#sorry for objectifying murder men i will be doing it again

[doomh3ad]

say what you want about slashers but they were caked up before it was cool

[dadsbongos]

The Lovers

word count - 4.8 k

warnings - ENEMIES to lovers..., non-graphic deaths and violence, i humanize and objectify pav in the same breath, fem reader (referred to by "girl" bc he's the worst)

first time capitalizing a fic title in months

DAY 2. NOON.

Blood splotches decorate the cobblestone floor, already drying into maroon against the wood planks of the train cars. The droplets lighten in shade the deeper into the train you go, and eventually, you find crimson. Pure cherry ink on dark wood. Cherry rots into a blackened smudge once again on the wheel of Olivia’s wheelchair. One hand settled over the thin black rim on her right, and the other twisting a roll of bandages around her fingers. She blinks up at you, bottom lip tucked so tight between her teeth that the rosy flesh is blistering white.

“I’m really sorry,” she sighs, abandoning the spool of cloth in her lap to push up her wiry glasses, “Terribly, I am, but I don’t- “ she pauses, “I’m worried that the others would be… biased in their care…”

Your gaze flits up from Olivia’s pensive face to the blonde man spread across the train’s cushy two-seater. His midsection is wrapped with reddish blooms vining all down the white crossings, arm bound in a sling over his chest. His eyes are scrunched up, brows furrowed towards the middle of his forehead; a fitful, delirious limbo overtaking him. Occasionally, he jerks himself awake in a wide-eyed panic before the pain knocks his brain topside again.

The Bremen lieutenant would hardly be a challenge to put down in his current state. You are one of few from the contestants that Olivia feels can be trusted not to undo her hard work of keeping the soldier alive. Combine your level-headedness with your lackadaisical attitude in searching Prehevil, and you make the perfect candidate to watch over Olivia’s patient.

Unfortunately.

“If he annoys me, can I press on his wounds?”

A wild grimace overtakes Olivia’s face, “No! No, please, please do not do that.”

“Fine,” you waltz past Olivia and study the blonde’s pinched face, “Go, go. I’ll watch the traitor.”

“Thank you!” she sighs in relief before exiting the train car, calling back hurriedly, “I’ll try to come with more bandages before sundown!”

When the lieutenant is not trapped under the rolling, ruthless waves of agony, you could almost mistake him for any other man. Maybe even a handsome one: with a strong nose and symmetrical bone structure. His lips are faintly the color of roses, too. Pale and pink. Dry, though. Not nearly as luscious as pretty petals.

Golden tresses, which you are mature enough to admit are alluring. His hat was off and his hair ruffled and fanning out over the magenta seat. Skin frail and pale - you could crush his ribs if you tried. Charming in a way you’ve only known real men to be.

Certainly, though, as soon as the pig squeals - the illusion of perky flowers and honey will melt away. Scorched by the moon as the villagers outside.

Foolishly, you agree to sit around waiting for the swine to be well enough to squeal. A smarter woman would’ve put it down (especially when it's previously shown a taste for blood), but you like Olivia and her tender heart so you do no such thing.

DAY 2. NIGHT.

As thanks for not murdering Pavel as soon as she’d turned her back, Olivia brought you fresh water and dried meats from scavenged homes alongside the fresh bandages. She left again soon after swapping the bloodied cloth for fresh ones.

“Do tell me when he wakes up,” she grins up at you. As if apologetic for having you carry out a duty you’d already agreed to, “I’m sure this isn’t an easy ask. I’m sorry.”

“If I wanted to make you feel bad for asking, I wouldn’t have said yes,” you wave off the concern, “Don’t die out there, Olivia. I’d miss you too much to do my job,” you gesture vaguely towards the immobile lieutenant.

She chuckles quietly before nodding, “I’ll do my best.”

Pavel’s groans are increasing both in frequency and throatiness - he’ll wake soon, you’re sure of it. He even turns onto his side, exhaling thickly - so harsh and ragged he actually coughs up bubbles of spit. Jittering with alert, he gasps sharply and rockets upward. Snapping at his waist and swiping out wildly with his unbound arm, clawing at the musty air directly in front of him; even attempting to swing out the arm wrapped and tied around his neck.

As soon as the hair-splittingly thin burst of adrenaline fades, he hisses in pain. Cupping the covered gash in his chest before curling his uninjured arm around the other, he throws his head back and gasps again. Suffocating under the re-stretching of closing wounds and fragile muscle.

Despite his uniform, you find yourself at Pavel’s side. You brush a hand down the length of his spine before patting between his shoulder blades, your other hand soothing down his navel to press him down into the cushions. Swiping aside curls of gold, you shush his groaning and search the care bag Olivia left behind. In your palm comes a bind of tobacco and a pipe that is smooth and cold against your skin.

“Quiet, quiet,” you coo, stuffing the chamber of the pipe with the almost sickly sweet, nutty-scented tobacco before raising Pavel’s head and sitting the lip into his mouth.

His eyes are still wrinkled shut, chest beginning to sporadically pop and shrink in a struggle to suck wind through his throat.

Part of you wants to tug his hair and call him stupid, but a larger part of you is consumed with pity. Pity for a creature so entrapped with torment that he cannot remember the second most basic function of his body.

“Breathe through your nose,” you continue to run your fingers through his sweat-matted hair while striking a match against the train’s floorboards and lighting the tobacco, “Smoke slow. It will ease you.”

Pavel’s neck cranes upward and remains there, head pushing against your stroking hand as he (rather noisily) inhales through his nostrils. Then, he fills his lungs with the sting of tobacco, blowing it back out through the pursed corner of his mouth.

Once you’re confident Pavel can breathe and smoke without choking himself to death, you turn again to rattle through Olivia’s care bag for herbs. Anything to aid the physical pain before the distraction of tobacco wears off.

Eyes fluttering open, Pavel stares down at you as he lifts an arm to pull the pipe from his mouth - blowing smoke down into your face. You pinch the exposed skin of his side harshly, only letting go when he jerkily arches his back to escape your cruel fingers.

“Unbelievable,” you shake your head, “No. A Bremen pig would, of course, disrespect someone trying to heal them.”

“If you wanted me dead, I already would be.”

“I still have time.”

You unplug a glass vial the shade of elderberries and press it to Pavel’s closed lips. When he stubbornly fastens his lips tighter, you glare directly into his eyes.

“Open. Or it’s being poured over your neck.”

Pavel groans in protest, but finally opens his mouth and allows you to dump the blue liquid into his throat. He gags at the bitterness of raw, untempered pressed herbs, almost gagging until he realizes you have no intention of stopping your pour. So he chooses to swallow down the vial as quickly as it comes instead of drowning to a mere glass of blue.

When you’re tucking the emptied glass away, Pavel replaces the pipe and huffs down at you, “You’re not a very courteous nurse.”

Instead of dignifying the jab with a response, you sit up fully on your knees to scour over the lieutenant below. From his tousled hair to his bloodied and wretched uniform to his muddied boots.

You reach up and contemplate digging a thumb somewhere in the center of his bandages before thinking better of it and snatching the pipe from his lips, “You should put away your breasts.”

Inhaling the smoke, you blow it down in Pavel’s annoyed face and grin when he coughs.

He glares up at you somehow harsher than before, “I could shoot you for that. I should shoot you for that.”

“Then who would protect you from all the other people that want you dead?”

Silently, he mulls over the question. If he reaches some sort of logical conclusion, he refuses to share. Most likely, though, you’re assuming he has no such answer. Aside from you, there is Olivia, but even she could not be swayed into staying on this train longer than necessary. It could drive one mad, bound inside this narrow tube of car after car after car with the same seats and floorboards and rolling rug. So she very politely requested you to stay behind instead.

You sit down on the hard floor below you, pulling your knees to your chest and winding both arms around your legs. Pavel turns his head to the side, lips in a pout. Drinking the blue liquid earlier has revived them, at least somewhat, they are even pinker. More full. Smoother. When you’ve had enough staring there, you stare at his eyes: so gray they shine like gun metal in the flitting moonlight.

Maybe Pavel would notice you examining him if he could tear his own eyes away from where they’re lingering by the sliver of exposed skin by your ankle. Classic: boarish pig lives up to his name. His gaze crawls up your shin to your bent knees, then a little lower as if to catch a glimpse of where your thighs and rear are squished against your chest and the floor (respectively). At least you have the decency to not objectify him during your observation - not that you even could. The lieutenant is leagues more off-putting than handsome.

Once he’s gathered the guts to bore his steely gaze into your face, he grins with a half-hearted shrug, “I haven’t seen a beautiful woman not kissing the piss lord’s ass in ages.”

You ignore the pass completely, “So, the temple square?”

Pavel sighs and extends a hand, palm up and fingers splayed wide in front of your face, “A failure.”

“You don’t say,” you bypass his hand and feed the lip of the pipe directly into his mouth, pressing it against his tongue and watching him firmly tuck it between his lips before letting go, “Why try?”

Puffing from the pipe, Pavel only shakes his head while exhaling thick plumes of slate-hued smoke. He swipes his tongue over his bottom lip and cradles the pipe in his hand, turning it delicately to inspect the body, “Why not?”

You make a show of looking from his face to his bandaged torso before snickering, “Serious question?”

Pavel takes one final draw of the pipe before balancing it atop the wooden frame of the seat. He lays his uninjured hand gently over his torso, blinking up at the ceiling with tired, wet eyes.

“You are cruel, you know this?”

“It’s a good defense,” you grin at the man innocently, “Especially against brutalist pigwhores.”

“Targeted,” again, he pouts, “Mean. You are a mean girl.”

“Maybe that’s what you need. I think Mama was too nice to you.”

Pavel withholds the wince at your words, merely pressing his tongue to the roof of his mouth and inhaling through his nose sharply. He shrugs when he really wants to bite, “You think so?”

Hopefully, he muses, he can rip out your throat when he finally snaps back.

“I do.”

“You know what I think?” you merely fold your arms, so he continues, “Nobody put the spoiled girl in her place. Now she’s a confident woman full of hot air,” he smiles, “I don’t do well with confident women like that. Make me jumpy.”

You ‘hmph’, but respond with nothing new before rising from the floor and snatching the care bag to squeeze against your chest like a child would their stuffed bear. Laying across the unoccupied, opposite seat, you turn so that you're faced away from the lieutenant.

Pavel stares at your back. He hadn’t been entirely teasing earlier - he truly hadn’t found a woman beautiful in a long while. Not that it was a problem to admit a girl was pretty, but there was always some dull ache to accompany the thought. Women riveted by his status in the Bremen army disgusted him, and women disgusted by him and his status were usually unwilling to bend to his charms. Even then, if he met a woman who was nurturing and sweet, undeterred by his enlistment, he was consumed with revenge.

Now that he’s officially gone and tried and horrendously failed, he can at least swim in the delusion that there is a chance for romance. Besides, he is in his thirties, that’s about the time when people begin settling down, right?

He reaches up for the pipe but finds that it’s gone out. No more vermillion embers to offer comfort.

“Oi,” he calls into the night. Not even crickets sing back. He shifts as if to sit up, but his entire waist flares with pain and sends him crashing back into the velvet cushions. So, he settles on raising his voice, “Hey!”

“Sleep, pig.”

“Pav.”

“Hm?”

“My name. My name is Pav,” he considers throwing the pipe at you altogether, but if the gold-encrusted bowl actually hits your skull then you’d likely leave and never return, “Call me by it.”

“Why should I?” you twist, scowling over your shoulder, “You signed up for the Bremen army, now take what comes with that in Prehevil.”

“You don’t strike me as a dull girl,” he grumbles, “So don’t pretend to be one.”

Suddenly, you’re sitting up again, the bag still clenched between both of your arms, “Do you know what the Bremen army has done to people? Has done to me?” you spit on the floor, right below where Pav rests, “Pigs! Horrible, wretched, rotten pigs!”

Pavel allows you to scream, allows you to finish, before returning, “Do you know what the Bremen army has done to me?”

He’s so quiet, he’s downright whispering. Voice husky and layered with years of buried terror and bloodlust.

“How should I care? You enlisted! Whatever they made you- !”

Now he cuts you off.

“They razed my home during the First Great War,” that once blinding sheen in gunmetal eyes is dark like obsidian, “My family. My mama,” he mocks you, “Dead. I joined to kill the Kaiser, I never wanted to be a Bremen pig. I never asked for this.”

“You came to kill the Kaiser as a lieutenant?”

“I did.”

“You must’ve known…” you swallow your words. A lieutenant to kill the commander? Even without the Kaiser’s other soldiers, Pavel wouldn’t possibly have been able to do that and get away with it. Not unless he wanted to hide out in Prehevil for the rest of his days.

“At least I will never die knowing I didn’t try,” he cackles sickly, “Great leader Kaiser spat the bullet out like it was nothing… Maybe he is some God sent back to torture us.”

“Maybe you missed,” you slump forward, elbows digging into your knees, “Couldn’t that be more likely?”

“No,” he looks at you with widened eyes, “No, no,” he shakes his head, “I don’t miss my shots.”

“If you’re sure,” you smile suddenly, shaking loose the stiffness in Pavel’s shoulders, “When you’re healed, we can try again, hm?”

“Really?” he’s shocked by the madness of your suggestion, “Did you miss the part where I said he took a bullet to the head and walked it off?”

“Apparently, we’ll die here anyway,” you shrug, yawning and fluttering back down onto the seat, “So, why not try again, Pav?”

A girl that nurtures despite his bloody uniform, and now despite his terrible need for revenge. You are as cruel as you are doting. Fiery and unfair and oh, he thinks he wants you to card your fingers in his hair again. Gentle only to him.

“As long as you don’t abandon me once you see for yourself,” Pavel can feel less burning in his chest when he breathes now, “Spat the bullet right out, I tell you.”

You shrug, “I guess I’ll die one way or another here.”

Pavel shakes his head, not bothering to tilt his head away from you as he drifts off.

…

DAY 3. MORNING.

He awakes to a great pressure around his throat. Snapping into consciousness, he finds you standing over him with shaking arms, and when he’s brave enough to follow the branches to where they’re stemmed - your hands are around his neck. Your breathing is shaky, and there’s wetness reflecting off your cheeks. Pavel claws at your wrists with his hand, twisting his body so his bottom half is hanging off the seat. Ignoring the scorching rage that sears over the fresh gash in his stomach, Pavel kicks out at you. His heeled boots dig into your gut, squishing intestines and fat and blood as he pushes you away.

Loudly, his boots thunk back against the floorboard when you’ve fallen away, throwing yourself dramatically across the opposite seat. Like a sick Europian lady from the Gilded Age, you drape over the frame with sniveling wails.

Pavel skims his fingers over where your own were clamping his throat shut as he shudders for breath. Ignoring your sobs, he shouts, “Did you hit your head or what?! Heal me, talk to me, just to end my life?! Are you- ?!”

“Enough!” you scream, voice snapping raw in the middle, completely fizzled out at the end. Wiping at the ceaseless tears gushing over your face, you scream again, “She should’ve gotten out of here! She should’ve gotten out and ran instead of… Instead of…” you cough out phlegm and despair trapped in your throat, “Instead of…”

Marina’s downcast face, moles decorating her frown as she twisted a cracked pair of Windsor glasses between her hands. She could barely look at you when she said it before handing over the glasses. I’m sorry, Marina whispered, Olivia… I just thought, maybe, you should know…

Pavel remains as he is, lumped against the back of the seat with both legs dangling onto the floor. Dried blood scraped up under his heels. He heaves for breath, watching as you cradle yourself in your arms and rock. You wither before him, babbling and wheezing and shrouded in shadow.

“What are you going on about?”

“Be quiet,” you snap, louring through puffy, red eyes and wobbly lips, “Be mournful. The woman that saved your life has died,” before Pavel can squeeze anything out from his gaping mouth, you stand and point down at him to command again, “Be nice. The war is over, and you’re not even a real lieutenant, you can show kindness when a person has died.”

He shuts his mouth. Opens it again. Shuts it. Then, finally,

“I didn’t know her.”

From the way you cross your arms and turn away, he can gather that that was the wrong thing to say.

“And yet she saved you,” your arms tighten around yourself, “She saved you, Pav… Be nice.”

You’re a sweet thing, Pavel thinks. You clearly hate him for not displaying the tenderness that you are around the woman’s death. At least at this moment, you hate him.

“I’m taking a walk,” you announce, flinging open the cabin door and slamming it behind you.

Pavel contemplates calling after you, but figures the sound of his voice could only make you stay away longer.

You’re a cruel, sweet thing.

Not even leaving the care bag closer for him to reach in and take from.

DAY 3. NOON.

When you return, the train car is silent sans the gentle hum of Pavel’s breathing. Almost reminiscent of clockwork, a well-oiled machine, his broad chest rises and falls smoothly as he’s rearranged himself sideways on the seat. With his slung arm over his chest and spare one tucked under his head as a makeshift pillow.

Having Pavel stretched out before you gives ample time for you to more thoroughly judge his physique - if you’d be able to strangle him while he’s awake. If he could fight back. If he could lift you with his pure muscle and restrain you with a single hand while the other…

Maybe, you think.

His arms are large, but not obnoxiously terrifying like the boxer. His waist is slim despite the broadness of his shoulders and chest.

Suddenly, he groans, nose twitching in his slumber. It draws your gaze up to his face. That unsettlingly symmetrical face with the strong nose bridge and soft, rosy lips.

Not to mention his flaxen hair - curled and tousled and forcefully in your sights with that Bremen hat off. And with his Bremen uniform (seemingly always) unbuttoned to his stomach, you make out his pectorals past his bandages. You make out two indentations over his heart: silvery scars.

He could almost be handsome. If he were more emotionally attuned.

You kneel by his side, swinging the care bag across the aisle and into your lap. His bleeding has visibly lessened, as only the lightest shade of pink has spread over the pale cloth. Sneaking scissors up by his soft skin, you avoid slicing him as you snip the bandages and begin unwinding them. Pulling gently so as to avoid waking the man, you successfully clear him from the restrictive cloth and assess his healing wound.

More coral pink than crimson red, now. You assume the mass improvement is thanks to the blue vial Olivia had provided. Even as the gnarly cut expands under Pavel’s breathing, it fails to start bleeding again. Which you’re grateful for since, as a precarious glance into the bag confirms, you have freshly run out of bandages. And you fear that snagging any old cloth from any old barrel could give Pavel an infection.

“What was it Alll-mer said? Pluck out your eyes if you cannot respect modesty?”

“I’m checking your wound,” you pinch his side. The skin is warm and fleshy and so, so soft between your fingertips. He whimpers and tries to evade your hand by squirming higher on the seat, “When did you wake up?”

“Not long ago,” he watches you reach into the bag and pull free another glass vial of blue liquid, “Only to see you ogling my body.”

“It’s a hideous one. Hard to look away.”

“You love to lie, mean girl?” he ‘tsk’s, “Shame. Lies are so ugly from a pretty mouth.”

“As if you would know.”

“Confident woman,” he sings to himself, grinning, “Confident, confident woman.”

Shoving the blue vial towards Pavel’s face, you square your shoulders and settle your face sternly, “Drink.”

“I liked it when you did it for me,” he opens his mouth then, refusing to break eye contact.

You comply, shifting onto your knees and pressing the chilled glass against Pavel’s lower lip; tipping it to flow into his warm mouth. He gulps down what you graciously offer, bringing his uninjured arm out from under his head and settling it over your hand around the vial. His thumb presses against your knuckles. You tangle your other hand into his hair and let the golden curls thread over your fingers. Once the vial is finished, you can’t explain it but there’s a sudden thundering in your chest. So vivid and hard in your ribs that it makes you nauseous.

Pavel blinks, lashes fluttering at you as his hand remains over yours.

Sunshine slants across his face. You see him more clearly now than this morning or last night or when he was wrought and warped with pain.

He looks pretty like this. Foul-mouthed and promiscuous and even forthright rude, but undoubtedly pretty.

His hand moves to your cheek, tenderly cupping the flesh with glass still pressed to his lips.

The thunder comes with lightning that strikes blazing fire. Heat fans through your chest and up to your forehead.

“If you want to go after the Kaiser, you should rest,” you whisper, as if speaking any louder could shatter the both of you from this moment, “We both should. Best to gather our strength before searching for him.”

Pavel shakes his head, obsessively smoothing the pad of his thumb over the apple of your cheek, “He will gut us both, cruel girl. I don’t want to see that for you. If I find him it’s alone,” he swallows thickly, “And I’m tired.”

“So,” you realize with a startled tremble that your internal combustion is affection for the former lieutenant, “you’ll stay?”

And with greater terror, you realize that you actually want to stay with him.

“I will die knowing I failed,” he sucks in a sharp breath, pressing his lips firmly before granting you sight of the rosy flesh again, “but I will have you to die with, cruel girl.”

At least even in humiliating defeat, Pavel can be loved.

“Are you scared to die, Pav?”

You’re a sweet one, he fondly recalls. Assuming he had much to live for outside his schlocky revenge scheme.

“Projecting, hm?”

You pinch his side. He lets you.

DAY 3. NIGHT.

“Now, bend it.”

Pavel hisses but manages to fully extend and curl his newly unwound arm with nothing more than a click in his elbow. He lays both hands in his lap as you bunch the bandages and sling into a ball and lay it off to the side.

“Good,” you utter softly, “You’ve healed a lot faster than I would’ve thought.”

“Right?” Pavel turns his head to stare down at you, tilting his head back, “You should sit with me.”

“You’re feeling charitable,” he scoffs at your tease, not moving to accommodate his invite, “Where should I even sit, then? You’re taking the entire seat.”

When he merely smirks, you get the idea.

“You’re gross.”

“Indulge me, cruel girl,” you rise to your feet, gnawing your bottom lip in contemplation, Pavel leans against the armrest and cinches his legs together, “Would you make a man die alone?”

“Yes,” you answer without hesitation.

But would you make Pavel die alone?

You swing a leg over his torso, careful to avoid the healing slash and straddle Pavel’s waist with both hands landing over his exposed chest. He cups your cheek again, now taking pleasure (and slight pain) in cradling your face with both hands. He hasn’t gotten to see a beautiful woman in ages, and he thinks maybe it isn’t so bad to go out staring at one.

Moonlight cascades over the both of you, so bright in the train cabin it almost burns.

“If we could still run, where would you go?” you ask.

“Where would you want me?”

“Flirt,” you’re leaning in, though, trailing a finger over his scarred chest. Your nails bite at the flesh, he grunts in disapproval, “How can I believe anything you say? You betrayed your leader. Would you shoot me, too?”

Pavel is sure you’re anything but serious in asking, but it's dangerous the way he feels compelled to answer genuinely, “Never. I’d miss your… What was it? Brutalism?”

“Enough,” the moonlight sears over where Pavel’s hands are curved around your cheeks. You lean down more until your lips brush his, “You call me rude, but you’re- “

He slices your derision short, pressing his petal soft lips against yours with a quiet, contented sigh.

Moonlight bares witness. And you cannot pull away even as the fire in your heart rages from affection to molten lava. You’re not even entirely sure you would want to.

…

Karin cannot feel her fingers as she stands in the open train car door. She’s seen many things - many terrible, awful things. Especially so in the past seventy-two hours than her entire career as a war journalist, but this may be what truly drives her mad. She can feel it - the need to retreat inside her mind and shut down completely; the need to give up hope of salvation. Maybe she can suppress it long enough to sit by that seashore, get a good view to wash out the image before her.

Wriggling on the train loveseat is a fleshy creature, almost like mushed peaches. Occasionally, pleased sighs and hums will escape one of its two smiling faces as the lumps slide and shift along the cushion. One face nuzzles closer to the other and the measly bread and meat Karin swiped from deserted kitchens lurches in her stomach.

None of the other monsters she’d encountered had been so undeniable in its previous humanity. It reminds her of the holed, broken, pliant corpses of uniformed soldiers dead in trenches, and it reminds her of the first time she ever saw a real dead body. She puked on its boot, unable to run back and spew bile elsewhere before it was spurting past her lips.

Karin’s stomach is stronger now, though. She has the time to turn and trudge on wobbly knees towards the seaside before she pukes - squirming flesh and smoldered limbs tangling in her mind.

Moonlight burns at the back of her neck as The Lovers moan and coo happily behind her.

[blurrycow]

Hargreeves analysis (5/7: my lucky number!)

Tagging the gang: @jbd302020, @conchshell, @stupidcanofpeaches, @assaily, @kdangerfblog (I know you wanted to be added to my tag list- this isn’t the fic but here)

Five Hargreeves

My playlist with the songs I think go with him and his vibe are on my Spotify! It’s called Sunbow (my at home account) and _Sunbow (my school account.) Both post playlists and update them consistently. They are also basically the same.

SORRY FOR THE SELF ADVERTISING! On with the analysis.

Ah, my favorite number. My lucky number. Too bad my lucky number has been through some… stuff. Very unlucky number.

Hoooooo boy. Five. What to do with you, man. Five is definitely the absolutely most traumatized, most overlooked one of the siblings (Vanya is a close second, Klaus lagging in third).

Boy, I knew about five before I even watched TUA. My friend, @chickadee634, writes fanfic for him, so she showed me some of that and that’s really what got me into it. I have great memories of sitting with my friends, watching a small fifteen year old murder grown men.

By now, you’re getting tired of my mindless rambling, so let’s just go.

Nobody ever takes him seriously. We clearly see this in season two when his pleas to help save the world are collectively ignored by his “loving” family members. Honestly it makes me very sad to see, because he tries so hard, and his siblings can’t see the fact that if they don’t get their shit together, there will be no social life to get to.

Five can easily be summarized by this line [about Nico DiAngelo] by Rick Riordan, from the excellent book The Tower of Nero:

“He looked like a person who had been hit not once, not twice, but so many times over the course of many years that [he] had lost sense of what it was to feel not in pain.”

(Apologies if it’s incorrect! I am going from memory here.)

Five has… not had any relax time in more than forty five years. In the long, lonely apocalypse, his only companion was a mannequin that is consistently ridiculed in the series by his siblings. Eventually he has to give her up, and then when he finally gets her back, he has to give her away again. He gets a shrapnel wound to the gut. He gets a concussion Flynn Rider style and falls in a pile of bricks. He’s rewound time more than once on no sleep. He has a bullet wound.

Basically, what I’m saying is, Five is a fucking champ.

He has been through so much shit- isolation, manipulation, being ignored, dna changes, the trauma of killing people, leaving behind the love of his life, finding the love of his life again and then being forced to leave her again, ptsd, malnutrition, growth stunting, anxiety, depression, torture, so much more, and GOD, I want to give this boy a hug. He’s been through so much and his family members (although I love them, they’re kind of ignorant bitches to Five) don’t see the fact that he’s struggling until he’s literally passing out.

Let’s talk about Five’s relationships with his siblings.

Five loves his family. They are his one motivator. He can’t admit it because he doesn’t want to tell them how much he’s been through for them, because he sees it as a weakness. It kind of is! Anyone could make him do anything for them.

Time in the commission:

Five spent YEARS- YEARS- in a place that objectified him for his powers (“you’re a legend!” etc). He spent SO LONG in a toxic place that sent him to kill millions of innocents, a place that ALTERED HIS FUCKING DNA to make him feel LESS GUILTY ABOUT BEING A MURDERER.

anyway poor guy can’t catch a break

And he’s still so impacted by Reginald! (I.e., the scene where he’s in the closet and Reginald is outside of it and Reggie steps forward and Five steps back, which is a symbol of defeat and submission in most animals, signifying that his father still has a great impact on his choices, and still intimidates him.) His father is his greatest abuser (actually, he has a lot of abusers- the Handler, AJ, + his father).

Five has been spiraling through space and time for so long that now he doesn’t know what’s the past, present, or future, and before he can even get adjusted to space lag, he’s thrown into an apocalypse, which is quickly headed up by another apocalypse. He’s confused, and he needs a break. Plus, I think the only thing he’s eaten since he got back from his 45 years was a fluffernutter sandwich.

Conclusion: Five Hargreeves has been through A LOT OF SHIT (fault of Gerard Way) and needs a fucking break. Petition to let this lil guy take a nap in s3!

Alright, only two left! Let’s see how we can pick apart Ben Hargreeves next.

[true-blue-megamind]

What Makes Hal a Great Villain?

Okay, I’m saying it upfront: this one is going to get a little dark and very real.  Potential triggers for harassment, stalking, sexual predation.  Nothing graphic or heavy, of course, but if these are especially highly sensitive subjects for you, please proceed with caution.

Also, SPOILER ALERT for anyone who has not yet watched the animated awesomeness that is Megamind.  (If you are that person, the DVD is on sale on Amazon, and the movie is available to stream on NowTV.  Go watch it.  I’ll wait.)

We all know Megamind is an awesome protagonist--multi-layered, relatable, and surprisingly complex-- but, truthfully, his antagonist is just as interesting.  In fact, when compared with other animated villains of the early 2000′s, he’s by far the most memorable... and the most terrifying.

Many may question my assessment.  I mean, let’s be honest: this guy doesn’t exactly look like the face of evil.  But make no mistake: Hal, who later becomes Titan, is an extremely scary person.

I don’t want to leave readers with the impression that this character is one-sided, however, so before we get started on just what makes this fellow complete nightmare fuel, let’s look briefly at a few of the other reasons that Hal makes a fascinating Bad Guy.

One of my favorite things about Hal’s character arch is that it defies expectations.  Superhero comics have a long tradition of Average Nobodies who somehow receive extraordinary powers and go on to save the city.  Or the world.  Or the universe.  You get the idea.  Many comic book fans, upon watching Megamind for the first time, probably expected Hal to do the same, but he doesn’t.  In fact, he goes rogue, choosing to use his newly-obtained gifts for wanton destruction.  Thus the film inverts the established trope.

Like the protagonist he faces, (and is thankfully conquered by,) Hal is complex, and his true nature reveals itself slowly.  I’ve heard some people say that they actually felt a bit sorry for him in the first scene he appears, as he awkwardly tries to express his feelings to reporter Roxanne Ritchi.  At first he seemed like nothing worse than a socially inept and sexually frustrated nerd.  Only as the move progressed, and the aforementioned viewers saw his creepiness more clearly, did they begin to revile him.  One of the many clever things about the movie is that the gradual development provides audiences with the experience of slowly getting to know the characters.  While Megamind is the somewhat anarchical Goth who worries you a little at first, but whose heart of gold has you loving him once you really understand him, Hal is that guy you really, really regret talking to at a party.  You know, the one who quickly starts sending your internal Creep-o-Meter off the scale and persistently follows you around for the rest of the night.  This is, indeed, part of what makes Hal disturbing; just like real villains, he hides in plain sight, wearing the guise of an ordinary fellow.

Which brings us back to the scary part.  Even before he gets superpowers, Hal is bad guy deep down.  He’s a creep and a stalker.  He harasses Roxanne at work and keeps pestering her for a date no matter how many times she says no.  Either consciously or unconsciously, he assumes that she’s shallow, and that once he has a muscular body and a bevy of godlike abilities, she’ll fawn on him.  The idea that he himself might be the problem never seems to occur to him.  In fact, he seems to feel that she will then owe him her affection.  This is because, even before becoming Titan, Hal appears to have an overblown sense of self-importance and an unrealistic concept about what he deserves.  (I go into detail about that in an earlier post, Megamind and Identity, which you can read here.)  The fact that he doesn’t get what he feels is his right seems to have created a deep-seeded bitterness in him that rises to the surface once he obtains power.

But Hal really is the problem.  His combined possessive harassment and complete lack of empathy are exactly why Roxanne neither likes nor trusts him.  And she’s right to feel that way.  Almost immediately after gaining his powers, now feeling that he is above society’s rules, Titan begins revealing just how terrible of a person he really is.  He uses his supervision to spy on Roxanne while he and Megamind (disguised as Space Dad) are in the park, and that must not be the only incident because he later tells Roxanne: “I know everything about you.”  This is just before he grabs her off of her balcony, without her consent, and begins throwing her around like a rag doll, terrifying her and putting her life in real danger because, apparently, he thinks she’ll be impressed.

Yeah.  This guy is pretty much human garbage.

Once he finally understands (more or less) that Roxanne really means it when she says she’s not interested, Hal/Titan reveals himself to be a man-child.  He  begins by using his abilities for selfish and criminal reasons, essentially stating that he doesn’t feel heroism is worth his time.  When he learns that Megamind has been dating Roxanne, (albeit in disguise,) he reacts with violence.  This is because Megamind, like Hal himself, is an outsider: unpopular, unwelcome, and considered unattractive by most of the population of Metro City.  In Hal’s mind, this revelation highlights the fact that none of these factors were the cause of Roxanne’s rejection, leaving only he himself to blame.  (In fact, the movie contrasts Megamind, who, although imperfect, respects Roxanne’s wishes and intelligence, with Hal, who basically views her as an object to be won.  Again, you can read more about that in Megamind and Identity.) Hal can’t handle that.  He can’t accept it.  So instead he turns his rage on the city as a whole.  (This is despite the fact that, deep down, Hal knows he is the problem, hence why he rejects his identity as Hal and fully embraces the new one as Titan.  That’s illustrated by his final line before abandoning Roxanne on Metro Tower: “It’s Titan, not Hal!”)

Hal abuses his power, and society suffers as a result.  Even then, however, Hal/Titan still tries to lay claim to Roxanne.  He accuses Megamind of “stealing his girlfriend,” and later tells Roxanne: “Let me guess, after seeing how awesome I am, you’ve come to your senses.”  All the way to the end, Hal still can’t quite seem to accept that reality is not following his design.

If the idea of a man who lets power go to his head, objectifies women, won’t take “no” for an answer, and reacts violently when denied what he feels he’s owed sounds familiar, that’s because it is.  Humanity has a huge problem with these sorts of behaviors, ranging from sexism and sexual predation to unfeeling abuses of power.  The Sarah Everard case in London, and the fact that several officials essentially blamed the victim, asking why Sarah was walking home alone rather than asking why some guy felt he had the right to attack her, is the most recent well-known testament to this, but it’s sadly far from the only one.  A.J. White said it best in his YouTube video, The Terror of the Incel Superman, when he expressed that news archives are full of stories about women being murdered by the sort of overgrown boys who can’t accept their refusals.  And although men of that sort do not have the ability to fly or shoot lasers out of their eyes, some of them do rise to social and political power.  They are Hals. 

That is exactly what makes this character so especially scary.  Unlike more farcical supervillains, he is based upon something that truly exists.  Preternatural abilities aside, Hal is terrifying because he is very real.  Let’s just hope our world will see more Megaminds willing to stand up to them. #BeMegamindNotHal

[percywinchester27]

A lot like ‘Us’ (Part-34)

Word count: 3.4K

Pairing: Sam X Reader AU

Warnings: Feels, fluff

Series Summary: Y/N Y/L/N is eager and honestly, still in awe that she managed to get herself an acceptance from Stanford Law School. On the face of it, her life seems as put together, mysterious and independent as one might hope for. On the insides, she carries the burden of past that haunts her till date. Seemingly, she’d left it all behind; that is until she sets foot in the class of the Law School’s youngest, most promising professor.

A/N: The story employs two different timelines. The present timeline for the story takes place in 2014. Please let me know what you guys think :)

Beta: @deanssweetheart23​​. I love you so much, darling <3

A lot like ‘Us’ masterlist

The rest of the week was hard.

There were things you wanted to do and then things that you had to do. Unfortunately for you, the Venn diagram of those two things were two circles that did not touch.

Normally, you loved your job, you loved studying and your classes. But sitting through Sam’s class was becoming a new, different type of torture. The pretension was wearing you down. You could see it grating him, too. You rarely spoke up in his class now, trying not to draw attention, neither did he call upon you like he did with other students. 

The library was still your second home, though, thanks to the untimely desertion of the other odd shifts librarian, you were left to run double shifts. Molly was sorry about it, but she didn’t have a solution for you, not until she had a new hire. That meant you were stuck in the library all the time. The guys in the apartment were starting to miss you. Kevin came over one evening to inform you everything sucked when you weren’t around. His face had made you hug him.

As for you? Without the free evenings, you couldn’t go over to see Max. You missed him terribly and it would do no good to whine about that to Sam, since you were still unsure about how he would take your excessive attachment to his son. 

Not that you didn't have the chance to talk to Sam. After Sam put Max to bed, each night he’d call. You would sit in the alcove of the library widow and talk to him for hours- about the day, the classes and everything under the sun. Sam told you about the cases he was working on, the judges he really disliked and the girl Chase was chasing. Sam thought he was named aptly. He was also your faithful informant about Max. Apparently the playground bullies were back at it with the mean words. You blurted out loud how you wanted to punch the kids and Sam piled on top of that. Cheerful conversations about shaking kids followed.

It felt so juvenile to talk with him over the phone, like when he worked in New York and you were stuck in Lawrence, but not quite. Now, it was exciting to imagine him blushing on the other end when you accidentally said something complementary. Or if a student decided to stay in the library late night, you had to giggle in hushed voices so they wouldn’t overhear your conversations. The thrill of it was exciting. Those few hours had become the highlight of your day.

So, when Madison asked you what you were smiling about in the last lecture on Friday, you had to make up a reason. You couldn’t very well tell her that the bruise Sam was sporting on his cheek was because Max outran him on the basketball court and Sam slipped and fell.

“Just thinking of something funny.”

“Wouldn’t have to do with the green eyed hottie from Monday, would it?” Madison wiggled her eyebrows.

“Who, Dean?” You burst out laughing. “Maddie! He’s married to my sister.”

She laughed with you, face apologetic. “Dang! He’s really hot. Is it bad that I’m sorry he is married?”

“Definitely not,” you giggled. The good old Winchester genes had caused many casualties.

On the dais below, Sam collected his things.

“Ooohh, Professor Winchester is heading out. I better catch him before he leaves. You wanna come? Talk about the assignment?”

“No, you go on.” Sam had given you a run down of the assignment last night. You wanted to pout that he was right. You could have done better.

“Still awkward about the whole drowning thing, huh?”

You looked away, not wanting to remember the pool.

Madison wasn’t paying attention. “You were… I don’t know, delirious. You kept calling him by his name and…” Madison looked at you warily. She did not complete the sentence.

“Y/N saw the opportunity and took it,” said Rebecca from the next row. “I would sell my soul to be lifted like that.”

You slung your bag around your shoulders and made a move to get up. For all you cared, Rebecca could get hit by a truck. Not only were you furious at her for planning that prank with Brad, it made you feel murderous when she objectified Sam like that, reducing him to some greasy creep of a professor. It was insulting.

“Wait up now, sweetie!” She came up from behind. “Don’t act so prissy now. We all know you’re not as innocent as you make yourself out to be.”

“Excuse me?”

“You think I’m blind? To not see how you’re playing with all these men to get what you want? First, you have Brad panting after you, so you get the attention? Then you’re dancing with some random blue eyed man at the induction dance. The very next day you’re swaying in the arms of Chase Lincoln of all people. The moment you touch the pool water, somehow Sam Winchester is miraculously saving you… and two days later you’re crying like a damsel in distress in the arms of yet another man!” She was counting off her fingers. “And people call me slutty! I’m going to find out what your secret is, Y/N. Because I know you have one! And when I do...”

“You know what, Rebecca?” You said as calmly as you could. “Why don’t you go screw yourself.”

With that you headed straight for the library. When Madison caught up with you, her face was red. “Can’t believe I was ever friends with that hag! Gave her piece of my mind.”

“Madison, you should catch professor Winchester before he leaves. I’ll be okay.”

She assessed your words against your expression, then nodded and left.

You wanted to be by yourself. 

Thankfully, cataloging was time-consuming and tedious. It took your mind off of Rebecca’s awful words. For the life of you, you couldn’t understand why she was so mean to you. 

“Excuse me, miss, can I borrow this book?” Enquired a sweet voice. 

You dropped the marker in your hand and looked up. Max was standing beyond the desk, a huge grin on his face. You gave a little yelp of your own and hurried from behind the counter to throw your arms around him, kissing him on his cheek. 

“Gosh, I’ve been dying to meet you,” you said, pulling back to look at him. 

He was wearing a plaid shirt over a small faded t-shirt and jeans. Such a mini-Sam. You couldn’t resist the urge to lean over and kiss his other cheek.

Max started blushing, looking down at his shoes.

“What’re you doing here?” You asked, leading him to one of the benches.

“Alex broke her arm last night. She couldn’t come over today. Dad’s got work. He asked me to hang out here.”

“Oh, no, is Alex okay?”

Max snickered. “Yeah. She was trying to sneak out for a party and fell out of the window.”

You pursed your lips trying not to laugh with him. “Poor girl.”

“Aunt Jody’s super-mad!” He added and you couldn’t help the giggle that burst through your lips.

“Max, is that you?” Molly asked, sticking her head from behind the shelves. “Darn kid! It’s been ages. Where did you run off to?”

“Mechanics camp!” He told her. “I know where an engine goes now. And how to hot-wire a car.”

“They taught you that at the camp?” You asked, skeptic.

“No, uncle Dean did.”

This time you laughed in earnest.

“You know Max?” Molly frowned.

You nodded. “Remember my little friend I told you about?”

“The one you were holding a bake sale for?”

“Yep, he’s the one.”

Molly put her hand to her lips. “Well, no shit! Do you know who his father is?”

You and Max immediately looked at each other, confirming your secret with a tiniest of nods. 

“He’s Sam’s boy, this cute little nugget here.” Molly pulled his cheek. To Max’s credit, he didn’t rub his cheek afterwards.

Which reminded you. “You wait right here, Max. I’ll be back in a minute.” You quickly found the stash of cookies you were saving for tonight's dinner and hurried back to him. Eating at the library wasn’t allowed, but Max was an exception to every rule. “Cookies for you. I know these are your favourite.”

Max’s entire face lit up. True to his nature, he offered you one before digging in. You watched as he took a few bites, sneaking looks to the book he was holding- Adventures of Sinbad. 

“I read one of those when I was kid. It had a monster bird that carried Sinbad away to its nest.”

“Oh, the Roc! That one’s my favorite!” Max clapped his hand and the cookies clattered to the floor.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, trying to pick up the bag.

You stopped him with a gentle nudge. “Let me.” After cleaning the cookie crumbs from the carpet, you unwound the scarf from around your neck and used it to clean the crumbs stuck to Max’s mouth and shirt, fussing over getting it all away.

When you made him stand up to clean the hem of his pants, you noticed Sam standing behind you, arms crossed over his chest. He had a peculiar expression on his face- tender but also guarded.

“You’re not supposed to eat the library, young man!” Sam tried for stern, but ended up sounding amused.

You straightened up. “I make the rules here. Max can do whatever he wants.”

Max gave Sam a smug look, before running to him. In a motion that must have been more of less a reflex, Sam reached out and hefted Max up in his arms. 

“Look, what I found!” Max showed him the book.

Sam made a face. “Sinbad again? That sixth voyage was lame.”

“I wanna find out how it ends. There’s only one adventure left!”

“Alright, but this is the last of Arabian tales for the year. I get second hand sea-sickness just reading about it. I’m starting to miss Charlie and the chocolate factory.”

“You hated Charlie and the chocolate factory!”

Sam smirked. “You’re this close to getting my point.”

Max turned the book over. “We’re out of authors,” he told you.

The words shook you out of your quiet and you smoothened your expression. The scene before you was making your throat close up. You had never seen them together before. Max’s entire body language changed- his shoulders relaxed and he became less polite… just a bit more demanding, the way a child should be. Sam on the other hand radiated contentment. His voice changed, becoming softer, loving when he spoke to Max. You were sure you had been staring at them hungrily as if you couldn’t get enough of the interaction.

“Any suggestions?” Sam asked, tone still mild.

“T-Tolkein,” you stuttered. “You should try The Hobbit.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Elven songs. Wonderful.”

Molly came over to greet Sam and you excused yourself to go back to the desk and take a stock of the emotions coursing through you. At any point it could get too much and you didn't want either of them to see that.  

On their way out, Max waved at you. “Bye, Y/N!”

“Bye, Max.” You blew him a kiss. “You turned my day around, bud!”

There were too many people in the vicinity, so when it came to Sam, you nodded. “Professor.”

He mirrored your gesture. “Ms. Y/L/N.” And with a look full of promise of later, he walked away. You waved at Max till he was out of sight.

“Such a lovely boy,” Molly sighed. “Horrendous business what happened to him.”

“Yeah.” You cut the topic short, still unable to think of Max’s past without feeling faint. Thinking about it was so hard for you, Max had lived through it. 

Molly was in no mood to change the subject.

“Sam’s an amazing guy to give up the lawyer life and settle down here for that kid.”

You narrowed your eyes. “What do you mean?”

Molly threw out her hands, slightly embarrassed. “It’s Sam’s personal choice and all that, but he had a solid career in LA. After that Simmons affair blew up in the media, he could’ve stuck around and bagged A-list celebrities as clients. He moved out to this place for Max’s sake- so there was some normalcy and stability in his life. Then, again, Sam’s had his share of downs.”

Your back felt like ice, knowing what was coming.

“I’m not supposed to talk about it but it’s just you.” Molly leaned in closer. “Did you know his wife left him?”

She must have interpreted whatever your face showed as shock, because Molly continued. “Don’t know much about the whole thing. I heard bits and parts from the grape wine. Some girl he met in Kansas straight out of Yale. Took a plunge in a couple of months and this girl bolted not even a year into the marriage. Can you believe that? I mean, look at him… What the fuck was she looking for that he didn’t have!”

You could taste the blood by biting into your lip too hard.

“Never heard of him dating anyone since. I think he’s still in love with her.” Molly whistled. “At least they have each other- Max and Sam. That kid spends a lot of time here. You’ll keep finding reasons to feed your little friend cookies.” Molly flashed you a grin. You couldn’t quite return it.

It was past twelve when your phone rang. You’d just locked the library behind you and had given up on all hopes of the call.

You hurried to pick it up.

“Hey,” Sam breathed. “Sorry it took me so long.”

“It’s alright,” you sighed in relief at the sound of his voice. The sinking feeling in your stomach since the talk with Molly began to dissipate. 

“It’s your fault really,” Sam said. “Max liked The Hobbit too much and went to bed real late. How am I supposed to wake him in time for his class tomorrow?”

His concerns were so normal, comfortingly mundane. Sam made it sound so easy, when in fact, all this must have been so hard. One time you heard someone say a mean thing about Sam’s wife and it had you rankled. Sam must’ve lived through years of whispers, stories and ugly rumours. He must’ve had to defend his choice of staying committed so many times. Hadn’t the words shred his heart?

“Y/N? Everything okay?”

You cleared your throat. “Uh it’s just… it’s good to hear your voice.”

He was immediately on alert. “What happened?”

“Nothing. Weird day.”

“Where are you?”

You looked about your dark surroundings. “Crossing the playground, almost to my building.”

“Do you want to come over?” He asked, voice hopeful but unsure. “We can sit in the front lawn if you want.”

You made an impulse decision. “Yeah okay.”

Ten minutes later you were sitting on one of Max’s swings. Your tan sweater wasn’t helping much as you shivered in the chill, waiting for Sam to show up. Weird how you made it before him. He lived right there!

Noiselessly the front door opened and closed. Sam walked briskly towards you. He was dressed in dark grey sweatpants and a black full sleeve t-shirt. In his hand he carried an afghan, a thermos and two mugs.

“Here,” he handed you the afghan. It was the same one that was wrapped around you on the night of the pool party. The memory brought blood to your face.

“We don’t have adult juice around here today, but we do have hot chocolate.” Grinning impishly, he tilted the thermos in your direction. He sat on the ground in front of you, carefully filling up the two mugs with the rich, brown liquid while you wrapped yourself in the Afghan. 

Eagerly, you took a sip and moaned indecently.

“Good, isn’t it?” Sam chuckled. 

This was very close to what heaven would feel like. 

“So, what’s the deal, huh?” He asked after a few sips. 

You hesitated, not wanting to admit what the real problem was. It would be the case of a teapot crying to a boiler.

“You know you can tell me things, right?” His voice was soft, beguiling. 

“It’s something Molly said after you left.” You gave in, selfishly spilling it all. 

Sam listened to the whole story, then shook his head at you in exasperation and beckoned you with his hand. You blinked a couple of times, then gave up and went in willingly. 

What the hell, right?

 Sam tucked his arms around your shoulder once you slid on the ground next to him.

“You and I, we know what the truth is,” he said. “How does it matter what anyone else says?”

“Is that what you told yourself all these years?” You asked in a small voice, unable to meet his eyes.

Sam sighed. “Why are you doing this to yourself, Y/N?”

“You didn’t answer me.”

His fingers curled around your shoulder over the afghan. “No, I didn’t have to tell myself anything. I knew I loved you. That was enough.”

“I don’t know if I can be as strong as you.”

“That’s because you’re so much stronger,” he said. “None of those people have lived your life, they don’t know what you’ve been through. I can bet my ass, they wouldn’t have made it out of half of it in one piece. It’s easy to judge.”

“That’s not my problem,” you argued. “I don’t care what they think about me. But I can’t stand how it makes you look!”

Sam surprised you by chuckling lightly. “You’re cute when you’re indignant. Especially on my behalf.”

“Quit making this into a joke, Sam.”

“I seriously don’t know what else to do.” He put a finger under your chin, tilting your face up. “Look at me. I’m the happiest I've been in years! Do you really think I give a rats ass about what anyone’s got to say about me? My personal life has never been anyone’s concern except mine and yours. The only other person who has any say in this is Max. And that kid doesn’t shut up about you.”

Sam’s eyes were scorching, melting against the night sky.

“Molly’s wonderful, and I know she has a soft spot for me. But by the end of the day, it's just gossip. There’s no substance to it. So will you please drop it?”

At long last you nodded. 

“That’s like my Y/N.”

A rustle from the other side of Sam’s fence made you stiffen. The bushes behind the planks began to shake.

“What’s that?”

Sam shrugged. “Probably Alex sneaking out.”

You frowned at him. “Didn’t she break her arm doing exactly that?”

He snorted. “When has that stopped teenagers? It does make life a bit difficult. Jody’s grounded her. She can’t babysit Max for a while and I got work tomorrow.”

You saw Alex creeping on the sidewalk in front of the lawn. She saw the two of you huddled and froze like a deer caught in the headlight. Sam winked and waved a salute at her. After a minute she unfroze, returned the gesture and went off on her way. 

“Why don’t you drop him off at the library in the morning? I’ll keep an eye on him. I’m covering the first shift.” You worked to not sound too excited.

“Yeah, that still doesn’t fix the afternoon. I won’t be back before four.”

“Easy. I’ll wait with him here.”

Sam looked at you, hazel eyes wondrous. “You’d do that?”

“Sure. I owe him a pie anyway.”

“You’re a lifesaver!” He exhaled. “Seriously, I could kiss you right now!”

All you had to do was look up. Sam was right there.

Another crash sounded over the fence, louder than the first, followed by a muted ‘ow.’  You saw lights flare up in what must be the living room. From somewhere inside you heard Jody curse. “Jesus fucking Christ! Claire, what’re you doing on the ground.”

“Why do you always have to catch me!” Claire whined in the darkness. “Alex just left!”

“What. The. Fuck!” Jody yelled. “Get in the fucking car! We’re going to find your sister.”

That did it for you as you buried your face in Sam’s chest, smothering the giggles. His arms wrapped tightly around you. Sam himself was shaking with silent laughter over you.

Yeah, this was pretty close to heaven.

*********************

A/N 2: Thank you for all the support over the last week. 

Sam was right when he said-  “You and I, we know what the truth is. How does it matter what anyone else says?”

I’m going to take his advice :)

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[wrestlezon]

liveblog containment zone for aew rampage 5/20/22

starting with house of black vs dark order + fuego... i like the dark order. i also like watching the dark order wrestle i love it when wrestlers steal each others special moves. calling out pentagon jr like this... oof what a lariat tombstone... :O rip house of black

lmfao oh no i did not see the dark elevation! bowens!! your leg??? i love New Son Max Caster. i love the rapport between the gunn club and the acclaimed. its good

ftr please tell me youre gonna agree to fight roppongi vice yay!!! confirmed for fight!! none respect for rocky and trent... mean to them... u_u

shawn spears has such a cool intro... i just wish he had a different haircut. his muscles look very good. nice body. im objectifying men right now sorry

i think the undisputed elite are funny villain guys. i'll be patiently waiting for omega's return, whenever that may occur in the distant future

my friend asked me to pause for this screenshot. kyle. please

dark statlander vs heel velvet!!! i think statlander is cool. i miss the goofy element because in my heart of hearts im a fan of goofs but i understand. i understand. i know hirsch pushed her to the darkness and that hirsch's injury kinda brought that whole feud to a dead stop but i wish there was more. jesus lord she held up velvet with one arm. so strong... red velvet using her a stepstool to get back in the ring... Cool while i would normally say you shouldnt pit two bad bitches up against each other i will make an exception here. cool fight

bruh rampage commercial jumpscare got me yet again. right in the middle of velvet's rope leg attacks velvet yelling at statlander calling her a stupid alien?? im taking these scraps and holding them so close to my heart. statlander alien gimmick real yaaaay statlander won!! oh no! enemy beatdowns!!! yay!!! ruby and anna jay!! oh!!!!! i forgot ruby and kris are up against each other at the owens... drama....

i love training montages and i especially love everything thats going on in here between tony nese and mark sterling and danhausen and hook

dan lambert alert... i wish scorpio sky and ethan page were fighting instead of more sammy but ok nevermind this sledgehammer bit is funny i guess. im glad reservoir dogs kazarian is here

this bit made me laugh out loud btw and if im laughing then that justifies it. i love being amused by entertainment and im glad dan lambert didnt say misogyny words

matt sydal!! im glad hes back. he does flips and is a bit of a weirdo and i love flips and weirdos

did they announce that hangman page vs cm punk match twice oh my god there are SO MANY matches at the ppv... SO MANY

"and to my left is jericho the wizard and..." [long pause] "............ jake hager" LMFAO excalibur i love you

KILLING dante martin. murdering him!!! get him sydal! use your flips and kicks my god what a twisting backflip oh no! matt sydal's kicks are doing zero damage against moxley! except for that one. nice yesss! dante martin big splash oh no! dante martin is on his own now... look, it made sense for them to turn yuta into a violence pervert. but dante?? no... dante would never leave behind his flips mentor yeah!! sydal big whirlwind kick!! honestly i expected bcc to win this but with how good a fight sydal and dante are putting up now i dunno!! oh he got piledrivered hes done for-- oh! nevermind! wait its the combination beatdowns. bcc trademark ending.. now they gotta win yeah there it is! what the! whats jericho up to-- oh yeah the bcc are supporting eddie. right

[ephyla]

Boss Lady

Hey guys, I hope you had an amazing Christmas!

This story was inspired by a post I saw a couple of months ago on a subreddit called MaliciousCompliance. I immediately thought that this is something that Hiccup and Astrid would totally do and just hoped I would be inspired to write it at some point. Well, today is that day, so enjoy!!

Summary: 

MODERN AU

Her boss’s insistence on changing her dress code leaves her in a fit of rage. Good thing that she has an amazing boyfriend to help her maliciously comply to his stupid requirements.

***

‘I’m sorry, what?’

‘I’m just saying that it would be more appropriate if you dressed more like a professional.’

Astrid was internally fuming, but she tried to keep her cool in his office.

‘And what do you mean by ‘professional’ exactly?’ The young woman asked, her teeth grinding.

‘You know, dresses, heels, skirts.’ Her boss replied nonchalantly.

‘With all due respect, why am I the only one you approached with this request?’ If murder was legal, she would have skinned him alive a long time ago.

‘Because they’re not my assistant.’

***

Hiccup was preparing dinner when he heard the door slam brutally. He turned the heat off and placed the pan on a cool surface. His girlfriend, in a fit of rage, was struggling to untie her shoelaces as he walked into the living room.

‘Bad day at work?’ Astrid just grumbled. ‘Who was it this time, Thuggory? Lars?’

‘My obnoxious boss.’

‘Ah.. Should’ve guessed it. Why did he call you in his office this time? Your shoulders were distracting him? Did you show your ankles again?’ Her boyfriend dramatically gasped.

Astrid worked in a small company where the employees were not required to dress professionally since they’re not facing any customers. There’s still the A/C turned on full blast, so it wasn’t like Astrid was showing a lot of skin to begin with, not that it mattered. But her dirty old boss thought it would be appropriate to point out her attire on an almost daily basis. She quickly got tired of it and decided to have part of her closet dedicated to unflattering clothes so she could avoid being grossly objectified by her superior. Today, however, he crossed a line.

‘That pig decided that I should be wearing ‘corporate clothing since I’m his assistant’ while the others are free to wear jeans and t-shirts.’ Astrid fumed as she violently threw her bag on the sofa and stomped toward the bathroom to take shower. Not having the time to reply, Hiccup simply walked back to the kitchen to finish the cooking.

When Astrid came back, she seemed to have cooled off a bit. They sat at the table as they ate their dinner.

‘You know my dad would hire you if I asked him. You’re smart, focused and hardworking. He would love to have you as an employee. And he loves you. Sometimes I wonder if I’m even his son seeing how much he dotes on you.’ Hiccup laughs. A small smile formed on his girlfriend’s face. ‘You know he loves you to death. I’m not the one that’s getting my ribs crushed every time he hugs me because he missed me. Besides, I don’t think it’s fair for me to suddenly be hired on the spot by your father just because I’m dating you. Some more qualified people might need it more than me. I already have a decent paying job, it’s just that I hate the people I’m working with.’

‘I know, I know. But it’s also not fair for you to endure all this just for your boss’s sick pleasure. You’re not paid to be his eye-candy. You’re paid to be his assistant, and right now he clearly is trying to force you to make his disgusting fantasies a reality. Just please, think about it, alright?’ Astrid looked away, but Hiccup scooted his chair closer and caressed her cheek, making her face him again. Her frown still visible. ‘I’ve noticed you know.’ He stated.

‘Noticed what?’

‘You’ve been stressed a lot since you got this job. You barely eat or get a decent night of sleep anymore’ Hiccup traced the dark bags under her eyes. ‘You always seem irritated by something’ He brought a hand to her hand on his sleeve, trying to relax her death grip. She released him and he grabbed her hand, holding it to his chest. ‘You barely have the time for your friends and family. If we didn’t live together, I probably wouldn’t have seen much of you either. I worry about you. I miss you’ Astrid looked away again.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realize th-‘

‘It’s not your fault babe. What I’m trying to say is, maybe it’s time for you to be a bit selfish. You’ve worked so hard to get where you’re at, and your accomplishments are not being acknowledged because your boss is only thinking with his dick. You deserve so much better than this. Please accept my help. Not only will the job my dad offer you will be more high paying, but also less stressful. Well, as stress less it can get with Snot and the twins.’ The pair laughed. ‘But most importantly, you’ll also be working with me.’

‘Now that last part seems very tempting.’ Astrid smiles. Working with Stoick and Hiccup definitely sounds much better than being stuck with her current job.

‘Well I sure hope so! I would take serious offence if you told me you’d rather work with that sleezy old man over me!’ Her boyfriend replies while laughing. ‘But in all seriousness, I’ll talk to my dad, I know he’ll be more than thrilled to help you. If by some thorsaken reason he refuses, then I’ll help. I mean you’ve been by my side for the longest time. You stood by me when I lost my leg and had to learn how to walk again.’ He stomps his prosthetic on the floor to prove his point. ‘It’s really the least I can do.’ Astrid sighed.

‘Alright, just this time, I’ll let you help me. Because I really can’t stand working in the hellhole anymore.’ Hiccup beams and raises the hand he’s holding to his lip, kissing her palm. ‘Great! I’ll call dad now and will let you know as soon as I’m sure you got the job. Then you can finally send your two weeks notice letter.’

‘Already written since the end of my first week on the job. For now, I just have to worry about this dumb new dress code made specifically for me.’ Astrid rolled her eyes.

‘I think I might have an idea. Let’s go to the mall this weekend.’ Astrid saw Hiccup struggling to hide a mischievous grin as he got up and walked to the bedroom to pick up his charging phone.

***

‘Hiccup, you’re missing a leg, not your sight, this is very obviously not my size.’

‘Exactly, it’s perfect, I’ll lend you one of my belts so you can keep these up.’ The piece of clothing in question were a pair brown dress pants in the size M from the men’s section. ‘Now let’s check if they have a matching blazer. I’ll also lend you my dress shirts since they’re not the main focus.’ Hiccup picked out a matching blazer in the same size and held it out to Astrid. ‘Actually, let’s find you a dress shirt so we can see how the whole outfit looks like when you go try it.’ Astrid followed Hiccup as he walked towards the shirts and picked one out.

‘Go try this first, I’ll go find a few other outfits you can try.’ He shoos Astrid to the changing rooms.

‘First outfit?’

‘I mean if you want to wear only one outfit every single day until you leave that place, that’s your choice. But it would be wiser if you had a few spares’ He replied sarcastically. Astrid scoffed and left to change.

Hiccup took his time finding a few other oversized outfits for his girlfriend. Once he was satisfied with his choice, he walked towards the changing rooms.

‘Astrid?’ He called out.

‘In here’ She replied from the very end of the corridor. ‘Honestly, I hate the outfit, but this is a great idea.’ Astrid pulled the curtains aside and dramatically posed. His bewildered expression made her laugh.

‘Well, what do you think?’ Hiccup quickly recovered from the initial shock. ‘In all honesty, terrible, but at the same time you seem to be able to pull it off.’ Astrid twirled around.

‘I think if I styled it a bit and asked Heather to sew a few things, because we all know I can’t sew to save my life, it could become a nice outfit. At least we’re not wasting money. She said as she rolled up her sleeves.

‘That’s a pretty good idea.’ Hiccup grins. ‘Is it weird that I want you to bend me over a table and call you ‘Sir’ or ‘Daddy’?’

‘Eh, maybe. I’m used to you being weird though.’ Astrid laughs. ‘But please don’t call me that, it creeps me out.’

‘Roger that. Here, I got you some other outfits. I don’t think you need dress shoes, that might be too much. You can use your pair of loafers.’ Her boyfriend handed her the clothes and went to take a seat while she tried the rest of the clothing.

***

Astrid closed the door behind her. More gently than last time indicating her much better mood. Hiccup’s head popped out of their bedroom’s doorway. He smiled when he saw her good mood and walked towards her and kissed her.

‘I assume things went well?’

‘You should’ve seen the look on his dumb face! I spent the entire day trying not to laugh!’ She rejoiced as she circled her arm around his neck. They swayed for a couple of seconds before ungraciously landing on the sofa. ‘He couldn’t really say anything, because technically, I did what he asked for. I dressed professionally. I just decided to ignore his suggestions about wearing a dress or heels. I mean, who does he think he is, my stylist?’ Her boyfriend laughed and hugged her.

‘I wish I was there to see it all. But I’m happy it worked out for you.’

‘It’s all thanks to you. Things would have gotten way worse if you didn’t have this idea. I most likely would have shoved my heel down his throat or something, probably getting myself fired in the process. Then again that’s not such a bad outcome.’ Astrid rambled.

‘What can I say, I am pretty amazi- Ow!’ He cried as Astrid lightly punched him in the shoulder. He sulked as he held on said shoulder. ‘Whyy?’

‘I could see your ego poking its head out of your oversized mop of hair of yours.’

‘Harhar, if it’s not the leg jokes then it’s got to be the hair jokes. I should’ve seen that one coming.’ He mumbled that last part. Astrid smiled and kissed him.

‘But you’re right, you really are amazing. You’re the best.’

***

I’m normally not a big fan of Modern AUs, so I kind of struggled writing this one. Either way, hope you liked it!

Happy New Year!!

[365days365movies]

April 9, 2021: Some Like it Hot (1959) (Recap: Part One)

If there was ever a movie more hyped than this one...

Ever heard of the American Film Institute? Well, according to them in 2000 (recent, I know), this is the funniest comedy...period. At the time, anyway. That beats Tootsie (getting there), Dr. Strangelove (love it), Annie Hall (also loved it), Duck Soup (classic), Blazing Saddles (classic, topical, and fantastic), M*A*S*H (maybe later this year), It Happened One Night (maybe next year), The Graduate (later this WEEK), and...THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN Airplane! IS NUMBER 10? You CANNOT be seri...yeah, OK, you know where I’m going.

Anyway. Yeah, so, maybe AFI has Oscar syndrome, because that’s a little bullshit. So, uh...how about the BBC? In 2017, they asked 253 film critics ACROSS THE GLOBE what the best comedy of all time was, and number ONE was Some Like it Hot. Other than beating Airplane! again, it also beat Groundhog Day, Monty Python’s Life of Brian and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, This is Spinal Tap, The Big Lebowski, and His Girl Friday, and...well, every comedy you can think of. This movie CANNOT be that funny.

...Can it?

But there’s more to this film than that. Apparently, it was made without the approval of the MPPDA, which means that it wasn’t Hays Code adherent! Damn! In fact, this film was partially responsible for its collapse about 6 years later! But what is the Hays Code? Well, briefly covered, it was a set of standards laid out by Will Hays and his Motion Picture Produces and Distributors of America, or the MPPDA. It was enforced in the mid 1930s, and stood firmly in place until 1968, when it basically disappeared.

So, what are these standards? Well, there are a lot, but in a nutshell:

No cursing or taking the Lord’s name in vain in any way.

No nudity, real or suggested. And sex is kind of OK, if consensual and between a man and a woman ONLY. But, they can’t be in bed together, and they can only kiss one time, IF one of them isn’t a villain.

No weddings, no wedding nights, and barely any reference to marriage.

No prostitution, or what was called “white slavery”. Yes. Really.

Oh, also, no weird race-mixing stuff. What’s a “civil rights”?

Buuuuuuut...don’t insult any races either. Of course, considering the time period, “insult” or “offense” is probably subjective, so...fuck that, I guess.

PRIESTS ARE HOLY AND CANNOT BE MOCKED

No guns, fire, American flags, murder, smuggling, drugs, hanging, electrocution, or...law enforcement?

No childbirth, seen or inferred, and no naked kids. I mean...that’s common sense, to be completely fair.

NO RACE-MIXI-oh. Oh, I said that already, didn’t I? Well, OK, I’ll pare it down a little. They can’t have sex, but I guess...looking at each other is OK? Yeah, yeah, we’ll go with that. I’m progressive!

That about covers it. And this movie wasn’t adherent to it? Oh...well, I am excited! Let’s jump right in! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap (1/2)

The whole thing starts with a bang; literally. It's Chicago in 1929, smack dab in the middle of the Prohibition Era, and a group of gangsters are smuggling some alcohol inside of a coffin, while riding in a hearse. The cops aren't fooled, ad a shootout takes place between the gangsters and the cops, but they eventually drop off as the group takes the coffin into a funeral home. At the funeral home, a man named “Toothpick” Charlie (George E. Stone) meets with Mulligan (Pat O’Brien) a detective who’s got Charlie as his informant. With his help, he makes his way into the funeral home, actually a speakeasy in disguise.

Said speakeasy is run by “Spats” Colombo (George Raft), and within the speakeasy is a massive party, which the partygoers call a funeral. Spats arrives there shortly afterwards, and Mulligan watches all the while. Also at this party is a group of dancers accompanied by a band, which contains two partners, ladies’ man and sax player Joe (Tony Curtis) and anxious double bassist Jerry (Jack Lemmon).

The two talk about what they’re going to do with their upcoming paycheck, with Joe planning on using it for gambling on dog races. Jerry is understandably worried about this, as they owe rent, but Joe rattles off other things that he might was well worry about.

Suppose you got hit by a truck. Suppose the stock market crashes. Suppose Mary Pickford divorces Douglas Fairbanks. Suppose the Dodgers leave Brooklyn! Suppose Lake Michigan overflows.

Fun fact, though: the stock market’s about to crash in a year, Pickford and Fairbanks divorce in 1936, and the Dodgers left Brooklyn in 1957, famously. Lake Michigan has not overflowed...YET. It’s actually at record high water levels, and could cause flooding around it in the next few years. So, although those middle three were DEFINITELY part of the joke...that last one wasn’t at the time. Of course, it’s actually there as a line to set Jerry up with a way to tell him that the streets are “about to flood”, as he spots Mulligan and makes him. He tells Joe, and they both quietly pack up their instruments and leave, BEFORE the ruckus is about to begin.

And begin it does, and the cops raid the place almost immediately afterwards. As the party’s broken up and people are loaded into the paddywagon (Spats included), Joe and Jerry take their chance to escape behind the cops’ backs. However, this also means that the two musicians aren’t getting paid after all. Joe’s still set on betting money on the dog the next day, and get the money for the bet by selling their coats. However, while they do sell their coats, they instead end up looking for jobs at a local music agency, run by Sig Poliakoff (Billy Gray). 

The agency is recruited by band owner Sweet Sue (Joan Shawlee) and her nebbish band manager Bienstock (Dave Barry), as they need a bass and a sax player to replace two of their own, in their band in Florida. On hearing this from Poliakoff’s secretary Nellie (Barbara Drew), the two barge into the office. However, much to their dismay, the only ones they’re looking for are women. While Jerry tries to weasel their way in, it doesn’t quite work, and they instead take a job up north for a Valentine’s Day dance. The two go to a garage to borrow a car from Nellie in order to get to the job. There, playing cards, is Toothpick Charlie with a group of men. But then...somebody else arrives.

Spats and his men arrive at the garage, and tell all of the men to stand with their hands on the wall. Joe and Jerry, however, manage to hide in the garage. And if you know anything about Valentine’s Day during Prohibition Era Chicago...then you know exactly what’s about to happen to Toothpick and the guys.

After the massacre (based upon the real St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Jerry makes a noise and alerts the gang to their presence. This is a problem, because Spats isn’t keen on the idea of witnesses, and immediately orders the musicians killed.With a distraction caused by the still-alive-but-dying Charlie, the two manage to escape Spats’ wrath. Now needing a fast way out of town, Joe figures out a plan. See, that job, the one from Sweet Sue, is in Florida, which is far enough away that they should be able to escape. But, uh...the band is only looking for women. And so...

This is the second most famous thing about the film. Meet Josephine and Daphne, the female aliases of Joe and Jerry respectively. As Jerry realizes the difficulties of the female wardrobe (namely skirts and heels), the two walk up to the band of women, known as “Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopators.” But they aren’t the only arrivals, and the other is the MOST famous thing about this movie...

This is Sugar “Kane” Kowalczyk, the lead singer, ukelele player, and...OK, look, it’s Marilyn Monroe, and I think I need to acknowledge this now. Marilyn Monroe is an underrated talent today, but she had a hell of a lot of potential as an actress and as an individual. She had a lot of troubles, and her early death by suicide is an absolute tragedy, no matter how you slice it. She’s a talented actress and singer, and she deserves recognition for that.

SHE IS ALSO INSANELY HOT I’M SORRY I’M WEAK

Look...it’s Marilyn fucking Monroe, OK? I know, I’m a straight cissexual man, but I wanted to make a point to acknowledge the fact that Marilyn Monroe is a talent far outside of her beauty and physicality. She (and all women) deserve that much, and deserve not to be objectified by the male gaze. I genuinely agree with this, and I do understand that concept. I’ll never personally understand the female experience, but it’s my responsibility and duty as an individual to understand experiences foreign to my own, including this one.

But DEAR LORD, her physicality is not easy to ignore, now and then! I mean COME ON! The woman’s considered a standard of classic beauty to this day by many (not by all, and not by herself), and it’s unfortunately her most famous feature to nearly everybody. But, of course, Monroe got a lot of grief for her looks as well (which is bullshit), and the stress of her life sadly led to her terrible suicide. But that doesn’t mean that her beauty inside and out shouldn’t be appreciated for what it is: beauty.

ALSO SHE IS DROP DEAD GORGEOUS I’M WEAK I KNOW

See, the train agrees with me! Oh...OH RIGHT, THE MOVIE! OK, where was I. Well, Joe and Jerry agree with me about Sugar Kane, but it is the 1950′s when the film is made, so of course they do. They watch her get on, and they follow suit, meeting the women of the band, and Sugar Kane. Sugar, see, has a teensy bit of an alcohol problem. That’s not necessarily to say she’s an alcoholic, but she is admonished for it by Sweet Sue and Bienstock, also being a repeat offender of drinking during working hours. That (and men) is something that Sweet Sue doesn’t tolerate.

She’s almost in trouble that night, when her flask falls from her stocking during a performance. However, Jerry covers for her, much to her appreciation. As they settle in for the night, all of the girls (including Joe and Jerry) sleep in the same cabin, much to the, uh, frustration of Jerry, despite Josephine’s urgings to keep it together. As Jerry continually reminds himself that he’s posing as a girl, he’s surprised that night with the appearance of Sugar, who comes to thank her for her help that night. Sugar tells “Daphne” that she owes her one, and also climbs into the cot with him to hide from Sweet Sue. Jerry...that poor mother fucker.

Well, Jerry tries to ease the tension by offering some of Joe’s whisky. But more of the girls overhear this, and eventually, a massive party erupts, with all the girls mixing drinks and sharing the single space of Jerry’s bed. Joe wakes up from all of this, and tries to help end the party, only for Sugar to climb out of it, and ask Joe for help with a block of ice for the drinks.

It’s here that she reveals that she used to work with men’s bands, but joined this band to get away from men. This is especially to get away from her weakness: tenor sax players. This intrigues Joe, the tenor sax player. However, she’s essentially sworn off of tenor sax players because of multiple bad relationships, and is instead hoping to find a millionaire in Florida, preferably one with a yacht. Meanwhile, Jerry’s bed is getting a little too full, and the girls are getting a little TOO familiar. They start to tickle him, and to prevent his cover being blown, Jerry pulls the train’s emergency brake. All of the girls scatter as the train stops, and they manage to get away with the party as Sweet Sue and Bienstock wake up only then.

The train gets to Florida, and the girls make their way into a hotel. As they check in, Jerry (as Daphne) is spotted by Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown), a millionaire, and a man with eclectic tastes in women. And those tastes apparently include Daphne, as he unsubtly (and unwantedly) hits on her. And Jerry’s having none of it. After Osgood pinches him in the elevator, he gets off after slapping him. Unfortunately, that makes Osgood only want Daphne THAT MUCH MORE. This man...this man may just be the legendary alpha simp of which the stories tell.

Meanwhile, Joe manages to get ahold of Beinstock’s luggage and glasses. He steals his clothes (after fending off an overeager bellboy), and uses them to dress as a millionaire. Why? Why, to seduce Sugar, of course!

This is right at the halfway point, so we’ll pick this up in Part Two! See you there!

[giingers]

All Mine

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x reader 

Request: Hello Love, I’ve read your work and it was really beautiful. So can I please request one ? Like one where the reader is curvy and naturally beautiful. And some drunk men at the Garrison try to flirt with her. When she say no they became angry. And then her boyfriend Tommy comes and get reallly really angry. If you have time, for sure

Tag list: @peachyblinderss @crazyonesarethebest if anyone else wants to be added to the list let me know x Hope you like it!! I have had a terrible day at work today dealing with a child protection case (which always upsets me) but when I came home I read all your lovely comments about my writing so please know that everything you say means a lot to me and has cheered me up today. 

The private room that was neatly tucked into a corner of The Garrison public house was now being polluted with a heavy and thick coating of tobacco smoke. The white tendrils of it swirled above the heads of the three Shelby brothers that now resided within its walls, and the culprit who’s cigarette was beginning to burn down now brought a whiskey glass to his lips. 

“This is exactly what we needed boys, eh?” Tommy wistfully commented as the burning alcohol made its way down his throat. Both his brothers nodded in agreement- both of them probably in the same mind as Tommy and being thankful it was a Friday evening. It’d been a busy week for the Shelby’s, but earnings were high and trouble was low. It seemed that that had been enough cause to celebrate. Plus the dingy pub had seemed most appealing to Tommy since he hadn’t seen you all day, and being here allowed him to at least be in the same vicinity as you while you worked.

He could hear your voice through the opening in the private rooms wall and he could spy you every now and again from outside the door as you flitted from table to table, cleaning up glasses and pouring alcoholic refills into the cups of the boisterous men who crowded the bar. You’d only shared a few words with him since his arrival, but he understood completely that you were undeniably busy. Besides Tommy could be a patient man when the need arose, and he’d be patient tonight. He could wait for your attention. He’d waited for it since he was fifteen, another few hours would inflict no harm on his heart.

It was as if you’d read his thoughts and had decided to grace him with your presence because suddenly he could hear your footsteps at the door, and as he looked up from the table he met your eyes. Tommy took a long drag of his cigarette as he raked his eyes over you, and as he exhaled the smoke he let out a low whistle that was inaudible against the backdrop of noise coming from the pub. 

You were a vision to him despite the fact you felt flushed and worn out, and those blue eyes of his appreciated how your skirt of midnight velvet clung to your body in all the right places and how the sweaty tendrils of your hair cascaded around your face. Your shirt was tight around your chest but dipped at the waist and Tommy let his mind almost run away with himself when he pictured how you looked out of our clothes. Curvaceous and utterly breath-taking, and the image was his and only his. 

“Refill, boys?” you smirked beautifully, making your way over to them and shaking the half empty bottle of whiskey in your hand. Arthur took it from you gratefully, beaming toothily at you. You smiled when Tommy rose from the leather booth to take your hands, his eyes burning with something that made a fire light somewhere deep inside you. 

“Give us a kiss, love” he said, voice rough and rugged from all the smoke he had consumed into his lungs and you grinned devilishly as you threw an arm around his neck. Your lips were on his then and you could tell he’d missed you all day because he kissed you so softly it almost felt like his lips were feathers. He gave your waist a little squeeze as he pulled away and you knew he was saving how he really wanted to kiss you for when you were alone and not in a crowded bar. 

“You alright? No one giving you any hassle is there?” he questioned and you didn’t miss how his eyes skipped over your head and straight to the crowd of Irish men that were rambling loudly and jeering from across the pub.

It was no secret that he hated the fact you worked here where there was always bound to be brawls and arguments. He would lose his mind if you were ever hurt. Plus the fact you were the most beautiful girl in all of Birmingham didn’t help either, since idiotic drunks always tried their hand at flirting with you. 

“I’m alright, love” you told him with a genuine smile “I can handle myself, you know” 

With that you leaned up and gave him one last peck, savouring the feeling of his lips on yours and then you walked away from him to return behind the bar. It was endearing how Tommy worried about you, and the fact yours was only a new relationship was probably the reason Tommy was displaying such care towards you. As you wiped some glasses clean you couldn’t help but smile to yourself as you thought of him and how much you loved him. 

It’d only been two months since Tommy had confessed his feelings for you, late one night on your doorstep. Tommy had made it a tradition to walk you home each evening after your shift at The Garrison, even if he had been drinking there or not. Each night like clockwork he’d be there outside the pub (or sometimes he’d send a trusted Peaky Blinder to escort you home if he had business to attend) and each night outside your front door he’d bid you goodnight after kissing your cheek. 

Then, two months ago, he’d blurted out rather drunkenly how much he loved you and how he’d loved you since he was fifteen. He hadn’t stopped telling you he loved you since. Not that you were complaining. You yourself had loved him for a length of time that seemed like forever. 

A high pitched whistle that sounded from across the pub grabbed your attention and with it your wistful thoughts of Tommy trickled from your mind. The fleeting noise had come from the rowdy table of Irishmen and you narrowed your eyes when you spied one of them beckoning you over with a harsh gesture. You hated when people treated you like a servant, and all this man was short of doing was clicking his fingers at you. You grimaced to yourself and snatched the bottle of scotch from the bar as you began to walk over to their table. 

You walked through the hazy cloud of smoke that was rising from the table and making its way through the air, and as you did you tried to ignore the cat calls and whistles that followed you. You were used to it though, yet you still felt disgusted that men felt the need to objectify women and reduce them to something to whistle at. 

“You need a top up, fellas?” you said in your most polite voice even though you wanted to smash the bottle of Irish scotch over the head of one of the men who was now peering at you through glassy eyes like you were something to eat. 

“I’d drink a tall glass of you, if you’re offerin love” the man who spoke was burly and bearded, and had piercing eyes that made you feel as if he was undressing you in his mind at the way he dragged them over your body. Your eyes flickered to the private room where Tommy sat but it didn’t seem like he was looking your way. Good, you thought, you could handle a drunk flirt without the wrath of a Shelby getting involved. 

“Sorry Mister, the only thing I’m offering is scotch. Drink it or get out” you told him, your answer being mocked by a low murmur of feigned shock that was brought on by the other snickering men. Your words didn’t seem to register with the half inebriated Irish man as he leaned towards you with those eyes still gazing at you uncomfortably. 

“Come on lass, don’t be like that. Sit down with us and have a drink” his hand collided with your back side as he spoke and his actions seemed to bring on a rush of laughter from his audience, but you weren’t laughing. 

“Don’t touch me” you warned him, wrapping a hand around the neck of the bottle and beginning to walk away with the intention to go tell Harry to remove the men from the pub, but before you could take another step a hand came and gripped your arm. 

“I said sit down and have a drink” the man slurred, the stench of his breath ripe with the scent of whiskey and scotch “if you’re lucky I’ll take you home tonight and show you a good time” 

You struggled a little trying to remove yourself from his grip but he had his hand grasped pretty tightly around your wrist. You gripped the bottle of scotch tighter but before you could swing it to hit him, a voice that was cold and dangerous rang through the pub. 

“Get your fucking hands off her”

Tommy Shelby was a demonic shadow that now cast itself in all its mighty glory within the doorway of the private room, and in its wake the heavy cloud it brought silenced each sound in the pub. Men who had been deep in conversation within each corner of The Garrison, and who had not been paying attention to your struggle with the Irish now seemed to be entirely focused on the way Tommy stalked towards where you stood. The bearded thug still held your wrist in his dirty hand and his eyes now narrowed on Tommy’s dark frame as he made his way over with his shoulders straight and his fists balled at his sides. 

“Yeah? Who the fuck are you?” the Dubliner slurred angrily and the murderous way Tommy eyed the man made your heart pound. Trouble and violence hung in the air like an infectious disease, and by the way Tommy was beginning to tremble made you believe he had become contaminated. 

Arthur and John now flanked Tommy’s sides, reminiscent of the embodiment of conscience but instead of one being good and the other evil you could tell that they would both spur Tommy on when it came to fighting. 

“Who am I?” Tommy answered with “If you don’t fucking let her go I’m going to be your worst nightmare”  

Silence followed and the clock that hung over the bar ticked ominously like it was counting down the seconds before an explosion. Your heart rattled inside you and you tried to plead with your eyes for Tommy to not start any trouble. But when the Irish thug didn’t release his hold on you all hell broke loose. 

Tommy swung his fist and when it collided with the man’s face it made him drop his hand from your arm, the force of being knocked sideways then made you drop the bottle of scotch onto the ground. It shattered everywhere but the crisp noise of it was lost as a great and violent din erupted throughout The Garrison. The table that the Irishmen had been drinking at was flipped over- glasses and bottles smashing everywhere- and fists flew in every direction as all three Shelby men took out to fight. 

You were pushed out of the way by a concerned Arthur and although he was trying to help it caused you to stumble and fall on the ground. You huffed heavily as you fell on your bottom, landing right in a puddle of spilled whiskey that had trailed out of a knocked over bottle. Just one peaceful night, you thought, that’s all you asked for, and what did you get? A fucking fist fight and a soaking wet skirt that would probably smell like a brewery. 

“Hey!” you shouted loudly as you stood up but it seemed that none of the brawling men could hear you. You shouted again as you made your way over to Tommy who was now bleeding from his lip but those same lips were cocked into an evil smirk as he drew back his hand and brought it forward to meet the Irish mans face. The way he cupped his now broken nose with his hands gave you an opportunity to stand in front of him before he could retaliate to hurt Tommy more. 

“Stop it!” you yelled as you held up your hands in front of a now mad looking Tommy. It seemed that finally your shouts had worked because all fighting seemed to cease. All around you was chaos- smashed glass, broken chairs, flipped over tables and panting men who were bleeding and bruised. 

“Thomas, stop it please” you looked at him “it’s pointless, alright? He’s dumb and drunk, and definitely not worth it” 

He just stared at you for a minute, his shoulders heaving up and down rapidly and his eyes dancing in his head. It took a moment before that murderous glint made itself scarce from his face and when it was gone it was replaced by a much calmer danger. 

“You don’t seem to be from around here, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt” Tommy looked past you and spoke coldly to the man who minutes before had hassled you “but this is my fucking city, and my girl. You ever lay a hand on her again…..you ever so much as fucking look in her direction and I’ll have you strung up. Now get the fuck out, and don’t ever set foot in this pub again” 

Thankfully the men seemed to heed Tommy’s warning (they’d be foolish not to since in that moment he looked like Lucifer in a three piece) and they made their way out of The Garrison in single file. The bearded Dubliner eyed you coldly as he made his way out and before he left he spit viciously at the ground. 

“Leave it!” you warned Tommy as he made to lunge at the man again, your hands resting on his chest and pushing him back. His thrumming heartbeat seemed to slowly subside under your touch but his breathing still sounded erratic. The trouble was over though and you were thankful it hadn’t escalated anymore than Tommy would have wanted it to. If he had his way all those men would be sleeping in fresh graves tonight. 

After the brawl most of the other men had hurried off home, including Arthur and John who were both on the drunk side and had left hyped up from the fight. Tommy had stayed behind to help you clean up all the broken glass and fix the furniture, and he now sat perched on one of the stools at the bar, swigging out of a whiskey bottle.

He now watched you as you began to walk towards him from where you’d come from the back room, hips swaying tantalisingly as you placed yourself between his legs. You had a wad of cloth in your hands and you took the bottle of whiskey from Tommy’s and let the dark liquid soak the material. 

He winced as you began to clean the cut at the corner of his eye that had caused a trickle of crimson blood to run down his face. You continued to clean his face up, feeling how his eyes never left you and shivering slightly when he placed his hands on your hips. 

“I wonder how many times you’ve patched up my injuries over the years?” Tommy began lightly with a laugh, but that laugh turned to another sharp wince when you pressed the wad against the gash in his eye once more. It was true that you’d cleaned Tommy’s wounds countless times. Even before you were together he had always gotten you to fix him up after brawls. 

“And I wonder how many times I was the cause of those injuries?” you said to him crossly with a pout and a furrow to the brow, but he just held you tighter, his hands sliding down your hips. 

“I would gladly take a beating every day to protect you” he said as he rested his forehead on yours, but despite his words you sighed and pulled away from him. 

“The thing is Tommy, you don’t have to” you told him softly as you placed your hands on his face “not everything has to end in a fight. I told you I can handle myself, and I meant it. I’ve dealt with drunken men every night here since I was seventeen. I don’t need you fighting my battles for me” 

“I don’t like other men putting their hands on you” Tommy’s eyes were glinting with the haunting memory of fresh violence, and you sighed as you let your hands trail from his face to his neck. 

“You don’t need to worry about that. Those men think they’re brave in front of their friends, and flirt with me to gain a reaction. That’s all it is” you reassured him “I’m all yours, Tommy. I’ve always been” 

“All mine, huh?” he smirked coyly, opening his legs wider on the stool and bringing you even closer to him. You could feel his hands roam your body over the velvet of your skirt and you shivered when he placed his lips on your neck. 

“Take me home, Tommy” you whispered to him as he kissed along your jaw line, and you could actually feel him smirk triumphantly against your skin and then he pulled away from you. 

“Let’s go” he told you, a different sort of spark lighting up his eyes now and you knew he’d bring you home and make you prove just how much you belonged to each other. The thought made your knees tremble already. 

You leaned over to kiss his lips passionately, but you forgot how just an hour before it had gushed blood from the impact of a punch, and now it was swollen and bruised.

He winced greatly, and as you pulled away from him you said three words that made him chase you around The Garrison childishly until you both were breathless in a different way than you had imagined beforehand. 

“Serves you right” 

[bestwishes1986]

2am Guest (pt 1 of Val and Donavan)

The rain was coming down in sheets that Tuesday night across London. Val stood with a glass of water in his small kitchen. His thick fingers holding the glass as if it were a lifeline to some unseen creature. Ten deaths, bodies ripped apart, the wings of each fairy consumed on sight. He had been wracking his brain as to why for days. All since he had met That Man. Donovan Roe, tall, muscular and above all beautiful with those sad gray eyes. Val had been so sure he had been the monster he had chased through brothels, tea rooms, opuim dens and back alley surgery theatres. But he had been wrong, all he had found with Donavan had been a scared twenty three year old on the run from that same killer.

Taking a long drag of the water he thought about those gray eyes pleading with him to let him go. Donovan was an incubus who had a few times gone to far in feeding. Left corpses in cheap hotels, by all rights Val should have brought him before King and the Council of Life. But something about those eyes had caused him to pause. Incubuses weren’t like other creatures, they couldn’t live without taking life. He knew that, had seen the bodies that Donovan had admitted to being his victims. No sign of a struggle, no bruises, just looks of pure pleasure burned into their final moments. He had brought Donovan to the Castle morgue under a false name and with a hood over his face.

Had he known then, that he would let the boy go? Even at twenty three Donovan seemed like a boy to him in his early forties. But what had done it? What had caused him to turn his back on the law, on the Council and let the man out at the Globe Theatre? He had driven them there, the drive silent. Silent save for Donovan’s sobs. The young man may have grown into a tall muscular man, but in the face of his own passive brutality he was nothing more than a scared child. The car had idled there for a while, he had waited hoping Donovan would run into the night. But instead he had been forced to turn the motor off. Get out and walk around the car to the passenger side and yank him out.

Donovan was a foot taller than him, but he was a stout man with more muscle than fat on his body. So getting the larger man out wasn’t a hardship.

“Please help me.” That request from the weak, labored by guilt voice had been too much for him. He had shoved the man away and got in his car and driven away. Looking in the rear view mirror, watching the man crumple to his knees on the sidewalk.

The water gone he went to the sink and crouched low. He only wore an undershirt over his expansive chest and tapered waist and blue boxer briefs. His vanilla skin beneath the overhead light glowed as he dug around the cleaning supplies in the kitchen cupboard for the tall bottle of vodka. Standing again he got a few ice cubes into the glass. A frown etched across his square sparsely bearded face that had once been a five o’clock shadow.

He poured the vodka half way up the glass and watched the ice cubes float a bit then dunked low and settled at the bottom of the glass. Val closed his eyes and thought of his daughter. Barely six years old who still believed his wife was on holiday. She had been the third victim of the killer, how would he form the words to convey hope to his Abigail? Sighing heavily he lifted the cup to his lips and drank.

A soft tapping at the door drew his attention from the glass and his thoughts. He glanced at the stove clock with it’s green numbers against the black plastic and glass. Two A.M. it read. He padded across the hardwood floor on long pale bare feet to the door and peeked through the small gold rimmed peephole. It took him a moment to focus with the darkness and rain but when the tall man came into view, he yanked open the door after unlocking it.

“Get in here,” he hissed, keeping his voice low.

Looking as pitiful as a puppy left out in the rain, Donavan slowly and timidly walked over the threshold. His thick soled boots creating noise Val did not want Abigail to hear. He glanced back into the house and waited but heard nothing as he closed the door.

“Take those off.” Val whispered before he rushed from the spot and down the hallway to the bathroom and grabbed towels and a first aid kit. He returned to the front door to see Donavan sitting struggling to get his one remaining boot off to our beside the other. Val didn’t know if it was the frustration on the young man’s face or the fact three toes were jutting out of a large hole in the other foot’s sock. But he felt pity. Once the boot was off and beside the other one, Donavan stood in a hurry. His white t shirt stuck to his chest and abs as if painted on. He was shivering but tried to look at attention as if Val were a drill sergeant.

“It’s done sir,” Donavan states and Val rubs at his eyes.

“I can see that, what are you doing here? This is my home, you have no right coming here,” Val says in a voice with a dangerous edge.

“I’m in trouble and didn’t know where to go, what to do, you’re card has your address on it. So I came. Please sir ya have to help me.” Donovan said as he lost his composure. As if reality had peeled off a layer of itself Val watched the glamour fade from Donavan and all the cuts and bruises appeared in the place of unruined skin.

Val’s dark eyes widened in horror at the sight of the gashes and bruises. His cop brain turned in his head analysis already working as he grabbed the man by the arm and led him to one of the chairs at the kitchen table.

“Get out of your wet clothes and dried off and we can talk about what’s got into you and taken chunks for souvenirs it looks like.” Val jokes, it was in poor taste but it’s how he handled the crisis and this was a crisis. The man looked at him bewildered for a moment but still reached down and peeled the bloody wet shirt from his chest. He handed it to Val with apologies, Val let the words go as he held the shirt away from him and with his toes pressed on the release of the lid of the trash bin and dropped it in.

“I’ll give you a new one. It’s in ribbons anyway. Now sit for a moment while I turn the kettle on and get you dried off. Then a shower and bandages will be applied you can sleep here tonight or morning as it were.” Val said thinking he was being very spot on for being in the presence of a killer, he had to keep reminding himself of that. The man looked downright pathetic with how his head hung, dark bangs hanging around those sharp gray eyes. The eyes that were watching him with an expression of gratitude.

Val realized he had met those eyes gaze a moment too long and hastily turned his back to him and moved to walk to the electric kettle and ended up walking into the kitchen island. Pain shot up his torso and he had to bite down on his bottom lip to not make a sound.

“Sir, are you alright?!” He heard the deep husky voice of Donavan ask in alarm.

“Ye don’t need to be formal, I’m standing here in my underwear making a right fool of myself in front of ye,” Val mutters as he walks around the traitorous island to the kettle.

“I don’t know your first name. But Teague sounds not right to me to say cause of your wife.” Donovan said in a soft tone. The mention of Teagan cut Val deep behind the ribs where his heart beat. He froze and Donavan watched the long sculpted back of Val as he gripped the counter. The kitchen was quiet for far too long.

“…Teague…?” Donovan asked, the body before him stiffened. Donovan frowned at that, he knew he had done wrong by saying the name. But it was out of his mouth.

“Valiant. My name is Valiant Teague, but just call me Val, sorry I had a drink before you came here. It’s made me a bit…weak.” Val lied to save face and was bewildered as to why he felt the need to. He busies himself with the kettle and water and then moved to the pantry for tea. He was aware of Donavan watching him but didn’t feel fear.

Donovan patiently waited, his eyes enjoying the view of the man. His pert round arse almost made him forget the horrible day he had. Almost. When the shorter man turned with two steaming mugs of tea Donavan had tried to look at his face first, but his eyes had betrayed him and he had looked between the men’s legs first at what had to be the most impressive flaccid cock he had ever seen. Val cleared his throat and Donavan raised his eyes to Val’s. It looks could kill Donavan would be a pile of ashes.

“Sorry, just distracting myself.” Donavan said offhandedly looking innocent and Val’s eyes narrowed.

“You come here half dead, and you still have a mind to objectify me? After mentioning my dead wife no less?” Val asks, trying to keep his voice down.

“Half dead isn’t all dead Si….Val, I already apologized. What more can I do?” Donavan asks his own irritation to get the better of him.

“Drink your tea and let’s get you in the shower. Before you freeze to death in my kitchen.” Val states as he takes a sip from his own mug.

“Your kitchen with it’s murderous island,” Donavan said as he took a swig.

“Cheeky lil shit.” Val thought from behind his mug but a smile played at the corners of his mouth all the same. Donavan tried to smile but winced from laughter that stretched his wounded ribs.

[vmheadquarters]

We’re going to play a game of written hot potato! Dozens of your favorite authors will take turns telling this story. Each writer will craft a chapter (with no prior planning) and then “toss” the story to the next person to continue the tale. No one knows what will happen, so expect the unexpected! Follow the “vmhq presents” and “murder we wrote” tags for all the installments, or read the story as it develops on AO3. — Chapter Three of MURDER, WE WROTE is written by @saoirsekonstantin​

And stayed tuned next week for Ch.4 from @chikabiddy​ -tag, you’re it!

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CHAPTER THREE by @saoirsekonstantin​

The sleet changed over to lacy flakes of fluffy snow that drifted from the sky, further covering everything in a thick blanket of white as far as the eye could see, while the owl flew overhead.  It did a cautious circuit over the house before deciding it wasn’t safe there anymore.  Flying to the left, it grew tinier in the stormy night sky until it moved out of sight, but Veronica didn’t notice; instead she raced around the back of the house toward Gia’s scream.

Logan and Wallace ran right beside her through a foot of snow, and all three came to a screeching halt when the light of their flashlights found a male body covered, in part, by snow.  Blood stained the snow surrounding him, turning it a muted maroon color.  A tree branch almost as long as Logan’s arm protruded from the man’s chest.

Tucked between two fingers, and sticking up out of the cup of his palm, was a photo of two men being intimate.  It reminded her of the image she’d seen of ‘Joe the Boss’ Masseria with the playing card in his hand, in her favorite vintage crime scene photo.  An overzealous crime scene photographer staged the infamous picture of him lying dead on the floor of a Coney Island restaurant, with the blood-spattered Ace of Spades posed resting between two fingers of his bloody hand.

She suspected a similar, if not more sinister, scenario here.  There was no way a body that big had fallen without the impact dislodging whatever was in his hand.  Despite the ever-deepening snow surrounding the body, from her spot a few feet away she saw cuts and abrasions on his hands, implying he fought back; so that would make him holding onto a photo even less likely.

About five yards straight ahead, past a few longer tufts of dead grass breaking through the snow, the red soles and three-inch heels of Gia’s ‘cute’ but useless boots stuck out of a shadowy snow bank.

Veronica stepped over to the snow-covered male body and crouched down.  After removing her glove with her teeth again, she brought her fingers to the man’s wrist, which was protruding out of the snow.  While trying in vain to find a pulse, she took a deep inhale of the crisp, snow-filled air and called out, “Gia, Can you hear me?  Are you okay?”

The gusting wind caused the branches of a nearby tree to shift, and snow cascaded down on both bodies. Gia gave no response to her voice, or to the heavy snow falling onto her.

Veronica glanced up at Logan and Wallace when she still found no pulse on the guy, she shook her head before rising and stepping around the body.

Her foot hit a slick spot, and she slipped, almost falling—except Logan was right beside her, and reached out, grabbing her. “I got you.”

With a soft up tilt of her lips she admitted, “You always do.”

He grinned at her.  “For better or for worse, I always will.”

She glanced away, and they resumed taking cautious steps towards Gia.  They reached her lying in the snowbank and discovered that when she fell, her face had turned just enough to keep her from suffocating.  Veronica reached towards her, and Logan helped her roll Gia over.  With Gia’s eyes closed and the lack of worry lines, she could have been fast asleep.

Veronica watched while Wallace reached down and touched Gia’s wrist.  She crossed her fingers and offered a prayer to whoever would listen, ‘Please let her be alive,’ while waiting for him to say Gia had a pulse beating against his fingers.

He let out a heavy gust of air.  “She’s alive.”  He leaned down and peered at her chest.  “And she’s breathing.”

Veronica gave a single jerk of her head.  “Good, now let’s look at the dead body real quick. Take a few pictures before getting Gia out of the cold.”

Logan held out his arm for Veronica, who grabbed hold of it before taking the few steps back to the body.  She took out her phone, and snapped pictures from every angle of everything she thought the police might want, even zooming in on the branch sticking out of the dead guy’s chest and the photo in his hand.

She took a deep breath of the crisp night air and furrowed her brows, uncertain whether the metallic tang in her mouth was from the snow in the air or the blood on the ground.

When she took the last photo, she leaned in closer to the guy’s snow-covered face.  After hoping the police would forgive her for touching the body, she brushed the snow from his face before gasping.  “Crap! Logan, it’s Norris Clayton.”

Dick and company chose that moment to come clamoring over through the snow drifts.  “We heard a scream.  Who’d you kill now, Ms. Black Widow?  Shit! I was kidding but isn’t that the guy who had a crush on you in school?  See, Logan, I was right.  She’s a spider waiting to eat you alive when you let your guard down.”  He affected a high-pitched voice. “Come into my parlor, so I can devour you.”

With a frown, she shook her head, ignoring Dick. “Dad said, Norris is a Deputy Sheriff now; so we’ve got a dead Deputy and a dead P.I. who used to be a deputy.”

Dick wandered over, trudging through the foot of deep snow, and after leaning closer to the body he grabbed the photo.  “Hey, what’s this?”

Veronica reached for it, but it was too late, Dick was already getting his wet fingers all over it.

Dick cackled.  “Dude, Luke, what the hell?  You prefer dudes over chicks?”

Luke snatched the photo out of Dick’s hand, and without more than a quick glance at it, moved to tear it in half; but Veronica swiped it out of his grasp.  “I don’t care who you like or what gender you prefer.  However, I also don’t care how embarrassing you find a piece of evidence, or how much you want to keep something a secret.  You destroy evidence and I’ll make sure the authorities hear about it; and you’ll need to explain publicly why you tore up a photo of you and Conner Larkin in flagrante, which I can describe with perfect clarity. And now everyone here knows it, so think twice before you go touching my evidence again.”

While she pocketed the picture for safekeeping and took her taser out of her messenger bag, Luke scowled. “Your evidence? Listen here, you little know-it-all bit—”

Logan interrupted. “I’d watch what you say if I were you and show a little respect.”

With a raised eyebrow, Luke asked, “Why, you going to beat me up?”

Logan, chuckled, and shook his head.  “Won’t have to.  She’ll splay you out in the snow with a jolt from Mr. Sparky, which is already in her hand.”  She waved her taser at him with a smirk, while Logan continued. “Make no mistake, I might make a habit of jumping in and protecting Veronica, but she can take care of herself, especially against the likes of a pretty, pampered, rich boy like you.”

Luke scoffed.  “Oh, like you’re not just as pampered and rich as I am?”

With a low, bitter laugh, Logan said, “I’ve got way more money than you could ever hope to have, but no one ever pampered me. Daddy Dearest made sure of that.  I can take care of myself.”

Veronica smirked.  “You’re also prettier than he is by a long shot.  Those arms, hubba-hubba.”

Logan laughed. “Why, Mars, are you objectifying me?”

She smirked but didn’t answer. Dick leaned over Gia’s prone form, and while he glared, asked, “So, did you kill Gia, too?”

Veronica crossed her arms over her chest.  “I didn’t kill anyone, and Gia’s still alive. Which brings us to the matter at hand; which of you strong strapping men will carry Gia into the caretaker’s house?”

Cole took a step back. “Not me. Can’t we just leave her here until she wakes up?”

Veronica rolled her eyes and articulated each syllable with crisp clarity. “And not only leave her unprotected, but let her die of hypothermia instead?”

Logan took a step forward. “I’ll do it.”

With a shake of her head, Veronica said, “No, you and Wallace are at my back and sides since you’re the only ones I’m certain aren’t killing people.  It’s got to be someone else who carries her, or…”

She marched back over to Gia, slipping, and landing in Logan’s arms.  While he righted her, she said, “See, I need you watching my six.”

He chuckled and helped her over to Gia. She leaned down and slapped Gia a few times, with increasing force.  “Come on Gia, nobody has time for you to be lying around while bodies are dropping like it’s going out of style.”

On the fourth slap, Gia moaned.  “Ugh, stop already.  I told you, Veronica Mars, they do not make these boots for hiking through snow.  What’d I trip over, anyway?  I would have been fine, but I hit ice.”

Dick leaned closer.  “Another of Ronnie’s victims… sorry, boy-toys. Norris somebody.”

Veronica stood back up and faced Dick.  “He and I hardly knew each other.  I cleared his name when a dirty ATF agent tried to frame him, but I spent all of an hour talking to him in my time in Neptune. And I didn’t kill anyone.”

With a smirk, Dick crossed his arms over his chest, mimicking her. “And I didn’t say you did.  I said he was another victim of yours, as in you broke his heart, just like that Leo guy and Piz, and Troy, and Logan.”  Wagging a finger at her, he said, “If you get my boy killed, I’m gonna be pissed. You already got my dad and my brother killed.  Logan dies because of you and I’m gonna go ninja on you.”

When she began raising her arm with Mr. Sparky in it, Logan grabbed it. “Don’t, he’s not worth the trouble of explaining why you tasered him after this is all over.  And if you taser him now, we’ll have someone much heavier to carry than Gia, since he won’t be able to walk.  And to make matters worse, he’d play that card for as long as possible.”

He turned and faced Dick, eyes hard, his voice steel. “And for the record Dick, I’m tired of you always blaming Veronica for every little thing that goes wrong in your life.  Your dad was a crook who died in prison, because even at rock bottom, he couldn’t dial back the elitist bullshit.  And your brother was a rapist and murderer, who took a stroll off the roof of a building all on his own because he was too much of a coward to face the consequences of his own actions.  Both were their own people, who made their own choices and paid the price for them.  Veronica had nothing to do with either of their deaths, even if Cassidy twisted the knife a little deeper by forcing Veronica and I to bear witness to his end.”

Dick took two steps closer to Logan and snarled. “But if she had minded her own business, no one would have figured out what Dad was doing. And Cassidy was a victim, too.”

Logan shook his head. “They would have figured it out; only he would have had time to add even more victims to his list of innocents, who lost their life savings because of him.  Kendall was talking to the authorities.  And Veronica was Cassidy’s victim, not the other way around. Yes, he was Woody’s victim; however, you don’t see me or Veronica using our status as the victims of grown men misbehaving as an excuse to blow up a bus full of kids, do you?  Your brother may have still been a kid, but he made grownup decisions and hurt people.”

Dick threw up his hands and stomped off through the ever-deepening snow, while calling over his shoulder, “Whatever, dude. When you become another casualty of hers, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”  The surrounding snow dampened his voice and it faded on the increasing wind with his every step away from the group.

Logan took a step towards him, but stopped and glanced at everyone who was staring between him and Dick’s retreating form. “I’ll let him cool off.”

Gia pouted. “Did you have to bring up my dad?”

He shook his head.  “Just stating the facts.  What your dad did wasn’t your fault, but I’m not going to pussy-foot around the fact he took advantage of and hurt innocent kids for his own pleasure. I’m hoping he and my dad are roasting in hell together.”

Veronica took his hand in hers and squeezed.  “If there’s any justice they are.  Now, we need to look inside the caretaker’s home. There might be a phone, or something else that might prove useful.”

Susan frowned, her arms akimbo.  “And how are we going to do that?  We checked, both doors are locked.”

With a smirk, Veronica rifled through her messenger bag and pulled out her lock-picking kit.  “Do you think a locked door has ever stopped me?”

Logan chuckled. “I know for a fact that not even an armed security system has stopped you.  Though I still maintain you just wanted to see me in nothing but a towel.”

She batted her lashes at him and brought her free hand up to her chest. “Moi?”

He nodded, and she tilted her head and gave him a once-over before returning the nod. “With those arms, the way they are now? I might pay good money for that, just to see what else has improved with time.”

He gave her his patented smirk and said in a sing-song voice, “You think I’m hot.”

She giggled before slapping her hand over her mouth, and saying though her fingers, “That never happened.”  He smirked but didn't contradict her, so after lowering her hand, she eyed him again. “And you know how good you look, with or without clothes.”

Wallace scowled.  “Hey, you think the two of you can stop flirting long enough to figure out a way off of this death trap of an island?  I may not have been the next victim, but statistically, as the only Black man here, my number is coming.”

She grinned.  “Don’t worry, Papa Bear, I’m not letting you or Logan out of my sight, so neither of you will shuffle off this mortal coil anytime soon.”

After turning, she led them back through the snow drifts to the front door of the caretaker’s house; and after handing her flashlight to Wallace he pointed it at the lock, while she took off her gloves and went to work unlocking the door.

Within a minute she pushed the door open and took back her light before stepping through the doorway. She turned and flashed the light on the wall by the door.  “Dammit.  Nobody touch anything.  I think there is blood by the light switch.”

With a shaky hand tucked inside her jacket sleeve to keep both the blood from her hand and her prints from the bloody light switch, she reached out flipped it on, confirming her suspicions.  Blood smears covered the wall, as if someone had dragged a bloody hand along the wall while trying to support him or herself.

After turning and facing the rest of the room, she narrowed her eyes and picked her way through the wreckage of overturned furniture and living-room debris, including a smashed flower vase with the wilting flowers covered by the shards of blue glass and several magazines thrown into the air, and allowed to land where they would.  She reached the satellite phone on one of the few upright pieces of furniture beside the couch in the room.  She pushed the on button but nothing happened.  After picking it up, she turned it over. “Everyone keep your eyes out for the battery.”

Wallace used his boot to move some magazines. “Like the one over here smashed to smithereens?”

She skirted around the large triple blood pools on the floor.  One of them had drag marks leading up the staircase.  For the time being she ignored that and leaned closer to the shattered rechargeable battery on the floor.  “Yeah, like that.”

Logan stood inside the door. “Is it just me, or is there one blood pool too many for the number of bodies we have?  And what can I do to stop you from following the trail of blood up the stairs?”

Her lips turned up at the corners.  “Not a thing.  I will turn over every stone, look through every closet,”  She picked her way around the room, her eyes scanning everything while she continued talking. “And, hello, rifle through every backpack hiding in plain view behind an overturned chair.  I won’t miss any clues if I can help it.  Your life and Wallace’s may depend on it.  And I’ll be damned if I get either of you hurt.”

Logan dropped his voice an octave, to that tender voice he reserved for Veronica.  “You know, you don’t have to save everybody.”

With a shake of her head, she said, “Not trying to save everybody, just those who matter to me, those I love and would be nothing without.  Those who are the air that keeps me breathing.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, straightening up. “Are we doing this now?”

She gave him a shrug while she crouched and unzipped the backpack. “It’s as good a time as any, and I need you to know I still need you and I miss you.  I—I still love you, always have.  Even if you don’t take me back, I need to say it to your face at least once.  You deserve that much from me, after everything I’ve put you through.  I need to pull on my big-girl panties and admit, to your face, that you’re the only man I’ve ever truly loved; and the only one who not only gets me, but has always supported me, even when you thought I was being stupid and reckless.”

He shifted on his feet and took a step closer to her.  “What changed?  You’ve never admitted to any of this before, not in so many words, at least.”

She flashed the light into the bag, and after making brief eye contact with him, glanced into the backpack. “Life without you in it sucks. I hate it and want to go back to the world I had where you were always there.  And I’m tired of fighting my feelings; somewhere along the way, I realized that the fact you scared me with all your feelings meant I felt something worth experiencing.  Living safe is boring and never taking emotional risks makes me stagnant.  If I can take risks in every other aspect of my life, why shouldn’t I be just as brave in this instance and take the one risk that matters most?  If I’m right, and my life is a shallow empty shell without you in it, imagine what my—our—lives, together, can be... if I grow up, and act like a mature grown adult who isn’t too scared to commit, or even say I love you.”  She made eye contact again. “I do, ya know?  I love you so much.”  After glancing back at the almost empty bag, she continued, “It hurts when we’re apart, and that’s what scared me.  That you’re so vital to my happiness.  Sue says,—”

“Wait, who’s Sue?”

With heat rising in her cheeks she ducked her head. “Sue is my therapist.  Anyway, she said my fear of feeling emotions so much is a product of everything that happened to me—to us—and it amazes me you went the other way and feel so much.  But I want to experience that.  I want to be free of all the baggage, and I want to be free with you if you’ll have me.”

He stood there staring at her for a solid minute, his eyes flickering over every inch of her face, as if memorizing each curve. Then with a smirk he put her out of her misery.  “I’m not saying no, but how do you plan to work around the fact you go to Stanford while I go to Hearst?  What about the distance?”

Veronica shrugged, her gaze staying down, but her voice lowered.  “Wallace already drives up every weekend, so it’s a doable weekend trip.  We could switch off weekends, back and forth.  Or if that doesn’t work, you could transfer or I could transfer, either is a possibility.”

Without waiting a beat, he shook his head. “Stanford is your dream.  You always wanted to go there.  You’re not allowed to transfer because of me now that you’re there.”

Her lips turned up a little.  “I will ignore that ‘allowed’ part, because I’m sure you don't mean it in a controlling or bad way, and I don't want to start a fight over something so petty as a word.  But, for the record, I would.  I would switch out of my dream school, if it meant being with you for the rest of my life. I would give up Stanford and anything else that might get in the way.  You shouldn’t be the only one in this relationship making sacrifices and personal changes to compromise and make this work.”

She finished that statement by taking two ID’s out of the bag and standing.  “I choose you, Logan, now and always if you’ll have me.  And I choose to be your partner in this, a fifty-fifty–”  She paused. “No that's not right.  I want a one hundred-one hundred partnership.  No more lopsided relationship where you put in all the effort and make all the compromises, with me just taking from you without reciprocating.”

He took the five steps to her and pulled her into his arms before crushing his lips to hers.  They stayed like that until he pulled back, gasping for air. “I got into San Jose State University  It’s half an hour away from Stanford.”

She beamed before her lips turned down.  “Why did you apply to transfer there?”

With a smirk he said, “You’re not the only one who felt empty and stagnant.  I was hoping to convince you to give us a try one more time.  Our story is epic…”

She giggled again.  “Spanning years and continents.  Lives ruined, bloodshed…”

“Epic.”

Her eyes darted to the pools of blood. “Well, we’ve got bloodshed, and lives ruined in spades today; and, now, I’m even more determined to get you and Wallace out of here in one piece.  We’ve got a future to work on, together.”

He leaned in and gave her a tender kiss, and they stood there amid the destroyed living room, enjoying being on the same page, before a scream ripped through the small house.  They pulled apart and took each other’s hand before turning towards the scream.

Wallace smiled at them.  “I hope it works out for you guys.  You suck apart, both of you bellyaching about not being with the other. Do a brother a favor and stay together, so I can focus on my love life instead of yours.”

They laughed before the three of them climbed the stairs, stepping on the edges of the steps to avoid trekking through the bloody drag marks.  When they reached the top, everyone else clustered around a doorway. The girls all cried, clinging to each other, and Cole and Luke both bent over and threw up in the hallway.

The three friends pushed their way through the crowded hall and entered the bedroom before looking around the room; bed against the wall, a desk in the corner, bureau standing against the wall the door was in.  It appeared normal, except for the bloody drag marks leading to the only other door in the room.

Veronica let go of Logan’s hand, strode to it, and opened it, before staggering back and slamming her hand over her mouth.  After fighting her own gag reflex for a minute, she said, “Duncan!  What the hell?”

She turned towards Logan, blinking rapidly to keep her tears at bay.  The last thing she wanted was to shed tears in front of the other oh-niners.  She’d save them and share them with Logan, the other remaining member of the Fab Four, later.  For now, she said, “Maybe I am the Black Widow.  Perhaps Dick is right for the first time in history and you should get as far away from me as you can.”

Duncan Kane’s bloodied face and lifeless eyes stared out of the closet at them.  With quick steps, Logan moved behind her and gathered her into his arms, holding her tight. “Not a chance, Bobcat, wild horses won’t drag me from you now.”

Her lips turned upward before she glanced at the two IDs still in her hand and she lost her smile after she did a double take. She pulled back from Logan enough to hand them to him, but still stay in the circle of his arms, before asking, “Recognize these two jokers with a penchant for hurting people?”

He took the cards with one hand, the other holding her to him tighter and stared at them.  “Who are Adam Rodriguez and Peter Hanson?”

After shaking her head, she said, “No idea who the names belong to but look at the pictures.  Their names aren’t Adam and Peter.”

He peered at the top card. “Dylan, Dylan Goran, the ass who hurt Trina and got a beat-down from Dear Ole Dad.”

She inclined her head, so he shuffled the cards so the second one was on top and sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Gory Sorokin.  Crap!  What are these doing on this island, out in the middle of nowhere?  You don’t suppose the assholes are here, do you?”

She took the cards back from him and examined them, even holding them up to the light.  “These are top quality fake IDs, Logan.  They paid good money for these.  If these cards are here, I’d bet my college scholarship and your trust fund that Dylan and Gory are here somewhere, too—lurking in the shadows, and possibly killing people associated with me or both of us.  Remember, Leo first stole and then sold you Lilly’s sex tapes, and while not directly connected to Clayton, you led ‘the torment Veronica’ campaign at school that he tried to intervene in, or you could even get to him through the ATF agent. You gave Ben a beat-down while he was setting Clayton up for terrorism.  And Duncan, he was your ex-best friend and while he was also my ex-boyfriend, Sue showed me that what he did was rape.”

She took a deep breath and released it even while she gripped his arm tight.  “He raped me. Somehow, I made what he did okay in my mind, because I couldn't face the fact that my former best friend hurt me like that.  And then—then I dated him. Logan—I'm so sorry that I fell for his good boy, perfect choir boy routine.  I'm so sorry I ran from you and my feelings for you.”

He pulled her back into his arms. “I forgave you for that a long time ago.”

She sniffled into his chest before pulling back. “Thank you.  I’m not sure I deserve that but thank you.”

He kissed the tip of her nose.  “I’m not sweeping it under the rug or forgetting about it.  However, I’m seeing a therapist too, Jane.  We’ve been working together on my forgiving those who have hurt me and myself, too.  So, I forgive you, because I believe you’re sorry, and Jane has helped me see how much you’ve been hurting, how confused you must have been trying to deal with everything that happened to you, including me turning the school against you.”

He dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. “I’m sorry for that, and, now, you’re sorry for the things you did in our relationship, too.  Jane taught me that holding onto that hurt and anger will only hurt us both.  So I propose we both work on letting go of the pain and rage and heal together.  You and I have always been better together.  The problems between us always crop up when one of us forgets that and I want us to work this time 'Ronica.  It won't always be easy, but you're it for me, my one true love, and I'm willing to work for us if you are.”

She fell into him more and, damn the consequences, she sobbed all over him even with the oh-niners looking on.

A few minutes later that seemed like a lifetime, a weight lifted off her shoulders and she straightened, and kissed his chin, before she pulled back, straightening her shirt.  “Thank you.  We’ll talk later about all this when we don’t have more pressing matters to deal with… like bodies piling up.”

With another glance at Duncan’s body, she said, “So, Duncan’s connected to both of us, too.  Clayton is, I admit, a stretch, but the other two aren’t and if we include Troy and Piz, we’re both connected to them as well.  Troy dated me and stole the steroids after visiting Mexico with you and Luke, and you gave Piz a beat-down when you understandably thought it was him who recorded and distributed the video of him and me making out.”

The door downstairs creaked while it opened before it slammed shut and Veronica did a head count. Everyone but Dick was in the hallway; she waited a moment for him to come upstairs, but he never did.  She gave a heavy sigh.  “We need to go see who came in.”

Logan’s eyebrow rose.  “You don’t think it’s Dick?”

With a shake of her head, she said, “Wouldn’t he already be up here mouthing off?”

“Crap, you make a fair point.”

She turned in his arms and hugged him before pulling back.  “This time we all need to stay together for real,” she said, before leading the group back down the stairs.

[go-ldy]

Riverdale thoughts 4x03

Shirtless men and rocket ships, oh my.

Man so many wild things happened this week, I don't even know where to start.

Well actually I do: "....while he takes off in his rocket." LMAOOOOOOO WHAT 

And then we cut to maybe the most ridiculous rocket prop I have ever seen, amazing, glorious, five stars.

I do have some questions about this arc though. And I mean, it's Riverdale, so the answer is "don't think about it" but here we go. 

Why is the FBI cool with randomly involving Charles' teen sister in FBI business including letting her have all this deep inside information?

Why did the FBI not immediately go in all guns blazing after their pizza agent was killed?

How did the Farm sneak Polly inside of the FBI headquarters while she was literally wearing an exploding BOMB and somehow nobody noticed???

How DID Betty and Alice get themselves out of those restraints?

You really expect me to believe that Alice was a deep inside agent all of last year when she was busy, I don't know, GIVING ALL OF BETTY'S MONEY AWAY oh and TELLING THE FARM, ON TAPE, ABOUT THAT TIME SHE MURDERED SOMEONE AND HER DAUGHTER, JUGHEAD, AND FP COVERED IT UP? This storyline is unbelievable and I say this after watching an episode where a character tried to escape on his moon rocket. Anyway, Alice is an awful parent and Betty should run away but I feel like we're gonna be sold a narrative that Alice is some kind of badass hero and ugh.....

On the other hand, I was perfectly prepared to accept that Betty instinctively knew how to disarm a live bomb with a bobby pin so there you go. What can't Betty Cooper accomplish I ask you.

Lmao @ the shirtless car wash to raise money for Archie's community centre. I have to appreciate this show's adamant commitment to objectifying all of its male characters week after week. Equality achieved.

17 year old Archie beating up some thugs in the middle of the night and stealing their laundered money to give to his community centre like some kind of Robin Hood and then going around telling people like ":))))))))" was such an unbelievably stupid Archie thing to do. Very true to character tbh.

So Tony, Cheryl, and Nana Rose are basically parenting the twins?? Oh lord. Fine. 

LMAO @ the rat crawling out of Jason's dead body..... eww. And then Cheryl sews him up afterwards? Oh my god this is a place I don't want to go to or think about, please stop. (They’re not going to stop.)

It is very Riverdale that in an episode where Betty is trying to prevent cult-induced mass murder, the same narrative importance is placed on Jughead's spat with 40 yr old high school student Brett over a..... writing contest.

Hi Moose! Sorry about your stress induced breakdown! Sounds like that was a LOT.  I like the show just casually confirming Moose is bi. Cool. NOT cool was Brett outing his deep dark past at the end. Why did you do that Brett? What do you have against Moose? Does he snore in the middle of the night? Bye Moose.

How cute were Betty and Jughead in this episode? SO CUTE. "In it for the long haul." Ugh just precious.

I do feel #alone in that I would love some Bughead angst again but I also accept cuteness. It did make me sad that Betty felt like she had to deal with the Farm completely on her own and I felt like Jughead should have been more concerned that she was almost strapped to a bus and driven over a cliff or whatever but fine.

OOOH A SECRET VHS TAPE LATE NIGHT DELIVERY. Cool, cool, cool.

[punkscowardschampions]

Nancy & Rio

Nancy: UM okay Nancy: You've succeeded in making me speechless so what do you wanna say Rio: Usually I'd take that as a compliment Rio: I didn't know how to say it without sounding like a total self-absorbed bitch Rio: 'cos all you went through at yours and everything but Rio: I just can't do it anymore, Nance Nancy: Wow, that makes ME sound like a total self-absorbed bitch Nancy: but I get it, of course I do Rio: Ugh, no, so not how I meant that Rio: not like you were giving out 'do not talk about this' vibes, it was just me pussying out, lbr Rio: but you do? thank God Nancy: I kind of always give out those vibes lbr & I kind of am a self-absorbed bitch so like ?? Rio: If you wanna own that then I will say we've talked about you way more than me already so Rio: go off Nancy: Ugh Nancy: I have to own it 👑 Rio: Works for me, babe Rio: regardless of how self-obsessed my socials have me looking, I'm not my favourite topic of conversation Rio: never mind I'm sort of avoiding my parents rn so Nancy: Me either but everyone wants me to talk about it Nancy: all like who are you? or worse, how are you? Rio: Reckon 'what are you gonna do with your life?' trumps 'em both though Nancy: oh, I get that too honey, every time my parents call me Nancy: Sorry I'm not in America being your poster child for success Rio: You're doing it again 😏 Rio: Ah well, I got plans Rio: School ain't necessary for them Nancy: What can I say? He brings out the worst in me Nancy: so what are you gonna do besides leave me 💔? Rio: Awh, don't 😖 Rio: I've got lots of plans, not gonna jinx 'em before I've even started but trust Rio: I can go full-time at the bar I was doing weekends in so that's a start Nancy: is one of them make June let me copy his homework now I won't have yours 'cause I'll cry if not Nancy: but seriously, I believe in you with or without an insta post power move Rio: but of course Rio: you'll be well better off for it Rio: 🧡🧡🧡 Nancy: I reckon I still hate this for me but I love it for you Rio: You're gonna be better than fine Rio: I ain't dying Nancy: everyone needs that to be true so I'll have to Nancy: You'll be thriving who needs essays or irish in their future, good lord Rio: I mean Rio: not to rub it in but Rio: 🙌💃🍾🎊 Nancy: 😭🏫😢🎒🍀💔 Rio: 😂 Rio: At least none of the kids should care too much Rio: end of the world when I moved in with Indie, as if I'm never coming back, or don't live like 5 minutes away 🙄 Nancy: Granddad will be so happy that you're following in his 👣 though you might get that party actually Nancy: You're already his fave Rio: Nancy McKenna, are you actually ASKING for a party right now? Rio: Oh my God, now we HAVE to have one, haters be damned Nancy: We aren't talking about me so shhh Nancy: But you literally have to Nancy: 🧡🧡🧡 Rio: Alright Rio: sexy schoolgirl uniform NOT optional though Rio: not sorry Nancy: It's your party you can objectify me if you want to Nancy: I still have my posh one so Rio: 😏👌 Rio: top totty babe Nancy: I'll make it fashion Nancy: We can burn it after, pretend like I don't have another to go back to Rio: Yeah, we'll stop before burning the books Rio: even if it'd be very cathartic Nancy: Just the 🍀 ones Nancy: Pretty please Rio: No one's expecting you to pass, like Rio: even your 'rents no doubt Rio: literally zero pressure on that one Nancy: my dad is, he thinks it's hilarious Rio: Only got the complexion, like Nancy: the men in our little section of the family are such pricks Nancy: 🙄 Rio: Like that you specified, just in case Junie reads these and is like fuck yo homework Nancy: he's a babe Nancy: even when he's being unhelpful Nancy: which is mostly but that's men for you, like Rio: 😂😂 Rio: ain't gonna put him in charge of party-planning, let's put it that way Nancy: I'll do it Rio: Really? Nancy: I know HOW okay?! I just don't Nancy: usually Rio: Okay, okay! Rio: I don't doubt you Rio: go ahead Nancy: You shouldn't 'cause sexy schoolgirls is my entire coming out so the theme is easy Nancy: Gay origin story Rio: Such a perv, McKenna 😉 Nancy: I was like 12 what else would you have liked me to perv on at the time? Rio: Schlebs and porn like everyone else Rio: duh Nancy: Duh, I'd done that already Nancy: I've been gay since 👶 Rio: not on the 💻 though, I hope Nancy: 😏 Rio: Like I said, filth Nancy: didn't realise moving here meant I had to become a nun by default Nancy: awkward Rio: Someone shoulda told you Rio: churches run this country, babe Nancy: If god was a hot older lady I'd consider devoting myself 😍🙏 but Nancy: worship a man, no thanks Rio: He's not a man, heathen Nancy: depicted like one though WHAT A SURPRISE Rio: Well Jesus was defs not a ginger either so - 1  for you Nancy: Did he look like a beautiful woman or is that just art being 🌈 ? Rio: You've got the weirdest taste Nancy: excuse me I didn't 🎨 it Rio: You're into it Nancy: I've just noticed Rio: Mhmm Nancy: I've been single forever, fight me Rio: That's no excuse to sexualize our lord and saviour Rio: behave yourself Nancy: He isn't mine, that was the point Rio: He's the worlds Nancy: not my world, babe Rio: 🙄 Nancy: when are you working 'cause this party needs to be ASAP Rio: tonight Rio: but I'm working the day sunday so maybe we could do something in the evening? Nancy: Okay Nancy: I'll get it all arranged Rio: 🤞 I don't get murdered before then Rio: but I'm sure the fam will keep you posted Nancy: I'll hear your mum from here Nancy: but you're a babe with a plan, yeah? Rio: Obvs Rio: soz I ain't a babe with a genius IQ, like Rio: what can you do Nancy: Me either but if I can convince my parents, who are WAY scarier that I have to move you can definitely reassure yours you don't need exams Rio: Alright, bitch, it ain't a competition 😉 Rio: Wish me 🍀 Nancy: Doesn't mean you should let me win really easily Nancy: Or that you need luck for this Nancy: Just tell them what you told me, minus the part about my perversions and bad taste, thank you Rio: But I feel that will really soften the blow, like Rio: Yeah, I'm a dropout but Nancy is a MASSIVE creep, so, win some you lose some lads Nancy: 😂 okay okay you can out me Nancy: But genuinely you just need to prove it to them Nancy: Let them see you working for what you want, making it happen, you know Nancy: they'll worry anyway, its the parental standard Nancy: but they'll see where you're coming from too 🤞 eventually Nancy: or they won't and you get to be like look how wrong you are Nancy: either way  🙌💃🍾🎊 Rio: 🧡🧡🧡 Rio: Yeah, you're right Rio: it's happening regardless so they'll have to get used to it Nancy: Gay culture Rio: 😂 Rio: Right, I've got to go get ready Rio: plan my party, bitch Nancy: I've already begun, bitch Nancy: I approve of the enthusiasm Rio: I'd call it keen Rio: 😘 Nancy: We've both been called worse 😚 Nancy: and you should be pleased I'm getting into the spirit Rio: You've read the comments? 😏 Nancy: Have you seen how many there are? I don't have time Nancy: No need though, I can guess Rio: 😂 Rio: Fair, it's more like a 70-30 split in my favour so Rio: not bad Nancy: Keep me posted Rio: 👍

[gutterballgt]

I feel like we all need to watch 2004′s Stepford Wives again and marvel at how much more relevant it becomes with each passing year. I mean, it is a comical, existentially terrifying meta on toxic masculinity and how mediocre a man can be and still be considered the hero of a story, worthy of the heroine’s devotion.

Loooooong post. I got a lot to say on this subject.

It starts out with a few clips from a new season of TV shows, each with a feminist thrust about empowering women while men stew about being left in the dust without them actually doing anything to warrant keeping up. In the last of these promos, a married couple are separated on a tropical island and housed with professional prostitutes to see if they can be tempted away from their marriage vows.

The man, surprisingly, turns down his hot prostitute to stay “in Omaha with my Barbara”. It’s supposed to be this sweet moment of love and loyalty. Of sacrifice, because his wife is so homely while the prostitute was gorgeous and seemed devoted to his pleasure. Awwww.

The woman, who has been bombarded by multiple hot people who want her and who has only ever been with her husband, says she does love him, then jilts him for all the people responsible for what could only be a sexual awakening for her. We’re supposed to see her as a disloyal slut, turning her back on her sensitive, caring husband to have hot, dirty sex with the entire cast of a porno and a ridiculously built Hawaiian dude. How dare she, right? The Jezebel!

Then, we go back to the main studio where the heroine, Joanna, is clearly selling the new season with verve and all the confidence of a woman who knows she’s hit a hot button, and the jilted husband from the promo shows up and, instead of continuing the “sensitive, loyal man with a broken heart” shtick, he pulls out a gun, proposes a show called “let’s kill all the women!”, and tries to shoot Joanna.

We find out later that he’s already shot his wife and several of her new lovers.

I’m sorry, but we see that entirely too much in real life when women say no, when women try to leave, when women try to move on. Men become violent, even murderous, and wreak devastation on FAR more than the so-called source of their “broken heart”. At this late date, it’s too true-to-life to be as funny as it used to be.

There are too many so-called sensitive guys who feel entitled to a woman and think she has no say in the matter.

And that action -- that sudden, shocking violence by a jilted, shamed man -- is at the heart of literally everything else that happens in the movie. It’s the toxic masculinity we’re finally at least battling in public these days. The “if I can’t have you, no one can, and I’ll kill anyone who says otherwise and tries to help you” attitude.

Enter Walter, Joanna’s long-suffering husband. When she’s fired -- BECAUSE SHE WAS SHOT AT BY A VIOLENT JILTED MAN, not because she was bad at her job, her career and sanity sacrificed to some random asshole’s incoherent rage -- he quits his (lesser) job at the same company in a grand gesture of solidarity. Of course, they’re both ludicrously loaded (he states later that she’s always made 6 figures more than he could ever dream of, so it’s more like she’s loaded and he’s married to her), so it’s a largely empty gesture that costs him nothing. But it’s presented as oh, so romantic.

They proceed to move away after a short stint in a mental health facility for Joanna, who was understandably traumatized by her entire career and sense of place being yanked out from under her in addition to being shot, and again, Walter is portrayed as the supportive, caring husband, where Joanna is self-absorbed (ie., RECOVERING FROM TRAUMA) and snide to all their new neighbors (who are kind but empty behind their plastic smiles and kinda weird her out and are politely disdainful of her).

Everything about the set-up puts Joanna in the wrong to the point that she, herself, decides she’s a bad woman, a terrible mother and wife, and that she should literally change her entire self to be more like these false-smiled, plastic bimbos who are so objectified by their “drooling nerd” husbands. She even tries to recruit her friends -- Bobbie and Roger, the only two people she can connect with because they’re just as free-thinking and independent as Joanna has always been and were big names in their industries, just like her -- to buy into the Stepford way of life, though it goes so far against their grain that they can’t help but laugh about their attempts to fit in.

And Walter is thrilled. Here, he finally has the doting, stay-at-home wife and mother he always pictured for himself. He describes Stepford to the other men as “it’s like the way life is meant to be”. And, in a man’s mind, it sure is: he’s living the no-work life on his wife’s money, and he’s finally convinced her to be subservient to him. Why wouldn’t he be happy?

Isn’t that what every man wants?

So, with the dream in his hands, why wouldn’t he be insecure when Joanna starts to point out all the craziness around them, all the inconsistencies? Why wouldn’t he realize that she ISN’T really subservient to him? Not really? That she’s only doing so of her own volition and he has no real way to keep her acting that way if she chooses to take the kids and leave, as she’s threatened to when he refuses to listen to her?

This... is when his own toxic masculinity starts to grow.

Because he could have stopped the whole show when Roger was turned into a Stepford husband. He clearly knew what had happened, but he defended the whole thing 100%, arguing with Joanna about stereotyping Roger as a flaming gay instead of letting him be gay his own way, telling her that people change and she was being hysterical and selfish to find fault with Roger’s newfound “happiness”.

And he didn’t lift a finger to stop Bobbie’s transformation, even knowing she and Joanna had become best friends who were clinging to each other even harder with Roger’s sudden off-putting falseness. Even then, he was already planning Joanna’s transformation, as exemplified by the remote control she found in her house.

He’d already bought in. He was already willing to trade Joanna’s humanity for empty-eyed smiles, for sex with a subservient robot who could only praise him even if she felt nothing, for a tidy house and plenty of baked goods (which, may I remind you, Joanna was already doing while she tried so hard to be what he wanted her to be).

Then, when Joanna finally figures out the whole story -- because OF COURSE she did all the hard work to figure out who these poor women really were and what had been done to them -- and confronts him about it, what does he do? Ignore her entirely and start listing his grievances against her with his man friends cheering him on. And all his grievances are simply that she’s better at everything than him.

And she is. She’s a remarkably intelligent, talented, driven woman who had great success until a man tried to kill her and ruined her career, making her doubt herself.

She IS better than him. And that’s what he can’t stand.

That’s what none of them can stand.

And instead of feeling lucky that he got her, that she chose him even despite his obvious mediocrity, he’s furious and petulant and whines, “No! I got to hold your purse!” All the assholes chime in with “yeah, we’re the girl! and we don’t like it!”, etc., with no sense of irony that they’re demanding their wives “be the girl” because that would be okay somehow. Because women are supposed to wait on them hand and foot, raise the children out of sight and out of mind, keep the house spotless, present their perfect bodies for fucking whenever it’s wanted, and be silent and supportive whenever they’re NOT wanted.

So, it comes down to Walter’s big “hero” moment, where Joanna makes a passionate plea to save her humanity and he, at the last moment (and, more notably, out of sight of the other men), decides he can’t do that to her. Can’t turn her into an automated sex toy.

And we’re supposed to cheer.

For this minimal, absolute-least-he-could-do gesture. He just... didn’t erase his wife’s individuality when he had the chance, because he couldn’t look her in the eye and effectively kill her.

So heroic. Such a fucking sacrifice.

In reality, Joanna did all the fucking work, and all while having to convince the man she loved, who supposedly loved her, that she’s a goddamn human being that shouldn’t be turned into a goddamn robot just because he felt insecure about being a mediocre nobody.

She’s the one who had to pretend to be a perfect, subservient robot for who knows how long to fool the whole town until they could get back into the transformation facility to free all the other women. She’s the one who distracted Mike so Walter could get away and sneak into the facility.

He doesn’t even have, like, mad hacking skills. He’s allowed into the secret lab because he’s a man. And even then, he just pushes buttons randomly on the first screen he sees until the file corrupts itself and the programming breaks down. He doesn’t even know he hasn’t KILLED the first woman before he’s slapping at all the screens without rhyme or reason until all the programs stop.

And Joanna, bless her heart, gives him the credit for it. “No, that’s a man,” she says admiringly.

And then she proceeds to save Walter (again, because she’s already saved him from himself) by knocking Mike’s head off and exposing him for the robot he is, revealing the twist that Claire, Mike’s wife, was the actual neurosurgeon mastermind behind the entire plot.

And, lo and behold, her insanity sprung from her husband, the real Mike, cheating on her. From her catching them in the act and being so stressed out from overwork and trying to live up to expectations that she snapped and killed them both.

Of course, the whole plot is undone now -- thanks to Joanna -- and all the men get their house arrest in Stepford, forced to live the roles they forced on their wives (without the loss of their will, of course, so it’s not anywhere near a comparable sentence)... except Walter.

Because he’s supposed to be the hero.

I just....

Don’t get me wrong. I love the movie. It’s entertaining, and it does a masterful job of slipping in the little micro-aggressions that women deal with daily -- my favorite little stiletto through the ribs is when New Roger calls on Joanna at the assembly, but instead of calling her by her name, Joanna Eberhart, he calls her “Mrs. Walter Kresby”, completely erasing her from the address; it’s funny but also infuriating because it’s, again, too true to life -- and it’s just so well done. Stepford looks like a dream and feels like a nightmare, and it is masterful moviemaking.

But it still pisses me off because, for all its feminist edge, for all its warnings about the dangers of toxic masculinity, it still treats Walter as the hero and makes Joanna grateful to him, his doting wife who’s so proud of him.

Walter.

Who, during that last interview, is very distinctly not carrying her purse.

[tokyotheglaive]

The Problem of Valter

So, I realized while I studying for the MCAT (lol) that a lot of my beef with Valter has very little to do with his creepy factor and more with how it’s used. I’m going to put all of this below a cut because I want to talk very frankly about the horribleness that is Valter of FE8 and how (surprisingly) I think that the narrative as it stands shortchanged him as a villain.

I want to do a couple of things with this analysis. First and foremost, I want to establish some facts. First I’m going to talk about Valter’s backstory, particularly as seen in Duessel’s A-support with Cormag. Then I’m going to talk about Valter vis-à-vis the other six Generals of Grado, with a specific emphasis on Riev and Caellach. Last, I want to dive into my actual reason for getting this started, which is this: Valter could have been an incredible villain and a perfect foil for Lyon.

The thing with Valter that sort of hit me just now as I was looking at the difference between logos, pathos, and ethos was that he hasn’t always been this way. It’s irrelevant to the main route, but you find in Duessel’s support with Cormag that Valter, having lost his weapon in a fight, took up a cursed heirloom from Duessel and it “drove him mad”.

Yes… …We were in the middle of a battle. Valter had broken his lance, and when I wasn’t looking he somehow took this one. From that moment, he was changed… He killed everyone–even retreating men. I took the lance from him when I realized what had happened, but it was too late. Madness had awakened within Valter and was coursing through his body. From then on, he hungered only for battle and for blood… It’s not as though Valter was a gentle lamb before, but now his appetite for violence increased many times over. It’s all because of this cursed lance.

That’s Duessel’s actual statement. Now, I find it highly improbable that Valter “somehow” managed to snag a cursed lance from Duessel’s possession, much less one that seems to radiate that burning sort of evil that both he and Cormag seem to agree that it does. All of this indicates to me that Duessel made a miscalculation worse than he admits: he gave Valter the lance.

Now, why would he do such a thing? He admits freely that he doesn’t feel the same sort of malice from it that another might. It’s entirely possible that he, at the time, didn’t think that the lance was actually cursed in the literal regard, that the family tradition that it only be used when “madness itself rules the day” was simply an elaborate hoax to keep someone from rushing off to the battlefield and breaking an heirloom. It’s also possible that Duessel, curious about the lance, brought it to the battlefield specifically to use it/have someone else use it. Why the hell would you cart a lance you cannot use around a battlefield? It doesn’t make sense. It’s bulky, it’s heavy, and ultimately, it’s dead weight.

He did take it with him during that fight (and again and again, we can infer, considering he still has it with him when he’s talking to Cormag). I think it’s odd that he has the lance with him after Valter used it, but I’ll come back to that in a bit because I want to talk specifically about the problem of Valter. Duessel took the lance into battle for reasons unknown, Valter acquired it, used it, and went mad.

We never get to see Valter pre-madness. As a matter of fact, within the realm of the main story, we never get to see Valter as anything other than mad. Amongst the six Generals of Grado, he’s arguably the most vile. Glen and Duessel are the least deplorable of the bunch. Glen possesses ideals and an innate sense of right and wrong. He’s willing to consider the possibility that perhaps Grado isn’t going in the right direction. Duessel seems to have less conviction and less of a willingness to examine alternate routes--that being said, he does defect to your army, so there’s that. Selena’s real downfall is her inability to see beyond her love for the Emperor and for Grado as a whole. She willingly blinds herself to atrocity, and that in turn makes her complicit. Riev has supernatural darkness in him, that sort of mad-scientist nonsense involving monsters and magic. His evilness is tied up in his magic and the “fell arts”. Same with Formortiis/Lyon. The only other contender for “evil” is Caellach, and even he can pretty much only be classified as callous and opportunistic. Valter, though--Valter is something else.

I think what makes Valter so incredibly off-putting is that his evil is entirely human (at least within the realm of the main story) and entirely deliberate. He objectifies Eirika, and his misogyny disgusts the audience. He murders Glen, and as always, the death of a good man leads to the hatred of his killer. He cuts down innocents left and right. He is the ultimate evil, and yet he is human. Emphasized specifically in Heroes but also in FE8 as well (to the best of my recollection), Valter hungers. He devours in a purely human, purely barbaric manner. He has no concept of order or future. He merely relishes destruction. There’s no sorcery here. Valter is an absolute evil--an absolute human evil.

But he’s not, right? He used a cursed weapon. It’s the lance’s fault. He was a regular dude before then, just one with a taste for the battlefield. Based on the description, you might even say he used to be a Hector or a Skrimir--eager for a fight, not so interested in the consequences or the politics. By FE logic, there’s nothing inherently wrong with a character like that, though they could use a lesson or three on why peace and diplomacy exist and are good things to use from time to time.

Except, can we really blame the lance?

We have no other knowledge about what the lance does, why it’s like this, or if it behaves differently in different hands. We know that Duessel had to have gotten it back from Valter at some point--and boy, can you imagine what that encounter would have looked like? “Excuse me, Sir Valter, may I have that lance back? You see it’s a cursed artifact that’s just driven you mad but it’s a family heirloom and I must have it back.” I can’t imagine that something that exudes that sort of evil power, power enough to turn a man into canon-Valter, would be something that he’d want to just hand back over.

Which leads me to my big idea: it’s not the lance that’s directly at fault. Not by a longshot. I hypothesize that the cursed lance is a lot like Marvel’s superhero serum as administered to Steve Rogers: it amplifies traits, both positive and negative, to extremes. Someone like Valter, who possessed a certain love of battle, turned into a ferocious, bloodthirsty monster. Unlike the serum, this takes time.

Valter didn’t turn into a madman overnight. Valter slowly, over weeks or months, lost his inhibitions. Things he might have thought or imagined became the things he said and believed. Maybe he never really respected women but knew that just coming out and objectifying them wasn’t something that would be good. Maybe he understood the line between soldier and civilian and only rarely had thoughts, perhaps even intrusive ones, about crossing it. Then came the fight, the lance, and suddenly there’s a growing darkness in him that encourages him to act on these urges.

Sound familiar? That’s a lot like what happened to Lyon.

Lyon essentially was “corrupted” by the Demon King. It’s impossible to distinguish how much of his darkness was his own, lying in wait, lurking under the surface, and how much got injected arterially by the Demon King, but some of that evil was Lyon, and none of it was on the surface when he, Eirika, and Ephraim were kids.

We get to see a little of how Lyon breaks down over the course of the game. We don’t get to see a lot because ~spoilers~ not that everyone doesn’t see this coming from seventeen billion miles away, but we see a bit. The thing that pisses me off is that we don’t see it with Valter.

Think about what we could have had. Valter, flawed, not good but not evil. Valter starting out more like Duessel or Glen and progressing until he was his own classification of horrible. Valter proving that a “good” person contains just as much capacity for evil as someone as obviously bad as Riev. Sure there’s a “cursed lance” that pushes him along that path, but ultimately? There’s no Demon King whispering in his head that this is the way to do things. Valter’s just a man without inhibitions, the most frightening thing of all.

Fire Emblem games rarely feature antagonists with purely human rationale. Everyone’s either possessed, not human to begin with, or else succumbing to “dragon madness” or whatever the deal was with Tiki and the rest when it came to dragonstones and stuff. Ashnard’s the only one I can think of who really broke that mold, though Zephiel might have as well (never played the game, I’m guilty, I’m sorry). Ashnard, of course, has canonically always been the way that he was. He’s his own sort of absolute. But with Valter they had an opportunity, a unique one within the series, to explore human darkness and what it means to “go mad”, not in the psychological sense but from a moral standpoint.

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

The Fake Boyfriend (Part 4)

Summary: Reader bumps into a stranger and her life gets flipped upside down…

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Pairing: AU!Dean x reader

Word Count: 2,500ish

Warnings: language

A/N: I love all the feedback and support this has been getting! I especially enjoyed this part...

“So this wedding is tomorrow?” mumbled Dean in bed. You grunted as the two of you lay there with closed eyes, not moving as the sun peaked in through the blinds. “I’m starting to think we really should ditch.”

“I’m a bridesmaid, I can’t do that,” you said, stretching your arms over your head, plopping one down directly over Dean’s face.

“Aw,” you heard him say as he pushed it up to rest on the unused portion of his pillow. 

“Huh?” you asked, seeing him sit upright. 

“I said ‘Ugh.’ We should probably get up if I want nutrients to survive today,” he said. You nodded in agreement as you sat up and waited for him to head into the bathroom. “Actually, you first today runt.”

“Such a gentleman,” you said patting him on the arm as you slipped inside. You didn’t bother with your hair so he had plenty of water and soon were setting out into the room in a towel. “You’re all set.”

“Thanks,” said Dean, standing by his bag, staring inside.

“Problem?” you asked, Dean’s internal fight all over his face.

“What am I supposed to wear?” he asked. “A baseball game and fancy dinner are easy. But today?”

“I’ll pick something out for you okay?” you said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Please don’t dress me like a douche,” said Dean, pulling his shirt off as he walked into the bathroom. “There’s plenty of those around here.”

“Trust me a little, De.”

“How do I look?” asked Dean, spinning around like he was some male model.

“The doctor said there’s nothing we can do about you being a dork unfortunately,” you teased. Dean huffed and slapped his hands down.

“Y/N, seriously,” he asked and you smiled. You’d picked out a white long sleeve henley for him, a dark navy vest that was only a little puffy, a pair of dark blue jeans and his brown boots.

“You look good Dean,” you said, the skepticism all over him.

“I wear this same outfit all the time, minus the vest,” said Dean, crossing his arms.

“Exactly. It’s still you so you won’t feel weird all day but the vest makes it classed up a little. Plus it’s a little cooler out today. There’s a rollup hood in the collar if it rains or anything,” you said. You slipped on a pair of flats and grabbed your light denim jacket to throw on over your navy sundress with white polka dots.

“Did you match us on purpose again?” teased Dean as you looked at your color choices. “Although I suppose yesterday was my fault.”

“You’ve seen my bag and what I wear to bed. I’m not as...” you trailed off.

“Not as what?” he asked. You shook your head. “Girly? I’ve seen you in a dress. Two in fact. You look hot and gorgeous in them but that doesn’t mean you don’t know how to rock a tee too.”

“Let’s just get some food,” you said, Dean catching your arm before you could get past him. “What?”

“Still want to go swimming tonight?” he asked and you remembered the night before, how you’d had fun doing something so stupid and mundane with Dean.

“Yeah,” you said. “Nice swim trunks by the way. You’re definitely a salmon kind of guy.”

“How’d you know I didn’t just buy those?” asked Dean, releasing you as you headed out and down the hall.

“They say ‘Not Sam’s’ on the tag,” you chuckled. “He’s your brother right?”

“Yup, he’s a runt too. Well, not really, bigger than me actually but he’s my baby brother,” said Dean, slowing his walk. 

“You like him,” you said, Dean chuckling. “You’re proud of him I mean.”

“He’s a lawyer after everything we went through. Of course I’m proud of him,” said Dean. “I stole those trunks from him, must be close to five years ago now when I visited him.”

“You haven’t seen him in five years?” you said, stopping Dean in the hall. Dean shook his head.

“We haven’t gone swimming in five years. We see each other a couple times a year, talk all the time,” said Dean, throwing an arm over your shoulders. 

“Good,” you said, moving your hand up to hold his when you heard someone coming up the stairs. You said hello to your aunt as Dean stopped the two of you on one of the landings.

“Good?” he asked, watching the tilt of your head.

“Yeah, I’m glad he makes you happy. I think you’re a little lonely too, De,” you said. You watched him debate on how to respond and decided to put him out of his misery. “Come on, we got to go, half the freaking family is watching the two of us from the lobby right now.”

“I better put on a show then,” said Dean. He moved in slow but didn’t hesitate to bring his lips to yours. You melted into it, forgetting about everything for a moment. You both pulled back at the same time, not letting it last too long as you headed down the last flight of stairs.

“That lucky room is still working miracles. Even Y/N found-”

“Josh,” said Dean as the two you walked past him and into the dining room. “We have to spend the day together. I’m sure we’d both prefer it not start by me shoving my foot up your ass.”

“Joshua,” you heard a relative far off say.

“See you around Josh,” said Dean, cocking his head. 

“Try not to murder anyone today. Or embarrass the shit out of me,” you said, throwing the closest thing possible on your plate, Dean and you taking a table for yourselves.

“No murder. Can’t guarantee no punches will be thrown,” said Dean as you growled. “I’ll behave, runt.”

“You better,” you said, shoving food in your mouth. “If they get a stripper, you can do whatever you want.”

“I don’t think that’s very noble of me to do that to my fake girlfriend. Or classy of this family. Is that a normal thing?” asked Dean, glancing outside to where some people were gathering.

“The older men will veer off with the older woman this evening. That’s normally when they show up. Angie already said she got one for him so you can expect it,” you said, Dean wolfing down his food.

“Well, when that happens we’ll just ditch and go on our swim,” said Dean.

“Seriously, you’ve got permission not that you need it. Have fun with it,” you said.

“I’m not the greatest guy and I’ve had my fair share of one night stands but I’m not some sex crazed animal. If you’re going to tell your family not to objectify me, why don’t you do it yourself,” said Dean, stabbing his fork into his eggs.

“We aren’t real. I was only saying if you wanted to do something...it’s okay with me,” you said, pushing the last of your food around on your plate. “Sorry.”

“I shouldn’t have gotten pissed,” said Dean after a beat. “You’re trying to be nice. You always try to be nice.”

“I’m pretty sure you’ve called me a bitch in that head of yours only about a million times so far,” you said, cracking a smile.

“Nah, only like two tops,” said Dean, stealing the last part of your waffle. “One of those was when you ran into me on the street.”

“You ran into me, De,” you said, pointing your fork at him.

“Uh uh, runt. You did the running into,” he said, pointing back. You glared for a moment in jest before letting it fall away. “We’ll never agree on that, will we.”

“Nope,” you said, grabbing his empty plate and yours, returning them as you let out a big sigh. You grabbed his hand as you made your way out into the lobby where a flock of woman stood and one or two men lingered, waiting for Dean to take him away for the day.

“I’ll meet you by the pool later for drinks,” he said, pressing a fast kiss to your cheek that had the room aw’ing.

“That can’t happen fast enough.”

“I see you escaped from the horde,” you said around ten, taking in Dean’s backside as he sat on the edge of the pool, feet dipped in the heated water.

“You too, runt,” said Dean, turning his head, parting his lips for moment before shutting them. You glanced down at your black bikini, making sure it was still covering all the important bits before looking back up. Dean was staring but you didn’t mind. You’d stared at his chest and back that morning after his shower, took in those strong shoulders, those massive arms, the body that made you think of very bad things.

“What’d you get tonight for us?” you asked, sitting down next to Dean, letting your arm brush up to his. You reached around his back and to his side, pulling the bottled concoction over to you.

“It’s some fruity girly drink the bartender made up. Tastes fucking awesome though,” said Dean, moving his hand over yours to help get the cap off from where he’d twisted it back on too hard. You took a long few gulps, the drink tasting a bit like some sugary sports thing before Dean’s hand was pulling it away. “Woah, slow down. This stuff will mess you up.”

“It’s nothing,” you said, bumping his arm playfully and already feeling your balance go a little off. “Maybe not.”

“This’ll sober you up,” said Dean, one of his large hands on your back and pushing you in.

“Dean!” you shouted when you popped back up. The water wasn’t cold but the shock to your system surprised you and Dean looked absolutely smug.

“Runt, you should be more careful,” said Dean, taking a sip and moving the bottle away. You swam over in front of him, looking up and noticing just how green those eyes really were. Again, the two of you were staring and no one was saying a thing about how no one was around. It wasn’t long before one of you needed to break the silence and your hands shot up to wrap around his wrist.

“Won’t you join me Dean?” you asked, pulling hard, using your feet on the pools edge to get him in, the force of it surprising Dean as he crashed into the water beside you.

“You little shit,” said Dean, grabbing you by the waist, picking you up out of the water and tossing you back in.

You squealed and giggled as you took turns splashing and playing until you were just floating around on your backs in the shallow end.

“Hey Dean?” you asked, standing up and wading over to the pools edge. You took a sip of the nearly empty bottle you and Dean had been sharing for the past few hours. You heard him hum as you handed it over. “What’s your type?”

“My type?” he asked. “Like in women?”

“Yeah,” you said. “You more of a preppy Angie or stuck up Sara or sweet girl Holly type.”

“I’m more of a runt type,” said Dean with a half-drunk smirk.

“Seriously, what gets Dean Winchester going? You said you’ve had plenty of one night stands,” you said, floating around and bumping your head into his chest. He wrapped an arm around your waist from where he sat on the stairs, keeping you from wandering off.

“One night stands are about sex. That doesn’t mean that’s my type,” said Dean, looking down at you.

“It kind of does. Let me guess, tall-”

“Hookups are about sex, just feeling good in the moment. You always feel shitty in the morning when you do that awkward goodbye. It’s not what I’m looking for in a person,” said Dean.

“What are you looking for then?” you asked, rolling in the water, his arm staying around you as you took a seat on his lap. 

Dean didn’t answer the question. His eyes were on your lips, your tongue instinctively jutting out to lick them. 

“Just...someone good,” said Dean, the arm lazily around you giving you a push closer, smashing your chest against his. 

“That’s good,” you said, voice raspy, your head tilted up, gaze falling on the pink lush lips right there.

“Someone,” said Dean, his head tilting down, his face so close you saw the freckles that adorned it.

“Someone good,” you whispered, sliding your hand around his back, wrapping your fingers around the solid flesh.

“Someone like...” said Dean so quiet you almost didn’t hear. 

“De,” you said, feeling your breath mingle together as your heads started moving.

“Y/N,” he said, cupping your cheek. Then your lips were touching, opening each other up, not dirty but not slow. It was starved, someone needing this but neither of you knowing who exactly. Dean tasted like the drink you’d been sharing but he was methodical, letting you get at him only as much as you were allowing him access to you.

You dipped your fingers into his wet hair, Dean’s hand moving to the back of your head. Your mouth opened a little wider, backing off with your movements on him, feeling Dean do the same. He didn’t want to take control, no one did it seemed like. You knew you were only doing this because you were drunk, because he was drunk and you’d both had long days without the other to lean on.

Why the fuck was that even a thing? Five days ago Dean was a complete stranger and yet here you were, turning to him for some sort of unspoken comfort throughout this whole trip. The fake boyfriend was the one you felt closest to out of them all.

“Might want to take it up to the room kids if it’s gonna get anymore heated than that,” said a voice you knew all too well.

“Dad, go away,” you said, pulling away from Dean and standing. You stepped out into the cool night air and grabbed a towel.

“Just be glad your mother didn’t see that,” he said, waving you off. “Night Dean.”

“Goodnight Matt,” said Dean with a wince. He waited until your father had walked away before stepping out of the pool. You took a few steps from him as he pulled a towel on himself. 

“Busy day tomorrow,” you said, shivering a little, avoiding Dean’s gaze.

“We should get some sleep and try to sober up,” said Dean with a nod. He kept a slight distance as you walked back up to your room, catching a few smirks from people in the halls. Well apparently you’d provided some entertainment for the night.

By the time you were done with fast showers to warm up and in bed, you felt worse than you had all trip. Dean didn’t say goodnight and you didn’t say it back. His body was too tense behind you to be asleep. 

“Pretend it never happened,” you said in the darkness. Dean grunted.

“Agreed.”

A/N: Read the last part here!

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