#you know who also loves a musical?? nate! who is also probably returning

[dancingbycandlelight]

so, apparently the finale is called “so long, farewell” which has so many layers and connections i can’t deal with it. firstly it’s another musical lyric as a title (this time unedited from its original text unlike the la cage episode) and we already know that ted loves a musical.

secondly it brings back the julie andrews conversation in episode three which was possibly one of my favourite interactions of the entire season.

but thirdly and (possibly most importantly??) the entire plot of the sound of music is that maria is sent somewhere she originally doesn’t want to go, she gets there and feels instantly out of her depth. the team children try to force her out and the adults don’t take her seriously but gradually, through her unwavering positivity and gentle care she makes an impact on every single person. kids and adults alike, all changed for the better because of her guidance. but then!! maria falls in love, thinks she is no longer needed and she Leaves. she runs, goes back to the convent where she feels safe but then, after a honest conversation and a realisation of her own purpose and the importance of being true to her heart she Returns! she comes back, her role slightly changed but still just as important and involved.

all this time I’ve been worried that ted will be like mary poppins and leave when he is no longer needed, when he’s served a purpose. but this episode title has me feeling (hoping) that maybe he’s like a different julie andrews character after all..

[trentsixtysix]

Request: a late night drive with T and ”the color violet” is playing and y/n & Trent had just had an argument and he’s driving very fast- you can write it how you want it :)

The Color Violet

WARNINGS: Dangerous driving, Toxic/Manipulator Trent, Trent being mean ASF, mentions of sex

I am obsessed with this song + this request! I'm not the proudest of this but sorry it took so long + I apologise if this isn't your cup of tea <3 This also reminds me of that one Nate + Cassie scene

Word Count: 2.0k

Angst

'You just can't help yourself can you?' He reprimanded, taking a brief moment to glance at you whilst you tried to keep your patience in the passenger seat, letting him continue.

You were both on the way back from a friend's house, where all of your other friends were gathered, and for some reason Trent just couldn't stop annoying you.

It started off innocently; making a comment about how one of your friends looked nice in the outfit she was wearing; and you knew what game he was playing, he wouldn't stop until you were a jealous mess in front of them all.

You knew why - the pair of you hadn't made love in weeks due to him being away for the World Cup, and on top of that you’d been ignoring him lately as he only called you once during - it was his fault yet here you were facing the wrath of it. As much as you tried your best to ignore them, your blood was boiling when you saw how handsy they were with each other; helping each other around, him reaching the top cabinet for her whilst she obnoxiously complained of how short she was, and the way he purposely laughed at everything she said.

You thought you were past the point of childish behaviours like this, and what first started off as a joke had seriously hurt you at the end of the night, which is when you decided to take matters into your own hands.

Two can play at this game. You thought, deciding this was the perfect chance to try the same thing with one of your male friends before you all left; refusing to look away from his lips and smirking like an idiot as he pecked your cheek, playfully dancing with him maybe a little too sensually as music played, but no one knew about you and Trent, which meant he had to sit back and witness it without saying a word.

You knew Trent had seen it all, he was watching you both from the corner of his eyes, you could tell by the look on his face he was fuming, and the wink you gave him did not help the situation, causing Trent to grab you by your arm and drag you to the car.

'Get off of me!' You shrieked, internally giggling as you were glad he was as worked up as he had made you before.

'Shut your mouth Y/n, you're so drunk.' He complained, which was true as you probably wouldn't have acted that way sober, regardless, he was the sober one who did the same thing before.

'Why are you mad? Weren't you enjoying it in there with your girlfriend?' You mocked, anger returning to you as you rolled your eyes and turned the other way.

'You just can't help yourself can you?' He reprimanded, taking a brief moment to glance at you whilst you tried to keep your patience in the passenger seat, letting him continue.

Your phone had automatically connected, playing the last few songs from your playlist as you both bickered over them.

'So it's okay for you to do it?' You challenged.

'Do what? Be nice to a friend?' He said, laughing in disbelief.

'You knew exactly what you were doing Trent.'

'And you didn't? Could see the tent in that prick's pants from a mile away.'

'Nice to know at least someone is getting hard for me.' You slammed, jabbing at the fact you hadn't been touched since he left for the World Cup, the same World Cup you didn't go and visit him for - and in the one day he'd been back you still hadn't spoken properly with each other.

'Are you serious? You know how busy I am Y/n, don't be a fucking brat.'

'And I'm not busy? I always make time for us, for you.' You explained, starting to become a little annoyed at his dismissal.

'What us? You're the one who said we're nothing, you're the only girl I fuck and you know that so why does it matter?' He asked, a little brutally.

'I could ask you the same thing, why do you care who I dance with?' You wondered.

'Because you are mine regardless. It doesn't matter what I do because these girls don't matter to me, but I can't have another guy touch you as long as whatever this is, is going on.' He explained, the vein in his forehead becoming more prominent, and all you could do was chuckle at the audacity he had.

'You're a joke, I'm not yours, never have been and never will. You can ask her to sleep with you next time, or to cry to about your problems because I won't do it anymore.' You promised, eyes becoming teary now.

'It was just a bit of fun, you don't have to cry all the time.' He said.

'Wonder why I'm crying all the time? Tell me Trent, who's making me cry all the time?' You questioned, watching as he fell silent, not remorseful just annoyance on his face as he began to speed up, suddenly hitting you with a jolt as you were startled with the change of speed.

'Trent calm down.' You advised, placing your hand on his thigh as you watched the speedometer gradually get higher and higher, but instead of listening he turned the music all the way up, drowning you out.

'Okay that's enough now.' You added, feeling an uncomfortable pit form in your stomach, clutching the grab handle above you as you unknowingly dug your fingers into Trent's leg.

He simply stared away from the empty, isolated motorway and instead placed his eyes on you, watching you emotionless for a few moments as your fear was presumably extremely visible.

His face didn't give anything away about what was going through his mind, you weren't sure what he was thinking and were shocked he had you in this scenario in the first place; he always promised you he'd keep you safe, but lately everything he'd been saying had been turning out to be lies, and you knew at that moment this was out of your control, shutting your eyes as the car somehow managed to go faster wishing he’d look at the road in front of him - all whilst you were praying for the journey to end.

The only thing you could hear was the sound of cars flying past from the other side, your wheels gliding along the road and the song in the background on full blast; the song the two of you would listen to when he'd pick you up to stay the night, the one on your late night drives to McDonalds, and the song that would just instantly remind you guys of each other - The Color Violet.

'Trent please stop.' You begged, panic audible in your voice as he continued to ignore you, not even slowing down slightly even when you saw cars begin to surround you again, fearing the worst.

'Trent?!' You shouted, even though you knew how stubborn he was, and knew he wouldn't listen to you.

You'd pissed him off and you didn't even do anything; the two of you weren't even dating, and you'd stupidly been involved with him for the past year, hopeful of him to make it official with you but every time you thought you were close, you'd find out he'd flown out a new instagram model or took another girl home after a night out.

Despite the endless amounts of false hope he gave you, you couldn't find yourself to let him go, and he eventually swore off sex with anyone other than you, even if you weren't in a relationship. He wanted you without the responsibilities and connection that dating you would include, and although this upset you, you stayed quiet.

'Say something, just please slow down baby.' You urged, watching as you slimly missed the car in front of you as he swerved into another lane, seriously not knowing what the outcome would be as you began to whimper in fear slightly.

Your eyes were shut for the remainder of the journey, and you felt at peace when you were brought back to a normal speed, opening your eyes slightly to see familiar roads surrounding you, aware you were approaching Trent's home now.

He parked up on his drive, staying still for a moment as you both sat in silence, your heart still beating incredibly fast, which he knew as he could hear you trying to regulate your breathing.

You didn't want to stay with him tonight, if his actions weren't enough, his driving had scared you completely, but you weren't about to ask him to drop you off and spend any more time with him in a vehicle.

'Why are you looking at me like that?' He asked, genuinely concerned as you weren't sure what was going through his head the past 15 minutes.

'Come on, you don't actually think I would hurt you?' He asked, getting closer to you, caught off guard when you turned your head away from him.

'Y/n. I knew what I was doing, there's no way I'd actually let anything happen to you.' He explained, watching as you just left and walked up to his door, aware he would have to eventually follow you and unlock it for you.

You walked straight past him as he let you both in, trudging upstairs to the familiar home, the home which was practically yours at this point, and locked yourself in his bathroom to take your makeup off and got dressed into your sleeping clothes, taking a bit of time to decide what to do now, unsure if you’d stay the night.

When you returned he was in bed already, laying awake and springing up when he heard your footsteps.

'Can we talk?' He asked, noticing you were about to leave the room.

'Where are you going?' He pushed, whilst you ignored him.

'My uber is waiting.' You explained, calmly.

'Y/n, don't be like that.' He laughed, patronising you almost.

'I can't do this anymore, this whole night just put into perspective how exhausting this is Trent.' You sighed.

'This is exhausting for you?' He repeated, almost offended.

'I deserve someone that won't hide me, won't need to make me jealous. You didn't even let me cheer you on during the World Cup for God's sake.' You laughed, tired.

'You're serious? You agreed and said there was no need, that you wanted to be private.' He argued.

'Only because you said that first, you don't even have the guts to make me your girlfriend.'

'So that's what this is about? You're mad you're not my girlfriend when that was never the deal.' He confirmed, looking rather pissed off at you now.

'Just know that I've always cared about you, and that this was more than a hookup to me.' You told.

'Me too Y/n, I've told you things I've never told anyone before, opened up to you about things I wouldn't even admit to myself, you've always been special to me, why can’t you see that?’ He revealed, eyes welling up as you both stared at each other.

‘I do see that, and I love you-.’

‘And I love you back?!’ He emphasised, annoyed at you now.

‘I know you do, but you don’t let yourself show it, see how easy it is for you to argue with me right now?’ You told him, remaining calm.

‘If a label is what you're after then I can’t help you.' 'I'm sorry.' He said, missing your entire point but at the moment you were too over it to even argue with him; it was like talking to a brick wall.

'I better go then.' You sniffled, making your way down to the taxi, and the further you walked away from him the more you struggled to control your tears, eventually letting it all out as you got inside the car, not even attempting to compose yourself infront of the driver.

You took a deep breath, looking out of the car window and up to one of the lit windows of his house, seeing him sat there watching you, eyebrows furrowed and a tear falling from his eye as he watched you leave, before finally closing his curtains aggressively.

That was the last time you'd seen him, and you brought your emotions to a halt as you recognised the song playing in the car at this time of night, eyes closing in exhaustion as you just couldn't seem to escape The Color Violet.

[bqstqnbruin]

One in a Million

I know I said I was going to read but I had to finish this instead SO here's a fic for @antoineroussel's summer fic exchange! I will say that I did have a fight with trying to post this because all the place cards were being tedious and the first one is really uncomfortably large to me but I don't know how to fix it. The links at the end also gave me issues so let me know if can't see the dresses or anything. I wrote this for @luvsherleafs! Love ya, hope you like this!

Warnings: mentions of swearing, alcohol mentions, some bullying from other characters (they aren't important but they're mean)

Yes that is the ending

WC: 6.4K

_____________________________

Holly had her place card in one hand for her friend's wedding, knowing that she was placed at the unofficial singles table, and what was probably the largest glass of wine she had ever seen in her other. She didn’t care too much; she definitely tried to find a date to Emily’s wedding, but every friend she asked was conveniently busy that weekend: Carter was going to be in Greece visiting his family, Nate had family coming up from Florida that weekend, Grace was going to be at a wedding out in Pittsburgh, Adam was on vacation with his college friends that Holly hated, Robbie never answered her texts in the first place, and Liz had invited herself, which was enough to piss Holly off to the point where she didn’t even bother asking anyone else. Going to the wedding alone was fine.

People did that all the time, right?

Holly checked herself in the mirror of the bathroom before heading into the hotel ballroom to find her seat. The maroon dress she was wearing hugged her body well enough that she was fine wearing it tonight, but if she was being honest, she only wore it because it was the only thing she could find that she didn’t hate while she was shopping. She just needed a few drinks in her to forget that she wasn’t too fond of her outfit, and she would be fine. 

The ballroom was hectic and overwhelming, Emily’s college friends and Kevin’s family already occupying the dance floor, the music blaring and somehow still not as loud as the noise coming from the wedding guests.

Holly couldn’t help but groan, knowing that she was going to spend the night alone in what was hopefully a table in the corner. She didn’t really know anyone besides Emily, just being acquaintances from work more than anything. She was surprised she even got invited to the wedding, considering she was sure no one else from their office had gotten any invite and Emily was definitely closer to their other coworkers than she was to Holly.

Table 12 already had stuff set at every seat except for one, with no one to be found to claim any of it, leaving Holly to take the only seat left and sit there by herself. 

“I thought I was the only person who was going to be here alone,” she heard someone say, looking up to see the first person return to the table, taking the seat next to her. The curly haired boy with a stupid smile on his face plopped down, his hands folded in front of him on the table. “I’m Matthew.”

“What makes you think I’m here alone?” she asked him, despite believing the answer was obvious. 

“Well,” he starts, pointing out to the dance floor to a couple wrapped in each other's arms, dancing way too close and way too slow for Hollys liking considering a classic rock song was playing. “Carson and Cameron are here together, as are Michelle and Nathan, Jacob and Anna, and Eloise and Sadie. That leaves you and me as the last two seats, unless you’re sharing a seat with your date, or you’re at the wrong table.”

Holly felt her face get hot at his observation, narrowing her eyes at this stranger who was already reading her way too well for her liking. “Why do you know all of them?”

“I grew up with Emily, her childhood friends are my childhood friends, and you, my other dateless friend, are not one of them. I’m Matthew.” 

“I’m not dateless,” she tries to defend herself.

“Ok, ‘Not Dateless’” Matthew starts, Holly unable to stop herself from rolling her eyes at the Dad joke, “Where’s your date then and why aren’t you sitting at the table with them?”

“I’m with him,” Holly panics, pointing to a random guy on the dance floor.

“No, you’re not,” Matthew teases, a stupid smirk on his face that made Holly more irritated with each passing second. 

“And how would you know that?” 

“Because,” he starts, his gaze following back to the dance floor as they watched a guy approach him with drinks, kissing him quickly before they went over to their own seats, “Collins is here with his boyfriend Andreas.” 

“No, not him,” she tried to play it off, pointing to another guy who immediately was greeted by someone she could only assume was his girlfriend based on how they kissed each other.” 

“You still want to try to keep this up, or are you just going to tell me your name and why you don’t have a date?”

Holly chewed the inside of her lip, shifting slightly to try to pull her dress down her legs a little more. There was no reason why this Matthew guy should be egging her on the way he was. But there was something about that smirk of his that she couldn’t resist, which was a definite sign that she needed alcohol in her system as soon as possible, the glass in front of her suddenly looking like it wasn’t going to be enough as she took a long sip of it. “Every person I asked had other plans,” she finally admitted, hating that she had to say it out loud. 

It shouldn’t bother her as much as it did, but she wished she had someone to go with her, someone who could match their tie with her dress, who would sit next to her in her car so she wouldn’t have to listen to her ‘Songs that make me want to walk into a river in a good way?’ playlist by herself for the half hour drive back to her apartment. She couldn’t even find a friend to sit next to her while they ate food and danced like idiots for a night. It was humiliating when she thought of it that way.

“Dates are overrated, anyway,” Matthew tells her, seeing her change in expression. “If you really want a date, I can be him for the night.” 

Holly can’t help but laugh, relaxing into her seat as everyone else starts to shuffle back to their tables, the bridal party about to come in. “Only if you tell me why you don’t have a date.”

“I told you, they’re overrated.” 

“Maybe, but they’re still nice.” 

“I didn’t even ask anyone.” 

“You didn’t ask or you couldn’t get anyone to come with you?”

Holly smiles as Matthew pretends to be hurt, a groan coming out from him as he clutched his chest. “Oh, you know how to hurt me,” he stops, still waiting for her to tell him her name.

“Holly.”

“Holly, you know how to hurt me already. But, most of my friends are back home for the summer, so it wasn't worth it to ask anyone.” 

“I was going to say, it would seem weird that you wouldn’t be able to pull a date,” Holly lets slip.

Matthew smirks at her, raising his eyebrow as he leaned closer to her so their tablemates don’t listen in on their conversation. He drapes his arm around her chair, getting so close to her that she can smell his cologne over everything else around her. “And why would that be?”

“Despite being a pain in the ass to complete strangers?” Holly starts, taking in a deep breath, finishing her glass of wine. With the alcohol coursing through her, she heard herself say, “You're not horrible to look at, you don’t strike me as the guy to have a hard time getting a girl.” 

“And I could say the same thing about you, Holly,” Matthew told her. He pulled away, one of the guys he had pointed out before greeting him with that weird handshake guys always do.  The crowd quieted down after a few minutes, the DJ announcing the bridesmaids and groomsmen’s entrances before Kevin and Emily finally came in. 

Matthew leaned over to Holly before the bride and groom came in, the stubble on his chin and the heat of his breath tickling her cheek as he whispered, “Save me a dance?” 

Holly wasn’t exactly sure how she got here, surrounded by skinny blonde women and incredibly in shape hockey players considering she was neither, but here she was, at the wedding of one of Matthew’s teammates having the time of her life. She had been to her fair share of weddings, but this wedding was, by far, the best one so far. 

She actually knew exactly how she got there. After Emily and Kevin’s wedding, Matthew had walked her to her car, told her he was actually planning on staying the night in the hotel in the rooms they had blocked off and invited her to stay with him. Any other day or any other person, Holly wouldn’t dream of saying yes, but there was something about Matthew that she couldn’t say no to. With an emergency overnight bag always in the trunk of her car, she had no reason to say no to the man who made the wedding she dreaded that much more tolerable and enjoyable.

The next morning, the two of them were sitting at breakfast when he said, “So, there are a million first dates every day. Want to become my one in a million?”

Holly couldn’t help but laugh, starting to choke on the coffee she was drinking when he said that, a stupid grin on his face like he was so proud of the line he just delivered. “How often does that line work for you?”

“Apparently not as often as I would like,” he groans, that smile still on his face, the one Holly couldn’t resist mirroring. 

“I guess I can be your one in a million just once.”

The first date turned into a second, which turned into a third, which turned into them being together for one month, then two, now three months into a relationship and Matthew officially calling her his girlfriend and wanting to introduce her to all his teammates. What better way to do that than at a wedding, the same type of event where they first met? 

“You are,” Matthew whispers in her ear, slipping his arm around her waist to pull her close to him, “The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” Matthew dips down to kiss her, pulling her as close to him as he possibly can, hearing the whistles of his teammates around them to ‘get a room,’ Holly blushing knowing that Matthew already had the room key tucked away in his pocket for later that night.

“I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to say that about the bride tonight,” Holly teases, giving him a quick kiss as everyone clears off the dance floor, dragging Matthew along with her. 

Matthew shrugs, rushing in front of her to get her seat for her, surrounded by his teammates and their dates for her to sit with. “I don’t really care about that, I care about you.” 

His hand slips onto her thigh as the bridal party comes in, his teammate looking happier than she had ever seen him before. Holly sat there with Matthew, his fingers tracing patterns on her leg through her dress, thinking about her own wedding.

Would she get married to Matthew? Or was he just a pit stop on the way to her actual future partner? Would the bridal party wear the blue and yellow color scheme she had picked out for the longest time on a Pinterest board, or would she end up with another color scheme that her partner would also like? Would her childhood best friend be her maid of honor, would her brother, would it be someone else? Would her dress be the one she saw that she fell in love with when she was out with her mom that one time, the one with the long sleeves and beaded top, a slit that would drive her future partner crazy and most of all, had pockets?

Would she be happy with her life after her wedding? 

“What are you thinking about?” Matthew pulls her back to reality, whispering in her ear before placing a kiss on her cheek. 

Holly looks at him, not wanting to freak him out about thoughts of the future when their present relationship was still so new. “That the bride is the most beautiful woman here,” she says, pulling a small laugh from Matthew.

“She’s got nothing on you.”

Matthew couldn’t keep his hands off Holly the entire night, anxiously waiting for their first night away together in the hotel room he had gotten for them, the rest of the team probably feeling the same as he did. But this was Holly, the one he met by chance at a wedding, and the one he could already see himself marrying despite the fact that they had just met. His mom always told him and Brady that they would know fairly soon when they found their person, and he was sure the second he saw Holly sitting alone at the table that night that he was going to spend his life with her.

“You seem nervous about something,” Johnny said, following Matthew’s gaze as Holly left the room to use the bathroom.

“Where did you and Meredith go for your first night away together?” Matthew blurts out to his teammate.

Johnny looked a little surprised by his question, searching his brain to remember when that even was. “I want to say it was just over the off season when we first started dating? She had a weekend off and we went up to her parents cabin somewhere in Pennsylvania. Why?”

“Holly and I haven’t had the chance to spend the night away with each other. She’s been busy with school and work and I want this to be worth it for her.” 

Meredith leans over, having been listening to her husband's conversation. “The way you look at her, I’m sure she already thinks you’re worth it. She wouldn’t be here thrown into the fire with all the guys if she didn’t think it’s worth it.”

Matthew relaxes into his seat, Meredith and Johnny going on reminiscing about their relationship while Matthew’s mind went elsewhere. He wanted this night to be perfect for Holly, he just didn’t know how he was going to do that. He could sneak off to the front desk before they head up, and ask what they could do, what they could send up, that he would pay for anything and everything. Worst case, he asked Holly what else she would want, and he could get it, no questions asked. 

----------

“I always thought you were going to end up with him,” Holly heard in the bathroom. She peered through the crack in the stall door, seeing two of the wedding guests washing their hands at the sink. She had no idea who they were talking about, but she couldn’t make herself known now. They had to know someone else was in the bathroom with them since the door to her stall was closed, right?

“He’s only been dating her for, what, three months? Not even? They’ll break up,” the other girl shrugs. She turns to rest her back against the sink, her phone in her hand. “I mean, look at her,” she says, turning her phone to her friend.

“She’s ok. I mean, you’re so much better.” 

The other girl shrugs. “Matthew wouldn’t date someone like that for long, come on. She’s nothing like the girls he’s dated before.”

Holly felt her breath hitch at the drop of Matthew’s name, finally connecting the dots that they were talking about her, talking about they didn’t think she was good enough or pretty enough for Matthew, that he had never ‘dated someone who looked like her’ before and they didn’t get why they would when the girl standing there with the phone, whatever her name may be, was clearly a better match for him. 

She knew exactly what they meant. Holly wasn’t the smallest person; she was curvy, she filled in her clothes, and she loved exactly how she looked. The body she has is the body she wants, but she was always wary of her body being the body a guy would want. She had been dumped many times because of her size, and she wasn’t even that big. She was average, she looked fine, but there were some awful men who didn’t think so. Matthew had been one of the first ones to not seem to care, but what if he really did? What if the girl in the bathroom got to him and made him realize that he could do better than Holly?

The girls leave the bathroom, Holly coming out of the stall to wash her hands. She looks at her reflection in the mirror, the conversation she overheard having clearly shaken her, wiping away the tears that she didn’t know had fallen down her cheeks, making a beeline to Matthew. He was the one she wanted to go find be with. 

“Hey, you’ve been gone a while,” Matthew says, his face lighting up when Holly finally sits down next to him. 

“Uh, yeah,” Holly says, clearly not all there, “Long line for the bathroom, girls needing help doing touch ups, you know, the normal.” 

Matthew stares at his girlfriend, her hair slightly different than how it was when they left that morning, her eyeliner gone, and just overall, off. “What’s up? Something’s wrong.” 

“What?” 

“Did something happen in the bathroom?” he asks, a concerned look on his face as he gently takes her hand in his. 

“Um,” Holly swallows, not wanting to talk about that with all of his teammates around. She wasn't even sure who the girls really were, just that they were sitting a few tables away, potentially there as each other dates from what it looked like. “No.”

“Holl,” Matthew starts.

“How much longer do you want to stay down here?” Holly cuts him off. 

Matthew takes a second to process, looking out to see that a lot of his teammates had already left to go to their respective hotel rooms, the party already dying down for the night. “As long as you want to, I guess.” 

Holly gets up suddenly, dragging Matthew along with her. “We’re going.” Holly marches past the girls at the other table, stopping in her tracks to turn and face Matthew, catching him off guard with a kiss right in front of them. 

Matthew relaxes into it, wrapping his arms tightly around Holly and forgetting for a moment where they were. He pulls away, a grin on his face to mirror his girlfriend. “Anything you want tonight,” he says, tightening his grip on her, “I will do, no questions. Anything for you.” He leads Holly out to the elevators, not noticing the smirk she flashes the two girls, their jaws dropping in disbelief as he eagerly pulls her away. 

Holly didn’t know why she was nervous. She had no reason to be. How could she be nervous about being maid of honor at her best friend’s wedding? She had been by Fiona’s side through literally everything they encountered together, from her first breakup with her first boyfriend Malcolm back in high school, to her panic when she thought that she would lose Patrick to another woman for whatever reason she had planted in her head only to find out that he was being weird because he was planning on proposing and could barely function as a human without her. 

So why the fuck was she nervous? 

Maybe because she found it weird that not only was she Fiona’s maid of honor, Matthew was Patrick’s best man. The weirdest part of their relationship wasn’t meeting at Emily and Kevin’s wedding over a year ago, it was realizing that each other’s best friends were getting married to each other, having met in college, falling in love, and asking the two of them to be the head of their wedding parties without so much as thinking about the fact that they would be dating each other.

Holly and Matthew were standing right in front of Fiona and Patrick, the wedding party being announced by their DJ partner pair by partner pair. Matthew had been acting weird most of the night; not about standing by Patrick’s side, but for some other reason that he wouldn’t tell Holly. 

Maybe that’s what was putting Holly on edge, the inability to read Matthew despite the fact that they had been dating for a year already. Shouldn’t she be able to tell more about him other than ‘something was off?’

She feels Matthew’s hand take hers as the couple in front of them get announced. His normal calm demeanor is masked by the cold sweat on his hands, coupled with the fact that he was obviously shaking about something. “Are you ok?” Holly asks him.

Matthew swallows, feeling a lump form in his throat. “Yeah, yeah,” he croaks out, “I’m good.” Something about this wedding made Matthew uneasy. He had the gut feeling that something was going to go wrong, but he had no idea what it was. The anxiety in the pit of his stomach, that weird feeling of static inside his body that he couldn’t make go away no matter what he did. 

Holly and Matthew are announced as the maid of honor and best man, their cue to go out. Matthew feels Holly pull on his arm to get him to enter the ballroom for Fiona and Patrick’s reception. He felt like he was being dragged into much more than a wedding reception for his friend, trying to put on the biggest smile as he could without looking fake while he and Holly glided in, doing the little spin and dip the two of them had planned as their entrance. 

Matthew looked into Holly’s eyes, praying that she couldn’t see the fear in his eyes over whatever he felt was coming. She smiles at him, the love in her eyes instantly making him feel calm. There was nothing he could be afraid of when he was with Holly. She was the one he loved, so what could go wrong? 

The two of them go off to the side, Matthew’s arms wrapping around Holly and pulling her close to him as they saw their best friends come in, the new husband and wife making their entrance for the first time together, sharing their first dance. 

The crowd breaks up, Holly and Matthew splitting up as they go to see their friends. Matthew sees some people he knew through Holly, some he knew through Patrick, but he didn’t realize until now that he really didn’t know anyone. He wasn’t close with anyone at the wedding besides Holly and Patrick. Matthew beelines to the bar, hoping that the alcohol would help soothe whatever anxiety he was feeling.

“Hey, man,” Matthew hears, feeling someone hit his back in what was probably supposed to be a friendly pat, sending his stomach straight into the bar. He turns around, seeing his friend Brighton. He shouldn’t even call him his friend; he was just some kid he knew growing up that never seemed to get the message that his overconfidence and pompous attitude wasn’t appealing to anyone. “Was that your girl that you walked in with?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s Holly,” Matthew says, getting his drink, finishing in almost immediately and setting it back down on the bar. He looks at the bartender, not sure if he should ask for another drink but getting one anyway. 

“She’s hot,” Brighton says, leaning against the bar with his back towards the bartender, scanning the venue.

“Um, thanks?” Matthew says, not sure how else to respond to that. It’s not like he was wrong; he of course thought Holly is hot. He thought she’s beautiful, lovely, gorgeous, absolutely perfect. There was nothing he could find about her that he didn’t like. It was just weird to hear Brighton say it. 

Brighton mutters something, Matthew not caring enough to even ask him to repeat it. The two of them watch Holly and the bridesmaids dancing with Fiona, all of them enjoying their time together. Holly was beaming. Matthew could feel the smile growing on his face while he watched her have fun, his heart skipping a beat when she waved at him before her attention was pulled back to her friends while they danced to an old Fall Out Boy song. 

“So is the next wedding we’re going to yours?” Brighton asks him, pulling Matthew back down to earth and away from Holly.

He felt his heart racing, not in the way it did when Holly looked at him. It was the static feeling back from before. Despite the fact that their entire relationship was established at weddings, it wasn’t something that Matthew had thought about. They met at a wedding, they first said ‘I love you,’ to each other at a wedding. He knew she was the one at a wedding, but he didn’t think farther than that. He didn’t really process what being ‘the one’ meant for him. “Probably not.”

“You haven’t even talked about it?” Brighton asks, a genuinely shocked look on his face. 

Matthew shakes his head, suddenly feeling the need for twelve more drinks in his system before he even thought about answering that, despite the fact that it was a horrible idea. He downs the drink he had in his hand, putting the empty on the bar top without saying another word. The two drinks he had already hadn’t done anything for him yet, and he was worried with whatever anxiety he was feeling, more alcohol in his system would either make it worse, or make him absolutely numb, and he wasn’t sure what was worse. 

“We talk about weddings, but not our own.”

“You don’t even have a ring?” 

“No. We’re not getting married,” he says, rushing off from Brighton to get some fresh air.

Holly looks around, seeing Matthew adjusting his tie away from his neck as he makes a beeline for the door, pushing them open and causing them to hit the wall behind them with more force than he probably intended. 

“Is he alright?” Mikala, another bridesmaid asks, watching the same event that Holly had just seen. 

“I have no idea,” she says, bunching up her dress and scoping off her heels and throwing them by their table to go running after him. 

She goes around the venue a few times, the pavement beneath her feet making her question whether it would have been a better idea to keep the heels and traipse through the grass and on the asphalt or not. 

Holly finds Matthew sitting with his back against the building, legs out in front of him. He had his head leaning back with his face towards the sky, his eyes closed. She sits down beside him, gently resting her hand on his thigh so she doesn’t startle him. “Hey,” she says in a low voice, a soft smile on her face as he looks at her. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he lets out. 

“No you’re not,” she tells him, shaking his head. She takes his hands in hers, hoping that she can try to help. “You know you can talk to me. What’s going on?”

“Remember me telling you about Brighton?” 

Holly tries to search her memory. She knew he was a character in The Nanny. “That really annoying kid from when you were younger? The one who tried to, like, buy everyone’s friendship because he had a pool or something?”

“That one.” Matthew puts his head on Holly’s shoulder, taking a deep breath as she rests her head on his. “I don’t know, he just freaked me out.”

“What did he do?”

“He asked about when we were getting married.”

Holly laughed, Matthew feeling her shoulders shaked. He squeezed his eyes shut as tight as he could, too afraid to open them and see Holly as she lifted her head from his. He felt her kiss the top of his head, his breath hitching. “Yeah? What did you tell him.”

“That we aren’t getting married.” Holly sits there quietly, trying to figure out what he means by that. “Hol?”

“Like, ever?”

Matthew lifts his head off her shoulder, finally taking a look at her. She’s staring down at their hands, the wind moving her hair ever so slightly in front of her face. “What?”

“We’re not going to get married ever?”

“I don’t know.” 

“You haven’t thought about it?”

“You have?”

“Of course I have, Matthew.” She looks up to the sky, trying to stop any tears from falling from her face. “I would say yes immediately if you asked. You know that.” 

“It’s not like we have to spend our time thinking about it. We’re just having fun, aren’t we?”

Holly turns to Matthew immediately, Matthew unable to read the emotion on her face. “That’s all this is to you? Just fun?” “I mean, not just fun-” Matthew starts.

“Matthew, fuck,” Holly cuts him off. “You know that this is more to me. I thought that this was more to you. You don’t even think about us getting married? After all the weddings we’ve been to together?

“Matthew, I’ve told you everything about my past relationships. I’ve told you about the guys who showed up for a date only to leave immediately because they saw me in person and decided that I was ‘too big’ for them to date. I told you about the guys who only wanted to be with me because of hookup culture. I told you about the guys who hit on me because they had bets with their friends to see who could date me first just as a joke. You knew this was more to me than just fun.” 

Holly gets up from the grass, wiping off herself as Matthew scrambles to get up with her. “Holly, wait, come on.” 

“Matthew, you don’t even think about marrying me?”

“I don’t think about marriage with anyone,” he tries.

“We’ve had this conversation. You know what I wanted. You’ve known what I wanted. And if we don’t want the same thing, we’re not going to work,” Holly lets out, trying everything she could to not let the tears fall down her face. She turns away from him, trying to get back inside before she had to make her speech about the love her best friend felt for her new husband, right as she felt her own love breaking apart.

“Holly what are you saying?” Matthew asks, trying to follow her.

“We’re finished. We can’t be together.” 

Holly hadn’t seen Matthew in months. Honestly, she was praying that she wouldn’t see him tonight, hoping that he had forgotten about Ryland’s wedding altogether. He was her best friend in college, and it wasn’t her fault that they got close in the year the two of them were dating. She had asked Ryland if he knew if Matthew was coming, but Bella had been the one who handled the guest list. 

“Hey, are you ok?” Tyler, one of Ryland’s childhood friends, asked Holly. The two of them were paired off for the bridal party, seemingly spending more time with each other than any other pair in the party, other than the ones who were married and already couples. 

Holly had met Tyler a few times while they were in college, the random drunken weekend that Tyler wanted since he went to a school in a small town while Holly and Ryland went to a larger school. She liked spending time with him, and sure, there was a crush she had on him at one point when she first met him, but did she really like him, or was he just drunk?

“Yeah, I’m good,” Holly fakes her happiness. “I just haven’t had much to eat today. Didn’t want to mess up my makeup.” 

Tyler seems to buy it, one by one the pairings going off to the reception and doing their thing. All Holly and Tyler had planned to do was walk in, Tyler would twirl Holly, and they would do some weird bow that Tyler had insisted on. Nothing fancy, nothing too boring. 

The two of them go in, Holly not focusing on anything in particular, hoping that she wouldn’t see the one person she didn’t want to see. Tyler twirls her, Holly losing her balance somehow. She feels Tyler’s arms around her before she can fall, his hand spread across her back, hoping that he could save it make it look like whatever was about to happen was meant to happen. 

“I’ve got you, don’t worry,” he whispers to her as she stands up, Holly feeling her breath hitch at the feel of his breath against her ear. 

“Thanks for that,” she says, feeling the heart rush to her cheeks. 

The two of them make their way to the table with the rest of the wedding party, Ryland and Bella wanting to do their first dance after they ate instead of doing it as soon as they come in like they saw in other weddings. “I’m gladI got paired with you, it’s been good to spend time with you,” Holly hears Tyler whisper to her as the catering staff came around with the first course. 

“I’m glad, too,” she says, feeling like she was lying to him. She didn’t hate Tyler. He just wasn’t...

“Matthew,” she hears Tyler say, looking up to see the one person she didn’t want to interact with standing over her. “How have you been?”

“Uh, good, good,” Matthew says, not looking away from Holly. He hadn’t seen her in six months, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to. He couldn’t bring himself to block her from his phone the way he was sure she had. He couldn't stop looking at her Instagram feed to see if she had posted anything or been tagged in anything with another guy. He couldn’t stop pulling up her contact, his finger hovering over the call button to ask her to come over or if he could see her whenever he wanted to talk to her, which seemed to be more than once a day. “Holly, do you mind if we talk for a second?”

Holly felt a lump in her throat forming. She looked between him and Tyler, the latter seeming to have no idea that anything was going on. She shouldn’t talk to him. She couldn’t talk to him. “Sure.” 

Matthew extends his hand, Holly taking it and immediately feeling the claminess between the two of them. They walk out of the hall, past the entrance they had all come through less than an hour before, and out to the front, the sky slowly turning dark as the sunset around them. “How have you been?” Matthew asks.

“Good.” Holly could already feel the tears starting to form in her eyes. She didn’t want to have a conversation with him about them. She wanted to be inside, celebrating her friend’s wedding, getting ready to have any and all food and alcohol that was put in front of her so she could go up to her hotel room and just forget the night even happened. 

Matthew looks down at his feet, juggling a rock back and forth between his feet. He had no idea what he was going to say. He just knew that when he saw Holly, he had to talk to her. He just wished he had come up with a plan as to what he was going to say. 

They stand there in silence as neither of them wants to break it, the sounds of crickets starting to come out as the only noise between the two of them. 

“I miss you,” Matthew finally blurts out, after what felt like too long of a silence. He couldn't take standing there without saying something, and he knew that Holly wouldn’t be the first to break. She stands there, unable to look at him.

“I wish we didn’t break up,” he keeps going. “I hate that I don’t get to see you every day anymore.”

“That’s what we decided was best,” she says.

“No, that’s what you decided was best.” 

“Matthew, we wanted different things.” 

“I know that I wanted you. I still want you. I don’t want anyone else. I would do anything for you, you know that. Just because I didn’t think about marriage didn’t mean I didn’t think about you.” “Matthew.” 

“I’ve tried to get my mind off you. I tried to do everything I could. I threw myself even further into hockey, but I kept looking in the stands to see if I could find you at every game I played. I spent hours watching mindless shows and movies on any and every streaming platform and channel I had, but I kept wanting to call you to tell you that you would love it or to laugh about how bad it was. I even tried to pick up a new hobby. Do you know how many times I stabbed myself trying to sew a fucking pillow? And somehow, even that made me think of you?”

She couldn’t help but laugh at the last part, trying to stifle any show of emotion. “Matthew, you could have easily gotten over me.” She say that she got over him, but she couldn’t. She couldn't lie to him like that.

“Holly, the only time I leave the apartment at this point is for practice or games because I’m terrified that you’ll show up and want to talk or need something or even just want to scream at me and take any anger out on me, but that I won’t be there for you to do it. You think that’s a thing people who can get over someone can do?”

“Matthew.”

“If you think for a second that I ever did stop loving you, or that I ever will stop loving you, then you never really knew me. If you think that I wouldn’t want to marry you, spend every moment with you, then maybe we shouldn’t have been together.” 

“Matthew,” she says, grabbing his face to get his attention. “Matthew, I’ve missed you, too.” 

Holly

Wedding 1 dress

Wedding 2 dress

Wedding 3 dress

Wedding 4 dress

Wedding dress

[mjlovescm]

3- McKay's party pt.1

Completed, 30 chapters, “Grey” Fezco O’Neill x black fem reader

You had been in Rue’s life for a very long time. But then again, of course you'd be. You were her sister. Half sister Rue loved to remind you. But half or not you'd been with Rue for years watching her hit every milestone from afar and celebrating with Leslie and Gia. At the beginning of the summer, you thought the next one would be her first day of junior year, but no. It was her leaving rehab.

You, Leslie, and Gia stood outside the same somber building the three of you dropped Rue off earlier that summer. The same optimistic yet ultimately scared feeling filled all of you. A minute or so later, she came walking out with the same red sweater she went in with. A harsh reminder to all of you of the now missing piece in the family. But at least it brought her some comfort. 

Gia waste no time when she saw her. 

“Rue!” She yells, laughing as she runs and hugs Rue. 

You and Leslie stay behind at the car. Offering her small smiles and waves instead. If that wasn't an accurate representation of Rue’s relationship with the three of you, you weren't sure what was. The ride home was silent for the first few minutes. No music or conversation, staring, just quiet looks out the window. 

“I’m very happy for you, Rue. You're about to start a brand-new chapter.” 

Your mother's words of encouragement should have been inspirational, but a heavy shadow of desperation hung over them. Rue gives her a quick smile, probably the best reaction in the moment. And just like that the silence returns and everyone was back to looking outside the window. Now staring at the biker not too far ahead of the car. Watching their mix of blonde and light pink hair flow in the wind with their plaid skirt.

It was the end of summer, the week before school started. I had no intention of staying clean, and  Jules had just moved to town. 

The rest of your eyes drifted back to the road when the car passed the girl. All except Rue, who turned to watch her. 

… 

A toxic cloud courtesy of Kat and BB's vape pens filled Maddy’s small car. The lyrics of Cocky Af by Megan Thee Stallion boomed in the car. It was McKay’s end of summer party and everyone was gonna be there. Even so-called recovering drug addicts who didn't tell you they were going and would rather walk than get a ride from you and your friends. Luckily, though, you'd shared her location to your phone. Was it an obvious invasion of her privacy ? Yes. Did you also do it with Leslie and Gia’s phones? Yes. Did any of them know? Of course not. But in times like this, it was a good thing. 

“Is that…?” Maddy spoke. 

“Oh, shit, slow, down. Dude that's Rue. Oh, my god.” Kat said skeptical. 

“Wait. Didn't Rue, like, die?” Maddy says confused. 

“Girl, I told y'all she came home.” You say, confused by their reactions. 

“Oh, my, god, I hate ghost.” BB adds.

 Kat rolls down the window and calls to your sister. 

“Yo, Casper ! You want a ride ?” 

The car comes to a full stop and Rue quickly approaches. 

“Why, thank you.” is all she says before getting in the car next to you. 

And then, the night got weird.

You lost track of Rue as soon as you got to McKay’s house. Then you lost track of Maddy then Kat, which left you with BB. And ultimately left you by yourself. 

It was ironic because you knew this exact thing would happen. Maddy wasn't really one to ditch you at parties, especially when she knew you needed to have a good time. Because her logic was after a breakup that was exactly what you needed.  And that was what she would have given you if only her and Nate didn't break up for probably the third time that summer. And when her and Nate broke up, she didn't need a good time, she needed a new guy. 

Nate was fucking on one. And in turn, Maddy was fucking on one. 

So she found one and was currently fucking him in McKay’s pool in front of everyone. 

“Come on Maddy.” You sigh in disappointment and disgust, watching from inside the house. 

Shrugging it off, you decided you could just have a good time by yourself. The kitchen was an absolute mess. Red solo cups, alcohol and half empty drinks everywhere. After scavenging for a clean cup, you rinsed it in the sink just in case before pouring yourself a shot. Lifting the cup and throwing your head back, you quickly swallowed before pouring another one and repeating the action. You shake off the burn and made yourself a more casual drink, mixing soda with the alcohol. 

“You sure that's enough?” A familiar yet distant voice asked behind you. 

 You froze. You knew exactly who it was, there was no question about it. 

“Uh-h.” You stammer. 

“Here.” 

He sets his drink down, steps closer behind you, and takes the large glass from you. “Have some more, it's a party, right.” 

You watch the clear liquid pour into your cup, unable to move. 

“You like to drink a lot now, dont you.” His tone is cold and condescending. “That and fuck other guys, right?” 

He doesn't stop even when your cup is overflowed and spilling over onto the counter. Not wanting to get wet, you tried to step back, but he pushed his body against yours, forcing your hips against the counter. You had no time to react because before you realized it, he wasn't standing by you. Pushed aside by an angry Nate, who takes the bottle from him and carelessly pours himself a shot before drinking it. Nate must have seen Maddy in the pool and was pissed, he started pushing things off the counter and yelling at everyone in the kitchen. 

“Get the fuck out of here!” He yelled, killing the mood instantly. 

With everyone distracted, you took the opportunity to slip away from the now forming crowd. You found a bathroom and quickly tried to clean yourself. Grabbing one of the hand towels, you wet it before rubbing the fabric of your skirt. Semi panicking at how strong the smell was on you, you threw the towel aside and decided you were ready to go. Now you just had to find Rue. It was normally easier said than done, but to your surprise, Rue was outside. Riding on the back of some random girl's bike. 

“That's fucked up.” Fezco comments, and you jump, startled by his presence, but quickly calm down once you see it's him. “How you gettin' home?” 

There's a hint of concern in his words, but you ignore it. 

“I don't know Maddy’s my ride, but she's a little occupied. So imma just wait for her, I guess.” 

He nods slowly. 

“Yea, I seen her in the pool.” 

There's a beat of silence, but Fezco fills it before it gets awkward. 

“Want me to-”  He pauses, unsure of himself. “Wait with you.” He says with a shrug, pretending to be casual. 

You opened your mouth but had nothing to say. You knew you could just say no and Fezco would leave, but you weren't fully sure if you wanted to be alone right now. What if your ex came back and saw you waiting for Maddy. A cold shiver ran down your spine just thinking about it. But on the other hand, what if he saw you with Fezco. Would we leave you alone or would he cause a scene? What would a scene between the two of them even look like and how would it end. You knew Fezco and you knew he wasn't an angry person at heart, but you knew more than anything he’d protect anyway he needed to. 

“Yea, we can just wait in your car.” 

As always, you choose Fezco.

Next chapter ;)

All chapters :)

[ausetkmt]

Funk. It’s not just the notes and it’s not just the rhythm. It’s the feeling. When you’re listening to a band or a song, you shouldn’t have to do too much thinking to tell if it’s got the funk. You’ll feel it. And if it’s got the funk, ipso facto, it is funky.

Funk bands and funky music have recently, I’m pleased to report, experienced a bit of a resurgence – that is if one is to believe the august New York Times, who on November 3rd ran a lengthy article in it’s Sunday Review section entitled, “The Glorious Return Of Funk.” Oddly, at least on the surface, the article’s author, professor and musicologist Nate Sloan, cited as his first example the song ‘Sucker,’ a current Top 40 hit by the decidedly un-funky Wyckoff, NJ trio (and all-time favorite of my daughter, Mary), the Jonas Brothers. But sure enough, precisely 1:55 into the tune and for the succeeding 14 seconds, comes the moment Sloan described as a “stupefyingly funky drum break.” I’ll be damned if I didn’t feel it. With reflections of academia, Sloan went on to explain funk’s elusive heart is in its syncopation. “(It’s) The art of placing rhythmic accents in unexpected places,” he expounds. “The cognitive dissonance created every time a drummer, a guitarist or a group of horns strikes a note on the offbeat has a way of generating a propulsive power that can’t be denied.”

Current renaissance notwithstanding, what can similarly not be denied is that such funky syncopated power was at its peak in the groovy era of the 1970’s. Earth, Wind & Fire, The Isley Brothers, Sly and the Family Stone, Kool & The Gang, The Gap Band, The Brothers Johnson, The Commodores, The Meters (later The Funky Meters), and certainly Parliament-Funkadelic, were just some of the roster of gigantic ‘70’s bands delivering the almighty funk.

Invoking the unlikely pairing of Descartes and the aforementioned Parliament, professor Sloan further attempted to ascribe scholarly meaning to the subject with the moving, sensory description, “The olfactory nature of the name ‘funk’ suggests the music was all about sweat and sociality. And it is. But it’s also something greater. Funk insisted that physical release begets mental salvation and vice versa, a collapsing of Cartesian mind-body duality summed up succinctly in the title of a 1970 Funkadelic album: “Free Your Mind … and Your Ass Will Follow.””

That’s heady stuff (and, I suppose, booty stuff). More directly, James Jamerson, acknowledged recently as the “most influential bass player ever” by Bass Player magazine, was known to have said, “The funk is in the funk.”

Personally, I just know it when I hear (and feel) it. And probably no band (outside of James Brown and The Famous Flames) put that feeling across quite like The Ohio Players. Originally formed in Dayton, Ohio in 1959, The Ohio Players reached their zenith in the ‘70’s with gloriously funkified hits such as ‘Love Rollercoaster,’ ‘Skin Tight,’ ‘Funky Worm,’ ‘Jive Turkey,’ and, undoubtedly their greatest ever, our featured song, ‘Fire.’ The video clip, taken from a 1975 live performance on the beloved late-night musical variety series, The Midnight Special, is over nine minutes long, but well worth the time.

Right from the marvelously incongruous introduction by funk-less ‘I Am Woman’ Aussie, Helen Reddy, the Ohio Players launch into an elongated funk-fest that would almost seem to be parody – or an outtake from the Will Farrell flick, “Semi-Pro” – if not for the fact that it’s so damn awesome. There’s a lot to follow here: smoke, bubbles, sirens, afros, denim ‘n diamond-bedazzled outfits, flame-licking graphics, runway strutting, O-H-I-O chanting, the sudden appearance (then re-appearance) by a crew of pop-and-lock dancers, all happening while the band keeps churning away at its mighty funky business. But I do especially hope you’ll stick around until the end when (beginning at 8:24) double-neck guitarist Leroy “Sugarfoot” Bonner – that’s right, “Sugarfoot” – does a mind-blowing, pretty much indescribable scat/guitar finale that in retrospect seems like the only possible way to bring the entire eccentric exercise to a conclusion.

Of its madcap mayhem, a YouTube commenter astutely wrote, “Caution: this is straight funk, please warm up with lesser funk before watching. Side effects may include uncontrollable urge to get down, get it on, or get on wit’ yo bad self, randomly begin shouting and whooping, and possibly, in severe cases, set fire to your house in honor of the funk.” To that, stretching back from the Ohio Players on up to the Jonas Brothers, all I can think to say is “Funk yeah.”

[unforeseen-idiot]

Shovelwarewolf Season 2 Review

Shovelwarewolf Season 2 Electric boogaloo, or the season where stuff finally goes down. I love that the story and production value jump in quality with each other in this season.

Sonic 06: Great episode to open with, we meet Susan (who definitely knows more than they're letting on), a cool season theme, acknowledgement (however brief) of the whole arm thing, and an Escape From the City parody, what's not to love.

Goldeneye: Solid episode, I think it has some of SWW's best one liners (Hell's Angels, The Mafia, GAMESTOP!). I learned to never insult Judy Dench, and that I should probably watch a James Bond movie.

Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Another fine episode, Ivan mimicking the glitch was pretty funny. I don't have a whole lot to say about this episode so I'll just write here that Ivan and Susan have a great banter, and that Susan was just a great addition to begin with, but I'll get to that later. Oh and Test Your Patience was a good capper on the episode.

Duke Nukem: Just getting this out of the way, this game is pure trash but SWW's reactions are too funny. I also like the character development at the beginning with Ivan and Susan, she really was just the only one who was nice to him. Also I don't know why this occurs to me, but the company described the next game as, "A console with a Zelda game" I just remembered that the Switch came out with Breath of the Wild in the same year as this season, I don't know how that's relevant, I just thought it was cool.

Legend of Zelda Wand of Gamelon: Oho what an episode, great gameplay, great story, and great one liners. Susan got to be really cool in this episode, which leads me to believe that she definitely planned this in advance and the therapist bit was an act (she went from running from the room during a transformation to bursting in and rescuing Ivan/SWW without batting an eye in the same day, no way that just happened). I also just love this game's stupid clips and the SWW one liners to go with them: "(Recorder noise) THANKS, (same recorder noise) THANKS...FOR NOTHING" "You've killed me, GOOD. Dang, that's savage, who knew Zelda was such an OG" and "Link gave them to me. GASP! YOU KNOW LINK, LIKE OMG" such good writing. and The Shovelwarewolf's a Running is amazing.

Home Alone: Finally we've reached the finale, pretty great all things considered. First I just want to acknowledge this little scene from Death's narration, "With the help of his therapist" while panning on cool bada** Susan, just funny to me. I'd also like to acknowledge Ivan's TV playing AJ and Nate's weird Spider-Man and Batman Save Christmas Movie, wish they'd finish that someday it looked cool. I love the Home Alone parody for the cool ways it adapts the theme, like the Gamecube trap. Santa just having 180 in terms of character and going on a full fledged villain arc is so hilarious. The game itself is weirdly a cool take on a Home Alone game, like most licensed games at the time would take tons of liberties with the source material but this one was pretty accurate, even if it still sucked. Susan got to be cool again, but at the cost of a very forlorn scene. Oh boy now we get to meet our dude Biffalo Bub, simultaneously RE's most stupid but also most realistically scary villain. That silent clip montage at the end still unsettles me.

Music Rating:

Season 2 Opening: One of the best, that opening bass riff is still so mesmerizing. And the violins, and the soft piano, and the synth, oh so good. This opening feels a lot like a triumphant return for the character.

Season 2 Transformation: Conversely this variation of the transformation doesn't really do it for me. I like the way it closes I guess, but I just don't love it. It also has this weird repeating note that just bores into my skull.

SHOVELWAREWOLF! (Test Your Patience): Pretty good parody, I love the recap of the games he's played so far (except Goldeneye for some reason).

Shovelwarewolf's a-Runnin': Great parody, it introduced me to the Werewolves of London. I love it's use in the show and the vocals.

This is My Safehouse: Great composition for the Home Alone episode. Seriously AJ really flexed his composing powers here. The synth is really great, I love the little incorporation of the transformation theme.

Sleigh-Riding Sleazebag: Not much to say on the song other than the title, and it's use of random Christmas carols, but evil.

Couch Gag: I love this gag, Ivan dubbing over game footage is so funny. Like the last one it makes me think of him being so bored he just does stuff like this to pass the time. This time I'm happy he didn't have one for Wand of Gamelon, I feel like the dialogue in that game stand on its own.

The season is so good. It gave us a great SWW mask, a great character in the form of Susan, and excellent story development. And it only gets better from here. In addition, while others have described it better than me, this season has interesting symbolism in obsession and trauma.

[amillionmillionvoices]

Musicals and 36 questions plsssss ❤️

Thank you so much for asking!!

36 questions - currently 3.8k

A prompt from @chainofclovers, I believe! Inspired by a NYT article, The 36 Questions That Lead to Love. Basically Rebecca being a himbo and Ted being oblivious.

Snippet:

She manages to hold back whatever’s itching at her skin long enough that by the time he returns, she’s convinced she’ll be fine. That she’ll stop thinking about the way he looked at her at her father’s funeral, the way his voice carried that stupid song through the church. That she’ll stop thinking about him and his stupid khakis and his stupid mustache and his stupid, stupid eyes that are always so kind and she’ll stop thinking about him at all, she tells herself, just stop thinking. 

And then he shows up in her office shortly after he lands, just to pop in, he says, and give her a gift—a teacup with sunflowers on it that he says reminds him of her, and Rebecca stares at the little painted flowers and it’s a bit untidy and truthfully looks like something out of an airport gift shop—and very well may be—but Ted is looking at her with a grin saying something about “the sunflower state” and she barely manages to thank him before the question is out of her mouth, the first one on the list she’s all but memorized: 

“If you could have anyone over as a dinner guest, who would it be?” 

Ted blinks, the only sign he’s surprised by the shift in conversation; but then he grins, like she’s paid him a compliment of some kind, and he doesn’t think about it at all before he says, 

“Henry.” 

And even though he’d just left, even though he’s had six weeks of dinners, it warms something in her chest that his first thought is his son—not some celebrity crush or musical icon. Just a 10 year old boy who’s probably missing his father as much as he’s missing his son, and that, at least, puts a damper on the way her skin has started to feel flushed. 

He tells her about their dinners back home, about taking him to various BBQ joints all around the state to try out new things and new sauces and how really it was just an excuse to get him in the car for a while so they could talk. 

She asks what they talked about, and it’s everything and nothing: sports and school and his mom’s new boyfriend (and, if he looks out the window as he says it, and then skips over it to something about new types of peanut butter, she allows the deflection). She listens as he fills her in on his trip, his “quick pit stop” nearing an hour now of them just talking and she realizes she’d never offered him anything to drink around the same time he seems to remember that he’d never asked her the question back, and she’s bending over to get a still water out of the minifridge when she realizes her plan has an enormous fault. 

That as badly as she wants to hear about his answers to The 36 Questions That Lead to Love (and as badly as she hopes, foolishly, he might return the feelings she definitely doesn’t have by the time they’ve gone through the list), she will also have to answer the questions and there’s no way in hell her responses will be nearly as open or kind or wonderful as his and the whole thing is setting herself up for absolute disaster. It takes every ounce of willpower she has to paste on a smile as she slides the water across the desk for him and returns to her seat, pretending to contemplate her answer while her brain is fogged with a litany of fuck fuck fuck fucking fuck. 

And, of course, you had to pick the doozy:

musicals - currently 45.7k 😬

TLDR - Ted finds out Rebecca secretly loves musicals, and it's the key to unlocking... well, everything.

Snippet:

She hasn’t said much to him about how it feels to face Rupert this way, but then, he supposes he hasn’t asked. He knows there were a few articles printed when Rupert’s ownership was first announced, but she hadn’t said anything to him then, and it appears to have died down, at least for the time being. But with every mention of Nate, every mention of either team, there’s always the possibility of her name or face in the paper, and it depends on the day and whether the sky is blue or grey whether or not she’ll be featured favorably. 

Beard glances at him, and he looks up to see Roy doing the same, and it’s that look again, the do something look, but he doesn’t know what to say, says the first thing that pops into his head, a rather unhelpful, 

“Every Judas once loved a Jesus.” 

He doesn’t know quite what he means by that. It just came to his head. Beard blinks and Rebecca arches an eyebrow and Roy says, “The fuck?” 

“Jesus Christ Superstar?” Beard asks. 

He’s about to answer when he catches a strange twist to Rebecca’s smile—something understanding, like she knows what he was trying to say, even if he didn’t. Like she gets the reference. He doesn’t think Rebecca knows much about musical theatre, but his curiosity is peaked just enough to say, 

“Book of Mormon.” 

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Rebecca’s lips flatten. 

Ted isn’t certain if Beard’s caught on, but he says conveniently, “Is that the one with the soft shoe?” 

“No, that’s Miss Saigon. Book of Mormon’s the one with the parables.”

“I thought Miss Saigon was the one with the pirates?”

When he glances back, Rebecca is nearly glowering, but she says nothing, and he thinks, Lion or Panda, and replies,

“Nah, that’s Guys and Dolls.” And then, just to really irritate her, he starts singing, “But in spite of all temptations to belong to other nations—” 

And Roy says, “What the fuck are you on about?” at the same time Rebecca breaks, 

“Are you both idiots?” She’s glowering over her teacup, and Roy looks confused and Beard a bit frightened when she snaps, “Miss Saigon is based on Madame Butterfly, Godspell is told in parables, For He Is An Englishman is from Pinafore, and Pirates of Penzance is the one with the pirates. It’s literally in the name.” She pauses, and takes a breath. “And ‘Every Judas once loved a Jesus’ is from The Scarlet Pimpernel.” 

“The scarlet what?” Roy asks, as Ted thinks, Victory, and somehow manages to keep a straight face as he asks, 

“You like musicals, boss?” 

Rebecca glares and Ted raises his hands in surrender. He suddenly wants to tease her—wants, more than that, to do best musical, worst musical—wants to pick her brain about Hadestown and ask if she’s ever seen The Lion King live and whether she actually likes Rodgers and Hammerstein or if she just pretends to for the sake of propriety. He wants to know everything she knows, not simply because he thinks they have a secret, shared interest all of a sudden, but because he thinks maybe, maybe he can use it as an excuse. A way to talk to her without having to talk to her until they’re both ready. 

Until he’s ready.

[ ask me about a wip! ]

[korra-the-red-lion]

Lonely.

I will forever be salty that LoT doesn’t let Sara explore her grief a bit more, it seems. Anyway, enjoy some angst with a happy ending!

---

Sara put down the make-up brush and stared at herself in the mirror. It wasn’t a lot, but she felt confident in what she did for herself. Lightly, she put on the finishes touches to her lips and was ready for the big event.

In just a few short hours she’d be marrying the love of her life.

But why did her heart feel so heavy? Shouldn’t she be overjoyed that she was marrying Ava? But it only took one quick glance to the photo sitting her in locket to remind her why she felt this way. Laurel and Oliver smiled up at her, their faces alive and happy. Sara picked up the locket, holding it gently in her hand. At least Oliver got to marry the life of his life, Laurel never even got that chance. Both men she loved were tragically ripped away from her, before her own life was as well.

Although Laurel told her it was the right decision, Sara couldn’t help but still feel guilty that she didn’t use the Loom of Fate to bring her back. Why did someone like her get so many chances at life yet her sister didn’t? It was a cruel thing, fate was. Sara would have gladly given one of her several returns to life in exchange for Laurel to be here on her wedding day.

And Oliver too, who would never see his daughter grow old. How was it fair that someone who gave so much and rarely asked for anything in return was not allowed this once in a lifetime opportunity. At least Mia had Felicity, who was one tough cookie. It just felt like some cosmic joke to her. Oliver wasn’t perfect, but he deserved to grow old with his wife and children.

Sara blew a frustrated breath through pursed lips. She needed to stop thinking about this. About them. Today was supposed to be about her happiness, her love. About her and Ava finally retiring from saving the universe and enjoying life. It wasn’t an easy decision for them to make, especially for her. Sara had been fighting since she was teenager. What would the domestic life feel like? Going for walks with having to watch your back? Talking about that silly thing the neighbours did with Ava? Sara honestly couldn’t even picture it in her mind.

There was a knock at her door, startling from her thoughts. Sara put on a brave face and called out, “Come in!”

Nyssa walked into the room with a smile adorning her face. Sara smiled back, but Nyssa was not fooled. She had known Sara for a very long time and knew when she was hiding her feelings. Nyssa closed the door softly before turning to face her former love.

“What is wrong, Beloved?”

Sara smiled softly at the familiar expression. “It’s nothing, really. Just got thinking.”

“Thinking about what?”

“How much I miss them,” she said, looking down at the locket again.

Nyssa nodded in understanding as she came to sit next to Sara. “I miss them as well. I cannot imagine how difficult this must be for you.”

Sara clutched the locket, holding it to her heart. “I wish they could be here to see this. I want to let them know that I only got this far because of their support. Especially Laurel’s…” the tears welled up in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.

“Sara…” Nyssa reached for her hand, squeezing it in comfort. “They may not be here physically, but I know Oliver and your sister. They’re watching from wherever they are currently. They would be so happy for you, so happy that you found the love they wished for you. Do you understand that?”

“I do,” said Sara with a small voice, “but that doesn’t make me miss them any less.”

Nyssa hugged Sara tightly. All she could hope was that Sara could feel her emotions through the hug. That it was okay to grief those you’ve lost, you just cannot let it consume you. Sara hugged back just as tightly, wondering when the emptiness in her heart would finally feel a little more whole.

Another knock at the door broke the pair apart. Ray stuck his head into the room, his smile instantly dropping when he saw Sara. He wasted no time in walking across the floor and scooping the tiny assassin into a bear hug.

“I have no idea what’s upsetting you, Sara, but I’m not going to let it ruin your wedding day,” he said firmly.

“Ray…”

Ray put Sara onto the floor before getting to work straightening out her wedding dress. “Sara, I’ve known you for a very long time. Heck, I think you’re my oldest friend at this point. You were there for me when Nora and I tied the knot. We were there for each other through all the hardships that we’ve face. I would never let you do this alone.” Ray stepped back to make sure there wasn’t a single wrinkle left. With a satisfied nod, Ray placed a gentle hand on Sara’s shoulder.

“You deserve happiness and peace, Sara Lance,” said Ray with watery eyes. “I believe that more than anything else in the world.”

Sara swallowed thickly while blinking out tears. “Thank you…” She fanned at her laugh with a wet laugh. “Oh God, my make-up. Ava is going to freak out if I don’t get a move on things.”

“I believe I can help with that,” said Nyssa with a smirk. She held up the eye make-up with a fire in her eyes. “I am quite good with my hands, after all.”

Sara burst out into laughter while Ray looked pleasantly confused. Together, Ray and Nyssa got Sara ready to walk down the aisle.

XXX

Quentin looked like he was trying his hardest not to cry as he walked his daughter down the aisle. Sara squeezed his arm tightly as they did, trying to keep her raging emotions in check.

“I’m so happy for you, baby,” he said in a choked whisper.

“Thanks, dad.” Sara sniffled slightly. “I’m really happy too.”

He gave her a kiss on the cheek as he left her at the alter. He joined his wife in the front row. Sara took in the crowd. Jax and his wife were here with their kids. Thea and Roy were in the crowd chatting quietly to Dinah. Sara couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow when she noticed that Dinah had her pinkie finger linked with Laurel 2.0. That was unexpected. Barry and Iris were sitting next to Kara, Alex, Lena, and Kelly. Ray waved to her, his arm linked with a very happy looking Nora, who was also waving. Mona was seated next to Gary, who was already ugly crying. Nate was on Ray’s right side, and he was beaming up at Sara, Zari holding his free hand. Charlie was with her band, providing the music for the wedding. Amaya came from the past to also watch her former captain and friend tie the knot. She was seated next to the Hawks, which they had been hard to track down, but Kendra had been Sara’s first friend aboard the Waverider, and there was no way she was going to miss this for the world. Nyssa sat with Sin, who was looking so much older than Sara last remembered.

All her friends and family were here, and it was a wonderful sight to see.

Charlie looked up towards the doorway and motioned to her band to start playing the music. Sara’s heart was beating like crazy with anticipation as the doors swung open.

Ava walked out from behind the curtains. Her smile was wide and there were already tears in her eyes as she walked towards Sara. Her dress was nothing fancy, but that’s exactly what suited her best. Mick was walking her down the aisle. They had an unlikely friendship, but Ava had helped Mick with so many things in his life, he felt it only fair to return a favour. There were tears in his eyes as he helped her up the steps. He gave Sara a quick nod before clomping back down to take his seat next to Spooner, who was sitting with Astra and Behrad.

“Alright,” said Diggle with a clearing of his throat. “Sara and Ava both asked that this not be fancy. Sara said to me, ‘I already have enough drama in my life, I don’t need it at my wedding too,’ and I couldn’t agree more.”

This drew laughs from the crowd.

“So, Sara, do you have anything you want to say to Ava?” asked Diggle.

Sara nodded quickly. “Ava, I just want to say that you’ve made me the happiest girl in the world. You just get me, and that is so important. We’ve had our rough patches, but we always got through them together. You’ve been with me through thick and thin. I love you so much that it makes me lie awake at night thinking about it. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.” She smiled brightly, ignoring the tears that flowed freely down her face now.

“Ava, do you have anything you want to say to Sara?”

“Yes.” Ava took a deep shaky breath. Sara could feel the tremors in her hands as she spoke. “I hated you the first time I saw you.” Everyone laughed at that, including Sara and Ava. “But you slowly broke down my walls and taught me how to really live. If it wasn’t for you, I probably would still be working for Rip, without ever realizing the person I could have been. You helped me because the best version of me, because that’s what’s being a person is all about. Helping each other grow. I hope that we can continue to do just that, because you’ll be spending every moment with me, and I can’t wait.”

Diggle smiled at the two of them before saying. “Okay, well, go ahead then!”

Sara dipped Ava and gave her the most passionate kiss she could muster. It would take some time, but she was hopeful that Ava would help her fill the hole in her heart. She already had, in some way. Because Sara knew that this right here meant that she was no longer lonely. She would always grieve the death of her Laurel, her wonderful and beautiful sister, and her best friend in Oliver. But she also knew that Ava would always be there for her, every step of the way.

And she was ready to see where that path led.

[ghstandpucks]

Cutting Edge ~ Nathan MacKinnon Ch.10

Chapter 10!!! Oh wow, we’re here! I was excited about this chapter, as I am with the next one! I hope you all enjoy it and let me know what you think of the series this far! I only have a few chapters left in my head to write for it, so we are getting closer to the end! 

I hope you are all healthy and safe, and Happy Holidays!!! Let me know if you would like to be tagged in the series! Enjoy!

Cutting Edge Master List

Returning to Denver after Christmas, you spent most of your time at the rink after practice working on polishing your own skating again. You had been informed that all skating coaches would be performing at the upcoming NHL All-Stars weekend, and every figure skater had been sent music to choreograph a routine to. Luckily for you, choreography was one of your strong points. You had always loved putting your own routines together, and this was no exception. You had been sent the song CHAMPION by Bishop Briggs and though you loved the song, you knew your routine had to be flawless to skate to it. You were the reigning Olympic champion after all. Nate would stay most of the time with you, trying his best to be helpful and give you his opinion when you asked for it. He admittedly did not know much about figure skating though and usually just told you everything looked great, even when you knew it probably wasn’t. You appreciated his support though none the less.

Two weeks before the All-Star break was set, you found yourself traveling to Dallas as the boys had a game against the Stars. Along with the Stars came the one figure skater you could live without ever dealing with again, Ashley Wagner. Beside Nate, no one knew the animosity that was between the two of you, and you were hoping to keep it that way. You didn’t need to worry the team with a petty feud between two rival figure skaters.

You were staring out the window of the plane when you felt someone sit down next to you. Turning, you saw Nate settling into the seat as he gave you a questioning look. “You okay?” he asked. He knew you weren’t looking forward seeing Ashley, and was not sure what this new environment would bring out. You smiled and nodded, opening your book again to distract you.

Nate was worried about you. He had been watching you stress yourself out over putting together a perfect routine for the All-Stars, not to mention helping Jeremy put his together over multiple facetimes. Apparently, you were the one to come to with routine questions. He thought it was amazing, how you could take a song and within two days have a mostly completed routine laid out, he would never be that creative. But between coaching, working on your skating, and running to dress fittings at a shop you found in Denver, he had never seen you look so worn out. Nate was worried that if Ashley pushed a button correctly, you would snap. Your smile may be able to fool everyone else, but Nate had been paying attention over the two months you had been together and was starting to be able to read you like a book. Though it was comforting to you that he knew how you were feeling without even saying it; it also put you on edge. You were used to concealing your feelings behind a smile, and with Nate you couldn’t anymore.  

The team landed in Dallas the evening before their game, and you enjoyed dinner with them before heading to your hotel room. You were just crawling into bed with the cooking channel on when there was a knock at your door. Opening it, Nate stepped in quickly and shut the door behind him. “What are you doing here?” you asked. When you traveled, the two of you didn’t spend time in each other’s rooms unless someone else was around to prevent any suspicion.

“No one saw me, we’re fine,” he said, placing a soft kiss on you lips. He grabbed your hand and pulled you over to the bed, getting in on his side as you did the same. “I won’t stay long,” he said gently as you rested your head on his chest. His arm that was around you started drawing absent minded figures on your waist underneath your shirt, as his other hand held yours. “I’ll leave early before anyone should be up,” he said into your hair as you both drifted off.

Around 5am, you heard Nate’s alarm go off and felt him get out of bed. He chuckled as you mumbled incoherently and deftly reached for him. “Go back to sleep,” he whispered, placing a kiss on your forehead. You sleepily watched him walk to the door and peak his head out, giggling at his large figure trying to be sneaky as he made his way out.  

~ ~ ~

           This was not happening. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Who does interviews before anything happens! You absentmindedly grabbed the figure skate charm on your necklace and bit your lip. You had just been told that you would be doing a pre-game interview. That wasn’t what was bothering you though. What was bothering you was that you would be doing the interview with Ashley. You knew someone had happened across your not so friendly history and planned this because you have never done an interview with any of the other skating coaches.

           You were ushered to the area and sat down in front of a microphone when you were announced. Ashley walked in after, smiling brightly at you. You returned it, quickly snapping into performance mode. At first the questions were fine; how did you like being with your team, how were things going, did you miss skating yourself. Then the question came of how do you think your team will do in the game tonight. Ashley, being asked first, put on a brilliant smile that made you want to role your eyes. God she was so fake. “I think we’ll do great! I know how Y/N skates and I have prepared them for it. The Stars are a great team so we shouldn’t have a problem.” You kept your smile light, trying your best not to roll your eyes at her. The same question was then directed to you.

           “I believe that the team is prepared. Similar to what Ashley said, I know how she skates and it should be a good game,” you answered. You heard Ashley snicker quietly and you had to bite your tongue. This was not the time or place to lose your temper on her. After a few more questions, you were asked to take a picture together. You had been fiddling with your necklace and didn’t pay any attention to it until you realized Ashley was looking at it.

           “That’s new. Why is there a 29 on it?” she asked. You froze, but quickly recovered and turned the charm back around.

           “It’s the maker of the charm,” you tried to shrug off. As you walked out of the room of the interview, Ashley followed.

           “I’ve never heard of them. Where can I order one?” she pestered.

           “It’s this little boutique in Denver. They don’t have a website,” you said off the top of your head.

           “Well that’s too bad. Maybe you can take me to this 29 store the next time we’re in Denver?”

           “Of course.” You both faked a smile at each other as you got to the hallway leading to the locker rooms. Unfortunately for you, Nate had stepped outside to see where you were. The team had seen the interview and you were taking a little long to get back. He volunteered to make sure you weren’t lost. Ashley didn’t miss him.

           “What a coincidence, 29 looks like he’s looking for you,” she smirked, leaving for the Stars locker room. You walked over to Nate and started to push him back into the locker room. To say he was slightly confused was an understatement.

           It was late in the third period, the score tied 1-1. The game had been highly physical, and you couldn’t help but be on edge. You were standing on the bench when the final buzzard went off, and the game was pushed into overtime. The game became even more physical if that was even possible, and you jumped as Perry checked Cale into the boards in front of you. A time out was called by the Stars, and you glanced briefly over to their bench. As you did, you saw Ashley say something to Jamie Benn, and he smirked looking your way. You saw him then eye Nate, and you had a bad feeling about it. Watching as Benn skated over to Nate, you could tell he was saying something. Nate tried his best to ignore the left winger, and you wish you could hear what was being said. The puck dropped, and as quickly as it hit the ice, gloves were also falling. You watched as Nate and Benn went at it, wanting to hide behind your hands but also not being able to look away. Without notice, you grabbed onto Tyson’s arm as he was the player you were standing behind. The bench was yelling, the crowd was cheering, and you didn’t know what to do. Watching hockey fights on tv or from the stands was one thing; but watching from the bench as the player you were dating was duking it out with another had you frozen in place.

           To your relief, you saw Benn hit the ice with Nate on top and the refs scrambled to separate them. What you weren’t prepared for though was seeing Nate with a cut at his eyebrow, blood gushing from it. You unintentionally squeezed Tyson’s arm, and he turned back to you. “He’s fine Y/N,” he spoke lightly, patting your hand with his glove. Looking at him, you nodded and tried to compose yourself. Your first instinct was to run to Nate and see if he was alright, but you knew you couldn’t do that. All you could do was watch as he was escorted off the ice, his penalty longer than the amount of time left in the game. Benn had a bloody nose, and what looked like a busted lip, but that didn’t stop him from smirking over at you. You watched as Ashley tried to hide a laugh, and you were thankful that the game was about to resume or else you may have yelled something you shouldn’t. Unfortunately, a man down with Nate off the ice, the Stars scored first, effectively winning the game.

           You were waiting outside the medical room wanting to see Nate as the Avs started to spill out of the locker room and head for the bus. You were in your own head, blaming yourself for the loss when you heard someone walk up to you. Looking up, you saw Tyson with a concerned look on his face. “You know he’s fine right? They probably just have to stitch up his eyebrow if anything,” he said, trying to judge your reaction.

           “I feel like it’s my fault,” you whispered, tears starting to blur your vison.

           “What do you mean? None of this is your fault Coach,” Tyson responded, confused as to why you were blaming yourself.

           “I think he got in the fight because of me; because stupid Ashley can’t keep her mouth shut. And then we lost because we were a man down and it’s all my fault,” you swiped at a pesky tear that had fallen. Tyson wasn’t sure what to do, not entirely understanding why you were taking the loss so personally. They had lost a few times before and he didn’t think you had been this effected by it.

           “You’re losing me. Why would Nate’s fight be your fault?” As Tyson finished his question, you grabbed the charm on your necklace and flipped it over to show him. You saw the moment his confusion turned into realization at what the ‘29’ was referring to. “Wait you and Mac?” he whispered, eyes wide and smile threatening to show. You nodded. “I knew it! Since when?”

           “Since the home opener. But we’re keeping it quiet so you need to calm down right now!”

           “Does anyone else know?” he asked, trying and failing to compose his face.

           “Only Gabe and Andre on the team. Mel knows, and my best friend Jeremy knows, plus our parents but that’s it.” You said, then remembered why you were having this conversation to begin with. “But now I think Ashley knows, at least she guessed when she saw my necklace which is why this is all my fault. I shouldn’t have been playing with it which drew her attention to it and it landed on the wrong side.” You wiped angrily at another tear that fell, annoyed. You had always been a crier when you were mad though; it was how you dealt best with the emotion. Tyson went to comfort you as the door behind him opened. You looked around him and saw Nate, with the outlines of an apparent black eye and medical tape over fresh stitches over his right eye on his eyebrow ridge. You rushed around Tyson and wrapped your arms around Nate’s sternum, hugging him not caring that he hadn’t showered yet. He held you with one arm, his stuff in the other as he looked at Tyson who was smiling like an idiot.

           “See you two lovebirds on the bus,” the younger man saluted and walked off. Nate stared after him confused for a second, but then seeing no one was around he bent down and planted a kiss on top of your head. You separated from him, looking up into his blue eyes.

           “I’m so sorry if this is because of me,” you whispered, not bothering to stop another tear that had fallen.

           “It’s fine baby. Does Josty know about us?” Nate asked, wiping a tear with the pad of his thumb. It was a risk, being this close in public. But he hadn’t seen you cry before, and he wanted to be near you after what Benn had said on the ice. You nodded and grabbed his hand, noticing he had also split one of his knuckles.

           “I was freaking out because Ashley saw the 29 on my necklace and I think she figured it out and said something to Benn. I feel like it’s my fault we lost and I ended up telling Tyson.” You were looking down at your hands, then looked back up to him, your heart clenching at how concerned he looked when it should have been the other way around. “Why did you get in the fight?” you asked softly.    

           “It doesn’t matter. It’s not your fault though. We’re a team Y/N, all of us. I screwed up and let what Benn said get to me. If it is anyone’s fault we lost, it’s mine,” Nate shook his head as you opened your mouth to protest. He really did not want to tell you what Benn had said as it had all been in regards to you. He had been vulgar, and Nate snapped. Giving your hand a slight squeeze, he continued. “I’m going to go change. Why don’t you get to the bus and I’ll see you in a bit okay?” You nodded, and Nate watched as you walked away. Though he was upset with himself for getting in a fight and subsequently losing the game, he would do it again for you in a heartbeat. And as you walked away from him toward the bus, he realized for the first time that he would do anything for you, and you were taking his heart with you piece by piece.  

           An hour later found you sitting against your headboard, giggling at Andre’s reaction to the Hallmark movie you had playing. He had complained about it at first, but your room your rules. He had surprisingly gotten into the plot, and was yelling at the man who mistakenly thought the main character was with someone else when he wanted to confess his feelings for her. After Chip Gate (what you loving dubbed Tyson and Cale’s chip debate after the first game), your room had become the place the team drifted to. Whether it was to conceal junk food that they shouldn’t be eating, an ear to listen to girl problems, or a comforting environment in terms of a loss on the road, you became the team’s go to person. Not to mention you had motherly tendencies and didn’t mind being there and fussing over everyone. It made you feel even more accepted as part of the team. This is why at the moment Andre was sitting on the floor leaning against the bed, Tyson had taken his usual spot laying across the foot of the bed, and Cale was sitting in the desk chair.

           Before you could tell Andre to be quiet so you could hear what was being said, there was a knock at your door. Tyson got up and answered, Nate walking into the room behind him. His eye was swollen and bruising, but he seemed more relaxed as he walked over to the side of the bed and sat next to you. He put his arm around you, pulling you into his side and placing a kiss on your head. “Did I miss something?” you heard Cale speak up and you looked at Nate with wide eyes and a slight giggle.

           “Dammit,” Nate mumbled. He forgot Cale didn’t know. This was the first time he thought he could be open with you, forgetting the young defenseman was still in the dark about your relationship.

           “Coach and Nate are dating. Now shut up so we can see the guy stop being an idiot.” Tyson responded. “Also Coach, I hate you for making me so interested in this movie,” he complained over his shoulder.

           “You know you love it,” you teased, snuggling into Nate’s side. Cale kept going between staring at you and Nate, then the tv, unsure of when this happened and how others knew. Luckily for him, the movie ended 20 minutes later and he started asking questions. You told him how you got together and asked him not say anything because you were keeping it quiet.

           “Of course, but why do they know?” he asked.

           “I was on the phone with Burky and Y/N sneezed in the background, and Josty just found out today because…why again?” Nate asked you.

           “I was freaking out about you getting into a fight,” you answered.  

           “Does anyone else on the team know?” Cale questioned.

           “Gabe, but that’s it. So you are now sworn to secrecy,” you said looking over at him. Cale nodded, and then turned back to the tv. After another hour the three of them left for their own rooms, leaving you and Nate alone. You turned the tv off and turned off all the lights beside one on the bedside table. Nate took his shirt off and climbed under the covers with you, the both of you on your sides facing each other. You ran your fingers gently over his swollen eye. “Do you want me to get you some ice for this, or anything?” you asked. Nate shook his head.

           “No, I just want to lay here with you,” Nate grabbed your hand in his and kissed your knuckles.

           “I’m sorry,” you whispered, still feeling guilty over his fight, the team’s loss. Nate placed his arm over your waist and pulled you closer to him.

           “You have nothing to be sorry for. You were right, Ashley probably did figure it out. But I would fight anyone for you,” Nate said honestly, moving strands of hair out of your face.

           “What did he say?” you asked. Nate shook his head again.

           “He was being inappropriate to you. That’s why I took care of it,” he stated, and you didn’t ask any further questions. Nate was glad because he did not want to repeat the vulgar things Benn had said to him. He wishes he would have hit him a few more times just thinking about it. Nate was brought out of his thought by a soft giggle.  

           “You defended my honor?” you teased him. Nate chuckled and rolled his eyes at you. “My hero,” you whispered, pressing your lips to his. Nate returned your kiss, maneuvering himself so your back was flat on the bed with him hovering over you. The kiss became heated as Nate slipped one of his hands under your shirt.

           “Any day,” he whispered before kissing your neck. After what became a heated make out session, you were laying with your back pressed into Nate’s chest, holding his hand that was slipped under your head as his other rested on your stomach, holding you close to him. And though you never wanted to be someone’s damsel in distress, with how protected you felt in Nate’s arms, he could defend you anytime.

Tags: @bqstqnbruin​ @avsfans95​ @calesykar​ @comphybiscuit​ @andreiaafaria​

[trvelyans-archive]

my baby’s sweet as can be

a comm for the lovely @montliyets of her adorable detective miss honey hudson and one stunning felix hauville trying to make pancakes !!! these two are so cute and sweet so i hope you enjoy <3 <3 <3 

-

“So, are you a vampire now, too?”

Honey stops scrolling through her phone to glance over at Felix with an amused smile. “No,” she says before good-naturedly rolling her eyes and returning to her search for the right playlist, “I just found this recipe online when you were in the bathroom and I thought it looked cool.”

Felix doesn’t say anything – he just stares at her with round amber eyes until she turns to look at him again, raising an eyebrow curiously.

“What?” she asks.

“Well – what is it?” he prompts. “You can’t just say that and not tell me about the recipe!”

That wasn’t actually why he was staring at her – it was because a bunch of hairs came loose from her bun and were hanging in little blonde curls at the nape of her neck that he couldn’t help but stare at and want to push back up into her bun – but it’s a good enough excuse. He hopes it is, anyway.

She giggles, grabbing her phone and presenting it to him – on the screen is a plate of fluffy pancakes topped high with whipped cream and strawberries. It looks good – it even looks good to him, which is saying something, considering vampires rarely ever enjoy food. It also looks incredibly complicated, though, and Honey hasn’t slept a wink tonight – Felix would know, because they’d been watching musicals on the couch until now and the clock on the oven reads 2:06 am. Way past her bedtime, especially if she has work in the morning.

He can hear Adam’s scolding in his head, but if she doesn’t want to sleep, who is Felix to stop her? Especially because he needs at least ten more minutes of staring to commit all her curls to memory… and then another ten minutes so he can work up the courage to ask her if he can tug on one of them to see how springy it is.

Besides, he likes spending time with Honey. She’s just so sweet.

“Should I make some to bring Tina for breakfast?” Honey asks, taking the phone from Felix when he hands it back to her. “Yeah, okay, I’ll do it. I don’t know if I’ll be able to finish so many myself, anyway.”

“Wish I could eat some,” Felix says, sticking his bottom lip out in a pout as he hops up onto the counter.

Honey returns his pout as she opens the fridge door. “I know,” she says sympathetically, glancing down at her phone before looking up at him. “But – maybe you can try these? The ingredients are pretty, y’know, normal – they might not be too bad!”

“What are some of them?” Felix asks. He’s managed to stomach the odd potato chip or sugary cereal in his day (though usually only because Mason dares him, considering - as much as he enjoys the first bite - he doesn’t always enjoy every bite after that).

“Milk, eggs, butter… oh, what?”

Felix leans over, trying to read her screen. “What?”

“These use mayo,” she says. “Hm. Okay, well, maybe you won’t like them!”

“That’s okay!” he says brightly. “I might try one anyway… With the right motivation.”

He wiggles his eyebrows at her, but she already turned to the fridge and started looking for ingredients. Damn. He’ll have to try that again later.

After she collects everything and places it all onto her counter, including a bottle of vanilla that Felix spent five minutes helping search through her cupboards for until she revealed it was actually hidden behind a couple of plants, he settles back in beside her and watches her pour everything into a medium-sized mixing bowl with mushrooms painted on the sides and starts mixing it together, only occasionally flinging batter over the side of the bowl onto her counter. She bites her bottom lip as she focuses, swaying back and forth to the music playing from her phone, and he forces himself to look away for a second before he gets stuck thinking about how cute she is (which happens more than he’d like to admit).

“So…” He leans back against the cupboards and crosses his arms over his chest. “Do you come here often?”

He can picture it in his head – a sleepy Honey dragging herself out of her bed and into the kitchen to make a full Thanksgiving turkey or something at four in the morning. (He’s seen her half-asleep some nights when she sleeps at the Warehouse. It’s incredibly cute. She’s cute right now, too, but there’s something extra special about seeing her right out of sleep.)

She glances up at him and laughs. “Sometimes,” she says. “I mean, I try to get enough sleep before work, but – I get distracted, and if I get distracted, it’s hard to sleep.”

Felix understands that – he gets distracted easily, too, sometimes. Especially when he daydreams about beating Mason in a game of darts, because then it’s hard for him to do any of his Agency work when he knows that the dartboard in the games room is just down the hall at the Warehouse. “Distracted by fancy pancakes?”

“It’s not always food!” she protests. “One time I went to the convenience store with Tina at three in the morning because I thought there might be stuff I would need to do, like, embroidery there… surprisingly, there wasn’t any. And then I forgot by the end of work the next day, so… there went my dreams of embroidering a pillow.”

“I’m sure you’d be great at that,” Felix says.

Honey smiles. “Well, play your cards right and I might crappily embroider you a pillow for your next…” She trails off uncertainly. “Uh, I was gonna say birthday, but… do you have one?”

“I do!” Though he probably would’ve made one up even if he didn’t, because he doesn’t want to miss out on a gift from her, especially if she was planning on embroidering a cute little flower onto it. He doesn’t need to sleep that often, but he might end up doing it more just because he’d get to use the pillow she made him. “You don’t have to get me anything, though!”

“Of course I do, Felix.” She stops to dip her finger in the bowl, scooping some batter up on her finger and licking it off. “What kind of chef would I be if I didn’t get a birthday present for my cooking assistant?”

“Well, I don’t know how good of an assistant I’ll be, but I can try!” Felix says. On the rare occasion Nate is cooking, Felix lingers in the kitchen to watch (and almost always ends up getting swatted away when he tries to add more ingredients than necessary).

“Well, I don’t know how good of a chef I’ll be with this recipe, either, so…” She grins at him. “We’re in this together, I guess.”

Felix grins back at her. ‘Together’ makes his heart flutter. “Good.”

When the pancakes are finally finished at exactly 3 am (with Felix only trying to add honey to the batter once or four times throughout the course of cooking), she crams the pancakes that she set aside for Tina into a tiny container and stuffs them into her fridge before the two of them sit down at the dining table. “Alright,” she says, her cutlery clattering together as she picks them up in her hand and moves her plate onto her placemat with the other. “Moment of truth.”

The truth, from his end, is that the pancakes look good. While Felix is having trouble smelling anything but the mayonnaise which is super overpowering and – well, it doesn’t exactly make him think of nice, sweet pancakes, they still look good. They look like they belong in one of those food magazines he’s seen lying around Haley’s. He’s about to tell her that she should take a picture of them to send to Tina when she cuts a piece off and barely gives him enough time to start his drumroll before she sticks the forkful of food into her mouth.

Felix just sits there and watches her while she chews until she swallows the pancakes. There’s a long, thoughtful pause before she nods and her face breaks out into a bright, pleased smile, and she immediately picks her cutlery back up to slice off and scrape up another forkful of pancakes. “Good,” she says. “Yeah, they’re good.”

“Yes!” Felix claps. He wasn’t ready to see her disappointed if they weren’t good. “Good job!”

“My middle-of-the-night baking is almost never good,” she laughs, running a hand over her hair, “so I’m really glad that I didn’t embarrass myself.”

“Psh. Nothing you do is embarrassing.”

Honey fixes him with a disbelieving stare. “I once set off the fire alarms in the building trying to make soup,” she says. “Soup, Felix.”

“Well… that’s okay!” Felix smiles at her. “Besides… maybe this means that I should come over more often when you’re trying to cook. Maybe I’m your lucky charm!”

“You are,” Honey says, grinning when he wiggles his eyebrows at her. Nice. He knew that’d work. “Don’t tell Tina, of course, because she probably thinks that she’s my lucky charm. Do you want some pancakes, by the way?”

He’s tempted. Mostly because she’s looking at him so hopefully, but also because the slice she cut off looks super pretty and it would be hard for anyone to turn it down (except maybe Adam and Mason). Still, he can’t exactly get over the smell of mayonnaise…

And then he gets an idea.

“Hang on,” Felix said. “Hold that thought!”

He stands up and darts into the kitchen, then turns around to poke his head through the doorway and add, “But you can eat that slice, y’know, if you want!”

Her kitchen is a mess after all the baking – he doesn’t even know where she’s going to start in terms of cleaning off her counter – but he somehow manages to find what he was looking for within seconds. He holds it close to his chest as he heads back into the living room, sitting down in his seat a little closer to her than he was before and placing a small yellow bottle on the table in triumphantly.

“Honey,” she says, looking up at him. “You know syrup is basically the same thing, right? I mean... isn’t it?”

He places a hand on his chest, feigning offense. “Are you questioning your cooking assistant, Chef Hudson?”

She laughs, shaking her head and leaning back in her chair. “Not at all,” she says. “Be my guest! Just… don’t throw up on my table, okay? And if you do get sick, please don’t tell Adam it was because of me!”

Felix’s genuinely offended that she’d even have to say that – he’d blame himself a million times before he’d even think about blaming her – but now he’s too distracted by his mission to respond to it, grabbing her plate and pulling it towards himself until it’s sitting perfectly in the center of his own floral-printed placemat. He cuts off a slice of pancake and flips open the top of the honey bottle, pouring an amount of honey onto his fork that makes her gasp and cover her mouth, but he only looks up at her and winks as he grabs it and shoves the pancake into his mouth.

Yep, it tastes like mayonnaise and eggs just like he knew it would, but the honey is sweet.

(Felix already knew that, too.)

“Good?” she asks, placing her elbows on the table and leaning towards him expectantly.

“Good,” he replies, nodding. “If you ask me, you could quit your detective job and become a full-time pancake chef.”

Honey smiles. “Only if you’re my full-time cooking assistant.”

Felix reaches out and curls a strand of hair around his finger. “I’m fine with that… on one condition.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“We have to incorporate honey into every recipe,” he says. Before she can protest, he adds, “It’s the perfect business model!”

“Alright, alright, you have a point.” She glances at the plate of pancakes again, biting her lip. “Do you want another bite?”

He doesn’t – what he wants to do is lean closer and closer to her and see if she’ll let him kiss her. Or if she’ll kiss him first. Or if they’ll kiss each other at the exact same time like in the movies. He can tell that she wants another bite, though, and he’s nothing if not a gentleman, so he pulls his hand reluctantly away from her and pushes the plate towards her again.

Besides, if he doesn’t get to kiss her tonight, it’ll give him a good excuse to come over another time.

[golbrockstar]

Reaction Video Reactions of the Evidence:

Shadow in the Mirror: Yeah, I saw this one on Twitter, too, but I didn’t find it that compelling since not everyone was in the shot, it was easily explainable to me so I’m glad that they concluded it was Colby.

Thing in the window w/ the fan: idk I feel like it goes by too quick in the video to really get a good look at it, it could just be something in the room’s shadow. I’m glad they tried to figure it out though, and I agree it could go both ways but I’m not convinced.

The thermal boy: Ah this one again. I feel like the face is a coincidence but who knows lol. I don’t think anyone would have thought the two looked alike without the association with the conjuring house.

Names in the Sand: Nope, sorry snc. Not convinced. Somebody wrote those, even if it wasn’t you two. Also, thank you Seth for thinking logically.

“Hey”: Mmm, idk, it’s not that convincing to me. I feel like I only hear it if I’m listening intently. I’m not watching this with headphones so maybe it’s true, but idk it’s super breathy and 🤷‍♀️

Shadow man in the window: Now this one is creepy, but I don’t think it has a tophat colbs sorry 😂 And thank god they went back and checked, they should have left that in! Also, this one I can’t explain away, unless it was just a light trick somehow? But I don’t think it is. It’s probably one of the best evidence they’ve gotten.

Estes Method: At this point, everybody knows I think this is compelling. And I wish we the audience could hear the audio because that would make it seem more real. Less like it’s possibly faked. I don’t think they’re faking it (I wasn’t present nor do I know the boys so I can’t say definitively one way or the other) but viewers would be more convinced if we could hear the direct audio.

James: Pretty cool, don’t have much to say on this one, really.

Exorcism: Dude, I forgot how intense this part of the video was. Like the look on Colby’s face down there? The music they added? Just the words in general? Feels like it should be a scene in a scary movie, but it’s real.

Also Colby got the worst end of the deal for that video lol Sam should’ve taken the attic or whatever. I don’t want them to beat a dead horse, but if they ever return to the Conjuring House, Sam should go in the basement alone.

Ending: NATE AND SETH? PLUS SAM AND COLBY? IN THE VILLISCA HOUSE? Oh, it might kill me. Oh my god. Ahem.

Curious what they’re gonna be doing for Hell Week next year because of course they’re gonna wanna top themselves. Also Sam and Colby Seasons? Cool, cool, but like don’t give yourselves YouTube burnout boys. That’s a lot of work even in chunks. And Season 1? Boys, at this point you’re on at least Season 3 or 4 of your video.

Trailer: Oh, I’m hyped but like their trailers always get me hyped 😂 plus Nate seemed freaked out.

Other Notes: I love that they had the Hell Week poster sitting there lol. I also love that Josh seemed like he hadn’t watched the video before.

[pucksnsticksnhockeyboys]

summertime mindset - pt. 6

stargazing & sexile

masterlist for summertime mindset

Timing is hard to get right and summer doesn’t last forever. You and Tyson learn the hard way.

word count: 1.9k

note from the writer: enjoy darlings this is really soft and lowkey a filler.

SUMMERTIME

You loved your family, you really, truly, did. But you were also twenty and being trapped under the same roof as them when you were used to having the freedom of your dorm and friends’ apartments while at college made everything feel a bit too suffocating.

It was late at night, and you were lamenting this to Tyson while you were curled up in bed and he was at his own house. You were about ready to give up and try to go to sleep, but then Tyson sent you a text and told you to meet him out front.

You tugged on a sweatshirt and exchanged your sleep shorts for leggings, slipping into your shoes before sneaking down and out of the house. Tyson was already waiting for you at the end of the driveway in his car, and he waved you over with his trademark grin.

“Where are we going?” You asked, though not knowing wasn’t stopping you from opening the passenger door and sliding inside. Tyson met you halfway over the center console for a kiss before he let you buckle up and he shifted the car into gear.

“It’s a surprise.” You chuckled at him, shaking your head in mirth. Turning in your seat, you admired how he looked in the low light.

“You expect me to just get in a car with you without knowing where you’re taking me? At eleven at night?” You teased, and it was his turn to shake his head.

“We’re going for a drive, you said you had to get out of the house.” Tyson explained. Your heart soared at the gesture, and if you weren’t constricted by the seat belt and conscious of Tyson’s less than perfect driving skills you would have leaned over and given him a kiss. Instead, you pecked his shoulder before unplugging his phone from the aux and playing your music. It was a rule between the two of you, passenger picks music. Still, he playfully scoffed as he watched you.

“Oh please, you kidnap me, I get to choose the music.” You huffed with a smile. Tyson chuckled, reaching over to thread his fingers with yours and set your conjoined hands on your thigh. You tugged, bringing his hand to your lips so you could kiss the back of his before leaning back into your seat.

This was undoubtedly one of your favorite moments of the summer so far. The windows were cracked and though it was night, the air that was blowing into the car was nice and cooled your skin that had been warmed from being in the sun all day. Your music was quietly playing and perfectly suited for the atmosphere of a late-night drive with Tyson.

He was your favorite part of the whole scenario, no contest. He was singing under his breath as he drove through the streets, occasionally stealing glances at you with a softness in his eyes that had you melting even more so into your seat. You were so distracted by him that you didn’t even realize he had driven to an open field until the car was in park.

When you shot him a confused look, he simply shrugged his shoulders and squeezed your hand before climbing out of the car. You followed his actions, your confusion only growing when he opened the back of the car and pulled out a picnic blanket and what looked suspiciously like the comforter off of his bed. It was only once he laid the picnic blanket down and laid down that you realized that he was taking you stargazing.

As soon as you laid down beside him he started to pull the comforter over both of your legs, only pausing to focus on the sweet kiss you gave him. You both pulled away grinning like fools, and there was a fondness in his eyes that you had never seen before that had you leaning in for another peck.

“Surprise.” He teased, laying back and folding one hand behind his head and the other moving around you to pull you into his side. You chuckled, snuggling into his side as your gaze studied the stars above you.

The view in the sky was beautiful, but the man lying beside you, running his fingers up and down your arm absentmindedly, was stunning.

PRESENT

You should have expected it, really, when your roommate texted you and said not to come back to the apartment for a while since she was having some guy over. The text had come in the middle of you getting dinner with some coworkers, so you were doing the most to stall going back.

Which was how you found yourself sitting in your car in your building’s parking garage, Tyson’s contact pulled up and the number about to be dialed.

You had tried to get a hold of Jon, you had made up since he stormed out of your apartment, but he wasn’t answering, and you really just needed to see if someone was willing to hangout. When you finally dialed Tyson’s number, it didn’t take long for him to pick up.

“Hey, what’s up?” His voice was cheerful, and you could hear people in the background of his line, but they were growing fainter, so you assumed that he was going somewhere quieter.

“Nothing really, I was just calling you to see if you were busy.” From the noises on the other end of the line, you knew he was doing something, but that didn’t stop you from being hopeful. “I’m sexiled from my apartment for the foreseeable future.”

“I mean, I’m just having dinner at Gabe’s and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you came over.” You bit your lip at the offer, but as much as you wanted to take him up on it, it wasn’t his place to invite you over. You had met the captain and his wife a few times, and you really liked them, but you were in no way close enough to just show up at their house and crash a dinner party.

“I don’t want to intrude.” You replied, shaking your head despite the fact that he couldn’t see you. There was some shuffling on his end of the line, and you heard the people talking in the background get louder. Someone, JT, you think, asked who Tyson was on the phone with and he responded with your name.

“Landy come tell her she wouldn’t be intruding if she came over!” He yelled into the line, loud enough to have you pulling your phone from your ear. There was some more shuffling, and it sounded like a wrestling match for Tyson’s phone. Your suspicions were proven correct when the voice that spoke next decidedly did not belong to your brunette friend.

“I promise you’re invited.” Gabe told you, and you could just picture the shit eating grin he was most likely wearing as you heard Tyson complain about wanting his phone back. “You’re more welcome than Josty, if I’m being honest.” You chuckled at this, especially since you could hear Tyson let out an offended ‘Hey!’ from wherever he was on the other end of the line. You let out a defeated sigh, putting your key in the engine and twisting to turn your car on.

“What’s the address?”

Twenty minutes later you found yourself in an expensive neighborhood you would typically have no business being in. You were in awe of the large houses, probably as a result of the one too many HGTV shows you’ve watched. You texted Tyson that you had arrived and by the time you were walking up the driveway the front door opened, and he greeted you with a beaming smile and a wave.

You were swept into his arms the moment you were close enough, the familiar feeling enough to make you forget about your stressful day and how you really needed to look into finding a new apartment. Inside the house, you were met with the usual suspects: EJ, JT, Sam, Nate, Cale, Andre, and Mikko, plus any accompanying significant others. And, of course, the hosts, little baby Linnea catching your eye from the moment you entered the living room where everyone had gathered.

“Why are you dressed so fancy?” Sam teased as soon as you entered the room. You rolled your eyes, making your way to Mel, who was already asking if you wanted to hold her daughter.

“This isn’t fancy, they’re my work clothes.” You reasoned, gesturing towards your simple slacks and blouse. To be fair, it was more dressed up than the jeans and t-shirts he was used to seeing you in. “I had a late meeting, and then I grabbed dinner with some coworkers.”

“Tyson told us you got sexiled.” EJ grinned, and you hushed him, covering Linnea’s ears with your free hand as you kept her curled into you with the other. “What? She won’t remember this!”

“Yeah, but Cale will.” You chirped, sinking into the couch next to Tyson. His arm was resting on the back of the couch behind you but dropped around your shoulders as soon as you settled. The guys all laughed as you teased the rookie for his innocence, and Cale took the chirp in stride.

“I know that’s my baby, but you guys look like the cutest little family. You guys are so good together.” Mel commented and you felt your blood run cold. Part of you hoped she was talking about Andre and Mikko, who were sharing a loveseat on the opposite side of the room, but you knew your luck wasn’t that good.

“I, uh, have a boyfriend, actually. That’s not Tyson.” You coughed out after a moment of silence. Mel started sputtering out apologies, and the boys broke out in loud and obnoxious laughter. Beside you, Tyson chuckled, his heart clearly not in it but you elected to ignore it. That was a bit too much for you to unpack at the moment, especially in a room full of people.

“Gabe didn’t tell me.” Mel swatted her husband’s shoulder as she spoke, who in return raised his hands as proclaiming his innocence. You waved her off as best you could while still bouncing Linnea in your arms, but she shot you one last sorrowful look before thankfully Nate piped up with a story about something embarrassing that happened at practice that drew everyone’s attention off of you.

“Sorry if they made you uncomfortable.” Tyson whispered so only you could hear. You glanced at him out of the corner of your eye, spotting an unreadable look on his face. You smiled at him, a little too forced for reasons you couldn’t quite place, before turning back to the blue-eyed baby blinking up at you from your arms.

“Don’t worry about it. We always were told we made a cute couple, even back then.” You told him without really thinking. You tensed after you spoke, you never really talked about your past relationship and you weren’t sure what had coerced you into doing so just then. Tyson didn’t respond at first, and you risked a glance at him to see he was smiling faintly, that still unreadable look in his eyes that you couldn’t place. He leaned back into his seat, arm tightening over your shoulders just a tad bit more.

“Yeah, we got that a lot, didn’t we?”

[florvinhara]

“ sleep, my love. i’ll keep the nightmares away. ” - for kira and N! -nataliehsewell! ❤️

ajkhfkj thank you so much! <3 this was so fun i got to write creepy vibes and soft vibes in the same piece :’)

soft prompts

It is long past nightfall when Kira realizes she’s lost in the woods. It shouldn’t even be possible; she half grew up here, climbing trees and falling into the creek and knighting the boulders with sticks while playing pretend. She knows this terrain like the back of her hand, could walk the path from the house to the far reaches and back with her eyes closed. All of which to say, this cannot be happening. 

And yet it is. She’s never seen this place before; the unfamiliarity of it frightens her almost more than the surroundings themselves, which is saying something. The grass in the clearing is long dead, tramped down and colorless, crackling underneath her feet. Around her, the aspens tremble nervously, leaves a sickly, poisonous shade of yellow that screams warning. Dark, gaping eyes stare emptily at her from their vantage points on the trunks. As a child, Kira hated these trees, would cry when one of her nannies took her to the park, where they stood like watchful sentinels, until she had read that the black carvings marring the bark were only the remnants of branches that had fallen. But honestly? Screw that, they’re still creepy as hell. 

Annoyance is quickly overtaking fear in Kira’s mind when a violent clap of thunder  shakes the forest around her, followed quickly by a light drizzle of rain. But something’s wrong; the droplets trickling down her neck and obscuring her vision are not cold and delicate like water, but uncomfortably warm, and she swipes the viscous liquid from her forehead to find dark smears of blood coating her hands. 

Terror overtakes her as she stumbles back from the gore; blood pouring from the crimson sky above stains her lips, making her gag as the sharp smell and metallic taste overwhelm her and force her to her knees. 

And just when she can take no more, an all too familiar voice dances into the clearing, cold and amused. “Oh, detective…”

No, Kira thinks desperately, not now, please not now, but now he must be just behind her, because right next to her ear, that frigid whisper hisses, “Have you missed me?” 

She turns around, but he’s gone before her eyes can refocus, and before she can think, a bony hand snarls into her hair and yanks her head to the side, sharp fingernails tracing her jugular. “I’ve missed you,” Murphy croons, finally emerging out of the bloody darkness with his fangs bared in a cruel smile. 

Escape. Run. Hit. Now. Go. Disjointed, panicked thoughts flurry into her mind one after the other, knocking into each other and rearranging like puzzle pieces until the outlines of a plan start to emerge, and she swings her hand out to punch him as everything goes black.

A hand catches her fist, loose grip encircling her wrist as she struggles blindly to free herself. She can’t move, she can’t breathe- “Kira!” another voice says, hushed but concerned. Gradually, she stops resisting, eyes blinking open to see the aspens- no, not trees, the crumbling ceiling of Murphy’s lab, no, it’s the Warehouse, her bedroom with its high ceilings and blankets she’s managed to twist herself up in and books Nate has lent her and Nate himself, hovering over her, dark eyes worried and still soft with sleep. Her mind begins to slow down, processing her surroundings more clearly as she sits up. 

“Nate?” she asks, and relief clears the distressed furrow of his brow. He releases her wrist, hand moving to smooth the hair out of her face. “Did I wake you up? Sorry,” she mumbles, leaning into the cool touch of his fingers on her forehead. 

He shakes his head, a gentle smile gracing his face. “Don’t concern yourself with that, dearest. Are you alright?”

“It’s nothing,” Kira says automatically, shoulders tensing at the vivid flashes of memory. Nate fixes her with a kind but skeptical look, and Kira remembers distantly that a significant part of being in a relationship is sharing or being emotionally vulnerable or whatever. She draws her knees up to her chest and lets out a resigned huff. “Just a bad dream. Nothing to worry about.”

Nate sits on the edge of the bed, taking one of her hands and tracing comforting lines across her palm. “If it worries you, then it worries me,” he counters. “Do you want to talk about it?” She thinks about it- Murphy grinning, the trees drenched in scarlet, their imitation eyes weeping blood- and decides it’s probably best to keep those visions away from the waking world. 

“No. But thanks,” Kira smiles, squeezing Nate’s hand gently. “I’m okay now, if you wanted to sleep more.” 

He raises his eyebrows at her. “And what will you do?”

Kira checks her watch, groaning internally to see that it’s not even 3:30. “Oh, you know. Wander around, build a pillow fort, learn French. It’ll be a very productive four or five hours.”

Nate laughs softly. “I might be able to assist you with some of those pursuits, if you’d like. Although,” he lifts his other hand to cup her cheek. “I might recommend that we postpone our linguistic studies and construction projects for a time when you are more well rested.” 

“Fair enough,” Kira sighs. “Would you... read to me, then?” Nate’s face brightens, and he moves to sit next to her on the bed, wrapping an arm around her and reaching for the book on the bedside table. Kira relaxes into the embrace, head resting on his shoulder as he examines the novel’s cover. 

“Really?” he asks dryly, gesturing at the cover while looking down to where she’s smirking into the crook of his neck. Nate shakes his head, fond but exasperated, and carefully opens the volume to the bookmarked page. “ ‘But I come from afar off,’ ” he begins, his low, melodic voice settling Kira’s mind and encompassing her like a soft blanket. “ ‘Very far off, and from a land whence no other has ever yet returned. There is neither sun nor moon in that land whence I come: all is but space and shadow.” She stifles a yawn; between Nate’s calming presence and the comfortable warmth of his arm around her, she’s worried to close her eyes lest she fall into a disturbed slumber once more. 

Nate pauses to press a gentle kiss to the top of her head. “Sleep, my love. I’ll keep the nightmares away,” he promises, and Kira lets her eyes flutter shut as she snuggles closer to him. He continues,“ ‘there is neither road nor pathway: no earth for the foot, no air for the wing; and nevertheless behold me here, for Love is stronger than Death and must conquer him in the end…” and Kira falls asleep to the sweet music of his voice.

--------

note: the book Nate reads from is Clarimonde, also called La Morte Amoureuse, about a priest who falls in love with a vampire.

[izzielizzie]

You Belong with Me by Taylor Swift for Maeve/Luis?

Yes, oh my god I haven’t posted any writing in forever and this is so long but hopefully it’s worth it? Idk, I’m just happy my writer’s block is gone. So you know, send in asks and all that jazz. Also, enjoy!

You're on the phone with your girlfriend She's upset, she's going off about something that you said

Maeve hated eavesdropping, and she knew it was wrong, but it was hard to ignore the shrill voice on the other end of Luis’s phone. Maeve had wandered into the kitchen about five minutes after Bronwyn’s Christmas party started an hour ago. She told Bronwyn, who was still glowing her just-saw-Nate-for-the-first-time-in-months glow, that she was going to get a glass of water, but if she was being truthful as she sat on the cold granite with the bag of chips she fished out of her mom’s hiding spot, she really just couldn’t deal with being around people whose lives extended past Bayview High. She was perched on the counter, her legs pulled up to her chest. It was unusually warm for two days before Christmas, and Maeve felt weird in shorts and a knitted red pullover. 

Luis didn’t notice her. Not that she expected him to. In his grand life, Maeve was pretty irrelevant, but one does expect to be noticed in their own kitchen. She didn’t really want to be seen anyway, so she paused the Beatles album playing on the kitchen speaker. 

Maeve watched out of the corner of her eye as Luis paced around the hardwood floor with his phone a few inches away from his ear. His left hand was tugging relentlessly at his hair. After a few non-committal grunts, Luis turned off his phone, stuffed it in his pocket, and returned his hands to his hair where he tugged aggressively. 

'Cause she doesn't get your humor like I do.

“You’re gonna make yourself go bald you know,” Maeve said after Luis stood in the same spot for a minute, his hands tugging at his hair. Luis jumped and turned to look at her.

“What are you doing here?”

“I mean, it is my kitchen.”

“True.” Luis crossed the kitchen until he was right next to her. “Should you be sitting on the counter?”

“Probably not, but I’m hardly heavy.” Maeve extended her left leg, shifting herself until she was at the end of the counter. She hooked her foot around a stool from the island, and pulled it towards them. She shifted back onto the counter. “There. Have a stool.”

Luis smiled. “Thanks Maeve.”

“No problem. Was that Vanessa?”

“Yeah.”

“What was she yelling about?” 

Luis took a deep breath and Maeve realized that possibly wasn’t the most tactful question. Not only because Luis’s girlfriend was constantly yelling, but because she just made it clear she was listening to his conversation. 

“You don’t have to answer that.”

“No, no it’s okay. She’s just being a bitch about something I said.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing really. Except that I had the audacity to make a joke.”

“Are you okay?”

“I will be if you don’t tell her I called her a bitch. And if you don’t repeat my duck joke. I think she thought I was talking about her.”

Maeve giggled. She knew Luis’s jokes could be out there sometimes. 

“It’s absurd, I know. But god she kills me sometimes,” Luis said after a moment of silence. 

Maeve didn’t know how to respond, so she passed him the bag of chips with an apologetic smile.

I'm in the room, it's a typical Tuesday night. I'm listening to the kind of music she doesn't like.

“What are you doing in here? Why aren’t you with everyone else?” Luis’s question was a reasonable one, but it still stung.

Maeve shrugged. “I wanted to be alone I guess.”

“Alone with potato chips and the Beatles?”

“Just about,” Maeve said with a smile. 

“Vanessa hates any music from before the nineties.”

“Do you?”

“Nah, I grew up with the Beatles.”

“I did too.”  

And she'll never know your story like I do.

“It must be weird. To be the youngest out of all of us. I mean, you’re only a junior.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“I’m not used to be the youngest.”

“Because four of your brothers are younger than you and only one is older?”

“Just about,” Luis said with a smile, echoing her. His smile dropped for a moment. “Vanessa is convinced I have three brothers.”

Maeve smiled as she stretched her legs in front of her. “She got rid of two of them?”

“Apparently.” Luis titled his head at her. “You look like Bronwyn in that sweater.”

“Do I?” No one ever told Maeve she looked like Bronwyn. 

“Yeah, hold up.” Luis leaned forward, his hands on her hips as he twisted her towards him more. Maeve could feel sparks travel up her sides at his touch. His fingers were under her sweater, pressed against her skin. His dark brown eyes studied her face for a minute. 

“Do I?” Maeve asked, her voice hardly audible.

“Do you what?”

“Look like my sister?”

“Nah,” Luis grinned the first genuine grin she’d ever seen. “You’re prettier.”

Maeve fought off a smile. “Don’t let Nate hear you say that.”

“It’s not my fault if he can’t accept the truth.”

Maeve opened her mouth to say something - she wasn’t quite sure what, she seemed to be running on liquid courage at the moment - but she never got to say anything because Luis’s phone started ringing. He glanced down at it, his grin fading. 

“It’s Vanessa. I should answer it. Thanks for cheering me up.”

“Any time,” Maeve said. 

But she wears short skirts I wear T-shirts

The next time Maeve saw Luis was five days later at Café Contigo. They were having dinner with Cooper before he had to go back to college, and Maeve was feeling increasingly uncomfortable as she stepped through the beaded curtain to the back room when she saw Vanessa standing over Luis’s chair. She was tossing her hair over her shoulder every moment she could, and her skirt was too short for the frigid wind blowing around the building. Maeve tugged at her t-shirt that used to belong to her mother. The shirt was faded so badly the words couldn’t be read, and the shirt, which usually comforted Maeve with its soft fabric and its perpetual coffee and doctor’s office scent - a smell that Maeve associated with her mother - was now facing Maeve’s wrath. She twisted the hem and considered just turning right back around. Being around Vanessa always made her feel like a fool. 

“Have my sweater,” Addy mumbled in Maeve’s ear, pressing the heavy cardigan in her hand. Her eyes were on Luis and Vanessa, her look of disgust evident. 

“Thanks,” Maeve mumbled back. Addy was the only one that knew about Maeve’s crush on Luis. Mostly because she was the one who informed Maeve that the crush existed. 

She's cheer captain And I'm on the bleachers

“Are you exciting to start cheerleading again?” Bronwyn asked Vanessa politely as the conversation died down.

“Of course,” said Vanessa with a smirk. “I’m so glad Luis and I go to the same college. That way I can keep cheering him at football games.”

“That’s great!” Bronwyn sounded too enthusiastic, and she looked like she’d swallowed spoiled milk. Bronwyn was firmly in the “dislike Vanessa” club. Maeve snickered at her sister’s expression, and Vanessa turned to her. Maeve could feel Addy roll her eyes at Vanessa’s hawk like expression.

“Do you still write for the paper?” She asked it in a way that suggested writing for the paper was something awful.

“Sometimes,” Maeve said.

Vanessa smirked. “It must be boring, stuck on the bleachers writing about games.”

It must be exhausting ruining your boyfriend’s life all the time.

Maeve shrugged. “Not really.”  

Vanessa smirked again, but didn’t say anything. 

Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find That what you're looking for has been here the whole time.

“Hey, Maeve, hold up.” Luis grabbed Maeve’s arm at the end of the night as she was about to leave. Bronwyn was going to drive around with Nate, so she was stuck driving home by herself.

Maeve turned and smiled up at Luis. “What’s up?”

Luis looks down at her for a moment before shaking himself and taking a deep breath. “I’m really sorry about Vanessa.”

Maeve, who had been annoyed with Vanessa the entire night, let her anger get the better of herself. “Are you really wiling to spend all your time apologizing for your girlfriend, Luis?” She tugged her arm out of his grasp, ignoring the butterflies that his touch bring forth. Luis didn’t answer, and she didn’t wait for one before stalking out of the door, letting it slam behind her despite good intentions. 

If you could see That I'm the one Who understands you.

Maeve rested her head on her steering wheel after she stormed out of Contigo, letting her heartbeat even out. She didn’t want to let Luis bother her, but Vanessa had been annoying her since the girls had met, and Maeve hated the way Luis let her walk all over him.

She was about to turn her car on and drive home so she could wallow in self pity from the comfort of her window seat when someone knocked on her window.

“Ugh,” she mumbled when she saw Luis outside her car. She loved that boy, she really did, but he wasn’t someone she wanted to see at the moment.

She rolled down her car window. “Hey Maeve,” he said. 

“Hello,” she responded.

“Can we talk for a sec?”

Maeve nodded and reached for the door handle. Luis stepped back, letting her climb out. She hadn’t been able to appreciate how handsome he looked earlier, but as he stood in front of her wearing black jeans and a blue bomber jacket over a white t-shirt, she mentally cursed Vanessa for being lucky enough to end up with him. 

“I have a present for you.”

Maeve blinked at the white takeout box he handed her. “Um, thanks? Why?”

“You’re welcome. And because it took you a minute to point out something I should have realized a long time ago. You get me like that, you know?”

I know.

Maeve nodded. 

“So thanks.” 

“Any time.”

Been here all along. So, why can't you see

“I guess you want to head home?”

“Sort of. My curfew’s soon and my parents are expecting me. They’ll send a search party if I’m even a minute late.” Maeve mentally kicked herself. She probably sounded really childish to Luis. But to her immense relief, he just nodded.

“Your parents are more lenient than mine. If they don’t know where I am at any given minute they think I’ve been murdered.”

Maeve laughed. Luis ran his hand through his hair before reaching forward to touch the end of her cardigan. 

“I wish you hadn’t taken Addy’s sweater. You looked cute.”

“You saw?” Maeve asked. She had hardly even stepped into the room when she accepted the sweater.

“You were the first person I saw.”

“That’s good to know.”

“Where was that shirt from?”

“My mom’s high school field hockey team.”

“Ah. Hockey. Not my sport.”

“But every other sport is.”

Luis winked at her. “I’ll let you go, but hey, Maeve, I’ll see you tomorrow right?”

“Probably. I’ll stop by Contigo for a few minutes.”

“Thank god. Vanessa never does, so you’re the one who lights up my day.” 

You belong with me,

Maeve was practically floating when she climbed the steps to her room after her conversation with Luis in the middle of the parking lot. She’d hid the box from her mom, who’d wanted details about her night and probably would have wanted to open the box with her younger daughter. She was a little overbearing like that.

Maeve pulled off Addy’s cardigan, pausing to fold it neatly and place it on her cluttered desk, before dropping onto her window seat. She gently untied the ribbon around the box, and pulled open the flaps to reveal alfajores stacked neatly, one on top of another. On top of the cookies was a note written Luis’s cramped, slanted writing. 

I know alfajores are your favorite. Enjoy!

- Luis

Maeve smiled down at the box. It struck her then, that she never once told Luis about her love for alfajores. He had just guess after watching her for so long. The idea warmed her from the core. 

You belong with me.

As she bit into the first cookie, her phone buzzed with an unknown number. She unlocked her phone and grinned when she saw the text.

Hey Maeve, it’s Luis. Addy gave me your number, rather enthusiastically might I add

Maeve snorted. Addy really was trying.

Hey Luis

His response came right away.

Hey. Like the present?

Very much, thank you

Luis typed, erased, and typed again. Maeve watched the grey dots linger for an absurdly long time, munching on the cookies as some jazz drifted up from the kitchen. She could see her parents dancing in her mind, and she let herself imagine was dancing with Luis would be like.

Finally, the text came through right as Maeve was going to lock her phone and go downstairs to see if her parents wanted to make hot chocolate with her.

Want to go for a walk or something tomorrow?

Maeve grinned at her phone as she typed her response.  

Walk in the streets with you in your worn-out jeans I can't help thinking this is how it ought to be.

Luis’s first though when he saw Maeve the next morning was that she looked beautiful. She was wearing a striped ribbed shirt tucked into the kind of faded jeans Vanessa would refuse to wear because they were “too tacky”. And Vanessa would most certainly balk at the scuffed black Converse high-tops Maeve was wearing. Now that he thought about it, she never seemed to wear different shoes. Quite the change from Vanessa’s shoe closet. 

Maeve tugged her hair from her ponytail as she stepped in front of him, turning to look at him, her mane of nearly-but-not-quite-curly hair falling to her waist. If walking backwards bothered her, she didn’t show it. There was something childish about Maeve, something Luis wasn’t able to put his finger on. Maybe it was the way she wrinkled her button nose when she was happy, or maybe it was the way she bounced on the balls of her feet when she walked with him, like she was skipping, but not quite. Or maybe it was the way her freckles and amber eyes lit up her face, her dark hair falling down her back and framing her face in a way that made her look like the most beautiful girl in the world. 

If he was being honest with himself, Maeve Rojas was the girl he’d wanted. For over a year. This walk was orchestrated just to spend time with her, and he silently thanked his luck for the fact that she agreed to come. 

Laughing on a park bench thinking to myself, "Hey, isn't this easy?"

“Okay, and then what happened?” Luis asked, doubling over with laughter as Maeve recounted her last interaction with her friend/mortal enemy Lucy Chen.

“Oh she threw a fit. Poor Knox.”

Luis kept laughing, glancing at Maeve to see her shift on the bench and throw her hair over her shoulder. This, spending his time with Maeve, this was easy. Much better than spending time with Vanessa.

And you've got a smile That could light up this whole town.

Maeve grinned at him as he sat up. “I’m glad I could make you laugh.”

“I am too. I needed it.”

Maeve frowned, and he already missed her smile. 

“Please don’t frown at me. Your much prettier when you smile.”

Maeve giggled, her nose scrunching. “Are you suggesting I’m not pretty when I smile?”

“No Maevey,” Luis said, casually resting his arm on the back of the bench, his hand nearly touching her shoulder. “I’m suggesting that you’re pretty at every moment of your life. But your prettiest when you’re happy.”

Maeve smiled at him, and Luis secretly wished she has shifted over and rested her head on his shoulder. 

I haven't seen it in a while Since she brought you down.

“But seriously, Maeve,” Luis said, looking down at her. “Why do you hang out with Lucy? I remember her from last year and she’s nearly as exhausting as Vanessa.”

You say you're fine I know you better than that.

“I’m fine,” Maeve says. Honest, I am.”

Luis gives her his best side-eye. “No, you’re not.”

Hey, what you doing with a girl like that?

“Humph. What are you doing dating Vanessa then?”

“I’m not sure,” Luis answered honestly, surprising himself and Maeve. 

“We’re a mess,” Maeve said.

“We most certainly are.”

She wears high heels,

Maeve, who had been very comfortable here on this bench with Luis, was brought back to reality by the sound of Vanessa’s obnoxious high heels.

“Luis! What are you doing?” she demanded, looking at the two of them.

“Sitting. What do you think?” Luis asked angerly. Maeve noticed with a pang that he’d moved his arm back to his side.

I wear sneakers.

“I see that!” Vanessa snapped. “Sitting with a girl who wears tacky jeans and Converses.”

Maeve rolled her eyes. Vanessa Merriman could say what she wanted, but nothing bothered Maeve. It bothered Luis though.

“Can you, just once, not be awful about everyone? Especially my friends?”

Vanessa snorted but didn’t say anything. “I’m leaving. My car is a block away. Come with me or don’t bother.”

Luis hesitated for a moment before standing and trailing after Vanessa like a dejected puppy. He gave Maeve apologetic look over his shoulder, waving casually as if he hadn’t just broken Maeve’s heart and left the shattered pieces on the bench for her to pick up and haphazardly put back together. 

She's cheer captain, And I'm on the bleachers.

Hope was a dangerous thing, Maeve realized as she sat on the bench long after Luis had left. It filled up people’s most secret, barren corners with an indescribably brilliant feeling, and when it left, it took the feeling with it. 

You like the dream, not the reality Bronwyn had said once. God, Maeve hated it when her sister was right. Because, the thing was, no one would choose short, scrawny, boring Maeve Rojas over a girl like Vanesa Merriman. It was a fact.

Dreaming about the day when you wake up and find That what you're looking for has been here the whole time.

So, Maeve was left to pick up her broken pieces, walk home in the rain, and continue living her dream. 

If you could see That I'm the one Who understands you,

Sorry about earlier was the only text Luis had sent her. Just three words.

Maeve stared at her phone, sitting on her window seat with a bowl of ice cream in front of her. The ice cream had been her mother’s idea. She didn’t know about Maeve’s crush on Luis, but she knew heartbreak when she saw it. 

Maeve wasn’t sure how to respond.

Was it’s fine, but I’m sorry you have to date a girl who doesn’t get you to passive aggressive?

Been here all along.

Was I’ve known you longer too obvious?

So, why can't you see

You’re being blind, idiot was much too mean. Even for her.

You belong with me.

Maeve was a fan of facts. And the most simple one was this: Luis Santos belonged with her. In the end, after consulting Addy, she sent three words back: It’s okay, Luis.

Standing by and waiting at your backdoor.

Luis stood at her back door, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, subconsciously mirroring Maeve’s movement from earlier that morning, when they had been waiting for their coffee before their disastrous walk. She pushed open her back door after a few minutes. She had changed into sweatpants and an old t-shirt. Her hair was wet, and she still looked as beautiful as he had in the morning. 

“Why’d you come to the back door?” Maeve asked. Luis could read the subtext loud and clear.

Why are you here?

“It seemed better than the front door I guess.”

I just wanted to see if you were okay

“Well, makes sense.”

I’m alright.

“Yep.” Maeve put her hands in her pockets.

Cool

“Yep.” Luis echoed, running his hands through his hair. 

Cool.

All this time how could you not know, baby?

“So, how’s Vanessa?” Maeve moved her arms around, with her hands still in her pockets. She looked like she was flying. 

Are you still dating her?

“She’s fine.”

Yeah, I am.

Maeve nodded. “That’s nice.”

You’re being blind.

“Yeah.”

I know.

You belong with me,

“Well, I’ll see you around, Luis.”

I’m not going to beg.

You belong with me.

“Not if I see you first.”

I know.

Oh, I remember you driving to my house In the middle of the night.

Maeve snuck down her steps to the back door. She had a new understanding of how Bronwyn must feel when she sneaks Nate into the media room. Maeve pushed the back door open to see Luis standing in the door.

“Why in the world did you drive here in the middle of the night?”

“I broke up with Vanessa.” His voice sounded broken and vulnerable. She had never heard him like this.

Maeve didn’t say anything. She just ushered him into the house. 

I'm the one who makes you laugh When you know you're 'bout to cry.

Maeve led Luis down to the media room where they sat side by side on the leather couch, Luis with his head in his hands. Maeve hesitantly rubbed her hand up and down his back. 

“Sorry I just showed up.” He sounded like he was about to cry, and Maeve hated how sad he was.

“Do you think you get restaurant perks if you’re single?” Maeve asked thoughtfully as she rubbed his back. Luis snorted. “It was a serious question. But I’m glad I made you laugh.”

I know your favorite songs,

“What restaurant do you suggest I go to?” Luis asked, humoring her question. 

Maeve thought about if for a moment. “Maybe that one on Elm Street. They play The Beatles. I’m sure if you went at the right time Eleanor Rigby would be playing.” Maeve glanced at him. “That is your favorite song right?”

“Yeah,” he muttered.

“Although it’s kind of sad. But oh well.”

Luis glanced at her. “Is music your only requirement for a restaurant?”

Maeve shrugged. “At least they’re not cooking beetles.”

Luis shook his head at her, a half smile teasing his lips. 

And you tell me about your dreams.

“Did I tell you I want to own a restaurant?”

“You did.”

“I never told Vanessa.”

Maeve turned to him, touching his cheek gently to turn his face to hers.

“Vanessa doesn’t matter anymore Luis. Not really.”

Think I know where you belong,

“I know, but...”

“But what?” Maeve asked.

“But I feel like she still belongs in my thoughts, you know?”

“Sort of. You’re not going to move on from her in five minutes. It’ll take time.”

Luis nodded. “You’re pretty wise, you know that?”

Maeve made a face at him. 

He plowed on. “Who belongs in your thoughts?”

Think I know it's with me.

You, Maeve wanted to say. She only shrugged. “I’m not sure yet.”

Can't you see That I'm the one Who understands you?

Luis smiled at her and sat up, putting an arm around the back of the couch. He still wanted her to lean against her shoulder, but she didn’t. “That’s totally fine, Maevey. You don’t have to spend all your time chasing after someone.”

Maeve snorted. “It’s like you can read my mind sometimes.”

“Nah, I just get you.”

Maeve met his eyes and smiled.

Been here all along. So, why can't you see

“You’ve understood me since we met.”

“Indeed I have, Rojas.”

You belong with me.

“Thanks for sitting with me Maeve, but I think I should head home. I don’t want you to get in trouble with your parents.”

Maeve shrugged. “After Nate and Bronwyn, my mom wouldn’t even bat an eye if I dated a serial killer. Not that I plan to.”

“No one plans to date a serial killer.”

Maeve shook her head. “My thoughts exactly.”

Standing by and waiting at your backdoor. All this time how could you not know, baby?

It took Maeve over an hour to find Luis’s house. Addy’s instructions sucked, but Luis gave her better ones after she asked if she could stop by. She parked her car in front of his house, and she looked down at her phone when it buzzed.

Come by the back

Maeve followed a pretty stone path to the backdoor and stood for a moment before he appeared.

“Hey,” he said, opening the door and stepping out.

“Hey back,” Maeve said. “I had a question for you.”

Luis smiled down at her. “Ask away, Maeve.”

“Wanna get lunch tomorrow. At the pizza place on Elm?”

“Maeve, are you asking me on a date?”

“Yes?”

You belong with me,

“Good, just making sure.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes Maeve, it’s a yes.”

You belong with me.

“Oh. Good.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow Maeve.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Maeve was about to turn away when Luis called her back. “Yeah?”

Luis gave her an odd look she couldn’t interpret, but it made her feel warm and happy. “Nothing. See you tomorrow.”

She could understand what he was trying to say loud and clear: thank you for asking.

You belong with me.

“See you tomorrow.”

Of course

Have you ever thought just maybe

The next day, Maeve and Luis ended up on the same bench as the day Vanessa yelled at them. They were talking about everything and nothing when suddenly Luis put his fingers under her chin and turned her head towards his.

“Hi,” he whispered. Can I kiss you?

“Hi back.” Please do.

That wasn’t Luis’s first kiss. Not by a long shot. But he thought, in that moment, that this kiss was the only one that mattered. 

You belong with me?

“I love you Maeve Rojas.”

You belong with me.

“I love you too Luis Santos.”

[nightklok]

8 Chuckles!

50Types of Kisses

I worked on this because i thought it would be short and sweet but NOPE (on the short part)-thanks for this it was cute writing this though! :D

8. Laying a gentle kiss to the back of the other’s hand. Trigger Warnings: drinking/alcohol use

The dethharmonic was a financial disaster to put it simply. Well, for the charity part it was actually quite successful. The costs regarding the clean up, reconstruction and compensation for the victims’ families, however, was something else. Even though it didn’t create much of a dent in their budget it was still a number Charles didn’t necessarily like to see.

So maybe concert charity events weren’t the best of ideas. The record label, the accountants, and people behind the scenes said that a charity event still needed to be done when the new year rolled around. And luckily, he knew how to play the cards just right to come up with a (hopefully) foolproof idea: a ball.

It sounded as unmetal as one would expect but it wouldn’t be just any ordinary  ball. Set it at Friday the 13th or a blood/full moon, make the theme gothic or give dark elements, have Dethklok perform an exclusive song, and it became the talk of the media once word got out about it.

The band surprisingly seemed fine with it once they heard they could help out with the theme and even pick out a charity. They had picked out a gothic gore viking victorian theme which was probably the hardest theme to ever try and match color schemes/aesthetics for. They picked a charity that set up music programs orphans and underprivileged children, which while was no children’s hospital was at least going to a good cause. A song was made in time for once as well, a song about some Victorian queen fighting the last viking but Charles wouldn’t complain about the odd choice of themes; a song was a song.

The date was picked, tickets went on sale only to quickly sell out the moment they were posted online, and it seemed like everything was slowly going to be smooth sailing from there.

Smooth sailing for the event itself. His personal life? Not so much.

Pickles was excited, more than usual, about the ball. He could’ve said it was because of getting a chance to drink all night long but knew it wasn’t because of that.

“I,ah, would need to remind you, Pickles, that our relationship still needs to be private.” Charles said to him.

“C’mon just one dance won’t hurt?” Pickles asked. He kissed him as he snuggled closer to bed with him. 

“I’m not sure,” Was all he really said, “But I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”

In all honesty, it was his fault for setting Pickles up for disappointment. He should’ve told him that it simply wouldn’t be possible at the moment and save him the frustration and sadness. But he didn’t and went to bed feeling guilty like he was leading him on when he didn’t mean to.

The topic wasn’t brought up again and soon enough, it was finally the night. Charles had been dressed in Victorian attire; a light gray jacket over his white collared shirt and a dark green tie. It wasn’t that far off from what he normally wore but the jacket was very reminiscent of how long Victorian jackets normally wore. He had a historian fact check his outfit so it was probably the most accurate outfit of the ball. He greeted and welcomed the guests as he walked around the venue, looking for a particular redhead among the crowd.

It took a few minutes but he finally saw Pickles with the band enter. He had gone with a Victorian gothic look to match with the rest of the band. Of course he had to think it but he did believe he was the most strikingly handsome of them all. He had a long dark red jacket, imprinted with tiny skulls, a black shirt with a ruffled collar, no tie but he definitely didn’t need it in that outfit. He already had the stage make up on, presumably to make it easier to perform but it only added to the outfit.

He approached the boys with a gentle smile, “Looks like you boys really went all out on these outfits. I’m impressed.”

“Yeah, well I’m sure we would’ve looked better as vikings but someone had to disagree!” Murderface glared at Skwisgaar who merely shrugged.

“Vikings are...overrateds.” Was all he said.

“Well, regardless, you all look great. Why don’t you go enjoy yourselves while you wait for your performance?” 

The boys didn’t argue to that and quickly dispersed among the crowd. Only Pickles was left though, eyes glistening in excitement, “You look really handsome in that outfit.”

No stranger to compliments, he still blushed regardless, “Well, you do too. Might even be better than me even if your outfit is inaccurate.”

“C’mon, give me a break. Hard to find an outfit that will even top yours.” He grinned, ready to reach up to touch his arm but remembered where they were so he stopped.

He wanted to kiss him so badly but he knew that it would not go over well. He could imagine it now; the music and crowd would pause like a film. They would gasp and then it would be all over the news within minutes and their careers would be ruined.

He couldn’t risk that at all so he did keep his distance from Pickles even though both their moods had slowly soured. 

“I’m sorry,” Was all Charles was able to say. It was almost a whisper, inaudible by the sound of music coming from the DJ but Pickles heard it.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about me. You go enjoy yourself, okay?” Pickles gave him a sad smile and could only give an awkward wave before leaving.

Charles saw him disappear behind the crowd. Before he could even go after him, he saw some business exec from a country approach him. His politeness caused him to be stuck in a conversation with him and eventually a few other business people about some collaboration with wanting to bring back minidiscs or something. 

He wouldn’t see Pickles until they performed, but even then they never made eye contact. He tried to approach him after the performance but was once again swamped with people approaching him and he had disappeared once again.

___

The last of the guests left the venue which left only Dethklok, some of their dates, and the klokateers beginning to clean up.

Nathan picked up a passed out Toki from the floor and hoisted him over his shoulder. He looked at Pickles who was drinking wine and eating the last of the cinnamon rolls they had, “Well, uh, gonna take him to bed and then go to sleep. You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Thanks, Nate.” He smiled up at Nathan who only patted his shoulder in return and left without saying another word.

Murderface seemed to have gotten lucky as he ended up approaching Pickles with Nathan and Toki’s dates by his side. He did bend down to whisper in his ear, “The guillotine’s not gonna be picked up for another thirty minutes. Just figured you’d wanna know.”

As tempting as it was, he had to reject that idea, “I’ll think about it. Go have fun.” 

Skwisgaar was nowhere to be found but Pickles had figured he picked up his, his own, possibly Murderface’s, and whatever other people he had flirted with to bring to his room. And while he would realize he was partially correct in that aspect, he would later learn that it was Skwisgaar that managed to get Charles away from his obligated casual meetings.

He was already finished with his dessert and was opening a bottle of wine to drink when he heard, “May I take a seat with you?”

Pickles looked up to find Charles standing there in front of him with an apologetic look on his face and he couldn’t say no to that. He gestured to the empty seat next to him with the opened bottle of wine, accidentally spilling some of it on the floor. He poured him a glass of wine as he sat down before drinking from the bottle for himself.

"Pickles, I’m sorry about tonight.”

“It’s okay,” He shrugged, “I mean, I know that we can’t just...be public ‘cause it’s not a good idea but it’s still a little disappointing, y’know?”

“I understand, I really do. I spent so much time tonight wishing I was with you rather than having to talk with so many people.” He placed his hand on top of the other’s squeezing it as if also silently reminding him that they were alone at least.

“Me too. Just sucks getting to see everyone dance with their fucking dates but we can’t even do something stupid like that.”

“It’s hard, I know. But it will be so worth it in the future, trust me. We just need more time to figure out when’s the right moment to tell such a thing. Even if the event is over, the night’s not quite over yet.” Charles said as he stood up from his chair. He offered a hand to Pickles, “May I have this dance?” 

Pickles looked up at him with a smile for the first time since the beginning of the ball and nodded. He took his hand and was led to the dance floor by him. 

The klokateer DJ didn’t need to be told anything and played a Testament song as there was no classical slow songs pre-installed as per Dethklok’s request. Close enough. 

Charles took his hands, kissing them gently before pulling him closer to kiss him deeply, “I may not say it enough but I love you, Pickles.”

“Don’t need to say it; I already know. I love you, too.” He smiled at him before wrapping an arm around his waist and taking the other’s hand.

Maybe having a private relationship wasn’t so bad, after all.

[arthrmorgann]

love + harriet and nate anddd domestic + nora and preston!

Out here making me WORK Airika 😅😅

Harriet & Nate

Who said “I love you” first?

Harriet was the first to say it technically. It happened shortly after the incident with Murphy when Harriet was a bit in and out of it due to what had happened. In her confusion - and also fearing deep down she might die - she hastily told Nate that she loved him. She doesn't remember saying that though.

What are their primary love languages?

Spending quality time together just sitting and reading or listening to music in Harriet's apartment.

Who uses cheesy pick-up lines?

Harriet for sure! She likes to send Nate cheesy pick-up lines through text messages. He doesn't really get them all the time, but he takes them in good humour.

How often do they cuddle/engage in PDA?

Frequently. Too frequently some may say. They try to keep it professional at work of course, but out and about they're more open about things though they never go any further than passionate kissing.

Who initiates kisses?

Tends to vary. Nate initiates them more often though.

Who’s the big and little spoon?

Harriet likes to be the big spoon and prefers to cuddle Nate.

What are their favorite things to do together?

Mostly just reading and relaxing together. Though they enjoy visiting local museums and art galleries too, and any local festivals.

Who’s better at comforting the other?

Both of them are pretty good at comforting each other.

Who’s more protective?

Nate for sure. He's probably a little too protective for Harriet at times.

Do they prefer verbal or physical affection?

Verbal affection for both of them. Nothing gets Harriet's heart a flutter more than hearing Nate whisper some sultry words in her ear.

What are some songs that apply to their relationship, in-universe or otherwise?

Adore You by Harry Styles

Sick of Losing Soulmates by dodie

Like Real People Do by Hozier

What kind of nicknames do they call each other?

Harriet doesn't really have any nicknames for Nate. She's fond of using 'Nathaniel' if she wants something or is in a bit of a teasing mood with him. Nate meanwhile will sometimes call her 'Hare'.

Who remembers the little things?

Both are generally pretty good at this, but Nate's vampire abilities give him the upper hand.

Nora & Preston

If they get married, who proposes?

They do eventually get married sometime after the main events of the game. After the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood they spend the following months just focusing on keeping the Minutemen stable. Once they're sure everything is okay, and that a new General has been appointed, they return their focus to Sanctuary Hills and continuing building upon the settlement.

It takes a few weeks after that for Preston to pluck up the courage to ask Nora to marry him. They're scavenging in Concord when he gets down on one knee in front of the museum - the place they first met - and asks Nora if she wants to spend the rest of her life with him. She says yes. What’s the wedding like? Who attends? The wedding winds up being a very simple yet intimate affair. Neither of them wear any traditional clothes, but they manage put together some nice outfits from the spare clothes they've managed to gather over the years. The wedding winds up taking all day, with a long celebration after the vows that lasts well into the night. As for attendees, all of Sanctuary Hills winds up attending. It's the first time they've really had anything huge to celebrate, so everyone really goes all out. They invite a couple of friends from across the Commonwealth as well such as Piper, Macready, Curie and Danse.

How many kids do they have, if any? What are they like?

They have two kids altogether - Lucas (the reprogrammed synth Shaun) and a biological daughter named Rosemary.

Lucas is a very sweet and curious young lad, who likes tinkering with things and taking items apart. He's very proud of his parents and their roles within the Minutemen and often aspires to be like them. He does not know he is a synth currently, but Nora and Preston plan to tell him in the future.

Rosemary is a very sociable and confident young child. She enjoys saying hello to her fellow settlers every morning as well as helping out around the settlement. Like both her parents, she's very empathetic and caring, and gets a real kick out of helping and supporting others.

Do they have any pets?

Not counting Dogmeat, there are two Brahmin named Poppy and Daisy that Rosemary essentially claimed for herself.

Who’s the stricter parent?

Neither are particularly strict with their kids. They like to be safe and follow instructions, but they allow them to wander freely around Sanctuary Hills to a certain degree.

Who worries the most?

Preston, I'd say. He's lost a lot in his past and he has these randomly occurring worries that something bad is going to happen that will snatch his wife and kids away from him.

Who kills the bugs in the house?

They're both pretty on top of taking care of bugs - mostly cause bugs in the Fallout series are absolute monstrosities.

How do they celebrate holidays?

They don't really celebrate holidays anymore, though Nora has tried her best to celebrate Christmas when it rolls around.

Who’s more likely to convince the other to come back to sleep in the morning?

Nora. She likes beckoning him back to bed in the morning for a long cuddle...or sometimes something more.

Who’s the better cook?

Neither of them is that great at cooking though Preston fares marginally better as he actually knows how to cook meat and vegetables from the wasteland.

Who likes to dance?

Nora is fond of dancing. It takes her back to when she was younger and when she was with Nate. Preston doesn't think he can dance that well, but he'll always out on a smile and join Nora if she asks him to.