplight in her bedroom. “You can stay as long as you like,” she offers, sounding almost like a question.

“I’ll have to go back to my hotel at some point,” he counters. “If for no other reason than eventually I’ll have to wash this suit, and I haven’t worn a dress since I was in the navy.”

“You could…bring your stuff here,” she suggests.

Lenny arches a brow, and she averts her gaze, dipping her head as she inhales from the shared cigarette. “One day, and you’re asking me to move in with you?” He teases.

“Well it was a pretty great day,” she reasons. “And not permanently…I have a feeling you’d be driven to insanity by my parents, but…maybe just until you find a place?”

He looks down at her for a moment, grazing her fingers with his as he takes the cigarette back. “Like a trial run? See how we actually work as a couple?”

Midge shrugs. “Sure. If that’s what you want to call it.”

He exhales the smoke and offers the last puff to her, which she gladly accepts. “Do I have to sleep in the small bed again?”

“Only if you want. But eventually you’d have to share it with my five-year-old, and he’s a kicker.”

He chuckles and looks at her fondly, making her heart flutter. Then he places a soft kiss on her lips. “Your bed, it is.”

[kaepop-trash]

Just make Johnny propose? I can't take it anymore.

How demanding of you. This made me a mess and I hope you will take responsibility for this. I cannot get over what a sweet boyfriend Johnny would be. I hope you like it!

_

The clatter of pots and pans clattering was the sound that filled the mostly empty restaurant that was barely open. (Y/N) sank her chin into her scarf and held the cup of tea the waitress just left on the table close to her chest. It had turned out to be very cold this winter, and being out at 5am in Chinatown was the worst idea Johnny had till date. Her teeth clattered and she took another sip of the tea, the boiling liquid still not enough to soothe the chill settling into her bones.

She turned up to give Johnny an impatient look. 

He looked as unaffected by the cold as he was by most things. His scarf undone and draped over his neck as he sat back and relaxed into the seat, a sharp contrast to how she sat bundled up. He looked every bit the Midwestern boy he was at the moment. 

A sign that read 'Merry Christmas' blinked red and white at the glass window of the restaurant, the reflection of it illuminating Johnny's face. The light shifted between red and white, making him look dreamy in the haze of her sleepy eyes.

She shivered again, shaking her arms to try to speed her slowing circulation, shifting back to hunch into her seat and look at the table. The movement gained Johnny's attention, who turned to give her a glance laced with amusement.

She shivered again, "Where is this noodle soup that you promise is only good in the ungodly hours of the morning?" She questioned, her voice soft.

"It's coming." Johnny promised, "Come here." He patted the empty space beside him on the bench, "You look like you're going to freeze mid-sentence." He scoffed with a smile, shaking his head.

"Don't gloat.” She glared at him, “Not all of us were raised in 11 degree winters.” She retorted, getting up to sit beside him and huddle close to his form. Johnny wrapped an arm around her, pulling her closer and resting his chin on her head. She buried her face in his neck and slipped her hands inside his coat to wrap around his waist, still shivering.

There was a silence that settled between them. Johnny rubbed soothing circles on her back that made her drowsy, the early hours of the morning making its impact.

She was by no means a morning person, never would be. Johnny loved waking up early and had the disgusting notion that going outside at the time was a good idea. It was only her unfaltering love for him that led her to humour such perceptions at all. 

When her hands felt warm enough, she retreated them to pick up his hand that rested on her thigh, toying with the fingers.

“Are you still cold?” He mumbled into her hair.

“No.” She mumbled back.

“Should I let you go?” He lifted his head.

“No.”

Johnny laughed, putting his cheek against her temple and squeezing her frame. She smiled at his fingers.

“Just wait till I take you home for christmas.” He chuckled to himself. "If you think this is cold you aren't prepared for December in Illinois." There was an excitement in his voice that was infectious every time he talked about going home.

“Your mom said she would wrap me in five blankets. She also promised to intervene when you have any brilliant ideas that involve outdoor activities.”

Johnny’s laugh reverberated in his chest. She smiled when she felt the vibration of it, moving to rest her head on his shoulder to hear it in earnest. Both of them sighed together.

“You’ve been cohorting with my mother to spoil my plans.” He hummed.

She pulled back just enough to look up at him, meeting his peaceful smile.

“She loves me. So she’s looking out for me.” (Y/N) scrunched her nose at him.

Johnny grinned, “I love you more.” He gave her a mock pout.

“Very debatable if you want me to freeze in a midwest winter out in the wilderness, Johnny Suh.” She clicked her tongue, “Very debatable.” She shook her head. 

Johnny pulled her back into his embrace with a soft sigh, “Fine we’ll only see a few things. No hiking, I guess.” He clicked his tongue back.

She snorted, “You’re real cute if, after being with me for four and a half years, you believe I'll hike in any season. Aren’t you supposed to know me? The person who you claim is the love of your life?” She bit her lip, glad he couldn’t see her blush as she mentioned something he said in passing once.

“I do know you.” He pulled her back to face him, giving her a smile, “You would fuss about it the entire time, but you would go. And then when we got there, you’d be quiet because the view would be worth it. And then fuss again when you remember that you have to walk back.” He raised a brow, as if questioning if he was accurate.

“Damn.” She mumbled, “You do know me.” She conceded.

“Love of my life.” He repeated the words, gloating.

She reached out and put her fingers on his cheek. The now warm fingers tingling against his cold skin. “You really are, you know? I don’t say it enough, but you really are.” She gave him a tender smile.

“I know.” Johnny kissed her forehead, “You’re always saying it, just not in words.” He mumbled against her head.

“Yeah?” She laughed at the words, “What does that mean?” She questioned.

The food arrived, cutting the conversation short. Reluctantly, they pulled away from each other. She picked up a bowl and put it in front of him first and then pulled the other one towards her.

Johnny smiled at the gesture, “Stuff like that.” He pointed at the bowls. “And how you wait for me to come home when I’m late." He smiled wistfully. "Even when you fall asleep. You wake up the moment I get in bed." He laughed to himself, "Or how you can tell how I’m feeling.” He threaded his fingers into hers, lifting her hand to leave a kiss. “I know.” 

She blinked at him, her cheeks turning more pink than they were from the cold before. She gave him a nod, turning her focus to her bowl. Johnny laughed, always finding pleasure in watching her be flustered. 

“This is good.” She sighed after taking her first bite. “That soup is so hot.” She groaned, the sound proof she was enjoying the food.

“Told you.” He shrugged.

“I’m sure the fact that it’s freezing outside helps make this steaming bowl feel more appetizing.” She noted.

“Exactly.” Johnny looked up with a serious expression, she snorted.

After finishing the entire bowl of noodle soup, she felt sufficiently warmed from inside out.

“Fuck, that was nice.” She groaned.

“You know, when we have kids, you’ll have to do something about the swearing.” Johnny hummed thoughtfully.

She turned to him, looking as stunned as she probably felt. They had talked about this a few times before, as casually and Johnny mentioned most serious things.

As casually as he mentioned it now. 

She knew him, she knew it was because she was in the business of worrying too much about most things. He did it to dissipate some of that and she was always grateful for it. It was little things like this with him, from the very start.

But there was a brimming anticipation in his eyes, one that felt new and made her heart beat a little faster. It also reminded her that she had been silent for a moment too long.

“I’ll learn when they’re still infants. They say you’re never prepared for parenting, that you learn as you go.” She shrugged. Johnny gave her a smile, one of hope and possibilities.

“Want to eat anything else?” Johnny changed the topic.

She gave him a sheepish nod, “Egg tarts.”

Johnny checked his watch, “Yeah I think the bakery will open in a bit. We can go.”

They stood outside the bakery for fifteen minutes now, every exposed part freezing from the crisp early morning wind from the nearby East River. Johnny rubbed her fingers occasionally inside his coat pockets as they stood close together.

The city had just started waking up, the first sign of dawn clear in the skies. Vendors passed by around them, the sound of life waking up slowly filling the air and making the cold feel less treacherous.

Johnny gave her a sympathetic smile, “I thought the bakery opened at 5:30.” He said apologetically.

“It’s fine.” She dismissed, taking her hands out of his pockets to slip under his coat. “Egg tart was my idea. Plus,” She stepped closer to him, hands snaking around his waist. “The cold isn’t so bad with you to warm me up.” He kissed the tip of her nose, putting his own hands on her waist.

“Hmm?” Johnny smiled. The shutter of the bakery finally drew open, the sudden metallic clang shocking them both. When a person walked up to the window to take their order, he asked for an egg tart each.

“I’m considering this cold practice for your midwest hikes.” She told him while they waited. Johnny turned to give her such a happy smile at the words that she laughed, hugging him again. “You’re so cute sometimes, Johnny. She scrunched her nose. “I love you.” She mumbled.

The man at the bakery window tapped the glass, making Johnny move to grab their order. He handed her one warm egg tart. He saw her eyes light up as he handed her the steaming tart, a bright smile settling on her lips. It made his heart pick up in pace.

“Marry me, (Y/N).”

She looked up, mouth open as she was about to bite her tart. For a second, both of them stared at each other in shock. Like neither of them expected to say or hear those words at the moment. The tart fell out of her hand, falling face first on the sidewalk. Johnny’s eyes went wide as he looked down at it.

“Shit.” She mumbled, crouching down to pick up the ruined tart. Her arms shook as she tried to lift the pieces with the tissue it came with, her eyes suddenly blurring. “Fuck.” She mumbled, her voice wavering this time. She held the desecrated tart in one hand, bits of it still on the pavement. The other hand she put on her face.

Johnny crouched down in front of her, bending his head lower to try to see her face with a short chuckle.

“Did you have to do this in Chinatown at 6 am?” She whined, hand still on her eyes. She was clearly weeping now, soft sobs filling the air. Johnny laughed, the sound making her remove her hand to frown at him. “I’m being serious right now.” She sniffed, nose red and eyes glossy.

“So am I.” He put both arms on her shoulder, lifting her up with him. “Who cares where we are?” He took the crumbled desert from her hand and walked over to a bin, tossing it while she stifled soft sobs.

When he came back, he put his palms on her cheek. “I’m not proposing. Not yet.” He tried to reassure, “I’m asking you if you want to. It didn’t feel right to just go all out without giving you a warning.” He wiped her tears with his thumb, squeezing her face. “I love you, (Y/N). I have for almost half a decade now. I’ll love you for at least ten more. Do you think you could be married to me?” His eyes looked at her with soft expectation.

Another sob racked through her, her face squinting. “Why are you crying?” Johnny laughed.

“Because I love you, you idiot.” She hit his chest.

“What a wretched thing to do, call me an idiot while I’m asking you to spend your life with me.” Johnny clicked his tongue in jest.

She groaned, “You're so exasperating.” She put both her hands on his chest. "Who else am I going to spend my life with?"

_

The elevator dinged open making her sigh. “I’m so tired. I hate Wednesdays.” She groaned, releasing her hair from the ponytail it was in all day. She slowly massaged her scalp to ease the roots, “Thanks for picking me up.” She spoke to Johnny.

He hummed, “Anytime.” His voice was distracted, she blamed the long day. He was distracted all evening, picking her up and taking her to dinner midweek. She wondered which of his clients it was that was giving him a hard time this week.

“I want a long bath.” She pictured it, smiling at the thought. “A cup of that nice rose tea.” She sighed, still trying to ease her sore scalp. “And sleep.” She pouted.

Johnny laughed, “And where do I fit into that? Shouldn’t you be a little more considerate towards your designated driver?” He turned to face her, dropping his bag on the floor.

“What makes you think I’m taking a bath alone?” She gave him a wink that turned into a blink because of how tired her eyes were. He scoffed, giving her a hum.

“Did something happen? You seem very tense.” She questioned.

“Nothing.” He said too soon, chewing on his bottom lip.

“You can tell me, you know. Unless you’re legally obliged not to. In which case you can change the names and places and tell me.” She reached her hand out to hold his tie, brushing it a few times, realising that it was one she gave him. Even the clip that held it together was the one she gave him as a joke, her initials on it. She didn’t have to look to know that he was wearing the cufflinks that came with it. It made her smile, looking up at him. “What’s up?” She asked softly.

He groaned, the sound soft. He reached out to bring her closer to him, “I was really thinking of so many places I could do this.” He kissed her forehead. “But the elevator just has to be it, doesn’t it? I remember your face so clearly from that night.” He breathed a chuckle out.

She furrowed her brows at him, “Can we not let this go? It’s been five years!” She huffed.

“Don’t be ridiculous. It is hands down the best anecdote I have.” He paused, his eyes turning from it's soft humour to something more intense. She felt his heartbeat pick up under her palm, it made hers pick up right with him.

“Johnny.” She whispered, eyes growing a little bigger.

“You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” He pushed her hair back from her face, “The way you tease me for being afraid of ghosts," She smiled at the words, eyes fluttering shut as they did whenever he ran his fingers through her hair, "How you hate people before 9am.” He smiled, “How your eyes glow when you talk about random things about which you have more knowledge than you should.” She scoffed, making Johnny grin. “The way you know every little part of me.” He sighed. “You’re perfect. And I’m so madly in love with you.” He took a step back, turning back to press the elevator’s emergency stop button.

“That’s illegal.” She stared at him.

Johnny bit his lip, failing to curb his smile. “Shut up.” She put her hands on her cheeks and nodded, taking a nervous breath.

When he bent down on his knee she put a hand on her mouth. “Are you actually going to cry again?” Johnny laughed, reaching into his pocket to take out a small box.

She shook her head and lifted her hand from her lips, “No." Her voice wavered, "I’m just picturing the security guard at his desk watching this from the camera. I’m embarrassed for you.” She groaned.

Johnny scoffed, “Marry me.”

“You really are very embarrassing.” She blinked the tears out of her face. “Imagine being legally bound to you.” She wiped her eyes. “Does this mean I’m Mark’s mother now?” He looked up at her with disbelief, when he opened the box she gasped. “Oh my god.” She closed her eyes, more tears slipping out. “You’re actually doing this.” She nodded, taking a deep breath. “Okay. You’re actually doing this.” She nodded with a little more force. Her lips quivered.

“Are you going to have a breakdown? Should I get up? If you say no I’m telling your mom.”

She took the box from his hand with a choked laugh, “No–” He gasped immediately and she laughed, “Let me finish. No, I’m not saying no. Are you sure you want to do this? We’ll have to file so much paperwork.” She inhaled, staring at the ring.

“We’ll save so much on taxes though.” He hummed.

“Fair point.” She took the ring out of the box.

“No, I have to do that!” He said with indignation. She huffed, putting the ring back and handing him the box.

He took it with a frown, “(Y/N) (Y/L/N), Will you or will you not marry me?” 

“Why does that sound like a threat?” When he whined she laughed. “Okay, okay!” She put her hands on his cheeks, squishing them together. “Of course I will. I want to have your long limbed children, get a piece of that fortune you’re saving." He scoffed, "I want to grow old with you.” She pouted when his eyes welled up. “If you cry I’ll actually break down.” She groaned. He blinked, looking down at her hands.

He slipped the ring into her finger, admiring the hand. “No take backs.” His voice was gentle.

“Remember that when I’m intolerable during our wedding. I plan on getting married once. It'll have to be perfect.” She hugged him so hard that he almost fell back.

Johnny laughed, wrapping his arms around her waist. “I plan on marrying once too. I don't want to share custody of Mark.” She buried her head in his neck. “I love you.” He whispered.

"I hate you for making me cry." She mumbled into his neck. "I love everything else about you. No take backs." She promised.

_

Send me an ask about a character from one of my fics in a scenario and I'll write a drabble.

Character from: Unintended Consequences

[chrisevansluv]

Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

The 30-year-old Bud Light-chugging, Beantown-bred star of The Avengers is widely perceived as the ultimate guy's guy. But beneath the bro persona lies a serious student of Buddhism, an unrepentant song-and-dance man, and a guy who talks to his mom about sex. And farts.

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

We're at Evans' apartment, an expansive but not overly tricked-out bachelor-pad-ish loft in a semi-industrial nowheresville part of Boston, hard by Chinatown, near an area sometimes called the Combat Zone. Evans has a fuzzy, floppy, slept-in-his-clothes aspect that'd be nearly unrecognizable if you knew him only by the upright, spit-polished bearing of the onscreen hero. His dog, East, a sweet and slobbery American bulldog, is spread out on a couch in front of the TV. The shelves of his fridge are neatly stacked with much of the world's supply of Bud Light in cans and little else.

On the counter sit a few buckets of muscle-making whey-protein powder that belong to Evans' roommate, Zach Jarvis, an old pal who sometimes tags along on set as a paid "assistant" and a personal trainer who bulked Evans up for his role as the super-ripped patriot in last summer's blockbuster Captain America: The First Avenger. A giant clock on the exposed-brick wall says it's early evening, but Evans operates on his own sense of time. Between gigs, his schedule's all his, which usually translates into long stretches of alone time during the day and longer social nights for the 30-year-old.

"I could just make this . . . disappear," says Josh Peck, another old pal and occasional on-set assistant, in a deadpan mumble, poking at the voice recorder I'd left on the table while I was in the bathroom.

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

But not saying things isn't in the Evans DNA. They're an infectiously gregarious clan. Irish-Italians, proud Bostoners, close-knit, and innately theatrical. "We all act, we sing," Evans says. "It was like the fucking von Trapps." Mom was a dancer and now runs a children's theater. First-born Carly directed the family puppet shows and studied theater at NYU. Younger brother Scott has parts on One Life to Live and Law & Order under his belt and lives in Los Angeles full-time—something Evans stopped doing several years back. Rounding out the circle are baby sister Shanna and a pair of "strays" the family brought into their Sudbury, Massachusetts, home: Josh, who went from mowing the lawn to moving in when his folks relocated during his senior year in high school; and Demery, who was Evans' roommate until recently.

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Growing up, they had a special floor put in the basement where all the kids practiced tap-dancing. The party-ready rec room also had a Ping-Pong table and a separate entrance. This was the house kids in the neighborhood wanted to hang at, and this was the kind of family you wanted to be adopted by. Spend an afternoon listening to them dish old dirt and talk over each other and it's easy to see why. Now they're worried they've said too much, laid bare the tender soul of the actor behind the star-spangled superhero outfit, so there's talk of offing the interviewer. I can hear all this from the bathroom, which, of course, is the point of a good stage whisper.

To be sure, no one's said too much, and the more you're brought into the embrace of this boisterous, funny, shit-slinging, demonstrably loving extended family, the more likable and enviable the whole dynamic is.

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

We're operating under a no-names rule, so I'm not asking if it's Jessica Biel who made this memorable first impression. She and Evans were serious for a couple of years. But I don't want to picture lovely Jessica Biel getting sick at Auntie Pam's or in the car or, really, anywhere.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

"That dog is the love of his life," Mrs. Evans says. "Which tells me he'll be an unbelievable parent, but I don't want him to get married right now." She turns to Chris. "The way you are, I just don't think you're ready."

Some other things I learn about Evans from his mom: He hates going to the gym; he was so wound-up as a kid she'd let him stand during dinner, his legs shaking like caged greyhounds; he suffered weekly "Sunday-night meltdowns" over schoolwork and the angst of the sensitive middle-schooler; after she and his father split and he was making money from acting, he bought her the Sudbury family homestead rather than let her leave it.

Eventually his mom and Josh depart, and Evans and I go to work depleting his stash of Bud Light. It feels like we drink Bud Light and talk for days, because we basically do. I arrived early Friday evening; it's Saturday night now and it'll be sunup Sunday before I sleeplessly make my way to catch a train back to New York City. Somewhere in between we slip free of the gravitational pull of the bachelor pad and there's bottle service at a club and a long walk with entourage in tow back to Evans' apartment, where there is some earnest-yet-surreal group singing, piano playing, and chitchat. Evans is fun to talk to, partly because he's an open, self-mocking guy with an explosive laugh and no apparent need to sleep, and partly because when you cut just below the surface, it's clear he's not quite the dude's dude he sometimes plays onscreen and in TV appearances.

From a distance, Chris Evans the movie star seems a predictable, nearly inevitable piece of successful Hollywood packaging come to market. There's his major-release debut as the dorkily unaware jock Jake in the guilty pleasure Not Another Teen Movie (in one memorable scene, Evans has whipped cream on his chest and a banana up his ass). The female-friendly hunk appeal—his character in The Nanny Diaries is named simply Harvard Hottie—is balanced by a kind of casual-Friday, I'm-from-Boston regular-dudeness. Following the siren song of comic-book cash, he was the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four films. As with scrawny Steve Rogers, the Captain America suit beefed up his stature as a formidable screen presence, a bankable leading man, all of which leads us to The Avengers, this season's megabudget, megawatt ensemble in which he stars alongside Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth.

It all feels inevitable—and yet it nearly didn't happen. Evans repeatedly turned down the Captain America role, fearing he'd be locked into what was originally a nine-picture deal. He was shooting Puncture, about a drug-addicted lawyer, at the time. Most actors doing small-budget legal dramas would jump at the chance to play the lead in a Marvel franchise, but Evans saw a decade of his life flash before his eyes.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

By "the woods," he doesn't mean a quiet life away from the spotlight, some general metaphorical life escape route. He means the actual woods. "For a long time all I wanted for Christmas were books about outdoor survival," he says. "I was convinced that I was going to move to the woods. I camped a lot, I took classes. At 18, I told myself if I don't live in the woods by the time I'm 25, I have failed."

Evans has described his hesitation at signing on for Captain America. Usually he talks about the time commitment, the loss of what remained of his relative anonymity. On the junkets for the movie, he was open about needing therapy after the studio reduced the deal to six movies and he took the leap. What he doesn't usually mention is that he was racked with anxiety before the job came up.

"I get very nervous," Evans explains. "I shit the bed if I have to present something on stage or if I'm doing press. Because it's just you." He's been known to walk out of press conferences, to freeze up and go silent during the kind of relaxed-yet-high-stakes meetings an actor of his stature is expected to attend: "Do you know how badly I audition? Fifty percent of the time I have to walk out of the room. I'm naturally very pale, so I turn red and sweat. And I have to literally walk out. Sometimes mid-audition. You start having these conversations in your brain. 'Chris, don't do this. Chris, take it easy. You're just sitting in a room with a person saying some words, this isn't life. And you're letting this affect you? Shame on you.'"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

Okay, there was one on-set panic attack—while Evans was shooting Puncture. "We were getting ready to do a court scene in front of a bunch of people, and I don't know what happened," he says. "It's just your brain playing games with you. 'Hey, you know how we sometimes freak out? What if we did it right now?'"

One of the people who advised Evans to take the Captain America role was his eventual Avengers costar Robert Downey Jr. "I'd seen him around," Downey says. "We share an agent. I like to spend a lot of my free time talking to my agent about his other clients—I just had a feeling about him."

What he told Evans was: This puppy is going to be big, and when it is you're going to get to make the movies you want to make. "In the marathon obstacle course of a career," Downey says, "it's just good to have all the stats on paper for why you're not only a team player but also why it makes sense to support you in the projects you want to do—because you've made so much damned money for the studio."

There's also the fact that Evans had a chance to sign on for something likely to be a kind of watershed moment in the comic-book fascination of our time. "I do think The Avengers is the crescendo of this superhero phase in entertainment—except of course for Iron Man 3," Downey says. "It'll take a lot of innovation to keep it alive after this."

Captain America is the only person left who was truly close to Howard Stark, father of Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man), which meant that Evans' and Downey's story lines are closely linked, and in the course of doing a lot of scenes together, they got to be pals. Downey diagnoses his friend with what he terms "low-grade red-carpet anxiety disorder."

"He just hates the game-show aspect of doing PR," Downey says. "Obviously there's pressure for anyone in this transition he's in. But he will easily triple that pressure to make sure he's not being lazy. That's why I respect the guy. I wouldn't necessarily want to be in his skin. But his motives are pure. He just needs to drink some red-carpet chamomile."

"The majority of the world is empty space," Chris Evans says, watching me as if my brain might explode on hearing this news—or like he might have to fight me if I try to contradict him. We're back at his apartment after a cigarette run through the Combat Zone.

"Empty space!" he says again, slapping the table and sort of yelling. Then, in a slow, breathy whisper, he repeats: "Empty space, empty space. All that we see in the world, the life, the animals, plants, people, it's all empty space. That's amazing!" He slaps the table again. "You want another beer? Gotta be Bud Light. Get dirty—you're in Boston. Okay, organize your thoughts. I gotta take a piss . . ."

My thoughts are this: That this guy who is hugging his dog and talking to me about space and mortality and the trouble with Boston girls who believe crazy gossip about him—this is not the guy I expected to meet. I figured he'd be a meatball. Though, truthfully, I'd never called anyone a meatball until Evans turned me on to the put-down. As in: "My sister Shanna dates meatballs." And, more to the point: "When I do interviews, I'd rather just be the beer-drinking dude from Boston and not get into the complex shit, because I don't want every meatball saying, 'So hey, whaddyathink about Buddhism?'"

At 17, Evans came across a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and began his spiritual questing. It's a path of study and struggle that, he says, defines his true purpose in life. "I love acting. It's my playground, it lets me explore. But my happiness in this world, my level of peace, is never going to be dictated by acting," he says. "My goal in life is to detach from the egoic mind. Do you know anything about Eastern philosophy?"

I sip some Bud Light and shake my head sheepishly. "They talk about the egoic mind, the part of you that's self-aware, the watcher, the person you think is driving this machine," he says. "And that separation from self and mind is the root of suffering. There are ways of retraining the way you think. This isn't really supported in Western society, which is focused on 'Go get it, earn it, win it, marry it.'"

Scarlett Johansson says that one of the things she appreciates about Evans is how he steers clear of industry chat when they see each other. "Basically every actor," she says, "including myself, when we finish a job we're like, 'Well, that's it for me. Had a good run. Put me out to pasture.' But Chris doesn't strike me as someone who frets about the next job." The two met on the set of The Perfect Score when they were teenagers and have stayed close; The Avengers is their third movie together. "He has this obviously masculine presence—a dude's dude—and we're used to seeing him play heroic characters," Johansson says, "but he's also surprisingly sensitive. He has close female friends, and you can talk to him about anything. Plus there's that secret song-and-dance, jazz-hands side of Chris. I feel like he grew up with the Partridge Family. He'd be just as happy doing Guys and Dolls as he would Captain America 2."

East needs to do his business, so Evans and I take him up to the roof deck. Evans bought this apartment in 2010 when living in L.A. full-time no longer appealed to him. He came back to stay close to his extended family and the intimate circle of Boston pals he's maintained since high school. The move also seems like a pretty clear keep-it-real hedge against the manic ego-stroking distractions of Hollywood.

"I think my daytime person is different than my nighttime person," Evans says. "With my high-school buddies, we drink beer and talk sports and it's great. The kids in my Buddhism class in L.A., they're wildly intelligent, and I love being around them, but they're not talking about the Celtics. And that's part of me. It's a strange dichotomy. I don't mind being a certain way with some people and having this other piece of me that's just for me."

I asked Downey about Evans' outward regular-Joe persona. "It's complete horseshit," Downey says. "There's an inherent street-smart intelligence there. I don't think he tries to hide it. But he's much more evolved and much more culturally aware than he lets on."

Perhaps the meatball and the meditation can coexist. We argue about our egoic brains and the tao of Boston girls. "I love wet hair and sweatpants," he says in their defense. "I like sneakers and ponytails. I like girls who aren't so la-di-da. L.A. is so la-di-da. I like Boston girls who shit on me. Not literally. Girls who give me a hard time, bust my chops a little."

The chief buster of Evans' chops is, of course, Evans himself. "The problem is, the brain I'm using to dissect this world is a brain formed by it," he says. "We're born into confusion, and we get the blessing of letting go of it." Then he adds: "I think this shit by day. And then night comes and it's like, 'Fuck it, let's drink.'"

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

We talk about his dog and camping with his dog and why he loves being alone more than almost anything except maybe not being alone. "I swear to God, if you saw me when I am by myself in the woods, I'm a lunatic," he says. "I sing, I dance. I do crazy shit."

Evans' unflagging, all-encompassing enthusiasm is impressive, itself a kind of social intelligence. "If you want to have a good conversation with him, don't talk about the fact that he's famous" was the advice I got from Mark Kassen, who codirected Puncture. "He's a blast, a guy who can hang. For quite a long time. Many hours in a row."

I've stopped looking at the clock. We've stopped talking philosophy and moved into more emotional territory. He asks questions about my 9-month-old son, and then Captain America gets teary when I talk about the wonder of his birth. "I weep at everything," he says. "I emote. I love things so much—I just never want to dilute that."

He talks about how close he feels to his family, how open they all are with each other. About everything. All the time. "The first time I had sex," he says, "I raced home and was like, 'Mom, I just had sex! Where's the clit?'"

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

The 30-year-old Bud Light-chugging, Beantown-bred star of The Avengers is widely perceived as the ultimate guy's guy. But beneath the bro persona lies a serious student of Buddhism, an unrepentant song-and-dance man, and a guy who talks to his mom about sex. And farts.

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

We're at Evans' apartment, an expansive but not overly tricked-out bachelor-pad-ish loft in a semi-industrial nowheresville part of Boston, hard by Chinatown, near an area sometimes called the Combat Zone. Evans has a fuzzy, floppy, slept-in-his-clothes aspect that'd be nearly unrecognizable if you knew him only by the upright, spit-polished bearing of the onscreen hero. His dog, East, a sweet and slobbery American bulldog, is spread out on a couch in front of the TV. The shelves of his fridge are neatly stacked with much of the world's supply of Bud Light in cans and little else.

On the counter sit a few buckets of muscle-making whey-protein powder that belong to Evans' roommate, Zach Jarvis, an old pal who sometimes tags along on set as a paid "assistant" and a personal trainer who bulked Evans up for his role as the super-ripped patriot in last summer's blockbuster Captain America: The First Avenger. A giant clock on the exposed-brick wall says it's early evening, but Evans operates on his own sense of time. Between gigs, his schedule's all his, which usually translates into long stretches of alone time during the day and longer social nights for the 30-year-old.

"I could just make this . . . disappear," says Josh Peck, another old pal and occasional on-set assistant, in a deadpan mumble, poking at the voice recorder I'd left on the table while I was in the bathroom.

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

But not saying things isn't in the Evans DNA. They're an infectiously gregarious clan. Irish-Italians, proud Bostoners, close-knit, and innately theatrical. "We all act, we sing," Evans says. "It was like the fucking von Trapps." Mom was a dancer and now runs a children's theater. First-born Carly directed the family puppet shows and studied theater at NYU. Younger brother Scott has parts on One Life to Live and Law & Order under his belt and lives in Los Angeles full-time—something Evans stopped doing several years back. Rounding out the circle are baby sister Shanna and a pair of "strays" the family brought into their Sudbury, Massachusetts, home: Josh, who went from mowing the lawn to moving in when his folks relocated during his senior year in high school; and Demery, who was Evans' roommate until recently.

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Growing up, they had a special floor put in the basement where all the kids practiced tap-dancing. The party-ready rec room also had a Ping-Pong table and a separate entrance. This was the house kids in the neighborhood wanted to hang at, and this was the kind of family you wanted to be adopted by. Spend an afternoon listening to them dish old dirt and talk over each other and it's easy to see why. Now they're worried they've said too much, laid bare the tender soul of the actor behind the star-spangled superhero outfit, so there's talk of offing the interviewer. I can hear all this from the bathroom, which, of course, is the point of a good stage whisper.

To be sure, no one's said too much, and the more you're brought into the embrace of this boisterous, funny, shit-slinging, demonstrably loving extended family, the more likable and enviable the whole dynamic is.

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

We're operating under a no-names rule, so I'm not asking if it's Jessica Biel who made this memorable first impression. She and Evans were serious for a couple of years. But I don't want to picture lovely Jessica Biel getting sick at Auntie Pam's or in the car or, really, anywhere.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

"That dog is the love of his life," Mrs. Evans says. "Which tells me he'll be an unbelievable parent, but I don't want him to get married right now." She turns to Chris. "The way you are, I just don't think you're ready."

Some other things I learn about Evans from his mom: He hates going to the gym; he was so wound-up as a kid she'd let him stand during dinner, his legs shaking like caged greyhounds; he suffered weekly "Sunday-night meltdowns" over schoolwork and the angst of the sensitive middle-schooler; after she and his father split and he was making money from acting, he bought her the Sudbury family homestead rather than let her leave it.

Eventually his mom and Josh depart, and Evans and I go to work depleting his stash of Bud Light. It feels like we drink Bud Light and talk for days, because we basically do. I arrived early Friday evening; it's Saturday night now and it'll be sunup Sunday before I sleeplessly make my way to catch a train back to New York City. Somewhere in between we slip free of the gravitational pull of the bachelor pad and there's bottle service at a club and a long walk with entourage in tow back to Evans' apartment, where there is some earnest-yet-surreal group singing, piano playing, and chitchat. Evans is fun to talk to, partly because he's an open, self-mocking guy with an explosive laugh and no apparent need to sleep, and partly because when you cut just below the surface, it's clear he's not quite the dude's dude he sometimes plays onscreen and in TV appearances.

From a distance, Chris Evans the movie star seems a predictable, nearly inevitable piece of successful Hollywood packaging come to market. There's his major-release debut as the dorkily unaware jock Jake in the guilty pleasure Not Another Teen Movie (in one memorable scene, Evans has whipped cream on his chest and a banana up his ass). The female-friendly hunk appeal—his character in The Nanny Diaries is named simply Harvard Hottie—is balanced by a kind of casual-Friday, I'm-from-Boston regular-dudeness. Following the siren song of comic-book cash, he was the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four films. As with scrawny Steve Rogers, the Captain America suit beefed up his stature as a formidable screen presence, a bankable leading man, all of which leads us to The Avengers, this season's megabudget, megawatt ensemble in which he stars alongside Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth.

It all feels inevitable—and yet it nearly didn't happen. Evans repeatedly turned down the Captain America role, fearing he'd be locked into what was originally a nine-picture deal. He was shooting Puncture, about a drug-addicted lawyer, at the time. Most actors doing small-budget legal dramas would jump at the chance to play the lead in a Marvel franchise, but Evans saw a decade of his life flash before his eyes.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

By "the woods," he doesn't mean a quiet life away from the spotlight, some general metaphorical life escape route. He means the actual woods. "For a long time all I wanted for Christmas were books about outdoor survival," he says. "I was convinced that I was going to move to the woods. I camped a lot, I took classes. At 18, I told myself if I don't live in the woods by the time I'm 25, I have failed."

Evans has described his hesitation at signing on for Captain America. Usually he talks about the time commitment, the loss of what remained of his relative anonymity. On the junkets for the movie, he was open about needing therapy after the studio reduced the deal to six movies and he took the leap. What he doesn't usually mention is that he was racked with anxiety before the job came up.

"I get very nervous," Evans explains. "I shit the bed if I have to present something on stage or if I'm doing press. Because it's just you." He's been known to walk out of press conferences, to freeze up and go silent during the kind of relaxed-yet-high-stakes meetings an actor of his stature is expected to attend: "Do you know how badly I audition? Fifty percent of the time I have to walk out of the room. I'm naturally very pale, so I turn red and sweat. And I have to literally walk out. Sometimes mid-audition. You start having these conversations in your brain. 'Chris, don't do this. Chris, take it easy. You're just sitting in a room with a person saying some words, this isn't life. And you're letting this affect you? Shame on you.'"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

Okay, there was one on-set panic attack—while Evans was shooting Puncture. "We were getting ready to do a court scene in front of a bunch of people, and I don't know what happened," he says. "It's just your brain playing games with you. 'Hey, you know how we sometimes freak out? What if we did it right now?'"

One of the people who advised Evans to take the Captain America role was his eventual Avengers costar Robert Downey Jr. "I'd seen him around," Downey says. "We share an agent. I like to spend a lot of my free time talking to my agent about his other clients—I just had a feeling about him."

What he told Evans was: This puppy is going to be big, and when it is you're going to get to make the movies you want to make. "In the marathon obstacle course of a career," Downey says, "it's just good to have all the stats on paper for why you're not only a team player but also why it makes sense to support you in the projects you want to do—because you've made so much damned money for the studio."

There's also the fact that Evans had a chance to sign on for something likely to be a kind of watershed moment in the comic-book fascination of our time. "I do think The Avengers is the crescendo of this superhero phase in entertainment—except of course for Iron Man 3," Downey says. "It'll take a lot of innovation to keep it alive after this."

Captain America is the only person left who was truly close to Howard Stark, father of Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man), which meant that Evans' and Downey's story lines are closely linked, and in the course of doing a lot of scenes together, they got to be pals. Downey diagnoses his friend with what he terms "low-grade red-carpet anxiety disorder."

"He just hates the game-show aspect of doing PR," Downey says. "Obviously there's pressure for anyone in this transition he's in. But he will easily triple that pressure to make sure he's not being lazy. That's why I respect the guy. I wouldn't necessarily want to be in his skin. But his motives are pure. He just needs to drink some red-carpet chamomile."

"The majority of the world is empty space," Chris Evans says, watching me as if my brain might explode on hearing this news—or like he might have to fight me if I try to contradict him. We're back at his apartment after a cigarette run through the Combat Zone.

"Empty space!" he says again, slapping the table and sort of yelling. Then, in a slow, breathy whisper, he repeats: "Empty space, empty space. All that we see in the world, the life, the animals, plants, people, it's all empty space. That's amazing!" He slaps the table again. "You want another beer? Gotta be Bud Light. Get dirty—you're in Boston. Okay, organize your thoughts. I gotta take a piss . . ."

My thoughts are this: That this guy who is hugging his dog and talking to me about space and mortality and the trouble with Boston girls who believe crazy gossip about him—this is not the guy I expected to meet. I figured he'd be a meatball. Though, truthfully, I'd never called anyone a meatball until Evans turned me on to the put-down. As in: "My sister Shanna dates meatballs." And, more to the point: "When I do interviews, I'd rather just be the beer-drinking dude from Boston and not get into the complex shit, because I don't want every meatball saying, 'So hey, whaddyathink about Buddhism?'"

At 17, Evans came across a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and began his spiritual questing. It's a path of study and struggle that, he says, defines his true purpose in life. "I love acting. It's my playground, it lets me explore. But my happiness in this world, my level of peace, is never going to be dictated by acting," he says. "My goal in life is to detach from the egoic mind. Do you know anything about Eastern philosophy?"

I sip some Bud Light and shake my head sheepishly. "They talk about the egoic mind, the part of you that's self-aware, the watcher, the person you think is driving this machine," he says. "And that separation from self and mind is the root of suffering. There are ways of retraining the way you think. This isn't really supported in Western society, which is focused on 'Go get it, earn it, win it, marry it.'"

Scarlett Johansson says that one of the things she appreciates about Evans is how he steers clear of industry chat when they see each other. "Basically every actor," she says, "including myself, when we finish a job we're like, 'Well, that's it for me. Had a good run. Put me out to pasture.' But Chris doesn't strike me as someone who frets about the next job." The two met on the set of The Perfect Score when they were teenagers and have stayed close; The Avengers is their third movie together. "He has this obviously masculine presence—a dude's dude—and we're used to seeing him play heroic characters," Johansson says, "but he's also surprisingly sensitive. He has close female friends, and you can talk to him about anything. Plus there's that secret song-and-dance, jazz-hands side of Chris. I feel like he grew up with the Partridge Family. He'd be just as happy doing Guys and Dolls as he would Captain America 2."

East needs to do his business, so Evans and I take him up to the roof deck. Evans bought this apartment in 2010 when living in L.A. full-time no longer appealed to him. He came back to stay close to his extended family and the intimate circle of Boston pals he's maintained since high school. The move also seems like a pretty clear keep-it-real hedge against the manic ego-stroking distractions of Hollywood.

"I think my daytime person is different than my nighttime person," Evans says. "With my high-school buddies, we drink beer and talk sports and it's great. The kids in my Buddhism class in L.A., they're wildly intelligent, and I love being around them, but they're not talking about the Celtics. And that's part of me. It's a strange dichotomy. I don't mind being a certain way with some people and having this other piece of me that's just for me."

I asked Downey about Evans' outward regular-Joe persona. "It's complete horseshit," Downey says. "There's an inherent street-smart intelligence there. I don't think he tries to hide it. But he's much more evolved and much more culturally aware than he lets on."

Perhaps the meatball and the meditation can coexist. We argue about our egoic brains and the tao of Boston girls. "I love wet hair and sweatpants," he says in their defense. "I like sneakers and ponytails. I like girls who aren't so la-di-da. L.A. is so la-di-da. I like Boston girls who shit on me. Not literally. Girls who give me a hard time, bust my chops a little."

The chief buster of Evans' chops is, of course, Evans himself. "The problem is, the brain I'm using to dissect this world is a brain formed by it," he says. "We're born into confusion, and we get the blessing of letting go of it." Then he adds: "I think this shit by day. And then night comes and it's like, 'Fuck it, let's drink.'"

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

We talk about his dog and camping with his dog and why he loves being alone more than almost anything except maybe not being alone. "I swear to God, if you saw me when I am by myself in the woods, I'm a lunatic," he says. "I sing, I dance. I do crazy shit."

Evans' unflagging, all-encompassing enthusiasm is impressive, itself a kind of social intelligence. "If you want to have a good conversation with him, don't talk about the fact that he's famous" was the advice I got from Mark Kassen, who codirected Puncture. "He's a blast, a guy who can hang. For quite a long time. Many hours in a row."

I've stopped looking at the clock. We've stopped talking philosophy and moved into more emotional territory. He asks questions about my 9-month-old son, and then Captain America gets teary when I talk about the wonder of his birth. "I weep at everything," he says. "I emote. I love things so much—I just never want to dilute that."

He talks about how close he feels to his family, how open they all are with each other. About everything. All the time. "The first time I had sex," he says, "I raced home and was like, 'Mom, I just had sex! Where's the clit?'"

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

If someone doesn't want to check the link, the anon sent the full interview!

[astoldbyaja]

The Blossom surrounded by Fire - Ch. 28 (Warrior AU- HBO MAX)

I found myself walking through the streets of Chinatown. My mind was filled with different thoughts, but my legs knew to take me back to my new place in Long Zii territory and to my house.

I sat in my large tub, the water warm and the oils were loosening my aching muscles.

“You must learn to use less mind when with a man you don’t care about. Learn to keep eye contact, sensual, seductive. You’re used to showing fear in your eyes and evil men love to drink that in. They would mistake your seduction for submission. Evil isn’t always smart.”

Ah Toy circled me, letting her eyes roam all over me as we stood in the atrium of the brothel.

“Take off your clothes.” she commanded. I looked at her shocked.

“What?” I asked.

“Tong leaders will not ask you again! Zing will probably rip them off of you if you take too long.” she commanded. I tensed and looked down at my dress slowly unbuttoning them. I have been naked in front of many women before. The only thing I was ever commanded to do with a woman was kissing her. The last slave I was told to kiss was a child. I wanted to die right then and there because she was scared of what my master and his men would do. I was scared of what he would do.

I let my dress pool to the floor and Ah Toy looked me over with an arched brow. Thank God no one was here to see me.

“Well now I see why Zing and Bolo can’t keep their hands off you. I see why Young Jun was easily forgiving when you apologized. He didn’t want to lose access to this body.” she said circling more. I can feel her body close to me, her fingers running over the small of my back.

“Learn to explore their bodies if they let you. Moan for them, quiver when they touch you, show them you are theirs.” she instructed now standing in front of me. She raised her hands and wasted no time cupping my breasts. I was used to that. My body was not my own in captivity and even as a freed woman, my body felt numb to these touches. “If they let you explore their bodies, start with their necks.”

She leaned in and placed a gentle kiss to the side of my neck.

“They may be curious of your ears, use them to your advantage. Play with their nipples. I’m sure they’ll be wanting to play with yours.” she swooned leaning down to pepper kisses all the way down until she came to my left nipple and gently flicked it with the tip of her tongue. My body didn’t react, but I winced showing my discomfort. She noticed then and leaned up.

“Don’t show weakness or they’ll take advantage of it. Zing will be praying you show weakness.” she said moving to place her body closer on mine. Before I knew it, I felt her leg behind mine and she kicked it out from under me. I gasped and grabbed her to steady myself. She held my arms and like a dance she had me on my back on the cold floor.

“Ah!” I cried out as she now sat on my hips moving her hip into mine. She smirked.

“Most men like to be on top, buy maybe you can convince them that being beneath you is just as good.” she said. I looked over her body thinking what I could do in this moment. Slowly I raised my hands: one toward her breast, massaging sensually and then the other beneath her dress. Her legs were spread wide enough for me to find her silk panties and gently I rubbed at her folds. I noticed a gentle wetness already there. I imagined I was teasing Bolo, playing with his nipples and hardening cock.

Ah Toy gently pants moving her hips into my fingers more. I feel her clit against my pointer and middle finger and rub in slow circular motions. She gasped sharply. I couldn’t tell if she was truly feeling good from this or if she was showing what to look like to keep control. Either way, I felt a twinge of excitement from her face because I seemed to have some effect.

I pinched her nipple giving it a mild twist and she gave a sharp gasp in response. I let my hands meet at her hips until, with great force, I managed to use my right leg to push her off me and now I swung my body over hers until I was now sitting on her crotch smiling down at her. She smiled up at me with pride.

“You learn quite fast. You have quite a talent with your hands. I’ve never been aroused by anyone outside of my clothes before. Don’t squander such talent.” she said. I smiled and nodded feeling happy with myself for being good at my first lesson. I didn’t even notice her eyes had looked down. “You’re early Jacob.”

I gasped and turned looking toward the hall beneath the stairs to see none other than the man who was with that Blake woman with eyes wide as dinner plates at the sight he was seeing.

Later on that night, Zhao was at my door.

“Li Yong would like you to join us at headquarters. We will be doing some training in preparing for a small boxing tournament that is coming up in two weeks. If anyone is injured, he would like you to be near.” he announced. A boxing tournament? Strange, but I agreed and brought my satchel with me to the heavily guarded building.

I watched as Li Yong fought three men at once, no shirt, muscles rippling with each move he made.

“Our Chinese boxing is a very big event.” Mai Ling told as we stood together. “During this event the tongs are at a temporary ceasefire. During this time there is no violence toward either tong. We put our best men in the ring to fight for… bragging rights.” she said. I arched a brow at her.

“Bragging rights?” I asked sounding skeptical and she moved her head from side to side.

“More or less to also settle any disputes that cannot be settled on the streets and in response must be settled in the ring. The winner of the tong usually winning the dispute. The tong leaders are there followed by their tongs and personal doctors to help their wounded. My husband has asked I attend in his stead, and I would like to ask for you to attend as my doctor for our tong.” she said with a grin. Immediately, Li Yong had spun through the air kicking one of his opponents to the ground. I jumped a bit at the motion and in response, he glanced at me with a smirk before bowing to the men groaning on the floor. I looked at Mai Ling.

“Me?” I asked. She nodded cutting her eyes to me.

“Yes, you. I know with you there; I have no doubt our men can be patched up properly and be ready to serve the tong the next day when the ceasefire ends.” she said. It didn’t seem like I had a choice in the matter, so I nodded.

“I would be honored.” I replied. She grinned.

“I knew you would be.” she said, and I smiled some more before curiosity started to fill me.

“You mentioned this fighting can be a way of settling disputes on the streets. Is this tournament being used to settle a dispute or is this purely bragging rights?” I asked. Her body stiffened some as she clasped her hands together keeping her eyes on the men training before her.

“Zing is pushing to have you split your responsibilities as a doctor between the Long Zii and the Fung Hai.” she said. My eyes widened immediately. “My husband has been strong in his stance at keeping you his personal doctor. We both know he does not like to share once he gets something he likes. Him grabbing you off the streets earlier to help him heal was something my husband is not taking lightly. If Zing can take you, then he could get confident to step in on our opium business.” she said. My eyes popped and I looked away now feeling my heart drop into my stomach now.

“What the hell is his problem?” I asked.

“It’s very simple… you’ve got something he so desperately wants to control and it’s not your medical skills. You’ve truly got him enslaved to your pussy… I’m impressed you took my advice.” she said with a confident grin. I shook my head. This was getting way out of hand.

“What's the deal to be made here? If one of our men wins-”

“Then the discussion is over, and you will only be allowed to help the Fung Hai if my husband or I agree.” she said. I winced.

“And if they lose?” I asked. She gave a reassuring look.

“We would agree to the terms that Zing has put in place which is he’d send a man for you when he needs help, but we both agreed it would be for serious injuries only, not just measly cuts and scrapes.” she said. I looked down in thought about her words. It didn’t matter if I liked this or not, it was happening. I looked back up at her with strength in my eyes and I nodded.

“Whatever the outcome, I will do what my tong requests of me.” I replied. Mai Ling gave a tilt of her head noticing a look in my eyes.

“You used to cower under the thought of having to be used… a fire has ignited inside you, and I think I like what I see.” she said, and I smiled and nodded at her. A maid came over with a bow whispering something in Mai Ling’s ear that made her wince some.

“Excuse me.” she said and turned and left to follow the smaller woman upstairs. I watched her disappear before looking down at the ground some in thought of this tournament. After some time, Long Yi waved for his men to leave, and they did. I assumed they were all done for the night.

“It seemed your men did not need me after all tonight.” I replied as Li Yong approached, his body glistening with sweat. He gave a smirk.

“Never hurts to be prepared.” he said moving to put on his green jacket. I scoffed some with a grin.

“I am supposed to be a doctor being present only when needed.” I reminded. Li Yong nodded.

“I apologize, Doctor Amaka, I thought it would be a nice gesture to show off the strength of our tong so your faith in us would be unwavering the day of the tournament.” he said. I felt my smile fade and I looked down some shaking my head.

“I feel like Zing’s obsession with me, like a few others, could cause headaches for the tong. I don’t want to be the cause of problems for Long Zii to make him want to get rid of me.” I replied with mild worry. Li Yong gave a gentle smile.

“You needn’t worry about this Amaka. Mai Ling knew when she invited you into the tong that trouble could follow you. But she also sees herself in you.” she said. I gave him a look.

“I thought Long Zii wanted me in this tong.” I replied and he smirked.

“Long Zii will do anything to please his wife. To him you are a toy that has use to him with your medical skills.” he told. I nodded slowly taking in his words. It seems many people see me as a toy and maybe it was time to use that my advantage. I looked at him gently.

“And what about you? Do you see me as a toy?” I asked. He tilted his head some, observing my face.

“I see a survivor who keeps finding herself in predicaments against her will.” he said. I nodded thinking this was very true.

“If our tong loses and I do what must be done for the Fung Hai, what will happen if Zing goes against the deal and tries to keep me for himself again?” I asked with worry. A calm look of confident spread across his features.

“Then I would have to kill him.” he replied collectively.

[the-darklings]

—𝐭𝐢𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐚𝐭 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞;

⤫ pairing: johnny silverhand x corp!v(ermillion)

⤫ summary: Usually, they’re a calamity together—destructive and volatile as each other. But right now, just for a second, there is only music and them.

⤫ word count: 2.3k+

⤫ warnings: spoilers for act i & side mission the ballad of buck ravers, third person but can be read as RI ig, swearing, written in one sitting so who knows what the final result is - certainly not me. 

⤫ notes: let me leave my clown shoes outside.

It starts out the way it always does. 

One ring leads to another and she suddenly finds herself running or driving around the Night City with little to no rest, pulling one job after another. The more jobs she closes the more she seems to be in demand.

Good for business. Good for making a name for herself, too, but not so good on her overall being. 

She’s been running. Like a fucking coward. Filing her days with meaningless shit while trying desperately not to think about her ticking clock. About Jackie. 

Guilt gnaws on her bones daily. She should have done more, been better, more careful. Jackie never should have died. It was stupid and blind ambition that drove them both to try and pull this near impossible heist in the first place. Her own reckless drive has blinded her, and now the person closest to her in this fucking city is nothing more than a cold corpse. 

Fuck.

She should have sent him to his family instead. She only wanted to spare them from the grief of having to see Jackie in the state he was in but now Araska has his body and god knows what those assholes might be doing with it. 

And now…

Well she has nothing to lose, does she? She’s already dying, already hunted, her only close friend is dead. She promised to make him proud. Make it to the big leagues or make a league all on her own if that’s what it takes. Bleed this city dry if that’s the price to pay for what she wants. 

Back when she worked for Arasaka she wanted knowledge which led to power. Then she wanted guns and money and a roof over her head. 

Now she wants something more. After coming face to face with her own fragile morality, she has begun to realise how meaningless things like money and power are. Now she wants to surpass that. To become something immortal—something that will outlive her body. Maybe even outlive this city.  

Jackie should have been one of such people. 

“You look like you’re about to shit yourself,” a voice drawls from beside her, a crackle filling the air as a too familiar silhouette of a man appears in her sight. “Or cry.”

“Fuck off.”

V turns away from one Johnny Silverhand because it’s hard to look at him and not be reminded of the fact that she’s slowly dying and the construct only she can see and hear is the one doing the deed.

“This self-pitying bullshit needs to stop,” he says, ignoring her vicious words. “We share a brain, remember? I feel what you feel. It’s downright depressing in your head right now.”   

Her jaw clicks at the reminder. Everyday she wakes up and feels like they’re linked by a bridge—he stands on one side, and she on another. When they come closer, she can feel it—feel him. The overlap is near dizzying, overwhelming, even a little addictive. But it’s always followed by agony because she fights back, tries to shove him away. If not, he will consume her, but she will get him out of her head before that ever happens. 

You share a brain now, Vik had told her only days prior, his eyebrows knitted tight and—albeit subdued—but clear worry in his low voice, senses and memories, even perception. Eventually it will become impossible to tell whose who anymore. 

The worst thing is the fact that he’s right. 

She can feel Silverhand rooted inside her; a constant, a presence that is persistent to a point she knows she’s not alone even if she wishes to be. 

An echo of a being deep inside her.

“Then get the hell out,” she bites back, fighting to keep her temper leashed so she doesn’t burst out at him like she did at the diner. She can still remember the wary stares she received from the diners when she started shouting verbally at a figment only she could perceive in the first place. “I didn’t ask for a parasite to make himself home in my brain.”

Johnny scoffs under his breath, raising a cigarette to his mouth, and she’s nearly overcome with need to remind him that he’s fucking dead, and can’t smoke. That, and the fact that she would prefer him to leave her the fuck alone. 

“You did the job, didn’t ya? You sure you didn’t have this comin’?”

Flipping him off, she storms past him, her jaw clenched to appoint it aches and eyes narrowed. Just her luck not only to get stuck with a human tumour but for the said tumour to be a bastard to boot.  

So much for being buddies. 

Sun has set over Westbrook hours ago yet Chinatown is as busting with life as always. Overflowing with conversations all spoken in different languages, smells, distant gunshots, and people from all walks of life just trying to survive. Even during her years with the Arasaka, she never quite got used to the vastness of the Night City—not even when she was sure she was at the top. The way this city seems to breathe and fester day in and out; a living beast full of dangers and potential is unique. 

Lost in the crowd, it’s almost easy to forget who she is aside from another face in the said crowd. She’s not a merc, not an ex-corp working counterintelligence—she’s not anything. 

Her optics catch sight of several Tiger Claws lingering around the market, and she makes sure to give them a wide berth, especially when she notes the impressive list of their stats. She’s not stupid enough to attack outright when they outclass her—for now—and there are several of them around. With the market this busy the only outcome to that fight would be a bloodbath with police on her ass when that’s the last thing she needs right now. 

Despite that logical part inside her steering her well clear of the gang members the need to blow off some steam bubbles under her skin. An ache starts to form against her temple soon after, making her focus blur around the edges as she wanders from vendor to vendor aimlessly. 

“Hey, V,” a rumble of a voice cuts through her thoughts—and she hates how she can’t quite ignore his voice unlike everyone else—and turns her head in the direction of the call. She had foolishly assumed he was going to give her some peace of mind for tonight at least. “Check this guy out.”

Walking up a dimly lit staircase, she had barely noticed a man sitting on a rickety chair and playing a guitar. Much like her, others walk right past him, ignoring the man altogether. 

Johnny glimmers into sight, squatting in place and oddly intent on observing the old man while he plays.   

She entertains the idea of walking away simply to piss him off. If something is of interest to him, then she wants to ignore it so hard it gets under his nonexistent skin. Petty, perhaps, but ever so satisfying. 

Hearing no reply or receiving much reaction at all, Johnny slants his head her way, nodding once towards the man, “What do you think?”

Squinting, she drags her gaze towards the guitarist, crossing her arms over her chest while she listens. She’s not even sure why she’s bothering but…

The melody is slow, near drowned out by the bustling sounds of the nearby market and chatter of people walking past. 

“He’s...fine?” she offers lamely. “I mean he’s pretty good.”

A slight smirk crosses over Johnny’s mouth—gone in a blink but the focus he places on the man who seems to be unaware of her or the silent second spectator surprises her. 

“Loses tempo more than he keeps it,” he comments, almost absently, and she feels her eyebrows arch in another show of bewilderment. A quiet spells falls over their little nook, and Johnny listens more, thoughts rolling inside his head if his body language is any sign. “Sloppy on the technique but he has feeling in the way he plays. Can’t teach that.”

“If only you didn’t die,” she sighs softly, closing her eyes in mock sympathy. “This could have been you.”

He surprises her again by laughing at that. It’s a deep rumble of a sound, and she can almost feel it echo between them and their mental bridge. “You’re kinda of a bitch. Has anyone told you that before?”

Her teeth flash in the dim orange glow of the neon lights. “And you’re sort of a dick. Anyone tell you that before?” she wonders with a charming, practiced smile. 

He flickers out of sight and she’s about to call it a mental victory but a tickle of electricity kisses across the bare curve of her shoulder and neck, and she shivers when he appears beside her. His arms are crossed as well, and he glances her way briefly.

“Seems to me like we’re two peas in a fuckin’ pot, then,” he points out easily, and shakes his head, seemingly amused by his own words. “I might have tried to kill you a few weeks ago but look at us being chummy, Ver.”

Her throat closes up at that, expression tightening. He notices of course. Or maybe it’s the unease that slices through her mind at the casual way he uses her nickname. 

“What? Am I not allowed to call you that or somethin’?” he wonders curiously, seemingly entertained by her reaction. Asshole. 

“Only my friends call me Ver.”

Jackie was the first. 

That thought makes her swallow painfully, a dull ache clawing against her heart. One would think that years being a corpo would have wiped whatever humanity still lived in her but Jackie’s death had been a stark reminder that she couldn’t be further from the truth if she tried.  

“Why?”

She gives him a flat look. “Because my full name is Vermillion, but people tend to find it a mouthful so…”

“Vermillion,” he repeats, his intonation dry, and she shoots him a quick glare, daring him to make an issue of it. Naturally, his next words don’t surprise her, “That’s a stupid fuckin’ name.”

“Oh, because Johnny Silverhand is so much better.”

She expects him to say something snarky in return, argue maybe, but he only snorts. His metal hand lifts, pushing his aviators down slightly as he glances at her over them.

“You got me there.” 

Usually, they’re a calamity together—destructive and volatile as each other. But right now, just for a second, there is only music and them. Shadows and life of the Night City holding them both suspended in this moment. No arguments or biting comments. No guilt, either. 

A slight smile tugs across her mouth as she continues listening to the man play his downbeat little tune. Her shoulders loosen, drooping slightly and she lets herself breathe for a moment. Just the one. 

“Used to be just like him,” Johnny speaks up suddenly, his voice more subdued, lower, and taps his fingers against the cigarette he’s holding. “But better. Used to play everywhere we could. Garages, bars. Anywhere that would have us, and we always had an audience.”

She hums, offering him a brief glance. “You mean you were actually good?”

She can’t see his eyes in the darkness of the street or through his tinted shades. But despite that, she can still feel his glare and the mental bite of chagrin/irritation/why is she so annoying? and deeper than that a spark of amusement/little shit thinks she’s funny. 

“What’s this?” he muses, his words sarcastic. “A corpo rat that actually has a sense of humour? Colour me surprised.”

“No can do,” she shoots back promptly, fighting back a wider grin. “You’re too dead for that.”

He tsks, throwing his cigarette to the ground and she almost rolls her eyes. “Can’t wait to be out of your damn head, princess.” 

“Can’t wait to be rid of you, either, so the feeling is mutual.”

Their words might be stringent but she can almost taste the faint amusement trickling between them and under that bridge that connects them. 

“There might still be some bootlegs of those old days,” he muses thoughtfully. “People used to record everything back in my day.”

She drags her gaze his way, lips thinning into a firm line, “I’m not becoming a fan, if that’s what you’re hoping for.”

“Afraid you’ll hear real music and won’t be able to go back to this modern garbage I hear everywhere?”

There is challenge in his words and she bristles. Maybe this is what she needs. She may not be able to put holes in some Tiger Claws with her sniper rifle but she sure as hell can go on a scavenger hunt and see what she finds. 

Besides, it might help her to understand the man nested inside her mind a little better.

So when an hour later the old, wrinkly vendor asks her why he should give her his oldest, most precious Samurai vinyl, she tells him the truth. 

A twisted truth. 

But truth all the same.

“He’s with me every step I take, every move I make,” she confesses softly, something deep down breathing awake at that admittance. “Johnny’s like my conscience. My eternal, infernal moral compass.”  

She doesn’t miss how the man in question doesn’t appear, doesn’t say anything even after hearing that. She would have figured he would be the first in line to offer her some mocking, snarky comment but there is only silence. 

In fact, she can barely feel him at all. The tether between them is still and quiet. 

And his silence says a lot more than he probably realises. 

.

an: hello. guess whose not dead and kinda back to writing. dunno how much of cp77 you should expect because coa is still my priority but maybe occasional fic for these dumbos is on the cards. oh, and takemura because cdpr are cowards for not giving us that enemies to friends/partners to lovers romance. also I know this isn’t strictly RI and I honestly considered writing it as such but saw...no point? since the premise still would have been the same, so something a little different today ig.