#the moment i saw her missing on the lineup my heart dropped

[kalicocal]

clearly, keeping jun endo out from japan's starting lineup was a mistake on futoshi ikeda's part

[btsinwonderland]

A Drop of Poison - Ch. 5: Dinner

A Loki fanfiction!

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Chapter warnings: bit of self-smut at the end!

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As the stone gargoyle stopped, its last movement echoed through the Headmistress's chambers. At first glance, there was her desk, which seemed more the size of a bed than a table. On it were papers, books, bottles, and a large tray for her mail. Several trinkets and baubles were strewn across the desk, on the edge of which perched a beautiful phoenix bird that idly observed you and Professor Laufeyson enter the room. It ruffled a wing, and a small feather fell to the ground. You walked over to it and the creature raised its head, watching you. You stopped, and it clicked its beak once, as if giving you permission. Its eyes were very much aware and held an aura of deep intelligence. You picked up the feather and observed its gorgeous array of teal and aquamarine with flecks of gold at the tip. Professor Laufeyson smirked at you curiously before moving on.

Behind the Headmistress’s desk was a wall, where paintings of the former heads of Hogwarts hung, along with regional maps and a rather large painting of a giant tree in outer space. The wall blocked off an area of the room where you heard the clinking of plates and cutlery.

“Come in Loki and Freya!” You heard Headmistress Frigga’s voice. Your heart lurched when she said your name. Of course she knew you were there.

You followed Professor Laufeyson into the area behind her office. He took your book, despite your panicked expression, and placed it on a stool. You kept glancing at it as if it might disappear again.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be right here. No books at the dinner table,” he said in a low voice.

You sighed and reluctantly let your eyes wander. There was a beautiful oak table that was covered in glass. The slice of wood underneath had a blue light etched into it with violent streaks. You marvelled at the glow as Headmistress Frigga ushered you to sit down.

“This wood was captured at the moment of a great storm, and the pattern you see here was made by lightning. The light comes from the plasma itself, which has been preserved all these years with a sealing spell.”

You raised your eyebrows as you sat down and traced the rippling light along the glass. “It’s beautiful,” you said.

Professor Laufeyson sat down across from you and smiled at his mother. “Mother, what a pleasure it is to see you. You have not aged a day since I last saw you; your beauty is everlasting.”

“You must think I’m a piece of bread that needs to be buttered so thoroughly, Loki,” she said with a laugh.

He looked away with his mouth in a thin line. You concealed a smile. Perhaps this evening would be less mortifying than you thought.

Headmistress Frigga placed the last of the napkins on the table and looked at her handiwork. “Good, now we just need Thor.”

“Being on time was never his forte,” Professor Laufeyson said, casually picking a piece of lint off his shirt.

At that, heavy footsteps entered the chamber, and Professor Odinson walked in. His face was streaked in dried mud and his hair had chunks of dirt in it.

“Did you get dragged out of a pigsty?” Headmistress Frigga said sternly, waving her wand at him. He was immediately cleaned up as he patted his chest and arms, looking for smudges or marks.

“Thank you, mother,” he said. “No, it was a mess of a practice. The storm is only getting worse. There’s a Gryffindor-Slytherin match coming up this week and I need to get the students ready. The Wilson boy has joined the serpents team as their new seeker, and he’s very good.” He stopped talking once he noticed you and glanced at Professor Laufeyson. “Freya, I did not expect to see you here...at a family dinner.”

Your face warmed up, and you looked down at your plate, searching for the words. Professor Laufeyson interjected. “She’s my guest. A reward, for being such a prize pupil.” You glanced at him and he looked utterly serious.

“Prize pupil, eh?” Professor Odinson said as he sat down beside you. He smelled of earth and soil; a warm sort of scent.

“Well, your brother has deemed her worthy for my cooking at the least, and my dear, I’m not sure if that’s much of a prize,” Headmistress Frigga said as she waved her wand and a heavy looking white dish floated over to the center of the table.

The smell of meat and potatoes filled your nose, and your stomach rumbled loudly. You muttered an embarrassed apology. Professor Odinson laughed and patted your shoulder. “Too busy studying, I see! With that work ethic, you’ll make an excellent auror in no time.”

Headmistress Frigga waved her wand to dish out the stew on everyone’s plate. Professor Laufeyson raised a brow at you. “An auror, is that your goal, Miss Eves?”

You cleared your throat. “Well, I’m not sure. I’m still thinking about what I want to do…”

“Smart girl, there’s still time. You’re so young,” Headmistress Frigga said, as a warm buttered bread roll landed on everyone’s plate.

“It’s just what the ministry needs, more witches and wizards to indoctrinate,” Professor Laufeyson said.

Professor Odinson bit into a buttered roll. “The ministry isn’t indoctrinating anybody, they have rules, Loki. People need rules,” he said, pointing with the half-eaten roll in his hand.

“Now, where’s the fun in that?” he replied, leaning back. He gracefully popped a carrot into his mouth and you could not help but get caught in the subtle movement of his lips. He caught you looking at him and his mouth twitched slightly.

“The world would fall into chaos if we didn’t have any rules,” Professor Odinson said.

Professor Laufeyson smiled mischievously. “Perhaps the world needs a bit of chaos,” he said, eyes flashing.

“It is nice to have you both in the same room again,” Headmistress Frigga said with a gentle smile, looking at both her sons. She sipped a bit of wine and then took a bite of stew. “Oh bother, it seems I’ve forgotten the salt again.”

You continued to eat as they discussed mostly surface topics. Professor Odinson talked about the new Quidditch lineup for every country participating in the world cup this year. Headmistress Frigga mentioned news about the school; they were going to increase security since there were more students found out of bed despite the warnings to stay away from the Forbidden Forest. Professor Laufeyson very sneakily caught your eye and winked as she said this. This caused you to nearly choke on your potatoes and cough rather ungracefully, which earned you a chuckle from Professor Laufeyson.

You ate until you were stuffed and found yourself observing Professor Laufeyson as he talked to his family. He seemed attentive and present, yet there was something about his eyes that seemed distant; almost calculating. What went on in his mind was well beyond your comprehension and so you decided to concentrate on a newly conjured pile of rather delicious looking apple turnovers sitting on the side table.

Everyone had gotten up at this point while Headmistress Frigga cleaned up the dishes. Plates, knives, and forks floated in line into a dish tray, which disappeared with a flick of her wand once it was full. She went around the corner to find her shaker of cinnamon and cayenne for the turnovers while Professor Odinson and Laufeyson went back to the main office area. You wandered over to the wall, away from view, but within earshot.

“Why did you bring Freya here?” Professor Odinson said.

Professor Laufeyson laughed. “Are we having some sort of private meeting to discuss our sinister family affairs? You’ve grown so serious without my presence.”

You heard heavy shuffling of feet; it was Professor Odinson. “That was not of my choice, Loki. You left.”

Professor Laufeyson’s voice went cold. “I left because there was nothing here for me but lies.”

“What about us, your family?”

“What makes us family?”

You waited a few awkward seconds as their conversation went silent. Then Professor Odinson chuckled humorlessly. “This, brother, your contempt makes us family.”

“Turnover?” said Headmistress Frigga, right behind you, and you jumped.

She guided you over to the table where the turnovers were and you saw the phoenix perched beside it, pecking at the large crumbs by its talons. You had not even noticed it come into the room; it’s stealth was admirable. “What a beautiful creature,” you said.

Headmistress Frigga gently pet the top of its head. “Fawkes is bound to die anytime now, she’s been in a dreadful mood lately.” She glanced at you. “Professor Heimdall spoke to me, Freya.”

Your stomach dropped as you realized that the Headmistress must know nearly everything. It would not only be silly to lie to her, but it would be insulting. You decided to be honest. “Professor Heimdall told me that my visions were false.”

“And what do you think?”

You looked back to check if Professor Odinson and Laufeyson were still on the other side of the wall. When you heard their unintelligible voices, you turned back to her and whispered, “they were real.”

She sighed and brushed off some cinnamon from her fingertips. “Professor Heimdall warned you to stay away from Professor Laufeyson, and I’m afraid that I agree with him. My dear, I love my son, but he is a dangerous man now.”

“But, Headmistress, I think I’m getting these visions because I’m supposed to help him.”

Headmistress Frigga crossed her arms and put a hand to her chin. “Puzzling, indeed. You have us, your guides and teachers, telling you one thing. And then, you have your visions, your instincts, telling you the complete opposite.”

“And I don’t know what to do,” you said.

She put her hands on your shoulders and looked at you. Her hair was braided into intricate patterns and on her lips was a soft shade of pink. Just watching her. Anybody could tell that Professor Laufeyson was her son, adopted or not. Every look, every glance; it was just like him, though gentler. “You must do what you think is right. Look inside yourself and see. The trick is that you still might be wrong in the end. But regret comes from empty actions. If you go with a full heart, it will carry you through any circumstances. I cannot tell you which path is the right one, you will have to discover that for yourself.”

Professor Odinson came in and grabbed a turnover from over your shoulder, then popped it into his mouth. “Whatever she’s saying, it’s 100% right.”

Headmistress Frigga laughed. “A mother should be so lucky to have both her sons flatter her so frequently.”

“You will be at the game this Thursday?” Professor Odinson said to you.

“Valkyrie’s first game as captain? I wouldn’t miss it for the world!” You said with a smile.

He smiled. “She’s an excellent Quidditch player, perhaps even better than I was at her age.”

You saved that comment in the back of your mind to tell Valkyrie later. No doubt it would excite her for days on end.

“And where is our Potions master?” Headmistress Frigga said, looking past Professor Odinson.

He looked puzzled and glanced behind him. “He was just behind me,” he said.

Professor Laufeyson came around the corner with your book in his hands. “I was simply admiring our mother’s miniature obelisk collection. What a rarity it is,” he said. “Come now, Miss Eves, the hour grows late and we would not want to get you in trouble.” He handed you your book, and you felt the weight of another book underneath. You glanced at him and he gave you a hard stare. Do not say anything, his eyes seemed to say.

You nodded and turned to thank the Headmistress and Professor Odinson for dinner. She smiled at you. “It was a pleasure to have you, my dear. Remember our talk,” she said, sparing a concerned look at her darker haired son.

Professor Odinson nodded and glanced at his brother with a level of suspicion. He seemed to let it go since he said nothing when you both left. You clutched the books close to your heart as Professor Laufeyson walked with you towards the Hufflepuff common room. When you were far enough away, you looked at the book he had given you. The Writings of Odin Borson.

“These were the journals you’ve been searching for,” you said aloud.

Professor Laufeyson snatched the book from your hands before you could look inside. “They are my father’s journals. I have a right to them,” he said.

“Is that why you had to steal them?” You said and immediately realized that was a mistake.

Suddenly, he pushed you against the wall as he towered over your frame. His hand rested on the stone behind your head and he leaned in. “I have been very kind to you, Miss Eves, though you have been sneaking about the school and breaking the rules. Do not test my patience further.”

You trembled as you took in the entirety of his presence. His scent was a strange but alluring mixture of leather and flora. He enveloped you, and you could barely form coherent thoughts. His grey shirt pulled at the buttons near his chest and you could see the swell of his Adam's apple move as he swallowed. You stared at each other for several seconds. His gaze was intimidating, and yet, you did not want to look away.

He was domineering, but you found your voice. “You only brought me tonight to use me as a distraction, not because I’m a star pupil or because you hate awkward family dinners.”

He actually smiled. “Ah, Miss Eves, you do pleasantly surprise me when you catch on. I’m almost impressed.” He regarded you with a raised brow.

“What are you looking for in Odin’s journals? Is it the blue cube?” You blurted out.

His eyes darkened, and all levity fled. “Where did you hear about that?”

You did not respond, unsure whether to reveal your thoughts to him. He grabbed you by the shoulders and squeezed. “Where did you hear about the Tesseract?” His voice was almost a growl. You placed your hands on his chest, holding him there but not pushing away. He looked at you, eyes blazing with a conflicting sort of passion.

Someone cleared their throat in the hallway. “Is everything alright?” Said a voice just behind you both. It was Professor Fandral with crossed arms. He was glaring at Professor Laufeyson.

“Everything is just fine,” Professor Laufeyson said, not taking his eyes off of you.

“I was asking the student,” he said curtly.

You nodded and slid yourself away from Professor Laufeyson’s side. “Professor Laufeyson was helping me up. I nearly fainted, you see. Thank you, sir!” you said breathlessly, walking away from them, towards the Hufflepuff common room.

You were flustered beyond belief and looked back, seeing Professor Laufeyson regard you once again with a sort of surprise. Perhaps he was not sure why you kept covering for him. Your heart pounded out of your chest, though it was not from fear.

The scent of his body followed you, even if you were no longer close to him. The proximity at which he stood and the feel of his warm chest against your hands...Awakened a desire within that you had never thought about nor dreamed of. He had looked so cross, and though you felt a genuine fear, there was something else. Like a dim lamp across a foggy lake, you felt a part of you grow brighter around him. And tonight, it smoldered.

You returned to your room, burning with a need. It was a need that could not wait. You could not think of anything else but giving in to it. You passed your schoolmates with a subtle hello and goodnight and exhaled in relief to find your bedroom empty.

Hopping into the shower, you scrubbed yourself clean. Upon washing the soap off your body, you ran your hands over your chest and your stomach, in small spirals. You thought about Professor Laufeyson, from his blazing cold eyes to his illuminating smile. It felt so taboo for you to touch yourself, thinking of someone you knew and a part of it felt wrong. But you no longer cared. It was not something you could ignore, at least for tonight. Your body actually ached from the thought of him.

You dried yourself with a fluffy blue towel and slipped on a clean nightgown. It was by no means sexy, but speckled with green and orange dots. However, the cotton rubbed comfortably against your skin.

You checked outside your room for any sign of your elusive roommates. Most students were casually reading or conversing, and so you closed the door, returned to your bed and got under the covers. A deep sigh escaped your lips as you lifted your nightgown and ran your hands over your body. You skimmed your fingers over your thighs as you parted them. Your fingers went down a crooked path to your core and your breath hitched when you discovered how wet you already were.

You ran a thumb down your slit in slow movements, up and down. You imagined Professor Laufeyson’s hands on you. Would his tongue be cool or warm? His tongue ran along your neck in this vision, and he laid over you. He whispered unspeakable things into your ear and slid two fingers inside you. You let out a muffled moan. As your fingers pumped in and out, you envisioned him rubbing his hard body against yours. So close. Your skin heated so quickly. You came to the edge and when you opened your eyes, his name slipped from your lips.

“Loki!” you cried out as you climaxed. You ran your fingers over your slit as the aftershocks receded.

Your eyes closed, and you relaxed into your mattress like a stone. The burning need had been dealt with, but to your dismay, you felt the strong pulse of blood underneath your skin. It wanted more. Your body needed more. Stop it! You told yourself. You pulled down your nightgown roughly and switched off the lamp; frustrated despite pleasing yourself.

You gradually drifted away to sleep and in your dreams, Professor Laufeyson did things you hadn’t dared fantasize about. They were the kind of things that made you want to sleep forever.

[oneweekoneband]

i didn’t though

When I was twenty and tractable I listened to “Treacherous” and I believed Taylor Swift was telling me something, because “I’ll do anything you say / If you say it with your hands”, is not content meant for straight people, even though legally they, too, are allowed to hear it, and they do generally have hands. When Taylor Swift drank beers with Karlie Kloss at a Knicks game in 2014, I believed she was telling me something even more forcefully, because, really, why be at Knicks game if not just to kill time politely before fucking whoever you’re there with. When reputation was released and it contained “Dress”, a song about buying a certain item of clothing to look good for a person you love specifically not “like a best friend” so that after “all the pining and anticipation” they can remove it from your body and you can drink wine together in the bath, I believed Taylor was screaming a confession at me, and I was more than ready to receive it. When I heard from multiple sources just last year, amidst the aggressive rainbow-deluge of the Lover promo cycle, an ultimately false rumor that said Taylor was going to come out in a Rolling Stone cover story I, somehow, incredibly, brain as smooth as a baby’s ass, believed that too.

I have believed a lot of things. And it’s a nice diversion, to believe like that. But, more recently, I’ve found that the detective in me has turned away from this one. The only facts I’ll ever know about Taylor Swift are those she wishes to share, and speculating about what secrets she may or may not be hiding is a distraction from the real, joyful work of appreciating all these already literally, unequivocally, very gay songs. I’ve found, well, that I just don’t care anymore, which sucks, as I detest the squirmy idea that I might be growing as a person. But the truth is one really can write extremely, objectively homoerotic love songs yet be, for all intents and purposes, terminally straight. And like that poignant tweet about Lin Manuel Miranda tells us, you can seem gay, because of, like, your whole deal, and then it turns out you’re just annoying. You can even have a torrid love affair with your one-time supermodel best friend and in the end just want to marry some guy from The Favourite (Allegedly from The Favourite. I have seen that film three times and could not pick that man out of a lineup if my life depended on it.) and maybe there’s nothing to announce to anybody about it at all. Sexuality is complex and personal, and Taylor’s own sexuality doesn’t much matter to me, outside of how I always think it’s nice to know there’s yet another bisexual white woman out here in the world being even more irritating than me. (I say this strictly in terms of labeling; it ought to go without saying that Taylor’s various psychosexual obsessions with things like Amy from Gone Girl, and The Kennedys, and her house in Rhode Island matter to me immensely.)  It doesn’t matter because it has no bearing on the fact that she keeps dropping queer classics.

Anyway, yeah, most good Taylor Swift songs are gay, just like most good things, generally, and there’s a number of viable picks on folklore, except not “betty”, no matter what the collective banshee’s wail of the Internet tells you. The gayest thing about “betty” is that it’s Taylor putting herself in the mind of a skateboarding teenage boy, which, yes, admittedly, is a big homo vibe, but nowhere in or around this song are any people of the same gender identity smashing bathing suit parts together, or even thinking about doing so, and when there are so many better options available, I feel it is prudent that we have just the barest hint of standards. As queerness itself is malleable, wonderfully, painfully individual, and comes in no one standard format, so too is determining which song on a Taylor Swift album is the most gay a singular, complicated calculus we all must do for ourselves within our own hearts, and, of course, there are no wrong answers, unless it so happens that your answer is not “the 1”.

“the 1” made me lose my grip for a moment. A cool lament, calmly wrenching, right off it was sucking out my bone marrow and I wasn’t able to name why. (Well, except, obviously, that the twin unit of, “You know the greatest films of all time were never made,” and “You know the greatest loves of all time are over now,” is pure, not from concentrate, peak embarrassing & devastating & all the more embarrassing for being so devastating Swiftian lyricism.) Finally, weeks after the release, out walking the streets of Los Angeles midday, masked and fractious, lower back sticky, brain a little mean, buying a soda at the gas station just to talk to someone, it came to me that  “the 1” is a spiritual sequel to Red’s drum-heavy forever banger “Holy Ground”. The Taylor of “Holy Ground” reminisces frantically about a lost love, some near-miss from youth. That drumbeat is a racing heart. The animating nervousness of “Holy Ground”, the way you can almost hear the narrator’s limbs flapping wildly against her body when she says that she’s dancing, has from the beginning marked this song to me as a story of looking back on some sort of formless and magical teenaged queer encounter. “Holy Ground” is looking at a precious memory like it’s a firefly in cupped hands—small and special and easy to lose—being not entirely certain what the memory means, since whatever it was that happened back then, you never really talked it out. “Holy Ground” is about a love that for all its vitality did not work out, but it is appreciative rather than sad. “But sometimes I wonder how you think about it now,” Taylor sings, “and I see your face in every crowd.” 

“But we were something, don’t you think so?” asks “the 1”, imploring an ex to confirm her version of events, to agree that she’s remembering it right. Taylor has not ever struggled in her work with place and the self and matching the two against one another on the wriggling timeline of the human life. I was there I was there I was there. The question here is something else. Not was it real, but was it real to you, and do you remember now what that was like. Do you remember who I was then? What we were? The truth as it pertains to the heart of another is guesswork at best, and a troublesome kind. Memories break and bend, or weren’t even recorded right to begin with, every brain a dirty liar, and for two separate, imperfect creatures to share the responsibility of preserving one history together is a disaster. The hard facts then are grounding. Essential. “I thought I saw you at the bus stop / I didn’t though”.  Everyone has past romances that they still ask questions about, yes—I am not practicing my virulent heterophobia today—but none of my queer friends are without at least one were-we-or-weren’t-we in their past, a clinch with another that was incandescent and unnameable, long over but dangling forever there loose outside the neat boxes of friend or lover. To be a queer person is to exist already beyond and without the organizing structures of heterosexuality, and this can be difficult, dangerous, but in liminality there is freedom, and in years of painstakingly debating whether I wanted to be or bang so many various somebodys I have, along the way, put the pieces of myself in the order they fit best. So then there are loves where you aren’t sure if that’s technically what it was, if it’s what they’d call it, too. Or loves that were undeniably real, only we were too busy back then with trying to turn into ourselves to keep it. And loves from the very start, from walking together on colt legs, exuberant and unprepared, and the memory is a blessing, and the memory is guilt.

 “the 1”, to the ear, is softer and slinkier than “Holy Ground”, but the lyrics are dismantling. “Holy Ground” says, “And darling, it was good / Never looking down”. Full of longing, but cheerful and sure. “the 1” is older, resigned. On “the 1” Taylor mourns a love not only because it has ended, but because she can sense, from the safety of time’s remove, that it was a love which deserved better, could have been better, if things had been only a little different, if they’d felt brave enough to try just a little more. In this version of nostalgia, the golden haze of “Holy Ground” is ribboned by a vaporous shame, a regret. The song relates a story of a love that is farther out of reach and meant more than what the little girl of “Holy Ground” could have dreamt. “In my defense I have none / for digging up the grave another time / but it would’ve been fun / if you would’ve been the one”.

[clonerightsenthusiast]

low note

[Blaseball, Jolene Willowtree/Zoey Kirchner, Bottles Suljak/Lady Mastuyama, G, 1.6k words]

Jolene ran pitching practice.

That was a thing she did now, apparently.

It used to be Zoey's thing. Before it was a team thing, it was a Zoey thing; Jolene would come out here sometimes, early, to watch the sun rise over the Pillars, and would find Zoey diligently plugging away. It became a habit for the two of them, and then eventually the whole rotation. Mindy would bring breakfast. It was nice.

That season was so stressful - they all felt the pressure. The fans' hopes and expectations - not to mention the team's - laid squarely on their shoulders. They leaned on each other. They became a unit, the four of them, inseparable.

Well. Apparently not so inseparable.

Jolene ran pitching practice. With Zoey gone, somebody had to.

--

[read on ao3]

"That's not funny, Kirchner."

Jolene continued putting her practice gear away, keeping her eyes resolutely on the back of her locker.

"That's because it's not a joke, Willowtree."

There was a light mocking tone to Zoey's voice, like when she was playing up her rivalry with Lady. Normally, Jolene found the heel act endearing. But this wasn't funny. And there was something else, under the edge, that had Jolene twisting her glove in her hand.

She tossed the glove into her locker and slammed it shut. "You're not leaving," she said decisively.

"Oh, well if it's that easy." Jolene could hear her rolling her eyes.

She refused to look at her. If she looked at her, she would have to acknowledge what she was saying. Instead, her hand closed hard on the handle of her locker and squeezed until it shook.

Behind her, Zoey sighed. There was a rustling sound, and then soft footsteps, and Jolene squeezed her eyes shut against the temptation to turn around and face her. Don't look. As long as she doesn't look, it isn't real. Zoey will stay right there, close enough to feel.

"Jolene…" Zoey was close enough that her exhale brushed against the back of Jolene's neck. All the sharpness was gone from her voice. She sounded as hollow as Jolene felt.

"You can't leave," Jolene ground out.

Zoey's hand landed lightly on her shoulder, and trailed down her tense, trembling arm to her hand clenched on the locker. Slowly, in increments, Jolene allowed her grip to relax. Zoey slid her hand in its place and gently, inexorable, pulled Jolene around to face her.

Zoey's face banished any remaining shreds of doubt that this was really happening. She was smiling at Jolene with open heartbreak in her eyes.

"What are we gonna do without you?" Jolene asked, clutching Zoey's hand like she could keep her in the Core with the force of her grip alone.

"You'll be fine," Zoey said, with forced lightness. "You don't need me."

Categorically untrue, and they all knew it. And also, for Jolene, for this moment, entirely besides the point.

"What am I gonna do?"

"Jo…" Zoey lifted her free hand and laid it along the rough bark of Jolene's cheek. Zoey smiled and cocked her head in an obvious attempt at levity. "I'm going to Dallas, not Mars. We'll still see each other. I'll even play at the Pillars." The corner of her lips quirked upwards. "You'll finally get the chance to show me up, Willowtree. You're the new star pitcher of the Core Mechanics. You'll have to bring your A-game to beat the Steaks. I hear they have a great new pitcher coming in."

"I hate you," Jolene said with feeling, and threw her arms around Zoey to hold her close.

Zoey abandoned all pretense and clutched her back just as tightly.

"Yeah," she mumbled into Jolene's hair. "I'm gonna miss you, too."

--

The Mechanics were in shambles.

Losing Zoey they might have survived. Maybe. Mindy, Shirai, and Jolene were all great pitchers in their own right. And if PolkaDot Patterson had shown up at the Core like they'd expected, they might have been okay.

Instead, they had Alto, who just seemed lost more than anything, and uncomfortable at best with a glove on her hand.

And then a Reverb wave swept Mindy out to the lineup and left poor Bottles stranded with a ball in hand and absolutely no idea what to do with it. (And left Jolene holding on to Shirai's wrist in the dugout like she actually had the power to keep her there.)

And then. The Feedback.

Losing Zoey was a huge blow to the team. Losing Lady, in the same season, while the wound was still raw, felt like something they'd never recover from.

Not that they had a choice. Blaseball didn't stop no matter how desperately they might want a second just to breathe and take stock.

Besides, they were the Core Mechanics. They would fix this.

This, it turns out, was much more manageable the narrower you kept your focus. So Jolene left Adelaide to pick up the pieces of the lineup, and started running pitching practice.

--

Jolene didn't mean to watch them. It was clearly a private moment she'd stumbled in on, but the locker room had emptied out except for Lady and Bottles while she was in the supply closet, and now the only way to leave was to interrupt them and somehow that seemed worse. So instead she stood in silence by the cracked door and tried not to listen in.

"Anything could happen, Lady," came Bottles's low, clear tone anyways.

"Anything could always happen, darling," Lady replied lightly. "What's the point in worrying?"

"It's not about worrying," said Bottles, slow and methodical. "It's about promising."

There was a long quiet moment, and despite herself Jolene peeked. Seeing Bottles slowly sinking to one knee beside Lady's chair, she quickly pulled away and pressed herself against the wall.

"Whatever happens to us," Bottles continued. "Wherever this life takes us. I want you to have this. Wear it, and carry my heart with you."

"Nobody would ever guess you were such a bleeding heart, my love," Lady said, her voice overflowing with affection.

"Lady."

"I'll wear it always, darling. Naturally."

Jolene pressed her hands to her ears and drowned out the rest of the conversation with wishing that she'd thought to do the same.

--

"Yes, that's good," Jolene said, blatantly lying.

Alto was not good. But she was also clearly frustrated with her own inabilities, and equally clearly not improving.

"It's not," she snapped, balling her hands into fists. After a second, her shoulders slumped. "Sorry," she mumbled.

"It's fine," Jolene said automatically. She held in a sigh and laid a hand on Alto's shoulder in an awkward attempt to be supportive. "Why don't we take a break?"

"... Yeah, okay." Alto dropped her glove and trudged over to the lunch table.

Mindy had come by on her way to her own practice with huge trays of pasta. Jolene was not one for outward displays of emotion; she was much more likely to shut down under stress. But she'd been this close to crying at the sight of her.

Maybe Mindy would know how to… nurture Alto. But she had her hands full just adjusting to being a batter. It was more than enough that she was still coming by to feed them.

At least this part was something Jolene was confident Zoey would be just as lost on as she was.

Jolene left Alto to serve herself some pasta and try to unwind by herself, and went over to stand by Bottles, who was methodically twisting Mindy's latest escher-like pasta creation into new and exciting shapes, heedless of the sauce getting all over his fingers. Jolene posted up silently beside him, piling her plate with garlic-2 bread. It was her favorite, and Mindy knew it. Jolene pushed down the urge to cry again.

As much as Bottles being swept onto the pitchers' mound was a disaster for the team's performance, Jolene was enjoying spending more time with him. Bottles was easy company; he didn't expect her to say anything, or try to probe how she was feeling about… everything. He was just… quiet. Solid. Exactly what she needed these days.

She offered him a piece of garlic-2 bread. Bottles glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes and took it, setting it down beside his pasta statue. Sitting on his plate, in a puddle of neon yellow pasta sauce, was the shape of an incredibly familiar scorpion tail.

Jolene looked up and saw Bottles watching her. He didn't move, or otherwise react, just held his plate and looked at her, like he was waiting for something. Jolene wondered how often he'd had this conversation with other teammates. She was willing to bet he hated it as much as she did.

"This sucks," she said plainly, and left it at that.

She must have gotten it right, because Bottles cracked a smile. He nodded and bumped his shoulder against Jolene's.

"Yeah. But we're the Core Mechanics," he said, with just enough irony to make it bearable. "We can fix this."

For the first time in weeks, Jolene laughed. "We can start with your pitching," she said.

"Oh, god. I take it back," Bottles said, deadpan. "We're doomed."

Jolene took a bite of her bread and let the familiar taste of garlic-2 warm her. There were a lot of things she could say to Bottles, now that the topic had been broached; We'll get them back, or the perhaps more realistic We'll see them again, but she didn't want to, and frankly she didn't think Bottles wanted to hear it, anyways.

So instead she put her plate down and said, "C'mon, Suljak. Grab your glove. Let's get fixing."

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 15

Love Wins!

Welcome to an insanely chaotic episode of Fantasy High--even by the very high standards of this show.  How chaotic you may ask? Well, the first thing that happens is that Bill Seacaster point blank shoots Gilear to death for being in a relationship with Hilariel. Full dead. He is full dead. Strangely, his plan to bring him back as a janky devil does not do much to comfort Fig. Imagine that.

Bill’s pirates are looting the Bottomless Pit (Gorthalax’s domain in Hell) and Vraz orders Fig to make them stop. When she instead orders Vraz to eat her ass, Vraz nullifies all warlock deals Gorthalax made and brings none other than Johnny Spells (and his greaser pals) to join the fight!

Really, this fight is insane and it’s better served by a highlight real than a play by play so I’m just gonna give you some bullets:

All the PCs rolled super low initiative this fight which really kinda screwed them. Like Fabian was down to 16 HP one point and it was like, “Lol, this is the end of round 1.” YIKES.

A big part of this fight was just surviving long enough to get to the second level of hell and rescue Riz’s dad which I think was probably good for morale because the thought of this fight dragging on for more than a couple of rounds exhausts me. 

Fabian rolls off against Johnny right off the bat for the Hangman’s loyalty and Fabian wins with a 25 (and by coming out the gate with the word ENSLAVED which isn’t the word *I* would have used but a 25 is a 25 I guess).

He also has to contend with fighting Allistair who has a massive hole in his head filled with fire from Wicklaw eating his brain. It seems like Chungledown Bim is in hell too based on how Allistair keeps saying he’s gonna get him so he can shit in Fabian’s mouth. Of course, Fabian gets the better of him, but not before he deals out a fair bit of damage. 

Adaine uses an Arcane Hand plus her portent roll to just whole-ass throw Johnny off the ship. Like, he gets back up but it’s so funny to instead of fighting an enemy to just throw him off a set piece (see eg: Bloodkeep ep2).

Kristen Revivifies Gilear and Bill, the mercurial sunuvabitch is like, “We love the same woman! I just want her happy!” and gives him a gun. Kristen immediately is like, “Bro, you need to hide,” and Gorgug protects him while he does so (in a sarcophagus that has a 50/50 shot of being launched as ammo). 

Penelope shows up to the fight, eyes all black, wearing a shredded prom dress, and with shards of silver embedded in her forehead like a crown. Dayne and Daybreak also join the fight as messed up Harvestmen! It’s a veritable Smash Bros lineup of people the Bad Kids have killed!

Adaine and Fabian are christened the “Posh Squad” which is important to me, not to the fight. 

Adaine gets to counterspell a counterspell from Penelope, one of the sexiest things you can do in D&D.

Fabian declares toxic masculinity dead. Shortly afterward, he makes Brennan eat a die when Daybreak tries to Frighten Fabian, a condition he is immune to due to his eyepatch I gather based on the table reaction. 

Daybreak’s punishment in hell is a complete lack of self-awareness of why he’s there. He still thinks he should be sipping Mai-Tai’s in corn heaven with Helio while Kristen and Ragh are attacking him with gay spit (their words, not mine). Gay spit and, also, a ton of radiant and thunder damage.

Ragh gets some emotional catharsis by getting to body Dayne before Gorgug decapitates him. Very important step in the stages of grief. Decapitating the source of said grief. 

Penelope gets Sparta-kicked off the edge of the boat by Fabian after Ayda dispels her protective globe and Riz shoots Daybreak again for old times sake. Unfortunately, Penelope Misty Steps back up and Daybreak is hurt but not killed. Ayda does a cool Dr. Strange teleportation thing and does a bunch of damage to both of them. Fabian finishes off Penelope with a sheet/sword combo and between Booming Blade and a Psionic Blast (does she have this ability as a Bard or as a Warlock? Relatedly, when she felt something leave her was that her Warlock deal being nullified or was she feeling the deals leave her since she is sort of the temporary Gorthalax?) Fig destroys Daybreak. Johnny just falls off the ship with no PC intervention because he sucks. 

Bill also falls off the ship but Fig (with an assist from Gorgug) saves him and steals a scroll from Vraz on the way back up. By the by, earlier in the fight, she also had Baby Invisbly steal a random item from her. 

Anyway, as they reach the end of the end of the fight, Bill loads Riz into a canon (!) and shoots him into the city, hopefully towards his dad (to the distress of his party). He crashes through the window in a familiar looking building and, when he finds a hallway that he’s pretty sure leads to his dad, he goes towards it. 

He sees a familiar light coming out of a doorway (the interrogation room light) and a doorway next to it that is slightly open with steel thrones in it. There’s a two-way mirror between the two rooms and if he goes into the open one, he can see who is in with his dad. After checking for illusions and finding none, he stealthily walks in and sees, in the other room, his dad with a hulking pit fiend (30 ft tall, winged, almost dragon-y devil).

The pit fiend is questioning Pok about any regrets he had in life and Pok answers very uncharacteristically from the man we saw in the video saying he had nothing but high hopes for baby Riz. He says he had no regrets, his job was just a job, and that he only had a kid because Sklonda wanted one before going into a snarling goblin rage. The pit fiend smiles at that and says that Pok has promise so they won’t create a lemure out of him (a lemure is a weak, blobby devil). Two devils in the room with them whip him unconscious and then leave the room to go send more people to deal with Bill.

Riz Misty Steps into the room and does a self-imposed Wisdom check to steady himself after what he just heard--Nat 20 baby. Then, he opens his Briefcase of Holding, ready to scoop his dad into it when, the two lesser devils open the door and catch him in the act. But Riz persists in the scooping. They try to grapple him and he rolls a Nat 1 to avoid it. He *still* tries to get him dad. But then he notices, his gun is missing.

BLAM. The devils heads are blown clean off. He turns and he sees his dad has taken the gun--his gun originally--and shot the devils. Pok, who is amazed that Riz is there and no longer feigning apathy for the situation asks for an extraction into an earpiece, causing a halo to appear over his head and a beam of holy light to come down like a tractor beam.

“Wait,” says Riz. “You’re an undercover angel?”

“You got it, kid.”

Murph goes feral. The table goes feral. I go feral. What a way to end an episode!  

And now for an all-Dad round of superlatives:

Detention

Bill Seacaster for KILLING GILEAR 

I feel like I shouldn’t have to explain myself here. 

Honor Roll

Pok Gukgak for Officially Joining the Fantasy Fathers of the Year Club

Here either. 

I will, however, add a Hell Yeah!

Random Thoughts

If you haven’t seen it yet, the trailer for S5 of Dimension 20 just dropped and I won’t spoil it but, from the looks of it, it is gonna be a doozy.  

“Do not metagame with my freaking Dad!” Oh to have the support of an NPC Emily Axford has decided to imprint upon.

Gorgug: It’s been one year. We’re sophomores. 

“We support you as a DM and as your friend but also you’re our enemy.”

I think it’s very interesting that with just a little space and time from his dad, Fabian is finally having the proper reactions to his dad doing what I will charitably call shenanigans.

The level of distress and outrage from Emily when Gilear got shot was just *chef’s kiss*. I aspire to create an NPC that provokes that level of reaction from one of my players. Similar energy in a different direction from Ally when Daybreak attacked Tracker.    

“Adaine, the jocks are being feisty! Get out of there!”

Vraz calls Fig “the Faithless” as her devil title and she insists on instead being called, “the InFaethable”. I wanna know how long Emily’s been sitting on that one or whether she came up with it on the spot. 

Fabian upon seeing Johnny: Fuck off dude. I have too much going on right now. 

Brennan being the eternal DM mood: How do I get out of this?

Very wild how little time has passed since Leviathan. Like, Fabian’s had this whole arc and grown so much but, like, OF COURSE Allistair still wants to murder him! It’s been like two days. 

“I want to crumple up Gilear like a wrapper.”

A seven is a Murph 10.

The very specific way Brennan does foley for sword fighting (“Clang! Cling! Clang!”) is so funny to me. 

Cannot overstate how much of a power move it was for Kristen to go, “I’ve been PRAYING FOR YOU,” at Daybreak and knock him on his ass. 

I feel like I bring this up all the time but I love when Brennan is counting dice for a ton of damage and all the PCs are BSing reasons that it’s not a big deal like, “He’s just getting D4s,” or “Well I should get advantage for the reason just made up,” with everyone else fully playing along. ”

Allistair Ash, man. He is fascinating to me. I am so curious about what Brennan had planned for him originally because I feel like we barely scratched the surface before things took a TURN. He had two little moments in this ep that made my heart break for him a little: (1) When he says to Fabian, “If I die, I just come back a little bit worse but, if you die, you’re stuck down here with me.” and (2) when Fabian kills him and Bill grabs his soul and is like, “You know it’s gonna cost you X gold to revive you,” and he sighs and says, “Put it on my tab I suppose.” Like, I know he spent all ep trying to kill Fabian but I can’t help but be like, poor guy. He just has this pathos in his haplessness. I’m surprised Fabian didn’t make more of an effort to connect with him instead of being like, kind of like, “I will throw hands if I must.” Talking is a free action my dude. Anyway, I would love to see Brennan’s DM notes for this guy.   

Lou was really doing some expert D&D with all the second winding and bonus actioning and burning spell slots for extra damage he was doing. He was like, “My initiative is trash so I have to do approximately a million damage per turn.”

Lol at Ayda asking if it’s weird to talk about sex stuff in front of friends in a group that involves both Kristen and Adaine. 

Fig wishing she could do something cool in front of Ayda as if Ayda didn’t try to flood Hell on her behalf last week. My girl. You’ve already locked that down.

Not really an issue that’s we’ll run across during the run of FH but tieflings live 20-40 years longer than humans according to the official D&D lore. So lets say Fig lives to be 120 years old. And let’s say she sticks with her high school girlfriend and marries her. It’s possible they die at around the same time and then Ayda has to Deal With That in her next life but that’s not what I’m interested in. What happens if you’re a full elderly woman and your partner phoenixes into a child? What are the ethics of that? How do you deal with that? Chronomancy?

The horrified, “Love wins!” from Daybreak.

 Is there a reason the viewing room Riz was in had thrones in it or is Hell just very about the ~aesthetic~

Every time a DM asks for a HP total, my entire being clenches in prep for a Power Word Kill. 

“I’m gonna need a Dexter--”/”Counterspell.”

“You guys murdered me too but we hashed it out.”

I totally forgot that the Bad Kids lied that Ragh had shat his pants until the moment Adaine was saying it this episode. Freshman Year was WILD.

Also, just wanna take a second to talk about the elevation of Ragh from this side-note bully to a fully fledged, likeable character with depth and and an arc and gay spit. D&D is crazy. 

Summoning Boggy via Bloody Mary is such a delightful image. 

So, Kalina is the one that led Riz down the path that led to him finding out Pok is an Undercover Angel (!!!), which means one of three things: (1) She knew but miscalculated hard, (2) she didn’t know and made a different but also big miscalculation, (3) she did know and she’s doing some kind of 4-D chess thing we don’t know about yet. 

Ayda hitting Fabian with a portent and then swooping in and saving Adaine. So clutch. What a good NPC to befriend.

Speaking of, I think we all kinda figured, but Brennan officially said on Twitter or the Discord (I don’t remember which) that Ayda is autistic. Like, I was pretty sure but I didn’t wanna assume.

Lol at the absolute lack of respect Kalvaxus got in this episode. 

Pok as an Undercover Angel is SO GOOD. Like, I didn’t think he was really bad for a second but I never could have guessed he was an UNDERCOVER ANGEL. That’s such a dope combination of words. Undercover Angel (which my computer keeps trying to correct to undercover agent which isn’t wrong to be fair). Man. I love this. I love this for me and I love this for Riz. Riz deserves this. After so much crap in his life and so many mind games from Kalina and all this turmoil, he deserves to know that not only is his dad a good person who loved/loves him, he’s SO good that he’s an ANGEL and he was such a good spy in life he still is a secret agent in death. God, what a reveal. I can’t believe Riz got Spy Kids-ed TWICE by the same parent. Can’t wait to hear what exactly is going on with him.

Wait, what’s goblin heaven like? Which god is sanctioning this? Who is he working for exactly?

This episode, Kristen and Gorgug rolled 1 Nat 20 each, while Riz, Fabian, and Brennan each got 2. On the flipside, Adaine got 2 Nat 1’s, Fig and Fabian each rolled 1 that was cancelled, and Riz rolled 1 (in addition, Murph rolled two more which were lair actions and one of which was cancelled by a luck point so they don’t really count but it was very funny so I wanted to note it).

[celestianstars]

Soft Gestures

Florian Munteanu x Reader

For @kati-1997 who requested a fic where the reader is an actress and sings in Creed II with Tessa and Florian falls for her.

This is such a cute idea! I made it fluffy so I hope you like it!

Also, feel free to send requests, headcanons, etc, my asks are open 😊

(Chapter 2 of Falling Is the Easiest Thing will be up either later tonight or tomorrow morning depending on when I get home lol, so stay tuned y’all)

——————————————————————————

Tessa’s role as Bianca was expanding this time as the second installment in the Creed franchise began filming. Her performances were going to be bigger than before and this time around they wanted to have another singer make an appearance as a headliner for a big show she was doing.

You auditioned for the part as soon as your agent found out about it, spending the weeks in between your audition and the confirmation of a yes or no, in a nervous panic. 

The role was such a big opportunity for you, your love of singing and songwriting on the side went hand in hand with your passion for acting and to have the possibility at working with such an amazing lineup of actors was a dream.

The news came eventually though and you basically lost it when you found out you were given the part.

And the first time you met everyone was probably one of those days you’d remember till you died. The sheer amount of star power from Tessa and Michael to Stallone and Dolph, it was insane that you were here and getting to share a creative space with them.

With being a newcomer though, you ended up gravitating more towards Florian since he was new to the party too and it was nice that he knew how you felt and vice versa.

Not only was he incredibly good looking but he was also so talented when it came to acting, he was just a natural and you could see that clear as day.

And when it came to you, Florian thought the same. You had a gift with your voice and your words and acting just enhanced that.

“So are they letting you write your own song or do they want you to write about something specific?” Florian asked you one day while Tessa and Mike were in your kitchen.

Your apartment in LA kind of became the go to spot for the four of you in between filming days just to hang out and relax, and also for you and Tessa to write music.

“Nah, they’re letting me write my own song, which I’m grateful for cause I think my personal sound would fit with Tessa’s music as Bianca.” you tapped your pen against the notepad in your lap, an idea for a verse coming into your head.

Florian was sitting on the opposite end of the couch as you but since he was such a giant, it felt like he was closer and you didn’t mind it one bit.

“I’d love to hear it sometime if you don’t mind. I saw your instagram story when you were in the studio and I liked what you were playing. You’re good at it.” he complimented you, an edge of softness in his voice.

Breaking out into a smile you could feel your cheeks getting red. You were gonna get yourself into trouble if you didn’t stop these thoughts but he had been so sweet to you since the moment you met and every time he said something like that you went crazy inside.

“For sure Flo! And thank you, that means a lot coming from you.” you nudged his knee with your foot playfully, unable to contain the smile on your face.

He caught you by the ankle before you could move your foot away, his other hand coming down to tickle your calf which made you jerk your leg out, catching him square in the jaw.

“I should have known that would happen.” the deep rumbling of his laugh filled your ears.

“Oh my god I’m sorry! Noooo!” you had to hold your side for a minute from laughing so hard cause now he was the one with red cheeks.

“Aww wait let me see!” you scooted closer to him, your laughter subsiding a bit as you ran your thumb along his jawline, his beard feeling soft to the touch.

“You think I need stitches, (Y/N)?!” he feigned concern and clutched his chest dramatically, which made you giggle again.

“Oh yeah sorry to break the news to you but you’re gonna have one big scar on that handsome face of yours!” your hand had dropped down to his chest just inches away from his own hand.

“Ah ok so you admit I’m handsome huh?”

“Ok yeah shut up!” you rolled your eyes, silence falling between you two after that, just the slightest bit of tension noticeable as you both just sort of looked at one another, not really having anything else to add but just wanting to be in the moment a bit longer.

Tessa and Michael re-entered your living room with snacks, making you withdraw your hand from Florian’s chest quickly, scooting back to your original position.

Florian sat up just a little straighter too, both of you trying to act normal but failing cause Tessa could already feel what was up, she saw how friendly you were with each other since you had met. 

She didn’t say anything out of respect, however, she was gonna wait to see how far it went because in all honesty, she could see how good a pair you and him were and didn’t want to scare either of you away from each other by announcing her knowledge of anything.

Florian missed the physical contact of your hand on him as soon as you’d moved away and most of all, the way you laughed. It felt so light and joyous and showcased how comfortable you were around him. 

He knew his appearance was a little intimidating and when he first met you he saw the familiar look of awe mixed slightly with fear in your eyes that everyone had when they first laid eyes on him but you never shied away from him after that. Both of you gradually got closer to each other and it just meant a lot to him to have a friend.

Being in LA was new for him, he had no family or friends out here and he couldn’t really tell them much about what was going on with the movie and everything because he felt like they’d know he was struggling most days, even with how grateful he was for the opportunity.

His character, Viktor, was a man filled with a lot of hurt and he had to go to a pretty dark place to get into character. This was also new to him and he couldn’t find a way to get out of character when he wasn’t on camera just yet so his mood was really tanking, even when Michael would drag him out to eat or hang with him or when he would talk to his family.

He missed them, he was a big family person and not having them near was so foreign to him. His apartment here in LA was so empty all the time and his head space was often filled with sadness lately.

But despite that, you were the one thing that was keeping him sane essentially. Admitting it was hard but he knew deep down that he was falling in love with you every day he was around you.

You made him feel seen and understood and you noticed that he was struggling sometimes and wanted to do what you could to help because he was one of the sweetest people you’d ever met, those were the words you used when he asked you about it one day and that only softened his heart for you more.

To you, nothing about him was fake or forced and you tried making a promise with yourself that this was just a small crush on him because he probably had a girlfriend back in Germany or something but the more you were around him, the more intimate things became.

------

After another day of bouncing ideas off Tessa, you decided it was time to take another crack at the song in the studio and invited Florian along, not forgetting about what he said the other day.

You got to work, playing with the beat, not really happy with the way the bass sounded. It felt off and you spent a good fifteen minutes trying different frequencies out, turning to Florian and asking him what he thought.

“Here, I’ll play the track for you without my voice on it first and you tell me what you think.” you sat cross legged in a chair, swiveling around to face him.

He was sitting with both his feet on the floor, his legs positioned wide which you should be used to by now because that’s how he always tended to sit but you weren’t. He looked so damn good, especially with the gold chain he had on and the all black outfit, he was really looking like a snack and it killed you in the best way possible.

The sound of the beginnings of your work filled the room and you studied his face closely as he started bobbing his head to the beat.

“You made this? It’s like...perfect (Y/N)!” his body moving a little bit more in time with the music as he leaned forward towards you.

“Yeah I produce and mix everything I make, I like doing it all myself really, and you think so, not too heavy sounding?” you stretched and ended up resting your legs on his thighs, which he didn’t mind.

“Ahh the lady does it all huh, that’s amazing,” his forearm now rested on top of your legs, the contact making you shiver slightly. “But no, no it’s really good, I like the dark sound to it but it’s just enough to have the right affect. I told you you were good at this.”

He was so impressed and very much a fan of the kind of music you were making and watching you sing was such a turn on. You would close your eyes and move your body with the song and he had nothing but heart eyes for you when you did that.

You thanked him about a dozen times over the course of the few hours you spent in the studio, not able to stop the blush from creeping up on your cheeks when he praised your skills and kept raving about how your voice sounded and that you should drop an album with that “angelic voice” of yours.

His support was one of the best things; it helped you focus a little less of worrying if everything sounded great and more on just letting it all flow out of you as it came naturally.

You showed him how to use all the editing software and how to make a song from scratch, his attention and interest in something you gave so much of your heart to, filling you with another wave of love for him.

He made you feel special. And for Florian, all he wanted to do was make you feel understood and cared for like you always did for him.

----

The sun had set and the stars were out as both of you headed out of the studio, still laughing about the attempt Florian made to make his own music, which you kept insisting sounded amazing and that he wasn’t bad at singing but he kept arguing your points.

The car ride was silent but comfortable as you drove him back to his apartment. He didn’t want to go back there in truth, he knew another lonely night was waiting for him there and he’d give anything to be with you for a little while longer.

His emotions were easy to read for you and you knew he was deep in thought and it didn’t seem like it was about anything fun.

“Hey...you alright?�� you moved your hand from the steering wheel for a second to squeeze his hand gently, the red light from the stoplight in front of you illuminating his features.

“Hmm, yeah. I...just don’t really wanna go back to an empty apartment again.” he held your hand, his thumb running over your knuckles.

His voice was quiet and a little solemn and you felt your chest tighten at seeing him this way.

“Then you’re crashing with me tonight. I don’t want you to feel alone Flo. We can watch a movie, I have ice cream and you have a sweet tooth sooo...say no more!” you stated, leaving no room for him to argue even though he did.

You insisted that he wasn’t intruding upon your life, it was the least you could do and in truth you wanted more alone time with him too.

And that’s how you ended up snuggled against his chest, wrapped in a blanket as the two of you finished up a tub of ice cream.

You were feeling bold and seeing him half sprawled out on your couch gave you the idea to just try it, see what he would do, you’d find out how he felt once you did and wouldn’t have to guess anymore, so that’s what you did, lifting up the blanket draped over his torso, settling down against him as the movie started.

Florian couldn’t help but smile and try and remember how to breathe because this was all he’d been thinking about doing with you for months now. Watching Netflix with you in his arms, that was peace right there.

Without hesitation, he wrapped an arm around your waist, pulling you in just a little more, his other hand coming down to hold your chin, gently making you look at him.

“I don’t think I’ve ever told you how much everything you do is so important to me. Thank you, (Y/N), you’re an angel. My angel.” he let his fingers trail from your temple down your cheek, your eyes closing at the sensation, his words making your heart beat faster.

The movie didn’t even matter anymore because all either of you could see was each other.

“I’d do whatever I can for you, Florian. I like you a lot, more than I can express actually.” your voice was a whisper, still reeling from the fact that he called you his angel.

He grinned and his head fell back against the back of your couch for a second, hardly believing that you admitted it, before he returned his attention to you.

“I feel the exact same way.” he tangled his legs with yours, making you clutch his large frame, wanting to be impossibly closer to him as he placed a kiss on your forehead softly.

You felt so safe and loved in his arms like this, relief washing over you that he was just as into you as you were into him and that everything was falling into place.

It all meant something important and deep and neither of you could wait to spend more time, exactly like this.

[gingerstorm101]

A Little Too Late

Summary: Years after the death of Ziva, a case comes up where Tony finds that she was keeping a secret from him.

AOL

FF.net

The pop music rings loudly in her car as she speeds around the corner, making a quick stop at the targeted house comes into sight. Spotting her brother's car parked in the driveway to the house, she pulls in behind him, hastily turns off the engine, and jumps out of the car. Running over an hour late she is surprised he hadn't called her.

Walking around the back of the semi, she slips into the back door. "Steve!" She calls. "Sorry I'm late, there was an accident off of Main, many people are late for work because of it. You wouldn't believe the number of emergency vehicles across the northbound, even part of the southbound was blocked!" Ashley continues, walking through the house. "Hello? Steve?" Stepping into the living room, she freezes, her hands shaking as they raise to her mouth. Less than a moment passes before she lets out a high-pitched scream. On the floor before her lays a man, her brother, with a single gunshot through his head.

***

Tony was becoming more and more like him every day. He didn't mean to, it just… Happened. He walks into the squad room with a coffee in his right hand and a folder in his left. Tossing the folder onto the desk across from him, he addresses his newest agent. "Do it again, O'Riley." He didn't see the jaw drop on the young man, instead taking a swig of his drink and turned towards his desk, sitting down to check his emails.

O'Riley looks over to McGee, the file in his hand. "Again?"

"Don't take it too hard, Josh. Everyone has to rewrite their case report at least twice." The senior field agent reassures the young man.

Tony laughs. "Don't lie to the boy, Timmy." He catches his friend's eye, "You never had to rewrite yours." O'Riley visibly deflates before him.

McGee smirks. "But you had to rewrite yours three times, ain't that right, boss?" Tony stiffens and glares at him. Out of the corner of his eye, the newest agent sighs in relief.

On the other side of the bullpen, Agent Johnson smiles, her hand folded in front of her. "Don't worry Josh, I also had to redo mine."

O'Riley opens his mouth to reply but is cut off by the phone on Tony's desk ringing.

"DiNozzo," McGee looks over to his boss, taking in the signs and putting things away. "Yeah, got it." Hanging up, he grabs his coffee and his bag. "Grab your gear."

McGee was the first one to leave his desk, closely followed by Johnson and last, O'Riley running after the team and into the elevator.

***

Tony walks into the living room of the semi, his mind elsewhere as he takes in the pictures of a man with his parents and sister, and even a few with his friends. The pictures reminding him of a certain Israeli woman, and the photos she had on display at her apartment before she packed it all up and left it behind. His heart still hurts from that day she told him she was going back to her birthplace, and still broken from the day he had left her behind there, all those years ago.

A flash from the camera brings Tony back to the present moment, blinking away the blindness. "Sorry Boss," the young agent apologies, lowering the camera. "I thought you saw m- I should have waited."

"Careful O'Riley, you've been an agent for two months now, you should know to keep an eye all around, and not just what's in front of you. Got it?" He nods, shifting on his feet before returning to the crime scene.

Tony looks around the scene, watching McGee dust for prints along the door. "Got anything, Tim?" He says quietly, his voice just above a whisper, crouching down to a level with his Senior Field Agent.

McGee hummed, taking a picture. "Just one." Taking the crime scene kit to dust around the evidence he has found. "Just this bloody print. Looks like there was a child involved, considering the size." He says, finding nothing to go along with the first print. "But other than this, it looks like a clean job, I don't see a single print anywhere near this door besides the bloody one."

"If there was a child involved, it wouldn't be one from this household, the guy has pictures of everyone except a child. Doesn't even look like he's married." He looks over at his longest coworker, both giving each other a confused look. "You positive that this is a child's fingerprint, McGoo?"

Rolling his eyes, the man answers. "I'm positive Tony, this finger is too small to be a woman's print. It has to be a child." McGee pulls out a swab to sample the blood on the doorframe. "And from the lack of prints. I'm determined that this might just be a professional hit." Tony didn't need to say anymore, knowing that the other man would dust for prints all over the house.

Tony looks around the room, particularly the floor. Something was missing. "McGee," The man looks up in question. "Did you already collect the shell?"

He shakes his head, lowering the brush. "There wasn't any, Tony, the guy must have policed his brass."

Tony nods, agreeing with his earlier assessment. "Johnson!" He calls for his final agent, who walks into the room with Palmer right behind her. The Medical Examiner gets straight to work by himself, getting assistance from Josh.

"Yes, boss?"

He steps over to the woman, out of McGee's way. "What did the witness have to say?"

Sandra clears her throat, flipping open her notebook. "Ashley Morgan, sister to our victim, Stephen Morgan, was supposed to have breakfast together, last heard from him when she had left her house at 7:30 this morning, through texting, got stuck in traffic and was over an hour late. At 9:30, she came through the backdoor to find him dead in the living room."

He nods to his agent before calling over to Palmer. "Jimmy, when did this guy die?"

"Uh," The medical examiner hesitates. "Death between two and three hours ago." Between seven and eight this morning.

"It matches up with the witness' statement, she last talked to her brother at 7:30, Palmer, must have been shortly after that." Making quick notes, Tony orders Sandra to help McGee to dust the house. Tony wanders around the small house checking for anything that might be out of place. It didn't take long before he stopped in front of O'Riley. "Josh, what seems odd about this situation?"

The young man looks around the room, taking notice of the furniture. "The house is clean?"

"Well, besides that, O'Riley."

"It doesn't look like there was a struggle."

"I can second that." Palmer jumps in.

Tony nods to the two. "Exactly. In what world would a man who has a gun pointed at him, not struggle to get away?"

"Well, actually boss, there are many-"

"That was a rhetorical question O'Riley, keep up!" He knew the boy was still getting used to how he handled the team, but being part of a co-op group with a different team didn't get him much in learning how Anthony DiNozzo lead his team. He would be lost if Gibbs hadn't retired. "You don't just let a stranger into your house, especially if they are armed, and not struggle. That could only mean one thing…" He leaves the end of his statement open for his probie. After a moment the boy was still silent. He jesters to Josh, hoping to give him a clue.

"Oh!" O'Riley straightens his back. "He knew his attacker!" It will take time, but the boy was growing into a decent investigator. Tony pinched the bridge of his nose, he had a lot of work to do with this Probie.

***

With his third cup of coffee in his hand, Tony walks into the squad room to see his team hard at work. This is what he likes to see, and what he guesses what Gibbs liked to see before he retired all those years ago. But it was coming onto lunchtime, and the team should have enough information on the victim. "What do you got?" He asks before taking a sip.

Around the bullpen, the team quickly gets to their feet, and the plasma screen switches on, McGee grabs the clicker, standing in the lineup beside their boss.

They start.

"Sergeant Stephen Morgan, age 27, lives with a roommate, Carl Romone, currently serving in Afghanistan and won't be back for another five months. Other than Carl, Stephen is single and lives alone."

"His only family is his younger sister, Ashley, who found him this morning after a brief conversation with him only minutes before his death. Both of his parents died in a car crash when he was 18, he stepped up and took care of his sister."

"Stephen lives off of his military salary as all the money they would have inherited went towards their mother's gambling debt."

Tony scans over the evidence in front of him, pondering. "Anything on the bloody print we found?"

O'Riley hit the clicker, pulling up the print with a question mark photo beside it. He hid his smirk. "We are still waiting on the results from Abby."

***

The ding of the bell indicates to him, he was in the basement, armed with a Caf-Pow, he and McGee walk into the Forensic lab. He walks to the beat of the music, his senior agent bobbing his head. "New music, Abs?" He asks the woman in the lab coat.

Abby spins around in her spot, her skirt flaring up as she twirled. "Uh, huh! It's my friends' band, Franken Matter!" She says loudly, probably going deaf after years of concerts.

"Franken-"

"-Matter?" The two men question, glancing over at one another, brows arching.

"Yah-huh!" The woman continues to talk to McGee about the twins.

Tony takes a pace around the room, watching as the machines worked on their assigned duties as the two catch up. The room has changed little in the last twenty-five years, but the upgraded equipment fawns over and treats like her children. Something that the woman never had, and will probably stay that way. Out of all the members of the team, McGee and Palmer were the only ones to really settle down and have a family. Maybe it was his biggest regret, but that ship sailed when the love of his life passed away in a house fire.

He blinks twice, focusing his mind back on the present. "Do you got anything, Abby?"

She twirls around, her gaze landing on him. "There wasn't much evidence to work on, as you guys said, the house was rather tidy for a murder to take place. The only fingerprints I got were from the victim, his sister, and our mystery child, so I'm just waiting on that. The blood is an ‘A' Positive, doesn't match Stephen Morgan or his sister."

"Did Jimmy retrieve the bullet?"

"Yes," Abby faces her computer screen, pulling up the squished bullet fragment. "But we have little to work with, if we had the shell case, I could have gotten more from it."

"But we don't..." He says with a frown.

"But we don't." She repeats. The room goes quiet for a minute before Tony hears the beeping of Abby's computer. He glances over to see ‘100% Match' written across the screen. With a couple of clicks of the keyboard, she comments. "This isn't right."

Realization dawned on him when he looks up at the screen. It couldn't possibly be correct, the person on the screen couldn't possibly exist.

Before him was a picture of a little girl with dark brown curly locks and emerald green eyes. Her name none other than Talia A. David.

[minaminokyoko]

Avengers Endgame: A (Late, Incredibly Long) Spoilertastic Review

Well, it’s done.

I did it. We did it. We all watched the original lineup of Avengers’ stories come to its end.

So what did I think?

It was phenomenal. A worthy ending to a more than worthy series of films and stories.

There are just so many things to go over and so many points to hit that I have to warn you this review is likely going to be just as long as Endgame’s running time, so strap in.

Overall Grade: A-

Naturally, spoilers below.

I’m taking a note from a friend of mine and have decided that due to the film’s epic length and its history, the best way to tackle my reactions is first per character, and then I can evaluate things like plot and story and action. Just a heads’ up. So here we go.

Tony

Christ. I…wow, where do I even start?

There’s just so much to talk about with this movie and the arc that Tony Stark has been fulfilling since his first film. I almost don’t know how I can even put into words what I feel for this character. Tony came to us as this swaggering, arrogant diva, and yet the first Iron Man breaks him down to his core character. Tony Stark is a man with everything and nothing. He has the looks, the intelligence, and the resources to have everything a person could want, and yet he has no family and no deep connections with others aside from Rhodey and Pepper when it all starts. The core of the MCU was very cleverly built around the theme of Tony’s heart, and that’s perhaps why so many of us are devastated to know his fate. We all saw it coming. There was sadly no other way Tony’s story would pan out if we wanted to stick to his full arc. Tony could not rest until he knew the universe would be safe, and he made sure it would be before he left us. His legacy is incredible. It’s so…hell, to use a bad pun, heartwarming.

I guess the best thing to do in order for me to not just recap every amazing thing he’s done since Iron Man is to recap moments in Endgame for Tony that leapt out at me as exceptional:

-The intro with Tony playing paper football with Nebula. Stab me in the heart. That was so cute. It’s so very like Tony to try and keep her strong and keep her spirits up when they were literally staring death in the face. It was unexpectedly adorable, and even without us having seen the days they spent together, you could tell that Tony treated her in a mature-ish fashion and that’s why Nebula appeared to be affectionate, or at the very least, respectful towards him when she is usually very distant. You could tell they totally depended on each other and it was an important partnership. I was very, very touched when she scooped him up and put him in the seat when they were approaching their final day together. It’s such a powerful thing to see how far Tony has come, through the lens of Nebula showing such compassion for him even in such a short amount of time. I love how the Russos are so good at conveying thoughts and emotions and story without saying it outright. It’s an amazing skill in filmmaking.

-Tony’s arrival back to earth, and his confrontation with the Avengers. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. My fucking feelings, y’all. Christ. I mean, the Russos already know how to gut-punch you and then kick you when you’re down, but Tony’s complete and utter break down still hurts like a mother. It’s just so raw and emotional, and it should be that way after a loss on this kind of scale. What really tipped me over into choking down frustrated tears was that Tony just looks at Cap desperately when he stumbles off that ship and says in this broken voice, “I lost the kid.” He can’t even bear to say Peter Parker’s name. The shame and loss and guilt is too much for him to say his little Spider Son’s name. Oh, fuck you, Russo brothers.

And then the team being in utter shambles over losing to Thanos, all of them just barely holding it together, and then Tony just shatters. He’s home and he’s with family, but he can’t get over this kind of failure. What really tears it is him going after Steve so viciously, and it’s so complex. He’s angry at himself, and he chooses to direct that anger at Cap because we all know Tony took it as a personal loss, as all of them did, that he couldn’t stop Thanos even though he literally gave it everything. He gave every last bit, every last drop, of effort, and he couldn’t stop Thanos. It just hurts. And the resentment that was already between Cap and Tony after Civil War is still clearly there, so the entire scene is just like being dragged naked over broken glass. RDJ and Evans’ acting here is some of the best of the entire series in this scene. It sets the stage and reminds us of the stakes amazingly well.

-Tony’s post Snap life, and his interactions with his family. All of us Tony stans called it that Tony would be a phenomenal father. He’s already shown us that he can be the right amount of strict and caring, and everything with Morgan is exactly what I dreamt it would be. I could rewatch the scenes with Tony and Morgan a thousand times. People can shit on Tony all they want and I will never listen to them, because it’s so apparent how much and how deeply he cares in scenes like this. Where he confronts Pepper after he figures out the time heist equation. Years ago, Tony may have lied to her or made a decision without consulting her, but Tony has grown as a person and he approaches his wife with one of the most important things he will ever do in his life and he asks for her opinion before he does anything. It’s such a good comparison to how he used to be. Tony’s heart is so huge in this whole sequence. It’s such a good representation of his internal battle between doing what is right for everyone and doing what is right for him.

-Tony and Cap’s reconciliation. Oh, my heart. I love how Tony approaches it in such a Tony sort of way, forgiving Cap and agreeing to move past their resentment for what happened in Civil War. I like that it was done in a brisk sort of way, and that a lot of the power in the scene comes from RDJ and Evans’ facial expressions. Really, these two act off of each other so well that part of why we’re all crying so hard about this movie is the horrible knowledge that we don’t get to see them act opposite each other in this context. I pray they stay friends in real life, and I would love to see them reunited on screen someday. It’s such a great relationship and it’s at the core of why this is such a great film series.

-The New York heist. Oh God. I can’t wait for them to tell us if the comment about Cap’s ass was in the script or if it was an improvised line by RDJ or Paul Rudd. It is by far one of the funniest things ever to happen in the MCU. Dear God, I was howling. The best part is that during the premiere we were all laughing so hard that I missed Cap’s initial reply, which was, “No one’s asking you to look, Tony.” Christ, I can’t deal. I know it’s straight up Stony pandering but I don’t give a fuck, it was hilarious. And it’s a very meta joke since Chris Evans’ gorgeous, flawless body is a meme thanks to his Dorito proportions (if you haven’t seen that yet, oh god, please look it up) and the fact that he has an absolutely phenomenal ass, especially for a white guy from Boston. Anyway, Tony and Scott’s whole interaction was perfect, and I loved how the scene went and how it led into the next one.

-The army base heist. Tony running into his father was such a good twist. I absolutely did not see that coming, but it was a really welcome conversation to give Tony closure. He’s felt so guilty for how he left things with them, and it was so touching to see him get a second chance at it, even if Howard was none the wiser. I really hadn’t expected anything like that, but it worked well with Tony’s arc and I thought it was very sweet.

-Tony’s reaction to seeing his baby boy, his little Spider Son, running up to him. My God. This was everything. I am a hardcore supporter of the Iron Dad and Spider Son dynamic, and this was the reunion I so sorely needed after the sick, demented, painful scene that was the final moments in Infinity War. Like the rest of you, the level of trauma that hit me when Peter Parker died is just…hell, infinite. The pain was just infinite. I both love and hate Tom Holland and RDJ for doing that shit to us. I did not know I could cry that hard about a fictional character, but I openly wept to the point of sobbing when Peter Parker died in IW, and to see him back in this scene was so wonderful. In my second viewing, the audience actually clapped when Peter swung through the portal, and that was quite sweet for me to experience. But back to the point: once again, I have to simply compliment RDJ’s acting. This is why we love him so much. It’s not even about the big, loud moments. His acting is so precise that the flurry of emotional expressions that Tony went through when his tiny son helped him up and started excitedly babbling to him about being dead, of all things, and then Tony just doesn’t even interrupt him, he just walks forward and pulls that little boy into his arms and holds him tightly in a hug and it’s just…wow. This is some spectacular acting on both their parts, and it heals a really wounded part of my heart, even though the next scene I talk about just breaks it all over again. Plus, at the time I wrote this review, the Spider-Man: Far From Home full trailer just dropped and (SPOILER ALERT) the opening scene is Peter Parker and Happy mourning Tony and I just feel like someone hammered a stake into my chest. This scene is so fantastic. It’s just another reminder of how damn much Tony Stark cares about the people around him and that he has an actual family now, and that’s why the next scene is possibly the saddest one of all.

-Tony’s death. Like Loki’s untimely demise, I knew this was coming from years and years of being a writer. Based on the track for his character arc and because RDJ announced this is his final official performance as the character, I knew Tony was going to die. There was no way around it. His determination to save everyone and correct the wrong done to the universe by Thanos would drive him past his limits and cause him to sacrifice it all. It’s just…man. I wish it had ended differently for him. Anyone who follows me on Tumblr knows that I tag all Iron Man posts with “we stan Tony Stark in this house” and that is how I feel. While Tony is not my favorite Avenger, I will stand up for him all day, err day. Tony Stark is the epitome of the human spirit, and in a different way than Cap, if you ask me. Tony is all of the dark and seedy parts, but also the defiance and the self-deprecation and the obsession and the power of the human spirit. He has so many vices and yet so many virtues. He cares to a fault. He blames himself to a fault. He has come so far after that brutal conversation in Avengers when Cap accuses him of not being the man to lay down on the razor wire and let the other guy crawl over you. He made the ultimate sacrifice play. As much as I reject the idea, we all knew it had to be him. It had to be. Because at the end of the day, Tony’s need to make his family safe was more precious to him than his own life. He gave up a future with his loved ones to make sure Thanos could never hurt them again. And all of it was capped off with a line that will probably haunt me forever, of Pepper’s soft, forgiving goodbye, “You can rest.”

-Tony’s farewell message to his family. Want to know something crazy? I cried so hard at the premiere. So hard. I was almost dry heaving with how hard I cried at Tony’s funeral. But then I had a week of time and I saw it again this past Sunday. I was choked up during his death but I didn’t shed actual tears this time until “I love you 3000.” Somehow, it didn’t hit me until the second time how they filmed Tony’s goodbye to us. They shot it in such a way that as he leans down to turn off the recording, he’s actually looking at us. Not directly into the camera, but so close to it that it finally hit me that this was RDJ’s goodbye and thank you to the fans. It was so touching and sincere that I finally broke down and actually cried again. What truly hurts is knowing that his loved ones have to be without him, and even though his sacrifice means everything, he is going to leave behind such a void. Even with his problems and his flaws, Tony was a damn good man and he was the right choice to begin this epic series. I can’t express how much I am going to miss him and how much I am going to miss RDJ in this shared universe. He’s so charismatic and wonderful and complex. It was not only a comeback for Tony Stark, but a comeback for a very troubled man, and it’s come full circle that Tony had a loving family just as RDJ has a loving family after his checkered past. To be honest, I’m likely going to do as I did for Loki and have a cutoff point in my brain for the MCU, where I don’t accept what happened because it’s too painful. I just pretend that nothing happened after that hug with Peter Parker and they all won the day and no one died. That’s just how it’s gotta be for me to survive a post Endgame world.

Thank you, Tony. You gave everything. I love you now and always.

Thor

-Thor executing Thanos. Standing. Fucking. Ovation. Right, so, I know that Thor probably should not have outright killed Thanos before they had more information, but at the same time, there was nothing more to get out of that son of a bitch and I clapped when Thor swung Stormbreaker and lopped that mo’fo’s head clean off, and I flipped off Thanos’ corpse with both fingers. Good boy. He told you he’d kill you, and he killed you, you sorry bastard. A+++

-Thor’s depression and weight gain. Alright. *rolls up sleeves* Time to make some enemies. I think Fat!Thor is a great idea, but the execution could have been done better. I recognize writing tricks when I see them, and Fat!Thor seems to be two ideas in one, and one of them is what is bothering the semi-reasonable part of the fandom. What I’ll do is explain my take on both parts of the overall idea.

(1) Thor’s depression at his failure (at the time) to reverse the Snap and save everyone is 100% accurate, in character, and is damn good writing. Thor has never actually full-on failed at anything in his life. The closest he has come is between being cast out in the first Thor movie for being irrational and cruel, and in Ragnarok where he had to let Surtur destroy Asgard in order to save his people. Even then, Thor lost battles, not the overall war. Therefore, Thor does not understand how to process failure. Yes, he also failed to save his mother, but at the same time, it’s not a failure on this level. He lost Frigga, Loki, the Warriors Three, and Heimdall, but this was literally trillions of lives that he feels were weighed on his shoulders, and his shoulders alone, even though as Rocket pointed out, losing the war was the fault of a LOT of people, not just Thor (and not Starlord either, you bunch of whiny hypocrites in the fandom, ugh). So becoming an alcoholic and giving up on his life as a hero is definitely how Thor would handle things. Think about it. He no longer has any guidance from his family, or his best friend, since they died. All he has is his Avengers family and Valkyrie. I’m sure the Avengers tried to talk him out of it to no avail, and that’s a really sad thing to know, that they couldn’t get him out of his depression spiral, so they let him wallow in it. As for Valkyrie, she’s still just barely recovered from her own trauma, and I am sure she probably tried to snap him out of it too, but he was too stubborn to listen. What I like about this point for his character is that Thor is right—he has always been expected to be “worthy” and to be the savior. Thor is the big gun on the team alongside the Hulk. He has always been the bravest, the noblest, and the most powerful person on the team, and he is expected as a king to win the day every time. But he lost. And he can’t reconcile it since he has always triumphed in the end. So it’s very understandable for him to lose control and just want to have nothing to do with the hero business, because if you fail once, you can fail again, and he couldn’t bear the thought of failing again, not after it cost him literally everything.

(2) Fat!Thor was an easy source of cheap laughs to keep the mood from getting too dark considering the subject matter handled in this movie. I am of two minds about this issue. On the one hand, I can see why certain people feel that this is fat shaming. It is. But the problem stems from the fact that the fat shaming is still a large part of American culture, and people have not broken the bad habit yet, and so it gets shifted into the easy laughs category. The easy laughs are for the Average Joe viewer. It’s for people who aren’t as conscious of how it sounds to mock him for his weight gain who are just used to “ha ha, fat person jokes.” Some fans felt uncomfortable that he was the butt of a few jokes because a lot of us who suffer from depression know that this is in fact a side effect. When you’re depressed, it’s easy to stress eat and overeat, and you lean heavily towards comfort foods that cause you to gain weight, and your depression makes you tired, so you also don’t exercise and that’s how you can end up overweight. On the other hand, while I agree with these folks about not liking the fat jokes, I also think it was necessary to show a character we all admire falling into the same pitfalls that we as mere Midgardians deal with on a daily basis. I don’t like the jokes, but I do like Fat!Thor’s inclusion in this story because people need to realize what depression does to a person. It shouldn’t have been handled this way, but from a strictly observer perspective, I understand why they went for the low hanging fruit. People needed to laugh since Endgame has very, very dark elements to it. I would have preferred they approach his weight gain in a more dignified fashion, but not every part of this movie was written for me and I sadly have to accept it. That’s my feelings on it.

-Thor’s encounter with Frigga on Asgard. I. FREAKING. LOVE. THIS. I did not see it coming, and I love it with every fiber of my being. This is such a heartwarming scene. I want to rewatch it a thousand times. I love Frigga immediately knowing what’s up (she’s not stupid and of course she noticed and it’s everything to me) and I love that she can clearly see how distraught her beautiful son has become. I love Thor having a panic attack, because that’s extremely realistic after he’s gone so long not having done any hero work, per se, and having to face his previous failed relationship with Jane, and with facing the day his mother died again. It’s really compelling writing. Frigga’s gentle reassurance is exactly what he needed, and it’s exactly what we needed to see him go through. He had to let go of the expectations piled upon him and accept himself for who he is, not who he needs to be as a warrior king and an Avenger. While I do wish they had gone on to show us a little more of who he considers himself to be instead of who he is supposed to be, I am really excited to hear Chris Hemsworth is one of the Avengers who has chosen to stay past the end of Phase Three. He’s young and funny and vibrant and I think Thor is his best role of his career anyhow (no offense meant, Hems, if you ever read this, you handsome golden retriever, you). I think exploring Thor’s personal goals and future will be very interesting.

-Thor’s reaction to Natasha’s death. This is a very small moment, but I actually like it a lot. I like that Thor’s optimism here is a form of denial. I like it because there are certain Avengers who despite the 11 year saga have not interacted with each other much, and Thor and Nat are probably my leading example. When it hit him that they couldn’t use the time stone to bring her back, the loss and devastation on his face almost made up for the fact that Thor and Nat have almost no lines with each other in the film series. I like it because it hurts and because it shows that she does matter to him, even though they don’t interact. It’s a nice detail to include since I was often a little sad I never got to see these two have dialogues. I personally have even written a bit of fanfiction about what their relationship could have been like, and I think it could have been sort of brother-sisterly. It’s a shame we won’t get to see it, but I like that it is given attention here at last.

-Thor wanting to undo the Snap. Yes. This is a very good character beat for him. Again, I agree it’s annoying he ends up getting another fat joke thrown at him (nice work, Rhodey, sheesh, it’s not like the poor guy was traumatized or anything), I like that Tony talks him down. I like that Tony doesn’t think he can’t do it, he’s worried that Thor is in so much pain that he shouldn’t try to make such a rash decision that could cost him his life. Tony seemed dismissive, but I think he was trying to protect his friend more than anything else. I think Tony also knew that it would be rough if Thor either died or became permanently crippled by undoing the Snap. Being able to fight is extremely important to Thor, even with his depression, because Thor is essentially a space Viking. It shows that Tony is aware that Thor’s not just bumbling around as a chubby drunk, but he’s legitimately in pain and he needs to take things slower.

-Thor giving Valkyrie the throne. First off, I need to sling salt at the freaking part of the Thorkyrie fandom that is somehow complaining about this scene. Are you kidding me? What movie did you watch? This is the ultimate freaking Thorkyrie scene, you bunch of whiny nincompoops! Thor literally gave Valkyrie the throne because she is so smart, powerful, and kind that he trusted her to take care of the people he loves with all his heart. The amount of trust and respect that is in this scene makes me want to just squeal for hours. I can’t handle how affectionate and reverent Thor is as he gives Valkyrie the throne. I love the long gaze they share. I love the handshake. I love that Val asks when she’ll see him again. I love that Thor has faith in her and how she will lead his people. Anyone bitching that this is an anti-Thorkyrie scene did not see the same movie we did, and you can all piss off. I love this scene to my core. I love seeing Valkyrie being assured to be a relevant part of Thor’s story and that it likely means Tessa Thompson is going to join us again for either Thor 4 or Guardians of the Galaxy 3. I am a giant freaking fan of her character and I can’t scream “SIGN ME THE FUCK UP” loud enough for her to be in future films with him, and with the MCU in general. I hope she signed a three movie deal or more. That would be amazing. But anyway, my point is, this scene is fantastic and I will be rewinding it a lot when this movie gets to DVD. Nothing makes me happier than Thor shooting heart-eyes at Val, and he was shooting them so hard in this scene that he even took his sunglasses off. God bless this scene.

-Asgardians of the Galaxy. I DON’T KNOW WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN WITH THIS BUT I LOVE IT WITH MY ENTIRE FUCKING SOUL YOU GUYS. Everything about Thor hanging out with the Guardians makes me so incredibly happy. I can’t wait for shenanigans. I would assume the plot of the next one is finding Gamora and bringing her home and re-teaching her about her family and falling in love with Quill again, but who knows what wackiness awaits us? I can’t deal with Thor being a little shit to Quill. I could see his Hemsworth peeking through, and I am here for it. Half the reason we all love Thor as much as we do is that Taika was one of the first people to suggest letting Hems be more like himself, and Chris Hemsworth is basically a giant, hilarious puppy, and it really made Thor more fun and likable. Don’t get me wrong—I loved my noble prince, but he was still a big golden retriever even when he was more Shakespearean and all they truly did was dial it up to be a bigger part of his personality.

Really, I like what Thor went through in Endgame and how it connects with lots of elements in previous movies. While parts could have been done better, I thought it was fantastic and it shook things up in a way that should be quite intriguing for his future appearances. Of everyone, Thor is the character I am most excited to learn about continuing to be in the MCU.

Natasha

-Natasha taking a leadership role in the Post Snap years, and her conversation with Steve. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a die-hard Captasha shipper, but more than that, I think the friendship and love (platonic or otherwise) between Nat and Steve is by far one of the best relationships in the Avengers saga. I love how it began, how it developed, and where it is when we watch this scene of them together. I love how soft and gentle Steve is with her, and yet he teases her in this subtle way that’s almost like a verbal hug. Steve is just so compassionate and conscious of her emotional needs, the same as how she has been with him. I think this is such a precious relationship and it’s vital to both of them that they have someone to confide in when times are hard. It’s possibly even more beautiful because they aren’t canonically together as a couple; they’re just two friends who have bonded and been partners ever since The Winter Soldier, and they without a doubt love each other. (Side note: and I am not alone in this because Chris Evans even ships it, and that makes me so very pleased.) I gobble up all Captasha scenes, honestly, because it’s so well written and it’s come a long way from the first time they met in Avengers. But to get a little more in depth, Nat’s brief breakdown about Clint is really something else. Seeing her struggle with the idea that the man she loves (again, platonically) has become a monster, and struggling with the idea that she should move on but she can’t because she’s lost her family, is really damn hard to watch, but it’s necessary. It’s a really good reflection of the level of loss and trauma and pain our poor Avengers have had to deal with since the Snap. It’s an excellent scene.

-Nat going after Clint to bring him home once they figure out that the time heist is at least possible. Ow. This is another scene that is a big kick in the nuts. “Don’t. Don’t give me hope.” “I’m sorry I couldn’t give it to you sooner.” Bury me, this is such a good, quiet little scene for her. I really like their friendship and their bond. When Nat mentions family in the previous scene, this is what she’s talking about, and I love how Endgame might be the first film to openly acknowledge that the Avengers are family to each other. And what I like is that this series has earned that. Nothing makes me angrier than when people drop the F-bomb where it is NOT deserved. (*side eyes Suicide Squad and Deadpool 2*) The Avengers have fought and bled for each other, have supported each other, and have loved each other through hell and back, and they ARE a family. Bringing Clint home was a big deal to her, facing her fears of what he’s become, but seeing that he is still somewhat the man she knows and loves because he does return to the fold in the end.

-Natasha’s death. Hoo boy. Okay, so like Tony and Loki, I might just stick this in my Denial category. I was hit with a huge wave of “oh no, please no” when I found out Clint and Nat would be the ones going to retrieve the Soul Stone, because of course it had to be them. However, it was thematically the right choice for it to be Clint and Nat, since I personally think the only other combination it could have been was Steve and Tony or Steve and Nat in terms of “give up that which you love” that the Red Skull illuminated is the price for the stone. I think all the team members genuinely care for each other, but if I wanted to use the word love, yes, I’d say it comes down to members of the team who truly love one another, it’s Tony and Steve, Clint and Nat, and Nat and Steve. So I am in a very weird place about Nat’s death in this movie.

First off, I love how it was handled because it couldn’t have gone any other way. Of course both of them wanted to jump on this grenade for each other. Of course they both think they are the unworthy one who should die for the other person they love. Of course they fought over it.

Here's the thing, though: from a writing standpoint, it did need to be Natasha.

And before we go further, let’s address the elephant in the room fandom-wise: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, YOU MORONS, THIS IS NOT THE ‘STUFFED IN THE FRIDGE’ TROPE. God, I hate you sometimes, MCU fandom. I knew as soon as she sacrificed herself that all the fake feminists would run into the streets and climb onto their soapboxes and try to call the Fridge trope. Shut up. It’s not a Fridge.

For those not familiar with the trope, Stuffed in the Fridge is when a typically female character is unceremoniously killed off for usually one of two reasons (1) to cause a male character to angst (2) to further or advance a male agenda somehow.

Natasha’s sacrifice is neither of these things.

First off, it was her choice. Clint made it completely clear that he loves her and he did not want her to die for him. One of the primary problems with the Fridge trope is it robs the woman of her choice, and Nat is the one who decided that she would be the one to die for the Soul Stone. Calling this a Fridge is a blatant, insulting erasure of her motivation as a character.

Second off, Nat’s death is a sacrifice that wins a war. It’s not pointless, and it’s not just for angst, and it’s not just for a male character to get ahead in the story. She literally saves trillions of lives by trading her soul for the stone. Trillions. Yes, the team is devastated, but her death is not simply there to make you shed tears and nothing else. She saved them all. So don’t you dare try to pin this dumb trope on her, because it’s not accurate or correct.

Third off, this completes Natasha’s character arc. We’re introduced to the beginning of her arc in the iconic scene of The Avengers where she tricks Loki into revealing his scheme, but it turns out that while she does succeed, we find out what motivates her, and that Loki’s cruelty did affect her in the end. Clint was sent to kill her, but he shows compassion and instead recruits her. Clint gives her a second chance. And Nat, in sacrificing herself for the Soul Stone, gives Clint a second chance. It’s come full circle. One of my all-time favorite lines in this entire film series is hers, “I got red in my ledger; I’d like to wipe it out.” That. Is. A. Fucking. Great. Line. And this is the pay off and the completion of Nat’s character arc. She’s done horrible things and they have been chains on her soul and she felt that she needed to repay her debt in this way, and in a way that would save so many innocent lives. I will not have these people running around discounting that and acting like she is some victim. Natasha Romanov is not a fucking victim. Natasha Romanov died a hero. She is one of my favorite Avengers and I cried so hard at her loss, but I acknowledge that she did a brave, selfless thing for everyone she loved, and she will be remembered for that always.

Now. That being said…if you want to complain about a female character dying in a majority male story, yes, go right ahead. That is a legitimate complaint. It sucks that Nat died when most of the team is male. I will heartily concur with this criticism and offer no counterargument. It sucks. Period. I hate that she dies in the first act because I really love her fighting style and I wanted to see her kick more ass in the final battle because she’s amazing to watch. So yes, that’s a point I do take off from this movie.

In the end, I’m sort of straddling the fence for losing Nat, as I am with Tony, but I think a lot of people feel the same way. It is great writing, but the loss is so painful that I might not accept it totally.

Thank you for your bravery, Nat. Seriously, you’re one of my favorite female leads and you’ll be sorely missed. I can only hope the Black Widow movie helps me deal with the pain of losing you.

Steve

-Steve quietly taking all of Tony’s trauma-fueled ranting. This is so important. Chris Evans is so fantastic at acting in general, but all of his expressions as Tony lays into him are so underrated, man. He knows that Tony has reached a breaking point, and so he offers no vitriol in return. It’s a huge contrast to the scene in Civil War where the two of them argue. Steve is by no means a timid man. He recognizes that Tony is in such pain, as are all of them, and he just takes that rage because he knows it’s just how Tony chose to process everything because he can’t come to terms with it. We know he blames himself for being unable to stop Thanos, same as all of them do, and it’s such a testament to what a good man Steve is that he doesn’t fire back at Tony, and he is deeply concerned for him instead. Especially when Tony throws it back in his face that they’d lose together, and that’s what hurts the most during this scene. Tony was alone when he lost. Nebula was the only survivor, and she was a complete stranger to him until they repaired the Milano and tried to get back to civilization. I think Tony would still be angry and traumatized, but he’s always been able to look to his team members for ideas or comfort or just companionship in hard times. He nearly died, and that left a mark on him that ran so deep he just couldn’t stop spitting vitriol at possibly one of his closest friends, and it’s also important that they hadn’t spoken since the end of Civil War, so all of that anger and resentment is also tangled up inside them both. What a scene, man. What a scene.

-Steve mentoring people in the Post Snap years. This has a couple of really great things as a scene, honestly. First off, I love that even with Steve being heartbroken and refusing to move on, he still knows it is important to help others. Second off, I love that it’s almost implied that this is in honor of Sam Wilson, who did the same thing for soldiers who returned home from war struggling with PTSD. I really, really love Steve Rogers with all my heart for this scene. Even though he’s broken down and just as devastated as everyone else, he is still out there trying to help others. That is who he is at his core. Steve is the man who cannot stand by and let other people suffer. He won’t do it. It doesn’t matter what it costs him. He will defend and protect and nurture, always. By God, I love that about him.

-Steve’s quiet reconciliation with Tony. We discussed this above, but I love that Steve says so few words here and lets Tony do all the talking. There’s an almost silent “I’m sorry and I love you and I want you to be happy” in this scene together. Tony bringing back the shield just…my feelings…oh God, my feelings.

-Steve’s miniature speech before they head into the Quantum Realm. I love that even Rocket is impressed.

-Steve’s reaction to Nat’s death. Fuck. Me. Up. This hurt so badly. I can’t. I can’t with how Steve looks at Clint and Clint just looks back at him, and you can almost hear him telepathically saying, “Steve, we lost her.” Like I said before, Steve and Clint without a doubt love Natasha. Yes, Bruce does to some degree, but it’s not the same (sorry, y’all, I think BruceNat was trash and I will never accept it because it was forced and awkward and made no sense to me) as the deep vein of friendship and love she had with both men. It killed me when they were out on the dock and Steve was openly crying for her. We saw Steve crying in the trailer but we didn’t know this was the context. Oh, this hurts me. Steve loved her with all his heart. She was his best friend, same as Sam and Bucky were, and to lose her with no chance of ever getting her back is a terrible, terrible loss. Boy, this scene was rough to endure. I can only imagine how he must have felt having to let her go after he’s lost so many people he loved. Poor Steve.

-The entire New York heist. Oh God. I’m just in heaven over how Steve handled things, everything from the intentional recreation of the iconic elevator scene in The Winter Soldier to the insidious “Hail Hydra” (*makes strangulation hands in the direction of the Russo brothers because they KNOW most of the fandom hates Hydra Cap from the comics and so of course they put that in there just to screw with us*) to the smug smirk on Cap’s face as he walked away with scepter to Cap laying the beatdown on himself to Cap acknowledging his sweet, sweet, round, perfectly firm ass. (Seriously, Chris Evans, if you ever read this, marry me, we already met and hugged each other, we could make this work.) Yes. Special props to Cap vs. Cap’s interactions. It was just…everything.

-Steve wielding Mjolnir. Jesus. Fucking. Christ. So everyone’s already raved about this scene, but I don’t care, I have to rave about it too. Good gravy. Good God. This scene is everything. Honestly, it is easily one of the greatest things ever conceived not only by the MCU, but in action movies period. This can stand toe to toe with some of the best beatdowns in all of cinema. It’s just…where do you even start with how good this fucking scene is?! I mean, every second of it is just glorious. Whether it was the Russos or Evans or the script writers, whoever I need to thank, THANK YOU. Thank you for gift wrapping this total surprise. Every one of us was wounded that Cap didn’t easily lift Mjolnir in Age of Ultron, but at the same time, I loved the humor of that scene when Mjolnir did actually start to move and Thor totally panicked for a second. It was funny as hell. But for the Russos to fulfill our fantasy in a way that was not only a surprise, but just an absolute joy to watch, I can’t even express my fangirl tears. This scene is better than sex and chocolate and cocaine. It’s flawless. Everything about it is flawless, from Steve summoning the goddamn lightning to Thor’s gleeful “I KNEW IT!” I wish I could frame this scene on my wall in .gif form, and I apologize in advance to all my Tumblr followers, because the second this scene is giffed after the DVD release, I am going to reblog it three billion times. I will never stop reblogging it. This is the height of MCU perfection and it deserves to be known as such.

-Steve facing off with Thanos in his last stand, and actually holding his own. Dude. Steve Rogers is a human man, and he withstood Thanos. I just…I can’t with how awesome it is. He lost in the end, but he beat the shit out of Thanos for a good bit and I just have to give him all the props for that. He did the impossible and survived him. That’s amazing.

-Steve strapping on his broken shield and staring down Thanos and his army. This is peak Steve Rogers right here. “Yeah, you have thousands of soldiers. Yeah, you sheared my shield in half. Yeah, you beat me and my comrades. And I don’t give a single solitary fuck.” This is also an amazing echo to the moment in Infinity War where poor Wanda had to kill Vision, and Cap stood up to Thanos with his goddamn bare hands. Steve standing up after getting the shit kicked out of him is what he is all about. He doesn’t care that he is outnumbered. He doesn’t care that he is outgunned. He is Steve motherfucking Rogers and he is going to stand against evil period. This is top tier stuff, man.

-“Avengers Assemble.” Like everyone else, I jizzed in my pants. Full on. We all had a hunch that they would save it until the final Avengers film with the final appearances of the original team, and it was everything we dreamt it would be.

-Steve catching Stormbreaker as well and then trading it with Thor mid-battle. A tiny but hilariously awesome scene. I’m so glad they included it, and it was another little nod to Steve and Thor always having a small adorable friendship moment in each Avengers movie. Thanks for that, truly.

-Steve passing the mantle over to Sam Wilson. Holy shit. So a lot of us were relatively sure with Chris Evans confirming this as his last full appearance as Captain America that the mantle would go to either Bucky or Sam. My money was on Sam, simply for him still being new blood having entered at Phase 2 in the MCU, and because Sam is a lot more of a dynamic main lead that I think the MCU needs in the role. Anthony Mackie, as any hardcore MCU fans know, is a bundle of fun behind the scenes. He’s really hilarious and charismatic, and I think he’ll bring a lot to the role of the new Captain America. It’s such a touching scene as Steve hands him the shield. I really, really get choked up about how it was handled with such respect and trust and honest to God friendship. “How does it feel?” “Like it’s someone else’s.” “It isn’t.” Wow. What a beautiful scene. I’m a little misty as I type it out. And I do like that there was just this little nod from Bucky, who has been antagonistic to him pretty much all the time but here, he shows his support and it’s kind of just known that he will back Sam up no matter what. I cannot express how much I love this idea and its execution. It was perfect. (By the way, please look up the way Anthony Mackie found out about this before filming. It’s too cute.)

-Steve’s ending. Oh my God. Of possibly everyone on the team who I wanted to have a happy ending, I wanted Steve’s the hardest, even though I love Tony to death and beyond. Thank you, Russo brothers. Thank you for letting this man have his second chance at a life, and that he got to spend it with Peggy. I was already crying from the funeral, but the fact that they decided to end the saga with possibly the sweetest imagery in the MCU is just overwhelming. I loved their little slow dance. I love the tears of joy on Peggy’s cheeks. I love the softness in Steve’s expression as he dances with his lady love. I love the song choice. I love how he just looks down at her and she looks up at him and they kiss to close everything out and say goodbye to us all. What a scene. What an ending. I love it more than anything.

Thank you, Steve. Thank you for being our ray of light and sunshine and guidance all these years.

Nebula

I really did not expect to see an arc for Nebula, but I am delighted that we got it. This was very, very interesting considering what a sadistic murderess Nebula was in the previous films, so fueled by rage, and yet here we see that she is still powerful and effective and yet vulnerable. I enjoyed seeing her growth and getting some amount of closure with Thanos’ demise and saving Gamora as well as the rest of the universe.

Bruce

So here’s the thing: Bruce is probably my least favorite Avenger, next to Clint, but that’s not because anything is wrong with either character—I just find their personalities and abilities the least interesting. Therefore, I’ve heard complaints about Hulk not kicking ass in Infinity War and Endgame, and while they are valid points…I don’t care. I guess the thing is that Hulk has kicked ass in all his previous appearances, and I think it was nice of them to get back to the fact that Bruce is indeed a scientist and there is more to him than just crushing things. He is a very conscience driven character, and I was totally fine with him as a supporting member of the team, and of his brave decision to Un-Snap everyone back to life. I especially liked his sympathetic approach to bring Thor back home. “You helped me.” I fully admit that made my lip quiver, honestly, since Thor was obviously so traumatized and was in a lot of pain, and Bruce was gentle with him. That, to me, is just as important as all the bashing he could have done. Same with his impassioned plea with the Ancient One. Sorry that he didn’t kick ass in these last two movies, but honestly, I felt things were balanced and that it’s important to show he is more than the Hulk.

Clint

As mentioned above, Clint is my least favorite Avenger, but again, not because there is anything wrong with him or that he is written poorly—the others just outweigh him in what I like about them. I have to say opening the film with Clint losing his entire family with no knowledge of what was going on was almost as gut-stabbing as how Infinity War began and ended. It was somehow even more cruel since Clint would not have known what was going on until he called the Avengers. And yes, someone’s pointed out to me that it’s crazy he didn’t know about the war, but I have a headcanon that he just cut everyone off once he decided to retire, and he wouldn’t answer when they called so he wouldn’t be dragged into more shenanigans. I highly doubt the whole team just flat-out didn’t tell him what was going on. There’s a good chance Clint decided not to hear from the team again after Cap busted them out since he risked everything and almost got jailed for life after his decision.

All that being said, I did feel Clint’s loss very hard after Nat sacrificed herself. It was extremely well done on Jeremy Renner’s part and there was never a doubt that he loved her. Their bond has always been very cute and I never shipped them, so I wasn’t disappointed by the reveal of his secret family. I thought it was a nice touch and a surprising turn in the story. I’m glad he got to go home to his family in the end, and I especially liked the touching moment he shared with Wanda after Tony’s funeral.

Loki

Holy shit, y’all.

I did not expect this, and I love it more than anything in the world.

Right, so, I am sadly a fan of Loki’s ever since The Dark World, but at the very least, I am not a rabid fan of the character. He is an absolute fucking trashlord and I acknowledge it while still loving him anyway. I was positively giddy that they invited Tom Hiddleston back to shoot new scenes of Loki rather than simply using the old Avengers footage. And I definitely didn’t expect Tony, Cap, and Scott to screw up and Loki gets the Tesseract and vanishes. This is amazing. I can’t wait for the Loki mini-series on Disney Plus, and I assume this is what it’s going to be about. I’m really excited to see what kind of shit he gets himself into, and I loved the little bits we got of him mocking Cap even though they all just kicked his ass, and I loved him rolling his eyes in the background during the heist, and being the only one who knew something fishy was going on. Love, love, love it to pieces. Thank you for giving me more of my stupid trashlord, Endgame. You rock.

Scott

Oh, poor, poor Scott. Not only did he awaken to find his new family gone, but he lost five years of time with his daughter. Ouch. I really have to commend Paul Rudd for the reunion scene with his daughter. The shock and pain mixed in with the gratitude that she survived the Snap was so palpable. I’ve never really considered him much more than an easy going comedic actor, but he did a great job here. Kudos.

Gamora

I am really, really deeply hurt that this means our Gamora, the one we came to know and grow with, is truly gone. Like many fans, I had hoped she was somehow inside the Soul Stone and they could bust her out, but like Nat, it appears that we did truly lose her. I’m not okay. I feel so bad for Quill, who wooed her with so many great moments, and now he’s lost her again. He’ll have to try to make her fall in love with him again, and it hurts me because the sequence of events from the first two Guardians movies are how they fell in love, and it’ll be so much harder to make her understand what they meant to each other and what they had with one another as well as their little stitched together family. Damn it all. This might be one of the biggest underrated losses of all for me. Gamora is my favorite Guardian, period. I adore her, so I am both anticipating and dreading the third Guardians movie as a result.

Carol

Alright, I do have to admit one of my letdowns, even though it’s a total nitpick, is that the trailer gave us Thor and Carol, but the actual movie did not. Oh, why did you lift my hopes up this way?! I really wanted Thor and Carol to bond and have hilarious pissing contests about who is the strongest Avenger, and become battle buddies! However, this might be possible later since we know Hemsworth has agreed to at least one more film, if not more, so fingers crossed he and Carol share screentime. I adored that “I like this one” scene and Thor would play very well off of Carol if you ask me.

That being said, when Carol came back for the final fight…yassss bitch yassss fuck it up! When she came after Thanos, he was fuckin’ shook and I am here for it. I loved that failed headbutt. I want to frame that on a wall. Carol Danvers is not having any of your shit today, you purple Grape Ape punk ass bitch. She laid down the law, and it was glorious. 11/10 good shit of Carol whupping his ass and he had to suckerpunch her just to try to win.

And kudos for the utterly adorable interaction she had with my Spider Son, “H-Hi, I’m Peter Parker.” “Hey, Peter Parker. Got something for me?” *kisses fingertips* This could not have been cuter. Thank you so much, Carol.

Oh, and extra kudos for the Ladies of the MCU smackdown moment. My God. I loved every second of that assault. Please make that into a whole separate team someday and make a movie about it.

Wanda

Standing ovation for Wanda in every respect: her entrance, her powerful line (“I don’t even know who you are.” “You will.”), and the fact that she flat-out almost killed Thanos by her damn self. Wow, wow, wow, my girl. You brought the pain. I miss Vision too, honey, and I’m so sorry we can’t have him back. It’s so unfair that she’s lost her brother and her love within this story, but she still manages to keep going. Wanda is a testament to just how strong women truly are in spite of adversity.

Plot/Story

I know some fans didn’t want it to be as straight-forward as it appeared to be with them going back in time to grab the Stones and undo the Snap, but I was honestly fine with it. The story still managed to genuinely surprise me, especially with the development that the two Nebulas are what caused Thanos to find out what was going on. Holy shit, that was very creative and a great way to let her be a central character considering the trauma she has been through and overcome. I thought the pacing was excellent, and I will have to sit down and think it through but I don’t feel as if we had unnecessary scenes aside from the diner scene being a little longer than it needed to be. (You could have cut the photo op bit out and no one would miss it, for instance.) Like Infinity War, I felt that all the scenes had a use and showed us something, and the action was magnificent and creative. The Avengers pulling the entirety of the MCU together in the third act is some seriously iconic stuff that I really hope people will take into consideration as a legendary thing no one has ever really done before.

A friend of mine mentioned that you can neatly divide Endgame into three sections of story: build up, heist, and pay off. One of the best things about Endgame, to me, is the pay off. I love how many continuity nods we had and how many threads were tied off in a satisfying manner, from deeply emotional relationships to just sublime action sequences. We have so many films in this series that it’s hard to rank them, but I have to say I really would put Endgame in the top 10 for my preferences. It was a worthy ending to such an amazing set of films, and while I will miss the actors who won’t continue past Phase 3, I am incredibly grateful for their time and talents spent on this franchise. It is in its own category, honestly, with consistent quality in nearly every aspect it attempts. I think it was the perfect mix of solemn but affectionate goodbyes and bright, hopeful new beginnings. I am excited to see what is in store and what new ground we’re gonna break with the future stories.

So thanks for everything, Endgame. I’m glad to have had this era come to such a satisfying close.

See you in the funny papers.

Kyoko

[lifeofbouyd]

Soldier Freak

Dear Bouyd,

I hope all is well with you and thanks for giving me a chance to tell my story. I do hope you and your readers will enjoy.

Back in college, I was one of the most wanted girls. Thanks to my small waist, big ass and a pretty face who made it possible. Men and women perused me daily trying to get between my legs but I was more focused on getting an education than getting fucked or sucked by random people. I had my game all planned out until my father decided to he wasn’t gonna pay my tuition anymore. Where the hell did he expect me to get money from to pay by myself? He could have at least said he’d pay half. For one, I didn’t have a job because there was no need for a job and secondly, I didn’t have a man spending crazy money on me because that was my dad's job. Against all odds, no experience nor a known skill I started searching the classifieds for a job. Anything was better than nothing. Eventually, I found my calling, just when I was about to give up.

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Call me greedy if you wish but I was not going to be a drop out. I drafted my resume and sent it off. Crossing my fingers and praying. It took only three days for me to get a response and to my surprise they wanted me to come in for an interview. I put on my “Sunday best” and headed for their office not too far away. They loved my jovial spirit and the fact that I really needed the job. Instead of placing me in the packing room for which I applied , they placed me in sales and inventory. That was 115k a month. Just like that I had made a way to survive. I was making enough to cover all my expenses and didn’t have to kiss my dad’s ass for a thing. On my way home I got a ride with a soldier dude, nigga claimed I was in a bad area and even the taxi men are rapist and thieves. I didn’t even think for a second before jumping in his military van. He was somewhat of a gentle man or at least he tried to be. He got us food and drinks before dropping me off and he didn’t even ask for my number which weird. I hadn’t seen him until about two weeks later. He picked me up from the same spot. He introduced me to his buds as his girlfriend and I played along because I wanted the free drive. He dropped them off then got us something to eat and took me back to my place.

Vybz: You wanna go out tonight? My friends and I will be hitting Taboo later on. You up for it?

Well, it was a Saturday night; no work nor school the next morn, of course I said yes. I got all dressed up and spent approximately an hour fixing my face. “Pretty on fleek” was my motto. His eyes stripped me naked the moment he picked me up. I could feel his eyes between my legs and in my bra. The feeling of him staring me down made me tingly. I reclined my seat and raised the sun roof, staring into the galaxy while sexual thoughts ran through my mind. I hadn’t had sex in a long time and I felt like I’d let him take me down if he made me have a good time. Henny, Red Bull, Campari and orange juice; an unorthodox lineup but that shit “lik mi chip”. I was super charged. I kept whining on him from front and back causing his shaft to stretch across his pants. The moment I realized how hard he was I turned around to give him a lap dance. I was showered with $100 bills. Call me greedy but I scraped it all up and tucked it in my purse. That was $7000 towards my expenses 😂. We left the party around 3 am and headed home. He touched my leg and I got soaking wet. “Mi oil did a ride mi”. I opened the sun roof trying to cool down but my body wanted something thick and milky. I reached over and pulled his zipper down to take his dick out and to my surprise it was already rock hard. I gently stroked it with my right hand while rubbing my clit with the left. Both my skirt and his seat were soaked with cum. I started climbing him while he was driving, causing him to pull to the curb. I shifted my soaked underwear to the side and sat on his pipe. Bracing against the steering with one hand on the chicken bar I started to ride his dick. He had one hand and my shoulder and the other holding my waist. In synchrony we made love. It was a shaking, squeezing, moaning, squirting kinda sex. I hadn’t felt so good in a very long time. He had me lay on my back with my legs almost touching the ceiling; deeper and sweeter he planted it inside me. Tears ran down my cheeks. He pushed me all the way to the back seat with my legs still raised. He started kissing on my already paralyzed from sex legs causing my heart to skip several beats while I gasped for breath. He slowly dragged his tongue all the way to my thong before rubbing his tongue all over it. Nigga’s tongue was at least seven inches long. He ran it up and down my clit then sticked it in and swirled it around inside me. I had to hold my mouth and close my eyes not to scream. I grabbed his head, I grabbed the seat, I slapped my pussy and did that on repeat. I vibrated like an alarming clock while I sprayed his face with hot cum. Vybz was no regular freak. He had a PHD in eating. He made me regret not fucking him the first day I saw him. I was so defenseless when he asked me to ride his dick; all I could do was ask him to take me home. I fell asleep long before he even drove off.

I woke up in a strange room. A big bed with expensive sheets. Curtains that matched nothing and a tv that seemed too big to be on the wall. I smelled something delicious coming through the door but I couldn’t help but look around as if I was lost. A big portrait hang on the wall. They had painted him as a god with a sniper rifle in his hand. That’s when I realized where I was, he had taken me to his house instead. He came through the door with a breakfast tray in his hand which was different from anything I’d ever experienced. It was a really nice gesture but I could help but noticing how sexy he was. Big arms, a muscle packed tummy, hard chest and muscle built thighs. He was smoking hot and he cooks. I had fallen in love with this man I had only planned to fuck once. I took a long warm shower trying to beat the feeling out my head but it only made me hornier. I came out with nothing but my towel on. He grabbed it off and kissed my waist. He squeezed my nipples and grabbed my ass while he ran his snake of a tongue over my legs, waist and belly bottom. I was dripping wet and shaking as if I was cold. He grabbed me by the legs and held me on his shoulders, giving him full access to my juices. His tongue created chaos. I came on his face at least five times before he held me on his manly hood. Him beat it , eat it, beat it then eat it again. I was weak to my knees. I just kept cumin. For months we had sex and it was awesome.

Good dick but great tongue. I tried avoiding him so many times but that tongue kept me coming back. He’d come by my work place to pick up to pick up supplies for the camp and on most occasions we had sex in my office. My boss decided we would have a Christmas party and we could invite our partners. He was the closest thing I had to a boyfriend and the only nigga I had sex with since the year started. I thought he’d never show up but eventually he did. He kept squeezing my ass and scratching my legs which made me super horny. I had him meet me in my office where he devoured me on the table before fucking me hard from behind. Just as he came on my ass my boss walked in. There was no covering it up.

Boss: Vybz, is this how you treat your wife? Fucking my employee at my party. Have you forgotten your wife is my sister? Venice, your fired. I gave you a job, a way to survive and this is how you repay me?

We just sat there. We couldn’t even answer her questions. He said he had a girl but he never mentioned marriage. I lost my job simply because I couldn’t keep my legs closed. On the other hand, he couldn’t keep his tongue in his mouth. He pellets a wipes from a pack I had on the desk and wiped his oats thick cum off. He slapped my ass and grabbed me by the throat. Bracing against my ass he said, “no matter what happens, I got you”. That was all the reassurance I needed. I pushed him back on the table and jumped him. With my hands on his shoulders and feet on the table, I danced on his dick like a crazy woman. I had already lost my job so why hold back. I packed my stuff as soon as we were through and he took me home where we continued where we left off. I had already paid for my last semester so I had nothing to worry about at that point. I even tricked him into paying my tuition which was already paid so I had a lot of cash sitting on. We dated for two years before breaking up and since then I ain’t ever had anyone do me like he did. I even had to hit him up a few times lately for a fix.

Good dick and great tongue. Never to be replaced. I just Regret is breaking up but I wouldn’t change a thing if I got the chance. Shoutout, Soldier Freak. You are greatly missed.

Yours truly,

Kim

[concerthopperblog]

The Best of AmericanaFest 2021!

Americanafest 2021 looked a bit different than in previous years. The days, and lineup, were reduced. The crowd capacity was capped. A few long-time venues (Station Inn) dropped while others were added (6th and Peabody). But the biggest change were the blue “Health Check” wristbands seen throughout the festival to signify the wearer had shown their vaccination card or recent negative COVID-19 test. While the requirement was too far for some, it made others (aka me) feel more comfortable getting back into a full concert environment. But what didn't change about Americanafest 2021 was the pure focus on music. Where some festivals spend time ensuring a perfect environment for that perfect selfie, Americanafest is all about the tunes. Here are some of the best things we saw at Americanafest 2021.

Best In Show- Christone “Kingfish” Ingram If your idea of “the blues” is a gnarled old black man in a rocking chair, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram is here to rocket you to the future. The 22 year old guitar wiz played before the most packed set I encountered all weekend, and much younger than is typical for Americanafest. The crowd was warranted. Kingfish and his stellar band put on an electric blues clinic. The guitar solos soared. The songs of bad lovers, bad loving, hard living, and bad luck that typify the blues were present, but invigorated by Kingfish's pure, unashamed joy at taking this old musical form into the next generation.

Best Replacement for the UN- Abigail Washburn and Wu Fei This is essentially “Best in Show” 1A, but it belongs more fully here. Let's face it. The United Nations is just a bunch of politicians bickering over whatever politicians have to bicker over this week. But Abigail Washburn and Wu Fei have found the true secret to international harmony; music. The genius of Washburn, arguably the best clawhammer banjo player in the world right now, and Fei, a master of the guzheng (which looks kind of like a harp, banjo, and hammered dulcimer had a baby), is that they found commonality in the folk songs of Appalachia and China. People love, and lose love. People feel joy at new life, and grief at its loss. Laborers toil, and the toil is hard. By mashing up these themes, trading back and forth between them like a ping pong match, they show that we aren't a race, an ethnicity, a culture, a religion. And, despite what some politicians would like to tell you, there is no “other.”

Rookie of the Year- Yasmin Williams It is, as far as I know, guitarist Yasmin Williams' first time to play Americanafest. Hopefully it isn't her last. Joining Kingfish as a “next generation talent” (if you want to feel really old, she decided to play guitar because she beat Rock Band on expert...), Williams is more jazzy than your typical Americanafest artist (if that exists). Her tapping and percussive techniques owe much less to Hank Williams than to jazz guitar god Tuck Andress. If one woman with one guitar and no vocals for an hour sounds dull, let me fix that notion for you. Even if you're not an instrumental nerd, it's impossible not to be mesmerized by how much sound one person and one instrument can make.

Best Low Key Supergroup- Colin Linden Just an hour after Kingfish packed The Cannery, a smaller crowd (Linden joked that the only people present were friends of his) got to see a secret supergroup perform an hour of electric blues. Linden is an instrumentalist, songwriter, and producer who can be heard on hundreds of albums. Joining him for this show were long-time John Prine bassist Dave Jacques and veteran blues producer (including of the aforementioned Kingfish) Tom Hambridge. Together they put on a flawless show mostly pulled from Colin Linden's new album. But then it doesn't hurt when you end with a song you wrote that was recorded by your “favorite band”, or in this case Band (as in The), “Remedy.”

Best Use of Found Objects- Jack Broadbent Brit bluesman Jack Broadbent is the second lap picker I saw Americanafest weekend, but his style couldn't be more different than Yasmin Williams. Broadbent is a straight up wailing slide blues guitarist. Over the years, the slide has been made out of everything from glass to metal. I've seen beer bottles used as a gimmick. But Broadbent's use of a hip flask as a slide is genius. It fits perfectly into your hand. It's got a good grip. And it has the right surface area. It only looks funny for a moment, until Broadbent unleashes some serious in your face electric blues.

Best “So Nice I Tried It Twice” Moment- Early James I did not go into Americanafest planning to see Early James twice. I went into Americanafest having no idea who Early James was. My schedule just happened to line up for him to be at a daytime set with someone I wanted to see (Sierra Ferrell) and a nighttime set with someone I wanted to see (Kingfish). Lucky me. The latest find by The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach signed to his Easy Eye Sound label, Early James combines the folksy wit of Lonesome Roads with the fashion sense of Al Yankovic. Disarmingly funny (and a James Gunn level fashion disaster in orange overalls and a straw hat with a pig bandana on it), James combines Southern gothic folk, blues rock, and old time elements, all familiar to any Americanafest regular, into something completely unique. Auerbach has shown a talent for finding artists who turn throwback elements on their (pig bandana-covered) ears, and James is up to the task.

Best “Making It Up As We Go Along” Artist- Tim Easton Poor Tim Easton. If it could go wrong during his 45 minute set on night 1 of Americanafest, it did. A series of technical glitches and outright failures had house techs scrambling and Easton without an instrument. It could have been a disaster. It ended up being one of the most fun sets of the weekend. Easton told jokes. He mused on the advantages of acoustic instruments as techs attempted to perform CPR on a dead amp. He threw to his excellent band for some Phish-style jam extensions while he helped sort cables. At one point he ran into the dressing room and borrowed the guitar of the artist playing after him (a gracious David Newbould). Nashville residents have long known that Tim Easton was an entertainer. But anyone can write up a set of audience patter. It's in those “holy shit, what do I do now?” moments that the true entertainers rise. Tim Easton rose (and finally got to finish his set, using a borrowed guitar to sing an ode to John Prine, who was likely laughing into his Heavenly vodka and ginger ale at the spectacle.

Best Alternative to the International Showcases- Andy's Americana Mitzvah There were many ways Americanafest looked different in this very different kind of year, but the most depressing was the lack of Saturday international showcases that have been a highlight of many an Americanafest. The Canadian showcases are always rock solid. The British delegation throws a cross-pond bash that includes both English and American artists (and gave a first showcase to a “nearly the last name on the bottom” Yola in 2016). And the folks from Sounds Australia confirm whatever stereotypes you may have about how hard the Aussies party. Trust me, they party harder than that. But not this year, another casualty of COVID travel restrictions. Fortunately there was Andy's Americana Mitzvah at the British Underground's usual home, The Groove Records. Veteran artists like Amy LaVere and Will Sexton joined youngsters like The Sweet Lillies for an afternoon showcase highlighted by the Americanafest appearance of Johnny Dowd.

Worst Americanafest Conflict- Thursday For the most part, my Americanafest fell pretty neatly into place, with the usual mild regrets... except for Thursday. I could have happily made a weekend out of just the acts playing Thursday. In addition to the show we saw, Abigail Washburn and Wu Fei, Allison Russell was playing across town in what is almost certain to be her final Americanafest showcase as she should be playing The Ryman by this time next year, and two of my longtime favorites Whitney Rose and Boo Ray were playing Musician's Corner. It broke my heart to miss any of them, but in the end rarity won the day and you just don't get to see Abby and Wu that often.

Check out this slideshow from Americanafest 2021 and go to our Facebook page for the full sets.

[sindearlyconnormurphy]

Both of Us [Connor Murphy x Reader]

Title: Both of Us Pairing: Connor Murphy x Reader Fandom: Dear Evan Hansen Requested: Yes! Summary: Reader and Connor use each other to get back at their parents. Hijinks ensue. Warnings: Connor’s potty mouth | Mentions of sex and alcohol | brief nudity | First person reader | not proof read | written in literally an hour | very short | recovering!Connor A/N: decided to do a short request in the middle of writing a long one! Hope you guys like this!

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” I gasped for the tenth time, watching Connor with wide eyes as he pulled more items out of the drug store plastic bag. Glaring at me with harsh slate eyes, Connor removed the last of the items, setting them up in a neat row across his quilted bedspread.

“You wanna get back at your parents or not?” He asked, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. I trusted Connor, but something about sitting cross legged on his bed with a pile of unmentionables between us made me sicker than it should’ve.

“I mean–we’re gonna be in a lot of trouble,” I grumbled. He grinned.

“Then maybe they’ll start paying you some decent attention, yeah? The both of us.”

“Connor–”

“Everyone freaks out the second there’s any chance of their daughter getting pregnant. My dad is gonna blow his top,” he sighed, grinning wickedly at the thought. Rolling my eyes, I reached out tentatively to run my finger across the box between us.

“Why condoms then?”

He shrugged. “Makes them think we’re having sex–and maybe then we can avoid the talk. And hey, I might actually need these at some point, Miss Skeptic,” he growled, sticking his tongue out, making me giggle.

“Okay, so, plan?” I asked, looking warily between him and the lineup of illegal things going on between us.

His lithe fingers reached between us, nimbly selecting a hazy brown bottle and offering it to  me.

“You’re gonna want a swig of this,” he said, popping the cap on what appeared to be beer, taking a quick sip–giving me a disgusted expression, but swallowed regardless–and handed it back to me.

“Can’t we just dump it in a plant?” I grumbled softly, eyeing the liquid inside. It was warm in my palm, already making me queasy.

“Don’t be a pussy,” he chuckled, reaching out to slap my knee, sending me jumping and the amber liquid slushed out across the back of my hand.

“Careful!” He giggled again, reaching out to grab my wrist with one hand, his cold rings stinging my flushed skin, his other hand reaching with the cuff of his hoodie to mop up the spill. Gazing with fond eyes, he gifted me a crooked smile. “Someone’s jumpy.”

“I’m nervous,” I mumbled. His smile doubled, revealing his white, crooked canine teeth, making him look simultaneously softer but confident. He hadn’t yet released my wrist, the sleeve of his hoodie still stroking across the back of my hand.

“We aren’t actually gonna do it,” he whispered, like it was a secret. Snorting, I yanked my hand away, doing my best to keep the blush from my cheeks.

“Don’t flatter yourself–I meant I’m nervous about getting trouble,” it was a half truth, but I doubt he’d call me out on it.

He shoved the bottle further against my chest, nodding toward it. “Just drink it.”

Two beers later, things were starting to get fuzzy. I’d never drank before, and I’d only meant to drink enough to make it look like we’d been drinking, but then Connor….

Connor was pacing the floor, shaking his hands nervously. He’d long since shed his hoodie, stalking the floor now in a grey tank top with his skinny jeans riding dangerous low on his hips–he was holding his liquor well, but it didn’t stop him from anxiously checking the window every few minutes.

“They’re gonna be here any minute,” he cursed under his breath, scratching at the back of his head, causing the brunette curls to fluff out violently. “What’s the plan?”

I shrugged, honestly half hoping he’d just let them catch us drinking. “You’re seriously gonna try to make it look like we’re having sex as they pull in the driveway? What’s the count of that–sixty seconds? They aren’t gonna buy it, Con.”

“You’re pessimistic when you’re drunk.”

“I’m not drunk.”

“Just pessimistic?”

“Realistic,” I argued, pulling my shirt over my head, watching Connor splutter hopelessly, eyes wide and face red as he fell against his closet door.

“What the fuck, dude!”

“People don’t have sex with their clothes on, Connor,” I reminded, laying against the blue quilt, letting my arms fall above my head. More than anything I was tired, too warm, kind of ready for another drink.

“Dude,” Connor breathed from out of my line of sight. “You’re shirtless on my bed. Holy shit. Jared is gonna lose his shit oh my God–”

“Shut up,” I growled, reaching down gingerly to make sure my bra was still in place. “And lose your’s too if you wanna make your parents actually buy this.”

“Holy shit,” Connor whispered again, his voice accompanied by the loud ruffle of clothing being thrown idly across the room.

The bed squawked beneath me, shaking slightly as Connor joined me, suddenly hovering over me on his elbows, his dark hair forming a curtain around my face, eclipsing my view of the room.

Connor was smiling brightly, his cheeks a hazy pink under his constellation of silver freckles, and his eyes squinting with the effort from the grin.

“This good?” He asked softly, adjusting so that his bony knees, still clad in his faded black skinny jeans, were boxing in my hips. I giggled, nodding slightly, feeling warmer than before.

“Better,” I agreed, despite the warning flares going off in the back of my mind. Connor was a friend, Connor was cute, I argued with myself. There was no harm in a little flirting.

“I think,” he said lowly, leaning down with heavy eyes so that his chapped lips brushed against my cheek, his curls teasing against my temple, “You’re trying to seduce me.”

I snorted, rolling my eyes. I reached up to grab his bare forearms playfully, giving them a squeeze and feeling Connor’s bare stomach twitch above my own. “Yeah? Is it working?”

I felt him smile before I saw it. “You tell me.”

Everything short circuited as Connor surged forward, sealing his lips to mine so forcefully I felt my skull slam against the mattress, his cheeks caving slightly as he moved against me, his hands coming up to cup my neck, thumbs tracing soft patterns across my cheek bones.

Kiss him back, stupid, I grunted to myself, feeling Connor’s kiss subside into something softer, slower, and my wide eyed glare revealed his focused, furrowed expression as he concentrated perhaps too hard on this kiss itself, his lips sealing lightly before pulling away too quick and returning just as fast.

“That believable enough?” He whispered softly, moving his head so that he could press a feather kiss along my jaw, allowing me to gasp for air behind his long trail of hair.

“Yeah,” I sighed, unable to stop an embarrassing giggle from bubbling out, earning an elbow to my side.

“Be nice, I’m trying here,” he grumbled, suddenly ceasing his motions and going limp above me, pressing his warm face into the crook of my neck.

“Oscar given,” I promised, a half guilty and half endeared at his embarrassment, reaching up to tangle my hands in his hair, smoothing it lightly. “You wanna take a break, try that again when your parents pull in?” I mumbled against his hair, pressing a kiss there, suddenly aware of the fact Connor’s warmth was laying between my legs, like a too-warm blanket, almost uncomfortable but worth it.

“Yeah,” he agreed drowsy, pressing a feather against my clavicle, before wrapping his arms around my waist and burrowing tighter into my neck. I sighed, relieved that we’d have a moment for my heart to settle down.

“Hey,” Connor whispered softly, nudging the inside of my thigh with his knee.

“Yeah?” I sighed, turning so that I could hear him a bit better from where his words were muffled against my neck.

“Thanks again for agreeing to do this,” he mumbled, shifting. “I know we aren’t super close or anything–”

“I like hanging out with you, Connor,” I reminded, letting my hand drop to trail a pattern against his spine, feeling him sigh in comfort against me. “We are friends, you know.”

“Still,” he said. “I appreciate you sticking your neck out for me.”

“Anytime,” I said truthfully, feeling another feather kiss against my clavicle. “Now stay vigilant, yeah? We don’t wanna miss your parents.”

—-

“This isn’t right–we should call that girl’s parents!”

“Sshhh!” Cynthia urged again, dragging another quilt over the kids in the bed, unable to stop another smile from coming to her lips. Connor and the girl were tangled together, snoring lightly, Connor’s face pressed lightly against her chest and the girls hands resting lightly across his bare back. “Let them sleep, Larry.”

“The last thing Connor needs is to be a teen father!”

Cynthia pointed to the box on the bedside table. “I don’t think we need to worry about that. Their pants are on, dear.”

Larry rolled his eyes. “And you’re okay with the beer?”

“We’ll have a talk about that,” Cynthia promised, but turned back to glance at the couple. “Look at his face, Larry, when he’s sleeping. He looks so calm. He almost looks happy.”

Larry was silent, leaning against the door and watching the two of them. “I suppose it’s good to know he’s got a friend.”

“More than a friend,” Cynthia grinned, shutting off the light and sliding the door closed. “I wonder what she likes on her pancakes.”

[a-second-hand-sorrow]

No One Mourns The Wicked Part 1 (Bill Denbrough X Reader)

WC: 1515

Warnings: Kinda sad, pining, modern AU, some cursing

Summary: Y/N and Bill get cast in their school, but Y/N’s Glinda is not the one for Bill’s Fiyero

A/N: I know this fic took a little longer than usual, but I’m very proud of it.

"H-have you seen the cast list yet?” Bill said, walking next to me along the bustling corridor.

“Not yet, but I’m kinda nervous to see it.” I admitted, wringing my hands together.

Bill smiled softly at me, going to say something. However he cut himself off, his eyes trailing away from me.

“Bill? What is it?” I said, cocking my head in confusion at his sudden silence.

“The c-cast list.” Bill said, pointing to a cork board that hung behind me on the dull white wall.

I took in a deep breath and grabbed Bill’s hand subconsciously, not catching the bright red flush on his cheeks as we moved towards the list.

“Fingers crossed.” I muttered under my breath, taking in a deep breath before turning my gaze to the sheet of paper.

Right next to the print that read ‘Glinda Upland’ was my name, in bold black ink. My eyes scanned the sheet further and saw Bill’s name next to Fiyero, and I felt my heart soar.

“We did it, Billy! We’re the leads!” I said, throwing my arms around Bill’s neck. The adrenaline coursing through my body and the close proximity to Bill caused my cheeks to darken, and I buried my head in the crook of Bill’s neck.

“Y-yeah.” Bill whispered, his arms tentatively resting on my waist.

“Looks like we’re gonna be seeing a lot of each other, Y/N.” A familiar voice said, and I pulled away from Bill to see Beverly standing there, a half smile on her face.

“I just saw the cast list, and although I’m not so excited about the whole green thing.” Anything Beverly said after this was white noise to me, because my heart sank.

Beverly was Elphaba. Of course. That meant that, ultimately, she got the guy. The guy played by the boy I’d been crushing on since middle school.

“Y/N?” Beverly said, and I snapped out of my stupor.

“Sorry Bev. I spaced out for a second.” I said, and Beverly laughed, a half smile on her face.

“It’s all good, Y/N. I’ll see the two of you in rehearsals on Monday!” She said, smiling widely at both of us before walking away, humming under her breath.

“This is the third grade play all over again.” I muttered under my breath, praying Bill didn’t hear me.

“What?” He said, looking at me with confusion on his face.

I smiled at him gently, suddenly feeling all the worry and stress leave me. “It’s nothing.”

“Ok, now, let’s read from Glinda’s entrance in Act 2. Y/N, take it away.” I stood up, wiping my hands on my jeans before picking up the script.

“Fellow Ozians. As terrifying as terror is, let us put aside our panic for this one day, and celebrate!” I said cheerily, easily slipping into character.

We quickly went through the singing, and soon it came to the dialogue in between.

“Captain, how does it feel?” Greta asked, very much in character as Morrible.

“F-frustrating… but I b-became captain of the guard t-to find her, and I will keep s-searching!” Bill said, a triumphant expression on his face, despite his stuttered words.

“No, being engaged!” Greta said, a sly smile on her face.

“Congratulations!” The rest of the cast chimed, and Bill turned to me, a confused expression.

“This is an engagement party?” Bill said to me, and I giggled, placing an arm on his shoulder.

Bill’s breath hitched, his eyes flitting to my hand for a split second. “Surprised?” I said, my voice a higher pitch than usual.

“Yes.” Bill said, and I went to read my next line, but the director cut us off.

“That was wonderful, but Bill, could we maybe be a tad louder next time? Fiyero isn’t a shy character, and the stage isn’t set up very well, so you’ll have to project.” Bill nodded, his cheeks starting to turn pink.

“S-sorry.” Bill muttered, and I sighed, feeling sorry for him.

“It’s ok, Bill. It’s still early on, so you’ve got time to grow as an actor.” I said, smiling at him gently.

He returned the smile, his eyes shining brightly. “Ok, let’s try from ‘You can’t leave.’ So Bill, that’s your line.” The director said, and Bill nodded, picking up his script.

“You can’t l-leave, because you can’t resist this, a-and that’s the truth.” Bill said, and I felt proud that his stutter was less present.

“Maybe I can’t. Is that so wrong? Who could?” I said, and Bill frowned, a longing look on his face. He was very good at this.

“Y-You know who could. Who has.” He said, and my eyes briefly flickered to Beverly, who sat in the corner flicking through her script. My heart sunk a little.

“Fiyero, I miss her too, but we can’t just stop living. No one has searched harder for her than you. But don’t you see? She doesn’t want to be found. We have to face it.” I said gently, placing my hands on Bill’s chest.

Being in character seemed to give me more confidence, but that didn’t stop the pink blush from coating my cheeks at the close proximity.

“You’re right. I’m s-sorry, you’re right. And if it’s going to m-make you happy, of course I’ll m-marry you.” Bill said, wrapping his hands around mine, holding them tightly.

“But it’ll make you happy too, right?” I said hopefully, looking up at Bill. He dropped my hands and took in a deep breath, a shaky smile on his face.

“You know me… always h-happy.” The director’s loud clap made me jump, and the both of us turned our heads towards him.

“That was incredible! Now, Beverly, Bill, do you wanna run through As Long As You’re Mine? Because Stan isn’t here so we can’t do Wonderful, so that’s the next song in the lineup.”

Beverly’s head whipped up from her script, and nodded, walking up to the front of the stage.

Bill gave me a half smile before walking over next to Beverly, waving at her halfheartedly. I let out a sigh, taking a seat next to Mike.

“Sorry Y/N. I brought a book if you wanna distract yourself from that.” Mike said, gesturing to Bev and Bill onstage.

“That’d be wonderful, Mike. Thank you.” I said, graciously accepting his battered copy of the Philosopher’s Stone.

“I know how much you like him.” Mike said, and I let out a soft sigh.

Suddenly music filled the theatre, and I couldn’t help but turn my head towards the two of them.

“Kiss me too fiercely, hold me too tight. I need help believing you’re with me tonight. My wildest dreams could not foresee lying beside you, with you wanting me.”

My heart hurt hearing Beverly sing those words. I remembered their little middle school fling before Beverly left for Portland, and I remembered how much it hurt Bill to see her leave.

Her hands were running up and down his arms, and I buried my head in the book, desperately trying to block out what was going on.

“Maybe I’m brainless, maybe I’m wise. But you’ve got me seeing through different eyes. Somehow I’ve fallen under your spell, and somehow I’m feeling it’s ‘up’ that I fell.”

I let out a gasp when I heard Bill sing. He didn’t stutter once, and his voice was soft, yet somehow incredibly powerful.

This made my stomach twist, because I wanted more than anything else to be the one he was singing those words to.

His face was gentle, looking at Beverly with an expression I’d seen in his eyes before.

“Every moment, as long as you’re mine. I’ll wake up my body and make up for lost time.” Bill sang, the combination of his soft voice and the tongue in cheek lyrics stinging like a knife.

I bit my lip, setting Mike’s book down next to me.

I stood up and left the auditorium, trying to make sure the doors behind me didn’t make too much noise.

“Y/N.” Mike’s voice called, trailing away quickly as the doors shut. I made my way to the bathroom, locking myself in a green-doored stall.

The tears began to flow, and I couldn’t stop them, no matter how ridiculous I felt. Sorrow and self-pity were at the forefront of my brain, seemingly turning the taps behind my eyes.

Why would Bill be interested in me, anyway? Everything I had, Beverly had in spades. She was smarter, prettier, funnier and kinder than me.

I wiped the tears away quickly, but my flushed face and red eyes gave away that I had very clearly been crying.

Suddenly I heard a knock on the door, and I straightened up, wiping away tears that weren’t there.

“Y/N, are y-you ok? I saw you s-storm off.” Bill’s pleasant voice filled my ears, and I hesitantly unlocked the stall door, making my way out of the bathroom.

“I’m fine, Bill. I couldn’t be better.”

[jjaywmac]

Sound familiar. August 2016.  “Over the age of 60.  Underlying health condition (heart problems. Pneumonia in the lungs.  ICU.  Insulator. Unexpectedly.”  That is exactly what happened to Steve 4 years ago.  Was it a virus before its time?  I will never know.  The doctors cured the pneumonia.  He died of heart failure.  It was fast.  Like today.  That should want you to stay home!  And keep your loved ones at home!  It does me.  I remember only too well.

SO, how do I start with a clean slate of this?  By introducing you to some books I think you may enjoy reading during this down time.

  SO, I am spending today, a (férié) in France (the day after Easter is always celebrated as a holiday) by staying inside and writing a lot.  Sorry.  But, I cannot stop thinking about what happened to him as I read the news and all of the descriptions of what to expect.  Plus, in my head, I am processing a Lot of new ideas that have come to me over the weekend.  My “clean slate”/ “eternal NOW” frame of mind is running wild with new ideas of how to spend this unusual time in Paris.  I have ideas for new books that excite me.  I have projects that need to be completed.  I have courses I want to take, places I want to walk, pictures I want to take, sites I want to develop.  There is never a dull moment around here.  My mind keeps me busy.

I want to spend time with my “new present”.  So here is a fresh look at something that means a lot to me. What??  I have in my safe keeping, several books that I want to bring to your attention in this new day!!! OK.  So a tad of past. Don’t worry.  I will try to make it interesting and worth your time.

It all started on September 20, 2011. I was (for 20 years) an Entertainment Attorney (and an Employment Law Litigator) in Los Angeles, California USA. In early September 2011, I was invited by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) to be the legal representative by on a panel for the members – an E-publishing Panel. The Panel sought to empower writers to create new opportunities for work in film, television, new media, and transmedia. Since WGA did not cover book publication regardless of format, it was thought that e-publishing could be a stepping stone towards potential work on Guild-covered adaptations. So, on September 20, I joined other Panel members Lee Goldberg (The Glades), Derek Haas (Wanted), and Alexandra Sokoloff (author, Book of Shadows, and Mark Coker (Smashwords) on a panel.   Our task was to discuss the latest ebook/self and indie-publishing developments. WOW, what a lineup! I got very excited.  Needless to say, it was a power-packed evening with the Writer Members and members doing most of the talking.  The evening flew by with everyone sharing information, questions, and answers.

The next day I said to my husband Steve Orlandella, “You need to write a book”. He said, “What? A book?  I have nothing to say.”   I laughed.  Steve ALWAYS had something to say.  So did I. I needed to write a book.  And, we did.

Steve wrote eight books before he died in 2016.  I have written seven (7) and am still writing every day. But, this post is about Steve and his books.

He had specific things he liked – history, cheesecake, sex, trivia, condiments (of every kind), Castle (TV show), the Titanic, and baseball.  Not necessarily in that order.  So, he wrote about things he liked.  Now, to be honest, he was not a great American writer.  He just wrote about topics he enjoyed.  I was glad to see him happy.  He loved working.  Retirement was not his cup of tea.  And, he loved writing.  He created two characters he liked.  And, he would spend all day creating their “banter”.  I would often hear his chuckling to himself.  That would be when he would come up with something he thought was particularly clever.  He started out with a collection of his writings on Facebook.  All of that was new at that time, and his posts were funny and interesting.  When it was published, he was thrilled.  He would read it over and over.  Amazed and proud of himself for actually publishing a book!

Next, he tackled baseball.  He was an Emmy-winning Live Sports producer for Hockey and Baseball.  9 seasons for the Dodgers.  Personal friend of Vin Scully.  He KNEW his baseball.  Then, he wrote “his masterpiece”, a wonderful book about the Titanic.  He poured his soul into this book.  His love, his heart, his skill, his all.  He could not believe it when he held that book in his hands.  He read and reread and reread it.

It was then that he thought that he had no more to write.  I did not want to see him depressed because he was happy when he had a book in progress.  So, I suggested he create a detective and do mysteries – novels.  After thinking about it a LONNNNNGGGGGG time, he came up with an idea.  He really loved the television show “Castle”.  He loved their “banter”.  He would create a sexy couple – an ex-baseball player (a private investigator – Vic Landell) and hot babe attorney/news anchor (The Redhead).  They would solve crimes in Sarasota, Florida (his favorite location in the world).  That was how it started.  It evolved from there.

So, I am going to introduce you to his books.  I am not presenting them in the order they were written.  I am doing this my way.  Novels, first.  I am suggesting you try them. they are light reading and enjoyable.  And,  I think the reader can experience the fun Steve was having with the dialogue and spending time with his characters.  He loved Tina Louis and Dusty Springfield.  Plus, he had some favorite News Anchors.  So, bear with him as he enjoys his “babes” with their high heels.  Short skirts and all.  Red hair, long legs.  A fun guy.  We laughed a lot.  And, I  miss him.  This post is dedicated to Steve Orlandella.  This one’s for him.  Now, the books – during this pandemic!

The first Vic Landell mystery was BURDEN OF PROOF. 

1) BURDEN OF PROOF is set in and around Sarasota Florida.  It is dedicated my sister, Patricia Jewell Prince, “My Sister-in-Law Patricia, Lover of Mysteries.”

Steve begins each mystery: What’s in a Name?  “My father was born Vito Anthony Orlandella, and he didn’t much care for his name. “Vito” was all right, and in fact, he named his principal business The Vito Fruit Company – although throughout Boston he was often referred to as “Vic.” No real problem with the benign Anthony, it was the last name he saw as problematic. His one foray into show business as a record producer was done under the name “Tony Vito.” I’m not certain, but I believe he thought that Orlandella was too long and clumsy for a billboard. He had another name ready but never got the chance to use it. A clever anagram made by dropping the first two and the last letters of his name. Add to that, the remnants of his first name. Thus, was born “Vic Landell.” When it came time to name my pitcher-turned-detective, the choice was an easy one. Call it homage to my father.”

Next, CAPITOL MURDER.

2) CAPITOL MURDER is dedicated to “Her Royal Blondness [HRB], Long may she Reign”. It is set in and around Washington, D.C.

“What’s in a Name? The heroine of this series is Marcia Glenn. The name is borrowed from my first childhood crush – a sixth-grade, blonde goddess. For two years I pined for her from, to paraphrase Hammerstein, ‘across a crowded schoolroom.’ My passion held in check only by the fact that she didn’t know I was alive. Her sights were set on another classmate, a surfer boy wannabe with flaxen air. Sure, just plunge a knife in my heart. The irony of all this is rooted in the fact that he seemed to have absolutely no interest in her. Funny the things you remember. How this preteen vixen has now morphed into a six-foot, Titian-tressed femme fatale is a story for another time.”

3) MARATHON MURDERS.

MARATHON MURDERS is dedicated to “Dash, Winner & Still Champion”, and located in Boston.

“What’s in a Name?  He was born on a farm in Maryland.  He served his country in the First World War and became ill with the Spanish flu and later contracted Tuberculosis – spending most of his time in the Army as a patient in a Washington Hospital.  As a result of his illness he could not live full-time with his wife and two daughters and the marriage fell apart.  He was a firm believer in the notion that you write about what you know.  And since he was an alcoholic, his two most famous characters were as well.  He devoted much of the rest of his life to unpopular causes.  He wore his country’s uniform again in the Second World War.  His reward?  After the war he was investigated by Congress and testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee about his own life but refused to cooperate with the committee.  As a result – he was blacklisted. He was sixty-six when lung cancer took his life.  In his obituary, The New York Times said of him, ‘the dean of the hard-boiled school of detective fiction.’  For any fan of mysteries his name is said with a smile.  For someone like me, who would love to be just a poor copy of the original, it is said with reverence.”

4) DANCE WITH DEATH.  (Steve’s Favorite – he wanted me to read him passages from this one when he was in the hospital)

DANCE WITH DEATH is dedicated “To my Second Parents Rose & Gerry”.  It is set in Los Angeles, California.

“What’s in a Name?  She was born Marcia Colleen Glenn – her first name from the Latin, meaning ‘dedicated to Mars.’  Mars is the red planet – there is your first clue.  It also means proud or warlike – that’s your second clue.  Her middle name was chosen by her father to emphasize the family’s Gaelic heritage.  By the age of five, her sister Katelyn was calling her ‘The Marce.’  To this day, if she likes you, call her Marce.  If she doesn’t much care for you, it’s Marcia.  If she flat hates your guts – it’s Ms. Glenn.  Fair warning, if you call her Marsha, brother, you are just asking for trouble.  When she was seventeen and turned from an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan, the boys in her high school started referring to her as ‘the looker.’  The lawyers at the firm where she did her internship called her ‘the stunner.’  That’s also what the crew at WWSB calls her – along with ‘the goddess.’  To the boys in Idaho Falls, she was ‘the long drink of water.’  When she knocked out a would-be assailant with one right hand, the name ‘slugger’ entered the lexicon.  There are others, like ‘supermodel’ and ‘deadeye.’  But if you’ve killed someone, she’s the ‘red menace.’  And finally, to her smitten boyfriend, she is occasionally ‘Titian’ -the shade of her glorious red hair.  She will also answer to ‘Irish,’ and for him only, ‘Honey,’ along with his favorite, ‘Baby.’  But, first and foremost she is always and forever – ‘the redhead.'”

5) MIDTOWN MAYHEM, dedicated “For the amazing Kris Jones”, and set in NYC. (He did not know this would be his last one.)

“What’s in a Name?  It was my high-school baseball coach who first hung the nickname on me. Of the nine pitchers on his staff, eight were right-handed. When asked who the starting pitcher against Syracuse would be, he replied, “Let’s send out the lefty.” The name stuck throughout college, the minors, and my first six years in the majors. It became problematic for me when I was traded to Philadelphia – for you see, they already had a “Lefty.” He was born Steven Norman Carlton. He made his debut with the Cardinals in 1965. He was a tall, imposing man blessed with a hard fastball and nasty slider. He was soon known as an intimidating and dominating pitcher. Following a protracted salary dispute, St. Louis Cardinals owner Gussie Busch ordered Carlton traded. Eventually, he was dealt to the Philadelphia Phillies before the ‘72 season for a pitcher named Rick Wise. In time, it would be recognized as one of the most lopsided deals in baseball history. Carlton hit his stride with the Phillies. How good was he? In 1972, the down-trodden Phils won a total of 59 games – 27 of them by Carlton. That won him his first of four Cy Young Awards. He finished with 322 wins and was a consensus first ballot Hall of Famer. The day before a start, the scoreboard in Veterans Stadium would list tomorrow’s starting pitcher – Lefty. Need more? There’s a statue of him in front of Citizens Bank Park. How was I supposed to compete with all that? I could not. Since Carlton is six-foot four and your humble servant is a paltry six-foot one the players started to refer to me as Little Lefty. The day my career ended, I went back to being plain old Lefty.”

6) CASINO KILLER (Steve was writing this one when he died.)

Forty-six pages are in the can. It was to be dedicated to “John & Gloria Cataldo, Once and Forever”.  It was to be set in and around Nice, France.

“What’s in a Name?  It is the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea in the southeast corner of France, beneath of the base of the French Alps. There is no official boundary, but it is usually considered to extend from the Italian border in the east to Saint-Tropez, Hyères, Toulon, or Cassis in the west. The area is a Department of the French Government – Alpes-Maritimes. There is nothing quite like it anywhere else in the world. As the French might refer to it – beau ravage – beautiful shoreline.  It began as a winter health resort for the British upper class at the end of the 18th century. With the arrival of the railway in the mid-19th century, it became the playground and vacation spot of British, Russian, and other aristocrats, including Queen Victoria. It was the English who coined the phrase, the French Riviera.  After World War II, the south of France became a popular tourist destination and convention site. The area went off the charts in the 1950s when a beautiful girl from Philadelphia moved into the Royal palace of the one and only principality. Millionaires and celebrities built homes there and routinely spent their summers.  The region has one more name. In 1887, a French author named Stéphen Liégeard published a book about the coastline. So taken was he by the color of the Mediterranean, he used the words Azure Coast in the title – in French that translates as Côte d’Azur.”

Steves first book is delightful – STEVESPEAK – 3 YEARS ON FACEBOOK.

STEVESPEAK is one of my favorites for spending time with him and getting to know him better. Plus, it is dedicated to me: “To Janet, The wind beneath my wings, And the power behind my throne.”

In his Prologue, he writes: “I’m not sure how I got on Facebook.  Most likely it was word of mouth.  Like many of you I started small, but as my list of friends grew, so did my activity.  A funny thing happened along the way, I found my voice.  Along with connecting with friends, I had the chance to be critical, historical, passionate, and I hope, funny. This book traces almost 3 years on Facebook, and is designed to give my fellow “Facebookers,” An idea of what other people are saying. For what it’s worth, you will learn some things about me. My love for baseball, my interest in “The Titanic,” my passion for my hometown, Boston.

“Stevespeak” was coined by my wife, who insists I have my own language.  Well that’s probably not true, but there are some words that are uniquely mine. For instance, only in my world is there a planet “Smecktar.”  Those pimples on your shoulder blades are “bacne,” and “Xerocracy” is government by photocopy. If something is dead, it’s “kersfuncken.” “Inuendo” is Italian for colonoscopy.

That said, there are some things you need to know in order to navigate your way through this book.  There are many references to something called “HRB.”  “HRB” is “Her Royal Blondness.”  That would be my wife.  She is an attorney and is sometimes referred to as the “blonde barrister.” Her maiden name is Janet Jewell.  Christine became Kris and is my sister. “Tori” and “Icto” are other names for our friend Victoria Lucas.  Tori’s sister is Lil, and sometimes, Liz. The “Knife” is Joe Klinger. “Fabulous 52” was the old Saturday night movie series on CBS in Los Angeles. I stole it, (I mean, researched it) and it became the “Fabulous 42.” Most of the rest is self-explanatory.”

Steve’s Masterpiece – TITANIC.

TITANIC was his lifetime achievement, the one he held close to his heart.  He dedicated it to his mother.  He wrote, “To my Mother Therese, The Real Historian in The Family.”

“In the fall of 1960, I was a ten-year-old, growing up in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley.  Even then I was sarcastic, opinionated, and well on my way to becoming obnoxious.  The phrase most often used was, ‘A little too smart for his own good.’  Perhaps.  Duplicit in all this were my parents who spoiled me rotten.  One of my numerous privileges was permission to stay up late on Saturday night…very late.

Toward the end of the 1950s, television in Los Angeles was in a state of flux.  The Country’s number three [now number two] market had seven stations, a wealth of airtime, and a dearth of programming.  The three network affiliates and the four independents turned to motion pictures to fill the void so much so that one station, Channel 9, ran the same movie every night for a week.  Hey, I love Jimmy Cagney, but how many times can you watch ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’?  The stations also had the nasty habit of cutting the films to pieces, the classic case being Channel 7, the ABC affiliate who filled their 3:30-5pm slots by slicing and dicing 2-hour movies down to 67 minutes. They came close to cutting Ingrid Bergman out of ‘Casablanca.’  Channel 2, the CBS Affiliate, had no such problem.  [They had ‘Lucy’; they had ‘Jackie Gleason’.]  ‘The Fabulous 52’ was reserved for Saturday night at 11:30pm, and, since the only things that followed the movie were the National Anthem and a test pattern, they ran uncut.  The station held the rights to a package of relatively recent films from 20th Century Fox.

One Saturday afternoon, my dad announced, ‘Titanic is on tonight.’  I had no idea who or what was ‘Titanic’, but we gathered in the family room at 11:30.  For the next two hours, I sat transfixed, mesmerized by what we were seeing.  If you are scoring at home, it was the 1953 version with Barbara Stanwyck, Clifton Webb and a young Robert Wagner.  They had me.

In 1964, I came across a copy of A Night to Remember, Walter Lord’s seminal work on the events of April 14-15, 1912, and the following year, I saw the movie made [in England, 1958] from Lord’s book.  It was a film made by people who wanted to get it right.  This film was the game changer.

The Fox movie opens with a page of text proclaiming that all the facts in the film were taken right from the United States Senate and British Board of Trade Inquiries.  Really?  Even then, Fox knew how to ‘play fast and loose with the truth.’  As good as their movie was – and it was good, it paled before the Brit’s film.  Fifteen hundred people did not all stand together, sing ‘Nearer My God To Thee’, and meekly sink into the North Atlantic.  They fought and struggled until their last breath, trying not to freeze or drown in the unforgiving sea.  Madeleine Astor wasn’t an elegant matron.  She was in fact a pregnant teenager.  That was it.  ‘Game On!’

I absorbed every book I could find, any TV program I could watch, and every newspaper on microfilm, along with help from the Titanic Historical Society.  Add that to my natural affinity for ships, and an ‘obsession’ was born.  For some, it’s The Civil War; for others, it’s the Kennedy Assassination; for me, it is The Royal Mail Steamship Titanic.

Part of the obsession stems from the fact that no event in history is so loaded with conjecture, myths, and downright lies, some of which are ‘beauties.’  One example:  A young David Sarnoff [co-founder of RCA] became famous telling the world how he was the first to pick-up the Titanic’s distress call in the station on the roof of Wanamaker’s Department Store and how he remained at the key all Sunday night and well into the next day.  Great story?  Absolutely.  Truthful story?  Absolutely not.  Wanamaker’s was closed on Sunday, and even when the store was open, Sarnoff was the office manager.  Three other employees of The Marconi Company stood the watch.

Fox reloaded and fired again in 1997.  This time, they tried it with a seemingly unlimited budget and an amateur historian calling the shots.  Movie making?  Unmatched.  Story telling?  Not so much.  History?  Nonexistent.  There is a word for what you wind up with when you invent the leading characters.  Fiction.  Now, nobody loves Kate Winslet ‘in flagrante delicto’ more than I do, but the truth is better.  Thus, ”Jack Dawson’ and ‘Rose DeWitt’ join ‘Julia Sturges’ and ‘Lady Marjory Bellamy’ as mythical creatures on a real ship.

And, since you’re making stuff up, how about a little character assassination?  The 1997 film depicted First Officer William Murdoch taking but ultimately rejecting a bribe from make-believe villain ‘Caledon Hockley.’  Murdoch was also shown shooting two passengers dead after he presumed, they intended to storm one of the remaining lifeboats.  He then saluted Chief Officer Henry Wilde and committed suicide with a revolver.  None of this ever happened.  After the picture’s director [name withheld] refused to take out the bogus scenes, studio executives flew to Murdoch’s hometown to issue his relatives an apology.  As for the movie, if you are looking for an accurate depiction of events – keep looking.  Put another way, there was a ship called Titanic, and it sank.  After that, you’re on your own.

The Civil War is far and away the all-time champion of most books. [One of Titanic’s passengers wrote ‘The Truth about Chickamauga.’]  Second?  The runner-up is World War II.  Third?  The correct guess is the Titanic.  So, what is my mission statement?  What else?  Write yet another book.  Tell her story, once again.  This time come armed with all I know and have learned in the wake of Doctor Robert Ballard’s stunning discovery of the wreck in 1985.  I will attempt to detail what is correct and dispel, whenever possible, what is not.

I spent my career working in television, the first seven years producing TV News.  What did I learn?  I learned skepticism tinged with a bit of cynicism, and it has served me well.  So, I will do your bidding.  On your behalf, I will be skeptical, factual, analytical, and when required, cynical.  There is one thing I cannot be, dispassionate.  I will stipulate to a love of all ships – but Her most of all.  By now, you may be asking yourself, ‘Why so many pictures?’  I confess that, too, is the TV producer in me.  You always try to put a face with a story.  Plus, there is always the possibility that you can’t recognize Turbinia.

If I am standing at all, it is on the shoulders of some truly great authors.  I have read, re-read, and re-re-read their work over the years and have researched – borrowed – from them all.  To the best of my ability, everything in this book is true.  I believe in the concept that, if the Lord wanted us to remain silent, he wouldn’t have given us [brackets].  So, on occasion, you’ll see a comment from yours truly.  [I’ll be that most irritating of shipmates – the loud, opinionated one.]

The longest section of the book concerns the area around the Boat Deck between midnight and 2:20am.  If it seems long [it’s real time] and overly detailed, I apologize, but to me, this is the heart of the narrative.  Hundreds of little dramas played out on a sloping deck in the middle of a freezing ocean.  Loved ones were torn apart, and families were destroyed.  And with it came the sub-plots.  Some got in lifeboats, and some did not.  Some were allowed in the boats, and some were not.  All of this begs the question, why?  Regardless, these are their stories, and on their behalf, I make no apologies.  I have tried to keep the technological parts under control and not drown my readers in facts and figures.  But the brains and skill that created the Olympic-class liners are very much a part of this story.

Allow me just a couple of more thoughts before we proceed.  There is one sentence that is common to virtually every book written about the RMS Titanic.  ‘It had been a mild winter in the Arctic.’  It had, indeed.  Ice that had been forming since well before the dawn of man was now at last free.  Unfettered, it could leave Greenland and move into the Labrador Current and begin its journey south toward the shipping lanes.  The ice was no different than previous years, only this year, there would be more than usual, much more.  There were small pieces of ice, what sailors called ‘growlers.’  There were large sections known as ‘sheet ice,’ and larger still, ‘pack ice.’  In between were hundreds of what every seaman feared most, what the Norsemen referred to as ‘mountains of ice.’  Icebergs.

If you’re familiar with the advertising business, you probably know about the concepts of ‘marketing research’ and ‘brand recognition.’  Countless studies have been commissioned to find out what people can identify and what they like.  The results are often quite surprising.  For example, inquiries have determined that far more people [around the world] can recognize the ‘Cavallino Rampante’ [in English, ‘The Prancing Horse’ aka the ‘Ferrari’ logo] than can recognize ‘Shell’ or ‘Coca-Cola.’  Then there is my favorite.  For decades, focus groups, when asked to identify the most famous ship in the world, gave the traditional answer, ‘Noah’s Ark’.  No more.  The runaway number one is now ‘Titanic’.  That’s ‘brand recognition.’

There is no way to tell the whole story in this little book, yet I will do my best.  Call me crazy [you wouldn’t be the first] and maybe a little arrogant [see previous], but I feel it’s my duty to help set the record straight for fifteen hundred souls who went to a cold, watery grave that night.  Time to depart.  ‘All ashore that’s goin’ ashore!'”

THE GAME 

THE GAME is dedicated, “To My Father, for that rainy day at Fenway and A thousand games of ‘catch’”.  Steve was passionate about baseball.  He knew baseball in-and-out.  He was the expert’s expert. He would say, “I know what I like.”  Well, I’m here to tell you that he “liked”, [see also, “was passionate about”] the Red Sox, Boston, the Patriots, the Celtics, Lotus cars, Ferraris, meatballs, pasta of any kind, pundits, condiments, the Titanic, HRB, his family, and Vin Scully – not necessarily in that order.

He writes in THE GAME Foreword: “The History books tell us that the first professional baseball game was held on May 4, 1869, as the Cincinnati Red Stockings ‘eked’ out a 45-9 win. No doubt, the first baseball story was told on May 5, 1969.  No sport – not basketball, not football, not hockey – has the oral tradition of the national pastime. And, like any good oral tradition, it has been passed from generation to generation.  Baseball stories in one form or another are as much a part of our game as the infield fly and the rosin bag.  In this book, they come in all sizes and shapes – short stories, essays, expressions, rules, jokes, and slang, to name just a few.

The first ‘Baseball Balladeer’ in my life was one Vincent Edward Scully, known to three generations of fans as ‘Vin.’ For baseball-ignorant Southern Californians, he was a Godsend. Far more than their voice, he was their teacher.  At that point, the game that had been thousands of miles away was as close as your transistor radio or the ‘am’ in your car. He gave Los Angeles the who, what, when, where, and most importantly, the why. He studied at the foot of the master Red Barber and is acknowledged as the best in the business.  I know this how? He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame 43 years ago! For nine years, I was lucky enough to be his producer. I called him ‘The Doctor’ for his PhD in baseball. Try explaining the balk rule to the man who taught you half of what you know about the game.

When I began covering the Angels, I got to know Emil Joseph ‘Buzzie’ Bavasi.  If you looked up ‘character’ in the dictionary, it would say, ‘see Buzzie.’  In the ‘40s, he was Branch Rickey’s top lieutenant and had a hand in breaking Baseball’s color line as well as dealing with Vero Beach in the acquisition of Dodgertown.  He became General Manager and earned a reputation as a shrewd and tough negotiator. Buzzie loved to tell the story about contract haggling with a certain player [still alive, so no names]. He had a fake contract with a very low salary created for the team’s best player.  He left it on his desk and excused himself for a moment, convinced that the player would take a peak. Needless to say, that when he returned, the negotiations ended quickly and in Buzzie’s favor.  He had been schooled in [and ultimately taught] the Branch Rickey way of playing the game [stressing fundamentals, nurturing talent, and the importance of a strong farm system]. In the years we worked together, I never once overheard a conversation when he wasn’t at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a story or anecdote. He lived for baseball and lived to talk about it.

In 1985, I began working with Bob Starr. Bob, or as we called him, ‘Bobo’, was the broadcaster’s broadcaster. He could do play-by-play for anything – baseball, football, your kid’s hopscotch game, anything. Bobo was a graduate of the KMOX School of Broadcasting.  The famed St. Louis radio station produced Harry Caray, Jack and Joe Buck, Buddy Blattner, Joe Garagiola, and Bob Costas, among others. He had that smooth, Midwestern style, and on the air, you’d swear he was talking just to you.  I once shared a golf cart with him for a round – four hours well-spent looking for my ball [as usual] and listening.  He loved to tell stories, some on himself. While playing 18 holes on an off day, Bob had a heart attack.  Upon arrival at the hospital, the doctors asked if he were in pain. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘in my backside.’ Mystified, the doctors went over the test results. A physical examination revealed that the patient still had his pants on.  The source of the pain was two Titleists in his back pocket.  How we miss Bobo.

The average baseball fan may not recognize the name Jack Lang, but every player knew him and loved it when he called.  Jack was for twenty years the executive secretary of The Baseball Writers of America, and if he telephoned you, it meant that you just won the Cy Young Award, the Most Valuable Player Award, the Rookie-of-the-Year, or had hit the ‘Baseball Lottery,’ induction into the Hall of Fame.  His vocation was sportswriter [a New York beat writer], and for forty years, he was one of the best.  I met Jack in 1987.  We had been hired by Victor Temkin to do sports licensing for MCA/Universal. It was there I discovered his sense of humor, his humanity, and his encyclopedic knowledge of the game.  We would speak on the phone almost every day for an hour.  Five minutes would be devoted to business, the remaining fifty-five given over to ‘talkin’ baseball.’  I firmly believe that I could have put the phone on speaker, turned on a tape recorder, left the room, and returned thirty minutes later to find another chapter for this book.  In 1997, we took a production crew to his home for an interview. It was the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s entry into the major leagues, and who better to discuss it than the man who covered it.  Jack lived in the little village of Ft. Salonga on the North Coast of Long Island, [Vin used to refer to him as ‘the Squire of Ft. Salonga’] in a modest house with an office on the side. The office contained a desk, two chairs, and enough baseball memorabilia to open a museum. [The whole place could have been shipped, as is, to Cooperstown.]

Buzzie, Bobo, and the Squire are gone, and, believe me, this book would have been easier to write if they were still here. We still have Vinnie [long may he reign].  If there is such a thing as a sub-dedication, this is for them. They and countless others had a hand in writing this book.  I have tried to fashion a work with something for everyone, from the hard-core fan to the young people just learning about the game. In so doing, I’ve run the gamut all the way from baseball history to baseball jokes. I hope you enjoy it and hope it adds to your love for ‘the game’.”

On amazon.com and smashwords.

Best, Jay

      A CLEAN SLATE – BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS Sound familiar. August 2016.  "Over the age of 60.  Underlying health condition (heart problems. Pneumonia in the lungs. 

[forkanna]

[AO3 LINK] [EF LINK]

NOTE: This is where things are gonna start to shift a bit.

Another week or so passed. To be honest, you really missed nothing, other than Stephen giving me a plastic baggie with some of my stone-flakes in it because he wasn't sure what else to do with them. He also gave me one of the bottles of Soft to keep in my place, just in case it happened again. That did seem like a precaution I should have already thought of myself.

And a lot of Knives. A loooot of her hanging around, and finally weaseling my number out of me so she could text and ask if she could come over. I ignored a lot of her texts, but she still always managed to get me to agree to a time she could come bouncing through my door with one of her attack-hugs at the ready. We mostly just watched movies or played video games. Met up with Stephen and Joseph some other night at a sushi place. And the whole time, I didn't know what to do with myself.

Before you ask, there were a couple of close calls. Because we can all tell where this is going already, so I'm just putting it out there.

Three nights after we were watching the samurai movie, she came in for a hug. Slower than usual, and I mean like, at a snail's pace. Turned out, she just thought it would be funny if we bumped noses, but I was just slightly-drunk enough to think she was going in for something else. I blame the tequila shots, and therefore, on Steph who had ordered them. Dumb lush. But I managed to play it off that she was just too close to my face, and that was why I flinched.

Then there was the next day, when we split a Canadian from Pizza Pizza for dinner. We both went in for a slice at the same time and our hands touched; that old thing. I accused her of being a greedy bitch, but she was just biting her bottom lip and giggling before she flicked a mushroom at me. It made me either want to slap her, or… I don't know. For the life of me, I don't know what the fuck was going on in my head, but she let me brush it off and grab a different slice.

But as they say, all good things must come to an end. Which isn't exactly what happens here, but like, go with it, okay?

                                                            ~ o ~

"I don't understand," she was sighing as she swung upside-down from the monkey bars in Hillcrest Park, jeans-clad knees taking the brunt of her slight weight effortlessly. "My mom acts like she's so worldly, but then she doesn't want me to have a totally normal barista job because it'll distract me from meeting 'a nice man' or becoming a doctor, or whatever."

I sighed as I picked at some peeling paint on one of the bars. I was sitting on a 'step' for the kids to climb up to the slide, though my omnipresent black cloud of misanthropy had kept any actual children far away from us. "She's being a mom. That's what they do: pass judgment on their children's decisions. Mine are in the professional league."

"That sucks." Her eyes went up — and in this case that means they were pointed at the sky, not above her head, which would have been sand. "Don't my tits look great like this?"

"Sure," I snorted. "I m-mean, what makes you think I noticed?"

"Nothing, Kim," she giggled. "Just a thought I had. Oh, did you know TCAD is getting back together?"

I pursed my lips for a moment before answering, "Are they really?"

"Kind of. I mean, it's not the original lineup, though. That'd be huge news, since that jerk Todd was turned into coins!" She flipped up through the bars and began walking on top of them, arms out to the sides to help maintain her balance. "Think the new bassist is that girl from Smashing Turnips. They broke up, remember? Plus they're holding auditions for new drummers but I heard she doesn't want guys applying. Sounded like she was pretty sure of that."

"So now they're an all-girl band? Quaint."

"Envy said in a press release that she was thinking about staying solo, but I guess she had a change of heart. But she did start going by 'Natalie' again, 'cause the solo career didn't work out for her. She said 'I'm just not cut out to be a pop star, it's too high-maintenance'." Then she gasped and turned to look at me. "DUDE! You should so totally try out!"

My eyes widened. "What?! Knives, you-"

"Think about it! You're a drummer, and a girl, and they're super-"

"KNIVES!"

But I wasn't upset about her needling me into life decisions. She wasn't paying attention to what she was doing anymore, and had started to slowly fall off the monkey bars. A little yelp of surprise sounded as her running shoes slipped down and back off the metal, arms windmilling. The world slowed to a crawl. Heart in my throat, I dove, and just barely managed to catch her before falling into the sand around the playscape.

"Shit… are you okay?!" I demanded, my voice an octave too high.

But she wasn't listening. Her eyes were round, and she had her hands locked around the back of my neck. She looked stunned speechless, which was a new look for her. My hands flexed awkwardly in her armpit and under her knee as I held her slight weight, which was still a little heavy but I'm a drummer, so I have a decent amount of upper body strength. I could handle it.

"You saved me," she breathed.

"What? Well… y-yeah, I couldn't let you… fall."

"Um… I probably would have been fine. It's only like five feet, and there's sand everywhere." Her face was closer again. Probably going in for another hug, like last time. "But you caught me, Kim."

For some reason, I couldn't put her down yet. Swallowing down my panic, I whispered, "What if you broke your neck? I'd… I could never live with letting that happen to you."

"Why not?"

She was prying into my feelings and motivations too much. Gruffly, I snapped, "Who else would annoy the hell out of me every day? What a stupid ass question."

Even though that was intended to get her to laugh and call me a dork, or say I was funny, or just to tell me I could put her down, it didn't seem to work the way I hoped.

Because Knives kissed me. And I mean kissed me… and I kissed back. Really, we might have done it at the same time, like when you and a friend automatically go in for the fist bump when something really awesome happens because you're both on the same page. Something about the moment just needed it, even if I didn't fully understand why. Her lips were soft and sweet, and familiar; I knew we'd kissed when drunk, even though I couldn't remember most of it. And the gentle weight in my arms made it perfect.

Of course, once we broke apart a few seconds — minutes, hours, centuries — later, I went into pure panic mode. Or tried to. But the lip-on-lip contact had robbed me of actual power and ability to move. Not like the time I turned to stone, though; this wasn't that serious.

"O-oh," was all she said at first. Though the look in her eyes and the way her breathing was so rapid and shallow told me that the "oh" meant a lot more than that, so just this once, I didn't snap at her to explain.

"Holy balls," I managed to breathe.

"Where did that come from? I mean… it was…"

When her face started glowing, a small, private, sacred smile of pure joy blossoming, I had to drop her to the sand and stand back up, turning around to grip the monkey bars overhead to keep myself from falling over. Why was I so dizzy? Why was I overreacting? I mean, a little part of me had been able to tell that we were trending in this direction. Like magnets, or gentrification of old neighbourhoods; sometimes you just can't stop it. Yet I had kind of thought it might never happen. Or at the very least, it would take longer than a few weeks.

"Kim?" One of her hands came to rest in the small of my back.

"Whoa, whoa," I squeaked, spinning around so fast I almost fell myself. "J-just because we- I mean, you shouldn't- don't do that!"

"Sorry," she breathed as she lowered the hand, rubbing her fingers together as if trying to rid them of the memory. I know I could definitely still feel them on my back.

"No, don't…" Sighing, I pressed both my hands into my face. "AGH!" There was a high-pitched whistling sound. "What the hell is even happening anymore?!"

After a few seconds of silence, Knives cleared her throat. "You, um… does steam come out of your ears normally?"

"No! And it didn't just now, either!"

"But I saw-"

"Nevermind that! Just…" Running hands through my hair, and feeling that it did feel a little warmer and more moist than it should have been, I looked over at her. "Can we just rewind about five minutes and forget that ever happened? I… whatever that was, I'm not ready. I'm not ready for it, Knives."

A little shrug of her shoulders as she stared down at her running shoes. "I haven't unlocked that power-up yet, Kim. Sorry."

"Stop apologising, too! Like… we didn't do anything wrong, it's just way past what I can handle right now. Okay? Please, just… I can't even believe we're having this conversation. And on a playground!"

Ugh. Do you have any idea how terrible I felt? Panicking and making her feel like it was all her fault. It was so hard for me to explain my own feelings that I wound up trampling all over hers. But I didn't know how else to react.

"Kim… it's okay," she said finally, cautiously putting her hands on my shoulders. I twitched, took a step backward, but she followed and kept them there. "It's okay. I don't really understand this, either; I mean, I didn't think I was a lesbian. But then again, I didn't at Julie's aunt's, either, and that still-"

"Let's not talk about that, either," I grunted, ashamed of myself. "Especially since you were still in high school."

"Barely," she made sure to remind me. "But… seriously, you made me feel loved that night, and you made me feel loved just now." My eyes must have bulged in panic, because she reassured me, "Like a friend! A good friend who, uh, doesn't mind… that sometimes? If that's cool…"

"Just how far did we go?" I had to ask.

"Made out for a little while. Some… other stuff, but nobody took off their swimsuit," she assured me nervously, and I sighed in some slight relief. "And it was great! But if you want to not do that again, I'm fine with that. Seriously!"

Temptation reared its ugly head. "Well…" Then I shook myself, gripping at my hair around her hands still on my shoulders. "GAH! Like, I'm kinda curious, but also have never… I mean, I've dated guys all my life, this is a pretty big curveball of a life choice, if it is one. And I didn't think you were anything more than just a friend before today, so isn't it crazy to change statuses all of a sudden like this?"

"Why does it have to be some big 'choice'?" she chuckled softly. It made me mad that she wasn't being serious. No… that isn't true. It made me jealous that she wasn't having as much trouble with it as I was. Yeah, that's way more accurate. "I mean, either you want to kiss me or you don't. Whatever, right?"

"Right. Just so easy. Is that why you've been hanging around me so much? Hoping to wear me down?"

"What? No, I wouldn't- that's not it at all!"

"Are you sure?" She squirmed, but didn't back down. "All that time hanging around, you just were hoping that it would happen again. Great. I thought I really had a friend, and you're just another Scott waiting to happen."

But that was a low blow and we both flinched, her hands falling away from me. Before I could apologise, Knives got to it first. "Kim, I'd never do that. It's hard to blame Scott for what he did, because I hearted him so much, but that's just… not the kind of thing I could ever do to a friend! S-so please, don't say that I would…"

"Knives… shit." Pinching the bridge of my nose, I said, "Okay. You're right, I'm… not being fair."

"You're freaking out is what you are."

"Definitely. Can we… I don't know. I want to run away and hide, but I also don't want you to leave."

"Wanna go to Delicious Cup?" she suggested, again touching my arm. This time, I didn't react, either positively or negatively. "We, um, can just talk there. PDA in the café would be a little gross so it'll make kissing less of a… does 'issue' make sense? Is that the best word?"

Nodding, I swallowed hard. "Yeah. It's a great word. Maybe even word of the day, because I clearly have issues."

"Kim, nooo," she half-whined, grasping my wrist and pulling me along. We only made the briefest of stops to snag our bags from the deserted swingset before heading off past the wading pool. "I mean… I kinda freaked out the next morning after the first time, too, so I totally get it! I just… already worked through all that, maybe? Not with a legit therapist, just did a lot of thinking, and talking to Tamara."

"You talked to Tamara about this?!"

"Not a lot! Just, like, sorting through my feelings! And she wouldn't tell anybody, she's my BFF!"

My body felt like it wanted to turn into stone again, but I forced myself to breathe, to stop acting like every weird moment of my life was the end of the world. "Okay… you're right. Back in those days, I probably would have tried to talk to Stephen about this if I could remember more about that night. But I just wrote it off as being drunk. I mean, I never tried to make out with Ramona, or Julie, or…"

"Actually, I kinda heard that you and Ramona had a slight moment," Knives laughed. When I turned round eyes on her, she protested, "From Lisa! Like, remember when we all got together before she moved away?"

"What moment did we have?" I demanded.

"Something about you and she and Scott being all in the same bed, and you telling them both that you loved them." When she looked back after a few seconds of silence and caught me blushing, she giggled. "You were talking, not doing anything else. At least, I'm pretty sure I'd have heard about anything else."

"Oh, good. I mean, if I had a threesome with Scott and that hair-changing hipster, I'd blow my stack."

The bridge of her nose crinkled from the force of her smile as we made our way toward the bus stop. "Already did that once today. Seriously, can you teach me that trick with the steam?"

"GOD, SHUT YOUR HOLE!"

                                                             To Be Continued…

[henrivillegas]

Begin Again

2016 feels like forever ago, but not a week of that year went by without me begging the universe for a Purity Ring show. They were making the rounds for their recent album in Asia and I knew it was only a matter of time till they’d come to Manila. They didn’t.

But one night in December, the secret was out and dear lord almighty did it take every ounce of my being to not ugly cry in public while getting my hair did. I cried anyway. On the ride home, while trying not to hyperventilate and alarm my uber driver. I've been begging and losing hope simultaneously since August last year, and I couldn't believe it's finally happening. Ya best bet I was shaking in my sneaks till their set at Wanderland. And it was all I could talk about (aside from the Singapore trips I took) come the new year, it was almost embarrassing. Except I shamelessly love them. So there's that too.

The weather days before the festival was perfect. Not a drop of rain, and just the right amount of clouds. The sky just had to wait till early Saturday morning to pour like there’s no tomorrow. So it really was no surprise, as I got to the venue an hour after the gates were supposed to open, that the festival would run late. About four hours late. 

Lola Amour, this year’s Wanderband winner opened the show at the Globe stage, but delivered a great set fit for the Main Stage where they were originally supposed to play.

The usual order of business the moment we walked into the festival grounds were pretty standard. Get festival currency, meet with wander-buddies, pick a spot at the barricade, get food. But since my faves who I thought would never go here are in the lineup, I had to get merch. Maybe not all the merch, because food is also important. I had to pick one of their two shirt designs which I intend to wear everyday. To be honest, this year’s Wanderland merch looks so good, and their shirts aren’t expensive either! I wish their water bottles came with actual water and free refills, but that’s probably just me being greedy. There was more that enough drinks to sustain everyone this year, so that’s a huge relief!

The Filinvest City Event Grounds was huge. So huge there’s room for three stages, two of which can have bands play simultaneously without rudely interrupting each other. But probably too huge too, as there were a lot of bare areas, and also not enough portalets!

What made this year’s Wanderland special, besides my dream coming true, was seeing my local faves like Reese Lansangan play at the Globe stage. The same stage Purity Ring will be playing!

Another band I was looking forward to seeing live was LANY. But I was just one of the thousands of people who showed up to see them. So despite having a friend at the main stage save me a cozy spot at the barricade, I had to settle for the middle of the crowd to see them and then retreat to the Globe Stage again where I can ugly dance freely to their music.

The thing about having three stages playing almost simultaneously is that you’re bound to make some sacrifices. Like me missing Woodlock because there’s no way in hell I am missing Tom’s Story’s Wanderland set.  Also, I assumed I’d get to catch just one song from Woodlock after since their stage isn’t that far. But I was wrong. There were a lot of people who probably had the same idea, as the Globe stage was packed. Even when Yuna took the main stage.

It was clear by the time Honne set up at the Globe Stage that this is it. There’s no leaving my spot for food. Thankfully I’ve smuggled tiny af cookies in my wallet, but that wasn’t enough. It was the first time for me to really listen to Honne and I liked it so much I asked my fangirling friend what is wrong with me for not liking them sooner. But regret doesn’t last long because I am shaking in my black muddy sneaks because Purity Ring was playing next!

Actually it was Explosions in the Sky playing next at the main stage and I wanted to watch them so bad but not bad enough for me to give up barricade. I’ve been looking forward to this moment for years that I couldn’t help but ask my friends backstage if they already met Corin and Megan. Not that I expect to meet them.

I was already screeching embarrassingly while they were setting up so you can expect this to escalate fairly quickly by the time they started their set. RIP Dignity, RIP me.

I was full on expecting to ugly cry during their set, but nope, I was just ugly. But my entire being was so happy I thought my heart would stop everytime Corin hit those diamond drums. Megan was a vision on stage. Her moves and Corin’s diamond drums lighting up was beautiful. Their setup was very minimal compared to the stage setup they had at Laneway last year but it didn’t matter. 

It’s been months since that night but I still feel my heart swell with joy everytime I think about it. That’s probably why this post took forever for me to complete. Hearing them play my favorites was surreal. It’s definitely one of the happiest moments of my life that I felt like my soul ascended to heaven so many times during their set that I was simultaneously emotionally high and dead once it was over. So much so that when we saw Megan packing up their stage set up, I managed to speak in complete sentences and asked if I could hug her. Fam, she is so flawless, ang ganda niya tapos wala siyang pores. We even took a group photo together. Friends I am crying tears of joy internally as I type this.

The rest of the night was a bit of a nostalgia trip that was spent mostly sitting down. I am so glad I got to see The Ting Tings after all these years and it gave me such joy to hear them play their older songs. Sadly, there was no encore. Then, after what felt like forever, The Temper Trap took the stage. At this point we were already exhausted but quite rested, so we moved closer to the stage to bop to some of their songs. Like Fader. I love Fader. They closed their set with Sweet Disposition at about 3am, and we were disappointed there weren’t any fireworks or confetti to end the fest like they did before. Still, I was happy I got to see them again.

Got home at about 4am dead tired but still buzzing on the inside. Of all the Wanderland fests I’ve been to, this was the year I got home the happiest. Thank you Karpos for making my dream a reality.

[unicyclehippo]

hi i know you're writing that supercorp story (which is my entire life btw you're amazing) so i don't know if you're taking random prompts. if yes can you do a supercorp + the classic having to share a bed? i don't know the context. And in my mind they are clueless about the others feelings

the conference starts really well. she’s managed to convince one very nice waitress to leave a tray of spring rolls at her table and, even better, the table happens to be at central city’s biggest conference of the year. which she is covering. which means, best of all, that she gets three days out of the office and away from snapper, who still—in his own words—thinks she’s “a boring, beamish, biased blabber-mouth” and, unlike with cat, kara is pretty sure that he means every word of it. and he isn’t even pleased at his own alliteration! who isn’t pleased by alliteration? she doesn’t get it. but that’s who he is, and she just has to buck up and remember that literally nothing pleases him and she just has to work twice as hard to make sure that the article she writes about this conference will be worth something.

she’s half filled her notebook already, and she lets herself slip back into the mindset that the conference is going really well, rather than dwelling on the inevitable smackdown her boss will deliver unto her by the end of the week.

the official start to the conference is even better than the drinks and canapés. kara almost chokes on a spring roll when she sees her stepping up onto stage but she successfully swallows and flips open her notebook.

“good evening.”

kara has been to enough of these types of schmoozing, meet-and-greet events to know how they’re supposed to go. when the keynote speaker of the night steps up, conversation goes on. people keep ordering drinks or stopping a server with a flap of their hand. they’re not supposed to drop their conversations and quieten and turn, all of them, almost immediately, to face the speaker and listen intently.

as gently and as quickly as she can, with many excuse me’s and oh gosh, can i just... right there, just past you, thank you so much’s, kara slips through the crowd until she’s standing in the second, maybe third row of the crowd around the stage. she stops behind a tall man so she won’t catch lena’s attention and accidentally on purpose drops her purse. as she collects her things, she scans the crowd. the security was decent tonight and she sees no guns, no suspicious lead-lined boxes, nothing. there’s nothing wrong, nothing that kara can divine, but something still makes the back of her neck itch.

“it is my great honour to welcome you all to the opening evening of central city’s 15th annual metals and magnets convention.” she pauses for a moment for applause—these scientists are all three drinks into their night and kara is sure that, if they’re anything like the scientists she knows, the applause should be verging on raucous. a few wolf-whistles here and there, even. but it isn’t. there is some half-hearted applause at the outskirts of the crowd but mostly, they stand silently.

kara can’t help but look to lena’s face, and she’s privately proud at the unwavering, pleased smile she sees.

“there is an incredible lineup of presenters here with us over the next three days, from the house-hold names, well,” lena laughs a little, “perhaps not house-hold names, but familiar to us at least.” whatever small amount of laughter she gets at that is again stilted and quiet and this time, kara sees lena’s throat bob in a quick, nervous swallow. “we also welcome a number of new scientists, with exciting work to present. for a very long time, the work that has come out of these conventions has been new, exciting, rigorously peer-reviewed, and has been put to extraordinary good use in the community and this year promises to take this prestigious reputation to new heights. with a record-breaking number of guests attending the seventy-six events that will take place over the next three days, this years metals and magnets convention is set to be the biggest and the best yet. and if you don’t believe me,” lena smiles sweetly out to the crowd, “i’ve also been told to inform you that it’s an open bar tonight.”

that, at least, gets a loud rumble of pleased nods and murmurs and lena’s exit from the stage goes mostly unnoticed, lost after that announcement.

kara steps up to lena’s side and they walk together along the side of the hall until they can slip out into the hall. kara closes the main door behind them—it’s a big and heavy door but she closes it as quietly as possible so no one notices their escape and lena turns away, so as not to comment.

“open bar, huh?” she asks, slipping her hands into her pockets.

“isn’t that generous of the host?” she doesn’t seem surprised by how quickly kara joined her.

“mm. or the anonymous donor. you wouldn’t happen to know who that is, would you?” kara scrunches up her nose, gives lena the sweetest smile she can. “i’m in the middle of an article.”

lena’s breath hitches and she stares, wide-eyed, at kara until the smile fades just a little.

“i’m joking, lena,” kara whispers.

“oh,”

“i know bill gates is here.” she drops one eye in a wink—she’s been practising, ever since alex pointed out that winking isn’t really one of her skills, that her other eyelid tugs down a little bit too—and lena is staring at her again. “he’s not really,” kara hurries to say. “it’s a joke. because i know the donor is,”

lena holds up a hand to stop her. “i get the joke, kara.” she laughs, and her hand falls forward onto kara’s arm. “i’m sorry, i’m a little shaken. i didn’t expect they would be so hostile,” she admits, looking back down the hall toward the convention doors. “i thought... it’s been so long.” she purses her lips, gives kara a small smile. “i suppose it hasn’t though, has it?”

kara closes her eyes. “two years since he was taken into custody.”

“only one since he was convicted.”

neither of them mention the most recent step their family has taken.

“it’s not long enough for them to have forgotten, and everything i’ve done has been,” lena presses her lips flat and shakes her head, just once, sharply. “it doesn’t matter. kara,” she says, and she removes her hand, fingers curling just a little when she lifts it from kara’s arm—almost like she wants to stay, wants to keep holding kara, but that’s just silly, that’s just wishful thinking, kara knows that. “you have guests to interview,” she says. “i don’t want to take up your time.”

“i have more than enough to work with,”

“i’m afraid i won’t be very good company,” lena says, talking through kara’s denial, and kara stops and actually listens to her. “i think i saw mr wells arrive. perhaps you should speak to him about his work on colliders?” she suggests. “you mentioned your boss was looking at ways that religion and science mix, so it would be beneficial.”

“you’re right,” kara agrees, and she steps back from lena. she gives her another smile in an effort to ease the strain across lena’s forehead, around her eyes. the most gentle smile she can manage. she hopes it helps. “i’ll go speak to him.”

the relief on lena’s face fills kara with warmth, knowing that she made the right decision, and she darts a look around to make sure that there are no listening ears or suspicious eyes. but the hallway is empty and she can’t hear anyone, so kara doesn’t hesitate to curl an arm around lena’s shoulders and tug her in for a very, very quick hug.

it’s new, for them. they’ve hugged a few times, but it’s a recent thing kara started after a lunch at a busy restaurant. they’d been squished together at the end of a long table and kara hadn’t been able to resist—shoulder to shoulder, feet sometimes brushing, it had been a lot for her and she’d barely tasted their meal, barely been able to focus on what lena had told her about, and after it was over and they were parting ways, kara back to catco and lena to l corp, kara had reached out and brought lena into a tight hug. there had only been three hugs since that day so it’s something they’re both getting used to, and kara doesn’t want to push so she sticks to brisk hugs. tight and warm, but quick.

mostly. except, lena looks beautiful tonight. she looks beautiful and everyone out there had been awful, so kara can’t resist holding her for just a moment longer, and her hands slip down lena’s back to press them gently together.

“thank you,” lena whispers, and in a move that leaves kara stunned still—eat your heart out, medusa—she presses her lips to kara’s cheek and slips away, toward the elevator.

it’s a whole five minutes before kara starts to breathe again, and another five until she feels steady enough to walk. rao but a kiss to her cheek should not feel like that! it shouldn’t stop her in her tracks! it shouldn’t make her weak in the knees!

a sudden thought, ridiculous really, makes kara pause. it couldn’t be—could it?

she walks as steadily as she can to a bathroom and, carefully, wipes with a paper towel the faint hint of gloss from her cheek. she folds it and slips it into her bag.

it’s another few minutes before she feels fully like herself again—her palms stop sweating and the molten feeling behind her sternum fades too—and she steps out of the bathroom and returns to the conference.

it’s easy to find mr wells, and she’s glad that lena suggested it because she does have an awful lot of questions for him.

“mr wells,” she interrupts when the barrage of questions at him from other scientists pause for a moment. she gets a few cursory glances, but most know that she’s there as a reporter, and they aren’t interested in the types of questions a reporter will ask. she smiles, as sweetly as she can. “i understand you’re here to present your findings on the calibration of your particle collider? do you have any comments on the results of your findings that showed that your initial calibration wasn’t stable in the slightest?”

eyebrows raised, mr wells gives her a polite smile. “miss...?”

“danvers. kara danvers, with catco worldwide.”

“catco?” he laughs. “i had no idea they had such an interest in science.”

“we’re interested in everything, mr wells, especially in science that has the potential to be a great innovation.” kara sweetens her smile just a touch more. “or a disaster. people want to know.”

“i see.” his eyes glint with something dangerous, and kara wonders if maybe alex should know that she may have insulted and aggravated a very intelligent man who could turn out to be a super villain if he swung that way. yeah. she probably should. “science is a journey of trials and errors, miss danvers. our first calibration wasn’t as successful as we would have liked it to be, but it’s given us a lot to work off and our next attempt is set to be far better. and that,” he tells her, “is all you’re getting from me.”

“so, the same thing everyone else has gotten?”

“exactly.”

“no comment on the fact that government grants dedicated to your research haven’t been used wisely? or that the announcement of total transparency in how you’re using tax paper funds is set out in such a way that you would have to be incredibly intelligent and masochistic to get through it?”

“accounting can be confusing for some people. like it is for me,” he adds with a short laugh after a moment. there is no humour in his eyes. “luckily, i don’t have to handle that part of the business.”

“luckily,” kara agrees, and she clicks her pen closed. “thank you so much for talking with me.” her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

“always happy to talk about my work. will i see you at my presentation tomorrow?”

“i wouldn’t miss it.”

“wonderful.”

//

after her showdown with mr wells, the other scientists are far more willing to talk openly with her. as it turns out, he has a bit of a reputation for being, what are the adjectives she gets from them? oh yeah—narcissistic, self-aggrandising, irritating, self-important, egotistical, and slimy. there are an equal number of people who think he’s god’s gift to the work and kara can agree that he’s very intelligent and the work he’s put out is exceptional, but she still doesn’t see how his genius should be a reason to excuse his enormous talent for being an asshole.

kara extracts herself from a conversation with three ladies when her phone buzzes.

“we’ll see you around though, right, kara?” one of them says, and she lays a hand on kara’s arm and smiles over at her. kara can feel herself blushing—it’s easy to make out the interest in her eyes—and she leans a little into the touch.

“i certainly hope so. you’ve been lovely,” she tells her, and then glances to the other doctors, all smiling at them. “um. all of you.”

“ignore them, they’re old buzzards,” her doctor chides, and her friends laugh at that. “maybe i could get you a drink. it’s open bar tonight, you know? something sweet, maybe, just like you?”

“i could get my own drink with an open bar,” kara says, much to the amusement of the other women.

“i can see i’ll have to try a little harder with you.”

“i’ve always enjoyed it when people put effort in,” she agrees, and she laughs at the chorus of approving noises from the peanut gallery.

kara’s phone buzzes again.

“you won’t be disappointed,” kara is promised, in a quiet low murmur. “i’m something of a perfectionist. i won’t be satisfied with anything, i’ll do it over and over until i get it just right.” there is absolutely no mistaking the intent in her voice and kara’s flush spreads right across her cheeks. there’s an answer on the tip of her tongue and kara goes to say it but something in her chest seizes when she meets her eyes. they’re blue and lovely, yes, but they’re not right. and the intensity is nice, and the flirting is fun, but the whole thing feels not quite right. the doctor must see it, because her hand drops away with one last squeeze. “maybe another night,” she suggests, but it’s empty of any real promise.

“you’ve all been very helpful. please look out for my article,” kara says, mostly to the doctor, but also to her friends, and she smiles at them when she leaves. turning a corner, kara pauses and presses a shaking hand to her heart, her other to her stomach, suddenly queasy. this is ridiculous. the woman is beautiful and smart and funny and interesting, and she tells stories about her co-workers that has kara in stitches but,

lena.

her name shows up on kara’s phone and the situation hits her in the gut like a punch from a super-powered alien and kara has to lean against the wall, hands shaking, as she opens the message.

sorry for abandoning you earlier.

and then,

drinks tonight? room 1501.

the penthouse suite. of course. kara shakes her head with a little laugh—she’s literally out of this world, but there are some experiences she has never had, like staying in a penthouse suite and drinking ridiculously expensive champagne, or whiskey maybe because lena likes her whiskey, and she doesn’t have to think about her answer at all.

of course. i’m all done here. is now alright?

she answers in seconds.

now is perfect.

//

“this is, this is really good whiskey,” kara tells her, curled into the corner of lena’s couch. the penthouse suite is ridiculously large, larger than kara’s apartment, and she has a very soft, very large pillow between her legs, one arm wrapped around the top half of it as well. like everything else in the suite, it’s slightly oversized and beautifully soft. she loves it.

“isn’t it? i brought it from home. this might be their best accomodations, but i never feel hotels manage to get the drinks right. you don’t want ice, do you?” she asks, pointing a finger kara’s way. it’s not quite pointed right at her—kara thinks lena is one or two drinks ahead of her. her expression is open and helpful and kara shakes her head quickly because there is no fridge in here which means that lena would have to call room service and she really doesn’t need to go to all that effort.

“i’m good.”

“are you sure?” lena squints over at her, and kara thinks it might be a good idea to move down to the other end of the couch, closer. to reduce the risk of eye strain. so she does.

“absolutely.”

“good.” lena relaxes back into her armchair and sighs. “i really am sorry for my behaviour earlier. it was nice of you to come after me.”

“you needed to be alone for a second, i understand that.” kara smiles at the look lena sends her, all fond and relieved. probably that she doesn’t have to explain herself to kara. “besides, i did have some stuff to talk to mr wells about.”

“oh good. is he as much of an ass in person as he is over the phone?”

kara nods. “more.”

“awful man. sorry for throwing you to the wolves.”

“i can take care of myself, lena,” she laughs, and like she always does, apparently, when a pretty woman stares at her, her laugh hiccups and fades. this isn’t the same look the doctor gave her earlier, she knows that, but lena is intent—as intent as the alcohol will let her be—and the slow curve of her smile sends kara’s heart soaring into the stratosphere.

“i know,” she murmurs, and sips slowly from her tumbler. “it’s still bad manners.”

“you’ll have to repay me somehow then,” kara teases. she hopes lena doesn’t catch how breathless she sounds.

it’s hard not to be—here she is, drinking with lena luthor, a whiskey that tastes hot and rich and sharply of gold. here she is, in a room lit only by lamps, and lena hasn’t changed out of her dress from earlier that makes kara’s heart stick in her throat only now, now she’s intoxicated by everything. not the alcohol, but the moment and the closeness, and the way lena looks at her, and her perfume, and she considers, for a moment, how it might feel to put her glass down—the sound of the crystal cut glass on the table, the solid thunk the only sound in the room—how it might feel to slide toward her—the whisper of her dress on the couch, the electric friction of her, of the moment—how lena might lean back into her chair—so inviting, the spread of her hands on the arms, the angle to her chin a challenge kara is more than willing to meet—how lena would kiss—like she has all the time in the world, like she knows kara isn’t going anywhere—how much richer the whiskey would taste off her tongue.

and there, her thoughts shudder to a halt and she has to look away from lena and down to her glass. she sets it down on the coffee table and slides down the couch, away from lena.

“i should go,” she says, and lena’s eyes widen a fraction. she sits up a little straighter in her chair, fingers whitening where they press against her glass. “i have work tomorrow, so,” she runs her hands down the front of her dress, gives lena what she hopes is a happy smile and not one of ultimate need and want. her heart is still beating too fast and everything in her body wants to tackle lena, to sit with her on that chair—on top of her, her mind corrects her instantly and kara can’t think of anything else for a good few seconds, of her hands on lena’s shoulders, her lips on lena’s lips, lena’s hands on her ass, her thighs, everywhere—and see how much her imagination got right. “thank you for the drink.”

“you’re welcome.” lena stands, grimaces down at her feet and kicks off her heels. “should’ve done that ages ago,” she tells kara, and her heart lurches again because sans shoes, lena is a good few inches shorter than her. and small. and sweet, and kind, and ever so careful especially now that she’s approaching drunk. she crinkles her nose when she opens her phone and her thumb hovers over her drivers number. “where are you going?” she asks kara. “which hotel?”

“um.”

“sebastian will drive you.”

“oh that’s, um, that’s really nice. i haven’t got a room yet but i was thinking—”

“you haven’t got a room?” lena cuts her off, any softness bleeding out to be replaced by concern. “kara, every hotel in central city has been booked out for weeks. you’ll be lucky to find a motel with a spare room.”

“well, i can just,” kara flounders for a moment. this was never supposed to be an issue—she can fly home in a matter of minutes, which is what she was going to do tonight—and now she doesn’t know what to say. “i’ll be fine, really.”

lena stares at her for a long minute before she shakes her head. “i’m not letting you stay in some motel an hour out of town. you have work in the morning and,” she narrows her eyes at kara, “you’re a beautiful woman in a strange town. you’re not going out there tipsy.” she drags her fingers over the back of her phone. it’s one of lena’s most endearing traits, this tactile motion of hers, but kara can’t help but wonder how lena would touch her. that gently, or not so gently.

“i’m fine, really, lena.” she’s not fine. she needs a quick dip in the arctic waters ASAP.

“you’re staying here.”

“i’m—”

“there’s plenty of room,” she tells her, and kara turns slowly to take in the large suite. slowly she nods. she can just, well, sleep on the couch or something. it’s not a problem. it’s the opposite of a problem. lena is so nice, all the time, and sometimes it hurts that no one gets to see it.

it doesn’t hurt at all that kara gets to see it. it makes her feel special, and wanted, and any arguments fly right out of her mind. she knows her smile is more genuine this time and she nods.

“i’d love to. thank you, lena.”

//

she may not have agreed so easily if she knew that lena would insist on her sleeping in the bed with her.

sure, like lena said, it’s a king size bed, and ridiculously comfortable—a mixture of soft and firm and kara knows that her bed is going to feel woefully pokey when she gets back—and the pillows feel divine and with lena in the bed with her this is some kind of a heaven. she pinches herself and hopes that if this is a new black mercy, alex takes her time getting here to save her.

the downside is, lena doesn’t stick to her side. she lays in the middle of the bed and where she started cuddling a pillow, it apparently wasn’t good enough and she flung it down the bed with an adorable grumble—kara knows she’s doomed when she sees lena’s frown—and then she started seeking out her bed buddy. kara shifts her way to the edge of the bed but lena must have some kind of heat seeking capabilities because once her hand brushes against kara’s side, she turns to her like kara is the sun and curls her arm around kara’s waist. she’s laying face down on her stomach and kara is a little worried that she’ll suffocate so she lifts lena and turns her on her side. sure, it means that lena’s head is now pillowed on kara’s shoulder and kara has no way to escape how amazing her shampoo smells, and no way to ignore the small sleepy mumbles that aren’t quite full words, but it also means that lena isn’t going to die here in this bed and that’s what matters. kara’s a superhero, after all.

and then lena’s hand slips under her shirt and she mumbles sleepily into her shoulder, and kara can’t breathe.

it takes a few minutes to extract herself without disturbing lena but she manages. she paces for a minute and then, knowing what she has to do, she changes into her supergirl suit and borrows lena’s balcony for an exit.

alex answers her call within two rings.

“supergirl? what’s wrong?” she sounds sleepy and disoriented and kara feels guilty for about three seconds. kara pushes the guilt away. this is important.

“i have something i need you to run some tests on. are you at your apartment?”

“i’m at maggie’s. you know, we should tell her at some point or she’s going to get really jealous that supergirl keeps swooping in and stealing me away.”

“oh. okay, sure. we can do it now if you want. ETA one minute so get some clothes on please.”

“yeah yeah.”

the window is open for her when she arrives and maggie is dozing on the couch. kara can hear the shower running in the next room and she knocks on the window sill to let them both know that she’s arrived.

“two seconds!” alex calls out to her and kara nods, hopping in.

maggie sits up, bleary-eyed, and the guilt hits kara in the chest once again, remembering how both of them had just come off the late shift last night and must’ve only had two, maybe three hours sleep.

“coffee?” she asks maggie quietly, and the woman stares at her for a minute before grinning.

“that’d be great, thanks.”

kara drags the blanket off the back of the couch and over maggie before she can stand, clears the magazines and some water glasses off the coffee table, and stacks the dishwasher with the plates alex has left in the sink from the night before.

“that’s alex for you,” maggie laughs, and kara turns to find that she’s leaning against the kitchen counter watching supergirl make herself comfortable in her apartment.

“oh i know.” kara finishes with the cutlery and the dishwasher is only half full so she leaves it off. “she’s done it since we were kids, it’s one of her worst qualities so,” kara shrugs. “overall she’s pretty great.”

“since you were kids,” maggie repeats, and alex steps out, fully dressed, from the bedroom. her hair is wet against her neck and she fiddles with the jacket in her hand before coming to a decision. crossing the room, she throws her jacket over a chair and comes to stand next to kara with a meaningful look. “oh.”

“should i do the hair thing?” kara asks alex when the staring drags on for a little while.

“nah, she gets it.”

“okay.”

maggie sags against the counter, shaking her head. “oh wow. i can’t believe i didn’t see it earlier. i was trying to figure out who you were because you were obviously someone to alex,”

“you were jealous,” alex teases her girlfriend, tone so light she almost sounds shy.

“of course i was jealous, danvers, i thought you were best friends or more with a literal superhero. but sisters.” maggie nods. “little danvers, aren’t you full of surprises,” she laughs.

“just the one.” kara smiles, a little shyly over to maggie. she likes the woman, a lot, but she can’t help but feel a little awkward. it’s just been her and alex forever—none of alex’s boyfriends had ever been any kind of distraction and obviously there was a reason for that—but now alex is in love and maggie is smart and amazing and really great at her job and beautiful and kara loves how happy alex is, but it’s still strange to her that it’s someone else who makes alex smile so much. and the added weirdness of having to interrupt them to whisk alex away for secret alien business doesn’t help with getting to know her, she is always a little bit sure that maggie resents how much work alex goes to in looking after her. “um. is it okay if i borrow her for a bit? i’ll bring her back.”

“safe and sound?”

“of course,” kara frowns over at her, and she lets up only when maggie laughs. her teasing smile is all dimples and crinkled, lovely brown eyes and kara feels alex swoon next to her. “okay, we’re going,” kara sighs, and she hands maggie the mug of coffee she made— “it’s decaf,” she tells maggie, “we won’t be gone long”. she shoves a woollen beanie over alex’s ears and makes her exchange her jacket for something a little more substantial and when she’s appropriately warm, kara pulls her into her arms and shoots them halfway across the city.

“that’ll never get old,” alex tells her with a grin when they land. “we should go faster next time.”

“you’ll freeze and mom will ground me for life.”

“yeah but it would be worth it.” alex peels off her gloves and tucks them into her pockets, leads kara to the lab. “so what am i testing?”

kara wordlessly hands her a folded square of tissue paper. “can you run tests on this? i think we’re looking for a paralytic agent of some kind.”

“wow, okay. science conventions are suddenly a lot more fun for you, hey?”

“mm.”

annoyingly—thankfully, really, because it’s early and lena is going to be waking up soon and kara really has to get back to central city—the test doesn’t take very long and alex returns with an odd look on her face.

“it’s just lip gloss,” she tells her, and kara nods.

“okay.”

“why did you think it had paralytic agents?”

“i didn’t—i just—” kara huffs and shakes her head, jumps down off the bench. “nevermind, i just had to check. i’ll see you after the convention, okay?”

“hold on, you have to fly me home!” kara pauses in the doorway and she hears alex wince behind her. “i mean, back to maggie’s. shut up, you know what i meant.”

“you said drop me home,” she teases, and alex groans. “you’re at home with maggie, you love her.”

“kara, i swear to god, if you don’t stop i’m going to ask you whose lip gloss it was and why you think you were paralysed.” kara stops immediately and alex pulls her gloves back on in two rough tugs. “and trust me when i say, i already know who and why so you would be in for the most embarrassing conversation of your life.”

“fine.”

“fine.” alex walks with her to the sliding doors and grins. “faster this time?”

“don’t you dare tell eliza.”

they’re almost to maggie’s apartment when kara says, “i really like her, you know.”

“lena?” alex winces when kara’s arms tighten around her.

“maggie.”

“oh.”

“yeah. so if you, i don’t know, if you want to bring her to game night or we could go out to dinner or something if you don’t want to come out to everyone,”

“that would be cool,” alex says really quietly, and her grip around kara’s waist loosens and slips up around her shoulders until she’s hugging her sister. “thank you.”

“i’m only saying that because i have to leave to get back to central city and you’re going to have to answer all of maggie’s ten billion questions about me,” she laughs, and alex groans. they land lightly on the fire escape and kara holds alex steady until she climbs through the open window. she doesn’t follow, just waits there until alex turns back. “you know i do mean it though. all i want is for you to be happy.”

alex nods, leans against the window frame. “i am. i really am.” she rolls her eyes when kara beams at that. “you know i want the same for you,” she says, very nonchalantly peeling off her gloves, and jacket, and beanie and toeing off her boots. kara nods. “good. better fly back to lena, then,” she says, with an all too knowing look in her eyes, and kara nods again.

//

she makes slow loops around national city until the sun starts to rise and only then does she make her way back to lena’s hotel room. one quick stop at a bakery, just open, and a wide-eyed employee lets her in and doesn’t seem to hear even one of kara’s many apologies.

“i know you’re not technically open yet,” she says, “and i’m sorry but i’m really hungry and your danishes smell amazing.”

“how many would you like?” the girl says, a little breathless, but already pulling out a box for her.

“three of the blueberry, please” kara tells her and she crouches down to look through the display window. she’s careful not to touch because she had a coffee job too when she was younger and she knows how annoying it is to keep cleaning streaked fingerprints off the glass. “and um,” she grumbles down at her cape and slings it over her lap. “mm, three of the strawberry, and three of the snails.” she smiles up at the girl, who just nods and starts piling them into the box. “also, can i please get four of the plain croissants, and two of the chocolate ones. and can you put the plain croissants in a separate box for me? thank you so much.”

“would you, um, like to join our loyalty club?” the girl asks her, voice shaking only a bit. “with every nine pastries you buy, you get the tenth one free. so you’ll already get one free and just, um, two more until your next free purchase.”

“that would be great,” kara agrees, and she gets her money a little awkwardly from the compartment in her boot.

“that’s cool.”

“thank you!”

“i mean, i guess you can’t just stick some spare cash in your bra like the rest of us,” she laughs, and kara grins over at her. she gets back a note and a handful of coins and, with a shrug, pours all of it into the tip jar. notes included. “oh. thank you!” she calls after kara, but she’s already gone.

luckily, the balcony door didn’t lock behind her and kara slips into the suite and changes into an outfit more appropriate for kara danvers. the shower is running and kara hurries outside to set the balcony table, and then dashes off into the gardens far below. it’s tempting fate but she thinks it’s better than tempting anything else. plus, there are some lovely flowers and they look very pretty when she slips them into a tall water glass and puts the makeshift vase into the centre of the table.

“oh,” kara hears from behind her and she spins to see lena in the doorway. she’s in her comfortable clothes, leggings and a t-shirt, and she’s managed to get most of her wet hair up into a bun but there is one strand clinging to her neck that kara can’t take her eyes off. “kara, this is beautiful. i thought,” she bites her lip and shakes her head. “this is beautiful,” she says again and kara nods.

“i wanted to thank you. for letting me stay.”

“you don’t need to do that.” lena sounds disapproving, but she walks out to join her and lays her hand on kara’s hip. the same hip she’d grazed her nails against the night before, in her sleep, and kara feels her body so rigid and hot, hot all over. “but it’s lovely all the same,” she hears lena say and nods.

“i wasn’t sure what you would like but i thought plain croissants was a safe bet?” she doesn’t mention the half dozen danishes she’s already eaten, so when lena reaches up and drags her thumb along the corner of kara’s lips, kara flushes hotter.

“looks like you’ve already indulged a little this morning,” she teases.

“d-danishes.”

“i love danishes. croissants are lovely, but i do like something a little sweeter to start my day off right.” there’s nothing inherently seductive about the words, nothing at all. kara is imagining the heat behind them. she sinks down into her chair and manages a smile.

“there are some left,” kara whispers, and lena’s face lights up. she flips open the lid and hums, pleased, when she sees the treats.

“excellent. and coffee too?” lena sips from her cup and leans back into her chair, tucks her feet up to the side. her eyes roll back in her head and she sighs for a long time, sounding very pleased. “kara,” she groans, “this is too kind of you.”

there is no power on earth that could unstick the words from kara’s too-dry mouth, so she makes do with smiling over the lid of her own coffee and giving lena a small shrug and a shake of her head. it’s nothing less than lena deserves, it’s far less than what kara would do for her. those aren’t things she can say to her.

happily, the way lena overwhelms her fades. just as it always does as she readjusts to her presence. not that she doesn’t feel it still, but it’s easier to talk and to be herself.

kara recounts some of the stories she had learned the night before—her favourite was from the doctor with the soft hands and the flirty eyes, but she doesn’t mention that part to lena. just how she had been hiring a new intern for one of her laboratories and one man had walked in and asked her for a coffee.

“no,” lena groans, tilting her head back. “he didn’t.”

“he did. he said he had a very important meeting to get to and wouldn’t she ‘be a dear and get a nice hot one for him’.”

“oh that’s disgusting.”

“i know! it’s not even a very clever come-on,” kara snorts, and lena grins over at her.

“yes, because that’s the terrible part. not the blatant misogyny.”

“no, of course the blatant misogyny is the worst bit, but i think that if someone is going to flirt with someone, they should at least put some thought into it. you know?”

“well what would you have said to her?”

kara grins. “hi, i’m here for my appointment. do you know where i can find a doctor fitzgerald?”

lena rolls her eyes. “you know what i meant. if you were going to flirt with her.” kara thinks guilty back to the moment when she did exactly that and it must show on her face because lena takes one look at her and starts to grin with too many teeth. “my, my. kara danvers, what did you say?”

“okay, technically she flirted with me,” kara corrects her and lena shrugs.

“naturally, who wouldn’t?”

the casual comment makes kara fumble with her plate and it clatters down onto the table. it’s too loud for their peaceful morning and kara looks away, embarrassed, until lena touches her toes to kara’s ankle and nudges her.

“was she pretty?”

kara shrugs, nods. “yes.”

“and a doctor, you said?”

“yes. in mechanical engineering and medicine.”

“well, how impressive.” lena’s smirk is wide and red and very practiced. kara pretends she doesn’t see the calculating look that’s being sent her way and fiddles instead with her second croissant, taking her time to chose between the jams. “will you be seeing her again?”

“i’ve got everything i need from her,” kara says, and she’s talking about the comments for her article but also, even if lena doesn’t know it, she can’t help but reassure the other woman that she’s not going anywhere.

“hmm.” lena runs a hand through her hair. “i must admit, i was getting jealous there for a moment.” kara’s hand stops halfway to her mouth, croissant drooping under the weight of the strawberry jam. “i don’t know how i would feel about you interviewing someone else more than once. that’s our thing, don’t you think?”

kara nods dumbly. for the first time, she thinks maybe lena might be hinting at more than she’s saying, just like kara. but for the life of her, she can’t decide what it could be.

//

kara eats her way slowly through the breakfast. she glances occasionally over at lena, but she ordered them both another coffee from room service and seems perfectly happy to nap in her chair, head tilted up toward the sun. she’s brushed her hair out of its bun to help it dry and kara sighs a little dreamily when she thinks about running her fingers through it, braiding it for her, slipping her fingers into it and holding tight as lena runs her tongue up her neck and—

“you have to share that danish with me,” lena demands, voice low and throaty. “you have the strangest look on your face.”

“i—i do?”

“mhm. positively ravenous.”

kara swallows hard and hands over her plate. she licks the sweet custard from the corner of her mouth as she watches lena’s lips close over the pastry, shifts in her seat when she hears the quiet groan.

“text me the address of this bakery, won’t you? this is divine, i hope they cater.”

kara nods dumbly and accepts the plate back. she looks down at the spot where lena had taken a bite and wonders how she’s supposed to eat something lena’s lips have touched. this is too much for her heart to handle. she puts her plate on the table and reaches for her water.

they sit in silence for a while more—it’s bound to be a hectic day and it really is very pleasant out on the balcony. kara can hear that there aren’t many people awake yet, even the city is taking it’s time to get into gear.

she slips her phone from her pocket when lena curls her fingers around her mug and lifts it to her lips. kara takes several photos of her happy smile, the flower from the vase lena has tucked behind her ear, and she smiles down at it before assigning it as her wallpaper.

“for your article?” lena asks lazily. kara looks up, eyebrows high.

“what?”

“the photo.” she gestures toward kara’s phone. in the same move, she reaches up to adjust her flower. “did you get a good one, at least?”

“um, yeah i did.” kara cups her phone in her hands. “but it’s not—it’s for me,” she says softly. “is that okay?” she turns it around, holds it out so lena can see her wallpaper, herself. it’s a nice photo. it makes kara happy, seeing lena so at ease, and even if everyone was rude last night kara can see that she’s treating this conference as a kind of miniature vacation. it makes her so happy to see that, and the photo is just everything kara cares for in her friend. her enjoyment of such simple things, like coffee. that she likes the sun too. the way she looks in her comfortable clothes. her sometimes goofy humour in her pleased little smirk, a little higher on one side. the sweet flowers in her hair. it all makes kara so happy, but she isn’t about to admit that to lena, not when they’re just friends, not when lena can’t possibly ever know about the small, small crush she’s been nursing for a few months.

lena takes her phone and smiles down at the picture.

“oh, that’s quite a nice photo actually.”

“i thought so.” the comment, for whatever reason, sends lena’s eyes darting up to meet kara’s and they sit like that for a long moment. “is it okay?” kara asks again, and lena lifts her eyebrows, clears her throat, pulled clean out of the moment.

“yes. yes, of course. send it to me?”

“sure. or you could take one of me,” kara suggests, with a grin. “that way— hey!” she gasps, unprepared for the smooth, and very fast, click of lena’s phone. “i wasn’t ready!”

“mine was candid,” lena returns with a laugh. “and besides, i have the feeling that it’s going to turn out—yes,” she sighs, not sadly but kara can’t tell exactly what that sigh is supposed to mean. “beautiful.” she turns her phone and kara can’t see what she means—she’s just grinning over at lena, and rao there are croissant flakes on her pyjama shirt and a smudge of blueberry on her top lip. damn apple for putting such good cameras in their phones.

“i have food on my face, lena.”

“a true representation,” is all lena says, a little dry, and kara laughs. “do you truly mind? i won’t use it if you do.”

“no, i guess i don’t,” kara has to say, because she likes the idea of being lena’s background, of them being each others backgrounds, and she loves the way lena smiles when she looks at it. a little amused, but mostly just happy. “go for it.”

//

before they go their separate ways—lena to prep for her speech, kara to sit through four of her own—lena presses a key card into her hand.

“don’t go looking for other accommodation, kara. there really is no point.”

kara, like an idiot, just smirks down at her and leans in to talk into her ear, careful not to let her lips touch skin. “you just want me in your bed again, miss luthor,” she says, because the morning had obviously turned her stupid with happiness. lena’s hand clenches tightly, almost painfully, around her wrist, and then she is stepping away from kara with a look she can’t decipher.

“say you will. i do so love getting my way,” she murmurs, and she drags her fingers down kara’s wrist and away. such a small touch, but enough to boil kara’s brains to mush. she nods, and it’s all worth it when lena smiles at her. “my presentation is over at two and i know you finish at four. we should have tea then, in the restaurant. they do an exquisite high tea.” kara nods again. “beautiful. see you then.” her lips brush over kara’s cheek for the second time in as many days and lena really should warn her before she does it because she’s left as she was the day before, alone in an empty hallway, lena’s perfume swirling around her, and the only feeling in her body buzzing in her cheek.

that sensation got her through the first hour. and an early lunch. it quickly faded heading into the second presentation and kara could only stay away through this droning, boring, basic science by forcing herself to take extensive notes. she’s careful not to extrapolate anything they’re talking about, knowing she won’t be able to separate what they mentioned and what she knows about the subject, and she ends up with a near perfect transcription of the speech.

at two, milling around with everyone else outside hall three for the next presentation, kara sends lena a message. she flexes her other hand—not that she can get writing cramps, but it’s second nature now to perform like this. like she can get cramps, and aches, and uncomfortable. like she’s human.

congrats on finishing ur presentation!!!! how did it go? this one is so boring!!!!!

she waits for five minutes for a reply but it doesn’t come and she gnaws on her lip. she has to turn her phone off before they go in, but it’s not like lena not to reply. and they’d been so hostile to her the night before. kara follows the pang of nerves and lets her hearing spread out until she can pinpoint lena, talking sharply into her phone. she doesn’t sound happy—not upset, but not happy—but kara gathers quickly that someone made a mistake at l corp and she pulls back her hearing, not wanting to eavesdrop. happy in the knowledge that lena is okay, she takes her place and prepares for utter boredom.

as soon as it’s over, kara turns her phone back on and waits. but lena still hasn’t replied. kara tries not to worry about it—they’ve been friends for months, kara is well aware that sometimes lena needs some time to herself, particularly when she has a lot of work to do, and she tries to soothe her concerns by repeating that to herself. it’s a few minutes shy of four o’clock now, so she heads to the restaurant instead of trying to find lena, knowing that time alone or not, lena wouldn’t cancel on a date. a lunch date. high tea date. not a date date.

kara fiddles with her phone, uncomfortable, as she stands alone outside the restaurant waiting for her. more so as each minute ticks past four.

“not much of a science girl, huh?”

kara only realises that he’s talking to her when he leans forward, just into her space. she stares at him for a moment and then shakes her head. “i’m sorry, what was that?”

he waves off her apology with a perfect smile and a flick of his hand. “i said, not much for science? i saw you,” he explains. “in the last presentation. you could barely stay awake.”

kara wonders what he might say if she tells him that she had learned everything they were talking about in this conference when she was in their equivalent of second grade. it’s almost tempting enough to wipe off the persistently, insistently charming smile, but she refrains.

“i’m just here as a reporter,” she tells him.

“ah.” he nods knowingly. “well, if you need any help translating that science mumbo jumbo, i’d be happy to help.”

kara gives him a thin smile. “that’s what google is for though, right?” she turns away a little, trying to listen out for lena. it’s a quarter past four already and she can’t see her anywhere. and she still hasn’t replied to her message.

“—so many distinctions, really, and you should talk to someone who has a firm understanding of the science that’s going on instead of relying on google. it can turn out vague and almost incomprehensible when you do that. just like using the translate tool. it’s a language of it’s own.” he steps in a little closer and kara rapidly decides she really isn’t interested in entertaining him for a second more, not when lena hasn’t replied, not when she can’t hear her voice. heartbeat, yes, but it’s unsteady and with all the threats on lena’s life, this is really not something kara is comfortable with.

“i’ll be fine, thanks,” she says, and she turns and walks away.

“hey, wait,” are the words she gets before a large hand wraps around her elbow. “come on, we have tea together and i talk you through the hard stuff. i promise, it’ll all seem so much more simple.”

kara yanks her arm away. “i promise you,” she bites out, “i’m much smarter than you seem to be. i’m not interested.”

a tall man dressed in hotel colours steps very neatly up to her side and asks, with the utmost calm, if she would please join him. “a query for you at the desk, miss,” he says, and she walks with him.

“is there really one?” she asks and he grins.

“no. you just looked really uncomfortable.” he hesitates. “i made the key card for miss luthor this morning,” he adds softly. “you’re her friend?” kara nods. “i think she might need one right now.” at her bewildered look, he says, “not a single booked guest turned up to her presentation.”

//

“lena?”

kara takes in the new setup of the suite. lena has had the hotel bring in a writing desk from somewhere and she’s sitting in front of it, still dressed to kill in her presentation outfit, and working hard.

“kara,” she greets her. she’s pleasant, and she even looks away from the screen to smile, but there’s no warmth and little recognition in her. it’s like she’s barely there at all.

kara sets down the bottle of whiskey she’s brought with her on the table, and the cupcakes too, and makes her way around the desk to stand next to lena. she crouches, lays a hand on lena’s arm.

“lena,”

“whatever it is, would you make it quick please? i really do have a lot of work.”

she doesn’t look at kara as she says it, and her arm twitches a little to cast kara’s hand away. kara lets it fall.

“they’re all dumb,” kara tells her decisively. “i mean, if they really think you’re bad, you think they would sit in on your presentation, right? to know what you’re up to?” lena stops her typing, the only sign that she’s listening. “or maybe it’s supposed to be a sign of trust, the exact opposite. like they trust you, so whatever it is that you’re working on is fine and they don’t need to check in on you.”

lena’s expression is growing slowly darker and kara licks her lips and does the only thing she can do: continue to babble in a panicked attempt to fix whatever she’s said that was so wrong.

“and it’s, wow, it’s awful and i think they really missed out because i listened to you practising your speech and i might not have heard all of it but i know it was really, really good and,”

“you’re here as a reporter,” lena tells her flatly. “what you think about it doesn’t matter at all.”

kara drops her head a little and stands, silently. lena is hurt and upset and maybe she should leave her be.

“i don’t have time for this,” lena snaps, and she closes her laptop and stands to carry it into the bedroom. she cuts a look toward kara like her new bad mood is all her fault and kara frowns back at her.

“i didn’t say anything!”

“no, but you’re standing there like a kicked puppy and forgive me, kara,” lena says in a clipped tone that desires no forgiveness whatsoever, “but i don’t have time to soothe your tender feelings. i have been ridiculed today,” she tells her, sharp-edged and furious. her face is pale and drawn and it makes the feverish, fuming look in her eyes all the more stark.“i have been made the laughing stock of this conference. they must have been plotting this for some time, ever since they found out i was coming, and i had no idea. i was blind-sided today—humiliated.” kara winces when lena’s voice is almost swamped with upset and winces again when, in the next instant, her voice is soft and smooth and expressionless. that’s even worse, even more dangerous. kara is sure of that. “i have worked so hard for the last few months for nothing. nothing i do will ever matter, because my family are insane criminals who hate superman and that’s all i will ever be known for.”

“you matter, lena,”

“save your sentiments,” she tells kara with a flick of her hand. “i’m not interested hearing them from you.”

she’s imagining the way lena says that, says you like she can’t get it out of her mouth fast enough, like it’s rotten. she has to be imagining it.

kara turns away and lena retreats into the bedroom. the lock clicks into place and, once she knows lena can’t see her, kara sinks down onto the couch and buries her face in her hands.

she can’t settle on a feeling—not hurt or upset or anger or upset on lena’s behalf—all of it in turmoil in her head and gut. it’s with numb feelings that she pulls her phone out and she flees out onto the balcony, sucking in great gulps of air.

“alex?” she says unsteadily into her phone. “are you busy?”

“nah.” kara focuses on her voice, on everything she’s hearing from her side of the phone line. the squeak of alex’s chair as she turns, away from the room so she can focus on kara. “what’s up?”

“i—she—” she pauses to breathe, to get her words in order, and that just shakes her more. she hasn’t had this much trouble with her words since she was fifteen and set the roof on fire after a dream of her burning planet. “alex,” she says, because that’s one word she’ll never forget, and then her sister is counting breaths with her, calm and patient. “thank you,” she sighs when the tightness in her chest eases.

“always. so what happened? what did lena do? do i need to call in a hit?”

kara makes an unhappy noise in the back of her throat, nigh disgusted. “that’s not funny.”

“sorry. you’re alright, though?”

“yes. yes, i’m fine.”

“is lena okay?”

kara glares down at the railing, trails her fingers over the cool metal. “no. no one went to her presentation.” the dead silence she gets at that tells her that alex knows exactly what that means. “and she had two hours to get angry and sad about that before i found out and,” kara sighs.

“and you did that well meaning babbling thing.” alex clicks her tongue. “that must really suck for her. she say anything mean to you?”

“no-t really,” she slowly admits, wanting to say no but sometimes mean things aren’t what is said but how it’s said and her heart feels like it’s lodged in her boots and being stomped on every time the way lena said ‘you’ replays in her head.

“okay, i’ll take that as a solid you’re miserable.” kara can hear alex clicking away at her pen and waits for whatever it is that she wants to say to her. “did lena kiss you?” she asks kara gently. “yesterday? is that why you brought me the lip gloss?”

“no. no, not like—she kissed me on the cheek,” kara tells her. she laughs, but it isn’t happy. “i froze. i froze up completely.”

“ah. not a good kisser.”

“what? no! yes she is! i mean, it was on the cheek so i don’t know for sure but yes, she is.”

“what did she do, make out with your cheek? that’s a bit weird.”

“oh my god, alex,” kara laughs, leaning forward to knock her head on the railing. “shut up.”

“i’m just sayin’,”

“you’re such an ass, that’s what i’m saying.”

alex laughs and kara feels all of her turmoil ease further. alex is good at that. at pulling her back and reminding her that the moment isn’t all there is, that whatever she felt will pass and she’s going to be there on the other side when it’s over. kara sighs. there’s one feeling that hasn’t eased at all, not one bit in months, and she thinks now is as good a time as any to talk to alex about it.

“i couldn’t breathe,” she tells her quietly. “my knees went all shaky and i felt dizzy and hot and i froze for, like, ten minutes after she was gone. i wanted, i want to,”

“kiss her properly?” alex suggests when kara doesn’t finish her thought.

“yeah.”

“maybe you should. just... lay one on her. pucker up and go for it.”

it’s ridiculous to talk about this when lena is fuming in the next room. “i can’t do that.”

“sure you can. you’re supergirl! pull on your big girl tights and kiss her.”

“but what if she doesn’t want—”

“oh my god.” there’s the shriek of alex’s chair again as she sits up straight and kara makes a note to talk to j’onn about getting them new chairs because that does not sound the way a well made chair should sound. “kara, listen to me. when someone has been looking at you like lena looks at you, and when someone invites you to every gala they throw, and never turns you down for a single interview, and when they invite you to stay with them in their hotel room, in their bed,”

“hang on,” kara snaps, “i never told you that.”

“i’m a secret agent, you think i can’t do a search of hotel rooms booked under your name? or track your phone to the room lena’s booked?”

“she doesn’t book her rooms under luthor.”

“no,” alex agrees, sounding far too pleased. “but i can also track her phone.”

“you’re the worst sister in the world.”

“so you’re saying that you don’t want advice on how to cheer lena up? that’s a mistake,” alex tells her. “i have a girlfriend and i’m getting very good at this.”

“upset maggie a lot, do you?” kara teases and she laughs when alex cusses her out quite excessively. “she’s not my girlfriend, alex.”

“but you like her, and you want her to be happy.”

“yes,” kara grumbles. “but i’m also upset with her right now because she was mean and i didn’t do anything.”

“yeah, that sucks.”

“maybe i should just...leave her alone.”

“you can come over to maggie’s if you want,” alex suggests, a little hesitant which means she wants to check with maggie first but the offer is genuine. “we can get pizza, watch a movie.”

“no. no, i think i’m going to stay.” she glances over her shoulder, turns to lean back  against the railing. “i have a lot of work to do on this article. thanks, though.”

“anytime. and hey, if she’s mean to you again, don’t stay. it sucks what they did but you don’t have to take that from a friend, and especially not from someone you like.” alex is slipping into big sister mode and it makes kara smile.

“i know.”

“alright. i have to get back to work,” she says slowly. “but you’re alright?”

“yeah, i think i just needed to talk about it. i love you.”

“love you too. email me your notes on the presentations, i want to see what you had to sit through.”

“okay.”

kara stands with her phone pressed to her chest for a few long minutes after she hangs up, and finally she sighs and stands. she does have a lot of work to do and the best way to handle lena is to just let her calm down.

she hopes.

it could make the whole thing a lot worse and make lena think that kara agrees that she’s just one of ‘those luthor’s’ or whatever other horrible thoughts her brain is cooking up.

it’ll be worse if lena comes out and finds kara gone.

she repurposes the desk for her own work and bashes out an outline she thinks even snapper will approve of. she slips in some quotes and attaches some of her photos and sends the draft off for approval.

she’s working on her second draft—snapper’s approval comes in the form of an email, in all caps, that just says I DONT READ UNFINISHED SHIT—when she hears the bedroom door open and it takes everything kara has not to look up.

lena raps gently on the door. kara rubs at her eyes under her glasses. she feels strained and tired and she knows it’s not from working at her computer, so she’s pretty sure fighting with lena made her more miserable than she thought it had. she looks up.

“can i join you?” lena asks her softly. “i’ll make us a tea?”

kara runs an eye over her article. it’s two sentences away from finished and she nods to lena, types out the last of it, and sends it off. she leaves her phone on the desk, on silent, and moves to the couch.

lena pauses next to the couch as she makes her way to the small kitchenette. sucks in her breath like she wants to say something but, when kara looks up at her, she just gives her a bland smile and moves on.

the tea isn’t as strong as most of the ones kara has been offered, and she takes it.

“milk?”

kara shakes her head no.

“i don’t like coffee so late in the day,” lena continues quietly. it’s like she feels it too—that one loud word, one sharp gesture, could shake the peace down from around their ears. “keeps me awake.”  she tilts her head in a practised move that lowers her chin a noticeable fraction, and recrosses her legs. kara sighs. “i’m sorry,” lena says, a little stiff. “do you want me to leave?”

“no.” kara stares out the window across the city. she frowns. “i don’t know what i want, but i don’t want that.”

“oh.”

she sits still for another three seconds before she blurts out, “you weren’t nice, lena, but you were hurt and i know that about you. that you’re not always nice when you’re upset.” she glances over to the primly crossed legs, the too straight back. “i know i don’t want you to be anyone else with me. i just want lena.”

lena stares over at her for some time before she asks, coolly, “and you think you know who that is?”

“i’m a pretty good judge of character, i think i can guess.”

lena loses the flat expression. she doesn’t gain much, but her face relaxes and the corners of her mouth ease. that’s good enough for now.

“do you want to sit with me?” kara offers, and she unfolds the blanket next to her, throws it over her own legs. “the lights are really pretty.” she holds up one side of the blanket and refuses point blank to stare at lena as she makes her decision. it’s not long before she feels her slip into place next to her and kara wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her snug to her side, tucks the blanket around them. “feet warm?”

“i—yes.”

“good.” it’s been hard, having lena lock herself away all afternoon and having the tension hang over them. kara is exhausted and maybe they should talk, but mostly kara just wants to relax. she slumps a little, leans her head against lena’s shoulder. she doesn’t know what’s driving the move, exactly, but her gut tells her that lena needs it and she knows that she needs it too. needs to see and feel the trust kara has in her, see that she’s not leaving, that what she said hasn’t driven a wedge between them that they can’t fix. and kara? she just wants to hold lena and make her happy and at some point, have lena tell her that she wants her here. maybe that she needs kara too.

but for now, they sit in silence.

“pizza?” lena suggests. “the hotel probably does really fancy ones but maybe they can deliver.”

kara nods and, when the pizza arrives, they sit and eat in relative silence.

//

lena falls asleep after dinner, slumping against kara’s side. she doesn’t wake in the slightest when kara slips her arms underneath her and carries her to bed.

she’s brushing her teeth in the mirror and just staring at her reflection when she hears lena yawn and sit up. kara steps into the doorway and waits until dark eyes settle on her.

“did i wake you? i tried to be quiet.”

“no.” lena yawns again, lifts a hand to cover her mouth. “i got cold. you’re so hot, it’s nice.”

kara grins around her toothbrush, tries not to laugh. she cups a hand under her mouth to catch any drips and hurries back to the sink to spit, ignoring lena’s very soft laughter. “i’m coming back,” she calls over to her. “hold on.” the floor is cold in the bathroom, so kara has to stretch her foot out from the bathmat to the carpet and then she crosses the space to the bed in a few easy strides, throwing herself onto her side of the bed.

lena shuffles over to join her.

she looks like she wants to say something but the words aren’t coming out. when kara feels her eyelids getting heavy, still without lena having spoken, she makes a suggestion.

“after i—” she clears her throat and shifts a little under lena’s sudden scrutiny. “after the danvers adopted me, sometimes i found it hard to talk about stuff.” lena’s face falls and kara shakes her head quickly. “this isn’t about that. i’m just saying, whenever i was scared or felt alone or wanted to talk about anything, alex would climb into bed with me and pull the covers over our heads and it was like our own little world. and i knew that whatever i told her, it was safe with her.”

lena’s lips turn up, just a little. “lex would take me to his treehouse,” she muses. kara nods, turns onto her side and props her head up with a hand. “we lived in a mansion, you see. it had something unnecessary like seventeen bedrooms, a huge place. and i know i was lucky, i was well looked after and had anything i could ever need,” she says quickly and kara nods. “but that kind of a place is too big for a family of four. and it always felt cold and sometimes the hallways echoed and i thought there were ghosts.” kara laughs and lena reaches out, slaps her hand against kara’s stomach. “don’t laugh at me,” she sulks. “i was five.”

“i’m not laughing at you. i’m not!” lena pouts jokingly. “honest. here, no, i swear. i’ll tell you one of my silly stories,” she offers, and lena brightens a little. “my aunt took me to the... beach,” she says, the word falling on the wrong side of a breath, and she hopes lena won’t hear the hesitation, “she would take me into her arms and we would go together on walks and she would tell me tales about the strange creatures that lived there. and sometimes, she would kneel down and push her hand beneath the sand and wriggle it and even though i knew it was her hand, i saw it, no matter how many times she did it, i always thought it was a sand monster.” kara remembers it fondly, the brightness of the sand, the colour of it such a deep, deep red. the way it felt almost silky, not like the grit of the sand here on earth. the way astra would chase after her when she ran screaming away and scoop her up into her arms. the softness of her voice, soothing her. the sadness comes, as it always does, but kara is happy to know it’s softer now, that time is doing its job to temper the pain of it all. “do you want to make our own?” kara asks.

“our own?”

“little world. so you can say whatever it is you want to say. we don’t have a tree house here and we could pull up the bedsheets if you want but it might be nice to have one of our own.”

“how did you—” lena gazes at her for a long moment. there is no reproach, no fear, in that look. just a cautious kind of wonder. so kara lays still and looks right back. “what do you think ours should be?”

“i like the balcony,” kara muses, “but i don’t want to go back out. it’s cold.”

“and too open.”

“yeah.” kara glances around. “i could hug you? hold you and you can tell me whatever it is?”

“you’ll...hold me.”

“sure. so you know that even if i take a bit to process whatever it is, i’m still with you and i’m not leaving and,” kara stops. “is that dumb?”

“no,” lena says instantly. her words shake a little. “no, it’s not. i’m just not sure that i...”

kara bites her lip. “what if i just hold your hand?” she offers, because lena isn’t like her. she likes it when her friends wrap her tight in hugs. but lena’s different. the suggestion makes lena almost sigh with relief. kara turns onto her back, nudges lena until she does the same, and she moves so they’re laying side by side. kara holds out her hand. this, evidently, is something lena can do. her hand is small, and warm, and kara likes the way it feels when their palms are flat and her fingers close around her hand.

“see? its good.” she nudges her shoulder to lena’s. “okay, spill.”

it takes a very long time for the words to come out and, when they do, kara actually does feel like running away but lena is gripping so tight to her hand and her jaw looks so tense and her eyes are closed so tight that kara can’t do it. physically, of course, she could, but she can’t leave her. not like this.

“wh-what was that?”

lena gives her a tense smile. “i said... know you’re supergirl. that isn’t everything i want to say, i just thought that before anything else, you should that that. should know that i know. so you could...” she hesitates. “leave if you didn’t want to hear anymore.”

“have i let go yet?”

“no,” lena says, voice tight. like she’s thinking it’s only a matter of time.

kara sucks in a breathe and gives herself a little time to think it over. “i’m not saying it’s not a surprise,” she says carefully, “because, well, it is. i thought i hid it better this time. how long?”

“have i known? about three months.”

“three—three months,” kara repeats, a bit breathless. “okay.”

“kara,”

“no, it’s okay. i just gotta... understand. three months?” she repeats and lena nods. “you knew?” lena nods again. “three months. okay. wow. that’s... unexpected.”

“i should have told you, i know but,”

“technically,” she says through numb lips, and she leans her head back so she’s staring up at the ceiling and through it and hoping the stars are going to spell out something to help her with this. like TELL HER THE TRUTH. or something more obscure in star language but still helpful. “i should have told you.” she drags her thumb over a tiny patch of skin on lena’s hand and sighs. “i’m sorry. alex thought...”

“it was a risk.”

“yeah. i should’ve told her,” kara scowls and shakes her head. “but you know. what else did you want to tell me?”

“i’ll tell you but, can you tell me what you should’ve told alex first?”

“i should’ve told her that, that,” kara sighs, turns her head to the side so she can look at lena. she runs her eyes over her profile and smiles when lena turns to face her. “that you’re worth the risk.” it’s worth the risk saying that when lena’s eyes widen.

“i’m a luthor,”

“you’re worth the risk,” she repeats, very firm. “and besides,” kara shrugs, “i know you. there really wasn’t any risk at all.”

“how do you know?”

“lena, what is this really about?” kara asks her gently. there’s something more to this conversation and kara doesn’t want to be the one left in the dark. “talk to me.”

“i’m sorry for what i said to you today. i didn’t mean,” lena stops herself. “i meant to upset you. i wanted to upset you.”

“i know,” kara says.

“but you stayed.”

“lena, wanting to upset people when you’re hurt doesn’t make you evil. it makes you human.”

“not a very nice one.”

she rubs her thumb over lena’s hand. “you make up for it. you bought me pizza.” when lena looks like she’s about to argue, kara sighs. “i know, it’s not the same. but i like pizza, and you know that about me, and you wanted me to forgive you so you got me something i like because you wanted to make me happy. right?”

“yes.”

“so you’re really not that mean at all.”

“i was cruel to you.”

kara frowns. “i think we both know that you’re meaner to yourself,” she says, voice a little harsh, and lena sucks in a quiet breath at that. “and i forgive you for what you said to me. yes, it hurt, but you beating yourself up about it doesn’t get us past it. yes, it would be cool if next time you don’t say stuff like that but people fight, lena, and you’re allowed to be,” kara searches for the word, getting frustrated with her inability, because she thinks lena is amazing and good and she wants her to feel it. “you’re allowed to be imperfect,” she settles on. “it’s okay.”

“well.” lena breathes out. “i suppose that brings me to the other thing i wanted to tell you about.”

kara’s eyebrows scrunch together. “it does? how?”

“you say i’m allowed to be imperfect,” she says, like the word, the idea of it, is holy, and tauntingly out of reach for her. “my mother always taught me the opposite.”

“your mother,” kara repeats. “of course.” she feels herself grow tense and ready for a fight and only eases when lena runs a soothing hand down her arm. “sorry. i’m listening.”

“don’t be.” lena sounds pleased, and a little amused. “i like that you’re ready to fight her.”

“always. she’s horrible to you. i’ll throw her into the sun for you, if you want. i can do that.”

“i’ll keep that in mind,” lena murmurs still amused. “she is. she’s also trying to appeal to the courts.” kara nods, and lena doesn’t seem surprised that she knows. the DEO had told her as soon as the application was made. “she wants to see me.” kara nods again. she’d expected that. she hadn’t expected that this is what lena wanted to talk about, but she listens. “she’s been writing to me. and then after today...”

kara squeezes her hand and a sob breaks from lena so faintly, so pained, escaping her like air from a punctured tire. kara thinks she knows where the puncture is too.

“i don’t want to see her,” lena whispers, and she lets kara pull her into a hug. “she’s ruined everything.”

“hush, shh,” kara says when lena starts to cry, silent and shoulders quaking with the effort to keep herself quiet and still. kara isn’t sure what lena needs, isn’t sure what she’ll accept, so she holds tighter to her hand and when lena grabs at her tight, she covers lena’s hands with hers and murmurs nothings to her until she’s calm. “okay?”

“i,” lena shifts, uncomfortable. “i’m going to wash my face.” kara eases her hold slowly, and lena won’t meet her eyes but she tries out a smile. “i’ll come back.”

she does, quickly, and she shyly takes kara’s hand back in hers. “i’m...not accustomed to asking for help. or receiving it. that night, with the virus,” she pauses and kara snuggles into her pillow as she waits. “i didn’t want to tell you, supergirl, at first. i doubt it occurred to me to tell you. if it did, i’m sure i didn’t think you would ever trust me so i didn’t try. you might have worked with me but it would have been to stop her, not because you trusted me but because she’s worse.” lena purses her lips. “i wouldn’t change what i did but i thought you should know that with my mother more than likely finagling her release... if i have a plan,” she says, “i’ll tell you what it is.”

“i’ll help you. whatever it takes,” kara tells her, very seriously, and lena returns her gaze with one just as serious, if a little more bleak. “i wish,” she says, and doesn’t finish her thought. because as much as she would have liked for lena to have someone, anyone, else for a family, this is lena. every bit of her. and not one of her superpowers involve changing what is.

“thank you,” lena says, like kara’s thoughts are writing themselves out on her forehead for her personal perusal. “and i’m sorry for not talking to you earlier. it would have stopped most of the cruel things i said to you this afternoon.”

kara nods. “we’ll do better next time. i might even be brave enough to ask you what’s wrong.”

“you knew?”

she shrugs. she can feel herself avoiding lena’s curious eyes, a little ashamed for not asking. “i didn’t want to push,” she admits. “i thought maybe you wouldn’t like that.”

“you’re probably right. i wasn’t ready to talk about it. but i wish,” lena hesitates. kara reads the obvious struggle just from the way her body tenses, hears her courage in the steady breath she released. “i wish you didn’t feel like you had to be brave around me.”

“it’s not because you’re a luthor.” kara trails her fingers over lena’s hand, swirls around the knuckles and down the long lines of her fingers, the back of her hand and, flipping her hand over, the lines of her wrist. “i don’t want to lose you,” she says as lightly as she can. “i know i can be pushy and too cheerful, but it’s because i want to help.”

“i know that.”

“good.” the silence that rests between them now is free of tension and she knows that it’s over. “was that all you wanted to say? you know i’m supergirl, your mom is unpleasant, we’re not going to lose each other, and i’m on your side? hashtag confirmed.”

“you’re an embarrassment,” lena snorts, and kara pauses her examination of lena’s hand to pout her way. “yes. that’s all.”

“well.” maybe she’s tired, maybe talking like this has blurred the lines about what they are to each other, but kara forgets herself for a moment and lifts lena’s hand to her mouth, kisses the back of her hand gently. “thank you for talking to me.”

//

she stays awake thinking about it.

lena’s hand in hers. her lips against lena’s skin. the way lena had look over at her, dark eyes liquid and warm. lena leaning in, brushing her lips over her cheek, murmuring her thank you into kara’s ear.

she can’t sleep, because like the night before, lena feels no reservations about cuddling with her, and now she’s laying right next to kara and, rao save and preserve her, she curls an arm around kara’s waist again. but to top that, she also slips her leg between kara’s and hums happily into the crook of her neck.

the only comfortable way to lay is to hold lena close to her, otherwise her arm will be pinned and they’ll both be uncomfortable. but with lena’s head tucked into the curve where kara’s collar meets her neck, kara is surrounded by lena—her warmth, the smell of her shampoo, her comforting, comfortable weight—and it’s slowly becoming harder to breathe. because she’s right here and she doesn’t know that kara has a crush—fuck it, she’s in love with lena—and this doesn’t mean to her what it means for kara and she’s not sure, she doesn’t know that she can deal with this. but she can’t leave, because lena needs her. genuinely needs her because her mother is a truly awful person and that comes before any feelings.

“kara,” lena sighs into her neck, and kara freezes. “mm, kara,”

“lena?” she whispers. “are you awake?”

“kara,” she says again and kara sighs. with her free hand, she lays it on lena’s back. she strokes soothing lines down lena’s back and feels the most exquisite combination of joy and horror when lena relaxes further into her. she feels so warm it’s like they’re melting into each other.

“shh,” she murmurs, not bothering to keep the shake from her voice. lena can’t hear it, she’s mostly asleep. “i’m here. sleep, lena, i’m here.”

for some time, almost drifting off herself, kara trails lines and circles on lena’s back. she almost doesn’t realise when her hand slips under the hem of lena’s shirt, only realising when her fingers have been stroking the same spot on lena’s hip for some time. she comes back to herself, pulls her hand away with a disapproving look.

“don’t stop,” lena says, in a thick voice that sends shivers right through kara. with a gasp, kara curls her hand into a fist and pulls it fully away from lena. “i was enjoying that.”

“you’re asleep.”

“mm, no.” she yawns against kara’s shoulder. “dozing.” the hand she had curled around kara right from the beginning slips up her side, the light touch almost tickling. kara sucks in a breath and holds it in. the touch becomes more firm when lena slides her hand down kara’s arm to wrap around her fist and she presses it down against the bed next to kara’s head. “i’m holding your hand,” she says.

“i—yes.”

“you can tell me anything you want,” lena tells her, and she returns to her position plastered to kara’s side, face tucked into her neck. when kara doesn’t speak, she nips at the skin there and kara swears when it makes her yelp, lena smiles. “tell me.”

“you don’t know what you’re doing, lena, you’re,”

“more and more awake every second. do you want me to go first? you want me to be the brave one for once?” she asks, and she moves so kara can sit up and then she straddles her and kara forgets that she has to breathe, and also how. it makes a wicked, sharp smile cut along lena’s lips and she leans in close. “breathe, kara,” she tells her. but she can’t. fear—cold and divisive, desolating—stops her from closing her hand around lena’s, stops her completely. she feels the ice build up behind her teeth and stares, wide-eyed at lena.

she can’t fuck this up now. she can’t.

lena’s smile gentles and her brow furrows, a little worried. “kara,” she calls, and touches the fingers of her spare hand to kara’s cheek. “hey, what’s wrong?”

“i can’t do this,” kara chokes out, and lena purses her lips. she fixes her with a calculating stare. “please, lena,”

“i’ve got you,” lena says, voice firm. “no matter what you say, i’m here. that’s what you told me, remember?” kara nods. she doesn’t say that it’s different—that she would do anything for lena, that lena doesn’t have to do the same for her. something in lena’s eyes stops her and makes her think, just maybe, it’s not different. maybe, just maybe, lena really does feel the same.

her breath comes out white, ice splintering in the air, and lena leans away from it with a laugh. “you okay there?”

“i froze up for a second,” kara says, and when it makes lena laugh, the last of the ice inside her cracks with the force of her answering smile. “you see what i did there? ice breath, froze?”

“i get it,” lena nods. “very cute.”

“thanks.” kara pushes so she’s sitting up and the movement sends her glancing down her body, to where lena is straddling her body. “you took off your pants,” she says, and then, “oh rao,” because lena’s body is on top of hers and it’s one thing to know it but it’s quite another to see it and she thinks she’s going to explode with the quick temperature changes. she feels her face flush hot and the back of her neck and wipes suddenly damp hands on the sheets.

“you’re a literal space heater, of course i did.” lena grins. “see what i did? you’re from space, and you’re really hot.” and of course lena has a perfect wink, the best combination of sultry teasing and funny teasing. kara sinks back into her pillows and stares up at her. “what?”

“i have something to tell you,” kara blurts out, and lena nods. her fingers swirl over kara’s skin—it’s distracting and lovely—and kara can’t focus. she wonders if it felt like this for lena, when she was holding her hand, when she was touching lena’s back. “i—”

“you okay?”

“i broke your alien device. when you turned away, i shot it with my laser eyes and that’s why it didn’t work.” her heart sinks in her chest when lena just stares at her, and she knows that’s not what lena expected or wanted but she’s supergirl. the hero doesn’t get the girl. she can’t have her. lena doesn’t want her. she can’t do it. there are so many reasons it wouldn’t work between them, but when kara searches for just one reason to cling to, to pour all her guilt into and know she’s doing the right thing, her mind is empty and bleak.

“that’s what you wanted to tell me?”

kara hesitates and then nods.

there is another long minute of silence and then lena swings herself off kara’s lap. kara forces herself not to reach for her, to pull her back.

lena sits on the bedside for a time, still staring down at kara with a look she doesn’t recognise. and then, very slowly, she lifts kara’s still closed fist to her mouth and brushes her lips over the knuckles so gently kara wants to cry.

and then she’s gone, walking very quietly out into the sitting room of her hotel suite.

kara settles back into the bed, turns off the alarms on her phone, and pushes her face into her pillow.

she’s royally screwed up with lena and now she’s going to cry about it and no one can stop her.

//

lena must have returned to bed at some point, because she’s laying next to kara when she wakes up in the morning. she’s sleeping peacefully—kara listens in for a moment to her steady heartbeat and the soothing, rushing thrum of her pulse—and kara is loathe to leave her but it’s the last day of the conference and she should be out of here before, well.

kara’s jaw tightens and her hands clench in the sheets. before lena very politely, very gently asks her to leave. she would never kick her out but she’s well versed in the most polite, blatant lies.

she dresses quickly, returns the scant possessions she bothered to unpack to her suitcase, and wheels it out into the sitting room.

the whistle of the kettle is unfortunately loud, as are the cupboards. it seems the quieter kara wants to be, the louder everything is, and she feels like her mouth is pulled into a perpetual worried grimace by the time their morning coffees are made up.

“is that for me?” lena asks, a little drowzy, and she smiles when kara jerks around to face her.

“hi, sorry, i didn’t mean to wake you up. i hope i didn’t wake you up, that is, i wasn’t listening in on you sleeping, that’s not something that i do often. it’s not something i want to do, often that is, sometimes it’s nice, but i do have alien ears and sometimes it’s hard to control, but this morning i really wasn’t trying to listen but i think i might have accidentally because of,” she sucks in a breath to stop herself from babbling her way right over the confessions cliff or, worse, annoy her like she had done with her babbling the day before.

that’s not fair, because lena said she was going to do better and kara has to trust that, but she’s nervous and it’s hard to trust anything when she knows she hurt lena right back.

but lena just yawns and says, “ten words or less before coffee, please.” then, she takes her by the hand—the same hand she had kissed, the same hand that still feels the brush of that like it’s burned into kara’s skin—and leads her over to the balcony. the curtains are drawn, oddly enough, and kara frowns. she steps in front of lena, scanning the area for anyone who might have broken into their apartment, but all she sees is the balcony and lena. and, well, brunch.

“when did you do this?” kara asks, because of course it was lena. “it’s beautiful. that’s only seven.”

“that’s is a contraction but i’ll let it slide,” lena says around another yawn. “last night.”

“but i—” she doesn’t say what she wants to say—i didn’t tell you, i wasn’t honest, you were honest with me but i couldn’t be honest back, you left, don’t you hate me?—and instead she smiles and sinks into the seat opposite lena and fills up her plate. “thank you.”

lena nods and sips from her mug, content to look out over the city as kara had the night before, and enjoy the company.

“what did you do,” kara laughs when she sees the extra table that has been set up along the wall of the balcony, “buy everything on the room service menu?”

“just the breakfast and lunch items,” lena shrugs. “are you enjoying it?”

kara looks between the food and lena and nods slowly. “very much.”

“good.” when kara doesn’t stop staring at her, lena sighs. “are you wondering what my motive is?”

“no.” kara scoffs. lena waits. “only a little. and not in, like, a bad way,” she clarifies. “it’s just that for as long as i’ve known you, you don’t do things unless there’s a reason for it. or more than one, preferably.”

lena nods. “that’s true. fine. my motive is this—i want you to be happy.” she nods decisively with the statement and doesn’t seem to notice the way kara’s eyes widen. “last night was perfect for me,” she tells her, playing with the handle to her mug and very decidedly not looking in kara’s direction. “i liked being there with you, in our room, and you holding my hand and just listening. i like the dark. i like not having to worry about what you might see on my face. i liked that, i was comfortable with that. but you,” lena pauses. “you like to see things. you like food, and the sun, and being able to see this whole world that you love so much and i thought this,” she waves her hand to the view, the table, the food. “i thought this would be more comfortable for you.” she doesn’t fidget, but it looks like she comes close. “was i wrong?”

“no,” kara smiles. “no, you weren’t. but you’re missing one thing.”

“i am?” lena glances around, frowning.

“you are.”

“are you going to tell me what it is?” she asks, a hint of teasing dropping into her voice once she sees kara’s smile. “or make me guess?”

“it’s easy. this might be better for me, but i still,” kara flips her hand palm up to the sky, “want to hold your hand.”

“oh.” lena folds her newspaper and lays it next to her empty coffee cup. she stands, and moves into the chair next to kara, lays her hand on top of kara’s. “better?”

kara lets out a comically long sigh, eyes fluttering closed. her free hand she places on her full belly and she nods. “much.”

they sit like that for some time, before kara nods, determined.

“i have something to tell you,” she says, and lena tilts her head very slightly toward kara. “i get scared sometimes. i know i’m the girl of steel but there are some things,” she says, almost wistful, “that scare the crap out of me. that’s why i have to be brave around you.”

“are these things like telling me how you feel?”

“no,” kara looks carefully over at her, and it’s hard now to hold back how much she cares, how deep she cares for this woman. lena must see it, because her hand tightens around kara’s. “like losing you,” she says, voice grave. “i’ve lost a lot, lena. not just my family but my whole world, and sometimes it feels like if i lose even one more thing, i feel like i’ll collapse under the weight of it all.”

“you haven’t lost me. not yet.” lena fixes her with a firm look. “not at all, if i can help it.”

kara nods slowly. her chest still tightens when she thinks about what she’s going to say next, but it’s going to be worth it. she knows it. “you’re important to me.”

lena pulls her chair around and closer to kara. “i know. i’ve known that you were supergirl for three months, you think i can’t see that?” she looks nervous for all of half a second before she leans in, rests her forehead against kara’s. “i’m going to say something now, and it’s for both of us, okay, because i think if i leave it to you, we’re going to go to best friends and then flatmates and then get a pet together and all of that before you even think about asking me on a date and frankly,” she squeezes kara’s hand hard, “it’s not fair on either of us.”

“date?” kara repeats, stunned.

“i’d love to,” lena agrees in a smiling voice. “how does tonight work for you?”

“tonight?” kara repeats, ears ringing, heart pounding. all she can see is lena—all she wants to see is lena, so it works out perfectly. perfect, yes. that’s the right word for all of this. “perfect? that’s perfect.”

“good.”

there is an instant, then, in which kara thinks she could quit her day job and become an artist instead, because lena leans in and presses her lips to kara’s and entire worlds flash into being behind kara’s closed eyes. entire worlds, with colours she can taste and ten thousand galaxies of stars, and when lena pulls away, kara is left homesick and wanting.