#wow. been a while since i went on a huge ramble on an art post

[void-chara]

vitalasubzam week, day five: gods/worship

uh. it is so unfinished but i will absolutely not be able to get it more done by the time the day is over, so, posting now.

kinda gay to build your teammate a throne. incase its unclear, this is meant to be subz kneeling at vitalasys feet while vitalasy sits on the throne subz built him, and vitalasy pours a po potion down subzs throat. awesome.

these guys had suuuch a normal reaction to zam breaking up with them. definitely.

”why is there so much blank space” so originally i was gonna draw an anchor with a snapped chain there, since zam was “their anchor” and hes gone now, but it wasnt the right vibes, and i remembered vitalasy tried to do a different metaphor originally, which one of my friends told me was rock and belay or something like that, which is awesome, and i was gonna draw that in the corner for ~symbolism~ but then. uh. i didnt feel like doing it.

after this semester of college ends and i have more freetime, ill probably come back to this piece and make a more finished version. so look forward to that. or dont.

[lilover131]

Chapter 55 Thoughts

It’s been a while since I’ve taken the time to actually write down my reactions and thoughts about a chapter, but after a agonizing 3 month wait for a new chapter, I had a lot of time to think about a lot of things. The final day was certainly the most difficult, and I slept horribly trying to wait for this chapter to come out (it’d be nice if companies could regularly list like....a release time on a certain date so people aren’t literally refreshing the page every 5 minutes to see if it’s up. Or at least have some consistency!). My lack of sleep and constant thoughts about CCS though did manage to stir another CCS related dream, which I will talk about in a separate post. 

But hot damn was this chapter worth the wait! It certainly wasn’t what I expected, but it was really great in a lot of ways! 

ANYWAYS, I’ve rambled enough. My thoughts on this chapter are below the cut! 

So I will start off by praising the hell out of Sakura for her quick thinking in using SIEGE. That was definitely a wow moment for me and really shows her growth as a magic user and as a person honestly. This action not only spoke to her skill but also to how quick thinking she is in such an uncertain situation. Surely, having never had any reason to doubt Kaito or question his abilities before, It is almost unbelievable that she managed to think of that and do that in the mere seconds she had to respond after Syaoran made his accusation of Kaito. I’ve noticed as of late that her instincts in particular seem to be really really on point. She starting to trust herself and her feelings, and because of this, she is able to act without hesitation, and I have a feeling that is  going to be extremely vital later on. 

Sakura starts off by asking the real important questions and things I would ask myself in her shoes having just met another magic user, especially one with unclear intentions like Kaito. She seemed like she was studying him to gauge him and the reasons for his actions or what he might do. What intrigues me about this part is she first asks him if he knows about her being able to use cards. He answers with a simple “Yes”. But when she asks about if he knows about Syaoran, his answer is far less simple, and that might potentially be telling. Kaito stated that he knows Syaoran to be a “extremely gifted sorcerer” and “the next head of the Li clan”. Now, perhaps I’m overthinking this, but he could have just answered ‘yes’ like he did with Sakura, but instead he listed specific details about him that shows Sakura he has done his research and knows a lot about him. Now, we already knew that he had this information of course, but why does he want Sakura to know this in that moment? I’m fascinated by this and what he was trying to tell Sakura by telling her he had this sort of knowledge. Additionally, why is it that when it pertains to Syaoran, Kaito behaves so much differently than he does with anyone else? I’ll probably delve into that in another post, but I have some theories on that. 

After making this statement, Sakura and Kaito exchange some meaningful looks, though it’s unclear what the both of them are thinking in that moment. Sakura turns to look back at Akiho and Syaoran and appears nervous, like she’s concerned about something (I have a theory to that as well, but I’ll leave that for another time). Then, Sakura mentions Momo and asks where she went, indicating that she has not forgotten about the other person around earlier. Sakura seems to really be evaluating her situation with these questions she’s asking, but unbeknownst to her, Momo has been cut off from her tv drama and is pouting in the mansion. hahahaha! 

Momo, while upset that she can’t see what’s going on anymore, praises Sakura for her for her quick thinking and mentions that neither she or Akiho’s mother accurately predicted how powerful Sakura would become. The implications of this are unknown as it is unclear what they are trying to stop to begin with. 

The scene changes back to Kaito and Sakura’s ‘standoff’, and Kaito states that Sakura cannot stay hidden in SIEGE’s field forever. I believe he was trying to stir a reaction and speed things up as probably the longer he has his time spell up, the more it affects his body, so he cannot afford to waste any more time. In what appears to be his way of showing desperation (at least in my opinion), he points his staff in Syaoran’s direction and threatens Sakura by stating that “He will make the first move” if she won’t. My jaw dropped a this, and though I don’t believe he actually had any intentions of hurting Syaoran, just the implications and threat of it was enough to make my blood boil. Lmao. 

BUT ONCE AGAIN, SAKURA IS QUEEN and reacts ridiculously fast to protect her man and uses one of her newest cards, TRANSFER, to switch places with Kaito and....well...she put him in a box. Hahahaha!! Seeing Kaito all crammed in that small space inside of SIEGE was honestly so satisfying and it was nice to see him on the losing side for once. I can’t imagine he was happy about it either. He’s used to things going his way, and in this particular venture, it has been anything but. 

However, this unfortunately also becomes Sakura’s downfall. By switching places with him, she put herself out of the protection she had before and was now affected by Kaito’s time magic. She managed to take a few steps, running towards Syaoran, before she ultimately was stopped. Kaito makes mention of her progress. When you think about it, she’s gone from being able to move a pinky to moving as far as she did this time, so it’s a significant growth. 

He goes on to talk, though it’s unclear if Sakura could hear him at all, about a phrase Akiho had learned in her Japanese dictionary one time about “growing leaps and bounds”. He seemed lost in a memory where Akiho spoke of how she wished to improve her Japanese so she could become even better friends with Sakura and the others, and how happy she looked when she spoke of this. Honestly, this sentiment from Akiho is super relatable and resonated with me. I am fortunate to have so many friends in so many different parts of the world, and I absolutely love learning about their cultures and words of their native language so that I can become closer to them. But what also makes this moment so meaningful is that in this particular moment, Kaito is thinking about Akiho and her smile. One may wonder “Why is he saying this right now?”, but it really does display how much Akiho is on his mind and how much he cares about her and his reasons for doing all of this. 

Shortly after saying this, he seems to be in pain again, showing once again the deterioration of his body the more he uses time magic, and it seems clear that he really is getting closer to his own demise. He even says as much when he pleads to Sakura to please make the card he needs soon, before he runs out of time. I don’t think he’s necessarily displaying a will to live or anything yet, but more a “I have to get this done before I perish, or it will all be for nothing”. 

Disappointingly, time is rewound once again, and he takes it back to before he and Akiho decided on a location for their outing. @meimi-haneoka​ mentioned this, and I agree with her, but he could have rewound to any point in time and could have completely undone their entire day, but he chose to still have that outing with her anyways. It was a conscious choice he made, though he quite casually made sure they changed the choice of location (for obvious reasons). Lmao!!! 

Now we get to the really exciting part. So after Kaito rewound time, I gave a big sigh and thought “Well, here we go again”, but something was very different this time. Sakura’s serious expression standing in her hallway said it all, and she suddenly grabbed her phone from her purse and called Syaoran, saying “We need to talk. It’s important”. 

So Syaoran, being the most adorable worried boyfriend he is, runs into her house literally in the next panel and immediately asks if Sakura is okay. I can imagine that he probably ran the entire way to her house too, and it’s just so wholesome I can’t even. It’s crazy how well CLAMP shows the strength of their love just through small actions like these, and it really is a work of art with its subtleties. 

Kero and Suppi have not been told why Sakura’s behaving so seriously, as she was waiting for Syaoran to get there first, but soon enough she tells them all at once about how she remembers using SIEGE at the botanical garden. This understandably confuses Syaoran, since in his mind they haven’t even gone there yet. But, she goes on to explain that she remembers using SIEGE, but more importantly that she remembers seeing Kaito using magic. This is HUGE. Not only is this progress (have we finally gotten out of rewind hell?), but this means that Sakura likely will not be nearly as affected by any time magic in the future. And if Kaito cannot make her forget about him using magic, that makes every action he does in the future very precarious. It’s unclear what the implications are of this revelation, but it’s going to entirely change how she reacts around Kaito, perhaps how she reacts around Akiho, and the dialogue she has with Syaoran. Syaoran should theoretically be able to talk to her now about Kaito and what he’s done so far and what they know, and I’m so so curious to see what Sakura will do with this knowledge. Will she be upset? Will she be mad? Certainly she won’t be happy to know that Kaito’s been forcibly keeping Syaoran silent, but Sakura is a forgiving person in nature, so it’s hard to say what she’ll do. 

Anyways, this chapter was incredible and I cannot wait to see how this develops from now on. I have a feeling things are going to get real intense here soon now that Kaito can’t control things like he’s been doing a majority of the series. Things are definitely different now, and honestly it’s about fucking time. 

[askfallenroyalty]

I don't think you did anything wrong. When a story is being written, there are a lot of different ways to adress and express something and maybe that's why you're being misunderstood. I think there are just too many things to adress in this story that maybe some people will get when these things are implicitly implied and some people will not. So when a breaking point comes, they'd think it came out of nowhere. You can see this with the amount of asks you receive asking you often the same thing.

Does that mean it's wrong? Ofc not! I myself was a little bit confused with Frisk's reactions and conduct in general until you explained it in your recent asks, and I thought man, that was what I was missing!

Now, yes I believe some parts of the story could have been explained in a different way, because in my opinion there's a lot to read between the lines. If you don't try to understand the characters, you'll clearly be confused as hell. But that's why I love this story! As you said before, there's nothing meant to be black/white coded, and I really appreciate the world and the character's complexity in general. You don't have some of the answers in hand, an that's when you have to analize! (At least that's what I do haha)

I also really felt like telling you something I've been relating to, so I'm putting the respectives tw if someone doesn't want to keep reading (TW: Suicide mention).

In the DW Arc, when the Christmas and Feylow stuff happened, I realised through Chara that I was doing the exact same thing with a friend of mine. He was going through a lot of stuff, and tried to commit suicide multiple times. I was focusing a huge amount of energy on him because I was afraid to lose him, and when he suddenly stopped talking to me so he could take a break, I felt really lost. Because he was the person I talked with the most, one of my dearest friends, and the idea of losing him and not being there to stop it made me insanely anxious, because that used to be the situation most of the times. Now it's been a year since he's stopped talking to me, and I don't exactly know the reason. But I couldn't keep running behind someone who didn't seem to keep wanting me around. And if it wasn't for you, I couldn't have realized how much this was hurting me.

And now, as much as it hurts me to see him acting this distant and cold with me, I'm okay with it. I really am. Because I now have the tranquility to see him continue, even when things are not okay. I can't force a friendship and I really needed to understand that back then. I trust him as much as he trusts me.

I really wanted to thank you for writing this story because it has helped me in a way I didn't expect, and I'm sure it will help a lot of people too! I'm even learning from your way of taking and discussing things haha.

I just wanted you to have this tranquility I have with this story because I trust it'll work out and explain itself once it's finished. And I just can't express how thankful I am to be reading your story.

Thank you again,

I'm looking forward to more of your work and please, take care! Don't stop doing what you enjoy! 🦋

putting it under a readmore because of how long the ask/response is, sorry!

i’m at a loss of words because wow, this ask really hit in a way i’ve never really could of anticipated. when writing AFR, i write a story about things I felt. I’ve been Chara, I’ve been Asriel and Frisk at points in my life. I write because I need to tell their stories and make it real, specifically for my own sake of getting through my own pain and to tell the world this is who i am and that I will be ok, there is hope in this world. It’s a selfish desire for me, but ultimately that’s what art is i feel. I couldn’t draw this much and put so much time and effort into something without it being meaningful or personal.

but art is communication, and when I write to be seen and to be heard, I know there’s others who are reading and are connecting with the work. (otherwise, I wouldn’t be getting asks right? its a lonely process, i forget there’s the second half of the equation -you guys) and i’ll do my best to make sure people are accommodated and can experience this story without hurting in a way that’s past enjoying a emotionally gripping piece of media. i don’t want people to be upset or hurt for my work, and I want to ensure I can make this without hurting others.

I try to leave a lot of ambiguity and room for people to interpret stories and I don’t mind people missing the point or interpreting things vastly differently than what I intended. that’s fine, that’s what art is all about. i don’t want to hold people’s hands and tell them what’s happening or what they should feel -i want them to choose and decipher and think things over. stories should be stimulating and thought provoking, and i can’t decide what those thoughts are. I wouldn’t want to. Personally, if it means people become more confused and lost over the story -well, that’s a trade off I have to take. if it means the story is more up-to-interpretation, than it’s worth it to me.

i do regret with how fast and punchy the arc ended up, and I feel my hints may have been too weak. asriel/flowey has been bluntly surprised/asking to be killed twice, he hasn’t felt like himself since dying and has lost his support systems ect. as a person who’s Been Through Shit, I thought it was as obvious as the sun what was to come but thinking on it now?

with how distance asriel is, how limited the perspective is to chara (who hasn’t known Asriel has been going thru the same depressive/suicidal thoughts as they have this whole time) it was a shock to the system. and in a way that’s fine in my eyes if the reader was completely shocked as you can emphasize more with chara that way... but in the same sense its horrifying for them, it must be for the reader as well.

and I do feel I should of thought of a way to handle the scenario to where it was less in your-face with Asriel’s decent into desperation and attempts. I don’t want to ever show it on screen, I don’t want to ever go into detail and make it any sort of fun for the viewer. it’s supposed to be disturbing and painful and I tried to show how greatly painful it was affecting both chara and frisk. Suicide victims are victims and everyone involved suffer from it. It’s ugly and never something one should be anything but ugly.

that is my intent for it be that, but as I’ve heard from people it’s still a shock and went too far. Authorial intent doesn’t matter when people react to your stories. yes, the context can be good to have, but people’s feelings and reactions mean the world more. I hope with the added context of the complete story that helps it in the long run, but as it is I’m very unhappy with how I tackled it and I don’t really have a good answer to how I should of gone about it. but at the end of the day that doesn’t matter as it happened and I can’t change it.

i’m sorry about your friend and i’m sorry for the pain you’ve experienced as well. it’s not easy being in that position (nor is it for ur friend as well of course) and it’s perfectly fine to feel hurt and to take time for yourself to address those feelings. You, as a person, matter and your feelings are justifiably important as well. nobody asks to be mentally ill and your friend’s choices aren’t fully theirs because of that, but it doesn’t change how it’s affected and hurt you. Losing someone’s friendship has always been a painful and inevitable experience people must go thru in life. I’m sorry that you’ve gone through that, but I’m glad -so happy that my story has helped you in any amount. I sincerely wish you both the best and to heal, I’m proud of you anon for getting through this.

I can’t really express how much it means as a writer to see how my work helped you. Like I mentioned before, I write and feel like it’s by myself that makes this work but it’s a 2 way street -you guys contribute to the story and the story only exists and is perceived by you. without an audience, it really truly is just me here. what you gain and experience within a story is just as important as the writing of the work itself and I often forget that.

Thank you. This was a really nice and eye opening ask and it’s going to be on my mind for a while, haha. I hope once the story is done and I can post-correct how I handle the story, people can learn and gain meaning to it like you have. Sorry if this was a bit rambly, I’m very thankful for your response (as well as everyone else who’s messaged!) and I’m very happy and excited to continue and to do my best. Thank you all so much.

[my-sherlock221b]

Supernatural Rewatch Ramblings: Bloodlust

2020-21 has been a huge transformative time for many of us. Whether we wanted it or not, we have been forced to stop, switch gears, rethink, reflect, let go, make new priorities, discover who we really are and who we want to be in the face of adversity.

One of those transformations for me has been giving up on control and finding a way to surrender to the power of the universe. Another has been to not let perfection be the enemy of good.

You may well wonder---What does all this have to do with the Bloodlust rewatch and review??!

Probably nothing LOL except for the fact that I still have to write up my review on Bloody Mary and have been unable to write for various reasons. And then because the Bloody Mary review was still incomplete I could not write about the next one etc etc etc.

So when we watched Bloodlust two days ago in the continuing re-watch, I decided that I am going to re-start the review, and from exactly where I am right now!

If time and life permits I might fill in the gaps later. If not, well, life is unpredictable and weird and we keep calm as it carries on….Thank you for coming to my Philosophy talk….:)

Read below for the Boodlust  review, Season 2 episode 3 and look out for the post from @soulmates-for-real​ on this rewatch too!! 

The opening scene is the perfect switch and bait because we as an audience have been trained to latch on to types and identities and representations.

Woman in white night gown screaming and running--victim

Person who brutally beheads her—villain.

A few minutes into the episode we realize that we were wrong.

A good few minutes later we realize that we were wrong about being wrong.]

Haha.

We are idjits, swept away on the eddies and currents of this masterfully written and directed episode. Thank you Sera Gamble and Robert Singer!

The acting and the mesmerizing beauty of the two leads is worthy of an entire essay of its own but in order to have a life and finish this review I shall only say this—Oh my goodness HOW gorgeous is Jensen Ackles?!!

It is sometimes impossible to look at him in this episode because my eyes didn’t know where to land! That perfect face? The lips? Those eyes?? The quirk of the eyebrows? Those micro expressions that are constantly weaving across his face? The smile? The way his lips move when he talks?? His hair? The Samulet?

And then the shot pans out and includes his hand and the ring and honestly it’s a miracle I could follow the plot at all.

So the images I am going to include in this review, much as I love Sam Winchester and Jared Padalecki, are all of Dean Winchester. It’s a criminal waste to not do so when the man is just an ode to perfection.

*

Sheila O’Malley’s review of this episode is in itself a work of art and a thing of beauty so I will direct you most enthusiastically towards it and only add here my little pennyworth bits. Do click on this link but be prepared to sink into a one hour read which will make you feel like you were dropped into the episode itself.

https://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=87187

Here is a quote from her review which is so insightful.

These are the details that a director like Robert Singer never misses, and at this point his relationship with Ackles and Padalecki would be almost telepathic (it’s probably 100% telepathic now). He has said before that he and Kripke were such a good team because Kripke’s primary concern is Plot/Gore/Horror and Singer’s primary concern is Character/Relationship. And they both end up in the same place. It’s a good mix. If Singer were also Plot/Gore/Horror focused, we wouldn’t have the depth of relationship which is the real point of the show, its real hook.

*

For a much briefer and far less technically adept and analytical review, read on here!

*

The opening of this episode shows us the Impala from every possible angle. Gleaming, gorgeous, road -worthy. This is mirrored by Dean. He is also gleaming, gorgeous and roadworthy. He is in a happy mood that not even Sam’s little brother snitty comments can deflate.

Here is the soundtrack of this episode for those who are interested.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0835248/soundtrack

Here is some random but fun trivia:

Dean tells Sam in one scene "If it's     Supernatural, we kill it." One of the rare times the title of the     show is actually spoken in the dialogue.

This is the first episode where Sam began parting his     hair down the middle, the hairstyle he'd keep the rest of the series.

( I didn’t like his hair too much in this episode honestly but then again I could barely see anyone beyond Dean :D)

During the filming of this episode Jared injured his     hand when he fell badly during a stunt. He thought it was merely sprained     and went straight into filming the next episode without having it checked.     But it got more and more painful and finally he went to the doctor and     discovered that his hand was, in fact, broken. Because he had already     begun filming, he couldn't bandage the hand until filming for that episode     was finished. The writers ended up writing in an accident for Sam and his     line "I think she broke my hand" to explain the fact that for     the following few episodes he would be wearing a cast.

When Dean kills a vampire, blood is sprayed on his     face, mostly on his right cheek. In the next shot the pattern is     different, and notably the right cheek is almost clean. Furthermore, his     mouth was agape when he made the kill, risking the blood getting into his     mouth and turning him into a vampire. While the brothers didn't yet know     how a vampire is made at that point, Gordon did and should have been     alarmed that Dean might have gotten some of the blood in his mouth.

*

A random behind the scene shot from the episode:

Guess who she is? Apparently this is Jensen’s sister in a super brief role in Bloodlust!

* 

On to the review, or rather some of my thoughts during the re-watch.

The first scene with the Sheriff they are interrogating him about the cattle mutilations is hilarious. The way they bluff their way into the morgue is hilarious. Dean always leading and Sam following.

Random trivia: When Dean enters the morgue with Sam and sees the name tag of "J Manners", it has been thought the name was to honor Jeffrey Dean Morgan and series producer Kim Manners. Dean guesses "John" - Jeffrey's character name - and the intern corrects with "Jeff"

*

It a testament to the way Supernatural has trained its audience that we barely blink when they pull out a decapitated head in the morgue, squabble over who is more chicken, dig into the mouth and eventually discover vampire fangs.

Yes, of course they do.

*

Next scene: Two hot guys walk into a bar…..

…….where the adorable Benny, who is not Benny in this episode but a random dude ( spoilers—later we find out the dude is a vampire), gives them directions/ mis- directions to a possible vampire nest.

We see the first glimpse of Gordon Walker, amazingly played by Sterling K. Brown, and making us worry about and dislike him almost right away. The way he is shown with the light and shade bars on his face from the window blinds is so menacing.

The next few scenes continue to build that sense of unease where the Winchester brothers, apparently telepathically, decide to double back and catch him following them, then he shows them his car and his weapons, where he references their dad and then refuses their offer for help.

The scene where he shows them his car is like a painting. (The car by the way is just as inconspicuous as the Impala –which is to say NOT AT ALL!! How do these people stay below the radar of the regular law enforcement is a mystery….).

The dust highlighting the rays of light, the two brothers on one side of the car and Gordon at the other, it’s all so consciously set up for a few seconds worth of screen time. Impressive!

Next comes a truly brutal kill, at Dean’s hands, which we don’t even see except as a spray of blood on his face. Poetic! But it is Dean’s expression that makes my stomach clench. His eyes are dead and he is somewhere deep that even Sam can’t reach, as we can see from the distress on Sam’s face.

Gordon of course is all chipper and full of bonhomie and offers to buy them drinks.

That following scene is the one which gives Wincest brother-wives vibes like 100%.

*

Sam plays the role of the disgruntled ‘wife’ to perfection. No one but hubby is allowed to use the nickname. He hates the male bonding going on with Gordon and the more Gordon seems to slip into Dean’s inner circle, the more uncomfortable Sam gets, until he finally decides that he just cannot physically be there any more.

Dean’s smug expression when Sam tells Gordon off for calling him Sammy, his instant worry at Sam going back alone, his hand raised in exasperation to convey to Gordon—look what I have to put up with-- the tossing of the keys to his car----it is all a symphony of Dean playing his part in the brother-wives orchestra.

The last line?! ‘Remind me to beat the buzzkill out of you later.’ And Sam’s expression at that? That’s exactly the way a bullying /abusive husband would react to a nagging wife who doesn’t like his toxic friends and wonders how he can be so blind as to not see them for the bad influence they clearly are.

( Bad Dean!!!)

Sam goes back to the motel and does his due diligence by checking with Ellen, gets kidnapped by vampires, released and on his return is disgusted to find Gordon inside their motel room.

*

The next scene is where Dean erupts, having clearly had enough of the shifting power dynamics between them over the evening. Sam has been silently judging him since the kill and Gordon has managed to ‘other’ Sam and make Dean feel validated in his own bloodlust as a hunter.

Dean clocks Sam one.

Wow. I did not see that coming. And what shocked me at this re- watch is that Sam just takes it.

Like an abused wife, he just takes it. Not only that, sometime later in the episode he tells Dean to hit him again if it is going to make him feel better.

NO Sam! NO!!! This is NOT healthy and this is NOT the way to deal….ugh. Sigh.

*

Then the second half of the episode swings in and the moral dilemma they face becomes clear when the victim and villain switch roles and Dean is shook enough to question his dad’s judgement!

Dean is still kind of trying to give Gordon the benefit of the doubt even though he sees him literally torturing the vampire. But of course all bets are off the instant he touches Sam. Dean pulls his gun on him. I was surprised that he didn’t shoot him just on principle later simply because he hurt Sam even if it was a small cut.

That is Dean’s definition of monsters-- Anything that hurts Sam. 😊

*

We don’t know it at this time, and spoilers ahead, but maybe Dean has been so annoyed and violent with Sam at the idea that he is standing up for MONSTERS is because he might also be one….and the way he looks at the end when he realizes that his whole life’s philosophy has been upended.

There are the details about the vampires who drink cattle blood so they don’t harm humans and therefore want to be treated as the good guys. Of course it is all about the inherent struggle between who you are and what you do—something that shows up hugely magnified in the later seasons when Sam is struggling with his own demon blood addiction and the knowledge of the demon blood inside him.

He needs desperately to believe in this as the utmost foundation stone of his life and its purpose—what you DO is more important than what you ARE!

So even if you are a monster, if you don’t behave like one—that is your redemption.

But it’s not just anybody whose faith he wants in his struggle to prove to himself that he is not a monster. He needs it from Dean.

Remember the dialogue from the panic room “Don’t you say that to me. Don’t YOU say that to me.”

And the fake voicemail set up by Zachariah exploits this at the time of the breaking of the last seal.

*

Of course he doesn’t know any of this yet, but that’s Sam fucking Winchester for you –always purer and better than his circumstances allow. Always struggling to do better, be better.😍

*

It is fascinating how the visuals and the roles these two play are of rugged handsome men, badass heroes-- Dean of course super macho role playing all the time. But there are so many layers upon layers and honestly if it wasn’t for Jared and Jensen’s fine nuanced and impeccable acting adding depth to the characters, the show would not have held our interest for this long.

We are shown Sam as the brains with his lore and research, but then in the very next episode (Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things), we see Dean connect dots faster than Sherlock Holmes.

Dean is shown as the instinctively violent one with the gun under his pillow, trigger happy, and in this episode even that brutal kill of the vampire on the docks. But then please remember the way Sam kills Gordon finally. Or the insane way he bites himself to get blood for drawing sigils. Or the way he just simply shoots the crossroads demon point blank!

We see Sam as the soft hearted one and he does rescue kids once in a while, but he is never shown to bond with them even a fraction of the way Dean does—so effortlessly. Also the ladies of course, all of whom have a soft spot for Dean. The exceptions being Sarah and Madison, both of whom completely ignored Dean. Oh and that doctor from Sex and Violence.

Dean has had his share of bad dates of course with Cassie, the woman who gave birth to his magical superfast growing daughter ( who was killed by Sam), and the whole Lisa arc, but somehow we are shown Sam as the one who is invested in relationships. Hello?! Sam was planning to marry Jessica without having told her a thing about his life while Dean told Cassie the secret as soon as he thought he was in love and wanted a relationship.

So anyway, just to say that a rewatch is so brilliant because we know more about them at this point than they do and the character arc is such a thing of beauty to see unfolding!

*

That last scene where Dean is in a thoughtful frame of mind, the sun is rising overhead ( as a metaphor for him seeing the light, maybe?)--that insanely gorgeous shot of Dean with the ring of fire and light and his absolutely perfect face in a close up…sigh.

Then he thanks Sam for pushing him to see this grey area and for the first time in that episode Sam finally smiles.

His big brother is back with him.

And then he commits to Dean too. Ah…how it warms my heart to hear this dialogue!

 DEAN I wish we never took this job. It's jacked everything up.

SAM What do you mean?

DEAN Think about all the hunts we went on, Sammy, our whole lives.

SAM Okay.

DEAN What if we killed things that didn't deserve killing? You know? I mean, the way Dad raised us...

SAM Dean, after what happened to Mom, Dad did the best he could.

DEAN I know he did. But the man wasn't perfect. And the way he raised us, to hate those things; and man, I hate 'em. I do. When I killed that vampire at the mill I didn't even think about it; hell, I even enjoyed it.

SAM You didn't kill Lenore.

DEAN No, but every instinct told me to. I was gonna kill her. I was gonna kill 'em all.

SAM Yeah, Dean, but you didn't. And that's what matters.

DEAN Yeah. Well, 'cause you're a pain in my ass.

SAM Guess I might have to stick around to be a pain in the ass, then.

DEAN Thanks.

SAM Don't mention it.

Transcript here http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=2.03_Bloodlust_%28transcript%29

 Guess Sam does stick around for the next 15 years to be a pain in the ass 😊

Some quotes from the writers about this episode: 

·  "The episode was really about what Dean would become if he didn't watch out: that Gordon was Dean in ten years if Sam didn't ask the difficult questions and keep him from getting too militant." - Executive story editor Sera Gamble

· "We set out to create a monster episode where you weren't entirely sure whether these monsters should be killed." - Eric Kripke

· "For me, the show is at its best when the supernatural story reveals something new about the brothers, or forces them to change in some way. Sam and Dean's realization that they've basically been raised as 'monster racists' was really meaty stuff. Exploring these characters' flaws is just as important as showcasing their heroism - these are the things that make them human, that make us invest in them." - Raelle Tucker

Check out this site for more amazing trivia and stuff

http://www.jonescave.com/supernatural/Episode/Episode.php?s=2&e=3#PopCulture

I have already finished watching the next episode ‘Children’s Shouldn’t play with Dead Things’….so let’s hope I get around to writing a review sometime soon !

[annetteblog]

Intro & My take on KM

Hi!

I’m new around here so it’s supposed to be (not so short) introduction, since I don’t know how to start a blog heh. I hope to sprinkle my 0.5 cents into the KM conversation and maybe to bring a new perspective from someone, who is not a part of the typical English-speaking West.

Who /the hell/ Am I?  

(please, consider it to be said with NJ’s voice from Intro: Persona :D)

I was born in Siberia (it’s in the Asian part of Russia), currently live in the European part of the country while studying at a Uni (European in terms of geography, not in terms of everything else i’m definitely not shading rn lolllll). English is not my first language, I’ve just kind of learnt it to some extent. Due to this it takes me more time to write a post; and I may (and will) make some grammatical & other mistakes. Plus I’m lazy AND busy with Uni, so I won’t even promise to be consistent in posting smth lol. But I thought I need more practice in terms of writing in English, so here I am, actually scribbling something. This feels weird, because I’ve been around stan Tumblr since 2015, but never ever interacted, just read.

How I ended up around Jikook/Kookmin (and BTS) & My (long&messy) take on this matter

Although I had heard of BTS before, I became an Army only in October 2018. I had kinda avoided them, because you know... boybands.... sing songs about romantic love and how they love girls.......... (+I had been around Twitter when 1D been at their peak and I remember a quite toxic community of fans, whom always had scared me). Shortly, hello stereotypes. Obviously, after I got engaged I felt terribly sorry that I had been sleeping on them, but what is done cannot be undone. 

Someone I knew back then reposted one of their MVs and I, during my sad hours of procrastination, decided to watch it. Then I saw their live performance with the same song. And I thought “wow these guys can sing and dance and the music is kinda cool, i need to check this out maybe??” 

Then a funny thing happened. One of the next videos I watched (the same person had it added to their page) was a 2016 BangtanBomb where JM and JK practiced their Coming of Age dance. 

Do you know this moment with Gina from the 1st episode of Brooklyn 9-9:

Well, that was precisely me after I watched it. I don’t even know how to explain this, it was kind of a gut feeling? Whatever you call it, I started to get suspicious and couldn’t even explain to myself why. /actually now a do have questions to this vid and the main one - why does everyone cringe that much? if it’s a girly choreo than they had done some “girly” moves before. why is there such strong reaction??/

I started to get deeper and went to some ru-shipper communities. Shipping culture among Russian speaking fans is... well, weird to some extent, but I maybe address this topic some time later. You need to consider that (as far as you probably know) Russia is quite homophonic country and sadly is not the greatest place for LGBTQ+ community at the moment. The non-frienly influential attitudes hanging in the society + the general shippers’ weirdness = the result is not that nice honestly. 

I struggled for some time in order to find more mature people (not just in terms of age but in general sanity), failed, ended up with some EXTREMELY toxic ru-fans of TK, which was/is the most popular pairing here, spent among them like 15 minutes and ran away horrified. After that I didn’t even try to engage with shippers or believers or whatever of any pair and just decided to enjoy the music and the content (which is a great idea, highly recommend!)

After a couple of days I discovered that JK makes videos. I love video, films and visual art so I immediately found them on YT, saw the titles with names of different cities from all over the world and was like “Oh that must be so cool, he’s visited so many outstanding places I’ve never been to, so I really need to watch it! I shall enjoy some beautyyy”. Then I clicked on GCFt.

Well, what can I say. I did enjoy some beauty, but not the type I had initially anticipated. The biggest clickbait in my entire life. JK should be proud of himself.

                                       /as I said - the beauty/

I had already known Troy back then and I known the song’s lyrics so it would not be an underestimation to say - the video just blew my mind. I was like - hold on is this real? seriously?? no really really????? he manage to get away with something THAT obvious?????? dude how

As a person who edited videos AND is not a native English speaker, I don’t buy the explanation “oh he mustve didnt get the lyrics lmao”. You just don’t do that. You don’t. DON’T. You google and translate every shit you don’t understand, every word and idiom you’ve never encountered, because otherwise the possibility of an epic failure is very likely. You wouldn’t want to give your mum a video as a birthday present and then discover that you used a song with WAP-ish lyrics, right? (well maybe that would be okay in your family, I don’t judge, but that’s not the case for people I know). So don’t you dare to degrade JK’s intellectual capacities; such assumption is really offensive. He is a smart boii, he knows exactly what he’s doing in terms of his art.

So I was shocked, but decided to look for the context - maybe I missed some previous events regarding this Tokyo thing (another great idea - always check the context). Well, apparently I didn’t, because the whole narrative with the trip for two, lovely selfies etc. made my poor brain lowkey explode. (I still don’t buy the rings theory thing though)

But I didn’t give up lol! I’m a bit stubborn and it’s very hard to convince me in anything, so I decided to search for more context, more of their interactions, moreeee. Remember, the late October 2018, there were no swan lakes, RB, and even MMA18 hadn’t happened yet. 

This time I ended up watching content in more or less consistent way, and when I saw all of these scenes with affectionate JM and a cool badass i-don’t-care-about-anyone-i’m-a-manly-man-with-no-feelings-whatsoever JK, I just hysterically laughed. 

Homophobic Russia, remember? I recognized this. Growing up here being LGBT myself, taught me the same type behaviour during my high school days. When a girl I kinda liked but didn’t what to admit it to myself was nice to me or (oh god) flirted with me, I did something similar. It’s like a huge panic mode. Being an introvert doesn’t help either. The funniest thing is that you may not entirely realise what exactly is going on in terms of your own feelings, especially at that age (16-18ish). In my personal case, I thought I liked her but as a friend, only later to realise that well not as a friend oops :DDD The second thing (already not so funny) is that you actually consciously or unconsciously try to avoid the subject as much as possible, as long as possible and pretend that nothing is going on. We’re just bros. Stop doing this stupid gayish thing and don’t look at me like that, you’re annoying. If you ever do this again I (gently) kick you. I’m straighter than a straight line in my math textbook. IDK, but probably that’s your brain is somehow trying to protect you. Again, in my case&position I knew that the consequences for any non-straight person being outed would be bad (TW not to the point of being killed bad, but to the point of being excluded from a big part of society). So for me it was a mixture of the internalized homophobia + lack of self reflection + just being a bit emotionally slow + very! straight community around. Shit happens, I was a teenager and made my share of mistakes, but that experience helps me to recognize the same pattern of behaviour up to this day.   

So coming back to KM, because the post is already waaay too long and I just ramble. It’s been 2+ years for me being a part of this fandom, and what can I say... Things become more intense and eventful with every year passing by ;) Funny how I felt that vibe from the 2016 dance practice video. Seeing the Black Swan performance a week ago almost had me choked, no joking. They are amazing.

                                                    Pure Art

However, and I would like to emphasize that, I do not incline that KM are 100% romantically involved and/or gay or whatever. I tend to treat people with respect and not to make too much assumptions about their private life. That’s not my business. However, I’m also not a fan of heteronormativity, so I’m just sitting here and observe everything that’s going on putting some distance and not forgetting being generally polite and critical thinking. But if they are just straightest besties please give them an Oscar before Grammy

Anyways, I hope this blog won’t kick the bucket from the very start and I will post something every now and then. You can always ask me questions about some BTS/Jikook related stuff or something about Russia and a Russian view on mass culture topics, since I’m pretty sure some of you have very stereotypical view of what is going on here :) However, do note that I’ve never been to America or Europe, therefore I may not be aware of something verrrry obvious to you or just have a completely different experience. 

P.S.  And yeah, I’m used to say Jikook, since it’s the name which is used much more frequently in Russian.  i like it better and what will u do haha

[rivalsforlife]

one more ahaha but the cherry blossom scene at the end of catch up game ch 3 because i'm still thinking nonstop about it all the time 👀👉👈

ABSOLUTELY I CAN also for anyone reading this go look at Mika’s art which inspired this scene. It’s the tumblr version so you can reblog it too, which you should do, even if you don’t read my long rambling,

okay once again rambling below...

Traditionally, Larry Butz arrived at any social gathering anywhere from half an hour to three hours later than the time he was told, so all things considered, he was actually early. Phoenix wasted no time informing him of the latest betrayal among their small elementary school friend group.

this is a direct callout to one of my friends from high school, where we started seriously considering telling her that any social event we were planning started an hour earlier than it actually did so that she’d make it there on time. We never did in case this turned out to be the time she actually made it on time, but still.

“Larry, remember that one time we were trying to make that gigantic hopscotch game, and we ran out of chalk?” He pointed an accusatory finger at Edgeworth, who sighed. “It turns out, Edgeworth hid it all along!”

Larry blinked, then shrugged. “Oh yeah, right, that. Well, I kind of had an idea…”

“Wh — You hid this from me too?! D-Death! The death penalty for the both of you!”

“Why does this all sound so familiar,” Edgeworth commented under his breath.

I think this part is mostly there so Larry actually does something because I couldn’t find any real way to fit him into this fic...? Anyways the dialogue there with Phoenix threatening the death penalty on Miles and Larry is pretty much directly lifted from the end of Turnabout Goodbyes, which is why Miles comments on it sounding familiar. 

They continued on in that vein for some time, dredging up old elementary school memories. Phoenix proclaimed to be the only innocent member of that group, before Edgeworth brought up a set of very nice gel pens Phoenix reportedly stole from him. Phoenix and Edgeworth got caught up in their argument, and barely even noticed when Larry wandered away, joining Maggey and Gumshoe at the fishing pond while Franziska critiqued them.

This sort of familiar banter was normal. As Edgeworth teased in that same way he had ever since Phoenix first faced him in court, he had to wonder if he’d just imagined the way Edgeworth had been looking at him during the party. Maybe everything was fine, after all.

Not pictured: Phoenix and Miles leaning in closer to each other as they argue. too close. Larry tries to comment but neither of them hear him. Eventually he just walks away because he’s sick of third-wheeling with these two. It’s my firm belief that if there weren’t the court benches in the way that they need to slam, these two would slowly walk closer and closer to each other as they argue because they. uh. want to “intimidate” each other. that’s why they’re nose to nose like that. the whole courtroom is suddenly very uncomfortable.

Haha anyways also I think these two would pick the dumbest things to argue about all the time? Never seriously arguing, the just like bickering because they don’t know how to hold conversations about their feelings.

“You still haven’t explained exactly what happened to my gel pen set,” Edgeworth accused, as they circled around the argument for the third time.

Phoenix threw his hands up in the air. “I just forgot to return it! I didn’t know you were so bothered by it. You should have brought it up!”

“Back then? You were so sensitive. If I brought up that you might have upset me in the least, you would have burst into tears.”

“I wasn’t that sensitive.”

Edgeworth sighed. “Wright, you cried when I got a question wrong on a spelling test, because you thought I would be sad about it.”

“And you were!” Phoenix retorted. “You cried for like an hour!”

“Because when you started crying, I thought it was something I had to be ashamed of!”

More bickering, pretty much! Also I do think Phoenix cried A Lot and was super sensitive up until the whole Dahlia trial which traumatized him pretty badly... 

Anyways the REAL story behind this incident which I am making up just now is probably that Miles was on the verge of crying because of Getting Something Wrong -- which I totally get, I absolutely almost cried over spelling tests as a baby -- and Phoenix picked up on this and realized his best friend was sad and started crying, which made Miles start to fully cry, and it just became a mess.

Meanwhile Larry with the 3/10 on his spelling test was just like “I don’t get what you guys are so upset about a 9/10 is great” which just makes them cry even more.

(Then Gregory probably found out about this incident and sat Miles down and gave him a speech about “everyone makes mistakes and it’s okay to not be perfect all the time, this is a learning opportunity and it shows you what you need to work on!”

:)

That sentiment didn’t last very long.)

Wow I’m getting off topic, moving on --

Phoenix crossed his arms. “I remember this whole thing very differently than you do. You cried first.”

“I never cried in fourth grade.”

Phoenix leaned in and whispered into his ear, “Origami.”

“Do not bring that up!” Edgeworth hissed as Phoenix reared back, laughing.

I don’t know if you need to lean in super close and whisper that in his ear though Phoenix, that might be a bit unnecessary. Miles got lucky here in that his Eternal Shame over not being able to fold an origami crane in fourth grade overrode whatever reaction he undoubtedly would have had about Phoenix’s face being very close to his face.

Anyways this banter is here in the fic mostly because I really wanted to show them being all comfortable and happy with each other. That was a major thing I wanted to push as much as possible in these earlier chapters, that they do care about each other a lot even before we enter the more outright romantic territory.

“Regardless, I am certain you took my gel pen set, so don’t try to blame faulty memory on that one. I bet you carelessly used them all up, didn’t you?”

“Hardly! I wouldn’t even touch it after you left. It reminded me of you.”

Some of the fight left Edgeworth’s stance. “Really?”

“Well… yeah.” He wasn’t sure why the admission suddenly felt like a confession of an entirely different sort.

aw man Phoenix you brought feelings into your banter NOW what are you going to do.

I’m preeetty sure I have books that I lent to my friends in fourth grade that they never gave back so it’s of course not an inherently romantic thing, they probably just forgot it was mine and obviously aren’t going to bring it back now ten years later, but for Phoenix in this case it was probably more like “I borrowed these gel pens from Miles and then keep forgetting to give them back but was going to after winter break, and then he left, so I need to hold onto them until he comes back”. Miles was taken from his life so suddenly it probably had a huge effect on him, especially since he had few friends at the time and Miles made such a big impact on him.

The two of them sat underneath the tree in a sudden, serene quiet. They’d both discarded their suit jackets at some point, down to their dress shirts and waistcoats. Phoenix pretended not to notice the way Edgeworth’s eyes darted across the line of his shoulders and lingered longer than they should have.

I don’t ever really pay much attention to what people are wearing or what they look like at any particular time when I’m writing, but in this case I took extra care to make sure they were in the same outfits as in the art that inspired this!

Maybe I’ll ramble a bit more about that! Pretty much the “theme” of narumitsu week this year was “cherry blossoms”, so I wanted to find some way to incorporate them into this fic somewhere somehow. I decided to have that as a focus on Free Day because I enjoy having structure and wasn’t sure what to have for the day.

Some of this scene, mainly the picnic, is inspired by that one official art here. The first iteration of this chapter had everyone in it (with the obvious exceptions of Diego and Mia) but then I took out Maya and Pearl for reasons I explained when I was talking about the scene in chapter 6 where I decided to cut a lot of Maya’s scenes out of this fic... even though I love her a lot.

And of course when I thought about cherry blossoms and narumitsu I thought about Mika’s art, yes I am linking it again, which I believe she posted about a month or so before I started planning and I was Thinking About It Constantly. It’s gorgeous and since there was the perfect opportunity to use it here I just couldn’t resist and here we are.

Back to the paragraph: Miles attempted to subtly check Phoenix out. It was not subtle.

“Do you still have those gel pens?” Edgeworth asked, softer. “I think you owe me them, after everything.”

“Oh, shut up,” said Phoenix, but it was difficult to have a heated argument right now, for some unknown reason. “If I still have them, they’re in a box somewhere. Plus, they ought to have dried up by now.”

“I doubt it.” A faint smile was beginning to crawl on Edgeworth’s face. “Those gel pens were state of the art.”

“Sure they were,” Phoenix dismissed. “And, what, you’re going to use them? Sign your fancy prosecutor documents in bright pink?”

“What makes you think I don’t do that already?”

“You wouldn’t — oh, wait, of course you’d have customized ink in the same colour as your entire wardrobe, who am I even talking to…”

“Mhm.” Edgeworth brushed his bangs from his eyes, a motion that Phoenix’s brain decided to fixate on for some reason. “But really, you went to all the trouble of keeping the set, and you never used any of them?”

(Miles voice) “oh so you kept something as trivial as that for so long because they reminded you of me? Tell me more. Why do you want a reminder of me. What exactly do you think of me, Wright,”

hm pretty much as soon as Phoenix brought Feelings into this conversation the atmosphere kind of changed and you can now imagine Miles staring with the most adoring expression at Phoenix while Phoenix is ignoring this with such intensity that it doesn’t even show up in his narration. But he also watches the way Miles brushes his bangs from his eyes, so he’s not much better.

And thinking about it now this scene really went on for too long about gel pens hahaha... 

“Objection!” Phoenix declared. “I used the blue one to write you letters at first.”

“Ah, of course you did. I never got any of those… How many did you send?”

“I don’t even want to know…”

Edgeworth hummed and looked off into the distance, where Gumshoe was demonstrating how to cast a line. “Your level of dedication is something else,” he said, as if to himself.

“Well, yeah. You were my only non-Larry friend. You were…” Phoenix swallowed. “You were important to me, you know? You saved me.”

“You keep bringing that up. You’ve more than returned the favor, you know that, don’t you?”

“I’m inclined to disagree.”

I don’t have a consistent headcanon about whether Miles got or read the letters, in this fic presumably von Karma intercepted them and got rid of them... and then presumably Miles ignored any that were sent to him as an adult.

Also these two are going to have ridiculous arguments about who saved who until they’re on their deathbeds, I’m sure.

Edgeworth turned back towards him as if to retort, but stopped halfway, his eyes widening slightly as he stared at Phoenix.

“... Something on my face?” Phoenix asked, trying to quell the feeling of some sort of anxiety that bubbled up when Edgeworth stared at him like that.

insert mikacherryblossomart.png

Miles turns away for one second and then suddenly oh no he’s even more gorgeous now

Edgeworth was silent for some time. Then, very softly, he said, “You have cherry blossom petals in your hair.”

“What? Do I?” He reached a hand up to brush them out, but Edgeworth stopped him by grabbing his wrist, freezing Phoenix.

“With your hair, you’ll never get them out like that.” With his spare hand, Edgeworth began to pick each individual petal from his hair. “You look so — silly, Wright.”

Partially a callback to the beginning of chapter 3, when they were kids:

“Y-Your hair,” Miles managed to say through stifled laughter. “One of the flowers fell into it.”

Phoenix hands shot up into his hair. “Really?”

“You look so silly, Phoenix.” When Phoenix failed to find the flower, Miles reached out. “Here, let me.” 

 Phoenix remained still as Miles reached up to the top of his head and picked the flower out of his hair. “Your hair’s really soft,” Miles said quietly, before handing it over to Phoenix. “Here you go.”

because Miles apparently remembered that it was difficult for Phoenix to get the petals from his hair the first time, and also, wanted an excuse to touch Phoenix’s hair again.

But also the dialogue and interactions are ONCE AGAIN INSPIRED BY MIKA based on this reply to my reply to the art on twitter. look at that you can go and retweet the art on twitter too!

Overall this gives us an accurate Thoughts to Speech translator for Miles:

Miles: You have cherry blossom petals in your hair and it is going to kill me.

Phoenix: What? Do I?

Miles: No, wait, don’t brush them out, I want to touch your hair because it is soft and this is the perfect excuse. You look so captivating.

if Miles had said that out loud though it would probably have killed both of them.

Phoenix let out an awkward, low laugh, starting somewhere deep within his chest. “R-Really.”

“Mhm.”

Edgeworth’s eyes locked with Phoenix’s, and time seemed to freeze. There was a sudden thrum of tension in the air, as if Phoenix were in a play and he’d suddenly forgotten his lines, forgotten he was supposed to be in a play at all.

(chanting) “kiss kiss kiSS KISS KISS --”

But before either of them could break the sudden spell over them, a fishing hook whirred through the air, and —

“Ack, I — I think I got it stuck!”

but of course that needs to be interrupted at the worst possible time because this is fanfiction and this is how things work!

“In the tree?! How did you even manage to get it that far?”

“Don’t worry about it, Maggey, I can climb up the tree and get it unstuck, just hang on —”

“No, no, if I just give it a big yank—”

“Maggey—!”

I broke the first rule of writing dialogue because I can’t really remember who’s supposed to be saying what. I think that Maya had a few lines here and then I didn’t change them since there were no dialogue tags...

Pretty much -- Maggey with her eternal luck tried to fish but released the line too early as she was swinging back so the line went back and got caught in the tree branches directly above Phoenix and Miles.

I think the dialogue progression goes Maggey -> Originally Maya but now either Larry or Franziska -> Gumshoe -> Maggey -> everyone going MAGGEY NO!!!

I remember going fishing with my grandpa once a long time ago and either I or my brother did get the fishing line stuck in a tree. would not recommend.

The branch above Phoenix and Edgeworth jostled, and pink petals burst all around them, fluttering down and catching in their hair and on their clothes. One petal even fell behind Edgeworth’s glasses.

They stared at each other for a moment, stunned, Edgeworth’s hand still loosely wrapped around Phoenix’s wrist, as Maggey shouted apologies from the distance.

There are no cherry blossom trees where I live so I have no idea if we’re even in the right season for this or if cherry blossom trees even behave this way - but I’m basing it off of... you know when it’s that point in fall where if you shake a tree branch leaves will just scatter everywhere? That. 

Also RIP to the other four who were just having a grand old time fishing and then turn around seeing these two sitting really close to each other almost holding hands about two seconds away from a kiss... which they’d just interrupted...

And then — the most incredible thing happened, and Edgeworth began to laugh.

Phoenix could have catalogued all the laughs he heard from Edgeworth: the usual, short laughs often mistaken for a scoff by those who didn’t know him as well as Phoenix did; the triumphant, smug, courtroom laughs when he thought he had Phoenix cornered; to the quiet, restrained ones in private that were more of a hum than anything else. This laugh was new.

This was a full-on fit of laughter bubbling deep in his chest and spilling from his mouth, which Edgeworth quickly covered with his free hand, with the additional bonus of covering his reddening face. It wasn’t something hidden or faked or triumphant, it was genuine, and open, and Phoenix could swear it was one of the most beautiful sounds he ever heard.

Miles here is going through an emotional rollercoaster having been two seconds away from finally kissing the love of his life only to be interrupted at the worst possible time, which is just so on brand for the two of them that he can’t help but start laughing hysterically. Plus Phoenix probably looks absolutely shocked suddenly covered in petals, which doesn’t help.

Then the next two paragraphs are brought on by Phoenix Pining and also me wanting Miles Edgeworth to laugh more... 

From my notes for this scene:

They stare at each other for a moment and laugh, and Miles’ laugh just utterly captivates Phoenix and makes him fall so completely in love immediately and oh no he is screwed he is utterly screwed.

So pretty much I had to encapsulate the “falling so completely in love immediately” part which I decided to do by focusing on Miles laughing. I wanted to draw a lot of attention to that which is why there are so many paragraphs dedicated to Miles laughing and Phoenix thinking about Miles laughing.

Trucy’s laughter always made the world feel a little brighter, and made Phoenix feel stronger. Edgeworth’s laugh did the opposite; it dislodged something inside of him, it weakened him, it made the whole world go soft and fuzzy around him. Instead of illuminating all the good in the world, it turned Phoenix’s world into one person.

More focus on Miles’ laughter but also... kind of drawing attention to Phoenix’s reaction to this being different from his reaction to other people he cares about laughing? Because feeling warm and happy when seeing someone you care about non-romantically laugh is normal, but then I wanted to make it clear that this is a different sort of feeling for Phoenix. 

Also Phoenix has to realize this is a different sort of feeling for him because otherwise he could brush it off like he’s probably dismissed all of his romantic feelings throughout the years as “oh I’m just glad my friend is happy, and I rarely ever hear Edgeworth laugh so him being relaxed enough to laugh like that makes me feel happy too,” but it’s not what he’d expect if he just sees Miles as a friend. And it’s described as weakening in the paragraph because right now the subject of his romantic feelings for Miles isn’t something that Phoenix can fully or easily accept right now (as chapter 5 would indicate).

Edgeworth’s fit of laughter subsided, and he shifted his hand so he could look at Phoenix again, the hints of a shy grin peeking out between his fingers, his hair and his shirt and his face adorned with a sweet, gentle pink. It was like looking at an entirely different person — or, no, the same person, but with all armor off, all guards lowered.

Miles is very embarrassed right now but kind of... in a good way...? Like again, almost kissed the love of his life then rudely interrupted at the last possible moment, plus Phoenix’s whole reaction to the thing gave Miles the impression that Phoenix wanted to kiss him as well, so he’s feeling a little giddy. Plus he was just laughing a lot when he normally doesn’t do that. Overall he’s not used to expressing his emotions so he’s embarrassed and a little shy about it...

The part about Miles’ “hair and shirt and face adorned with a sweet, gentle pink” refers to both the cherry blossom petals (in his hair and clinging to his shirt and a bit on his face) and also him blushing quite a bit.

It all feels a little out of character honestly haha because Miles isn’t really the type to be blushing hardcore like this and be a little shy, buuut in this case I let myself get away with it because he’s dealing with romantic feelings he hasn’t ever dealt with at this level before, and it’s also out of character just enough to really strike Phoenix in the heart. You can just imagine him staring at Miles with the most lovestruck expression on his face because he hasn’t seen this side of Miles before and he loves it.

Phoenix’s heart stuttered in his chest, and may have stopped entirely.

He was screwed.

He was completely and utterly screwed.

And even Phoenix can’t deny that he’s super in love at this point. 

I think I wrote this part, changed the words “screwed” to “doomed” right before posting, and then switched it back again for no particular reason. The Vibe just felt a little off but oh well.

Then the next chapter skips over the rest of this picnic but honestly Phoenix’s brain skipped over the rest of this picnic as well. Imagine the two of them just kind of standing around in a lovestruck daze for a while. I think Franziska had to physically drag Miles out of there. no one knows how Phoenix got home, not even Phoenix and least of all me!

But thank you Mika for requesting this!! And for drawing such incredible art for me to base the chapter around haha!!!

[orionsangel86]

Jibcon10 Auto Stories!

I have so much to tell you all about Jibcon as it was such a wonderful experience and I can’t even begin to express just what an amazing week I had being surrounded by such a positive and happy fandom, along with a very happy and relaxed SPN cast. It was truly magical.

First I want to share my auto stories as I was fortunate enough to have some lovely experiences with all of J2M.

Misha

I had my Misha auto first of all, and I was getting him to sign my Castiel funko pop. I was really nervous as this was my first Misha interaction of the con and last year I didn’t really have a good interaction with him at autos because he was super exhausted and just not really present in the room it seemed. This year as I approached the table he was smiling, he looked refreshed and SO BEAUTIFUL OMG. He looked up and smiled at me and my brain kind of turned to mush right there. I can pretty much only remember saying “Hi Misha” and something along the lines of “I hope you are having a good morning” which could have easily come out as a mumbled scream, but he smiled and responded that he was doing really well and happy to be here (or something like that as I said I can barely remember it!). I then handed him my TFW2.0 button that I was giving out to everyone I met at the con. I told him “I wanted to give you this, as I am spreading a bit of positivity and love to everyone with this button” and he looked at it and grinned and then looked up and said thank you and WINKED AT ME and in all honestly I think I had already died from staring directly into Misha’s eyes at this point so had to have this all retold to me by Jen afterwards.

Jared

I got really lucky with Jared because he was also in a really good and quite chatty mood when I went over to him. He immediately started asking how I was and when I replied he asked me about my accent (AGAIN since he also picked up on my British accent last year!) and where I was from. When I said I was from London he asked if I was staying in Italy long and I told him that sadly no, I was flying back home on Monday. He goes “Ah bummer” and I sort of shrugged. He then looked down at my Sam funko pop and asked “where shall I sign him?” and I said “oh anywhere you want really!” and he was being really cute like “okay I’ll just sign his head here” and fumbling around with a silver pen. I then also told him that I wanted to give him a button like I did with Misha, and he goes “ooh yes!” and he took it and read it and said “What does TFW mean?” and I just looked at him like “seriously Jared? Team Free Will!” and he laughed and was like “OH YEAH DUH” and he then read it again and fist pumped and said “YEAH TEAM FREE WILL TWO POINT OH!” and we laughed and that was nice. THEN I said “Oh just quickly, I really wanted to thank you for everything you said in your panel yesterday (Jared’s Saturday afternoon panel) because so much of what you were saying about the show really resonated with the fandom and those of us who talk about it and write about it online. Your thoughts just seemed really on point and I thought it was such an interesting and enjoyable panel and I wanted to thank you for that. I loved it.” and he was nodding and smiling and he said “really? You really thought that?” and I was like “yes it was awesome” and he seemed really touched that we were all really interested in what he was saying and he held my gaze for a while and was so attentive and honestly I just love him and both times I have met him now he has been very gracious and attentive and engaged which I think says a lot about how much he cares about his fans.

Jensen

I was the MOST scared to approach Jensen because my auto with him last year (being the only time I actually had a 121 interaction with him at the con) wasn’t really good because he didn’t seem to be in a good mood and wasn’t really interested in interacting with me. I barely got a “hello” from him which made me sad. This year, I really wanted things to go better, and I had my commission from @winchester-reload for him to sign so I was hoping that he’d be in a better mood. 

Well luckily he WAS. He was late for autos, and the staff were really rushing us through. He had three handlers all swarming him and it’s no wonder the guy appears grumpy sometimes. But when I approached he looked up at me and smiled and oh he is so pretty... He says “hi” and grins and that’s the first difference from last year. So I say “Hi Jensen, how are you doing?” and he responds that he is doing great. Then he looks down at the art which has been moved over by Daniela and I tell him that I commissioned my friend to do the portrait when we heard he was going to be Bacchus and he was like “wow really? You commissioned this? It’s really good!” and he was looking at it for quite a while after he signed it, so I pulled out my spare print and said “yeah, she’s really talented and I have a spare print for you if you wanted it?” which he took and seemed really pleased and said “wow thank you so much” (or something like this remember guys my brain is MUSH after this weekend) but yes, he seemed very pleased to be getting his own print of it. Well, at this point the handler to my left is saying “thank you” quite firmly at me trying to get me to move along and literally repeating “thank you” every few seconds and is starting to piss me off, but Jensen side eyes this guy too like he is also aware that he is being rushed and finds it all rather impolite (bless him really he must put up with so much shit) but I stand my ground because I want to give him my button. So I say “one more thing really quickly, I really wanted to give you this. It’s only a little thing but I gave these to the other guys as well because I’m spreading some positivity around about the show and TFW2.0 and it means a lot to me that you know how much we love all these characters” (Or something like this - half the time I ramble I know I say something like this but probably far less articulate on the day) and he picks up the button and looks at it again for what seems like a really long time and then he looks up at me again and smiles this really nice kind of touched smile (I think, it seemed like he was touched) and he mouths “Thank you” and holds my gaze and I can’t really express exactly what it was that he was conveying in that moment but for me it was a really great moment that spoke to me quite a lot.

So all in all it was a great moment and I really hope he takes the print of Jackie’s portrait with him because no doubt Danneel would also LOVE to see it! Here’s the signed version:

Basically I was totally overwhelmed by everything BUT I really enjoyed it and I can’t express enough how lovely and charming J2M were all weekend. All of them seemed really happy, refreshed, and just generally in great moods. It was a huge difference from last year.

Alex

My interaction with Alex was also really lovely and he is such a sweet guy. He scribbled all over a page of my scrapbook and I also gave him a button which he happily accepted. If you’ve had an auto with Alex you’ll know that he has this personalised “A” that he likes to draw as well as to write “Jack” next to his autograph with a backwards “k” which is adorable.

Richard Speight Jr and Rob Benedict

I have to add Rich and Rob here because I had a really good time with both of them at autos. I went to Rich first and I held out my scrapbook and told him he had a whole page to scribble whatever he wanted on. He was immediately like “oooh!” and started drawing. I spoke to him about his direction style and how I always love it when he directs because he manages to make every frame look beautiful. That 12x12 has some of the most gorgeous shot compositions especially and I really hope he keeps directing in season 15. He was really touched by what I said and was like “Really? Thank you so much!” and I said “Yes, and I’m not just saying that because you also act on the show. Seriously, you have a wonderful style and I’m looking forward to what you do next.” He smiles at me and hands me my scrapbook and says “that what you had in mind?” and I said “omg yes thank you so much!” and he laughed. This was what he did:

So then I go over to Rob and I tell him the same thing, to scribble in my scrapbook. But I say “no pressure, but Rich drew me a picture.” and he says “oh nooo” and turns over the page to see what Rich drew. He laughs and faux panics like “so much pressure!” and starts scribbling. So I do my usual “talk about something that’ll interest them” because I hate standing there in silence waiting for them to sign, so I tell him that I’m really looking forward to what Chuck gets up to next in Season 15 now that he’s basically become a sadistic fanfiction writer. He laughs at that and says yes, he’s really looking forward to it because as an actor, it’s always really fun to play a different role, or look at a character from a different angle and playing the villain now is something he is really excited about because he gets to stretch his acting wings a bit. So I tell him I can’t wait to see how it all plays out and then he grins and hands me my scrapbook and I just go all gooey and say “ahh thank you so much. You win.” and he laughs and I think that pleased him. He wrote this:

So yeah basically I left every single auto I had with a brain made of mush just walking on cloud 9. I haven’t even mentioned Ricky Whittle yet... that was... something. But consider that a separate post as this got long. 

Basically I LOVE THIS CAST AND SHOW AND AM SO HAPPY I COULD CRY.

[neoneidolon]

one year - 1/ 2/20

It’s been a year since I started this blog!

Most of you probably know that this blog holds the OC continuation of the story I started as a canon character on cubicscubedemon. The history hasn’t changed; Morpho uses what used to be their nickname back on the old blog, and they reference things that happened back when they were Amorphous Shape, so they are definitely still the same person, but they were such a tiny presence in their old canon that I feel comfortable calling them my OC now.

So! We’re basically in the epilogue, I think! After a series of huge pushes, they left their Boss and started a new life in hiding. They had a run-in with their homeworld, picked up a sibling by accident, reconnected with an old friend, made some new ones. The nature of their relationships is different now. They’ve come a long way. So what now?

Well, first of all I want to say I’m not planning on quitting yet. There are still things I want to do, or at least lay down the groundwork for happening later in the unwritten bits of Morpho’s life. Because I know how their story is going to end. I probably won’t write it here, because that’s at least a few decades in the future we’re talking about and this blog operates on sorta kinda real-ish time, but it’s a nice bittersweet ending I keep in mind. It was never going to end the way Morph *wants*, but they’ll be happy regardless, I promise.

More Things That Have Happened:

-- they started living on Earth! exactly what the version of me who ran the old blog swore up and down would never happen in the default “verse”/timeline. Past me is eating their words right now

-- on a semi-related note, wow, this blog has been running for a year and still hasn’t gained any alternate verse tags? that’s kind of impressive

-- so now when I read through the old blog archive it’s going to be an organization nightmare figuring out if the version of Morpho in a given post is the same one as in this blog or not

-- I straight up forgot that Morpho already knew their timeline’s version of their Boss was dead. In the kidnapping event, Bill told them that and they reacted like it was new information. It wasn’t. I’m just an idiot who doesn’t read the archive enough.

-- Morpho is now: 10-20% more honest! 40% more emotionally open! 4% more humble! 80% deeper into their destiny as the local eldritch witchy grandma/eccentric uncle who has seven dozen other dimensions on speed-dial!

-- they’re still working on letting go of their need to be the “better version” of their ex-Boss, but what happened in Hyperspaceland went a long, long way in proving to them that the Multiverse can have wildly unlikely good things happen in it, and that they can make a positive difference without having to do it the way they had impressed upon them for years.

-- plus, they now have friends and acquaintances who are “weird” like them, who have managed to make good lives for themselves without having to be subject to dimensional power struggles and other unwanted cosmic nonsense. They didn’t think being able to “retire”/live quietly was really possible for people like themself, so seeing otherwise is really good for them. They don’t think directly about this, though, it’s subconscious.

-- but they still have a long way to go and a lot of deep-seated issues to unravel, and now they have to raise their time-clone twin sibling and pray they don’t mess the kid up.

Things I’d Like to Happen, Either Written Here or Not:

-- Morph letting go of their instinct to manipulate situations to their favor, and also their tendency to make things more difficult by lying

-- Morpho letting go of the assumption that most people have ulterior motives, even if their history demonstrates that they have a good reason to believe that

-- Beta growing up, working out how they are and are not Morpho, simultaneously

-- Morpho reaching a point where they can be trusted to not (usually) try using people for their own personal gain, so they can finally go back to their real calling (teaching) properly this time

I worry a lot about whether I keep things consistent here, if Morpho’s still the same person they were two years ago or one year ago. They seem happier, anyway. I don’t think they would be as happy if I was just shearing off unpalatable parts of them out of misplaced fear. At the same time, they are always going to be a little bit awful!

And what about Beta? I keep saying we’re near the end, but just as Morpho’s coming in on the close of their development, Beta’s is just beginning, under totally different circumstances as her elder twin. Life as the soul of a magical alien spirit thing, in the body of an earthly creature, isn’t going to be easy for her. If I wanted, I could lean all the focus on her and get a whole new narrative out of it.

That brings me to something else I wanted to talk about. So if you’ve followed me for a while, you know this about me: for better or for worse, I always have a narrative arc in mind. There are good things and bad things about that approach, and it’s pretty easy to screw up, especially where other people are involved. And the problem with characters who develop is that it is totally possible to develop them too much, to extend their story so far that they become somebody who doesn’t resemble who they were originally. I’m worried about this happening with Morph. I’m also worried about this blog just becoming an endless series of me coming up with some arbitrary new conflict or danger or drama every time I get bored of describing their mundane life. I don’t want to bore anyone. (I know, the wisdom is to RP for yourself and your own fun, but it still involves other people and also, I need to entertain, otherwise what is the point of my story?)

This blog is... might end before this time this year. I say might, it’s not that I don’t enjoy anymore and want to quit. After that? I don’t know. Starting an art blog on Tumblr feels kind of pointless now since the platform is dying, and RP is one of the major reasons I stick around since I don’t really use my personal blog much anymore. If I don’t write here, I feel like I’m going to slip away from a lot of friends. I don’t want to lose you all. I could start a new muse, Beta or someone else, but...

I want to do something different, too.

And that brings me to the last (I think) thing, which is what form Morpho’s story might take next. Because if I DO end this blog before the beginning of next year, I wouldn’t be done with Morph by a long shot. I love them too much and there’s too much of me I sunk into them. So what would I do?

Well, I was hoping to spin a web thing with words and pictures. ...I think I’m just going to call it a web serial. No intention of ever formally publishing it. It would be the same basic arc again, but more polished and with all the Gravity Falls filed off a backstory and setting that is more original to me, plus additional new plot things and side characters. Definitely taking place in a Multiverse, though, how could it not?

coming up with a villain to replace Bill Cipher has been basically impossible but Morpho’s story can’t function without somebody in that role

Maybe this is misguided of me, maybe it will fail to launch, or launch and then fail, and attempting to run it alongside this blog is an almost guaranteed terrible idea, but I want to do it. Morpho is never going to get a book series or a TV show, so this is what I have for them. It could be pretty interesting if it works. They feel ready. And most importantly I know I can tell this long rambly story and finish it, because I’ve already done it, here with the help of a bunch of writers--friends-- that I admire. Morpho wouldn’t have made it this far without you.

When is it coming? I don’t really know. Work on the first installments is happening, but it’s slow, and there’s key things I don’t know yet. Most of it is going to be flying by the seat of my pants, making it up as I go (but y’know, making it up better, with slightly less improvisation than I usually employ here). I’m graduating from community college in mid March of this year, which is going to be a major life change that is probably going to turn my life completely upside down. Maybe I will suddenly not have any time for creating anything, be it an RP blog or a web serial, much less both! haha I’m terrified 

But with luck, I’m hoping that what I am tentatively calling Amos vs. Everything will be out soon. Like, really soon. Some point between late January and when I graduate. (Now I just have to A. figure out where I’m hosting this thing and B. graduate. It would be really embarrassing if I flunked out of my last semester of school.)

I can see it now: somebody going “who the heck is ‘Amos’? The main character’s name is Morpho!” and I will smile and say ‘wait and see’ because they don’t know, but you. You all know.

And that’s about it! This is but a small and humble blog, and I like it that way. I appreciate every one of you who are here at time of writing. For the ones I don’t manage to interact with much-- I’m useless and shy. Poke me, reasonably. If you’re just here to spectate, that’s cool too. :D For the ones who come write here a lot, or did once-- you built this house.

Okay I should stop now or I’ll be sitting here forever! I can’t believe you read all this! Thank you all for everything and Happy New Year!

[nebulous-wanderings]

Tokyo Trip/Kurenai Enishi October 19-21, 2018

Wow look who procrastinated writing a blog post for this for 2 months (me). I made a mini-post when I got back but I didn’t really explain everything I saw and did in my 48hrs there so I’ll do that here. More pictures and me rambling about Tsukista below~

I only went on this little weekend trip because my friend and I had gotten tickets to see Tsukista’s 6th Stage Kurenai Enishi. I would’ve stayed longer but I wanted to save my vacation days for next year :P Luckily, my friend was able to meet me in Tokyo from the area of Japan she currently lives in and stayed with me for the weekend to watch the show.

I arrived Friday evening and checked into the hostel. It had the best prices for the area and was super clean and easy to check in and out - I would definitely stay there again! After that I met @lavendermintrose at Animate since I wanted to buy a penlight and shop around for a bit. We then made a spontaneous visit to the karaoke place with the Tsukista drink collab~

My other friend arrived at the hostel later that night, and we ate a late-night meal and were up until like 2am drafting fan letters on our phones to write onto stationary the next day.

On Saturday we went to Harajuku for breakfast (see first pic at the top) and scoped out the Tsukipro Harajuku Shop. We had timeslots to enter on Sunday, but we passed by it to take a look at how it was set up. After that we tried to get to the train station as fast as possible in order to get to the theater in time for the merch queue to start but Takeshita Dori was looking like this:

which is sooo much worse than Times Square so we were crawling at a snail’s pace back to the station. After the trainride, we got off in Shinjuku where the theater was and it was a bit complicated to find since Google Maps had us cross through and mall and back outside to find the theater (that’s also connected to a movie theater). The line had only opened up 5mins before we got there but there were already so many people ahead of us:

(the entrance is a little past that white sign board with colored rectangles). The wait didn’t feel too long ince they opened sales a bit earlier than the scheduled time and it moved pretty quickly.

My and my friend’s matching tsukiusas (+ my Sing Together Forever usa). I don’t do itabags so I at least brought these little guys.

The merch form~ They got stricter with the purchase limit for this stage (like one copy of each CD per person). (+ check out that girl's Aoi and Yoru itabag in the background)

The hallway to the merch sale tables/entrance to the theater was lined with Kurenai Enishi posters with art of the nenchuu by Jiku-sensei. They matched the red walls nicely lol.

(My face looks really weird in this pic so I covered it lmao) but I was super excited in line 😂 After buying all of out stuff there was a little over an hour until the show started so we got some food and the food court next door and started writing our letters:

My friend wrote one for Yuusaku and gifted local omiyage from her region. I wrote one for Yuusaku and one for Yuusuke. Technically my friend wrote it for me since my handwriting absolutely sucks and we were pressed for time (I would’ve taken forever to write the kana) but I wrote the whole message and she just copied the Japanese onto paper. I handwrote the English I included at the end and also signed it. I included some gifts I brought with me from NY to give to them as well.

We got to the theater as doors opened and placed our letters and gifts in the boxes then picked up the premium seat bonuses (2 group bromides and a shrine charm in the 3rd pic from the top). The charm was one of six color combos depending on which day it was and luckily for me that day was the Rui/Iku colors! Ours were in the 6th or 7th row off to the right. The stage was very wide and we were right in front of the little side-stage area where the actors come out from.

I won’t spoil the plot but I will say that people cried during one of the more dramatic scenes. I wouldn’t say it’s as sad as Yunemigusa though lol (I saw ver. Red btw). It was really cool seeing the new cast for the first time, and I think they all did a fantastic job!

The Mutsuki-kun higawari had Gaku (Haru’s actor) as some evil guy trying to defeat Kakeru who is trying to become a stronger ninja. At first it was just a pair of sunglasses talking while Gaku did the voiceover from backstage but then he appeared on stage in a white lab coat. It was really funny, but I can’t put my finger on what exactly his character was supposed to be referencing lol. Also random note: there was a reoccurring mushroom joke that I also found really funny lol.

The songs in Kurenai Enishi weren’t my favorite per se (I’m not a huge fan of slow songs) but they matched the mood and tone of the show very well. However, I do love the theme song since it’s catchy and makes me want to chant along with it lol.

Since I watched the Red version with Procellarum as the focus, the dance live was their group songs and solo character songs from the 2nd season of CDs. The background dancers were the Six Gravity counterparts from the same age group. Rui is my fave and Yuusaku was soooo cute performing “Oh… Yes!” Ryoki did a great job as Iku, and his dancing looked so pro I was amazed. I was really bopping to You’s “Manatsu no Summer” and he went into the crowd for fanservice as usual lol. For the entirety of Yoru’s song, I was just staring at Yuusaku’s face cuz he’s so bright and sparkly~ He had a big smile on just like Tani’s Yoru and looked like he was having fun. During Kai’s “Beast Master,” I was on the side Haru was mostly dancing on, and let me just say Gaku went IN on the hip movements and overall risqué dance moves lmao. Can’t wait to see that again on the DVD 😂 Taka had big shoes to fill as Shun, but he was great throughout the play and dance live (sasuga idols) and his Shun voice was even super similar to Tomoyuu’s.

At the end they performed “Tsuki no Uta” with both groups which was a lot of fun. I was debating whether or not to change penlight colors at each verse but it would’ve been too difficult lol. I had them on Rui and Iku for the whole duration of the song, but did all the name-yelling fanchants which was fun to be a part of (this was my first time at a jp live event). At the end when everyone runs back and forth on the stage waving goodbye, I was sitting close enough to the stage to tell who in the crowd they were looking at, and I got waves from Iku (who probably saw me frantic waving my green and brown penlights) and Kai! Kai also did a finger gun shoot to the girl 2 seats away from me (sitting next to my friend) since she had a Kai uchiwa and she was crying tears of joy all after that lol.

The closing message for that performance was from Yuusuke, and I could tell he was a bit nervous trying to get words out but he looked genuinely happy to be up there on stage. (Honestly, stan Akiba Yuusuke, he’s adorable).

After it was over, I wanted to watch it again, it felt so short! But we met up with Lavender for some more Tsukista collab karaoke and talked about the show and fangirled over stuff. I kept getting Shun coasters when buying the collab drinks, but in the end I ended up with a Rui at least so all was well. I need some more Growth fans to karaoke with so we can all harmonize on the songs 😂

On Sunday, we went to the Tsukipro Harajuku Shop, but I’ll include that in a separate posts since I hit picture limit in this one already. Overall, I had a fun time and I’m super glad I was able to fulfill one of my goals which was to watch a Tsukista show live! I landed back home at 8pm on Sunday and thankfully I was able to wake up in time for work the next day (due in part to me sleeping most of the plane ride back). 10/10 would do a weekend trip (or longer) again for a stage play or concert 👍

[fluidityandgiggles]

Sleep Is For The Weak - Chapter 8

Previous Chapters: Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 5, Last Chapter

Writing Masterlist - for previous chapters not otherwise linked, Read on AO3

Notes (I guess): I could not wait to post this. I know it’s only Wednesday but I couldn’t wait and I had to. I’m sorry... I’m sure the next chapter will bring us back to the regular schedule. This chapter is really weird, at least in my opinion (but it might just be that I read it again and again a million times over), but I’m really happy with it and... also not really. Some people in this chapter need to... I don’t want to say anything. It would only make things worse if I say anything.

Thanks to @broadwaytheanimatedseries for the original suggestion, to @whatwashernameagain for all her help and for being a sweet lil angel of a person, and to my little elves, @anony-phangirl, @asleepybisexual and @winglessnymph for dealing with my bullshit. A special one goes to Nicky this time, for being an adorable bean and reading this chapter ahead of time to help me figure things out. I am so grateful that I have this lovely group of people to help me and I can’t thank them enough.

Tag list (sort of): @bunny222, @ab-artist, @secretlyanxiouspersona, @your-username-is-unavailable, @virgilcrofters, @why-things-go-boom, @ilovemyspoopydad, @violetblossem, @prinxiety-an-chocolate

Trigger warning: period appropriate transphobia (the early 00s were not exactly trans-friendly). Especially in this chapter, and not necessarily period-appropriate, but... you have been warned.

—————

Wednesday, November 27th, 2002

Remy finally understood the point of existentialism and, more specifically, of the saying "Hell is other people".

He couldn't even take comfort in knowing how close India was. She didn't leave Boston for the holiday, and she wouldn't have anyway. Her family in North Carolina were horrible people and she told him that she hadn't seen any of them since she came to Harvard.

That meant that, for the next few days, he was stuck in Social Circle, Georgia. All alone. With no escape plan.

"Sarah, look, Remy's here!"

...and Leah.

She came down the road on her rollerblades, looking entirely too proud of herself, and their cousin Sarah on her trail. Sarah wasn't particularly bad, but Remy wasn't entirely comfortable around—

"A little bird told me you were going to be away this year."

"Gurl, you don't even want to know what happened."

"No I don't. I'm just glad you're here, Becca."

Becca. A cursed name. Yeah, maybe that's going a bit overboard, but… Remy wasn't called Becca since… well, Christmas of last year. But it's been a long time!

"I can rollerblade, right Remy?" Leah was holding onto his leg, almost dragging him down, and started taking her rollerblades off. "You saw me do it!"

"What are you doing?"

"I don't want Mom to see…"

"But you'll freeze!"

"But she won't be mad at me!"

"Becca, would you like to hear the holiday forecast?" Sarah tapped Remy on the shoulder as she said that. He didn't really, but… "Sunny. Way too sunny. With high chance of showers and a possible thunderstorm."

(Translated, it meant there will be fights. A lot of fights. And Remy was ready to deal with them, but… it didn't mean he wanted to hear it.)

"Wow, thanks for all the help, Sarah."

"No need to be rude, I'm just trying to prepare you. Everyone is coming. And some of us aren't as accepting of your ‘identity' as others."

That was incredibly true. Sadly. It took Linda no time at all to let everyone know that her daughter believes that she's a boy, and it took his grandmother no time to tell him that when she was younger, she had a very good friend who was born a boy, but lived as her true feminine self, and that she misses that friend so much because "there was no kinder or sweeter woman you'd ever meet, too bad we had to lose her to that wretched AIDS. We didn't have no cocktails or whatever back then, not like today. She died something like three years after you were born. You would've loved Celia."

It was going to be an insufferable holiday.

"Sarah, you're barely two years older than me. You don't—"

"I'm not mothering you. I'm just pointing out the facts."

Leah let go of Remy's leg, and instead grabbed onto his arm, the rollerblades in one hand. She was barefoot, she was cold, and he just wanted to hold her tight so she wouldn't freeze too much.

He was falling hard and fast for the sister he didn't want to meet a couple weeks ago, and he was struggling to understand what exactly happened.

"Sarah has a boyfriend now," Leah said happily as she led Remy (and his bag) to the house. "He's not very nice." She threw her rollerblades into a small shed near the door and quickly closed it.

"I'll bet."

"It's why she's being a bitch. I think. I don't know."

"It's how she's always been. Don't feel bad."

Leah decided to give him a house tour, and explained that nobody was there yet because everyone will come tomorrow and Stephen had a thing to do in Atlanta and Rachel had a play date. And Linda's house was… well, a house.

Remy was so used to the small and outrageously expensive apartment on West 106th, with the bad lighting and the closet-sized bedrooms, that the house seemed huge to him. The living room alone was - mismatched furniture aside - incredibly impressive. The floor-to-ceiling windows let in so much natural light that reflected off the shiny hardwood floors, the cream-colored walls and the needlessly large flat-screen TV, that Remy doubted they even needed the huge fucking chandelier (okay, maybe he was exaggerating a bit) that hung in the middle of the room. The walls were covered in crayon doodles and bright purple marks where the girls' heights were measured, and a few dark scratches. Obvious evidence that a certain scooter kept running into them.

Two black suede couches faced the brick fireplace (a fucking fireplace? Utterly pointless, much like a lot of things in this room), with dark blue and gray throwing pillows placed strategically on them. It looked incredibly comfortable. Between the couches and the fireplace was a small glass coffee table, "adorned" with misplaced toys and children's art supplies. A beautiful, blue-green glass vase full of white daffodils was right in the middle of the table. Leah proudly told him that she picked them herself.

Wooden bookcases covered the wall next to the entrance, and two light gray, plush armchairs, with the same dark blue and gray pillows, faced them. Remy was very familiar with those armchairs. They used to belong to his grandparents. He used to torture those chairs with Sarah when they were younger, draw on them with markers and put stickers all over the armrests. How his grandmother managed to remove the stickers was beyond him, but he knew for a fact that she put them through very intensive cleaning after every visit.

Two years ago they disappeared from their house in Red Bank, New Jersey. And nobody could explain to him why.

In the corner of the room, next to the bookcases, sat a sleek Steinway that Remy knew very well. It belonged to his grandfather. He wasn't even aware that it, too, made its way from New Jersey to Georgia.

(Nobody told Remy anything anymore, as it turned out. At least he could take comfort in knowing that Roger's piano was being put to good use.)

And that was just the living room. Remy didn't even want to think about the hallway.

"We moved here from Atlanta when I started going to school and my grandma and grandpa wanted me to go to where Dad went to school," Leah started rambling. "And I miss Atlanta. There's a lot more to do there, there's a lot more fun stuff to—"

"I know." The offended look on her face went away when Remy put his hand in her hair, to calm her down. "I live two blocks away from Broadway, I just need to take the subway and I'll be at Times Square, but I can't. I don't have the money for it and I don't want to take money from my dad."

"Isn't that annoying?"

"Leah, you're seven. Stop complaining about that kind of stuff," Sarah chided as she pushed past them, a glass of water in her hand, and went to sit down. "Just wait until you're in college."

"You mean, the place where everything is close by and rather affordable thanks to student discounts and the option of working on campus?"

"You're only a senior in high school, what do you know—"

"I go to Harvard, Sarah. It's been a couple months already."

"Oh… yeah. I'm sure you're doing great."

Yeah. Maybe this holiday he'll just stick to Leah.

——

"If there is a thing you should know about your mother," Edith Brigham told her grandchild in late 1992, "it's that she is too headstrong for her own good. It doesn't matter how much you try to change her mind, she'll never listen."

This was the reason Remy kept talking to his grandmother after the divorce. Why he kept visiting Edith and Roger after Linda left.

"Where's grandma and Roger?"

"They won't be coming this holiday, Rebecca. They're in Thailand."

Remy was absolutely not ready for this thanksgiving.

Stephen started a conversation with him about college while Linda was finishing things up in the kitchen that Wednesday. He asked him about his boyfriend, Remy did his best to avoid those particular questions ("is Ian playing any sports?" "She told me she was a cheerleader in high school, she wasn't allowed to do color guard"; Stephen choked on his beer when Remy said that), and things just seemed…

Overall, things seemed strangely calm.

Remy missed Edith and Roger.

"Who's she?" Linda asked from the kitchen.

"Never heard of her."

"Rebecca, please be serious."

"Remember when you met my best friend and she told you her name is Ian?" Linda made a choking sound. "Remember grandma's friend Celia?"

"That— you never even met her. You were too young. You don't even remember her. You are not the same as grandma's friend."

"I'm sure my best friend would love to hear that."

"So he's… he…"

"You can call her a she, you know."

"Grandma doesn't have a friend called Celia," Leah piped in from the corner, where she was sitting at the piano, trying to motivate herself to play it. Little Rachel was pressing all the keys, irritating Leah quite a bit.

"She died of a really bad disease before you were born," Linda said sharply. Something in her changed when talking to Leah.

"She was very nice," Remy added, trying to be softer than Linda. "Grandma says that she was a painter, and she spent a lot of time reading books, and that there was nobody sweeter than her. She died of AIDS."

"What's that?"

"Don't you—"

"Acquired immune deficiency syndrome." Leah hummed to herself as Remy said that. He could feel Linda glare at him. "You get it from contaminated blood or unsafe sex, and your immune system just doesn't work. I don't know a lot about it, so you should probably read about it—"

"Rebecca, she's seven years old!"

"She's a seven year old who knows that female hyenas have penises, Linda! She's old enough to know about AIDS."

"...you sound just like your grandmother."

"Thanks, I try to."

Leah just hummed again in understanding and left the piano in order to go painting. Rachel's key-pressing was getting too annoying for her. She said her hearing can't take it anymore.

Remy believed her.

"You can't just explain STDs to my child, Rebecca," Stephen hissed at him through gritted teeth, suddenly looking rather threatening.

"One of my professors said that if you can't explain it to a child, you don't truly understand it yourself."

"That's no excuse to—"

"Mom I have a headache can you tell Rachel to go away?"

"Deal with it. Rachel, sweetie, come here."

"Deal with it?" Linda just… shrugged. "Leah, come here, love. And bring my bag with you."

So she did. Remy took an ibuprofen pill out of the bag and gave it to her. And Linda...

"You're drugging up my kid?"

"She told you she has a headache. I'm having cramps right now, so I have painkillers on me. Shocker? To you, probably. You're the one who taught me that the cramps are just another sign that my body so terribly wants to have children, and—"

"Spit that out, Leah. You don't need anything."

And with that, Remy gave up on trying to talk to Linda. (Leah did not spit out the pill.)

——

Sunday, December 1st, 2002

The rest of the holiday was just as awful. Leah got overwhelmed by everything, Remy kept fighting with his aunts, and the alcohol didn't help in the least. Everyone felt Edith and Roger's absence and it only made things that much worse.

He should've stayed in Boston.

When he called India after getting off the plane, she told him to take comfort in the fact that Christmas is only three weeks away. And, yeah, she was right. But it didn't make things any better…

For now, he decided, he should focus on other things. Midterms were starting very soon. Next Tuesday was Emile's birthday. His dad started working on a new production—

There was a knock on the door.

"I heard you had a horrible holiday," an adorable, heavily-accented, quiet voice said once Remy opened the door. He could hear the smile in it. "Nothing cuddles and cookies can't solve, right?"

Thin, pale hands pulled Remy in for a hug, and finally. Remy came home.

——

"Umm… Emile, babe, you're crushing my lungs."

"Oh, oops. Sorry."

"Want to watch Nightmare Before Christmas and do absolutely nothing else?"

"Sounds lovely. Let's do it."

[the-girl-in-the-band-tshirt]

All Things Considered

Summary:  When word of Robert Siegel's departure from NPR's "All Things Considered" goes public, Emma gets the chance to compete for her dream job. All that stands in her way are nine fellow journalists - one of them being the charismatic yet cocky Killian Jones. When she ends up paired with Killian on the first story, things get more complicated as she tries to balance fighting for her long-time aspiration and her budding relationship with this fascinating fellow reporter. Rating: M (for mention of sexual assault) Word Count: Just under 15k Also on: Ao3

Cover Art by Lilo: http://liloproductions.tumblr.com/post/170946506621/artwork-all-things-considered-by Gifset by Megan (spoiler alert): http://sailingcaptainswan.tumblr.com/post/170946398295/all-things-considered-by

A/N: Brace yourselves, everyone. This has got to be the longest thank you/author’s note ever written.

First off, a warning: This story contains mention of sexual assault.

Now, thank yous: My first thank you has to go to @theonceoverthinker for listening to my ideas and frustrations and always supporting me, even though I refused to spoil the story for her. She didn’t have much to work with, but she helped anyway. Oh, and she absolutely wrote the summary for this story. Thank you, Jenna! Next thank you goes to @liloproductions. She took my near-15,000 words and turned them into some gorgeous cover art. This was really the first piece of art I’ve ever seen based on my writing, and I couldn’t have asked for a better artist to put all the details into an actual masterpiece. I definitely still stare at this piece every so often in complete awe. Lilo, thank you so, so much! (Oh, on top of her art skills, she’s a joy to talk to.) I was lucky enough to be matched with two artists, so I want to give the next thank you to @sailingcaptainswan. Not only did she leave the BEST comments on my story as she read it, but she also created an amazing gifset, which presents highlights from the story beautifully. I refused to close the tab with the gifset on my laptop from the time it was finished to today. Megan has some serious talent. I can’t believe she produced such an incredible gifset when she had two other stories to work on as well. She’s amazing. Megan, thank you so very much! And now @best-left-hook-jones. Wow. I am so lucky to have gotten such an amzing, incredible, wonderful beta. She is the only reason this story is readable. She’s a formatting master, diction superstar, and all-around great human being. This story would never be where it is now if not for her. I really got the jackpot in the beta lottery. She’s so supportive, and I can’t find it in me to delete any of the sweet comments she left on my story. She is a saint to put up with all my questions and ramblings and crazy weird schedule. So a HUGE thank you to my word filter, my own personal cheerleader, and NPR’s newest fan. :) THANK YOU!!! Shout out to everyone who put the Captain Swan Little Bang together and helped us out along the way. I can’t wait to read all the other stories in the project!

A few quick disclaimers before the good stuff: NPR and WBUR are real radio stations/news outlets. “All Things Considered” and “It’s Been a Minute” are real shows/podcasts on NPR. Robert Siegel, Sam Sanders, Linda Holmes, and Kelly McEvers are real reporters/hosts on NPR. I do not own any of the above.

Congrats on making it to the end of my thank yous! 

Before you proceed to the story, BEWARE. There is mention of sexual assault. The rating is M for this reason, so proceed with caution. No smut, sorry.

Now, enjoy the story!

“Come in, Miss Swan.”

Emma stopped pacing the hallway and followed her boss into the office. To say Emma was nervous would be an understatement. She loved her job, and she took pride in a job well done, so she couldn’t figure out why her boss had requested her presence. And not knowing may have been worse than knowing she did something wrong and dreading the meeting all day. But she showed up at her boss’ office as soon as her shift was up, not even stopping at her own cubicle so she could get ready to head home after the mysterious meeting. Getting there early led to the nervous pacing as Emma let her mind wander, debating what she could have possibly done wrong to warrant a talk with her boss. Being called to come in was almost a relief.

“Thank you for coming by.”

Emma sat in the chair facing her boss, suddenly feeling far too low on the ground. Her boss sat across from her, seeming to tower over the big mahogany desk, and Emma actually had to look up to make eye contact. Appropriate, Emma thought, as the state of her job and general well-being was in the hands of the woman looking down at her. Her boss sighed when Emma didn’t say anything.

“You’re not in trouble, Emma.”

Regina Mills - station manager at Storybrooke Public Radio - crossed her legs under her desk, pulled the jacket of her pantsuit tighter around her, and turned her laptop so Emma could see the screen.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Robert Siegel is leaving ‘All Things Considered’.” Emma shook her head, still unsure of why exactly she was called into her boss’ office. Regina didn’t try to hide her eye roll at Emma’s inability to put the pieces together. “Robert Siegel is leaving ‘All Things Considered,’ which means there’s an opening for a host position at NPR.”

Regina sighed again at Emma’s silence, irritation creeping into her voice as she continued. “The job will be open to anyone, but NPR wants, ideally, to hire someone from one of their member stations.”

Emma nodded, a bit stunned at the course of the conversation.

“The managers at NPR are asking member stations for recommendations. They want reliable reporters who are strong journalists, and I’ve given them your name.”

Emma couldn’t be sure how far her jaw dropped, but she wouldn’t be surprised if it hit the floor. NPR was the big leagues of public radio, and working there had been Emma’s goal since her first story had gotten picked up by her college’s radio station. She’d immediately changed her major from criminal justice to journalism and radio. Journalism was Emma’s chance to give a voice to the voiceless and shed some light on matters of importance. Emma Swan had a talent for presenting news in an unbiased manner, and she had something of a built-in lie detector that repeatedly proved helpful in sniffing out the truth from the lies - a skill of great value in the world of journalism. And now Emma Swan had a real chance to work for NPR.

Realizing she’d been staring at her boss with a dumbstruck look on her face for a questionable amount of time, Emma shook herself out of it. “Thank you. Thank you so much, Regina.”

“You’ll still need to go through the application process, but your work at this station gives you an edge. Of course, there will be plenty of other people in your situation, but I know how talented you are, Miss Swan. You have a gift for radio journalism.” Emma had known Regina since high school, and she’d never heard her compliment someone like that. Her jaw dropped for the second time.

“I expect you won’t let me down.”

“Of course not. I want this.” Emma had never felt more determined in her entire life.

“You may go now, Miss Swan.”

Emma stood up and walked to the door. She paused before walking out.

“Thank you.”

Regina just nodded, not looking up from her laptop. Emma took that as her cue to leave her boss’ office. She went straight home after rushing to pack up her stuff for the day. Immediately upon arriving at her apartment, she printed the application for the job. She made the decision right then and there that she wouldn’t settle for anything less than her dream position. Emma Swan was going to work for NPR, no matter what it took.

Emma tapped her foot a few times and sighed to herself. She and nine others - she’d counted - had been called in to come to NPR’s headquarters in DC. She’d been thrilled to receive the email, at least until she was directed to a conference room she now shared with the other hopefuls. The nine other interviewees were talking amongst themselves, but Emma had no desire to get to know the competition.

A man walked in the room, effectively silencing the chatter. He looked like a man who was used to silencing rooms with his entrance, so it didn’t surprise Emma when he introduced himself as part of NPR’s Human Resources department. His name was Andrew Ventequez, but he told the competitors to call him Andrew.

“You’ve all gotten past the application review and your first two interviews. We narrowed down over 200 applicants to just the ten of you. And since the job is so high-profile and public, we decided we’d try to do something different. We’re going to make this process a little more interesting.”

Emma frowned. She didn’t want ‘interesting’. She very much wanted ‘simple and usual’.

“Most of you are from member stations, a couple of you are not. Regardless, we want to hold a competition of sorts. Winner takes the hosting gig of ‘All Things Considered’ and a regular reporting job here at NPR.”

Emma could do competition. Years of living in group and foster homes made her naturally competitive. She was going to wipe the floor with these other reporters.

“So what will this entail? Basically, we’re going to have you all work on stories, and we’ll feature them on different NPR shows. Even if you don’t get the position, you’ll have been featured. We’ll occasionally suggest stories we want covered, and the rest you’ll find on your own. We will evaluate how you cover the stories both in writing, and on air. We also want to get the donors involved. While our evaluations will make up the bulk of our hiring criteria, we will be asking the opinions of our donors.”

A chorus of chatter arose in the room. The ten applicants glanced around at each other, sizing the others up. Emma peeked around as well, intrigued by the challenge and ready to crush it.

“The competition will begin tomorrow. Today, we’ll give you a tour around the complex, and we’ll let you take some time to get to know each other.”

Emma wasn’t interested in getting to know anyone. Once the competition was over, she’d likely never see any of them again. Thinking she could escape to the hallway until the tour, she slunk back and tried to make her escape. But before she could dart out of the room, her path to the door was blocked.

“Killian Jones, Boston Public Radio. And you are?”

Emma huffed out a breath and stood up straight, taking in Killian Jones. Damn, he was attractive. He was dressed in clothes that absolutely had to be made for him - clothing just doesn’t look like that on most people. Black jeans, a dark blue button-down shirt, and a black leather jacket. Well, hot damn. Her eyes trailed upward; his shirt was strategically unbuttoned at the top, displaying thick, dark tufts of chest hair. Emma’s mouth was getting dry already. Forcing her gaze from his chest, she scanned him from the neck up - well-groomed scruff and hair of a god. It was professionally disheveled - if that’s even a thing - and it made him look good. Snap out of it, Emma.

She met his eyes, ready to narrow her own and challenge him. Boy, was that a mistake. She had never seen anything so blue in all her life. His eyes were the color of forget-me-nots, and there was so much soul in his eyes, she could get lost. Hell, she probably stared into them for an unreasonable amount of time, but she couldn’t be sure because she also seemed to lose track of time in that blue. Ripping her eyes away from the magnetic pull of his, she crossed her arms and glared at him.

“Everything alright, love?”

She didn’t realize his hand had been extended this whole time. She ignored it.

“I’m not your love.”

“Well, considering you haven’t told me your name, I don’t know what I’m to call you.” He leaned back against the doorframe - wow, she’d been so close to escaping before he trapped her - and cocked his head at her, waiting for her to say something.

Looking at the floor, she answered him, “Emma Swan, Storybrooke Public Radio.” She still didn’t take his hand. He took that as his cue to drop it.

“I’ve never heard of Storybrooke before.”

“Wouldn’t expect you to.”

“Where is it, if I may ask?”

“Maine.”

“You’re not making it easy to speak to you, Swan.” She tried to move to the door, but he got up from leaning on the doorframe to block her.

“Maybe that’s because I don’t feel like talking.”

“To me?”

“To anyone. Hence why I was trying to leave the room before you blocked me.” She may have pointed her finger at him on the word “you.” He may have smirked. The idiot.

“And you don’t want to get to know the competition? Sniff out any weaknesses?”

“Don’t need to. I’ll win anyway.”

“You’re pretty confident there, Swan.”

“My name is Emma. And I’m confident because I know I’m good.”

“So is everyone in this room,” he clicked his tongue, “allegedly.” He shrugged.

“Is that what you’re doing?”

“What?”

“Sniffing out my weaknesses?”

“I don’t think you have any.” Emma wasn’t expecting that answer. She was stunned silent. She hoped she didn’t let the shock show on her face, but by the smirk on his, she’s pretty sure she wasn’t successful at controlling that particular facial expression.

Emma raised an eyebrow in question.

“I may have just met you, Swan, but I know better than to underestimate you.” He stood up from against the doorframe and moved aside, clearing the doorway for Emma. She eyed him for a moment before stepping toward the open doorway.

As she passed him on her way out, she turned and said, “good,” leaving him to watch as she left.

Emma was no happier to see the other nine reporters at NPR headquarters the next day. However, Emma was happy to begin the actual competition. She’d been itching to do a story since she arrived in DC. Positioning herself as close to the door as possible without actually being in the hallway, she stood and waited. She wanted to get some of the complimentary coffee on the table in the far end of the room, but Killian Jones was sitting there talking to two of the other competitors. Emma figured she could go without coffee if it meant avoiding being roped into another conversation with Killian Jones.

“Alright reporters,” the NPR executive - Andrew - clapped his hands once as he entered the same conference room from the previous day. “We can’t expect your home stations to fund your housing for the entirety of the competition, so we are going to provide you with rooms at a hotel a few blocks from here.” Emma spared a glance at her competitors. Everyone seemed to be in agreement that this was exciting. Emma was certainly thrilled at the idea; the hotel Regina set her up with was pretty run-down, but it had the basic necessities. Any hotel NPR put her in was going to be a step up.

“However...” There’s a catch? “...We only have six hotel rooms.”

Emma looked around. Six rooms for ten competitors? That didn’t add up.

“We’re going to have you partner up for your first story in the competition.”

Wait, what? Emma was supposed to be competing against these people, not working with them.

“We are going to review your partner stories and eliminate two pairs.”

Now Emma was nervous. She was never big about relying on other people. In her experience, other people pretty much sucked. And now her spot in this competition depended upon another person.

“We’re going to let you all partner yourselves up, and the two of you will pick your own story together.”

This was just getting worse and worse. Emma was starting to regret not talking to anyone yesterday, except - crap. Her stomach dropped as she realized exactly what was going to happen. She was going to have to work with Killian Jones. She was sure of it, even despite the fact that he was standing with their fellow competitors - three of the females eyeing him from all across the room. She knew she was going to end up working with him.

“You can get started now. Stories are due in two days.” Andrew nodded once and walked out of the room.

Confirming her prediction, Killian immediately strutted over to where Emma was standing, ignoring the calls from other - female - reporters asking him to work with them.

“Swan,” he smiled.

“Hey, Jones.” Emma stared at her boots. She really didn’t know any of the other competitors, so was it so bad to work with Killian on one story? Maybe he’s a really great journalist, she thought to herself, he must be to have gotten this far.

“Do you have a partner yet?” Empty question. He knew she didn’t. She knew he knew.

“Um… not really.” She raised her eyes to meet his. His smile brightened.

“Would you do me the honor of being my partner?” She rolled her eyes.

“You’re not proposing, Jones.” He shrugged. “But sure.”

“Really?”

“Why not? You’ve already sized me up. And now you can tell me everyone else’s weaknesses.” She couldn’t help but smile a bit as he chuckled.

“And why would I do that? I did all the work.”

“But now we’re on the same team. We share a common enemy - or enemies, I guess.” Killian’s tongue trailed along his bottom lip in some obscene kind of way.

“Fair point, Swan.” Letting out the breath she’d been holding since that tongue thing, Emma smiled at Killian despite being unsure of what to say next. “We should figure out our story.”

“Yeah.” Emma glanced around the room. “But not here.”

“We can always go to my hotel room,” Killian winked. Emma tensed. She knew he didn’t mean anything by it; it was just flirty banter to him. But that didn’t stop her breathing from quickening.

“Um… No. Um… There’s a Starbucks down the street. There.” She hoped Killian didn’t notice how breathless she sounded.

If he did, he said nothing. “Lead the way, Swan.”

“Why don’t you reserve us a table, Swan? I’ll get the drinks.”

“I can pay for my own drink.”

“I never suggested otherwise. I simply wanted to be a gentleman.” Emma crossed her arms in the middle of the coffee shop.

“I’m getting my own drink.”

He put his hands up in surrender and followed her as she took a spot in line. She was looking at the shoulders of the woman in front of her, but Emma could feel Killian’s stare on her. She tugged on the zipper of her red leather jacket and turned to face him when he tapped her arm. He raised his eyebrows in greeting.

“I won’t buy you a drink, but can I buy you a cookie?” She raised an eyebrow; he mirrored the pose. “Something?”

“Look, I don’t like when guys pay for me. It makes them feel entitled to things.”

His eyebrows went from questioning to furrowed in mere seconds. He didn’t have to ask what kind of things. He knew. Emma frowned. She didn’t mean to give so much away. No one in this competition needed to know anything personal about her, yet she couldn't control her reactions around Killian for some reason. He was already dangerously close to learning some things about Emma's past she'd rather not revisit.

“Swan,” he said softly. She made a noise in her throat that could be considered questioning. “It’s your turn to order.” Emma felt her cheeks grow hot as she turned around and ordered a hot chocolate - she really didn’t need the coffee if she and Killian were just going to be talking. She was alert enough as is. Coffee would only make her more jittery.

After paying for her own drink, she stepped to the side to wait for it. Killian joined her moments later, a drink already in his hand.

“How do you already have your drink?” She glared at the white and green cup in his hand, thinking he must have flirted with the barista to get her to make it right away for him.

“Black coffee. Doesn’t need to be prepared.” Emma scrunched her nose. She couldn’t drink coffee without a ton of sugar and flavoring. He chuckled at her disgusted facial expression. It was weird standing there with him while neither of them said anything.

“Go get us a table or something.”

“But then who will retrieve my scone?” Of course he’d gotten a scone. “I am from Britain after all.” It was like he read her mind. She looked at him - wow, he had a nice profile.

“Why’d you move here?” He turned to look at her, blue eyes meeting green.

“Personal questions already? We've just been acquainted, Swan.”

“We're journalists. Asking questions is what we do.” She just hoped he wouldn't. And, yes, she was totally aware of the double standard there.

“Well, Swan, my brother and I had a rough childhood. Both of our parents...” he paused to consider his wording, “...left us back in England.” There was more to that. He chose that wording carefully. By the look on his face, he knew he’d been caught in the half-truth, but he continued. “We wanted to distance ourselves from those memories.”

He stepped forward to pick up his freshly-warmed scone using the same hand that held his coffee. Emma almost missed the call for her hot chocolate because she was too busy staring at him. That was all in the realm of incredibly personal. Who could blame her for staring in shock for a questionably long moment?

She grabbed her drink and followed him to a table.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright, Swan. I’ve come to terms with my past.”

“I didn’t really have a family either. I’m a foster kid.” Well, add that to the ridiculous number of personal things Killian found out about Emma today. She was just disclosing everything to him. That probably meant something. She decided not to dwell on that thought.

“‘Am’? Present tense?”

“Never really ended up with a family. My own fault. I ran away before they could realize they didn’t want me.” She gulped her hot chocolate to keep from saying more. It burned her throat on the way down and she coughed into her arm. She probably deserved the burn; maybe it would serve as a reminder to keep her mouth shut. They were only there to figure out their story.

“We can focus on our story if you want, Swan.” She gaped at him. He always seemed to know what she was thinking.

“How-”

“You’re something of an open book.” Emma narrowed her eyes. His ability to read her so easily freaked her out, but he could probably read that, too. She was thankful he didn’t show it. Instead, he ripped off a chunk of his scone and popped it into his mouth. “So, our story. Did you have any preferences?”

“I want to do something on the Harvey Weinstein Effect.”

He groaned. He actually groaned.

“What?” She gripped her hot chocolate slightly tighter than she should have, but still kept the cup’s structure functional.

“Everyone is covering the sexual assault stories.” He definitely noticed Emma tense at his words. Maybe she wasn’t the only open book in this relationship.

“People are still judging the credibility of the victims.”

“Some people are lying for the attention.” He wasn't trying to test her - that much she could tell. But he also wouldn't quite meet her eyes; he looked at the mugs for sale on a shelf behind Emma to her left instead. Perhaps he was suspicious about her connection to the issue.

“That’s true. But most people aren’t lying. And people are suggesting it was their fault - the victims, I mean - and that’s if they even believe the stories at all.” Emma sat up straighter. She was going to win this.

“Covering this - it’s not original. It won’t get us through.”

“What are your ideas, genius?” She crossed her arms. She was being overly defensive. If she were him, she would’ve been able to read her, too.

“The 25th anniversary of Aladdin.”

She exhaled harshly.

“Seriously? You want to do a story on a cartoon genie when women are getting accused of ‘asking for’ men to assault them?” She put air quotes around “asking for” and leaned in as she spoke. She was an uncomfortably close distance to his face. She could smell the coffee on his breath when he spoke next.

“Why are you pushing so hard for this?”

This wasn’t fair. He knew exactly why. He could read her. He’s probably known since she’d suggested Starbucks.

“Swan,” he sat back and his eyes dropped to the table. “I’m sorry, Swan. I’m pushing.” Emma sat back as well, taking a couple deep breaths and nodding to acknowledge his apology. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just want to understand why you're so passionate about covering an entirely unoriginal story.”

Maybe it wasn’t the most original topic, but it was important - really important. They were going to do this story no matter what it took. Emma was determined. She knew what she had to do.

“If I tell you why this means so much to me, will you do the story?” Emma’s eyes were transfixed on the place where her cup was resting on the table.

“That’s fair.” He leaned closer to her when she didn’t say anything. “Try something new, darling. It’s called trust.”

“I don’t have the easiest time trusting people.”

She hesitated, but lifted her eyes to look at the man across from her. His eyes were wide and full of compassion. She definitely looked as terrified as she felt. She wasn't really going to tell him this - was she?

“You don’t have to tell me. We can do your story anyway. I know it means a lot to you.” He was giving her an out. She could take it and they would still do her story. But why did she suddenly want to tell him?

“No. If you're sacrificing your story idea for me, for an idea you're not confident in, then you deserve to know.” He said nothing. He was going to let her do this at her own pace. She appreciated that. This was something she had tried very hard to suppress. It had been a decade - at least - since she said the words aloud. “I wasn’t always going to be a journalist.”

“Oh?”

“I was a criminal justice major at first. I wanted to be a cop.”

He grinned. “Sheriff Swan?” He was attempting to make her less nervous. It may have worked - just a little.

Killian was harmless - her lie detector never sounded with him. The therapist she was forced to see had said talking about it would help her move on. Though, admittedly, her therapist probably hadn’t meant Emma should tell an almost-stranger. Semantics. Emma decided at that moment that she would tell him. Trust - she was trusting him.

She followed his questioning. “That was the goal. Or maybe detective.”

“You are certainly tough enough to be in law enforcement.”

“Yeah, well, I ended up switching to journalism my first semester.”

She was about to tell someone her story for the first time since college. It was daunting. She usually tried not to think about it, and yet, she was about to tell Killian Jones, who she had only just met yesterday. And in the middle of a Starbucks near NPR headquarters no less. How the hell had she let herself get into this situation? And why wasn't she more freaked out about it? Damn Killian.

“I interned with the campus police. Freshman interns were almost unheard of, but I passed all the exams.” He looked genuinely impressed. “The intern mentor - his name was Neal. He was new that semester. He was in charge of all the interns. He gave us assignments and signed our paperwork and everything.”

She watched Killian’s face change as he put the pieces together. He was already ahead of her, it seemed. He immediately opened his mouth to speak.

“Swan,” his voice was low and careful. “I didn’t know - I didn’t - I wouldn’t have -” Emma had never heard Killian stutter before. “I just thought you had a story that meant a lot to you or something. Or a friend. I don't know. I never thought-” His right hand shot up to scratch behind his ear. He really hadn't figured it out until now.

“What happened to open book?” Her effort at light-hearted teasing fell a bit short.

“You’re just so tough. I didn’t think you could have gone through anything like that.”

“I don’t exactly advertise it.”

“I’m sorry for pushing. I really just thought you encountered a story somewhere that was exceptionally moving. Or maybe you had a friend that went through it.” He had no clue what to say. That was a first. “Oh, gods, Swan. I am so sorry.” Emma just shook her head. He really felt bad.

His eyes widened again with another realization. “Oh, Swan. I never meant anything by any of my comments.”

“What?” She was a little surprised he found something else to apologize for, especially when she had no idea what he was talking about.

“Liam always told me my merciless flirting would get me in trouble.” Oh. Oh. “Apologies, Swan. I never meant to make you uncomfortable.”

“No, no, no. I know you never meant anything.” Killian made a noise sounding like a cough that got stuck in his throat. “I have this superpower. I always know when someone is lying. And I knew you wouldn’t do anything.” He visibly sighed in relief. “Trust me, if I saw anything bad in you, I would not be here with you right now.”

“I still apologize. I made some inappropriate comments, and I pushed you too far. I just wanted to get to know you, and instead I’m making a right arse of myself.”

He wanted to get to know her? That was new. Even more, this was the first time a man had ever considered his own actions and apologized to her - not out of pity, but genuinely. And Emma knew Killian meant every word. Something about that made her more inclined to open up to him. None of this was in the plan, but it was happening.

Emma never would have continued if he wasn’t so genuine.

“So Neal-”

“Swan, you don’t have to.”

“Surprisingly, I want to.” And she meant it. It didn't make sense and it scared the hell out of her, but she wanted to tell Killian Jones her story. He considered for a moment before conceding.

“In that case, I would be honored to learn more about your beginnings, Swan.” He took a sip of his coffee and waited for her to take over the conversation.

She was really going to do this. Her heart was beating at what was probably a very worrying speed. She was anxious to verbalize the event after a decade of suppressing it. And maybe it made her a little hopeful. Her therapist may have been onto something - not that Emma would ever admit it.

“Neal had all the interns doing office jobs at first - mostly paperwork. And one day, he asked me if I wanted to grab some pizza after work. I didn’t want to, but I went anyway. I figured I could show him I had what it took to be put on different jobs. So we got pizza at a place near campus. The next day, I got to help with campus security.”

Killian was already visibly cringing in anticipation.

“I went back to paperwork after that. So when he asked me to grab tacos with him a few days later, I went. The next day, I got another security job.”

“Swan, you can stop.” She shook her head.

“You need to hear this to the end.”

She barely heard his whispered, “okay.”

“Neal and I kept going out. Every time we did, I’d get jobs. I think the other interns basically knew what was going on. Some of them went out with him to get jobs, too. But none of us said anything. I know it was kinda naive, but I thought the more he got to know me, the more he saw potential.”

“Wait,” Killian interrupted her story. She almost glared at him, but he looked adamant he say whatever was on his mind. “What happened - it wasn’t your fault.”

It took her a moment too long to respond. “I know.”

He nodded skeptically and pulled off a chunk of his scone. She could practically see him thinking, but he was letting her speak.

“And one night, we were out for pizza. He suggested we watch a movie at his apartment. I told him I had a lot of homework, so I was just going to head back to my dorm. He said that if I went over and just watched a movie, then I could shadow a campus officer. Not just security, but on the job with an actual police officer. All I had to do was watch a movie with him.”

She paused.

“So I did. And we watched a movie, and I went home. And the next day, I shadowed an officer for the first time.”

Killian was remarkably attentive. Emma was seriously reconsidering the conceited, self-sure image she formed of him after their conversation the previous day. But he was still going to be her competition after the partner stories - they were absolutely going to win; she was sure of it - something she had to keep in mind. She was telling him this for her own sanity, and maybe a little for the sake of their joint-story. But she was absolutely doing this for herself, and once she realized that, she found the strength to keep talking.

“He asked me back to his apartment again a couple weeks later, and, of course, I went. I wanted to shadow again. But during the movie, he- he, um… he slid his hand under my shirt.”

Killian clenched his jaw.

“I told him ‘no’. I said that I wasn’t comfortable with it, but he kept going. And then he unbuttoned my jeans...”

“Swan,” he interrupted her as he exhaled through gritted teeth.

“I was frozen at first. I knew I couldn’t do anything without jeopardizing my internship. But he kept going. I didn’t actually let him, you know, do anything. And he never asked me out again. But I didn’t have another job for two weeks. And then I got dropped from the internship program.” She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment before opening them and continuing, “I reported it to the college. It was this big thing. We went to university court and everything.”

“But?” He was smart. Of course there was a “but.”

“But the case was a he-said-she-said case, and the court sided with the ‘he said’ side.” She didn’t think Killian could move with that amount of tensed muscles, but she watched as his face fell with the news. “They just thought I was making it up to retaliate for getting fired from the program. Or they thought we must have been drunk, or that I must have been wearing something revealing - neither of which makes it okay. But the point is that no one took me seriously.”

His right eyebrow shot up to his hairline when she smiled.

“I went to the journalism department in hopes that someone would tell my story. I ended up at the college radio station. They picked it up - my story. I took the names out, more to protect myself, and they ran the story four times that first day.”

Emma took interest with a car in the parking lot visible through the window behind Killian.

“A local station heard the story and picked it up. Then the newspapers. And local TV news. The college got into a lot of trouble. I’m pretty sure they knew it was me, but they weren’t going to punish me because they’d get in even more trouble. Anyway, it was then that I saw what journalists can do. I saw how important journalism is to society. I loved that they believed me, and they actually made change happen. The college changed all their proceedings for sexual assault charges. So yeah, I switched my major the day I saw my story on the news.”

Killian put his coffee cup on the table and leaned in.

“Thank you for telling me. You didn’t have to.”

“I know. But I don’t want to let that control me anymore.”

And it was true. She felt freer already. She wasn’t sure what it was about Killian, but she trusted him completely. And her usual urge to run was nowhere to be found. That should have scared her the most. It didn’t. That must be significant. She tried not to dwell on that.

Emma grabbed her hot chocolate and took a large swig of it - anything to keep from thinking about how much she trusted this near-stranger named Killian Jones who was practically thrown into her life.

“I was right.” She put her cup down and sent him a questioning look

“Huh?”

“You don’t have any weaknesses.”

“Can I ask you something?” They were back at Starbucks. Emma was typing up the story she and Killian were meant to do together for the website while Killian was working on notes for them to reference on air.

“Of course.”

“You thought I was passionate because I had a story that meant a lot to me.” She paused her typing.

“Mhm.” He didn’t even look up from his laptop.

“Is that because you have a story like that?” She got her answer when he stopped typing and his eyes widened. His right hand darted upward to scratch behind his ear.

“Um… Actually, I did.” His cheeks went red.

“Do you feel comfortable sharing it with me?” She closed her laptop and looked at Killian.

“Well, after what you told me yesterday, I feel like telling you is the least I can do.”

“No, stop.” She put her hand up to cut him off. “I don’t want you to tell me because you think you should. You don’t owe me anything. Don’t tell me because you feel bad for me or whatever.” He looked a bit like a scolded child as a result of Emma’s stern tone.

“Swan, you trusted me.”

“Yeah, well-” She didn’t actually know where she was going with that. She didn’t understand why she trusted him - or why she still did.

“Well, I trust you as well. And if you felt better for having told me, then maybe telling you will help free me of this.”

“Okay.” She took a sip of her large hot chocolate, which she actually let Killian buy her. She also let him buy her a chocolate chip muffin.

“There was this woman-” That’s never a good start. “We, um… We were involved.”

“You know you don’t have to, right?”

“Aye. But I want to. All cards on the table.”

She nodded to motion for him to continue.

“Milah was her name. She was my British literature professor at university. It was attraction at first sight. She was beautiful and brilliant and-” he trailed off, shaking his head. “She was everything.”

“What happened?” Emma was surprised at how weak her voice sounded.

“She was married.” Emma’s mouth widened in a silent “oh.” He nodded. “I knew it when we began our relationship. She told me she filed for divorce. Her husband was a cold, cruel man.”

“She ‘told you?’” Emma wasn’t quite sure what Killian was getting at, but she was going to hear him out.

“She truly did file the papers, but her husband...” Emma decided to keep her mouth shut this time. “He refused to sign. He wouldn’t allow her the freedom of her relationships. And he had complete control of her finances as well. Unless she was with him, she had no money.” Killian scrubbed his hand over his face. “She left him anyway. She said she loved me so much, the money didn’t matter. She was able to change the bank account her salary went to, since she was still teaching. So she moved in with me. And we had all these big plans.”

“She encouraged me to use my talents as an English student to bring her situation with her husband into the light. Her husband was a rather prominent individual in the U.K., so I did it. And the story was successful.”

“But?”

“Aye, but.” He took a breath. “But her husband wasn’t happy we exposed him. She was able to get a restraining order against him, making them fully divorced. And she got her money back.” He took another breath. “But two months later, she was driving home and she drove into a guardrail on the road.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“The seatbelt was sliced by the rail, and so was she. She died in that car. And when they examined the car afterward, they noticed the brakes had been tampered with.”

“Her husband?”

“I believe so. But I couldn’t charge him because of lack of proof. They said we’d never be able to pin him to the crime.” Emma could see Killian was still torn up over the loss. “So I did what I did best - I wrote a story on it. I made it fairly clear in the story who did it, but I never actually named him. However, it was enough for the government to look into, and they arrested him for other things - fraud, bribery, failure to appear - among other things.”

“At least he got arrested.”

“Aye. I just wish it could be for what he did for Milah. She deserves justice.”

“You did what you could, and I know you might feel like it wasn’t enough, but you did a really good thing.”

“Well, thank you, Swan. She was my first real love - not just a conquest. I never thought I’d love again.”

“Thought? Past tense?” Killian’s eyes may have just sparkled as he nodded.

“Well, things change. And the future is nothing to be afraid of.”

Emma was certain she wasn’t the only one trying not to squirm in her rolling chair as she and Killian waited patiently for final preparations to be finished in the studio. Perhaps if they were alone, she could have settled some of the restlessness by chatting with Killian beforehand, going over the last lingering details again before they went on air. But seated just on her other side was Robert Siegel - actual NPR host and reason for her being there. Her right leg bounced with excitement and nerves.

Sure, she’s had a couple stories featured on NPR shows before, but she had always recorded those stories either onsite or back in the studio at Storybrooke Public Radio. Now, though, she was about to go live on “All Things Considered” with a story she was extremely proud of at NPR studios in Washington DC. This might just be the greatest moment of Emma’s life.

But apparently NPR couldn’t afford a third microphone, which was why her chair was pressed up against Killian’s, the pair squeezed in together to share the single microphone. At least they had their own headsets. But still, if Emma’s thigh was any further to her left, it would be touching Killian’s. And that was somehow even more unnerving than going live for her first story from NPR HQ.

Everything about Killian Jones overwhelmed Emma. He was sweet and smart and genuinely interested in getting to know her. She trusted him despite every experience she’s ever had telling her not to. And she wanted to be close to him - just maybe not practically sitting in his lap while she was supposed to be reporting on NPR and focused on destroying her competition, which included a certain Brit. A certain Brit whose breath smelled like black coffee, which Emma knew because he was currently breathing onto her face. She silently wished Robert Siegel would stop making conversation with Killian because every time the latter responded, she could feel his breath, hot on her cheek. It was entirely distracting, and Emma couldn’t afford distraction right now.

Emma tried to pay attention to Robert Siegel until they were to go live - ‘tried’ being the operative word. She felt like Killian was surrounding her, and he kind of was. He had an arm resting along the back of her chair, fingers dangling awfully close to Emma’s shoulder. His leg was less than an inch from her leg. And - gosh - if they leaned in to talk into the microphone at the same time, their faces would be touching.

Emma jerked her head to look at Killian when he nudged her with his elbow. He leaned in and whispered into her ear.

“Are you ready? Live in one minute.”

She shut her eyes for a moment and focused on the story. She was going to answer the questions and focus on her reporting. She needed this interview to go well. Their stories would be judged both on this interview and the written story that would go on the website. Her eyes shot to the NPR host on her right when he started speaking.

“And I’m Robert Siegel in Washington.”

This was it. Her first story for NPR from NPR studios.

“As more and more sexual assault allegations are brought up, how can we keep up with it all? With the seemingly never-ending accusations, how do we know what to believe? Here to shed some light on victim credibility are two talented reporters - one of whom may very well take my job in January - Emma Swan, of member station WSPR, and Killian Jones, of member station WBUR. Thank you both for joining me.”

Both Emma and Killian leaned in at the same time to respond. Her hair rubbed his cheek.

“Thank you for having us,” Emma got out first.

“It’s an honor to be here,” Killian added.

Focus, Emma. Focus on journalism and the words on the paper in front of you and the questions Robert Siegel was asking. Focus on anything but Killian’s beaming smile and how his coffee breath doesn’t even smell bad.

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

And she did - for the most part. She focused on her story and her responses, and she sounded not only coherent, but good - really good. And she only got distracted by Killian Jones when he absolutely gave her all the credit for their story on the air. Damn him. It was charming and honest and she could see the pride on his face. He was proud, but not of himself. He was proud of her.

When the news came in that they had passed their round and were to stay in the competition, Killian was quick to quip about them making quite the team. And he was right.

With their achievement came another prize; the remaining contestants would each be granted their own room for the remainder of the competition. It would be a welcome relief to have her own space again, but Emma couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed that she would no longer have Killian’s company bright and early each morning. They’d have group meetings, but now that they would be in nicer rooms, they had no reason to leave the hotel all the time. Not to mention that she and Killian weren’t working together anymore. But Emma and Killian wrote down each other’s room numbers when they got their room keycards anyway. Not that Emma planned to use that information or anything. Absolutely not. Because the partner work was finished and Killian was her competition again. And she had to get all thoughts of that smile beaming with pride for her out of her mind. But that, of course, was easier said than done.

Walking into NPR headquarters the following week was refreshing. Rather than being greeted by nine other reporters, there were only five other faces - only five other people she needed to destroy in order to live her greatest journalism dream. Emma saw only one problem: Killian Jones was one of those five people she had to destroy.

After getting to know him, even just a little bit, she found that she didn’t really have any desire to destroy Killian at anything. In fact, she kind of (absolutely) wanted to get to know him better. She wanted to root for him in the competition, too, because it had become clear over the past few days that he deserved the spot as much as she did. Not that she was about to give up her place in the competition to ensure he got the spot, though. Certainly not. She was slightly conflicted.

Her face fell when she walked in and wasn’t immediately greeted by a smile from Killian. She poured herself some of the coffee that was provided for free every morning and sat down in an end seat at the large table in the center of the conference room. Emma scanned the room, gazing just above the top of the phone she was pretending to use. She wasn’t about to let on that she was looking for Killian. Still, she couldn’t quite suppress the small smile that broke out on her face when she spotted him pacing back and forth in the hallway. After minutes of trying not to blatantly stare at him, he finally made her spying easier and walked in the room. He bypassed the free coffee altogether and immediately sat in the seat closest to Emma.

“Good morning, Swan.”

“Are you worried about something? That was quite a bit of pacing you did there.”

His cheeks immediately grew red, but he shook it off fairly quickly.

“You were watching?” He quirked an eyebrow.

She’d given herself up. Now it was Emma’s turn to turn red. She shrugged in response, not trusting her voice to hide her embarrassment.

“Well, Swan, it was nice of you to be worried about me. But I was merely speaking to my older brother. He’s in the Navy, and he doesn’t always get time to call. He wanted to check on how the competition was going.”

“That’s nice of him.” She winced as soon as the words left her mouth; her tone was drier than she hoped it would be. He gave her a curious look before returning his facial expression to normal. She interrupted before he could say anything. “Sorry. I didn’t mean for that to come out so bitter.”

“It’s fine, love. I understand.” He really did understand that she only sounded bitter because she never had a brother - or any relatives, really - to care about her like that.

Emma nodded in response, letting him know that she appreciated the understanding and he was free to continue talking. He took the cue.

“Liam can be overprotective for the both of us.”

“You’ve mentioned him a couple times before.”

“Aye. The best brother in the universe. He raised me, really.” Emma’s eyes dropped to her coffee cup, the contents quickly cooling. “When my mum died, my father turned to alcohol. Poor excuse for a father he was. Liam left school to work. My father spent all our money on drinks, and Liam wanted us to be prepared for the day he passed out in an alley and didn’t get up.”

Emma listened, not commenting. Killian was yet again opening up to her, and she was going to pay attention. They should probably stop making incredibly personal confessions in public places.

“That wasn’t what happened, though I think I’d prefer it. That probably makes me a horrible person, but I would rather have had my father die than abandon us like he did.” She could hear the anger in his voice. “The man was a coward.”

“For the record,” she interrupted, “I don't think that makes you a horrible person.”

He took a moment before speaking again.

“Well, thank you, Swan. I'm glad you see it that way.” Emma couldn’t believe he thought himself a horrible person. He wasn't anything even resembling horrible. She would have to make sure he knew that, but maybe she'd wait until after yet another one of his emotional stories.

“One day, he disappeared. After three weeks, Liam and I figured he wouldn't come back. We knew he hadn't passed out somewhere and finally succumbed to the alcohol because Liam checked. Every day for three weeks, he would go out after I was to go to sleep. He thought I was sleeping, but I wasn't. And I knew where he went every night. Another thing about my father; he always preferred Liam over myself. So Liam didn't have the disrespect I had towards the man - not yet, anyway. And he went out every night for those three weeks, searching all our father's frequented bars for him. No one in town had seen him. It was after those three weeks that a man came to our house. Liam knew the man from the docks. My brother always wanted to be a Navy man, so he got out on boats any chance he got. He worked at the docks for money after mum passed.” Killian paused and Emma watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed a couple times before continuing. “One of Liam's friends from the dock told us he saw our father boarding an unregistered ship. Since the ship wasn't registered, he had no idea of where it was headed or whose ship it was. He said he tried to get my father's attention and to stop the ship, but alas, it was fruitless.”

“What a dick,” Emma muttered out of instinct. She didn't really mean to say that out loud. Oops.

Killian chuckled. Phew.

“Aye. That he was.”

“Your brother sounds like a good guy.”

“The best. Had to grow up before his time, but he never complained once about any of it. He left school to work so he and I could eat. We never had much, but he would always give me more than he had himself. If we had soup for dinner, I got two helpings and he got one. At night, I had a pillow and blanket and he had a sleeping bag. He always made sure I did well in school, and he never let me worry about anything. He said that was his job and he'd take care of us both.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.” Emma could see the pride and admiration Killian had for his brother. “It took about half a year for him to win legal custody of me in court, and I still don't know how he did it. But he did. And then we decided to leave the country. Too many negative memories. We went to Boston with all our money and what few possessions were dear to us. It was near water. Then, he joined the Navy, and I attended school. And then I joined the Navy when I was of age.”

Killian really had quite the story. He seemed to look back with a sense of pride for his brother, but also something else Emma couldn't quite put her finger on. It wasn't longing or disappointment or sadness. She wished she could read that emotion, but she was fine with letting him keep talking.

“Liam was my captain. I rose to the rank of lieutenant before I got hurt.” He held up his left hand, which was covered by a black glove - a prosthetic. She had noticed it, but never had the courage to ask. It was convincing; she wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t worked so close with him. And he seemed to try to hide it most of the time. Now that she thought about it, he never once touched her with his left hand, he was always on her left side, and he constantly had his hand in his pocket. He watched her as she thought about it, shame seeming to creep into his eyes. Before she could reassure him that his hand - or lack thereof - was nothing to be ashamed about, he decided to sate her curiosity.

“We were docked away from home for some time, allowed to go into town and enjoy ourselves before our next orders came in. I had done a fair bit or drinking; seems I inherited my father's affinity for alcohol.” He spoke that last line through his clenched teeth. Loosening up, he took a breath and continued. “There was work to be done on the ship. My alcohol-addled brain decided to work on some of it. I thought I could make Liam and the rest of the crew happy by alleviating their workloads later. So I started some mechanical work.”

“Killian, I know where this is going. You don't have to keep telling me.”

He nodded. “I should spare you the details anyway.” He looked down at where his prosthetic hand rested on the table. Definitely shame. “The doctors couldn't save my hand. Liam stayed with me in hospital, taking leave from service for the time. I was an arse, but Liam made it his goal to make sure I recovered best I could and made something of myself. So once I finished physical therapy and he could trust that I wouldn't drink myself to death, he enrolled me in university. And you know how that story ends.”

Emma considered what to do next. She didn't want to say anything overly emotional, and she didn't think Killian wanted to hear it anyway. And there was something more to that story with Liam. Killian had told her what happened, but there was a feeling there, lingering just behind his words. He felt like he was always second-best to Liam. Overly emotional probably wouldn't do, although one day, she would have to tell him that he's absolutely second to none. And, god, he shouldn’t be ashamed of his disability.

But Andrew would be there soon to give them their assignment. So instead, she lifted up her cup of now cold coffee and made a toast. “To terrible pasts and broken people,” she said, taking a sip of the drink before handing the cup to Killian, who repeated the toast and took a swig of the coffee himself.

By the time Andrew walked through the door, Killian’s mood had seemed to improve, though Emma didn’t fail to notice how his gaze seemed to linger on her. How could she not notice, when she found herself sneaking her own glances at him?

They were down to five competitors now. Emma figured she might as well get to know at least the names of her fellow reporters (other than Killian). She learned their names were Jefferson, August, and Aurora. Jefferson, she found, was experimental and up for anything. He seemed a bit crazy, but that worked for some people. August was generally quiet and ultra-focused. He kept to himself with his eye on the prize, but Emma sensed he also had a gentle side. And Aurora was kind, and she cared about a lot of issues. She covered a wide range of stories, and the amount of care Aurora had for the subjects was clear.

All three of them were great journalists, but Emma felt confident she could take each one of them down. She and Killian worked together to sniff out their competitors’ weaknesses. Jefferson could be a bit too out there sometimes. August was too quiet for a hosting gig. And Aurora wasn’t much for stories about subjects she didn’t care deeply about.

Throughout Emma and Killian’s teamup, she tried to remember when she decided getting so close to a competitor was a good idea. She figured probably around the time he mentioned that they made a great team. And the amount of personal information shared by them both was incredible. Or alarming. The two of them settled into a routine. Emma had never had a routine involving anyone but herself. She just met the guy, yet they went to Starbucks every morning. And they worked, even on individual projects, together. She was even okay with going back to one of their hotel rooms. She may have fallen asleep on the hotel bed with him a few times while they were watching Netflix. The fact that she wasn’t uncomfortable with it should have terrified her. It didn’t.

Still, it was a wonder they could do such great work together when it felt that most of their time was taken up by sarcastic quips toward one another and bumping heads on seemingly everything. For two people who actually had a lot in common, they argued a lot. At least it was never over anything serious.

And Emma wasn’t stupid. She knew the talk going around. She saw the looks the other competitors gave her and Killian. They were a package deal, and everyone knew it. Even the NPR reporters they got to work with told Emma how much they loved her work with Killian. But as well as they worked together, they were competition. And Emma’s dream job was on the line. She was going to take that spot for herself. And nobody, especially not Killian Jones, was going to stop her.

Emma frowned when she walked into NPR HQ and wasn’t greeted by a sarcastic comment. Her fellow applicants were huddled together in the corner of the conference room.

“Where’s Jones?” She asked. Jefferson, August, and Aurora all stared at her in unison. Emma’s eyes flickered between the three. “What?”

“Didn’t you hear?” Aurora and Jefferson glanced at August nervously.

“Hear what?” Emma crossed her arms and stared August down. “What’s going on?”

“His brother,” August stated as if that explained everything. Emma raised her eyebrows and waited. “His brother died yesterday.”

“What happened?” Emma worried her bottom lip between her teeth.

“We don’t know. Something happened on his ship. The Navy won’t release anything yet.”

Aurora handed Emma a newspaper. “Check the obituaries.” Aurora kept her voice lowered as if Emma would scare off if she spoke louder. Emma found it immediately:

Captain Liam Brennan Jones passed away with full honors aboard the USS Jewel of the Realm on Tuesday, November 14, 2017. Capt. Jones left behind a brother, Lieutenant Killian Jones, of whom the Captain was immensely proud, and a fiancee, Elsa Arendelle. Funeral services will be held Friday, November 17, 2017 at Arlington National Cemetery, and Killian Jones will be presented with the Navy Cross on his brother’s behalf.

Emma was speechless. She immediately wanted to comfort him, but she figured he probably went home to deal with everything.

“Is he still in the competition?”

“Yeah. NPR is letting him take some time off.” Aurora approached Emma delicately - like she would break if she was too rough.

“None of us will be eliminated until he’s back, but we get to keep doing stories,” Jefferson added. Emma nodded. Good. Killian wouldn’t be eliminated for this.

“He was close with his brother, wasn’t he?” Aurora asked Emma.

“Why are you asking me? I never met his brother.”

“You two have been inseparable since the partner assignment,” August noted.

“Yeah, we all just kind of figured…” Aurora never finished that thought.

“We’re friends.” The three competitors shared a look. Emma rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “Okay, seriously? We’re just friends. Only one of us can win after all, which means the other one will lose. That wouldn’t make for a great relationship.” Emma’s comment was met with silence and less than convincing nods from her fellow reporters. “But, yes, he and Liam were close. At least from what he told me, they were really close.”

“The poor thing,” Aurora’s hand covered her mouth and her eyes turned sad.

Emma was spared having to defend her relationship - or lack thereof - with Killian when Andrew walked in the room. She didn’t pay much attention to what he had to say, instead debating if she should call later or send flowers or both. Or if she should do nothing and wait until she saw him again. She overanalyzed each option to the point where she almost drove herself crazy.

When her competitors were knee-deep in story writing, she decided to send Killian a text. The rest would be up to him.

The following day, Emma entered the conference room and nearly dropped her hot chocolate when she saw Killian across the room. He was hunched over, his head resting on his arms where they were folded on the table. Emma ignored greetings from August and Aurora as she made her way over to Killian.

“Hey, Jones.”

His head shot up to look at her, and she got a good look at him. He looked worse for wear. His hair was way past the point of being disheveled, and his eyes were red and puffy. He’d been crying recently. Judging by the way he sniffed as he sat up, he had probably cried since arriving that day.

“Swan.” He gave her a watery smile.

“What are you doing here?”

His smile, as pretend as it was, disappeared in a flash.

“This is work, Swan. I need to show up if I want the job.”

“I don’t think anyone would blame you for taking a few days.” She kept eye contact with him. He looked so broken. He shook his head.

“Need to get back to normal. He wouldn’t have wanted me to give up my shot at this job for him.”

Emma pulled her lips behind her teeth. Comforting wasn’t really her thing. She peered at the hot chocolate in her hand before she slid it over so it was in front of Killian.

“Here.” He cocked an eyebrow at her, bringing back some semblance of normalcy. “Drink it.”

“No, Swan. It’s yours.” He stared at his lap.

“You need it more than me.” He raised his eyes to meet hers without lifting his head. He was being stubborn; she knew stubborn better than anyone. Crossing her arms, she sat back. “If you don’t drink it, I’ll throw it away. You wouldn’t want to waste a large hot chocolate, would you?” She shot him an encouraging smile.

“Of course not.” He took a sip of the drink. “Thank you, Swan.”

She nodded in response. As she watched him take another long sip of her hot chocolate, she was sure having to go the morning without the beverage was worth it. The warmth was returning to his cheeks already - not that she was looking or anything. Definitely not. She was just worried about him. Yeah, just worried. She felt bad that he just lost his brother - that was all. She snuck glances at him for the next ten minutes before Andrew came into the room.

“Hello, journalists. Before we begin, I want to express condolences - on behalf of all of us at NPR - for your loss, Killian. I am so sorry.”

“Thanks.” Killian tried his hardest to smile, but his eyes remained trained on the table in front of him.

“With the loss of Captain Liam Jones, it seems more people have died from naval incidents than the Afghan War this year.”

Emma shot Killian another concerned glance. She fought the urge to take his hand to comfort him.

“Emma, we want you to take that story. Get it done today and you’ll have off the rest of the week. Plus, you’ll be immune from elimination this week. The rest of you will pick your own stories for competition.” Emma looked at Killian again and bit her lip. “Is there a problem, Emma?”

“I just think maybe Killian should take it.” Every head in the room shot up to look at her.

“I’m not sure that’s such a great idea,” Aurora started.

“Well, I know he wants to be here and do a story, and he has a connection to this one. It might help him with-” she paused when she noticed no one’s expression had changed “-closure.” Besides, anyone could tell just from looking at him that he could use the time off.

“Killian, are you up to it?” Andrew looked skeptical.

The man in question sat up straighter and avoided Emma’s gaze. “Absolutely.”

“Alright then. Killian will take the Navy story. I want story idea pitches from the rest of you in 24 hours.” He left the room, leaving the journalists to work.

Emma couldn’t concentrate on story ideas because she was too busy worrying about Killian, who hadn’t moved since taking the story. His jaw was clenched and he was stiff. He was angry with her. She opened and closed her mouth a few times before deciding that saying nothing was probably the best option. Let him talk first.

Aurora was the first one to approach Killian. “Hey, why don't you work from your hotel room? You already have your story.” Emma absolutely didn’t notice Aurora’s hand on Killian’s back.

“I’m fine here, but thank you, Aurora. I can get my work done here and then use my time off to finish funeral preparations.” His demeanor had completely changed in a second. He was personable and calm talking to her. And then he looked at Emma and the coldness returned.

“Let me know if I can do anything for you, alright?”

“Alright, lass. Thank you again.” Killian gave Aurora a nod before she walked away from him to do her own work. Killian turned to address Emma. She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off. “Don’t.”

“Let me explain.”

He held up his hand to stop her. “No. You don’t get to speak. I don’t want your pity story.”

“It wasn’t a pity story.”

“Please,” he scoffed.

“Killian, please.” Emma tried her best to stay calm. Yelling back at him wasn’t going to help the situation.

“You gave me the story because you felt bad for me.” His accent was even stronger when he was yelling.

“That’s not why-”

“I am perfectly capable of participating in this competition and winning on my own, and that includes beating you, Emma. I don’t need your help.” Her first name. Ouch. That was a new and unpleasant development.

“I know you’re capable! That wasn’t the point!”

“Save it. It was a pity story and we both know it.”

She could see that the words were uncomfortable coming out of his mouth. He didn’t mean any of this. He just needed to purge some of the swirling emotions he was dealing with.

“You didn’t have to take it.”

“You gave me a means to get ahead. I’m not dumb enough to give that up.”

“But-”

“I thought you were above the pity. That you understood. But now I see the truth,” he pushed on, not giving her a chance to get a single word out. “You gave me a story out of pity and I took it because it puts me ahead in the competition. That’s it. And now I’m done with this conversation, much like I’m done with you.”

He inched closer to her with every sentence. When he finished speaking, she got a good look at him. He wasn’t angered. He was sad - really sad. Devastated and scared and… broken. He walked away, leaving her struggling to figure out how to help him feel better when it was clear he wanted to be alone for a bit. She decided it was best to let him have that time, then she’d try. But until then, she was back to being a lone wolf in the competition.

What compelled Emma to go to Virginia and attend Liam’s funeral was beyond her. Killian was currently giving her the silent treatment. She shouldn’t have wanted to be there for him. But the look in his eyes when he’d yelled at her - he was lost. She knew the look; she’d had that look once.

So she showed up, despite everything in her telling her she had no business being there. What if he was still mad at her and didn’t want her there? God, she’d never even met Liam. What was she doing there?

Well, too late to back out now.

Emma hid, positioning herself behind a tree and behind the service. She stared at the backs of the heads in front of her - heads of Liam’s family and friends, all mourning the death of someone Emma had never met. She caught a glimpse of Killian standing over a coffin with an American flag draped over it. He was next to a woman - she must have been the fiancee, Elsa. She had her arm around Killian’s waist, the other holding a tissue to her face. Killian looked at his watch, nodded to two men in uniform - naval officers - and sat down next to Elsa.

Emma was far enough away that hearing what was being said about Liam was a challenge, but she picked up on bits and pieces. Everyone saw him as a hero - not just Killian. And he was friendly to literally everyone he met. And Killian hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d told her that Liam had raised him. Everyone in attendance seemed to know what the brothers had gone through. And Emma heard - multiple times - how Liam had always talked about how proud he was of Killian. She saw Killian’s shoulders sag a little more every time it was mentioned.

The officers folded the flag that was draped over the coffin and handed it to Killian. He stood and shook the officers’ hands. The rest of the crowd stood as the coffin was lowered into the grave.

The whole ceremony was beautiful - fitting for a man who died while in active duty. The officers left first. People lined up to talk to Killian and Elsa. Emma grew more nervous as people left. By the time the crowd had dwindled down to just Killian and his almost-sister-in-law, Emma was already well into considering leaving. She had no business being there. But when Killian and Elsa hugged and Elsa left to go home, leaving Killian to have a moment alone with his brother, she knew it was now or never. She had originally planned on giving Killian some time alone with Liam for closure or whatnot, but when she saw him sit on the wet grass next to the open grave, she changed her mind. He shouldn’t be alone. Stepping quietly out from behind the tree, she silently came up behind him.

“Jones,” her voice was far steadier than she anticipated. Killian’s head jerked around to look at her. Even from a few feet away, she could see the red around his eyes.

“Swan? What are you...” he trailed off as she approached him.

“I’m sorry.” There was more in those two words than just her condolences. Killian seemed to get that. His eyes widened and he nodded softly, taking a deep breath. He stayed silent. Emma had never known him to not have some witty comment or backhanded compliment. It was weird. She had to break the silence. “I didn’t think you should be alone.” His eyes widened even more.

“I’m hardly alone, Swan, as you saw.” She narrowed her eyes in question. “I’m assuming you were around for the service, judging by the wetness of your dress.”

She looked down at her black dress, completely unaware the drizzle had soaked in so deeply. Her cheeks reddened.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.” And there was more to those two words as well.

“It was a nice ceremony,” Emma tried again as she sat down. Killian stared out in the distance, looking just above Liam’s grave.

“It was.”

“Your brother was a hero.”

“Aye. That he was.” Killian reached into his pocket and pulled out a badge. “This is a Naval Cross. They gave it to me on Liam’s behalf. I wanted to bury it with him, but the officers told me to keep it for myself. So it’ll be like I have a piece of Liam still with me.” Killian’s gaze moved from the distance to the grass under his legs. He still didn’t look at the grave.

“You have the flag, too. Right?”

Killian shook his head and laughed dryly.

“We’re not even American - not really. Just served in the Navy.” Emma said nothing. “Liam always wanted to be a ‘Navy Man.’ He wanted to serve in the Royal Navy. But we had no desire to remain in the country where our mother fell ill and our father abandoned us, so we moved to the States. We joined the Navy here; he loved it. But we’re - or we were, I guess - British. Having an American flag as memento of him wouldn’t feel right.”

Emma’s silence continued. She didn’t know what to say. She was pretty sure there was no way to make someone who just lost his brother and father-figure feel better.

“Besides,” he continued, “I wanted Elsa to have something of Liam’s. I gave her the flag. They were to be married soon. It would have been hers if they were. It seemed right.”

“It was right.” She wasn’t great at comforting, but he needed to know he did the right thing. She knew that Liam was always so much of a hero that Killian felt he could never live up to the bar the elder brother set, and Emma made it her mission to show him how amazing he really was.

Emma moved her own gaze from the horizon to the man in front of her - the man whose wall of innuendo and sarcasm was finally down.

“Thanks for coming, Swan,” Killian took a deep breath and met Emma’s eyes with his own. “After I yelled at you back at the office, I wasn’t sure you’d ever speak to me again.”

“Don’t worry about it. You were upset and I never should have given up the story for you.”

He shook his head.

“That doesn’t excuse my outburst. I apologize.”

“It’s okay.” They sat in silence for a long moment. “You can yell at me all you want. I still wasn’t going to let you be alone today.”

“Thank you, Swan. It’s nice to have a friend, and someone who didn’t know Liam.” He sighed. “Everyone knows Liam was a hero. He was always a hero. He was a hero after my mother died, helping my father and going to work to make money so we could survive. He was a hero when my father abandoned us. He was a hero when I was a mouthy, rebellious, bloody awful teenager. And he was a hero when we both joined the Navy together. He was a bloody good captain. He was the hero again when I got hurt.”

Killian took the black glove off his prosthetic hand. There was something incredibly intimate about the act. Emma didn’t miss that. So she took the newly-exposed appendage in her own hand. She didn’t miss the way he held his breath.

She also didn’t miss the deep breath Killian took before he continued.

“And he was a hero on that last day. If only he hadn’t been so damn heroic, he would still be alive. He saved them. He saved every one of his crew members.” He paused. “He was a hero to a fault.” Killian’s voice broke and Emma watched tears slide down his cheek. He let out a watery laugh and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Sorry, Swan. You’re here to help me feel better and I’m feeling sorry for myself because my brother couldn’t stop being a hero for two seconds.”

“It’s okay,” Emma’s voice was barely above a whisper. “You have every right to be upset, especially now.” She tilted her head toward the grave.

She watched something in Killian’s face change - soften, but she was completely unprepared as he pulled her in for a hug. She wrapped her arms around him and rubbed soothing circles on his back as he let himself break down for the first time that day. He had cried, sure, but now he was sobbing - uncontrolled, uncontained.

And this was different. In this interaction, their whole relationship was changing - and they both knew it. They’d figure out what the hell was going on with themselves later. But for now, Emma was content to sit there, in front of Liam Jones’ open grave, and let Killian Jones sob into her shoulder.

This was it. They were about to find out the winner of the competition. Emma and Killian sat in the conference room, which suddenly felt all too large without the other competitors. Everyone else had slowly been eliminated over the past couple weeks, and it was now down to the pair of them. Emma glanced over at Killian when he elbowed her.

“Good luck, Swan.” He smiled at her, but she knew how badly he wanted the spot for himself, and she could see how nervous he was.

“Good luck, Killian.” She sent him a reassuring smile and took his hand, which was resting on the table. He gave her hand a light squeeze when their competition ringleader came into the room one final time.

“Ready to find out who won?” Emma nodded and Killian mumbled something unintelligible in reply. “I have a couple surprises for you.”

Emma’s head turned quickly when she heard a group of people walk into the room. She felt herself smiling when she saw her eight former competitors take seats around the table. There was a murmur of “congratulations” and “I knew it would be you two,” and Emma was overwhelmed in the best way.

Things got even more overwhelming when Robert Siegel walked in after the group of reporters. She and Killian shared a look. She was growing more anxious by the minute.

“Congratulations to both of you,” Robert Siegel began. “The executives and donors debated for quite a while on which one of you should get the spot. The final vote was not unanimous, and you should both be extremely proud of the work you’ve done.” Emma’s grip on Killian’s hand got tighter. “The winner of the new ‘All Things Considered’ hosting position, and my replacement is,” he paused for dramatic effect. Emma may have stopped breathing. “Emma Swan. Congratulations!”

Emma froze. She probably smiled, but she really couldn’t be sure. She’d actually won. She’d just gotten her dream job. She smiled, full of pride, and thanked Robert Siegel for the news. Killian looked at her, beaming with pride for her, and congratulated her, along with the other competitors. But even through the ear-to-ear smile plastered on Killian’s face, she could see the hint of disappointment in his eyes. He’d wanted that spot. She thanked him and pulled him into a hug, which she would claim was in utter joy from winning and absolutely not to comfort him. Not at all. He wouldn't want her to focus on him when she just won her dream job.

“You did it, Swan,” he whispered into her hair. She grinned even wider against his chest.

“Killian,” Robert Siegel interrupted. Emma pulled away so Killian could give the soon-to-be former host his attention. “I actually have some news for you as well. First of all, you almost won the entire competition with the piece you did on the number of Naval deaths this year. Everyone was really impressed with the work you did on that story.” Emma nudged him with her elbow. “But overall, Emma’s work was closer to the work done by a host. However,” he emphasized the word, “ the donors and executives admired your quality of work throughout the competition, and NPR would like to offer you a position as head of a new department, covering the armed forces. You would lead the entire department, but your focus would be on the Navy.” Killian’s face lit up and Emma was already hugging him again, wishing him a congratulations through her still-smiling face.

“Liam would be proud of you,” she whispered. His eyes expressed all the appreciation his mouth couldn’t while he was busy thanking other people for their congratulations.

They would both be working at NPR. That was definitely a sign, and Emma wasn’t going to ignore this one.

After Robert Siegel gave them instructions for what to do next and when they would both start, Emma pulled Killian to the back corner of the room - in front of the complimentary coffee - and pulled him down for a kiss by the lapels of that stupidly well-fitting leather jacket.

Some conscious part of her mind kept reminding her that they were in their future place of employment, so she pulled away, both of them wearing matching smiles. She let out a laugh of disbelief. “We did it.”

“Swan, let’s go for a drive.”

“What?” Emma looked up from her laptop to see Killian dangling his car keys on his prosthetic hand.

“The car. Let’s get in it.” He was grinning at her.

She crossed her arms. They’d been dating for long enough now that Emma could tell in a second when Killian was up to something. And he was definitely up to something. “Why?”

“‘It’s Been a Minute’ is on.” He was still grinning.

“So? We don’t listen to it every week. And contrary to what you seem to believe, just because we work for NPR doesn’t mean we need to listen to every show every day.”

He closed the distance between himself and his girlfriend and closed her laptop before putting it onto their coffee table in front of Emma. He held his hand out for her. She kept her arms crossed and rolled her eyes.

“I think you’re going to want to listen to this one.”

“Okay, so we’ll listen from the laptop.” He shook his head. “From the stereo.” He was still shaking his head. “You know it’s a podcast, right? We can listen to it whenever we want.” He just grinned even more and tapped his foot overdramatically. She sighed in defeat and took his still-outstretched hand.

Killian led Emma to his car, opening her door for her. She rolled her eyes again. He pretended not to notice.

Once they’d been on the road for five minutes in silence, minus Sam Sanders’ voice coming from the speakers, Emma turned to Killian.

“Where are we going?”

“Spoilers, Swan.”

He kept his eyes trained on the road. Whatever he was up to was weighing heavily on his mind. She could see it.

“You are impossible.”

He shrugged in response. Smug idiot.

Emma went to change the station. Neither of them were really listening to the show.

“No, no, no,” he raised his voice.

“What? You’re obviously not listening. I’m too busy trying to figure out where we’re going to listen. Let’s put on music or something.” She put her hand in her lap anyway.

“Just keep it on. And I am listening.” She knew he wasn’t.

“You know Sam won’t know if we’re listening or not. Relax.” Emma wished he would turn to look at her. It was really hard to read him when he was so focused on the road.

“This isn’t about Sam, love. I promise it will be worth it. Just leave it on.”

Emma let out a “hmph,” but left the podcast running. She kept looking at Killian, suspicious at his out-of-character silence. Sighing quietly, she looked out the window again, vaguely aware that Sam Sanders, Linda Holmes, and Kelly McEvers were still talking on the podcast.

“Killian, you’re literally driving in circles. We’ve been past this street before.”

He just chuckled to himself and sighed, but he seemed perfectly content with the situation.

“Just keep listening.” Emma crossed her arms and sunk into her seat in defeat.

“You know I was being productive back home.” She actually didn’t care that much anymore, but she was nothing if not stubborn.

“It’ll be worth your while.”

“Are you being cryptically vague for a reason?” He laughed in response.

“You aren’t listening, love.”

“No offense to Sam or anything, but I’m really not all that into how much TV Trump watches.”

“Well, I can hardly blame you for that, but bear with me.” She had no response. “Besides, we’re almost there.”

“Where? We’ve been driving back and forth for almost 45 minutes.”

“I did that so we could listen, which you haven’t been doing much of.” She knew that if he weren’t driving, he would have punctuated that accusation with a nose boop. Emma found herself smiling at the thought against her will. She stayed silent for the remainder of the trip, actually trying to listen to the podcast.

“And now it’s time for my favorite part of the show - the part where we listen to the best part of your week. We encourage listeners to brag, and they always do. Record an audio of yourself telling us the best part of your week, and send your audio to samsanders@npr.org. We play as many as we can. Let’s hear them.”

“We’re here, Swan.”

“The U.S. National Arboretum?” Emma read the sign in front of what appeared to be the Visitor Center. Killian nodded, but didn’t move. “Are we getting out of the car?”

“Yup.�� Killian popped the “p” before he walked around the car to Emma’s door. He opened it, smiling. His eyes were even bluer than usual. He held out one of his earbuds for Emma to take. He had the podcast downloaded to his phone - of course he did. Emma took it, playing along with whatever he was up to. They walked around the arboretum hand-in-hand - through cherry blossom trees and hollies and magnolias - until they got to the National Capitol Columns. Killian stopped them at rows of flowers in front of the columns, all of which were brightened by sunlight. Killian pushed Emma to keep listening to the last segment of the show.

“Hi, Sam. It’s Nate from New Jersey, and the best part of my week was finally getting to take my 4-year-old daughter to Disney World.” Okay, Emma had to admit that was adorable.

“Hey, Sam. It’s Killian Jones. The best part of my week was getting engaged.”

Emma’s jaw dropped.

“And that, of course, is NPR’s own Killian Jones, armed forces reporter. And his girlfriend is Emma Swan, host of ‘All Things Considered.’ NPR, bringing people together. Congrats, you guys!”

Emma heard the two guests on the podcast wish them well, but her jaw was still practically on the ground.

“Swan.” Killian got down on one knee and fumbled around in his jacket pocket for a little black box. “Emma Swan, from the moment I laid eyes on you our first day of the competition, I knew I wanted to end up here. We make quite a team, and you’re still here despite seeing me at my absolute lowest. So Emma Swan, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” She wanted to kiss that beyond-cute, hopeful look right off his face. “Will you, Emma Swan, marry me?” He lifted the lid of the box to reveal a diamond ring. It was simple, consisting of a diamond centered on the silver band, which was twisted on either side of the diamond. It was classic and gorgeous. He really knew her well. He raised his eyebrows, alerting her to the fact that she still hadn’t answered the question. Immediately, she started nodding.

“Yes! Yes, Killian.” He stood up and slid the ring onto her finger. It was a perfect fit. She probably shouldn’t have been surprised about that at this point. The sun made the diamond glisten. Emma never imagined she’d have a fairytale romance and an over-the-top proposal from a dashing hero, but here she was. She locked eyes with her brand new fiancé, happy tears threatening to spill from her eyes. One of her hands found the back of his neck and the other rested on his chest as they both leaned in and kissed - in front of the flowers and columns - for the first time as an engaged couple.

He gave her a minute to collect herself when they finally needed air enough to pull away, and neither one of them could stop smiling. He took her left hand in his right, enjoying the feeling of the silver band against his fingers.

“Shall we enjoy the rest of the arboretum, my love?” She nodded, dangerously close to letting out a giggle.

Walking through one of the gardens, Emma looked up at Killian. “You were pretty sure of yourself back there, huh?”

His eyebrows furrowed.

“What do you mean?”

“You told Sam the best part of your week was getting engaged, not proposing. You must’ve been pretty sure I’d say yes.”

His prosthetic hand shot up to scratch behind his ear.

“I was strongly hoping you wouldn’t reject my proposal.”

She kissed his reddening cheek.

“You had nothing to worry about.”