#this one in particular is so slow because of my fucking god awful living situation

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

*don't go to grad school out of spite, don't go to grad school out of spite, do NOT go to GRAD SCHOOL out of SPITE!!!*

[cher-writes]

Silver Screen / Silver Pole | Robert Sheehan x Reader (18+)

Summary: A night of celebration in a LA strip club takes an interesting and unexpected turn when a contrarian actor winds up offending the wrong stripper. But night is long and the possibilities are endless, where will it take them?

Word Count: 7.3k

CW: Mention of sexual harassment, Consensual slapping, NSFW smut

A/N: This one is surprisingly not bloody at all and the smut isn't wild either so like most everyone can read it. Although it's emotionally very heavy. So, get ready to feel some shit. Hopefully you'll enjoy.

Special thanks to @crisis-of-joy for being there for me the whole month I took to complete this emotionally taxing fic and also for being my kind beta reader & editor.

Burning on it’s way down, the third glass of whiskey finally gave her some life she desperately needed. Deafening music throbbed throughout her veins, drowning the club in the background. She wanted to drown with it too but she couldn’t, she was there to work and rent for the month was already due. The fourth glass was on the verge of meeting with her bitter mouth when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t drink so much, you’ll trip on the stage,” Coco practically shouted in her ear. Coco was the only friend she had in that goddamn place and It wasn’t a very rare occurrence that Coco had to drag her blackout drunk body out of the club. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say she had a problem. Considering that she was already on her third strike of the month and the third drink of the night, Coco knew better than to let her get drunk this early.

 “I can’t stay here and be sober at the same time,” she shouted back at Coco, “especially after...nevermind,” but decided against talking about it and instead focused her energy on finishing the fourth glass, which was gone just as quickly as the words stopped coming out of her mouth.

 She could read the concern on Coco's face and sense the questions brewing behind it as Coco spoke up, “I want to know what the fuck is up with you but I have to go now, Caleb came home from school hours ago, it’s pretty late and I have to cook him dinner.”

“What happened to Larry? Can’t he take care of the kid? He’s fucking jobless anyway.”

“He got in a bad fight again. I can barely afford Caleb’s school fees and now the medical bills.”

“If only you had divorced him, you wouldn’t need to worry about it.”

“And if only you had been less violent towards customers, you wouldn’t be on the verge of getting fired. But, here we are.”

She furrowed her brows at this sudden sharp stab of truth by Coco and dealt with it the only way she knew how to, by ordering another drink. Coco crossed her arms letting out a deep sigh and said, “Look, I'm only trying to help you, (y/n). Sam wanted me to go up. You see that group seating in the fifth VIP booth? Up there. They are celebs and celebrating something so, ya know, good money. I said no cause, as I said I gotta go home, but I convinced him to let you go up there. It was hard given your recent less-than-favorable behavior, but I managed to.” Coco snatched the already empty glass from her hand and continued, “So stop drinking, go up there and get that money. And for the love of God, behave yourself or this might be your last night here.”

Giving her hand a quick but tight squeeze, Coco got up then soon after disappeared into the crowd. She thought to herself about how a last night there wouldn’t be so bad if she could afford it, and wanted another drink immediately to kill that thought, but Coco's words haunted her ears. She looked over her shoulder to see three men sitting in the booth, laughing.

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

Her head was in a violent swirl, vision blurry. She was way too drunk to be spinning around the pole, but she had an audience to entertain and had no one but herself to blame.

When you walked around your house wearin' my sky blue Lacoste, the song was thudding against her skull. Pulling herself together, she counted every second, waiting for the song to end. She could feel the eyes on her, sticking to every bit of her, just as invasive as it was the very first day yet, she couldn’t care less. She had to live through it if she wanted the money and she needed the money if she wanted to live. The room was dancing circles around her as the tips came flying in, she kept counting the seconds, sliding down the pole, and your knee socks.

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

She was swaying dangerously on her way down from the stage. If the song didn’t end when it did, she would have thrown up without a shadow of a doubt. At that point, she didn’t even know how or what she danced, only the awful sickness in her stomach let her know that it was more than she could take.

She needed to chat up the men, try and convince them to buy a champagne room before the next song came on, which she feared was way too soon for her liking. Nevertheless she tried to steady herself but the big glass platforms messed with her earnest efforts, nausea kicking her in the stomach once again, letting her know of her limits. 

She didn’t ever really look at the men who sat in front of her, leering at her, they all looked the same, smelt the same and talked the same. So she followed the same old routine, bending down just enough to give them a view up her tits. Pressing her arms closer, she slurred, “What are we celebrating, gentlemen?”

 She absolutely hated how she sounded pandering to men, two pitches higher. “My friend over here landed a role in a Spielberg film!” the middle one spoke up and pointed to the one sitting on the right side. The one in question grinned in response and repulsion licked the back of her neck at the sight of that. Yet she needed to please him, “That’s amazing! I’m sure I’ll be seeing your face on the billboards everyday now while driving,” she said and fantasized about having enough money to burn down all the billboards in LA and maybe LA with it too.

 “Hell yeah you will!” the one in the middle spoke up and broke her reverie so she pretended he was supporting her fantasy instead. “Oh please! Speak for yourself!” the one on the right perked up in his seat and continued, “He’s literally working with Fincher AND he got engaged!”. The one in the middle gave a revolting smirk at the very humble revelation of his accomplishment and it was enough to turn her stomach or maybe it was the alcohol, she couldn’t really decipher.

 “Oh really?” she looked at the man, tilted her head and said, “And you came to a stripclub to celebrate your engagement?”, her face deadpan. Notes of contempt stuck out like thorns from her voice, making her sound way more intense than she intended to.

 He tensed up visibly at her sudden razor-edged tone and, even though she didn't want to, she had to ease the situation. I can’t piss off these bastards again, she kept repeating to herself like a mantra. “Boys will be boys!” she said, not being able to think of something better that wasn’t inherently insulting, and laughed the most disgusting laugh of her life. If she could she would pour gasoline down her throat just for uttering those words.

 She couldn’t bear to linger at that conversation point anymore so she turned her attention to the man sitting on the far left. He looked distant and foreign, staring but not really looking at her. There was a peculiar absence behind his distinct green eyes, which she would even call beautiful under different circumstances. And that, something about that absence, made her want to zero in on him.

“And what about you? Did you win an Oscar or something?” mockery ringed clear in her voice, which brought his attention back to the presence. Startled slightly, he straightened his posture while saying, “No, not really... not yet at least,” he smiled sheepishly and continued, “I’m just here with them”.

“Come to think about it, I’ve never really seen you anywhere,” she said without thinking too much. In fact, she didn’t really pay enough attention to how he looked to recognize him even if she did. 

Something intense flashed his eyes for a brief second. She couldn’t quite put her fingers on what it was but she could feel the energy shift very quickly between them.

“Oh I’ve been in things but I’d be surprised if you did see any of them,” his voice now stripped of the delicacy it previously held. She could feel the air between them getting unusually heavy, his words penetrating through her skin a bit too effortlessly, a bit too swiftly that it was unsettling.   

“And why exactly would you be surprised?”

“You know...cause people like you don’t usually watch the kind of films I do.”

“What do you mean by ‘people like me?’”

“You know...people of your...stature,” he trailed off. Blood rushed the back of her neck as soon as the words hit her ears. She could feel her vision burning, a hot wave washed the crown of her skull, something unruly building at the base of her being. Clenching her jaw so as not to let it take over her, she said, “Stature huh? Fancy! I reckon from your accent that, wherever the hell you’re from, people get a kick out of looking down on others with such wispy language.”

 She could sense the same unruly substance dancing behind his chest, but he was far better at keeping it on a leash.

“I wasn’t looking down upon you. What I was merely getting at is that some people aren’t cut for apprehending particular types of films,” he sounded snarky but calm, the type of calm that’s tainted with scorn, which only sent ripples of rage down her ribs.

  “Oh so you think just because I’m a stripper by profession that I wouldn’t understand your low-budget dumb indie movies?” she was getting visibly worked up now. Traces of her seductive posture vanished long ago but there was a new hostile energy flowing through her stance.

“I didn’t say that -”

“No, of course you didn’t say that, you only meant that. You meant what you think and every one of you think that we aren’t people with brains and emotions. No, no, we’re just sacks of meat to ogle at in exchange of money, and then grope when you can’t keep it in your pants.”

“I think you're trying to put words in my mouth, this is -”

“God! you think you’re fucking better than me, don’t you? You contrarian little shit!” she could feel it in her bones. She knew what was coming. There were people behind, or maybe beside, her, trying to talk to her, probably. She could hear no one, not even the previously unbearable blaring music. She had tunnel vision and it was fixed on him. The air she breathed chafed her nose. Her nerves thumped as her heart leapt at irregular rapid intervals.

  “Excuse me! but i neve -” he said as his body went alert. Posture anticipating something violent, flight or fight.

  “You think you're better than me because I'm a stripper and you got enough money to buy me?” her voice was icy as she spoke, “You LA people are all the fucking same. You get a little money in your pockets and you think you own the world and anyone who isn’t jerking off to your pretentious bullshit isn’t worthy enough to deserve basic fucking decency. Huh is that it?” she quickly jumped on top of him, straddling him.

He was frozen under her as she leaned in and murmured, “Well then allow me to show you”, she pulled away, her left hand clutching his shoulder as right fist rose the air, “HOW FUCKING BETTER THAN ME YOU ARE!” then her fist crashed on the side of his mouth with all the force she could muster, releasing a knot built in her chest since she checked in with the manager in the evening. Hot, sweltering adrenaline was coursing through her veins.

 The impact resulted in him burying his face in his right shoulder so she grabbed a fistful of his hair and forced him to face her. His lips were starting to swell up so she decided to help it. His eyes went blank as her fist met his face once more.

 Involuntarily, her hand was raising in the air again when she felt a strong pull from behind. The security guard, twice her size, yanked her away from him. People gathered around them staring at her, the music stopped to her relief. The guard twisted her arms behind her back, enough to leave bruises that’ll sting for days to come. She couldn't move, her sight went hazy yet she felt this strange cool serenity soothe her tensed muscles. His friends were crowding him, probably consoling him. She could neither hear them nor make out their faces from her almost closed eyelids. She was pretty sure she was falling asleep in the guard’s painful hold until she heard a certain voice and the hair at the back of her neck stood up. 

“What the fuck! She’s at it AGAIN? Sir, I'm so sorry -” Sam, the manager’s voice pierced her ears as he rushed into the booth. As he was talking to them, commotion rose in the background. She could feel blind rage beating with every thump of her heart. If it wasn’t for the guard holding her in place, she would have skinned him alive by now. She was struggling to free herself when Sam turned to her and said, “You! That’s it!” pointing his left index at her. “I’ve had just about enough of your drunkass assaulting fine gentlemen. You’re fired. Get out right now! And be grateful we’re not reporting you to the police.”

Suddenly everything went quiet in her head. She smiled, nothing behind her gaze. Grinning ear to ear like a maniac, she said, “I’m fired? Aww what’s gonna happen to you now Sam?”. She cooed, ''Whose tits and ass are you gonna grab from now on? Stella? I wonder if she’ll compare to me though.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Sam almost hissed at her.

“Ohhh right! Of course, you don’t know what I’m talking about,” she said while still tussling with whatever little strength she had left to loosen herself from the guard’s excruciating grip. “You don’t know anything about how you sexually harassed me day after day, how your disgusting, slimy little hands grabbed my body against my will at every chance that you got. You knew how much I need the money from this job and you used that against me to keep me silent, threatening to fire me every time I made even a sound. But guess what fucker? I’m fired now! And I’m gonna tell everyone about HOW YOU TRIED TO -”

“Take her to the staff room!” Sam cut her off, “NOW!” And, as soon as the words left Sam's mouth, the guard put his palm over her mouth and started dragging her back. The hand over her mouth muffled her screams and she glanced at the man, now with swollen lips, looking at her with eyes filled with, what looked like, concern.

As she was getting dragged, she finally managed to sink her teeth into the guard’s palm resulting in him withdrawing his hand just enough to give her a small window of time to scream at Sam: “YOU MOTHERFUCKER I’LL BE BACK AND I’LL PEEL THE SKIN OFF OF YOUR SCALP FUCKING SON OF A BITCH I’LL -” Before she could finish, her voice got cut off again and she faded into the dimly lit passageway at the back of the floor.

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

The cherry of her fifth cigarette shone brightly in the shivering cold as the smoke drifted up in the air and sluggishly faded away. Mouth agape, her eyes meticulously followed the faint trails left after their disappearance. She wondered where they went, where she’ll go. If it wasn’t this late, and the water wasn’t so cold, maybe she could have gone for a swim in the ocean. If the water wasn’t so cold maybe she would have let it swallow her even. She was calculating the probable temperature of the hypothetical water she’d marry someday when the sound of slow approaching footsteps entered her field of perception. She would have preferred to ignore it but the, somehow already familiar, voice spoke up, “Hey erm...” and left her no choice but to look. And there he was, the foreign man with the swollen lip, looking culpable. There were distinct imprints of guilt in his voice as he continued, “I saw you across the parking lot…um I was actually just leaving with my friends,” he pointed at a black Mercedes parked at the far end of the lot. “They’re waiting in the car anyway so I decided -”

“So you decided now that she’s fired from being a stripper, she's probably a hooker! Lemme go ask the price she’s selling at,” her gestures and voice was comical, “you know, dude if you’ve got a kink of getting beaten up non-consensually then you’re really good at getting it cause I might just be up for round two.”

He stared at her for a good few seconds with a perplexed face, as if trying to process her stream of logic. When he started speaking, he sounded genuinely hurt, “No! Jesus Christ I came to apologize. Can you just not be defensive for one second? I’m not a monster ya know!”

His sincerity caught her off guard. She had about five thousand ways of dealing with assholes prepared and ready to go but an actually decent person? Now that was rocky territory for her.

“Well, uh, that’s a first. Go ahead I guess?” she shrugged her shoulders.

“I apologize for saying what I said back in the club. I shouldn’t have insinuated that you aren’t intelligent enough to understand my films just because of your choice of profession. It was really shitty of me to say that, and nothing can justify it either. And I feel like I caused you to be fired, that’s also weighing heavily on my soul and I don't know how to make it up to you. Just, I hope that you can forgive me and, again, I apologize, earnestly. Please tell me how I can make it up to you,” he said and looked at her with a rueful expression.

She was at a loss of words. It had been years since anyone apologized to her, let alone that sincerely. After a considerable amount of silence, she gathered her fragmented thoughts and spoke up, “Whoa, whoa man, chill. You didn’t murder my family or anything so calm down,” she held up her open palms, the cigarette almost at it’s end. “Apology accepted, okay? And don’t feel bad, I would have been fired sooner or later given my questionable behavior ever since I joined, so it’s not on your conscience. And I’m sorry too,” her index and middle finger holding the cigarette gestured at his lips, “for, um, punching you so let’s call it an even.”

“Okay,” he nodded, “yeah okay,” sounding clearly more relaxed than before.

“You know it’s a miracle how long it took for me to get fired,” she mused, “oh no it wasn’t a miracle it was sexual harassment, ah I see now. Wonder what Sam saw in me though that was worth not firing me for this long even though I pulled so much shit,” she took a long drag of her weary cigarette. “Maybe I've got a talent for getting harassed or something...who knows?”

His face tensed up again as he said, “That’s...not right,” eyes pooling with the same worried look as before.

“I was joking, chill. Humor is an excellent way to deal with most everything really, especially trauma.”

“I am sorry for what you had to go through, it’s gut-wrenching. Can’t you lodge a complaint to the police?”

“Going to the pigs? As a sex worker? Who just got fired for being drunk and punching a man in front of many eye witnesses? Now that was humor, you’re quite good at it actually.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Besides, that’s like one of the first things you gotta learn to put up with if you’re working in this business. As unfair and grim as it is, men, no actually, people don’t see sex workers as human beings and I’m just too obstinate to accept that simple fact, or maybe too much of a pussy, depending on where one’s priorities lie.”

“I…don’t know what to say.”

“There is nothing to say.”

 It was just setting in for her how beautiful he actually was. His crestfallen face was graced by two stunning green eyes, lush unruly curls sticking to his forehead, sharp jawline kissed with a  scruffy goatee and the swollen lip throwing off the symmetry just right to make him look captivating, to say the least. In the chilly December ambience his face was a soothing sight to her eyes, his sweet voice kind to her drudging ears, his presence warm to her existence. And she wanted to hold onto the warmth, just for a bit longer.

   “You said you wanted to make it up to me, right?” she said as the cigarette fell on the ground then died out under the crushing embrace of her cruel heels.                         

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

“Well I'm Ro -” he said leaning against the passenger seat window, sitting half facing her.

“If you’re trying to say your name then don’t,” she cut him off quickly without averting her gaze from the road.

“Why?” he asked, staring at her intently yet without any emotion in particular.

“‘Cause it doesn’t matter. It’s better if we don’t know each other’s name. Names individualize people and that’s not necessary for tonight,” she answered nonchalantly as the neon lights of a passing by road sign illuminated her face and then faded into the past just as nonchalantly. 

“Okay.”

She could feel his eyes on her, but it didn’t bother her, it wasn’t tainted. There was this unusual tranquility in the atmosphere of the car, this obscure but consistent serene rhythm. She felt a bizarre comfort in his presence and she could drive like this forever, on a never-ending road spiraling towards heaven or winding down pandemonium or just dissolving into the ether, with him sitting lazily on the side.

    “Do you ever feel like that?” he spoke up absentmindedly, breaking into her almost fever dream.

“Huh?”

“The song, I feel like that often.”

She didn’t realize the radio was on, playing at quite a significant volume. She wondered if he had turned it on at some point and how long she was driving for without being present mentally.

This place will be the end of me. Take me out, LA. Take me out of LA, the voice from the radio filled the car to the brim.

 “I don’t feel like that, I know that. I know I'll die here, kinda intrinsically...do you hate this place?”

“No, not hate. I just feel like I don't fit in here. It’s the way of life, it’s quite significantly different to what I was used to. The people and the city, it all feels hollow sometimes and every now and then i catch myself yearning for what I left behind me.”

“I see. Beautiful people and their beautiful problems.”

    Silence fell in the car again. Except for the voice through the radio, Well this place is never what it seems.

 “You don’t have to make small talk, you know. I'm fine with silence,” she said, finally looking at him for a brief second.

“Oh I know,” he was looking right into her eyes, unruffled. “I wasn’t making small talk, I just wanted to talk to you. That’s all.”

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

The bleak fluorescent tube above buzzed in solidarity as the fatigued clock on the chipped convenience store wall dragged its hands and finally managed to tick at 2 am. The attendant was leaning on the counter, trying not to fall asleep when her voice echoed in the store: “$20 on pump 2.”

“I’ll pay”, he cut in, reaching for his wallet. “Okayyy...” she replied, narrowing her eyes at his benevolence and looked around the store which was significantly emptier that other nights. She closed her eyes for a second and the memories flashed behind her lids. She used to come here frequently, around this time, with someone when everything in her world was right, just right enough for her to not to seek out falling stars every night and wish for death over and over again. When she opened her eyes a shiny pack of Parliaments caught her gaze and she quickly gestured behind the counter, “Since you’re paying, can I get a pack of those also?”

“Sure”

“I remember surviving on those alone while writing my thesis papers,” she said wistfully, “good times.”

“You went to college?”

“University actually, but yeah.”

“Good lord.”

“But I had to drop out so I couldn’t complete my Master’s in Biochemistry.”

“Why?”

“Life.”

“I flunked out my first year of college so you did way more than I did in that regard.”

“Welp, look where that got me.”

“Don’t say that!”

“What?” she scoffed.

“Anything else?” the attendant interjected, visibly tired and clearly annoyed at their conversation.

She swiftly grabbed a lighter, “Can I get this too?”

“Yeah, absolutely.”

“That’ll be all,” she tossed the lighter towards the attendant and continued, “You’re clearly doing way better than me in life.”

“Are you being sarcastic?” he replied, raising an eyebrow.

“No. I meant that seriously. I’m the one who fucked up my life and that’s a fact. Say, how did you know what you wanted to do?”

“That’ll be $30”, the attendant interjected again.

“I don’t know. I started acting as a kid and it just seemed right. It’s all I've known really and I can't see myself as anything else,” he said as he passed the money to the attendant.

“I envy that.”

“I do sometimes ponder what I would have been if not an actor.”

“Wondering too much isn’t good,” she grabbed the goods and shoved them in her coat pocket, “It might make someone into me.”

She stopped right before the glass door, pulled the lighter out and flicked it on, “I’ll use it later,” she leaned in close to him with a frivolous smirk and whispered, “to burn this city down.”

He chuckled at her sudden gaiety, “I’d gladly assist.”

Pushing the door open, she continued as he followed behind her, “Did you see the way that dude rolled his eyes to you? He definitely thought you were with a blabbering hooker and to be honest, my make up probably didn’t help either. Oh well it's not like -” her voice slowly evaporated into the gloomy gas-station lights. 

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

“So beautiful,” he said with awe looking over the vast and apparently endless ocean which the full, eternal moon bathed with its silver glory.

She clutched at her coat sleeves as the chilly wind sent shivers down her body and said, “I know right? I’ve always found the sea to be peaceful during this time of the night.”

“It’s lovely, I’ve never been to this beach before.”

“It’s my favorite spot actually, I used to come here pretty often,” melancholia dripping from her voice. She paused for a little while as if going over a mental checklist and said, “let’s go sit down there,” and pointed towards a vague place in the distance. 

They walked down the beach for a bit side by side, knuckles occasionally brushing against each other’s, making them want to hold hands, feel the warmth of another being. But the hesitance of the yet to be known, the uncertainty of a nameless stranger clouded their minds and prevented them from reaching out.

She stopped, sat down and gestured to him to do the same by tapping the cold sand beside her. He sat a bit too far for her liking so she huddled up closer to him saying, “You blaze right?”

“Sure.”

“Cool,” she said, taking out a small bag from an inside pocket of her coat, “keep an eye out for me while I roll it.”

They sat in silence as she rolled a joint meticulously. The waves kept crashing on the shore as if fulfilling some ancient duty. Wind rustled through the empty beach. Sand glimmered sporadically under the warm light of the moon, creating a transcendental atmosphere.

He sighed and thought out loud, interrupting the intoxicating stillness of the night, “Where do we go from here?”

“Other than plotting the murder of Sam, I don’t know about me,” she replied without looking up from the task at hand, “Don’t really wanna think about it tonight. That’s why I took you along with me. I wanted someone to keep me distracted from my thoughts and I had no one to go to...then you came to apologize, like my knight in shining armor.”

He smiled wryly and said, “I see.”

“What about you? What are you gonna do about your not fitting in or what was it?”

“I don’t know either. I just miss my people. I’m not meant for here, I think.”

“So can’t you go back there? To your home I assume?”

“I can...”

“Then go. Why the fuck would you stick around if you had the option to go back?”

“Maybe.”

“Huh! I wish I had a home to go back to too.”

She could see him from the corner of her eyes, clenching his knees tight with his fingers at her words, bringing them closer to his chest. She looked up to see him staring at her with his big, beautiful, hurt-puppy eyes.

“Did that make you sad or something?” she asked, almost amused. 

“Yeah...yeah it did.”

His apparent empathy for a literal stranger who also punched him not so long ago struck her as odd and oddly enticing. He looked unreal to her in the strange moonlight, as if a remote but vivid memory. She felt as though if she reached out and touched him, he’d turn to dust and drift off with the wind. Those intense eyes and his fey beauty were getting too much for her to bear so she averted her gaze towards the ocean and said, “There’s no use for your or anyone’s sadness. You see, sadness changes nothing. Unless you can start a capital R revolution tomorrow, everything will be the same. It’ll be the same day with slight variations over and over again, things will repeat and go on and on and on until one day humanity just goes poof somehow and then the universe will go on as if we never even happened. There’s no significance of our lives, there’s no point in feeling sad about anything in this set up. One must always imagine Sisyphus happy.”

“That’s quite pessimistic, isn’t it?”

“Kinda absurdist actually, but It’s hard not to be pessimistic or defensive, when you have to lead a life like mine.”

“I understand.”

“Oh, I’m sure you do, “Glamour Boy,’” she said, licking the rolling paper.

He put his hand over his chest and feigned being hurt which made her laugh; a clear, hearty laughter. The beach echoed with a faint sound of the laughter of two stray souls as he joined in.

The joint hanged from her lips, sensual and reckless like an erotic magazine model, burning bright as she took a long drawn-out drag.

“Say, do you think the water is cold?” she said, passing the joint to him.

He took in a drag, inhaling some of her used up smoke with it too, tasting her cheap but obscenely sweet fruity lip gloss at the filter tip, “Yeah...very much so”.

She huddled up even closer to feel the heat of his body as he passed the joint back to her. Taking in another drag, she leisurely put her head on his shoulder.

The sedating smoke sank into their lungs as the sand anchored them from floating off in the elating static of the enveloping darkness.

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

“Is this it?” she said, pulling up to a posh apartment complex, something she wouldn’t be able to afford even after paying off her debts. 

“Yeah, that’s me,” he replied absently and unbuckled his seatbelt. 

She was looking ahead at the road, expecting him to get out of the car, but he sat in silence. She looked at him and saw him laid back on the seat as if being consumed by it, tracing the edge of the left air vent softly with his fingers. He sighed and said, still looking at his busy fingers: “I feel strange and fucking awful.”

“It happens sometimes after coming down a high.”

“It’ll be a pain in the arse going to bed feeling like this.”

“I know,” her eyes travelled down the flow of his posture, giving birth to an urge of some aboriginal origin in her loins, “but you don’t have to.” 

He turned his head towards her slowly, lethargy clear in his slow breathing pattern, “What do you mean?”

“Push your seat back.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

He furrowed his brows, alarmed by her sudden gratuitous command. He looked at her; motionless as if not even breathing awaiting his compliance and her eyes glinted with expectancy. He pushed his seat back, as far as it could go then parted his lips to say something but before the words could get out, she virtually jumped on top then sat astride him.

 A deathly stillness engrossed the car as her previous bellicose energy returned to the atmosphere, only this time rather ardent in nature. His heart, instantaneously racing, almost audible to her. 

“You know,” she said taking off her top, “dopamine is a hormone and neurotransmitter that’s an important part of your brain’s reward system, and it can elevate your mood and make you feel really good.”

Eyes wide with surprise, he struggled to keep his gaze fixed on her face as she unbuttoned his shirt. Her fingertips snaked up and down his smooth chest as if caressing a sumptuous painting one is not allowed to touch. She felt his taut muscle tighten at her touch, veins kindled with a hot rush pulsing under. Burying her face in the hollow of his neck, she felt the heat of his body as she pressed her chest against his. His breathing picked up it’s pace even more at the contact with her flushed skin.

“Do you ever get lonely?” she spoke up letting her lips skim over his bare shoulder.

“Terribly,” his voice breathy as he placed his hands on her hips hesitantly, not possessively, but affectionately.

“I do too.”

“What do we do about it?”

“Maybe we don’t do anything.”

“Maybe.” he said resting his right cheek against her head, “or maybe we keep each other company.”

“But for how long?”

“However long we need to.”

A mirthless laugh rippled from her lips then through his skin. She pulled back to look him in the eyes, curious green mixed with an unfamiliar kind of sorrow, a sorrow too costly for her. “Lust and attraction shut off the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which includes rational behavior,” she said, knocking softly on his temple.

“Makes sense.”

Cupping his face, she stroked his swollen lips with her rough thumbs, making him wince in response. The purple bruise steadily forming on the side of his mouth marred his flawless complexion yet his allure only enhanced. Her thumb rubbed on the bruise with reckless abandon, his flinches testifying to that. Withdrawing her hands from his face, she left a light peck on the bruise and said, “Slap me.”

“What?”

“Slap me, come on, I'm giving you a chance to get back at me for earlier.”

“No!”

“Prude!”

“Hey! I just don’t want to hurt you, especially not as revenge or what not,” he sounded genuinely offended.

She leaned in, “But I want to get hurt, silly,” her lips ghosting over his as she whispered, “Endorphins are our body’s natural pain reducer and it so happens to increase when we engage in reward-producing activities, such as eating, working out, or having sex.” She pulled away and continued, “So hit me. Hard.” His adam’s apple bobbed up then down as he searched at her face, as if trying to find some sort of sign. His fingers dug in her hips, indicating the upcoming crude impact. Her palms laid flat against his chest as his left hand rose then crashed against her face. Her fingers curled in response as she gasped weakly, eyes shut closed but the tensity clear in the lines on her eyelids and forehead. 

“Ah... that was good,” she said as if talking to herself, caressing her cheek. When she opened her eyes, she found him staring with uncertain eyes, the doubt readable in the way he bit his lips. 

“Just like that, once more,” her firm voice ringed in the vehicle. His hand cruelly collided once again with her face, leaving her face warm and red. 

“Good boy,” she cooed as the sharp sting eddied on her cheek and then through her whole body, easing her off some unknown yet intrinsic discomfort. Her chest pounded in sync to his as she spoke up, “Do it for me once again, won’t you?”

Pressing his teeth even deeper into his lips, he struck her once again, with as much strength as he had. A white light flashed before her eyes, her ears ringed as she sat in silence for a bit. When her vision became clear, she held his face between her palms. Leaning closer, she rested her temple against his and murmured, “Such a good boy.”

Sweat dripped down as her nose grazed up the side of his neck, she could feel him growing hard through his pants. She buried her face in his curls and breathed in. He smelt sugary, sweet to the extent of almost making her nauseous. She whispered against his ear, “You’ve got a boner...it turned you on this much to hurt me?”

“It’s, um, n-not really that part it’s the -” he stammered in embarrassment.

 “Ugh men,” she cut him off and rolled her eyes playfully. “But since we’ve got a situation at hand, and you’ve been so good to me, I think you deserve some relief for yourself,” she said, tugging at his waistband. To which he responded eagerly, elevating his hips just enough so she could slip his pants off as much as possible. His head sank back into the headrest as her hands wrapped around his cock. Her hand gilded up and down his length as her other hand ran through his hair, pulling lightly. Resting his forehead on her shoulder, he quivered and moaned softly as she lovingly yet mercilessly worked on him. His breath hitched sharply as she stroked the tip of his cock with her thumb, making him groan and twitch under her touch. She was about to pick up the pace when he grabbed her wrist abruptly. “Wait!” he rasped, “I wanna...feel you.”

He panted, trying to catch his breath and said, “Let’s take this inside, there might be people around.”

“Why? Are you afraid of getting photographed with a hooker by the paparazzi, Mr. Actor?"

“No”, he answered, the same hurt as earlier could be heard in his voice, the type of hurt when one is misunderstood by someone they love, “I just - I just want it to be nice.”

“Let’s not make it too nice lest you fall in love with me,” she said sternly. “Besides, you should be more concerned about getting STDs. There should be some condoms in the glove box and also tissues for later.”

He brought his face closer to hers, looked at her lips and said, “You’ve got such a mean mouth, you know that?”

“And you like it?”

“Perhaps”, he replied then kissed her, deeply. Holding her face in his head, he bit her lips which made her moan in his mouth. After running out of breath she pulled away, still tasting his saliva on her tongue as he reached behind her and rifled through the glove compartment. Having found what he wanted, he turned on the radio then returned his focus to her; she was hiking up her dress and awkwardly slipping off her panties in the short space.

Heavy bass filled the car, I wanna be your vacuum cleaner breathing in your dust, as the sky started to light up with shades of azure and tangerine. Her tongue blended with his as she took his cock in her. Their bodies pressed and flushed against each other as a steady rhythm flowed through them. Her nails scratched his nape, as he kissed her neck, nibbling at her collarbone. Her head shot back as he thrust up into her, frantic and keen. His groans muffled in her chest, her moans melting into his hair as their hips clashed against one another.

Maybe I just wanna be yours.

I wanna be yours.

------------   

The sparkling rays of the breaking dawn illuminated his face as he cleaned himself off and got dressed. She marveled from the driver’s seat at the magnificence of the sight of him in afterglow. There was something in him, something innate, that made him stand out from anyone she ever came across. He was made for the screen, he was made to shine, and she wondered whether or not he’ll remember her afterwards. It was for the better if he didn’t, she thought to herself, as this was probably one of the lowest points in his life, while that night was most definitely one of the highlights of hers. The sheer dichotomy was glaring at her soul when he spoke up, bringing her attention back to the present, “I was wondering if you’d like to -”

“Look if you want my name or number, then that’s just not gonna happen,” she said with a sigh, “It’s the oxytocin flooding your brain. Increased levels of oxytocin facilitate attachment and bonding and shit so, like, don’t be fooled.”

“But it’s not that, I feel a connection between us...something I haven’t felt with anyone here before.”

He averted his eyes from her and looked out the window. His hand lingered on the door handle for a second before he stepped out of the car. Turning his back towards the car, he walked into the apartment complex, without saying anything further. Her foot pressed on the accelerator, as the car drove past the buildings. A Parliament washed out the leftover taste of him in her mouth as she rolled down the window to let the nauseously sweet scent dissipate into the cold morning air. 

“It is that. Believe me, I know. There is nothing between us. Whatever connection you feel is your hormones doing bullshit things.”

“You’re just evading me”

“I’m not. I do actually know. Okay, for instance you feel really tired and sleepy right now, right?”

“Yeah”

“That’s the parasympathetic nervous system down-regulating your body and a shit load of vasopressin coursing through you”

“But that could also be because we stayed up all night and got high and just had sex”

“Why don’t you understand? It’s all chemicals, everything! There is nothing called love and whatever the fuck people feel is just their chemicals doing somersaults. There is nothing between us, we don’t know each other. There can be nothing either, look at the circumstances. People like you shouldn’t have to do anything with people like me unless it requires a monetary transaction.”

“But i can help, with whatever you’re dealing with”, he said reaching to place his hand over hers, “we can help each other”

“and what exactly do you think i’m dealing with?, she asked, withdrawing her hand, eyes narrowed at him.

“I don’t know yet”

“Exactly. You don’t know anything. I’m not some sad little girl who went to college then got depressed but in a sexy way so maybe she did drugs or whatever and dropped out and now strips for fucking aesthetic reasons probably. No honey, I’m involved with shit that can drag you down faster than a meth withdrawal and my life is a living testimony of that, take my word for it. So, go get some rest. Sleep out your saviour complex and live out your promising life when you wake up.”

[mollymauk-teafleak]

“I immediately regret this decision.” + ThanZag

Please consider leaving a comment on Ao3 if you liked this!

----------

Thanatos had been anticipating slightly better weather. Looking back, in all honesty, that made him the fool in this situation. He’d lived here long enough to know that the weather here moved only between shades of slate grey and varying amounts of freezing rain. It had always been a running joke when they would come here for summer vacations as children, that their mother had chosen this particular stretch of coast because she despised the sun. That while geese might fly south for the winter, Mother Nyx fled north for the summer and took her babies with her.

So really, Thanatos had no one to blame but himself for the fact that he was standing on the pebbly shoreline, fighting to keep his towel wrapped around him in spite of the wind and shivering in nothing but a pair of shorts.

Well, he could blame Zagreus of course. But he should have known better than to fall for those pleading eyes.

Those eyes were currently shamelessly dialled up as his mermaid lover lounged in the shallows, beckoning to Thanatos, “It’s really not that bad!”

Than frowned at him, “So I’ll maybe only lose my extremities to frostbite rather than a whole limb?”

Zagreus laughed, not even flinching as incoming waves broke over the back of his neck, speckling his hair with drops of diamond. His tail swept lazily through the water, stirring up foam, glowing with its faint red-gold light that seemed inherent to the scales themselves.

“You’re so dramatic,” Zag chuckled, “You used to come swimming with me all the time, in worse weather than this.”

“Yes,” Than took a hesitant step closer to where the waves lost steam and fell apart against the smooth stones, “I was sixteen and an idiot.”

“And now we’re twenty six,” Zag flashed him a smile that showed his sharp canines, “So come on in.”

Thanatos had to admit, the way the setting sun flashed on the water’s surface invitingly, lighting up stripes of it in flaming orange, was making him forget how cold it would be. Zag’s tail looked like one of those stripes came to life. Fluid, effortless life that burned with its own soft ember light and trailing fins like lingering flames. He remembered how it felt wrapped around his waist all those nights when they were younger, it’s supple warmth.

Zag’s smile had grown, curled at one end into something hungry, like he could read Than’s thoughts. They’d known each other long enough that he could probably read them on his face.

He pushed off the bank along the shore with his muscular arms, slipping into the deeper darker waters. With one hand, skin bright white against the almost black sea, he beckoned.

Than exhaled and let his towel fall to the ground, kicking it back. Eyes fixed on Zagreus, he took one step into the surf.

“I immediately regret this decision,” he said after a moment’s pause, “No sex is worth this.”

“Aw come on!” Zag yelped half with incredulity and half with laughter, “You promised!”

Than grimaced. His toes had lost all feeling and it only really burned right where the water met his ankles. Zagreus had been right, it wasn’t too bad. When he’d been a younger man, he’d thrown himself off the end of the little jetty into much colder water with reckless abandon. With this being where they spent their summers, he and his brothers had quite the warped concept of acceptable swimming temperatures. Freezing became cold and cold became mild. Actual mild didn’t exist this far up the northern coast.

He had learned it was easier when there was a very willing lover in the water beckoning him in.

With a deep lungful of air, Than increased his pace, letting the water slip up his legs and foam around him until he felt the rough pebbled surface under his feet fall away. Then he just let himself pitch forward into it, bringing his arms up to make it a passable dive. As the ocean closed over his head, the world fell into total silence. There was a perfect beat, a single moment of complete noiselessness, where everything seemed to freeze in place.

Before his nerves could light up with the pain of the cold, Zag’s arms closed around him and pulled him up. Than gasped in air, hair plastered to his head and dripping salt water into his eyes. The first thing he heard was Zag’s laughter, the first thing he saw was his smile, beaming proudly.

“See?” he grinned, wrapping his tail around Than’s legs to let the inherent heat of it warm him, “I told you. Not that bad.”

“No,” Than’s teeth still chattered and his breath still came in gasps but his lover ran hot, he just pressed closer to him, “Not bad at all.”

Zag grinned, drifting them back a little until the water gentled and came up to his and Than’s shoulders. Than knew he didn’t need to do anything, just cling to Zagreus, and he would stay afloat.

“Isn’t it nice to meet in the middle, like the old days?” he hummed, gills flaring as he spun them in slow, lazy circles, “Back when we had to sneak around?”

Technically they still had to sneak around. There was a reason they only met at night, there was a reason the only human Zag had felt brave enough to approach was one who lived in an isolated seaside cottage over the summer. One who was his own age, a child and still desperate to believe fantasy stories might be real.

But Than appreciated what Zag meant, he meant the only person in the cottage now was himself, that Zag could shift his form and share Than’s bed as many nights as he was able to sneak away from his father’s castle. Than didn’t have to sneak out of the smaller room he shared with his brothers, tiptoe down the stairs avoiding every one that creaked to undress at the edge of the jetty and fall into Zag’s arms. Now they could share breakfast together, make love in every room of the lopsided little cottage, walk the shore together and kiss.

But yes, it was still very fun to meet in the middle.

Zag was kissing him now, interrupting his thoughts, open mouthed and inviting. He was so warm inside, warm enough to compensate for the cold of the ocean he swam in, warm enough to make some of Than’s biological impulses possible when the freezing water should have meant otherwise. His lungs remembered how to take deep breaths, exhaling into Zag’s mouth, hands breaching the surface to cradle his lover in return. For a long time, all they did was taste salt on each other’s lips, the only sound was the gentle rolling of the waves and their shuddering breaths.

“I supposed I’m the one getting fucked?” Zag eventually gasped out, ever the impatient one.

“Well I don’t have any lube in my pockets,” Than murmured, teasingly licking along his jawline, “And no pockets. So yes.”

Zag had no complaints, purring loudly as he shifted, exposing the part of his long body just under where his pale skin turned into blazing coppery scales. Getting to grips with Zag’s genitalia had needed a long few days of exciting and giggly exploration when they were teenagers but the last few months since they’d reunited, it had all come back to Than promptly.

Now he knew just where to stroke to tease Zag’s slit open, exposing the blushed, slick pink inside of him. He felt his lover’s tail tighten around him and heard him whimper and moan as he gave him perhaps a little more preparation than was necessary.

“Than…” Zag keened, after a particularly teasing thrust of one finger into him, “C’mon…”

“What? My fingers are cold,” Than grinned devilishly, finding his feet on the sand below them, planting himself enough that he could pull Zag towards him, starting to press into that slit.

Zag gripped his shoulders tight, his claws would leave little puncture indentations when they were done, his tail holding him close, “Please, Than. Oh gods…”

Than rocked his hips, managing to find a rhythm even while he felt like he was floating, Zag helping with his slightly scary, moreso thrilling strength, fucking himself on Than’s cock as much as Than was fucking him. Moaning rapturously, he rested his forehead on Than’s, jaw slack, wickedly sharp teeth catching on the sunset.

“That’s it,” he groaned, someone finding words when Than could only grunt and gasp, “There you are, that's where you belong, my mate, mine…”

Than groaned through tight clenched jaws, those words enough that he was suddenly, dangerously close. He tried to warn his lover, struggling to gasp it out but Zag just nodded hungrily, thrusting hard as he toppled over the edge.

Thanatos’ head fell back as his orgasm gripped him, turning his muscles to iron as it crashed over him. He would have slipped under the surface if Zag didn’t recover from his own climax quick enough to tighten his grip on him.

“I’ve got you,” Zag panted, grinning crookedly, “I’ve got you…”

“I know,” Than clung to him, his desperation for closeness having nothing to do with the temperature of the water, “My mate.”

Zag’s smile brightened with sheer delight at hearing Than use his own words, nuzzling him close as they lazily drifted back towards the shore. Though they wouldn’t emerge for some time, hesitant to leave each others arms, the place where the differences between them didn’t feel so stark, where one of them didn’t have to change to suit the other.

It really was nice to meet in the middle.

[dizzydancingdreamer]

Men who I think would be soft for their baby for no other reasons than because I want them to be, in no particular order but still numbered ten to one because I like countdowns...

——————————————————————————

Part two —> part one here

——————————————————————————

This one’s for you @activist-af​, no Finn and Kol erasure here Lottie

——————————————————————————

10. Raleigh Becket

A really good man who is a little too impulsive at times and has pretty much no sense of self preservation and always seems to get himself into worsening situations

Is so fucking soft for his baby that it’s insanity

His baby is in no way the same kind of super soldier he is, she’s literally the softest baby in the world, and he’s just so careful with her

Like he follows her around the compound and just makes sure she’s okay

Eats every meal with her, shares a room with her, literally does pretty much everything with her just in awe

So many cuddles before and after a mission, lots of reassurance, kisses her entire face everywhere at least twice and has to get practically dragged away

Endures so much teasing from his partner

I don’t care if his character is suited for a dominant female you can’t change my mind on this one this man is soft as fuck

——————————————————————————

9. Ambrose Spellman

A reformed radical warlock who has been locked in one house for a hundred years and is itching to go on a self-destructive bender after cleaning up his family’s messes for years

In absolutely no position to be in a committed relationship but I don’t give a single fuck

He would follow his baby around like a damn puppy when finally free of the Spellman residence 

Oh she wants to go to witch school? He’s tagging along

She wants to go travel? Lead the way

The park, carnival, movie theatre, cafe, literally endless places he would follow her

Would read to her as she falls asleep and tell her all his little bits of knowledge on things that he collected during his time stuck in the house

A soft man that is final

——————————————————————————

8. Richard O’Connell

Cannot survive a normal, mundane life because it’s “too boring” for a man like him and would risk it all for a mummy invasion even if it means that he dies in the process

But by god he is so fucking soft I just know it

Keeps her safe at all costs even when she pouts at him and makes him take her with him when he travels

Refuses to leave her side when they go abroad because his track record with ancient curses is not great and there’s no way he’s letting some gross ass mummy hurt her

*dramatic gasp* HE ACTUALLY REFUSES SOME DANGEROUS MISSIONS FOR HER??? 

Does the thing where he leans into her hand when she touches his face and like kisses her palm

Definitely sleeps curled around his baby and wakes up at the slightest noise ready to hurt any intruders

I would literally do anything for this level of soft

——————————————————————————

7. Finn Mikaelson

A one thousand year+ original vampire who has absolutely zero sense of self preservation and actively seeks death because of how much he hates himself and would gladly bring his family down with him because mommy said so

Doesn’t quite fit the full dominant image but I don’t care he fits the soft part 1000%

Would bring her with him when he goes to see his family and is always wrapped around her the whole time

Endures all the teasing that would come with that for her because she’s?? Just?? So?? Cute and perfect???

Literally a thousand years old and would still absolutely crumple for his baby in SECONDS

If she cried it would literally be game over

There would be two people crying 

He would be crying MORE than her

Epic date night planner, meticulously detailed, would pay so much attention to the things she likes and picks up on even the smallest clues

God he’s so soft I want one

——————————————————————————

6. Clint Barton

Largely pushed aside Avenger who has been evil in the past and appears at times to miss the evil a little too much

This one doesn’t even need an explanation, I’m literally right and this one has proved himself countless times

This man is the love of my life so yes: I am biased

Badass, sarcastic, cold archer Avenger by day; soft, caring, gentle man by night 

Goes home, soaked with blood and sweat, and pulls his baby into the shower and just sags into her arms 

Lives for her fingers in his hair after a long day

And bubble baths with her 

Has gotten in trouble countless times for skipping important meetings but does not give a single fuck about it 

Teaches her archery and doesn’t yell once (which is a feat pointing to his softness because once he tried to teach Nat and they yelled at each other the entire time)

HE IS SOFT, CASE CLOSED

——————————————————————————

5. Bellamy Blake

Incited a radical uprising in a highly dangerous and sensitive situation for really no reason at all other than the fact that he wanted to be the de facto leader of something

As per usual, I don’t care about canon characteristics this is my world I can do whatever I want

Every bone in this man’s body is a protective one 

Yes, every single one (No, I’m not sorry about this)

Does not take shit from anyone about her, has definitely shut an entire group of people up for talking about her badly

Gets so nervous when she does anything even remotely dangerous and when she does he’s stuck to her side like glue

He’s so touchy and talks so quietly to her, not because he doesn’t want anyone to hear him call her his baby but because he just literally can’t bring himself to raise his voice he’s that soft for her

Does everything in his power to make sure she’s comfortable which is by no means easy in the slightest

So many forehead kisses that it’s almost barf worthy but he doesn’t care because she loves it and that’s all that matters

The radical leader is a fucking puddle of softness for his baby and that’s final

——————————————————————————

4. Loki

A trickster god who always teeters precariously on the edge of good and evil and no one ever knows which side he’ll favour at any given moment

Except when it comes to his baby then he’s good duh

Tiptoes around her because he would definitely be the type to go for a baby who jumps easily and he’s loud and kind of clunky so he’s always just slow and gentle 

So much gentle teasing and giggling like oh god it’s tooth rotting sweetness

He takes her hands and just puts them on him, like his chest and cheeks and jaw and arms

Anywhere he just wants her touching him all the time 

He rests his chin on her shoulder or head and reads whatever she’s reading or watches her go about her hobbies, kissing her cheek in between 

This girl would never work a day in her life she would be ridiculously well taken care of

Would burn down a city for her with little provoking 

As soft as butter for his baby

——————————————————————————

3. Kai Parker

Bringing back the “needs a therapist, not a girl” but sprinkle in a touch of volatile daddy issues that has created a man so hyper reactive to every negative situation whose only solution is to lash out because he figures no one loves him anyway 

But sweep all that aside because fuck it, I don’t like it 

He would worship his baby 110%

Is the type of man to let her do his nails and put as many face masks as she wants on him

Can’t sleep without her literally on top of him 

He so clingy and touchy, loves when she grabs his hand, internally screams whenever it happens

Has for sure killed for her that isn’t even a question it’s just a fact 

“He didn’t do anything” “he looked at you” “but Kai” “but baby” 

Would do it again

I DON’T CARE: HE’S SOFT FOR HIS BABY

——————————————————————————

2. Jasper Hale

A literal once upon a time confederate soldier who made child soldiers for his dom-vamp girlfriend because he was “in love”

This man has ripped so many heads off so many bodies but I don’t give a single fuck I know he goes home to his baby and just picks her up and does not put her down 

Face it, his family is rich, he doesn’t have to do anything, naps are definitely a big part of his routine and he’s always just snoozing with her on the couch, pulling her onto his lap and pulling a blanket off the back and they’re just asleep

Goes out for dinner with her, makes it through maybe twenty minutes, the entire time he’s waiting for it and then boom, the puppy eyes, game over, they’re home in minutes

Has skipped so many family functions 

Will make any excuse to just go the fuck home 

Sometimes he doesn’t even make an excuse he just fucking leaves

He’s touchy too I just know it look at that face the man lives for contact

The verdict is in-- 100/10 SOFT

——————————————————————————

1. Kol Mikaelson

Perhaps the angriest, most volatile, I-hate-the-world-and-everyone-in-it, thousand year old+ original vampire who has been stomped on so much and died so many times that he has no true sense of the world, trust, and love left

Oh GOD this man, this FUCKING MAN 

THE SOFTEST MAN HOLY SHIT

I don’t even care what y’all think about this one Kol is so damn soft

This man is the inventor of cuddling 

And he doesn’t give one single fuck about where and when I just know it

Family dinner? The witch market? CHURCH?? 

It doesn’t matter, he’s pressed against her 

Oh god this man is protective 

Maybe a little possessive too

I don’t care

His family calls him unpredictable so hey he may as well live up to it and burn down a bar or two or twenty for his baby

Shows her all of his witch things and rambles about them all

Is always pulling one of his shirts or hoodies over her head 

AGAIN BUBBLE BATHS I JUST KNOW IT 

He likes washing her back and just getting to be alone with her 

He likes it even more when she washes his hair like he just sinks to his knees and closes his eyes and gives into it

GOD MY HEART IS BEATING SO FAST FOR HOW SOFT KOL IS

——————————————————————————

[jimmys-zeppelin]

ghostin'

chapter ten

(table of contents)

(chapter nine)

april 3, 1976

help me

Ellie tried keeping her mind off of her potential situation after she got back home. As soon as she landed, she was at the doctor's office getting her blood drawn. The doctor said she'd have her results on Monday.

She observed how Jimmy had been acting in the 12 hours they were together before she left after their night out. It wasn't that he was on-edge, but he was definitely a little less than comfortable. And that was an understandable reaction considering how unexpected all this was.

She was separating, folding, and putting clothes away from her suitcase when the doorbell rang an incessant amount of times. Ellie knew it could only be one person with the insistence in which the doorbell rang.

The bell only stopped when Ellie finally yanked the door open, "Andrew, what the hell!" she joked. The dark-haired man nearly screamed with delight and engulfed the blonde in a hug.

"God, that was the longest fucking three weeks of my life! How was it? How'd it go? Did you break some beds?"

Ellie held her mouth agape for a second before laughing and ushering the man inside. He followed her back upstairs as they spoke, "No beds were broken, contrary to popular belief. But it went great. Jimmy said Charlotte really liked me after we stopped by a second time. And his daughter is so sweet."

"So you're cool with the family! Awesome. Now you know you'll probably be seeing more of them. Try not to catch the baby fever, though."

Ellie chuckled dryly at the statement, "You might be a little late on that one, Andrew."

"Listen, kids are cute, but when you actually have to take care of them, it's a hassle. Wait till you're old and wrinkly and you've already lived."

Her heart sank in her chest, would her life really be slowed down that drastically by a baby?

"El, what's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Can we not talk about babies right now?" She asked, pinching the bridge of her nose and crumpling up a shirt she had been holding, tossing it into her dirty clothes pile quite aggressively.

"Uh, oh. Seems like I hit a nerve. Did Jimmy say anything to you about having kids?"

"No, not exactly. He wasn't opposed to it. I just—I don't want to think about kids right now. Can we talk about something else?"

"Okay, fine I won't budge," he said, throwing his hands up in surrender before stammering in an attempt to find a new topic to talk about, "what was the house like?"

"It was beautiful. Huge. Like imagine my house but like ten times bigger. I know he doesn't need all those bedrooms."

"You two should've had sex in all of the rooms. A new room every night." Andrew said, almost excited at the prospect.

"What is it with your obsession in my sex life? Aren't you getting some?"

"It's a little hard for my scene of people, Ellie. And plus, it's not my fault your boyfriend is a total looker. I don't know how you don't just stare at him all day."

Ellie chuckled at the comment, "Well we did have a morning that we spent in bed. It was nice."

"You're keeping something from me. Ellie, we don't keep secrets."

"What do you—" Ellie tried to play off, only to enter a stare-down with her best friend. She kept eye contact for as long as she could before the dryness made her scrunch her eyes shut. "Fine! I am keeping something from you."

"And it is....?"

"I can't tell you just yet. But I will say one thing, I'm extremely worried about Jimmy. I walked into his office the other day because I was looking for something and there were just bottles. And drugs. All over the desk."

"What kind of drugs?" Andrew asked, leaning in.

Ellie folded up a skirt, putting it away in her drawer before answering, "heroin and coke."

"Heroin? I hear that shit is wack if you take too much. Was he shooting it?"

"He'd done at least three. He was completely zooted. Out of his mind. His arm looked like an inexperienced nurse trying to find a vein. Andrew, it was horrible."

"Oh, God. I can only imagine. I'm sorry, babe. What did he say when you saw him?"

"He didn't say anything. I got kind of mad at him afterwards because he knows I get worried when he uses the stuff. He tried to butter me up and say sorry, but I just kinda brushed him off."

"Aw, Ellie. Do you wanna go out tonight; get your mind off it?"

"I don't know...I don't really wanna drink this weekend."

"We don't have to drink." He shrugged.

Ellie eyed him suspiciously, "since when does 'going out' not consist of drinking?"

"I heard Queen's still in town. We could try to look for 'em. Maybe I can get Freddie to sign my chest." Andrew said, stroking his chest sensually.

"You sound like a groupie." she chuckled.

"Listen, you're the famous one, not me. I can be as whorish as I want."

With a roll of her eyes, Ellie picked up her hamper, walking off to the laundry room with it to get started on her clothes.

☆

Later that evening, after Andrew had gone home, Ellie picked up the phone. She held it in her hand for a second before hanging up the receiver. Looking at the clock, the blonde noticed it was only 6pm. A drive would be nice. She thought to herself.

Grabbing her sunglasses and a coat—it was unusually cold for April—and took her keys from the table by the front door as she made her way over to her car.

Deciding she'd go down to West Hollywood and stop at her manager's office, Ellie took the long way and chose to take her time while driving.

Turning on the radio, she just caught the beginning of "Help Me" by Joni Mitchell. She turned the volume a bit louder and relaxed against the driver's seat; letting the California sun hit her face and a slight breeze come in through the window. She forgot about everything that'd been on her mind as she drove down the highway, taking in the music and bobbing her head along to the beat.

Taking a turn onto Santa Monica Boulevard, Ellie observed the tons of stores and people that littered the sidewalk. As she slowed to a stop at a red light, she took a look across the street to find a particular head of bleach-blond hair. Rolling down the window some more and pulling her sunglasses down, Ellie's suspicions were confirmed.

"Roger!" She exclaimed without thinking. Her heart dropped to her ass at the realization that she'd just publicly yelled at someone she'd only met twice before. "Shit." she whispered under her breath.

"Ellie?" Roger asked in response. He was visibly leaning over and lowering his own sunglasses to be able see the singer inside her car.

"I thought you went back home!" Ellie said, nervously glancing between Roger and the stoplight.

"No! I hung around! The guys went back home," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets, "I've been calling you!"

"I've been away! I should've told you! I just got back!"

Another glance at the light.

"Can I call you later?"

"Sure!" Ellie exclaimed when the loud blaring of a car horn behind her caused her to jump in her seat. She waved a quick goodbye to Roger before going on her way. It wasn't until she caught her breath that she realized she'd been holding it. She shook her head and took another deep breath, continuing down the street.

☆

"Carolyn'll see you now." The receptionist said. Ellie stood up, now with her coat and sunglasses off, she felt a bit more at ease. She said a quick thank you to the receptionist before letting herself into the office.

"Ellie! Sit down, babe." Carolyn said cheerfully. "You said April 1st."

"I got a little caught up in some personal stuff."

"I hope nothing too bad. You didn't overdo it on the blow did you?"

"No, no. I promise, Care. That's one thing you'll never have to worry about with me."

"I better not. Don't need you dying on me or anything. How was your trip?"

"It was great! Jimmy and I got some alone time, it was nice. I met his daughter. Absolute sweetheart."

"You didn't get knocked up, did you?" Carolyn asked, furrowing her brows at her.

Ellie practically jumped in her seat, her eyes widened, "No! I don't—why would you—?"

"Oh my God, you got knocked up didn't you? You were there for barely three weeks, Ellie!"

"I have an appointment with my doctor tomorrow. I'll call you as soon as I can to let you know how it went. I just don't want to think about it right now." Ellie sighed, not wanting to think about her worst fears for another second.

"Fine. Let's see if the record company needs anything from you." Carolyn replied, flipping through a notebook that was sitting on her desk before looking back up at her, "I need you to get a song out, or even an album. Tell me you did something other than screw around with your boyfriend on your trip."

"I started a song, then I kind of abandoned it when I had an idea for a different one...it's a bit personal so it'll definitely be on the slower side, I think." Ellie explained.

"Got a name?"

"Uhh, it doesn't have one yet."

"Is it finished?"

"Nearly."

"Alright, well. Finish it by this week and we can get you in the studio in two weeks."

"I'll try." Ellie replied.

☆

Ellie sat hunched over her songbook scribbling a few words down and crossing out others. She chewed on her pencil, staring at her thoughts on the page. The blonde hadn't thought about the song she'd written while at Jimmy's house in a while.

Trying to hum out the tune she'd created, Ellie was about to run and grab her guitar upstairs when the phone rang; this stopping her in her tracks. Detouring to the phone, she quickly picked it up off the receiver, "Hello?"

"Ellie?" the man on the other line asked, his voice identifiable immediately as Roger's.

"Hi, Roger." she said, the smile on her face audible in her voice.

"Hey, how've you been?" he asked. "You went missing for a bit there."

"Yeah, I'm doing okay, I went to England with Jimmy for a few weeks. He played host for me for once." She joked, twirling the phone cord in her fingers.

"Oh wow, was it your first time?"

"No, not at all. I go back to visit him quite often, actually. When I'm not busy, of course."

"Right, right. Uhhh, listen, I was about to grab a bite to eat. Did you want to come with me by any chance? Unless you've eaten already, then it's a redundant question." Roger added quickly to the end of his invitation.

Ellie hesitated at her answer, although she didn't know why, "...Sure! Yeah, I was just gonna wind up making some macaroni and cheese anyway, so, I guess it's better to go get an...actual meal." She replied. Her answer was painfully awkward and she physically cringed at her response.

"Okay, great! So I'll come by in a few to pick you up. Say, 8:30 ish, if that's okay with you?"

She glanced at the clock, 7:55pm. "Yeah, that's fine. I'll see you then!"

The two said their goodbyes and hung up. Then, when Ellie started on her way upstairs—again—the phone rang again. It was Roger, realizing he'd never asked for her address. They had a laugh about it before Ellie told him the information and she went to get ready.

---

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2-12-21

7-13-21

[adhd-ahamilton]

I got to see Hamilton in Sydney!!

It was a seriously, seriously amazing time – I was always worried that by the time I finally got to see Hamilton on stage (I was even supposed to see it in America last year lmfao) it wouldn’t mean the same anymore. And like, obviously it’s not my hyperfixation anymore. But even like this, it was still an incredible experience! I always figured that the recording would focus more on close-ups and the like because you can’t really see that on stage, but you really can see so much of what’s going on when you see it live and the whole stage is full of things to notice!

I have a lot of thoughts about it (mainly about the Australian cast, though some of these things could just be live performance things)!

Firstly, only two lines had their wordings changed:

* ‘John Adams doesn’t have a real job, anyway’ → ‘Vice president is not a real job, anyway.’ This got a good laugh from the audience; obviously it was changed to preserve the joke, since most Aussies wouldn’t have a good idea of who John Adams was. (I explained the joke when I watched the recording with my parents.)

* ‘Weehawken. Dawn.’ → ‘Jersey. Dawn.’ This was a bit of a surprise, but the more I think about it the more it makes sense. Aussies also wouldn’t know Weehawken (I didn’t even get that he was referring to a place when I first heard it), while Jersey is very clear because they already made a joke about it. (That one didn’t get much of a laugh though, ofc lol) And it’s actually more consistent because later they do say ‘we were near the same spot my son died, is that why’ so they drive that connection even deeper.

I don’t think there were any other music/staging/choreography differences from the recording – just the acting. But ooh, this really was differently-acted!

Hamilton

I love Lin-Manuel Miranda. I love his energy and enthusiasm and intelligence and his optimism. But while I loved his dorky version of Hamiton, I have to admit, I didn’t always think it matched up with even the musical’s script, let alone the real person. This Hamilton, though? I kept thinking about all the ways he felt different from the original, and almost every time, it was like ‘yeah, this feels more like what I know of the real Hamilton.’ (Or at least, the Hamilton we wrote about in fic.)

This Hamilton is aggressive and prickly. Up until Helpless, we don’t really see him smile – which makes sense, y’know, with ‘talk less, smile more.’ When he confronts Burr at the beginning of the play, he doesn’t have Miranda’s overly energetic and talkative air, he’s more pushy and too intense. You really feel like, oh, yeah, he’s just walking up to someone on the street and badgering them into telling him about their life story. When he says ‘God, I wish there was a war’ he’s less naive and more so hyperfocused on his goal he doesn’t notice he’s said something super insensitive. When Burr says ‘You wanna get ahead?’ his ‘Yes’ isn’t quiet and firm, it’s more ‘yes obviously, nobody would not want to get ahead, so just hurry up and tell me already.’

And that’s just in the first couple of songs! He continues on like this, with that kind of burning intensity and hot temper, through the musical, though ofc it softens at important times. Importantly, his relationship with Burr is largely based in frustration. When he does ‘My Shot’, it honestly feels less like he’s singing to impress the guys and more like he’s challenging Burr and everything he just told him; I’m sure I saw him glancing back at Burr several times. Likewise, when he tells Burr to go get Theodosia, it’s not questioning – he’s outright saying that if he really loved her, he’d take any risk for her. And in Schuyler Defeated, his ‘Burr?’ isn’t questioning there, either – he’s already angry, he’s just demanding his attention. He genuinely seems to like Burr in a weird way that even he might not understand at times, but for the most part he just seems to find him really frustrating and is always trying to incite him to do more.

This Hamilton also feels very independent, and even aloof. In The Story of Tonight, while the other guys are totally sincere and moved by it all, Hamilton feels sorta… distant. At one point he half walks off until Laurens brings him back, which I think happens in the recording as well, but here I especially felt like that was how he was ‘really’ feeling. Not that he was being manipulative or lying in any way, just that he couldn’t be in the moment because he was still stuck in his head thinking about the future. And the whole way through, he very rarely seems to properly open up – my friend said afterwards that Hurricane hits so much harder when it’s the first time he’s really vulnerable in the entire musical. Which is basically how it happens.

It’s funny – you think of Hamilton and Burr as being contrasting this way, with Burr keeping his cards close to his chest and not revealing what he really wants until The Room Where It Happens, but this Hamilton doesn’t feel far off. But rather than keeping a secret per se, it’s more… he has such an incredibly strong, intense drive, and you’re never super certain where it comes from. And in Hurricane, it suddenly becomes clear – all this time, he’s still caught up in that trauma, and still feels like he needs to fight and scrape just to survive, even when it turns into this self-destructive impulse. Honestly, Hurricane has always been kind of a weird song – he’s been corrupted and is not the most sympathetic beforehand, but then you get this grand slow inspiring song talking about how he suffered in the past and overcame it, but THEN you cut to an almost comedic number about how he fucked everything up for himself and his family. In Miranda’s version, that mood up-and-down always felt a little too jarring. Here it made perfect sense – it was so shocking to see how vulnerable he was at the beginning, and then the song isn’t just repeating what we learned in the beginning, it’s explaining what he’s been keeping deep down all along, but also making it clear that this is manic and awful and destructive.

Part of that is the singing, too. This Hamilton can rap really well, but his singing voice is startlingly gentle and beautiful. It really helps to get across the sincerity of his feelings in Helpless, Dear Theodosia, and as I said Hurricane. On the other hand, there are also times his voice just goes flat, like there are so many emotions he can’t process them – you see that a bit in My Shot when he gets worried (‘I never had a group of friends before’), but it REALLY stings when he says ‘I have so much work to do.’ That hit me way harder than Miranda’s version :(

However, when you combine this Hamilton’s aloofness with that certainty and intelligence, you also get a version of him that is particularly… ironic? He’s always crossing his arms (when he’s not rubbing his face with a palm; those two gestures repeat constantly through the play), and kinda stepping back and Watching people, with a bit of a sense of self-important and even patronising judgement. This is very much ‘So quick-witted!’ ‘Alas, I admit it.’ He definitely does come across like a dude who thinks he is ‘smartest in the room,’ and puts way too much stock in his own opinion. Particularly with Burr whenever they were getting along there was a distinct sense of ‘You know what? I actually think you’re pretty interesting. And my positive judgement is hard to come by, so that’s a big compliment.’ (Burr does not seem to get this weirdly condescending vibe though, lol.) Honestly…. I gotta admit: I really don’t like people like that, haha – though I can’t say it’s entirely inappropriate for Hamilton characterisation. This Hamilton genuinely feels difficult, and that matches up to what happens in the script.

But, the consequence is that after Hurricane, some of the later songs didn’t have quite as much of an impact on me as in the original. In It’s Quite Uptown, I could somehow never quite lose that vision of Hamilton as a bit sarcastic and superior – the way he rubs at his face in grief still just felt a little… put-on and theatrical, like you can hear the frustrated sigh underneath. And this is a song that demands complete, total, unrelenting vulnerability – Miranda’s Hamilton sounds like he’s dying the whole time and that makes the emotional stakes really felt. Maybe it’s that his voice was TOO gentle in this song – Miranda’s more awkward voice actually adds to the exhausted brokenness of the situation?

And finally, when we got to The World Was Wide Enough… Miranda’s speech there in the silence might just be my favourite sequence in the entire musical, so I think anyone else would have struggled to match up to that. It doesn’t help that I was distracted trying to figure out Burr in this scene (which I’ll get to later). It was still beautiful, of course, but ‘What is a legacy?’ just feels so so very Lin-Manuel Miranda and anyone else singing that just doesn’t feel the same.

Overall, I really really enjoyed this version of Alexander Hamilton – as I said, he felt much closer to the actual characterisation I always imagined for him. And this one showed some really fascinating vulnerability in unexpected places, even if the ending didn’t quite land as well for me.

Burr

This Burr was really, really fascinating as well – an interpretation that feels different all the way through, but really pays off at the end with something very striking.

So, something the group of us all agreed was that this Burr felt a lot more like the ‘trust fund baby’ he calls himself. There’s something elegant and refined about him, a rich person who is used to moving through the world as a person to be admired. He’s actually quite graceful, somehow, even though he barely dances? But that also really brings to the fore one particular element – entitlement. (Seriously, my mum is physically incapable of bringing up Burr without mentioning the word ‘entitled’, lol.)

This is a Burr who is used to not having to work for things. He just sort of expects things to fall into his lap, eventually, in contrast to Hamilton. The world will eventually shape to match his desires – that’s how things work. Even in the latter part of the musical, it doesn’t so much feel like he needs to fight and scrape like Hamilton to get ahead, but more like… getting ahead is his birthright, and he just needs to effect that inevitable change into the world. But I’ll get to all that later.

The other thing my friend said was that this Burr feels very much like a preacher’s son, and the more I thought about that the more I agree. There’s something almost… toxically positive about him – the smiles don’t feel two-faced and manipulative so much as maybe like, wilfully ignorant? There’s a very ‘Don’t fret, God will work things out in the end :)’ feel about him, actually. But there’s also something deeply naive in him. Leslie Odom Junior’s version also had some of that genuine lack of understanding – when he muses in confusion over Hamilton in Wait For It, or when his face scrunches in confusion when he says ‘I don’t see why that has to end’ in Schuyler Defeated, and this one does all that, but it feels like an even more inescapable part of his character.

Like, there’s something about this Burr that is just a bit… lame. A bit ‘Hello Fellow Kids.’ But, intentionally!! As I said, he’s a preacher’s son. When he tries to act kinda cool or badass, it just doesn’t quite work. When he interacts with the other guys, even as he smiles wanly and shakes it off when they insult him, you feel like he does still want to be – or even think he is? - part of that group of cool young men. He’s just too… nice, almost. I felt a little more bad during The Story Of Tonight (Reprise) and all. And he seems to take it really earnestly that Hamilton likes him, even if, like I said, there’s a sorta superior quality coming from Hamilton.

He just comes across more naive. Rather than a manipulator, this Burr comes across as more of a shameless Yes Man, who doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with what he’s doing. But I also sort of felt like other characters easily saw through him, and Burr didn’t quite realise that. Like with Jefferson, it sorta felt like he thought he was being really strategic but Jefferson was just like ‘sure, this guy works as an ally, even if he’s kinda annoying.’

And when it comes to Wait For It… the song makes it clear that bad things have happened to him – he hasn’t gone through life without suffering – but he hasn’t had the same reaction Hamilton has had. While Hamilton learned nothing will come to him unless he takes it, it feels like Burr learned that things will just… happen to him, good or bad, and he can’t control it. Nothing that has ever really affected Burr has been of his choice – he inherited his position, and then his parents died, and  all of that was just the uncontrollable whim of the universe. Leslie Odom Junior’s version emphasised the ‘I am the one thing I can control’ aspect a bit more – you feel that that version really had worked hard and struggled for the sake of his studies and job, but this Wait For It gave me a very uncomfortable feeling of being trapped. It’s as though everything about him is already decided, and even his efforts aren’t personal decisions so much as just what was natural and expected of him to do.

And that makes the second half of the story feel very different for him. In Leslie Odom Junior’s version, we see him take that self-control to new levels – that realisation that there is something that means as much to him as all of that drive and intensity Hamilton puts out, and it’s his own ambition. That he does want that, and he will have to fight and get his hand dirty to make it happen. As the story goes on, he becomes increasingly desperate and fearful, understanding more and more what it was to be that kid in the hurricane, becoming viscerally aware that terrible things can and will happen to him unless he stops them.

This Burr doesn’t feel like that. His downfall isn’t frantic. It’s very very cold.

In The Room Where It Happens, yes, his ambition crystallises and he changes strategy. But it feels less like an electric jolt, or an earthquake, and more of an epiphany. It’s okay for him to do these things. It’s right. He belongs in the room where it happens. Whatever he does to bring him there is by definition right and good.

He honestly seems to be feeling good through much of it. He’s so smiley when he comes up to Jefferson. He seems even more confused than Leslie’s Burr when Hamilton is actually mad at him for unseating Schuyler. And in The Election of 1800, there’s nothing of the original’s tired, manic energy, like he’s pushing himself to the brink and plastering on a smile to get through it. When this Burr campaigns, he’s energized and charismatic and friendly and filled with almost a kind of serenity. Like this is what he was born to do. His future is almost here – he just needs to reach out a little and it will be in his grasp.

Which, brief aside here while I analyse this haha – so, in Australia, a big part of our culture is what is called Tall Poppy Syndrome. i.e., an instinctive bitterness and hostility towards those who are perceived to stand above others. It’s often described as an aggression towards successful people, but I think that’s only part of it. Australians would describe their culture as breezy and casual and relaxed, but there’s also something disaffected about it, IMO. You’re not meant to ever take anything too seriously. Yes, we all take the piss out of politicians, but it’s sorta ‘lame’ to really seriously oppose them, too. It’s like our culture is stuck in the mindset of a self-conscious fifteen year old, where we’re all sorta lazily cynical and ‘bluntly honest’, but you’re not supposed to ever actually do anything about it all. Caring too much is kinda embarrassing. You’re just supposed to make fun of people and keep living your life. We don’t get the same fundamentalist groups intent on forcing their viewpoint on society like America does, but we also don’t get the same idealists who fervently believe that if we work hard we can make things better. They exist, for sure. But… well, it’s hard for me to imagine an Australian Leslie Knope, you know? (Who, btw, is one of my favourite fictional characters of all time, for reference.)

Watching Burr in The Election of 1800, I was struck by a memory. It was an Australian season of The Amazing Race, and on top of all of the typical relaxed Australian reality show contenders (seriously, I don’t know what the fuck Drag Race Down Under is on, that is the most un-Australian reality show I have ever SEEN), there was one couple that were I suppose Go-Getters. The type who eat healthily (probably vegan) and get up every morning in their athleisure to work out at the gym or go for runs. They were peppy and enthusiastic and they announced with huge smiles that they were going to WIN this! And the other contestants absolutely despised them. At one point, they did something to attract specific ire – honestly, it was probably nothing more than just not helping another duo who were going the wrong way, because in Australian reality shows everyone helps. But after that, multiple groups all ganged up to sabotage them. They took such delight in watching these two cheery people’s optimism flag, so very self-assured in having taught them to ‘not take yourself too seriously.’ Burr, as he was campaigning, reminded me of them.

It’s really telling, I think, that Burr is the one who reminded me a little of Leslie Knope, here – albeit obviously a much darker version. The kind of person who dorkily believes in the system and puts himself out there unselfconsciously, whose wide smiles are unironic and unmocking. In the original, Lin Manuel Miranda actually compared Hamilton to Leslie Knope at one point, with Hamilton’s ‘thirty years of disagreements.’ It’s a very Australian thing, to make Hamilton less earnest and more aloof and sarcastic, to make his anger as much about frustration with other people as about believing in something himself, and to make Burr, by comparison, sincere. Australians don’t really trust sincerity. Honesty is to be framed as an insulting joke, and Burr is just too polite to do that.

When the results come, Burr’s serene smile only very very slowly fades. Before his expression really drops, he turns away. When Your Obedient Servant starts, he’s quiet. The whole time he sings, he’s measured and controlled and entirely certain of himself. He doesn’t have LOJ’s grit or spikes in volume on ‘just to keep me from winning.’ He’s unnervingly quiet.

Even into The World Was Wide Enough this continues. In the original, Burr is outright frantic. He’s desperate and shaking with anger and fear, and when he points at Hamilton’s glasses and the like, you can feel that he actually isn’t sure of himself – that he’s trying to justify this to himself and knows he sounds crazy, but he just can’t pull back now. His voice shakes and goes up and down. When he says ‘we were near the same spot his son died, is that way?’ it rises and when he says ‘this man will not make an orphan of my daughter’ he cracks in real tears, like the mention of Philip reminded him of what’s at stake here, like that really is the reason he’ll kill him. This Burr stays quiet and cold. He doesn’t waver.

If that Burr was desperate, this one feels… and I hope this doesn’t sound like a joke: like a thwarted rich nice guy. The other Burr learned from Hamilton too well, and is replicating his self-destructive energy. This Burr hasn’t learned anything at all. Winning is still his birthright, and Hamilton has stolen that from him. Burr deserves it, and he deserves to punish Hamilton for this. It’s not an explosion of shock, a scrabbling for purchase in this new chaotic world that will doom them both. It’s vindictive. Burr knows what he is doing and he wants to hurt Hamilton for all Hamilton has hurt him.

After the shot, I was surprised to find myself not tearing up as I expected (usually, these two last songs always get me). With the original Burr, his singing is laced with pain as much as regret. When he repeats ‘death doesn’t discriminate’, we feel his sorrow as he fits Hamilton into the same kind of category as his parents and wife, as someone important to him who died. When he says ‘he may have been the first one who died, but I’m the one who paid for it,’ we understand that he’s referring to the depth of his grief. That having to live with knowing he killed Hamilton feels, in this moment, worse than death.

This Burr is still cold. And when he finally gets to it, and says ‘I’m the one who paid for it,’ he looks away. He almost spits. His face is contorted in bitterness. It’s rough and gritty, for the first time in the entire musical.

I can remember it vividly – it was shocking to see, and sends shivers through me to remember. I’d been waiting for that cathartic sadness, but it wasn’t here. This Burr, deep down, didn’t feel for Hamilton, at least in the end. He was pissed off because for once in his life his actions had consequences. Because of Hamilton, he had fucked up his life forever. His worldview had been shattered. And at that moment, that was all he could think about – that resignation and bitterness and anger. All along, maybe, he had been nice only because he’d had no reason not to be. Once it didn’t benefit him, and his pride and entitlement were damaged, he showed who he truly was.

It… was an experience, lol. Honestly I think it was partly lost on me because I so loved the original version and was like working myself up ready for a good cry here, so I didn’t get to just sit and take the full impact – I kept searching for a grief or fear that wasn’t there. But I don’t think this version is bad! It’s a very valid interpretation of Burr, and it was extremely fascinating to see unfold.

If I have one critique, it’s that one kind of problem with the whole Australian show is that the performances lacked grit. I really wanted more edge, more aggression, more intensity of those emotions – something more sharp and shocking. Hamilton delivers this kind of thing at times, especially early on, but ofc it fades away in the end. Jefferson, as I’ll get to, is too smooth-talking while also having that cold serene kind of anger. When we lack both Hamilton’s broken It’s Quiet Uptown and Burr’s frantic ‘this man will not make an orphan of my daughter’, we don’t get those life and death stakes quite as highly. By focusing all of Burr’s anger in one line, I think the rest of the songs didn’t have as much of an impact as I’d like.

But!! I really enjoyed this interpretation, and I’d love to see it again knowing what’s coming!

Eliza

OKAY nobody else is going to get those huge walls of text lmaoooo

Anyway this Eliza wasn’t a super different interpretation than Phillipa Soo’s, but I think she pulled it off at least as well, if not even better?

So, the really big obvious thing about this Eliza is her smile. Her actress has this amazing, big toothy grin that feels so lacking in guile, but also still so comforting. It’s so attention-grabbing and almost impossible not to be affected by. It just screams ‘hey, things will turn out okay, so cheer up! :)’ And it’s something that just comes out on Eliza as if on instinct – she’s wearing it through most of That Would Be Enough, and at the end of Take A Break when she escorts Angelica away, and even in Blow You All Away when she’s comforting Phillip or in flickers when describing Hamilton’s old letters in Burn.

The thing about Eliza as a character is that she’s basically defined by her emotional intelligence. She feels as strongly as Hamilton, but where he is uncontrolled and reckless and both self and other destructive, she is the opposite of all of those things. She’s measured and practical and knows exactly who she is and what she wants at all times. She will sacrifice for others, but it’s because she decides to, and if she is hurt, she will not keep herself in harm’s way. It’s an interesting kind of competence and I can understand in theory why it’s cool to have a female character like that even if I, as a neurodivergent mentally ill woman cannot relate in the slightest and feel sorta awkward to be judged against.

This Eliza nails all of that perfectly. She’s effortlessly charming and soothing whenever she wants to be – in That Would Be Enough, when Hamilton is turned away and putting up all of his sharpest bristles, you can feel her become something soft and liquid and find her way up against him regardless without getting hurt. It’s that strength of character that makes their relationship really work – it’s not necessarily that she completely understands him or is good at ‘handling’ him, but that her certainty of purpose and deliberate, skilful compassion make her perfectly suited to calm Hamilton’s deep down insecurities. She loves him entirely and makes him believe that. And when Hamilton responds with his own intensity, she loves that, and believes in that.

And all of that makes it mean so much more when she steps out of that natural mediator role for a moment. In Helpless she’s adorable, so giddy and excited and so clearly crushing on Hamilton with a youthful energy that somehow doesn’t feel all that naive. As she sings she’s constantly glancing back over at him, it’s really cute haha. But she does feel a bit more vulnerable here – it does feel like she’s silently asking for help from Angelica when they talk. More startlingly, there’s Non-Stop – when she calls out ‘Alexander’, it is SHARP. It’s the same kind of tone Hamilton takes when he calls out to Burr in Schuyler Defeated. It’s a bit startling actually, but in a good way.

That tone, I think, foreshadows Burn. Again, I think this Eliza takes the same tone as Philippa Soo, but this version (maybe just because I saw it live!) embodied it even more – she talks about her own desperation to understand, re-reading their old letters, and cites Angelica as back-up, but when she reaches the mid-point, she stops and seems to think. She weighs up the situation and her emotions. And when she says ‘I’m erasing myself from the narrative,’ it is very deliberate and conscious. She is in control of her fate and she can see herself objectively and this is what is just. Her moral core is impenetrable. She sees long arc of the future that Hamilton and Burr are so obsessed with and she says, yes, this is what should be done.

And then in It’s Quiet Uptown, that same self-certainty is there from the very first word. This whole musical, even at her lowest, Eliza has instinctively brought out that comforting, wide smile. Here, her face is expressionless. If Hamilton’s acting here didn’t quite hit my mark, Eliza’s was spot on. The withdrawal of that earlier warmth is all the colder when there is no doubt within her about it, and nobody can argue she’s wrong in that. When she takes Hamilton’s hand, she still doesn’t smile. It’s sad :(

Of all of the final songs, Who Lives Who Dies Who Tells Your Story hit me closest to the original. It’s actually almost jarring to see Eliza ask ‘have I done enough?’ This whole song, we hear a hasty energy to her she’s lacked all musical – the first sign that Hamilton has rubbed off on her, too. But when she asks ‘Will they tell your story?’ it’s still Eliza – this isn’t about a legacy, it’s because she’s still that giddy girl from Helpless who loves him and wants to do everything she can for the people she loves.

(Whenever she and Hamilton see each other but appear to walk past one another, only to circle around and meet in the middle again, I cry lmao;;)

Her gasp at the end is soft and quiet and delighted, as though she just spotted someone in the crowd who she hasn’t seen in years and can’t wait to catch up.

If I have one critique, it’s the lack of grit again. Her scream at Philip’s death wasn’t as wild and destroyed as Phillipa Soo’s, and while I like her gasp, I prefer the original’s shocked, overwhelming joy.

Overall though, she was extremely good! Her charisma was just blinding, but it was in that perfectly ‘mundane’ way you’d expect from Eliza. But that solid, immovable core always shone through. They really sold her relationship with Hamilton, too!

Angelica

This is the one I feel like I have the least to say about. My mum said she was the only character who just couldn’t quite match up to the original, and I don’t really agree, but I don’t have a huge amount to say, either.

This Angelica felt a bit older and more mature than Goldsberry. The original Angelica has a bit of brashness and vivid emotion to her – a bit more out there and exaggerated in her actions and expressions. More bold but also more chaotic. This one was a bit more quiet and considering. Diplomatic, maybe?

I actually worried when I first saw her that she wouldn’t be able to carry Satisfied because she was too confident and capable I wouldn’t be able to believe her vulnerability, but no, she pulled that off perfectly. When she was standing in the dark there in the end, the sadness radiated from her.

I actually got a lot more chemistry between her and Hamilton this time; I always thought I disliked the relationship in that canon because of my grudge against how LMM wrote it, but maybe it’s just that LMM was too old for her lmao. You’d think her quietness would contrast with Hamilton’s pushiness, but if anything it feels like she can just eyebrow-arch off his usual way of getting under people’s skin – when she says ‘you forget yourself’ it’s subtly disapproving, then when he delivers the punchline, it’s like he proves himself enough to earn her respect. Indeed, their mutual aloofness actually suits them both really well. You can just imagine them working together, quietly sharing their judgements on everyone else in the room around them. They’d be a terrifying power couple, and that really connects up to her advice in Take a Break.

I don’t have as much to say about the rest of the musical though. (actually IDK if that’s all partly just because by the end my ADHD brain had to work a lot harder to keep up, lol.) Her piece in The Reynalds Pamphlet did the job, and her singing in It’s Quiet Uptown was beautiful.

I guess, if I had to contrast them, the original Angelica felt more spirited and aggressive – very ‘you want a revolution? I want a revelation!’ - while this one felt more like the settled head of the family who already had her place but understood the world perfectly and knew she’d have to pick and choose what she wanted most. (...spoken like that she sounds like a big contrast to Burr, funnily enough?)

Lafayette/Jefferson

So not too much to say about Lafayette – the guy pretty much did him the same as Daveed Diggs, and pulling that off is very impressive but there isn’t too much to analyse here. If anything the Lafayette felt slightly less bright and cheery than the original, which may have been done to contrast with Jefferson.

Jefferson, on the other hand, was quite different. Diggs’ version is very loud and kinda abrasive and arrogant – always smiling and bouncing but with something clearly malicious lying behind all of that. He’s got a harshness to him, deliberately intimidating and surprisingly authentic in what he reveals of himself. He’s a villain character who’s fun to watch because he’s having fun himself and you gotta admire his balls.

This Jefferson is much more smooth and manipulative – maybe taking over from what Burr sometimes delves into? When he first appears, he plays to the crowd, encouraging the cheers, but it’s less arrogance and more like, he’s a celebrity putting on a show. He’s friendly and cheerful all through What’d I Miss?, disarmingly enjoyable to watch. He’s someone who knows the crowd and likes the crowd and is very very good and getting what he wants from the crowd without making it obvious he’s doing that. He’s definitely the type of #relatable celebrity fans would really want to defend.

But Hamilton represents a very clear change to his status quo. He starts off singing What’d I Miss? just in a fun, conversation-starting way as a rhetorical question, but after Hamilton introduces himself, he seems genuinely taken-aback. His last ‘What’d I miss?’ sounds like a genuine question, like, ‘wait wtf what’s going on here all of a sudden?’

And then we get the Cabinet Battles. Despite the above, Jefferson starts off his argument oozing with relaxed confidence. He doesn’t need to take any of this seriously – it’s already in the bag! Everyone loves him and as long as he makes some nice jokes and smiles disarmingly enough, he’ll always get what he want. And then Hamilton starts talking. And he’s pushy and hostile and sarcastic and mocking and angry and superior. And the whole time, Jefferson stands straight and Stares at him. We get none of Diggs’ ‘Haha, this guy is a riot! :D’ type of energy – this Jefferson is deeply displeased, and he is watching very, very carefully to take stock of the situation so he can put an end to it.

It’s actually really well done IMO – when the crowd oohed and ahhed, it felt like a 50/50 of ‘what the hell, people aren’t supposed to DISAGREE with Jefferson!’ and also ‘holy shit this guy is acting like an actual obnoxious child who needs to stfu right now.’ Both Jefferson’s easy entitlement and Hamilton’s unhelpful abrasiveness really got across.

In the second battle, Jefferson is much more careful. Whether it’s because he isn’t underestimating Hamilton anymore or because he cares much more about this, there’s an unamused urgency underlying everything he says. He still tries to be friendly and charming and diplomatic, but his smile drops often. This issue is important and he is not going to back down on it. It’s actually still not quite as immaturely insulting as Hamilton – more like, ‘can we stop humoring this asshole kid already and do something we very much need to be doing?’

(Also fun fact: in The Room Where It Happens, when we get to Jefferson’s version of events, Hamilton’s ‘I had nowhere else to turn’ is SO fake and sarcastic it was really funny, like even the Hamilton in Jefferson’s head can’t bring himself to actually say that sincerely.)

So, when we get to Washington On Your Side, he’s cold. At the time, he contrasts well with Burr, who is all smiles and surprisingly relaxed. This Jefferson is more like Angelica, quietly analysing the situation and slowly coming to a plan. The difference between cold, planning Jefferson and smooth-talking Jefferson is also great.

Because of all this, he has less of the really comedic stuff the original Jefferson got, with the exaggerated expressions and movements – in We Know, he’s more struck dumb by everything than the more over the top reactions Diggs did. But the controlled coldness contrasts with Hamilton better – it makes sense that he was the one who successfully connived himself to the top. And we get much more of that contrast between public and private Jefferson that is one of the interesting real-world meta statements, where who is was to the people and who he actually was were very different.

…….I think I had some kind of impression of ‘because I’m the president’ but I can’t remember what it was anymore. Hrm.

Anyway: enjoyed!!

Mulligan/Madison

So, how I’ve been saying the show lacked grit? I honestly think it might’ve all just collected in Hercules Mulligan lmao – obviously his parts are meant to be bold and brash and powerful, but these ones hit even harder than usual. His part in The World Turned Upside Down was just so Loud I could feel it in my chest! Great performance, I loved it!

Madison was very very different naturally, but also very different from the original version? While the original Madison felt tired and a bit disgruntled, like he was exhausted by Jefferson’s in-your-faceness and just wanted to get this done so he could get back to his work, his one felt much happier to be there. This Madison felt like he actually saw himself as Jefferson’s teammate, like he considered himself part of the show and was happy (even smug) to be helping out. When Jefferson passes him the microphone, rather than say ‘France’ with an irritated expression as if to say ‘everyone already knows this, just get on with it already’, it feels more like this Madison already rehearsed this with Jefferson deliberately. He calls out ‘France,’ as though it is some incredible zinger, like he’s been given the mic drop here. It’s pretty cute haha!

Overall this Madison felt a lot younger. Talking afterwards my mum mentioned that Mulligan’s role is hard because he has to switch to playing ‘an old man’, and was pretty surprised when I said Madison was actually the same age as Hamilton. This version felt a lot more age-appropriate. He still gets sick and starts coughing (and it feels a lot meaner when Hamilton makes fun of him! The dude was just so happy to be here – let him have his zingers!!), but aside from that he thrums with nervous energy behind Jefferson, like he’s ready to help out anytime he’s needed.

In all, he kinda feels like he fulfils that certain comedic henchman trope a bit? It really comes together with the ‘Can we get back to politics?’ ‘:’( please!!’ exchange. Madison isn’t made fun of, per se – it’s not like he really does enough in the script to get that kind of attention. But he’s just a bit funnier and more sympathetic, while also strangely feeling more like he and Jefferson are an actual team. (I mean, Jefferson hands him the mic as though he’s setting up a zinger, too. They’re both a bit ridiculous!)

Laurens/Phillip

Okay, this was one I was really curious about, for obvious reasons – LMM always sorta made it out that since he never included any of the Hamilton/Laurens stuff in the script, he kinda tried to act it in there more. In Story of Tonight or Ten Duel Commandments, or even briefly in the opening song, there’s meant to be a closeness that hints, however subtle, at that relationship.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get that at all here.

Laurens’ casting surprised me at first – he’s super short and extremely baby-faced, to the point that I wondered if he wasn’t played by a cis man. (His actor is a man, though, though ofc I wouldn’t know if he’s cis or not.) I was kinda confused about that all through the first act… until I got to the second act and, uh, remembered. But despite this – perhaps because of it? - he is an absolute firecracker. He’s hot-headed and rough and determined and every bit the young impassioned soldier.

He’s a bit more naive in the early songs – he seems genuinely friendly with Hamilton in The Story of Tonight, and you feel like he really does just like him from the moment he hears Non-Stop – but like I said, Hamilton is still pretty closed-off through all of that, so… it doesn’t really feel mutual. Hamilton likes him fine, but it doesn’t feel like he cares as much as Laurens does.

In Satisfied, he indeed seems super drunk, but it’s more like he’s just too young and drinking too much at a party than anything. The only time I really felt any particular chemistry between him and Hamilton actually comes from Story of Tonight Reprise – when Hamilton wanders off to speak with Burr, in sincere friendship, and Laurens comes over and starts ribbing Burr about his girl with almost malicious energy, it did sort of feel a little like he was jealous, if only that Hamilton and he had been talking so easily.

Finally, we get to Stay Alive. There, Hamilton and Laurens are just so angry and disgusted with Lee that they don’t really have room for anything else. It’s all very focused and determined and Manly, without any time for something softer or close between them. And I’m not sure how to feel about that. Laurens’ revulsion for Lee is historical record, and it says a lot about him and his values that that was so important to him. But there are other important parts of Laurens – that worry and fear and insecurity inside him, that ended up being so damaging to him. In such a limited script for him, ‘Alexander, you’re the closest friend I’ve got’ is really his one chance to show some of those emotions before he dies. Instead, Laurens never really gets to show that vulnerability, and I worry that it makes him feel too much like a ‘generic soldier character.’

I wonder if it’s because this Laurens looked so youthful that they sort of overcompensated, and felt the need to make him extra manly to make it clear he belonged there despite his appearance. But it sort of felt a bit too… macho for me. Nowhere to be found is that 18th century romantic friendship. Instead, it’s been replaced by a more WWI era Comrade and Comrade type deal. They’d die for each other, but would they write romantic letters to one another? And I think this is also unfortunately pretty Australian – real emotion is lame!! The only acceptable emotion is fucking hating your boss, and challenging him to a duel with your squadmate to get him what he deserves.

Well, I’m reading too much into it all, lol. But I always felt like the original Laurens barely got to show much of himself as it was, and this one felt even less so, unfortunately.

His final scene – is it We May Not Live To See Your Glory? - is done well, though. Again, Laurens just sorta feels like a generic young soldier, but ‘idealistic soldier who died too young’ is moving enough on its own. And in one of those rare moments, Hamilton really does feel shaken and vulnerable. ‘I have so much work to do,’ as I said, hurts – so lifeless and unlike him. Like nothing could process those emotions in him now, or express them.

Philip, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. First of all, yeah – having a shorter, younger-looking actor makes that Take a Break scene WAY less awkward, haha. It wasn’t even funny, it was just like ‘oh huh this just kinda looks all right?’ And the actor did really well playing a kid! He looked like a completely different person there, which is really good.

And then we get to Blow You All Away, and hoo boyy. If Laurens had been excessively confident, Phillip oozes uncertainty with everything he does. When he flirts with the girls ‘when I come back we’ll all strip down to our socks’ he manages to pull off the cocky act but in basically every other line you can see and hear the ‘a-am I doing this right? I’m not screwing this up, am I?’ radiating off of him. He definitely believes he’s doing the right thing – when he says ‘you talk about my father I will not let it slide’ there’s no hesitation – it’s just that he very clearly isn’t sure if he’s up to the task of doing it.

It was sorta interesting, actually – I think the original Phillip was more naively overconfident and reckless, and only had an attack of the nerves after he got himself into the duel. But – and this might just be me projecting here, lol – when this Philip confronts Eacker in the theatre, I got a real sense of like… ‘??? can I do this here? Where are you meant to threaten duels???’ and when Eacker is like ‘piss off, I’m watching this show now’ he seemed to wilt a lot, and straight up froze for a second or two, like he really didn’t know what to do at that point. And then of course when he talks to Hamilton he’s really worried…

And then his death. Somehow, I never used to cry much when this happened – it’s obviously very sad, but it didn’t manage to hit the right heartstrings to make crying, even in the recording. But oh god, this one was just awful… Even as he’s dying, Philip is still just so desperate for approval, like he’s so scared his parents will be mad at him for screwing it up, and Eliza is trying so hard to reassure him before he dies… I cried a lot :(

So overall, I really liked this Phillip, even if I don’t necessarily think it’s an improvement to the original. Laurens I kinda preferred the original, though this was still an interesting interpretation that gave me a lot to think about!

Washington

The guy did well! He has what Washington needs, and that’s a stature. When he’s on stage, your eyes are just naturally drawn to him. Even when he’s not doing much, he’s still a little intimidating. He has presence!

And in fact, this actor had an interesting quirk where the whites of his eyes could be seen easily? In Right-Hand Man, as he’s striding around at the center of the stage, his eyes just looked white, and it drilled in that slightly manic, crazed intensity underlying his strict, rigid rapping and self-control. It have the whole thing a really great effect.

But this Washington also had a sort of almost… slight fem-ness to him, that I didn’t get as much from the initial? It’s funny how during One Last Time, I suddenly got this vivid though, ‘oh, it’s like he’s a cool supportive teacher.’ Which… obviously?? Haha. Like he’s clearly a mentor to Hamilton all the way through! But it’s that specifically teacher description I really felt all of a sudden, that he was warm and approachable and gentle at heart, despite everything I said above lol.

Like, I feel like this Washington was just a bit less stoic than the original? Slightly more expressive and less stern. When he says ‘I’m from Virginia, so watch your mouth,’ in the original, it sounded like he was genuinely kinda offended? It was ‘watch your mouth’ as in ‘don’t disrespect my home state.’ But in this one, Washington sorta grimaces a little theatrically and says it more incredulously, like he’s actually saying ‘you wanna maybe try thinking about who you’re talking to before you say that shit, son?’ It’s more of a warning – less that he’s upset and more that other people would be, so he should really try thinking before he speaks.

He also still does the part in Who Lives Who Dies Who Tells Your Story when Eliza says she spoke out against slavery and he kinda stumbles and stares and then looks down in shame, given the real Washington’s actions.

I liked him! I felt a little more warmly to him in the end than the original, but that might just be a product of seeing it live.

Peggy/Maria

Okay so I don’t really have anything to say about Peggy, which had basically always been the case, hah. :’) I mean, I think this version made the transformation between her initial wariness vs her later excitement more clear? But that is very likely a live show thing.

Maria, though!! Honestly? I was never really a fan of the original Maria’s performance. She just feels too much like a cliched seductress archetype, and while you can argue that that’s the role she plays in the story, especially since there’s the uncertainty over whether or not she was deliberately setting Hamilton up, it just feels too on the nose. It makes it harder to believe Hamilton didn’t know what was up the moment he saw her, which I don’t think is intentional. And it makes me feel bad for the real Maria Reynolds.

But this one was very different – much more vulnerable. When she first talks to Hamilton, she’s not doing a sexy pout and throaty singing, she’s just sorta… quiet and monotone and lost, much like Hamilton gets when he’s too emotional as well. Like she’s in shock and truly has nowhere to go is just sort of crumpling as a person. And when she propositions Hamilton, again it feels sincere – she just wants him to stay.

And after he talks to James Reynolds (just as perfectly, theatrically assholish as in the original), that continues. When he confronts her, she genuinely seems desperate and scared and upset. I felt so, so sorry for her that I was yelling in my head right then ‘you can’t just leave her now!’ at Hamilton – and then immediately remembered what that’d mean… it’s a much more gripping situation.

And then in the end, James Reynolds walks off and claps, and Maria just stops, face and body entirely stoic, and follows after him in silence… Is that an indication it was all an act from her? Or is it that she’s so scared of him that she totally closes up and can’t cry, can’t show any kind of emotion or weakness around him, and just has to try and be a silent and flawless wife? No matter how you interpret it, it’s chilling.

Oh, and IDK if this is done in the recording, but in The Reynolds Pamphlet, she gets given one, too, and her look of just… upset/disgust is also really painful. At the end they say ‘his poor wife’, but who thinks about poor Maria?? :(

I still wouldn’t say that this is an accurate adaptation of the real events, since I think that gets right into the script and structure of Hamilton in ways that a regional performance just can’t really make better. But this version is at least better. It plays Maria with more dignity, I think, than making her into a sexy bombshell, even if that bombshell act does get subverted in the original as well. This one feels significantly more sympathetic.

King George

He was great!! He was played by an older actor who seems to have done a lot of serious Shakespearian plays, which of course makes him absolutely perfect – both in that he could flawlessly depict that pompous old privileged Brit, but also in that he probably has a good backing in comedy and political satire :P He was clearly having the time of his life playing to the crowd – throughout all his time on stage he was constantly alternating between doing one or two lines very serious and mostly straight, before doing something absolutely hilarious. That back and forth worked extremely well!

Also I never saw it properly on the recording but when he gets up and dances in the middle of the stage during the Reynolds Pamphlet?? AMAZING.

Obviously, Johnathon Groff is his own personality and is friends with LMM and brings all of that unique stuff to the table that nobody could replicate. But this actor was just as much fun to watch, and does have the added benefit of really looking and sounding the part.

Final Thoughts

I’d really love to hear other people’s thoughts on this run, especially from the perspective of it being an Australian cast/audience – I really hoped the booklet would include at least a piece or two from someone who worked on this run, but it did not. (In fact, it was one of the scantest musical books I’ve seen? I don’t regret buying it as a souvenir of course but usually they have at least one or two interesting pieces of new content aside from just backstage pics…)

What really sticks out to me is the structure of it all. Hamilton is definitely the central character that brings everything together through the first ¾, but around The Room Where it Happens Burr starts to take over bit by bit, allowing him to keep up the energy as Hamilton falls back further and further into becoming both less of a hero but also more quiet and passive. By The Election of 1800, Burr is giving us all the energy – until the end of The World Was Wide Enough, when he too falls back and Eliza takes over.

Given this, this Hamilton did an incredible job throughout most of the performance – he had amazing chemistry with every other character and really exemplified that scrappy, intelligent, driven, but aggressive and difficult character that never quite shined through in LMM’s performance for me. Burr’s more subtle performance complements that well, and he even arguably outdoes Leslie Odom Junior in The Election of 1800. However, after that I think his quieter acting and singing sort of fails to fill the hole Hamilton left behind, reducing the climax a bit of its energy. Thankfully, Eliza was able to bring that all back for her final number.

It also strikes me that this performance is a bit less teary, at least from the men. Eliza, Angelica, and Maria all bring out that vulnerability and the sadness of their positions wonderfully – a great improvement in Maria’s case, for me. However, Burr’s The World Was Wide Enough severely downplays the sincere regret angle, while Hamilton never quite hits the right notes on It’s Quiet Uptown. However, Hurricane and Phillip’s performance in Blow You All Away definitely hit that fear and panic leading to self-destruction. (Interesting I guess that Burr doesn’t also seem more fearful in The World Was Wide Enough?) Is that also a gendered expectations thing, perhaps?

Either way, I’m extremely glad I was able to see it if only for Hamilton’s performance – honestly, maybe the reason it seemed to lose a lil steam was just that Hurricane was so good everything else failed to follow it, haha. Burr also absolutely fascinated me here, too, and that was so much fun to see play out in real time!

Hamilton will be coming to Melbourne next, and I’m not sure yet if I’ll be able to go there but I’d really like to! It’d be really fun to test out these expectations/conclusions of mine with a fresh viewing, as well as see any other new cast changes/interpretations…!

[vanguardangel]

Atsushi and Akuatgawa were the boys sleep the first time over at the s/o house? She lives alone and has a very pretty home..😅

.

-sighs- Oh the glory of having a home of your own....one day I shall have my little plot of land in the forest with a tiny little cottage with my dog and my own hi-speed internet.

ANYWAYS, yes I gotchu fam! Sorry for the length, I went a little overboard but I had a lot of fun writing this!

Atsushi

Oh my goodness, I’ve only watched season 1 so far of Bungou Stray Dogs (I keep getting distracted), but I know for sure this little sushi roll is an absolute sweetheart, and quite hospitable to boot! (He slept in a cupboard when he shared his room with Kyoka for fuck’s sake)

Needless to say, this poor boiyo is quite flustered when the tables are turned on him.

The two of you were walking through the streets of Yokohama together, hand-in-hand as the two of you enjoy the beautiful display of ginkgo trees. Their golden leaves swirled both below and above the two of you as the wind began to pick up.

Unfortunately, while you were admiring the trees, you didn’t realize just how dark the clouds had gotten. Suddenly, there’s a crack of lightning and the rain just comes pouring down. Thankfully, your home was nearby and the two of you quickly speed-walked in that direction.

He didn’t fully realize you were pulling him into your house at first. All he knew was one second; he was being bombarded by rain and the next; not so much.

“Hey uh....y/n?” he manages as he watches you fuss about in the house, looking for towels for the two of you. “Where are we...?”

You simply smile at him, tossing the towel over his head to dry his hair. “My place!”

ATSUSHI IS SHOOK

“Your place?! What about your parents?”

“They live on the other side of town, I moved here to be closer to the Agency.”

Atsushi already admired you, but now there are literal stars in his eyes. You were the newest to the agency, right behind Kyoka, but you had your own place! Amazing!

And it’s so pretty and cozy! It wasn’t terribly big, having only about two or three rooms, but it was perfect. Atsushi could already see himself planning some tea dates with you, with the window open and the cool autumn air wafting in.

CRACK!

The lightning struck again, causing the lights to flicker. Upon peering out the window, the two of you gaped at just how quickly the streets had begun to flood.

“Well, looks like we’re stuck here for now,” Atushi chuckled nervously.

The two of you tried to ride out the storm, cuddling up on the couch and watching movies. You were watching Aragon rallying the troops at the Black Gate when another god-awful crack of lightning finally severed your electricity for the night.

Atsushi begins to actually get worried. It was getting really late, and he didn’t want to impose on your hospitality. You were already so kind to him, he couldn’t possibly ask to stay.

So instead, you asked him, insisting even as he’s trying to assure you that he can get home by himself.

Yeah no, Atsushi, you’re not going anywhere in this nasty weather.

When you manage to convince him, he tries to insist he’ll sleep on the couch, so you’ll need to persuade him if you want him to sleep in the same bed with you.

Bribe him with cuddles. Tiger-boi is warm and weak for cuddles.

Atsushi and you will sleep well tonight.

Akutagawa

First off, I gotta give you props. Somehow, in this crazy and bizarre world of mafia and literature-inspired powers, you managed to do something that was nearly impossible.

You managed to earn not only Akutagawa’s respect.

But his trust.

You had a weird effect on him as if your presence and words were like a tranquilizer for his crazy emotions. His outbursts are few and far between, especially compared to the early stages of your relationship. Maybe it was because you were one of the few people to treat him with kindness? Maybe it was your still innocent view on life? Maybe its just one of those weird situations where AKutagaw is simply fascinated by the fact you’re one of the few people he doesn’t want to hurt? It’s one of the wonders of the Port Mafia.

Even still, it's still quite the surprise when he invites you to his little outings into the city. He just kind of takes your hand and leads you throughout the quieter areas of Yokohama, sometimes even venturing into the little shopping centers if he’s feeling brave enough.

One day, he leads you to a tiny ice cream shop that Gin recommended. The two of you sit outside, enjoying the nice autumn breeze alongside your tasty treats.

Now, Akutagawa usually doesn’t talk much during these types of dates, usually preferring to listen as you chatted away.

But today, he seemed distracted. His eyes flickering between you and the other patrons around you. At first, you thought he was still jumpy from his prior mission (then again, since when did this guy ever fully relax?).

“Akutagawa, what’s-?”

“C’mon, y/n,” he abruptly says, taking your hand as he quickly stands. You just barely manage to hold onto your ice cream as he quickly leads you out of the patio area and into the maze-like alleyways of Yokohama.

“Easy, easy!” you manage to squeak out. “You’re pulling really hard...!”

“Quiet,” his tone was more than enough to shut you up. “Don’t look behind you, just stay close to me.”

You gulped down the knot in your throat and quickly did as he said.

The two of you wandered through the streets and alleys for what seemed like hours. Sometimes you would speed up, only to quickly slow down and return a normal walking pace. It was late sunset when he finally stopped.

“We’re safe,” he announces nonchalantly. You groaned and flopped down a nearby bench.

“Thank God,” you moaned. “My legs feel like lead. What was all that about?”

“I’ll tell you later,” you could swear he smirked a little when you simply huffed in response. “But...I may have to call for a car...we’re a fair way out from base.”

“Well, this is actually not too far from where my place is. Wanna just crash there?” The words were out of your mouth before you could stop them. The blush arrived even quicker.

Akutagawa gave you a pointed look.

“Er uh....w-well, it's almost dark. And it's dangerous for even the Port Mafia to wander the streets at dark. Not that you’re helpless, you can easily hold your own, I’ve seen you, but I could just get in the way, and I’d much rather die than be a hostage, and-”

“Okay,” Akutagawa cut off your nervous babbling. “Let’s go.”

“Yepp, yessir, let’s go!”

Saying you were nervous was an understatement. You were a man to your house. The house you lived in. Alone. And not just any man; Akuta-fucking-gawa! The self-proclaimed “dog of the Mafia.”

“Here we are...!” your voice nearly broke when you opened the door. “I know it’s small and I know it’s not much, it’s just me here but...”

“It’s nice.”

“....huh...?”

Akutagawa casually strolls in, taking in the quaint little surroundings before settling down on your couch. There was the ghost of a smile on his lips. You just sigh and join him.

“So, you gonna tell me what just happened?”

“We were being followed,” Akutagawa said simply, not even reacting to your shocked expression. “Noticed them before we even reached the ice cream shop. Didn’t think they’d be stupid enough to do that in broad daylight, but there it is.”

“......why didn’t you kill them?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he shuffled himself to nestle his head in the crook of your shoulder. “Doesn’t matter.”

The two of you spent the rest of the night just talking. The conversation focused on nothing in particular, switching between work, your interests, and other random topics. You two end up actually falling asleep on the couch, just leaning against each other.

Your back was aching, but managing to wake up and see Akutagawa actually at peace was so fucking worth it.

[wendimydarling]

The First Time

Title: The First Time

Summary: A collection of Henry’s firsts.

Pairing: Henry x First Person Reader

Word Count: 2549

Warnings: 18+, some sex, potentially NSFW

A/N: Was flexing my creative and descriptive writing today, and had all the sentimental feels today. Hope you like it.

Tags: @littlefreya​ @sciapod​ @thiccgeralt​ @fucking-hell-cavill​

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Never in my life had I thought that a business trip would lead me to the most significant moment of my life.

There was beauty in the park, surrounded by the city. Kensington Gardens was similar to Central Park that way. I made certain that when my company booked this trip I would be staying near enough to go for a run in the morning, and this particular morning was absolutely stunning. The sun was just barely cresting through the tops of the trees, its burning rays penetrating into the mist as if to say, “it’s my turn now.” The music in my headphones changed to a song I didn’t care for in the moment, so I looked down at my watch to change it. Before I could switch the song, I crashed into someone very large and solid, the impact knocking me straight to the ground, flat on my back. 

The situation struck me funny, and I began to laugh, hard. Squeezing my eyes closed, I shook with mirth and dropped my headphones from my ears to around my neck, the upbeat tempo no longer drowning out the incessant apologies tumbling from the man’s mouth. Strong hands grabbed my arms and helped me stand, as the man continued apologizing. I focused on his voice.

“... my god, are you okay? I was muckin’ about with my phone and I wasn’t watching where I was going, I’m really sorry. Are you okay?”

I recognize his voice, I thought, still smiling as I brushed off my backside. Looking up at the stranger, I realized why. Oh my god.

“Henry.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The night air had a slight chill in it, leftover from the long, brutal winter. The trees showed the promise of life, as their buds had begun the arduous task of breaking through the tough outer shell of their branches. We ambled down the sidewalk at a leisurely pace, drinking up the sights and sounds of twilight. I’d asked him to show me around the mews homes district, and seeing as though he lived in the area, he knew the place well. The street lamps came on as we perused the streets, and he showed me some of his favorite houses. I went to cross the street but he caught my hand, pulling me close to his chest as a car barrelled too near us around a corner.

“Does that happen often?” I asked him, breathing hard.

“You get used to it I guess,” he grinned.

I expected him to let go and he did, mostly. He kept my hand in his as we continued the tour. I didn’t really hear what he said next, as my heart was pounding in my ears, focused solely on the way his hand felt around mine. It was big and the insides of his knuckles were calloused, but he’d laced our fingers together and the pads of his fingertips were soft. Strength radiated from his palm, and a sudden wave of overwhelming security washed over me. I felt safe with him, and not just in the sense that I could trust him, but that if anyone were to attempt to hurt me he could rip them apart with his bare hands. The thought was comforting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We neared the small bed and breakfast I was staying at. It was late, and yet our pace had slowed from ambling to a crawl. Neither of us wanted the night to be over, as much as we knew it was. As we came upon the inn, I swung my purse around to fish my keys out of the abyss of it’s center-most pocket.

“Wait.” Henry said. He pulled me into a small alley next to the building and I looked up at him, eyebrow raised.

“Yes?”

“I wanted to say goodnight in private.”

Henry looked down at me, pushing a lock of hair that had fallen in front of my eye out of the way. His eyes weren’t looking at mine, they were resting squarely on my lips. My heart pounded. All of the air left my lungs in a hurry. I tilted my head, wordlessly granting him permission, and he began his descent, dropping his head down painfully slowly. At the first brush of his lips my nerves lit on fire, feeling every slight movement of his mouth through mine. My hands trembled as I raised them to caress his jaw, pulling him in closer, deeper. Uninhibited, he slipped his tongue along the outer rim of my lips. His hand cupped the back of my neck, holding my head gently, yet firmly, so that he could taste every part of my mouth. 

We finally broke away from each other, panting. Henry rested his forehead on mine, staring into my eyes with a wistful look that I didn’t quite understand.

“When does your flight leave?” he whispered.

Never. 

“Tomorrow morning, early.”

“So I won’t get the chance to see you again I suppose.”

You can stay the night with me.

“No, I suppose you’re right, this is goodbye.”

Henry closed his eyes and shook his head, smiling softly.

“Is it crazy that I only just met you, and yet I feel like my heart is breaking at the thought of you leaving?”

I stroked his cheek with my thumb, wishing with all my heart that I could come up with the words to express just how much I felt exactly the same way.

“It’s not crazy at all, Henry.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Four months. It had been four, long agonizing months of nothing but text messages and video chats since that night in England. Henry referred to me as his girlfriend to others, and yet nearly the entirety of our relationship had been technological. Though we’d done some dirty talk, the wonderfully physical aspect of a new relationship just wasn’t there, and I missed him terribly. I wanted to touch him, to kiss him, to feel him pressed against me. I wanted to make love to him, I wanted to fuck him into the wall. I wanted to wake up in the morning and see him lying there next to me, I wanted to be able to reach out and hold his hand if I wanted. I wanted to smell him again, wrapped in a bear hug at the end of a long day. I wanted his presence. I wanted him. 

He was coming to the states. To my house, in the states. I only had him for forty-eight hours, but it was enough. I heard the car door shut outside my house and bolted outside, throwing my arms around his shoulders as he picked me up and walked into the house.

“So this is my house,” I breathed, barely taking the time to talk instead of kiss. 

“You can give me a tour later,” Henry mumbled around my lips, “For now, the bedroom will do.”

Okay.

I pointed behind me, murdering his face with my mouth. I didn’t care how sloppy I was being; it had been too long. Henry didn’t seem to mind either. He found the bed and dropped me on it, pulling his shirt over his head. I stared at him as he did; I know it sounds cliche, but he really was even more beautiful in person. He grinned and tugged at my clothes, bringing me back to the moment. I stripped as fast as he did and he was on my body in a flash, his hands snaking instantly between my legs and into my center.

“This isn’t going to be long, I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you later,” he apologized.

“That’s okay, I don’t take much,” I breathed, gasping as his fingers worked their magic. He discovered quickly that I was right, I was over the edge in moments, writhing beneath him. Henry stared at me in awe as he brought me through my orgasm, relishing the sounds I made and the way my face scrunched up in pleasure. As the wave subsided he kissed my neck, nibbling up to my earlobe.

“Condom?”

“I’m on the pill and I’m clean, go for it.”

Go for it he did. He slid his large, heavy girth seamlessly into my core and stilled, much to my wanton chagrin.

“Oh my god, Henry, I’m not that fragile, would you fucking move?” 

With his eyebrow raised, Henry quickly established a punishing rhythm. I couldn’t get enough of him. My hands were everywhere, squeezing his thighs, his biceps, his chest. I pulled his mouth to mine, kissing him as if he was going off to war. I let him use me completely, chasing his release as he thrust into me with reckless abandon. The air grew thick and the only sounds to be heard was that of skin slapping skin, ragged breaths and weighted sighs as need overtook everything else important. Because it wasn’t important. This… this was what mattered. Him, and me, together. 

Finally. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had gotten in the shower, followed closely by Henry. We were talking about something while washing our bodies, and I felt a long hair tangled in the crevasse of my thighs. I pulled it out and both of us looked at it incredulously as I stuck it to the wall. 

“That’s quite a magic trick,” Henry quipped, smirking.

“I know, right? I should go to Vegas,” I joked, “I’d have my very own side show. ‘Come one, come all; come and see the girl who can pull the hairs from the top of her head, through her body and out of her vagina!’” 

Henry put his hand on his chest and laughed, deep, throaty, and beautiful. I laughed with him, enjoying his reaction. It took a lot to make the man laugh, but somehow I was able to do it all the time. I relished that fact. I closed my eyes and rinsed my hair as Henry wiped his face on the towel, removing the last traces of mirth from his eyes.

“God, I love you.”

My eyes shot open.

“What?”

Henry looked at me, bashful. He clearly hadn’t meant to share that thought out loud just yet. It was out though, so he squared his shoulders and looked at me, a soft warmth over taking his features.

“I love you.”

I love you too!

“I’m… I’m not quite ready to say it. I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s fine, love. It doesn’t change how I feel. Come here.”

Henry pulled me close, lifting  me up as he often did so that my head was at his height. He kissed me deliberately, trying to show me with his lips the truth he spoke with his words. I kissed him in return, hoping that he would know that I was almost where he was. Almost.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You don’t get to walk away from me when we’re fighting, that’s not how this works.”

“We’re going circles, and you are too upset right now to see anything but your side, so that’s exactly how this works.”

“I thought you’d like the surprise!”

I sighed, whirling on him in anger.

“Of course I like the surprise, I love the surprise. But you can’t just book a flight for me and expect me to be happy about it, Henry, that’s not how this works! I have a job, and a limited amount of vacation time, and I can’t just drop everything and leave if I want to. You don’t get to make those decisions for me, especially if we’ve already agreed to something else!”

Henry blanched at my words.

“I wasn’t trying to make a decision for you. I wanted to see you.”

“Then come and see me, babe, but we make decisions together. We already agreed that I wasn’t going to Durrell, you can’t just decide that I am and then expect me to go along with it. I have friends, and commitments, and I can’t back out of them just because you bought me a plane ticket.”

Henry stared at me, hurt, his eyes boring into me as if he could will me to see things his way. I softened my gaze, stepping over to him and placing my hand on his arm.

“Look, I spent years in a relationship where I didn’t get to make choices for myself. I wasn’t allowed to do things, or say no to things, and I don’t like when decisions are made for me. If you had really wanted me there that badly, then you should have talked to me about it. You and I are a team; I want us to make big decisions together.”

This knowledge broke the tension; Henry’s anger abated at once. 

“You’re right, I should have come to you. I just hate to seem like a clingy sap is all; I miss you like crazy.”

I pushed the curl on his forehead that had shaken loose in his fury back into his well-tamed mop, cupping his cheek in my hand.

“You know I miss you too, right? That I’m absolutely crazy about you, and wish more than anything that I could come see you whenever I want. We’re just not there yet, and that’s okay. But I can see us being there at some point.”

“You can?”

Oh my heart. When is he going to realize just how valuable he is?

“Of course I can, Henry. I love you.”

The smile on Henry’s face at my admission couldn’t have been bigger if he’d tried. He scooped me up, wrapping his arms around me in the tightest embrace he could manage. I held him close, running my fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck as the weight of my words sank in. I did love him. I love everything about him. I love his drive, his compassion, his love for his job. I love his ability to care, and to make you feel like when you spoke, you were the only person in the room. I love the goofy way he plays with others, the way he can crack a joke at the most inopportune moment. I love his hair in the morning, wild and untamed. I love how hard he works. And I love the way he loves me, caring for me and making me feel more alive and cherished than I’d ever felt in my lifetime. Yes, I love him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We were standing on the rocks in Jersey, dressed to the nines. Twilight had just taken over the bay, and a balmy breeze blew in, gently covering my arms with goosebumps. Everything in sight was the perfect shade of beautiful, but the world around us had completely faded; it was just me and Henry. He had swept me into a deep kiss, dipping me low as his mouth claimed mine. 

I hope I never forget this.

I could hear our closest family and friends whooping and hollering, but the only thing I cared about was him. Time stood still as we sunk into this moment, searing it’s memory into our brains, into our hearts, into our flesh. He was mine, and I was his. We surfaced for air, grinning stupidly at each other, and turned to face the crowd.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to introduce you for the first time, Mr., and Mrs., Henry Cavill!”

[too-scared-to-do-this]

Of the Devil’s head

Chapter four - Bloody hell!

Sander’s side fanfiction

Wordcount: 1304

Ships: still just prinxiety 

TW: mentions of blood, cursing, injury, post-operations stuff talk kinda, imprisonment, a lot of panicking and distress - which kind off resembles an anxiety-attack but not really. I think I’ve got all. As always, if I missed anything, let me know, please. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. :3

Summary of the whole story: They say, the one that wears the crown rules all - the living, the dead, the walking, the crawling, the rooted, the sane and the mad. They say, once you own the crown, you become the  most powerful being on Earth and beyond. Roman’s stolen bigger things - a measly little crown won’t present a problem, even if he has to steel it straight off of the devils head!

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

Chapter four - Bloody hell!

Not only does time not work in Hell, but apparently physics doesn’t either. Because no matter how Virgil looked at it, there was just no way this weird figure could’ve fallen straight onto him from the place he was situated at.

He was climbing the throne from the back. Reaching from the side. So please explain to him, how the hell was he able of falling fall over and landing directly on top of the king?

Either Hell was truly that massed up, or this person was just unconventionally clumsy.

Virgil didn’t have much time to ponder on it, though. He yelped and pushed the stranger off. Which resulted in poor Roman landing on his back on the hard ground. Broken stalagmites and new once that were just growing out pushed into his back, his head hitting a particularly sharp one.

Dull ache spread through his whole body. “Aw…” he groaned weakly, reaching for his head. Carefully trying to lift himself into a sitting position, the voices around him started to come back to him.

Someone on his right was barely breathing, short fast breaths not enough to satisfy their lungs. And someone on his left was laughing their ass off.

Roman frowned at the general direction of the laugh. This was not funny.

And why was everything so hazy? His vision was fogged and blurry and his hearing muffled and muted down. And oh god, his head!

He pulled his hand away. Even this out of focus, he could make out the big red splotch that covered his palm. Well, this is just great!

He had to get out of there before these things could lock him up, but the room was starting to spin and his eyes got kind off heavy… He just wanted to lay down… just for a little bit….

“Startup immediate! Let’s fucking eat him!”

Well at least that’s what Roman made out of what the creature on his right said. And that didn’t sound like the most pleasant thing. He didn’t feel like sleeping anymore. He had to get up! He had to run!

In reality, what Virgil said was: “Shut up, you idiot! They’re fucking bleeding!”

Panic seeping all the way to his bones he rushed over to the distressed stranger. This wasn’t good! He couldn’t leave them to just bleed out!  

Remi paid his master’s stressed-out state no mind. He was too preoccupied leaning over, just barely standing - laughing so hard. “And?”

Virgil couldn’t believe this! “Remington! Go get the fucking healers!”

When Virgil got distressed and needed people to listen, his voice pitched down a few octaves and doubled over. Demons called it his Monster voice.

In this particular instance, the Monster voice was nothing compared to the way he roared at the servant.

He immediately shut up and ran off to find help.

The king was left alone with a very woozy, barely conscious and scared to death Roman. “Oh shit! Don’t die on me...! Please...!”

He didn’t know what to do with his hands. Could he touch the creature? Should he touch them? What if they have a broken rib or something? 

They ended up just awkwardly hovering over the wounded figure.  

Meanwhile, Roman didn’t even know what was going on. His mind was too foggy to comprehend anything. He just sat there, willing himself to think the one thought he needed to think.

But what was that thought again?

Some-Something about… running?

Yeah, yeah that…

He… he wanted to run. From what...?

Nobody seemed to be nearby… So why did he want to…

Wait, what did he want again…?

Oh, right. Sleep…

Virgil’s hand-hovering came to an end the moment the med-team stepped into the hall. “Your Majesty.” the demons all bowed.

“Stop bowing and get this Human to the med-bay! Immediately!”

“Yes sir.” the main healer nodded shortly and rushed over to the thief. The rest followed.

The devil let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and fall back against the throne. It was going to be okay now. His healers are the best in the under-world. They’ll take care of them.

He watched as they took the now unconscious figure away. Remi walked up to him, not-bothered as always. “I don’t see why we couldn’t just left it to bleed out.”

Virgil was too tired for this. His mind was going three miles per second and he just needed to calm down… He turned his cold gaze at the demon. “You’re a mind reader. Figure it out.”

That shut Remi up. No matter how much fun it would’ve been to see the Human suffer, hearing what ran through his king’s head wasn’t fun at all. He wasn’t about that. “I’ll be throwing down damned souls into the pit. If you need me, just call my name, babe. Byeeeee!!” And with a finger-wiggle wave, he left the room.

Virgil didn’t feel like getting up. The ground seemed comfortable enough for now. (There wasn’t much of a difference between it and the throne anyway.)

A Human being. A living, breathing, Human flashbang. He hasn’t seen a living specimen in… He doesn’t even know when was the last time one stood before him.

And now there was one in his med-bay. Antichrist, this was bad!

What is he even supposed to do with a creature like that? Besides torture, obviously. Sweet mother of evil!

The devil sat there, contemplating un-life until one of the healers walked into the hall.

“Your highness, the Human has been dealt with. We stopped the bleeding, and stitched up the wound best we could. It is still unconscious, though, so we locked it in one of the cells, temporarily.”

“Thank you, Lucius. Let me know when they wake up.”

“Yes, sir.” with that, the servant left. And Virgil finally climbed back on that uncomfortable throne. He pulled his phone out, and started scrolling through Tumblr once again. Things didn’t seem so boring anymore.

-

Roman came to a few hours later - not that he knew how much time had passed. What he knew though, was that he was in a dark cell guarded by two demons. Even through his hazy brain he could understand the situation he was in - he was a prisoner. ”Oh, holly mother Teresa!” he freaked, standing up and rushing over to the bars. Well, more like he stumbled...

“You have to let me out! Come on! You don’t understand! Let me out!” he gripped the cold stone bars.

One of the guards looked at him, then exchanged looks with the other. The second nodded and left, leaving Roman with a very angry looking demon.

He gulped. “Mr. Ehr, Miss- am… I… ah, please let me go…?”

The guard didn’t even glance at him.

Well, this was going well.

The second guard entered the throne hall and bowed down deep. Virgil rolled his eyes. “I’ve been telling you for thousands of years to stop bowing! It’s betting annoying.”

The demon straightened up immediately, nodding ashamed. “I apologize, your evilness.” Another eyeroll. These titles were getting better by the decade.

“What’s up, Derius?” he leaned on the arm-rests, razing his eyebrow.

“The prisoner woke up.”

Oh. Oh shit. Okay. Okay... “Are they okay?”

“It seems fine. IA bit out of it and scared, but that is to be expected. We did just imprison it in an environment completely different from his natural habitat…”

Virgil nodded, feeling his heartrate spike and slow again. They were all right.

Then an idea popped up in his head. Slowly, a grin pulled at his lips. Remi wanted fun, didn’t he?

Virgil could be fun. (Now that he knew nothing serious was happening with the Human.) Virgil could be very, very fun. He bit his lip and looked up at the guard.

“Bring me that thief.”

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

Iiiiiiii can’t even believe it!

Another part, right the next day? I’m kicking this block’s ass, y’all! :D And look where we are! Remember that first anonymous comment that started all this?

But hey, I really hoped you enjoyed it. :3

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. If I have an answer I’ll gladly share it. And if I don’t, you just helped me come up with another addition to the story ;D

I’ll be back with a new chapter as soon as possible :) 

(I wasn’t kidding when I said this was becoming my new hyper-fixation XD)

Bye, for now <3

Tag list:

@alice-only-me 

[brooklynboysficrecs]

Ria’s Top 10 Shrinkyclinks Fics

I will admit this isn’t my preferred AU -- I won’t immediately jump on a fic just because it’s pre-serum Steve and WS Bucky. I gotta like the plot, or the premise, or be really, really intrigued by the tags, but to be fair, that’s how I am with everything that isn’t Modern Bucky and Cap Steve, so. That being said, I have read some truly fantastic shrinkyclinks stories, and I do very much love Steven “Fight Me” Rogers at his scrappiest. And these fics also tend to feature protective!Bucky which is another personal favorite of mine. Oh, but also: shrinkyclinks generally refers to pre-serum Steve with actual Winter Soldier Bucky, but a lot of people use the tag just to imply body types, and when they say WS Bucky they mean he’s all huge and muscled and sometimes has a metal arm, though that isn’t required. That’s the definition I’m going with as well, so hopefully nothing’s confusing!

1. If Wishing Made It So by leveragehunters. Before I get into anything about the actual fic, let me say this: leveragehunters is probably my favorite stucky writer. Like, hands-down, I read almost everything they write, and they’re big into fantasy stories, which is a great bonus for me personally. So, so, so many good shrinkyclinks fics by them (Even Underneath the Waves, a mermaid AU that features equal amounts of pre- and post-serum Steve, and A-mage-ing Grace with mage Steve are two of my other favorites, and they would’ve been on the list, but I try not to put more than one story per author, ya know? And IWMIS kinda wins out above the others for me, so). This story features jinn!Bucky who finds himself in the baffled hands of Steve Rogers, who is perfectly prickly and stubborn and good. Bucky’s got a terrible past with humans in general (and Hydra in particular, what a shocker) that he and Steve have to overcome as their relationship progresses, but that progression is frankly beautiful to watch unfold. I come back to this story time and time again because of how much I love these versions of Steve and Bucky getting to know one another, learning to trust each other, supporting each other through the worst the world has to throw at them. Plus, there’s a few more stories in this series if you get as hooked as I am, which is always great!!

2. Roots Have Grown by AustinB. I remember reading this and just... completely feeling what Bucky is going through. Not everything -- he’s an agoraphobic veteran, and I can’t relate to either of those, really, but he’s so... awkward about his crush on Steve. And that’s -- that’s relatable to me. But it’s precious, really, how he tries to help Steve even though he’s afraid to actually meet him initially; he becomes Steve’s sort of... anonymous benefactor? Guardian angel with money? Like, it’s definitely a sugar daddy type deal originally but I doubt Bucky would describe it like that. I don’t know, it’s cute, though, and I loved seeing Bucky opening up to Steve as they became closer. 

3. Through The Woods by VenusMonstrosa, alby_mangroves. Okay, hear me out: werewolves. I fucking love werewolves in fiction; I mean, not really the romance novels you’ll see in the grocery store, but. Werewolf mythology is one of my favorite things, so seeing it in fanfiction almost always manages to lure me in. And I was so not disappointed with this story! Steve’s living alone in a cabin in the woods, which of course sounds like the opening to a horror movie, but here it leads to love. Werewolf Bucky is both charming and terrifying, to a degree, he’s a wolf, but he and Steve are fantastic together. This is another story that goes in on the trust aspect of their relationship and I for one am a big fan of that. There’s some violence, minor character death and the like, but it’s definitely not undeserved so. If you can handle that (and the sex, because there is sex in this) then I highly recommend this one!

4. The Joy of Little Things by obsessivereader, Sealcat. And so we move from werewolves to dragons. Yup. Dragons. Another of my beloved mythical creatures that I obsessed over when I was kid. Bucky’s capable of shifting into a human in this, but primarily he’s a big ol’ dragon that surprisingly doesn’t want to eat the scrawny sacrifice from the local village. Steve ends up working for Bucky, instead, and from there hilarity ensues. Steve’s obviously wary of Bucky, but Bucky isn’t at all what he’d been expecting, and they grow closer the longer Steve’s staying in Bucky’s caves. There are a couple of stories with Dragon!Bucky, but this is my personal favorite; it’s cute and heart-warming and, well. I just really like it. 

5. I Just Want to Love You in My Own Language by agetwellcard, inediblesushi. So this one has Cap!Bucky (Bucky!Cap?) but again, sometimes it’s more about how Bucky looks rather than his role as the Winter Soldier. Anyway, I remember my biggest take away from this story was how adorable Bucky was in his quest to win the affections of sassy Nurse Steve, who patches him up after missions and is probably playing hard to get. Bucky uses terrible pick-up lines, absolutely awful, and he is completely unashamed of that fact. Which is, as I said, adorable. Steve, initially, does not agree with my assessment, but he gets there eventually. After some requisite drama, of course.

6. Tint & Shade by forestofbabel. Oh, god, this one hurt me, I remember that pretty clearly. Bucky is the Winter Soldier in this, and Steve is a 21st century art therapist who just so happens to resemble his late grandfather, Captain Joseph Rogers, who fought in -- you guessed it -- WWII. Like I said in the intro, if I really like the premise of something I’ll usually read it regardless of the configuration of pre-/post-serum Steve and pre-serum/WS Bucky, and this was definitely one of the fics I got into for that reason. Having actual WS Bucky interact with a modern pre-serum Steve is always interesting, given how much they don’t have in common, generally (there isn’t even really the veteran status that modern Bucky sometimes has in fics), and it’s a journey to see how and why they connect. Having Steve resemble his WWII era grandfather caught my attention, and the fic itself made me grateful that I decided to go for it in the first place. This is another one where is trust is key to their relationship, considering the mental/emotional state Bucky is in at the beginning. Very good story overall!

7. Fourth Floor by dirtybinary, mithborien, picoalloe. So dirtybinary has written some amazing stucky fics, which is why I was so excited when I saw this being posted initially (a few years ago, but still). There’s magic! Mystery! Suspense! Some NatSharon! Looking this over, I’m wondering if I should’ve saved it for the Urban Fantasy list I wanna do (and If Wishing Made It So, if I’m being honest) but I do like it for the shrinkyclinks list. The writing is great, the characterization of Steve and Bucky is great, and like, they live in what is essentially a magical apartment complex, so what’s better than that? 

8. my heart tells me you are lonely, too by FanGirling. Alright, so I read this one as it was being published, and the slow burn about killed me. You know, in a good way, though. Bucky lives in Steve and his mother’s apartment building, trying to figure out where to go with his life now that he’s broken free of Hydra and gotten his autonomy back. He’s obviously wary, skittish, but he takes a liking to Sarah Rogers when she reaches out to befriend him, surprised anyone wants to be near him let alone take the time to get to know him. Steve... is not so easily sold on Bucky. And I’m not gonna spoil anything here, but the shit these two go through is intense, and I cried a lot during this fic, sometimes out of frustration because they’re both ridiculous about their feelings (of course Bucky’s fears are valid, the man has been through literal hell, but also I was internally screaming a little as Bucky continually talked himself out of getting closer to Steve.) I wanted to wrap the both of them in about thirty blankets for pretty much the entire length of the fic. God. They’re just -- they’re so incredibly sweet in this one, once they work past their issues (Bucky and Steve are both more than a little messed up from their respective circumstances, but they make it work). Mind the tags on this one, also, especially because there is a chapter that deals with attempted sexual assault against Steve (obviously not with Bucky!), but Bucky handles the situation before anything truly nasty happens, that I can promise. 

9. Local Raccoon Befriends Angry Chihuahua by charlesdk. This is yet another author I really love; they have a fantastic farmer!Steve/Modern!WS!Bucky story that I love to bits, as well as other great fics. But anyway, this one. The title sold me the second I saw it, honestly, I can’t even pretend that wasn’t the deciding factor in me reading this. I don’t think I can really do any better than the summary in explaining why I recommend it; feisty tiny Steve and lovestruck grumpy Bucky are a winning combination in my book. This one does feature the boys dealing with homophobia and ableism, though I can’t recall how severe it is. So I’d just mind the tags, and if you’re alright with them, thoroughly enjoy this story. 

10. The Road to Hell is Paved with Tony’s Good Intentions by pinlilli. Bucky as a mail-order Russian bride. That’s the detail that pretty much demanded I click on this fic, and oh my god, it was even better than I ever could’ve expected. Tony, in a bid to help Steve get over his awful ex-boyfriend (fuck Brock Rumlow in every universe, honestly), literally orders him a husband -- in the form of beefy James Barnes, who is a fucking gem and I will not hear one bad word against him. He does chores, it’s lovely and adorable, and you will definitely fall just as hard as Steve does. There’s some canon-typical violence in this one that relates to James’ past, but nothing super graphic as far as I remember. Again, Rumlow is a dick and should be treated as such, but he’s hardly the most important part of this fic and I urge everyone to take a look at it if they’re as intrigued by Bucky being a mail-order husband as I was. 

[levyfiles]

Last week the @skepticbeliever-bookclub prompted us to post a selection of our favourite shyan fics so there’d be a nice little way to highlight all the hidden gems of favourites we might already recognise and love while sharing a few we might never have found otherwise. Last December I posted a little list of some of my favourites so I figured I’d dust off that list with a few new additions of particular favourites I treasure. 

Be All My Sins Remembered by spoopyy

Summary:  In every lifetime, they find each other.

Review: This fic manages to take you on a long journey through what feels like a series of AUs and they all weave in and out of the wealth of their relationship with some vivid descriptions of the historical settings their journey takes them through. As someone who grew up reading Anne Rice’s epics through historical events, this fic is right up my alley. A vampire Shane passing through the wave of human society’s climb searching for a reincarnated Ryan again and again, trying to hold on to him and keep him through great tragedies and timeframes that just don’t let them be together. This was one of the first fics I read when I was only a lurker and to be quite honest, I need to give this one a nice re-read, maybe for the book club which would be loads of fun. Either way, 10/10. Would be Hurt in the heart again.

Perfect Fit by @beaniegara

Summary:  There’s a legend that says anyone able to take all of statue Shane’s cock will summon the god to the mortal realm. Given the statue’s excessive size, no one has ever succeeded to prove or disprove the story. Until Ryan that is.

Review: Listen. You wanna talk actual fandom legends. This fic is one of them and it pulls out all the stops on being delicious and evocative. Also features one of my favourite incarnations of size queen bergara. Good stuff and you’re really rooting for Ryan in this lol.

a prize for rotten judgement  by sarcasticfishes

Summary: “You’d drive each other crazy. You sit together at your office all day, and then you’d be commuting home together, eating dinner together, watching TV together, going to bed — well, not together, but you get it, right?”

It doesn’t sound so awful to Shane. There are worse people he could be spending all his hours with than Ryan Bergara.

Review: The moment I happened to glance at the notes of this and saw that Fie’s secondary title for this would have been Ryan and Shane move to the Suburbs, I about lost it with excitement. Primarily because the show this references is one of my favourite comedies and that is one of my all-time favourite episodes. Let me tell you though, even if the reference is lost on you, this story is so much gold rolled into a heart-gripping tale of two best friends who spend every waking moment together taking the plunge to share a home and they were roommates oh my god they were roommates. Shane is pining and you’ll pine right along with him as you’ll yell and holler for him to stop being so damn real and full of doubt. It really is worth every gasp of pain and all the more for the execution but the delivery will leave you in delight. Certainly had me yelling at the author. This fic is gonna be one of my timeless favourites; I knew it the moment I began.

Everything’s Weird and We’re Always in Danger by beethechange

Summary: Ryan perches on the edge of the bed, an indistinct shape that Shane can only just make out in the dark, so he turns the lamp back on. He wants to see Ryan’s face, wants to know that he is alright. Ryan’s cheeks are damp, his hands fisted in the hideous flowered duvet.

“It won’t go away,” Ryan says miserably. “I’ve been like this since we got here, basically, and it won’t fucking—”

“Ah,” Shane says. “Well, you know, sometimes fear…adrenaline…they can affect people. Physically.” He waves his hands indistinctly crotchward. “It’s a, a scientifically known phenomenon.” Shane feels a little better staying in the realm of scientifically known phenomena.

Review: Word of advice. You see a fic is authored by beethechange, run don’t walk because you’re absolutely always going to be treated to the best of banter, the best of prose, chemistry, organic execution and feels right up the bottom end of your heart. This fic, this changed everything I thought I knew I wanted out of a bed-sharing fic. It’s got a little bit of two treats here. You got a sex-pollen-esque situation mixed with bed-sharing and holy fucking damn that is more than you think you deserve, but read this because you do deserve the best of the best. The build up, the dialogue, the surprisingly hilarity of it, the hotness woah, and The Aftermath. When you think you know what you’re in for, you’re wrong and you’re most pleasantly surprised. Get this fic in your life and honestly? while you’re at it, you could do a clean sweep of every fic in her list of works and while my less than adequate reading time management may still be short on some of her most well-recommended pieces, I have an adamant faith that Bee doesn’t disappoint. Go get y’all juice.

Maelstrom by thewindupbird

Summary:  Here’s the thing about driving halfway across the country to see someone. You can’t really deny, after that, that you’re pretty much head over heels for them.

Review: Listen. One morning on a day off, I just laid in bed and read this– all 40k+ words– while lying there clutching my pillows, hurting and loving every moment of it. The descriptions of Americana, the slow steady metronome rhythm of Ryan’s feelings as frightened and helpless as they feel when you’re relating deeply to them juxtaposed with the deep-seated struggle of understanding what it is to be with someone you love so much but your mental health is burning quiet holes in your ability to express it in a way that can be understand. Ryan’s fierce determination, breaking through the silence of their non communication is really Everything to me in this fic. i think I really left my heart in the scene in Shane’s parents kitchen. That finished me. Read this fic and understand the deep relief you get when you’ve finished a fight with someone you fiercely care about and they understand you and you understand them and it’s OK; it’s gonna be all right. Augh.

5 times Shane had to overrule Ryan’s “No Homo” + 1 time he didn’t have to by ghoulboyboos

Summary: There was only one thing that would truly drive him up the wall with Ryan, much more than any debate about ghosts ever could: Ryan’s consistent twitches of “no homo” when any sort of physical contract between them happened.

Review: I have such a soft special spot in my heart for this fic particularly because Lud manages to examine a trope I tend to avoid in such a sweet and honest way I couldn’t not love this fic. The story takes a painstaking and very real look at the “no homo” issue as it weaved through the journey that was early days Ryan and Shane. Shane’s reaction to in this and how he communicates with Ryan has such a very heartfelt and once again, real quality to it. I get in my feelings all over again about how far they’ve come and what it meant for Ryan to have Shane there. Lud really nails this piece and it’s a classic in my eyes.

A Burial on Box Hill by InkStainsOnMyHands

Summary: The Celtics believed that the yew flower symbolized both immortality and death. Meanwhile, for centuries, the buxus flower was seen as a symbol for safe passage into the afterlife.

Or,Shane and Ryan were never the same after investigating the Black Forest of Germany alone.

Review: Let me just quote my bookmark comment here. Usually I flee from tragedy like a cat spotting a cucumber but the brevity and the prose dragged me in and now I’m a functioning mess. Bless this fic. Oh my god it’s short and reads like one of those quick horror stories you’ll read to your friends just as the scary stories are transitioning from the urban legends to the ones that feel real. Big warning for main character death but still read it if you appreciate a good story told.

Body Farming by shiphitsthefan

Summary: Failed suppressants and a surprise heat: the worst of cliches, and here Ryan stands, living the trope on location with the alpha he’s hopelessly in love with. Even worse, they’re spending the night in the famous Bell Witch Cave, completely alone and with no way to contact the outside world.

Ryan knows he can survive and keep his preheat a secret, as long as Shane will stop being so protective and concerned. After all, it’s not like Shane wants to bond with him.

Right?

Review: Now judging from the reactions of many people I’ve spoken to, big heavy ABO kink is not popular here but guys, GUYS. This one. Let this one in I promise it is not what you think it is. The dynamic is organic and the worst side of the trope is subverted in all the best ways and lord help us, the smut is hot, like swelteringly smoking. It’ll stay with you.

Believer by cellard00rs

Summary:  Some demons and otherworldly creatures love climbing up the power ladder. Shane is not one of these. He likes where he is (thank you very much) and has no interest in moving up. All he wants is to give his friend Ryan a nice birthday gift. So, naturally, everything goes to hell.

Review: This fic is another fandom legend. When I think demon!Shane. It’s this and one other one that always pops right into my mind. This was my first exposure to the bureaucracy meets the supernatural!Shane trope and I was sold from the get-go. The Shane in this fic is everything I imagine a demon!Shane is and his ginger care for Ryan, the concept of their bond and how even though Shane is a demon and responsible for keeping the supernatural a firm secret from Ryan and the rest of the world, his skepticism is relayed through his status as a demon. I want to talk more about it but I think so much of the enjoyment comes from the surprises as the plot unfurls.

hey boy, take a look at me by weakspots

Summary: Ryan is 27, for Christ’s sake, and he’s not exactly hideous, so there’s really no reason to spend his money on a dude — a dude — whose face he’ll never see but whose livestreams he’s been jerking off to for roughly 4 months now. He should be going out and partying and fucking random chicks. Or a guy, whatever, just to get it out of his system and confirm to himself that he really is 100% straight.

Because he is. This is morbid curiosity, if anything.

Review: I’ve been a long-time fan of this universe and it was a universe I didn’t know I needed until this author gave it to us. We or rather me, a desperate audience, just devoured this with every update. Not only is it hot, but it has the delicious intrigue of secret identity, anonymous stuff and a LOT of blush-worthy prose therein. This version of Shane makes me thrive but the titillating nature of straight-identifying!Ryan being bowled over by the turn of events that leads him to his world tilting into the gravity of a camboy just--you Have to read this one!

Heartbeat by quackers

Summary:  So the guy Ryan sits next to at work is a vampire. That’s no big deal, right?

Review: I could talk your literal ear off about this fic. Vampires, man. I love the trope; you don’t know me as a person if you don’t know this at least. And this fic kept me fed all damn year. It was a readable garden. If there is one thing I can guarantee about quackers’ work, it’s that their world-building is a festival of detail. The realms and alternate universes they work with while still managing to keep Shane and Ryan’s voices so familiar and real is a talent not attributed to your everyday author. This fic propelled me into wanting to write more and more because quackers makes stories so much fun! Reading their work is, to me, not unlike the feeling I got when I was younger and finding series that speak to my need to escape this crummy existence, made me want to believe in fun spicy things like a vampire that lived through centuries, cynical but still searching, navigating a world where people are still people, adjusting to differences and prejudices, finding comfort in a guy that understands that and more. I’ve talked about this fic in more than a few different posts so I’d just be reiterating a lot of things I loved about the more historical aspects of Shane’s journey, the way Ryan is so firmly curious and inventive in ways to connect with Shane. Look, even if vampires aren’t your thing, I can promise that if you visit quackers list of work, you will find something for your supernatural-lovin’ palate that speaks to a gentler side of your own curiosity about monsters and the jocks that love them. lol.

I’ll Crawl Home by carrieonfighting

Summary:  “Shane was almost unnerved by how quickly he’d settled into this body, this name, this life - his friendship with Ryan was the most time he’d spent with any human before, and yet the man fascinated him.”

Review: This is the second fic I think of when someone says the words ‘demon!Shane’ to me because ohhhh my word, this fic is a masterpiece. I really am hard-pressed to find anything better than the feeling I get when I think of demon!Shane headcanons interwoven with the irl Buzzfeed reality and the idea of the Ryan as we know him being protected and watched and loved so deeply by a demon that found him so long ago and wanted nothing but to protect him. I feel an almost vicious glee reliving that moment when Ryan and Shane are on goatman’s bridge and man, I just really love canonical fic mixed with a slight twist. The writing in this makes it work so well with lines that still haunt my heart and soul like “Ryan liked popcorn. So did the demon. Genuinely, not just out of a desire to please the human – he liked the way it crunched between his vessel’s teeth. There were some aspects of taking a corporeal form that were… nice; laughing, coffee, feeling warm. Ryan made him laugh.” FUCK! The beautiful agony of it, watching the demon fall in love with Ryan through the eyes of his vessel. Just stark with pain and unspoken, well-written angst and pain with a perfect ending, I wouldn’t change for anything. I love this for us as a fandom and will always love that author crafted this piece and shared it with us. (Also every time I hear Work Song by Hozier, I think of this fic again and sigh).

[cake-writes]

Compromise (Interlude #3)

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Story Warnings: Mom!Reader, Dad!Bucky, Ex-Relationship, Co-Parenting Drama, Slow Burn, Angst, Fluff, Separation Anxiety, Violence

Summary: You didn’t want to trust him again, because every time you did, Bucky broke your heart just a little more. Deep down, though, you wanted to get along with him. You wanted to be amicable. You wanted your daughter to know her father. You’d always wanted that. It just required a compromise.

Part Nine / Master List / Spotify Playlist

This chapter was written for @marquiswrites​​‘s 100 follower challenge! Congrats, my love! I’m so sorry I’m like a week late on this. Please enjoy.

Bucky’s heart caught in his throat. With his pulse racing just as fast as yours, he quickly got the hell out of dodge and went to the counter to pay. The check became a means of escape. Instinctual, perhaps – fight or flight, and he chose the latter because he was absolutely fucking terrified.

What did you want from him?

He cared about you. He loved you. That much was clear, but in that moment, he’d been forced to confront his feelings and he wasn’t ready to. Not yet. Not with you gazing at him across the table, teeth dragging across your lower lip in such an enticing way that it made him break into a nervous sweat. 

God, how irresistible could you be?

It wasn’t just nerves that drove him up a wall. Bucky wanted to act on the implication in your words, your teasing, your flirting. He wanted to reach over across the table and kiss the breath out of you, desperately, with every fibre of his being. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Not now.

He wasn’t ready.

To be a parent, he was. To be a dad.

But to disappoint you again? He absolutely wasn’t.

Needless to say, things only worsened on the walk back to your house – the walk from hell. Somehow, he managed to keep his cool, but his mind was a mess. Anxiety. Panic. Fear. What ifs ran through his mind on an endless loop and gnawed incessantly at his subconscious.

What the hell did you want from him?

But Bucky knew what you wanted. Deep down, he probably always knew.

The sound of your heartbeat was a dead giveaway; quiet, almost inaudible, but he’d heard it quicken. He’d seen the flush come across your cheeks as you teased him – simple words to be sure, but laced with innuendo.

He wasn’t just imagining things.  

And yet, you had been the one to draw a line in the sand two years ago, to shut down any future the two of you might have had. You left him, and it had been your idea to come to an agreement for Winnie. Even now, he could appreciate that you’d done so. She was more important. She’d always be more important. 

Bucky knew you knew that, too, so what the hell was he supposed to do?

He missed you. He loved you. He wanted to be with you.

But he loved his daughter, too.

Bucky startled awake to nothing but silence, the sound of his own voice echoing in his ears.

You take me instead, do you hear me?

A thin sheen of sweat coated his body, and he ran a shaky hand through his damp hair, taking a deep breath to try and calm himself down. One, then two. Pitch dark room. Moonlight spilled in through the blinds and onto his duvet.

All he wanted to do was dream – to forget – but instead, he had a nightmare.

Give her back and take me instead.

The words scratched at the back of his throat, dry and unbearable. How many times had he heard that particular phrase? Too many times to count. Too many memories of Hydra blurred the lines within his brain, made things feel entirely too real. Possibly because they were. Bucky had done awful things to secure Hydra’s future, and although he hadn’t been a willing participant, it was still him. All him. He’d done such terrible things that his mind liked to conjure them as a punishment of his own making. 

Once, he ripped a woman away from her father – made him watch. She’d been a threat to Hydra, and thus had to be eliminated despite her father’s desperate pleas to give her back, to take him instead. And now, Bucky understood.

Usually, he watched helplessly as Winnie was kidnapped, taken from him, her young life snuffed out with the flick of a wrist. Or the tip of a knife. Or the sound of a gun.

Quick. Efficient. All ways in which he’d taken lives before.

His sweet, darling daughter, dead in a millisecond. The heartbreak and pain he felt at the very thought of it – never mind witnessing it in such a vivid nightmare – could only be replicated when it was you instead of Winnie. And Bucky understood that, too.

He’d murdered a newlywed on her wedding night, right in front of her groom. Blood spatter against white spackled walls, pristine dress stained a rich, ruby red. Life snuffed out more easily than love, he discovered, when he wound up having to dispatch her new husband, too.

I love her. Give her back. Take me instead.

Bucky would have done the same for you. 

Somehow, he’d found the smallest shred of stability with you, despite his uncanny ability and willingness to blow it up because of his own insecurities – but his past still came back to haunt him anyway. 

With a shudder, he dragged his hands down his face in an attempt to forget the horrors.

It was in times like these that he missed you the most. No matter what, you’d always offered him so much comfort and love despite everything he’d done. Quiet, gentle comfort he’d grown so accustomed to that, even two years after the fact, he still had yet to figure out how he’d survived without.

You’d rouse with a sleepy mumble of his name and reach out for him, small hand coming to rest against his heaving chest. The harsh pounding of his heart beneath your palm would wake you a little more – as would the feel of Bucky’s too-hot skin, sticky with sweat, and you’d blearily blink your eyes open to look over at him in the darkness.

Shh, he’d say. Go back to sleep, doll. I’m fine.

Fine. Always fine. 

Always a lie. 

Just like the crooked smile on his lips, meant to reassure you that it wasn’t a lie this time. Even though it was.

Oh, Bucky… Come here.

You’d see right through him in an instant. Stroke his hair. Whisper sweet nothings to him in the softest, kindest voice he’d ever heard, delicate and strong all at once. And when you’d tell him that everything was going to be alright in such dulcet tones, well, he just had to believe you, didn’t he?

Sometimes he’d break down a little at your gentle touch and even gentler words. He’d wrap his arms around you, hold you tight, cling to you like you were his lifeline and in a lot of ways, you were. He often told you things in confidence that he’d never told anyone before; it felt good to have another person to join him in the darkness, no matter how slight. How selfish. 

And you’d stroke his hair.

Christ.

With an aggravated sigh, Bucky snatched up his phone from the nightstand. He desperately wanted to seek comfort from you like you’d done so many times before so long ago. The problem was that he felt conflicted, now, because of a multitude of reasons: your relationship was already so strained, for one, and it was bound to affect Winnie. Not to mention he knew. 

He knew you wanted to be with him, but you deserved better.

If he reached out, he’d be taking advantage of your feelings for his own selfish comfort. It would complicate things. He’d disappoint you again. He’d ruin what little good relations the two of you had, and it would negatively affect Winnie.

Dear, sweet Winnie with a halo of blood around her perfect little head. His darling daughter, dead in her big girl bed. Bullet in her brain.

Three in the morning. You wouldn’t be awake, but right now he just couldn’t shake the need for your kind, soothing words.

She’s alright, Bucky, you’d say. She’s fine.

He knew you would.

Thumbs hovering over the keyboard on the screen, he couldn’t help himself. Selfish. So, so selfish.

 Bucky, 3:18am Sorry. I know it’s late. Are you awake?

 As soon as Bucky hit ‘send’, he immediately wanted to take it back. He’d managed so many times without you before, and he could do it again. All he had to do was try. A nightmare. That was all. Winnie was fine.

It was so stupidly selfish of him to reach out to you like this, knowing what he knew. He didn’t need you to comfort him, did he? He just wanted it, wanted you.

Needed you.

When his phone vibrated less than a minute later, it made him jump.

 You, 3:19am What’s wrong?

 You had to work in the morning. Why were you up?

Staring at your message, Bucky wasn’t really sure what to say. He started to type one thing, then backspaced and tried another, only managing to get a couple of words in before he changed his mind again. A text was so impersonal – not like how sweet and caring you were in person, in bed with him, and he had some difficulty finding the right words for the situation.

Three or four attempts later, his phone vibrated again and he froze.

A phone call.

Bucky barely had time to bring the device up to his ear before you’d already started to ask on the other end, “Who was it this time?”

Bucky swallowed thickly, before he rasped, “Winnie.” Then he cleared his throat and tried again, “It was Winnie.”

“Winnie? Okay, hold on,” you told him, and then he heard some shuffling – fabric against the microphone, and your voice came through a little more muffled. “Must have been pretty bad tonight, huh?” Your tone was light despite the dreadful subject; then came a creak, a pause, and you let out a soft laugh. “Don’t worry, she’s fine.”

His phone vibrated again.

In confusion, Bucky pulled the phone away from his ear. You’d sent him another text, which he quickly opened to find a photo of Winnie sleeping soundly in her big girl bed. No blood. No halo. She was fine, and fast asleep in what was probably the most uncomfortable position he’d ever seen in his life.

He couldn’t help but let out an undignified snort.

“See?” you said, voice much clearer now, albeit still holding onto the last remnants of sleep. “Our daughter, the contortionist. I bet she got that from you.”

Gentle ribbing, despite how uncomfortable this afternoon had been.

“Hey, I resemble that remark,” he croaked, but his heart felt lighter than before. “How’d she fall asleep with her leg like that?”

“I don’t know,” you responded, laughing some more. “She sleeps like that a lot. I think she saw it in one of her cartoons. Just kind of stuck.”

Bucky let out a soft hum of acknowledgement. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Another laugh, quieter this time, faded into silence before you asked him softly, “Do you wanna talk about it?”

You knew. You always fucking knew and he hated how much he loved it. And just plain hated it, because you saw right through him.

“It’s late,” Bucky deflected. No matter how much he may have wanted to talk about it, he didn’t want to drag you down when he was already bothering you like this. He’d woken you up. It wasn’t his place to do that anymore. Not that it ever really was. “Thanks for the photo. I think I’m gonna make it my wallpaper.”

Another joke. Another deflection.

Hollow.

There was another deafening pause, before you offered, “Are you free for breakfast?”

“What?”

“Winnie would love to see you,” you told him, and he could just hear the smile in your voice. “I’ll even make some french toast.”

“I don’t— I don’t wanna impose,” Bucky stammered at the unexpected invitation, already feeling the anxiety pool in the pit of his stomach. What’s worse was that he did want to impose. He wanted to impose very much.

“Then you can help,” you teased. “Come on. It’s just breakfast.”

It wasn’t just breakfast.

“We’ve gotta leave by eight, so let’s make it seven?” you mused aloud. “Yeah. How’s seven?”

He forced down the lump in his throat. “Seven’s… Seven’s fine.”

“Okay, good! See you in the morning.”

Without missing a beat, he responded almost automatically, “See you then.”

Then the line went dead, and Bucky stared blankly at his phone.

What just happened? You’d just talked him into breakfast so easily. How?

He still had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do. His thoughts started to race for the umpteenth time, full of panic and dread, but no matter how rational he tried to be, an undercurrent of excitement still ran through him like electricity. It made him feel good. Warm. 

Breakfast with you. Breakfast with Winnie.

His girls.

Despite all his nervous energy, Bucky actually managed to sleep soundly for once. So soundly, in fact, that he slept right through his alarm.

Part Ten

[angstyaches]

Charlie’s Hoodie

Alright, so here’s the first fic where Shayne is living in the Aldridge townhouse with Elliott and Felix (and Nancy and Ryan), which is in a city about three hours away from where Charlie is still living (Mulberry). This is about two days into his stay. It’s a slow-burner and very Angsty. I hope you guys enjoy!

CW; stomach ache from stress, emeto, anxiety, food mention, refusal of food, parental death mention, abusive guardian mention

Swallow the World: Three Boys in a Townhouse

He was supposed to be studying at his brand-new desk in the corner of his brand-new room in the Aldridge townhouse, but Shayne couldn’t recall how long he’d just been sitting there, hands in his lap, nails digging into his palms. It would have been a great time to get some thinking done, if thinking didn’t make his stomach ache.

He’d had a dream that morning, after falling asleep for about twenty minutes between nine and nine-thirty – probably the most sleep he’d had since arriving at the townhouse – and had woken up thinking he was with Charlie, in Charlie’s bed, in the Mulberry house. 

Remembering where he was, how far away he was, felt like a hand reaching down his throat and squeezing everything it could grab. The room had felt cold after that, not that he could do anything about it; it had a radiator, but he’d never learned how to use one. 

He’d pulled on the hoodie Charlie had given him; reluctantly, as the more he wore it, the more it smelled like him and not Charlie.

Thinking about Charlie came with its own stages. The first one was easiest to deal with because it crept in like a warm memory, or a dream. 

A second later would come the rug-pulling moment, as horrible words and disinterested looks would wash through the memory, turning it grey and making the Charlie in his head turn coldly away from him. 

The bargaining stage would come next, and Shayne would wonder if he could fix this still; and then he would remember that Charlie needed Charlie Two more than he needed him, and Shayne was a danger to Charlie Two. Plus, Charlie and his parents would be moving soon anyway.

And he would tell himself this was good, this was the best thing, for him to be here with the Aldridges, but at that point he’d be overwhelmed by the gurgling in his belly and he’d have to stop himself from thinking altogether.

A knock at the door made him jump, and the sound of a particular voice made him wince.

“Hello?”

More time must have passed than Shayne realised though, otherwise Felix wouldn’t be coming into his room to look for him. Shayne gulped and turned his desk chair to the side to see him tiptoe inside.

“Nancy and Ryan are all settled in,” Felix said gently, hanging back, halfway hidden behind the door. “They should be ready for dinner in about ten minutes, if you want to come wait downstairs with us.”

Shayne gulped again. He’d known he’d be meeting with Ryan and Nancy – who were technically his new guardians now – that evening, but he hadn’t thought about the fact that there would be food, and blood, involved. 

He’d managed to fight his nausea until now, but the thought of having to perform and force food down made his stomach feel like it wanted out of him, right there and then.

“Hey.” Felix stepped further into the room and closed the door behind him, leaning back on it with his hands. “You look a bit washed out. Are you feeling okay?”

Shayne frowned, a painful kind of relief flooding his chest as Felix visibly stiffened.

“You know, it’s – it’s normal to not feel like yourself after leaving home,” Felix said, clearing his throat. “It was a long time ago, but I remember my first few days here, when it was all new and I started realising it was my new life.”

Shayne lowered his gaze again, and heard Felix sigh lightly. The mint-haired boy shifted his feet, like he’d been about to come closer, but hesitated. Like he was nervous. Scared. Good, Shayne thought, turning his chair gently. He’d be happier knowing Felix was scared of him; anything was better than being felt sorry for.

Felix gave a low hum. “I felt sick to my stomach all the time, too.”

Shayne hadn’t even realised he’d put a hand on his stomach until he saw Felix’s eyes dart downward. His instinct was to move it away, and he did for a few seconds before he realised it was pointless. He let the hand rest on his belly again, keeping his eyes pinned on the pale wooden floorboards.

“Though for me, it was because of the blood,” Felix chuckled. His voice seemed to get higher in pitch, the more he talked. “It took me a long time to get used to it. Eventually they just had to start slipping it into my tea… Though, I – I guess this isn’t about that.”

Shayne’s stomach took a harsh dive towards the floor, and he had to tense his fingers even more just to keep control of the nausea. If the colour had drained from his face, Felix might not have noticed, or at least didn’t comment on it.

“I was already half-blooded when I got here,” Felix went on, “so I felt like I was bonded to Ryan before I even met her. Not – not that you have to worry about that. You’re practically family already, right?”

Shayne frowned and bit his lip against arguing; Felix was just trying to be nice, and possibly didn’t know anything about the Devines. But paperwork didn’t mean family. Hours clocked under someone’s roof didn’t mean family. Leaving someone in a bad situation didn’t mean family.

“I understand it’s not the same though,” Felix said. “I also had Elli when I came here, so it - it must feel weird, being here without your friend.”

The fact that he’d said ‘friend’ singular, and not ‘friends’ in general, meant that he was talking specifically about Charlie. The name hit as hard as though it had actually been said. Shayne breathed deeply as he felt his stomach churn against his hand.

“You want to talk about it?”

The natural thing for Shayne would have been to make some defensive remark, but he didn’t even want to open his mouth just then. He swallowed thickly and gave a sharp shake of his head. No, he absolutely did not want to talk about anything. How long did he have to sit here in silence before Felix fucked off?

“Buddy, you’re feeling really sick, huh?” Felix’s eyes softened when Shayne looked up at them again. “Hey, I’m positive Nancy and Ryan won’t mind if you take one more evening to rest. They’re reasonable ladies. Most of the time.”

Shayne was suddenly reminded of the heart-lifting relief of being told, as a kid and before his real parents had died, that he could stay home from school if he was feeling too sick. After that, Madelyn and Watson had always decided, on their terms, whether or not he could stay in bed. He felt the admission of weakness burning hot behind his eyes, but decided it would be worth it if he could just go to bed and try to forget the sick feeling in his stomach.

“I’ll say something to them, if you like.”

“You don’t have to,” Shayne mumbled. He cringed at hearing himself automatically try to reject the help that Felix was offering.

But Felix just flashed his little fangs again. “That doesn’t usually stop me. Look – I don’t know. If you’re up for it later, I can come back. We can talk, or – or we can move to my and Elli’s room and just watch T.V. Whatever you feel like.”

Shayne faintly shook his head, barely considering the offer. Guilt clung in the back of his throat, like his words were echoing inside him before he’d even said them. “Just leave me alone, Felix.”

Felix turned his head to stare at the floor too, so silent that he might have stopped breathing altogether. “Sure,” he chirped after a few seconds. “If – if that’s what you want.”

Shayne waited for Felix to leave before lying down on top of the blankets. He spent a few minutes like that, muscles clenched but not quite shivering from the cold, before finally getting into the bed.

He lay on his front and closed his eyes, trying not to let his thoughts wander any further from the four walls surrounding him. It worked, in a way, but then he just found himself wishing Charlie was inside those walls with him, and that was beside the point.

He tried listing the history topics he’d been supposed to revise that afternoon, imagining bullet points in his head until it all spun together and made him feel nauseous again. He told himself thank god he hadn’t had to go to that dinner, told himself to remember to thank Felix later, and apologise for being short with him. He had to be careful, now that he knew how badly it hurt when he messed up his relationships.

Restlessness and queasiness drove him out of bed again, and he dragged himself to the small ensuite bathroom attached to his room. The mirror showed him exactly how awful he looked, and it was no wonder Felix had offered to get him out of going to dinner. 

The dark circles under his eyes were deeper than usual, probably since he’d barely slept since the night at Mulberry, the night with Charlie, the night before the kiss, the night before he’d said those awful things –

No, no, no. 

He ran cold water over his hands at the sink, ignoring how they shook, and took a few sips from his palm. Small sips, barely enough to wet his lips, for fear of how the cold liquid would feel on the way down. 

Oh, but Charlie would make him drink, wouldn’t he? Charlie would be upset if he knew Shayne had barely had anything to eat or drink in so many days, he’d look so sad – if he even cared at all anymore, after hearing what Shayne had said to Elliott about him.

No...

Shayne clutched the edge of the sink in shock as he gagged, keeping his mouth clamped shut and closing his eyes. His legs had turned to mush all of a sudden, and he felt like he might sink through the floor. He shakily eased himself closer to the toilet, only letting go of the sink when he could put his hands on the cistern instead. 

He retched over and over again, until he managed to choke up a pitiful spatter of bile and acid. He lowered himself gradually so that he was kneeling down on the tiles, shaking and quietly sobbing and wishing for his friend.

___

Felix once again knocked before coming in. Shayne was still retching emptily when he found him. His stomach had emptied, and his throat had dried so quickly that it now just felt like fists clamping around his insides.

“Hey,” Felix said with an air of urgency. “Oh, gosh, is – is it alright for me to be here, Shayne? Do you need to be by yourself?”

Shayne’s chin trembled as he gasped to catch his breath. He wanted to speak, but his tongue was too heavy in his mouth, and all he could manage was a low whimper. He laid a hand on the floor next to him, fingers reaching weakly in Felix’s direction.

“Alright, I’m here.”

He felt Felix’s hand rest lightly on his shoulder, almost like he had feathers instead of bones. Shayne shivered at being touched, though he couldn’t tell for sure if it repulsed him or not because his body was too busy fighting the nausea.

“Relax, bud, I don’t think there’s anything for you to bring up,” Felix said softly. “Try to catch your breath, okay?”

When he finally got his breathing under control and the retching slowed, Shayne turned towards Felix, eyes glassy and pinned to the ground. The smaller boy helped him up from the floor and guided him back through to the bed, pulling back the blankets for him with one hand.

“Doing okay?” Felix asked softly as Shayne sat down.

“Mmhmm,” he replied. He didn’t feel overwhelmed with nausea anymore, but his belly was aching horribly, muscles tense from the dry heaving.

Felix slid onto the end of the bed and pulled his legs underneath himself. He sat and watched Shayne carefully from there. Like a puppy. Shayne slowly eased himself under the blankets, careful not to jostle Felix or himself too much. His voice was hoarse from coughing up acid, and he couldn’t bring himself to clear his throat. He leaned his back against the headrest.

“How was – how was the dinner thing?”

“Aw, bud, you probably don’t want to hear me going on about food right now,” Felix said. His eyes brightened. “But Nancy and Ryan weren’t mad, if that’s what you were worried about. They said to tell you not to worry, and they’ll see you sometime tomorrow.”

Shayne pulled at the sleeves of Charlie’s hoodie, covering his wrists and the palms of his hands. He felt Felix follow his gaze towards the thick red fabric.

“I was thinking, and – when I mentioned Charlie earlier, I hope I wasn’t overstepping or anything.” Felix was starting to sound nervous again. “I have a tendency to do that, and it can be a tad overwhelming for some people.”

Shayne bit the inside of his lip. He felt a gurgle begin in his stomach before it sounded off, and he let out a little whine alongside it.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, realising Felix must have heard it too.

“Aw, buddy, it’s fine. Look; see if you can drink some of that.”

Shayne spotted the steaming teacup next to the bed. He had a vision of Charlie bringing him tea in bed, and had to suddenly blink back tears as he looked at Felix.

“It’s just ginger tea.” Felix’s eyes widened. He frowned and played with his own hands. “I know I said earlier they used to hide blood in my tea, but it’s not – it’s not spiked or anything.”

“No, I – thank you.” Shayne reached carefully for the tea and hoping his stupid shaky hands weren’t about to spill it all over the sheets. He gulped hard, willing his breath to become steady, his eyes to become dry. “F-for coming back, too. Um, seriously.”

“Hey, it’s nothing,” Felix muttered, averting his gaze as he blushed.

Shayne let the mug rest in one hand for a few seconds, while he pressed the cuff of Charlie’s hoodie against his eyes. The sleeve brushed across his cheeks, and his head spun for a second with that familiar scent. Fuck. He screwed his eyes shut for a second before lifting his face and trying to focus on the tea, on Felix, on things that were warm.

“If you still don’t feel like talking,” Felix said slowly, “I – I thought, maybe, I’d tell you how I became an Aldridge, if Elliott hasn’t already told you.”

“He hasn’t,” Shayne admitted shakily. “I, uh, didn’t, um, didn’t even know your name until you told me yourself.”

“Are you serious?” Felix pressed a hand to his head. “Gosh, I would have made a much grander introduction for myself if I had known that.”

Shayne shook his head; with the state he’d been in when they’d first met, he was relieved Felix hadn’t tried anything more extravagant. He tentatively wrapped both hands around the mug, ignoring the handle, grateful for the warmth.

“I could have had five hot guys jump out and unzip their jackets to reveal t-shirts that spelled out F-E-L-I-X.” Felix bounced a fist against his knee. “Gosh, wasted opportunity is like – is like sashimi without soy sauce, you know what I mean?”

Shayne gave Felix a look over the rim of his mug, a look that hopefully conveyed that he had absolutely no idea what he meant. He took a slow sip, and although it was a little too hot for his tongue, his whole body seemed to thaw a bit as the heat curled down through him.

“Never mind,” Felix laughed. “Okay, well, let’s see – I guess the first thing you should know is that my name wasn’t always Felix. Only Elliott knows my real name, and it’s important that it stays that way. I’m not even sure Ryan and Nancy know I ever changed it.”

“What?” Shayne muttered as he blew gently on his tea. His stomach gave a low growl, though this time it wasn’t voicing nausea, but its anticipation of more of the warm, comforting drink. “Were you running from the law?”

“Not at the start,” Felix said, leaning back a little as he got comfortable. “I was a bit like you, actually. I was running away from home.”

[subtlereferencetomyinterests]

Communication Issues (Alternative Title: Three Touch-Starved, Insecure, Metaphysical Beings Constantly Misinterpreting Each Other and Yet Somehow Falling in Love)- Chapter One

Ao3,  MasterPost,  Chap.2,  Chap.3

Relationships: Eventual Analogince, implied Moceit

I usually have new stuff up on Wednesdays, Sorry this is late. I hope the length and angst will make up for this slight :) Also, because of how long this fucker is, I did not go in and manually add italics, so you can just. Imagine them there when you need them. 

Warnings: Panic attack (?), overworking oneself, self-hatred and insecurity, Excessive Amounts of Hurt/comfort, eventual friends-to-lovers, slow burn, arguing, crying, angst w/ a happy ending, swearing, creative blocks, mentions of isolating oneself, excessive hugging. 

Word Count: 6,396

What do you do when you find someone crying, and it’s all your fault? What do you say when you hear the muffled sobs and frantic words behind the blood-red door? When you know that, no matter how much you never wanted to hurt him- never wanted to hurt anyone- you still did. Is there anything you can do to fix it, when you’ve spent so long pretending that nothing was broken? When you’ve spent so long pretending that you didn’t care if things were broken or not? 

Well, if you're Logan Sanders, a metaphysical representation of the logical thinking of one Thomas Sanders (and you are, for the purposes of this story), then you book it down the hall in a desperate effort to find someone more emotionally competent to solve the problem. 

The search is short, lasting just to the bottom of the stairs. As soon as your feet touch down on the living room carpet, your haste brings you slamming into just the side you were looking for. Hands wrap around your middle, narrowly stopping you from stumbling over. 

“Geez, L, what’s the-” Virgil doesn’t finish his sentence, his expression wrinkling in concern when he sees your face. He leans down to your level, his gaze flickering over you to search for injuries. 

You take a step back and shake your head, struggling to explain. 

“Roman- I- He-” you’re supposed to be articulate, intelligent, eloquent- but when it comes to feelings, you never are. You never have been. You try so hard nowadays, but God, do you still need help sometimes. Like these times. These confusing, awful times when you hear dear sweet Creativity sobbing self-deprications loud enough to be heard from well outside of his room, many of which are dramatized repetitions of things that you have said to him.

“Is he okay?!” Virgil, bless him, snaps you out of the oncoming mental panic before it renders you any more useless. 

“Physically, yes- as far as I know- but emotionally, well-” you cut off, terrified of choking up. He seems to catch your meaning, though. 

Virgil doesn’t ask any follow up questions. He grabs your arm and the room blurs. Static hisses against your ears and pricks at your skin, this form of transportation being mostly foreign to you. You don’t even rise up, merely popping into existence right in front of Roman’s door. Virgil throws it open before you have the chance to react. 

Roman doesn’t notice the increased population of his room, which is concerning. His back is to the door as he works fervently at his desk, but evidently not making progress, shaking as he is. He’s muttering under his breath, much quieter than what you’d overheard before, but you can hear distinct utterances like ‘unrealistic… overused… disappointment…’ et cetera, et fucking cetera. 

“Roman, what happened?” Virgil’s voice is distorted, loud and quiet all at once. You barely keep yourself from covering your ears. 

Roman clamps his mouth shut mid-wail, his hands spasming in surprise against his desk. His quill drops to the paper with a soft clatter, a sound that echoes about the walls. Then, the only noise left is his staggering breathing.

Slowly, Roman peers over his shoulder at you, eyes puffy and red with mascara practically dripping down his chin. 

A gasp draws from you, against your will, at the sight. 

Roman makes some strangled throat-clearing sounds before trying to speak. 

“Oh, hey-” 

“Nope, none of that,” Virgil is across the room in two strides, effortlessly taking the lead in this situation. You can’t push yourself any further into the room, but you do shut the door behind you. Probably best not to involve any of the more unpredictable sides in what was sure to be an… emotionally charged discussion. 

Roman looks absolutely mortified, jolting up from his chair and backing into the wall like a cornered animal. With distance between himself and Virgil reestablished, he then buries his face in his hands. He trembles like a leaf caught in the wind of fall, and he’d probably crumble just as easily. 

Many times in your life, you’ve wished that you couldn’t feel. You even had yourself convinced that you couldn’t, for a while there. Now, all you wish is to know how to feel correctly. You’re meant to know things, Logan, aren’t you?

“Alright, so I’ve been having a bit of a rough time,” Roman’s voice cracks and wavers when he speaks, “It’s just writer’s block. Sure, I got a tad bit frustrated- but I’ll be back on track in no time, I promise! You needn’t concern yourself with my momentary lapse, I’ll have a new story for you by Saturday at the latest!” 

He’s looking at you. Virgil is standing right next to him, but he’s looking at you, all the way across the room. He’s trying to… appease you? Reason with you? Give you what he thinks you want?

Say something, Logan.

“You need to take a break, Ro,” Virgil’s voice slips back to normal, “C’mon, you’re overworking yourself,” he tries to be nonchalant, but it’s obvious just how concerned he is. You can hardly blame him. When he reaches his hand out, Roman recoils, showing his face enough to see the guilt written across it. 

You need to say something, goddammit. 

“I can’t just ‘take a break’,” he spits, “I can’t stop now. I need to get this done first- I’ll stop when I finally do this properly. So, maybe never, right?” He laughs, horrible and twisted, and he looks at you because he’s really, truly asking you. Is he really expecting you to agree? Is that the impression you’ve left him with? 

You say something.

“This is all my fault.”

Clearly, neither of them expected that. You press on.

“Your worth as a side-” no, not quite right, “-Your worth as a person is not measured solely by your productivity. I know we’ve talked before about the damages of excessive perfectionism, but I know I may not have been effective in ‘showing not telling’ that your ideas don’t need to be flawless. My harshness. My Coldness. I thought I was doing better, but obviously... I was wrong.” Again. 

Virgil looks half-way to anger, but it’s unclear what he’s directing it towards. You aren’t sure of anything right now, really, except for the general upset tugging at your stomach.

“L, no, if this is anybody’s fault- it’s mine,” he turns to Roman, and what. “I didn’t know how hard you were taking all this. Dude, I had no idea. But I owe you an apology, I have for a while, for making fun of you about your insecurity. Like, kind of a lot. Long after you stopped doing it to me. Honestly, I can’t believe that I didn’t realize how much it was actually getting to you.”

“What? Virgil, I truly appreciate what you are trying to do, but I was clearly the one who pushed Roman too far,” you find the courage to step a little closer as you argue Virgil’s point, spurred on by how ridiculous you find this exchange.

“Well, I mocked his sensitivities. This is my responsibility!”

“But you didn’t know you were doing that- I acted like I didn’t care for him, and now he thinks I don’t! I am doubtlessly the one to blame.”

Virgil looks ready to snap back, and you’d be just as ready to retort, but a quiet sniffle alerts both of your attention to the matter still at hand. Roman, standing back against the wall, growing increasingly bewildered. He’s still crying, a surprisingly open display for a prideful trait such as himself, but you get the impression that he simply can’t hold it back anymore. You can see him squirm under Virgil’s and your gazes.

“It- It’s nice, that you both are attempting to take the blame for my failings, but you don’t have to. I can figure this out for myself. Then, I’ll finally prove myself to you, and no one will need to worry about anything. Which is why I need to keep working.” 

“You have proven yourself to me,” Virgil darts from the desk to Roman. He grabs the trait’s ink-stained arm, gaze fierce and unyielding. 

“Why, then,” Roman mutters, eyes downcast, “doesn’t it feel like I have?”

“I never tried to do right by you. Like you did for me.” 

You watch them sway, awkward, and finally, finally push movement into your legs. You step to Roman’s other side, much slower. It probably appears to be deliberate, but in truth you just feel unsure. You place your hand on his shoulder in a way that is hopefully comforting.

“The same, in a different sense, is true for myself. But if you would allow us to make it up to you…?” you aren’t sure where to go from there. Virgil nods, though, granting you a hint of pride. You don’t quite buy it when he says he’s part of the problem, but you’d rather not start any arguments at this particular moment. 

Roman won’t look at either of you for longer than a second, like he’s not sure if you’re serious. Just so he knows that you are, you gesture to your necktie, giving him the tiniest smile. 

He buckles to the ground immediately, a mess of sobs, the both of you letting yourself be dragged along. He clings to Virgil, and you try to keep an arm around him as well. He needs all the support he can get, really. 

“I-I’m so so-rry, I don’t- I-” 

Virgil shushes him and shoots you a deeply concerned look: This is really bad. I’m not letting him go. You rub Roman’s back as he shakes and return your friend’s gaze with a nod: I’m not either. We’re going to help him. Don’t worry. 

The three of you sit there for what feels like hours as he cries, and cries, and cries. None of you say a word, letting him get it all out. You let him hold onto you- you hold him as well, because you’re nearly as dismayed and unsure as he is. 

But eventually, you need to talk. Once he finally settles, his head resting against your collar and his legs splayed across Virgil’s lap, it’s you who gets the proverbial ball rolling.

“You already know that overworking yourself leads to exhaustion, which in turn leads to an overall drop in productivity and quality of work,” Roman’s eyes fill with guilt, but you’re quick to elaborate, “but that isn’t at all my primary concern. I won’t carry on acting like it is for a moment longer, now that I see how it’s hurting you. Hurting you is something I would never intend. You mean so much to me. There are so many arguments I could use to convince you why you need to give yourself a break, but I’ll settle with this: a hypothetical ‘perfect story’ is not worth your suffering, and it never will be.” 

Roman looks up at you, once more crying, so that was probably a very unhelpful thing to say. But he leans into you and hugs you close, recontextualizing his emotional display. Relief washes over you. 

“Thank you, Logan.”

Virgil clears his throat.

“I know I’m not as, um, articulate as Lo is, but- for what it’s worth- I care about you, too, and all.”

You stretch out the arm that you had around Roman’s back, pulling Virgil into the hug. Roman lets out a shuddering breath from where he’s cradled between the both of you. It’s the deep, relieved breath that means the sobbing is through with, leaving only tired eyes and silence. 

It is at this point of alleviated tension that the uncomfortable nature of the floor begins irking you. Like hell you and Virgil would live Creativity alone like this, so after brief deliberation you stand to move as a unit. An amoeba of facets making their way down the hall, in a manner likely comical (though thankfully no one is around to see). Your room is the optimal place to rest, as it eases emotions and calms overthinking minds, even if it is a little chilly. 

You let your fellow traits drop down onto the couch, passing Roman the TV remote. Yes, whatever you like to watch, you inform him. Yes, really, anything, you confirm, waving your hand to conjure some blankets for them. The smile he gives you, though small, is enough to boost your hopes considerably. 

You really can’t fix everything- at least not immediately. But perhaps, with Virgil to fill in your gaps, you’ll be able to make things right for the Prince. 

<<<???>>><<<???>>><<<???>>>

So looking after this insecure dumbass is totally your job now. Said dumbass, of course, disagrees strongly; he tells you he’s doing better, and thanks so much for the one afternoon of help, Virgil, but he can totally take it from here. You do not give a single shit about what Roman claims, because he is very obviously lying, because he doesn’t want to be a burden. Yeah, as if. 

You’re taking care of that idiot if it kills you.

Thankfully, Logan is on the same page as you (proverbial page, as he would specify). It almost surprised you that he didn’t make himself scarce as soon as he told you about the situation, but it’s certainly a pleasant surprise to have him by your side in this. Roman needs all the help he can get, and you can’t think of anyone better.

The pair of you only begrudgingly leave him alone after a sufficient several hours of Comfort Time, retreating to the hall so he can rest. He looked so fuckin’ tired, face a dull red and eyes puffy, but he was smiling. You count it as a temporary win. 

The first thing that you do, naturally, is slam your back against the wall and let yourself slide down to the floor out of sheer emotional exhaustion. 

Logan sits next to you, much less aggressively. It’s a nice gesture, considering how he absolutely despises sitting on the ground and this is the second time he’s had to do it in one day. You glance at him from the corner of your eye. He keeps trying to say something, before clamping back down on it. You bump your shoulder against his, telling him that whatever it is, you’re listening. 

“I feel-” which is already a testament to how serious he’s taking the situation- “horrible.”

“Yeah, same- I mean, big mood- no, that’s worse, fuck-” you take a deep breath, hitting your head back against the wall, “I mean, me too. So, at least there’s that, right?” 

Logan shoots you one of his patented Microscopic Smiles.

“I suppose that counts for something, yes.” 

You manage a laugh, leaning even more against your friend. You’ve got a whole contradictory bundle of feelings coiled up in your chest, and it sucks, but also it’s a relief, but also it’s the worst thing ever. You exhale slowly, your eyes falling shut. 

“I don’t wanna leave him alone, ya know?”

“I know. We’ve done all we can do for now, though.”

“I guess.”

“I’m just glad he let us help at all.”

  “Well, assuming we did help. Who knows, we could’ve made him feel a million times worse by confronting him, and now-”

He cuts off your spiraling immediately. 

“But we didn’t. He clearly needed intervention by that point. Besides, If we’d been making it worse, it’s unlikely he would’ve let us stay for so long. Nor would he have accepted your plan of ‘helping him deal with all this shit from now on, no matter what he says.’”

“Right,” you take another deep breath, “You’re right.”

“I usually am.” 

You elbow Logan in the side, playfully. He smiles again, wider and brighter in a way that most others probably wouldn’t notice. It could, from some angles, in the right lighting, possibly maybe be considered a little bit pretty. Not that you think about things like that, of course, that would just be weird. 

You stop leaning so heavily against Logan, only to find how much your back hurts from sitting in the hall. Come to think of it, the hall might not be the best place to calm down from emotionally charged interactions. The only issue is that your room is literally the exact opposite of a good place to chill out right now, and you’re reluctant to move.

“Hey, uh, would it be okay if I- like, my room isn’t the best for times like this, and I-”

Logan’s  already standing, taking your arm to help you up. 

“Come on. I’ll set up the Planetarium for us.” 

“Thanks,” God, you’re thankful for somebody like him. Such a simple word, when you aren’t crazy about spelling out all of the gratitude and nervous tension that lays behind it, and he picks up on the layers perfectly. He gets it- he gets you. 

Things will be okay. 

<<<???>>><<<???>>><<<???>>>

Once upon a time (ha), you felt appreciated. Of course you did, else how would you remember it so vividly? How would you long for it so desperately? Yes, you can safely say that you, Roman Sanders, had once been cared for. But that was countless screw-ups ago, before hundreds of your careless insults, your many vicious words followed by weak apologies and unchanging ways. The distant past of a disgraced royal- one far too imperfect, far too cruel to be forgiven without first proving himself time and time again. 

That’s what you’d thought, anyway. When you expressed such beliefs to other sides for the first time, just a few mornings after said sides comforted you in the midst of a breakdown, they told you it was the stupidest thing they’d ever heard. Direct quote from Virgil. 

It was stupid, apparently, because you were forgiven so very long ago, and you are actually considered to be better now than you were then. It shakes you up inside to think about. In a good way, for once. 

They hover around you almost always, offering you plenty more of those somewhat aggressive reassurances whenever you give the vaguest hint of self-deprecation. You were sure they’d brush it under the rug after those first few days, perhaps even tease you about it, but it seemed that was completely false. It’s been a good week. 

They’re with you this very morning, chatting idly while you wait for the kettle to shriek. You let the drone of Logan’s voice wash over you as you finish fixing your tea. You don’t believe all of their reassurances just yet, but God are you trying. You want it to be true- more than you’ve ever wanted anything- when Logan says their care is unconditional, or Virgil says that he likes spending so much time with you. 

You turn around, the mug in your hands warm against your chest, and stare at the sides on the couch. The three of you are in your corner of the Mindscape; they had already invited themselves in when you awoke. You quite like that they do that- you still aren’t sure how to express that you want to be with them, without prompting. You would feel clingy. Greedy.

“Thank you,” you settle down Virgil, smiling groggily. He waves his hand dismissively. 

“Don’t worry about it, man. What’s on the agenda for today?” 

That’s another thing. It’s not all crying and hugging, Lord knows how old that would get- but they just end up hanging out with you. Sometimes it’s just Logan, if Virgil’s having an off day, or sometimes it’s the opposite, when Logan’s particularly busy, but you really like it best when it’s the three of you. 

That didn’t used to be unusual; you used to spend all of your time surrounded by all of your family (or most, in light of recent acceptances), laughing and joking and working all together. Then, slowly, you stopped, just as things became more complicated for everyone. Camaraderie was a waste of valuable time, time that could be used coming up with ideas that would finally be good enough. They got the hint easily enough, allowing you to isolate yourself until you were perfect for them. 

No, you aren’t thinking about that right now! It isn’t the time to worry about how this will all have to end eventually. You’ll have to think about it soon, but not now, dammit!

You swing back a sip of scalding cinnamon tea, letting it clear both your throat and your mind. 

“I have a wonderful idea for today!” You puff your chest out and straighten your back. In actuality, you haven’t had a ‘wonderful’ idea in ages, but you hope the confident stance will give you one. 

It doesn’t. Logan notices this. 

“I sincerely hope that this is not yet another attempt to ‘cure’ your writer’s block and attempt to get ‘back on task’?” he chides you. You falter, letting the regal pose fall away. Logan tells you that what you need is rest. You do not want to rest. But you don’t want to get lectured, either.

“I do not have any ideas for today. Or in general,” you grind out, the second part tacked on bitterly. You don’t look at them, even as Virgil knocks your elbow with his. 

“Good, that means you can come play Scrabble with us.”

The hesitance must show on your face, because Logan sighs and adds:

“I will allow you to use your original- completely nonsense, meaningless, irrational- words, if butchering the English language makes the game more fun for you.” 

Now that. That is a tempting offer. You really would be a fool to pass it up. 

You might as well indulge yourself this much, for however longer they’re willing to let you. It’ll be a nice memory to draw from when you do get back to work.

 Good God, your ribs hurt. You can’t breathe.

“I’m just saying, you can’t prove that the earth is round,” Virgil claims, staring mischievously across the table at Logan. Logan fumes. It is fucking hysterical.

“That’s ridiculous! Putting aside the overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary for a moment, you can literally see the curve of the earth on the horizon!” 

“Uhh, it looks pretty flat to me. I’m not buying your government propaganda, Lo,” Virgil’s very clearly trying not to chuckle, and his resolve is impressive. You’ve already been reduced to unintelligible cackling at their interaction. This exchange has brought the progress on the jigsaw puzzle you’d been solving together to a screeching halt, but you couldn’t care less. 

“What do you mean ‘propaganda’?! This is common knowledge!”

Virgil cracks, bursting into raucous laughter. He grabs onto your arm as gravelly chuckles escape him, the both of you scrambling to keep upright. Logan narrows his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest. 

“Unbelievable. Infuriating. Intolerable, the both of you.”

You compose yourself just enough to stick your tongue out at him teasingly, before hunching right back over into your giggle fit.

Then, you notice it as it happens. The aggravated expression etched across Logan’s face shifts, but he keeps staring at you. It’s inscrutable, and also weird. 

“What’re you looking at?” you challenge, voice broken up by subsiding laughter. You turn your head to Virgil, as if to say wow, what a nerd, huh?, only to find him staring at you with much the same expression. 

“Guys? Is something the matter?”

“It’s nothing,” Anxiety amends.

“I’m sure we were both just caught off guard, is all,” Logic adds, his attention redirected from you to the carpet hastily.

“In a good way, though. It’s nice to see you smile- ugh, that sounds so weird, I just meant- it’s been a long time since you’ve. Done that.”

You blink, taken aback, only to feel the dull ache in your face. You reach a hand up, pressing a finger to the corner of your upturned lips. It really has been a while since you’ve laughed like this, hasn’t it? 

A selfish, malicious creature that stalks around in your chest tells you to stop smiling. If you’re happy it means that their job is done, then you’ll be all alone again. Is that what you want, Roman? 

You almost listen to it. Before-

“Don’t think that I’ve forgotten what you said just because Roman laughed, V.”

“Nah, you never forget anything, O keeper of memories,” Virgil flicks a puzzle piece at Logan, smirking just enough to show off his sharp teeth. 

“Stop.”

“Stop what?” he flicks another puzzle piece. Logan’s face twitches in what is either a barely suppressed smile or a grimace, but likely a combination of the two. When Virgil finally aims a piece to hit his face, he snaps, throwing little bits of the jigsaw back at the anxious trait.

“Wow, L, you’re really just throwing away all our progress like that? Tsk, tsk.”

“I will end you,” he lands one smack on Virgil’s nose, earning a hiss. The puzzle continues to be destroyed by their squabble. 

You don’t think you could stop yourself from beaming at them, even if you wanted to. Toothy, confident, amused- oh, how you’ve missed this.

How you’ve all missed this.

 It hits you with the swiftness of a bullet, right when you least expect it. You’re just sitting in the living room, idly sketching as you half-watch TV with Patton beside you on the couch. You offer a laugh when he pipes up with a pun based on whatever’s on screen, but your mind is far elsewhere.

You’ve got an idea. A really good one. 

You’ve filled up a page with mindless doodling while the thought was still forming, for fear of jumping on it too suddenly and losing the inspiration, but you find it solid as you continue to mentally examine it. Perhaps a bit overeager, you flip the page, scrawling excited concept sketches across the thick, rough paper. The details flow and evolve in your mind’s eye, and it becomes something of a struggle to hold back your creative aura from infecting the common area. 

That confident smile, one you’ve been wearing more and more often these past few weeks, graces your face once more. The semi-subconscious expression brings a memory from just nights ago: Logan told you that your face was built to wear such a grin (‘Speaking architecturally, of course,’ he cleared his throat awkwardly, ‘The form that you’ve chosen for yourself is suited to it. Objectively.’). 

You find your smiling widening, just as it had when he first told you. 

So caught up in your art, half-listening to Patton, and also vaguely following along with the show he’s watching- you don’t even glance up when Virgil rises up and seats himself at the arm of the couch. It’s the way he huffs a laugh at something Morality says that first catches your attention, and suddenly he’s got all of it. 

“Virgil!” 

He grimaces at the volume, tilting his head to look at you. 

“Something got you excited, Ro?” 

“I’ve got a story! That is to say, I’ve got a premise, but also characters! Look- it’s- come here, let me show you what I’m drawing, it’s easier than explaining,” you chatter happily, shuffling your way to Virgil’s perch. You hold your sketchbook out to him and jump into explanations.

The drawing is messy, and not nearly finished, but it’s you and it’s good and it’s new. It’s a scene- heavily annotated to explain some of the more abstract concepts in the image- depicting an ent-like creature towering over a young woman, who holds a flower crown up to him. You tell Virgil about the story based around the two, some of the major plot points already planting themselves in your brain. You inform him that it just came to you, and you’ve got so many different ideas for what these two will do, what will happen to them, and how they’ll get out of it all. When you look up from your rambling, all the excitement slips off your face. It’s replaced by awe. 

Virgil is grinning, showing a good deal more of his fangs than he usually likes to, enthusiasm dancing in his eyes. You’ve never seen him emote that much ever, not for any purpose. You would be lying if you said that those huge chompers weren’t at least a little hot. 

“Okay, I totally wanna hear more, but pause for a sec. I gotta get Lo, ’kay?” And with that, he’s gone as quickly as he arrived, pausing only to toss the sketchbook back to you. You twist around, eyes wide with shock, to find Patton smiling softly at you. 

“You saw that, too, right? Or have I gone mad?” you ask him, earning a chuckle.

“I think Virge is proud of you,” he shuts the TV off as he talks, moving to stand, “I am, too! It sounds really cute!”

“Thank you,” Patton arches up to stretch, tossing the remote down on the couch. “-Er, where are you off to?”

“I think I’ll let you three have the living room, to talk all about your story.” 

“I’d hardly mind if you wanted to hear about it!”

His eyes dart to the side, an awkward smile stretching across his face. His noticeably pink face.

“Oh, I- I was planning on spending some time with Jan today. I was about to take off, anyhow.”

“Aah,” you start sketching again, if only to spare Patton your wolfish grin, “Well, if you’ve already got plans.”

He gives you a tiny wave, sinking out immediately. Thus leaving you alone with your thoughts. Fuck. 

It crosses your mind that- now you have an idea to work on, an idea you’re proud of- your slump is over. The creative block has been cured. Logan and Virgil won’t need to coddle you anymore. 

Your hand ghosts over the paper, and for a second you consider tearing it up. Pretending you lost the spark, pretending you need more time and help and companionship. Guilt rises in you at even the thought of being so selfish, the doubts and worries overpowering your former giddiness completely. 

You can’t imagine anything worse than that brilliant smile Virgil gave you turning to disappointment, if you pretended to lose your inspiration. Or the disdain that would surely flash in Logan’s eyes at having his work interrupted for absolutely nothing. Plus, if you did so, what’s to stop them deeming you a lost cause and abandoning you anyway? 

If you’re being honest, you need approval more than anything. And dear God, it is so close. You have to tell them, and hold on to whatever scraps of praise it earns you before the three of you revert back to normal. You’ll fall back into seclusion, as that seems to be one of the few things you’re good at, and they can actually get back to their own existences. 

There’s a whoosh behind you. You spin around, forcing the tension out of your shoulders. 

“Well hello there!”

“I want to hear about your story,” Logan cuts straight to the point. You couldn’t care less about his bland bluntness because he is watching at you in a way so unbearably fond. They both are. You push your reservations down and present him with your sketches, diving into what you’ve come up with so far (plus a few extra points off the top of your head, which isn’t an uncommon method for how you develop plotlines). 

When you’ve finished, not quite as exuberantly as earlier, Logan continues with the theme of surprising the fuck out of you that this day has established. 

He settles a hand on your upper arm, but really he might as well have swept you up in a hug. You blanch, the touch fuzzing up your brain, just like it has been doing so often now and God you don’t want to lose this. 

“I told you so,” he sounds playful.

“What?” you question, vaguely dazed.

“I think that L’s saying we were right about you just needing a break. Seems like the rest cleared up your burnout pretty well,” Virgil loops around to your other side, patting your shoulder awkwardly. 

The euphoria from being touched is broken once you actually manage to process the words.

“Oh! Right, yeah, I'm- I'm so excited to get back to work!”

Logan removes his hand and you burn cold. 

“No, you aren't,” you hear his confusion, like he's trying to unravel why that could possibly be and wow you are not as good an actor as you’d hoped. “What's upsetting you?”

You try to say that it's nothing, but your voice pitches up embarrassingly. You clear your throat, but you can't make yourself maintain eye-contact anymore.

“Dude, you can tell us what's up. Are you just overwhelmed?” Anxiety is worried and caring in a way you didn't know he was capable of and it hurts worse because you don't know how to tell him that you're just selfish. But you knew this was coming- and you aren't going to make these two waste their concerns on you any longer. The problem has been solved, Roman, get that through your skull! 

“I- I suppose I'm just- I’m lamenting the end of this. It’s unimportant.”

“You are upset about the end of your writer's block?” Logan tips his head to the side and gives you a bemused look. Frustration stabs at your skin.

“No! That's a good thing, obviously it's a good thing- I'm saying that I'm going to miss… I mean, I'd gotten used to spending time with you. The both of you,” Virgil's eyebrows shoot up, Logan squints at you, so you backpedal like there's no damn tomorrow.

“See? It was stupid, I know I can't always have all the attention, any-”

“You're right, that is stupid,” Virgil cuts you off with a grumble. You must deflate visibly, though, because his voice softens, “That you think we aren't gonna hang out with you, I mean.”

You feel something. You think it’s hope. It almost feels foreign- unbelievable, even. 

“What?” a murmur, too small and doubting for you to associate with it, though it must be yours. Pathetic.

Logan leans forward, as though he's studying you. Good God, who let him be so tall?

“Were you under the impression that we were going to cease contact with you once you resumed productivity?”

“Wha- I mean- when you say it like that it sounds… bad.”

“It would be bad. It would also be incredibly manipulative; being kind to you only so as to get you back in working order, rather than being kind to you to provide genuine help.”

Virgil nods his agreement.

“Yeah, you aren't getting rid of us that easy, Romano.”

You recall the first Big Conversation you had with the two left-brained sides. They'd insisted to help you, despite your lack of understanding in the beginning why they'd do so. Similarly to that talk, this is filling you with an almost painful fondness, almost too much to bear.

“But, you already helped me, just like you said you would!”

“Why did we help you, Roman?” Logan inquires, in a way that makes you feel like you should know the answer. You do not. 

“Because you were worried about me?”

“Why would we be worried?”

“Because you… felt bad for me?”

He groans, tapping Virgil on the shoulder. The anxious facet rolls his eyes.

“You're our friend and we care about you, stupid.”

You clear your throat, attempting to say that you knew that (even if that isn’t entirely true), but Logan interrupts you. 

“In case it wasn’t clear why, allow us to explain: one, as I’ve stated before and will likely state again, we don’t value you for your ability to create alone.”

“Two,” Virgil cuts in, “You’re, like, fun to be around. Way less stiff than us, and honestly we probably need that.”

“Three, we were never opposed to being around you even before the- this. You claimed to like being alone. And I’ll admit I’m not the best with subtext.” 

Virgil looks ready to add a fourth. You don’t let him, waving your hands wildly. If you verbalized what you meant to convey, you’d definitely start sobbing, and that’s just embarrassing. Thankfully, Anxiety seems to pick up what you’re laying down, giving you a moment to collect yourself. You take a few breaths and try to pretend that you aren’t being watched like a hawk.

Aaaand you’re already crying. That’s probably the point of no return, isn’t it? 

“Ha, and I thought that you two weren’t the sentimental ones,” the effect of your teasing is ruined by how much your voice wavers, “You’re just big softies, aren’t you?”

Logan’s expression is caught somewhere between concern and confusion.

“You are quite literally sobbing? How are we-”

“Shut up,” you retort. The effect is once again ruined when he comfortingly pats your back and you absolutely fall against him. 

“Wow, again? You’re really set on making a habit out of this,” Virgil hovers uncomfortably apart from the set of you, eventually landing on wrapping an arm around you. And it’s so him, that you can’t help the little chuckle that breaks through your crying. You really have been doing this a lot more than you’d like lately. 

“I- I’m okay,” you stammer, “I’m good- this is- just- I’m relieved. Why am I crying? I’m happy!” 

“It’s alright, man.”

“Yes, take as long as you need.”

You tear yourself away from them, scrubbing at your eyes, but grinning all the same. Your skin burns, you’re shivering, but you’re sick of clinging to them and crying and the desperation that tugs at you. You feel so many things, but there’s one that’s overpowering, one thing that’s so familiar and has been so distant. It’s a blur, a mash, but it goes something like this:

The people you care about, that you work so hard for- they aren’t going anywhere. No conditions. Logan repeats it plenty, Virgil shows it to you quietly, but only now-

Now you believe them. You feel looked after. Cared for. If you’re being bold, you could even say loved. 

You feel secure. 

“Thank you,” for being there, staying there, helping you, everything. You can’t thank them enough for everything.

Virgil shrugs. 

“You’re worth it.”

[red-sky]

HI @rolls-of-the-tongue-nicely!!!!! I AM SO SORRY I MISSED THIS IN MY INBOX!!!!! THANK YOU SO, SO MUCH, THIS IS SO SWEET OF YOU!!!!

Also funny I just now saw it today, I’ve been working on the latest chapter. I guess this is the universe telling me to GET THIS SHIT DONE!!!!

Gift for you

Hi red ! I loooooved your fanfic When the feelings’s right, I’m gonna run all night so I wanna write you a gift, not only long reviews.

This fic happen after the 4th chapter (because I’m so thirsty to read the 5th !! But take your time, I can wait, I swear) and there is no smut but some references to it + internalized homophobia and self-confidence issues.

Because it’s Richie’s POV ^^

There is a soft snore next to him and it’s the reason Richie opens his eyes first. After his vision got used to the dark, he discerns Eddie’s relaxed features.

Richie wants to touch him but he doesn’t dare. Doesn’t take the risk to wake him up because it would rapproche the moment where he will leave. Right now he is just Richie’s. There is no Myra, no other life in New York, no other house. They are in Richie’s bed and he can imagine for one minute it’s their, Eddie lives with him, they are a couple and it’s nice. Richie can easily imagine them taking breakfast together, and Eddie putting the plates and the cutlery in the dishwasher. He can visualise Eddie bickering about the residues of the clean tab and how it could be cancerous.

It’s weird, they don’t really know each other for so long but Richie still feels like if he knew Eddie by heart. They feels so familiar together, and more, so complementary, like two pieces of a puzzle.

Richie didn’t know what he missed before remembering Eddie. It’s awful. He would prefer ignore this. Ignorance is bliss. Now he is condemned to want something he can’t have. Another married man but this time it’s forever. It’s not just a fling, just a crush, just a fleeting thing.

Soulmate. When he thinks about the word, he grimaces and hides in the pillow. He’s a big sap and hates it.

He risks a glance to Eddie. Handsome even in his sleep. So unfair.

God, he’s fucked.

He was in this situation before. They never leave their wife. It’s a lost cause and for his own heart he would have to make it stop before engaging himself too much in this.

However it’s too late. He threw himself in this entirely at the second where Eddie open his tighs for him in the restaurant.

It seems like a dream, not a memory. He can’t believe it’s true.

But Eddie is in bed with him so it is. Eddie wants him too. Came to the East Coast just to fuck him.

Richie shivers to that particular thought. Even if they didn’t do the whole stuff, he sucked him off. Eddie let him. He caressed his hair and let him swallow and it was so good, so validating, it was perfect and Richie craves to do it again.

In some hours, Eddie will leave. Richie doesn’t know when he will come back. Or if he will. He is scared, so scared about Eddie realizing he did a mistake. Realizing he risked his marriage for what ? A pathetic comedian with bad humor. Pitiful Trashmouth Tozier, still attached to his childhood crush. A loser, a failure.

A fag.

Thinking like that makes Richie’s eyes wetting the pillow. He sniffs a little - he doesn’t cry, not with Eddie naked in his sheets, he’s a lucky guy after all, it’s a miracle. Eddie kissed him. He touched his body without flinching, without looking at his fat belly or ugly hair.

It’s not Richie finds himself totally unattractive. He is average. But Eddie is so…

He knows what people think when they see Eddie. They probably don’t look twice to him. They don’t see what Richie see and it’s what Richie is the most afraid, because love is blind and he’s so in love. For him, Eddie is smoking hot. His face is beautifully sharp and expressive, his tonned skin, his skinny legs, long fingers, narrow hips, he’s so small and yet so…

Eddie groans and Richie stops immediately to breath. He blushes, realizing he was thinking like a fucking highschool girl. Embarassing.

He tries to remember Eddie is going to leave. It hurts but it will hurt worse later if he doesn’t now. He has to kill the shiny little sparkle of hope that Eddie decide to stay. It’s impossible and he knows that.

He is worthy for a weekend, not for a lifetime.

This one hits so hard he needs to get up. He is careful, quiet and slow, puts an underwear and quits the bedroom.

It’s coffee time.

When the feelings’s right, I’m gonna run all night

[wintersoldierland]

our worlds colliding

In the cryo, time is irrelevant. James is aware that he’s there, it’s not like Hydra, but it still feels like torture.

He cannot escape the pain and the guilt, and each second is agony when he sees the eyes of his victims, life slowly dripping out of them.

He cannot escape Stark.

Try as he might, James can’t forget the sight of him there, in that bunker, broken and sad and so so resigned. He can’t forget how he didn't want to fight but somehow the Winter Soldier won against him again. How the triggers that activated him also kept him close to the surface.

The Soldier likes to fight.

He can deny is as much as he wants, but James knows that the part of him that’s the Winter Soldier likes the fight. Likes the adrenaline, the danger, the feeling of being a better fighter.

It’s yet another reason to hate himself as if he has too few of those.

But the cryo that felt like a blessing turned into a curse.

He’s just stuck here, in his own head, mangled and fucked up, and he can’t escape, can’t tell them to get him out, can’t close his eyes because it’s all in his brain.

James just has to be there, exist, and suffer.

That’s when the images start.

He’s sitting on top of a tall Tower that’s overviewing New York, calm and happy. The sun is setting and he knows that Tony will be here soon. It's their tradition.

“Hey, handsome,” comes a quip and James smiles, turning to face his husband and opening his arms.

Tony falls into them easily and cuddles close, fitting into James’s body like he was made to sit there. 

“Hey, baby,” James croons quietly, nuzzling into his hair. “Tired?”

“Yeah,” Tony sighs. “I swear, it’s like having toddlers!”

James laughs fondly. “Yeah, they’re a bit much, sometimes,” he agrees. He loves their team but, by God, they sometimes had one collective braincell and weren’t all that keen on using it.

“Steve spilled champagne on Nat’s new dress and I think she was going to murder him but then he looked ready to cry...” Tony trails off, before picking the story up again. “And that’s not the worst thing! Clint had the audacity to suggest that since the dress is already ruined they can...ruin it further and I’m pretty sure I almost caught them going at it in the bathroom.”

He almost chokes laughing, both at the situation and at Tony’s tone. It is kind of like catching your sibling having sex. Pretty gross.

“Poor darlin’,” he coos then, rubbing his hands up and down Tony’s back under his shirt. His husband melts right into him. “How ‘bout a bubble bath and some hot chocolate?”

“Hmmm... I love you,” Tony sighs and kisses his neck.

James just laughs and hoists him up. Tony looks stunning in the setting sun-

-then he jerks away from the dream.

It must be a dream, James knows that, even if it feels like a memory. he knows that because he’s currently in cryo in Wakanda and Tony Stark rightfully hates him. Rightfully hates Steve as well.

Life isn’t that golden, sun-kissed version he just saw. 

Yet, the dreams don’t stop. James dreams about normal things - visiting the most amazing lab he has ever seen, cuddling in bed, showering together, early morning and late nights, the Avengers getting called out.

He feels like the time has slowed, and he’s living the life he will never get but desperately wants.

James always waits for those dreams because they’re the only break he gets from the memories of pain and blood. Sometimes his, sometimes others.

Those sweet, soft and golden dreams keep him from going insane inside his own head, keep him from begging for death.

James doesn’t deserve this kindness but he still selfishly grabs them and tries not to let go. It’s easier to live in that fantasy than in the hell of his own making.

The dreams escalate until there’s one he loves with all of his heart.

He and his husband are sitting on the sofa, watching a stupid movie when Tony comments on one name in particular.

“Chelsey is such a stupid name,” he mutters under his breath. “All I can think of is a bitchy cheerleader.”

“So you wouldn’t want to name our child that?” James asks before he can stop himself and for a second, everything is frozen. They never talked about kids.

“You-,” Tony starts, before choking it back. He looks down at his husband to see the tears in his eyes and the disbelieving smile on his face. “You want kids with me?”

He sounds like he’s in awe and James can only laugh wetly. “Of course,” he says softly but with passion. He’s never been surer. “I want everythin’ with you, love.”

Tony stares at him for a second before hugging him tightly, arms wrapped around his waist, whole body shaking. James just hugs him back and hides his tears in his husband’s hair.

“I’d name a girl Morgan,” he hears Tony whisper, voice still awed and soft.

“I love it,” he comments, wanting to look at Tony so-

-so James opens his eyes and gasps, seeing the bright light over him and concerned voices around.

He’s wet and shaking and the world is turning at normal speed again, but he still can’t help the sob that’s tearing from his chest.

James wants that reality back. He wants his husband and his team and the baby girl they will end up having. 

Morgan.

He wants Morgan.

But all he gets is Steve’s concerned face, the cold water on his skin and only one arm.

In another universe James Stark-Barnes surges up on the bed, shaking from imaginary cold and then gladly collapses into his husband’s warm arms. He looks into Tony’s concerned eyes and manages a shaky smile.

“They’ll get there, darlin’,” he murmurs in a shaken, rough voice. “I know it. It’s all comin’ together.”

Tony kisses him lightly and smiles back, albeit sadly. “I just hope their Tony will hug the hell out of their James.”

James snickers. “They’ll get there,” he repeats. “You’ll see.”

another part of my dream au, which is here and here