#they are a shitty self portrait with a perfect frame

[bitsandbobsandstuff]

Ink on his heart

Summary: Here’s how Bucky Barnes got a haircut and then decided it was about damn time he controlled his own destiny - starting with a bit of ink. 

Star Spangled Bingo Square: “A thoughtful gift”

Characters: Bucky Barnes x TattooArtist!Reader

Words: 7,400 Warnings: Tattoo experiences, a couple stories about war. Some swearing. Mostly lots of feels and fluff.

A/N: This one has been in my head a long time, I love tattoos and I love the idea of Bucky getting them! While I desperately wish I could draw the designs in my head, hopefully you get enough of a word picture to imagine. And yes, it is kinda long (I know, I know), but I couldn’t stop myself! 

Want to find all my stories? Search #bitsmasterlist or try the link in my bio!

*****

Not that Bucky’s counting, but it’s been three days, 18 hours and 26 minutes and he can’t get over it.

In the damp, chilly hours before dawn, he sits on the floor of the tower living room, watching the marshmallows in his hot chocolate melt in white swirls. Now and then, he lifts his eyes to the windows, finds the faint edges of his reflection in the dark glass, and tilts his head. Tentative fingers scratch through close cropped hair and a slow smile appears. Even now, he expects long strands trailing through his fingers. Believes he can feel the phantom tug of a snarl.

It was just a haircut. What a simple, ordinary thing.  

But Bucky Barnes has never been ordinary.

That small act triggered a startling transformation. Decades of heartbreak fell away with that dark hair, revealing the shape of a man he begins to remember, and it makes him think. About small things, about change. About simple acts making an extraordinary difference.

The last haircut Bucky remembers before the beginning of his first ending, was January 1945. The memory came back one evening, of a tent in Austria, the heavy silence of snow drifting down. He remembers Steve with a dull scissors, snipping carefully along his ear, remembers the catch of a knife gently shaving his neck. It was a ritual they shared for years. When pennies were tight and life was tough, they took care of each other.

And then? Then there was after.

After the fall, after capture, after the world went pear-shaped. Hydra wasn’t concerned with the formalities of self-care, a haircut was functional. Sharp scissors biting into his scalp, rough hands tearing his hair, a harsh slap if he considered resisting. Get it done and get it done fast. The Asset has work to do.

He despised those haircuts.

But now, here he is. No more handlers and horrors. No more running. No more hiding. No more ropes dragging him somewhere he doesn’t want to be.

Wresting back his independence was exhilarating.

When Steve had finished this haircut - because Bucky still preferred a Steve Rogers special to anything - he’d dusted off Bucky’s shoulders and waited. Sam stood behind him, and Bucky rolled his eyes, expecting a barrage of sassy comments.

But Sam just ruffled the freshly cut hair and laughed.

“Not bad old man. Still not as handsome as yours truly, but hey - maybe someday.”

Such a simple thing, a haircut.

It makes him wonder what else he might do, just for himself.      

Fuzzy and disconnected, an old memory flickers to life. It buzzes in his brain, images and connections filtering through the cracks and Bucky lets out a breathless laugh.

“Yeah,” he murmurs to himself. “Okay.”

He closes his eyes and sips his hot chocolate.

*****

Steve yawns when he answers the door. Blond hair spikes in every direction and he rubs his eyes, looking for all the world like a sleepy, overgrown toddler.

“Hey, man. Everything okay?”

Bucky leans against the doorframe and chews his thumbnail while he gathers his thoughts.

“Sure, just - can I get a favor?”

Bemused, Steve ushers him inside and Bucky plops in the red bean bag chair Steve keeps tucked beside his dresser. Stretching out his legs, he waits for Steve to flop back into bed and snuggle his pillow, before he speaks.

“Remember back in ’37 when we were coming home from that shitty bar in Midtown, and we saw that sailor getting a tattoo?”

Whatever Steve expected, it wasn’t this. It takes him a moment to conjure the image, but when it comes he belts out a laugh.

“That terrified kid gettin’ a big heart on his arm? Looked ready to shit his pants?”

Bucky grins at the memory, a milk-faced kid with hair dark and shiny as an oil-slick.  

“Thought he was gonna puke on the guy.”

“Yeah, and didn’t we stand outside that window arguing while you tried to convince me we both needed one? Something about good girls liking bad boys?”  

“Hey, I stand by that statement!”

“Oh fuck off, you know exactly what your Ma would’ve said if we’d come home with tattoos.”

“Yeah,” Bucky chuckles. “God, she’d a skinned me alive.”

“Damn straight,” Steve agrees and they fall quiet, momentarily lost in shared memories of a woman with a voice of steel and a heart of gold.

Bucky leans forward and rests his chin on his knee.

“You know, all these years and I’ve never really - done anything like that,” he admits wistfully. “Gotten something done to me, I mean. Something I decided on my own. If that makes sense?”

Controlling his own destiny, choosing to do something by himself, instead of always accepting things done to him - the idea is intoxicating. He remembers the pained grimace on that sailor’s face and he relishes the prospect.

Pain you choose to feel holds a different meaning, than the torture he knows.

“S’never too late, Buck,” Steve says drowsily. “You can do anything you want.”

Bucky contemplates Steve’s words. He can do anything he wants. Heart beating fast, he takes a deep breath.

“So listen, I was thinking -”

*****

For two straight weeks, Steve works on ideas.

The floor of his bedroom is littered with sketches and concepts, crumpled sheets of paper dappled with flowing lines. Finally, after midnight on a dreary Thursday, he knocks on Bucky’s door. The moment it opens, he shoves his tattered leather portfolio in Bucky’s hands.

“So, I guess, uh - here.”

Steve crosses his arms, his toe tapping nervously, and Bucky chokes down a laugh. Some things about Steve Rogers remain comfortingly unchanged. No matter how incredible his work, all confidence seems to evaporate the moment Bucky lays eyes on anything.

—

“Give it back asshole!”

“God dammit Steve, YOU’RE the one who asked me to look!”

“Yeah well, I changed my mind, now give it back!”

—

Bucky remembers laughing while Steve chased him around their apartment. He remembers the neighbors banging on the wall, shouting at them to shut up, and he remembers the smell of their forgotten scrambled eggs burning. But most of all, he remembers that drawing - he tucked that portrait of his mother in his rucksack the day he shipped out and it stayed there, a good luck charm all through the war.

Steve had cried when Bucky told him.

Because Bucky’s opinion was always the one that mattered. Seventy years changes nothing.

Tonight, he opens the leather case, revealing three separate drawings. Outlines of black ink and a rainbow of colors paint over the curves and breaks of a human form and he pores over each page. Each drawing is utterly unique, telling the story of Bucky Barnes in metaphors and moments.    

There are no words.

His throat feels suddenly thick, cotton lodged in his windpipe.

“I can redo them,” Steve blurts out. He snatches at the paper, but Bucky spins sideways, blocking the reach.

“The fuck you will. You ain’t touching these,” his voice cracks. Blinking back the flood of emotion, he looks up. “This is - they’re perfect, Steve. Thank you.”

Steve blushes petal pink and coughs to hide his delight. He fails miserably, of course, but that’s one more reason Bucky loves the little punk.

*****

One week later, Bucky stands before a demure brick storefront on a slow Brooklyn side street, the portfolio housing Steve’s three precious drawings clutched tight in a sweaty hand. Glancing at the address in his hand, he looks up to find stenciled letters curving across a glass window.

BROOKLYN INK ESTABLISHED 1973

“Here we go,” he mutters. Before he can lose his nerve, he shoves forward.

Three steps inside the tattoo parlor, he pulls up short.

Wow.

Black iron chandeliers hang from the ceiling, splashing sparkles across plush velvet chairs, rich violet and bright turquoise. The floor is an eclectic mix of reclaimed barn board, full of knots and whorls in every shade of brown. Artwork in black and white frames line the brick wall, tattoo designs, letters and fonts, photos of finished work. The entire space overflows with warmth, and Bucky feels instantly at ease.  

The front desk is empty, but he hears someone rattling around back, so he takes a seat. Piled high on an end table are bundles of photo albums, full of work; he sinks into the cushions and starts flipping through.  

Immersed in the images, he misses the sound of quiet footsteps.

“Are you James?”

The voice startles him and in one swift move, he manages to throw the album on the floor and tumble from the chair. Pages of photographs spill everywhere and he crawls over, hastily scooping them up and babbling one inappropriate apology after another.

“Shit! Sorry, I’m sorry! Shit, I mean I’m sorry for saying shit. Fuck, I didn’t - oh my god, I’m sorry, I’m not usually so - ”

Soft laughter greets him and he looks up in panic, a more refined apology on his lips, but the words evaporate.

Crouching beside him, graceful hands gather up the mess of photos, slipping them back into the album. Dropping it carelessly on the end table, she bounces back to her feet and offers him a hand.

“No worries,” she says with a breathtaking smile. “I shouldn’t have startled you.”

Although he has no need for the support, Bucky reaches mutely for her outstretched fingers because he can’t help but take them. When she tugs, he allows her to pull him up.  

“I’m, um - Bucky. Please, call me Bucky.”

“Hello Bucky,” she says. She shares her name and he repeats it slowly. Clearing his throat, he takes a deep breath.

“Thanks for meeting me so late, I know it’s after hours.”

“Sure,” she says lightly. “So, what can I do for you?”

This is the tricky part.

“On the website, it mentioned you had experience with - with tattooing around scars,” he begins carefully. “Scar tissue I mean. Is that right?”

With his question, her expressions turns serious. She observes him for a long moment.

“Yes, I do. Can I ask how long you served?” she asks delicately and Bucky acknowledges her perception with a short nod. He toys with the zipper on Steve’s portfolio, debating his response.

“Seemed like forever,” he finally says, and it’s the most honest answer he has.

Nodding silently, she motions him behind the counter.

“Come on back, let’s see what you had in mind.”

Hugging the pictures to his chest, Bucky follows, eyes saucer wide as they weave through the work area to her space. The shop smells like the woodsy smoke from the candles sitting along her table, mixed with ink and latex and an odd sterile tang. He inhales and discovers he likes it, the strange scent lighting him up.  

Dropping to her stool, she gestures for him to have a seat. Bucky sits gingerly, wide eyes still staring. When she catches his eye, he flushes.

“Sorry. First time I’ve been in a shop.”

“That’s okay, there’s lots to see,” she says easily. Looking at the portfolio still clutched against his chest, she grins. “Did you have some ideas already?”

He thrusts the portfolio at her. Propping it on her knees, she flips it open and he beams when he hears her astonished gasp.

“I like the colors there, if you think they’re possible?”

“Sure, might take some extra time, but I can do it,” she murmurs, pinching her lip. Turning the page sideways, she examines every minute detail, shaking her head in disbelief. “This is exquisite.”  

“I’ll tell my artist. He’s a real diva sometimes.”

“I’d say he’s earned that right,” she laughs, tracing the paper with a light finger. She flips to the second picture and tilts her head. “The grays and silvers might look nice with midnight blue for contrast?”

Bucky nods eagerly. “Yeah, I love that idea.”

She looks again, examining the intricate design.

“Can you tell me about your pain tolerance? The designs are beautiful, but they’re complex. Each will take multiple sessions to finish.”

Bucky drops his eyes. He heaves a sigh at the obligatory question.

“It’s high,” he mutters. “Very - high.”

Silence follows his admission. When he dares to look up again, he feels a twinge in his chest at the compassion he finds. He offers a rueful smile and she slowly returns it.

“Would you like to come after hours? It can get noisy during the day, if you prefer things quieter. Most soldiers like that better.”

There is a sweep of relief at her casual acknowledgement. He huffs out a shaky breath.

“That would be great. If you don’t mind, I mean.”

“Not at all. I’m a night owl anyway.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says quietly. “Me too.”

She looks back to the portfolio, carefully shuffling the pages.

The third picture appears.

And Bucky sees it, that precise moment when realization sinks in. When she realizes exactly who is sitting in her chair tonight. There is no doubt the drawing gives that fact away. Heart pounding, he flinches, steeling himself for the inevitable.

But nothing happens.

She meets his nervous gaze head on and yet - that gentle smile remains.

“Bucky,” she repeats and this time she understands. “Oh. It’s nice to meet you, Bucky Barnes. Come back tomorrow night, 9pm. Don’t be late.”

He leaves the tattoo shop feeling lighter than he has in years.

*****

TATTOO 1: FOREARM

“Show me a man with a tattoo and I’ll show you a man with an interesting past.” - Jack London

*****

Perpetually early for everything, Bucky arrives at 8:45pm the next night.

The bell over the door tinkles when he enters, and she looks up from the front desk and waves. His stomach unexpectedly leaps and he thinks it must be nerves.

“Hey, Bucky,” her voice is soft.

“Evening,” he says shyly.  

“You ready to do this?”

“Could hardly sleep last night,” he confesses with a grin.

Sliding timidly into her black leather chair, he watches her arrange tools on a shiny silver tray. An arm rest is attached to his right side, and he dries his sweaty palm on his jeans before easing his arm onto the cushion, palm up. When she drops onto her stool at his side, he offers a weak smile.  

“You got the email I sent with all the information, right? Did you have any questions?”

He scrunches his nose, recalling the long, detailed summary she shared. For each of the three tattoos he requested, she gave him a detailed analysis of the process for creating each design; broke down how long each session would take; gave explicit instructions on the healing and care process; confirmed each individual color and how it would be applied; clarified the tools that would be used, including their brand names and how each one worked; she even provided floor plans of her shop - outlining entries and exits and bathrooms and locations of fire extinguishers.

It was a novel of information that must’ve taken her hours, and he was inexplicably grateful for the time she spent just to make him comfortable.

“No questions, I just, uh - thanks. For putting all that together. It was helpful to have all the information. Helps me keep my head on straight.”

“Of course,” she says. “So this first design should take probably 5-6 hours. Since you’re new, we’ll start with short blocks and see how it goes.”

Bucky gives a jerky nod and she pauses, pressing her fingertips against the smooth skin of his forearm.

“Here are the rules. You’re in charge, okay? We can go as fast or as slow as you need. This is not a race, and I have nowhere to be but here. Any time you want to stop, you say the word and I stop. We can take a breather, grab a cup of coffee and start again - or we can call it a night. This is your experience, Bucky. You’re in control. Understand?”

There is a fierce surge of gratitude at her words. Gratitude for her kindness, for her acceptance. Gratitude for her.

“Got it,” he whispers.

And with that, they begin.

Bucky follows each step, while she measures his arm, while she considers the contours and angles of his muscle, while she cleans and preps his skin. When she finally applies a stencil, his heart is hammering so hard his teeth are chattering.

The low buzz of the tattoo machine fills his ears with a click.

When the needles touch his skin, sweat instantly beads his neck. Adrenaline drenches his tongue and for one wild moment, Bucky panics. Wonders if this was a terrible idea, because what idiot asks for pain, seriously Barnes, what the hell is wrong with you, why’re you so stupid all the -

And then - oh.

Huh.

Interesting.

Wide-eyed, Bucky follows her careful strokes, black lines appearing on his skin.

It does hurt - sort of. Obviously nothing he can’t handle; in the grand scheme of his life, this would register as a minor inconvenience, but there is a pinch.

But that spark of pain vanishes, when the raw symbolism behind Steve’s design hits him full force.

Holy shit.

How many times through the decades did Bucky Barnes die? And how many times did he rise, born again from the frozen ash of oblivion? It was simply what the Soldier did. But it was a shadow-life, nothing more. Bucky never knew how close he was to giving up, until that day above the Potomac, Steve’s bloody face beneath his furious fists. He was so far gone, so lost and forgotten, until those memories cracked the Soldier’s fierce veneer.

And suddenly he was Bucky again. Awake and alive. For the first time in 70 years he felt fire in his soul. For the first time in 70 years he could breathe.

Tears inexplicably fill his eyes.    

“All okay?”

Through a tunnel, Bucky hears her voice. Hypnotized by the metaphor inking itself into his skin, his head feels waterlogged when blinks up at her.

“Sorry?”

She scans his face, her thumb rubbing the pulse thrumming at his wrist.

“Everything okay?” She asks again and Bucky feels a potent rush of euphoria.

“Yes,” he says slowly. The excitement bubbles over and he lets out an ecstatic laugh. “Yes! This is incredible. This is - fucking hell, this is amazing.”

Chuckling to herself, she bends back to her task.

“So I guess we’ll keep going?”

“Yeah,” he laughs. “Yeah, let’s keep going.”

Two hours later, the outline of the Phoenix is inked into his skin, crisp black lines like fresh paint. Long tail feathers are curled around his wrist, the lush feathered body splashed over his forearm, her wings spread open and curving around his arm, her head reaching toward the sky.

Born from ash. Alive again.

Bucky hates to cover it up, but she insists.

“Follow the cleaning instructions and it should be fine. We need to wait between the sessions, give you time to heal.”

At that comment, he fidgets.

“Actually, I heal pretty - fast.”

“I assumed you might. Usually I say 2-3 weeks between sessions, so how about you come back in 1 week and we can see. Let’s just make sure. Does that work?”

Bucky glances at the crisp white bandage on his arm.

“Okay, that works,” he says.

She squeezes his hand and he meets her eyes.

“You did great,” she tells him.

Bucky smiles in return. And he doesn’t stop for the next six days.

*****

When he walks into the shop for his next session, he carries a large coffee for himself and an extra large iced peach green tea for her. When he gets to the front desk, he thrusts the cup at her.  

“Evening. Um, here. Saw you had one last time, so - anyway.”

“Bucky, thank you. I’ve been craving one all day.” She gives the straw an experimental bite, before taking a long drink and for some reason, the silly quirk makes his heart bounce.

After a quick check on how he’s healed, she declares him perfect and they get started, settling into a comfortable silence. After an hour of buzzing, Bucky clears his throat.

“Is it okay to talk while you work?”

“It is,” she affirms, dabbing at the ink. Glancing up, she sees hesitant blue eyes. “I’m good at listening too. Sometimes it’s nice just to listen.”  

Bucky figures that’s a fair statement. He fiddles with a stray thread on his shirt.

“Do you read much?” He asks hopefully, picturing the teetering stack of books beside his bed. She perks at the question.

“I love to read. Have a pile of books on my nightstand waiting for me to find time. What about you? Are you reading anything good now? Any favorites I should know?”

Bucky swallows the happy surprise. If he could, he’d be content to spend the rest of his years with a comfortable chair, a cup of coffee, and an unending supply of stories. He could talk about books for days, he just normally keeps quiet, because most people aren’t interested in that facet of Bucky Barnes.

So he begins to talk.

He tells her how Natasha lent him all her Russian copies of Pushkin and Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, insisting that reading in the original language was infinitely better. He describes how he found a copy of Rumi’s poetry at a yard sale, and what an incredible treasure it was. He flusters recounting how much he cried reading ‘A Fault in our Stars’ and says he was scared shitless to even see a clown for a full year after reading Stephen King.    

He talks and talks and talks, and when he finally stops to breathe, she glances up.

“It’s nice to hear a man who’s so well read,” she says and Bucky preens at the compliment. “Do you have an all time favorite? Something you never get tired of?”

A favorite? No question.

“Yeah, I do. Something I read during the war and kinda fell in love. It’s about here, I guess. About Brooklyn.”

At the description, her mouth quirks, but she keeps working.

“Did you ever think about a book quote for a tattoo?”

Now there’s an idea. He makes a mental note to think of a quote he could add as another tattoo. Or maybe another couple tattoos. Hell, one session in and he’s already addicted.  

The comment tumbles free before he realizes he’s spoken out loud. He blushes at her laughter.

“It can be addicting,” she agrees. Bucky understands completely, seeing the vibrant crimson ink soak into his skin, painting the bird’s feathers. And then she pauses, meeting his eyes with a peculiar expression. “The right words can make you feel invincible.”

Setting the tattoo machine down, she rolls her chair back a bit and sits up straight. Lifting the hem of her shirt, Bucky sees a line of gold text inked below her ribs, his eyes following the flowing cursive.

“She was all of these things and of something more,” he reads aloud.

“‘A Tree Grows in Brooklyn’ is my favorite book too,” she says quietly. There is a long, unbroken moment where they stare into each others eyes. He should say something, he thinks. Something intelligent or witty or anything, but instead he just thinks about the fact that he found a woman in Brooklyn to permanently carve pictures into his skin and she has the same favorite book as him.

Bucky always was a sucker for fate.

“That’s - that’s really - I love that,” he finally says instead.

*****

A week later, Bucky arrives with a bundle of folders and an exasperated expression.

“This is really annoying, but do you mind if I finish some reports while you work? Got behind, someone’s gonna have my ass.” Bucky raises the papers apologetically.

“No problem,” she says easily. “Let’s keep your ass safe.”

Bending back to her task, Bucky snorts a laugh. They’re just a handful of mission reports, normally he types them soon as he returns, but lately he’s been slacking, because lately he has other things he finds more interesting.

Like the scene in front of him.

Together they work, each with their own pen. Bucky writes, she colors, and the clock on the wall ticks along. After awhile, she takes a break to stretch. Rolling her shoulders, she observes him.

“Are you left-handed?” she asks curiously and it takes Bucky a moment to think.

“Oh. Uh, not really,” he says. “But I can switch. Never been a problem.”

At the confession, she raises her eyebrows.

“That’s impressive. I wish I had a talent like that.”

He ducks his head at the praise. And he keeps writing, of course. Maybe adds a bit more flair. After all, the old Bucky Barnes did like to swagger.    

*****

“Well, I think that’s it.”

It takes a beat before Bucky understands what she means. Confused, he peers up at her with a dopey expression and she gestures at his arm.

He feels his heart lurch.

It flames to life along his arm, painted in vibrant ruby red and rich crimson and deep plum, highlights edged in shining gold. Mesmerized, Bucky stares down at the lines of ink and he flexes, the tendons of his arm shifting, and the bird moves. For one wild moment, he believes if he stays still, it could leap from his skin and take flight.  

It leaves him breathless.

“God, this is better - fuck, it’s so much better - than I ever imagined. How did you - wow. I don’t know how you did it, but - thank you. Thank you so much.”

Unanticipated emotion makes his voice tremble. Because this is the first time Bucky Barnes chose something permanent for himself. Serums and metal arms and bullets and blades, those were always forced upon him, his pleading refusals met with violence and sneering indifference.

But this?

This.

This.

This is all his.

*****

TATTOO 2: BACK

“Wear your heart on your sleeve in this life.” - Sylvia Plath

*****

“So, uh, how exactly does this work?”

Standing beside the leather chair while she organizes her inks, Bucky wrinkles his nose. She looks up and motions for him to turn, straddling the chair with his chest pressed against the back.

“Are you comfortable completely removing your shirt? Or would you prefer to leave it part way on? I’ll just need it out of the way for the right side of your back.”

Bucky grimaces. Eventually she’s going to see his shoulder - he knows that - but he’s not in the mood to rip that band-aid off yet.  

“Uh - let’s do part of the way if that’s okay?”

“That’s okay,” she confirms and he awkwardly tugs his right arm free, baring the broad expanse of his back. Tucking his arms in front of him, he slings a leg over the chair and rests his chin carefully on the headrest.

He says nothing, simply stays still while she absorbs the sight. Littered up and down his back are a litany of scars, puckers from the occasional bullet, thin lines from errant blades, and a few other marks he prefers not to define. His voice is muffled when he warily asks.

“Are you able to - work with it?“    

“Absolutely,” she answers firmly and Bucky warms at the decisiveness in her tone. Her confidence makes him feel infinitely more positive.

This is the largest of his three tattoos, stretching from the tip of his shoulder blade and flowing down to his waist. It will also take the longest, but Bucky assures her he has no issue sitting perfectly still for hours.

It’ll be worth it. He can’t wait to show Sam - he’ll get a kick out of this one.

Once she applies the stencil over his skin, she goes to work, dropping into that headspace of deep focus. She works so quietly for so long, he falls into a trance, lulled by the melodic buzz.

When she speaks, it startles him.

“What made you decide you wanted a tattoo?”

He lays his cheek along the edge of the chair so he can see her from the corner of his eye when he answers.

“S’random, but back in ’37, me and Steve were out and I remember walking by this old tattoo shop over in Midtown. They had one of those big glass windows with the chair in front, so people could stand and watch. Anyway, we walk by and there was this kid sitting in the chair, and no fuckin’ joke, he was getting a big heart on his arm with ‘MOM’ written in the middle.”

“Ah yes, the ever popular ‘mom’ tribute. I’ve done a few of those,” she says and Bucky grins.

“Well anyway, I always kinda wanted something, you know? Thought about getting one before I shipped out, but I didn’t, and then it was - “ he pauses for a moment, but she encourages him with a questioning hmmm? and Bucky bravely pushes forward. “I had lots of years where I didn’t get to make my own decisions. And there was so much - bad shit that happened to me. Anyway, I guess I thought if someone’s gonna do something to me, I wanted it to be on my own terms. You know?”

“Yeah,” she murmurs. “I think that makes perfect sense.”

Bucky sits quietly, contemplating. The question has been rattling around his brain for awhile and it spills free before he can stop himself. 

“The whole process, it feels sort of  - intimate, doesn’t it?”

He flushes at the insinuation, but intimate is the best way to describe it, he thinks, this practice of someone permanently carving their art into your skin.

“It is intimate,” she says softly, leaning closer. “It’s almost like you’re - leaving a piece of your soul under someone’s skin? I don’t know if that makes sense, but that’s what it’s always felt like.”

Bucky nods, watching her capable, artistic, beautiful hands as they move, slowly transferring bits and pieces of herself to him.

What a gift. He holds on tight.

*****

It was bound to happen at one of the sessions.

It’s been dark and rainy for days, buckets dumped from the heavens, the perpetual grumble of thunder always near. When Bucky comes through the front door, he feels like a wet dog. He shakes out his jacket, stomps his boots. He feels off base tonight, the result of bad sleep, bad dreams, and one particularly bad mission. He’s frustrated with himself for bringing it with him, thinks maybe he should’ve cancelled, but the thought of skipping his session - both the ink and her - was too depressing.

So instead of holing up in his room and moping under the covers, he braved the storm.

The one inside and out.

Searching for calm, he licks chapped lips.

“Hey,” he says, cringing when his voice cracks.

“Hey, Buck,” she turns cheerfully, but when she sees him squinting at her through the droplets cascading down his face, his shoulders hunched and tense, she stops. Looks him up and down and her expression softens. Beckoning him back, she digs up a towel and a dry t-shirt with ‘BROOKLYN INK’ stamped across the front, ushering him to the bathroom.

“Take all the time you need. No rush.”

Bucky mumbles his thanks and shuts the door. Gripping the sink, he glares at the mirror, at the smudge of dark beneath his eyes, at the clench of his jaw. Closing his eyes, he breathes slow and deep.

“You’re okay. You’re okay.”

He repeats the mantra, determined to settle. He’s been eager for this session all week, he’s sure as hell not ruining it because he can’t get his idiot brain to stop spinning.

When he finally emerges, he finds her arranging her work space. Halting in front of her, he keeps trembling hands stuffed in his pockets, eyes downcast.

“I’m afraid I’m poor company tonight,” he admits quietly.

“That’s okay. We can reschedule, Bucky,” she says softly and Bucky feels the disconcerting sting of tears. He rubs the heel of his hand against watery eyes.  

“If it’s okay, I’d - I’d rather go ahead. Been looking forward to seeing you - uh, seeing you work, all week. It was just - “ he pauses and fights the temptation to spill his guts. No, he snarls internally, she doesn’t need to hear all your shit.

He clamps his mouth shut and shrugs instead.

She says nothing, but when she gives his hand a comforting squeeze, Bucky feels that familiar surge of gratitude. She guides him carefully toward the chair and he slumps into the seat, automatically tugging up his new shirt.  

“Just close your eyes and breath. You’re okay.”

Bucky rests his chin on the edge of the chair. Troubled eyes flutter shut, and the comforting buzz of the tattoo machine fills his ears, muting the sound of the storm raging outside. When he feels the prick of the needles, he lets out a weary breath. And when he feels the easy pressure of her fingers, he begins to relax.

For hours, she works. Firm strokes, painting the story across his skin.

The dark night begins to fade before she finally sets her tools aside. When he climbs to his feet, she pulls him into a gentle hug.    

Bucky sinks into her arms.

That morning, the sun begins to shine.

*****

Bucky’s been sitting for a couple hours now, eyeing the brick wall behind the chair. A question pops into his head and he feels like a jerk for not asking sooner.

“Hey - all these hours together, and I never asked you - what made you want to draw on people for a living?”

She hums at the question, and he can hear the happiness in her reply.

“Well, I always wanted to be an artist. For my eleventh birthday, my best friend Mike gave me this set of gel pens, there were a million colors. When I told him I wanted to be a tattoo artist, he let me draw pictures all over him for practice. He insisted on being the first person I inked, once I got my license. Would always tell people he was the ‘original canvas’ for my brilliance.”

When she laughs, Bucky chuckles with her; it reminds him of Steve.

“Sounds like a good man,” he says.

“Yeah, he is - he was,” she quietly corrects herself. “He was an EOD specialist in Afghanistan. Right before he left for his last tour, I drew up plans for the arm sleeve he always wanted; he planned to get it when he finished. A month later, he was in a convoy that was moving through the Gereshk Valley in the Helmand Province, when an IED hit his vehicle. He didn’t make it home.”

The story hits home like a kick in the face.

Too many soldiers, too many lives. Bucky reaches back to still her hand. He slowly turns to face her, gently tugging the tattoo machine free and setting it aside. Wordlessly, he offers his hand and she accepts it gratefully, weaving her fingers through his. It takes a few attempts before she speaks again.  

“It took me a long time to get through that. One day I met a friend working down at the VA, and I heard a vet talking about the scars on his legs. He sounded so - sad about them, you know? Kept saying he didn’t recognize himself anymore. And I just stood there thinking, maybe I couldn’t help Mike, but I could still do something.” Staring resolutely down, she considers her fingers still entangled with Bucky’s. “I did some research and took some classes and - learned how to tattoo on scar tissue.”

Bucky gazes at her. He feels a sweep of pride at the way she turned her tragedy into something beautiful.

“I’m so sorry that happened,” he says and she finally looks up, meeting blue eyes bright with compassion. “But you should know, what you’re doing for people, it’s incredible. And if you don’t mind me saying, I think he’d be real god damn proud of you.”

A tear slips down her cheek and she ducks her head, her whisper so low he nearly misses it.

“Thank you Bucky.”

*****

Hours later, Bucky hears a clatter of tools and her huff of relief.

“All done.”

Wiping her hands, she pops excitedly up from the stool and Bucky pushes back from the chair to follow. Without a thought, she grabs his metal hand, tugging him impatiently over to a set of floor length mirrors along the wall. Bucky grips tight and obediently follows, his pulse racing. When she positions him at the mirror, she adjusts the panels so he can see himself from all angles.

“There, have a look.”

Along his spine, the single metal wing bursts free, so intensely realistic, Bucky’s jaw drops. It arches gracefully up, curving over his shoulder blade and sweeping down his back, razor sharp feathers tickling his rib cage before billowing out above his waist. Made from silvers and grays and shaded hints of midnight blue, it glows in the light. When Bucky reaches toward the sky, the muscles shift beneath the ink and it creates the strangest sensation of feathers unfolding.  

All the scars littering his back, a flesh and bone patchwork of memories left by vicious handlers and fights too close for comfort, have disappeared. Blending into the steel of his new wing, their only purpose is to strengthen the image.

After all this time, he’s come to terms with the metal arm so unwillingly gifted all those years ago. But it’s remained a relic of a past life, something heavy, to drag him down.

But now, he rolls his shoulder back and his new metal wing lifts him higher than he’s felt in a long, long time.

*****

TATTOO 3: SHOULDER

“I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning.” - Haruki Murakami

*****

“So our last session.”

“Our last session,” he murmurs.

Bucky thinks for a moment that she seems glum, but maybe that’s wishful thinking.

“This is a tough one,” she warns, “but I think we can do it in one session. I won’t try and cover them up, it won’t work. The best solution is to incorporate your scars into the design. Make sense?”

Bucky pictures the pattern Steve drew, bright green leaves and vines tracing the seam of his arm, melding with the thick ribbons of raised tissue. It doesn’t matter, but he timidly asks anyway.

“Will it hurt?”

“No,” she says gently. Pressing her hand to his galloping heart, she shakes her head. “It won’t hurt much there, but you need to tell me if it hurts here. You need to tell me if I should stop. Remember, you’re in charge, okay?”

“Okay,” he whispers.

Steeling himself, he whips off his shirt, balling it up in nervous hands. The cool air blowing through the shop is a relief for his overheated body.

“Do you mind if I feel the skin here? So I can make sure I approach it right?”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Bucky mumbles. Staring at his hands, he waits.

Leaning close, her fingers brush over him, feeling the lines and ridges, assessing the canvas. For ten minutes, she tests his skin, lightly pushing and pressing, observing the scars and bumps where metal meets man.  

“Does it still hurt?”

She doesn’t want to ask, but needs to know what she’s working with. With a grim smile, he shrugs.

“Not really. Aches sometimes, but doesn’t hurt. Can’t feel much there besides some pressure.”

Nodding, she pinches her lip. “I was thinking last night, um - would you want to add anything else into the design? Nothing big, but a few flowers? Some daisies maybe?”

“Sure, I’d like that. Any reason for daisies?” Bucky asks curiously.

Pulling out a few additional bottles of ink, she absently touches the necklace at her throat, and Bucky sees a silver daisy spinning.

“Daisies represent new beginnings. Thought it might be a nice way to end, if you like?”

Does he like it? The idea of having this small thing in common?

Hell yes he likes it.

Maybe - maybe he even more than likes it?

“Yeah. That sounds perfect,” he says softly. He swallows hard and she nods encouragingly.

“Okay. Remember - stop me if you need a break.”

This one, Bucky knows will be hard. It was the reason he left it to the end - the mental fortitude required here is much different.

As she begins, he contemplates the pink furrows gouged into his skin. The memory of how they got there flashes before him, a sick image of shredded skin raked bloody beneath his blunt fingernails. Faint screams of a past life echo in his ears, the smokey cry of his own voice desperate for relief from the pain.

Cold sweat slides down his face and he slams his eyes shut, but that seems to make it worse. The images glow technicolor bright, and he grunts a frustrated breath.

And then, through the thin latex of her glove, he feels her cool hand press against his pounding heart. Cracking an eye open, he finds her calm face and he focuses on her, until his breathing begins to ease. Blinking rapidly, he drinks in the curve of her nose, the shape of her mouth, the beauty of her eyes.

His heart stutters, stunning him into a different kind of breathless.

“Okay?”

“Yeah,” he murmurs, wide eyes locked on hers. “Yeah, I’m okay. You can keep going.”

When she bends back to her task, Bucky melts. It occurs to him, that perhaps if she might let him, he could be content watching her forever.

But for tonight, this forever lasts only a few hours before she’s done.

And there it is.

Shades of green line his shoulder, the vines curling and winding around his scars, blending them seamlessly into the foliage covering his skin. Spidering vines trail across his chest, and it seems incompatible in a way, something alive bursting from the stark metal, but the leaves look so real, he swears they flutter with each breath he takes. Strewn throughout the greenery, small splotches of yellow and white reveal her daisies and he sucks in a breath.

For the first time in his life, Bucky stares at his scars and a foreign word comes to mind, one he never, ever thought to use.

“Beautiful,” he breathes. “They’re beautiful.”

*****

And so, after 3 months and 30 hours together, they were done.

Hands in his pockets, Bucky gazes at her. Ink on her hands, ink on his heart. It hits him then, this is it. They shuffle, making small talk, neither ready to say goodbye.

“Promise you’ll come back if you decide on anything else. Tattoos, piercings, anything,” she teases and Bucky laughs.

“Told you, I might be a little addicted,” he admits, knowing full well he means to tattoos and to her. “Soon as I can think of a reason, I’ll be back.”

“I hope so,” she says. There is a brief moment where she seems to gather her courage and then she leans in to press a soft kiss to his cheek. “You’re a work of art, Bucky, but - you were before any of this. Remember that.”

Dazed, Bucky touches his cheek.

Indelible and perfect, the tattoo of her lips inks itself straight onto his heart.

*****

When she arrives at the shop the next day, there is a new sight sitting on the front desk.

Daisies, their white petals and yellow faces as fresh as the afternoon sunshine filtering through the window. Bemused, she looks around the bustling shop and spies the card propped beside the overflowing vase, her name scrawled across the front.

-

“When I got home, I stood in front of the mirror for hours, staring at your artwork. Every time I told myself to go to sleep, I found something new I loved. The tail feathers on my Phoenix or the petals of your daisies. What you’ve given me is more than I ever hoped - I can never thank you enough.

But anyway, I remembered what you said - how this kind of art is like leaving a piece of your soul under someone’s skin.

Well, I won’t lie - you must have done, because I miss you already.

So at the risk of being forward (although I did break into your shop and leave this, so maybe this won’t seem that forward), would you have dinner with me?  

I think there’s another new beginning waiting out there, if you’d like to find it with me.  

Yours,

Bucky”

-

At the bottom of the note, a phone number is printed.

Brushing her fingers over the delicate white petals, she pictures him, that dark haired man with eyes like blue ink, so heartbreakingly beautiful inside and out. She feels the unconscious pull of her heart, telling her all she needs to know.

A new beginning.

She says yes.

*****

[gebtoons]

my contribution to the bapo timeline discourse bc i’m just gonna propose a timeline and will not be taking criticism <3 (under the cut bc this is gonna be a long post probably) 

ok disclaimer I am quite stupid, however I’m gonna use my knowledge from my own 12 years in american public high school and what little info I have about american boarding schools/catholic schools that I have from my friends lol. so. idk. 

i’m also gonna date songs/major events and i’m gonna be taking some “just trust me bro” liberties bc y’all are right it does NOT make that much sense. 

January 6: Epiphany; this is like an actual holiday lol. like its always on the sixth. idk its good that this is the starting point bc its an actual date yknow? For the purposes of this timeline were going with that its early in the week, so lets go with Monday idk

January 6-13: You and I, Role of a Lifetime; so we’re all kinda in agreement that this timeline (at least the beginning) only really makes sense if you and i/role of a lifetime aren’t like. a singular moment and are instead multiple days. so yeah, of this first week, this is like. monday-next sunday ish yknow. 

January 14: Auditions, Plain Jane Fatass; ok so having auditions for a spring musical right after kids get back from break actually makes perfect sense to me, like i can see it being like “ok take break to prepare so as soon as you come back we can have auditions so we can jump right into rehersals” yknow? and since the rave is clearly on a friday (”we’ll meet in tanya’s room on friday night”) so i’m going with the monday before.  

as for pjf, i know it doesn’t make a ton of sense for them to get a two week late birthday package their first few weeks back from school, but hear me out it makes sense. the implication throughout this entire show is that the twins have decently shitty parents. from bits of dialogue (in this song in particular lol) i’m kinda inferring their the “only concerned with how their kids make them look to others” kind of neglectful. so I don’t think it’s too outside the realm of possibility that they went away for the holidays, didn’t bring the twins, and instead mailed them a birthday package and having it show up two weeks late. realistically the timing of this isnt that important and the explicit “two week” time frame could’ve been an exaggeration on nadia’s part to mock her shit parents (idk its in her character) basically ppl are a little two fixated on this imo but anyway. moving on. 

January 18: Wonderland, A Quiet Night At Home, Rolling, Best Kept Secret; a very agreed upon point in the timeline. its the friday following the auditions. moving on. 

January 21: Confession; also very agreed upon. the monday following the rave. moving on again 

January 23: Portrait of a Girl; the date here is kinda arbitrary, but bc sister chantelle says “ok lets try to put yesterday’s rehearsal behind us” and i for the life of me cannot think of a scene she could be referring to (there’s none in the script either) that implies it wasn’t the same monday as confession (bc even in a boarding school i think holding extracurriculars that aren’t sports over the weekend (especially when they are no where near crunch time lol) is weird and not common) so i just picked a random day during the week

January 25: Birthday Bitch!, One Kiss, Are You There?; from matt’s line in wonderland, ivy’s birthday is a week after the rave. in my timeline that’s january 25th (an aquarius queen). 

btw given all grown up’s “17, how will i manage?” ivy is 16 during 17 at her party, which is strange given shes a high school senior and seniors are typically 17 during 18. so either a) she skipped a grade, not an unheard of thing. or b) shes not a senior, shes just a junior who hangs out with a bunch of seniors, which is also pretty common. and looking through the script i can’t find any mention that she is also a senior, other than yknow she graduates with them, but she isn’t mentioned during the class ranking scene? so idk not that it really matters just a fun detail 

February 3 (at night): 911 Emergency!; ok controversial. i know i like the joke about how its funny that peter having a weird dream when he was high prompted him to want to come out and really ruined his relationship with jason. BUT. i think the dream (despite it’s weirdness) would have a lot more meaning if it wasn’t the result of being really high, but if it was a dream he had like a week later as a result of a building sense of guilt/anxiety bc he told matt. also it fits better given later timeline things. (this timeline literally only exists if there are weird jumps in time that don’t make a ton of sense) (EDIT: I forgot one line about Jason crashing at ivys but fuck it forget that bitchass line this makes for more drama its staying this way)

February 4: Reputation Stain’d, Ever After; the next day following peter’s dream, idk what else to say, moving on. 

February 25-28: Spring; another jump! i’m sorry but the only way for this to make sense logistically is for there to be quite a few time jumps! however, i also think this one works bc i think it gives time for everything from around ivy’s party and peter and jason’s break up to stew emotionally. like obviously a musical only has so much time to tell a story so the audience cannot see every realistic beat, but honestly i think it makes the whole thing a little more dramatic™ if there’s space for everything to settle, and for ivy to come and apologize and such. also, the reason it’s multiple days is bc in the script, ivy is trying to study (presumably for some sort of midterm) while nadia is playing, so that probably takes place a few days before they move out, so before finals. but in the script, jason and peter are packing and peter is leaving, so that part of the song/staging takes place on the 28th. yes, that’s weird, but we are clearly thinking more about the logistics of this school than the writers were so. 

March 1: One; assuming st. cecilia’s works kinda like boarding schools here, they probably do staggered move out/move in, just bc that would be a lot to have people coming and going at once so it makes sense that peter left the day before, while jason and ivy are leaving the next day. also, given that peter is trying to call jason while he and ivy are banging, it’s probably been a hot minute since the actual break up, since peter was clearly very hurt by the whole thing, it would make sense (at least to me) that peter would reach out a month ish later, rather than like a few days later (you have to make so many assumptions to make this timeline work granted they aren’t super out there assumptions but still this is annoying) 

March 1-25: Spring Break. the coworkers I have who are in boarding school work over their school breaks, which are longer than the public school breaks (which are only a week) so i put their spring break at 3 weeks. it makes sense, and it makes the later part of the timeline make sense. 

I know i’m already halfway through this, but to me it makes sense for their to be quite a few time jumps in the story bc its a musical. they cannot show every day. there are a lot of other shows (particularly shows set in high schools) that are set over a whole school year, but if you just look at the events of the story that doesn’t make sense, so you have to imply that obviously they are not showing every little detail. moving on. 

March 25: Wedding Bells, In The Hallway, Touch My Soul; peter wakes up from his nightmare in the church, so im assuming he fell asleep in church (like he almost did during epiphany). also it makes sense that class ranks are announced in late march-early april, I know my school announced ours in like, the first week or so of april? so yeah. moving on.

(from this point on i was giving myself a headache trying to make it make sense so its all weird from here!!)

April 4: See Me, Warning; the date doesn’t really matter here, I picked a random day in early april. the script said peter is calling from him and jason’s old dorm room, as he was picking up the last of his things, so he clearly made the roommate switch after school started (makes sense to me). 

April 15-20 (approximately): Ivy finds out she’s pregnant. look google tells me on average people find out they are pregnant around 5-7 weeks after conception. i went with around 7 just so this timeline makes a tiny bit more sense given the later stuff, so yeah here we go. 

May 4: Pilgrim’s Hands, God Don’t Make No Trash, All Grown Up, Promise, Once Upon A Time, Cross; a rough night for our heroes. so given sister chantelle saying “again? wonderful.” and nadia saying “i can’t believe you missed rehearsal again”, clearly ivy has been missing quite a few rehearsals, so for dramas sake maybe from when she found out she was pregnant? also i know i’ve been saying they wouldn’t have rehearsals on weekends, and given my weird timeline this would be a saturday, but its tech week so i’ll allow it. 

May 5: Two Households, Bare, Queen Mab, A Glooming Peace; pretty self explanatory, and it makes sense to have the spring play in early may. rip jason. 

May 11: Absolution; the day before graduation peter goes to confront the priest. gives him a small amount of time to start processing, and it makes sense it would be the night before, at least to me. 

May 12: No Voice; i fucking hate this. “peter, we graduate next sunday” i hate that stupid fucking line. do you know that this timeline literally would be fine if it weren’t for that stupid fucking line? bc then, the school play would be in early may and graduation could be in late may-early june (when most high schools hold graduation) but no. keeping with continuity, they have to graduate the sunday following the school play. “peter we graduate in a month, are you really never gonna talk to me again?” would have been fine. but no, now we have beef. literally everything else about the end of this timeline being kinda weird would work itself out, except for the fucking graduation. god damn. anyway, may 12th, the graduate on may 12th which is really fucking weird bc of that one fucking line. whatever. i didn’t write the damn thing bc if i did i wouldn’t have written that fucking line. (i’ve been at this for over an hour and a half, so i’m a tad annoyed, can you tell?) 

anyway, that’s it. that’s my long as hell proposed bare timeline. if there’s anything glaringly wrong with it i don’t care bc this timeline literally cannot make sense. but honestly, now that i think about the Popular Tween High Schooler Musicals (heathers, bmc, deh) the timelines of those (especially heathers and bmc) don’t make tons of sense either. that’s just the way it is, that’s the way its gonna be. and we have to live with it. 

this post is so long it is actually slowing down my laptop as i type it

[rustbeltjessie]

Self-Portrait as the Girl from a Springsteen Song // from Shut Down Strangers & Hot Rod Angels: an anthology inspired by the music of Bruce Springsteen

Jesus Christ      Peter Pan      whoever

you are this time      I’m done playing mama to you      who martyred yourself on the myth of the working class antihero       & his eternal youth      who sacrificed       yourself to the factory smoke-stacks      I’m done being the darling of all       those lost boys under the bridge      all those boys & their cars & guitars they talk      in the scrub-grass yards of faded clapboard houses      all the bottles they pass back       & forth ‘neath the bridge we used to go together      almost-perfect blood brothers       denim stretched tight ‘cross teenage

thighs       & our leather

jackets with flasks hidden inside      & rusty knives we used to carve our       initials in to each other’s skin      we looked so hard      drove faster than the speed       at which this town kills its dreaming youth      screamed curses into the wind      windows down      radio on singing those desolate hymns       we were the wildest      wildest things we’d ever seen loved realer      more feral       than a coyote busted open on the blacktop       of those two-lane roads we were gonna ride       off into that American sunset      we were tramps &

thieves       born to run & steal       everything

every rotten dream that wasn’t       nailed down      what a rip-off       baby we dreamed the same dreams for a while       it was our whole lives      until you said you wanted me only & I still wanted more      never never was praying       for a savior’s rising       I needed the streets       not the coins you fished from beneath your hot rod’s seats      not your Jesse James Dean dreams       fuck you & your promised land this is your land      has no place       for me       I still need more than you’ve given       me      more than the screen door crashing      closed behind you      more

than a white dress waving       like a flag      more

than your sad heroic odes       to my not- beauty       my sweet boy      I sure don’t need this half-buried bathtub you adorned      with plastic stars      & enshrined me      entombed me in      when you made me over as       virgin Mary      Wendy darlin’       boy you’ve forgotten I was motherfucking Bobby Jean      no moral schoolgirl      I was hardworking      asshole worked beside you       in that piss factory it was a paycheck      Jack      I rode beside you      on my own motorcycle      smoked beside you on the dusty beach      both of us so

thunder      & all of that road

which was our redemption      but somewhere ‘tween living fast & dying      with that everlasting kiss on our boyish lips      you took away that brotherhood & recast me mother      to all of the lost boys       fighting off the pirates & the bosses & the blues      while I mend your torn shadows      pull the nails from your wounds & you use me as an excuse      oh Christ it wasn’t me      ripped the bones from your back wasn’t me who burnt you out       made you a Chevy      a skeleton frame      & if there are ghosts       in the eyes of those other boys

they were haunted       long before

I ever sent anyone away      I’m done asking       boy      why are you crying?      I’ve got my own sadness      gonna burn this treehouse down      use the wood from your cross       build a life boat      a fast car      fuel it with madness      go racing       into the wind      I’m ready to grow young again      you can hide from my going or come to tell me      goodbye      boy      you can scream all my names in the rainy street      like the broken chorus of a three-minute record       like a broken rosary’s beads spilling from your throat      throw roses in my

wake as I      roar

down the road       or      if you’re ready to take that long walk you can      come along with me the door is open      but the ride ain’t free Jesus      Peter      Bruce       break the shitty vows I never made you take       babe      now you listen      have a little faith in me      ‘cause there’s magic in the night      & this time      it’s mine       mine       mine

[kurokoros]

Focal Point | Part Three

Title: Focal Point

Rated: M (language, smut, references to past violence)

Words: 9.6K

Pairing: Sweet Pea x Jones!OC

Summary: Jubilee stares at him in disbelief, mouth opening and closing though no words come out. A dozen emotions flicker in her eyes as she takes in what he’s said, but they pass too quickly for him to register anything but her confusion. Eventually, she crosses her arms, leaning back in the booth, quirking a brow at him. “You want me to pose for you,” she repeats slowly, absolutely bewildered by the request. “Naked.”

Sweet Pea wets his lips, mirroring her pose, looking far too calm for the request that just came out of his mouth. His eyes meet hers, throat bobbing with a harsh swallow, and she’s relieved to see a flicker of nerves in his eyes. “Yeah.”

College!AU in which Art Major Sweet Pea needs a nude model for an assignment. He decides to ask his best friend.

Chapters: One | Two  | Three | Four | Epilogue

Read on AO3

AN: This is going to be a four part fic (now with a short epilogue!) that’s part of my extended College!Verse Like the Kids in Art School Said! It should be updated every Thursday until complete assuming nothing comes up in my personal life! Inspired by @sweetpeasbabydoll wanting an artist Sweet Pea au with him doing a nude portrait!

With everything that happened last night, Sweet Pea didn’t take into account the fact he’d have one bitch of a hangover in the morning.

He pops two Advil and downs a glass of water as soon as he wakes up, grateful that his non-sober self remembered to leave them on the coffee table. Blankets pool around his waist as he shifts on the couch, stretching and wincing as his back cracks loudly. Sweet Pea groans as he rubs at his eyes, swearing under his breath at the light streaming in through the large, open windows lining the far wall.

The windows were what sold him on this apartment: big and tall and perfect for painting in the early morning. The view out the window is probably the best thing about his cramped studio apartment. When the sun rises everything turns to gold, the light filtering into the room perfectly. Sweet Pea was never an early riser until he started living here, far more content to sleep in and work into the late afternoon. But the lighting was too tempting to ignore, especially after he started getting into some of his more difficult classes.

Now, at seven on a Saturday morning after a night of drinking, he’s really starting to reconsider that view.

Sweet Pea sets his glass down gently and slips off the couch. He sucks in a sharp breath at the slight ache in his right side, his ribs still tender from a brawl years back in Riverdale. It doesn’t hurt often, but the couch is cramped and he must have slept on his side.

Squinting through the harsh morning light, he glances over at his bed tucked away in the corner. Something in his chest constricts and then loosens again when he sees Jubilee on his bed. The blankets are low on her hips and twisted around her legs, but she hasn’t moved much since he set her down last night. She’s not usually that heavy of a sleeper, but between the tequila and her panic attack she must have been exhausted last night.

His tongue flicks out across his lips as he stares at her, the fuzzy details of last night piecing back together and hitting him hard.

Jubilee kissed him last night.

She kissed him and they were drunk and he never should have kissed her back and he has no idea what he’s supposed to do now. It would have been so easy to just keep kissing her, to let everything fall into place like it should have years ago, but he couldn’t. Sweet Pea’s always known exactly how he feels about her. He could lie to everyone else, but never himself. He’s always loved her more than he should, more than he’s allowed to.

Last night brought him to a place he doesn’t want to think about, but now that door is open and he doesn’t know how to close it again. This entire week has wrecked havoc on him with the damn project always lingering in the back of his mind. He should have known better than to ask Jubilee to model for him. To let his thoughts drift towards picturing her like that. Before asking her, he was always able to shove his feelings down and ignore them.

But not anymore.

Sweet Pea catches himself staring and manages to peel his gaze away from Jubilee with some difficulty. It’s hard not to look at her like that: relaxed and curled up on his bed, hair a mess, and all of the stress from earlier in the week chased away. She looks soft there, with the morning light spilling in through the window.

Swallowing, he turns away from her, cursing as he jerks around and a dull ache spreads behind his eyes. His stomach churns and gurgles and Sweet Pea winces, but nothing else happens. It’s been awhile since he went drinking like last night. Usually, he’s more content to stay home and drink, or go to one of the bars nearby with Fangs. He forgot how shitty college parties make him feel the next morning.

He blames the beer pong.

Once he’s sure he’s not going to throw up, Sweet Pea sighs and shakes his head. Not even ten minutes have past since he woke up and he already feels jittery, the apartment suddenly suffocating. His mouth is dry and the taste of cheap beer and something sweeter that he tries not to think about lingers on his tongue. He casts another glance at Jubilee and then swears, groaning low in his throat.

He’s absolutely fucked and he knows it too. He’s in way too deep and only has two days left to finish his project for his art class. It’s going to be difficult looking Jubilee in the eyes later after last night, and he’s pretty sure that seeing her naked isn’t going to help with that.

It’s all way too much to process this early on a Saturday.

Belatedly, he wonders if it’s too late to ask someone else to model for him. Maybe he can still ask Fangs instead. But it’s still too early and he doubts Fangs will be awake anytime soon, judging by how much he drank last night.

Fangs isn’t exactly a lightweight, but last Sweet Pea saw him he wasn’t looking so great. Hopefully Toni and Lydia managed to get him home without too much trouble.

Sweet Pea’s stomach grumbles again as he flicks through his phone, seeing a slew of nonsensical texts from Fangs that he ignores, and one from Lydia letting him know that she and Toni got home safe and wondering how Jubilee is doing. He types out a brief, vague answer about how she’s still asleep and pockets his phone again before leaning back against the kitchen counter, his fingers drumming against the smooth surface.

Glancing at Jubilee again, he chews the inside of his cheek, his eyes narrowed as he watches the gentle rise and fall of her back. Sweet Pea stares at her for a moment, gaze tracing the curve of her back and the relaxed expression on her face.

His keys jingle as he swipes them off the counter and shoves them in the pocket of his jeans from last night.

He wants pancakes.

The apartment is unusually quiet when Sweet Pea comes home from the little diner down the block.

He juggles two takeout bags filled with breakfast in his arms, trying not to drop them as he fumbles with the lock on the front door. It takes him a minute to find the right key and he swears when he nearly drops them. The Advil was slow to work and the short walk to the diner did nothing to help his headache or the dry feeling in his mouth. It took him longer than usual to make the short trip to the diner and back and he almost threw up in a bush on the way there, but the savory smell of pancakes and bacon coming from the bags more than makes up for it.

It’s the closest thing to Pop’s breakfast food they have this far from Riverdale, and they could both use some comfort food after last night.

Sweet Pea nudges the door with his shoulder, easing it open as quietly as he can, not wanting to wake Jubilee if she’s still asleep. She deserves a break after last night. Though, it may be better to wake her up and get some food in her to soak up the tequila.

Immediately, his eyes search the room for her, checking to make sure he didn’t accidentally wake her. A frown twists at his mouth and his eyes narrow in confusion when he doesn’t find her where he left her a half-hour ago.

His bed is empty. The sheets are rumpled, hastily thrown back and laying in a pile at the foot of the bed, but the rest of the apartment is undisturbed. She’s not nursing her headache on the couch or fumbling around in his kitchen with the ancient coffeemaker that only she uses.

Did she leave while he was gone?

Jubilee’s always been an early riser, so he wouldn’t be surprised if she was already awake, but he’s pretty sure the hangover she’s bound to have is a nasty one. Tequila has never agreed with her and while he’s not sure how much she drank, it was probably a lot more than she can usually handle. She might not be a lightweight, but she’s tiny and can’t throw back drinks like the rest of them. Granted, she has a better tolerance than Lydia, but that’s not saying much.

Sweet Pea steps further into the room, his grip tightening on the takeout bags, but he relaxes again when he sees her shoes and bag still laying in a pile on the floor, unmoved from where he dropped them the previous night.

She didn’t leave.

That must be a good sign. Either she doesn’t remember kissing him, or she doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it. It would be more awkward if she snuck out while he was gone.

The toilet flushes and a muffled swear comes from the bathroom. Sweet Pea glances over his shoulder, noticing the light in the bathroom is on and the door is cracked open. He drops the paper bags on the counter with a sigh and runs a hand through his messy hair, shoving the strands away from his eyes before heading towards the bathroom.

“Jubilee?” he murmurs, knocking lightly on the frame to get her attention. She doesn’t respond to him and he groans, keeping his eyes on the floor as he nudges open the door slowly, giving her enough time to stop him if she needs to.

Jubilee barely reacts as he slips into the room and she looks smaller than usual sitting on his bathroom floor in her dress from last night, clearly exhausted and hung-over. She’s squeezed between the toilet and the wall, her head lolled back against the tiles and her legs stretched out, the skirt of her dress riding up on her thighs. Her hair is pulled back in a messy bun and there’s sweat beading at her hairline. A shiver wracks through her and she cracks open an eye to peek up at him, looking paler than usual and absolutely miserable.

“I’m beginning to think college parties aren’t my thing,” she mumbles, her dark eyes rimmed in red. Seeing her like that makes something inside his chest squeeze, but he shoves it down when Jubilee gives him a weak smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

Sweet Pea chuckles as he sinks down onto the floor across from her, his back against the bathtub. “I could have told you that, Doll,” he teases, resting his elbows against his bent knee and knocking his foot against her bare leg. She groans, sending him an annoyed look that’s offset by the twitch of her lips.

She doesn’t respond as she drops her head back against the wall, her eyes flickering shut. Jubilee’s body sags against the tiles as she sighs and leans her temple against the wall. Her foot nudges against his. Sweet Pea stays silent, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looks her over, making sure she’s okay.

Her joking is a good sign, but Jubilee has always been a good at putting up a front, never wanting to make people worry.

After taking a series of slow, steadying breaths, Jubilee forces her eyes open again and meets his gaze. “Remind me to kill Fangs the next time I see him.” She huffs, squinting slightly at the bright lights in the bathroom.

Sweet Pea snorts, rolling his eyes. “You should know better than to let him talk you into matching shots by now,” he says, an echo of what he told her last night as he was carrying her into the apartment. His thoughts shift to the little sigh that left her as his lips trailed along her neck and his jaw clenches. “Fangs isn’t exactly a lightweight, Jubilee.” Neither is she, but Fangs has a good fifty pounds on her.

She shrugs, pursing her lips in annoyance. “I would have won if it wasn’t tequila,” she tells him. “Fangs knows I can’t keep it down. The fucking cheater.” Sweet Pea chuckles and Jubilee groans again. She draws her legs up to her chest and drops them sideways to rest against the wall she’s leaning against. “I’m never drinking again,” she mumbles, rubbing at her temples.

“You’ve told me that before,” he reminds her. Jubilee doesn’t respond and he stretches out one of his legs, nudging her foot with his. “Why’d you let him talk you into shots anyway?”

She’s not as big of a drinker as the rest of them, given the struggle her father had with alcohol. And shots aren’t usually her thing unless she’s upset about something. As far as he’s aware, Jubilee was doing all right last night. Maybe a little stressed with her classes, but not enough to agree to shots with Fangs. He can be persuasive, but Jubilee doesn’t cave to anything she doesn’t want to do.

Jubilee hesitates before saying, “it doesn’t matter.” She waves off the frown he sends her. “I thought it would be fun, but clearly that was just the tequila talking.” She shrugs, her eyes slipping shut as she relaxes back against the tiles.

He nods slowly, deciding not to push it. “You feelin’ any better?” he asks instead, trying to gauge how much of last night she remembers. If she remembers taking shots, there’s a good chance she remembers the rest of the night, and that’s not something he knows how to talk about at the moment.

“I woke up this morning and immediately vomited for a solid twenty minutes,” she tells him, and he wrinkles his nose, trying not to wince at her frankness. “I don’t think I’ve ever thrown up that much before in my life. And that includes the Christmas party with Archie’s eggnog from Hell. My head hurts like a bitch, my mouth is dry, I’m starving, and I really don’t want to move, even though your floor is kind of disgusting.” His lips twitch up in amusement and Jubilee shoots him a wry smile. “I’m doing just peachy, Sweet Pea. How are you?”

Sweet Pea wets his lips, trying to hide a smile. “I’m not the one who had to be carried home, so I’m pretty good.” Jubilee glares at him.

“Oh, please,” she drawls back, rolling her eyes. “I’ve had to drag your dumb ass home plenty of times.” Jubilee purses her lips and crosses her arms, raising a brow at him. “Or did you forget New Years already?”

The teasing lilt to her voice only makes his smile widen, though he winces at the reminder of the party just a few months earlier. It wasn’t one of his finest moments. “Hey, we agreed not to talk about New Years,” he reminds her. “That was Fangs fault, not mine. He’s the one that pulled out the vodka.” She snorts and he narrows his eyes playfully. “And be nice, I let you take my bed and slept on the couch. You know that thing is shit.”

Jubilee sends him a look he can’t quite place. “I keep telling you we can just share the damn bed,” she says. His heart stutters at the seriousness in her voice and for a moment he can’t breathe. The bathroom suddenly seems too cramped, too hot, and Sweet Pea swallows thickly as Jubilee continues to stare at him, eyes searching his.

Before he can think too hard on the implication there, Jubilee’s stomach growls loudly, ripping through the tense silence. “Fuck, I need food,” Jubilee mutters, groaning and stretching out her legs again. “Please tell me you have something other than dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets?”

A surprised bark of laughter escapes from Sweet Pea and he rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, a nervous tick. He tries hard not to think about them sharing a bed again, but the image slips in anyway.

“I haven’t been grocery shopping in like two weeks,” he admits, shrugging half-heartedly. “So I guess it’s a good think I got breakfast this morning.”

Her eyes narrow. “Pancakes from Benny’s?” Sweet Pea nods and her eyes light up. A small, soft smile pulls at her lips and warmth floods his chest. “Blueberry or chocolate chip?”

“Chocolate chip, of course,” he tells her scoffing. “Who do you take me for?” He shifts on the floor, struggling to stand in the cramped bathroom.

Jubilee’s lips twitch as she watches him. “My hero.”

Sweet Pea’s smile slips just the slightest when it registers, and he tenses, towering over her. His gaze snaps back to Jubilee, still curled up against the wall and watching him with a look that’s heartbreakingly honest. Maybe it’s the look in her eyes or the soft way she said “hero”, but it makes his throat close up. For a moment he can’t breathe, pinned in place by her dark eyes that are so easy to get lost in.

He rips his gaze away and swallows. Jubilee is still watching him when he turns back to her, and Sweet Pea forces a grin as he reaches for her. “Come ‘ere, Doll.” Her hand slips into his and Sweet Pea hauls her up easily, his other hands settling on her hip when she wobbles, unstable on her feet. She inhales sharply at the contact, but he doesn’t move to step away.

Jubilee sinks into him without a word and Sweet Pea relaxes as well. His thumb strokes across her hip absentmindedly, and if she notices she doesn’t appear to care. The silky fabric of her dress tickles at his skin and he glances down at her, eyes raking across her frame.

She catches him staring and he swallows, suddenly reminded of last night and how close the two of them were, how she felt pressed up against him and the way her fingers dragged along his neck.

“Do you wanna change?” he blurts out, saying the first thing that comes to mind.

Her lips twitch. “Please.”

They end up sitting at the counter, the TV playing some old cartoon that neither of them are really paying attention to as they pick at their food. Just something to fill the silence. Jubilee is sitting on the counter in front of him, her bare legs dangling over the side and swinging back and forth lazily. Sweet Pea is on a stool in front of her, trying hard not to stare at the space where her shirt brushes her legs.

He nearly groaned out loud when she walked into the kitchen wearing one of his old flannels and nothing else, the shirt’s hem tickling at her thighs and leaving plenty of her creamy skin bare.

It was bad enough that she changed out in the open, Sweet Pea’s back to her as he fiddled with their takeout bags. He was ridiculously attentive to every move she made, and the sound of her unzipping her dress made him shiver and he hates how aware of her he is after last night.

He’s pretty sure she’s going to kill him at this rate.

Jubilee shifts beside him. Sweet Pea glances up at her as she sets her plate on the counter next to her hip. She looks better now, less pale as she leans back on her hands and closes her eyes, content.

Sweet Pea has to fight to keep his gaze from flicking down to the buttons of the flannel she’s left undone, the fabric revealing plenty of cleavage. Once again, Sweet Pea is painfully aware of the fact that she isn’t wearing a bra.

If Jubilee cares that he can basically see clear down the front of her shirt, she certainly doesn’t act like it.

“You planning to stay here today?” he asks her when the silence starts to be too much for him. It’s the same question he asked her earlier this week, before he asked her to model for him, and this time it feels different. There’s more weight to it, though he isn’t sure why.

Jubilee hums lightly, her fingers drumming against the countertop. “It’s quiet here,” she tells him eventually, fiddling with the sleeve of her borrowed flannel. “I’m supposed to start that paper for Tanner’s class soon,” she continues. The fuck that that follows is implied. “Asshole assigned a fifteen page paper due by Wednesday. And I’m sure Lydia is making up for last night by practicing all day.”

He’s not sure if that’s the answer he wants or not, but his arm brushes against her leg in a way that might mean stay.

“I’m sure the girls will stop over later,” he murmurs back eventually. “Lydia and Toni were pretty worried last night.” They all were. It’s been a long time since Jubilee had a panic attack like that. He can’t remember one being that bad since their first year on campus when she went to that party with Kevin. “They were blowing up your phone this morning. You might wanna call them.”

She exhales through her nose. “They worry too much.”

“Nah,” he corrects her, nudging her leg again, “they just love you.”

They lapse into silence again. His gaze wanders around the room, Sweet Pea searching for anything to distract him from Jubilee. The sketchbook propped up on an easel in the corner catches his eye like it did last night, and he swallows back a low groan at the sight of it.

His project is due in two days and he has no idea what the hell he’s supposed to do anymore. He’s still reeling from that kiss last night and can’t stop thinking about the way she felt pressed against his chest, how he felt like he was coming home. Even now, he can still feel the tickle of her breath on his neck and it makes goosebumps rise on his arms.

It should be weird, the two of them eating breakfast together like normal after a night of drinking—after she kissed him—but it’s not. It’s completely natural and that throws him off. He’s still not sure if she remembers kissing him, and he doesn’t know if he should ask or forget about it.

“You gonna be okay here?” he ask instead. She frowns, her brows knitting together in confusion as he stands from the counter hurriedly, leaving his food half finished. Sweet Pea doesn’t wait for an answer as he swipes his keys and wallet of the counter and shoves them into his pocket. “There’s something I need to take care of. I’ll be back in a little while.”

Jubilee doesn’t react until he’s already across the room and grabbing his coat off the hook by the door.

“Sweets?” she calls out as he shrugs on his jacket. He glances at her over his shoulder. “Thanks, for taking care of me last night.” There’s something in her eyes that he doesn’t recognize, a little confused and a little hurt, but he pretends not to see it.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it, Doll.” He swallows, mouth dry. It hurts to look away from her, but he can’t be in this apartment anymore. Not right now.

Sweet Pea glances at her over his shoulder briefly as he slips out the door, and the disappointment that flashes in her eyes is the last thing he sees before the door closes with a quiet click.

He can’t draw her for his project.

The walk to Fang’s apartment isn’t long, but it gives him enough time to think and shove back the confusion and panic welling up inside him. It’s still chilly this early in the morning, spring coming in cold, and he focus on the weather instead of the fact that he has two days left to work on a project worth ten percent of his grade and his model, who happens to be one of his best friends, kissed him last night. While they were drunk. And he kissed her back. While shoving her against his front door. Classy.

He tries not to groan as he makes his way into the apartment complex and trudges up the stairs. Of all the things he expected to happen last night, making out with Jubilee was not one of them. He was prepared for crying and vomit, not learning exactly how she tasted and the sounds she made as he kissed down her neck.

Sweet Pea is absolutely fucked. He’s never been in this much trouble before, not even last summer when the Serpents got into it with the Ghoulies or the time he got stuck in a deal with Penny Peabody back in high school.

At least he knew how to deal with those things, but Jubilee? Jubilee’s always been the one thing he could never quite wrap his head around. He’s gotten good at ignoring how he feels and shoving it down so deep that most days he can forget about it, but now it’s there in the open and that’s something he doesn’t know how to deal with. He doesn’t know what that means for them and something squeezes in his chest until it hurts.

Sweet Pea shakes his head, already exhausted with everything that’s happened so far this morning. He’s been awake for barely three hours and already he wants to go back to bed and pretend the last two days haven’t happened.

He takes the stairs up to their apartment, too antsy to stand still in the elevator for the five flights up. Sweet Pea doesn’t bother to knock when he reaches the door, opting to just break in instead. The lock gives easily and he shoves open the front door of Fangs’ apartment, uncaring as it bangs against the wall. Joaquin and Kevin are probably already awake and Fangs isn’t going to be asleep for much longer anyway.

It’s not like he plans on being here long. He’s pretty sure he can get Fangs to agree fairly easily, if only because Fangs owes him a favor for that time Sweet Pea helped him paint set pieces for the play last year.

It surprises him when a groan sounds from the couch and a head of messy, dark hair pops up over the back. Sweet Pea startles slightly, but his shock melts into irritation quickly. A pair of bleary, blue eyes blinking at him in confusion. “Sweet Pea?” Jughead murmurs, yawning as he squints at his friend.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Jones?” Sweet Pea sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. Jughead is just about the last person Sweet Pea wants to deal with right now. While he hasn’t done anything particularly annoying lately, Sweet Pea can only handle the older Jones twin’s smart mouth in small doses without wanting to strangle him.

Jughead yawns again, altogether undisturbed to find Sweet Pea breaking into their friends’ apartment. “Archie brought a girl home last night,” he tells Sweet Pea, wrinkling his nose. “Sleeping here was the better option, even if it meant taking the couch.”

Sweet Pea nods absently, only half paying attention as he stares at Fangs’ bedroom door, which is cracked open just a little. “Did Fangs come home last night?”

“That or it was my dad snoring in his room all night.” Sweet Pea shoots him an unamused look and Jughead sighs in annoyance. “Yes he’s home. Toni had to call Joaquin and Kevin to come pick him up from the frat party you left them at and they dragged him in a little before two after dropping the girls off.” Jughead folds his arms across the back of the couch and rests his chin atop them. “Fangs offered me a striptease. I declined. He gave me one anyway.” Jughead makes a face and Sweet Pea snorts. “I never want to see Fangs take his shirt off ever again. How much did he drink last night anyway? I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone throw up so much in my entire life.”

“He busted out the tequila,” Sweet Pea explains vaguely, shrugging as he kicks off his shoes by the entrance. “You know he gets messy when he drinks that shit.” He debates shrugging off his leather jacket, but opts to keep it on for now.

Jughead rolls his eyes. “Oh, how could I forget considering the time he broke into my apartment and fell asleep in my bathtub? He nearly gave Archie a heart attack.”

“Andrews has seen worse.”

Sweet Pea starts to walk away, but Jughead calls him back before he can go far, making Sweet Pea sigh in annoyance. “What do you need Fangs for at…” Jughead trails off, gaze sliding to the clock on the wall in the kitchen that Kevin insists on keeping for the aesthetic, “eight-thirty on a Saturday? Why the fuck are you even awake right now?”

“He owes me a favor,” Sweet Pea says vaguely, much to Jughead’s apparent frustration. Despite them being much friendlier than they were back in high school, Sweet Pea has no intentions of spilling his guts to Jughead about his feelings for Jubilee. “I’m cashing in.”

Jughead’s eyes widen. “Christ, Sweet Pea, did you kill someone last night? Are you asking him to help you hide a body?”

“What?” His head snaps around and he frowns. “No! What the fuck, Jones?”

“It’s a valid question,” Jughead argues, though he calms quickly, apparently satisfied with Sweet Pea’s confusion. “I can never be sure with you two. We used to get into so much shit back in Riverdale.” He shakes his head, then turns back to Sweet Pea. “How’s Jubilee, by the way? Toni called and told me what happened.”

Sweet Pea stiffens, wincing. Even though he knows she’s fine now, he doesn’t like the reminder of last night. It’s sobering, to say the least. “She’s… okay,” he settles on, clearing his throat. “She’s okay. I got her to calm down last night and took her back to my place.”

“I figured.”

Jughead stares at him, eyes narrowed slightly. It’s unnerving, the way Jughead seems to look right through him, and Sweet Pea’s always hated the way Jughead tends to psycho analyze people. Sweet Pea meets his friend’s gaze regardless, clenching his jaw as he waits, practically daring Jughead to run his mouth.

Jughead surprises him by saying, “thanks for taking care of her.”

Sweet Pea’s eyes narrow in confusion. “It’s Jubilee,” is all he says before turning away and heading for Fangs’ bedroom, ignoring the way Jughead’s eyes follow him across the room.

He doesn’t bother to knock as he shoves Fangs’ door open the rest of the way.

Sweet Pea rolls his eyes when he finds Fangs sprawled across the bed on his stomach, drooling and snoring obnoxiously. The blankets are knotted around his feet and Sweet Pea is infinitely grateful that Fangs managed to keep his boxers on during his little striptease for Jughead last night.

Granted, he supposes it wouldn’t be that big of a deal if he accidentally saw Fang’s dick today, considering why he’s here to begin with.

Taking a deep breath, Sweet Pea steels himself. It’s not going to be easy to wake up Fangs, given how heavy of a sleeper he is, but Sweet Pea has plenty of experience dragging Fangs out of bed before nine in the morning. With a frustrated groan, he crosses the room to Fangs and kicks at the leg dangling over the side of the bed. “Fangs,” he snaps, eyes narrowing when his friend doesn’t react. Sweet Pea nudges his ankle again and Fangs shifts, grumbling something unintelligible. “Wake the fuck up, Fogarty.”

“Sweet Pea?” Fangs mumbles, squinting up at him with one eye. The light streaming in through the window makes him groan and bury his face back in his arms. “ ‘m I dreamin’?” The question comes out slurred, Fangs’ voice still thick with sleep, and Sweet Pea sighs, not having the patience for this today.

“You wish.”

Fangs huffs and rolls away from him. “Ugh, go away then.” He closes his eyes and gropes around blindly until he finds his blanket, hauling it up over his head to block out the sunlight and Sweet Pea’s glare.

Sweet Pea purses his lips, unamused by Fangs’ lack of cooperation. “Get up, dumbass,” he snaps, ripping the blanket away from Fangs, who whines in protest and buries his face in his pillow. “We need to talk.” His temper rises quickly, though he doesn’t mean to yell at Fangs. It’s been a long week and he’s still rattled from last night.

Fangs tenses and glances up at him again. “Okay,” he starts slowly as he rolls onto his back and raises his hands defensively, “before you yell at me for whatever I did, I just want to say that I remember nothing, aside from making out with some blonde girl in a corner before Joaquin showed up and dragged me away.”

Sweet Pea crosses his arms. “That doesn’t surprise me.” Fangs was already half-way to being wasted by the time they were done with that game of beer pong and he tends to make shitty decisions when he’s tipsy. Sweet Pea probably should have kept a closer eye on him last night, but for the most part Fangs can take care of himself.

Clearly last night was not one of those times.

Fangs squeezes his eyes shut and rubs a tired hand across his face before raking his fingers through his hair. “What the hell did I drink?” he mutters, flopping back on his bed and squinting up at the ceiling.

“Tequila,” Sweet Pea tells him shortly, drumming his fingers against his forearm impatiently. “Apparently Toni found you matching shots with Jubilee last night. And thanks for that, by the way. She spent like twenty minutes throwing up in my bathroom this morning.”

“I do remember the shots.” Fangs groans and rubs at his eyes. “Didn’t realize it was tequila though.” He pulls a face and lets his arms flop onto the bed. Sweet Pea rolls his eyes, but decides not to comment on it. He’s tired and more than a little sexually frustrated at the moment, so he’d really appreciate it if they could skip the small talk. “How’s Jubilee holding up?”

It’s the right thing to say. Sweet Pea’s expression softens as soon as Fangs says her name. “She’s better now,” he says quietly. Sweet Pea sighs, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. “She had a panic attack last night, but she’ll be okay.”

Fangs eyes snap open at the new information, but he doesn’t say anything for a moment. He looks like he wants to ask, but Sweet Pea clenches his jaw, his fingers digging into his arms, and Fangs shakes his head. “She always is.” It comes out easily, like it’s a fact, and Sweet Pea wonders if Fangs is trying to reassure him.

“What are you doing tonight?” Fangs frowns at the abrupt change in subject, but Sweet Pea only stares down at him, jaw set as he waits for a response.

Fangs shifts on his bed, sitting up slowly and sending Sweet Pea a bemused look. “I have a shift at the bar, remember?” he says slowly, significantly more awake than he was a moment ago. “I’m covering for Tom. It’s why I had Wednesday off.”

A sigh escapes Sweet Pea and he uncrosses his arms. His eyes narrow as he runs a frustrated hand through his hair, tugging painfully at the roots. Fangs sits up straighter, concerned as Sweet Pea bites his lip. “What about tomorrow?” Sweet Pea asks him.

“I think I’m free. Why? What’s going on?” Fangs leans forward, bracing his elbows against his knees as a look of concern flickers across his face. The urgency in Sweet Pea’s tone makes him frown. It isn’t often that Sweet Pea is like this.

Swallowing down his hesitation, Sweet Pea decides to just bite the bullet. “You still up for modeling for me?” he asks Fangs. The series of emotions that flicker across Fangs face would be amusing if Sweet Pea wasn’t so frustrated with everything. It’s almost comical the way Fangs��� eyes go wide and his mouth drops open in surprise.

Of all the things either of them considered Sweet Pea asking, that certainly wasn’t one of them.

“What?” Fangs manages to sputter out, mouth opening and closing several times in disbelief.

Sweet Pea clenches his jaw, sighing through his nose in irritation. “Would you still be willing to model for me?” he repeats, slower this time. When Fangs expression doesn’t change he elaborates. “For my art project?” They literally talked about this yesterday. Fangs just blinks at him for a second until understanding slowly starts to kick in and Fangs seems to realize what he means through the haze of his hangover. “I know it’s short notice, but I really need to get this project done and I only have two days left.”

“Shit,” Fangs breathes back to him, shaking his head slowly. “Did Jubilee back out or something? I thought she was okay with the whole nudity thing, though I totally understand if she isn’t, because damn the first time I modeled for a class I was freaking out inside and—”

Sweet Pea is quick to cut off his rambling. “No, I just…” He rubs at his temples, cursing under his breath. His headache is starting to come back already. He should have brought the Advil with him. “I don’t think drawing her is a good idea right now,” he admits, softer than before. The words stick in his throat, barely audible, but Fangs hears him anyway.

Fangs’ frown only deepens as he stares at Sweet Pea, his hangover making it difficult to follow what his friend is saying. “What? Sweet Pea, what are you talking about?”  

“It doesn’t matter,” Sweet Pea tells him, tone harsher than he means it to be. He clenches his jaw, avoiding Fangs gaze for a moment, afraid that if he looks at his friend, Fangs will immediately know everything that happened last night. Fangs has always been scarily good at reading his expression, and that’s not really something Sweet Pea wants to get into at the moment. “I just need a model and you seemed pretty willing before. Figured you’d jump at the chance to take your pants off again.” Sweet Pea gestures to Fangs’ semi-nude state and his apparent lack of concern thereof.

But Fangs doesn’t take the bait, knowing him far better than that. His eyes narrow critically as he looks at Sweet Pea, who steadfastly ignores him while playing with one of the silver rings adorning his fingers.

“Is this because of what happened at the party?” he asks lowly, softer than before as he references Jubilee’s panic attack.

A twinge of guilt rips through Sweet Pea, just like it always does when something happens to her. It’s part of the reason, but not the whole truth, though Fangs doesn’t need to know that.

When Sweet Pea doesn’t respond, Fangs continues. “Did something else happen last night?” Sweet Pea stiffens, his gaze dropping to the floor. Fangs sits up a little straighter, his eyes widening just a fraction as a smile slowly starts to pull at his lips. “Shit, man, what did you do? Kiss Jubilee?” he asks, snickering to himself. His laughter ends abruptly when Sweet Pea doesn’t deny it. “What the fu—Sweet Pea did you kiss Jubilee?”

“No,” he answers quickly, glancing at Fangs and crossing his arms again. And then, because he figures Fangs will find out eventually anyway, he tacks on, “Jubilee kissed me.”

Fangs relaxes again at Sweet Pea’s easy response, snorting and rolling his eyes. Then, he freezes. His eyes snap back to Sweet Pea. “Wait, you’re serious?” Sweet Pea nods and Fangs looks about ready to burst with joy. “Oh my god! That’s great! It’s about damn time one of you did something about the unbearable sexual tension. Let me tell you, I was about ready to—”

“No,” Sweet Pea is quick to cut him off again, his impatience growing. “No, Fangs, that’s not great! She was drunk,” he reminds his friend sharply. “She had a panic attack. I shouldn’t have—and I can’t—fuck.” Sweet Pea fists at his hair painfully and turns away from Fangs, squeezing his eyes shut tightly. He sighs through his nose, turning back to Fangs slowly. “It shouldn’t have happened.” He says it lowly, reminding himself. “And I can’t use her for this project, okay? Not after last night. I can’t.”

The apartment is too quiet and his words hang heavy in the air between them. Fangs stares at him, mouth opening and closing like he isn’t sure what to say. Sweet Pea has always had a quick temper. It used to get him into plenty of trouble when he was younger. But the panic welling up inside him is making him more snappish than usual.

“What are you two yelling about?” Sweet Pea snaps around, tensing, but Joaquin only squints back at him, running a hand through his sleep rumpled hair and yawning. “Jesus Christ, it’s not even nine yet. Some of us are still trying to sleep, you know.” He leans against the door-frame, quirking a brow at the two of them and lifting his coffee mug to his mouth.

“Jubilee kissed Sweet Pea last night,” Fangs blurts out before Sweet Pea can stop him, having absolutely no filter, as usual.

Joaquin chokes on his coffee. “She what?”

Sweet Pea glares down at Fangs, who holds his hands up in a placating gesture. “Fangs, I swear to God if you don’t learn to shut your fucking mouth—”

“Jubilee kissed you?” Joaquin sputters, cutting off Sweet Pea’s threat. He blinks at Sweet Pea blankly for a second. “What do you—why did she kiss you?”

Before Fangs can run his mouth again, Sweet Pea sends him a nasty look. “She was drunk and upset,” he explains to Joaquin who nods slowly. Toni likely told him everything that happened last night. Joaquin takes another sip of his coffee as his brows pinch together, but he waits for Sweet Pea to continue. “She passed out again afterwards.” He shrugs, making Joaquin’s frown deepen. “It’s not a big deal. It didn’t mean anything.”

Joaquin snorts loudly, rolling his eyes at Sweet Pea’s blatant lie. “Man, you are so full of shit,” he tells Sweet Pea, shaking his head. Fangs shifts on his bed, nervously glancing between his friends. Between Sweet Pea’s easily provoked temper and Joaquin’s low tolerance for bullshit, their arguments can get out of hand quickly. “How many times have you had to tell yourself that one before?”

Sweet Pea stiffens, his hands curling into fists at his sides. “Piss off, Joaquin,” he snaps back, voice low and warning. His anger is already starting to rise, Sweet Pea already on edge from last night and his conversation with Jubilee this morning.

When Joaquin scoffs at him, Sweet Pea clenches his jaw and starts to leave, feeling trapped in the room.

He doesn’t make it far. Before he can leave, Joaquin slides in front of him, blocking the exit. Sweet Pea could move him easily if he wanted to. Joaquin is nearly half a foot shorter and wiry, but Sweet Pea stops anyway. “No,” Joaquin tells him firmly. He sets his mug down on Fangs’ dresser by the door before crossing his arms. “We’re gonna talk about this. You’ve been in love with Jubilee for years and you’ve never done a damn thing about it!”

Joaquin catches him off guard with the word love, and Sweet Pea’s heart stutters. His breath catches, and he immediately moves to deny it like he always does, but this time he can’t force the words out.

Fangs stands up. “Joaquin, man, maybe you shouldn’t—”

“Get out of my way,” Sweet Pea says. When Joaquin still doesn’t move, Sweet Pea shoves around him, knocking Joaquin sideways away from the door-frame before stalking out of the room and heading for the front door.

Joaquin is right on his heels. “I am so sick of watching you act like this,” he snaps at Sweet Pea. Fangs hovers just in outside of his room, watching them with wide eyes. “Four years. That’s how long I’ve been watching you throw yourself into hookup after hookup when it—”

“Fuck off!” Sweet Pea snaps at him, and Joaquin purses his lips. “I don’t do that anymore,” he reminds Joaquin firmly. He stopped taking girls home with him months ago. The hookups only made him feel worse.

Joaquin shakes his head, laughing though there’s no humor to it. “Why can’t you just admit that—”

Something inside him snaps. “You fucking know why, Joaquin!” Sweet Pea whirls on him and Joaquin flinches. His throat tightens and he chokes as his shout echoes in the apartment. Joaquin stares back at him, blue eyes wide, and Fangs stills halfway over to them.

Sweet Pea squeezes his eyes shut at the onslaught of memories that flood back to him. “I couldn’t protect her,” he chokes out, voice cracking. His fingers tremble as he turns away from them, shaking his head. “I couldn’t protect her and she deserves better than that.”

It takes only a second for understanding to flood Joaquin’s face. They’ve never talked about what happened back in Riverdale with the Ghoulies. In the six years since it happened, Sweet Pea has always refused to say a word about that night to anyone but FP. But they know how bad it was. Sweet Pea had bruises for weeks and Jubilee was never the same afterwards.

The wound left behind from that night is still raw and open, even after so many years.

“Sweet Pea,” Joaquin starts, falling silent again just as quickly, unsure what to say.

Fangs’ takes a few slow steps toward them. “That wasn’t your fault,” he says sternly, not a trace of humor left in his voice from earlier.

“It was,” Sweet Pea tells them, sighing lowly. “I’m the one that pissed them off.” The image of Jubilee on the ground, small and broken, flashes in his mind again and he feels sick thinking about it. Sweet Pea squeezes his eyes shut. He sighs, the fight draining out of him, replaced by something that leaves him feeling hollow inside, an ache settling in his chest. “She still has nightmares. She still has fucking panic attacks,” he reminds them. “You heard what happened last night. Fuck, I never should have asked her to do this in the first place.”

“So why did you?” He stills at the unexpected question, turning to find Jughead staring at him over the back of the couch, an irritated expression on his face. Sweet Pea forgot he was sleeping on the couch.

“What?”

Jughead sighs, running a hand down the side of his face and murmuring something too quiet for the rest of the to hear. He props his head up with one hand, elbow planted on the back of the couch. “Why did you ask Jubilee?” he asks again, slower this time.

“She’s one of my best friends,” Sweet Pea answers immediately, practiced after so long. He swallows down the real reason, keeping it on the tip of his tongue, but he doesn’t have to say it out loud. He’s always been painfully easy to read when it comes to Jubilee.

Jughead rolls his eyes. “Cut the bullshit, please. None of us have believed that since we were sixteen.” Sweet Pea’s gaze shifts to the floor, but Jughead isn’t done yet. “You love her. Congrats. Now do something about it.”

But Sweet Pea shakes his head. “I can’t lose her,” he bites out, throat raw and thick with emotion. He won’t push things. He can’t. They’re on a delicate knife’s edge of coming together or falling apart and he can’t take that risk. After everything they’ve been through he can’t risk fucking that up.

Joaquin and Fangs exchange a look and Jughead stares at him blankly, annoyance flickering in his eyes.

“You’re an idiot, Sweet Pea,” he announces dryly. “You’re literally the biggest dumbass I’ve ever met.” He ignores the glare Sweet Pea sends him. “Why do you think she agreed to this?” The question makes Sweet Pea pause. “Why do you think Jubilee would agree to posing naked for one of your art assignments, knowing fully well that a room full of people is going to see it and probably recognize her from how often you two are together on campus? Why would she agree to this knowing that Fangs is going to give the two of you shit for this for the rest of your lives?” He pauses, quirking a brow, but he doesn’t give Sweet Pea a chance to speak before continuing on with his berating. “Do you think she would do this for anyone else? After what the Ghoulies did, do you really think she would do this for anyone other than you?”

Sweet Pea swallows but doesn’t respond, his chest tight all of a sudden.

Jughead stares at him for a few more seconds before huffing and flopping back down on the couch. “Now shut up so I can go back to sleep.”

Jubilee is reading on the couch when he comes home early in the afternoon. She glances up as he opens the door, a smile immediately pulling at her lips, and Sweet Pea just stands there for a moment, staring at her.

She’s changed since he left this morning, no longer wearing one of his borrowed flannels, instead switching it out for a pair of ripped up jeans and an off-white top that’s ridden up her stomach, revealing a teasing strip of skin. Jughead’s words keep ringing in his ears.

“Hey, Sweets,” she greets, turning back to her book a moment later. Absently, he realizes it’s the same one she was reading on Monday. She’s almost finished with it now.

“Hey, Doll,” he murmurs back, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it on the back of the couch. He braces his forearms against the furniture, leaning over it to look at her more closely. “You feeling better now?” The back of his hand brushes against her cheek as he moves some of her hair away from her face and Jubilee glances up at him again.

Jubilee’s lips quirk up again. “Yeah. The girls stopped over and Toni made some disgusting hangover cure and I feel fine now.” He snorts but relaxes slightly, glad she wasn’t alone all day while he was gone. “How was your thing?” There’s something off about her tone, but he can’t place what.

Sweet Pea hesitates, withdrawing his hand. “Okay. I got some things figured out.”

After his conversation with the guys he needed some time to think. He didn’t mean to be gone for so long, but he got lost in his own thoughts walking around the city. It gave him time to clear his head and figure out what he needs to do.

“That’s good. You seemed a little stressed out this morning.” Jubilee closes her book, setting it aside as she sits up and stretches out her limbs. Sweet Pea lets his eyes linger on her for just a moment longer than necessary. “By the way, there’s pizza on the counter. I didn’t know when you’d be home, but figured you’d be hungry.” She doesn’t elaborate, but he hears the implication anyway.

“Pepperoni?”

She rolls her eyes. “Obviously.”

Sweet Pea reaches down and ruffles her hair affectionately before heading for the kitchen.

“Do you work tonight?” Jubilee calls after him as he pulls a slice from the box on the counter. He quirks a brow, glancing back at her and taking a bite. Jubilee crosses her legs on the couch, staring at him expectantly, and Sweet Pea swallows.

“No, I have the night off.” He leans back against the counter, watching in confusion as she nods and stands from the couch.

She runs her fingers through her hair. “Well, that’s perfect then.”

Frown deepening, he cocks his head to the side, unsure what she’s getting at. “Perfect for what?”

Jubilee sends him a funny look. “Your project? Sweet Pea it’s due Monday and we both know you’ll be a grumpy asshole if you wait until tomorrow to start it.” She props one hand up on her hip and purses her lips, caught somewhere between annoyed and confused.

He nearly chokes at the mention of his project. Sweet Pea swallows down his mouthful, eyes wide as he stares at her. “You still want to model for me?” It’s not what he was expecting.

She frowns. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I?”

“I thought—” He cuts off, shaking his head.

“What?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.” A part of him thought after last night and her panic attack she wouldn’t want anything to do with stripping down for an unspecified amount of time while he drew her. Sweet Pea’s also not entirely sure he’ll be able to do this without making an absolute fool of himself. Last night he fucked up. And this morning he panicked and bolted. He’s already at two strikes in less than a day and things could get a lot worse from here if he’s not careful.

Jubilee doesn’t seem to notice his slight hesitation. “Well then, lets go. You’re losing daylight.”

The pizza slice almost slips from his hand. “Right now?”

“Yes, right now.” She sends him a critical look as she picks up her book and walks over to him. Jubilee stops when she’s right in front of him, her head craned back to look at him. “Unless there’s something wrong with that?” she teases.

Sweet Pea shakes his head, placing his slice of pizza down on top of the box. “No. Now is good. It’s great.” She’s so close that it wouldn’t take much to grab her and kiss her again like he did last night, but Sweet Pea doesn’t move, holding her gaze as he’s caught between her and the kitchen counter.

“Good.”

He wets his lips and Jubilee’s gaze shifts from his for just a second, dipping lower. He clears his throat. “I’ll get my sketchbook then.”

She nods, but doesn’t step away from him. “You do that.”

Sweet Pea doesn’t move for several seconds, keeping his gaze locked on hers. Eventually, he forces himself to move and slides away from her. A pleasant shiver shoots up his spine when her arm brushes against his, but he shakes it off.

He walks over to the corner, gathering up the over-sized sketchbook and the wooden easel automatically. He props it up in the living area, grabs a stool from the counter and brings that into the living room as well. It takes him longer to find his good pencils and the eraser that doesn’t leave smudges everywhere.

It doesn’t really hit him what’s happening until he sits down and opens to a fresh page.

He’s about to draw Jubilee while she’s naked.

Sweet Pea tenses as he realizes what’s happening. It all happened to quickly for him to really process it, but he’s really about to draw Jubilee while she’s naked. He glances up at where she’s sitting on the couch, staring at him expectantly.

“Ready?” she asks, not waiting for a response as she stands up.

“I’m not the one that has to take my clothes off,” he murmurs back, lips quirking up when she giggles lightly. He sobers again pretty quickly. “Jubilee.” She glances up at him. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

She doesn’t respond to him right away, just looks at him, and Sweet Pea can’t tell what’s going on in her head. Finally, she rolls her eyes. “You better not be a silent artist,” she says instead of answering the question, and he figures that’s about all he’s going to get.

His lips twitch in amusement. “I’ll try not to be.”

She nods and that’s it.

Sweet Pea shifts slightly as he stares at Jubilee over his sketchbook, watching as she yanks her shirt off over her head with ease. The fabric drops to the floor at her feet and his throat bobs with a harsh swallow as her hands drop to the button on her jeans. She wriggles out of them slowly, letting them fall to the floor like her top, leaving her in a lacy, black and white bra with matching panties that makes his mouth go dry.

His eyes flick between her face and torso, lingering on her chest and the smooth expanse of her stomach. Absentmindedly, he wonders how she might taste beneath him, how soft her skin would be under his hands and lips and tongue and—

The pencil nearly slips out of his hand as he rips his eyes away from her bare skin.

Jubilee’s eyes lock with his as she reaches behind herself, fingers finding the clasp of her bra with ease. He tries not to look at her naked chest as she slides the straps down her arms slowly before letting the lacy thing tumble to the floor. “Where do you want me, Sweets?” she asks as her thumbs hook around the sides of her underwear and pull down.

Fuck me, is the only thing that comes to mind.

[zigsexual]

Theoreticals; part 1 (maxwell x mc)

lol remember when i started this in july and am just now posting it? also remember when i said that i would post it yesterday ha ha ha lol anyway it’s too long for one post so imma break this shit down into PARTS!!! 

this is the final companion piece to hypotheticals and empiricals, and honestly if you haven’t read those then u probably should because this one has a lot of plot throwback and also tbh its like very divergent from the main storyline seeing as i started writing it in JULY

summary: the coronation is actually happening feat. private planes, maxwell as a baby????? an unfortunate run in with some potpourri, dancing, drake, and an uber driver

word count: 3700+

Riley paces across her room yet again, halfheartedly feigning an attempt to pack for the upcoming trip to the palace. Her suitcase, empty but for a single black camisole and jeans, is splayed out across her bed next to Maxwell, who is also splayed out across her bed.

“Do you think I should bring my boots?” She asks. “My other shoes have like, no tread, and all of the roads by the palace are old-ass rocks so tread is probably important. And what if it rains?”

“I don’t think it’s supposed to rain,” Maxwell replies, but she’s already tossed the boots in his direction.

“Okay, so if I bring the boots, I need boot socks,” Riley tugs open a dresser drawer, rifling through it. “Except I’m pretty sure I only have red boot socks, and that’s going to clash with all my outfits, so maybe I should just stick with a bootie? Except then the tread is an issue again.”

Maxwell laughs. “Riley, it’s two days.”

She whirls around, brandishing a boot sock. “Yeah, two days in the goddamn palace!”

He breaks his gaze from the ceiling to watch her as she makes another futile pass towards her closet, sitting up and leaning back on his hands. “You really want to keep pretending you’re going to finish this tonight?”

She sighs, dropping her things onto the floor. “It’s already too late to give up.”

“Few more hours won’t hurt.” He reaches over and closes the lid, then holds out his hand. “Come on, let’s go on a walk. You’re all strung out.”

She takes his hand, in spite of herself yet again. Everything about him, about this, is in spite of herself and her better judgment. But it’s midnight on the eve of what may be their last chance at anything, and she doesn’t care that much anymore.

It’s dark in the house, the sconces dimmed, and they walk through the second floor hallways like they have the entire place to themselves. Maxwell is still holding her hand, his other shoved into his pocket, watching the portraits on the walls as they pass.

“Is that you?” Riley asks, pointing at one of the frames. It’s a painting of a boy who couldn’t be more than eight years old, posed like the subject of a renaissance art piece and clearly none too pleased about it. He’s got the same soft brown hair and mischievous eyes as Maxwell, his face dusted with freckles and mouth pulled into a barely concealed pout.

“Oh my god,” Maxwell laughs. “Yeah. That’s… yeah.”

“You were cute.” Riley bumps her hip against his, grinning. He reaches up and rubs the back of his neck, looking at the painting sheepishly.

“My parents, they were really into the ‘nobles’ thing,” he says, “You know, ridiculous estates and portrait painting and etiquette classes, all that. I mean, I guess you have to be when you are a noble. I mostly let Bertrand handle that stuff now.”

Riley holds out her free hand and traces the curve of his painted face, the rough brush strokes in sweeping lines under her fingertips. She smiles.

“Bertrand would kill me if he knew I was letting you touch the paintings,” Maxwell says.

“Bertrand would kill you if he knew you were letting me touch you.”

“Touché.”

She steps back from the portrait, squeezing Maxwell’s hand gently. “Your parents, what were they like?”

He doesn’t say anything at first, and she worries she’s treaded into inadmissible territory. She turns to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry, you don’t have to—“

“No, Riley,” he smiles, but it’s sad. “It’s fine.”

He looks up at the painting for a long moment, and she wonders how much of that baby-faced boy is still a part of him. He still has those faded freckles across his cheeks, that air of something…. more, like he’s privy to a thousand secrets one could never hope to know. She suddenly wishes he were as much of an open book as he likes to say he is.

“My parents were… well, I guess they’re pretty self-explanatory.”

“What do you mean?”

He’s still got his eyes on the painting, but his jaw is set. “You’ve been in the study.”

“Duh.”

He breaks for a moment, to shoot her a smile, but then he pulls his bottom lip between his teeth. “So, that’s my dad.”

“The study?”

“Yeah.” He frowns. “We didn’t change anything in there after he died. It just… felt weird. And there’s already all these rooms in this place, it’s not like we needed another one. So now it’s just there, filled with polo trophies and fencing equipment and all that ‘nobles’ shit.”

“And Drake,” she adds, a tentative step towards levity. Maxwell pulls her closer, letting go of her hand so he can slip his arm around her waist. He doesn’t have to say it, but she knows he’s grateful for the reprieve.

“And Drake. Unfortunately.” He looks at her and smiles. “You would’ve liked my mom.”

“Yeah?” Riley smiles back.

“Yeah. Well, I know she would’ve liked you, anyway.”

They make their way down the rest of the hall, passing more portraits and art pieces and the occasional odd sculpture, everything in brocade like something out of her high school history books. She runs her fingers across gilded wallpaper and marble shelves, still marveling at the fact that this, somehow, has become her life.

“What’s New York like?” Maxwell asks her. “I mean, I know what the tourist parts are like, thanks to Liam, but what’s your part like?”

“My part?” She tilts her head. “Uh, not that great, honestly. My part is a shitty studio in Queens with an elevator that doesn’t work, a roach problem, and a toilet that only flushes half the time. I don’t even have a bedframe, I just sleep with my mattress on the floor, and sometimes if I’m lucky, there isn’t a drunk guy peeing on my stoop when I come home from the late shift.”

“Sounds like a dream,” Maxwell says, and the funny thing is that she can’t quite tell if he’s joking or not.

“Can I quote you on that? My landlord keeps asking me to leave him a Yelp review.”

Maxwell looks puzzled. “I thought… you didn’t have nobility in America?”

Riley shoots him a bemused look. “We don’t.”

“But then, why would you…?”

It takes her a moment, but then she shoves his shoulder and laughs. “Oh my god, wait, are you talking about my landlord? That’s the guy who owns the place I rent. It’s just like, a name for rental property owners. God, you’re such a one-percenter.”

“Shut up,” He rubs the back of his neck, embarrassed. “Things are different in Cordonia, okay?”

“I can’t believe you didn’t know what a landlord is. I can’t believe you thought landlords are literal lords of the land.”

Maxwell makes a face at her, and she doesn’t even remotely try to stifle her giggles. “Excuse you, the only ‘landlords’ I know are literal lords of the land, so it was a logical conclusion.”

Riley taps him on the nose before turning away dramatically, hand on her heart. “Deepest apologies, Lord Beaumont. I would never disrespect your status or your land.”

“Hilarious.” He crosses his arms, but he’s smiling.

“Please accept this token of my atonement,” she continues, lifting some imaginary skirts so as to further sashay down the hall, “Imported from the duchy of Newest York, one hundred — no — one thousand of our finest Manhattan pigeons.”

Riley dips down in a ridiculously low curtsey, stumbling forward a bit and catching herself with a laugh. “Perchance would you like to visit with one of our most prestigious landlords? He is so terribly fond of — Max!”

She shrieks as he comes up behind her, arms around her waist, pulling her close and spinning her. She can feel the breath of his laughter against her neck, his whispered, “Shhh, you’ll wake everyone up,” and the way his fingers linger on her when he sets her down.

Riley, flushed, brushes her hair out of her face and adjusts her shirt. “You’re the worst.”

“I accept your pigeons,” Maxwell says with mock formality. “And I would love to meet your landlord.”

“Oh, you really shouldn’t, the pigeons are fucking gross.”

“Okay, pass on the pigeons then.”

“My landlord is gross too.”

He sighs. “You’re not making a great case here.”

Riley smiles, and compelled with a sudden irresistible urge to touch him, reaches out and runs her fingers along his jawline. She almost expects to feel the brushstrokes there too, a perfect likeness of his childhood painting, all grown up and still off-limits.

“You could come visit, if you want,” she says softly. “The mattress is a twin, but we can make it work.”

He kisses her, and she closes her eyes and lets herself believe for a moment that they’re not here, not in this ridiculous world full of princes and balls and family portraits, but somewhere else, somewhere loud and brash and filled with the scent of street food and smoke and dreams yet to be realized.

But of course, they aren’t.

“Come on,” he says, his voice gentle against the sudden sharpness of the moment. “Let’s go finish packing.”

They walk back to the room hand-in-hand, and Maxwell helps her fold things and find things and then sits on the suitcase so she can shove everything in properly and zipper it away. The sky stops getting darker and starts getting lighter, and the laughter between them grows less practiced and more delirious as they finish up.

She smiles when she steps out of her bathroom, face washed and hair up, to find him tucked in against her pillow, finally stolen into sleep by his own exhaustion. It’s a rare occasion to find Maxwell so utterly still, and she stands there for a second watching him.

She’s known for quite some time that she’s fucked. This whole situation: the competition, the prince, the stupid stupid boys. She’s just fucked, no way around it.

But as she lingers in the doorway, memorizing the rise and fall of his chest, it occurs to her that she is now — for lack of a better term — royally fucked.

---

It’s as if she’s barely slept at all when she feels his hand on her shoulder. “Riley? Hey, time to get up.”

She burrows her face back towards her pillow, trying desperately to shut out the light filtering in through the curtains. Maxwell, however, refuses to be shut out.

“We’re leaving in an hour or so, if you want to get ready.” He sounds just as tired as she feels, and she realizes then that he’s most likely spent the entire night here, with her, probably shoved into the corner while she bundled herself in covers. The thought makes her sit up suddenly, blinking blearily into Maxwell’s face, only a few inches from hers.

“Oh,” he says. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she says back.

They look at each other for a moment, Riley squinting up at him as she adjusts to the rush of sunlight. Under the sudden scrutiny of his gaze, she pulls the blankets up around her, a flush spreading into her cheeks as she realizes what she must look like: hair a tangled mess, sleep marks across her face, oversized t-shirt hanging in a particularly unflattering way.

“What’s the ‘Knicks’?” Maxwell asks.

“Hmm?” She quirks an eyebrow in confusion, and he nods at her shirt. She looks down. “Oh. Basketball team. They’re the… uh, the professional team for New York.”

“Do you like them?”

“I like their shirts.”

He laughs, turning away from her to slip down onto the floor. “Sometime, will you teach me what basketball is?”

“You guys don’t have basketball in Cordonia?” Riley lets the blankets fall back around her and pushes herself out of the bed with the intent to follow him, but the hardwood is like ice against her feet. She lingers near the familiar warmth of the covers while she watches him go.

“We don’t have a lot of stuff in Cordonia,” he answers. “Basketball, Disneyland, those breakfast things you like.”

“Pop-tarts?” Riley grins, crossing her arms. “Yeah, real bummer on that one.”

“Prom, Costco, monster trucks,” Maxwell continues, “And we’ve barely even got you for much longer, so.”

The words hit her harder than expected, and the smile drops from her face just as her arms fall to her sides. The chill of the floor spreads up from her feet, twisting its way through her body and settling in her heart.

Maxwell heads towards her suitcase. He lifts it down off the table, yanks the handle up until it clicks. “Come on, you gotta get dressed. I’ll take your bag out to the car.”

She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, hands fiddling with the hem of her shirt. “Will you come back?”

He turns his head, eyes ghosting over her face as she bites harder into her lip.

“Riley…” he says, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, totally.” She crosses her arms over her chest, pulling her shoulders up in what she hopes looks like a nonchalant shrug. “Just, big day, you know.”

“Understatement.” He smiles at her, and the sinking feeling subsides.

“What should I wear?” she asks, in a feeble attempt to keep him in the room a few moments longer.

“Definitely just that. The king and queen will be so impressed.”

“Shut up.” She sticks her tongue out, reaching back to pull the comforter up from the bed and around her shoulders before crossing toward the closet.

“No I’m serious, the press will not be able to stop talking about it. Bertrand will love that.”

She whacks him with the comforter as she passes. “You know what else Bertrand will love?”

“What?”

“You spending the night in my room.”

He laughs. “Okay, okay, point taken.” He turns to grab her suitcase, but not fast enough to keep her from noticing the blush rising in his cheeks. She laughs too, pulling open her closet door.

“Go get dressed,” he calls after her, “I’m actually taking your stuff out this time.”

“As you wish, Lord Beaumont.” She twirls around to drop in a curtsey, blowing him a kiss as he makes a face at her and heads out the door.

---

Riley wakes up to Maxwell once more, her face smashed in against his shoulder in the back of the car. She lifts her head, blinking the sleep out of her eyes, only to meet Bertrand’s disapproving ones.

“You have lines on your face,” he says disdainfully. “You look wretched.”

Riley sits up, rolling her neck and wincing. “Thanks, B. Are we at the airport?”

“Yeah,” Maxwell answers, seemingly unfazed by her using his arm for a pillow. She hopes she didn’t drool. “There’s coronation traffic, but that’s to be expected. We’ll be at the plane in five.”

Riley looks out the window, expecting to see the familiar bustle of brake lights and taxicabs that punctuate all her visits to JFK. However, all she finds is a great wide sea of black tarmac and planes.

She turns to Maxwell and Bertrand. “Wait, where are we?”

“The airport.”

“No, I — yeah, I know that. But where are the people?”

Maxwell looks confused. “…On the planes?”

“Don’t we, y’know, have to go through security and stuff? Or is that not a thing in Cordonia? Or like, don’t I need to show someone my passport and check my bag?” She nods her head in the direction of the trunk. “That thing is not gonna fit in an overhead compartment, I can already promise you that.”

The car slows to a stop and Maxwell laughs. “What? Riley, we’re broke, but we aren’t fly commercial broke.”

Riley says “Oh,” and then someone in a full suit and black sunglasses is opening her car door and saying, “Lady Riley, I’ll be taking your bags,” and she says “Oh,” and Maxwell says, “Thanks, they’re in the trunk.”

Riley whips her head around to face him, eyes wide. Maxwell shrugs. “Liam has a plane.”

Her eyes go even wider, and she pauses to make sure Bertrand is mostly out of earshot before whispering, “You didn’t think to tell me we’d be in an enclosed space with Liam for an extended period of time?”

He smiles sheepishly. “Well, the thought crossed my mind, but I was worried you’d try to cut your losses and run before we got here. And besides, he told me he wanted some time with you. To talk about something.”

Riley shoots him a pointed look before turning to slide out of the car. Talk to her about something! Great. What a mystery as to what it could possibly be.

The man in the suit, most likely a member of Liam’s security team, is already unloading their things from the trunk. She squints into the sunlight, eyes settling on the enormous white jet just a few hundred feet from their stop, its wings ringed with gold and an egregiously large Cordonian seal plastered along the side.

“Discreet,” Riley mutters, sighing as she heads off towards the staircase lowered down from the plane’s back entrance. She’s never boarded a plane like this before, not without hours of waiting and TSA screenings and watching as every other boarding group took their place ahead of her in line. The tiny staircase seems too easy, and the staff waiting at the bottom are too quick to offer her their arms as she climbs up into the ridiculous fixture of luxury.

As she makes her way inside, wandering slowly towards the aisle, she gawks at the interior: a scaled down recreation of the palace sitting areas, complete with ornate lamps and crystal stemware and what looks to be an entire grand piano off in the corner. Riley feels her stomach clench at the sight of it all, a reminder of how desperately she doesn’t belong in this world of opulence and glamour.

There’s a rustle of a curtain and footsteps behind her, and she turns, expecting to see Maxwell on his way in. She’s already whispering, “Max, I think I should—” before her eyes settle on the person who’s actually in front of her and she stops mid-sentence. “Oh, fuck.”

Drake looks her over and frowns.

“What are you doing here?!” she hisses, shoving him in the shoulder. “And why are you sneaking up on me?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” he answers, leveled. “Pretty sure your boyfriend is still back at the car.”

Riley shakes her head, letting out an agonized sigh. “I am truly not in the mood for this, Drake.”

“Aldridge, you going soft? Can’t handle the banter anymore?”

“On Liam’s goddamn plane? Yeah, maybe it’s not the ideal choice of venue.” She crosses her arms, but her defense wavers. “Drake… you didn’t… I mean, you didn’t say anything, did you?”

He rolls his eyes. “Relax, I’m not that much of an asshole. Liam’s on a conference call in the diplomat suite anyway.”

“Diplomat suite?”

“It’s a big fucking plane.”

Riley lets her hands fall back to her sides, glancing around the room once more, eyes following the rows of soft leather seats.

“Well, thanks, I guess.”

He shrugs, looking everywhere but at her. “I know you’ll talk to him. You don’t need me to do it for you.”

She lets out a sigh. “Maxwell said he invited me on the plane so we could talk, so if you’re awaiting my downfall, it might come sooner than you think.”

“I’m not —” Drake looks taken aback, “Riley, come on, you know that’s not how I feel.”

She starts to say something in reply, but the sounds of footsteps coming up the staircase echo loudly into the cabin. Drake turns, and Riley feels her nervous tension ease. Maxwell is finally here, he’ll know how to handle Drake and she can just —

“Riley,” an all too familiar voice calls, “Is that you harping on and on in there?”

Riley grabs Drake’s arm, face twisted in horror, and mouths, Olivia? He nods, looking slightly pained, and then there she is at the landing — mouth twisted in distaste, red hair spilling out of a white fur hat, sheathed in some sort of emerald green evening coat that could probably cover Riley’s apartment rent for the next ten years.

Her mouth curls up into a smile when she sees them. “Oh lovely, I was right.”

She steps into the room, her heels clicking against the hardwood, and drapes her arm across Drake’s shoulder, leaning against him as she surveys Riley. “You do know we’re going to a coronation ball, right?”

“Wonderful to see you too, Olivia,” Riley replies with a grimace.

Olivia smiles again, straightening up and patting Drake dismissively on the back. “Hey Drake, will you be a dear and roll out the bar cart? I have a feeling we’re going to need some drinks.”

Drake rolls his eyes so hard it almost looks painful. “Sure Olivia, I will happily roll out the bar cart. For myself.”

As he turns and pushes past her, she frowns, watching him walk away with a hand on her hip. When he disappears through the cabin door, she looks back at Riley. “Is he always so pleasant?”

“Pretty much, yeah. You’d think you two would get along.”

Olivia arches an eyebrow. “Cute.”

She hears someone else coming up the stairs and prays it’s Maxwell this time. When she sees him step inside, she releases an audible sigh.

“Hey Riley, did Bertrand already come up here? I think he — oh.” His eyes fall on Olivia, who flutters her fingers in a wave. “Olivia?”

“And Drake.” Riley smiles through gritted teeth. “Isn’t it wonderful? Gang’s all here.”

Maxwell blinks. “Uh. Cool?”

Drake emerges from the door then, glass in hand, and stops short when he sees Maxwell. “Hey Max! Long time no see. Great talking with you in the study last night.”

Riley glares with the ferocity of a thousand suns. Maxwell blinks again. Olivia looks between all three of them and rolls her eyes. “You guys are so fucking weird.”

She turns toward the closest seat and settles in, draping her legs across the length of it so the red bottoms of her high heels are on full display. She pulls an eye mask out of her purse, tugging it over her head. “I’m going to take a Xanax and listen to Ryan’s Roses. Do not even think about speaking to me.”

“Trust me,” Riley says under her breath, “It was the least of our concerns.”

part two.

[poorquentyn]

Considering Spielberg is your (second?) favorite director, do you have any kind of ranking of his filmography? (If so, I hope you give Empire of the Sun the high marks it deserves. It's the quintessential Spielberg film! A boy's own adventure story that gets eaten alive by a war drama!)

*rubs hands together*

Ok, so, only ones where he was in the director’s chair; none of even those producer’s credits where you can feel his indelible stamp on the final product, so no Goonies, Gremlins, Poltergeist, or Back to the Future. Even then, I’m leaving out a lot, so honorable mention to Lincoln, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me if You Can, War of the Worlds, The Color Purple, Bridge of Spies, the two worthwhile Indy sequels…

10. Jurassic Park

Start with the gaze upon himself: Jurassic Park as a $63 million self-portrait released on the exact tipping point of his career. John Hammond and Steven Spielberg’s miracles are one and the same: one brings dinosaurs back, the other convinces us they’re real. One uses DNA, the other uses CGI. When the characters stare in wonder, they’re meant to mirror our own at the imagery; when Jeff Goldblum mutters “that crazy son of a bitch actually did it,” he’s speaking for an entire industry once again forced to up its game by a Spielberg Miracle.

Our protagonist, however, is shitty with computers, so Alan Grant terrifies a child the old fashioned Jaws way: with a prop (a raptor claw) and his imagination. Hammond whisks him away from that to a world where one can press a button and make yourself appear on screen, mirroring how Spielberg has done the same with Hammond as his craft has evolved from malfunctioning sharks to CG velociraptors. The heart of the film comes when this giddy wonder in the possibilities of “we have the technology” is soured and our author avatar is left disillusioned and afraid, eating ice cream in a room full of merch he’ll never sell (but Spielberg will), telling Laura Dern about how he started off with a flea circus. That, right there, is a metaphor for moviemaking, and specifically Spielberg’s brand of it: pulling invisible strings to make us think that impossible things are real, to make belief believable.

Above all, Jurassic Park is afraid for the kids. Another perfect metaphor for the meta-tastic whole comes when the T-Rex crashes down through the car roof, only glass separating him from devouring the children; their hands are desperately keeping the monster behind the rectangular transparent plane, on the screen, even as Spielberg/Hammond’s tech is so real it threatens to burst right through. “He left us!” one kid wails about the character representing the studio weasels. “But that’s not what I’m gonna do,” Alan Grant whispers, half in shadow, blue eyes ablaze with a promise he didn’t know he was going to make. He can’t keep it. There are monsters in the kitchen. Spielberg’s next movie, released only a handful of months later, is Schindler’s List.

9. Duel

Such a seam scratches the tape; rewind, start again. Where did this begin? On TV, in the backseat of a car, backing out of the garage. Duel is the world’s most accomplished demo reel, cinema stripped down to its bare minimum to let the director’s preposterous surplus of talent shine through. It’s about a man (named Mann, both appropriate and touchingly pretentious) who pisses off a truck driver we never see, who then chases our protagonist with lethal intent, and that’s it.

And that’s all Spielberg needs. What follows is the future, a steel-shod gauntlet of precise camera angles and insidious sound design that builds the bridge between the B-movie and the blockbuster. By the end you feel spent but sated, as if every possible creative drop has been wrung out of the slim scenario. It’s nothing more nor less than the finest Roadrunner & Coyote episode imaginable, to the extent that George Miller was clearly reaching back to it for inspiration again and again in Fury Road. Indeed, while Duel is set in the modern day, Spielberg needs no trickery to make the antagonistic truck look positively apocalyptic.

It’s such a vivid example of the medium’s unique possibilities that you have to stop to remember that it was made for TV. And then you stop to think that he was only 24, same age Welles was when he made Citizen Kane. Lofty comparison, I know, but Duel proves it’s not what your movie is about, but how it’s about it that counts. Spielberg made it look easy, and so everyone followed. The road goes ever on and on…

8. Munich

…until it doesn’t. No exit.

Munich is the culmination of Spielberg’s Blue Period, his great here-comes-another-bloody-century trepidation, punctured by Stanley Kubrick’s death and 9/11. The former gave birth to A.I. Artificial Intelligence, and the movies about closing doorways and agonized faces that followed. The latter palpably haunted Spielberg’s projects in its wake: even Minority Report, a script written years earlier and adapted from a decades-old story, was uncannily timely in its portrait of overreaching security and law enforcement built to placate (and control) a population reeling from loss. Then came the director’s outright Twin Towers Trilogy: The Terminal, War of the Worlds, and Munich, addressing the event from different angles and through different filters. Of course, the intriguing and emotional setup in The Terminal’s opening minutes, framing post-9/11 bureaucracy as fluid chaos eating away at the state from within, quickly gives way to disappointing inanity. And while I maintain that War of the Worlds is absolutely perfect as an on-the-ground recreation of 9/11 as an alien attack for the first 50-60%, things go downhill fast once Tim Robbins shuffles onscreen.

Munich is the one that actually has the courage of its convictions, in large part because it’s about the director and protagonist alike breaking down in tears and admitting they don’t know what to believe anymore. Every set piece unfolds with a quiet chill and ends with you contemplating mortality. It’s a deliberately non-thrilling thriller. The ideology dissolves, not in neat bromides but in the day-to-day realities of ending human beings. Revenge fills you with fire, hot and bright, and then turns sour in your mouth. Narrative strands cross and recross, and the film’s inciting event, murder before the world’s watching eyes, sinks into that abyss known as Context.

By the end, you don’t even know what you’re fighting for anymore but your family, and you’re haunted by the knowledge that your kids will be fighting the same damn fight. The last thing to be corrupted, then, is the dinner table. Our protagonist begs to break bread with his handler, and the final word of the Blue Period is “no.” The camera tilts over to the Twin Towers, their loss contextualized as just another curl of a horrorshow helix, and the exorcism is complete. The anger and grief has largely vanished from Spielberg’s work since, as he’s settled into a comfortable John Ford mode. He left his questions here, unanswered.

7. Minority Report

If A.I. was Spielberg’s 2001, a millennia-spanning epitaph for humanity and a glimpse of what we leave behind, Minority Report (following the Kubrick trajectory) would be his Clockwork Orange, stepping down from the stars to gaze with cold horror on the things we do to one another with power. In the future, three young seers see crimes before they happen, enabling the state to lock people away for crimes they haven’t committed in the name of wiping out crime for good. Indeed, this fleet fluid fever dream makes explicit visual reference to Clockwork’s Ludovico scene (see above). In Spielberg’s memory machine, though, the image of an eye forcibly kept open by metal claws takes on a meaning beyond social and political analysis, though those are certainly still in there. It’s something more spiritual: Minority Report is about divine sight in a postmodern age.

Our protagonist’s rival went to seminary, his own men tell him they’re more priests than cops, but Tom Cruise’s John Anderton can’t bring himself to recognize the Spielberg Miracle at work here. The larger moral revelation of the “precogs,” the framing of their ability to see crimes before they happen as a techno-noir version of Biblical prophecy, is lost on Anderton because it can’t bring his son back. For him, that the future is known points to the futility of human existence. If there’s no free will, if we’re all doomed to perpetually fall in a fallen world, what’s the point?

And then one of the precogs asks him: “Do you see?” So begins the murder mystery that will see him accused of a future murder, that of the man who ostensibly killed his son. Anderton chooses mercy, only for the man to grab and pull the trigger because it’s all a setup to prevent Anderton from learning the truth about the precogs: they, too, are children stolen from their parents, all our characters trapped in a Möbius strip of loss they can only watch unfold, again and again, as if on the film’s countless screens. The images have been manipulated to hide the truth, the divine vision sullied by contact with the greedy exploitative systems of the Blue Period. But our detective finds the truth, and an existential triumph in making the right choice even if he can’t change the outcome. I’ve always taken the happy ending, a startling glimpse of green after a movie of blues and grays that look etched in stone, as just another vision. Closure is there, your family is there, in the future, in the past, just out of reach, smiling back at you. It hurts to look, but even as your eyes are torn out and replaced, you can’t look away.

6. Raiders of the Lost Ark

Well now, see, this one’s a tad criticism-proof by design, being as it is smelted and shaped to get under your defenses. “Disarming” seems like a strange choice of defining adjective for this most white-knuckled of action/adventure movies, but for all the staggering moviemaking skill on display, Raiders is ultimately a puppy shoving its nose under your hand. Given the slightest opportunity, it will make you love it. Fun is its religion, so deeply felt and communicated is the generous desire to entertain, rooted in the pulp serials that first lit the fire in its makers’ bellies to create.

And that fire again burns hot and bright, which is Raiders’ other secret magic trick: underneath all the cleverness, the jokes within jokes and setpieces spilling into ever more elaborate ones, the sense that every single moment was designed to make the rest of the genre look paltry and stingy by comparison, what happens at the end is nothing less than the very specifically Old Testament God stepping in to fry Nazis’ faces off. It’s the Ghostbusters trick of grounding helium-high hijinks in metaphysical forces that are not in any way kidding around. Our action hero, at the climax of the movie, is simply the one who (in an inverse of Minority Report) is smart enough to look away. So many Spielberg movies boil down to a shaft of divine light, and sometimes the light burns.

Then came the bizarre, hallucinogenic Temple of Doom and the sturdy, winning Last Crusade and that fourth one we don’t talk about, but they’re all in some way reactions to the nigh-flawless original. All you can do is go back, wearing the leather deep, Indy ageless, his eyes blazing shut against the light.

5. Empire of the Sun

Equally criticism-proof, but for the exact opposite reasons. This is the one no one can quite explain. Spielberg isn’t telling; he might not have any more idea than the rest of us. It shares certain themes with the rest of his work, especially regarding how children process the collapse and change of their world, but the similarities are strictly on paper. It feels different. I don’t what it…is. What it’s for. What it means. These sound like bad things, but they’re not. Empire of the Sun is utterly arresting, every bit as much as those canonized Spielberg classics of which anyone can explain the appeal. It’s just that it unfolds like a dream, and I’m left grasping after it in the same way. It might be one of the more accurate adaptations put to film in only that it feels so much more novelistic in its thrust and tone than most.

What can be pinned down is a series of images and sounds about the fall and occupation of Shanghai by Japan in WWII, told from the perspective of the naive sheltered son of a British emissary. Our hero is played by Christian Bale, in what might be my favorite child performance. To the extent that Empire of the Sun is about anything beyond the experience of watching it, it’s about his breakdown, and that’s what grounds the dreamlike style: we’re watching a bubble burst. Death and decay unfold out of the corner of his eye, like a memory he can’t quite bear to fully recall. His childhood vanishes when he shrieks surrender at anyone who will listen, trusting the rules to snap back into place and the world to make sense again, only for the collapse to continue unabated.

It’s made out of smoke and corners and quiet sadnesses. It’s runny, like an egg. I dream about it sometimes. You should watch it if you haven’t.

4. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

*harrumphs, wipes eyes* so um uh my name is Emmett, you see, and it begins with a….an ends with a….shut up.

That’s the point, though, of the movie: identification so strong that it almost kills you. E.T. is love, that’s all. All of it is here, from pure warm glow to heart stopping loss, swept up in imagery and sound that seem to positively hum with rich rueful feeling. Much has been made of how much of the movie is shot from a child’s POV, but everything about the movie operates on kid-logic. ET himself, for example: botanist or pet? Both. The connection he forges with Elliott swirls all such categories together. Elliott needs this, is yearning for love so badly, and even when it hurts, he’s more alive than he was before, with Dad gone.

But what makes E.T. different from, say, Star Wars and Harry Potter is that our hero only gets a taste of this other world, his fingertips brushing against magic as he passes it in the night. The gold-and-purple-brushed cinematography and the ecstatic, eternally swelling score sweep the profound and mundane together as one, bike rides and trick-or-treating and a psychic connection with an alien, yet the narrative eventually teases them apart like a sad parent forced to tell their kid that the dog is dead, and what “dead” means. ET returns to life, the definitive Spielberg Miracle…and then he leaves. Elliott will go home to his melancholy, frustrating life. School is still hard. His emotions still confuse him. Dad is still gone. The final shot of his face is not one of wonder, but maturation. It’s the moment Elliott grows up, and it’s the very definition of bittersweet.

What do you do, when you’ve loved and lost? You go home, you play with your toys, you send letters into Weird Things and Such SF Monthly, you make movies in your backyard, and you watch the skies….

….until they come back.

All of them.

3. Close Encounters of the Third Kind

I smiled just typing the words. I whispered them to myself, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This movie is a lil shining red ball dancing in my eyes; it is glee given form, a rainbow-colored pony ridden by a Willy Wonka-suited Care Bear on twenty tabs of LSD. The last half-hour, all glowing light and warm noise, earns the cliche: it makes you feel like a kid again, in the best possible way. After a movie’s buildup of wonder and terror, the sight and sound of a colossal lit-up mothership cheerfully BWAMMing out a melody is so cathartic that it’s impossible to sit still.

As with Raiders, though, it’s worth digging into the movie’s layers to understand where that light is coming from, and what it costs you to look at it. Close Encounters is a movie about communication, of course, from the alien lights to the translator forever accompanying Francois Truffaut (a filmmaker who knows a thing or two about capturing kid-logic on screen). It’s a movie about the fragility of family life in the face of the unknown, hence that devastating scene around the dinner table: something’s wrong with Dad, a subject near and dear to the director’s heart.

But above all else, it’s a religious movie, the religious movie. It’s about rushing upwards, and leaving all else behind. Roy Neary sees a divine light in the sky, and can’t reconcile it with the life he was living. He obsessively recreates his vision in idols, chases it across the country, driving his wife and children away in favor of his fellow prophets: here are my mother and my brothers. And the sting in that gorgeous symphonic ending’s tail is that it’s so good that Roy sheds this mortal coil to join them in the heavens. Spielberg has said that if he made it now, he wouldn’t have let  Roy get on that ship. And when you look at E.T. or the movies he made from Schindler forward, it’s clear why: in joining the interstellar flock, the man-child left his family to the wolves. By the time Roy/Eliot came home, his skin had sagged, his hair had gone white, and his children were waiting for him with eyes that cut.

And what do their movies look like?

2. A.I. Artificial Intelligence

The ultimate deconstructed fairytale; a honeyvelvetacid-glazed gaze into a heart-shaped abyss; Kubrick a darkwinged angel looming over ET’s crib, brushing a final tear away from his metallic eye…

So does Steven Spielberg, our flesh and blood Peter Pan, grow old and tell the children he lied. The monster is inside the house, inside your head, and inside the stories. At the core is a child’s innocent love for his mother…programmed in him, by her, a debt she cannot and will not repay. “His love is real, but he is not.” Pinocchio but for robots, A.I. takes its sci-fi trappings as a launching pad for a guiding philosophical question: “if a robot could genuinely love a human, what responsibility would that person hold towards that mecha in return?” The boardroom exec who poses that question pauses, almost bashful to ask the next one in a room full of people who treat the abuse of robots like a joke or a PowerPoint presentation, and then proceeds: “it’s a moral question, isn’t it?”

It is indeed, and for David’s adoptive family, the answer is none. He is abandoned, and chases his Blue Fairy and his happy ending across the apocalypse. As his fellow robots are torn apart to the cheers of the crowd in front of him, as his entire environment upends his hardwired fairytale logic into a sleazy neon-and-smoke nightmare, as his companion Gigolo Joe warns him presciently that “they made us too smart, too quick, and too many…they hate us because they know that when they’re gone, all that will be left is us,” David keeps looking for the Blue Fairy to turn him into a real boy so Mommy will love him again. He has no choice. His brain literally will not let him do otherwise. There is no will to power here, no core he can call upon to upend his puppet masters’ plan and prove himself Human After All. All he has is love, and they’ve used it to enslave him: at journey’s end, he finds his maker, who reveals that everything post-abandonment was staged to test if his love held. It did, and as such that love is now a corporate-approved field-tested quality-assured Feature that can be passed onto the hungry customer. This is not a Hero’s Journey, because you are not a person. You are a thing, and this is a product launch. David sees a dozen faces like his, stretched on a rack and ready. There is a row of boxes. They have David’s silhouette on them. All of a sudden, one starts to rattle and shake…

In the face of this existential horror (“my brain is falling out”) David promptly chooses suicide, whispering “Mommy” as he jumps from the statue he saw in his first moments. Down in the void, he finds the Blue Fairy and prays to her for millennia, but she cannot answer his eternal plea. She is a statue. An image, nothing more. She crumbles into a thousand pieces in his arms. He finds his mother, too. She is a fake, a digital mirage. Future robots create a simulacrum of her, as David himself was a simulacrum to replace her comatose son, designed in the image of his creator’s dead son…and of course, he cannot tell the difference. He gets his happy ending, on the surface. Underneath, what’s actually happening is that he’s an orphan who will never grow up being shown a movie and told everything is going to be all right. He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts…

…but it doesn’t matter how much he wants it, that is not his mother and his mother never loved him. We know these things even if he doesn’t. He claps because he believes in fairies, forever, eyes and smile frozen, waiting for them to appear, any second now. This is Spielberg showing you a brain on Spielberg. David followed Story over the waterfall’s edge, and now has only time’s vasty deep into which to shout “I love you” and convince himself the echoes are his make-believe savior and his long-dead mom. There is only the water that swallowed up Manhattan, and then the world, and him with it…

Wait.

There’s something in the water.

1. Jaws

To borrow from Alien, the closest thing it has to a peer: Jaws’ structural perfection is matched only by its hostility. You could just call it the perfect movie and walk away, except that if you try the floor tilts up beneath you and down you go into the mouth, the most abyssal maw in imagination’s history, and those black eyes roll over to white and you beg for more.

Run down the pedestals at the Movie Museum: Citizen Kane wants you to breathe in a life. Rashomon wants you to question how storytelling works and what Truth actually is, or if it exists at all. Jaws wants to eat you. Not the characters, you. That’s what Spielberg figured out how to do, and the entire industry reshaped itself around copying him: tonal immersion so absolute that he could make the audience feel anything he wanted, on a dime. Hitchcock played your spine like the devil on a fiddle; Spielberg is a rainbow-wigged mad scientist strapping you on a rocket to the sun. He created his own genre, and it’s the one that still dominates the medium in every corner of the globe. With a shark. A shark that, as a prop, did not fucking work.

Details? How do you pull one strand out of a web like this one? I can only say “perfect” so many times, but I mean it. Shot for shot, line by line, beat by beat. Every domino falls. The calm moments and the funny ones and the frantic blood-soaked ones, everything is earned. As with Raiders, the highest compliment I can pay is that other movies taste like shit for a month afterwards. When I hear the word “craftsmanship” I do not think of cars or cabinets, I think of Jaws. It feels hewn.

The numbers came later. The myth, the legend, the pale imitations, the bad sequels, the ripple effects, all secondary. What Jaws is, is sensation. It cannot have been made, surely, it hatched. It was never launched. It will never fall. Smile, you son of a–